Your recent blog statistics showed that the number of readers is dwindling. Those who visited do not stay long. Why doesn’t anyone read your blog, you ask?

Especially after you spent so much time and effort, not to mention funds on building a website. Well, chances are it’s the same reason why students fall asleep during lectures. Or someone trying to avoid long queues (did you know that in some parts of the world, people get paid to queue for others?). I think you got the message!

Yes, your blog is probably B-O-R-I-N-G to others. No offense but not everyone is interested in what you had for lunch today. Or to read a 2,000 words posting on quantum physics. But having a boring blog is only one of the few reasons why some blogs have no readers. There are many other reasons.

But don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve list down 5 main reasons why no one reads your blog except perhaps your family and your best friend. I have also included ways to overcome them.

1. Boring Blogs

A few years ago, you could get away with a not-so-interesting blog. Back then, blogging was still a fairly new concept and there were not that many around.

Fast forward to today, there are countless of awesome blogs and in order to stand out, you need to create an edge. People need a reason to want to come to your blog. So if your blog has:

• all text with no or few images
• monotonous writing or academic sounding posts
• a sitting-on-the-fence approach to a topic

… then you are sending your readers a boring message. And eventually, even the most enthusiastic reader too will tune out.

How to overcome:

In today’s blogging world, just like most things in life, the laws of attraction works. Give your readers what they want to read, or benefits to visit your blog. It could be reviews of the latest technology or the hottest gossip in town or even controversies, depending on your blog type! On my web hosting blog, I always share great web hosting deals – for example a huge discount on Bluehost hosting plan at $3.95/month (instead of the standard $6.95/month)! Satisfy those what’s-in-it-for-me needs.

A blog is a two-way communication unlike traditional print. Write your posts as if you are talking to your readers. Let them know that there’s a person behind that blog of yours. Engage them by fielding questions and asking for feedback. Also, response to the answers you get.

Img credit: http://heartifb.com/

2. Not Posting Often And Consistently

How often do you post? Everyday? Once a week? Once a month? No specific time? Well, if you are not posting often enough, your readers would eventually grow out of the habit of clicking on your blog URL. Even those frequent visitors who had been visiting your blogs previously, they would over time, forget about your blog too!

How to overcome:

Easy. Post regularly. Make sure you consistently publish fresh and quality contents. Give your readers a good read every time they check back at your blog. You would find that the more you publish, they more readers you get.

If you don’t have enough ideas on what to post, just hop over to some of your buddy’s blogs or blogs of similar topics for inspiration. But, if you found that you don’t have the time to write, do check out our 5 Productivity Tips.

3. Too Many Advertisements

Ever been to those blogs that has tons of advertisements that shout at you? How did you feel? Having some advertisements is alright but crowding your blog with banners and links would turn off your readers.

Moreover, blogs with lots of advertisements usually take a long time to load, which I’m sure you know, is not good for SEO purposes.

How to overcome:

While I am not against having advertisements on your blog, there should be a limit to these. If you do put up advertisements, it pays to ensure that your blog is optimized to ensure speedy loading and also that your hosting provider has enough bandwidth to support them.

If you decide to write “promotional posts”, then do draft them out in such a way that your readers would benefit from them too e.g. providing valuable information within that post.

4. Your Blog Design Leaves Much To Desire

I’ll be honest here. Blog design does play a crucial part in drawing new readers and persuading them to stay. Take a step back and review your bog design. How does it fare? You can also ask your readers whether they think you need a makeover. That’s an engaging post there!

How to overcome:

Select themes that go well with your blog topic. For example, if you have a photography blog, choose a theme that offers a lovely gallery and a home page that allows you to showcase your works. If you have no clue where to get such a great WordPress, you can start your search at Elegant Themes.

Other design features to take into consideration include typeface (whether it’s legible) and choice of colors (striking or easy on the eye combinations). Your choices would depend on your target audiences.

5. Lack Of Exposure

On the other hand, you may have developed the best looking blog and publishing great posts every other day and yet still experience low readership and traffic. What could be wrong? Well, it takes more than design and good writing to draw readers. You need to market your blog. People need to know that it exists!

Poor promotion leads to poor SEO and poor traffic. If your URL is buried deep in the 7th page of a search, chances are no one will find you.

How to overcome:

Learn how to SEO your blog and raise its ranking e.g. inserting proper keywords, building backlinks, installing WordPress SEO plugins and fine-tuning Permalinks. You can look for more tips at our SEO articles.

Another effective way to promote your blog is to guest post. This way, you build a relationship with other bloggers. In blogging, it’s about being part of a community. They come to visit your blog and you drop by theirs. They comment on your posts and you leave your thoughts at theirs. The more blogs you visit and leave comments, the more people are aware of you and would return the visit.

When your readership increases, so would your pagerank and traffic. The higher your pagerank, the more new readers you will attract. The cycle goes on.

Other than that, you could also develop an email marketing list or make use of social media. Just drop an email or tweet or update Facebook status to let your friends know about your new post.

A lack of readers is quite demotivating to a blogger, especially after all the hard work poured in. But the good news is that you can certainly do something about it, as shown in the above. Hopefully, you will be able to boost your blog readership through implementing these suggestions.

Do you have any other tips to add? Feel free to share them below.

I am not even sure if there is any such thing as WordPress Sidebar Etiquette but I know that the WordPress sidebar on your website is very important. The thing is, I see people abusing their sidebars and cramming them with irrelevant junk.

WordPress makes it really easy to drag and drop widgets into your sidebar and this can be both a blessing or a curse. It is a blessing when you stick to WordPress sidebar etiquette, but it is a curse when you break all the rules that I am about to show you. Hopefully if you are a sinner then you will be able to brush up on your WordPress sidebar etiquette and reform yourself.

I was reading this article about blog design that gave me the idea to write this post about WordPress sidebar etiquette. As you know I like to ramble on and cover the absolute details so you better get comfortable!

How Important is Your WordPress Website Sidebar?

I would say that your WordPress sidebar is one of the most important aspects on your blog or website. We all know that the sidebar usually shows up on every page and post of your WordPress theme. Of course this depends on which WordPress theme you use. Some premium WordPress themes let you choose which pages and posts your sidebar shows up on, but nevertheless it is an important part of your website.

Controlling Yourself

Here are a few WordPress sidebar etiquette tips that I have made up myself. There is no obligation to follow these tips as every website is different. All I want to do is make you aware that WordPress sidebar etiquette does exist. Hopefully you can develop your own rules for your own website.

Advertising in Your Sidebar in WordPress

Both new and experienced WordPress website builders often fill up their WordPress sidebar with far too much advertising. We know we all hate this and yet we all still do it. I have to be truthful here and let you know that I do not have much success with banners in the sidebars all headers of my website. ( This is different for AdSense websites though)

Most of my affiliate sales come from in text links and sometimes a highly targeted 300 x 250 banner in amongst the content. The WordPress sidebar is not a major moneymaker and you shouldn’t be plastering your blog with too much advertising there.

Links to Everything

People often try to help their website visitors navigate through their website. This should not be done by placing 1 million links in the sidebar. You should have a navigation menu at the top of your website, where a website visitor can easily access different categories all sections of your website. Everything you have should come under these categories.

Webmasters who place too many links in their sidebar are really confusing their website visitor and not helping them navigate through the website at all. Not only that, you are leaking good PR juice to pages and posts that may not need or deserve it. Take a good look at the pages that link from your homepage. They usually have a page rank of one below the home page because that page is passing on authority. For example this website has PR 4 and links from this page get a PR 3.

Irrelevant Stuff

I often visit peoples websites and notice that they have irrelevant advertising or information in their sidebars. For example, I went to a local news website which showcased local news and community events for a particular town. In the sidebar I saw links to affiliate programs for making money online. These people have come to read the community News and have no idea about making money online. If these links were on a website that was in the niche for making money online, then this would be passable for WordPress sidebar etiquette.

Widget Happy

WordPress widgets are the easiest things to use as most of them are drag and drop. This is great but not when you are WordPress widget happy. All you have to do is basically choose a widget and drag it into your chosen sidebar. You can see the screenshot below showing how easy it is.

Because this process is so easy, you will need to control yourself in this area. Take a good look at your WordPress website and see if you are using WordPress sidebar etiquette.

Too Much Social Networking

Social networking is huge but do we really need all of those social networking buttons. Should they really be taking up all of our valuable website real estate? I think not.

This will stir up some conversation as it seems to be the normal procedure to put social networking buttons at the top of your WordPress websites sidebar. Of course I am guilty of this on some of my websites, however I have been testing this and I do not believe it is necessary to have all of these buttons in such a prime position.

I used to have links to my Facebook page, my Twitter, my Google plus account, the RSS feed, and maybe a few more. Did anyone click on these? Not really…

How do I know this? I went to Google Analytics and used the In-page Analytics feature. You can find this option under the content menu in Google Analytics. This is one of many basic Google Analytics tracking tips that I use often.

The screenshot below shows my in page Analytics which shows a percentage of clicks that a link will get. As you can see in the sidebar, some of the links do not get clicks at all. This is how I know that my social networking links were not worth putting in the sidebar.

If you look around my blog now you will see a simple Facebook like button in the sidebar and an RSS subscription box in the footer. When you actually go into each individual article, I have various social media buttons to enable people to share my content. This method is working for me. I still get followed on twitter and re-tweeted, but this is through my content.

 Too Many Sidebars

If you have read through all of these points mentioned above, then you might realize that you do not need too many WordPress website sidebars on your website. I am a great believer in the K.I.S.S (keep it simple stupid) method and having too many sidebars, or too much in your sidebars is just overkill.

I do have websites that have two sidebars but I always make sure they do not have too many items in them. These have been made for design purposes only. I still stick to my WordPress sidebar etiquette rules when feeling my sidebars with information.

WordPress Sidebar Etiquette – What you Should Have?

I am not here to tell you what you should or shouldn’t have in your WordPress sidebar. Of course the final decision will rest with you and you will need to see what suits your website. I like to keep it simple though, and let my content shine through.

About Me

When people visit a website or blog, they want to know the person behind the scenes or in charge. Even massive websites made by big companies have showcased their employees who run the blog to make sure they have a personal touch.

You need to connect with your website visitor and having an about me section in the top half of your website is a great way for them to get to know you. I will be doing this but I haven’t got around to taking a nice photo as yet. A great example of an About me in the top of the sidebar is at Ileane’s blog called Basic Blog Tips. This is a perfect example as people immediately feel a connection with Ileane.

Every time I see Ileane’s smiling face it makes me smile too!

Optin Box

We can look at the screenshot above again. You can see that Ileane has an optin box as the next most important item in her sidebar. I agree with this, even though I did post this article titled “Do you really want to be on my list?”.

I agree that an optin box is important but I also think that you need to engage your subscribers quickly and work out what they want. There are a number of factors that cause a website visitor to sign up or subscribe to your list. If you have fantastic content they will probably search around your blog just so they can subscribe. That’s actually the kind of person I want on my list, however having a sign up box in the top of your sidebar has definitely proven to gain more subscribers.

Popular Posts

I have noticed, when investigating my in page Google Analytics, that my popular posts do actually get clicked on. Of course they are popular for a reason and obviously the titles can attract more clicks.

If I compare the clicks I get on a recent posts widget, the popular posts wins hands down. I think this is because the recent posts are available on the homepage anyway. As you can see I only have my popular posts showing on this website, whereas on others, I might have the recent posts showing as well. You need to test what is best for your website.

One Ad

I like to have one banner and possibly a few links in the sidebar. As I have stated before, when making money online, most of my sales come from in content advertising. Therefore I am only adding a banner to the sidebar for design purposes.

I would really love to hear everyone’s opinion about my WordPress sidebar etiquette article. Do you agree with me when I say that we should “keep it simple” and not clog up our WordPress website sidebars with junk?

This article is going to be a benchmark for your blog to follow and I’m calling it the “Successful WordPress website checklist“. So far it is 3000 words long and will grow over time. I have written articles before about “why your blog is failing” and “tips for new WordPress website builders” and plenty more. Unfortunately, I see that some people are still missing the point.

New Webmasters contact me about a problem they have, but say this is the only problem there is, as they have everything else under control. When I get to their websites I see a dozen or more problems staring me in the face. Therefore I am developing this successful WordPress website checklist for reference purposes and to save me from repeating my answers to 100 different people. I like chatting with people but I hate repeating myself! I even get sick of what I am hearing.

Successful WordPress website checklist

We would all love to have a successful online business and I know that this WordPress website checklist will help many of you get on the right track. Unfortunately I do not know all of this information by chance, I only know all of this from the mistakes that I have made. Now I am going to save you the time and money that I wasted. Some of these WordPress website checklist items might look familiar to you, however I suggest you still read every section as most problems stem from presuming that you know something.

#1. The right hosting

If you are interested in building a WordPress website (or blog) to make money online, you will need to start with the right website hosting. I personally have made many mistakes in the past and have wasted a fair amount of money by buying the wrong Web hosting. I now use Hostgator and will recommend them to anyone! This is probably the most important part of your business. Just remember that if your hosting does not perform, then maybe your website does not exist. You need to choose the right Web hosting company where you can build a website that is going to grow to the future.

#2. Use WordPress for your content management system

I guess you knew that I was going to say this! Hopefully most of you are or are using WordPress, and even though you might think it is difficult now, if you keep using it you will become an expert. I have no doubt about this. I do not care if you are technically challenged, you will be able to manage your website like a pro if you stick with WordPress.

It is also important to set up WordPress thoroughly as missing a simple setting can create more work for you in the end. I have written a full tutorial on how to setup WordPress correctly and will be adding to this in the future.

#3. Do not give up

I see people give up on WordPress and say it is too hard. This is not true as I have personally (yes in person) taught the absolute most technically challenged people how to use WordPress. I mean people that cannot even use the computer properly. Therefore I do not want to hear anyone saying that WordPress is too hard. When I hear people saying this, to me it simply means that they have not given it proper go. To ensure that new Webmasters do not give up on WordPress, I have developed a WordPress website basics section. It will give you access to videos and written tutorials all about building a WordPress website.

I definitely do not earn any money from recommending WordPress as it is an open source content management system. I could tell you to install b2evolution, concrete5, Drupal 6 or 7, glFusion, Hotaru, Joomla, Mambo, and even the new Trendy Site Builder with basics drag and drop to create  flash websites. All of these options are available when you buy Hostgator web hosting but I still recommend building a WordPress website. Even if you wanted to build an e-commerce website I would still recommend using WordPress, and then installing an ecommerce WordPress theme.

I also see people give up on building websites because they did not make money fast enough. I will tell you right now that making money by building websites does not happen overnight. There are many ways to make money from building websites, and how fast you bring in the money, depends on what type of website you are making and how much effort you put in.

I have built authority sites, which in turn has also provided me with valuable virtual real estate. A few years ago I someone offered me 22,000 for a website that was made as a hobby. Luckily I didn’t sell and now I have been offered well over 100,000 for the same website. Every time this happens to me now, all I think is that these people can see the value in my website. That makes me happy.

#4. A professional looking theme

OMG I cannot stress this enough. There are so many options out there for a fantastic WordPress theme that will make you look professional right from the start. You don’t need to be an expert website designer to make your website look fantastic! This is one of the great things about WordPress, along with all the plug-ins that you can get. I have written about different premium WordPress themes that I have bought and I know that there are more out there that are will still worth buying.

However for the new WordPress website builder, I highly recommend that you start with something like the elegant themes package, because it offers you 60 or more themes to choose from. It also offers you support, and if you go and visit their Gallery, you will notice that these themes look absolutely amazing! I wish I had known about this company when I first started out as I wasted a lot of time customizing free WordPress themes, only to hit a roadblock, and having to end up changing the theme anyway.

#5. Keywords

Building any website, or selling any product, all revolves around keywords. You can have higher paying keywords, buying keywords, and so on. When you find the right keyword it is like hitting the jackpot. People are missing this fact. They do not realize how important keywords are.

I have written about keywords until my face has turned blue. (Ha ha ha) There is a short tutorial included in the free e-book I giveaway about building a WordPress website. I also have a great video that shows you how to choose your categories for your WordPress website. Like I said, everything revolves around the keywords.

Look at this screenshot below. I am in the Google keyword tool, one of the best SEO tools I use! I have searched for my keyword, ticked the box that says [Exact] match, then pressed search.

When finding a keyword for my new niche (main topic for a webstie), I like to see a minimum of 1000 exact match searches. If I really like a subject I will go down to 700 exact matches.

When finding a keyword for a simple article I need to see at least 200 exact matches for the search volume. This is because I know I will use Scribe to do onpage SEO and also pick up a lot of long tail keywords.

I use the related keywords that come up below for creating WordPress category names and ideas for articles and main pages.

Using keywords brings me on to my next checklist item about making everything relevant. This is probably the most important thing you can do to make your WordPress website successful.

#6. Make EVERYTHING relevant

In an earlier article I wrote about people choosing a niche that was too wide. This means that the subject of the website was not focused enough. I still see this every day. I visit people’s blogs and they have totally unrelated articles on their websites. What are they thinking? For example if you have a money-saving website and you have articles about saving money, there is no need to start writing about your dog having puppies or your cat having fleas, as people do not want to see this. However if your cat has fleas and you have a way of saving money on the flea treatment, then this is a great article for your saving money website. If you can relate the subject to your main aim then it is okay.

Would you rather see:

OMG my cat has fleas

OR

Make your own homemade flea treatment to save money

Obviously you would rather see the second title as you have gone to the website to learn how to save money. My best piece of advice, (not really advice, but more of a rule) is to absolutely concentrate on relevancy.

So when you leave a backlink somewhere, the anchor text should already explain what the page will be about.

Therefore this is how I make my WordPress website relevant:

1. The main topic of the website is the root of your business. Everything grows from that point on.
2. The navigation system is the stem that comes from the root of your business.
3. The categories are the branches that veer off from the stem.
4. The foliage on the branches is the content.
5. The back links and promotion is the food. If you feed your website the wrong food you could kill it!

Now take note, you do not see leaves from a gum tree growing on a maple tree. If you do then it would look quite odd and you would know that it is not meant to be.

Hopefully you will not see this example on any other website about relevancy for your website as I just made this up.

The older the tree, the more valuable it is.

#7. Advertising overload

New Webmasters seem to think that plastering their sidebars with banners and advertising will make them money. Simply does not work that way. I rarely make a sale from a sidebar banner, compared to banners and links inside posts. If people do click on a banner and buy something on my website, it is usually because they have just read some information that is related to it. They do not just land on your pages and go and immediately click on your banners.

The other problem is that new Webmasters put too many banners on their websites. This looks silly and immediately screams “newbie”. I’d definitely recommend that less is better.

You also need to put banners and advertising that is highly related to your topic. For example, on my computer tips website where I get 10,000 unique visitors a day, but still I cannot possibly sell Web hosting to these people. You would think that out of 10,000 people, maybe one would want to buy Web hosting? No they do not! Of course I might fluke a sale but it is not the place to sell this kind of product. People visiting my computer tips website are interested in solving their computer problems, buying software, and learning about computers. They do not come there with the intention to build a website like they do on this website.

You know how people say that the money is in the list, well I am telling you that the money is also in the content. That is how I make most of my money and I’m sure that other Webmasters will tell you the same thing. Please tell me what you think about this statement in the comment section below.

#8. Monetize as much as you can

Now after reading number five above, you must keep this in mind when trying to monetize your website. Yes I am recommending you monetize everything as much as you can, but I recommend that you do it in a discreet way.

New Webmasters often ask me “when should I monetize my website?” The problem is, this question should not even be asked. When building a website you must have an idea of the business model for your website and also the monetization SEO model that you want to use. If you have an idea about the specific business model you want to follow, then you can implement this immediately into your website. If you have to go back and start to monetize your website later, this is an extreme hassle that I like to avoid. People believe that they cannot sell products on a new WordPress website, however I believe that if you build your website correctly in the first place, you can avoid the fact that it looks new. You might only have 10 articles on your website, but the base structure can be complete, and make your website look like a fully working business.

When I say to monetize as much as you can, I am talking about at least recommending one product per article or page. Think about what the goal is to this page? What is the purpose of this page or post?

I’d definitely do not recommend slapping text ads or text links all over your posts. For example, if I was writing an article about computer backup, and how to do it, I would simply mention what software I use.

Even Google AdSense recommends that you blend your advertising into your content.

#9. What is your goal?

Why are you building a WordPress website? You should start your own WordPress website checklist and add your goals to it. My main goal for starting a WordPress website in the beginning was to conquer the challenge. After that it became a way to earn a full-time living. Now that I have a full-time income, my goal has changed again. Now I would like to help others do the same thing I am doing. This does not mean I can give one-on-one help to everyone, this means that I am willing to share everything I know to help others.

You need to have a main goal to work towards when building your online business. You also need to have a goal for every piece of content that you produce. I mention this in a recent article about why your blog is not making money. Unfortunately I talk about this a lot.

Ok so let’s talk about having a goal for the content. I mentioned some aspects of this in checklist item number seven, where I recommend monetizing your website as soon as possible. Obviously monetization might be a part of your main goal and you should not be producing content and giving it away or publishing it without a goal in mind.

Even when I give away a free report as a viral marketing tool, I always have a goal in mind.

#10. Write it down

Make a plan for everything! I love lists and especially checklists, where I can follow steps to avoid stuff ups. I have a list for everything. I even have a  daily blogging routine that I shared with everyone recently. This is turning out to be one of the most popular posts on this website and this is telling me that people want more lists. But why wait for me to create the lists? Why not make your own. In actual fact, you might even do a better job than me!

I do plan to create more lists like the SEO checklist and the 18 back linking techniques, however it is a matter of finding the time.

#11. Traffic sources

Stop getting traffic from all the wrong places! Yes you might be link building which is ok, but targeted traffic is another story. This is where the valuable traffic is. To find the valuable traffic for your website, you need to know who your audience is and where they hang out. If you wanted to grab targeted traffic from the search engines for free, you would have to target a particular keyword that brings in the customers you want. One of my favorite articles on this blog is about 20 often forgotten traffic tips because I love good traffic!

Examples of how to work out your traffic sources:

• Web hosting: You could sell this to people that want to build a website or people that are not happy with the existing Web hosting company. You could look for forum posts where people complain about the hosting company or ask questions about how to build a website.
• WordPress plug-in: You could sell a WordPress plug-in to Webmaster that uses WordPress. There would be no point trying to sell this to someone that uses another content management system.
• Dog training guide: You could sell this to people that want to train their dogs. These people must care about their dog if they want to train it. You could find these people in dog loving forums, dog training membership sites, enrolled in real dog training classes, and so on. You can also target people that buy puppies.

You can leave links on other websites to promote a certain keyword in order to get that keyword ranked in the search engines. This is a great way to get the right traffic because these people are searching for what you have.

As I stated above, the other way is to go straight to the traffic source. All you have to do is think about who your audience is and where they would be hanging out. Now if you knew where your traffic was, why would you wait to get ranked in the search engines, why not going get it right now?

Also if you have your the main topic, your categories, your content, your back linking, and so on, all related, you also need the traffic that comes in to be related to what you have on the website. That’s how you know if it is targeted traffic or not?

#12. Search engine optimization

I know you are probably sick of hearing about search engine optimization, however, earlier I stated that keywords were very important, well search engine optimization is part of that. Search engine optimization is what you do with the keywords so that the search engines recognize you for those keywords. I have become a search engine optimization freak and this is because you cannot create an online business without understanding this aspect of it.

I have written so many articles about this subject:

5 Hidden SEO Problems Costing You Traffic Right Now

10 Point SEO Checklist for New WordPress Webmasters

Beginners’ Guide To SEO

9 SEO Tips to Dominate Google Search Results

7 More SEO Mistakes to Be Avoided

10 Critical SEO Mistakes to Avoid when Building WordPress Websites

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Explained for New WordPress Website Builders

Sorry I cannot mention them all. Please search for more if you are interested.

You can also download a free report called SEO My Way. Yes I called it this because so many people have different ideas about SEO. I only will tell you what works for me! It is as simple as that! There are millions of so called SEO experts out there, but are they walking the walk or just talking the talk?

WordPress website checklist conclusion

Even if you think you have a successful WordPress website but you are not making any money, this WordPress website checklist will help you. In order to make money from a WordPress website, there are many things that you need to make right before the rest can fall into place. I myself have tried to slap advertising on a website and make money, but that is only one piece of the puzzle.

This article is not finished and probably never will be completely. I know that I will add things to this WordPress website checklist tomorrow, the next day, and maybe even in a years time.

What can you add to my WordPress website checklist?

When most people decide to build a WordPress website, hopefully they already have a website business model in mind. There are the SEO business models I mentioned in an earlier article, but now we are choosing the basis for our WordPress website. This can be the first step when you are creating a WordPress website from scratch and this crucial step is often neglected.

People often say “I am starting a website”, and my next question would be, “what type of website?” It is not clear enough to simply state say that you are starting a website when there are so many WordPress website business models available. My next question would be, “How do you plan to make money?”

To tell the truth, not many WordPress website builders do you have a website business model in mind. This would definitely be contributing to the millions of websites that fail every year.

#1. Website business model – Blogging

You can call this whatever you like. It can be blogging or it can be building a WordPress website and building a community. Either way it probably means that you are going to make money from your blog by either advertising, the money is in the list model, or affiliate marketing. Of course you can do all three as blogging is very general and you can have your finger in lots of pies.

If you choose this website business model, the jobs that you take on will be enormous. I am a full time blogger and I recently shared my daily blogging routine which shows nothing but hard work. Don’t get me wrong though, the rewards are enormous.

#2. Business model – Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is simply when you sell someone else’s product and earn a commission. This method can be blended into many different business models. Sometimes you do not even have to have a website as you can choose to simply market affiliate links or affiliate websites.  The problem with not creating a website means that you are not building any virtual real estate that might become valuable in the future.

I prefer to blend my affiliate marketing into the blogging business model. Therefore you have a backbone of trust and loyalty from your blogging community.

#3. Business model – Information product

Creating your own information product is a great way to make money. It is even better when you have a home base for your information product as people say that it is better to have a website for each product that you make giving it a unique identity. Of course if you have a main website, there would always be a few different information products that would fit nicely into it.

This is probably the easiest website business model that anyone can get into. Even if you do not know about a certain subject, you can research it on the Internet and create your own information product. Some people even have the product material right in front of their faces. If you think about it, every piece of content that you create can be turned into an information product. I dare say I have produced millions of dollars worth of information to this day. It is up to you on how you use it.

A great way to get into this business model, is to start by creating small reports in PDF file format, and give them away to your website visitors. This can also be a viral marketing strategy to bring you traffic and sales.

#4. Business model – E-commerce store

Building an e-commerce store can involve a number of different business models. For example you could use drop shipping, affiliate marketing, or physical products. Each of these models involve a different job requirement. For example if you were dealing with actual physical products, you would probably be dealing with customer service and also postage of the product.

Using a WordPress website for an e-commerce store is very common nowadays. WordPress has basically taken over everything and you simply install WordPress and then install a theme that will perform the functions of your e-commerce store. For example Elegant themes has one of the best e-commerce WordPress themes available. Creating an intricate e-commerce store is now available to anyone at the push of a button. It no longer cost thousands of dollars to get a fantastic e-commerce website designed.

#5. Business model – Software and plug-ins

Back in the old days software manufacturers used to sell only physical products. However now that Internet speeds have greatly improved, the sales of software have gone through the roof. People can be on their computer and decide to buy a piece of software, and have it on their computer within minutes.

We also have massive sales in WordPress plug-ins and now smart phone apps, both iPhone and android. ” The times, they are a changing”.

As with any information product, you develop the software once, and sell it over and over again. The only difference is, most software and apps require updates to keep up with technology. For example a WordPress plug-in developer has to constantly keep up with the actual WordPress updates. They have to ensure that their plug-in works with the latest release.

#6. Business model – Service based

This website business model is growing fast on the Internet, especially in the search engine optimization sector. This is because many people are building websites and need help with their search engine optimization. This is just one example of a service-based website. You can get articles written, you can get websites built, you can enroll in an educational course, you can even pay for likes on your Facebook page. The services available are endless and new ones are always popping up every day.

Again many people offer a service incorporated into their blogging business model. I am not too keen to do this, as every time I offer a service, I neglect some other part of my business.

Maybe you have an established bricks and mortar business and are looking to provide your service to more customers in your local area. Even a Plumber, Carpenter, Accountant, can gain more business from a website, especially if the website uses Google places optimization. That way you will come up at the top of the search engines as local positions in the search engines are getting filled fast.

Website business model of the future

When we all started building websites we had no idea what path we were going down. In fact we still do not know and cannot predict which website business models will survive for the future.

Can you think of a new website business model for the future?

I wish I had found these tips for WordPress webmasters when I first started out, but I didn’t. Unfortunately nothing existed and I had to learn the hard way. Do not be sad for me though, as I know everything deeply and have made every mistake possible along the way.

Now for you I have these tips so you are not left wondering why your website is not making money or pushed to give up on your venture prematurely. Small and often obvious mistakes can cause a lot of stress for the inexperienced webmaster.

Of course many of you will know some of these tips but hopefully not all.

#1. Manifest what you want!

Negative thoughts neither helped anyone! Think about your goals and what you want to achieve and go on and do it! Put a picture of your goal on the wall in front of you and look at it every day. Believe in yourself and only takes steps will take you closer to your goal.

#2. Learn how to choose a keyword

This is actually part of search engine optimization but I think it is the most important aspect of the whole business. Without the right keyword, you can do as much search engine optimization as you like, but it will not get you anywhere.

How do I know this? I know because I have made mistakes like this before. This can even apply to a local business website. Often these small business websites are optimized for their business name and not what people are searching for in relation to the product sold.

#3. Understand that a website can have thousands of keywords

This is something that people do not mention enough. You might go for an overall keyword for your website but each and every page and post also has its own set of keywords. New WordPress webmasters presume that they have to target their main keyword on all their posts on a website, but this is not true.

On this website for example, I am targeting “WordPress website builder” as my main keyword. All of my posts relate to building websites or using WordPress. Therefore they are all targeted towards my main keyword but it is not always that obvious. I do write posts with the main keywords in them, but the focus is always on related keywords as the post titles. I do not like to go off topic.

#4. WordPress Webmasters – Question your niche

Many people do the keyword research and come across a keyword that they assume is going to be great because of the search volume. There are other factors to be considered. For example the keyword might have many people searching for it because it is similar to a brand name. Another reason can be that the search is simply too broad.

Choosing the wrong niche for your first website may cause you to fail at blogging. This in turn may cause you to give up blogging altogether, therefore it is very important that you choose a good niche to start with.

Here are some questions WordPress Webmasters can ask:

1. Why are people searching for your keyword?
2. Does your keyword solve a problem or educate?
3. Are people searching for this keyword likely to buy?
4. Is your keyword clear-cut, or can it mean something else?

#4. Learn what you need and move on

People often set out to learn one little task and end up learning everything there is to know about it. For example you might want to know how to build an anchor text link, but you end up studying how to write HTML code. Stop yourself from going any further and just learn what you need. You do not need to know things in depth as starting a website from scratch is not a difficult process when you can use WordPress.

Get the information you need fast and get out. Do not make things more difficult than they really are and simply stick to the task at hand.

#5. Don’t wait to be perfect

If I had waited to become perfect at writing articles, creating videos, or even search engine optimization, I probably would not be where I am today. You do not need to be perfect to be successful, you need to take action to be successful. You can fail along the way that if you do not give it a go you will never learn.

My first Youtube video took me about 5 hours to make and it really didn’t get any better within those five hours. This video is still on my you tube channel today and I often go and look at it and laugh. People have criticized the for the way I sound, what I say, and anything else they can think of. Luckily I did not let this stop me and my videos only got better with experience. Well kind of. I still say “umm” for every second word and have to cut out swearing, but they are doing the job that I intended.

#6. Install WordPress on a Server

No this does not mean the free WordPress at WordPress.com or a free blog at blogger.com, it means you go out and buy website hosting and install WordPress on that. If you do not want to invest $100 in your business then you must not want to start a business.. In fact it is a lot cheaper than that and this is for an entire year. If you cannot afford this then you should just stick to your day job! (Do not cry now, it has to be said)

As you know I use Hostgator Hosting and for anyone needing hosting I have a discount coupon code for you: MITZSave25 This Hostgator coupon code will give you 25% off.. And if you are really having trouble installing WordPress I will help you by giving you free WordPress installation.

#7. Decide on a WordPress theme

WordPress is great as you can chop and change your theme at the press of a button; however this is not always great. Some people change their WordPress themes like they change their undies and this is a massive time waster. This is the same as learning how to write HTML when it is not necessary. Stop playing with things that do not contribute to your goal.

Constantly tweaking and customizing your WordPress theme is not getting the job done. This is why I like to choose the best WordPress theme for me, learn how to customize it thoroughly, then use it on as many blogs as I want. I do also recommend using a premium WordPress theme as there are many benefits such as ongoing support and a network of people using the same theme.

#8. Learn search engine optimization

You can build a website, make it look fantastic and add great content, but you will need search engine optimization to be really successful. I know you are all probably sick of me talking about this subject. You cannot just hope that the search engines realize what your content is about and by performing search engine optimization, this will let them know exactly what is on your website. If you browse through the posts on this website you will find many articles about SEO tips that I have written from my own experiences.

 #9. Never paste content from MS Word

Many new Webmasters make this awful mistake. They simply copy and article straight from a Microsoft word document and paste it directly into the WordPress post editor. This not only adds weird code into your HTML section, but it can cause crazy errors and problems. Look around and you will see a small button on the post menu that looks like a MS Word icon. When you press on this a box will appear for you to paste your MS word text into to clean it up first.

 #10. Place images wisely

Some themes do not allow you to post an image at the top of the post, while others will. This can cause problems when WordPress is trying to grab an excerpt but sees an image first. Also if your image has a caption, WordPress might grab the caption and put that in your excerpt.

You need to also take care that you do not place an image where an add or something else is meant to be. For example I have an Adsense ad set to be added to every post, under the post title, on the left with text wrapped. If I also place an image there this will slow my page loading time down because to things want to go into the one spot.

#11. Copying code into WordPress

Just say you have copied some html code from a website, you should not then simply paste this into the WordPress post HTML section. The actual code needs to be cleaned much like the MS Word text did. You can do this by pasting the HTML code into a Windows notepad file and then copy it from there to paste into your WordPress post. When you think that wierd things are happening to your code and it does not look like it should, try cleaning it first.

#12. Less is Better

KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid! new WordPress Webmasters often try to have everything and do everything that experienced Webmasters do. Knowing about less, but knowing what you know thoroughly, will see success for you quicker. Knowing a little bit about everything is not a good strategy.

When it comes to Internet marketing varies so much of everything. There are so many ways to monetize your website, there are so many different types of websites to make, and there are so many different designs to use.

Why not start with a website like the recent WordPress website case study I recently posted about?

If you are looking at building WordPress websites like I do but are having problems getting off the ground, I have the solution for you. I have something that will give you that kick along you need to get the ball rolling.

It all started when one of my close friends wanted to start a money making business online like the one I have. She wanted to go to sleep at night and earn money but she could not seem to actually start a website or contribute anything toward this goal.

I did not have the time to help her so I told her to check out TheBlogGrinder.com. This is a service that provides you with one fully researched niche website all up and running for you each month. They even choose some appealing affiliate offers to promote. So it is all basically handed to you on a platter.

My friend was quite excited about this and signed up. She is in her second month now and has two websites up and running.

I had a sneak peak at the member’s area which is great for beginners as there is so much info there, including marketing and traffic ideas, yet it is all given to you in a way that doesn’t create “information overload”. It is also helping my friend understand everything about affiliate marketing and how to profit from it. She is really enjoying it as there is something getting done while she learns at the same time.

The best thing about The Blog Grinder isn’t the member’s area though… it’s the blogs that they create for you. They found my friend a great, profitable niche using keyword research and delivered a very attractive blog in just a few days.

Well, guess what? Her blog is ALREADY receiving traffic – and not just one or two visitors a day! She is really excited about her progress as it would have taken me a lot of explaining to get her to that stage. I would recommend The Blog Grinder to anyone that wants to start profiting online. Why? Because you don’t need to do anything to start earning – they will do everything for you!

This video tutorial about “the next step” when installing a WordPress Website turned out to be longer than I thought. In the first video called Build a WordPress Website from scratch I showed how to change your domain name servers, create a domain on your hosting, upload a WordPress Website, and then finally sign into it to start developing it. All that only took 13 minutes, however this video is more like 40 minutes long so I am WARNING you in advance.

To continue with these tutorials you must have bought website hosting, a domain name, and installed WordPress. This is about starting a business so it gets serious now!

What you will learn in the video:

1. What settings to change as soon as you have installed your WordPress Website?
2. How to change your permalinks and why?
3. How to find related keywords for your niche and download the keywords to use.
4. How to choose your category titles?
5. How to make SEO categories?
6. How to install plugins and which ones are very necessary?

If you can put up with the rambling, this video will teach you some solid tips about installing and starting a WordPress Website.

Free Step by Step Report on How to Build a Website.

How can I manage all of my WordPress websites at once?

This is one of the questions I continually asked myself. How could I manage all of my WordPress websites at once without having to login to all the different websites individually? Wouldn’t it be heaven if you could install 10-20 plugins into 20 different websites at the same time? Imagine if you could see pending comments from all your websites and answer them from on easy location?

Well If you are not doing all these things I mentioned above, then you haven’t found www.Managewp.com yet!

What is good about Manage WordPress (Managewp.com)?

1. Free
2. Convenient
3. Easy to use

When managing more than one website with Managewp what are the main features?

1. I love the fact that you can access everything concerning all your websites in one control panel.
2. You can install loads of plugins to all your websites at once, and have them activated for you.
3. You can changeWordpress themes, edit posts, create categories, publish posts, and more all in the control panel.

What do you need to use this service?

1. You need at least one WordPress website.
2. You need to install a “worker” plugin into each website. This plugin is available from the Managewp website.
3. You need to signup for a free account…Thats it..

Watch the video tutorial for more information.

Top 5 tips on how to choose your website niche topic

Why make your decision on a website niche topic hit and miss? Why go to all the effort of making a website only to find that it is a flop? Hey but don’t panic, it’s not rocket science.

What are you passionate about and have some knowledge about?

• If you do not start a website about something you like, then it will become a choir to work on it. You want to feel good about making content for your website. I am sure that everyone can dominate a niche if they really wanted to. You must have confidence in yourself, there is no room for doubt. I previously wrote an article about whether you need passion for your WordPress website topic?

Focus your niche into a specialized area:

• If you like cars and renovate them in your spare time, make a website on the type of car you renovate. Be specific. Fro example my brother works on custom mainlines or Holden HG stationwagons. Making a website about just cars, renovating cars, or Fords and Holdens will not get you famous. You need to be more specific to be able to dominate your niche.

• You find that a niche is all about keywords and what people are searching for. Please see how to research a niche.

Research the niche and see what the competition is?

1. If you go to www.google.comand see who comes up for the same keywords that you want to start for, loads of competition is not always a bad thing. If you dig deeper and investigate the websites ranking high for your keywords, you will most likely see that they are not that great after all. Sometimes you will visit all the top ranking websites and think to yourself “I can do better than that”. If you think this, then do not hesitate. Do not let figures and search results put you off.
2. Others places to do research is using the google keywords tool. It will tell you how many searches a keyword gets.

See if there are any products to promote in this niche?

1. Most webmasters have an ambition to make money and they might be lying if they said that wasn’t the case. There are many ways to make money and it can be overwhelming at first. Focus on a few ways only. Google Adsense is an easy option and can go on almost any website. Other options include Amazon affiliate, Ebay partner network, Commission junction, and loads more..
2. If there are no products to sell you could create your own product. This is one option, the other is Google adsense.

Start three websites and see which one comes out on top. This is a great way to see if a website niche will work or not!

1. After you have done this be prepared to drop the other two and concentrate on the main website. You could flip them. (Sell them on flipper.com)
2. You could also outsource work for the other websites. All you have to do is register at elance.com or odesk.com and post a job there and people will apply for it.