Photo courtesy of iChaz

For the first ten posts of the Be a Blogger series I mostly ignored the topic of monetization.  This was by design. While I understand there are benefits of monetizing your blog early on in the process, I didn’t want to focus on the money-making aspects of blogging until the fundamentals were nailed down.

People begin blogging for a variety of reasons–some for money, some for love, and some for the love of money.  I started my blog for three reasons:

• As a creative outlet.  My full time job does not require much creativity in terms of writing, so I thought blogging would appeal to the entrepreneurial writer bottled up inside me for over 30 years.

• To be a source of inspiration for others.  Sometimes I think I irritate more people than I inspire, but because the ones who are irritated are the loudest, I hope it is only a skewed perception.  Here lately the number of supportive comments and emails I receive are proof that I’m on the right track.  A few weeks ago I received an email from a young college student who opened her first emergency fund inspired by one of my posts.  Knowing that you have a real impact on people’s lives through writing is very motivating.

• It beats mowing lawns.  To help the debt snowball along I mowed lawns on the weekends last summer, something I had also done during one summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college.  I quickly discovered two things:  ten years is plenty of time to get grossly out of shape and to become spoiled by air conditioning.  Since I was doing this on top of my full time job I stayed pretty worn out.  It was time to find an easier side hustle (physically).

That’s Great, but What About the  Money?

Let’s face it–if you want to make money blogging you have to treat it as a business.  Or at least, you have to think like a business person.  Blogging has opened my eyes to the world of online marketing in ways I never knew existed prior to last December, and I thought I was pretty business savvy.  Many advertisers are finding out that the internet has more potential for reaching eyeballs than traditional advertising, and blogs are a fresh way to deliver their message.  Obviously, you have to balance monetization with having a user-friendly presentation, and it is something most bloggers struggle with.

“But I’m Only Making $5 a Day!”–Is This Worth It?

I remember after only a couple months of blogging I became glued to my blog stats and advertising accounts like a nervous senior waiting outside his professor’s office for grades to be posted.  I was addicted to the numbers, but disappointed by them constantly.  In March I figured out that from all my efforts I was making $5.00 a day–not even enough for a value meal at McDonalds.  However, after applying some quick math I realized I wasn’t doing so bad after all.

At 3% interest, my $3,000 emergency fund was spinning off about $0.25 a day at ING Direct (what’s a post about monetization without an affiliate link?).  I wondered how much money I’d have to have in there to generate $5.00 a day in interest.  $60,000!  That’s right; it would take $60,000 at 3% interest to generate $5.00 a day.  I felt much better about my online earnings from that point forward.  The income from blogging is not totally passive, because I do still work a number of hours each day writing, editing, commenting, emailing, etc, but I still get a kick out of going to sleep at night and waking up to find you’ve earned money.

Time To Quit the Day Job?

Not quite, but it is certainly feasible.  Many well-known bloggers are now probloggers and make writing their full time gig.  Of course many of them have safety nets in place (a large emergency fund, a working spouse, etc.), so it isn’t for everyone, and requires some thorough planning.  I doubt I will ever earn enough to completely replace my full time income, but once my debts are paid off and I have a one-year emergency fund in place, I wouldn’t need that much income to live comfortably.  Yes my friends, the wheels are turning.

If you are a blogger, or are considering becoming one, I’m interested to hear why you started your blog.  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

About six months ago I started putting together a “Be a Blogger” series of posts that recorded some of my thoughts on starting a blog, writing for the web, etc.  As I said in the inaugural post, I’m certainly no expert, but felt perhaps others interested in blogging could learn from my mistakes.  In the last several days I’ve received a few messages from people looking for guidance on starting a blog, naming their project, and marketing their work.  Seemed like a good time to put together a consolidated post of my previous “Be a Blogger” entries.

I’d like to start sharing these “Be a Blogger” posts again on a more regular basis as I’ve learned some new techniques (and made many more mistakes).  Look for future posts on weekends, or when I feel like a break from the personal finance stuff.  I realize many of you are not bloggers, but I hope that it will inspire some of you to take the plunge, or at least be entertained by a sort of behind-the-scene look at what it takes to run a blog.

Be a Blogger Top Ten

• So You Want to Be a Blogger?   This one started it all.  Kind of funny to read that I used the 100 subscriber milestone to kick off the new series.  Since then, about 3,000 of you have joined, and I’m honored to have each of you following me here at Frugal Dad.

• Identify Your Target Audience.  The advice here is geared towards writing for the web, but as I’ve learned from offline writing assignments since, identifying your target audience is a key element in any writing project.

• What’s in a Name?  Of all the tasks required in setting up your blog, this one may be the most important (and is often the most difficult).  There are all sorts of factors to consider, from search engine optimization, to offline marketing, to online branding.

• How to Write for the Web.  As I mentioned earlier writing for this blog, and for a couple other online spots, has opened the door for a various offline writing projects.  I found out quickly that writing for the web successfully required the ability to condense things to a few major points, and make use of formatting strategies differently from offline projects to make important points standout.

• Set Your Post Frequency.  Early on, I settled into an every day routine here at Frugal Dad, but I am not as dedicated with other projects.  If I had more time I could probably crank out two or three articles a day on a range of topics, but full-time work and family obligations still require the majority of my attention.  If you aren’t able to put something out every single day, don’t worry–there are some arguments floating around the blog world extolling the benefits of a three-times-a-week or similar reduced posting schedule.

• Lessons Learned From a Traffic Surge.  In March of 2008, with Frugal Dad barely off the ground, I received a mention from LifeHacker.com on my square foot gardening article via Being Frugal.   With over 14,000 unique visitors overnight things really took off here at Frugal Dad, and long-time readers often refer to the square foot gardening article as they way they discovered me (which is funny considering I didn’t have much luck with gardening).  Lynnae at Being Frugal and I still keep in touch and she has developed one of the top frugal living blogs in the personal finance niche.  I owe much of my early success to her linking to that article.

• Selecting a Hosting Service.  Besides selecting a name, deciding where to host your project is probably the second toughest decision when starting a blogging project.  There are a myriad of choices out there ranging in expense.  Being the “Frugal Dad” that I am, I went with the cheapest option early on.  While I have had to make a few upgrades to compensate for increased traffic, I have been pleased overall with the service from my host.

• Five Cures for Writer’s Block.  By this point I had been writing every single day for four months, and I was beginning to suffer from a bit of writer’s block myself.  I went on a search for inspiration and found some unique ideas to generate article topics.  I still use most of these methods today when inspiration doesn’t come naturally.

• When Inspiration Hits.  The opposite of writer’s block occurs when ideas for articles are coming faster than you can write them.  This post deals with creating a system to capture these ideas for later use, either on the go or at home.

• Tools for Organizing Ideas.  A follow up to my When Inspiration Hits post, this is one of the more informative guest posts ever shared here at Frugal Dad.  Mrs. Micah put together a great review of the tools she uses to keep her blog ideas organized.

Back next week with the Sunday Conversation.  The following is a guest post from Mrs. Micah. Mrs. Micah writes about personal finances, freelancing, and getting out of debt at MrsMicah.com. She also offers blog consulting services at hire.mrsmicah.com.

Previously in the Be a Blogger series, Frugal Dad wrote about capturing the idea when inspiration hits. Whether you use a cell phone, PDA, or even a scrap of paper, it’s critical to get ideas before they slip away. You will forget them.

But that’s only the first part. I have scribbled dozens of phenomenal ideas on paper or written them down in notebooks only to lose the scrap or forget that I even wrote the idea down in the first place.
The second and equally critical thing to do next is collect your ideas.

Then, there’s the third part. You actually have to find the time to carry them out. If you’ve got them all together, you can always pop in and pick which one you’re going to write about today. I find it easier to get a little reminder at a time when I’m free to write. The reminder is usually a short message like “Write guest post for Frugal Dad on being organized!”

I’m going to explore two useful web tools which I use to store ideas and schedule when I’ll do them. If you’re not a blogger and you’ve made it this far, stick around. These tools are useful for anyone without a perfect memory.

How to Use Gmail’s Filters

If you don’t use Gmail, skip down to using Sandy for another way to store ideas online.

Most of us use Gmail on a basic level. Send e-mail, read e-mail, archive e-mail. Search e-mail when we need something. Until recently I was very very mildly organized and had 2 labels I used for storing links I’d e-mailed myself.

But there’s so much more that Gmail can do. For instance, you can use it as a way to store post ideas. Here’s the skinny.

Let’s assume you use the fictional e-mail address google@gmail.com. Thing is, you have more than that one e-mail address. E-mails sent to google+mrsmicah@gmail.com will show up in your inbox, as will e-mails sent to go.ogle@gmail.com. Let’s say that you decide to send every idea as an e-mail to google+ideas@gmail.com.

Now, suppose you set up a filter in Gmail. The image below shows what the second step of that process looks like. When I first clicked on the filters, I entered a +ideas email address in the “From” box.

Now you see my options. I can have it archived right away (which is fine since I’d probably be accessing them as a group) or star it, forward it…even delete it (in case you want to give out google+spam@gmail.com to sketchy sites that require an e-mail address). However, I chose to have it a) marked as read so I don’t worry about it and b) I chose to apply the label “Idea.” Whenever I want now, I can access all my post ideas simply by going to the Idea label. And I can delete the ones I’ve used.

Why do I like the Gmail system? Because you can do it from your e-mail, which I have open most of the time. I’d suggest scheduling a time during the day to collect all your ideas and e-mail them to yourself. Maybe before going to bed? When you change into your PJs and empty your pockets? Or perhaps when you’ve gotten home from work, you transfer them from your PDA.

Using Sandy to Store Ideas or Schedule Them

Now, you can always use Google’s Calendar to schedule your stored ideas, but I prefer a friendly little assistant named “Sandy.” Sandy is someone (ok, a program) I can e-mail to schedule anything I want, including blog posts. She’ll also store blog posts like Gmail, so stay tuned for that.

Here’s how to get Sandy to remind you of something:

After you’ve signed up with Sandy and gotten a special e-mail address (to contact her) and whatnot, you simply send her an e-mail in a format she, being a non-sentient program, can understand.

For example, here’s an e-mail I’d send to get her to remind me to write this post on Thursday 06/19/08 at 7:35pm.

Subject line: - [I don’t use a subject line with her, I suppose one might send the message in the subject]

Remind me to write guest post for Frugal Dad on being organized on
06/19/08 at 19:35.

There are a number of commands she’ll understand. I could have said “7:35 pm.” I could have said “in 3 hours” or in “135 hours.” I could have put just 6/19 as the date. Sandy’s homepage has all kinds of information that you can use and lots of examples.

With my settings, an e-mail would have popped into my inbox at 7:20 (giving me 15 minutes to get anything else out of the way) with the subject line “REMINDER: Write guest post for Frugal Dad on being organized (7:35pm).”

So I can set myself up to write about a post days, weeks ahead of time and then forget all about it until the time comes. I could go through my list of ideas from Gmail and schedule myself for one writing session a day, if I wanted. Or I could send myself a reminder to go in there and pick my favorite.

Now for all of you who need a place to store your info. You can always e-mail it to yourself and stick it in a folder manually. But you can also e-mail Sandy and have her add it to your to-do list.

I’d just change it to “Write guest post for Frugal Dad on being organized @todo.” You can find all your to-dos by logging in to the main Sandy site and going to your to-do list page.
They’re deletable, if you want to when you finish the post. And you can e-mail Sandy directly from the site to schedule events…so you don’t even have to visit your e-mail account.

Sandy is also apparently compatible with texting and twitter, I just haven’t used those yet.

Wrapping Up

I hope this hasn’t sounded overly complicated. It’s quite simple really. I switch to my Gmail tab and e-mail ideas to myself. At some point I send a bunch of scheduling e-mails to Sandy. Then when they show up in my inbox, I write the post. And while I still forget some good ideas because I never wrote them down in the first place, this helps me keep a lot more of the good ones.

My Money Blog has also written about Sandy and has some suggestions for using her with another program called Jott. But that’s a whole different post.

A “virtual” friend of mine, Brad, has decided to take the blogging plunge and started up his own blog at EnemyofDebt.com (that’s right, the enemy of my enemy is my friend). He recently asked for some advice on writing for the web and I asked him if I could answer here to share some ideas with my readers, since many of you also write online. I hope you will take some time to visit Brad and say hello after reading today’s post. Without further ado, here are my suggestions on how to produce better copy when writing online.

Use Headings Wisely

One of the toughest things to do when writing is to separate ideas into logical groups. In books, or other forms of offline media, these logical groupings easily become separate paragraphs, sections, or entire chapters. As an online writer you don’t have the luxury of breaking up thoughts into separate “chapters,” so the best way to group different sets of ideas is to use headings. A header wrapped inside an “h3″ HTML tag works well in terms of size and search engine compatibility, but any font/size combination that separates your normal text will work.

Be Bold

Online readers have short attention spans. Are you still with me? Good. Highlight important thoughts, or main topics in each paragraph with a bold phrase or sentence. Readers should be able to scan only your bold text and get a pretty good idea what your post is about, without having to read each line, word for word.

Use Lists to Avoid Large Blocks of Text

My list posts have been some of the most popular ones here at Frugal Dad. People like lists, especially people reading online blogs in your niche. Lists are easy to digest, and easy to refer back to later. Of course, there is no way to track such statistics, but I would guess list posts get printed to hardcopy, and emailed around to friends, more than any other type of online article. I’ll pause here while you print this one. On second thought, just bookmark it and save a tree (after all, this is the Frugal Dad).

photo by: DeclanTM

Graphics Help Draw Attention

How does that saying go? A picture is worth a thousand visitors. I think I may be a little off, but you get the idea. Studies have shown that appealing graphics draw attention from readers’ eyes, so use them to your advantage. I frequently use horizontal pictures near the top of my posts to separate individual postings when listed together on the blog’s home page. Other bloggers do a great job of using graphics throughout the post to pull reader’s eyes down through the article (My Super-Charged Life is one of the better examples I’ve seen). Flickr’s creative commons section is a great resource for web graphics. Be sure to give a proper attribution/credit for the photo used, in accordance with Flickr’s policy.

Throw in the Occasional Series

Building anticipation is great for building readership as people are more likely to subscribe with the promise of something to look forward to. I probably don’t write in series often enough here at Frugal Dad, but plan to introduce a couple new series in the near future. Series posts are fun for readers to follow, and make topic generation an easier task for bloggers in the short term.

K.I.S.S Principle - Keep It Short, Stupid

I admit that I occasionally fire up my RSS reader and visit a blog to find a 2,000 word post with no headings, graphics, or bold sections and simply move on. Sorry. I just simply don’t have the time to read these types of daily masterpieces that I cannot easily scan. Stick to your main points and move through them efficiently to attract the most readers. On that note, this post is looking a little long, so until next time.

In my last series post I discussed various techniques for curing writer’s block (or “blogger’s block,” as some call it). Each of those methods will generate some interesting ideas, but what happens when inspiration comes out of nowhere? Unfortunately, inspiration usually hits at a most inconvenient time. When an idea for a new post strikes I am usually away from a computer and I never seem to have a pad and pen handy to record the idea. When I get back to a computer I usually struggle to recall the idea, or the key points I planned to discuss. I have discovered a quick way to utilize modern technology to help in this regard, without spending a few hundred dollars on a PDA or Blackberry.

Your Cell Phone is Your Friend

One of the best, and most underutilized, features of today’s cell phones is the voice recorder. A quick search of the “Tools” menu on my phone reveals a “Recorder” option where I can speak a quick message into the phone’s microphone. Other models have a shortcut button on the outside of the phone similar to a camera phone’s camera-enabling button. If I am out and about and inspiration for an article pops into my head I’ll open my camera’s voice recording feature and give a quick summary of the idea.

Last week my mind was on the Nintendo Wii after reading an article about the new Wii Fit application coming out soon. “I want a Nintendo Wii. Delayed gratification, sleep on it, start a targeted savings account.” In less than 20 seconds I now had a topic idea recorded and three major discussion points. The next time I am around the computer I’ll add the article idea to my article bank in a fashion similar to the blog posting workflow Darren describes at ProBlogger.

Low-tech Options

There are obviously some low-tech options to consider. Some bloggers carry an idea notebook which could be as simple as a pad and pen tucked away in a back pocket. Others simply keep a folded sheet of paper with them at all times to record ideas and then transfer over to an electronic medium in the evenings. I personally find the cell phone voice recorder works best for me for the following reasons:

• I am less likely to lose my cell phone than a sheet of paper
• I can talk faster than I can write (and the faster I write, the sloppier my handwriting)
• It is not always convenient to write down a note, but talking on the phone is pretty well accepted as a socially acceptable activity

I’m interested to hear from other writers. Do you have any tips for recording future article ideas?

There comes a time in every writer’s career where he or she draws a total blank. Where inspiration is stopped dead in its tracks. Bloggers are not immune to this malady known as writer’s block, and in some ways we are more susceptible to it. The daily demands of cranking out new material make even the best blogger stay up late at night wondering if all the ideas spinning around in their head will one day simply dry up. Fear not! I have five proven ways to generate inspiration for articles. In fact, I used a couple of these to generate articles that appeared here on Frugal Dad just this past week.

Yahoo Has All the Answers

Well, not really. Yahoo does have a lot of questions, though. One of the best interactive features at the popular search portal is Yahoo!Answers. The idea is users sign up for a free Yahoo account and leave a question for other members. Those who submit questions review the answers and vote for the favorite. A point system was created to anoint power users, based on how many times they answered questions, and how many of those were voted as the “best answer.” How can Yahoo!Answers help you generate article ideas? By surfing the list of questions and answers related to your particular niche it is easy to see what people are interested to learn about. I recently saw a few questions asking about “credit card arbitrage.” People were curious to learn what it was, and if anyone was successful at it. It generated an article idea immediately and I was off to learn more about arbitrage myself.

Search Engine Query Results Are Your Friends

Most bloggers enjoy looking back through their site statistics to find out how people were referred to their site. I am no exception. It is often amusing to read the search terms people use to wind up at Frugal Dad. However, these logs are not just to be used for entertainment purposes. The real power from search engine query history is in helping us as writers determine what is popular at the moment, and what people are looking for on the internet. Armed with this knowledge we can begin to put together article ideas around those topics. This one recently worked for me as news of a possible economic stimulus package was being kicked around Washington. I started seeing some traffic on a tax related article with phrases like “is another tax rebate coming” and “will there be a 2008 economic stimulus package.” I quickly did some homework and published my own tax rebate story.

What Are Other People Writing About?

One of the greatest pages on any blog is the archives. Here you will find hundreds (sometimes thousands) of previously published articles on topics related to your niche. Look back at the previous month’s work - anything you could expand on? Anything you agree with or disagree with? Be sure to link back to their article and do your own homework, don’t just rip off their ideas. This technique also works well for your own blog. Look back at your own archives page for topics you could expand on, or plans you could update for your readers.

Listen to Talk Radio

Talk radio call-in shows can provide a ton of inspiration, particularly ones centered around your blog’s particular niche. I listen to The Dave Ramsey Show daily and frequently use a question from one his callers as the basis for an article. Even shows outside of your niche can generate ideas for peripheral topics. For instance, I was running an errand on Saturday morning and a local gardening show was on the radio. Someone called in to ask about square foot gardening. I had never heard of this concept, but was intrigued. I made a note to do some research when I got home. Weeks later, my How To Build a Square Foot Garden article is still by far the most popular article here at Frugal Dad.

Think Like a Blogger

Early in my writing career I read a great article at ProBlogger.net entitled “Learn to Think Like a Blogger.” The author wrote that one of the keys to coming up with ideas to write about was thinking like a blogger as you go about your every day life. When you start to think like a blogger you will find inspiration hits more and more frequently. One day I spotted some loose change in a parking lot and stopped to pick it up. A passerby made an interesting comment about my stopping to pick up money, and it motivated me to share the story with my readers.

Putting a combination of these tactics into practice on a regular basis may be the best preventive medicine available to avoid a case of writer’s block.

The following is part of Frugal Dad’s weekly series, “So You Want to Be a Blogger?” which chronicles the development and optimization of a blog’s lifecycle.

So where were we before that interruption caused by last week’s surge in traffic? Oh, that’s right. We had identified a topic, audience and registered our domain. Now it is time to select a hosting service to serve as the all important back end for our blog. Think of a host as the one that serves up all the content behind the pages of your blog. The following is a list of things to consider when selecting a host.

• Cost. Like anything else you can pay as much or as little for hosting depending on a variety of factors. Bandwidth, storage space, domains allowed, email accounts, and database features are all examples of the features offered by most typical blog hosting services.

• Bandwidth. The amount of bandwidth allowed by most hosts ranges from 3,000GB to 6,000GB monthly for beginner plans. Other hosts allow unlimited bandwidth for a higher price. Think of bandwidth as fuel in your car’s tank. Once you’ve used up all the gas your car can’t go any further. Same with your blog. Once you have maximized your monthly allocated bandwidth your host will not allow your blog to be accessed, and visitors will see an ugly message indicating your site has exceeded its bandwidth limits. It isn’t likely you will have to contend with this problem early on, but plan on having a little more than you think you will ever need to avoid any temporary interruption in your site’s uptime.

• Storage Space (disk space). Similar to bandwidth, storage space limits fluctuate depending on your selected plan. The more disk space you have the more files, pages, and emails you will be able to store on your host’s server.

After much deliberation I decided to go with HostGator, primarily because I knew someone hosting a blog there, and their introductory price was tough to beat. Setup was fairly intuitive with a one-click WordPress installation on the server. I downloaded a WordPress template and was up and blogging in less than an hour (from the time I received my account information from HostGator).

Be sure you understand the host’s backup plan, and create a backup schedule yourself to create a second layer of redundancy. I learned this lesson the hard way when I did something to corrupt my site’s files on the server. Now would be a good time to discourage messing around with template code, MySQL installations, etc. if you aren’t completely comfortable with what you are doing. Fortunately, my host backs up their servers once a week, so I was able to ask for a recovery back to their latest restore point. Unfortunately, I lost a few days of posts and template changes. Tip: Subscribe to your blog’s email subscription service and hang on to the emails. I was able to “recreate” my posts not included in the database restoration from my emailed articles.

Ask the Readers: Feel free to share your hosting experience in the comments section. I was hoping to include a list of hosts and some short reviews, but honestly I just don’t know that much about many of the other hosts out there.