Girls girls girls - Does sex sell in the blogging world?

If I use pictures of saucy ladies on my site will I get more traffic?

Will people come back time and time again because somewhere in the back of their mind or the front of their pants they subconsciously associate my blog with such women? Maybe, well probably not, but let’s give it a try.

On the other hand, will it turn off female readers? What if I keep the pictures sexy, but not slutty, you know, in that grey middle-ground?

I guess I’ll give it a try just this one time, and let y’all know how it works out.

Why you need your own domain

When starting out a blog or new site, it can be tempting to use a free host like blogger.com (blogspot) or wordpress, however this may not be the best course of action, especially if you are looking to make money online with your blog. But really, even if you are running a personal blog that is not designed to earn online, you may want to consider signing up for your own domain, and hosting your blog there - otherwise, you risk your hard work going down the drain.

What do I mean? If you use blogger, wordpress.com, or any other free blogging service, you may wake up one eventful morning to find your blog has vanished, often times without explaination, because these companies have the right to remove your blog at anytime, for any reason. It’s not worth taking the chance, afterall, domains are cheap, and there are many reasonable and reliable hosting companies that would be happy to host your blog and leave you in control of your creative works.

Choosing a Wordpress Theme

Starting a new blog, or simply in the market for a different Wordpress theme?  Style and visual appeal are important when trying to make money online, so choosing the right blog theme is a serious task. I did a google search for wordpress templates to find there are many sites devoting to providing such, some doing a much better job than others. When I’m looking for a theme I want something that is eye-pleasing but equally user-friendly. I like something easy to use as I am not overly technical, and don’t have time to monkey around with html.

A good site I found for my purposes is http://wordpress.pro. They have a nice selection of themes and a search function. The best I’ve found so far, at least.

List of monetezation sources for your blog - because people like lists.

There are many different ways to monetize a blog, some more successful than others. I am going to compile a non-exhaustive list here of some of the most popular methods, and companies that you can sign up with. It is my intention to try all of these methods over the life-span of this blog, and let you know of my results — so you can benefit from the results:

CPC - Cost per Click Networks:

Google Adsense
Bidvitiser
Chitika
Yahoo Publisher Network (In beta at the time of this posting)
Adbrite
Kontera
Adsonar
Clicksor

CPM - Cost per thousand impressions - Some of these have thresholds that make them hard to get into.

Tribal Fusion
FastClick
BurstMedia
Casale Media
AdSmart
Bannerconnect
ValueClick Media
RealTechNetwork
Budsinc
SearchFeed

CPA - Cost Per Action

Commission Junction
Azgoogle Ads
ShareASale
Linkshare
WebSponser
Advertising.com

PPP - Pay Per Post

Pay Per Post
SponseredReview
ReviewMe
Smorty

No doubt, some are missing, but most of the big ad networks should be included. I will review each one as they are tried on this blog, or one of my others.

What about Blog - We’re gonna increase our traffic with Entrecard!

One of the main keys to having a successful blog is traffic. As a new blog, it’s going to be hard for me to build traffic, and subsequently, harder to each any amount of popularity. I will be trying many different ways to generate traffic and one of those is Entrecard.

Entrecard is a community of bloggers that advertise on each others blogs through a widget that displays the current advertiser’s own card. I will create and install an entrecard widget in the coming days, and use this program to advertise on other blogs.

Update: I have designed my Entrecard using a free background found at http://marcroger.com/free-entrecard-designs/, and then used the program Snagit (google search if you’re interested) to ad some text. Finished result:

Welcome To What About Blog!

Hi there and welcome to whataboutblog.com, a blog focused on the ongoings of the blogosphere, and my personal blogging adventure! Come back often for tips, updates and other blog news. The plan is to write on a variety of topics, though focusing on web news and issues that are relevant to my fellow bloggers. I hope you’ll stick around!