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Tired of building links? Fed up with that time consuming, but so important part of internet marketing? Are you still dreaming of wealth and an ever growing internet business, but just can´t find the “umpf” to keep working on it?

Then continue reading because help is on its way!

If you are anything like me, you love automatization too. Recently I discovered there was a way to cut down the time I was spending on social bookmarking sites. Instead of actually having to go to all different sites seperately and add the links I wanted to link, I found a neat little application that would automatically do different runs on both bigger social bookmarking sites and scuttle pages.

Thought that was pretty neat and at times I would just go crazy, doing too many runs at the same time and than after a few days I would focus on something else. Consistency never has been my biggest forte but I do understand just how important it is to keep building links in a consistent manner and above all, not piss off the search engines.

Then AutoSocialPoster came in, taking away all the guess work, consistency problems and even more important, run 100% automatically once set up.

Since it is a plugin for wordpress all you need to do is install it on your wordpress blog, set the settings (you will have to create accounts for all 34 bigger bookmarkingsites, and can even create more than 1 account so your posts will be randomly submitted by different users) but once that is done (should not take more than 30 minutes) you are set!

Every time you publish a post on your blog and have your tags set, AutoSocialPoster will take over the work, creating technorati links and pinging the 34 sites.

So what is so cool about this plugin?

• No more socialbookmarking needed, so you are wasting less time.
• Each post can give you an easy 34 backlinks times the number of tags!
• Randomly use different accounts.
• Steadily build links each time you post, automatically!

Initial investment

is $197 but that means you get the license to install the plugin to as many wordpress blogs you run. Sounds like a good deal to me, since time IS money and this plugin saves me hours a day of tedious work, and to be honest, it gives me peace of mind, being able to focus more on adding good content to all blogs I own and seeing my traffic grow fast and steadily!

Doing the math

Say you run 10 blogs, and write around 40 posts a week between them. That would mean that without this plugin, you would have to socialbookmark 40×34 times …. a whopping 1360 times per week, over 70.000 times a year!

Adding 5 tags to each post, that means you automatically create over 350.000 backlinks to your 10 blogs each year.

Even if you only have 1 blog, this plugin can

easily get you 35.000 links per year!

All of a sudden that $197 sounds like a great investment to me so I went ahead and got the AutoSocialPoster. I will be posting in the future about the results it is giving me, but if you want to check it out meanwhile, I´d say go for it and have a look, that is, if you are serious about growing your online business

The more I get to learn about Wordpress and the use of Plugins, the more I start loving and appreciate the ease of them. There are a few plugins that I use on a regular base because they make blogging life just so much easier, so I wanted to share them with you. Please keep in mind that most plugins mentioned below are WordPress plugins, sorry for that guys, I only talk about what I know!

If you are not familiar with plugins and how to get them to work, please read this short introduction: Putting Your Plugins to Work before you start dowloading them.

If you are already familiar with plugins, here goes my list of my top 15 plugins I use on different blogs and almost couldn´t live without in the blogsphere!

Plugins to Improve SEO of your blog

• All in One SEO Pack by Uberdose

This one automatically optimizes titles for search engines, generates Meta tags and avoids duplicate content found on wordpress blogs. If you are running wordpress 2.3 or up you don´t even have to look at the options, but you can of course override and title and set any meta description and keywords you want.

• Contextual Related Posts by Mark Ghosh

This plugin is really neat because it shows the last 5 contextually related posts after every single blog post, making it easier for visitors to find related material if they liked the one they just read, but it will also bring forward older posts, thus improving the deeplinking of your blog.

• Dagon Design Sitemap Generator by Dagon Design

This plugin generates a fully customizable sitemap for your WordPress powered site. This is not just another XML sitemap plugin, but rather a true sitemap generator that is highly customizable from its own options page in the WordPress admin panel. Once installed and activated, all you need to do is go to the Settings page inside your WP control panel, click on the DD Sitemap and choose your preference. Once your preference are set, you create a new page and in the html you add the following code where you want the sitemap to show up:

<!– ddsitemapgen –>

Why is this plugin good for SEO? Apart from giving your visitor an easier way to navigate and find things on your site, you are again providing extra links to all your posts.
To see this plugin in action, visit my sitemap page.

• Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold

This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog that is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.

• Top Posts By Category by M&M

I am using this plugin to easily show the posts that were most commented all together on one page, but you can also set it to show the most visited posts in your blog. This will again bring extra link attention to your most popular post plus it gives your visitor a short list of most interesting posts on your blog.

• WWW Redirect by Justin Shattuck

Redirects variations of identical domain requests to a consistent uri to ensure http://www.easymoneyzine.com and http://easymoneyzine.com are not regarded as two different domains by the search engines.

Important Plugins you really need to install

• WordPress Database Backup by Austin Matzko

After having had a problem with another blog, losing all content because of my own stupidity, I have this plugin installed to make sure I get a database backup emailed to me weekly so I won´t have to worry about that anymore.

• MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer

Save your wordpress blog from getting tagged as ping spammer by installing this plugin. Did you know that the new Wordpress version already is set to ping http://rpc.pingomatic.com/? (You can find which services you are pinging by going to Settings in your controlpanel and then choose Writing. You can modify the services you want to ping everytime a post comes out at the bottom of that page).

Did you also know that everytime you edit a published post, you are sending another ping to the pinging services and that this might get your blog banned because it is considered spamming if you ping too often for the same post? And another little known fact is that when dating your posts in order to have different posts going public in the future, you will loose the value of these pingservices, because as soon as you hit the publish button, they will start searching your post, and guess what, they won´t find it if you have set the date to the future!

The cool thing about this plugin is that you can actually date posts that you have written and only ping once they are published online. Plus, you can edit your post without the danger of continuously pinging every time you change something in an already existing post. After installing the plugin, just activate it and go to the Settings in your controlpanel to make sure you register the plugin in order for it to work and start avoiding spamming pingers and getting blocked from their services.

• Google Analytics Plugin

If you are looking for an easy way to be able to see how your website is doing, how much traffic you are receiving, where people are coming from, how long they stay and which keywords brought visitors to your blog you might want to open a Google Analytics account for free. Once you have your account you will have to implement some code in order for Google to track your traffic. Now, instead of starting to muddle in the code of your template (and then having to do that again whenever you change to another template) you can use this plugin to easily put in the code. Once installed, just activate it and go to the analytics plugin you can find in Settings, and add the code in order for the plugin to start doing it´s job.

Add some spice to your blog with the following Plugins

• Unique Article Wizard - Creating Unique content for your blog

I only recently found this plugin and have been using it with great pleasure so far. One of the most important things when running a blog (and probably one that will give you the biggest advantages when it comes to the success of your blog) is updating very regularly. But, since we are all human and sometime life get´s in the way, there are always moments that inspiration lacks or we just don´t have the time to add posts. This plugin will allow other people to post articles to your blog, much in the same way article directories receive their articles, without losing control over the content, since you can have them posted as draft versions and you just need to approve the article (or delete it if it does not represent what you agree with).

This Article Wizard is a monthly service to help with your article marketing strategies, sending your articles to all different article directories in a unique version, but separate from that, they offer a free plugin you can easily install in order to receive articles you can publish on your blog for (they support all different sorts of blog platforms, not just wordpress).

You can directly download the plugin here.

• Add Sig by Dagon Design

I am using this plugin at the moment to add some interesting products that I am using, to the bottom of all of my posts but there are of course other things you can do with this plugin without having to change things in the core code. It supports up to three different signature templates so you have an easier way of adding something to the end of all of your posts, whether it be a special message (like for example, “if you liked this post, please leave a comment or digg/stumble it”) or maybe some adsense code or affiliate link.

• Anti-Sociable by Andy Beard

Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites so make it easier to be bookmarked in case a post was really enjoyed. Whenever I use the Sociable plugin, I prefer using the hacked version called Antisocial, which prevents losing linkjuice to social bookmarking sites.

• Commentluv by Andy Bailey

This plugin shows a link to the last post from the commentator´s blog in their comment. Just activate and it´s ready. Currently parses with wordpress, blogspot, typepad and blogs that have a feed link in the head section of their page. I like this plugin a lot; it has already lead me to many interesting blogs I would not have found otherwise.

• Enhanced WP-ContactForm by Joost Valk

WP Contact Form is a drop in form for users to contact you. In the message it sends to you it gives the page the user visited before the contact page, as well as the original outside referrer. It can be implemented on a page or a post. It currently works with WordPress 2.0+ and you can see it in action here. After activation of the plug, just go to Settings in your controlpanel and then to the enhanced wp contactform in order to configure your preference (like where you want the email to be sent to), once done, all you need to do is set up a new page and add the following code to the html wherever you want the contactform to appear:

<!–contact form–>

• Subscribe To Comments By Mark Jaquith

This plugin allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry, making it easier to keep track of certain comments and dialogues.

If you had to choose between blogging for fame or blogging for money, which would it be?

I assume you are reading this blog because you are looking for ways to make money online, so I believe this is really a question you should think about.

Many people starting a blog with in the back of their head the idea of making money with it equal running a big blog with 1000 of readers with making money and when they see the big A-list bloggers with their enormous amount of readers, they try copying whatever they do, following all their advice and buying all the “must-have-tools” they talk about.

Now you might think, sure, that is the way to make money, but let’s face it, the MMO business is well saturated and the only people making real money on yet another MMO e-book, are the big A-list bloggers who get first shot at promoting yet another tool you can’t live without.

It almost looks like a group of sheep following their leader to the slaughter, not thinking about what they should really do to get to the nice green lush paddock.

Meanwhile, their so-called leader stays out on the pasture, creating an even better field for themselves.

Anyways, before I go off on a rant, let’s go back to the initial question. Is it fame you are after, having a pretty cool designed blog, spending hours, days or even weeks on tweaking and thinking about your next step or is it money you are after?

If it is the fame you want, please leave now, because you won’t find how to become famous in my blog.

If it is money you are after though, you might want to start thinking about what things are really important to do.

First and most important is to take real steps towards creating a business and treat it as such. Playtime is officially over for you. Fooling around online is too. Finished, finito, say bye bye to long hours online, reading blogs, communicating with others and playing nice, checking email and stats a zillion times a day and the list goes on.

First step:
Create Content for your website
Second step:
Create even more content for your website
Third step:
Create yet another bunch of content to submit to article directories, creating links
Fourth step:
Repeat step 1 to 3
Fifth step:
Submit to directories, creating links
Sixth step:
Submit to social book marking sites, creating links
Seventh step:
Go back to step 1 to 6

To sum it up so you won’t forget:
Create content and loads of it, than work on getting organic traffic.

You may get famous anyways someday, but focus on getting money in your pocket first!

There are a lot of people in the blogosphere who want you to believe that it is almost impossible to make money from a blog, probably because they aren’t making hardly any money at all.

I am here to tell you though that it is possible and that in fact, it isn’t even that hard.

I would also say that it is possible for anyone to make money from a blog (I have seen people from many countries, of most ages - from children to elderly people - male and female, able bodied to people with a variety of physical hardships and people of different education and social levels make a go of blogging for an income).

It is very well possible but the reality is that most who try don’t make a lot of money.

The reasons why many who try don´t make much money blogging are many but here are 10 reasons that come to mind:

1. Not enough time - it is hard work and takes time on an ongoing (daily ideally) basis.
2. Giving Up too quickly - most successful blogs don’t hit their strides till they are at least 12 months old, but that does not mean your blog can´t make money starting the first month.
3. Non commercial Topic - some topics are easier than others to find significant income streams for.
4. Lack of writing skills - like it or not, blogging is a written form and unless you are able to write (or rewrite, or pay others to write for you) you’ll almost always struggle.
5. Breaking the Rules - some bloggers get greedy and break the rules, either of the ad programs they use or the unwritten rules of blogging.
6. Distractions for the core functions of a blog - many get caught up in one of the many distractions that challenge bloggers and forget to concentrate on their actual writing of quality content.
7. Unluckiness - sometimes a blog´s success hinges on a lucky moment - miss it or fail to take the opportunities that come and you might miss significant rewards.
8. Taking Readers for Granted - I have seen a couple of blogs over the last year or so that fell over because the blogger became so self absorbed that they forgot that a blog rises and falls upon whether it´s  readers find the blog useful to them.
9. Spreading yourself too thinly - many bloggers have the gift of being visionaries (a good thing) but fail to have the gift of realism. The result is that many start things that they have no way of seeing through or spread themselves across too many projects too quickly and by doing this, ensuring themselves of failure.
10. Lack of Focus - hyperactive bloggers who flit from one unfinished project or idea to another without seeing anything through tend to fail to build sustainable blogs.

Even as I write this list I realize that some of the above factors (and others that continue to come to mind even now) are within the blogger´s  grasp and some are not. Like any business there are both internal and external threats and risks - blogging for money is no different.

So let´s face it, anyone can make money through blogging. Fact remains that only a few actually do, because they are the ones determined to make it work and don´t mind putting in the elbowgrease it takes to build links and content continuosly.

Over the past few years I have been investigating many different ways you can make money online. And when saying that, I am referring to everything imaginable, from clicking and reading for money, doing surveys, filling out forms, affiliate marketing… You name it and I have done it.

I will be sharing many of my experiences, mistakes and failures but of course I will also be sharing how you can make money. I won’t lie to you, if you decide to go ahead and give it a go, setting up business online, you will have to work and treat it as a real job.

Forget about all those programs that will only make you cents and lose dollars, and after spending a lot of time on them, you will find there is no way to reach the minimum payout limit. You are worth more; your time is worth more!

I will give you a little example of the programs that I believe are a waste of time. You must have come across some of them, especially if you have been using search terms like “money online fast” or “easy money online”.

There are programs that will pay you to look at ads. For every 30 seconds you have your browser open with an ad, they will add, say, 0.01 cents to you account. Some even offer a $10.00 signup bonus, making it tempting to actually give it a go. But do the math…

In order to make $1.00, you will have to look at a 100 ads, in other words, 50 minutes of your time. Now, if you think that is a good return for your time, be my guest and go ahead, but I personally think my time is way more valuable!

Going back to the title, you have to be prepared to work for your money and a lot of times it can take quite a while until you notice any improvement. But in the end you will find that there are good ways to make money, a lot of it even, only if you are prepared to put in the basics and setting things up the right way.

For me, the right way turns out to be blogging for money. Now, there are different ways to actually monetize a blog, and there are a lot of things you will need to do and repeatedly to in order to achieve success.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be starting a series on how to build a business using blogs. These series will be built up in roughly 3 different blocks:

• How to set up a blog (the basics)
• How to get traffic to it
• How to monetize it

I will be sharing lists of sites to promote your blog, different ways of generating quick traffic and review a ton of products and services that I have tested and tried, ways to climb in ranking, tricks of the trade and a whole lot more.

At first it might seem a daunting task, but breaking things down in easily digestible blocks, you too will find you can earn a more than decent living online!

Feel free to comment and ask questions, especially if there is a specific program you are thinking of using but want to have some extra info on.

You might think “Geeeezzzz yet another blog on making money” and you are right thinking that. These days there are thousands of blogs on this subject, some are really good, but most are nothing more than crap, giving worthless advice and only came into the blogosphere to make money on unsuspecting newbies who are looking for a way to make their fortune.

So why would you want to read this blog, why will it stand out in the crowd?

First, because I know it is possible to make money online and I sincerely want to help you succeed in doing so.

Second, because I am completely fed up with all the quick money scams out there, which do nothing more than making their money offering bad advice and even worse products and schemes.

I sincerely believe that making money online is easy, but only if you know how to do it and you are really dedicated to fulfil the tasks at hand. If you think making money online means you do not have to work or if you are unwilling to dedicate the hours and focus needed to succeed you might as well leave now.

Earning your living online is a job and you will have to spend many hours before you can start seeing results, while you are still learning and testing out which method works best for you. You will have to test yourself and your dedication. You will have to be willing to invest time into improving yourself. There will be many times that you think it is never going to happen.

There will be many self doubts you have to conquer and you will need perseverance and a lot of dedication in order to succeed.

On the bright side, it is doable… And once you finally have found the way that best suits your personality and possibilities, once you finally start seeing results, you will be happy you did not throw in the towel.

This blog will become a valuable source of information, a place where you can find tools and advice on how to succeed. Is is my personal gathering place of information I use to make my living online, resources I use and tricks of the trade.

Please feel free to participate and comment, ask questions or even suggest subjects that need to be covered in the future.