For those of you that have signed up for my email updates, you might have noticed that as part of my welcome email, I ask two questions: What is your biggest blogging struggle or challenge right now? What is the primary goal for your blog? The most common response I receive for #1 is - "Not sure how to start a blog" and the most common answer I receive for #2 is "make money".   While I couldn't find any recent numbers, in 2006 a new blog was created every half a second.  That's over 63 Continue Reading

For the past few years, the Thesis theme for WordPress was hands down my personal favorite premium WordPress theme.  Thesis provided all of the features and capabilities I required and it's fast. But with the release of Thesis 2.0, I began to question their direction, and ultimately made the switch to the Genesis framework from StudioPress.  Here are just a few of the premium theme options that I considered as I looked to move away from the Thesis framework for my sites and for my Continue Reading

I love it when bloggers and websites owners are interested in learning how to customize their site.   One of the most frequent questions and "calls for help" I receive are questions about CSS.   Generally these requests are from bloggers interested in doing a little customization of their sites on their own and who are interested to learn CSS and HTML on their own. Just last week, Nikol Murphy was asking for some CSS help on her site, Talking Moose Media and I offered my assistance to help Continue Reading

No, the title of this article isn't some attempt at a sensationalistic article title intended to get you read it.   I'm really going to "buck the trend" and make a case for why you shouldn't intentionally build backlinks and why I think this practice can potentially hurt your SEO more than it will help it.   I realize I'm probably going to take a lot of heat from this article, especially from the "SEO experts", but I'm okay with that. What are backlinks? First a little background.   A few Continue Reading

One of the mistakes I see many of my less technical blogging clients and friends making is forgetting to maintain and keep their blog updated.  I logged into a client's site the other day to look at an issue they were having, and noticed they were down by 3 WordPress revisions, and about 15 plugins had updates pending!  Needless to say, I coached them on the importance of updates and even offered to do them ongoing for them under a maintenance agreement. One of the most important aspects of Continue Reading

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to look for it - Henry David Thoreau One of the more interesting phenomenon's I see in the "blogosphere" is that some blogs quickly become a huge blog success, while other blogs struggle to grow at all. I would be lying if I claimed I had any reasonable explanation for this.  I must also admit that I often wonder why Side Income Blogging hasn't been more successful.  Actually, I've done far more than wonder, I've given this whole topic Continue Reading

The internet is full of "make money blogging" videos, webinars, membership courses, blogs and eBooks.  Some of the top money related searches on Google are things like: How to make money online, make money blogging, and how to make money online fast.  Contrary to all of this, here's the reality: In most cases, you WILL NOT make money online fast or generate a six figure income from your blogging efforts. If you're looking for tips on how to make money online fast or "get rich quick" Continue Reading

One of the most frequent requests I get on Side Income Blogging is from visitors asking me to review their sites and offer feedback.  I actually don't mind doing this for a couple of reasons: I enjoy looking at other blogs and often add these blogs to my Feedly reader list. Spending time reviewing other people's blogs often results in services work for me. Reviewing other blogs often exposes me to new ideas and trends. I generally review 5 - 10 sites a week based on people asking me Continue Reading