One of the most critical blogging tasks is performing routine backups of your blog.  Maintaining frequent backups will keep you from losing all of those articles and custom theme changes that you've worked so hard to make.  From personal experience, losing a week or more worth of articles and losing 3-4 months worth of theme changes hurts.  Unfortunately, I've been there. Generally, most hosting companies provide backups of your WordPress blog, but they generally combine all of your files and Continue Reading

In 2007, I literally changed my life by starting my own blog.  I know it sounds crazy, but it really did.  I'm going to take a break from my typical technical and tips articles to share a bit of my personal story with you, in hopes that it may inspire and encourage you to create your own blog and hopefully change your life was well. My journey began in a crisis ... After all that I've been through  Now I realize the truth  That I must go through the valley  To stand upon the mountain of Continue Reading

The main product of your business, and the main reason people will visit your blog, is for your content.  Above all else, you should consistently focus on providing high quality content that is unique and provides value to your visitors.  This is the basis for blogging success and echoes a common blogging theme of: "Content is king". I published a prior article on treating your blog as a business, and touched on the subject of providing high quality and varied content.  I'd like to dive a Continue Reading

When I first went live with my personal finance blog in 2008, I knew little to nothing about blogging.  I hoped people would read it, but I honestly didn't think anyone would.  Regardless, whether I ended up with 1 reader or 10,000 readers, there were two rules I put in place for myself that I vowed to never compromise on: Always be honest Be real To this day, both of these are foundational rules I strive to hold to on my blogs and when doing development and design work for my clients. Continue Reading

One of the big mistakes I see new bloggers making is they fail to treat their blog like a business.  If you've started a money making blog, than you should be running your blog as if it were an online business.  Why?  Because it is.  Many new bloggers start a blog on the promise of earning money.  They make the mistake of thinking they can start a blog, publish a few articles and suddently begin earning hundreds of dollars a month.  Unfortunately, this mindset is far from the truth.  Growing a Continue Reading

This is a guest post Zach of Truth In Marketing. The internet is a scary and deceiving place. It’s littered with websites, products, and guides that promise you success if you follow their simple strategies. What the average consumer doesn't realize is that most of these sites and guides are scams aimed directly at them. The sales copy is flawlessly written and perfectly appeals to the emotions of the online newbie who’s trying to break into the internet scene. Unfortunately, many of these Continue Reading

I'm not sure exactly why, but in the past week or so, I've received a large (in excess of 10) emails from different people wanting to guest post here on Side Income Blogging.  I'm guessing it's maybe due to this site finally reaching some critical point of age and search engine ranking, but who knows.  Regardless, I've declined every one of them so far.  Yes, I responded to most of them saying, "Thanks, but I'll pass." Don't get me wrong, accepting guest posts can be a great way to feature Continue Reading

I was having an email discussion yesterday with one of my friends and clients regarding how ineffective some banner ads where performing on his blog.  The first thing I did when I read his initial email was look at his traffic - As I suspected, it was low. His site was averaging about 100 visits per day. Too low for any type of significant ad revenue, regardless of the type. Looking a little further in Analytics, I realized his overall search engine traffic was fairly low. I have some very Continue Reading

As some of you might have noticed, I've been trying to dedicate more time to Side Income Blogging.  Writing on here and sharing my blogging and Thesis knowledge is something I'm really passionate about.  When I allow my consulting and development work to pull me away, I miss it.  Anywho - In preparation for me to really kick this blog off again, I was doing lots of clean-up and verification.  Namely, things like updating plugins, updating WordPress, removing spam comments, validating that the Continue Reading

For many bloggers, Google Adsense is the number one money maker, mine included.  Google Adsense is a brilliant advertising solution, in that it caters adds to your content and can be styled to blend into your website and content.  In the early days of Adsense, getting approved was easy.  Today though, with the number of websites applying and the high percentage of "shady" sites, Google's approval process is a great deal more stringent.  I've personally received numerous emails from people asking Continue Reading