OHMYGOSSIP – Building a successful blog is no rocket science. It takes lots of time, effort and patience. Which most of the new bloggers lack. 90% of new bloggers stop updating their blog within 3 months. Although thousands of new blogs are going live each day it is not entirely impossible to build a successful blog.
Monetizing your blog is another thing. You need lots of readers an followers to build a reasonable income from a blog. But again it is not impossible. Just build yourself a popular blog and get your name out there. You’ll see the visitors number grow each day when you persevere and be patient. Most bloggers that want to earn money with their blog turn to Google Adsense, but is it possible to monetize your blog without banners and ads all over the place?
Here are 7 tips how to build a blog that makes money without using ads!
1. Launching your own products is a way to make money online
To launch your own products is a way to gain an income from your blog or website. Informative material, downloadable products that will help people solve their problems are a good way to create an income.
Design fact sheets, infographics, checklists, motivational products and/or e-books on topics like:
2. Promote your products
Use the same channels you use for promoting your blog, while promoting your products. Offer a free gift to create more sales or an email-list.
3. Have a marketing plan before you start:
*Who is your target audience?
*How will you reach them?
*What do you need to do that?
4. Use your blog as a medium
Write appealing content about your products with clear call to action, explain, tantalize, provoke if you like, make your visitors eager for your product. Add pictures, make it a positive happy item that give people a feeling their life will never be the same without your product.
5. Be patient, you won’t get rich overnight
Just as it takes time to grow your blog, it also will take time to grow costumers. If you gave your blog a good start by thinking ahead about the concept, your product line will fit right in from that start. Growth commences both way’s from the launch of both website and products. It might take up till 6 months to a whole year of updating your blog 2-3 times a week, before you will notice real growth. I would lie to you if I told you otherwise. Leaving Holland website is up and about for 6 months now and slowly I see visitors numbers increasing. It takes lots of strategic work and at least 10-20 hours work a week.
6. Make sure you have a good functioning website
Monetizing your blog is not only about content and marketing. It also means having your website in good shape:
Those things are inevitable. Combine those with a good theme, a shop area that is easy accessible and good, save payments methods and you offer a complete, appealing package to your visitors. Now all you have to do is to act upon your marketing strategy.
7. Think things through before you start
When you want to start a blog and you want to monetize it you need more than a plan. You need a niche market and a strategy. Everybody can start a blog, but not everybody has the creativity to make it work. Make sure you write a business plan before you start developing a product.
And again answer the questions:
*Who is your target audience
*How will you reach them
*What do you need to do so
Featured image: OHMYGOSSIP
Source /Written by: leavingholland.com
OHMYGOSSIP – OHMYGOSSIP has compiled a synopsis for our readers – with the help of scientists and experts – about advisable action in the event of explosion of a nuclear bomb in the region. When you notice a sudden intense flash of light that can possibly blind your eyes, it is likely that an atomic bomb just exploded, this is in case its epicenter was within the range of 50 miles (80,5 km). Once you can look around again and unless you are feeling excessively calm, you may conclude that you are still alive.
Additional signs of explosion would be first to third degree burns, this is in case its epicenter was within the range of 16 kilometers. The trademark of the nuclear bomb is, as you may know, the mushroom-shaped cloud in the sky.
As soon as you have figured out what is going on, you should search for shelter to hide from radioactive dust. Try to find an edifice with thick walls, the thicker the walls the better.
For example: most suitable are buildings with thick concrete or brick walls and no windows, or underground shelters such as basements and cellars.
Hiding in that kind of places it is likely that the amount of received radiation is 0,5% or 1/200 from the radiation outside. The best option would be a bomb shelter, however that would not always be at hand.
Wooden constructions such as rack houses in modern residential areas do not guarantee significant protection from radiation. If you know a nearby building that would do and it will take you less than five minutes to make it there, it is worth the risk. Should it take already 15 minutes outside to reach the destination, then remain where you are for the next hour and then move to a better spot. This precaution is because the fall of radioactive dust will remarkably diminish by that time.
Once you are in a building with thick walls, make sure to keep away from doors and windows. If possible, take a shower or simply wipe the exposed skin with a wet towel, also uickly take off the contaminated clothes. Put the clothes in a plastic bag, close the bag and take it as far from where you yourself are as possible. While in a shower, use shampoo and soap, but do not rub or scratch the skin. Also, do not use conditioner, since it will glue the radioactive particles to your hair. When finished with the shower, also blow your nose and brush the eyebrows, eyelashes and ears, to remove as much of the remaining radioactive grime as possible.
Note that you should drink only bottled water and eat food from undisclosed containers, until the rescue team reaches you. As you wait there, you can listen to the radio in order to learn about the relevant events and perspective of finding help.
NordenBladet — The MATKA Nordic Travel Fair together with the Caravan fair gathered nearly 67,000 visitors to Messukeskus Helsinki. Visitors came to get inspiration and new ideas, and to dream.
According to a survey done by TNS Gallup, 69 % explored European destinations, 56 % Finnish destinations, 49 % more remote destinations, and 43 % different forms of transportation. Visitors came to get information about next summer’s (44 %) and spring’s trips (41 %). 17 % reported to plan trips for next winter.
When compared to last year, 80 % of the visitors plan on using the same amount of money or more on travelling. Two thirds replied that visiting the MATKA fair will affect their travel plans.
83 % of the respondents value the fact that Finnish destinations are also on display. In Finland the visitors are interested in nature travel (37 %), Finnish cities (36 %) and different events and culture (35 %).
Visitors come to the MATKA fair to dream (80 %), to get new experiences (78 %) and to find special offers (73 %). Three thirds state that meeting travel trade professionals face to face is also important.
– Despite the freezing winter temperatures and heavy snow people came to get new ideas and inspiration for their trips. The MATKA Nordic Travel Fair definitely has a firm position as the meeting place of travel buffs and travel trade professionals. With over 80 countries represented plus various Finnish destinations it provides an excellent overview of the variety of travel options, states Heli Mäki-Fränti from the Association of Finnish Travel Agents (AFTA)
The survey was done by TNS Gallup, commissioned by the MATKA fair. The number of respondents was 300 visitors.
♥ Next year the MATKA Nordic Travel Fair and the Caravan fair are organised 19-22 January 2017.
OHMYGOSSIP — The Interactive Advertising Bureau and Edison Research today are releasing new stats on how consumers listen to podcasts and respond to audio-based advertisements.
The new report gives marketers a peek at sentiment about podcast advertising from a poll of roughly 1,000 listeners. More brands and media companies than ever are investing in podcasts, but they’re not getting the same types of metrics about audio advertising that other types of digital ads provide—like clickthrough or view rates. While advertisers can see how many people download a podcast, they don’t know how long people spend listening or whether they skip over the ads.
Per the report, 65 percent of listeners said podcast ads increase purchase intent while another 45 percent said that they’re likely to visit an advertiser’s website after hearing an audio promo. Another 42 percent of listeners said they would consider a new product or service after hearing a plug for a brand, while 37 percent use podcast ads to help research brands.
When it comes to how consumers listen to audio programs, 70 percent said that being able to listen to them on-demand is “very important,” and 58 percent said they like being able to listen to exclusive content they can’t get elsewhere.
The IAB is releasing the stats in conjunction with its second annual Podcast Upfront event in New York, which features presentations by popular podcasters Malcolm Gladwell, Ira Glass and Marc Maron, and companies including NPR, HowStuffWorks and Panoply.
OHMYGOSSIP — Condé Nast is now tapping into Watson, IBM’s super computer, to help build and strategize social influencer campaigns for brands. Through a new partnership announced today with IBM and the influencer platform Influential, brands advertising with the media company’s properties—publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker—will be able to use big data to better know which social media celebrities might make for a good match for any given campaign.
Using software built by IBM and Influential, Condé Nast’s clients will be able to know which influencer’s demographics, personality traits and more best align with a marketer and the audience it’s targeting.
“Within the dating sense of the word, we are matching people based on different data points,” said Influential CEO Ryan Detert. “We’re a matchmaker—just with multiple points of vetting.”
For example, if a brand wants to find somebody who’s adventurous, Watson—which can analyze the last 20,000 words and emojis an influencer has published—helps weed out those that are more prone to doing vlogs from their couch. If a brand wants to pitch an action film, they might input key words like “action” and “explosion” to see which influencers have used them the most. Once the data analysis is complete, Watson then picks out five, 10 or a few dozen candidates for humans to choose from. (A competitive analysis by Watson also looks at whether an influencer is already pitching products for related brands or if a person has ever been arrested.)
It all comes down to better understanding the consumer experience, said Stephen Gold, vp of IBM Watson. Every reader has countless options for where to consume content. Watson considers 52 unique attributes for each person: Are they open-minded? Are they dutiful? Are they outgoing? The more Watson knows about an individual, the more it can help brands know what will resonate.
Until recently, computers were unable to reason deductively like humans by inferring truths based on a series of other facts, Gold said. While computers like Watson have made large strides in deductive and inductive reasoning, Watson can now begin to add abductive reasoning by making suggestions for an answer based on already available facts.
“The way I think about it, and maybe this is too simplistic, but you used to only have so many levers you could pull,” Gold said. “Some of those are foundational, others about style, and the techniques that are employed, but you quickly run out of things that you can change. This starts to open up some new levers that people can pull and say ‘Oh, we can take the personalization of content based on the reader, aligned to the influencers.’ It’s creating markets of one.”
OHMYGOSSIP — The NFL regular season starts this week, and Sports Illustrated wants to load up your podcast apps with football commentary all fall. SI is launching three new weekly podcasts with DGital Media today, audio extensions of its Monday Morning Quarterback (MMQB) website that covers football. MMQB editor Peter King will host one of the shows—The MMQB Podcast with Peter King—featuring interviews with the likes of John Elway, Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett and Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians.
In addition to King’s show, there are two other football-themed podcasts: one with MMQB.com reporter Albert Breer and another one called The Ten Things MMQB Podcast.
Sports Illustrated is backing up its investment in audio with stats. Streams for its existing shows, including the SI Media podcast hosted by Richard Deitsch and the basketball-themed SI’s Open Floor, have increased 200 percent in the past year with downloads up 150 percent.
“As time goes along, we’ll introduce some non-MMQB podcasts, but with football starting this week, this represents the best opportunity to fill the richest conversation from the start,” said Chris Stone, group editorial director at Sports Illustrated. “Even anecdotally, we sense that [this] is beyond the football space.”
He added, “We saw this summer in particular basketball around the NBA finals—we saw massive spikes in people who were engaging and downloading our podcast.”
At launch, King’s show will be sponsored by Blue Apron, FanDuel, SeatGeek and Harry’s with preroll and midroll ads.
Unlike other podcasts that prerecord ads with a separate voice, all of Sports Illustrated’s ads will be read by the hosts.
“It allows a premium influencer like a Peter King to talk through what that sponsorship is, whether it’s a 60-second or 30-second midroll or preroll spot,” said Chris Corcoran, chief content officer at DGital Media.
OHMYGOSSIP — Procter and Gamble is on the lookout for a new Mr. Clean. After 60 years with the same mascot, the brand is shaking things up—over the next month, it will look at audition reels and host two casting sessions in New York and Los Angeles as part of a contest to find a new face for the squeaky-clean brand.
To introduce the contest, the brand has a new 60-second spot with actor Kellan Lutz spoofing an audition reel for the Mr. Clean role. It is part of a new push from Leo Burnett to “revitalize the brand” by bringing back what made it resonate with consumers in the first place—its iconic jingle and mascot.
“This is the second in our series of efforts to go back to our roots,” said Kevin Wenzel, associate brand director for Procter and Gamble North America. “The first was the new modern version of our jingle television spot, which we launched July 1. It was a well-known jingle that was used to launch the brand. We used it for decades, and it was brought into a more modern context.”
Wenzel added, “The jingle ad gives us the perfect time to reintroduce the man because it’s bringing up great memories of the brand itself, and he is inextricably tied with the brand.”
Though there will be a new face in the fold, Mr. Clean the iconic character is not going away, according to Wenzel.
“We will still have our iconic Mr. Clean, but this will be a chance to let a consumer have a little bit of fun and let us have a little bit of fun as well,” Wenzel said. “That next Mr. Clean will be helping us generate content, including appearing in a calendar which we’ll be showing online.”
Mr. Clean will announce the contest winner in mid-October.
OHMYGOSSIP — Creative design agency ModOp has a client roster full of well-known and hip brands like Sony Pictures, PlayStation, Fender and Belvedere Vodka. And the agency (it has locations in New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and Panama City, Panama) has offices that are just as cool as the companies it serves.
Recently its Los Angeles outpost relocated to new quarters, and president and co-CEO Jeff Suhy saw the move as the perfect opportunity to display his numerous collections. The former record label exec used mementos like fan mail, folk art and radio show props to personalize every corner of his new space. “I’ve been lucky enough to have had several careers from music, architectural design and technology and now advertising,” he said. “I’m a collector and I wanted to share some of my artifacts with our clients and employees.”
OHMYGOSSIP – Websites are like private islands. No one can visit the island unless somebody “builds a bridge” to it. To succeed online, your website must have connections to other websites. Think of these connections as bridges. The best bridges deliver the most traffic and clients. Doing business online does not end in hiring experts who are trained to create a website. Building websites has only a small contribution to the success of every online endeavor.
Fortunately, there are a lot of “bridges” that could turn your website into a money-generating machine. As an online entrepreneur, the term search engine optimization (SEO) and traffic generation should already be familiar to you. So I’ll talk about website traffic and SEO later on.
Social Media Today, social media platforms like Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Facebook are considered as excellent venues to redirect potential viewers to your website. In fact, they already serve as a venue for customers and service providers to meet. Many people would check out these social media platforms before running through the streets, or using the old phone book, looking for plumbers and electrical service professionals.
Experts initially had low hopes for using social media in their marketing strategy. But as time went by, social media started playing an integral role in getting high volumes of website traffic. Social media serves as a perfect means for online entrepreneurs to reach their target audience at a faster pace.
Some say that search engines wouldn’t really care much if your website content gets thousands of retweets or likes. While the number of retweets or likes may not have a direct impact on SERP. When topnotch and influential person decides to feature your website or share a link to it, this usually generates a lot of traffic. This could mean business for you!
There are millions of social media users around the globe so let these millions of users spread the word for you. It no longer can be denied that social media and SEO always go hand in hand. So if you intend to get high quality and massive traffic, then you should learn to integrate social media with your other marketing strategies.
Local Citations Local citation plays an integral role in sending your website traffic generation project into an overdrive. It is a process which involves mentioning your website in local listing services and external websites.
Citations usually include your business name, address, and phone number. These three are often referred to as NAP.
There are lots of local directories listed online but Google My Business, Yelp!, Merchant Circle, and Yellowpages.com are the most popular in the US. With their millions of subscribers and active users, getting listed in these local directories should deliver incredible traffic to your website.
Local citation strategy works best for companies that aim to do business with people in a specific geo-location.
Blog Posts Creating blog articles with keyword-rich topics is also beneficial in building traffic. The use of proper and relevant keywords as well as meta-tag descriptions has a significant impact in indexing your website.
Writing guest blog posts for popular blogs is a proven strategy for attracting website traffic. Your site gets not only visitors, but also converts them into loyal subscribers
Online Ads According to research, placement of online ads is also cost effective in increasing website traffic.
A properly created ad with Google can boost website traffic almost overnight.
As of this writing, Facebook ads are some of the most cost effective and well targeted ads available. Placement of ads in the news feeds of Facebook users significantly increases your probability of getting traffic.
What All of the Above Have In Common Through the years, many entrepreneurs have realized the importance of back links in optimizing their websites for search engines as well as skyrocketing their website traffic.
Back links, also known as inbound links, play an important role in getting to the top pages of popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Websites with high quality back links usually get high Domain Authority from Google, thus they are considered as a more relevant search result.
Eventually, this achieves increased ranking on a search engine results page.
The quality of back links is usually measured by the relevance of the content of the other sites that are linked to the website.
Quality Website Traffic Requires More Than SEO Visitors arrive at your website from many sources. Each source of website traffic is just one bridge to your website. Search Engine Optimization is just one of the many bridges that your website needs.
It takes a lot of effort and time for SEO to deliver significant results.
Back links from Social Media, Local Citations, and Guest Blog Posts bring traffic faster than SEO.
Remember, the fastest way to acquire web traffic is through online Ads.
Nowadays, entrepreneurs have realized that traditional and digital marketing strategies are crucial ingredients to business profitability.
There is no magic bullet, or secret sauce to profitable web traffic.
Fortunately, there are number of digital marketing experts out there who are willing to lend a hand to entrepreneurs who are struggling to capture a larger market. Through their expertise, business owners are able to focus their full attention to their business while their minds are at ease that their online marketing strategies are working at the optimum.
NordenBladet – There’s a misconception that Silicon Valley is all about creating frivolous apps and getting paid buckets of money to do it while working in a frat house. Some of the brogrammer culture does exist in pockets, but it doesn’t define the cradle of innovation where thousands work and create in Silicon Valley. Here is Silicon Valley´s TOP 10 most amazing and inspiring people in tech right now.
It has been a big year for Zuckerberg. At Facebook’s annual F8 developers conference in April, he laid out a 10-year road map for Facebook, detailing short-term plans to ramp up video, search, and apps, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, in the next five years. The company’s long-term focus will include bigger projects like drones, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.
Zuckerberg also became a dad last fall, prompting him to pledge to give away 99% of his $50 billion fortune throughout his lifetime. He will do so primarily through a new organization he cofounded with his wife, Priscilla Chan, called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is aimed at making long-term investments in causes and organizations that will improve health, education, and equality.
Once just a search engine, Google has grown so tremendously that its cofounders felt it was time to restructure the company. In a letter last summer, Page announced the creation of Alphabet, a holding company that oversees Google and numerous other subsidiaries. As Alphabet’s CEO, Page can focus on acquiring new technologies, fostering “moonshot” projects, and developing talent — his first move was promoting Google’s Sundar Pichai from senior vice president to CEO.
In June, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Page had personally acquired two companies working on creating a flying car, an investment unaffiliated with Alphabet.
Worth $68 billion, the ride-hailing service Uber, helmed by Kalanick, holds steady in its place as the most valuable private tech company in the world. Under Kalanick’s leadership, the startup also raised the largest round of venture capital ever, bringing in $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in June.
Uber continues to expand and innovate, particularly through new services, such as UberEats, which brings meals to New York City customers, and UberRush, which helps businesses make deliveries. Kalanick leads the charge as Uber expands and conquers new markets, even as it faces fierce competition in China.
4. Elon Musk
CEO, Tesla; CEO and CTO, SpaceX; chairman, Solar City
Musk continues to be one of the world’s most influential entrepreneurs — and preeminent multitaskers. Musk has his eyes set on dominating land and space through Tesla Motors and SpaceX, two of the hottest and most progressive companies of our generation. In April, Musk unveiled Tesla’s mass-market Model 3, racking up 375,000 preorders in one month. The company is reportedly struggling to meet demand.
In June, Musk made a highly criticized all-stock offer for Tesla to acquire the floundering solar-energy company SolarCity; Musk owns 22% of the company and serves as its chairman. And if that weren’t enough, he also envisioned a futuristic transporation system called the Hyperloop that would take people from LA to San Francisco in less than an hour. One company building a system based on that idea has now secured $80 million in series B financing in May and has begun testing its technology.
5. Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner
Cofounder and executive chairman (Hoffman), CEO (Weiner), LinkedIn
In March, Weiner gave his $14 million stock bonus back to LinkedIn employees after the company’s stock tumbled 40% following the company’s tepid February earnings report. Weiner hoped the move would help reinvigorate employees and improve morale.
By June, the company’s stock-price woes had become moot. The tech world shook after Weiner and cofounder Hoffman oversaw the professional social network’s sale to Microsoft for a stunning $26.2 billion in cash. The deal marked Microsoft’s largest acquisition ever, with the software giant paying a 50% premium to close the deal. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella plans to eventually sync LinkedIn’s network with Microsoft Office, ideally bolstering the overall user experience on both sides.
6. Jack Dorsey
Cofounder and CEO, Twitter and Square
As CEO of both Square and Twitter, Dorsey has his fingerprints all over Silicon Valley. In November he took the mobile payment company Square public, opening at $9 a share, lower than the $11 to $13 originally proposed. Though some outlets called it a flop, many entrepreneurs would kill for the company’s $3 billion market capitalization and $1.3 billion in revenue.
And after returning to Twitter as interim CEO last July (and officially appointed CEO in October), Dorsey has spent the past year turning the struggling social network around by solidifying its mission and making product adjustments, including plans to incorporate more live video and crack down on the hateful abuse many users complain about.
In the past 12 months, Cook guided the tech giant through the launch of Apple Music, which garnered 6.5 million paid subscribers in the first month after the service’s free-trial period; released the Apple TV 4, which can run third-party apps and access Siri; and introduced the iPad Pro, the company’s largest tablet, boldly declaring the end of PCs with it.
Under Cook, Apple also recently invested $1 billion into Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing service that is blowing Uber out of the water in China. The deal was Apple’s first major investment since it bought Beats Electronics in 2014.
It might not be a shiny, consumer-facing product, but the cloud computing software company Salesforce is crushing it and remains one of the hottest tech companies in the world. Helmed by Benioff, the $50 billion business boasts a 22% compound annual growth rate and is expected to rake in more than $8 billion in revenue this year.
Benioff has become a model CEO not just for financial success but also for social involvement, standing up for gender equality, workplace diversity, and LGBT rights. He has openly criticized legislation that could be used to discriminate against LGBT workers and publicly pledged to guarantee equal pay for men and women.
9. David Marcus
VP of messaging products, Facebook
It has been nearly two years since Marcus left his cushy job as president of PayPal to join the Facebook team as vice president of messaging products, a move he has called a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” Under his rule, Facebook’s Messenger has grown into a beast of its own, with 900 million monthly active users as of April.
This year Marcus built out Messenger’s AI capabilities to include Spotify song sharing, Uber and Lyft ride hailing, food ordering, and flight tracking. And with the recent unveiling of chat bots for businesses, Messenger aims to make sure you never have to deal with human customer service again.
Previously a Goldman Sachs vice president and a senior scientist at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, respectively, Slingerland and Dylla publicly launched Stemcentrx in September along with Reiner, a serial investor and former telecom executive. Their mission: to end cancer by targeting cancer-specific stem cells.
Less than a year later, the pharma giant AbbVie bought the biotech startup for $10.2 billion, when the company was valued at $5 billion, in one of the largest tech acquisitions ever. AbbVie showed special interest in Stemcentrx’s lung-cancer-fighting drug Rova-T, which could grow the company’s oncology business. AbbVie hopes to bring the drug to market by 2018.
