LinkMoney.org

There, I’ve said it. No apologies.

A year ago you would not have been able to force any level of computer programming down my craw. That is actually still the case. I HATE programming!

I was a Blogger Blogging Blog aficionado. I owned a full featured authority website in a certain field that had been active for many years, that was built by a professional company using Joomla! I had a strong user base and still do. That site led me to wanting to be able to have a more casual connection with my fans and users, so therefore I Blogged using Google’s Blogger.

I never thought about actually being able to make money off this thing called the Internet. Man, what a mistake. I will tell you that I am not one of those Eureka Kids that made a gazillion dollars, er, not yet anyway, but there is a steady stream now that I never dreamed would happen in my life time. It can only get better.

So I forced myself to learn how to install WordPress, purchase domains and hosting and build websites. You will recall that I wrote about this previously in another post: Make Money Create Blogs for your Neighbors

Well this is an update. I have built way over a hundred websites and with each one there are new challenges and new things to learn and accomplish. It seems to me that Matt at automattic probably knew what he was doing when he unleashed this fabulous free software to the world, but I could not see it at the time. Now I get it.

The old way of creating a website page by page in an editor, then uploading and debugging it are over. This Content Management System (CMS) that is open source, (as in Free,) is something that almost anyone that can dial a telephone is able to learn a little at a time. This is causing a world changing event that is progressing even as you read this.

I still figure that it takes about 40 hours to bring a site to it’s full value with all the little features and goodies that you would want, but it actually only takes a couple of hours to install the rough content of a website that even if someone were to fall off a barstool and come up on this domain by accident, it would still look like a real web site.

I have set up sites now in fields that I know almost nothing about, but they can be populated by the new owners in just a matter of minutes, well OK hours. I have built sites in cars, sports, health, history, medicine, saw mills, machine tools, hunting, camping, scouting, sales, bargains, credit, wine, geo based (like city names,) travel, dogs, weddings, antiques, art work, collecting… Get the picture?

You can do this too. Make a few bucks setting up sites for your friends, families, neighbors, and local businesses. You can do it!

First and foremost, in my opinion, is get yourself comfortable with using an ftp program. I held out on that one, and realize that was my weak point. I had played around a little with file transfer protocol in the late 1980’s. That is when I grew to hate programming. Well the ftp programs of today are not your typical father’s ftp program. There’s dozens of them and I’m not going to try to influence you with one over the other. They all do the same thing. Join a forum. Google the Hell out of any questions you might have. The ftp program will be your new best friend.

If you are just starting, pick a domain registering hosting company, (not GoDaddy,) buy one of their cheap programs, and get started. Sure the cheap ones will have you parked on a Tinker Toy server, but you get what you pay for. You can always upgrade, which you will soon do.

I now pay for hosting with three companies, two average ones with average services and bandwidth, and one super duper one that costs more that I ever thought I would pay anyone for anything, almost. But the Damn thing works and never is down. I recently struck gold with setting up a news story related website that I was able to get in on the first floor with. As an early adopter with a keyword rich url and dozens of posts, I am on the first page of you know who in just one week. I haven’t started to monetize this site yet, but I will after a while. With any luck you will be reading future posts, say in a year or so, from the South Sea Island pictured above.

Most of all, read good Blogs in the mmo field to get the impetus to get off your butt and get going. Join some forums, take some online courses, and learn from those that have been successful. I have been doing all of the above for only eight months. Now I are not quite an expurt, but I’m gaining on it.

Here is my recommendation for one of the very best programs on the Internet, and I am not even going to use my affiliate link, I believe in this man and what he does so much that I want you all to join. Like TODAY!

Yaro Starak! What a great name! This guy is unforgettable by having a name that is so like poetry that it will make you want to change your name. But that is not the reason to remember him best by. You absolutely MUST join his Blog Mastermind program! He just started one up again a few sessions ago. You will not have missed anything because all of his mentoring sessions are recorded and downloadable to the students.

You will be tied in to a Blog Mastermind forum, where you can post questions and get real excellent answers from those that know their stuff. You will be tied into a major group with a well known company, that will give you a way to help other students with social networking and to receive the same in return. That in itself is almost worth the price of admission. You want traffic? You can’t handle traffic…! (Oh no, that was from an old movie, I think.)

How’s that for a rant?

It all starts by learning WordPress. It’s not just for Bloggers you know.

I’m Rich!

(Oh by the way, in case you were wondering, you have my permission to give this post a little Link Luv by using your social networking tool listed below.)

In Asia it is standard custom to pay attention to and honor your elders. That certainly holds true everywhere, or should, but let me tell you about some one else that makes sense far beyond his years.

Jason, the University Kid.

At first when i started reading Jason’s posts, I just presumed he was spoofing us and that he was pulling something like the John Cow deal. I am now convinced he is everything he claims to be, and that he really is a kid of University age. Amazing wisdom!

I have been reading and commenting and meeting others through his Blog and I am very impressed with the youth of this world! For all the bad things you hear about and read about and see on TV, there are certain members of this younger generation that are shining examples of success in the making as well as success right now!

I’m pretty sure that Jason will make it VERY BIG in this world. I don’t know him except through his Blog, but I can tell you this, he is generous to a fault with sharing his methods and advice, and if I were you, I would (and do,) pay very close attention. The make money online (mmo) world is full of wannabees. Jason is a doobee.

Check out his excellent website at: TheUniversityKid.com

LinkMoney.org readers will remember that we discussed Social Networking in a previous post.

LinkMoney dot org Let’s Get Social

Now we want to discuss this in a little detail in case there is anyone that does not know how to go about getting involved. These Social sites are becoming more and more prevalant. You can literally subscribe to hundreds of them.

We at LinkMoney generally find that about a half dozen of the more popular ones are good enough for our purpose. We often use StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, Delicious, and Twitter. Ok, five then.

Here’s how it works. You first must visit those sites and sign up for an account, always free, as in no cost at all. You will get a user name and password to use every time you want to sign in. If you sign in on a regular basis say once a day, then you generally do not have to sign in each and every time you want to promote a website.

The purpose of these Social sites is to give you your own one vote to tell the world that you approve of a site. The more votes the sites get, the higher their notification count goes, and if they become viral in nature, your favorite website might just get many thousands of visits in just one day!

It is a little nuiscance to go through the sign in and captchas but it is a small price to pay of your time to help out a fellow Blogger or website that you feel is of special mention.

Our friend in Blogging, Michael Martine, Blogging Consultant, over at MichaelMartine.com has posted an extremely helpful explanation regarding how to set up a BlogPack. His logo of a pack of wolves is certainly understandable, but I would like to think of this idea as the team in a circle with all of the players hands stacked up on one another at a ball game. Give a cheer and help your friends out. You will be amazed at how it will come back to help you.

Visit the BlogPack blog.

Incidently, if anyone wants to start a BlogPack here just do your thing and let us know about it. We’ll visit your site and reciprocate. Try to stick with the proper theme, such as; Blogging, Make Money Online, SEO, wordPress and so on.

Enjoy!

Now that you know how to build a WordPress website, why not put your talent to work and make some extra money?

Look around your neighborhood and talk to storekeepers and manufacturers that you know. Ask them if they have a website? If they do ask them if they have a Blog?

The normal answer to question number two is, No. They may tell you that they can’t be bothered, but in reality it is probably more like they are scared to Hell to get into it figuring they would make some serious blunders and do not want to look like an idiot.

That’s where you can put on the salesman’s cap and give them your best pitch.

A Blog is DYNAMIC. It is ever changing with new content and the Big G (and other search engines also,) just LOVE new content.

With new content the client/customer will be able to impress their readers with new products, discount sales, special promotions and so on. Their Blog sites will get indexed much more often then their old canned spam static website.

Here is where you put on your techie beanie. You will build them a website or Blog and customize and fine tune it to just what their needs are. You already are friends with all of the plugins and themes and bells and whistles that you have struggled to tame, and now it should be cake to implement all of just the right ones for this project.

How do you make money?

Well let me tell you how I do it. Offer to work cheap, say fifty bucks an hour. Most web design companies have to charge $150-$200 per hour to cover their costs, overhead and profit. You won’t have much of an expense and the work is going to be done in your spare time, and it will keep you out of the bars anyway.

I figure a minimum of 40 hours is needed to set up a site from the ground up. That’s name, registration, hosting, and miscellaneous minor expenses. Then you will work with the client to design a system that suits them and you will keep getting input from them as you are building it. They usually do not have any idea what they want until you show them what you have in mind, and then they might get the design juices flowing themselves and feed you with a bunch of good material.

So after a couple of weeks of spare time and about 40 hours invested you should have a half dozen or so articles posted and the client should easily be able to take over the posting. If not, then you might be able to continue posting, say a minimum of a couple of times a week for X amount of dollars on a continuing basis.

I have done this a few time so far and to date I have never drawn any of the above named rates, but I make sure to let the client knows what a great deal they are getting even with my low rate. Here is what I do for payment. Think about what the client has a lot of that could be worth something to you. I have taken goods in trade, and I have also negotiated a commission payment or piece of the action, which you will have to try to negotiate yourself. Most people in business are willing to give it a try if they do not have to actually fork over hard earned cash.

I know it works for me. My customers are thrilled with the results, and they are on their happy Blogging way!

Go for it…

make money blogging

Thanks to Caroline Middlebrook this website was able to be created! Caroline Middlebrook recently published a free download eBook titled: “How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress”

Not only was this excellent eBook great for how to Make Money Online by building Niche Sites, she tells you step by step, exactly how to build the sites using WordPress and shows you one item after the other just how to build this website from the ground up.

After ten years of paying companies to develop websites and then populating them with data and information, this is the very first site that we were able to create on our own, because Caroline Middlebrook explains every single step in plain English and everything is very easy to understand.

We can’t say Thank You enough. Please visit http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/ and you too can build a website with no previous programming knowledge!