Horoscope and Zodiac Jewelry - a lens turning into a blog

One of the advantages of having a hostgator webhosting account is that you can set up as many blogs as you want without having to switch to a more expensive plan. That is: you do of course have to buy the domain name, but the various sites (blogs in my case) are all hosted under one account.

One of the least intuitive things you can do with that system is set up a blog ONLY to promote a lens. I know, weird isn't it? But that's what I just did. I spent two days setting up a blog, creating content, building links on something that I expect will only make me money through the promotion of a squidoo lens or two.
Here's the lens: Astrology Horoscope Jewelry 

It does OK selling zodiac jewelry and it gets decent traffic, but I want it to move up a notch in both search engine traffic and sales. And since I'd already bought the domain, I've set up a blog. It's called, not unsurprisingly:  Horoscope Astrology Jewelry. 

Normally I'd have turned the lens around at this point: linking it to the blog wherever reasonably and perhaps toning down on the content on there. Instead I've done the opposite: linked to the lens and used this as part of my link wheel around that lens.

Why? It has to do with being an international publisher. Amazon makes it real hard to get to their money, because they only pay out by check internationally. And guess what: it's expensive as hell the change them into actual money. So one of the reasons I'm active on squidoo is that for me it pays to have a middle man that pays out through paypal.

Of course, if ever Amazon starts paying out directly to my Dutch bank account, or in some other way where I can get to the money without having to jump through hoops, I can always turn the blog around too: link to the blog from the lens and turn the blog into an online 'hub' or the center of my 'link wheel'.

In the mean time though, that blog is going to get older - and therefore more trusted by Google as well. So it makes sense to host and own it myself, not put it on some free account. All thanks to hostgator.

Freelance Home Writer: Excellent Resource About Article Writing Sites

As I posted recently, I am looking for an article writing site to meet certain critieria. I have not found it yet and I am not sure it exists. Here are my criteria:

* Appear high in the search engines
* Are a good source of quality anchor text "DoFollow" links
* Send some traffic to my sites
* Pay some money
* Not require much "social networking"
* Be easy to use

Basically, I am looking for something like Ezinearticles or a GoArticles which pay money too. I have already ruled out several sites, including:

* Hubpags: If your hubs fall below a certain ranking, the links become NoFollow
* EHow: Resource Links are NoFollow
* Associated Content: Resource Links Are Nofollow
* Helium: Requires that you vote on other articles and others must vote on yours.

In the meantime I have located a very good source of information about article writing sites, called Freelance Home Writer. The blogger "Willow Sidhe" is a freelance writer. She checks out all of the paid article writing sites and reviews them. She even tells how much money she earns.

Willow appears to prefer EHow due to how much money she is earning. EHow does look like a good site, however, oddly their links are NoFollow. This rules Ehow out for me, as I want an article writing site which can go along with my Squidoo lenses and websites, sending traffic and links my way.

I will keep looking, but in the meantime Willow's blog is VERY useful. Check it out.

How to Blog - Block One.

The kid on the block formerly known as "new" is, well - "newer" than ever.

The Blog - don't go into cyberspace without it!

Ideal scenario #1: you find a focused niche (your expertise) to write about on a fairly regular basis, 3-5 times a week. You utilize various techniques (more about this later) to promote your blog and build your subscriber list. Within 12-18 months, you have a solid readership of, let's say 1,ooo followers, and your posts attract a few hundred visitors per day. And, you're growing...

Corporations take notice and approach you for valuable ad space on your pages. You're in business - maybe "big bidness". Maybe - you make a living with blogging! How cool is that!

Ideal scenario #2: Double the numbers above.

These are realistic scenarios. More people than ever make good money from blogging. More corporations than ever wake up to the power of social media, viral videos, blogging, etc.

This blog post quotes the Technorati 2008 State of the Blogosphere report:

"Bloggers create 900,000 blog posts a day worldwide, and some of them are actually making money. Blogs with 100,000 or more unique visitors a month earn an average of $75,000 annually—though that figure is skewed by the small percentage of blogs that make more than $200,000 a year..."

Guess what? Yesterday I read a post from an Austrian blogger about the fact that "social media interaction", as we know it in America, is still a brand new concept in his part of the "old country". Wow! What if we honed our skills and then offered our services to European clients? I wonder what our resident Netherlands connection, Katinka (spirituality), has to say about this...

O.k., let's leave our dream land of online riches and focus on "the path". I've discovered tremendous resources for better blogging on, well, other people's blogs. The pros are generous.

Here's my first batch of must-read sites. I feature some choice posts on our topic, but there is much more to be found in their blogs' archives.

7 Common Mistakes When Starting a Blog

The Winnie the Pooh Guide to Blogging

What Makes A Blog Post Anyhow?

21 Ways to Write Posts that Are Guaranteed to Grow Your Blog

How I Made $220.64 from One Short Blog Post

The tip of the proverbial iceberg - but many hours of free and invaluable education for you.

3, 2, 1, - Go!

(...to be continued)