You’ve been diligent in your postings, responding to readers’ questions earnestly and seems to be doing everything right but you don’t seems to be able to get past this moribund number of readers and participation level. You wondered what could be wrong. It’s your Content – Stupid!. I don’t mean to be blunt here but the truth of the matter is content that is routine and predictable does not work the magic of stimulating your readers to action – be it comments, backlinks, clickthroughs, or whatever that is you are looking for. And no amount of SEOs, layouts, blog redesigns or plugins are going to get you out of this slump. The good news is that you don’t have to do much to get yourself out of this bind, all it takes is a little bit of tweaking of your content here and there.

Here are some ideas that have been time tested :

	1. Killer Headline - Your blog topic’s headline is the first thing that your visitor sees – so it better be captivating enough to catch their attention. The objective here is to pique their curiosity enough to take a further look into it. Like everything else its easier said then done because the law of averages works against you here – less than 2 percent of the visitors that see your headline will actually read the rest of the blog topic. So quite simply put if you want to increase your odds of beating the averages, you need a better headline. One way to get great ideas for blog topics is to get yourself into the habit of checking out the popular pop culture magazines and also what’s making it into the front pages of Digg, Delicious and other popular social media networks.
	2. Captivating Opener. Ask any successfully sales person what’s the most important part of their sales materials, and they will invariably tell you that it’s their first opening paragraph – that’s the part they spent the most time refining until they get it right. A successful Real Estate Agent once told me that a house with tremendous curb appeal is only matched by an awe-aspiring foyer. It’s no different when you write the first paragraph of your blog topic – it has to at least maintain the level of interest and momentum when the visitor first read your killer headline and decided to read the rest of your blog topic. Here are some simple ways to open your blog topic with a bang.
	3. Closer that ties back. A good closing paragraph is one that ties back to the headline and in some ways re-affirming the blog reader’s comprehension of your blog topic. A strong closer, however, is one that would call the reader to action – be it subscribing to your blog, commenting, buying something, getting backlinks or whatever is your root goal of writing this blog topic in the first place. This brings us to the next point.
	4. Have a Root Goal for Blog Topic. What is it that your blog topic going to do for your readers ? Should they care enough to read your blog post ? An ultimate litmus test when comes to choosing your blog topic is to apply it to this question “who cares?”. After you’ve gotten them to read the rest of your blog, the next logical thing to do is to call them to action. If your root goal is to get more comments, then ask for a feedback; if it’s getting more subscribers to your newsletter then ask for it – this is usually done in conjunction with a free gift; if it’s an affiliate product that you are trying to sell, then get them to buy it; if it’s backlinks that you are after then ask for it; if it’s stumbles that you want then ask for it or whatever your root goal is for writing this blog topic.
	5. Write as if you are writing for yourself. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers and feel for what matters to them and what kind of thoughts that would provoke them.
	6. Be Creative - Try different forms of Blog Topic Posts from time to time to break the monotony. The only rule to this is to keep your post interesting and relevant to the blog topics that your readers care about.
	7. Know your niche’s blog topic post stats - what works and what doesn’t. Visit the blogs in your niche and look at their comment levels to gauge their popularity. You will soon become acquainted with what your community readers are interested in.
	8. Use pictures to spruce up your blog topic post. Everybody knows that a picture tells a thousand words but not many people knows that if you accurately tag your images (“alt” attribute) according to your target keywords, you will get some more traffic from Google Image search.
	9. Sharpen your writing skills - write daily and write as often as you can. Nothing is truer than this statement that “Practice Makes Perfect” – I’m a living testament to this. As a child, I used to be very bad at Math but my father forced me to do math exercises everyday until I scored perfectly in all my tests. I applied this technique to all my science subjects and were able to replicate the same success. It the same with writing, you need to write EVERYDAY to let it sink into you and become one with it. Don’t give yourself any excuses – you write when you don’t have time; you write when you’re tired; you write when you are on holiday; you write when you’re in a lousy mood; you write when you’re running empty with ideas. It’s all about commitment and showing up even though you are not up to it. I don’t mean to spend an inordinate amount of time doing it, but 20 minutes of writing a day should be sufficient to cultivate a good habit of writing.
	10. Make a commitment to capture blog topics daily - the more the merrier but commit to a manageable number. This is so that you won’t run out of blog topics to write and hastily make one up. When I’m surfing the web and come across something interesting that I want to use for my blog topic, I use Google Documents to bookmark it, so I can access it anywhere with a browser and collaborate with others online. When I’m about or not in front of my computer and come across a blog topic idea, I like to use Jott to quickly leave a message for myself before I forget.
	11. Publish only good original work. The worst thing you can do to your blog topic is to rehash somebody else’s content and call it your own. If credit is due, dispense with it liberally and quite often the favor is returned. Before publishing your post, make it a habit to polish the blog post until the message shines through. You would not want to hack at mercilessly until it’s too far from its original form to make any sense or too pristine to be of any use.
	12. Ensure that blog topic’s content is of high quality and useful for the audience. Don’t be too opinionated or pretend that you know it all. You want to across as somebody that have sufficient authority on the niche topic, and at the same time interested to learn of other peoples’ experiences and opinions.
	13. Keep a strong voice throughout. Use the right choice of words to convey the right emotion or to play up the mood. Use active languages as opposed to passive languages.
	14. Keep blog topic post optimal in length because audiences have short attention span. If there’s too much information to be covered in one blog posting, break it up into series of parts.
	15. Use Videos to illustrate a point that requires some imagination or instructions. If a picture tells a thousand words, how many words would a video convey ? Some blog post are covered in it’s entirety in video, hence it’s name vlog. Vlogging is very popular among bloggers because it has the advantage of being easy for the bloggers – just put a camera in front and talk. It’s also well received by blog audience because there’s nothing to read but just easy listening. As such, Darren Rowse weekly vlog is still very popular in the blogosphere to this day. Many others have tried as well, but the more exceptionally successful ones that have used vlogging to their advantage are iJustine, Grace Cheng. John Chow to name a few.
	16. Examine your blog topic from different angle - go with a perspective that jive with your audience.
	17. Ask your readers what blog topics they like covered. This is where you can use Social Media networks like Twitter to post a question to your followers and get almost instantaneous responses Try it and you will be amazed at the results
	18. Cover blog topics that other bloggers in your niche are NOT writing about. This is how you differentiate your blog from the “me too” crowd. It always work as long as you don’t stray too far off the main niche topics in your community.
	19. Invent fresh ideas by thinking out of the box. Combine seemingly different ideas into one refreshingly new idea.
	20. Know and anticipate your readers’ needs and deliver on it. This is also where Social Media Networks can help where you can hold on line discussion on any blog topic that you are contemplating on writing.
	21. Diversify your blog posts between the macro and micro aspect of your niche market. If your blog is about “Make Money Online” then that would be your macro niche blog topic, and using SEO to help achieve that goal would be your micro niche blog topic. The idea here is to spread your blog posts evenly to avoid stymieing interest and growth of your readers.
	22. Write during your golden hour. At the first glance, this seems contradictory to a previous point I made about writing even when you are not really up to it. What I was referring to previously was writing for the purpose of practicing, however when you are writing or rewriting for a live post, you would want to do it in your finest golden hour or most productive hour. Everybody’s golden hour is differently, mine is about midnight while others may be in the morning.

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This is the last of a three part series on “How to choose a profitable niche in 3 simple steps”. If you missed the first two parts of the series, you can get the first part here, and the second part here. If you never intended to make any money for your blog, you might still find some information here useful in the event that you’re selling your blog. The information here will help you gauge the market value of your blog.

Step1 – Analyze the Profit Potential of your Niche

For the rest of the folks whose intention is to make money from blogging, it’s important that you examine the possible income streams that your niche topic is capable of generating. In my previous post, I’ve talked about the many ways a blog can make money, but not every method of making money is compatible with every niche topic. For instance, contextual content Ads like Google Adsense and Kontera Context Link while works well with certain niche topics might do very poorly for other niche topics. Some niche topics work well with CPM (Click Per Mile) type Ads which is suitable for high traffic sites, while other niche topics do well with only certain affiliate programs. At this point, you don’t need to be concerned about what method of making money works best for your niche topic. Instead, you need to focus on potential profitability of your niche topic.

There is generally two camps here when comes to sizing up your niche earning potential – Advertising Networks (Adsense, Kontera, Bidvertizer etc) and Affiliate Programs.

Advertising Networks

We are just going to base our discussion on Adsense since it’s the market leader in this segment. In order to help you size up your niche topic earning potential, you need to familiarize yourself with two very easy to use tools – Google Adwords Traffic Estimator and Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool.

Merchants or Advertisers who have products and services to sell on the Web will buy keywords from the Google Adwords program. The “Average CPC (Cost per Click)” is the amount paid by the advertiser when the ad is being clicked on. These ads will show up on Publishers’ websites along with content related to the keywords. Publisher will get a slice of the ad revenue based on the CPC amount and also on how well Google rates your site content. This slice is generally around half the amount of the CPC assuming that Google considered your site to be good.

For the purpose of figuring out the profit potential of your niche topic you should go for something that has a pretty good search volume as indicated by the search volume bar and a CPC of between two to three dollars. If you are going for a niche that has the highest CPC in the marketplace, be prepared for a lot of competition from zillion of webmasters who are already established and competing for the keyword, and it may be a long while before you would get any kind of traction from your efforts at SEO and stuff.

The figure below shows how the different levels of CPC and how it played out for different niches. You would not want to target “Credit Card” because it’s highly competitive, but you might settle for “firm” or “plan”. Likewise, you might want to stay away from very specific niche like “paralysis” because of its low search volume and CPC. However, it might be a different story if you’re an authority site dedicated to paralysis, and have a strong passion for it.

Affiliate Programs

Some niches do phenomenally well with affiliate programs that carry a good variety of their product and services offerings. There are many affiliate programs on the web, some of the bigger ones are Amazon, Clickbank and CJ. Sign up for an account at CJ and check out the main category belonging to your niche and get an idea at the depth of the product and services offerings for your niche. Also look at their network earnings and 3-month EPC to get an idea how well their advertising campaign is performing.

There are of course other avenues you can explore when evaluating the income potential of your niche. Here are some unconventional ways you can get a rough idea on your niche income potential:

	Go to ClickBank and enter the category and sub category relating to your niche. If your niche is popular and people are making money off it by creating digital products like ebooks for it, you will no doubt see a long list. The list is sorted by gravity score in descending order. A high gravity score indicates that the product has been selling in the most recent period the score is taken. So what does this tells you, a high gravity and high payout indicates that the product is in high demand and popular among publishers. A quick Google search on the product’s keyword will confirm that.
	Go to 7 Search Keyword Suggestion Tool and type in your niche. You will get back a list of related searches based on your niche ordered by the search volume in descending order. The bid amounts that are displayed along with each keyword give you a good idea how much advertisers are willing to pay for the keywords. These bidding figures are taken across the advertising industry and are not specific to Adwords. The general rule of the thumb is to look for moderate volume and bid amounts of between two to three dollars.
	Go to Google and type in “PLR My Niche” where “My Niche” is substituted by your niche. PLR is Private Label Rights which is content that you can purchase and distribute on your own sites. If authors are writing PLR content on your niche you can bet that there’s pretty good demand for it out there and publishers are making money off it.
	Go to EzineArticles web site , a premium article directory, and drill down to the category related to your niche and look at the number of articles written for it. A good number of articles indicate that it’s a popular category. Also, looking at the most viewed section for the category and titles of the articles will give some pretty good ideas on the kind of subject matter within your niche that garner the most attention.

Can you think of anymore?

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If you’d missed the first part, please check it out here.

Traffic is the life line of a Blog or any type of online media for that matter. Only when you have traffic can you start thinking about ways of monetizing it, which will lead us to the next step – Analyze the Profit Potential of your Niche. You can be writing the best content in the world but if no ones visiting you, it’s as good as staying home and throwing away your house keys.

Step 2 – Analyze the Traffic Potential of your Niche

There are generally two types of traffic – organic and paid. We are only interested in organic traffic here – traffic that is brought to you when people search for information on a topic. The reason why you should be very interested in this is that you don’t want to be focusing on a niche that is inherently limited by poor organic search traffic. The size and potential of this traffic is directly proportional to the number of people searching for information relating to the topic. The goal here is to determine if the niche topic has at least a moderate amount of search volume to justify pursuing it any further. It is however not an exercise on finding and targeting keywords for your niche.

There are many useful tools available to help you estimate the search volume for a particular topic. The one that I find most useful is Trellian’s KeyWord Discovery Tool. I like this tool because it is very comprehensive with very well designed user interfaces which do not overcrowd your screen with a million things. Instead, it offers you the option to drill down to more details if you need to.

For instance, if my niche topic is “Sydney” and I’m interested to know how many people search for information relating to “Sydney”, using this tool it will display a list of all search phrases using this keyword in descending order of the number of searches performed. From this list, you can also derive at the overall search depth of this niche topic. This is important because it gives you an indication how big your blog can grow with this niche, and the number of keywords you can use with it. From the figure below, the total number of searches for “Sydney” is 63,453 which is prominently displayed at the top of the box. Tabulated inside the box are search phrases displayed in descending order with action buttons for analyzing trending and market share information.

The figure below shows a detailed analysis of “Sydney Hotel” drilled down from the first page. The first 2 entries are going to be tough to compete in with about a million web pages already using the keyword term, and only 10 are going to be ranked on first page of the search results. “Sydney luxury hotel” which has a pretty decent KEI, is much easier to compete in since it only has 127,00 web pages competing for top 10 positions. It will be much quicker to rank with this keyword then “Sydney Hotel”.

There are other freely available tools on the internet, but my absolute favorite one is “SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool”. This not only gives you the average number of searches broken down by 3 major search engines, it also provides convenient links to “Google Insight”, “Google Trends”, “Trellian keyword Discovery Tool” and others.

At the end of this step, you should have a pretty good idea how much traffic each niche topic can expect to have and the ideas around how to monetize this traffic will come to fruition in the next step – Analyze the Profit Potential of your Niche.

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Blogs can make money. Can you believe it? Despite the fact that there may be doubts, the truth is, blogs can really be a definite source of decent income. All you have to do is to monetize it.

Utilize PPC Advertising Networks

You can monetize your blog by selling advertising spaces. PPC means “Pay per click”. This means that you will get paid every time one of your blog visitors “click” the ads posted in your web pages.

These days, the most common form of PPC Advertising that is being utilized by many bloggers is Google AdSense. However, there are many other PPC Networks that you can avail of. Among the most popular networks are Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN), BidVertiser, Chitika, and Clicksor.

If you want to make use of PPC advertising networks, you will just have to check their websites and sign up. In filling out your agreement forms, you will have to state the niche of your blog, as well as the type of advertisements that you will allow to be posted in your blog site.

After signing up, you will be given a code that you will have to incorporate on your blog’s code set-up. Once all set, the network will post contextual ads on the ad space and you will earn a definite amount of cash every time someone clicks the ads.

In making use of the PPC advertising networks, you will have to take note of the fact that the money that you will earn depends on the web traffic of your blog site. Other than that, some PPC advertising networks will also consider the CTR (click through rate) and the CPC (cost per click). Basically, the CTR depends on ad’s position in your website. The more strategic it is (i.e. blended with the content), the higher the CTR will be. CPC is based on the niche of your blog. Some niche will earn more dollars for every ad click. These include financing, mortgages, education, and banking.

Try CPM Advertising Networks

Just like PPC networks, you will also sell ad space when you make use of CPM advertising networks. However, the amount that you will earn depends on the number of impressions that the ads will generate once they are displayed on your blog site. CPM refers to “Cost per Mille”. “Mille” refers to 1,000 impressions and impressions refer to page views.

The rate for your CPM will be based on the size of your ad and its strategic position in your blog site. In general, you can get a higher CPM rate if you put the advertisements closer to the top of your page or near the content. You will also get a higher CPM rate if you will put bigger ads.

Aside from the size and position of the ad, note that your choice of CPM network will also affect the profitability of your blog. Some networks will offer as much as ten dollars for a thousand impressions while others only offer ten cents. When choosing a CPM network, pick those that have access to many advertisers. However, note that this kind of advertising is more appropriate for websites that generate a lot of page views.

If you want to avail of CPM advertising networks, you ought to check Casale Media, Burst Media, Value Click, Advertising.com, Tribal Fusion, and Right Media

Put Direct Banner Advertisements

Just like PPC and CPM advertising, you will have to sell some ad space. However, this type is much more profitable because you won’t have to worry about middleman commissions. Moreover, you can even determine your own rates.

Once you become an affiliate, you can help your merchant sell their products though the use of various tools. These may be text links that will direct the customers to the merchant’s web pages, banner ads about the products and services, or reviews about the products and services.

Usually, this type of advertising is also called CPA (cost per action) or CPL (cost per lead). To find merchants and affiliate programs, you ought to check affiliate networks or marketplaces. There are many websites which offer this kind of monetization opportunity. Among the most popular affiliate networks that you can check are Commission Junction, ClickBank, Azoogle Ads, and Link Share.

Practice Affiliate Marketing

If you don’t want to sell your advertising space, try affiliate marketing. As the name implies, you will have to engage in “marketing”. In affiliate marketing, you have to be an affiliate. You need to find merchants who are willing to let “affiliates” sell their products and services, in either direct or indirect manner. Your earnings will be based on commissions.

Note that updating your blog on a daily basis will not only make it more interesting and engaging to readers. Instead, it will also provide you with a chance to put in new content that attracts search engine spiders. Therefore, updating your blog daily also makes your blog a lot more appealing to major search engines.

If you cannot update your blog everyday for whatever reason, try updating your blog two or three times a week. The key point here is regularity. Many bloggers started out updating their blog everyday for a week or two, and then it slowly tappers off after their initial excitement wears off. Decide on a frequency of update from the get go, and stick to it. Always increase your frequency of updates and not decrease it. The biggest dis-service you can do to your blog is not updating at all, a blog with no updates is a dead blog.

Incorporate Private Forums

If you don’t want to advertise or market, then try to incorporate private forums. This monetization process requires you to create a private forum where aspiring members will have to pay so they can join the forum. Among the pioneers of this monetization method is SEO Blackhat and Performancing.

If you want to make use of this monetization technique, you will just have to come up with a specific niche that will be very appealing to readers. You can ask your readers to pay a lifetime membership fee or a recurring fee that should be paid monthly or annually.

The most effective type of private forums that you can come up with are those that offer tips, secret techniques, downloadable files, downloadable software, web design templates, and other online tools that can be very useful. Take note of the fact that you can entice more readers if you can provide a lot of freebies and opportunities that they may find valuable.

If you want to incorporate a private forum on your blog site, try using the most popular forum software that is available these days like: vBulletin, Simple Machines Forum, phpBB, and Vanilla.

Niche Bloggers are bloggers that concentrate on blogging about a particular subsection of a general topic. They zeroed in on their target and make their kill, so that every word, post, comments have a singular purpose of creating an impact that will blow you away. Such bloggers are also known as “Sniping Blogger” – a term that was coined in one of our most popular previous article – Are You a Sniping Blogger or a Gatling Gun Blogger. Niche Bloggers are so exclusively focused on the specialized subject matter at hand that they seldom stray away from their niche topic. There may be an occasional post here and there that is off topic but generally they stick to their niche topic ninety-nine percent of the time.

For example, dogs is considered a general subject matter. However, a blog exclusively about Pugs is a niche blog; Asian foods is a general topic covering a broad spectrum of Asian cuisines, however, a blog about Malaysian Food is a niche blog as it focused on food that is indigenous to the people of the Malayan culture; Consumer Electronics is a huge field, however, a blog about Apple’s IPod is a niche blog because it is exclusively about a very popular brand of digital listening device called Ipod.

So, what do you consider to be the main characteristics of a profitable niche blog? What suitable monetization methods are at your disposal? What are the pitfalls of a niche blog?

Characteristics of a Profitable Niche Blog

	Highly focused content on niche topic. When you set out to pick on your niche subject of choice as the main topic, it is important to pick a niche that have at least 5 possible fairly strong sub-categories. This is to ensure that you have at your disposal a sufficient number of keywords to build a big blog someday. This will endear your blog to the search engine because people who are searching for a particular term will stand a pretty good chance of finding you.
	In-depth Coverage of the Niche. It is relatively easy to provide a deep coverage of a subject matter for a niche that has a handful of related but strong sub-categories. This could work very well to your advantage especially when you dominate the main and the sub-categories of the topic, such that the first page of the SERPs will show mostly your links. In time to come, dedicated readers and repeat visitors will beat a golden path to your door.
	Popular among Affiliate Networks. Because there are relatively few sites vying for the attention of the Affiliate Network, you can easily stand out in the pack. Marketers are always looking for more people to sell their product and services. If you offer a site that is compelling and is supported by a large captive audience, this would work out to your advantage as the negotiation power shifts to your side.
	You are a Subject Matter Expert. It is relatively easy to establish yourself as an expert in a field that offers little or no competition. Once a position is achieved, traffic will start to pour in.
	Captive Audience leads to Profits. As there are relatively few sites competing in your niche, people who have previously visited your blog and liked it, have a strong likelihood of returning. And, when they do so, they may hopefully click on an Advertisement.
	Unique Content. This point serves as a general rule of the thumb for all blogs – niche and non-niche. It is the main currency of the internet, if your content is not unique, all major search engines will make you regret it by penalizing your site. You will not get any ranking from them. However, if all your content are unique and in sufficient quantity, you will grow in ranking in no time, with other factors being equal, . Post Often and Post Unique.

Monetization Methods of Niche Blogs

One cannot expect to monetize on a niche blog without meeting the majority of the requirements above. The degree with which your monetizing efforts are going to be successful is wholly dependent on how well the above requirements have been executed. For instance, if you have not written enough in-depth content on your niche subject matter including its sub-categories, and you are using context sensitive type advertisement like Adsense, it will result in ads that are not diverse enough, resulting in “Ad Blindness” – a condition of “Ad Paralysis” to be avoided at all cost.

If your niche topic is wide enough to encompass a handful of related sub-categories, monetizing it can be very easy indeed. Any type of Context Sensitive type advertising like Adsense, Kontera Context Links and Bidvertiser will work very well with it. These Advertisements are context sensitive to the keywords used and therefore offer more relevancies to the subject matter, resulting in a higher Click Through Rate (CTR). With careful blending and placements of Ads, visitors that come to your blog looking for specific information will have a higher likelihood of clicking on the Advertisements. Another added advantage of using such Context Sensitive Advertisement Networks is that it only needs to be set up once. After optimizing it for blending and placement, it is basically on an auto-pilot, and you can go about concentrating on producing good content.

You can also easily integrate other Affiliate Products and Services into the mix. Please be very careful not to violate the TOS of any Ads Network especially Adsense which has pretty strict guidelines regarding the usage of other advertising network on the same page Adsense Ads are running.

What are the Pitfalls of Niche Blog?

	Small Audience. A niche blog is by definition catering to a small audience because of the nature of the small subject matter. This will translate to less monetization opportunities, as there are going to be less customers coming to your blog to click on an Advertisement.
	Lack of Affiliate Offerings. If your niche subject does not encompass a handful of sub-categories, it can be hard to find affiliate that carry products and services that complement your blog’s niche topic. This translates to less income opportunities.
	Ad Blindness. If you are using a Context Sensitive Ad Network like Adsense, and your niche subject does not encompass a handful of strong sub-categories, your Adsense Ad block may ads rotating among the same few advertisers, resulting in “Ad Blindness”. This translates to less income potential.
	Tough getting Inbound Links. This is because there are so few sites in the same niche, it hard to get anybody to link to your blog. Also, the sites that are in the same niche will try to retain their visitors and not sent them your way. This translates to difficult establishing a Pagerank.
	Hard to get Traffic. It is difficult to get traffic if users hardly search for a keyword related to your blog’s niche subject matter.

Blogging has become a fad. It has successfully evolved from the primitive stage of a past time into a grand hobby. Much more than a hobby that has been adapted by many as part of their everyday routine, blogging has transformed into a highly innovative way to earn cash- and not just cash, but unlimited amounts of it – even in the comforts of one’s home. Truly, blogging is becoming one of the World Wide Web’s prime offers in terms of big-time business opportunities.

However, one has to note that blogging as a business requires some serious step-by-step techniques. To be able to produce a profitable blog, a blogger should put effort and dedication on his new career. If you want to earn unlimited amounts of money, then you will have to make use of nothing less than effective blogging. Below are some steps to attain such:

Find the perfect niche

Essentially, blogging is writing. You have to choose the perfect product, service, or topic that you are going to write about. That will be your niche. You have to note that your niche is your focus. It will serve as the basis of your blog’s framework.

Before choosing your niche, make sure that you are very interested in it. Much more, it will be better if you are an expert in writing or talking about it. Take note of the fact that you will spend your blogging days in creating posts that dwell on your niche. Also, be sure that your niche is capable of attracting readers. It should be specific enough to define a target audience for your blog.

If you can’t think of a specific topic for your blog, you can try browsing through keyword research services such as the Google Zeitgeist or the Yahoo! Buzz Index. These services will provide you with an excellent source of popular topics that internet surfers look for in major search engines.

Provide quality content

Once you have chosen your niche, don’t waste time, start writing about it. However, you have note that your ultimate goal in writing is not just to express yourself or your points or views. You have to keep in mind that you are blogging, not only because you love to write, but because you want to make some money out of your passion to write. Therefore, you will have to produce quality content.

In every blog post that you write, make sure that everything you write is comprehensible and correct. Your post should be free of typographical errors. There should be no errors in spelling, sentence construction, and grammar usage. If you are to write about a particular event or object, make sure than you will only provide accurate and sensible information. Write your blog in a manner that you can be proud of. Make it informative and engaging as well.

Be creative

Though blogging is writing in the technical sense, it will help if you can provide much more than that. With the many web design innovations offered in the World Wide Web, there are many ways by which you can make your blog more appealing and interesting to your readers.

A particular way is to make your page lay-out more appealing that others. Make sure that readers will find it easy to navigate through your web pages. Know what to emphasize in your blog (i.e. blog of the day, article of the day, etc.) and find ways to accentuate it. The best way of doing so is placing your most important blog highlights on the right side of your page.

The choice of a color scheme is one of the ways to make your site more appealing to your target audience. As you can see for this site redesign, I’ve chosen to use more Red to jive with my passion for blogging and the excitement that it brings. In addition, I’ve also used more yellow and a brighter Orange which resonates with more energy and happiness.

Moreover, you should make sure that those essential elements of your blog such as your RSS feed subscription, affiliate links, and the like will not be left out. If you can, consider adding some images or graphics in your web pages every one in a while. However, be careful not to “over decorate” your blog.

Update Daily

If you really want to make your blog as a business, or even a part time financial resource, you have to put effort on it. You have to write and post everyday. This is primarily because updating your blog on a daily basis allows you to attract readers. Moreover, you can retain your present set of readers and attract more and more new readers just by posting fresh content everyday.

Note that updating your blog on a daily basis will not only make it more interesting and engaging to readers. Instead, it will also provide you with a chance to put in new content that attracts search engine spiders. Therefore, updating your blog daily also makes your blog a lot more appealing to major search engines.

If you cannot update your blog everyday for whatever reason, try updating your blog two or three times a week. The key point here is regularity. Many bloggers started out updating their blog everyday for a week or two, and then it slowly tappers off after their initial excitement wears off. Decide on a frequency of update from the get go, and stick to it. Always increase your frequency of update and not decrease it. The biggest dis-service you can do to your blog is not updating at all, a blog with no updates is a dead blog.

Make your blog popular

The only way to draw traffic is make sure that your blog gets a lot of attention. Basically, there are many ways to gain that attention. Primary of these popularity techniques is to submit your blog URL to blog directories and major search engines.

Other than that, you have to make sure that your blog has an RSS feed that your readers and visitors can subscribe to. Place your subscription on a strategic position that does not bother your readers. However, make sure that they can see it and they will be actually interested to subscribe for it. You should also consider submitting your RSS/XML feed to many ping services like Technorati, Blogdigger, Ping-O-Matic, and the likes.

Moreover, make it a point to frequently use your blog’s URL as a signature for your email, or when you post in forum discussions, message boards, or any other internet data base.

Monitor your success

If you want to make sure that your blog works pretty much the way you always want it to, you have to evaluate regularly. Monitor your success and reassess your methods. The best way to do this is to include a counter in your web pages. Basically, there are many free page counters that you can find in the World Wide Web. Such can help you determine your daily web traffic, as well as the number of unique visitors that your page has.

Among the simplest free page counters are StatCounter.com and Active Meter. You can easily put them on your web page by incorporating their html code to your blog’s html

As you’ve already noticed, we’ve went through a major redesign of the header region and a brand spanking new logo is born. The caricature is a depiction of a successful blogger having a good time, blogging in a carefree manner from an exotic beach – and of course this dude could be you!. Sorry to our lady bloggers here, I just have to go with a dude here for obvious reason – because I’m a dude – so no hard feelings please. If you are observant enough, you’ll also notice that I’ll be starting a newsletter pretty soon. Since this blog is about helping you to become successful in blogging whether you are a hobbyist or a Pro, I find the design rather inspiring, fitting and fun. Actually, it doesn’t really matter what I think, most importantly is what you think. So, don’t be shy, please voice your opinions here.

There are no doubt perks to be gained from a site redesign like the buzz and refreshing factors, links galore, new lease of life on Ads, and more leg room. But in my case, I’ve no choice but to redesign the header because I don’t look like Mike Huang.

Buzz Factor

Any dramatic changes to a site are going to have people talking about it in ways that will soon become viral. If you have a lot of RSS subscribers, you’ll notice a spike in their click through rate in response to check out what’s the fuss all about. This would in turn create a lot of buzz for the site. Any publicity is good publicity even though if it is negative. Obviously you’d like that buzz to be positive in nature, but hey you can’t please everyone, our whole would be so monotonous if that’s the case.

Links Galore

The more viral the buzz factor is, the more links it’s going to translate into. Some people call this link baiting. Before you actually overhaul your site design, you would want to send out a preview of what is coming. This would cause other blogs to talk about it, analyzing, critiquing and discussing the new look and feel. The chances are that people are going to link to your site whether they are in favor of your new designs or not. You’d like that they have good things to say about your new designs in their links, but a link is a link to the search engine gods, and it’s going to count towards as an equity in favor of your site, as there is no such thing as a bad link just as there is no such thing as bad press.

I don’t think I’ll benefit from this much, because I’ve not managed to create a lot of buzz beforehand.

Refreshing Factor

Sometimes we all need a little lift to shake us off our monotonous way of doing things. Redesigning the site does help to bring that refreshing effect on us. This is especially true with the color scheme that you go with for the redesign. Studies have found that the color affect our mood as well as for our visitors. For instance, Red evokes “passion” and “excitement”; Blue and Green brings “stability” and “calmness”; yellow and Orange represents “happiness” and “energy”; and Black is a dignified color in certain context but in other offline context it may be traditionally associated with death. According to many studies, with the right color scheme, you will see a better click through rate for your visitors for sure.

For this site redesign, I’ve used a more Red to jive with our passion for blogging and the excitement that it brings. And, I’ve also used more yellow and a brighter Orange – this brings more energy and happiness in which blogging could use more of.

Here’s the before and the after picture of the header – you tell me which one you like better?

Before

After

New Lease of Life for Ads Albeit Short-lived

We’ve all experience this all too often when we are very familiar with a place that we become blind to the things around us. This is because our auto-sensory mechanism just takes over- it’s what makes us efficient and evolving beings so we don’t use energy unnecessarily. In the online world involving ad placements, the same logic applies. It is sometimes called link blindness. We need to shake up things a little, move things around, so that the Ads can become more noticeable and appealing that it will get clicked on more often. This is the principle behind why my rotating button banners Ads have the best Click Through Rate(CTR). Although this may get you what you want in terms of better CTR, it is nevertheless a short term gain because your visitors will soon get accustomed to it and its effect will be gone.

In my case, I’ll not benefit from this because I’ve not make any drastic change to where I’m placing the various components of the blog.

More Leg Room

Yes, everybody could use a little more leg room. With the advancement of technology, and prices of monitor coming down fast, most of your visitors are going to view your site on nothing less than 1000 pixels wide screen. This may mean more ad space or extra navigation room, or simply more space for content that you can stuff before you get side walled – the choice is yours – whatever that you do with it, extra leg room is always nice.

Again, for the same reason above, I’ll not benefit from this.

That’s about all I can think of in terms of benefits for redesigning your site. If you can think of more benefits, please share it with us.

The moral of the story is that no matter how good or bad your redesign turns out to be, these benefits will inevitably accompany it to make your effort a worthwhile cause. So, don’t fret, start redesigning if that’s what you’d wanted to do.

If you like the design of the header, please visit Forest. This guy’s work is phenomenal as you can attest, and I say no more as his work speaks for himself. He is also a seasoned professional at every turn, using his business acumen and gifted graphic design skills; he’s able to translate requirements into works of art that carries a message that would resonate with your visitors.

Even vampires can make a career out of blogging, why can’t you ? Though it would be relatively easier for a vampire to amass more readers than you – a mere mortal – don’t be despair, all you have to do is to find a marketable niche that you can write about endlessly, and your career in blogging will take off.

A “Career” is defined as a role or an activity that you would want to perform for a very long period of time. These days, the definition of career has been largely associated with employment. It may also refer to any kind of activity that will allow someone to generate a steady source of income on a regular basis.

The introduction of the computer and the internet has brought about many monetary opportunities for various types of people. One of these is blogging.

Believe it or not, blogging can provide you with lots of cash. You can sit all day in front of your computer and blog. In the end of the day, you can earn as much as a hundred or even a thousand dollars. Sound unbelievable? But, if you try money blogging, that’s definitely possible.

Blogging is the art and science of making a blog. A lot of people may think that blogging only involves writing and publishing online. Blogging really includes the process of writing- lots and lots of writing. But that’s not just it.

Blogging is more than writing

If you want to make blogging as your career you will have to realize the fact that blogging is not just writing about your day to day experiences.

Traditionally, blogging only involves the process of writing your day to day experiences. Since your blog is something that you own, you can definitely write anything and everything you want. You can write comments about your boss, your car, your wife, and more. You can even post runts and ramblings. But do you think that will generate profits? Of course not!

Such type of blog can be very much equated to a diary. Unless you are a very prominent person or unless you have a very intriguing and complex life, no one will bother to read your blog aside from your wife, your friends, officemates, and other people who might be concerned about your welfare.

Also, you have to take note that in order to make a blog profitable, you will have to incorporate a lot of things in your blog site. You will not be able to get a career out of your blogging if you don’t treat it as a career.

Make your blogging a career

Just like any other career, blogging entails responsibilities, duties, and monetization strategies. You cannot expect your blog to earn money just by being a blog.

The first thing that you will have to apply to your blogging is strategy. Plan your actions. Choose your monetization methods. Determine if you want to offer freelance blogging or if you want to be “self-employed.”

Freelance blogging

Basically freelance blogging refers to the process of writing blogs on a wide variety of topics for paid blogging sites or for e-zines. Your income will then largely depend on the frequency of your blog post, the type of blogs that you write, and the company or blog site that you will be writing for.

There are many blogging sites that you where you can earn money every time you post a blog. Some blogging sites will offer you as low as five dollars for every post, while there are others that can offer as much as a hundred dollars. Some sites will pay you on a monthly basis while there are those who will only send your payments once you have reached a defined quota.

If you want to make use of paid blogging sites, make sure that you can comply with their requirements. Usually, these sites will require you to post at least once a day, seven days a week. Some of these sites will also prescribe a definite word count for every blog post.

Among the most popular paid blogging sites are www.bloggerwave.com, www.loudlaunch.com, www.blogvertiser.com, www.blogitive.com, www.blogginads.com, www.payperpost.com, www.BuzzByBlog.com, www.inblogads.com, www.reviewme.com, and www.payu2blog.com. Basically, the more you blog, the more money you will get. Also, the more websites you write for, the more payments you can expect.

Aside from blogging through paid blogging sites, you can also offer freelance blogging in the form of product reviews. In this process, you will have to make an assessment of an actual product or service from a certain company. Once you have finished the review, you are asked to post your blogs on free e-zines or other article directories.

Self-employed blogging

If you make blogging your career, you can earn lots of money regardless of whether you are employed or not. If you want to make use of self-employed blogging, you will have to treat your blog as a business.

Just like any business, you will have to put time and effort on you blog. You will also have to use certain techniques that will make your blog profitable. In this type of blogging, your blog will serve as your online business platform where you apply certain monetization tools that will make your blog profitable.

In the same way that you will have to study business management in order to be good in your business; you will also have to study web or blog supervision if you want to make your blogging profitable.

The first step in blog supervision is to be web savvy. Being web savvy does not require you to be a web designer or a programmer. You just have to be familiar with some of the techniques that you can use in blog monetization.

Among the terms, tools, and processes that you will have to be familiar with are as follows: blog publishing software, simple HTML codes, RSS feeds/syndication, feed aggregators, ping service aggregators, blog carnivals, keywords, search engine optimization (SEO), page ranking, page views, social book marking, PPC network advertising, CPM network advertising, direct banner ads, tagging, contextual advertising, affiliate marketing, traffic statistics, monetization widgets, and email newsletter subscriptions.

The list seems to be quite long. However, if you can familiarize yourself with those tools, you can easily determine which of them will definitely apply to your blogging. Once you integrate these tools properly into your blog site, you can definitely earn a thousand or more very month.

Aside from these tools, you will have to realize that self-employed blogging can only be profitable if your blog can generate a lot of web traffic. One you have generated a lot of traffic, you can then sell advertisement space, engage in affiliate marketing, and you can even try writing sponsored reviews.

If you decide to take on blogging as your career, here are some vital tips on how to do it right from John Chow.

You have probably heard a lot about blogging as a way to earn lots and lots of money, have you? Well, that’s basically true. Blogging indeed can help you earn some money. However, you have to take note that earning money through mere blogging is not going to be as easy as just writing about yourself.

If you want to use blogging as a way to earn cash, you have to realize that a “business” or a “profit earning” blog is highly different from just a “personal” blog. If you want to make blogging your career, you should take blogging a bit more seriously and spend more time for it. If blogging is going to be one of your monetary resources, you will have to strategize your every action in your online platform. Below are ten techniques that you can apply:

1. Sell advertising

The simplest way to make money out of your blog is by allotting a space for advertisements. These advertisement spaces are usually rented out on a per month basis. You can define an area dedicated to button banners under the “Sponsors” area or an area for text links on the sidebar. This can be done using widgets on your blog’s sidebar. You can also create spaces for header banners, inline Post banners, Blog Rolls and Feed Footer Area (Feed Footer WordPress Plugin). I’m using OIO Publisher WordPress Plugin to manage all aspects of my advertisement zones including payment tracking, advertisers, advertisement state and many more. With the pro version, you can gain access to their sales platform and all their API Services. I find this tool to be quite indispensable.

The easiest form of selling context sensitive inline Post advertisements is through the use of Google Adsense. Basically, AdSense choose a set of ads which are related to your niche or to the topic of your blog. When Google posts ads in your blog, your pay will be based on the number of advertisement clicks that your readers will make. Thus, your blog should have a lot of visitors in your blog. If you adapt the following techniques, make sure that you have enough web traffic to generate a lot of ad clicks. Other similar advertisement networks include Kontera ContentLinks, Text Links Ads and Adbrite.

2. Blog for business

You will have to be very careful about your blog posts. If you want to make your blog profitable, you will have to post content that matters to other people. Identify your niche based on what people want to read about. If you don’t have any idea, check keyword research services such as the Google Zeitgeist or the Yahoo! Buzz Index.

3. Use keywords

Posting articles that are rich in keywords will definitely help you increase your blog’s web traffic. These keywords refer to those words that most internet surfers use when they look for articles using major search engines. The more often they appear in your posts, the more likely the search engines will detect your blog. However, note that you should avoid bombarding your blog with the same keyword all throughout. The recommended keyword density is 5 percent. Here are some free keyword research tools – Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool , NicheBot and Trellian

In addition to defining the keywords as Tags in your Post, you would also need to define the HTML Meta Description and Meta Keywords as well. The must-have WordPress Plugin for this purpose is the “All in One SEO Pack”. This plugin allows you to easily define the description and keywords for the Post and will automatically generate the HTML Meta Tags for you.

4. Post on a regular basis

Updating your blog regularly will help you retain your visitors and readers. The recommended blog posting frequency is at least once a day. However, if you don’t have the time, you can opt to post two or three times a week, with each post comprising of not less than 1000 words. Search engine spiders can easily track an online site which has fresh content on a regular basis. However, take note of the fact that you should not exceed an average of 2 posts everyday, especially if you have RSS subscription

5. Respond to your comments

Comments are the lifeblood of a blog. To earn money, you have to make sure that you have a lot of readers. In order to retain your visitors and eventually attract more of them, you will have to pay extra attention to their comments on your blog. Never ignore a comment. No matter what message they leave you, regardless of how short it may be, you always have to respond.

If you can, respond to each of your commenter via e-mail. In composing the mail, do not forget to include hyperlinks to your blog or website. Note that every time you reply to their comments, you have to mention them by name and you will have to respond in a highly professional manner. A WordPress Plugin that would help you in this area is “Comment Relish”. It will simply send a short ‘thank you’ relishing type message to users when your readers first comment on your weblog. This would help to increase your readership and RSS subscription rate.

In addition, you won’t want to go without the “Subscribe to Comments” WordPress plugin that allows your readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.

One way to encourage more comments and discussions is to reward the top Commentators by having their names displayed on the sidebar linked to their home blog if they provided one. The “Show Top Commentators” WordPress Widget does the job nicely. Another method to attract more comments would be to implement the “CommentLuv” WordPress Plugin which will automatically link to the Commentator’s last blog post. This would not only saves time and build link equity for the Commentator, it would also provides an incentive for the Commentator to give a more constructive comment, thereby resulting in increased referred traffic to their blog.

6. Post comments in major blogs related to your niche

Find out who are the major contenders of your niche. You can find the influential bloggers in your niche using Technorati. Visit their blogs and read their posts. If you can relate to their posts and you have something intelligent to say, do post a comment. Make sure that your comment will have links to your own blog. By posting sensible comments, you will not only attract attention to your own blog, you will also have the chance to attract more traffic to your site.

There’s a free desktop tool called “Comment Kahuna” that will help you search blog comments related to your niche keywords that have the highest Pagerank. It also has the capability to filter the result sets even further by Blog Platform and the type of Comment Plugin installed. For instance, if you are only interested in WordPress type blogs and blogs that have CommentLuv plugin installed, the tool would narrow your serach results down to that level. I’ve found this tool to be of a great time saver, and all you’ve to do to download it is to opt in for their email subscription. A small price to pay for so much to be gained.

7. Avail of multiple blog directories

To make money out of your blogging, popularize your blog. Make sure that it is listed in not just a single blog directory- but in various directories. These days, there are many blog directories that would be happy to include your blog site in their list, for free. You will have to fill up a form or send them an email. Make it a point to avail of many blog directories for as long as they are provided for free.

8. Utilize email subscriptions

Aside from using RSS newsfeeds and the like, your site should offer email subscriptions. Keep in mind that not every internet surfer understands what newsfeeds are and how do they work. However, it is more probable that most readers know how to subscribe to newsletters which are sent via email. To apply this technique to your blog, you can make use of Feedburner (Feedburner FeedSmith WordPress Plugin)

Also, provide an incentive to your readers for subscribing to your newsletters by offering a free ebook upon signing up for it. Some of the stated benefits of using newsletters are that it help to promote your posts; improve your blog;build community; drive sales and increase blog readership.

So, what kind of tool would you use to manage the newsletters ? The most popular commercially available newsletter management service is Aweber. What I find attractive about this service is that it has a pretty high level email deliverability according to general concensus, though I’ve never used it myself. This is important for any email campaign as bounced emails marked as spam are a very common everyday occurrence. With Aweber, you can also choose between a plain text or html, and it comes with a good selection of email templates. Webmasters would like the email analytic capabilities of Aweber, it keeps track of the links the user clicked on where the user go next on your blog. There are other free email list programs around, the best of the bunch is Phplist. I’ve found this program to be quite comparable in features to some of the paid services. However, it does not come with support and all the bells and whistles of a paid service like Aweber.

9. Ping news aggregators

Your daily update of your blog will be a lot more effective if you make use of pinging services. Basically, these are websites that would like to monitor your blog updates. Every time you publish a new blog post, you will just have to let them know that you have updated your blog. Ping them. Once you do, expect that the whole World Wide Web will know about it in no time. Among the most popular ping services are Technorati, Blogdigger and Ping-O-Matic.

10. Offer sponsored reviews

Aside from making money by generating traffic, you can also profit from writing sponsored posts on a wide selection of topics. You can check sponsored review marketplaces and look for companies that are willing to pay for blog reviews about their products and services. If you have no idea on how this kind of online marketing works, you better check major networks that offer this kind of service. These include PayPerPost, Sponsored Reviews, ReviewMe, BlogVertise, and Smorty.

You have probably read an article or rather several write-ups that tell you about a blogger who has made lots and lots of money just by writing blog posts. Well, you have to note that blogging is not that much of an easy task. If you want to try the field of blogging, you might as well take note of the fact that there are certain characteristics that separates a profitable blog from the rest of the “blog population,” most of which are as follows.

Planned

Just like any other activity you may want to engage in, blogging requires a plan. Your plan is your blueprint to online success. If you want to make sure that your blog will be very profitable, you will have to prepare for it. Don’t just write and blog out of nowhere.

Choosing your niche should be the first step in your to-do list. In doing so, check the list of the most popular searches of internet surfers. After you have decided what your niche is, you will have to decide what hosting website you will have to use. For beginners, it is best to use free-hosting sites. When you know what and where to blog, determine your blog post frequency. Most blog experts recommend newbies to blog on a daily basis.

Strategic

Profitable blogs are those that are strategic. This means that the blog makes use of various techniques in strategies in generating more traffic and thus, more income. If you are a newbie, you have to familiarize yourself with the different ways that most successful bloggers use in ensuring their blog’s success. These include making use of RSS/XML feeds, submitting URLs to blog directories and search engines, and using viral marketing strategies.

Other blog marketing techniques, you will have to be strategic in analyzing and assessing your progress. A planned blog has page counter that monitors web traffic. That way, you can determine the efficiency of the present marketing strategies that you are implementing.

Innovative

For a blog to be profitable, it has to be very innovative. It should make use of groundbreaking styles and designs in blogging. It should serve as a pioneer in the field of blogging. As such, you should make sure that your blog is not being left out in terms of lay-out design, style, data presentation, and strategic techniques to profit maximization.

To be able to make sure that your blog is nothing but a novel online treasure, you will have to watch out for the emerging trends in blogging and web designing. Note that each innovation provides you with a new way and another opportunity to communicate and attract readers to your webpage.

Informative

Blogs that succeed are blogs that provide information. The primary reason why readers are fond of it is because they find its content as a source of knowledge. Basically, a blog that is informative is also accurate and comprehensive. If should contain all the basic facts that readers would want to know about a certain topic it discusses. It should tell the readers what, when, where, and why should they read about the blog post. The content of the blog post should be able to justify its existence.

Thus, a blogger should make it a point that his blog will provide nothing but high quality content. Before writing about anything, you have to make sure that you research the facts about that topic. Take note that you have to provide a blog post that is highly educational, if not totally enlightening about a certain topic.

Valuable

Other than being informative, most of the more profitable blogs are those that go a level higher than being informative. Rather, these blogs provide blog posts that are considered valuable. This means that these blogs are based on what the reader needs. They are specifically designed to answer the needs of the readers and provide solutions and answers to deemed questions and problems. They are far more treasured than most blogs because they were made to respond to the popular demands and inquiries of online readers.

Basically, valuable blogs are the products of bloggers who always respond to the feedbacks and comments of its readers. You have to note that as you develop an audience for your blog, you will have to adjust and modify your techniques and ways of writing according to what they want. You have to remember that you will be no longer writing for yourself. Instead, you will have to write for your target market.

Organized

A blog will not be profitable if it is not organized. This means that the blog also has a strategy in presenting all of the data that it contains. A profitable blog is one that possesses a very presentable lay-out that provides easy navigation. It also has a balanced content in terms of informative posts, images, advertisements, and product promotion. Thus, you have to make sure that your blog is appealing to your readers.

Know the basics of web designing and practice prioritizing in positioning certain elements in your blog page. Put the blog highlights on the right side of your blog page for emphasis. Eliminate all unnecessary images which can only create confusion among your readers. Do not forget to post your RSS feed subscriptions and client advertisements on page positions can easily locate it.

Also, you have to note that the recommended ratio of your informative posts to your product promotions should be three is to one. Thus, for every promotional write-up that you want to post, make it a point to write three informative articles.

Consistent

A profitable blog has to be consistent with its fine qualities. Although first impressions may last, succeeding evaluation and assessments matter more especially online. As such, it should be the goal of every blogger to maintain, if not totally improve the profitability of his blog. There should be no room for lapses.

A momentary lapse in the quality of a blog is a big no-no since competition is fierce in this kind of business. You have to keep in mind that a wrong move may result to lesser readers, loss of credibility, and an ultimately depreciating state of profitability.