A blog could be about anything a blogger wishes it to be. Since the blogosphere is so big, there are many different topics you could choose from without having to worry much about if you’re doing it wrong or not. The only thing I could think of is that if you wish to grow your blog quick or make huge money, there are only a few topics that could focus on that. Apart from that, I could most definitely say that if you wish to start blogging, the topics are countless for you to choose from.

Bloggers think that after choosing the correct topic to use on a blog, they would not have to think much more of topics again, but they’re wrong.  One simple topic like “blogging” itself could split into many of their own little topics known as categories.  As a blogger, just blogging about your topic without splitting it within some smaller sub-topics would cause problems for your readers.

I have noticed that categories allow viewers and readers to easily browse through the blog without hesitation. Lets just say that you’re going through the blogosphere for money making blogs and you find one that exactly meets your needs.  As soon as you enter the blog, you decide that you need to find specific money making topics, but you realize that there aren’t any categories in the sidebar or anywhere on the blog to find what you need.  Instead you would need to browse through the blog’s archive just to find the correct post that you have been seeking for.

Once again, I’m going to link to Garry’s post that explains how many categories should be on a blog.  Typically, categories for a blog are usually listed on a blog’s sidebar because it’s the easiest place for viewers and readers to find the correct thing.  It’s also good to place the categories at the mid section of your blog because that’s where most scrollers usually end up at .

The way you should specify categories on your blog could be a very difficult task.  You would not really know how many categories or what categories you would actually need until you start writing posts.  As your ideas come, you should be able to know what your mind thinks about.

Narrow

A narrow category list is basically little to nothing.  This usually consists of just 3-4 categories.  Narrowing things down could be good and bad.  The good thing is that your posts would not be scattered everywhere and you would not need to worry much about what category you post needs to be under.  The bad thing about it is that if a reader or viewer of yours would like to go into a more specific topic, it would be a bit more difficult to find the necessary information.

Expanded

As you could see with my sidebar, I have quite a few different categories.  The reason for this is because my blog topic is on blogging, which is pretty broad if you think about it.  Unless you’re writing purely on how to blog, you wouldn’t need as many categories as I’m using.  What I have is an example of an expanded type of category list.  I have almost all of the main ideas covered and it’s quite easy for my viewers and readers to go through the list to find a post in the correct section.

For Example: If someone wanted to learn about blogging and how to do it correctly, he/she would go to my Education & Training section, which is where he/she would find all my posts that teaches something.

It really depends on how your blog is and what your topic is to decide whether you should have a narrowed down or expanded category list.  Garry mentions there should be about 5-7 different categories, which is really a reasonable amount.  I used to have about 20, which really expanded all my posts.  It became a difficult task to find out where each of my posts should be under.

I believe that all bloggers should use categories on a blog because it really does provide an easy way for your viewers and readers to find things.  The easier it is for people to access your blog, the more daily traffic you would receive.  I have also heard that another great thing about having categories is that it adds on to your blog’s SEO, which means that search engines could easily access and index more of your pages.

Do you have categories on your blog?

Have you ever heard the term that if you snooze you will lose? The losers at the end of the line are usually the ones that snoozed from getting in on the business. This exactly matches how life works because even when you were a kid, you probably knew that if you wanted to get a bouncy ball for recess, you would have to get to the line first. You would have to dodge, push, shove, and run all the way to the lady (or guy) that passes out the balls, but if you get to the line a bit too late, you will see yourself ball-less. Same thing happens to adults these days and I’m sure you know what I mean. If you’re trying to open a new business as a adult, you must know there are competition out there. Get to know that if there is competition, you have to make yourself different, but that may fail too. Instead, you must be the first one to come up with something different. If you’re the first, you will end up getting more clients and more business. If you stir up controversy when you’re blogging, you may also stir up a lot of traffic

Be The First

There is so much controversy over the internet and in real life. Controversy just starts out of no where and becomes huge, but you must start the controversy first. For example, I’m going to put John Chow into the picture. Although I’ve made truce with John Chow on my blog post stating that he is a great guy, a lot of people still don’t see it, and there are still controversy stirring around his name. If you were to write up an article about how much you hate John Chow, you won’t be the first. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen so many posts about how this blogger hates John or that blogger thinks John is an ass. It’s basically all the same crap that is being spread around and you know what, John has already given up on trying to argue. Instead, he has taken the bad press into his own hand and turned it around into real blog traffic.

If you’re hoping to stir up controversy, you must think of something that hasn’t been done yet. What I did last week was publish a post stating that I was going to sell my Entrecard account and leave Entrecard for good. Now a lot of bloggers have already stated they would leave Entrecard, but no one has ever stated that the account itself was going to be sold. I took this to my advantage and started an eBay listing, publish an article, and talk about it in the Entrecard forums. The result was that I gained a lot of controversy and traffic. I may not be the first person that stated that I would leave Entrecard, but I was the first to state that I’m selling my account. Being first allowed me to choose what I want to do with the topic.

Gain Backlinks

Now that you have stirred up some sort of controversy, you will bound get some heads turning your way (if done correctly). Depending on how you approach the matter and the situation, a lot of your viewers will turn around and blog about your article post on their blog. Now a link to your blog means a backlink. It may or may not be permanent, but you still receive a backlink for the meantime.

A backlink to your website is basically stating that someone else likes your blog and it results in higher ranks and higher values. If you take a look at your stats on DNScoop, you will be able to tell that backlinks are an essential in raising the value of your blog. I’m not stating that you should sell your blog, but a higher value usually makes a site owner happy . What you should do is keep weekly checks on your stats and you would notice that if your backlinks raise or lower, it affects the value a lot.

Another thing that backlinks raise is your Technorati Authority. The Authority decides your ranking in the Technorati system. Bloggin-Ads is currently one of the Top 10,000 blogs with an authority of 533+. What that provides is more money to me because advertisers would want those type of stats. It took me 7 months to gain this rank, but I’ve been trying to gain backlinks everywhere for this

The Haters

Stirring up controversy could ruin your image to some of your viewers or newer visitors, but it’s your choice on doing it. There are always haters in the world because not everyone has the same taste of how things run . I was surprised at how many bloggers from Entrecard came out of the dust to leave a comment on my post just bashing on me and my decision.

Evilwoobie (here’s some love for ya ) even said that my blog is like a directory for A-listers now and I do admit that it looks like it. I haven’t done much reviews as promised either because if you do a lot of blog reviews, you will realize that all the blogs are the same.

Off Topic: I’m looking for unique blogs and it doesn’t even matter what size, as long as the content provided is different. From what I’m seeing through my requests, I’m getting a lot of requests from bloggers that use Entrecard (probably because I’m a member too). Most of these blogs are about money making or Entrecard. Once in a while I would see something different in the community, but for those, I haven’t gotten the chance to review yet (they definitely will). I do apologize that I haven’t replied to bloggers that sent me a request, but I do have it written down for a possible review.

As you can see, just by trying to stir up some controversy, I received hate comments that aren’t even related to the topic itself. You’re bound to get these type of comments, but you have to also learn to take all this bad press in just like how John Chow does. Don’t try to make enemies, but instead turn it around and understand the comment. EvilWoobie left me a bashing comment, but I’m not trying to make enemies with anyone, so I understand what she is trying to tell me. Depending on how you approach things, you may or may not make friends with your enemies

Entrecard Is Great

Less clicks on bigger sites because they don’t focus on Entrecard. If they’re not participating much in the community, they won’t see much traffic from Entrecard. If they were to drop cards daily (about 100-200), they would see a lot more entrecard members viewing their blog. This results in more clicks to the member advertising on the widget displayed on their blog. The only problem there is you are probably only getting about 30-50 clicks from John Chow or 10-30 clicks from John Cow. This is because the visitors to their blog is completely unrelated to Entrecard. The traffic that they get is what YOU want rather than the same visitors on and on. Yes a lot of you hate me for stating that the Entrecard traffic is “fake”, but you have to look at the big picture to realize it. You’ll get traffic, but you won’t get traffic from the real bloggers (blogs with unique content) out in the blogosphere. I admit that some of you guys have extraordinary blogs with great unique content, but most of you guys just talk about Entrecard or talk about stuff that are already being discussed on 50 other blogs. I talk about Entrecard too, but I bring up a different type of content and controversy.

Point is, if you don’t participate in Entrecard by dropping cards or chatting in the forums, you will probably not receive as much clicks and you probably won’t give out as much either. Unless you’re a well known person around all of the blogosphere or if you’re a moderator/staff of Entrecard, you would probably see yourself as the lower part of the Entrecard community. And the final point will be if you wish to just make a community of friends, you can continue to use Entrecard forever. If you wish to grow your blog, you can start with Entrecard, but eventually moving on. You will limit yourself if you stay in one community when there are so much more out there in the blogosphere. You can most definitely try to use Entrecard and grow at the same time, but a lot of big bloggers are actually disgusted by seeing the Entrecard widget (I won’t say any names, but this is a fact). The proper way to get your blog out would actually be to connect with other communities outside of Entrecard, which I’ve been doing while other bloggers have been using Entrecard. I have built up bigger networks in social media sites like Twitter, MyBlogLog, and BlogCatalog. You must be able to gain the visit of those visitors that are going to John Chow’s blog (example) because they’re the ones that are not clicking on your advertisement image on the widget. They’re the ones that probably don’t know or have ever seen your blog. Some of you may have tried to get your blog out previous to Entrecard launching, but failed. Entrecard just makes things a lot easier to start out first We love you Graham!

Lesson Learned (RANT section )

You can’t depend on Entrecard for everything. While others will building traffic and popularity with Entrecard, I gone ahead and built a bigger network elsewhere. Participation in the other communities allowed me to gain a higher popularity in the blogosphere itself rather than lock myself in one. But I still love Entrecard because it’s one of the networks that is helping me gain popularity, so getting rid of it would be out of the question. I know I’m not getting the traffic that the popular blogs on Entrecard are getting, but overall through the whole blogosphere, I am ranked higher. If you’re looking towards being a successful blogger or a money maker, ranking high in the whole picture would be better than a portion of it.

Now you should understand what I mean by “fake traffic” when I related it to Entrecard because you’re getting the same drops and clicks from the same people on Entrecard. This is another reason why your bounce rate goes higher. I would die for 100-300 clicks on my advertisement image on John Chow because the traffic would be considered organic and they’ll be new blood. The traffic that John Chow and John Cow receives is indeed not fake because if you purchased a review, you would see that a spike occurs in your Alexa rank (maybe not as much anymore due to the new Alexa system). What I mean by “fake traffic” is just traffic that is the same and coming from the same people, but some of you took it into assumption that it meant otherwise. I wasn’t specific with my “Goodbye To Entrecard” post because I wanted to see the reactions from peoploe agreeing with me and disagreeing. I have gained a lot of new readers from this, but have also lost visitors. I gained a lot of traffic and some linkbacks from all this mayhem and controversy I’ve created .

Sorry for the experiment, but I wanted to try something out after I noticed how the guy on Twitter tried to sell his account on eBay, but canceled all the bids in the end. In return, he gain huge publicity. By the way, the eBay auction I left up was legitimate, but I have contacted the buyer to work out an mutual agreement because I forgot to close the auction. LOL.

Just a week ago, I mentioned through a 2 part post on how to market your blog through correct advertising, but I never really mentioned on how you’re actually investing into your future. When there are investment opportunities that are given to you either on the Internet or in real life, you are the one that decides whether you will go forward with it or not. Investing isn’t actually rocket science because if you have the money, you can just throw it in to the pool, but you may not get as high of a return. I always say that you must know what you’re doing, otherwise you will just throw your money to waste.

The biggest type of investments is through the Stock Market, which I’m sure almost all of you have heard of. Investing into stocks, if done correctly, could make you a whole lot of money, but everything takes time and training. Of course when it comes to the rich asses out there, money isn’t going to be a problem and investing in the wrong stocks would just be a slight fender bender if you know what I mean. I actually do not understand the whole concept of stocks, but I know that people are willing to spends a lot of money by purchasing shares of a company. What I think is without people purchasing shares of a certain company, that company would not be able to grow, which is kind of like a Venture Capital (not Capitalism).

Venture Capital

Before I met Max, the guy behind SiteHoppin’, I never knew what VC stood for. Who would’ve thought VC means Venture Capital and it is a huge type of investment in the real world including the Internet. Venture Capital is probably not heard by most of us average people because it requires higher status people. In other words, if you’re not rich or have some type of “IMAGE”, you probably won’t be able to see yourself investing through VC.

Investing For A Cause

The above was just a small summary of what VC stands for and who can take advantage of it, but I’m sure some of you don’t know what Venture Capital means. Alright, lets throw Entrecard in as an example. Entrecard is becoming a huge thing in the blogosphere and hundreds of new bloggers are joining in on the action, which means the costs of maintenance is growing every single day. A bigger server with bigger resources such as ram and bandwidth is needed to keep Entrecard up and running, but a bigger server means more money.

I just switched from a “Shared Hosting” plan over at Hostgator to a “Dedicated Server”, which means I went from a $10/month server cost to almost $300/month. Luckily Hostgator is sponsoring my blog with the hosting and my future projects. What they’re doing is basically investing in my work because they believe it is for a good cause and a good return. Alright this isn’t Venture Capital, but it is considered investing.

Now back to talking about Entrecard. Graham is currently making only about $1-2,000 a month from advertisements that he is selling through Project Wonderful, but that is NOTHING compared to the costs of his server. If I’m correct, Entrecard needs to use about 4-5 quad-core cpu computers loaded with about 2-4GB of RAM each. If you’re a techie, you would know that those type of system resources is HUGE and most of us will never be able to use that much. At the current cost of dedicated servers, Graham should be paying about $2-3,000 a month for server costs, but that means he would be losing money from his own pocket. Million Dollar Wiki received a least $80,000 after taxes and selling the blog, but that money has been spent by Graham to pay off his schooling debt and to start Entrecard. This is where Venture Capital Investors (VCI) comes into play.

When Graham thought about the idea of opening Entrecard, he had to spend some money on getting publicists or a word out to the investors. As soon as a VCI picks up Entrecard’s plot and goal, the investor would decide whether to invest or not to. We’re not talking about a few hundred dollars, but we’re talking about thousands. These type of funds are only the bare minimal of opening a business like Entrecard. So to sum things up, a Venture Capital Investor basically throws in money for a opening project because that certain investor(s) believes in the future success outcome.

Know Who To Give The $$$ To

Not all projects are going to find Venture Capital Investors because not all are going to come out being successful. These type of investors are mostly experienced and they know whether spending a couple grand on a project as a return on investment or not. Look at Entrecard…the reason Graham received investors was because his idea was unique when he first started out. He was the first one to think of such a system, so he deserves more money to continue forth the project.

Lets ask something shall we? If you have money and you’re now deciding to invest into projects, would you want to invest into Spottt or any similar 125×125 banner exchange type of programs? You probably would not because the value of it would never reach as high as Entrecard. But even if you wanted to invest, not everyone would be able to

Not For Everyone

Even if you were to have the money to become a Venture Capital Investor, you won’t have the credibility to invest because you may not have your word for it. So what now? You find something that accepts investments from the average Joe and you take the opportunity to do so.

Investments In Beer Stocks

Internet Venture Capital Investing is the latest to investing these days. Well, technically it isn’t, but it has just been brought into play better than ever. You guys all know Max and his creation of SiteHoppin’. I’m sure you do because I mention him quite often here on Bloggin-Ads. Some of you may just know him by SiteHoppin, but I know him as a man with huge ideas. You may say that he’s a copy-cater since he created FiveDollarWiki, OneBuckWiki, QuarterWiki, and EntreWiki after the big creation that you all know as, Entrecard. What I comment on that is he doesn’t copy someone else’s idea, but he makes it better. Better is what people want and that is what is provided. Ok, enough kissing ass to my good buddy

Beer Stocks

At first, these “BEER STOCKS” was called IUVC (Internet User Venture Capital), but Max decided things should be easier, so Beer Stocks was the final name. With a phrase like that, it is attracting tons of viewers and the fuss is just beginning .

Investing in Beer Stocks is your chance to own a share of a ever growing website known as SiteHoppin’. You will own a share of the total traffic that SiteHoppin’ receives with a full customizable page that displays feeds from YouTube, Flickr, Del.icio.us, Yahoo News, and Google. If you ever wanted to be a part of a major corporation, this is your chance. By owning a share of SiteHoppin’, it means you own a part of the website. You will gain a lot of SEO value for doing absolutely nothing.

So what is the pricing? The current pricing of a Beer Stock word/phrase is $10 for each vowel (a,e,i,o,u) in the word/phrase and $1 for every other letter. This doesn’t include numbers, so purchasing numbers would be a great investment. Someone already purchased the numbers 1 through 10, so there are smart investors out there.

If you don’t want your Beer Stock anymore, you can go ahead and sell the word/phrase for any amount you want at the place known as the Beer Stock Market. New investors are dying to own certain key words, so you’re making money from this.

Max just recently launched the Beer Stocks’ affiliate system and investors are able to sell stocks for commission. Every Beer Stock you sell through your referral link, your referrer will receive a 25% discount and you will receive 25% of the profit.

A business wouldn’t be a business without a donation to charity, so Max has decided that at the end of the year, 5% of all the profits would be donated to a charity voted by choice. What a great guy!

Automated Visitors

Just a couple paragraphs ago, I mentioned that your customizable page will have automated RSS feeds from big companies. What that does is it gives you traffic. I’m sure you want traffic and that is why owning a share of SiteHoppin’ is different from any other Venture Capital out there. As Max said to me in chat, “Beer Stocks gives 33% of all traffic back to its investors and StumbleUpon gives back 0%.”

If SiteHoppin’ receives 100,000 unique visitors per day and 100 Beer Stocks are purchased, each Beer Share would receive 333 unique visitors per day ( 100,000 divide 3 and divide by 100 ). This type of system is the first of its kind and already the has been a few thousand dollars in beer stocks sold.

I even own 2 Beer Stocks myself Blogs and Blog-reviews. Similar to any stock market shares out there, purchasing early is the key because you would get first choice in pricing and the names. Buy Beer Stocks! By purchasing through me, you receive a 25% discount! Own a piece of history

When you choose the path of becoming a blogger, you must first know what you’re putting yourself against. Ok, I do admit that I did not read the blogging eBooks or blogging for success type of posts, but I do highly suggest it before you continue. Of course you’re now wondering why I am asking you to read about blogging before the actual blogging and it is because many of you guys still don’t understand the concepts of it. The point I’m going to bring up related to this is your blog “visitors” or should I say “uniques”. When trying to keep a constant readership, bloggers try all different type of techniques and one of them is posting constantly. What if this method is the wrong way to go?

Quantity of posts isn’t always want readers want and judging by the current blogosphere, quantity is not going to be needed as much now. There are so many blogs that if you post something, somewhere in the blogosphere, there is a similar post to yours. This is why a bloggers should focus more on quantity because quantity allows more in-depth posts that explains things more thoroughly. Here at Bloggin-Ads, we’re already lowering down the quantity of posts because we feel that quality is what is really needed. Just take a look at all the comments I get now Others are starting to join in to this strategy now too!

Background – BAYB’s About Page

This is probably the first blog I’ve ever reviewed that does not have just ONE blogger, but consists of many different authors that provides their own unique posts. Because there are so many authors, I really don’t know who to write a background of and not to mention there isn’t much of an “about” page . If you wish to take a look at all the authors, feel free to do so here. I mean, I even see Garry Conn in the list of authors, so this blog must be good

BAYB chooses to seek talented bloggers out there to give everyone a chance to receive some traffic and of course, the backlink.

Quality over Quantity

Focusing on quality over quantity is the key thing to remember when blogging and that’s what BAYB is providing. Yes, there is a least one post a day on the blog, which is already more than me, but they’re able to keep the same amount of readership and keep it cool. The fact that people want quality is true because it brings in valuable viewers and not one-time viewers that most social bookmarking sites bring, including Entrecard.

After much digging into BAYB, I’ve noticed that the blog truly provides what it says, which is “blogging”. I mean, come on, there aren’t even much ads on this blog, so reading without getting distracted should be a breeze.

BAYB ranges in many different categories which start anywhere from blogging tips, affiliate marketing, and SEO tips and tools to making money online, social media and networking, and blogging news. Now with that said, I would like you guys to give BAYB a try and take a look at these very well written posts and remember, QUALITY.

• Quick way to make your long posts more readable
• Promoting and Earning Money with Affiliate Programs
• Blogging Zoom vs John Chow

After this review, I’m sure you guys would want to take a look, but make sure you subscribe to BAYB’s RSS feed because they provide what bloggers need.

Overview

Courtneytuttle.com has been a must read blog for me. His writing extends from an internet marketing perspective and is really easy to understand – his posting on a beginners guide to RSS actually made me acknowledge Google reader and switch over from bloglines.

Similar to Aaron Wall at Seobook.com, Courtney is a blogger (and internet marketer) who writes with passion and is easy to understand – I only wish I came across his blog a little sooner.

About Courtney Tuttle

Courtney used to be an internet marketing consultant and now blogs to all about internet marketing, promotion and SEO. He is used to building websites and promoting them, and has been making all of his money from online businesses and promotion – he does discuss making money, but wants to focus on teaching people techniques about how to market their businesses and blogs, and not just sharing how much he makes a month, such as John Chow does.

Court, believes in Internet marketing and considers the business to be:

This business is about determination, motivation, discipline, and persistence. In order to be successful with internet marketing, you will need to grow as a person. You will also need to develop skills and knowledge that the best internet marketers use. This site is here to help you to learn those skills.

Layout and Great posts

The layout of his blog is packed full of useful information, with Courtney’s best section with well written and interesting posts. One being a post on permalinks and bloggers committing search engine suicide; Court provides some valuable advice that I’ve heard from other bloggers – making it easy for search engines to crawl your content and understanding what you are posting is crucial, Court explains this well.

If you’re up for a long read GREAT read, then I’d suggest taking a venture over to Court’s Starting a blog article. It is rather ‘meaty’, but you’ll be sure to learn a thing or two, whether you’re a newbie blogger or a pro, he offers some sound and solid advice that will help you (or indeed remind you) when you’re setting up a blog for the first time.

Getting backlinks is a must for all bloggers, and Court once again supplies a great post on how to create these – 102 ways to make backlinks to your site – I particularly like #55 – citing your sources, just hope Court will want to link to this post too, but I’d be a little wary of hiring a starving student for $8 an hour at #81 – as I was sometimes unreliable as a student.

Making it easier than simple

It shocked me how easy it is to navigate around Courtney’s blog, with a simple 3 across ‘hit list’ (see below) linking to some of the most helpful posts on getting started blogging, boosting your blog traffic and earning money through blogging.

Creating a plugin page, to list all the plugins that Court uses and recommends is a really big help for newbie bloggers, as it steers them to plugins that have been used by many and also creates a place where bloggers can refer to – in fact most of the plugins I use were recommended by Courtney’s plugin page.

You Blog

A short while ago (November last year) Courtney decided to implement an area in his blog called you blog, an area separate to the main site where guest bloggers publish posts for the blog’s readers. There have been many bloggers that have published some great content here – some of my favourites are: 5 reasons why your Affiliate Program sucks, 71% of internet marketers just don’t get it (really quite funny and re-instates that you should practice what you preach), and Why is it important to place ads on your blog as soon as possible.

There is really too much on Courtney’s blog to review about in this post, I’m still trying to get through the content after reading it for 6 months! I’d recommend you venture over to the blog and pick up on some of his techniques and advice on optimization and marketing your blog – you just never know what you’ll learn.

This post was written for bloggin-ads.com by Nick Sanders (edited by Bloggin-Ads.com), who blogs over at road2blogging.com – a newbie blogger’s project to become a problogger in just 24months.

If you liked this post, then you’ll probably want to subscribe to the road2blogging.com RSS feed.

Interested in submitting your own review for your blog or someone else’s? Submit A Post and if your review is chosen, it will be featured here on Bloggin-Ads.com.