May

18

Blackhairopedia.com - New Hair Directory

May 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Blackhairopedia.com
Black Hair Web Directory featuring Black Hair, Beauty, Body and SkinCare Websites, Products, Blogs, Books, Magazines, and more.
http://blackhairopedia.com

May

16

Urban Blogging and Making Money

May 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

GreasyGuide.com’s Guide to Urban Blogging and Making Money

-How to Be an Urban Blogger and Make $$$: Starting A Blog and Branding
-How to Be an Urban Blogger and Make $$$: Tips for Content Creation
-How to be an Urban Blogger and Make $$$: Monetizing Your Blog

May

15

Creating Your Own Blog for Cash & Clicks

May 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment

This is an excerpt of my eBook Turn your Niche into a Network. For more tips, download a copy of this eBook today.

A blog is basically an online journal that you can create and customize to fit your niche. Blogs originally were limited to being text journals, like an online diary, but today they are much more advanced. You can create video blogs, photo blogs, pod cast blogs, what ever type of blog you desire to create. There are a number of website communities for bloggers, which you can join and use to create your own blog; the most popular sites being blogger.com, live journal, and wordpress. You can also create blogs through social communities like myspace.com and blackplanet.com. Although the drawback of having your primary blog on social communities is that you are limited to the design of that community. For example, to ensure that users do not abuse their free member privileges, sites like myspace do not allow users to post their on advertisements, java scripts, or clickable flash videos. However these are all features that you can use through blog specific communities like blogger.com and wordpress. Moreover, these communities give you the option of hosting your blog through their system or hosting your data on your own site (something you can do if you understand web programming, or have a programmer design your blog for you).

Creating a blog is a great way to share your interest with the world and potentially start up a fan base that can turn into a lucrative blog business. Bloggers tend to make money through advertisements. Either they sell ad space by manually soliciting advertisers and putting up their banners. Or they use advertising services like Google Adsense and Adbrite.com. There are a number of affiliate programs created to connect blog publishers to interested advertisers. In addition to the ones I have already mentioned, there are popular sites like:

- LinkShare.com
- Commission Junction
- BlogHer Ad Program
- Glam.com Affiliate Program
- Amazon.com Associates Program
- EBay
- Paypal
- And many others that you can find through a simple google search

These sites provide bloggers with the ability to earn extra income through their sites, but it is important to keep in mind that Affiliate Programs do not guarantee that you will actually make any money. In order to actually make money from these ads you need to be aware of the following things:

- Viewers click ads. The more viewers you have, the better chance you have of getting your ads clicked.

- Click through ad campaigns range from paying as little as $0.01 and up, which means that you need at least 1,000 viewers daily to give you the probability of getting around 20 clicks a day, which translates into around $5 daily depending on the affiliate program. This is a very rough estimate, but it’s just to give you a sense of what type of traffic you need to bring to your blog in order to guarantee that your affiliate ads get clicked. This is why the more popular blogs tend to make more money.

- It also helps to keep your site content specific when using ad programs like Google Adsense. This particular affiliate program directs ad content to your site based on two things: (1) The most commonly used words and phrases on your site. (2) Your site popularity. Based on your keywords google selects ads that will be most relevant to your site content. And based on your site popularity, these ads may cost more per click or view. So if you have a very popular site that advertisers want to be featured on, you will see a larger return from ads clicked on your site .

- It is very important to keep in mind that relevant advertising is crucial. Websites that feature too many banners, most of which are unrelated with no theme, tend not to get clicked on. When it comes to online advertising the key isn’t really quantity, but the quality of ads that you choose.

- Ad placement is also important. The ads that get clicked most often are generally at the top of the page in the center, left, or right side column.

- High click ads also tend to come within the actually blog content. You can add advertisement banners to your posts, but it’s actually more effective if you turn your post into a promotional banner. For example, if you review a particular product or book and then place an affiliate link to that product in your post, that link has a better chance of being clicked than random links placed on your site.

As I mentioned above, if you are interested in earning money by featuring affiliate ads on your blog, the more readers you have the better. Popular blogs like Black Voices Blogs or Concreteloop.com receive thousands of readers because they consist of the crucial components every great blog must have. For example, unique content that is in high demand tends to generate more online buzz. What is your hook? What is your niche? When you have a clear concept, it is important that you fill your blog with at least 3 – 5 posts a week, the more the better. Sites that are heavy in quality content tend to be looked on more favorably by the Blogging community at large. Moreover, these sites tend to have better traffic rankings on search engines. It is also important to include links to relevant websites or other blogs of interest. Links help not only build content, but exchange traffic between your site and others. What many bloggers fail to realize is that having a good relationship with other bloggers is equally important to building a relationship with your readers. When other bloggers enjoy your posts they tend to feature them in their own blogs, or add your link to their blog list. One way you can begin building relationships with other bloggers is to get in the habit of regularly reading and posting comments on blogs that are relevant to your own. To find bloggers within your niche, join blog communities like:

- MyBlogLog.com
- BlogCatalog.com
- Blogged.com

It is also a good idea to get your blog listed on popular blog link communities. Some of which include:
- Technorati.com
- Digg.com
- Stumbleupon.com

Many bloggers also allow readers the opportunity to subscribe to their blog and have new posts sent directly to their email inbox. The most popular blog subscriber program online is feedburner.com. In addition to allowing readers to subscribe to your feed, you can also supply them with your own blogs RSS Feed Widget, which they can copy, paste, and add to their site. Widgets are basically web plugins; content that web developers can copy and paste into their site’s layout. You can create your own promotional widgets by using various online providers; one of the most popular is springwidgets.com.

In addition to posting regularly, interacting with other bloggers, and joining at least one blogger community, you should take the time to learn more about your readers. What is your target audience? Is the size of your target audience large enough to bring a large influx of new readers to your site daily? If yes, how do you reach these new readers? If no, how do you work on retaining your loyal readers so that however small that group might be, they regularly visit your site? These are questions that I will continue to bring up, because they are crucial to maintaining a site that is both timely and marketable.

Let’s take a minute to examine a very successful blog. Concreteloop.com is a very popular blog because its niche, Black Celebrity Gossip, is very unique and in high demand. One of the most common online activities aside from checking email or searching for information is reading articles - especially stories about celebrities. Concreteloop.com fills a need that is in great demand and that’s what makes this site so popular. If your niche is specific to a very popular topic then you are both lucky and have a lot of work to do. On one hand, it’s great to have a popular niche because you know people are guaranteed to regularly search for that topic. On the other hand, you have to work very hard to create a page that stands out among your niche competitors. On the flip side, when you create a niche that is not so popular, you have the opportunity to corner a new market on the internet. But at the same time you really have to work at reaching your audience, and building traffic that isn’t readily there.

So how do you get a better understanding of your niche? How do you reach them? To get this process started, you should begin by reviewing the traffic rate and keyword popularity of your topic. Both Yahoo and Google have keyword tools. You can also search online for other keyword programs. Google’s service is listed here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Once you know what key words and phrases are most commonly used by your target audience, integrate these words into your site. Inexperienced web developers tend to place more emphasis on creating an eye catching site, but it’s actually more important to focus on building quality content with keywords that are easily detectable by search engines. Understanding keyword placement is one of the most important components of Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.).

It is also important to be aware of your competition. Do you have any? If so, how many viewers do they get a day? How do they market and design their sites? To review and compare blogs and websites that are similar to your own, use online statistics services like Quantcast.com and Alexa.com. These sites can help you research competitors in your niche, and also help you better understand your own site traffic and statistics. Another great online program, which also happens to be free, is Google Analytics. Google’s Stat program is highly recommended. It is easy to use and allows you to easily track your traffic and monitor what content / or keywords work best for you. To learn more about creating and marketing your blog visit problogger.net.

This is an excerpt of my eBook Turn your Niche into a Network. For more tips, download a copy of this eBook today.

-Black Business Women Online
-bwomen.blackgirlclick.com

May

15

Search Urban :: Black Web Directory

May 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment

The Search Urban Directory, is a premier Black Online Directory featured on Multiple Shades of You Online (www.msoyonline.com). Search Urban features some of the best African American webpages online.

Click here to learn how to add your site to the Search Urban Directory.

Search Urban
Multiple Shades of You Online
Promoting Positive Websites for People of Color
www.msoyonline.com

This post featured on: Black Business Women Online [bwomen.blackgirlclick.com]

May

12

Black Latino Expo - Philadelphia, PA

May 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

The Black Latino Expo 2008 will have a significant impact on the regional economy. It will be a major economic contributor to Philadelphia and to the African American & the Latino communities throughout the tri-state area. This event will also increase tourism and generate significant revenue for the City of Philadelphia and surrounding areas. For example, collectively the economic impact of a similar three day event in the City of Sacramento, California was $36.1 million dollars to businesses, agencies, institutions, and organizations in 2006. The Black Latino Expo 2008 will similarly impact businesses, community institutions, employment services, sales and the flow of information to a largely under served segment of the community. Also, other similar events have seen a positive increase in attendance of an average of 6,000 attendees per year over the past four years.

Black Latino Expo - Philadelphia, PA
http://www.blacklatinoexpo.com

May

11

Happy Mother’s Day!

May 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Happy Mother’s Day!

Have a wonderful day today, don’t you wish days like this could last forever. Well, they should. Why Celebrate Mother’s Day for just one day?

Honoring Mothers of Color the Black Moms Club presents Mother’s Day All May. Every week you can find new features, forums, freebies, and friends on the Black Moms Club, so tell your friends it’s a great month to join our growing network.

All new updates will be posted in the ‘Mother’s Day All May Forum’!

Enjoy
Black Moms Club
blackmomsclub.ning.com

May

10

Custom Banner Design - Only $18

May 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Custom Graphics Design by LHenry
Banner advertising is a great way to showcase your website, book, product, or service. Do you need a banner? Graphics Design Services Available by LaShanda Henry. I specialize in urban graphics design, offering professional, quality designs at low prices to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Graphic Size and Pricing
468×60 pixel Banner Design - $20
120×90 pixel Banner Design - $15

Gif Animation - $4 Extra
Other Sizes - request pricing information

Custom Banner Design Special
468×60 pixel Banner Design - $18 - Limited time offer!
Coupon code: MAY18

*You must add the coupon code to your banner email request to get the discounted price. Offer expires May 26, 2008.

Order Banners
To order a custom banner send email to lhenry@msoyonline.com, subject=’Banner Design’. Banners are generally designed based on user specifications or site design. Include your site url, any text or images you want to include in banner. If you do not have images, that’s ok. Images can be acquired for you. If you are intereted in a particular photo please include details. Remember to include your website url and your email address for paypal payment. All payments are done through paypal.

Contact Info
Official Banner Design Website:
Custom Banner Design by LHenry
lhenry@msoyonline.com

Recent Banner Designs