Trevor's Travels

If you conduct any business online or maintain a website to compliment your offline business, then blogging is quickly becoming a mandatory part of your future. And if you are not currently blogging, chances are after realizing the potential of these traffic-enhancing goldmines, you soon will be!

Blogs, derived from the words “web log” were originally thought of as simply online diaries a place for people to record their thoughts and inspirations. At first, no one took blogging very seriously and these collections of online thoughts were simply passed off by many as hobbies or creative outlets and nothing more.

But then Google came along and started to recognize the unique and original content that these trite little sites presented and the rules of the game suddenly changed. After all, unique content is what makes the Google world go round, and what better way to command the attention of Google than by creating a dynamic environment with content that is solely your own.

At this stage, a whole new SEO world emerged and in the process, brought with it traffic opportunities like never before. People began blogging on more than what they had for dinner last night. They started to blog about new products, exciting travel adventures and all things related to online commerce.

The evolution quickly continued and today, with RSS feeds, sites like pingoat and many other content clearinghouses, blogging is big business and not to be overlooked by hungry entrepreneurs looking to establish a web presence.

What currently makes blogging so attractive is the sheer speed with which blogs and blog posts are able to get indexed in the search engines. It is a simple matter of static versus dynamic and the search engines love the dynamic.

Let’s take two different scenarios to see how traditional websites and blogs differ in their index-ability:

Scenario One:

One person creates a website to advertise gardening products and services. Each page of the site contains the traditional information about the company; it’s founders, the services they offer and the products they sell. Maybe, at best, the site has articles and content that is updated with some small frequency that are relevant to the avid gardener. When visitors arrive at the site, they have the option of signing up for the company newsletter and receiving valuable tips and new offerings.

In this scenario, the Webmaster or business owner will need to tend to many SEO related tasks in order to get and maintain high search engine ranking for a tight list of selected keywords related to the gardening niche. Not only will this activity require great skill, it will also involve many hours to achieve the intended results.

Scenario Two:

The same business owner as above also creates a blog to supplement their company website. Now, instead of focusing on simply one set of tightly selected keywords, the blog itself remains a broad overview of the gardening niche, while each individual post reflects a drilled down topic within that same niche.

So when the business owner writes a blog post about the benefits of “organic vegetable gardening in backyard containers,” this individual post becomes a keyword rich, targeted wonder and when indexed by the search engines has a far greater opportunity to bringing highly targeted traffic to the blog based upon that single post.

Through time, the blog expands with many similar posts that are targeted to sub niches within the broader gardening niche and can even be categorized from inside the blog structure itself. What has now been created in Google’s eyes is an extremely dynamic, naturally evolving site that is content rich and niche specific.

When properly constructed and promoted, each time the business owner posts to the blog, that individual post can get indexed in anywhere from two to twenty four hours on average. This opportunity is far greater than any options available at the static website.

Additionally, when the business owner endeavors to have a visitor signup for a newsletter, further segmenting can occur and subscriber lists can be refined and targeted. And because the blog is the front-end showcase to the original website, each blog post has the opportunity to link back to specific and relevant products at the main site.

When properly structured, blogs are the biggest SEO asset to a website that currently exists. The wise business owner will recognize these benefits and when implemented, will enjoy many opportunities that do not currently exist with traditional websites alone.

“Too often. . . I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.” – Louis L’Amour

Almost every-single person on the planet makes a big mistake when it comes to their income. They rely on just one source of income to earn a living. This source is usually their day-job. If for some reason they were to lose their job, they’d lose their only way of making money.

This causes people to live in constant fear of their boss, their performance on the job, hourly wages and the possibility of getting fired.

This doesn’t have to be you. You can fire your boss. And if you do have a job that requires a boss, you won’t worry about losing your job.

What you need to have is several different ways of making money. If one or two of those ways go sour, you’ll still have three or more different sources of income that consistently earns you cash.

When you combine money-making strategies, not only will you have a lot more freedom, but you’ll also have a lot more money.

If you use a website or blog as the corner-stone of your money-making empire, you’ll have something that automatically makes money for you – even while you are busy doing something else.

And you don’t have to rely on just one website or blog. You can have several nich-websites/blogs that all earn money. Even if you only make a small $500 a month from each of your websites, but you have 10 of them, you’ll be earning $5,000 a month.

Then what you can do is work one, or several, travel jobs. Anything you do for these jobs gets put up as content on your website, or websites.

By using this strategy you’ll be earning more money from your websites, while you earn additional income from your travel jobs.

Let me give you an example of how this could work:

We’ll say that you have just one nich-website to start with. Your website is set-up as a blog; it’s all about you. You monetize the site with Google ads and affiliate commissions (like through Clickbank or Commission Junction). You don’t even have your own product yet, but you still earn money.

You then work in Alaska for the winter commercial fishing season. You earn several thousands of dollars per month, with free room and board. You take the experiences you have in Alaska and post them on your website as articles, pictures, video, MP3s, or anything you like – it’s your website.

So not only are you making money from your Alaska job, but you’re making more money from your website as well.

You also take the photographs you have of Alaska, and post them on stock photography internet sites to earn a commission every time one of your pictures is downloaded. This starts to earn you residual income that will last for years to come.

After the fishing season, you grab the money you saved and decide to travel around Europe for three months. While you travel you update your website with your travel experiences and you post more photographs to the stock photography sites.

You also decide to write a few articles for magazines and websites about tourist destinations in Europe, that earns you even more money.

After your Europe trip you decide to go to Tailand. You find Tailand to be a fascinating, affordable country, so you plan to stay there for five months.

In Thailand you continue to update your website with your travel experiences, thus gaining you more visitors and more income. You regularly post photographs to the stock websites, and you land a job teaching English.

When you’re not teaching English you stroll over to the handicraft shops looking for deals. You buy handmade scarves and sweaters for dirt-cheap prices. Then you sell them for 20 times what they cost you through online auction sites like eBay.

After your visit to Thailand…

Do you see how this works? The more you do what you love to do, the more money you’ll make. Plus, you’ll be making money from five, ten or fifteen different sources – most of which run automatically for you.

This way you can make just a small amount of money from each job, yet still have more than enough cash to do anything you want to do. Can you imagine how much money you’ll earn if each job made you moderate wages? What if each one earned you great wages?

And you won’t have to worry about getting “fired” ever again! You’ll be financially independent from a variety of money-making sources, and you’ll have all the time you need to do whatever you want.

“Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” – Kurt Vonnegut

A blog is an online journal that allows post information, opinions, thoughts and other material online. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important feature of the blogs.

Purpose of Blogging:

The major purpose of creating a blog is to get exposed to the online world with views and outlooks. The following are some other popular purposes of blogging –

Channel for expressing thoughts: A blog is one of the best and effective channels to express personal views and thoughts. Many bloggers use their blogs to post their opinions on some topics they are interested or proficient in.



Share personal experiences: Blogs can be used as a means of sharing personal experiences, hobbies or details of the blogger is maintained as an online dairy of the blogger. Many bloggers with distinct personalities and unique thoughts were successful to use their blogs as an effective means to become popular.

Blogging for businesses: Many businesses have found blogging as an efficient resource to communicate with a good number of people online. Blogging acts as an effective means of communication to provide information to target audience through online. Thus, they could enhance their business opportunities using online resources. Many businesses also use internal blogs to communicate effectively with their employees.



Blogging for Internet marketing: Internet marketers, these days, have started using blogs as resources to create backlinks for their websites. Thus, blogs help them to enhance search engine rankings of any website.

Effective monetization resource online: There is a vast percentage of bloggers who create and use their blogs to make money online. Bloggers earn money on blogs through programs like advertising, affiliate programs, blogging for businesses, raising donations, blog flipping, etc.



Entertainment module: There are many blogs run online merely run for entertainment purposes like Vlog, Photologs, Podcasts, etc. A blog, which focuses on music, movie videos, wallpapers and photos, etc., is called an entertainment blog.

Educational purposes: Blogs are also used for educating people online. Bloggers post information on a wide variety of topics like health tips, computers, home, do-it-yourself, traveling, sports, business etc.

The flexibility and ease of blogging resulted in the adaptation of blogs for various purposes. The constant search for new elements by the blogging service providers has resulted in many advanced features and options for the bloggers. These features are helping the bloggers to take the advantage of the blogs for various purposes.