ClubBlogger » income

Getting Prepared for Tax Time

ClubBlogger — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:50:32 +0000

Now that you have started blogging and earning some cash from your efforts, it is time for you to start thinking about tax time. Many bloggers get into the business without even thinking about the fact that they may ultimately have to pay taxes on their earnings. Yet, if you fail to report the money you have earned from your blog, you could potentially find yourself in a lot of trouble with the IRS. Therefore, if you haven’t already, you should start taking these steps in order to prepare yourself for tax time.

Keep Track of Your Earnings

The first thing you need to do in order to prep for tax time is to keep accurate track of your earnings. If you have affiliate links on your blog that are earning you some cash, for example, you need to keep track of the money you earn each month from these links. If you are selling a product such as an ebook, you need to keep track of these sales as well.

Fortunately, many affiliate programs will provide you with monthly statements and annual statements that summarize your earnings. In addition, if your customers use a company such as Paypal to purchase products from your site, you can make it easier to keep track of your sales by setting up separate Paypal accounts for each product or blog you own. Not only will this help you keep better track of your income, it will also make it easier for you to monitor the success of a particular product or blog.

Taking Advantage of Deductibles

As a business owner, there are also many deductibles that you may be able to take advantage of. Be certain to keep track of all of your business expenses in order to keep your overall tax burden down. You may be surprised by all of the items you may be able to deduct from your taxes. Some possible deductions include:

Business expenses for the use of your home if you do your work from home
A portion of your utilities if you do your work from home
Expenses related to travel associated with your blogging business (i.e. for attending conventions)
The cost of purchasing equipment associated with your blog, such as your computer, your printer and printer paper

Of course, it is best to consult with an accountant in order to be clear on what can and cannot be deducted from your business expenses. This way, you can be certain you are filing an accurate return that you can stand behind if you happen to be audited. And, remember, if you are filing your taxes as a sole proprietor, you and your business are not considered to be separate entities. Therefore, your business tax burden is your personal tax burden as well. In addition, your income will be taxed as a small business as well as part of your personal income, so you want to take advantage of every deduction possible!

Successfully Marketing Your Blog with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

ClubBlogger — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:10:33 +0000

This is part 4 of a 4 part series on Marketing your Blog.

Part 1 : Successfully Marketing Your Blog: An Overview

Part 2 : Successfully Marketing Your Blog with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Part 3 : Successfully Marketing Your Blog with Social Networking

The final method you can use for marketing your blog is through the use of search engine optimization, or SEO, techniques. Search engine optimization involves taking steps to make your blog more attractive to the search engines so the search engines will provide your blog with a higher ranking on the organic search engines results page. Obviously, the higher your blog is ranked on the results page, the more likely it is that people will visit your site. And, since these search engine results are completely free, you don’t have to worry about paying every time someone clicks on your link.

Getting your blog to rank naturally high on the search engine results is possibly the best way to market your blog. Not only does it cost nothing, but many people don’t bother to look at the sponsored links that are brought up from a PPC campaign. In addition, simply having your site ranked high on the list automatically makes your blog appear to be more relevant and reputable in the eyes of those who are searching for a particular keyword phrase.

There are numerous ways you can get your blog to rank higher in the search engine results pages. One method is to incorporate certain keyword phrases into your blog posts. In order to give yourself the best chance for success, visit a site such as Google Adwords and look at the popularity of various phrases that are related to your site. Ideally, you should target those phrases that are searched often but that do not yet have a great deal of competition on the Internet.

Creating links within your blog also helps increase your search engine standing. By linking various relevant posts to one another, the search engines are better able to crawl throughout your blog and analyze what it has to offer. It is also beneficial to build up your incoming links, which are links coming to your blog from other blogs and websites.

There are several methods you can use to increase your incoming links. If you engage in social networking, you can build your incoming links by leaving a link to your website at forums, blogs and other social networking websites. You can also increase your incoming links by guest blogging on other blogs and by submitting articles to article directories. If your article is good enough, it may go viral. This will help increase your incoming links while also improving your overall reputation within your target market.

The way your blog is set up can also have an impact on your search engine ranking. If your blog is full of broken links, for example, the search engine spiders will not be able to comb through your blog properly. As a result, the spiders may think your blog has less to offer than it really does. Therefore, if you are not comfortable with the technical aspect of maintaining a blog, it may be worthwhile for you to hire an expert to help you with the initial set-up. That way, your blog will be attractive and easy to navigate for search engines and for your readers.

Successfully Marketing Your Blog: An Overview

ClubBlogger — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:36:42 +0000

This is part 1 of a 4 part series on marketing your Blog.

So, you have decided to get serious about drawing traffic to your blog and hopefully making some money in the process. If so, you probably already know that marketing is the first major step toward building a successful income with your blog. At the same time, understanding how to successfully market your blog is a completely different animal. In fact, it can be downright frightening and even costly if you don’t know how to go about it the right way.

There are three major ways you can go about marketing your blog. These include:

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Social Networking
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

Within each of these categories, there are numerous techniques and methods you can use to successfully draw more traffic to your blog. At the same time, it is important for you to complete some market research before you begin using any of these methods. Otherwise, you can waste a great deal of your time and money on marketing techniques that do not yield any real results.

Conducting market research involves getting to know your target audience in order to provide your audience with what it needs. In other words, you need to “get inside the heads” of those people you are hoping to reach with your blog. You can accomplish this by conducting surveys and polls on your blog as well as by visiting other blogs and forums that are frequented by your target group.

During the market research stage of marketing, you should not focus on participating in blog and forum discussions. Rather, spend some time as a “lurker” who simply reads the posts of the community members. This way, you can get a better idea of the personalities of your target group as well as the problems they are facing.

Getting to understand the needs of your target audience is the key to building a successful marketing campaign. After all, if your blog will only be successful it is able to fulfill a need. This need may be social in nature or it may provide information to the reader that helps the reader in his or her relationships, career, hobbies or other area. For example, if you are writing a blog about being a single father, it is important for you to understand the concerns and problems that single fathers face. That way, you can gear your blog posts toward addressing those needs.

Once you have successfully created a profile of your target audience, you will be able to better determine how to market your blog in a way that will bring targeted traffic to your site. In that way, you will be better capable of monetizing your blog or simply creating a meaningful community for your target audience if that is your goal.

Getting Started with Your Blogging Business

ClubBlogger — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:10:58 +0000

Are you considering starting your own blogging business? If so, you aren’t alone! In fact, many people have found a way to create a handsome income through blog writing, so there is no reason why you can’t do it as well. At the same time, if you are currently working and you are thinking about jumping into the world of blogging, there are a few steps you should take in order to make certain you make a smooth transition into the blogging world and that your finances are under control.

Get Your Feet Wet

Before you turn in your resignation and hit the web, it is a good idea to get your feet wet in the world of blogging. Spend some time reading some blogs and interacting with blogging communities so you can get a better idea of how blogs work and how the communities are built. You might also want to guest blog for some of the more popular blogs or even write blog paid blog posts for someone else so you can better determine whether or not writing blogs is something you enjoy. Of course, you can certainly set up a free blog with a site such as blogger and you can get started with your own blog. If you notice that your blog is generating some interest, you may very well have found a way to leave the rat race and start a successful home based career.

Monetizing Your Blog

After you have successfully built up a community with one blog, you might want to start dabbling in different ways to monetize your blog. Allowing pay-per-click advertisements to be placed on your blog is one way to monetize your site. You might also want to get involved with affiliate products and look into selling them through your website. Another option is to sell advertisement space on your blog. In fact, if your blog becomes popular enough, you will find people coming to you and asking to place their ads on your blog.

Spreading Your Wings

If you find that you were able to make one blog a success, you might want to start looking into creating additional blogs. The key is to make certain you don’t overburden yourself by creating more blogs than you can keep up with while still holding down your job. After all, building a successful blog takes time and maintaining a successful blog requires making a commitment to add new blog content on a regular basis. Therefore, you don’t want to have so many blogs going that you cannot keep up with them.

Until you start earning enough income from your blogs, you may have to juggle both your regular 9 to 5 job as well as your blogging business. But, once your blogs take off and you start earning a decent amount of cash from them, it just may be time to spread your wings and jump into blogging full time!

Bouncing Back From Bankruptcy

ClubBlogger — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:03:34 +0000

Bankruptcy can be an extremely devastating experience. It can affect individuals both emotionally and psychologically. However, it also can be a great relief for individuals who have struggled to be pay their bills and who have been constantly fielding phone calls from bill collectors. It is important to note that bankruptcy is not the end of one’s financial life, although it will have a big impact on it. Bankruptcy will stay on your credit report for a period of 7 to 10 years. Most experts suggest that within two to three years, an individual can begin to receive loans with rates almost as good as they could before they begin to get into financial trouble if they take steps to rebuild their financial reputation . In order for this to occur, individuals have to make sure that they figure out the root of their initial financial problems, take inventory of their income and outgoing bills, budget, consider going to a cash based system, track their expenditures and pay their bills on time.

Individual have to figure out why they got into financial trouble. Was it a case of attempting to keep up with the Jones’s? Did someone get sick and lose their job? Is there a problem with impulse control? Once the determining factors are uncovered, an individual can begin to make efforts and changes so that they don’t get into trouble again. This may include getting psychological or financial counseling. It may also require someone in the household looking for a new or extra job. Safeguards and accountability measures will also need to be put in place.

Next, individual needs to find out how much money is coming into the household and how much has to go out to pay the bills. This will provide individuals with the information that they need to create a budget.

Some financial experts suggest that people go on a cash based system. Individuals that have debit card or credit cards tend to overspend even when you don’t have the money. This is because many banks offer overdraft protection and while individuals are assessed a fine for their overdrawing their accounts, the purchase is still covered. As a result, people tend to spend more than they normally would. In contrast, if an individual uses cash, they can only spend what they have in their pocket. Therefore, this is a great way to handle extra money set aside for groceries, gas or the extras.

Tracking one’s expenditures is also very important. A lot of times people get in trouble because they don’t know what they or their spouse have spent. When it is time to pay the bills, there’s no money available.

Paying ones bills on time will be very important in rebuilding credit. After a bankruptcy, your past debt is wiped clean and you get the chance to rebuild your credit. Therefore, you need to make sure that you pay all your bills on time, every time. Work with businesses that report your payments to the credit agencies. This will ensure that on-time payments will be recorded by the credit agencies. This will benefit you greatly both in the present and future.