Running multiple blogs is a new and unique way of making money online. You can build a virtual empire by successfully setting up a number of blogs, but not without a lot of hard work. When you create more than one blog, you need to be completely committed to the task. Having a number of different blogs is quite useful, however, because they can significantly increase your online income. You can use them to promote each other, gain more overall traffic and ensure your exposure on the web.

Managing multiple blogs is a complicated task. It requires patience, a rigid schedule, a huge time commitment, and a lot of passion. If you have more than one blog, then you need to constantly be on your toes to ensure that everything, everywhere, is running smoothly. The following guide will help you manage your blogs efficiently and painlessly.

1. Create Clear Goals
It will be impossible to maintain multiple blogs without clear goals and a sturdy vision for each blog. It’s important to write down the name of the blog, the objective or vision, the tone, and the desired frequency of updates. Put this information into a simple chart and refer to it as often as necessary. It will help you keep your blogs clear and organized.

2. Streamline Management
Responding to comments and emails about your blogs can become an overwhelming task. One way to simplify this task is to use one central email. This will allow you to devote a chunk of your time to answering all emails and responding to all comments on your blogs. Having separate email accounts for each blog will require constantly logging in and out of accounts and failing to address comments and issues in a timely manner. Instead, forward emails to one account where you can quickly filter through them.

3. Search Engine Optimization
In order to drive traffic to each blog without getting bogged down in advertising, it’s important to optimize your blogs so they rank highly in search engines. This is the use of keywords, titles, images and optimized copy that allow your blogs to show up at the top of search results for high trafficked search phrases. It’s important for anyone maintaining multiple blogs to master SEO in order to build traffic and revenue.

4. Reach Out to Guest Bloggers
If you find that you’re getting bogged down and don’t have the time to write new posts for all of your blogs, it may be helpful to reach out to guest bloggers. Even though you many have to pay a small fee for the writer’s time and work, they will allow you to relax a little and get your other blogs up to date. There is one small caveat and that is that it’s important not to overuse guest bloggers, however, as blog audiences tend to like consistent voices.

5. Cross Promote
Whenever possible and relevant, cross promoting your blogs is an excellent way to drive traffic to your less popular blogs. If you’re writing about a related topic, even loosely, place a link in your post that will send readers to another one of your blogs. You may also want to use some ad space on blogs to promote your other blogs.

6. Pace Yourself
It’s important not to create multiple blogs at one time. When you first create a blog you will have to spend a lot of time and energy promoting and writing. In the first few months of a blog, it’s important to write new posts as often as possible. This makes launching multiple blogs simultaneously almost impossible (unless you plan on taking on staff writers). Set up one blog with a consistent and stable viewer base before moving on to additional blogs. This will ensure that your blogs are popular and financially stable. Multiple unsuccessful blogs will be less lucrative than a single successful one.

7. Scheduling
It’s important to establish a schedule that will allow you to devote enough time to each blog that it can become a success. Each writer must establish their own schedule that works best for themselves and their blog. If you need to post blogs daily, than consider segmenting the day. This will help you devote a certain amount of time to each blog and move on when it’s time to move on. If your blogs need posts less frequently, it may help to devote each day of the week to a different blog. A solid schedule is absolutely vital in maintaining high quality blogs.

This guest blog post was brought to you by a UK based writer call Tom Walker who writes a blog about design and advertising for an online store specializing in ink cartridges and other print supplies.

Global unemployment rates are rising faster than our debt, as the United States recently hit an 8.5% unemployment rate that is projected to climb to over 10% in a few months. Consumer confidence is at all time lows, down 74% from levels we saw back in 1985 (when tracking was started). While economic conditions crumble in the United States, Canada, India, Western Europe, Russia and all around the world… many people search for a way to create a secondary income, but have trouble executing their business plans themselves.

Jimvesting Welcomes You to the Build-A-Blog Workshop!

Creating a weblog (or “blog”) on the internet is not only an awesome way to network and gain some instant fame online, but it is a lucrative business! Heck, I’ve pulled in over $5,000 from this blog alone… a project that was originally a simple resume builder. This is something that I do in my spare time completely, so it really isn’t a strain on anything. I am convinced that anyone in the world can take a blog that they spend a mere 30 minutes a day on, and make at least $10,000 annual in sales off of it!

I am going to take you all from step one to a completed (and profitable!) blog in just thirty days. Best of all, I will be working just 30 minutes every day on this blog, and showing you exactly what I am doing. I would be labeled in this industry as an “expert” blogger… and while I would never claim this title, I’ve gotten my feet wet and know the proper ways to get you to profitability fast. I’m going to show you every last detail of how I am starting and marketing my blog… so you can follow along and make money.

HostGator Sponsors Five AWESOME Contest Prizes

As many of you know, Jimvesting is proudly hosted on HostGator servers. I originally transferred to a plan at HostGator after having problems with my freebie hosting for a long while. I’ve really never regretted this decision, as you pay few little for high-performance, great customer support and an awesome deal that keep your wallet full! HostGator is one of the world’s top 10 largest web hosting companies with more than 1,300,000 hosted domains. They have over 200 employees to provide around-the-clock superior support, and are “the perfect choice whether you are looking for business, personal, or even Fortune 500 hosting.”

How good is HostGator? They’ve agreed to sponsor 5 HUGE Business Plans (worth $180 each) to 5 participants in Jimvesting’s Build-A-Blog Workshop!!!

Option One: Take The Course!

The first way to win the Net Fool’s Build-A-Blog Workshop contest is to take the workshop along with us! This is a very good idea for any aspiring entrepreneur, and it will give you awesome exposure right off the bat. If you decide to follow along with the course, not only will you be entered to win a great free hosting plan from HostGator… but you will get free mentions on Jimvesting on a daily basis.

• If 1-6 people enter the workshop: We’ll give away 2 Business Hosting Plans!
• If 7+ people enter the workshop: We’ll give away 3 Business Hosting Plans!

This is a fantastic opportunity for an instantly successful blog from a professional. Better yet, if you purchase your first hosting plan through my referral link (you can simply tack on a year of hosting later), I will buy you your own domain name and install everything you need to get started! I challenge you to find a better deal.

Option Two: Promote Our Contest

Do you already know the ropes or aren’t interested in starting a fresh new venture? No Problem! We have another opportunity to those of you that this applies to, and will give away from 2-3 FREE HostGator business hosting plans to two random entries (depending on above participation) to people that help out.

Prizes will be donated through racking up entries; entries can be gained in a few ways:

• 5 Entries – Blog about the contest, at least 400 words, and link back to this post
• 3 Entries – Advertise our contest with this promotional image
• 2 Entries - Link Back to the contest (blog’s pagerank must be >2)
• 1 Entry – StumbleUpon this post & comment on the stumble
• 1 Entry – Follow Me On Twitter & tweet about this contest
• Required - Comment on this page to let me know what you’ve done!

Another thanks to HostGator for sponsoring us this time. The Build-A-Blog Workshop will be starting on April 17th, 2009. If you plan to work alongside us, just drop a comment and we will get you listed! No need to register a domain name or anything like that, we will be completing all of that in the workshop. Remember, you must be subscribed to Jimvesting’s Email RSS Feed to win a prize! We’ll be updating the blog once a day with what I did in my allotted 30 minutes of blogging, this should be a fun one-month of activity.

Stay Bullish On The Net!
-Jimvesting

It’s no secret, a lot of us our running blogs with the intention of making money online. Blogging can serve as a powerful tool to generate consistent revenue, as everything that you write is available forever… and can keep people buying products through your affiliate links over and over again. If you are new to blogging, or perhaps just thinking about better monetizing your blog to get revenue coming in on a consistent basis, there are a few tricks of the trade that can really help you out.

Way back in March of 2008, I wrote up an article on the “top wordpress plugins” to monetize your blog with ads. Since then, all but my #1 choice, OIO Publisher, have pretty much fallen down the drain… no longer updating their services or running support. Also since then, a few other tools have come up that are supposedly “reputable” ad management services for WordPress blogs. I want to use this time to once again recommend OIO Publisher to you. Why? I’ll give you five reasons!

1. The Un-Disputed #1 Monetization Tool for WordPress
There is really not much of an argument here. If you look across the top blogs in the “make money online” niche, pretty much EVERYONE has gone ahead and bought OIO Publisher to manage their ad space! It’s really a no-brainer at this point in time, since they are working around the clock to improve their services, always offer rapid support and have developed quite the time-saver! Personally, I tend to stick to the products that are the proven leaders in their industry… and OIO Publisher is that product.

2. Easy to Use, with Great Support
The WordPress blogging platform prides itself on being user-friendly, and one of the easiest systems to install in order to own and operate a website on your own… even with limited knowledge. It would make sense, therefore, to have your plugins be just as easy to use and configure. While many of the add-ons to WordPress are confusing by nature, you will find that OIO Publisher is surprisingly easy to manage and deal with. From a simple installer page, it seems at times almost TOO easy… especially with the amount of features it supports on its own.

3. Worth The Money
If WordPress is free… why would you pay for a plugin? I was hesitant at first… but after making over $100 the first month after I bought OIO Publisher, I understood exactly what made it worth the money. Advertisers look for easy access to ad-space on the internet, and typically don’t mess around with blogs that don’t have a system in place. When you have OIO Publisher, you have a system that manages everything automatically. Advertisers can simply click on an empty box on your website, and they will be directed straight to a professional order page. Once payment is received (PayPal works best), their ads are automatically placed on your site! It’s that simple… and it’s the fastest way that I have ever made money on my blog. And hey, I was in the black on this purchase after less than a month (when I had under 100 RSS subscribers too!).

4. Consistent, Powerful, Automatic
I love the fact that this plugin has generated $1000s in revenue for me, and keeps working without me doing a thing. I have it set up to notify my whenever a purchase is made so that I can approve it manually. This works nicely for me, because I like to make sure that all of the banner ads and text links that go up are aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, OIO Publisher allows you the flexibility to sell pretty much, well, everything! From banner ads to text link ads, to digital downloads and in-post advertisements… this plugin can cover all of your bases.

5. 90% Referral Commissions for January!
So why am I recommending this now? Because for a limited time, they are graciously giving away 90% of the referral commissions in January. How do you sign up to the program? Well… you have to have bought the plugin already. It’s well worth the buy, PLUS you can then promote it and make your money back through their affiliate program (in addition to selling ads). This offer is simply too good NOT to take action on… so get in on it now while the offer lasts.

If you are just starting a blog or even if you have been blogging for a while, I want to encourage you to buy OIO Publisher now! I used to put purchases like this off… thinking “oh, I’ll just buy later”… but this is the wrong way to do business. The price, simply put, won’t be falling anytime soon. Plus, the sooner you buy this plugin, the sooner you will bring in revenue from your blog and look a bit more professional. Truth be told… advertisers and readers alike think that blogs with ads up are more professional (weird, eh?). For this and the reasons above, I think that OIO Publisher is indeed an essential plugin to boost your profits!

-Jimvesting

Melvin is the owner of The Melvin Blog. A blog all about internet marketing and making money online. Follow Melvin by visiting his site and subscribing to his feed.

Nowadays, it’s no secret that you can make money online blogging. In fact, just look at how many blogs we have now talking about making money online. But anyway, most are just stupid to think that by talking about making money online, they can make money online. Honestly, if you look at most “make money online” bloggers nowadays, they just run a blog hoping to make money by talking how they can make money online… but the truth is they never have any idea how to really make money themselves. Sorry for ranting!

Now, I just feel that I have to talk about a thing that most people don’t really get about having a successful blog. By saying successful, it means that it isn’t just about the income it generates. If you look at the successful bloggers today, shoemoney, johnchow, darren rowse and etc, many like to duplicate what they have done and have those people as their inspiration. But how did they really reach that lofty stature? Ok, I hate to give thrillers and drumrolls… so I’ll say it, patience!

The Number One Quality in Successful Bloggers… Patience!
Of course there are other reasons like, expertise, humor, perseverance and more… but honestly, I am surprised at how many people don’t see the value of patience. Look at what all those bloggers I have mentioned have in common… it is that they are blogging for more than 3 and 1/2 years now. 3 years is a very long time, and they are still alive and kicking. Another thing is to try to look at their archives, let’s take ProBlogger for example. You can see that he has started out writing “high-quality” content, even when he was just getting started… but he didn’t have any comments for at least the first 100 posts. I mean, can you see it? I’m sure it’s hard to swallow writing a post for an hour or two… having no one care to say their piece on it. But taking this into account, look how famous he is now!

You can say the same with others. Shoemoney wrote about his ramblings before, and no one really cared about them… but now he writes his ramblings, and look at how many comments he gets! In all, it looks like sometimes… we just have to be patient with things. Most modern bloggers start their blog and get quite excited with it (which there is nothing wrong with). After three months, if they see that no one is interested in commenting and reading… then they might want to call it quits already! If your blog is not getting what you think it should be getting… simply work harder. It might not work for the first few months… but believe me, it will make sense for the long run. Sometimes, we all need to look past what is happening in the short term, and focus in on the long run. Besides, what do you think is the first thing that makes a site successful and popular? The answer is so simple. It is because they have been there, hanging in for a long time

-Jimvesting

I still remember the first time I got a “trackback” on my first blog. I thought… “what the heck is this?” This initial reaction is exactly how 90% of bloggers view trackbacks coming from other websites to their blogs. The fact is: trackbacks can be good, trackbacks can be bad, and trackbacks can be exploited for money.

[...] I just stole your traffic! [...]

Money?! Really!?

That’s right. Hitting trackbacks is an all too common blackhat SEO method to secure lots of traffic in a small amount of time. It’s quick and effective (when done correctly), and can really leech a good portion of your traffic. Because of this, I’d like to spend the day today to explain to all of you exactly what the function of a trackback is to your blog… and how you should go about deleting or accepting them to your website.

What is a Trackback Anyway?

Trackbacks were actually originally developed for the “MovableType” blogging platform. Since then, the technology has been adapted in WordPress and Blogger blogs to increase their functionality. The original creator, SixApart, wrote: “In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, “This is something you may be interested in.” To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.”

So yeah, a trackback is essentially an alternative to commenting. Anytime you mention someone else’s post and link to it, they will receive a “trackback” notification (also called a “ping”)… basically letting the original blogger know that someone else is plugging them. This is a very useful tool, and it makes my Sunday Link Love all the more popular and useful. The only downside is that trackbacks make it quite easy to score a free link. It is an attempt to create a sort of “authenticity” to comments, but has been skewed (and even faked entirely) as a spammers tool in many cases.

The WhiteHat Use of Trackbacks

Trackbacks are the most useful thing since sliced bread, and make blogging so much more interactive than it would be ordinarily. So naturally, the WhiteHat use of trackbacks is two-fold. It is now possible that any time you write about someone else’s blog post, you will be leaving a real time link on their post back to your more recent article. The other side of the coin is that it creates a very authentic and friendly blogging atmosphere where people can get some attention where they wouldn’t ordinarily.

Say I am writing about this or that (as I do) and someone comes along and writes about my post, recommending it (or bashing it!). Because of the trackback feature, I am going to notice that you wrote about and linked to my blog. Since you helped me out, I’m likely to check out what you had to say. This is a fantastic way for smaller bloggers to reach out to the big boys and gain some media attention for free. By being a bit generous about your linking, it won’t be long before you are getting friendly linking activity from other bloggers in your niche interest area.

The BlackHat Use of Trackbacks

A little disclaimer: I don’t do this, and do not advocate you doing this either. The following methods I am about to outlay are considered BlackHat and could potentially get you banned from Google or otherwise disciplined.

This is why you come to Jimvesting, isn’t it? I am not going to pretend like everyone here is using WhiteHat trackbacks to be responsible bloggers. Not at all. In fact, there is a mass exodus of bloggers that use the functionality of pinging posts just to gain a traffic boost where it is not deserved for their sole benefit. Let’s talk about the other side of things, and how a lot of people are using trackbacks to make money.

The beauty of trackbacks is that few people actually understand how they work. This is one of the reasons I am writing this today, to inform! Since nobody knows what a “ping” is, very few bloggers actually delete the trackbacks that come in… believing whole-heartedly that someone actually enjoyed what they wrote and linked to them! What fools!

Using blog commenting to spam is out of touch, since people will always realize a spammy comment… but won’t necessarily pick up on a spammy trackback. Links created by trackbacks are two-way reciprocal links, and this is a problem that BlackHat folks have to deal with since two-way links do not hodl the same “link juice” that one-way links do. So, BlackHat’ers have had to devise a way to manufacture one-way trackback links to optimize their linkage.

The primary program used to automate the task is “Trackback Spider,” while there are some other slower tools like the manual form on Wiz Bang Blog. After you find a blog with the trackback feature enabled openly, you could potentially generate a whole slew of trackback links that are one-way pointing to your blog. This is basically, well, cheating. Which is exactly why so many people doing this get busted.

Arm Yourself With Knowledge!

Obviously, now that you know what people are doing with trackbacks, it is going to be a lot easier for you to defend your blog from these traffic leechers. There are two ways to defend your blog from ping attacks… spam guarding and completely disabling your website. Obviously, option one would be to turn off trackbacks completely… which you can do in your admin panel options settings. I don’t really recommend this unless you are getting absolutely pounded by trackbacks on a daily basis and can’t keep up with your spam protection. As was implied, the other method is to install a spam plugin to blog any potentially hazardous comment or ping that comes in. I use Akismet, which works quite well!

Bottom Line: Trackbacks can be a great blogging tool, or your worst enemy. If you are a BlackHat SEO kind of person, chances are you are using trackback pings to send big inflows of traffic to your blog for free… getting you lots of hits, which translates to lots of money in your pocket. I use trackbacks to send out link love to deserving bloggers, and I absolutely love the tool’s functionality as an emerging blogger’s best friend.