This is a real problem, but one that we here at Blogging Web 2.0 as well as every other blogger can actually use to our advantage.

I noticed some similar spammy, adsense loaded sites doing this same thing to my own blog, which made me angry to think these slimy gits were leeching off me and making money from my content which they hadn’t paid for. So I thought it best to fight fire with fire.

Here’s how to beat these swines at their own game.

In every post that we make, we simply enter an anchor link to the site at the beginning of the post, somewhere in the centre, like this: Blogging Web 2.0 and near the end. That way, when they publish our article, even if they cut off the author credits at the bottom of the article we still get some free back-links from the content thieves.

As content is indexed by the search engines according to the date and time they were created, the originator (Blogging Web 2.0), or owner gets accredited with the original content and the thieving gits get hammered for having duplicate content on their site.

Payback in every sense!

Terry Didcott
Author and Creator of Blogging Web 2.0

PS: There is an even dirtier trick to getting these sites hammered where it hurts the most - in the pocket. But I’m not going to tell right now.

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Filed under: Blogging | 12 Comments »

Just a quick update about what’s happening here at Blogging Web 2.0. Thanks to Terry’s and my joint effort we have now climbed to the 5th position of Google for the search term blogging web 2.0.

This just goes to show that we both know what we are doing in terms of SEO and those who want to jump on board as a guest writer should do so now. This blog will only grow more in the future as we both don’t intend to stop any time soon.

Blogging Web 2.0 has been specifically targeted by myself and Terry to get to the top of Google. Just remember that the blog is barely 1 month young and this just proves that anybody can achieve the same result with targeting keywords. Admittedly the term blogging web 2.0 doesn’t get any searches, but the terms blogging and web 2.0 get tons every single day.

It is only logic that with time sitting at the top of Google for the combined search term we will also get ranked for the individual terms too.

It looks like Karen Zara is going to pocket the $30 for this month competition by writing a couple of blog posts as she is the only one who actually acted on the invite. Well done Karen!

This blog also made just under $5 in Adsense revenue this month which is pretty good, considering the highly competitive niche we are in and the bubble wrap still sticking to the blog.

The thought of setting up my own niches away from the competitive market of IM is getting even more exciting now as I damn well know that both Terry and myself can crack the top of Google in any niche we desire to play part in.

I have done it before in other niches and so has Terry I believe.

Life at Blogging Web 2.0 is getting better all the time!

Monika Mundell

Creator and Author of Blogging Web 2.0

Technorati Tags: bloggingweb2.0 , blogging web 2.0 , blogging , web 2.0

Filed under: Blogging | 1 Comment »

Ok I’ve had a gut full about my sites being plagiarized and so have others. This blog here has recently been very much plagiarized in terms of content being stolen. I realize that this is happening via RSS feeds most likely and therefore we need to find a way fast to get back into control of our own content.

Lets just take the following scenario as an example: what would happen if these sites overtook us in the search engines, which by the way is very much real as you can read on Keith De Souza’s whole take on the issue. Keith is actually the person who got me into action by blogging about it. I’m not sure to be honest, whether it does help or not but in the end we (honest and hard working) bloggers have to stand up for our rights. Below are the sites that steal Terry’s and my content right from this blog and I will simply delete their spam track backs in order to avoid giving them a valid link.

See, what’s happening here is that they most likely don’t follow. But they target “do follow sites” and by sending a track back they will get an indexed link back to them.

Not only do they steal, but their search engine ranking will go up because of the one way links they unjustly gain. They monetize their sites with Google Adwords and eventually they will rake in a fortune while we bust our butts to get ahead.

Image: Caleb

This simply sucks and I personally had a gut full. This might even lead to having “do follow’s” removed by most bloggers as at least their links (or track back) will not be indexed by the search engines anymore.

The sad thing is that this can all be done automatically with software. After setting up those spammy blogs the owner only needs to find good content and let the robots o the rest by themselves. Insert some Google ads or similar and off you are into the sunshine.

Below Are some Content Stealer Blogs

http://affiliate-marketing.marketing-experts.info/?p=7115

http://marketing-research.marketing-experts.info/?p=7531

http://business-marketing.marketing-experts.info/?p=11008

I have purposely removed the hyperlink to their sites as I really don’t want to give them any more traffic! Further to this, I have blacklisted their domains as well as their IP addresses. I have also obtained their contact details via GoDaddy and if they keep stealing our content here, I will get them shut down.

At least I will try as I have proof enough!

This stealing has got to stop and if we small blogs can monitor our sites to help this, then why not. After all, an avalanche starts with the smallest crack in the snow. (Or voice!)

So for all you bloggers who care about your unique content, I ask you to join the movement that was started by Keith. After all, ignorance will only make it worse.

Monika Mundell

Creator and Author of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Blogging | 2 Comments »

We’ve been over affiliate marketing already, but from a blogging perspective there is much to be said for including some affiliate links in and around a blog.

This is small time affiliate marketing and don’t expect one blog to make money by the truckload in doing it. Who said you have to stick with just one blog?

I’ve been looking at this from a slightly different angle lately and have realized that you have to think in terms of a bigger vista. One blog is fine if you only want to tick over money wise to begin with and see where your promotional efforts take you. There are plenty of successful bloggers out there who only run one blog. A big part of that success comes down to building that blog up so that it has a huge readership and then you can make money by charging advertisers a small fortune for you valuable high traffic space.

But when your blog hasn’t got that kind of grunt and you need to start pulling in the dollars, there is an alternative to get things moving, although it does entail a lot of work. Doesn’t it always?

It means finding several niches and doing the required keyword research work and then setting up several blogs to cater for each niche. Then using the affiliate programs you already belong to (join more if you need to), put up affiliate links on all of your blogs.

The method in this madness is by rationalizing that if one blog makes you “x” amount of dollars from it’s affiliate sales, then ten blogs will make ten times as much. Give or take depending on the popularity of the niche. That’s where your research will pay off of you’ve found some good niches to begin with.
It won’t work if you don’t. Plain and simple.

So depending upon how ready you are to take on a whole load more work, you can turn small time affiliate marketing into a big time business.

Because if ten blogs make you ten times as much, think how much money you could make with twenty, thirty or more blogs… if you can manage that many!

Here’s to your success!

Terry Didcott
Author and Creator of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Internet Marketing | No Comments »

No, that’s not a typo in the the title, it’s deliberate! Sort of a writer’s artistic license to mess with grammar in order to catch the attention of the reader.

I love blog comments, because sometimes they provide me with exactly the right fodder for fueling another post, in those times of brain fug when I can’t think of what to write about next!

In my last post, I mentioned the nine blogs that I own, well that’s only the surface ones. There are a lot more lying on free blogging hosts that I do keep fairly up to date as well as a whole brace of new blogs that I’m in the process of putting together as affiliate niche money makers.

But that’s not the subject of this post.

In the comments of my last post I was asked how on earth I keep up with the writing for so many blogs as well as write articles as a freelancer AND keep on top of so many sites? Monika is just as hard working, I can assure you! So how do we do it?

I think Monika and myself have gotten into a writing frame of mind where we can type away and come up with a lot of good stuff without it seeming to be a chore. That’s how we squeeze it all into a normal day.

For myself, I don’t write for all my blogs every day. Not possible!!!

I try to keep my main blog at The Honest Way posted daily and here in this blog of course, but the others go two or three days between posts which makes it possible to keep them relatively fresh. That way I can keep building more whilst tweaking around with the ones I’ve already got.

I find that commenting in other blogs as well as forums also takes up quite a bit of time, but it’s so worth doing it to keep my profile high and of course attract other bloggers to my blogs and sites!

So the secret to writing large volumes of content is to get into the habit of doing it every day. The more you write and the more often you do it, the more you find you can write. It becomes more of a habit to be clacking away at the keyboard than not!

Of course it helps to have an interest in what you’re writing about. Trying to write about something that holds absolutely no interest for you whatsoever can end up being a real chore. That’s when writing can seem hard work and slow, so the best advice is really to write about what interests you. If you write for a living and find you tend to take on every writing gig that you see, then you’re going to burn out by forcing yourself to write the stuff you don’t like.

Better to turn some of it away even if it means losing some money than to lose it all by getting writer’s burn-out and not being able to write for anything.

So if you’re ever stuck for ideas about what to write about, go visit some other blogs and see what other bloggers are writing to get some inspiration.

And don’t forget to read the comments - sometimes there’s more inspiration in there than you’d think!

Terry Didcott
Author and Creator of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Blogging | 3 Comments »

Blogging in several different niches, as I do, can sometimes turn into a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of my day to feed all my hungry blogs their own special diet of relevant and unique content - especially so when I also visit lots of other blogs in similar niches to my own.

It fragments the smooth running of the blogging brain somewhat and I can sometimes be in the middle of posting in a certain blog on one subject when an idea will hit me that is perfect for a different blog in a different niche. What with Firefox not being as stable as it used to be with my several (necessary) plugins and add-ons, editing several blogs at the same time is fraught with danger that the browser could crash at any moment and some of what I’ve been editing will be lost.

Monika mentioned an alternative in her Writers Manifesto Blog called Windows Live Writer which might be useful, but I still have the habit of opening Wordpress’s own editor to write my posts despite knowing that I can lose work if the browser crashes. I’ve tried writing my posts in Notepad and copy/pasting them but it’s never the same! Maybe I’ll try something else - or not!

So this is what blogging bits and pieces comes to - a bit of a ramble about nothing in particular in the hope that something will trigger a great idea to get my teeth into. It usually works - but not this time.

So it’s an unusually short post from me today, or what’s left of today - and still nine blogs to feed…

Terry Didcott
Author and Creator of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Blogging | 6 Comments »

So many things involve writing these days and as bloggers I think it is one of the things we have to become better at all the time. If our grammar isn’t good, or our writing comes across skewered, then we might struggle to bring our message across. When I look back at when I started, I kind of feel embarrassed about how I write in those days. But only kind off as I know that with practice we do get better in anything we pursue.

The same applies to writing. The more we write, the better we get and like riding a bicycle, we never forget it. But just like the bicycle starts to rust when left in the shed for too long, so will our writing skills.

I will try to share with you, what I have done to help my writing to get better over the last 6 month. Maybe it will help somebody to pick up a helpful nudge in the right direction and this will make the post worthwhile.

• Probably the biggest force in getting better is to write every day. Whether it is blog posts, articles, letters, email or website content of some kind, it helps to write daily.
• Reading; reading is responsible for giving me a good and intuitive understanding of the English language and how sentences are structured. See, I never had tutoring in English grammar except the few language lessons I took as a teenager and I have read to this day thousands (this isn’t a misprint by the way) of books in English to help me. I was always called a book worm when I was a kid and once I learned English I simply switched to reading English books.
• Conversations help to improve our writing too. By talking with others we learn new words and meanings which we can use to inject into our writing.
• Not being afraid to learn more. I always strive to learn more things. I believe that life is an adventure that needs to be soaked up and experienced to the last minute and by learning new things, I can use the new found knowledge to write about.
• Studying grammar; I know, this is a dry subject and not one I would feel inclined to do ever. But it does seem to help some people to write better.
• Keeping an open mind.
• Some people choose to write a diary about their life experience which also furthers our ability to become better at the craft. Blogging is a great example of this.

Despite all this, my journey as a writer is an ongoing one. I can always become better at what I do and I think one of the most important aspects of being good at anything is to stay humble.

Take care

Monika Mundell

Creator and Author of Blogging Web 2.0

Filed under: Writing | No Comments »