So, what do I mean by passive. I mean income derived by means during the month that I do very little or no work for. For me this is typically from sites I have built and do not have to maintain on a regular basis.

The key to creating a site that will earn passive income is to remember what both search engines and real people want. They do not want blogs written about topics that the author is not an authority on. I always think of it this way. When I had cancer in 1992, if I could have searched the Internet and found information that looked great but was not written by a real authority such as a researcher or physcian, how much trust would or should I have with it?

What does work for passive income is inventory for sale. And there are lots of places to get inventory, Amazon and Ebay are probably the top 2. The downside to a site of eBay or Amazon items is there is no original content. Right?  All it takes is a paragraph of good original content to solve that problem. I have designed several different sites to do this with, from WordPress sites with one good page of content to a custom site that builds the content dynamically. Personally I have had more success with the dynamic sites since the data changes which helps keep the search engine crawlers coming back.

If you can find streams of data that can help create a dynamic site, and add just a little original content, you have a winner. Both search engines and people will be happy as you are supplying something that is real and useful.

  Tweet

WordPress can be used in so many ways. Whether you need a standard blog platform or an easy way to do an old fashioned website, WordPress can deliver. Between the wealth of WordPress Themes, Plugins and Widgets available you can mix and match the tools to quickly create a website or blog. It is also a great way to Park a domain while you are developing the site, you can setup a home page, with enough information to get indexed in the search engines so that when the site goes live it is already indexed for the main topic.

And to clarify, I am talking about self hosted WordPress, not hosting on WordPress.com. Using WordPress.com to host a blog is certainly an easy way to get started. Personally I just can not see giving away an opportunity to build your own site and credibility in the search engines and social networks. Yes, that means there is a cost, but the cost is so low these days, if you are gonna step out and create something, make it yours.

Here a few links to tutorials and information on How To Use WordPress.

WordPress Tutorial – How to Install and Manage WordPress http://bit.ly/6qPO58 – Source http://www.siteground.com

Getting Started with WordPress « WordPress Codex http://bit.ly/5EZhRR – Source http://codex.wordpress.org

How to use WordPress as a Truly Customized CMS http://bit.ly/81U26Y – Source http://www.idesignstudios.com

Convert Static HTML Site to WordPress Easily http://bit.ly/8RKj34 – Source http://www.cybercoded.net

  Tweet

There is a very simple way to handle this issue.

Yes, there are plugins available that handle all kinds of issues with ads, however, I just wanted an easy way of dealing with it, so here is what I came up with.

Two lines of code and using Custom Fields does the trick,

First I wrap my ads on the single page with this code.

<?php
if (get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘ads’, true)) {
?>

AD CODE HERE

<?php
}
?>

This will cause ads to only show when there is a custom field named “ads” with a value of anything but 0. And once you have inserted the custom field you never have to add it again, just apply a value, and since this is a simple boolean expression, any value except 0 will cause the ads to display.

Examples:

No Ad : Weekly CyberCoder Tweets for 2008-11-30

With Ad : Online Residual Income

You could go the other way and have the default show the ad, or include a couple statements to change the ad location, color or anything else you could think of. This is just a simple solution for a specific need and I hope it helps someone.

If you want more options using basically the same technique I would highly recommend this tutorial, How To Automatically Disable Ads On Selected Posts In WordPress.

  Tweet

Write about what you think.

  Tweet

WordPress is a great foundation, however, sometimes we get that foundation messed up. If you have a WordPress Blog that is under performing, try this, set the WordPress Theme back to the Default. 

If your content is good, will readers quit reading something because it is not as pretty?

What about the search engines?

Maybe they are losing their way through all those little enhancements?

Or, try any other Minimal WordPress Theme, sometimes simple is just better.

  Tweet

To catch this bug before it causes an unexpected problem you should check each plugin immediately after running an upgrade. Simply click the Edit button next to Deactivate, scroll to the very bottom of the file and make sure there is no whitespace at the end of the file. If there is whitespace, simply delete it, and save the plugin. See example images

If you do not check your plugins this bug can become a real pain. The main reason is that once it occurs you have no idea if it is in the WordPress PHP, Plugins or Theme files.

Reference Link : Search › xml parsing error

  Tweet

My wife writes on several blogs including CelebrityRamble and ProductReviewsBlog

My Brother has 2 personal blogs at This Crazy Cosmos and Daily Rover, he is also the main writer at MusicRamble

My youngest daughter has decided to give blogging a go, just sharing her opinions on what ever stirkes her fancy at Dava’s Space

And of course I write here, Ramble On and CyberCoded along with a few others.

  Tweet

Nothing real earth shattering there, but what I did find interesting is that when I followed that search, the very first result is a status page from Twitter.

More and more we ares seeing Social Networking and now Micro Blogging pages get good results in the SERPS. So if you think that what you type in Twitter will only be seen in Twitter, think again. This should be another reason to consider using Twitter as a Social additive to your blogging. Not only can you help drive traffic to your blog with your Tweats, you can gain even more exposure with your status pages.

Follow me on Twitter 

  Tweet

Oh, there is a catch….

I want to see profitable blogs that are not part of the whole blogging about blogging to show you how to make money blogging while talking about blogging and designing sites that are just intended to make money…about blogging.

Did that make sense?

To clarify this I will start by saying profitable is $100 a month. Yes I know, that is not that much money. But the whole idea is to find blogs that reflect a persons passion for a topic without being about how to make money from that topic.

I guess the question that would be asked might be; If you were not making any money, would that blog you are working on still be important to you?

If you know of any blogs/bloggers that fit this description, drop a comment here or let me know on Twitter

  Tweet

After spending the last 20 years online in one form or another I can honestly say that there has never been another time that allowed us to make money so easy as there is right now on the Internet. Now having said that, I must also say that it is not as easy as some have come to believe.

I am not going to go through all the ways you can make money online, there are a thousand blogs out there that will do that for you. If you want a real condensed list I would recommend this Shoemoney video.

What I wanted to do today is tell you one thing. Keep an open mind.

Just because someone said this way or that way was good or bad is not enough reason to make your mind up on a system. And be willing to give things a second try. Something that did not fit you 2 years ago may now be a perfect match. As your time online increases and your knowledge evolves so do some of the systems you have experimented with in the past.

If you are really interested in online income, do not take things at face value and give them just 10 minutes of your time. There are no instant fixes. Yes, there are people who have had instant success, but most of those are cases that can not be duplicated due to a lot of factors. The word WORK should not be just another 4 letter word. But try to find the type of work that fits you, your style and your schedule.

Keep an open mind, every now and then go back and revisit things that you have looked at in the past.

You never know, that perfect online income source may be something you have overlooked or even tried before!

  Tweet