anyone making money off of there blog?

[thomas_wortman]

<p>i'm looking at starting a blog throw wordpress.com and want to increase my traffic to my website using that blog. i would mainly talk about landscapes and a couple of other things related. but i found a site called www.smorty.com and what it is, is u get paid to blog and increase traffic to my blog than to my site. it works like google in some ways but little different. as anyone out there tried something like this and if they have does it seem to work?</p>

<p>Thomas</p>

[richard_cochran]

<p>I'll offer one suggestion, and I hope you don't take it wrong. If you want to make money as a writer, please use standard English spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. I know it's easier to write without following those rules, but punctuation and capitalization offer guideposts to make it much easier for people to read your writing. If you don't care enough about your writing to at least mark the beginning and end of sentences, or to choose the correct version of "their", or to spell "has" using a leading "h", then why should you expect your readers to care enough to wade through the errors in order to try and figure out what you meant?</p>

<p>If your content is fantastic, I'll never know it, because you've made it so hard to read and hidden it so effectively that I'm unlikely to make the effort to read it.</p>

<p>Sorry, maybe I'm the only one left who cares about such things, in which case you should feel free to ignore me and watch the money roll in as your blog gains a huge dedicated following. But if that doesn't happen, consider writing carefully, using a style of grammar and spelling that makes it easy for your audience to read and understand your ideas.</p>

[elnoralouisa]

<p>No, you aren't the only one. The post drove me crazy, and I sure wouldn't read the blog. Your pictures are very nice, but maybe you have a friend that could do the blog for you.</p>

[CharlesBecker-Toronto]

<p>Richard-as Debbie said, you're not the only one who cares. cb :-)</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Ah, for once I'm not the bad guy who has to say it first. I get tired of playing the heavy. <br /><br />Thomas: the <em>only</em> blogs that contribute meaningfully to one's revenue are those with a large following, and which attract a great deal of out-of-the-blue traffic driven in by search engines. A <em>great</em> deal of traffic.<br /><br />And the only way that traffic will get there is if the search engines (like Google) like the site, and index it well. And one of the most important differentiators, when it comes to web content that is already hugely present (like content about landscape photography) is the quality of the content. And that means well constructed, articulate writing presented in a format that's specifically tailored to search optimization. <br /><br />It's very hard work, for increasingly diminishing returns. Give real thought to how much effort you're willing to put into self editing, and the continual creation of fresh, original, high-quality material. Oh, and you also need to be an expert at parsing server log stats analytics, the constantly changing nature of the social networking landscape (including the technical glue that holds it together, like RSS feeds, embedded video, etc), and all of the other webmastering skills that will start to take over your daily life. Being a money-making publisher is hard. </p>

[john_ashby2]

<p>I would agree, when the grammar and spelling used is that bad, you'll only drive away business. After all, photography is about aesthetics and attention to detail, your post shows a lack of both.</p>

[sknowles]

<p>Smorty seems long on description and short on examples and clients. If they offer this service, where are the bloggers? And yes, about your post, is there an English teacher in the house?</p>

[greg_peterson3]

<p>Is there some compelling reason for a reader to go to your blog?</p>

<p>Are you an expert on some photographic technique or business segment?</p>

<p>Are you famous (or infamous)?</p>

<p>Matt's comment about "the quality of the content" goes to the heart of the matter: What will make your site special?</p>

<p>Remember that there are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there. Most have just a handful of regular readers and they tend to fade away in a few months. You might want to save yourself some time, effort, money, and disappointment.</p>

<p>Sorry to be a buzz-kill.</p>

[ed_lemko]

<p>I agree with mister Chochran. Your not alon.</p>

[pete_harlan1]

<p>Thomas,</p>

<p>Whew! Now you need to pick yourself up and dust off the critiques; yet take them to heart.</p>

<p>In a totally different perspective, it appears to me you are seeking "The Magic Bullet" in a marketing scheme. There are none. Your post smacks with "<em>I need more viewers</em>"<br>

Read all you can about sales & marketing.</p>

[lindsay_dobson]

<p>A well written, well constructed, organized and informative Blog can be a good business asset. I set mine up just a month ago and I've been surprised by the increase in traffic, and it has generated enquiries already. However, if a Blog is in any way sloppy people won't bother looking at it.</p>