Preview of Cash Flow Tips Today for July

I have some wonderful content planned for the month of July and I'll be sharing my editorial format as well.

• Advice from a loan officer at a major bank
• A survey showing a business priority for Americans
• What does it really take to make money on eBay?
• What does it really take to invest in real estate?

Each month, I plan on an editorial calendar like this:

Week 1 Cash flow tips for businesses

Week 2 Personal cash flow tips - making money, saving money

Week 3 Cash flow, investing and real estate

Week 4 Tips from a business owner or financial professional

In this way, I can offer usable tips.

I'm always interested in interviewing others on their position related to a topic. Let me know and I can include you. It will provide visibility for your business, web site or blog as well.

Thank you for reading and I hope my Canadian readers had a wonderful Canada Day holiday this past week and my U.S. readers enjoy the 4th of July weekend.

Get Traffic and More Traffic!

Advertising is based on readership for newspapers, viewership for television and page views for the Internet. My MA degree comes from the Annenberg School of Communication at USC (you know, the really great football team that recently lost to Stanford) and here's an excerpt from Annenberg's Online Journalism Review reminding you why you need traffic to make money on the Internet.

How much traffic do you need?
With advertising, the more readers you have and page views you serve, the more money you can make. But how much traffic do you need to make a living from your website?

To make $36,500 a year, you'd need to earn $100 a day on your site (plus whatever expenses you incur). Let's assume your site is attractive to advertisers and earns $10 in ad revenue for every thousand page views. That would mean you'd need to serve 10,000 page views a day to meet this target. (And more if your site earns less than $10 per thousand page views.)

How can you attract that much traffic?
If you are writing one article a day on subjects that will be out of date within 24 hours, it's going to be tough. You'll need to attract nearly 10,000 views each day for that's day article, since few people will bother reading your old, out-of-date work. If you write a fair number of "evergreen" features, which keep attracting page views long after they are written, you'll find the task much easier. If your site naturally deals with "perishable" news content, at least publish each day's new news to the same URL, overwriting or pushing down the old content, so that URL can build the in-bound links and search engine traffic that will help you attract new readers you need each day.

Reader-contributed content can also help you meet your page view goals. Well-managed, thoughtfully organized discussion boards and wikis can add dozens of new content pages a day to your site, with much less effort on your part than writing that many original articles.

A Male Nurse Blogging

I interviewed Peter McCartney, a nurse in Australia, about his views on nursing and his blog. Here is how he got started with quite a unique blog:

How did you get started blogging? And when did you start blogging?

Blogging for me started by shear chance as a result of attending the 150th St Vincent’s Hospital Anniversary function for former nurses, earlier this year. Having learnt that I was the first male nurse to have attended, I set about blogging in May 2007, in an attempt to find other male nurses that trained at St Vincent’s, so I could get them to attend the 2008 anniversary function.

What’s the purpose of your blog?

The original purpose was to attract St Vincent’s trained male nurses to the site by documenting my life experiences. However, it did not take long for all this to change. I found that people from all walks of life were visiting and making comment. With their help it encouraged me to broaden my purpose and direction. I just hope they get something out of my articles.

What advice do you have for newer boggers?

Look into what more experienced blogger’s are doing and how they go about doing things. In a nut shell, watch and learn. Joining blog communities and being an active member certainly helps get you headed in the right direction. There a great training ground for beginners with experienced blogger’s not far away to assist. Do your best to post quality articles regularly and to reply to comments. Lastly, have fun doing it!

Business Articles and More from NAFASG

Today, I welcome a blogging team from Singapore who did an interview with me: NAFASG. Visit their site and you'll find a wide range of useful topics.

How did you get started blogging?
The NAFASG team started off as a group of close friends back in college, branching into different areas of study. When we finally graduated from college after three years, we gathered together and decided that we should share our knowledge gained from our respective areas of study by means of a blog. We felt that a blog can help us reach out to people from many parts of the world with our knowledge, which was indeed our passion since young.

Who is on your "team?"
The NAFASG team comprises a crew of writers who major in various specializations, such as Psychology, Sociology, Business Studies, Education, Health Sciences, Science And Technology, and Speech And Drama. Every one in the NAFASG team will contribute articles based on our specialist subjects.

What is your goal for blogging?
NAFASG’s goal for blogging is to spread useful knowledge and information on important issues that can affect our lives. These informative articles are applicable to our areas of study. We would also like to extend our hands to anyone from anywhere who has queries about a certain issue, and be a friend to them whenever they need someone to relate something to.

Are your expectations being met for your blog?
Yes, NAFASG has met those expectations so far, based on the comments that have been coming in from our readers, stating that they are grateful to receive our useful information that can aid them one way or another.

What's something you like most about blogging?
What NAFASG likes most about blogging is that we can easily interact with others in the blogosphere, regardless of who they are and where they come from. Through interaction, we all can learn from each other, and that is what makes the blogging world go round, to us.

What's a challenge you face in blogging?
The ultimate challenge for NAFASG was, and still is, to constantly produce articles that the public is keen to look out for. We want to ensure that we do not post articles that are redundant in the eyes of others. The challenge for us is basically to continuously make our viewers be able to learn something valuable out of our articles.

What's one thing you have to improve in your blogging?
Currently, the area of blogging that NAFASG is always making improvements on is the design. The concept of the design plays an important role too, besides the power of the articles. We would not want to distract out viewers with a blog that is disorganized and inconvenient for viewers to search for our blog links. That is one area we will certainly look into when we want to improvise the overall image of our blog.

What advice do you have for other bloggers?
From the NAFASG team to all the bloggers out there, be receptive of constructive criticisms from others. Every blog has its room for improvement, so it would actually be beneficial for you if another blogger, especially a more experienced one, tells you what you should improve on your blog. Take those criticisms as your key to success in the blogging world.

Let's Learn about Blogging with Christy

Each Saturday, I want to do an interview with a fellow blogger.

I hope you enjoy this interview with Christy of Christy's Coffee Break, an avid blogger from Canada who has contests and all kinds of fun readings on her site. She even has ideas for saving money on a hotel stay in London.

What motivated you to start blogging?
I first started blogging to make money. My goal was to work from home so that I could stay at home with my children and still have that second income that’s needed in today’s world. I had no idea that while I was blogging I would meet so many good friends and have so much fun.

When did you start your first blog?
Although I opened up a Blogger account in October of 2006, I didn’t actually start making blog posts for another few months. I finally figured out what blogging was really all about, six months ago.

What's your purpose for your blog or blogs?
I actually have many purposes for my different blogs. Each of the blogs contains a different aspect of my personality and has it’s own unique purpose. But overall my intention with each of my blogs is to be uplifting, positive, and inspiring.

Are your expectations being met for your blog?
Yes, the goals that I have set are being accomplished even before I had planned, and I continue to set new blogging goals as each one is achieved.

What's something you like most about blogging?
I love to write, I enjoy writing articles and blog posts. I also enjoy the social interaction and friendships that I’ve formed with other bloggers. One of the best things about blogging is the amazing emails that I receive from my readers. Hearing that someone has been helped or inspired by something I’ve written is the best experience in the world.

What's something you like least about blogging?
I don’t like spammers, the thieves who steal articles, ideas, or even entire blogs. I don’t like anything that takes away from the positive aspects of blogging.

What's one thing you need to improve in your blogging?
I need to work on the technical aspect of blogging. The web is constantly changing and it can be a challenge to keep up to date with all that's going on.

What advice do you have for someone starting out?
Don’t copy others. Find your own unique voice. There are too many blogs that look like carbon copies of one another. Educate yourself on blogging, study those bloggers who are successful, but in the end use your own creativity to invent a great blog, and most importantly be yourself.

Jet Blue Airlines - They Blog!

I was on Twitter (I wasn't aware of it until today) and I saw the blog for Jet Blue airlines. Whoever writes their blog has a nice conversational voice and it seems they use it for promotional purposes.

I was trying to check out the page of John Clark, Life to Success. This is the first example I've seen of a corporation using social networking sites outside of MySpace.

Are you aware of any?

Author and blogger Jeremy Wright advises corporations to use blogs as a way of reaching out to customers and valuing their feedback. I recommend reading his book "Blog Marketing."

I think more airlines need to use blogs as a way of interacting with customers, especially with all the complaints and inconveniences have regarding air travel today.

Jobs, Hobbies and Why You Enjoy Them

Business - airlines, internet or even writing - may blend your skills with your hobbies.

Let's learn from an avid blogger, Jesse the Cat, who hails from South Africa. Here on Hey, Don! I attempt to do informative interviews regularly with people who have knowledge related to business, money, and real estate: 3 areas I find fascinating.

Jesse tells us why she embarked on blogging:

Q: What Motivated You to Start Blogging?

A: I decided to quit working when my daughter was born. I didn't trust leaving her with Anybody, as the state of affairs shows a terrible trend towards child abuse and neglect by caregivers in general.I left the job I had held for 15 years and stayed home.After being bored to death for a while I started a blog (which was a very bad blog) as I had no clue as to what I was doing! I deleted it after 9000 page views. It was very damaged in the template and I was very stupid as regards blog html!

Q: when did you start your first blog?

A: About 3 years ago. what's your purpose for your blog or blogs?My purpose WAS to make money with my blog! Somehow, that purpose is changing somewhat and, while still wanting to make some money, I also want to do reviews and write creative pieces.It's as if my blog is dictating to me....It's a living thing!

Q: Are your expectations being met for your blog or blogs?

A: As far as money-making, not yet, as I am new to the whole idea and it hasn't made me anything.That is also partly because I haven't yet joined any companies or affiliate groups that pay one.In many other ways my blog has exceeded my expectations and so far, I have been using my online time to expose it to others...the money will perhaps come later.

Visit Jesse's Blog

Business, Marketing, Standing Out

Circuit City or Best Buy . . . Target or Wal Mart . . . Apple or Microsoft . . . my blog or a stay-at-home-mom's blog who's got amazing traffic.

How do businesses stand out and make themselves different so shoppers know which one they're going to visit?

Survey yourself: which ones do you shop and why? Price? Experience?

Starbucks Coffee, for example, hasn't had me buy one of their drinks for months. Nothing against Starbucks, but their coffee is priced higher than Pronto's Donuts just down the street from me. And I like the taste of Pronto's better.

We often worry about large corporations running the small businesses out of town. But there's room to compete, provided your differences are clear and if the customer or client clearly sees benefits to what you offer.

I believe blogs are that way. I'm reading a book Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright who describes how businesses of all sizes, especially large ones, can really understand their customers better by using blogs.

For those of us who are bloggers, we really do need to know how we are different than all the other blogs around us. I've read blogs are being created at the rate of 100,000 per day by some estimates. But how many will last? And how many will stand out?

I'm asking myself these questions:

Why am I here?
What do I hope to accomplish?
Why will a reader visit and will that reader want to return?

My niche is providing interviews with people who have real-life experience and tips in business, money issues, real estate, and even health and tech from time-to-time.

I want to move more into video clips of my interviews posted on this site to bring the personality of the one being interviewed to the front for the visitor.

A blog is a product, it's a service, it's a community.

The more clear your purpose and your measure of success, the more satisfied you'll be as a blogger.

(And I should substitute the "I" for the other pronouns used in the previous sentence.)