Blogging is almost everywhere. It is an essential part of the world wide web. It is a phenomenon. And as the time goes, more and more people are getting themselves into blogging world. Why? Two things. First, to share their thoughts to their friends or strangers, and second, to earn money online.

How to start a blog so you can officially enter the world of blogging? For me, there are only three steps in creating your own blog whether it’s for earning money online or just for fun. Here’s my simple three steps in creating your own blog:

1.      Pick your niche/main topic. If you love sharing ideas or you want to earn money online, one of the most important things you need to do is to pick your own niche. Yes, it’s ok to write any topic in your blog, it’s yours anyway. But the good thing about having one specific niche is that, many people interested in your chosen niche could be your readers, too. And just like other bloggers said, it is easier to earn money through blogging if you have a specific topic to blog about. I wrote an entry about choosing the right niche for your blog, you can read it here.

2.      Choose the best platform. This is where you will choose the place where you’ll put your very own blog. Currently, there are many blogging platforms out there waiting for your sign-up, but the two most popular platforms are Blogger.com and WordPress. Don’t know what platform to choose? I wrote an entry about the advantages and disadvantages of Blogger and WordPress (you can read it here). It may help you decide in choosing the right blogging platform for you.

3.      Start writing the content. Everything is up and the only missing is your content. This is the step where you will transform your ideas in to blog posts.

You now know the basic steps in creating your own blog. Next stop? How to get noticed in the blogging world.

Choosing the right blogging platform for your blog is very important since it is the soul of your blog. And many people today are asking, which is better, Blogger.com or WordPress? Well, let’s find out.

Let’s talk about Blogger.com first. Blogger.com is a great free blogging platform by Google. I like Blogger because it makes customization a lot easier than other free platforms. It can also integrate your own Google AdSense account so you can easily put ads on your blog. And the best thing about this platform is it’s free. But there’s a catch, your blog URL would be a prefix or subdomain of blogspot.com (like yourblog.blogspot.com)

Now, let’s talk about WordPress. WordPress is world-famous. It has two versions – the free version and the self-hosted version. WordPress.com is the free version where anyone who loves blogging can sign-up. WordPress.com is a nice simple place to write about anything you want, or about the niche you have chosen. The only bummer about this platform is that you can’t put ads on your WordPress.com blog (which means you can’t earn money through ads), the design customization is limited and your blog URL would be a prefix or subdomain of wordpress.com (like in Blogger). But the self-hosted version of WordPress is one of the best blogging platforms in the planet. Self-hosted version of WordPress is very flexible, you can almost do everything with it. With WordPress you can create not only awesome-looking blogs, but also a great full website. But the only bummer about this one is that you need to have your own webhosting account from different webhosting companies out there and you need a bit knowledge about HTML, JavaScript and CSS to customize your blog better and easier.

You’ve finally knew the advantages and disadvantages of Blogger and WordPress. Now, I’ll give you back the question, which is better, Blogger or WordPress?

Okay, so I’m here again. Yes, after a long break, I finally managed to get back into the blogging world. Hopefully this time, I could truly manage the post frequency of this blog, and being active in the blogosphere. And for the new content to be posted here soon, it would be just the usual content you saw in my previous entries, all about blogging and the web.

It’s good to be back.

There are many ways to make money online. But one of the easiest ways to earn money through blogging is by writing or blogging paid reviews or paid posts. There are many sites that offer get paid to blog programs online and you can use these sites for your make money online adventure. Here’s how.

What you need:

1. A decent blog. A decent blog means, your blog has a good number of monthly visitors, nice Google PageRank and Alexa rank because most of Get Paid to Blog sites only accepts decent blogs on their programs.

The trick:

1. Sign up for Get Paid to Blog Programs. The first thing you need to do is to sign up in different get paid to blog sites. I have posted a list of top get paid to blog sites here on Bend the Web and you may use it as a reference.
2. Wait for the Offers. After signing up, you can now… wait for the offers. Yes dear reader, you cannot start writing right away after signing up in different get paid to blog sites. You need to be patient in waiting those precious offers. But the wait is worth it because once you get it, you’ll surely love it.
3. Start writing. Once you receive a good deal offer from an advertiser through a get to paid blog sites, then start writing for them. Most advertisers require you to put 3 links of their sites on your blog post.
4. Wait for Advertiser’s Approval. After writing and submitting your done paid post, the next thing you’ll need to do is to wait – again.

Remember:

• Not All Get-Paid-to-Blog Sites are Good. There are many get paid to blog sites out there but not all of them are nice. So you better do a little research about them. Also, some of them pay you a month after the advertiser’s approval of your blog post. So, that means, another long waiting.
• Do what they want. Advertisers are the people who give you money. So always obey their instructions in writing paid review of their product in order to get high approval rating. Always put the required links, do a little research about them to make your paid post better.

Writing paid posts is fun, and an easy way to make money online through blogging. I highly recommend this to those who really love writing because this make money online technique is all about writing reviews / paid posts.

I hope you liked this simple HowTo post here on Bend the Web. You can now subscribe to our RSS Feed to receive more Blogging tips and Make Money Online techniques soon.

BP Oil Spill is a huge disaster – and BP’s public image is in a huge disaster, too. That’s why BP recently buys the top Google and Yahoo! Search Result for the “oil spill” keyword.

BP’s PR problems are getting bigger and bigger on the world wide web. In social networking sites, there was a face Twitter account created by someone mocking up BP’s PR efforts (in a bad way) and over half million people joined the rally “boycott BP” Facebook page.

So, to solve the huge problem of BP’s public image, they bought the top result in Google and Yahoo!’s search result pages for the keyword oil spill. So whenever anyone searches for “oil spill” on Google or Yahoo!, the top result would be BP’s “Gulf of Mexico Response” page which shows different articles and videos about BP’s efforts to resolve the massive oil spill.

You may put your opinion about this recent PR move on the comments section below.

One of the best ways to earn money online through blogging is to write paid posts. Paid post is a sponsored post on your blog paid by an advertiser. And one of the best ways to get advertisers contact you is to join paid to blog sites.

Here are the Top 5 Paid to Blog Sites:

1. PayPerPost – one of the best paid to blog sites on the web, and one of the biggest. PayPerPost is a cool paid to blog site that has a huge number of advertisers. But the only downside on this site is that you need to gain $50 first before they pay you. But of course, you can still get your funds on their site even it is below $50 with a $2 penalty.
2. Blogsvertise – Blogsvertise is a huge paid to blog sites with many advertisers. They pay bloggers from $5 up to $20 every paid post done. Blogsvertise let’s you sign up on their paid to blog program easily. You’ll just need a blog with good traffic and ranking and you’re ready to go.
3. ReviewMe – this paid to blog site is also great. They also got a lot of advertisers. Most of the advertisers here are seeking for blogs which have good number of daily visitors and higher page rank. ReviewMe also pay bloggers on their paid posts at the end of every month.
4. Sponsored Reviews – Sponsored Reviews is a good paid to blog site, too. Just like the first three sites, Sponsored Reviews has a lot of advertisers. But most of the advertisers here only give paid post opportunities to blogs with high page ranks. But one of the best thing here is that you can set your own price.
5. Smorty – a good paid to blog sites to work with. But this site only accepts blogs with higher page rank. They also pay bloggers $6 for every paid post with a minimum of 150 words.

Making money online through blogging is fun. But always remember to do it nicely.

You can now subscribe to our RSS Feed to receive more Blogging tips and Make Money Online techniques soon here on Bend the Web.

China has been very sensitive about the internet these days. And right now, Foursquare has been banned in China because of one thing: users check in to Tiananmen Square.

China is very sensitive when people are talking about the Tiananmen Square because it is the place where a dramatic incident happened on June 4, 1989. And the Chinese Government restricted the discussion about the incident happened at the Tiananmen Square.

But even the discussion about it is already prohibited, the rise of social networking sites created a huge cloud of discussion about it. And China is aware of it. Protesters uses Foursquare to rise the discussion about the thing happened in Tiananmen Square. They put “sensitive comments” in place of tips in Tiananmen Square. And this is why China banned Foursquare in their land.

China has been very strict in terms of website usage, and even social networking sites these days. What’s your opinion about this?

Facebook is one of the web’s most powerful websites. And a huge percentage of web users are using Facebook. And recently, Facebook Developers released its own social media plug-ins for websites and blog. So, why Facebook Social Plug-ins are important for your blog?

Just like what I said earlier, Facebook has an enormous number of users. And by adding or putting Facebook’s social media integration or plug-ins in your blog means your bringing those millions and millions of Facebook users to your blog. Just like the Like button. It is a simple button that can be put below of your blog, or in your every blog post. And once a reader (and a Facebook user) “Liked” your blog post, that activity will automatically be published in that user’s wall, giving your blog post an exposure to the world of Facebook.

Facebook Developers offer a lot of social media plug-ins for our blogs. And I highly recommend putting some of those plug-ins in your blog.

Many probloggers said that having a specific niche in your blog is very important. But choosing the right niche that we can and we want to blog is a hard task. So, I created 5 questions to help you choose the right niche for your blog. Read this questions and ask yourself.

1. What are your interests? Think of the things that you like, your interests. It is important because blogging about your interests is way easier than the things that you don’t like.
2. What are your hobbies? Just like the first question, ask yourself. What are your hobbies? Just like my half personality, Kelvin Servigon of Kelvinonian.com. Photography is one of his hobbies, and that’s why Kelvin Servigon got entries easily for his blog about photography.
3. What are you doing right now Are you currently working in the office? Then, you can blog about the things related to working in the office. Are you still studying? Then, you can create a blog for students or youths.
4. What are the available resources around? If you found the right hobby that you really like, ask yourself another question again. Are there any available tools that can be used for easier content creation? Like choosing photography as your niche. In this kind of niche, it is important to have your own camera to show off your photography thoughts.
5. What are the things that you CAN talk about? You like niche in politics but you can’t talk about it because it’s too complicated. Think of the things that you like, and you can talk about.

Niche in every blog is indeed important and choosing the right niche to blog is important too. I hope this post helped you to solve your problem about niche blogging. If you got more tips about this entry, you can post it at the comments section, below.

1. Learn the Concept of Leaving Comments on other blogs. Putting or leaving comments on blog posts that you recently read is very important. I published a blog post about it answering the question, Why Leaving Comments to Other Blogs is Important?
2. Use the Power of Social Media. Social Media is very powerful. And you can use this power to promote your blog. When I was on my first stages in blogging, I noticed that most of the visitors that came to my blog were from social networking sites. So what I did is, every time I finished publishing a new blog post, I immediately post the links too on different social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Plurk.
3. Interact or Communicate with other bloggers. This is simple yet fun. Bloggers are everywhere. And most of these bloggers are really friendly. Befriend those bloggers and there are possibilities that they’ll promote your blog on their next blog posts. Always remember that friendship is very important in the world of blogosphere.