Day 4 of the "Build A Blog Workshop" is on finding a great blog template. Finding which template to use for your blog all depends on what your blog topic is. For example if your blog topic is Barbie Doll Collecting, then a pink blog template would probably be something you would want to consider.

Another piece of advice that I want you to think about is, do not use a template with a black background. Templates with black backgrounds look cool, but reading white words on a black page is hard on the eyes. Plus you don't see to many successful and popular blogs on the web, that have a black background.

What you need to ask yourself is, do you want people to take your blog seriously? If you do, then you can never go wrong with a simple, white, plain looking template. Is your blog about poetry? I have come across a lot of poetry blogs with a tan background and soft colors.

You want your blog to match what you're blogging about. Remember you can always change your template. However, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Research shows that people visiting a website or blog will leave within 10 seconds if something doesn't catch their eye. So make it look good and don't just pick the first template that you see. Look at 20 or 30 of them before you make your choice.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for tips on which blog settings to use. Until then keep working smart not hard and as always, good luck!

Day 1 of the "Build A Blog Workshop" is about choosing a blog host. Now this is more important than you might think. You want to find a blog host that has at least 99% up-time and nothing less. There is no point in having a blog if it's never up and running because their server is down all of the time.

This is why the blog host that I recommend is "Blogger". There are a lot of blog hosts out there, but Blogger is owned and operated by Google so you know that it's got to be reliable. I don't recall ever having a problem with the servers going down here. Another big plus, is that Blogger is 100% FREE!!!

Blogger is also one of the most popular blog hosts on the web. I currently have 2 blogs hosted here, The Bloogle AdSense Blog, and The HCG Diet Information Blog. So you can definitely have more than one.

It is important to have a blog host that allows you to customize the HTML on your blog, for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I will go over SEO later this month. Keep in mind, you can use any blog host that you want, but this is only one that I am going to recommend today. So if you have another host that you would rather use, that's fine too. However, later this month I will show you how to monetize your blog and in my opinion Blogger is the best place to do that.

I hope this takes the guess work out of finding a blog host. Tomorrow I will go over what to consider when choosing your blog topic. 

Remember to check back everyday for the December Build A Blog Workshop. Until tomorrow, keep working smart not hard and as always good luck!

For the month of December I have decided to do a 31 day "Build A Blog Workshop". I will show you the ABC's and 123's of starting and promoting your blog for free. I am going to help you pick a blog host and even show you the type of gadgets and modules that you should use on your blog. You will find out the best way to monetize your blog and also where to place your AdSense to get the most clicks.


When starting a blog there a few things you'll want to do the very first month, I will let you know what you should do and how to do it. This will be great for all of you that are newbies to the blogging game and possibly even help the more seasoned bloggers learn a few new tricks.

Make sure to check in everyday throughout the month of December for some great tips and tricks. Keep up the good work and as always good luck!

Ever since I started building websites and blogging, I have seen, tried, and read a lot of worthless e-books and silly programs out there. These programs that claim they can show you how to get rich overnight with your blog. If any of you have been on the internet for more than a week or two you have probably came across the same kind of things.

Well, I hate to be the one to tell everyone this but, you cannot get rich overnight blogging! Now that doesn't mean you can't earn money doing this. If you work smart and have an interesting blog with quality content and use some good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) then you can actually make some pretty decent money blogging.

But like I have said before, these things take time. You have to build a web presence, build your back-links, get your blog listed in the search engines, among other things. However, if you love to blog and don't mind putting in the effort, then it will pay off.

So keep at it, don't get discouraged and make sure you listen to the pro-bloggers out there.

Keep working smart not hard and as always, good luck.

Blogging tip of the day: Keep yourself on task. For some bloggers this is one of the hardest things to do. If you're a blogger that hopes to one day make a living blogging, then this tip will come in handy. To make it as a "pro-blogger" you need to do whatever you can to stay focused and keep yourself on task. Otherwise you will probably not be posting often enough to have your blog become successful.

I wanted to post this tip because I myself have noticed how hard it is to keep focused. So the advice I have for you to try, is something I use myself every single day. If you have a hard time staying focused you can try writing yourself a schedule, it might sound funny but it works. What you want to do is get a notepad and every night before you go to sleep, write out your plan for the following day.

For example, My schedule might look something like this:
1. 8:45am- Take Tyson (my 9 year old son) to school.
2. 9:00am- Come home have breakfast with Aiden (my 4 year old son)
3. 9:45am- Return some emails
4. 10:30am- Write a blog post for my HCG Diet Information Blog
5. 11:30am- Write a blog post for my Bloogle AdSense Blog.
And it goes on and on. You get my point.

Even though it doesn't always go according to plan, I try to stay as close to my schedule as possible. To build a successful blog you have to treat it like you would a business that you have sunk your life savings into, hopefully you haven't done that already with your blog. But what I am trying to say is, if you want your blog to become big and successful, treat it like it already is.

Hopefully you can use and benefit from this tip. Keep working smart, not hard. And as always, good luck.

I wanted to post this mainly for new readers that possibly don't have a Google AdSense account yet.

Now of course anybody with a blog or a website can apply for a Google AdSense  account, but to get approved you'll need to do a couple of other things too. But to actually apply for an AdSense account is very easy. First just go to www.google.com/adsense and click the button that says "sign up now".

Under website information it's going to ask you for your primary URL. Whether you own a website or blog doesn't really matter because Google accepts both, either way you'll want to go ahead and list it here. Then just select the primary language of your site. Google AdSense supports all types of different languages everything from Arabic to Vietnamese.

Next you will check two boxes, the first box says that you agree NOT to place ads on sites that include incentives to click on ads. The second box agrees not to place AdSense ads on sites that include pornographic content. For you to be approved by Google you will have to agree to and follow these rules.

Under Contact Information you'll need to select an account type, your choices are individual or business. If you're not sure which type of an account you have, just place your cursor over the top of the question mark and an explanation of the two account types will pop up. After that select your country or territory, it could be Australia, Zimbabwe, or wherever you might be. 

Now you need to list your first and last name, address, city, state, zip and your telephone number. Remember, it's very important that you fill out everything that it asks for and that you do it correctly because this is how you will be receiving your checks.

Finally the last thing left to do is to check the boxes that say you agree to NOT click the ads on your own site and that you read the AdSense Program Policies. If you haven't read the policies you can do it right then and there by clicking the link. The last box agrees that you DON'T already have a Google AdSense account. When you are all done just click on the "Submit Information" button and within 2 or 3 business days you should get an e-mail from Google which will let you know if you have been approved or not.

So there you have it, that is how you can apply for an AdSense account and if you stick to the rules and don't try to cheat them you should be able to keep your account active and maybe even make some money.

After you get approved for your Google AdSense account, make sure to check back often here on the Bloogle AdSense Blog for tips on how to maximize your AdSense earnings. Remember, work smart not hard, and as always good luck!

For as long as I can remember, I have been told "don't worry too much about your blogs Page Rank", So I never really did. But looking back on it now, I wish I would have started building up a better PR (Page Rank) earlier on. Instead I was more focused on traffic and making my blog look nice. Which of course it is good to have a professional looking blog that grabs your visitors attention, but what do you think is more important?

Think about it, if you need to find some information on a certain topic, and you come across 2 different blogs that look like they both possibly have the information that you're searching for, the only difference is that one has a PR1 and the other has a PR8. Which blog are you more likely to trust to give you the most accurate and up to date information. I would choose a blog with a PR8 too.

More and more people these days know about Page Rank and that the higher the PR the better. To show their banner on your blog, some advertisers out there will actually pay you $10.00 a month for every point of your PR. So if you have a blog with a PR7, that's $70.00 a month. Not to mention if you could get 4 or 5 advertisers to do that. Then you mix that with some Google AdSense earnings and you'll be on track to become a full-time blogger.

How do you get a high PR? Well I know that a lot of weight is placed on back-links pointing to your blog. A good way to get back-links is to find other bloggers in your niche and exchange links with them. You can also comment on the other blogs that you visit. Just make sure to leave your blogs link in your signature, then if they have the follow attribute set up on their blog, your comment will then create a link pointing to back your blog from theirs.

Of course you also want to practice using good SEO (search engine optimization). This way your blog will show up in the search engines for the keyword phrases that your trying to rank for. I discussed this in a previous post, Top 3 SEO Tips For Your Blog.

Remember to check back often for new tips and suggestions about how to make money blogging using Google AdSense. I hope this can help you to grab a higher PR for your blog. As always, keep working smart not hard, and good luck!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a term that every blogger or webmaster needs to know and use to have a successful blog. Using good SEO tactics will give your site a higher PR (Page Rank) with search engines like Google.

There are a lot of great ways to practice good SEO on your blog.


1. The first thing you'll want to do is download the Alexa toolbar and place one of Alexa's widgets on your blog. This way you'll be able to see which SEO techniques work best for your blog.

 2. Make sure to add new posts to your blog often. Updating your blog with original and interesting content is one of the most important things that you can do not only is it good for Search Engine Optimization, but if want people to read what you have to say it's got to be interesting. Make sure to check your spelling and use proper grammar. This is important for the search engines because when somebody does a search for a certain keyword or phrase, like bicycle tires, the search engines will show the results for the sites that have those keywords in it. If you have a blog about bicycle tires but you spell the phrase wrong, search engines wont show your blog as one of the results. Of course mistakes do happen, but the goal is to have very few of them.

3. Using and optimizing meta tags is definitely one thing every blogger should do. There are a lot of different meta tags that you can optimize. The meta tag that I think is the most important for SEO is the Title/Description meta tag (This one is for Blogger.com users). The way to do this is by editing your HTML. First, use an HTML editor. (click here to get one for free) then you'll want to find the title meta tag which looks like this: <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> Then you will change it to look like this:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/> | put a short description of your blog here </title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> ~ <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>

Even though SEO is very important, you'll want your blog to be optimized for your readers as well. 

I hope these tips and suggestions can help all of you to increase your page rank. So as always keep posting and good luck!

If you're a first time blogger, a free blog website is a great way to get started in the blogosphere. Popular blog website hosts like Blogger and Wordpress allow users to set up and host a blog for free, and you don't pay any fees at all. This encourages more and more people to start blogging, because the fact that one of these sites can provide you with all of the tools that you need to get your blog up and running without spending any money, means that you’ve got nothing to lose by starting your own blog. Also nowadays it’s so easy to set up a free blog website, there is really no reason not to.

By signing up with a free blog website, you may find it’s easier to get your site listed in search engines like Google and Yahoo than you would if you were to start your own blog from scratch. This could be because, Google runs the free blog hosting site Blogger and crawls its pages regularly looking for new updates. So by having your new blog site hosted by Blogger you're almost guaranteed to be listed in the Google Search Engine.

This easy access to such a big search engine, like Google, can take some of the work out of promoting your blog. It can also help you gain a lot of followers and with very little marketing. Of course you still must have interesting and unique content, don't think just because you have a Blogger website that you'll automatically get top rankings in the Google search engine, unfortunately it’s not that easy.

Because of the fact that it is possible to use a reliable free blog host like Blogger or Wordpress for your first blog website is great news for bloggers everywhere. That is probably why so many people who have never had a website or any other kind of web presence before, find themselves suddenly drawn to blogging. This Bloogle AdSense Blog was the first blog that I had started. Since then I have started three more blogs, two of which are hosted here on Blogger.

If your blog does attract a large group of readers, you may want to consider moving your site. Many people feel that free blog hosting for your blog site gives it more of an amateur feel to it, which is fine for a new member of the blogosphere, but it’s not so appropriate for a more high profile blog.

However, starting your blog with a free blog website is a great way to build a following before you put any money into your blog. If and when your blog becomes popular and you're ready to take the next step and purchase your own domain, your readers will surely follow you to your new home.

In addition, having your own domain can help make your blog feel a little more professional, and finding a company that will host your domain is not expensive or hard to do. If you're lucky and your blog takes off, you just might be able to sell enough advertising space to afford to buy a domain and pay for a nice hosting package. However, it doesn't make too much sense, in most cases, to invest in these types of things before you have a large number of followers.

Whatever it is you decide to do I wish you the best of luck. Make sure you come back to read more of my posts for tips on blogging and Google AdSense.

Google AdSense is one of the best tools a blog or website owner could ask for. It enables you to monetize your site very easily. If it's used the right way, it can earn you a very large amount of money. However if you aren't using AdSense the right way you are missing out on a lot of potential income.

Earning money with Google AdSense can be quick and easy. You'll be blown away with the results you'll be getting in just a short amount of time.

The first thing you can do to start earning more money with AdSense is to start writing unique articles which are rich in content and loaded with profitable keywords. Now some people out there are just good with words and have no problem putting the right words together to make great content. However if you're not one of these people don't worry I have a few tips that will help you out.

There are actually three important tips you need to know when writing your articles and web content to get good results with Google AdSense.

1st-Keyword search. Find some popular topics. Choose the ones that you think might be interesting for a lot of other people out there. Then you can use a keyword suggestion tool to find the most profitable keywords for those particular topics. A great keyword suggestion tool that I like to use is Keyword Spy. Keyword Spy can even tell you how many website owners are using those same keywords on their sites.

2nd-Write articles. Start writing articles with original content and the keywords from the topics that you have found in your search. Keep in mind that search engines take pride in the quality of their articles and the articles that you write should meet their standards.

3rd-Original quality content. Build your blog or website with original quality content. Then strategically place your AdSense ads with colors that match your blog or website. Remember Google chooses what AdSense ads will show up on your site based on the content of your blog or website.

When deciding where to place your AdSense ads. Try to position your ads where your blog followers or website visitors are most likely to click on them. Research shows that one of the first places that people look when visiting a website or blog is the top left side of the web page. Nobody knows for sure why that is but maybe it's because that's where the most important information on a website usually is shown.

Some people that are just starting out at the AdSense game might think that if visitors are clicking on their AdSense ads they must doing well. However, there is a lot of different techniques and styles to help you generate more clicks that can dramatically boost your AdSense earnings. By learning these techniques and using them you will see that many more of your sites visitors will click on your ads.

AdSense has some excellent tracking statistics too that allow you to see which styles and colors are working best on your blog or website. Make sure you are taking advantage of these statistics because that's how you will become most successful.

Another thing you should remember is that banners and skyscrapers do not perform well at all anymore, at least that is what the experts say and I have noticed this on my sites as well. People surfing the web normally ignore these types of ad formats. The reason for this is that people automatically recognize them as advertisements and nobody visits a blog to view ads. So the more you can make your AdSense ads look like it's just part of your content the better, just don't be deceiving, that's a big no no for the Google AdSense program and can get you banned for life from showing AdSense ads on any site.

Finally, don't just think that putting the AdSense ads on your site is enough, monitor your results and be patient, you're not going to get rich overnight but if you try out different strategies and find what works best for your blog or website you will be glad that you started using AdSense on your site.

As always good luck with your AdSense earnings and your blog.

If you're a first time blogger, a free blog website is a great way to get started in the blogosphere. Popular blog site hosts like Blogger and Wordpress allow its users to set up and host a blog for free, and you don't pay any fees at all. This is encouraging more people to start blogging, because the fact that one of these sites can provide you with all of the tools that you need to get your blog up and running without spending any money, means that you have nothing to lose by starting your own blog. Also nowadays it is so easy to set up a free blog website, there is really no reason not to.

By signing up with a free blog website, you may find it even easier to get your site listed in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, than you would if you were to start your own blog from scratch. For example, Google runs the free blog hosting site Blogger and crawls its pages regularly looking for new updates, so if you have your site hosted by Blogger you're almost guaranteed to be listed on Google. This easy access to search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, it can also help you gain a lot of followers, and with very little marketing. Of course you must have good and unique content, don't think just because you have a Blogger account that you'll automatically get top rankings with Google, unfortunately it isn't that easy.

If your blog does attract a large group of readers, you should probably consider moving your blog site. A lot of people feel that free blog hosting for your blog site gives it more of an amateur feel to it, which is fine for bloggers that are just starting out, but isn't so appropriate for a more high profile blog site.

Starting your blog on a free blogging website is a great way to build a following before you spend any money on your blog. If and when your blog becomes popular and you're ready to take the next step and purchase your own domain, your readers will follow you to your new home. The fact that it's possible to use an awesome blog host like Blogger, or Wordpress as a start for your blog website is great news for bloggers everywhere in the world. I guess that's why so many people who have never had a website, blog, or any other kind of presence on the web before, find themselves suddenly drawn to blogging. 

Also, having your own domain can help make your blog feel a little more professional, and finding a company that will host your domain is not hard or expensive. If you're lucky and your blog takes off, you just might be able to sell enough advertising space to afford to buy a domain and pay for a nice hosting package. However, it doesn't make too much sense in most cases to invest in these types of things before you have a large number of followers.

Why do bloggers need Google AdSense?

Well to be able to answer that you first have to know how Google AdSense works. So in a nut shell. When an advertiser places an ad using Google AdWords, Google takes those ads and places them on the websites and blogs that have the most relevant content for that persons ad, and that have been approved for the Google AdSense Program of course, then that advertiser pays Google when someone clicks on their ads. For example, if you blog about bicycles, you will most likely see ads from bicycle manufacturers and possibly retailers on that page. When someone visiting your blog clicks on those ads, the advertiser who placed the ad pays Google and then Google pays you a percentage of what they just made from that click. Of course, the advertiser is hoping that the person that clicked on the ad will actually purchase the bike or whatever it is that they’re offering.

Keep in mind, Google is very strict about the integrity of this process. You are forbidden to click on any of your own ads. If you do, this is called click fraud and your AdSense account will be terminated and you'll probably never get it back. Google strictly prohibits you from asking others to click on your AdSense ads as well. It makes a lot sense too if you think about it. Why would any advertiser in their right mind want to pay Google just so your friends and family could click on your AdSense ads when nobody clicking is actually interested in purchasing the bike or whatever else the ad might have to offer.

The good news is that there's no need for you to try and cheat. You can make more money with your blog and Google AdSense just following their rules. All you have to do is write or blog about something interesting and unique, which is what the search engines want, and you'll have the right people reading your blog to and if they're interested click on the AdSense ads.

So good luck with Google AdSense and your blog.