I visit a lot of blogs daily and I’m starting to see some of these die off. A few haven’t been updated in over a month, and some just keep posting links to other sites. What happened? Sadly, these bloggers probably gave up on their blog due to lack of results. Why don’t these bloggers make any money?

1. They aren’t passionate about blogging. Blogging isn’t something that allows you to throw up some meaningless content and then sit back while your Paypal account grows larger. It doesn’t work that way. I think most people that start blogging to make money forget that it takes work to succeed. Or maybe they are just mesmerized by the numbers.
2. Lack of commitment. Bloggers are a different breed. It takes a lot of commitment to be able to manage a blog on a day in and day out basis. The truth is that most bloggers are in it for a quick buck… if that doesn’t happen, they won’t stick around long. Few realize the skills and dedication it takes to successfully run a blog.
3. Lack of knowledge. When I started blogging, I jumped in head first. I hardly did anything the first month that didn’t include information gathering. I visited lots of other blogs, and I learned everything I could. I became an expert in the blogging field in a very short amount of time. But this wasn’t an accident. It took a lot to get me to this point.
4. Disinterest in their topic. Another blog pitfall. You have to write about something you are passionate about. If you love sports, but your blog is about celebrity gossip. It won’t be long before you were wishing that you had written about something you cared about.
5. Can’t manage time. There are so many things to do when it comes to running a blog. These people just can’t prioritize so that they can get things done the right way.
6. Getting discouraged too easily. Don’t ever fall into this category. You are going to take criticism… it happens. You should never allow the cheap shots your readers take at you, to affect your attitude. People live to see others fail. Prove them wrong!
7. Taking on too many projects at once. You can’t walk before you can crawl. Why try to start on ten new projects before you’ve completed one successfully?
8. Dishonest or has a bad attitude. You’ve seen them. These are the bloggers that are quickly squeezed out by the blog community. There isn’t a place in our world for them, so we send them packing in a hurry.
9. Improper monetization strategies. This could fall into the “lack of knowledge” category, but I think it deserves it’s own. You’ve seen these people. These are the ones with off-colored Adsense ads, too many affiliate links, and a general passion to make money while providing no service to their readers.
10. Bad money management. I’m a firm believer that the money your blog makes the first few months should be reinvested. Whether it be in advertising, education, or a new design… invested money is money well spent.
11. Failure to communicate ideas. You can’t make a decent amount of money in the blog world without being able to communicate effectively. If you are a terrible writer… you generally aren’t going to be very successful in this community. You don’t have to be a great writer, just an effective one.
12. Lack of social skills. Social skills? Online? Yes! It takes a great deal of support for your blog to ever get anywhere. If you can’t build relationships with other bloggers, you are better off trying something else.

Backlinks make the blogosphere go ’round.  We can’t lie to ourselves and assume that we can survive long term without sites like Google, Technorati, Yahoo, and others that rely heavily on linkage data.  So the only way to survive in an ever-changing world is to adapt.  And the only way to adapt to the Web 2.0 shift, is by building backlinks at a rapid rate.  The higher the authority, the better!

1. Comment on Do Follow Blogs - Do Follow blogs are basically the rebels of the blogosphere.  Wordpress adds an attribute (rel=”nofollow”) to all outgoing links originating from the comment field of your blog.  They do this to fight spam, but it also hurts legitimate bloggers looking to make friends, comment, and obtain a few links at the same time.  If you comment on Do follow blogs, you’ll get a link for every comment you post.  You can check out a great Do-Follow blog list in just about every corner of the web.  Just do a Google search and you’ll be met with many of these lists.
2. Article Submission - Once called “bum marketing”, the changes in Google’s algorithm have all but removed the “bum” from the title.  It’s not as easy as submitting an article, cross-linking to it and your blog, and sitting back as the money comes in any more.  But, it’s still an effective way to generate high-profile backlinks.
3. Forums - Most of you don’t have your link in the footer of your forum profile?  Why?  This is another super easy way to build links.
4. Blog Carnivals - Blog Carnivals used to be pretty popular, but they are a dying breed.  However, if you can find them, they can still get you quite a few links.  Blog Carnivals are basically a group of blogs that get together and write about the same topic.  One blogger decides to link to all of the articles (that’s one link!), and the bloggers that take part usually decide to link to the posts as well (several links!).
5. Social Bookmarking - Every time you submit a post to sites like Digg, or REddit, you get a backlink to accompany that.  It’s one more easy way to generate a link or two for EVERY post that you create.
6. Link to others - Generally if you link to other blogs, they will be more inclined to return the favor at some point.  Try it!
7. Write Good Content - This should go without saying, but if your content is good, it’s going to get linked to no matter what you do.  People are always linking to good content they find in the blogosphere.

Alright, so not exactly.  However, we can make some educated guesses about what Digg takes into consideration when deciding what stories get big buzz, and which ones are merely going to tread water until they fade off into obscurity.

Stumbleupon, Reddit, and others have been semi-transparent with their algorithms, while Digg is still a pretty big mystery.  The social media experts over at SEOmoz.org recently had a lot of success while exposing the algorithms of some major social sites, but Digg?  Still a mystery.

If you look at how social sites work, it’s always going to rely on a few deciding factors.

1. Votes
2. Submission Time
3. Votes from friends
4. Different story, same people voting
5. Authority

Those are taken into consideration at every social site.  These algorithms are getting more and more difficult to exploit, which leads to a more level playing field.  And lately, some pissed off Diggers.  Recently a story received over 1,600 Digg’s, and NEVER MADE IT TO THE FRONT PAGE!  This led to outcries from Diggers, and an overal admission (from everyone but Digg), that the algorithm may just be broken.

Look for changes to take place shortly, but for now, we can only use an estimated guess to assume that the following factors are what Digg looks for.

• Submission Time
• Submission Category
• Submitter’s Digg authority
• Submitter’s website wide activity
• Sumbitter’s friends and fans
• Subsequent digger’s authority
• Subsequent digger’s friends and fans
• Subsequent digger’s geo location
• Subsequent digger’s HTTP referer

First of all, let me say that in terms of traffic, I’d much rather be dealing with stumblers than diggers.  Stumblers have an average time on site that’s nearly 10x that off Digg traffic, at least on this one.  Digg traffic is kinda like a high school kid with his prom date.  In and out so fast it leaves you wondering… “did that just happen”.  It did happen my friends… it did happen.

Alright, so here’s the quick and dirty about Diggers.  The average age is 18-34, and they are an extremely technology orientated crowd.  My little site is nothing to them, and they’d much rather be reading about how Mac’s are better than Pc’s, or how Linux “rox their sox” compared to Vista.  All kidding aside, these people are extremely tech savvy.  So unless you have a half-naked pictures of your girlfriend ghost hula-hooping on the Nintendo Wii (over 5k Diggs!), then don’t be prepared to have huge results with Digg… at first!

Gaming the Digg system is incredibly possible.  It’s actually pretty simple too.

Here are a few keys.

• Add friends, lots of friends.
• Digg other people’s stuff, not just your own.
• Leave comments on other submissions, it’s a great way to meet new “Digg Friends”.
• Get your friends to Digg your stuff.  If you are doing your main job as a blogger (networking), it shouldn’t be to hard to find people to Digg stuff for you.  Just send them an email with the URL.
• Don’t get greedy!  If you try to submit too many posts at once, they’ll notice.
• Submit stuff from other sites too so that you can try to build some respect in the community.

Digg is a community, and they don’t take too kindly to spam-hungry newcomers trying to steal their thunder.  Make sure and build your Digg profile to an authoritative one before you get too submit happy with your own posts.

It’s really common sense guys.  The more of these people you can make friends with, the better your results.  Get out there and start Digging!