There are a number of instances when lower numbers are good, but the most important one I have come across in the past 2 weeks has been my Technorati Rank. Upon creation of Online Cash Flow, this blog was ranked close to 1,000,000. Sounds pretty decent, but within the Technorati system, the best blog is ranked number 1.

Therefore, I have been pleased as my rank has been steadily falling as more content is added to this blog. Just two days ago my rank was up around 187,000 and today it is under 165,000.

Obviously the curve will begin to level out, as I will be in competition with blogs that are put together more precisely, but at this rate the future looks very promising. I can only hope to have similar rank increase in future.

Previously, I was a little naive as to how StumbleUpon worked. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized StumbleUpon’s full potential. Fortunately, I was not too harsh when I wrote the first post regarding Digg vs. StumbleUpon.

I would like to re-state my standing here with these two social networking websites. I am extremely happy to be using both of them, as they are both generating a decent amount of traffic to Online Cash Flow. The main reason as to why I was having trouble with StumbleUpon before, is because the toolbar was not active. An inactive SU toolbar is like trying to drive a car without gas. Good luck with that.

Anyways, I would highly recommend both Digg and StumbleUpon to anybody who wishes to generate traffic to their websites. Many people reading this are from either Digg or StumbleUpon, so you all know the importance of these websites.

As with anything, the key to success is balance. Maintenance of this balance is probably the most important key to success. According to the USDA Dietary Guidelines:

Consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods and drinks among the basic food groups. Choose foods that restrict your intake of saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt, and alcohol.

I would be willing to bet that many of you are wondering what this has to do with blogging. The whole issue dealing with variety is an umbrella statement that you must remain in balance with whatever you plan to do, or you will fall. Time and time again, being unbalanced will result in failure. Whether you are eating an unhealthy diet and not exercising enough, or working too much and not resting enough both have detrimental effects.

Although blogging requires a lot of work, you must balance your time between writing, reading, editing, and taking breaks from your blog. The common misconception is that more is better. With blogging, however, balance is the key. As I have said previously, make sure your frequency of posts is consistent. I have seen blogs fail time and time again due to inconsistency. Bloggers begin publishing 1 post per day, and gradually increase their posts until they reach 8-10 posts per day. However, publishing 8-10 content-rich posts is extremely hard to maintain, and then it becomes too much of a hassle for the bloggers so they stop completely. This is where balance remains important. I would recommend a post count of anywhere from 1-5 per day, depending on your backlog, and the material you are writing about. This way, your readers know how many posts to expect from you, and are not sitting there wondering what happened if your post numbers have very little variation.

This is part 1 of a 3 part series. Still to come - Part 2: Hard work, Part 3: Stand Out From the Crowd

In the past week or so I have been using Digg and StumbleUpon (SU) more frequently. Both have generated some traffic to Online Cash Flow, but I have seen better numbers from Digg. Maybe I am not doing something correctly on SU, but Digg’s setup seems much more efficient and user oriented.

Personally, I feel as though Digg breaks their site down more effectively, and their categories are easier to utilize. By doing so, people surfing for various websites can find their targeted sites more easily, therefore generating more traffic for the hosts.

As I’ve said time and time again, traffic generates income, and the point of many bloggers is to potentially make money. If you haven’t used Digg, I strongly recommend you take a look at it.

Personally, I have found it to be much more efficient to contact somebody when they had a form instead of listing their email address. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to implement a contact form, thanks to Doug Karr. With his plugin, my Contact page now has a form instead of a few email links.

Along with the new Contact form, I have been working on compiling a list of the sites I use to make money. It will take a few days to organize it, but once it is done you can be sure to find a post here, and an updated list here.

Another positive note, traffic hit an all time high yesterday, May 29, 2007. The numbers were over 200% higher than the previous daily total. As explained in my advertise with Online Cash Flow post, these numbers are steadily increasing, and I will leave it up to you to decide if $10 a month is worth it. Here is a quick example before I finish:

If you were to purchase a 12 month block of Text Advertising right now, it would cost you $120 and your link would be safe and sound for 12 months. However, if traffic continues to increase at the levels I am seeing, the same Text Advertising spots might double or triple in value. The same spots which you could have purchased now for $120, may just increase to $240 or $360 per year.

I figured a little scenario is always good to help explain things a little better. Obviously I will not keep raising prices up if nobody is buying them, but when traffic comes, so do buyers.

As always, I read successful blogger’s blogs. After all, if they are making a full time income from their blog then they must be doing something right. Much of this post’s content was found on Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger.

Blogging is hard work, and will take a lot of time to generate any significant income. However, take a look at some of the information Darren has written about.

What would happen if your blog that is earning $1 per day were to increase its daily earnings by 100% each month for a year? How much would you be earning this time next year?

• After 1 month it would be earning $2 per day…
• After 2 months it would be earning $4 per day…
• After 3 months it would be earning $8 per day…
• After 4 months it would be earning $16 per day…
• After 5 months it would be earning $32 per day…

If the earnings are to stay steady, things are beginning to look good. A decent income so far, but by all means, nothing that you could live off of comfortably. Now, take a look at these next figures:

• After 12 months it would be earning $4096 per day…

To me, those numbers are extremely enlightening, and make me want to work hard at achieving something so large. Even if I do not reach those levels, if I can make a substantial income online while helping people with the information they need to do the same, I will feel as though I have succeeded. Thanks to Darren Rowse for providing such an exercise and making me think about what could happen in the future.

A great way to generate additional traffic to your website or blog is to use any of the services that you have to pay for. These services, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter are all great ways to increase your traffic.

Personally, I use Yahoo! Search Marketing to advertise for various websites, and some affiliate links as well. Overall the outcome has been very pleasant, and I have generated a lot of traffic and referrals to multiple sites that I have been advertising for. In the end, these referrals = money, so I figured if you have to spend a little to earn a lot, it is definitely worth it.

Using Yahoo! Search Marketing, (and the other advertising companies) you can set your cost per click (CPC). That means each time somebody clicks on your ad, regardless if they sign-up or buy anything, you will pay whatever you set your CPC at. This is a great reason why you should only advertise for something that you think people will actually purchase, or want to spend time reading, or you will lose a lot of money.

As well as determining your own CPC, you can choose who/where you want to market your advertisement towards. You can choose continental, or national boundaries, as well as blocking select countries if you wish to do so. This is a great idea if you have a referral link that is only available to United States members. That way, you direct your advertisement strictly to the United States, and anybody overseas is not able to view your ad, and you will not pay any wasted advertising costs.

Another great feature within the Yahoo! Search Marketing system, is that you can set your daily spending limit, and spending campaign limits. Check out the pictures below.

Above you will notice how you can set different spending limits per campaign you have listed.

Below you will notice how you can set your daily spending limit.

These features are very useful in case you only want to spend a certain amount of money each day, in this case, $15, but you are interested to see which campaigns will spend more given various limits. You can change these at any time, but if you reach the maximum daily spending, you cannot increase that limit until the next day.

Overall I have had great experiences with Yahoo! Search Marketing, and if you are to sign-up today, you can pay the $5 minimum deposit, and get $50 free advertising using the code USPX06. Free advertising promotions are a great way to increase their userbase, and it definitely got me hooked. I have been using their services for months now, and have no reason to leave unless other companies offer more benefits or larger advertising promotions.

As I was checking my email today, I noticed I had several in my inbox. A few of these emails were from fellow bloggers asking to do review exchanges. Carlocab, a 14 year old kid who has gotten into blogging to make money online, emailed me inquiring about a review exchange. If you review his blog, he offers you a linkback as well as some other great features.

I will pick a raffle winner and he wins my free e-book! Remember, this is also your chance to get a backlink on Technorati’s top 4,808 blog!

As I posted earlier, there is nothing better than increasing traffic to your blog. As long as your traffic is properly targeted, an increase of traffic can only mean good things. After looking through various pages within Carlocab.com, I noticed that he sounds like he knows what he is doing. I wish I got into blogging when I was very young. I can only imagine where I would be at today if I had done so.

For anybody interested in increasing their traffic, there is no better opportunity than this. Granted Online Cash Flow is just getting started, but I plan to do my best to increase traffic and everything else I can possibly do to generate as much interest in this site as I can. I want to inform people about how they can easily turn small earnings online, into a full time income.

Although the traffic numbers are not extremely high as of now, this website has been published for less than 2 weeks, and the unique visitors per day have increased over 200% from week 1. Given all this information, if you are looking for an increase to your traffic, I highly recommend you advertise here. As traffic continues to increase, so will advertising prices.

However, if you are to purchase advertising for a certain period (advertising is purchased on a per month basis) and the traffic happens to increase during the time in which you have previously purchased, your link will stay up for the original purchase price, and not the new advertising price.

For complete details you can check out the Advertising page. The advertising costs are extremely cheap compared to every single other site I have seen. Their traffic numbers are higher, too, but you must remember nobody starts with 15,000 unique visitors each month.

When blogging, I definitely need to listen to some music. Some people use iTunes, but I’ve been a Winamp guy for years now. As of late I haven’t had any problems with it, but a few weeks ago I came across a huge discrepancy. The sound settings for Winamp is not like adjusting your speakers.

When you adjust the sound settings on Winamp, it adjusts your system sound settings as seen below. The thing is if you adjust the sound on your Winamp player, they only stay until the current song is over, and then they go back to the default settings. I suggest you turn your system volume all the way up, as well as the Winamp settings, and adjust your sound with your speakers. If you cannot adjust your settings with speakers, then only adjust your sound using your system settings.

I had more trouble than I can remember with this problem before I figured it out. I hope somebody can learn from my experiences. Enjoy!