Blogging

The Freelance Writer’s Handbook — 101+ Tips, Resources & Guides

by MAHESH MOHAN on August 27, 2018

If you’re good at writing then you can become a freelance writer and make money out of it. But if you’re totally new to freelancing then you may be confused about where to start and that’s the reason why I’m writing this blog post. My goal is to organize some of the best resources for freelance writers to help you kick-start your freelance writing career or to make you a better writer and make more money out of it.

Freelance Writing For Beginners

Here I’m featuring some blog posts that I find useful for beginners or those willing to work as freelance writers. They’re written by some of the best full-time freelance writers out there who are making over $5,000 a month from writing alone.

Don’t Miss: 51 Blogging And Publishing Platforms To Showcase Your Awesomeness

You Have Started Blogging When ‘They’ Are Quitting It

by MAHESH MOHAN on August 27, 2018

Why Do You Blog?

Are you getting it? Yes, I am absolutely talking about bloggers — professional bloggers to be more specific and not hobby bloggers.

If you are a regular reader of Minterest (which I refuse to believe :D) then you probably know that I don’t stop criticizing bloggers (especially the so-called professional bloggers) when they are running a blog only to make money and then branding themselves as an “I love to connect/help…”.

Perhaps you should check out: 30 Things I Absolutely Hate About Your Blog. Or, maybe this screenshot (an excerpt from the aforementioned blog post) should summarize everything: [Read more…] about You Have Started Blogging When ‘They’ Are Quitting It

Write Today; Monetize Tomorrow!

by MAHESH MOHAN on August 27, 2018

If you have just one reader and your blog changes their life your blog is big enough. — Darren Rowse

A blog post by Jim Connolly inspired me to write this very blog post. In that blog post he mentioned about a best selling Kickstarter book written by the awesomest Seth Godin. When people said it took Seth 3 hours to write that book Seth said it took him around 8 years.

Yes!

That’s how long it took him, writing blog posts almost every day, to build a big enough community to reach his Kickstarter target in 3 hours.

You know what? It applies to blogging as well. [Read more…] about Write Today; Monetize Tomorrow!

11 Blogging Years. 11 Blogging Lessons. 11 Blogging Tips.

by MAHESH MOHAN on August 13, 2018

Note: This blog post is an updated version of 7 Blogging Years. 7 Blogging Lessons. 7 Blogging Tips. (published 4 years and 100 blog posts ago).

Yes, that’s right! It’s the 11th Blogoversary of Minterest. I started Minterest (minterest.com) as a personal finance blog in 2006, and later in August 2007, I started blogging about “Money, Internet, Investing” (yes, that was the first tagline of Minterest and now it’s — tech. marketing. mashups.).

To be honest it was literally “Just another WordPress site” and I was simply rehashing topics that were of “My interest“. But there was one thing… I was learning. And the transition from Blogger.com to WordPress.org is simply amazing.

Don’t Miss: Blogger vs. WordPress: The Ultimate Comparison With Pros & Cons

I started creating blogs on Blogger.com back in 2004 and was treating it like a simple publishing tool. I guess the reason why it didn’t impress or motivate me much was its inability to customize things the way I wanted.

When I tried WordPress I liked almost all of its aspects and found out that I liked coding as well. Oh yeah, I’m a software engineer by education but it is not the coding that inspired me — it’s the magic in “technology”. Thanks to Microsoft.

Coming back…

I’m going to feature here 11 blogging lessons and tips that I have… learned, realized, or experienced in one way or the other over the past many, many years.

101 Quotes About Writing That Will Inspire You To Write More (And Even More)

by MAHESH MOHAN on July 18, 2018

First Published: April 27, 2016; Last Updated: Wednesday, July 18, 2018.

I love inspirational quotes. I really do. Over the past several years, I have published many lists of my favorite quotes collection — on life, success, innovation, perfection, and entrepreneurship.

I have been saving quotes that I found on writing for a while now, and I do feel that there is enough to make it into a list. It’s very focused and is targeting writers (including bloggers ;) ).

Words (especially in quotes) are powerful, in fact so powerful that it can give you goosebumps. So here I’m listing some of the famous quotes on writing — for you and for me — I really hope it helps you stay focused and stay inspired all the time.

Wait, do remember one thing:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” — Thomas Alva Edison

I truly believe these quote will inspire you to perspire to write more, even more, and even more than that. [Read more…] about 101 Quotes About Writing That Will Inspire You To Write More (And Even More)

17 Unexpected SEO Lessons I Learned After Publishing My First Listicle

by MAHESH MOHAN on June 21, 2018

It’s been ten years since I started blogging. It began as a fun thing (and it still is!). Also, blogging was just another random stuff that I used to do at that time. But today my blog is much more than a random thing for me, and that’s the only difference.

I don’t know if I’m one of the so-called professional blogger or a hobby blogger or yet another nerd. It’s something that I’m trying to figure out. But I just know for sure that it’s been a long amazing journey so far. :)

And it didn’t happen in one day and it didn’t happen in a couple of years time. It happened over time and is something that’s still happening.

I don’t know if you have read this blog post of mine:

Over 201 Google Products & Services You Probably Don’t Know

Well, you should. You know why? Because that’s my first (original) evergreen blog post and apparently that’s my first (real) listicle too. It eventually became one of my first pillar blog post and taught me a lot of things that I never thought of.

Don’t Miss: What Does It Take To Generate 1,000,000 Pageviews & $3,000 Per Month

First things first.

I didn’t write Over 60 Google Products & Services You Probably Don’t Know (the original blog post — thanks to Wayback Machine) for SEO. And I didn’t write it for traffic either.

I did it as I was using (or tried) almost all of Google’s web products and services. So I just wanted to show my gratitude plus create a useful list as it wasn’t there on any other blogs.

Moreover, it was also just another random blog post that I did which happened to became the foundation of my blog’s SEO. You know why? Because it taught me a lot of things about Google SEO that I couldn’t find anywhere else.

Oh yes, that post was published way back in 2009 when there was no Google Pandas or Penguins. Also, I didn’t know any Neil Patels or Rand Fishkins of the SEO world. Back then I gathered most of my internet marketing knowledge from the Digital Point forum.

Coming back…

Here are the things that I learned about blogging and SEO from my favorite blog post — let’s call it “Google 101“. Okay? So yeah, they are all more or less related to ~~SEO~~ Google SEO. :)

Don’t Miss: 10 Blogging Years. 10 Blogging Lessons. 10 Blogging Tips.

51 Blogging And Publishing Platforms To Showcase Your Awesomeness

by MAHESH MOHAN on March 5, 2018

Blogging & Publishing Platforms

I first started creating web pages on Yahoo GeoCities, Tripod, etc. back in early 2000s. It was fun. Later, I tried blogging platforms like Blogger.com and WordPress.org and also started creating HTML web pages without any coding skills (thanks to Microsoft FrontPage). And that’s how I started web development.

Now with the advent of web 2.0 people want more. People no longer like static HTML web pages with dull designs. They want rich features with a great user experience. That’s how blogging platforms became massively popular.

I get a lot of emails (because of this Make Money Writing blog post) from my readers asking for a platform to share their articles or work online. And I used to recommend a blog — a WordPress blog to be more specific. But then I realized that a blog may not be relevant for everyone as things changes from one person to another.

If you’re a technology enthusiast then starting a blog makes sense. But if you’re a writer and want to contribute articles randomly, then publishing on Medium.com makes better sense — yeah, you don’t have to be a tech-savvy person for that! [Read more…] about 51 Blogging And Publishing Platforms To Showcase Your Awesomeness