What are your favorite cooking/baking blogs?

Money for blogs is it real? Can you really write blogs for money?

• money for blogs is it real? i read on www.moneyforblogs.com some of their articles and i'm wondering if its real. http://moneyforblogs.com/articles/category/blogs/ information on blogs http://moneyforblogs.com/articles/blogging-jobs/ information on blogging jobs does anyone know anyone who has actually made money blogging?

• Answer:

  Can you really write blogs for money? Yes. Blogging is just one of dozens of helpful channels of communication. You can also get your message out through Twitter or a hundred other channels. If you don't use Google Adwords to advertise, you don't need a blog. You can still just use an email capture strategy called a `squeeze page' connecting people to your old-fashioned email list. Business opportunity marketers in particular have fled to blogging since a devastating blow around 2008. It's called the dreaded `Google Slap.' Google seems to frown upon squeeze pages. You would be forgiven for thinking of your blog as a high-content way to capture customers... now that the ill-fated though highly-effective squeeze page is frowned upon... and even penalized by Google. 1) At the time of this writing (February 2011), squeeze pages still survive, and have largely moved to Facebook Fan pages where they can enjoy up to 70% opt-in rates. (See link below.) 2) Another excellent way to capture leads with a squeeze page and avoid the `Google Slap' is to drive traffic to your site using any other means besides Adwords. Radio, TV, direct mail, article marketing, and podcasting, to name a few. Then you drive traffic to a simple email capture page. When done correctly, this second strategy is still far more effective than any blog will ever be. If you really, really know exactly what you're doing, it is also far more effective than the white-hot Facebook Fan page strategies. But you asked about blogs. The advantage of owning and operating your own blog is that you have more freedom to create whatever kind of content you want with no editorial restrictions. You also control of the format, the advertising, the links, and your email opt-in box. Your blog can capture those precious leads for your list. Your blog can and should offer an RSS feed to help people keep up with you when they need your help. If appropriate, you can offer anything through a blog that you could offer through a website. It's cheap, effective, easy, and if you understand the profound power of exponential growth, it's relatively fast way to establish your expertise. Your talent can be `discovered' in months instead of years. If you absolutely must get your phone to ring today, consider very cautiously and carefully offering your services through Craigslist instead. Even without an email list, the value you deliver to your readers has a way of coming back to you. This concept is called `karma.' A blog can help you build worldwide karma, delivers content only to people looking for it, and helps reward the virtuous with attention. Once you have a readership, a following, trust, karma, or a list built up, use `monetization' strategies to let people repay your generosity. Then you can continue to deliver even better, more insightful, relevant, or more frequent helpful content, articles, pictures, video, software, audio, and everything else you can imagine. The value in blogging is in how much value you put out into the blogosphere. It's about solving problems for others. It's also about building valued relationships. If you can achieve that, a strategically-oriented blog can help you lubricate that process. Remember that a blog is only one small piece of your business model.