AdSense Sign-Up is Easy and Free? Really?

You may be aware that I began this blog as a test to figure out all of the features in Blogger; however, you may not be aware of why I wanted to test the features. My original intent was to begin posting regularly to my two existing blogs (Balanced in His Grace and Home Improvement?) so that I can earn a living from my writing. At this point in my life, after a year of sacrificing, my family needs a second income, even if only part-time, and if I take on a job outside the home, it will limit my ability to write. Considering I am in the process of finishing a novel, this could be detrimental to my career of choice.

As I researched how to earn money off my blog, I came across the article How to Make Money With a Blog on ChristianPF.com, and one of the author's suggestions was to use AdSense or another advertising service. I looked into AdSense and realized it is fully integrated with Blogger, but I spent an entire week trying to sign up for the service only to struggle to make it happen. I don't know if I was clicking on the wrong links or if I had to be signed up for Google+ first, but I finally managed to sign up for the service today.

I wish that was the end of the story but before you sign up, please be advised that there is no guarantee that they will accept you into the AdSense program. After signing up, you will receive an email asking you to allow Blogger access to the ad code and reports in your AdSense account. You will need to click the link to link Blogger to AdSense.

After that step is completed you will have a waiting period of up to 48 hours, although I have heard that people have waited months (notice I do not know this for a fact, this is heresay but definitely something to be concerned about). After your waiting period, you will be notified by email as to whether you have been accepted into the AdSense program. I am a little peeved at this point because after following the steps to sign up, I received and email that my application does not meet their program criteria; however, there is no list of program criteria to ensure that I can comply. So much for AdSense being an easy way to make money with a blog.

If you still want to take your chances, following is a list of the steps to sign up for AdSense:

• Pull up the dashboard for the blog you want to earn money on. The dashboard for a particular blog is the page that states, "My blogs" at the top and has a list down the left side of the page. The options in the list include: Overview, Posts, Pages, Comments, Google+, Stats, Earnings, Layout, Template and Settings. If you want to sign up for Google+, you will click on Google+.
• Click on Earnings. This will bring up a page that states, "Monetize your blog using one or both of our free advertising programs". There is a button to click under Google AdSense that says, "Get Started", while the Google Affiliate Ads has a link to Learn More.
• Click the button that says "Get Started" under Google AdSense. This will bring up a box that asks you to either Create a new AdSense account or to use an existing account. If you already have an account, you can link to that account; however, I am only covering how to create an account.
• Click the "Create account" button. This will bring up a box that asks for your information.
• Select "Individual" or "Business" account
• Select your Country
• Enter your contact information. Please note that your name needs to be listed exactly as it is listed on your bank account so that you will be able to cash your checks. To see how often you will be paid, click here.
• Enter your telephone number
• Click every check box under the Policies, and ensure that you can adhere to these. This may take some research to ensure that you are in compliance, including having a Privacy Policy in place.
• Click "Submit information". This will bring up a review box. Make sure to review all of the information listed. If there are any mistakes, make necessary changes by clicking on the "Edit account information" button. Otherwise, click "Continue".
• This will bring up the Google AdSense Online Standard Terms and Conditions. Please read these to ensure that you can adhere to them as this is a contract between you and Google. If you can accept these Terms and Conditions, click the check box and click "I Accept".
• This should generate an AdSense account that you will need to link to your blogs. They even make this easy for you with a "Link AdSense account" button.

There will immediately be a link to "View dashboard" under AdSense in your Earnings tab on your blogs; however, you will not be able to access your dashboard until you receive confirmation via email that your account has been approved and made active, something I was not privileged to have been given. To be prepared for my account activation, I wasted my time adding the code to my blogs to ensure proper ad placement. Now, it appears, I have to waste more time removing that code.

If you follow these steps and actually get approved for an account, I would greatly appreciate any advice. Thanks for reading.

Happy Blogging!

What Should I Write About?

Now that you have finally set up a "blog", you need to consider what to write about? Should you write short stories? Should you write about how to do things? Should you write about a variety of subjects or stick to one subject? Should you write about whatever pops into your head?

The first thing we need to do is to establish the purpose of a blog. A blog is short for weblog and is basically sort of like an online diary. People keep diaries for a variety of reasons. Most of the time people write their thoughts and ideas down in an effort to work through challenges in life or as an outlet for their feelings. We have to take into consideration the fact that a blog is online for all the world to see.

Ultimately, a blog is an outlet for you to share whatever you want. Write about what you know. Write about your passions. Provide tips, experiences, ideas, thoughts, and any other information you feel will be helpful for others. Remember that this will be online, and people are interested in learning something about the subject they are searching for.

Are you a seamstress? Do you adhere to a specific diet because of allergies or because of how it makes you feel? Are you a fisherman or hunter? Are you a classic car enthusiast? Do you enjoy baking? Do you live a natural/healthy lifestyle including adhering to naturopathic medicine? Are you a music enthusiast? Do/are you ______________? Fill in the blank. If you can dream it, if you have a passion for it, if you have knowledge to be shared, if you have an interest in it, you can share it on your blog.

The most important thing to remember is that your blog is an extension of you. Remember to share clear, concise information and stick to one subject per blog. Here on Blogger, you can add a new blog by clicking the "New Blog" button on your dashboard. If you use a different blogging site, investigate how to add different blogs. Whatever you decide to write about, have fun!

Happy Blogging!

What Do I Do? - Pt 2, Steps to Start Your Blog Today

You are here to finally get step-by-step instructions on how to start a blog. I will try to make this as painless and easy as possible; however, if there is anything confusing, please comment below so I can make adjustments to these instructions.

Your first step in getting a blog is determining if you want to own your own domain (incurring a monthly fee) or use a free blogging site. After reading How to Make Money with a Blog, I highly recommend using the free sites to get your feet wet. Here are a few links to get you started:

• Wordpress
• Blogger
•  Tumblr
•  LiveJournal
• These are a few places I have heard of; however, I have only used Blogger.com. According to the article Best Free Blog Hosting Sites it appears that there is a Google Page Rank (PR) that should be 8+ for the site to get traffic.

Once you decide on a site, you will need to sign up for the service. I will walk you through setting up a basic blog through Blogger. I believe most of the sites have instructions, but this will hopefully help you understand the basics here.

In order to start a blog at Blogger, you will need a Gmail account. If you already have an account, simply sign in through the blue box on the right and skip the next step. If you do not have an account, click on the red “SIGN UP” box or click here to sign up.

Insert all required information, choose a Gmail account name and password (don’t forget to make a note of this somewhere so you can access your account). You will have to prove you are not a robot and remember to click on the box to agree to Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. When you are finished with inputting all necessary information, click “Next”.

Follow all onscreen instructions to set up your account. Once you have accessed Blogger, you will need to start a blog. You will click on the button for a “New Blog”. You will receive a page that says: “Blogs List > Create a new blog” and requests a Title, an Address, and a Template. Please note in the Address box, you will automatically have “.blogspot.com” added to your address. This will be the location of your blog on the web. Please note that there are a limited number of basic Templates, and although they allow some customization later, you will probably want to find another host or obtain your own domain in the future if you enjoy blogging and want to do more with your blog. This will truly be a basic blog, just like this blog is.

Once you get into your new blog, you will be given the opportunity to write a new blog, to customize the blog and a few other options. Here I will cover how to post to your blog. Unless you know .html code, I recommend that you click on “Compose” on the left. This will give you the opportunity to make a few minor changes to the font and size. I personally prefer to use a word processing program to write so that I can copy and paste the formatting with the text. This affords me a few extra options in the formatting department, although I still have not ventured out too much in the area of formatting.

I’m going to walk you through your first blog post. You can type what I say or whatever you would like if you know what you want to write about. Here are the basic steps of posting in Blogger.

• Note beside the orange “Post” there is a box with a grayed out “Post title”. Click in the box and type: “My First Post”
• We will not change any of the formatting for this first post. Click in the big white box at the bottom and type:
• This is my first post to my own blog. I am so happy to finally be able to post to my own blog. This is exciting, and I certainly hope you will visit often. Have a blessed day!
• Click “Save” and then “Preview” if you want to make sure you are happy with the look of your post. Make any changes you’d like to make, Save and Preview as often as you need to. When you are happy with the way your blog post appears in the preview, simply click on “Publish” and your blog is now live!

If you want to link to another post, you will need to open another tab in your browser (or another browser if you do not have tabbed browsing) and find the site you want to link to. You can link to my blog by following these steps:

• Right click on this link to BeginnerBlogging 101. Choose “Open Link in New Tab” (or “Open Link in New Window” if you do not have tabbed browsing).
• Go to the new link that just opened. Highlight the site name and copy the site address.
• Go back to your blog post and click on the blue Link button in the formatting bar.
• This will pull up a box that says “Edit Link”. Click in the box after “Text to display:” and type: “Beginner Blogging 101”. 
• Under “Link to:”, click in the box, right click and paste the site address to my blog.
• Click OK and you will see the link as: Beginner Blogging 101
• If you need to insert an email address, use the same process, but type the person’s name in the Text to display box and click on Email address before typing the address in the URL box.

I hope this has been helpful to get you started. As I stated above, please comment if you have any questions or suggestions to make these instructions more clear. Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll visit often.

What Do I Do - Pt 1, How My Passion to Blog Has Been Rekindled

You may be saying, “Okay, I’ve read about you using this blog to test the features, but your blog is called Beginner Blogging 101, so where is the instruction to start a blog?” If you happened upon this article, you’re in luck. I will be covering this information today. I originally called this blog “Test My Blog” because I wanted to play around with the features. It was quickly apparent that I had a lot to learn. I love to help and encourage people, and since I have long adhered to the belief that the fastest way to learn is to teach the material, it was apparent that I should share my experience here.

It was this desire that led me to change the name to “Beginner Blogging 101”. To see how I changed the name of my blog, see my first comment under Page FeatureTest. After posting what I learned, it occurred to me that the next article here needs to be about starting a blog because it’s hard for someone to follow along with me in learning about and implementing all of the features of a blog if they do not even know how to start a blog.

In Pt 1 of the series, I will give you some insight into why I started blogging, how little I have actually put into blogging to date and why I suddenly have a passion for helping others learn how to blog. If you are interested in this insight, keep reading; otherwise, please skip to What Do I Do? – Pt 2, Steps to Start Your Blog Today so you can get started.

My first blog started quite a few years ago as a simple outlet for my rambling. I did not write very often, and to be quite honest, I do not even know what happened to that blog. I have always enjoyed writing, but being afraid to share what I wrote, it was only something I did as an outlet for fun and creativity. While working outside the home in 2011, everyone in our office had an assigned day to share something to encourage one another, and I often wrote my own devotionals. As I shared my writing, my boss and co-workers encouraged me to write because of my ability to share information through the written word in a way that intimidates many. It was this idea that I could write well that made me consider writing as a career so I started writing a novel during my lunch breaks.

My circumstances changed in 2012 when we moved an hour away for my husband’s new job. We had to sacrifice my salary so we bought a fixer-upper, and the idea of a Home Improvement? blog was born. I missed writing devotionals to encourage others so my Balanced in His Grace devotional blog was born. Many challenges over the past year have been detrimental to consistency. As a novelist, I have a tendency to write long articles so I would only write when I could carve out enough time. Being a busy Mom of 3, this happened quite infrequently. I also did not have someone depending on me to bring a devotional to them so I lost some of my motivation and direction to write the devotionals. Between the lack of consistency and the long articles, it has been hard to gain a following on either blog.

The challenges of starting over in a new community have brought discouragement and doubt in the area of blogging. I continued to work on my novel with the intent to finish it by the end of 2012, but it is now clear that I will need to take a little longer than expected. We also had to spend more than intended on the house, so I need to be able to bring in some money. It was this need that led me to reconsider my career and search online. My passion to write, and to help and encourage others, kept overriding every career I discovered online. It was after I read the article How to Make Money with a Blog on ChristianPF.com that I realized that writing is my passion, writing is my career, and writing is how I need to earn a living. This passion to write and help others is now driving me forward.

Page Feature Test

I just tested out the Page Feature in Blogger. When I pull up the list of my blogs and click on the name of one of them, it gives me several options on the left side. One of those features is "Pages". I clicked on the link for "Pages" and there was an option available to click called "New Page" with an arrow. When I clicked on "New Page", two options pulled up: "Blank Page" and "Web Address". I picked "Blank Page" and added a new page to the blog that I named "Ideas for Healthy, Great Tasting, Gluten-Free Blog" (see link on right side tab).

I also changed the "Show pages as" feature to "Side Links" from "Don't Show". There was also an option to "Top Tabs", but I prefer to have them listed on the right. When I clicked out of there and viewed my blog, there was no page shown on the right side with the listing of my posts (there was one at the time). I went back in and changed the "Show pages as" feature again before clicking back on my blog and going to view my blog again. There was still no link to my new page, and I was quite perturbed. I went back into the "Pages" feature and realized there is a button at the top that has to be clicked appropriately called "Save Arrangement".

Now I know that young folks on the internet probably already knew to look for that button; however, I am still new to this whole world of blogging. I love to write and think it would be wonderful to be paid for my rambling. I'm really just kidding because I believe in what I write. I write about things that I have a passion for, and right now, that passion is to help others navigate the world of blogging as I am. Maybe I should have titled my new blog "Blogging for Beginners 101" or something else appropriate like that. I really wanted to just test out the features. Does anyone know how to change the name of a blog or are you stuck with it once you pick a name? I presume it is the latter, but I would prefer if it is the former. Please comment here if you know!

Many blessings to you!

Test Post

This is my first post to Test My Blog Features. I would like to find out exactly what Blogger can do because I have two real blogs here Balanced in His Grace and Home Improvement?, but I have never played with all of the features. It is my desire to launch a gluten-free blog as well as more articles for my existing blogs that will hopefully draw in more readers. Eventually, it would be nice to be able to earn a living from these blogs while I finish writing my first novel. I would also like to launch a new blog to provide some direction for those desiring to become a writer; however, I will not start that blog until I have learned enough to provide proper guidance. One other idea I have is to write a blog about starting a Women's Ministry at my church as we go through the process of establishing this new ministry.

When we are a pioneer of sorts, there are many things to be learned. Often we overlook possible pitfalls because we are so excited about the new opportunity before us, and it often comes back to haunt us. It would be really nice to have found out about some of those pitfalls ahead of time in both beginning to write my novel and buying a fixer upper so I could have avoided some of the pitfalls. For example, we had to sacrifice my salary so I could stay home and write. Buying the fixer upper, we made sure to allow a certain amount of money to make the improvements, but due to the age of the house, we have whittled away most of that money purchasing all the little things that we didn't consider (ie a new bathroom faucet and a new pump kit for the toilet because of bad quality products already in the house - they leaked and had to be replaced because no replacement parts were available). It is my heart's desire to offer help to others so that they won't have to endure all of the struggles I have endured. I am well aware that all of these challenges cannot be averted; however, I will strive to offer as much information as possible.

This will take pure honesty, and that is something I am quite comfortable with. I will probably use this test blog in order to keep a diary, of sorts, of information that I can hopefully use to write articles for my new and existing blogs. These posts will probably be bullets of information or lists of ideas. If you happen upon this blog, please know that it truly is just being used as a test of the features of blogger. I may even purchase my own domain to establish an entire website for all of my blogs at some point in the future. Of course, this will only happen after I understand the world of blogging.

Please feel free to visit my other blogs, link to my blogs or to comment here. I want to learn more about blogging and welcome your thoughts and ideas. Many blessings to you!