Keep in mind that content is key.  Converting a free blog into a money making blog is a long difficult process, but one that you complete by putting the work in.  Make sure that your blog has an attractive and visually appealing template.  Something that makes a user feel comfortable, and that allows your blog to be easily read.  A safe bet is to use cooler colors, as they are more calming, instead of anything too vibrant.

Your writing will also need a little bit of an upgrade as well.  You’re not just writing for yourself anymore, you’re writing to get people to find your blog and remain interested.  That means you have to write concise, not overly long, and entertaining entries.  Let your unique voice and personality shine, and make sure not to write entries that are too long.  Readers want to be entertained, but long articles can leave most doubting whether or not they want to read what’s written.

From there you should be able to steadily build an audience.  You want to pay attention to traffic and the amount of time the average user is on your site.  You can find resources for this through services like Google’s Analytics.  See what content inspires interest, and try and build on your good stats by writing to those strengths.

Now you should be ready to make a little money.  Use programs like Google’s Adsense, and look to websites like Amazon.com which offer payment for affiliate links.  Through these you can start earning money off the traffic from your blog.  Just remember, the longer you keep someone on the page, the more impressions and likelihood of clicks you’re going to get.  You want as much as possible of both.  With grabbing headlines and engaging content, you should be well on your way.

Make sure your resume is properly up to date.  The last thing anybody wants to see is an old resume that you’ve been using for a few years.  That shows no initiative, a lack of effort, and will reflect poorly on your work ethic.  You definitely don’t want a potential boss counting strikes against you before you even have a chance to interview.

Keep your resume professional.  While I always stress making your resume unique and tailored to each job that you apply for, don’t step out of the professional mold.  Keep your font generic and readable, and stick to the standard resume format.  Just tailor the information to each job that you apply for.  That’s the best way to make a great impression.

Don’t send your resume without a cover letter.  The cover letter is the standard starting point of any application, and a resume sent without one is incomplete.  The resume only serves as a list of professional accomplishments and goals, the cover letter is where you put these into perspective with your personality.  The cover letter sells you, and shows that you are the best employee for the job.  Take advantage of the opportunity.

Finally, make your objective statement absolutely clear.  You have to have a clear cut idea of what you intend to give, and get from the job you are applying to get.  This is extremely important to a potential employer, so you want the statement to be as clear and understandable as possible.  You wouldn’t want someone tripping over the first, and most vital part of your resume.

Remember to do your research.  That should be a part of preparation for any interview.  Know the company, what you want from them, and why you want to work there.  Find out about the services they provide, how they apply to your skills and goals.  Those are all very necessary parts of any interview.  Being prepared to talk about them beforehand will keep you calm when the subjects come up in the actual interview.

Study yourself.  You’d be pretty embarrassed if you were asked a question about your resume, and you were unable to answer.  Study that resume, and know it by heart.  Consider why you put the credentials you chose on the resume.  Knowing this beforehand prepares you for any questions you’ll receive regarding your resume during the interview.

Finally, on the day of the actual interview, take time to unwind and calm down beforehand.  You want to be relaxed and confident.  So take out a little time for yourself.  That way you can collect your thoughts, relax, and keep a positive attitude for your road to securing that job.  Stay courteous and professional, and remember your research.  That way, no question will stump you, and you’ll answer all of them to the best of your ability.

By preparing you give yourself the best chance to make a good impression.  During the interview process, a good impression is invaluable.  The best impression you can make will help good credentials stand out, and any shortcomings disappear.

Of course the main key here is writing quality content, because in the end your use of keywords doesn’t matter to the reader if there isn’t real quality behind the keywords.  Start off by writing relevant content.  Write about what’s in the news right now, as most people are searching for current events when using a search engine.  Try to offer quality content, featuring your unique viewpoint and writing voice.

The best attack from there for search engine attention, is to write a variety of content about that same subject, usually articles or entries from multiple viewpoints.  Creating a wealth of content is always a good thing, just make sure all of it happens to be quality content.  Use link backs also, to the original articles that gave you the idea to write about a certain topic.  This way you benefit from traffic flowing between your site and another person’s site.  This can also serve to help you network yourself and get more attention that way as well.

From there you want to focus on the way that you’re writing.  Make sure to use keywords appropriately, the words that are directly associated to your piece are vitally important.  If you have a topic but don’t know what keywords would be best, try using a service like Google Trends to find out the most searched keywords.  This will give you a good start on what people type to find out about topics related to what you are writing.  By using those same keywords you increase the likelihood that someone will come across your site.

Being afraid to lose your job can affect your performance at work, and how well you function in the other aspects of your life, from social activities to health and well being.  Fear of something like job loss is extremely stressful, putting your body through a whole torrent of negative emotions and thoughts, affecting your life in any manner of negative ways.  So your first step to combat those negative emotions?  Control what you experience concerning the economy.

It’s good to keep tabs on what’s going on in the world, but if you find a lot of stories about economic tension, try to avoid them.  You know the state of the economy, there’s no reason you need to be reading about it every five minutes.  By sort of ignoring the negative news, you’re not allowing yourself new information to worry over, decreasing the likelihood that you will be stuck thinking about how horrible life could turn if you lost your job.

Make a good plan for how to conduct your job search should you lose your job.  This way you have a back up plan at the ready, so the blow of actually losing your job wouldn’t be as harsh of one.  Being prepared is never a bad thing, and you’ll feel better knowing that you’re ready for anything, no  matter what the economy throws at you.

Finally, just stay positive.  Positive thinking is the best way to reduce stress and fell better.  Stress is usually derived from negative thinking, so instead of worrying about life without your job, think about how glad you are to still have a job despite the economic turmoil.

1. Figure out your needs for successfully running your business.
2. Figure the budget that you have to spend on new tech.
3. Combine your findings from the first two, to find the most relevant technology.
4. Allow time to test new tech and figure out realistic application within the company.

So firstly, you want to asses what you need to successfully run your business.  Target what your business is going to offer, or already offers, and look to technology surrounding that.  Whether it be computer software to better manage your clientele, or even faster computers to provide for better overall service.

Figure out how much money you can afford to spend taking risks on new technology.  For any sort of advancement in any field a certain amount of risk taking is necessary, and you need to determine how much money can be spent on those risks.  You want to have plenty to try and keep up with potential money saving/making technology, but not so much that a bad investment would hurt the company.  Never be afraid though, as that new piece of tech could solve some financial problems in ways you couldn’t imagine.

Combining your findings means using the budget you’ve made for new technology, on the features that are going to be most helpful to your company first.  Go after the tech that has the likelihood changing your company in the most dramatic ways, and target that first.  You’ll always be taking a risk, but by targeting a weak point, or point that you could strengthen, you take the positive chance of reorganizing your company to be stronger than before.

Allow for time to test every investment you make before making a final judgment as to how it will apply to your company, and whether the investment was a success or not.  Sometimes reintegration of an old system can take a while.  Or sometimes fully understanding the nuances of a new item can take time before you fully understand how to make the best use of what you’ve bought.  Give it some time, and let your investments play out, because that new technology could pay dividends like you couldn’t imagine.

Clean up your desk, as a first option.  Keep your workstation clean and neat looking, as that will always improve your mood and increase the likelihood that you will feel better, and feeling better means productivity.  A clean work station is a happy workstation after all.

Organize that desktop, it’s not enough for your station to just be clean, but you should have everything well organized as well.  The better your organization is, the more you’ll be able to accomplish quickly.  Accomplishing your goals at a comfortable, quick pace will help you feel better, and a positive attitude will help you continue working hard and being as productive as possible.

Don’t let your email ruin your workday.  Everyone has trouble keeping up with their inboxes over the course of the day, but the key is to know when you’re too bogged down, and when it’s okay to give up on trying to keep up with everything for the day.  If you find yourself trapped within the depths of your inbox, try to find the messages that are most pressing, and concentrate on those, leaving the ones that are not as urgent for a later time.  This way you won’t feel trapped, and will be able to keep a positive productivity healthy attitude.

Finally, don’t surf the internet at work.  Reading about stories, or visiting fun websites at work can be bad for your personal morale, as it will remind you that you are stuck at work, even if you do not want to be.  Commit that time at work completely to the job, and focus more on accomplishing your tasks, and taking positives from that.  This way you stay focused, and upbeat about work, not about what else you could be doing with your time.

With your cover letter there are a few guidelines you want to follow.  First, stay on topic, an employer only really cares about what you can offer them, and how your experience and past qualities applies to them.  You want to personalize the letter, never send a form cover letter as these can be easily spotted, and your lack of a personal touch will reflect negatively upon yourself.  If you won’t put in the time and effort to write a good cover letter, how much time and effort are you going to put into the job once you are hired?

Never forget that the goal of a cover letter is to introduce yourself and then sell yourself and your unique abilities to the company with which you are applying.  Your cover letter is practically an interview in itself, and you should treat it as such.  Really sell yourself as the best candidate for the job, even if you yourself feel yourself to be under qualified.  Never suggest that you feel that way however, nor should you defend your lack of experience in any way, as that will make you seem to lack confidence in your abilities, and you’ll appear on the defensive about the likelihood that you’ll get the job, and that’s never good.

Express the interests you have in the company that you’re applying to, and outline why you would like to work for them.  Give specific reasons tailored to the company.  But make sure always that your cover letter is in a business tone, shy away from using any humor as that usually doesn’t come off well, and make sure that there are absolutely no grammar mistakes.  Grammar or spelling mistakes are horrifically bad for the first impression of the company you are applying to, and will be a red flag to any employer that you don’t double check your work.

One main stratagem is to just allow yourself to write badly.  Often a writer with writer’s block feels disappointed with anything that they are able to write.  One way to get beyond this is to just keep working even if you are unhappy with the quality of what you are writing.  By allowing yourself to write badly you are still writing and influencing the creative process, increasing the likelihood of you escaping your dreaded writer’s block sooner rather than later.

Take a break and clear your head with a trip outside.  Take a nice long walk, or go for a jog or run, do some yard work, anything around fresh air that involves a relative amount of physical exertion.  After which you’ll feel better and your mind will feel much more clear, taking away the stress you felt before from your inability to write.

And if those don’t work, there’s always one of the best methods in music.  Listen to some of your favorite music, something that moves you, makes you emote whether in anger, happiness, sadness, etc.  Anything that inspires your emotions to come out or come alive, as that will facilitate the artistic need to create, inspiring you to write, and to write words you are connected to, that you feel.

First and foremost, target your audience.  Go through Google’s Adsense options and choose categories that have something in common with your blog.  So obviously if you’re here reading this, you’re either an IT professional or in the field, so you want computer/internet products and services first and foremost.   After which, make sure you pay close attention to which sorts of ads are receiving the most attention, as you can use that to your advantage by replacing any banners that nobody pays attention to, instead adding ads that are more likely to get clicked.

There’s no point in wasting ad space on something that’s not doing anything positive for you.

Be careful in picking your Adsense banner colors also, as there’s a huge mistake that most people make when formatting Adsense content for their blogs.  And that huge mistake is, you do not want your ad banner to match your blog’s background color scheme.  It’s a proven fact that a contrasting vibrant color will attract more attention to the advertisement, increasing the likelihood that Dave Websurfer will click on the banner, netting you some money for your trouble.

But the main attraction, as I always say it, is writing relevant intriguing content.  That’s your blog or website’s lifeblood.  The longer that Billy Interweb-Browser stays on your site, reading whatever it is you choose to write about, the more likely he is to notice an advertisement.  And that’s the whole purpose of using your blog to generate any sort of cash flow.