Blog Coaching Part One

AdSense and RSS Feed Directories

As most of you know, I created the Blog and Retire eCourse which is a 52 week guide that gives you step-by-step instructions on how to write a successful blog, gain consistent traffic, and earn money by blogging. Each week is 6 days of tasks (one day of complete rest), and each day's tasks are about 1 hour of work.

I recently had a coaching session with one of my students, Robyn, who is the blog writer at robynmcclendon.com. Robyn's niche is fashion. She already had a blog before she started the Blog and Retire eCourse, but she decided to attend Blog and Retire University because it is a super user-friendly, streamlined guide on how to improve a blog. So, even if you already have a blog, the ecourse is extremely useful to improve traffic and build your online reputation in your niche (topic). It's great for beginners, and people who have already started a blog. And creating a blog is also great if you have your own online or offline business. 

This is going to be a three part series on our coaching session with Robyn. When you subscribe to Blog and Retire coaching, you receive unlimited access to the coaching email and can ask as many questions as you want. This week, Robyn had 6 questions for me. Here are the first two:

1. AdSense

Q: Robyn

I applied to Ad Sense on Jan 1st, got the emails from them for

activating the ads saying it would take 4 to 5 days for approval and

then ads would become visible.  Haven't gotten the approval email or

any other correspondence...I then began to doubt myself regarding

setting things up properly...pls advise.

A: Lisha

It can take longer for adsense to approve your application. Did you put ads on your blog before you got the approval email? I am not even sure if that is possible, but I'm wondering if you already created adsense codes and copied the html in a widget on our blog (there are empty white boxes on your blog, so I'm assuming you somehow did this). I would suggest that you don't have the adsense on your blog until you are completely approved. Once you are approved, and then you put some adsense code on your blog, it should take less than 24 hours for the actual ads to show up, but they won't show up at first, it will be a blank spot, or an internet error message for awhile. Just leave it up until the ads pop up. But don't put adsense on your blog until you have gotten the approval email.

So just to get things straight: You still have not gotten an adsense approval email? This could be for many reasons.

Have you also not received an email stating that they were unable to approve your application?

Also, did you receive a confirmation email that you actually submitted an application for adsense? If you did not receive any sort of email from them at all, I would go ahead and try to apply again.

I am just doing some trial and error to see where things have gone wrong.

Here is a link to a blog post about someone's difficult journey to getting their adsense application approved. I don't know if this can help you with your situation, but it might because they give all the steps they had to take to get their application approved:

http://www.blogging-the-beginners-complete-guide.com/adsense-approval.html#axzz1jH97Kqe7

I would think by now that you would have been approved since you applied 12 days ago. I am not a google adsense expert, and google doesn't have good support (or any) when you're having a problem. I think that is a big issue that should be changed. It would be nice if you could just go on a support chat with them and solve the problem pretty quick, but instead you have to backtrack every move you made to see what went wrong.

You can email me back if you have any other details you could give me that could help me help you solve your problem. :)

2. RSS Feed Directory Question

Q: Robyn

When I submitted by blog's RSS feed URL to millionrss.com my submission was approved,

then I got a notice that said "need code to let your user's bump your

blog"  what does this mean?

A: Lisha

I have submitted 3 blogs to that RSS feed directory and I haven't gotten that email about a code... I submitted another one of my small blogs to millionrss and we'll see if I get that email. Otherwise, I am not really sure what that is about. I would just wait a couple weeks and submit it again. The only thing I can think of is after you submit your blog to the site, they give you the option to paste their link onto your blog. But it is an option, so I don't think that should have been the problem.

There is a way to get your blog "bumped" so it will be more visible when people search for terms related to your blog (like fashion for instance). The more people bump your blog, the higher it will go in the search results on that site. But I personally don't feel it will benefit you compared to the amount of time it would take to get your blog bumped on that one site. (There are a lot of blogs in each category, even just today 112 blogs have been submitted to the site). So, the main point is to get a good backlink by submitting your blog to these RSS feed directories. Then work on getting good traffic from other locations. Backlinks help your search in the search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing which way more people use to find what they're looking for online than an RSS feed directory site. It is not worth it to spend too much of your time on these RSS feed directories. Just get your blog on there and call it a day. :)

If you're into fashion and want to see what Robyn has to offer, head on over to robynmcclendon.com. She has a great review of Kanye West's 2012 women's fashion line.

I hope this question and answer series will give you an in-depth look at how to tackle certain situations as they come to you.

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Tomorrow we'll have Part Two of our Blog and Retire Coaching Session. Stay Tuned!

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