Whether we like it or not, groups of humans act a lot like herds. In action, opinion and even feelings, people are natural followers of the particular group they belong to. Even in the most extreme situations, group-think tends to overcome individualism.

As a copywriter and marketer these are good news for you, because by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll realize that once you can influence how a group thinks, you will be able to automatically persuade new members to conform without even trying. How? Let’s get some background first…

Keep reading: Moo! Exploring our conformity to groups

There’s a new kid on the block - and it sure looks like a bully that’s getting ready to slap back at Google. Hard. The name of this new kid is Pay-Per-Play and I predict it will be a VERY interesting development in the world of online advertising (for both advertisers and content publishers like us).

So what exactly is “Pay Per Play”? In short, it is a new advertising channel for advertisers to increase their branding through online audio with 5-second sound-bites. Big advertisers are already queued up for it… and by big I mean brands like Coca-Cola, Toyota, Blockbuster and the sorts.

Keep reading: Is PPP the true Google AdSense killer?

It’s a fact of life. Everybody looks up to, follows and most importantly obeys authority figures. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about business, music or even about religion; authority figures exist in virtually every realm of our existence.

And if you think about it for a few minutes, you’ll come to realize that in almost every case, authority figures are the ones making the most money (think Bill Gates, Madonna and the Pope). And we don’t have to go so big… authority figures can be as close as an older sister who knows a lot about fashion, that friend who you just can’t seem to beat at chess or the author behind that blog you love to read.

In the end, the fact remains that we’re all still flawed human beings. So what makes those authority figures so special? How can you become an authority? And how can you use that to skyrocket your online business into stardom?

Keep reading: 3 Easy steps to become an online authority

Once you’ve launched a blog, added good content to it and have a few blog monetization strategies in place, you’ll need a constant stream of targeted traffic to build your readership.

If we narrow things down to the very basics, there are only two types of traffic that you can generate: paid traffic and free traffic. And while there are literally thousands of different places that you can buy traffic from, today we’ll only focus on tentraffic generation methods that require little or no money. These are 10 methods you can start using this same week to start building momentum and kick-start your blog’s readership immediately.

Keep reading: Top 10 ways to drive traffic to a new blog

In part 1 of this quick glance at blog monetization we talked about earning cash directly from your blog’s content. While I still think that monetizing a blog through its content is the more effective strategy in the long run, there is one sad fact to consider…

That the majority of the visitors who land on your blog will not take the time or consideration to read your delicious content.

The average visitor is in a hurry and will only click around to find what he or she came looking for - and that may not always be within your blog. For that reason alone, you must also consider a few different approaches at making money; which brings us directly into the second general strategy to monetize your blog:

Keep reading: The only 2 ways to monetize your blog (Part 2)

Once you have a blog up and running, you’ll want to find a few ways to make money with it. Even if you are blogging out of pure passion, you can’t deny that enjoying a hobby that makes you money while having fun is one of the best things that could happen to you… right?

Blog monetization is a hot topic in the blogosphere. Thousands of posts have been made on the subject talking about different tactics, techniques and methodologies to earn money from blogging. The matter of fact is that there are only two general strategies through which you can monetize your blog. They are…

Keep reading: The only 2 ways to monetize your blog (Part 1)

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world. It is a great application, but in my opinion, what makes it stand out from the rest is the amount of fan-made plug-ins that have enhanced its original toolset.

While there are literally thousands of WordPress plug-ins out there, there are seven particular ones that I wouldn’t dare starting a blog without. I know that I left out a lot of good plug-ins, but the idea here is to make a list of only 7 plug-ins for new bloggers to start out with. If you know of a particular plug-in that *should* be on this list, please add it on the comments section.

Keep reading: 7 WordPress plug-ins you shouldn’t be without