Trackback: Importance of crediting original blog post in your blogs

Now, you might have started a blog and keep running it. If you don't have a blog, know how to start a blog. You would have started writing unique and original content to your reader. Either it may be for business or personal need, whatever it may be, it is deemed to be blog for all purpose by the audience you receive from internet. Importance of blog in business circle is far important than running a website for business. You might have wonder running a website for local business would be great thing if we were in 1990s. But with 2000s, no business will survive online if you don't run a website of own. Running a website alone will not give you the result, you need a blog. That's apart.

Now, when you start writing a blog post, you might have to rely on sources upon which you write the blog post. It is quite nature that most of the blog post you see on the internet will be based on the any information or source which is seems authentic to public. That how, we build trust. To build trust, either we have to celebrity or rely on trusted sources of information. 

What is Trackback and Advantages of Trackback?

So, now on, you are a blogger, who trust on trusted sources to create your own content. What would be important to make your reader know that you rely on a trusted information? The answer is obvious, mention the original source in the each blog post if available. Some bloggers post about the research, travel experience, personal diaries on internet blogs. For them, none will care about the authenticity of the contents presented. But when it comes to blogging based on technology, medical science, economy, society, anthropology, history, Geological work, etc, it is good to mention your source and info-graphics. This will convey that you did some real work on those facts. 

To be a known as serious blogger, you have to be serious about the source of the information you receive and post to your audience. The topic on serious blogging is different issue which does not fall under this post. 

Well, now time for trackbacks, some blogs or information website enable backlinks which act as trackback. So placing the source of information will help you get new visitors from original blog source. The parent blog to which you have placed a link in your blog will in return place a link stating that you blog discuss on the same topic. So, you will have high probability of any one who visit the parent source would visit your blog for further information. 

To my surprise, I find so many blogs which typically post similar content but also copy and paste content. Many of them do not post what is the source on which they rely. It would appear like a personal blog of authors. To be authentic, one has to provide the source if blog needs one. I am not insisting that every blog post must have mention the source. Yet, if you have one, it is well-advised to post the source. Who knows? You might get links from source websites. Thus, new readers!

Note: Trackback comes with lot of explanations. Yet, the information presented here limited and only stressed the importance of trackback. If you find anything left out, kindly mention them in comments.

How to start making money online?

Many of us would have encountered ads which solicit for making money online! Most of us declare it to be scam to cheat money out of us. But reality is different. The truth is most people determined to work online make real money online. Sounds skeptical! You might wonder that, if any, you would have already spent few bucks for these online programs. And now, I may sound like some agent who is trying to rip you off your money! But making money online don't need an huge investment. If you are not planning to run e-commerce website, you don't carry heavy burden. And I am not here to lecture on any online program or scheme for a subscription fee or payment. All said here are real life experience to start blogging from zero.

Note: Beware of online scams about "making money online". Unscrupulous people start campaign every month to embezzle public money. Don't bite the bait. Some fraudsters campaign for free programs but for a fee. So have research done before signing up for any programs.

Through out this post, you will find good way to start making money online. But remember their is no shortcut to success. Your will have to work harder for few months to start generating money.

See also: How to monetize your blog or website!

Their are many ways you could make money online. They are

1. Affiliate marketing
2. PPC ADS (Pay per Click ads)
3. Sponsored ads
4. Product or service reviews
And the list may expand with innovations. 

With penetration of internet, these list may get appended with new methods and strategies.

While it may sound simple to start making money online, remember it's serious business. Real money comes out of it. Most of them consider this methods as alternate source of money. But in reality many of them make life out of their online journey. If you are thinking to take up part-time work, then stop reading further. I would be waste of your time.

If you are determined to make serious money online, you will have invest good amount time setting up your strategies. It would even take weeks to months and depends on your involvement.

Do you have any plan for subscribing to any program about "making money online"? I am sorry. This blog is not for you. No lectures or presentations will help you without your involvement. Now, let's get started:

#1. Affiliate marketing

The very hot topic to make money online. Affiliate marketing model is to pay you commission when you make sale through your referrals. You can do marketing for a predict or service either through blog or social media. When any click on your referral URL to the product page and makes a purchase, you will receive commission on that sale.

Pros: Commission rate is high! In most cases, websites will pay higher price than the other models of income.

Cons: income will not be regular or in periodic interval. One month you may make $100 and next month you may get $1000 depending up on the product which get the sale.
At time, good products don't get as much sale as ordinary product.

#2. Income from Blogs

Well, this is the most conservative way to make money online. Pay per click ads network make the job easier. All you have to do is to sign up an ad network which will pay for the clicks you receive.

Pros: it is easy to setup. All you need is an email address and as billing address. You are good to go.

Cons: you need huge internet traffic to earn clicks on the ads. Unless someone clicks on the ads, you will not be paid. It need lot of patience than other methods.

See also: How to create a blog?

#3. Product reviews

You can opt for product review program. You will have to review any product or service which it can be a software, computer hardware, house hold products, etc. You have to make reviews.

Pros: you will get your hands on all product and services for free. Some make good money out of the second sale if those products.

Cons: you can't spell bad word about the product. If any, you will find yourself to restrain from making such remarks.

#4. Sponsored Ads:

It is the next stage of PPC ads. Once you reach target audience and started making money online, you next goal should be to get sponsors. It will increase your revenue exponentially. As ppc ad network pay you the according to the number of clicks and conversion rates, sponsor will pay you for the content you generate and for sponsor ads occupying the little space on your website. Yet, it is not a walk in the park. To get sponsors is not a easy task. Only people who believe in serious blogging could get sponsors.

Remember making serious money online is not a easy task. All you have to be in patience. Their is no quick way to earn money as soon as you get into a ad network or marketing. Create killer content that reader feel really can't miss out.

How to Start a Blog?

Welcome! You have a question in your mind! How to start a blog? Well, what you are about read is a blog! So now, you have gain first hand knowledge on blogging. You will know more when you read more in this blog!

Many have opinion that blogging is serious stuff. Yes it is serious stuff to do. But to be a human, you must hate serious stuff. Yet those who write blogs are  humans. So if you want to be a blogger, stay as a blogger. Know that, blogging is fun. Don't force yourself to write very high quality contents. It must come up eventually. Though blogging is serious,  you have enjoy your blog. It's not a factory job which could be done even without interest. If you fail you enjoy your blog, then it will turn into a boring text and make audience to move on to next search for a quality blog.

Find your niche:

First as a blogger, you have to find your niche to create content. If you wish to have blog which deal with one subjective matter then you will have to find niche on which you are about to blog.

To find niche content, one must know oneself. What you are good at? On what am I suppose to blog! To make progress, your blog must be continuous, no discrete content will draw continuous visitors. To have following, you will have find your niche and blog on that.

How to find your niche content? Will be next question you might ask me. To be frank, your niche content is your passion. Think on what you are passionate about! What things you discuss with your friends and family more. This could be your niche content. Rest is your creativity.

Blogging platforms:

Now, you have your niche content on which you are passionate enough to start blogging. But how to create a blog? When you have a search for creating a blog, you will find most popular blogging platform. It is none other that WordPress. It is a open source blogging package with multitude of plugin to customize your blog. All we have to do is get a server and the WordPress code run. That's it you have created a blog for yourself.

But such platform raise affordability question! You will end paying server charges. Hosting your own blog provide liberty to manage it at your wish but for a cost.

To have a cheap and effective blogging platform, you can opt for blogging services such as WordPress.com (not WordPress.org), blogger, hub pages, so on. Setting up a blog on blogging platform will be discussed at later stages.

Writing blogs:

Blogs are not made in a day. It is a continuous process. You have to blog periodically. Don't make your blog idle for long time. But that doesn't mean that writing gibberish blogs will make it active. To run a blog, you need readers who visit periodically. They have expectation that you will post some good content to read. If you can provide feeder to those followers, you will have an successful blog. So avoid irrelevant and vague contents.

Original and unique content:

Think of a reason to blog! It might surprise you for the reason to blog. For example, consider blogging about "chess game". Before you start blogging, just run a search on your favorite search engine. In this instance, " how to play chess game " you would see a lot more than what you have intended to blog. You will find from tutorial to famous world class moves of chess tournaments.

So what is the use of your blog! How will reader get impressed with your blog? What will make them to read your blog? As the search shows, almost content market is saturated. Almost you can find anything in internet. So what will be the special attributes to your blog? Simply filling up words should not be your strategy. If it is it will increase the bounce rate (later, I will explain about bounce rate). For now, concentrate on how to keep your reader on the blog.

To make reader stick to your blog, provide a original and unique content. To be very simple, please don't copy and paste any contents from other sites. Most people do copy and paste. We are not common people working in a software company (no offense). Those who are thinking about copy and paste strategy may quit reading this blog! Any further, you will find uninteresting.

For those who are willing to have original and unique content, you will find this post useful. For a post to be original, you must create your own story. Sorry! We are not doing a movie here. The story is the content subject. The subject matter of your blog must be original. It must be your thinking and observations than others. Think yourself as a story teller. Will your children listen keenly to the same story which they read last night? So create original stories for your readers.

Your blog story may be related to current trends, latest news regarding your niche content, any interview about the subjective matter of your blog. But it must be original. Remember, create your own story.

And second important factor in blogging is unique content. Your subjective matter of the blog must be unique. Unique writing in the sense it must distinguish from others. But this fact is somewhat abstract. Not only you, many fellow bloggers will blog about same subject matter. So to make a content unique, you must apply innovation. When some view or opinion are expressed regarding the subjective matter of your niche, you must apply your innovation to add crux to the discussion. Add fire to the fuel, your blog will be hot. Your content will be hot and will be become most sought blog on internet. Unique and original content is the secret of success.

When you are about to start a blog, keep these factors in mind. Blogging is not to pass time. It is valuable and make difference to life. Unique and Original content will take you to the online podium where you will be treated as celebrity.

Airtel Zero is not against Net Neutrality. Zero-rating will provide free data to consumers.

SaveTheInternet campaign made the Flipkart, leading e-tailer, to quit Airtel Zero, initiative by the leading telecom operator, Airtel. The huge uproar and backlash in the social media has prompted the move which welcomed by most online activist who wish to free and fair internet. Internet is a utility and not a marketing platform.

See also: Flipkart pulls plug from Airtel Zero

Now, Airtel is determined to promote zero-rating. It has taken by the very support on free data to Airtel consumers. The claim is that consumers will browse website under the plan free of any data charge. The website or business which is part of the plan will pay the telecom operator for the data charges or browsing charges instead of consumer using the service. Further, the Airtel-zero plan was compared with the toll-free service operated by various business entities.

See also: SaveTheInternet campaign

But is good to compare zero-rating to a consumer toll-free calls. I would like to question that how of us call toll-free in a day? Compare those numbers with users browsing internet. Is internet and toll free number fall under same category? Is it possible to compare toll free telephone calls with internet which is entirely different medium of communication? The comparison is unreasonable!

Further, Airtel has claimed zero-rating is open platform and anybody could participate under the plan. How could it be declared a open platform? Individuals paying telecos to promote a content. It would be like legalizing corruption to get the work done for oneself. Paying a fee to get job done. What it would mean? You pay me and you will do business! The creator of WWW intended internet to free and controlled by none. It is self-regulated. But service providers' zero-rating will promote a particular service and product at the cost of others. Consumers traffic will be take a U-turn towards to zero-rated websites as the service provider don't charge for data but charge the website or business instead of consumer. The fee levied has any definite quantum?!! How would small startups will get into the plan? Well, who cares about startups. It is the burden they have to carry. 

Though Airtel claims it to be a separate platform and is not against net neutrality, it disguises well enough to treat a particular traffic favorably over others. 

By observing world trend, zero-rating has been banned in America, Latin-America and EU. It is evident that zero-rating is against net neutrality. But Still Airtel insist on the plan. The ball is on TRAI court. The opinion on consultation paper can be provided till 24 of this month.

Flipkart quits Airtel Zero in support of Net Neutrality

Activist Backlash made Flipkart pull out from the scheme

'We at Flipkart has always strongly believed in the concept of net neutrality, for we exist because of the internet' - Flipkart.

Airtel, the leading Indian Telecom company, started a scheme 'Airtel Zero' which made way for the website to have preferential treatment but for a fee. It promised free consumer browsing and special promotion campaigns for companies which subscribed to the plan. But net neutrality envisages that all data and websites should be treated equally and charged equally.

Severe social media criticism and downgrading of its rating app stores has persuaded Flipkart to pull out of Airtel Zero. 

See also: TRAI's consultation paper on Over-the-top (OTT) service

Net Neutrality:

The term net neutrality was coined by Columbia University professor Tim Wu in 2003. It is the principle that mobile operators, internet service providers and governments should not discriminate on data access on the Internet. A service provider, for instance, should not offer a higher access speed to a website on the basis of a higher payment by that website.

Internet Companies response:

Most internet companies and startups denounced the zero-rating deal of the telecom operators. Zero-rating is against net-neutrality.

Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekar Sharma said telecom players are national utilities and not a marketing platform to run such a programme when asked about Zero-Ratings.

'Telecom infrastructure must be a open ecosystem...'

Internet has disrupted the world of business like no other technology in the world. With penetration of Internet, the growth of online entrepreneurship has grown many fold. The Technology has paved way for smaller startup to setup its market. 

'By rejecting the net neutrality, we'll be shutting the door on the entrepreneurial aspirations of millions' - Ritesh Agarwal, CEO of Oyo Rooms.

Net Neutrality is essential to maintain free and competitive market. As the regulatory framework for net neutrality is unclear and equivocal, the telecom companies are trying to make a dent into the market with sponsored contents from publishers for a fee. While the Zero-rating is an innovation in Indian telecom business, yet it hampers the free and competitive internet. It may lead to few choice to the consumers considering the preferential treatment for few websites.

However, Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operations Association of India (COAI) said a distinction must be made between zero rating and net neutrality. He said telecom operators are not violating any terms and conditions that came attached with spectrum. They are waiting for TRAI framework on net neutrality and find a way out of problems.

As usual, Telecom companies will find its way to circumvent rules and laws once TRAI defines a framework for net neutrality. 

Net Neutrality Law:

Chile was the first country to introduce Net Neutrality law in 2010. It was a popular movement by Neutralidad Si. In 2014, Chile Telecom regulator banned mobile operators from zero-rating websites.

It was followed by Netherlands in the year 2011. The footsteps were followed by Belguim, France, Solvenia. Later, European Union (EU) adopted laws passed by the Netherlands which now provides uniform net neutrality law. Zero-rating has been banned in EU. 

In 2014, Brazil followed the footstep and enacted law principled at net neutrality. It states all data transmissions must be treated equally.

Later, USA's Federal Communications Commission laid down new rules on net neutrality. At&t, Verizon and Comcast are not allowed to block lawful contents, slow down applications or services, or accept fees for favorable treatment.

SaveTheInternet:

In India, in response to consultation paper from TRAI, Indian Telecom Regulator, SaveTheInternet to uphold net neutrality in India.