# 9 WATCH YOUR STATS
if you have your own website, pay close attention to your statistics. It can tell you something to help you decide on what you should be writing about that will generate more views and income online.
In fact, you should watch your stats wherever your content is.
# 10 COMMENTS IS NOT AN INDICATOR OF TRAFFIC
When I first started blogging, I had a lot of comments because in those days, there were not many social sharing sites and blogging was one of the ways to share socially.
When Facebook came along in a big way, the commentors left for Facebook and many bloggers stopped blogging altogether.
However, although my comments disappeared, my traffic increased because my blog has been around for a very long time and is recognized by search engines.
I Love Blogging. Do You?

# 11 IT ISN’T ONLY ABOUT WRITING
When you have your own site, you should take care of it lovingly, like tending to a garden. First you must prepare your grounds by having a good template and layout. Then you plant your flowers by publishing posts and watch your blog grow.
In my early days of blogging, blogs weren’t as user friendly. I had to learn many things from scratch, playing around with my template over and over again till I got it right. It is so much easier now. Many things can be done with just one click or drag.
# 12 IT IS REWARDING AND SATISFYING
Yes, that is it. Having your own site is very rewarding and satisfying, even if you don’t generate any income from it. However, you will, if you work hard at it.

The Successful Online Writers I Know Work Hard And Are Patient
# 13 BLOGGING IS GOING DOWNHILL. IT IS NO LONGER THE WAY TO EXPRESS YOURSELF
Not quite true. When I first started blogging, blogging was THE way to share and express oneself. Then Facebook came along and blogging took a nose dive.
However, after the bad experience many online writers have had with some content sites, blogging has started to go up in popularity again as a way to share well written original articles.
It is no longer THE best way to share personally but it has become more of a way to share professionally. If you want to share personally, you can do so a lot more easily and by saying a lot fewer words as in Twitter or say nothing at all if you use Instagram.
# 14 YOUR BLOG IS NOT AN ISLAND
Your blog or own site is not an island. You must integrate it with other social sharing sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Plus and more. The good news is, it has become easier to do this, usually you can do it with a click of a button.
# 15 YOU HAVE FULL CONTROL OF YOUR SITE
Not true. While you may have a lot more freedom in what you write and how you present it, you still do not have full control of your site. I have had my self hosted site down on several occasions because of server problems.
Sometime during my 9th year of blogging, I have even had my 9 year old Blogger blog disappear from the radar completely. I could not view my site anywhere online and I could not log into my account for that blog. All I received was an email informing me that my blog has been removed because it was spam.
Imagine the horror of that. All of my blog posts disappeared overnight (9 years of original published material) without the ability of me going in to retrieve anything at all! I wrote to Blogger and my blog was reinstated only to have it happen again a few days later. I had to write in again. Of course my blog was reinstated since it is obviously not spam, anyone can see that but the machines cannot. It led to a few days of anxiety for me.
# 16 YOUR CONTENT WILL BE STOLEN
Be prepared for this. I have had my content being stolen in many ways. Once, there was a person who took my very personal posts and wrote them on her blog pretending that she was me. That was very spooky indeed.
The more common way of plagiarizing is not so personal. You will find your blog posts and sometimes your entire blog being copied. Of course, there will be ways to address this but then it will happen again and over again. People will try to make money from your content. The worse thing is sometimes your stolen content ranks higher in search pages then your own original content.
Do You Want To Be A Successful Online Writer?

# 17 YOU WILL EARN PASSIVE, CONTINUOUS INCOME
This one is true. If you work hard writing and updating your blog, there will come a time when you no longer need to work as hard. You can leave your blog unattended to for months and the income will still come.
# 18 YOU HAVE TO TREAT IT LIKE A JOB
If you want that day when you can earn continuous income to arrive, you have to work really hard at first. You have to be serious about it and treat it professionally as you would any other job. Treat your online writing on your own site as a freelance writing job.
# 19 YOUR TRAFFIC GOES UP WHEN YOU PROMOTE YOUR SITE
No question about this. Your traffic goes up when you promote your site. It comes down if you do nothing. However, you will always get traffic from search engines just from writing (without promoting) original articles and updating your site regularly with articles.
# 20 PHOTOS ARE NOT ONLY FOR MAKING YOUR PAGES PRETTY
When Google and other search engines started having image search, it became a new way for getting traffic to your site. If you choose your photos carefully and give them targeted titles that match your article, you will rank high in image searches and get traffic from that.
You should also pin your images on pinterest. That is another major potential for traffic that can increase your pageviews significantly.
# 21 YOU WILL NEED TO HAVE A LOT OF PATIENCE
Your site will not earn you income immediately. You must put in all the work first and expect rewards later.
For example, it took me 6 months before I had enough articles to get my Adsense approved and another 2 months later before I started earning and eventually it was a more than a year before I received my first check from Adsense.
I never earned anything from Amazon affiliates. It was only after I started writing on Squidoo that the Amazon earnings started to pick up. Using that knowledge, I applied it on my own sites and it improved a little bit but it was never as good as it was at Squidoo.
That is why it is sometimes better to write for established content sites. You get to earn your adsense a lot faster. You also cannot beat content sites in terms of updating and traffic because of their sheer volume of content. Not in a million years.
# 22 TO DOTCOM OR NOT?
Which is better? Free blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr etc or your own self hosted site on your own domain?
After I had my Blogger site for a while, I was told that it would be better to have my own self hosted site so I started my own site at mumsgather.com At that time some advertisers prefer it if you had a dotcom.
However, apart from getting the few writing assignments which are not so popular these days, I am really glad I didn’t transfer all of my content from my original mumsgather @ blogspot blog which I now call Parenting Times.
I kept it and continued to update it and it has continued to be my best Adsense earner, not the dotcom one. So in this case, free turned out to be better than paid hosting.
# 23 BECOME A MASTER CURATOR
You can help people who are searching for information by becoming a master curator. Think about a topic that someone is searching for, then put all the relevant information for that person all in one page including links to websites, slideshows, newspaper articles, videos, photos and more. In fact, you can do this whether you are writing on your own site or otherwise.
# 24 FOLLOW THE UNSPOKEN RULES
Whatever rules you have to follow on a content site, do it for your own site as well. Write only original content, do not steal or copy, update regularly.
# 25 OVER TIME YOU WILL HAVE ENOUGH CONTENT FOR A BOOK
You know what? If you keep blogging diligently, over time you will find that you have enough content for a book! That is what I did, after years of writing about certain subject matters over and over again, I found that I had enough content for not just one but three books. So I turned all of them into self published books which I now sell online as an additional way for making money online.
# 26 NEVER EVER STOP LEARNING
I know I only started with 25 when I started writing this hub but I wanted to add this very important thing. Never ever stop learning. Wherever you write, whether on a revenue sharing site or on your own blog or site, you will learn a lot of new things along the way. This is one of the most exciting things about writing online. If you love this part and never ever stop learning, you will continue to grow as a writer. Also, do not be afraid to share your knowledge. Share generously. By sharing, you continue to learn too as I did when writing this hub.
The Latest Technology Makes Your Work As An Online Writer More Fun And Productive