Building up a blog from scratch is no easy task. I’m sure most of us have been there before – having just launched a brand new website, not sure if it’s impending ultimate doom or may continue on to earn you the internet marketing lifestyle you crave. ProBlogger is an excellent example of how much Blogging can change your lifestyle.

For those who have read Darren’s book on Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, you already know that Darren didn’t just hit riches with his blog right away. It took almost 2 years to build up ProBlogger to what it is today, and he had to work many jobs in the mean time to sustain his income.

We can all learn valuable lessons from Darren, both about blogging and learning how the internet works. Building up your blog to ProBlogger status is not very difficult, but it does require an extreme amount of determination, will-power, and drive behind you.

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Google PageRank is a very mysterious way of ranking sites. On a scale of 0-10, websites are ranked through Google for importance, backlinks, SERPS, etc. The actual value of your PR really doesn’t affect your site much at all, but it’s a huge selling point when offering ads on your website to advertisers. Along with this it helps visitors know your site is the “real deal”, and you get a lot more respect in the internet marketing community.

At the time of writing this post my blog is currently a PR4. I’ve been running this blog for almost 2 years, so I can say PR4 after 2 years is well overdue. I haven’t done much link building, though, so my blog here isn’t a great example of building high PR. But I have a few quick tips to help increase your site’s overall PageRank, and you can probably get them done within a week or two at most!

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Many look at the idea of “flipping” a blog as bad taste. But really, a website and domain name are very closely related to the real estate market. You can buy a previously unknown domain, build up an amazing blog with tons of RSS subscribers and unique posts… then sell and make a huge profit!

This method has worked for countless others. Honestly it doesn’t even take that much work, depending on how determined you are it’s completely possible to build up a blog worth a couple thousand dollars within 2-3 months.

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I am a big believer that better articles can be written when you’re in a better setting. By setting, I mean the area around you when you are sitting with your computer writing. This could be Starbucks, your home office, a friends couch… plenty of places to blog! One of the biggest factors of setting is music, which I can digg.

Not any type of music will do, though. Each blogger will have his own opinion when it comes to setting the right mood in the room. I prefer to chill on some Smooth Jazz or Acoustic songs. Primarily because they don’t contain lyrics – this allows me to focus on the words going on in my own head to write down, and not the words an artist is singing about.

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I love Digg, you love Digg. We all love Digg – it can bring in boatloads of traffic, and even though the community is starting to slip down the drain the site still has some value. I always enjoy checking out what the highest ranked stories are over the year, and 2009 hasn’t had it’s shortcomings of news.

Taking a walk down memory lane of this year’s happenings, I have refreshed myself about 25 of the most interesting and popular submissions to Digg. Take a look at the list, I’m sure classic Digg users will remember at least a few of these.

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Tags, depending on how you look at them, can be both very beneficial to your blogs and a pain. Some bloggers really enjoy being able to categorize their posts in laymens terms, while others think they’re just a cheaper version of categories. I’m not claiming there’s a right or wrong way to run a blog, but looking at both aspects is key in deciding whether you should use the tagging system.

Tags have been around for much longer than blogging, if you consider how some social networking sites such as Delicious and Technorati have been using them since originally launching.

I’m going to point out the straight facts about running tags on your blog. I don’t want to push a certain idea one way or the other – I’m just discussing facts about the tagging system, and having you, the reader, question whether you think you should be using it on your blog.

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I have been thinking a lot about JRB recently. The blog here seems to hold a lot of valuable information. Many people enjoy the content I write, I am gaining new RSS subscribers each and every day, and I feel like I can write just about anything here. These pleasures are well worth the experience I can gain as a blogger, and this has provided me with inspiration to work on some changes for the blog.

In order to become a professional blogger, you need to have been in the business for a while. Not just because it takes a while to build up your website, but because you learn new things along the way. New challenges await everyone, especially new bloggers and internet marketers. I have a few new ideas for the blog which I think are going to catapult me to the top.

Right off the bat, I need to get more content. I find that my blog is lacking a considerable amount of content, and I think I can fix it just by writing articles. By just writing more and more blog posts, I can fill in areas where I’ve missed in the past and re-build up my blog’s credibility.

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I recently found a new interesting free fonts web site called Fonts2u.com. With over 20,000 free fonts in their collection, I thought it would be helpful to present the top 20 most popular fonts. Every web designer needs to have an extensive toolbox full of useful fonts for logos, banners, and any type of design work.

Included along with the fonts are links to the fonts page, free for download! I know there are tons and tons of download-able fonts out there, and Fonts2u is a fantastic service for it. If you really enjoy the site you should check out their Twitter @fonts2u. Either way, browse my collection below and download a few gems that catch you eye.

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