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Making money with a blog is not as hard as it may seem. What is hard is the acquiring the knowledge of what works and what does not. The information is not hidden by any means but is over shadowed by people’s success stories and profits. To make money with a blog you essentially need to do two things:
- Generate traffic
- Convert that traffic
Now generating traffic can be tough if you are new to it. Although there are many ways to go about this, I will go over a few. The most obvious is to submit your site to all blog directories and networks. You should also submit every post to Digg or Stumble It after you create it. This will increase the chance of your site being noticed and if the content is good you will develop a community of loyal readers.
Social Traffic
This is generated from sites like Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Another source of social traffic is commenting on others blogs. The key to social traffic lies in your reputation. Reputation is everything here and is what will allow you to stand out from the pack. I have seen countless people with great sites that do not generate the amount of social traffic that they could simply because of the quality of content they post on sites like Twitter and Myspace. Course languages and pictures usually are the downfall to their reputation. You always need to be aware of what you post and how people perceive you on sites like those. It is a very slippery slope.
Search Engines
This is where the majority of your traffic will inevitably come from until your name and site grows enough to go viral. What you need to concentrate on is key words, more specifically long keywords. Just think, when people go to sites like Google they rarely search for just one or two keywords. Instead they enter the entire phrase of what they are looking for (example. “creating landing pages in wordpress”. That phrase has been driving a lot of traffic my way and is performing much better than “landing pages”.
Google Insights and other keyword tools will be your best friend here. Whenever you make a new entry, you should check for the most popular keywords with some keyword tool (I use Google Insights mainly) before you submit it. This will give you an idea of how many people are searching for that particular keyword and even gives you a list of the most searched for and breakout keywords.
Converting Traffic
Once you get the traffic coming your way you will need a way to convert it into sales. The most over-used which is also becoming the hardest to make money with is Adsense. Google Adsense is a service that allows users to put relevant ads on their site and pay based on clicks and sales. In the early 2000’s, this single handley brought the internet back for marketers but now is just becoming a waste of space.
I say this because although it can generate income, it has become so saturated that people avoid clicking the links at all cost. The reason it was so productive early on was because it was new and the ads did not look like ads to most. Now, most people that signup for the service never receives a payout.
Affiliate Ads
Affiliate marketing is one the better way of converting the traffic you generate into sales. By offering affiliate products you do not have to worry about shipping, returns, or warehouse space. All you need to do is generate the sale and the affiliate company does the rest.
The key to making it in affiliate sales is promoting good products. You have to be able to put your name on the line and garner some level of trust with the prospect so they can be eased into purchase. I own and use all the products I am an affiliate for so I can (if necessary) answer any question the prospect may have and offer bonus tutorials or reports available only from me to entice them.
Selling Your Own Product
Whether it is an eBook you create, video or podcast you made, or products you purchase resell rights too selling your own product is the best way to make the most money. By selling your own product you do not have to worry about getting low commissions nor do you have to go through a middle man.
The most common ways of selling your own product are through joint ventures and email list. If you were to joint venture, you would look for potentials partners and sell them on the fact that they can market your product and receive a commission (50%-75%) for every sale they get. This is a great way to take advantage of other peoples traffic and email list to make money.
Joint venturing is great but you should still build a list of your own to be able to sell to as well. The best email marketing provider out right now is Aweber. Aweber allows you to automate every aspect of your email marketing campaign. This way you can continue to focus on what is important such as creating the products for sale. Right now they are offering a limited $1 Trial for their service. You will receive all the features and support of full members and is a great way to test the service. If you have any questions about setting up the service I will be glad to help.
So that is making money with your blog! Ask away if you have any questions, the more you know the better off you will be.
Photo Credit: Advertise Space
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Ive struggled in the past over conversion. Had I an article like this when I first started, it could have saved me alot of time and effort! Hopefully it will help someone just starting out! Thanks for posting!
No problem. I too have struggled with conversion but as long as we realize the error in our ways and learn from them they will not be in vain.
I am TOTALLY new to this idea, and have not yet created a blog. I don’t even know where to start. Until a week ago, I didn’t know what a blog IS! I fiddle around on facebook, posting news worthy stuff, items of interest etc. Recently a number of friends have suggested I turn to pro blogging. I initially scoffed at the idea, however I am the admin of a facebook group which has around 4000 members. I asked the group if I should turn to blogging and the response and feedback was phenomenal. I have some questions perhaps you could assist me with.
1) How do I set a blog page up? Will I require my own website and an ISP to host it? If so, what sort of costs are involved?
2) How do you get payment from advertisers? Would I need to go thru paypal or similar?
3) I am writing a book and would like to sell it as a “pay per chapter” Can I prevent some-one from stealing my work? Would I retain copy right? And how would I get paid? Once again would I need paypal account?
I have gone through so much to try find answers yet am confused by so many differing view points. Your page so far has been the easiest to understand.
I am currently typing this from my hotel lobby due to the fact the my laptop battery crapped out on me. So I will try and answer this to the best of my ability while being somewhat brief because there are others waiting to use this machine.
1. Setting up a basic page is not too difficult. Depending on what service you choose to use, I would just do a google search for a tuturial on setting it up. I personally have used blogger and wordpress for my sites. I find wordpress to be the far superior of the two. There are free services that you can use to host your blog but in all honesty if you are serious about this and making money from it you should really invest in a domain name and hosting. It really adds to your credibility and allows th flexiablity that you will need to make certain changes. Domain names typically cost 9.99 annually and 9.99 monthly for hosting.
2. As far as payment from advertisers, it depends on the method of advertising you are using. If you are using an affiliate network to have their ads placed n your site you would need to check with them. Some networks send a check to your house and others use paypal. If you would like to get other external sponsers, you would work out a set price to charge them. What determines the value of a websit and thus how much you can charge are: how many unique visitors your site gets daily, your alexa traffic ranking, and your google page rank. The more traffic you get and the better your rankings are, the more people will be willing to pay for their site to be advertised on your page.
3. I am really not sure how you could go about the pay per chapter feature for your ebook. What most people do when they have a product such as an ebook is use Clickbank to sell it. Clickbank is an online market place where people sell their own products. I would recommend looking into that to help get people to sell your book. Other than that, you would probably need to use paypal. If you plan on getting into the online market payal is a great tool and almost a neccesity. It just makes life a whole lot easier when it comes to handling payments. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. I will definetly help you get going in the right direction.
Good stuff matey. You the man.