One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.
My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!
Today I'll share with you how I do it.
Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by.
Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."
The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.
How Do I Monetize My Blogs?
I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on.
I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.
I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.
How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?
I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.
I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!
The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful.
I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi
Examples Of Profitable Blogs?
I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)
To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-)
The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at:
http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com
The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.
If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4:
http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html
That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.
I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering...
"How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?"
Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.
I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html
What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.
My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.
WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs.
Here's how I use AutoBlogger:
I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.
AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.
AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites.
If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.
OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!
It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."
Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!
There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Are you using both sides of the GoogleCoin?
By now most of you realise that Google can give our websites the ability to appear within their results pages using a Pay
Per Click model (PPC).
This is called Google Adwords
Hopefully, you will also be aware that that Google offers website owners the ability to display these PPC results on
their own websites.
For this privilege, Google will pay the website owner a share of the PPC revenue earnt from any click throughs on the results displayed on their website.
This is called Google Adsense
So there you have both sides of the Google coin.
On one side, the ability to drive low cost targeted traffic and on the other side, the ability to generate revenue from
your existing traffic.
You'd think that was the end of it but really it is only the beginning.
Heads or Tails?
Heads it is….
Let's look at Adwords
There are those that think…
…write your ad, pays your money and away you go.
Which to 80% of the people using Adwords, this seems to work OK for them. Remember I said OK!
For the other 20% , these guys and gals, are testing,changing, innovating and working Google as hard as they can.
One such character is Chris Carpenter , whose GoogleCash is pioneering in the way that he works Google and now lets
other work Google just as hard.
"Like Bruce Lee taught us the art of fighting without fighting, Chris Carpenter shows us the art of website revenue generation without a website!"
Chris has shown examples of Adwords campaigns that cost cents to set up but pay dollars in commissions. None of my
current investments give me such a high ROI.
I have tried my hand at it and I am currently making around $4000 per month just from this one product. I am only
spending $250 on Adwords to get this return.
Why not have a look at Google Cash yourself.
http://www.j2-squared.com/google-cash-book-review.htm
Tails you win!
Secondly, while most people just cut and paste Adsense code into all the pages of their site, they just leave it at that
thinking job done!
They don't explore the high value keywords in their market or niche.
Why do that?
Well if you knew what the more profitable keywords and terms are, you can write content and these words can be displayed.
Google Adsense will then look at your page content and work out what to display.
You could double your income by changing words on your site. Maybe Life insurance to life assurance or personal loan to
loans or adverse credit to bad credit.
Also sites tend to use one format and one position for the ads.
Test, test, test
Try different layouts and work out which ones work best for you. You may be surprised.
Test, test, test
There are several tools that can help you identify keywords but the best for you would be either the Google Adwords program or Overture view bids tool.
Don't worry about thinking you are doing anything wrong. In fact, think about it - you will be creating relevant content for Google to display and for their users to read. Users are happy, Google are happy and you will earn more revenue from Adsense. So hopefully you'll be happy too!
A Win Win situation!
Again, like most things rather than reinvent the wheel there is a whole book on Adsense written my friend William
Charlwood has written The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense which tells you exactly how to make money by hosting small
ads on your website. It is a detailed road-map of everything you need to do to get going and then maximise your AdSense
income.
Once you've got it right, you can look forward to a check every month from Google.
Check this out here:
http://www.j2-squared.com/adsense-guide.htm
So there you are, there are two sides to the Google coin.
Are you using both sides!
Good Luck!
Per Click model (PPC).
This is called Google Adwords
Hopefully, you will also be aware that that Google offers website owners the ability to display these PPC results on
their own websites.
For this privilege, Google will pay the website owner a share of the PPC revenue earnt from any click throughs on the results displayed on their website.
This is called Google Adsense
So there you have both sides of the Google coin.
On one side, the ability to drive low cost targeted traffic and on the other side, the ability to generate revenue from
your existing traffic.
You'd think that was the end of it but really it is only the beginning.
Heads or Tails?
Heads it is….
Let's look at Adwords
There are those that think…
…write your ad, pays your money and away you go.
Which to 80% of the people using Adwords, this seems to work OK for them. Remember I said OK!
For the other 20% , these guys and gals, are testing,changing, innovating and working Google as hard as they can.
One such character is Chris Carpenter , whose GoogleCash is pioneering in the way that he works Google and now lets
other work Google just as hard.
"Like Bruce Lee taught us the art of fighting without fighting, Chris Carpenter shows us the art of website revenue generation without a website!"
Chris has shown examples of Adwords campaigns that cost cents to set up but pay dollars in commissions. None of my
current investments give me such a high ROI.
I have tried my hand at it and I am currently making around $4000 per month just from this one product. I am only
spending $250 on Adwords to get this return.
Why not have a look at Google Cash yourself.
http://www.j2-squared.com/google-cash-book-review.htm
Tails you win!
Secondly, while most people just cut and paste Adsense code into all the pages of their site, they just leave it at that
thinking job done!
They don't explore the high value keywords in their market or niche.
Why do that?
Well if you knew what the more profitable keywords and terms are, you can write content and these words can be displayed.
Google Adsense will then look at your page content and work out what to display.
You could double your income by changing words on your site. Maybe Life insurance to life assurance or personal loan to
loans or adverse credit to bad credit.
Also sites tend to use one format and one position for the ads.
Test, test, test
Try different layouts and work out which ones work best for you. You may be surprised.
Test, test, test
There are several tools that can help you identify keywords but the best for you would be either the Google Adwords program or Overture view bids tool.
Don't worry about thinking you are doing anything wrong. In fact, think about it - you will be creating relevant content for Google to display and for their users to read. Users are happy, Google are happy and you will earn more revenue from Adsense. So hopefully you'll be happy too!
A Win Win situation!
Again, like most things rather than reinvent the wheel there is a whole book on Adsense written my friend William
Charlwood has written The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense which tells you exactly how to make money by hosting small
ads on your website. It is a detailed road-map of everything you need to do to get going and then maximise your AdSense
income.
Once you've got it right, you can look forward to a check every month from Google.
Check this out here:
http://www.j2-squared.com/adsense-guide.htm
So there you are, there are two sides to the Google coin.
Are you using both sides!
Good Luck!
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Creating A Blog To Promote An Existing Business
If you belong to any of the following groups, then this article is for you.
* You already have a business and a website that serves as the official hub for your online sales. The website may be serving as an online store for your enterprise.
* You need a venue wherein you can promote your affiliate links.
* Your already have a website, which may not necessarily be a commercial one, and it is enrolled with a Pay Per Click (PPC) program, like Google AdSense.
Success in these fields depends on one essential principle which you might have already realized: traffic is the key to your online business thriving.
You may have in your digital inventory the best products in the world, but they won’t mean squat if no one would get to see them. This is why each and every online businessman will fight tooth and nail just to have a piece of the Internet traffic. After all, the more visitors who get to visit your site, the more potential clients you have.
And blogs can most definitely help you drive visitors to your pages. Here is how you could use them to achieve such a purpose:
1. Download the Wordpress blogging software, which is available for free at www.wordpress.com . An alternative is to go with blogger.com. I have posted instructions for setting up a Blogger blog at your own server in this PDF file:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/blogsetup.pdf
2. Remember that good content is always at the heart of a progressive online traffic stream. People are always looking for information, and if you will give them that, they would read what you have to offer. Dedicate your blog to the subject of your main website. Publish informative entries that would hook your readers and make them come back for updates. In between purely educational entries, strategically include a link to your site by suggesting their importance to your readers.
3. Using the above mentioned strategy, you could also include your affiliate links to pre-sell your affiliate products. The more traffic you drive to your affiliate merchant’s site or sales page, the more chances you will have of effectuating a successful sale and bigger commissions.
4. Links from blogs are unilateral, meaning, they are one way links to your websites. The more traffic a unilateral link generates, the more it becomes prominent in online searches. Avoid reciprocal links at all costs! Do not include a link to your blog from your website. Search engines abhor reciprocal linking.
5. 80% of your traffic will come from the search engines. You have to tweak your blog to attract the attention of the search engine spiders. Now, blogs are already search engine friendly. However, there is a very big possibility that you would be competing with other blogs on the same subject. You have to make sure that once you upload your blog, it is able to outperform its competitors in the search engine rankings.
One way you can do this is by using the title of your post to match the keyword phrases you are targeting, plus put a sprinkling of your keyword phrase in the post itself. I am doing this with great results.
6. Check your blog offline. It should be as readable and as navigable as possible for your prospective readers. Make appropriate adjustments if necessary.
7. Upload your blog to a reliable server that has enough bandwidth to accommodate many viewers.
8. Constantly update your blog. Search engines love regularly updated content, so publishing new entries will greatly increase your blog’s page rank, and consequently, your main website’s traffic.
9. Accepting links from other related blogs will also bring to your site some traffic from sources other then search engines. The way that a blog is designed fosters the building of a community of blog sites, and this will provide for an added stream of visitors for you.
10. You could also decide to enroll your blog site in the Google AdSense advertising program. This will give you an additional income stream. We will discuss this in future articles.
Blogs are excellent promotional tools for your existing business. Use them well and you will harvest the rewards in a matter of weeks.
About the author:
Get Your Hands on My FREE and Exclusive 7 Day Blogging Report by Sending and Blank Email to freeblogreport@getresponse.com In this Report I Reveal All The Secrets for Creating and Running A Successful Online Blog.
* You already have a business and a website that serves as the official hub for your online sales. The website may be serving as an online store for your enterprise.
* You need a venue wherein you can promote your affiliate links.
* Your already have a website, which may not necessarily be a commercial one, and it is enrolled with a Pay Per Click (PPC) program, like Google AdSense.
Success in these fields depends on one essential principle which you might have already realized: traffic is the key to your online business thriving.
You may have in your digital inventory the best products in the world, but they won’t mean squat if no one would get to see them. This is why each and every online businessman will fight tooth and nail just to have a piece of the Internet traffic. After all, the more visitors who get to visit your site, the more potential clients you have.
And blogs can most definitely help you drive visitors to your pages. Here is how you could use them to achieve such a purpose:
1. Download the Wordpress blogging software, which is available for free at www.wordpress.com . An alternative is to go with blogger.com. I have posted instructions for setting up a Blogger blog at your own server in this PDF file:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/blogsetup.pdf
2. Remember that good content is always at the heart of a progressive online traffic stream. People are always looking for information, and if you will give them that, they would read what you have to offer. Dedicate your blog to the subject of your main website. Publish informative entries that would hook your readers and make them come back for updates. In between purely educational entries, strategically include a link to your site by suggesting their importance to your readers.
3. Using the above mentioned strategy, you could also include your affiliate links to pre-sell your affiliate products. The more traffic you drive to your affiliate merchant’s site or sales page, the more chances you will have of effectuating a successful sale and bigger commissions.
4. Links from blogs are unilateral, meaning, they are one way links to your websites. The more traffic a unilateral link generates, the more it becomes prominent in online searches. Avoid reciprocal links at all costs! Do not include a link to your blog from your website. Search engines abhor reciprocal linking.
5. 80% of your traffic will come from the search engines. You have to tweak your blog to attract the attention of the search engine spiders. Now, blogs are already search engine friendly. However, there is a very big possibility that you would be competing with other blogs on the same subject. You have to make sure that once you upload your blog, it is able to outperform its competitors in the search engine rankings.
One way you can do this is by using the title of your post to match the keyword phrases you are targeting, plus put a sprinkling of your keyword phrase in the post itself. I am doing this with great results.
6. Check your blog offline. It should be as readable and as navigable as possible for your prospective readers. Make appropriate adjustments if necessary.
7. Upload your blog to a reliable server that has enough bandwidth to accommodate many viewers.
8. Constantly update your blog. Search engines love regularly updated content, so publishing new entries will greatly increase your blog’s page rank, and consequently, your main website’s traffic.
9. Accepting links from other related blogs will also bring to your site some traffic from sources other then search engines. The way that a blog is designed fosters the building of a community of blog sites, and this will provide for an added stream of visitors for you.
10. You could also decide to enroll your blog site in the Google AdSense advertising program. This will give you an additional income stream. We will discuss this in future articles.
Blogs are excellent promotional tools for your existing business. Use them well and you will harvest the rewards in a matter of weeks.
About the author:
Get Your Hands on My FREE and Exclusive 7 Day Blogging Report by Sending and Blank Email to freeblogreport@getresponse.com In this Report I Reveal All The Secrets for Creating and Running A Successful Online Blog.
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