Morning!
Ever wish your blog brought in more money that it currently does right now?
I’ll make no bones about it – blogging and site building is how I make my living online. Over the years, I’ve built up multiple streams of income via niche portal creation, ebook marketing, emailed eseminars and the like – it’s how I support my family.
But I don’t just teach this stuff – I also walk the walk I talk regarding the techniques!
Lately, I’ve been receiving email asking if I’d share some of the reasoning behind why I’ve set up my blog just so…and how I manage to monetize just about everything I do online so that it meshes with my blog.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my decade+ online, it’s that step-by-step tutorials are some of the best ways to share knowledge! Thus, I’ve decided to begin my tutorial series entitled:
21 Days to a More Profitable Blog
By following along each and every day, you’ll be able to implement the same techniques I’ve discovered that works beautifully in not only my blog, but my online seminars, my myriad of resource sites, my lessons and the like.
With that as an introduction, let’s go!
Before You Begin – Internalize from where money comes.
Tell me now…from where online does money come to you?
I was moseying about the Internet yesterday and came across this excellent post by Courtney Tuttle – How can you make more money? He offered the equation:
Page Impressions x Click Through Rate x Earnings Per Click = Total Earnings
I’d like to expand upon that.
At its most basic, money comes to you as a blogger (or even a site builder) when one of the following happens:
- A Transaction (someone buys an affiliate thingee off of your site)
- A Paid-for click (someone clicks on your Pay Per Click Ads)
- Someone buys your products directly.
But that’s DIRECT income.
Let’s talk about INDIRECT income, shall well?
Step 1 – Money migrates to you via word of mouth.
If my math serves me (remember, 5 out of 4 people do not harmonize well with fractions 🙂 ), the following is jes the fax. The more people who visit your site means the higher a chance someone will click on your affiliate ads or PPC ads or Adsense Ads or MultiplySense Ads or …you get the idea.
The more traffic you have, the more opportunties there are for folks to click. Right? ‘Course right! That’s what the ‘Page impressions’ part of the equation above means.
But ask yourself now – how can you train your blog to PASSIVELY achieve that goal for you?
Does every one of your posts encourage the reader to tell their friends about it?
Does every one of your posts offer visible social bookmarking resources?
Does everyone one of your posts make it obvious where one can subscribe to your feed?
Look at the top of this post – you should see something like:
>> (NOTE! If you enjoy this post, please feel free to share with your friends and twitter it with the tinylink tinyurl.com/4p34co . Thanks, I appreciate it! Oh, and please feel free to comment below…I love reading what you have to say! — Barbara)
You see, I’m not there to tap every reader with the reminder "Hey! Your friends might love this too! Why not send it to them?"….but my blog certainly is!
So. Ask yourself – how can I encourage readers to tell their friends? I use the TinyLink plugin myself.
Next,
Step 2 – Money migrates to you via complimentary downloads
Have you noticed on my sidebar the following cute little image?
That links to my page of complimentary ebooks I offer. Right now, the main one is a book I wrote 2 years ago; because so many of the techniques are still quite viable, I decided to offer it for free while I write my updated resources.
The thing is, however…you’ll notice when you download and open the book, I made certain to include a direct pitch to subscribing to my site via
Like what I share? Find out the goodies available by subscribing to my site!
Notice how I don’t direct readers to my feed. They might want to subscribe…but then again, they might not. So I figured, why not built a mini-sales page to showcase all the goodies people get when subscribing?
Because I encourage readers to pass around this ebook, other people learn of what I have to offer without me lifting a finger. That’s viral marketing! In addition, I incorporate affiliate links whenever possible in my writings….so if folks buy from a link within my book, I get the commission.
You can do the exact same thing.
You don’t have to write a complete ebook – you can simply pen (type?) a 2-3 page report that solves a problem within your niche, and include a direct link to your Why Subscribe? page in the footer.
Step 3 – Money migrates to you when you build your reputation
Yes, it is possible to make a 6 figure income without interacting with the rest of humanity. I did that myself and wrote about it via my Rich Hermit series.
Nowadays, however, it’s much more difficult to optimize hundreds of resource sites. And because the Internet is moving towards social networking and helping one another out, it makese sense that the more people who talk about you, the more traffic/visitors/increased income you’ll receive.
To achieve this, you need to:
- Give yourself permission to shine. Corny though that might sound, I really do believe this!! Everyone has the spark of uniqueness within themselves..and everyone has the ability to really create miracles with their work. The thing is, you need to give yourself permission to step outside the box and sing your own song, and blaze your own trail.
- Make it really easy for people to interact with you. Social networking! Twitter! Friendfeed! Facebook! LinkedIn! Now, you don’t have to give your email address away (I myself use a contact form for when folks want to chat with me) but you do have to be accessible. Respond to comments on your blog! Proactively offer help when tweets come your way to which you know the answer! That sorta thing.
See how it works?
FIRST: You tweak your blog/site so that people are encouraged to tell their friends to check out what you have to offer.
NEXT: You add affiliate programs/PPC programs/Clickbank Programs/etc. that mesh seamlessly with your theme
NEXT: You offer complimentary downloads that get passed around online and bring people back to your site
NEXT: You build your reputation online by doing what only YOU can do – Providing value via your own unique style.
and that brings me to:
In closing
In today’s lesson, you expanded your thinking regarding from where money comes. It’s not just the direct clicks and commissions – it’s the long-term activities of future visitors who tell their friends about you as well!
HOMEWORK – Take a good look at your blog right now and see if the following goodies already there:
- Why Subscribe page
- Embedded Affiliate Programs
- "Follow me on Twitter" button
- Social Networking plugins
- Viral marketing text (ie, encourage your readers to tell their friends) on every post
Can you think of anything else to include? Feel free to comment about it below!
Until tomorrow,
Barbara
#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:
Beginners make money blogging tips: Don’t focus solely on direct income – look longterm.
Intermediate and/or Advanced make money blogging tips: Write up a complimentary download you can offer online and make certain to include your feed or Why Subscribe link at the bottom.
#END highlights of this blog writing post
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