Before I delve deeper into the art, rather science, of converting you blog into a money making machine I would like to clear up some of the most misunderstood concepts in making money with blogs
- You can make millions from you blog but only in your wildest dreams, so dream on....
- With Google Adsense even to make few $$$ you have to struggle a lot and that too is kind of impossible, well it is possible but only in those thousands of e-books and sales letters (sic) scattered all over Internet.
- Making money is not an easy task or else everyone would be billionaire. It always involves a lot of work and patience before your hard works even pays off. Don't think by reading this post, following some SEO tricks and adding Google adsense or Affiliate adverts you will become rich. It takes more than these.
I've some of blogs which I keep off limits from dirty money. It is your personal decision if you want to make money or not. If you hesitate to make money with your personal blog then you might want to write another blog just to make money.
Socialism without capital is like dreaming of castle while living in slums.
How to blog
How to walk?
Well just signup on plenty of freely available blogging platform and start writing. If you are really serious in making money then you should better get your own hosted blog on Wordpress. Wordpress is the excellent CMS I've ever come across and I (ab)use it for all sort of purposes. It is very easy and I make 10-20 blogs per day for my clients. I like Wordpress so much that I don't hesitate to say that if Internet was revolution then Wordpress is evolution.
With free blogs such as blogspot and wordpress.com you don't have as freedom as with self hosted blogs. The biggest disadvantage is SEO friendly URLs which are not available in free blogs.
http://effectiveonlinemarketing.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/effective-online-marketing/
Now look at this URL
It has got all the right keywords in URL.
This feature is available via SEO module in hosted wordpress which can be easily configured.
You can easily tweak the hosted wordpress code with little knowledge of php/mysql and CSS.
Setting up blog
For money making blog you have to keep money in mind and with that come many other requirements. You should plan for following before you start writing blog and blog promotion.
- Layout of blog
- Where you are going to insert advertisements
- Whether you want to add text advertisement, banner ads or videos and if combination of them then where and how to arrange them.
- Topic of blog - This might sound strange that I'm listing this in the last. But topic doesn't matter much if you are natural writer and you have ability to write on any topic at any time without (re)search.
Blog Design
You can ignore the fact that a good looking blog design will keep your visitors attracted and a poor design may put them off. Web 2.0 design is the present and future of web design. If you are on self hosted blog then you must get a good Web 2.0 custom design from professional Web 2.0 design company. If you are on free platforms then you can get plenty of free web 2.0 designs.
Topics
To be honest, it is all about money making, so I wouldn't spent sleepless night thinking about topics. I'll pick up just those which are in public demand and I would start writing and by overnight I would be done with a money making machine.
On serious side selecting a topic is really important. You need to choose those topics which are relevant to popular demand.
Also if you are a big fan of affiliate systems then you have to consider the topic which are relevant to the product/services from which you can make most.
Pictures/Videos
A Picture is worth thousand words. I find picture blogs are sometimes more popular than word blogs. And if you can combine two you will have killer dose. Videos are good if they are relevant to the topic. Videos slow down pages and people get distracted in watching them rather than clicking on your ads so certainly you wouldn't want to insert Paris Hilton home made videos in the middle of your mobile phone reviews would you?
Ready Steady Go...
You got the plan ready, you got the topics, you got the pics (if not then lift off them from flickr and for flickr sake leave their URL as such) now time to jot down your thoughts.
I'm not a big fan of the so called Sales Letter type writing and certainly I loath them. They are no better than "Big earthquake is coming" type of emails which always keep raining in my mailbox.
- Let the writing to be natural and interesting and keep readers hooked up. Pour some spices (if you need some I'll bring you more next time I visit India) in it.
- Speak truth and only truth. World is not so naive as you might think and there are people like me who can spot lies in seconds and get you busted. So better write something which is true, interesting, thought provoking and keep reader hooked up.
- Arrange your text and pictures in a nice layout and keep pictures in medium size if it is not just picture blog
- Don't insert Google adsense in the middle of post they are just annoying. Imagine you reading some interesting post and out of nowhere these "How to earn $$$$ per week" adverts appear in front of you and being text advert reader gets lost.
Blog optimization is no different than web site optimization. You can find more resources on SEO on my SEO Blog. The main important aspect of Blog optimization is to do with the content optimization as content is the king in blog.
Blog promotion is the main key. With free blogging platforms you might get some of blog promotion automatically but not completely. For self hosted blog you need to do everything on your own or get professional Blog promoters doing it for you as it is specialized task and requires massive manpower.
Don't fall in love with those "Performance based SEO services...." type of SEO companies for such services. Chances are your blog will disappear overnight if on Google/Wordrpess.com or get banned by Google if self hosted. Blogs are populated on the Internet in no time and by the time you realize what has happened everything will be wiped out.
I'm listing some of the activities which you can do to perform for promoting your blog
- Internet Directory submissions - There are plenty of free Internet Directories on which you can submit your blog. But Internet Directory submission is a time consuming task and you would rather prefer to engage a professional Internet Directory submission company to do this for you.
- Social Bookmarking - Social bookmarking is the most important aspect of Blog Promotion and this is the place where you have to focus all the time. First get the list of Social Bookmarking websites and then start bookmarking on it. And if your topics are sensational then you will head into the top of all social bookmarking websites in no time.
- Articles - This is another indirect way to promote your blog. Write articles on similar topics as those in your blog and submit them into Free Articles Website.
The Real Action
Enough with trailer lets get down to action.
Following are the some of advertisements which you would like to run on your blogs
- Google Adsense - I'm in minority when I say Google Adsense are waste of time. But if you don't trust me you can try by yourself and if by chance you discover any new formula to earn $1000/day then don't forget to share with me
- Affiliate - Affiliates are my favorite. There are plenty of reason why you should go for Affiliates rather than Google Adsense.
- You directly (almost) interact with advertisement and you decide what you shall display on your blogs unlike Google
- You know how much would be CPA (or any other revenue system) for each and every advertisement
- You will have a number of advertisers and advertisement programs to choose from
- Getting banners code is easier than setting up Google Adsense advertisement
- Text Advertisements - Apart from Google adsense there are various advertising platforms offering Text Advertisement services which you can utilize for revenue generation.
Affiliate Systems
There are plenty of them. I almost get one new affiliate contacting me on weekly basis. There are few which are more popular and where all advertisers would go rest are not useful. I'm not writing any review here, reason would be clear from my next topic.
Choose any affiliate you want experiment with them and see the result by yourself.
Contacting Direct with advertisers
As I've been in this business since long time and know inside out I prefer contacting advertisers, big or small, directly and do a business deal with them. Most of time they agree as most of my blogs generate heavy traffic, and in some cases they refer to Affiliate systems.
If you have high ranking and popular blog then you can negotiate with advertisers directly which might not be possible with Affiliate systems.
Culmination
There is no stopping, even if you have started making a money fromyour blog always keep fine tuning it for layout, new content, new and high return adverts, external link building, blog promotion and other activities. Who knows you might to sell it off on ebay and head off to Spain for retirement ;)
