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How to Make Money Blogging Pt 1

By Christian

Making money with a blog really has to be one of the biggest concerns out there I suppose, so I want to address it directly. There are different approaches of course, and I can only speak to the techniques I’ve personally employed, what has worked well for me and what HASN’T worked well for me. This will be a two-part rundown of what has not worked for me…and what has 😉

Today I’ll cover a couple things I’ve tried that have failed for me. I’ll follow up shortly with more info on what DOES work for me, and what I’m doing today to generate income from blogging.

My Blogging Failures

First off, I’ve failed in a number of areas over the last few years since I’ve been blogging and building niche sites. I made many mistakes when I first started, so hopefully you can read this and avoid the same time wasters. Monetizing a site is always a concern if you’re doing something as a business, and the two most common ways of monetizing are through ads and affiliate marketing.

Making Money with Ads

There are a number of ways to do this on your site. Adsense is the most common way to put ads on your site when you’re small and just starting. A lot of beginners don’t realize that putting ads on your site isn’t something you can just do on a whim, expect through Adsense. If you’re new and wanting to monetize your site, you’ll likely go down this path a bit and look into putting some ads on your site.

Hopefully I can save you some time here…what you’ll find is that most ad networks won’t even talk to you. Why? You don’t yet have the high level of traffic they’re looking for. The most popular networks really want you to have a high level of traffic to start. What do I mean by that? Requirements vary from vendor to vendor of course, but I’ll say it this way: if you’re not getting at least 50k visitors a month on a regular basis, your prospects will be limited. Some vendors won’t be interested til you get into six figures or higher. Adsense doesn’t have this requirement though. This makes Adsense highly accessible and easy to implement.

Adsense is also very simple to optimize and style to your site. How does it pay? It pays fairly well actually, if you compare what most other ad networks pay. The problem is that if you aren’t getting a high level of traffic, Adsense is not going to pay you more than a few dollars (I mean that quite literally) per month.

What do I mean by saying it pays well then? It pays well on a per visitor basis.

It’s important to understand that the larger ad networks (like Federated Media and others) don’t pay much better according to my research. It’s just that monetizing with ads does indeed pay well, if you’re bringing in a large number of visitors. If you’re not, it doesn’t. That’s pretty much all she wrote. Even A-list bloggers rarely depend solely on advertising income. There’s also a growing trend for well-established bloggers to be trimming back or even removing their ads altogether. They’re concentrating on much more profitable income sources. Even when you are getting tons of traffic, advertising still rarely cuts it on its own.

Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another avenue I tried when I was first starting. I didn’t sell a single thing. Nothing. This is just my personal experience. I’ve since learned how to do affiliate marketing more effectively, and it’s a terrific way to earn some extra money. It is not in any way a significant source of income for me at this point, but earning an extra few hundred bucks here and there is not something I’m gonna turn down 🙂

That said, most beginners (like me too when I was first starting) just put up some affiliate banners in their sidebar and wait for the orders to come in. In most cases, they just don’t.

As is the case with most things, you can overcome lack of skill with sheer numbers. Will you sell some product by simply placing an ad in your sidebar when you’re pulling in a ton of visitors? Yes, of course. If 200,000 people hit your site in any given month, it’s likely someone is going to click through and buy something.

I’d like to say I have no problem with this form of monetizing, except for one thing…it simply doesn’t apply to most sites. Yet ironically, it’s what most people try. And then when it doesn’t work, people conclude that “blogging doesn’t work”. It’s a massively incorrect conclusion to draw, although I understand why it happens.

These are the most common avenues I see new bloggers take, and they almost never work…for the same reasons. Hopefully you can read this and save yourself some headaches. However, let me assure you that there are some effective ways a new blogger can generate income. If you’ve read Next Level Blogger for a while, you already know…my experience is specifically in small niche websites. I generate 100% of my income online, and I don’t have a single website that pulls in more than 5-6k visitors a month.

I’m a blogging advocate for a reason! You can most definitely generate a good income and lifestyle with your blog. Even after only running this blog for a short time, I’m already seeing a significant change in the way I do business, and I expect this process to continue. This is what I’ll use to continue in Part 2. That is where I’ll cover some things that really work for me, and they’ll work for you too. In the meantime, please comment or contact me any feedback or questions. Talk to you more soon. Thanks!

Taking Things to the Next Level

By Christian

The sky's the limit, baby! Products are leveraged and will allow me to reach more people. What are you doing to grow your business this month? I'd love to hear your plans!

This past week, and for the next few weeks or so, I will be focusing on creating a few new sites and corresponding products to take things to the next level. As many of you know, I started out with consulting and continue to do that more than anything else. It works well, but the thing about consulting is that there is only so much time in one day, you know? So as a result, I am taking the same ideas and concepts I go over with clients on a consulting business, and I’m recording them via audio, video and written tutorials, to be shared via information products.

This will allow me to share the same ideas with a lot more people…for a significantly lower cost. I love meeting and consulting with you; I really do! But if I can offer you the same information for significantly less, wouldn’t that be a great deal? That’s what I’m doing. Consulting will remain available of course, but after a few of these products are in place, we’ll be able to reserve consulting fees for only the truly custom jobs.

I will continue sharing ideas and posting to Next Level Blogger, but I just wanted to give you heads up on what’s in store. This is what I’m doing to take things to the next level this year. Leverage! I’d love to hear what you’re up to also! What are you doing to grow your business this month? Have a great weekend!

How to Sell Online Without Being a Jerk

By Christian

Selling online requires one simple thing...SELLING! That means you have to MAKE OFFERS! Making money online is not a mysterious process. The fear of selling is one of the biggest production-killers out there 🙂

I just read a very insightful quote from Jeffrey Zeldman at zeldman.com in the latest INC magazine. I want to share it with you, because selling…and how to do it well…is a common theme I cover here. I think his thoughts on how to sell tactfully are beautiful. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Here you go:

There is a difference between being arrogant about yourself as a person and being confident that your work has some value. The first is unattractive; the second is healthy and natural. Some people respond to the one as if it were the other. Don’t confuse them. Marketing is not bragging, and touting one’s wares is not evil. The baker in the medieval town square must holler ‘fresh rolls’ if he hopes to feed the townfolk.

I’m a huge advocate of selling aggressively and fervently. I think if you don’t believe in what you’re selling, you need to get out of business, period. On the other hand if you DO believe in what you’re doing, you have a duty to tell people about it, and make sure you do good business with as many people as you can.

How do you feel about this?

I personally witness a lot of people visibly hesitating to make the pitch, out of fear of being perceived a salesperson. We need to get past this and realize what sales is, and what it isn’t. I’m telling you…there’s so much confusion and indecision out there about how to build a successful blog, how to build a successful online marketing strategy. Of course, there are some things to learn, and there are definitely some techniques to implement, but if you get past the biggest hurdle of making offers…the rest is honestly a piece of cake 🙂

Seriously, it’s amazing what you can get when you just ask!

Please Join Me for My Execution

By Christian

This year (2010) is a unique one for me, because I’m switching gears. This isn’t necessarily a situation where I’m offering some kind of advice and saying you should do this too, but it’s where I’m at, and I wanted to share it with you.

I plan on kickin some ass this year. Here's what I'm doing to gain focus. Will you join me?

I’m using 2010 as a detox period. Low information diet (as Tim Ferriss calls it), focus and implementation. In other words, I’m executing this year. Here’s what I’m changing:

  • I’m reading very little. I have about a dozen books, and I have most of them on audio.
  • I’ve cut out about half of my RSS reader.
  • I’ve canceled all magazine subscriptions.
  • I’ve written a short plan for the year. Instead of my usual 40-50 page plan, my plan for
    2010 is 2 pages long. Some travel, a couple vacations, a couple conferences, a couple product launches. That’s it.
  • I’ve deleted most of my email subscriptions.
  • I plan to focus less on consulting and more on product creation. It’s simply more leveraged and offers a tremendous value to my clients.

This is the deal. 2010 is about doing less. And I expect it will, at the same time, see a significant amount of growth for my business. I expect to increase sales, because I won’t be doing anything but dollar-productive activities when it comes to business. I want to spend my time writing, networking and creating new solutions for my clients that offer better value than ever.

I don’t want to underestimate the value of reading, education and hard work. I also don’t want to give the impression I’m planning on kicking back this year. This isn’t the case. There’s much work to be done. I’m just cutting out all the B.S. and focusing on getting results. For one year, I want to do nothing but kick ass.

What do you think? 2010 is a year of execution for me. Will you join me?

Tips on Writing Your About Page

By Christian

On a blog, it’s important to think of every page as a landing page. Every page on your site is an opportunity to convert a visitor or lose them. This is true of your front page, each post and each page on your site. Writing your “About” page is a sticky subject for some bloggers when they first get started, so I wanted to touch on this. Let me know what you think!

Don't think of your "about page" as a place to write a book about yourself. No one cares! Instead, answer the more difficult questions: "Why are you writing this blog?" "Why SHOULD you write this blog?" "Why are you different?"

A Few Tips on Writing Your About Page

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing the “about” page on your blog.

  • Your About page is the one page on your blog where you should feel free to talk openly about yourself.
  • Mention a bit about your experience and why you’re qualified to write the content on the blog. More importantly, share honestly why you’re compelled to write this blog. Your readers are looking for a reason to connect with you.
  • Focus on the main problem you can solve for a reader. When visiting an About page, a visitor wants to know about you, but they still only care about what’s in it for them. So, talk about yourself, but keep in mind why a visitor should care. What benefit will they get by being a regular reader?
  • How are you different? What unique value or perspective do you add to the niche you’re covering? It’s rare indeed for you to be covering something that no one else covers. Instead, talk about why you’re different and what you offer that no one else offers.

The About page can be a powerful asset to your blog, or it can also be a great excuse for a reader to take off and never return. How do you feel about your About page? Are you intimidated by it? Do you have any questions about how to optimize it?

A Few Simple Tweaks to Ramp Up Your Blog

By Christian

If you’re running a blog for your business, it’s important to think of every page, every post you publish as an opportunity to either ramp up your business or lose ground. Every page on your site will either produce comments and other forms of interaction with your visitors, or it will fail in this regard. For this reason, it’s important to spend a minute to think about what your goal is for each page.

Sometimes a little tune up will give you much better performance. Here are a few performance tips for your blog 🙂

What do you want this page to accomplish? Not every page is going to have the same goal of course. Some posts, you’ll want to simply generate comments and interaction with your readers. Some will be focused on generating new subscriptions. Some will me meant to sell a product, etc. You get the idea. So here are a few elements I’d encourage you to include on your blog. They’ve worked well for me, so they’re at least worth a try.

  1. Install a share widget. I use this one. It makes it very easy for a visitor to share your content with their friends. Twitter, Facebook and a ton of the biggest social networks are all supported. The viral nature of content is one of the most powerful elements to blog marketing. Make it easy for your visitors to spread your content around any way they see fit.
  2. Have a contact form on every page. You’ll see a contact form in the side bar on almost every page on my site. When I installed this form, specifically for the purpose of just giving general feedback, submitting questions, etc, I found that a lot of people really do use it. Is it hard to click over to my contact page? Of course not, but having a contact form right there in front of you consistently reminds a visitor that I earnestly to want to hear from them if they have anything to share. It’s started a lot of good conversation.
  3. Install SEO links plugin. It’s a free piece for WordPress. You can set certain keywords within your blog to automatically link up to other pages, even outside pages to other sites. An example: I set the words “contact me” to automatically link to my contact page. This produces a number of incoming links automatically to my contact page. I don’t have to think about it or manually put the links in. Internal link structure is beneficial to a site for a number of reasons. I recommend it 🙂
  4. Using Aweber. I’m an affiliate for Aweber for good reason. Why? They rock. Enough said. I’ve checked out all the major email marketing solutions, and my personal opinion is that Aweber is the most powerful provider to use. They are inexpensive, give you powerful ways to measure the effectiveness of the email you send your subscribers, and they offer a ton of creative, effective opt in forms to put on your pages. An Aweber opt in form looks great, and it can be set up in mere seconds.
  5. Use simple graphics. I set up sites to be content-focused. This is just my personal M.O., but I honestly think visitors want content, not fancy graphics. When it comes to blogging, less is more. Keep it simple, spend time on good content, and results will follow!
  6. Use captions on your images. I haven’t always been big on using images in posts. I don’t personally like the use of stock images in posts, because I think it looks cheesy. However, I cannot ignore that other top bloggers swear by it. The fact is that a simple, well-placed image in your post can grab people. Some people respond strongly to visual anchors like this. I’ve found that by taking a minute and putting a caption on the image, it gives it a lot more power. Instead of just putting up a stock image, put in a caption. Your caption will give the reader a frame of reference and make it that much more powerful. Details matter.
  7. Link up your social networks. Are you on Twitter? Are you on LinkedIn? I encourage you to link these things up in your sidebar, so that your visitors can see you’re out there. They’ll see they can connect with you in a number of other locations, which can be of great benefit to you. You may think that you want people on your blog. Why would you encourage them to leave and hit you up on Facebook when you really want them to subscribe to your blog? The answer is that many users are simply more comfortable on Facebook. Connect with them where they’re most comfortable. By sharing your blog content on other networks, users can share your ideas just as easily from Facebook or any other place. Your blog is your hub, but you should be active in other places as well, and it all contributes to your user base. Just because a fan on Facebook doesn’t add to your Feedburner count doesn’t matter at all. Connections are what matter. Facebook counts 🙂

I think it’s important to mention that not every blog is the same of course. Just because something works really well for me doesn’t mean you’ll get the same results with your audience. However, this list should give you a few things to try. Trial and error is the key 🙂

There are many more, but these are the ones that jump out at me at the moment…do you have any additional page tweaks that have worked really well for you? I’ve love to hear what works for you!