Thursday, November 26, 2009
Make Money Online - Tips On Creating An Interesting Blog To Attract More Visitors
With the presence of blogging in the internet, it has fast becoming a great tool where one can make use of to make money online. With a little creativity and applying some tricks and techniques, you can now start to make your blog an interesting one and attracting loads of visitors. Once you have these loads of traffic to your blog, you can then start to make money. So what is a good blog and how can you make your blog interesting enough to make people want to revisit your blog all over again? Read on to learn more.
How To Attract More Visitors To Your Blog
Attracting more people to visit your blog is pretty much like marketing in itself. First of all, you need to know what your readers will want to read and know about. With this in mind, you then have to respond to their needs to give them a reason to visit your blog for the first time. Even after managing to get them to visit your blog, it does not necessarily mean they’ll stay with you. Imagine with the tons of blogs out there in the internet, your visitors can easily just go on to the next one and totally forget about yours. This is the time where creativity comes into play in order to keep them coming back. It is only when you have built a loyal base of readers to your blog, then only you will truly be successful and can make money off it.
Knowing The Needs Of Your Readers
Before you can start making any money from your websites, you need to have lots of people to visit your site. This also hold true for blogs created. On the other hand, you have to ensure that the contents in your blogs are interesting in order to keep your visitors coming back. So, with this in mind, you have to know that creating a successful blog is like creating an answer to a need, and of course, you need to know what those needs are first.
Naturally, you can ask them through a survey you created. Try to keep it short and brief and only stick to questions that are relevant but fairly easy to answer. If the survey takes too much time to answer, people might not want to answer. Basically, the trick here is to phrase your questions carefully such that you are able to get real and useful information out of them. Once you have managed to get what your readers want, you can then select which one you can use as the main topic for your blog. Probably it is a good idea that you should choose to write something you’re pretty knowledgeable about, or else you won’t have much to share that would be of interest to others. Also, try to ensure that your blog has one main topic around which your posts will revolve, in order to help you build a community of readers.
Update Your Blog and Have Fresh Contents Regularly
After having decided on a topic of your expertise for your blog, you can then start to write your posts. Whenever you have some spare time and have a topic in mind, do not hesitate to write down spare posts so that you can easily update your blog at a later time when you are not busy with any of your daily activities. If your blog does not have much updates, readers may notice it and might stop visiting your site again. They will probably think that they have nothing new to read anyway.
So, the key to a successful blog to hold your visitors basically lies in the content of your blog. As time passes, if your blogs is not updated regularly, visitors’ interest may fade, especially if they don’t learn or see anything new and entertaining on your blog.
What Should You Do To Hold Your Readers
Do not worry even when you have reached this point. Give yourself a chance to make something big out of your blog. Not to mention, making money out of it. Keep in mind that all it takes is a bit of ingenuity to make them come back for more. Try to be more innovative. Come up with new and exciting treats for your readers like posting pictures and launching online games. Instead of being a passive reader, you can also ask your readers to be part of your blog by participating in it. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try out different things which you think you will be able to build a community of readers that can be additionally attracting for new visitors and for old readers as well.
Advertising Your Blogs
Do not underestimate the power of online communities and social networks if you want to make money out of your blog, As in the actual world we live in, word of mouth also plays an important role online. Yes, advertising online is something which you cannot give it a miss if you want to make money online and be successful. But at the end of the day, the key to success as a blogger lies in your readers. They are the one who can spread the word and give good reviews about your blog. If your blog is really good and interesting, they are also the one who can ask others to check out your site. So, the more people you get talking about your blog, the more chances you have to make money out of it.
Want To Make Money Online? Start Blogging
Thinking of setting up your own blog? Do not hesitate and go ahead. It definitely pays to blog. If you want to be successful in blogging, take note of all the things mentioned above because they will surely be helpful to you as a blogger and to make money out of blogging. To learn more on how to make money with your blog, click on this link How To Make Money Easily With Your Blogs now. Good luck and be successful in blogging.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
Income Streams for Bloggers – How to Make Money Blogging
Advertising Programs – Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google – Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.
Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).
Lastly there’s BlogAds – one of the first blog specific ad networks.
RSS Advertising – The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point – but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship – In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month – one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases – as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies – either in one off or a regular fashion – and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs – There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets – Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future – in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities – with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks – bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging – by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks – there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself – blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities – as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties – but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities – Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors – this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations – Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs – Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ – or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising – My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising – quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales – especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details – but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking – While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work – his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago – but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
by Darren Rowse www.problogger.net
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
Income Streams for Bloggers – How to Make Money Blogging
Advertising Programs – Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google – Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.
Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).
Lastly there’s BlogAds – one of the first blog specific ad networks.
RSS Advertising – The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point – but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship – In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month – one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases – as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies – either in one off or a regular fashion – and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs – There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets – Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future – in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities – with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks – bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging – by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks – there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself – blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities – as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties – but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities – Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors – this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations – Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs – Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ – or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising – My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising – quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales – especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details – but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking – While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work – his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago – but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
by Darren Rowse www.problogger.net
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