Saturday, January 19th, 2008
How can you monetize your blog?
I got an email from one of my subscribers today. His name is Wade.
Ordinarily, I don’t share subscribers emails with my readers. But in this case, you can learn a lot about blogging by reading my answer.
Here’s what Wade wrote:
I’d like to ask for your > assistance on my “Wordpress Blog”.It is listed at “Wadeg.wordpress.com”. I need somefeedback and assistance in jumpstarting the generating ofincome. I need some constructive critisim. Could I make a
product out of my content?Thank you,
Wade
Go take a look at Wade’s blog right now at:
http://Wadeg.wordpress.com (this link opens in a new window)
Then follow along as I critique the blog and give Wade some suggestions for monetizing his blog!
Here’s my response to Wade:
———————————————————————————————————————
Hi Wade:
I took a look at your blog. I have a number of suggestions for how you can monetize your blog.
The #1 way that you can monetize it is to use it to build a list!
Right now, you have no way for people to subscribe to your list. You definitely want to add an opt in box to the top of your right hand sidebar.
That list is going to become your #1 way to make money in your business. The more traffic you drive to your blog, the bigger your list will get. It’s all a matter of giving them a REASON to subscribe from there.
How can you give them a reason to subscribe?
Well, you want your blog to really describe what it is that you are going to be talking about. You do this both visually, in your content, and in the ads on your blog.
Right now, your blog is extremely plain. I would try to liven it up a bit with a header graphic. Make that graphic relate to the content of your blog so that it is visually descriptive.
I would also change the title of your blog to something that is more descriptive of the topic you cover in your blog. (Your “Title” currently is the part that says “WadeG’s Blog”).
You might also want to add a tagline that also better describes your topic. (Your “tagline” currently says “Just another Weblog”.)
You make these changes in your WordPress dashboard under the “Options” tab.
Perhaps the biggest problem with your blog right now is that it is not really clear at all what the purpose of the blog is or who the intended audience is.
Right now, your posts are all about sound, voice, etc. But, in the Blogroll, you have links to 1 minute abs, internet marketing items, and health & wellness items.
That makes it look like you are trying to throw up a smattering of affiliate links hoping to make money from ANYTHING. You don’t have a focus.
Without focus — and clearly making a commitment to a particular market and TELLING your reader what that market is — people are not going to want to visit your blog, let alone buy anything there.
If you instead had a header graphic that was descriptive of your purpose, had an opt in box at the top of your sidebar that gives away a report that is related to your topic, etc., then it would be easier to figure out what you are doing on the blog.
Now — as for monetizing the blog — there are 2 things you’ll want to do:
1) Just below the opt in box, put up a graphic for a low end product (something at $47 or less). This can be linked to an affiliate link.
2) In each post, you have an opportunity to promote something else.
3) Your posts should follow a specific formula:
– ask a question in the title
– tell a story at the beginning of the post and use it to lead into the question
– give a short bulleted list of answers
– go on to explain the answer
– show the reader a solution which is the product you are promoting. Again, this can be an affiliate link.
4) Your paragraphs in the blog should not be more than 4 lines long.
5) Each day, you need to spend a concentrated amount of time driving traffic to the search engines. This entails the following:
a) Write a post
b) Ping the search engines when you post.
If you are using WordPress, it can do this automatically. However, if you then edit the post later, it then re-pings for the same post. That can get your blog banned. I would use a tool like BlogJet instead so that you can control when you post. There is a 30–day free trial available from BlogJet.com.
c) Social bookmark your post (the actual URL for THAT post — not for the blog generally) at as many sites as you can. I use a tool called Bookmarking Demon to Social Bookmark my posts at more than 100 sites at once.
d) Comment on other people’s blogs in your niche.
e) Visit communities for blogs in your niche inside of MyBlogLog and similar sites.
f) Add your blog to RSS directories. You’ll find these by searching in your favorite search engine.
That’s all there is to it! In a matter of a few months, if you do this CONSISTENTLY — EVERY single day — you should have a steady stream of hundreds of visitors to your blog each day!
Of course, whether those visitors take action or not will depend on how they FEEL when they visit your blog and what they THINK when they read it.
You’ll need to follow the above suggestions for really making them understand WHY they are there.
One other thing you need to correct is that right now your blog looks a little odd. This is because you are using the Evermore plugin and you are writing your posts as a single paragraph. This forces the entire post to appear only when the Read More link is clicked.
If you were to keep your paragraphs to not more than 4 lines, as I suggest above, you would want to set Evermore to have the Read More displayed after 2 paragraphs. That way, at least 8 lines of text would show up before they have to click to the next page.
Another item you need to add to the blog is a plugin called Sociable. This is what will allow you to display icons for Social Bookmarking sites at the end of each post. You want to encourage people to include your posts in the Social Bookmarking sites as this will help to bring you more traffic.
Finally, I would consider adding the MyBlogLog.com widget to your sidebar. This would allow your visitors to see their picture on your blog at the bottom of the sidebar.
At the same time, MyBlogLog has a tool that you can add to your blog that allows you to track your stats. If you upgrade your membership (it’s like $25 per year) you can even get the stats in real time. They will allow you to see exactly what visitors are clicking on at your blog. I strongly recommend that upgraded membership.
I hope that you find these comments helpful. Before you concentrate on monetizing the blog, make the changes that I’ve recommended. That way you will be in a better position to actually benefit when the traffic starts increasing to your blog.
I wish you much success in your future endeavors!
Gina Gaudio-Graves
———————————————————————————————————————
Would you like me to critique your blog or website too?
Just leave a comment on this blog and give me your link! I’ll select one website or blog each day to offer a complete critique on this blog!
To Your Abundant Success!
Gina Gaudio-Graves
P.S. I almost forgot something — if you need a list of sites that you should be pinging, my newest package called “Giveaway Secrets of The JV Queen” has one in it. Although the title of the course implies that it is about JV Giveaways, that is only partially correct. The course is really about getting results from your blog AND about building a list using JV Giveaways. It’s one awesome course! You’ll find it at:
![[Valid RSS]](valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
January 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Thank you Gina for the help you offered here. I have been trying to put an opt-in box on my homepage for months. I must really have a mental block made of steel or something. I haven’t found Evermore plugin yet!
I really appreciate all your help and look forward to the course most especially because I now also have http://boomertraveldeals@blogetery.com and want to get them both monetized.