Tag: Make Money Online
Apr
15
How To Create a Profitable Blog
There are so many tools out there online anymore that just about anyone can create a good looking blog. In fact, blogging is becoming the national past time – and a very popular way to make a little extra money. While many are still doing it just for fun, there are those that aspire to that “6 figure blogging” reputation. Why not? Its start up cost is almost nothing and all it takes is your time. Or is it?
It looks to me that blogging for income will soon mirror the 2 out of 3 failure rate of new businesses. Actually, I don’t think the majority of new blogs will succeed for the same reason: Poor planning and lack of focus on how it will make money.
This is just one reason that teaching the basics of business to your teens is so important. The common mindset is “Just Do It”. It looks so fun, doing what you want, when you want, how you want. Why wouldn’t anyone want to have their own business or blog?
What happens when they have spent hours and hours buried online, pouring their heart and soul into what inevitable becomes a source of deep discouragement and frustration with no monetary return. Was it really so free? How much could they have had in the bank if those hours had even just paid him minimum wage? The “Build It and They Will Come” attitude doesn’t work any better with blogs than it does with a new business.
There are many that are very public with their opinion that you can’t make money blogging because they tried it and didn’t work, like Daniel Lyons, a talented blogger known for two years as “Fake Steve Jobs” (until Newsweek revealed his identity). In an excellent post by CopyBlogger, Daniel Lyons tell how he only made a little over $1,000 after a traffic spike of 250,000. If you can’t make money with that kind of traffic, he rationalizes, no one can succeed with a blog.
On the other side of the coin, there are many very successful bloggers that share their so called “secrets” and became successful doing just that. But that’s not the only way to succeed. Top bloggers like Darren Rowse with his photography blog will tell you he makes far more with helping those with their camera than he ever did helping beginner bloggers. I’m not sure it’s a secret or not, but there are some essential factors to actually making money with your blog.
CopyBlogger, in that same post referred to above, gives the cornerstone of any successful, profitable blog:
If you want to make money in the real world, solve real problems.
It’s sounds simple, and it really is-but most new bloggers don’t realize this. They jump into creating a blog on whatever suits their fancy. This is a sure recipe for failure. That is, unless what suits your fancy includes helping others suit their fancy. You must have a plan and direct the purpose of your blog to something that will solve real world problem for your intended readers.
If you would like to transform your blog into a profitable blog, study other great bloggers. CopyBlogger is a must read. Of course you must apply the principles, and work at it like a job, but to make money online you have to make yourself useful. Make sure your vision includes a purpose that has income potential.
I agree and personally need to take CopyBlogger’s hard hitting command to heart:
It’s time for online business to grow up
I love that. When blogging first started, most blogs were personal diaries and people loved (and still do!) seeing inside other people’s lives. Now that Facebook takes care of that in a big way, personal blogs have gone back stage. Everyone wants information that will help them in some part of their life that bothers them, and there are a multitude of ways to serve that up. What can YOU do to help someone else?
CopyBlogger is one of my absolute favorite blogs because it is intensely useful. Take a look at his headlines and you will find yourself wanting to read every single one. (at least I do..) He knows what bloggers need (goes beyond want) and gives practical advice that works. Learn from one of the best, go to http://www.copyblogger.com/no-money-blogging/ . Another excellent place to gain a full blogging education is http://www.problogger.net/.
Do you have a favorite blog or one that has useful information on how to blog? Please share with us in the comments. I’d like to compile a list of great bloggers that share it all and we can all learn from – who do you think makes it to that list?
Oct
08
The Top 10 Affiliate Networks
I promised that I would continue giving you as much information as possible in a blog for starting your own affiliate marketing websites. While there is only so much that can be taught through blog posts, the affiliate networks you choose are important.
One point to remember when you apply to a network, they often base your acceptance upon the website you have at the time. While some are more picky than others, it’s good to have something that looks halfway decent finished before you apply to any of the major networks. If you are planning a variety of different websites representing different products or markets, I’d also like to suggest that you create a ‘Branding Site’, or “The Mother Ship” as my son calls it.
Our branding site is in need of updating, but we simply use the front page of a self-hosted WordPress blog and call it “Family Choice Marketing”. Many of the websites listed there have made it, others haven’t. You’ll find you change course as you learn what works . . . and what does NOT. We have several websites that we don’t list for copyright purposes, too. You’ll find that certain sites will mimick what you write – word for word -and create a competing campaign, which can really hurt – or completely harmless, just annoying. Who or why they do that, I’m not sure, but if you’ve put a great deal of research into a campaign, don’t list it on your branding site.
The Difference Between Affiliate Networks and Affiliate Programs
Once you have your identity established, and a decent website up, you’ll want to find products to sell. If you have a product in mind, you can find information about their affiliate program (usually) at the bottom of their web page. Often, you will see a small link that says something like “Affiliate Program” taking you to a detail page. Sometimes companies handle their own program, but bigger companies will go through a network, like Commission Junction. CJ is an excellent example of a network that handles many different company’s affiliate programs. A network will give you stats and tracking information on the different programs that helps immensely in choosing which program to invest your time in.
It’s very helpful to have all your affiliates in one place, although that is a rare luxury. A good network also protects you with a guarantee that you get paid what you are owed. Yes, it’s not uncommon to have individual affiliate programs be unreliable in their payments to you. That’s the advantage of working with a network. However, all networks are NOT the same, nor do they offer the same level of protection. When in doubt, it’s always helpful to do a Google search on that company’s affiliate program and see if there is much complaining. Not always the best indicator, but can be a red flag.
Keeping track of all your programs can be time consuming, so don’t sign up for too many programs. Find the products you want to represent and join those first. You’ll figure out as you go along which ones are worthwhile.
Here’s the top 10 to consider:
• Commission Junction – by far the best network online, and has some of the top companies represented. Hint: Don’t apply to every company when you first sign up, many will deny you and won’t reconsider. Wait until you are better established. Pays every two weeks.
• LinkShare – notched directly under CJ, Linkshare carries many of the big companies, yet does not enjoy the favor that CJ seems to. Good tracking and stats, pays monthly.
• ClickBank - with over 10,000 digital products (ebooks), Clickbank is one of the easiest to use and pays some of the highest commissions online. Hence, the competition is stiff.
• Affiliate Window – is a UK based network, which can be good because savvy affiliate marketers know that promoting in other countries can be easier than the saturated American market.
• Link Connector - is a relatively new network (2004) that offers Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead. I’m not familiar with it, but SelfSeo.com says it’s worth checking out for their different types of new affiliate technology such as Direct Linking which passes pagerank along to the merchant’s site.
• ShareASale – advertising real time tracking and on time payments, Share a Sale may not have as many to offer as the bigger networks, but they do have better customer service. (They try harder)
• Click Exchange – has many of the smaller companies with some good payouts. Excellent stats.
• ClixGalore- a smaller network with some great offers.
• Amazon – not really a network, or manager of programs, it deserves a place on this list because it’s a must sign up. Paying only 4% at first, once you sell more items, it can go up to 10% of the sale you send to Amazon. Incredibly easy to use, they are slow to respond to applications, so be patient.
• Google Affiliate Network – Google is well known for the money-making possibilities of Adsense, and now it’s created it’s own true-blue affiliate network and is growing rapidly (big surprise, right?). Yes, I do believe Google is taking over the world.
That’s plenty for today, if you have more questions, or want something covered in more detail, feel free to email me.
Oct
05
Start Your Own Affiliate Store
Most of you have heard the term ‘affiliate’, but have also heard it can get pretty complicated to set up your own affiliate site. While that is partially true, BizKidz.com gives you a easy way to set up your own affiliate store. For about $4/month you can create a mock store front and offer the products of your choice. There is a free trial you can take advantage of, too.
It’s really quite simple to do, but the key is getting traffic to that site. However, with the holidays coming, you can ask family members and friends to make their online purchases through you and you will get the commissions. The percentages are small, but it all adds up! Combine your store with a blog that reviews the products you are offering, and you could do even better.
OR . . . you could start that review blog and offer your products on your site with your own affiliate link and receive the full commission. It’s really easier than most people realize, it’s that TRAFFIC issue that most people have the biggest problem with. In the next week, we are going to be covering much of what you need to know to start earning extra money with an affiliate site for the fast approaching holidays!
Jul
13
All WordPress Apps Are NOT Created Equal!
Here we go again, moving from one place to another….it would be really frustrating were it not for the hope of helping others learn from ALL my many mistakes. I may not know what to tell you what to do, but i sure have some things to tell you NOT to do!
For those of you that haven’t followed us from the beginning, we started this blog with WordPress that was hosted on another webhost. That webhost had WordPress available in their Fantastico, and being somewhat new with WordPress, thought I had arrived!
What I didn’t realize, was that different webhosts put WordPress on their server differently. I found I couldn’t add any plugins or html of any kind, which may seem outrageous, but that is what their tech support confirmed for me, so I wasn’t sure where to go from there. Having had more experience with WordPress, I question that, but at the time, what tech support says is all I knew.
So I ventured over to WordPress.com, and found it incredibly easy to set up. Once again, I thought I had arrived (whatever THAT means!) . That is, until I got a friendly email from the WordPress staff that I had too many ads on my site. I emailed them back and asked them if they were sure (I really didn’t have that many, surely not as many as SOME WP blogs…) and asked them “isn’t making money the main reason most people blog??”
Their response was kindly, and told me, yes indeed, most people did want to make money blogging, which is why they offer their program free to anyone who wants to host their own site. I guess if they are paying for the blog, they don’t want to pay for it. Makes sense, I just wish I had figured this out to begin with! I had read enormous amounts on blogging for profit before I started, but didn’t really read much written on who, how or what to blog ON.
This is the purpose of this post …..to let you know that it DOES matter where you set up your blog. There are way too many choices, but that’s free enterprise for you. So people like me waste hours and hours of time to look at every option only to arrive at what over 75% of bloggers decide-self-hosted WordPress!
I love ProBlogger…purely platonic, I promise….but he has a chart posted with all the options you can look at, and tons of other tips and helps. Yaro Starek in his Entrepreneur’s Journey also has videos that are lifesavers that I have mentioned before. But WordPress gets the prize for selfless offerings in blogging software. It’s completely free, and there’s a directory of all the plugins you can add and a bottomless pit of online support. If you are somewhat new at all this like I was, plan on spending a little time learning it all, but it feels sooooo good when you finally get it right!
I definitely can’t say I have ‘arrived’ yet, but I can share what NOT to do if you are trying to make a living blogging. It’s definitely one of the best homeschool projects there is!
Jun
09
Put RSS On Your Blog
Frustrated with all the dead end searches in trying to figure out how to put RSS on your site? I was. It seemed that all the searches were either telling me how to pick up someone else’s RSS to read, or was a lengthy article explaining all the boring technicalities about what RSS is, not how to put it on my blog. You already know that you want RSS on your blog and it will help your traffic. So when I finally figured it out, I decided I would chronicle my stupidity and give you the short answer on RSS.
First of all, if you are using WordPress.com, or Blogger, your RSS tag is probably already there. Duh. Most of WordPress.com themes include it as part of the template, or you can ‘plug it in’ . On Blogger, at the bottom of your blog page, if you see a “xml” icon, then you have a version of it. If you want a pretty orange RSS icon at the top of your blogger blog anyway, Feedburner makes it extremely easy to generate the html, and then you just put it in ‘Add html or javascript’ (NOT ‘Feed’) in the ‘Add Elements’ part of the ‘Design’ area. Then, just move your elements around so it’s at the top. *see note at end of post
If you are on WordPress, Become a Blogger tutorial #10 shows you how to get your RSS feed from Feedburner and put it on WordPress. There is also another site on toprankblog.com that creates the html you need for a large variety of RSS buttons. Be sure to watch the video at becomeablogger.com before you start anything, it’s a lifesaver…well, at least a time saver!
Feedburner is now owned by Google, and has some great tutorials designed for beginners, according to what type of blog you may have (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc). You can learn everything you need to know – and you NEED to know this – here.
RSS video tutorial
Feedburner
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