Making Money with Your Blog Traffic

Your blog is your traffic hub. In other words, it shouldn’t be the final destination for your visitors. By giving them other places to go and other things to do, you direct them to places where they have the opportunity to spend money buying your products.

One place you want to direct traffic to is your newsletter. Include an Optin form to your newsletter in the top right corner of your blog. By placing it “above the fold,” visitors don’t have to scroll down to get to your form.

Make it as simple as possible for them to subscribe. Once they do subscribe, continue the relationship with them. Be personable and likable in your email correspondence. Offer them great content in your newsletter, perhaps information that is a little more in depth than what they read on your blog.

This will give them a reason to open emails from you. You want to give them such a reason because that is how you reach them with your sales and marketing messages.

Another place to direct traffic to is a sales page. By including links to sales pages, you give people the opportunity to buy your products right away. They might want to do just that if they like what they read on your blog. Also, include links to affiliate sites or any other sites you have that lead to cash.

Of course getting people to visit your blog is an essential first step. You have many ways to help you do just that. For instance, you can register your blog with Technorati.

Technorati is a search engine dedicated to tracking blogs. This is a valuable service in light of the fact that 175,000 blogs are created every day, and more than 1.6 million people update their blogs daily. This site follows all that activity as it happens.

Technorati tracks links between blogs and indexes thousands upon thousands of updates every hour. In essence, they monitor live blog communities and the conversations within those communities.

To help make your blog findable in this or any search engine, you need to format your permalinks so they are search engine friendly. A permalink is simply the way other sites see your links. By customizing the structure of these links with relevant phrases and keywords, the search engines are able to find you with much more efficiency.

To customize your permalinks, click on the permalink tab of your blogging dashboard. The default link will already be selected, but you want to select the “customize” option. In this field, enter the following information: /%category%/postname%/

Another way to make your blog findable within the search engines is to categorize all your posts. Every time you make an entry, select or create a category for that new post.

For example, if you have a blog about health, some of your categories could be Cardio Workouts, Strength Workouts and Healthy Meals. But if your post about a new supplement you’re promoting doesn’t fit into any of those categories, simply create a new one called Supplements.

By categorizing your posts, you create the specific information for your permalinks. Plus you keep all your information well-organized and easy for readers to find.

Another way to keep your readers happy is to post on a regular basis. So if you don’t do anything else, keep your blog active. Update it consistently, even if the update is only a paragraph or two long. The purpose is to keep the content fresh so you stay in the sites of the search engines, ping other sites often and are constantly in contact with your RSS subscribers.

You can also start a Podcast. Podcasting is a sound file with an RSS feed. Instead of just posting words, you can post audio content that your RSS subscribers can listen to and be updated about when you post new files.

Finally, comments are great traffic generators. So comment on other blogs. Be a part of conversations other people start and include links back to your site. On your site, comment about other blogs. Create trackbacks and track your own.

Don’t just comment on other blogs, though. Allow comments on your own. Not all will be positive, but if you want to have a conversation with your target audience, you need to hear what they have to say. Let them talk to you. LISTEN, don’t just talk.

When you set up your Internet traffic hub properly, you then have the ability to direct that traffic to your money sites.

Six Easy Steps to Making Money with Your Blog

I’m going to give you 6 quick pointers on how to optimize your blog to drive traffic and hopefully earn some extra Adsense and affiliate income.

One huge benefit of using blogging as a means to create your site vs. trying to build your own is the ability to monetize your content immediately and not have to worry about page layout, graphics, hosting, domain names, and content management. This is a massive time saver when using the free bloggers such as Blogger or WordPress hosting. The downside is that you cannot fully control the fine tuning of your site for specific optimizations. Nevertheless, you must let go of this desire and focus on your content – which is a very good thing.

So, let’s start with the key topics you need to consider when optimizing a blog:

1. The Blogging Service
2. Layout
3. Links
4. Keywords
5. Traffic
6. Site Tricks

1. The Blogging Service – this is a very important choice because some of the free blogging services do not allow you to place context ad such as AdSense on the free blogging service (they allow it if you host your own blog). Because of this I strongly recommend using Blogger as your free service since it is easy to use and is ad friendly.

2. Layout – since you are using a free service you must get over the desire to control your site. Let go! Most free blogging sites allow you to tweak the layout somewhat. There are some tricks you can use to easily keep your site a blog but at the same time add sections as if you were on your own site. For example, keep one blog entry for all of your favorite external links and descriptions. This is where you can continue your link sharing with other sites and continually add new ones. Now, add a specific link to this article on the sidebar so that there is a direct reference when the article gets archived. That way any readers will always find the links article and not have to search or stumble upon it. (Note, you can use this same technique for additional pages that refer to specific topics so that you have a directory of topics on your sidebars).

3. Links – besides the links I noted in #2 you should always use plenty of linking from within every article you publish. The internet values links and the more you use from your blog entries the better. Other sites pay attention to who’s linking to them and when they see a referral in their logs your appreciation level increases. Also, add your favorite affiliate and topic links to your sidebars.

4. Keywords – I cannot stress the importance of this but I’m not going to go into detail on keyword identification other than to say that each blog entry should focus on a SEO keyword phrase or name – especially the title. Be sure to use your titles carefully and use the same keywords in your entry. This will mark the blog entry to the keyword topic (remember, each blog entry is a separate web page that can be indexed). Also, be sure to include the keyword near the end of the blog entry as well.

5. Traffic – don’t forget to promote your blog to drive traffic! Use all the means possible to do this – forums, articles, reprint rights, etc. Be sure to post well written comments on other highly ranked blog sites. However, don’t make the mistake and write only a quick comment. Always write your responses in a way that is interesting and direct to the point. There’s enough free material out there to do this!

6. Site Tricks – another simple technique is to place hard coded links to your favorite blog entries and articles in the bottom of the Blog template. That way it will show up on every page. Eventually you can make this your site map which is very important to the search engines. The last thing you want is your blog links to be archived!!

And, of course, don’t forget to add your AdSense sections.

Just by completing these 6 simple tasks you can get your blog monetized in no time at all!

Making Money With Your Blog – Part 2

I’ve sure you’ve heard before that it’s a possibility to make money with your blog and you may be wondering how this is possible. And were they really meant for making money or just for journaling your personal thoughts? I’m not sure what they were intended for but they are great ways to make money.

I have a personal blog which is just my own private little place to go online and jot down my thoughts, but I also have my business blogs.

Back In The Beginning

Now to be honest with you in the beginning of my blogging experience I really wasn’t sure what I should do with my blog. I knew I wanted to make money with it, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what I could do to not only be a value to others so they would come back to my blog, but that I would still enjoy writing it.

So it was really important to me that I find a topic in which I would be excited about, and have enough to offer so that I could blog every week or so. After starting a blog that was meant to just be an add on to my business at MommysPlace.net and struggling with the direction of that blog, I came across one of Alice Seba’s blogs. Which she used to write about her experience through a traffic product.

Every couple of weeks or so she would update her progress through this course. She would tell us all about her successes with this product and how great it was for her business. And it made me think of how I could do something similar.

Product/Service Focused Blog

This is when the light bulb moment went off in my head. This is when I realized what I should have been doing all along. I have been a member of a exclusive coaching program for mothers in business.

Since joining this program my business has seen great success. My income has increased more then five times what it was before I joined and my traffic has increased even more then that.

I enjoy and believe in this coaching program and it happens to have an affiliate program. I often got email from other work at home mothers who wanted to know my thoughts on this program.

Taking a cue from Alice’s blog I decided to start my own such blog. And named it http://MomMastermindsJourney.blogspot.com – okay, not a catchy title, but I’m no good with picking names

I used this blog for the purpose of documenting my successes with my business. My projects, new content added to my website, keyword phrases I was ranking for…etc. Basically anything that had to do with my business, that was directly or indirectly because of my joining Mom Masterminds, I jotted down.

Not only was this the best move I could have made for my promoting this affiliate link it also served as a great way to really see for myself the successes my business was achieving and also to keep me on track.

This is one way you could make money with a blog. There are other ways you could make money with a blog if you don’t want to devote a blog to one service or product you’re promoting.

Side Kick Blog

For instance, my blog at http://www.mommyworkingvirtually.com is a side kick to MommysPlace.net and my forums. This is a blog in which I update my members on additions to the website, newsletter and forums. Updating any important telecommuting or business news and can promote my adsense and any other affiliate programs.

So this blog serves more then one purpose. My main goal with this blog is to get traffic to certain sections of my website. I have a large website and it’s not always easy for people to find my information. So this is a great way for me to keep certain new pages or sections of my website in the public eye and get traffic to those pages. It also serves as a way to make money with adsense and affiliate programs. And lastly it gives exposure to my forum and my newsletter.

There can be many ways and many topics in which you can make money and gain exposure to other businesses you may have or can help in creating you as an expert in a certain field.

Just take the time to really think about what you could be writing about and then how you can make money with that as well. You can take a look at others blogs to get an idea and see what other people are looking for.

Making Money With Your Blog – Resources:

Blogs to Riches- is an ebook that details ways you can make your blog profitable. And the really cool thing with this is if you list the publishers link on your blog for 45 days he will give you this ebook for free! If you don’t want to wait that long you can also purchase it for a low price. Read more about Blogs to Riches – www.blogstoriches.com

Increasing Adsense – is an ebook about how to increase your adsense revenue. This ebook isn’t specifically geared towards blogs, but the information you will learn you can use with your blogs. (As well as websites and forums…anywhere you have adsense.) www.adsense-secrets.com

* Don’t know what adsense is? Go to www.google.com/adsense to learn more.

Ready To Blog?

Are you ready to take the leap into a blog? If so, it’s really very easy to set up a blog. The one resource I have used for all my blogs has been blogger.com. This is free, easy, and fun. There are many templates to chose from and you can customize yours if you would like.

I have used the general template for my mom masterminds blog and I have customized my http://www.mommysworkingvirtually.com blog with different colors and fonts then what it came with. I also have that hosted on my own domain, but you certainly don’t have to do that.

Submit Your Blog

After you create your blog you will want to submit it to blog directories to help get your blog out in front of the public. Some of the directories you can try are:

BlogWise – http://www.blogwise.com

Blog Search Engine – http://www.blogsearchengine.com

Blog Hub – http://www.bloghub.com

Blog Daisey – http://www.blogdaisey.com

Get Blogs – http://www.getblogs.com

Is Blogs – http://www.lsblogs.com

Feeds

Next, you need to add feeds to your blog. What is a feed? Good question. I don’t know the exact way to describe a feed nor do I have a lot of valuable information on this subject.

This is still very new to me, but I can tell you briefly what a feed does. You add a little graphic to your blog. It can be for someone’s yahoo page, msn page and other ways.

When they click on that they can add your blog to their personal yahoo page. Then every time you add a new post they are alerted on their yahoo page that you have posted AND it even shows the topic of the post and how long ago it was posted.

This is one of the best resources I’ve found in keeping people coming back to your blog. They can subscribe to it so easily and they will be automatically updated whenever you have posted. It’s pretty easy to add an RSS feed to your blog. The resource I personally use is at www.feedburner.com

Watch Out Blogging World – Here I Come!

Now, see how simple this really can be? You can make money with a blog, gain exposure for another business or websites, can create yourself as an expert on a certain topic, can create a blog for free, get it listed for free and start an RSS feed for free! Now get out there and start blogging.