There are literally many thousands of articles that have been written about how to use your blog (or blogging in general) to generate a sizeable online income. I'm sure you've sifted through many of these articles only to end up more confused and perplexed about the topic.
I agree that there are many, many ways to transform a normal bland, boring blog into a money-generating machine. This has led to what I call "information overload" and many people are not coping well with this problem in the Information Age.
For these reasons, I have come up with the 5 features your blog must, and I emphasise the word MUST, have to be able to generate a sizable income. I've chosen each of these 5 features based on the following criteria:
- Benefit/effort analysis, the ratio between the benefit and the effort needed to apply this feature. This means that a feature with huge benefits and little effort will certainly get a bigger mention than one with less benefit and greater effort
- Reading thousands of articles on the topic from experienced and successful bloggers and searching for common points
- Using the lessons I've learnt during my 1 year experience setting up and running my own money-generating blogs
My hope is that this article serves as a starting blueprint for anyone who's keen on generate a sizable income using blogging. Furthermore, I hope that it provides a good, concise summary of the many thousands of articles out there on the topic and that it does so in a relaxed and easy-to-follow way.
So without further ado, here we go.
Essential Feature No. 1
Google AdSense
If you haven't heard of Google AdSense, it's very likely that you've seen it on various occasions on the Net without even knowing. Google AdSense are simply Google ads that you see on many sites (including blogs). Now you may be wondering, why do people bother to put Google's ads on their sites? Why would you want to promote another company's ads on your blog?
The reason why people (and why YOU should) put Google AdSense on your blog is because Google pays YOU for each click their ad gets on your site. Getting paid for it is a great incentive for using AdSense on your blog, however, there are more benefits:
- The ads are automatically modified to suit the subject of your blog. Once you add the Google AdSense code to your blog, the code automatically scans the subject of your content and only puts ads relevant to your subject. This is great news as it means that there is an even greater chance that your visitors will click on your ads.
- AdSense offers great flexibility as to how your ads appear on your blog. You can choose from tall skyscraper ads to little boxes of ads. In addition, the colour of the text on the ads can be changed to suit the colour scheme of your blog.
- Google AdSense allows you to monitor which ads on which sites (in this case blogs) are generating the most income. This allows you to modify your ads on your sites to maximize revenue.
And the best thing about Google AdSense is that is very easy to set up. All you need to do is sign up at Google AdSense, establish the colour and shape of the ads, choose a channel, grab the code and place it in your preferred place on your blog. If this seems a bit daunting, you can either go to Google and look for instructions or ask me personally.
Essential Feature No. 2
Social Bookmarking
What is social bookmarking you may ask? Social bookmarking sites are very similar to the social networking sites that we may be aware of such as Facebook and MySpace. In fact, some people say it's the exact same thing.
Whatever the definition, social bookmarking is something your blog must have in order to get your blog better known in the blogging world. Social bookmarking is a practical tool for visitors to tell other people about a great article they have read on a blog. How then, do you add Social Bookmarking to your blog?
Many of the most popular blog hosting sites such as Blogger have this feature available as a plugin. I typically use Wordpress for my blogs and there is a specific plugin to automatically add little social bookmarking icons to the bottom of each article. This way, if your visitor really enjoyed your article and wishes to tell more people about it, then all they will have to do is click on one of these little icons. It's as simple as that. And it's very effective too for generating traffic. And we know that more traffic equals more money.
Essential Feature No. 3
Affiliate Links
I'm sure you've heard of the term affiliate link at some point. If you haven't, then here's a quick, simple explanation. It's basically a link by which you can refer people to a certain product/service and if they purchase it, you get a commission from the seller. In other words, you get rewarded for referring people to a product/service that they end up purchasing.
Now, an affiliate link is used to keep track of who referred the visitor to the site and to reward the referee if the visitor purchases something from the site. You may then be wondering, how do I get an affiliate link?
Luckily, there are many sites on the Internet which offer affiliates the opportunity to put affiliate links on their sites (or blogs in this case) at the click of a mouse. The best one out there for this is Clickbank. All you need to do is sign up as an affiliate and then browse through the marketplace and find products that your visitors may be interested in. A couple of tips:
- Look at the amount you will get per sale (both dollar terms and percentage terms), you would want to
- Look at the quality of pitch page and see for yourself if you would purchase the product. If it's not enticing for you, then it won't be for others
Once you've identified a certain product to promote on your blog, click on "create hoplink" and by using your account username, create your affiliate link. That's all there is to it. Once you have your affiliate link, you can simply add this to your blog wherever appropriate.
If you are still unsure about how to do this, you can find instructions on the Clickbank website or ask me personally.
Essential Feature No. 4
RSS Feed
Another important feature that your blog must have in order to generate a sizeable income is an RSS feed. The main purpose of an RSS feed is to increase the traffic of visitors to your blog. As you know, more traffic means more money, no rocket science here.
Now some of you may be wondering what an RSS feed is, so here's a quick explanation and how it assists you getting traffic to your blog. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (although in the past, it has stood for other things) and is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. It solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows the visitor to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites (in this case blogs) they are interested in. They save time by not needing to visit each site individually. The visitor also ensures their privacy, by not needing to subscribe to an email newsletter.
Essentially, the RSS feed serves as a convenience for the visitor. In addition, a visitor may use your RSS feed to add articles to their own blogs. This is great news as it means that your articles will circulate on other blogs. This is the equivalent of word-of-mouth, however, this time it's online. Who knows, your article may eventually end up on a big and popular blog on the Web, sending your search engine rankings through the roof! All this because you added an RSS feed to your blog!
So then, how do you add an RSS feed to your blog? Some blog hosting sites such as Wordpress offer templates where an RSS feed is already incorporated in your blog. However, many don't have this feature, which means that you have make it yourself. It's pretty simple to make, and there are plenty of sites on the Web which can give you a step-by-step manual to making one. If you find that too daunting, you can always consult me and my website listed in the Resource box below.
Essential Feature No. 5
Opt-in box
How would you like to "keep" traffic and make them come back again and again? And even sell them something days, weeks or even months after their first visit? If you want to do this with your blog, you must have an opt-in box.
To clear up the meaning of the term, an opt-in box is a box on a site (or blog) where visitors can enter their email address (and in most cases, their first name as well) in order to receive something in return. Typically, it is something free such an ebook, a piece of software or it may just be a subscription to a newsletter. Whatever it is, it is often enticing enough for a person to give their details (email and maybe first name) in order to receive it.
This way, you start accumulating a list of people interested in what you have to offer on your blog. Remember, they were interested enough that they gave you their details. From here, you can start sending emails to your list giving them further value such as tips and tricks about the topic of your blog. However, don't ever start selling them products immediately! This will cause people to unsubscribe from your list immediately when you should be building trust with them. Any selling should only begin after a couple of weeks, once you've got your list comfortable with you.
The good news is that if people remain on your list for a relatively long period of time, it means that they have trust and confidence in you and will more likely purchase any products you recommend than a visitor that is visiting your blog for the first time. There is a saying in Internet marketing: "The money is in the list." Now you know why this is true.
There you go.
Those are 5 things that your blog absolutely must have in order to generate a sizeable income. Implementing these 5 features will set you up for blogging success and they're not difficult to implement either. There are many resources on the Internet to assist you with implementation, however, if you find that daunting, I'm always available for assistance.
The most important thing is to take action NOW. Knowledge is not power. APPLIED knowledge is power.
Martin Sejas is an experienced and enthusiastic blogger dedicated to assisting fellow bloggers generate a full-time income from their blogs. He is a blog money expert [http://www.blogmoneyexpert.com] and explains everything in an easy, relaxed and easy-to-follow manner.
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
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