Step forward Shiny Ads, an advertising platform which lets you sell your remaining inventory directly to advertisers instead of selling it for peanuts to low paying CPM ad networks (these are sometimes referred to as ‘Remnant Ad Networks’).

Essentially, ShinyAds allows you to sell directly to local advertisers without the extra hassle that goes along with doing so. They are targeting the void between the high $10 CPM ad networks and the low $0.50 remnant ad networks.

Using ShinyAds, advertisers can choose which country they want to focus their campaign on. This allows you to micromanage your advertising inventory.

ShinyAds take 10% of the money you generate and pass the rest onto you once the campaign has been completed. Thankfully, ShinyAds pays out automatically via PayPal within 48 hours of the end of a campaign so you won’t have to wait til next month to cash a cheque. There is a minimum payment of $100 though.

Managing Your Ads

The first thing you need to do is set up your ad zone. You can use a custom setting or choose from over a dozen pre-set ad sizes.

Next you need to set the price of your ads. You can choose whether ads are priced per thousand impressions (CPM) or per click and you can determine how much weight each ad zone has to.

You can also decide whether advertisers can target their campaign by Country, City or Language.

Another good feature is the ability to integrate your Google Analytics ID into the advertising pages. This allows you to track how many people are visiting your advertising information area.

Once you have completed your zone you simply need to add the ‘advertise here’ code to your website and let the orders come in.

If you do have a large advertising inventory then it’s likely that you are already using another ad server to manage your ads. Thankfully, ShinyAds lets you use their ad server or use an external one such as OpenX, AdTech Helios IQ, DoubleClick Dart or Google Ad Manager.

Overview

The last site which I actively rotated and managed banners on was sold a few years ago. The script I used was mainly used for tracking click thrus but advertisers could purchase advertisements directly too. However, I never sold ads through large CPM ad networks and haven’t owned a site which made money in this manner (predominantly large content sites use this method). As such, it’s difficult for me to appreciate how useful a service like ShinyAds is to large websites with large banner inventories to fill.

From a bloggers point of view, it could be worth using. ShinyAds is very easy to use and the service is free to join up. They only take money off of ads which are purchased so no initial outlay is required compared to an ads script which may cost $99. However, Shiny Ads was clearly designed with large content websites in mind rather than small to medium sized blogs, and I doubt that many bloggers would be happy with ShinyAds keeping their money until they reach the $100 minimum payout.

Link: Shiny Ads

* This was a Paid Review. If you are interested in having your site reviewed on Blogging Tips, please check out our Advertising Information Page.

Shiny Ads – Self Serving Advertising for all Web Publishers


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

ProBlogger.net wrote an excellent post in 2005 that pretty much sums up your options for making money from your blog. For the purposes of this article, I’ll be focusing on a new breed of Affiliate Programs/ Sponsorship for the B2B blogger.

Most of the top affiliate networks (and even the smaller ones) rely solely on B2C offerings, consumer plays (primarily consumer retail-type items) from sites like Shopzilla, Amazon.com, Bizrate, etc. Those advertisers are beginning to see a significant decrease in earnings due to the struggling economy and decreased consumer spend, as reported in this article from Silicon Valley Insider in August 2009.

Even more previlent are the many “free trial” affiliate programs that have become increasingly popular, including diet pills, online dating, etc. where the model is to get as many people to provide their credit card info as possible via a form. Not necessarily the kind of programs you want to run on your blog about Small Business Accounting best practices!

So, you’ve tried Google AdSense and made a few bucks. You’ve thought about going the sponsorship sales route, but are too busy writing blogs, tweeting, and collecting content from contributors (not to mention your day job!) to know where to start. Sponsorship sales make sense for a few reasons: they provide a fixed level of income for a set period of time, and if you land a sponsor that converts well for them (meaning they get the volume of leads they were hoping to get via clicks from their banners on your blog) chances are they’ll come back for more. But most sponsors won’t get what they want out of their campaign, and you’ll have to start over finding new ones.

The easiest way to solve this problem is to join a network that sells sponsorship onto sites — i.e. FederatedMedia, TechnoratiMedia or RepFolio (who I work for) – a company which matches advertisers with niche bloggers on CPM (cost per thousand impressions) sponsorship deals. Great news, right — but a network like Federated has certain criteria you must meet as a blogger/publisher, and you may not meet those requirements (you can get a better idea of what they look for here.)

So what then? You don’t have time to build and manage your own sponsorship sales program, you don’t qualify for the best ad networks (or have tried them but haven’t gotten a lot of results), and AdSense just isn’t cutting it for you. There’s got to be a way to better monetize your 2500 unique visitors a day who come to your blog to learn about SEC Reporting best practices or marketing automation strategy in large corporations.

With the rise of SaaS-based technologies (software as a service) where businesses can now find a hosted solution for just about any business problem, new marketing/lead generation/sales strategies are being implemented to stay consistent with the on-demand model that SaaS provides. The traditional VAR (value-added reseller) approach, where a third party sells software externally from the manufacturing company, is changing (SaaS requires little if any implementation, integration, etc.) Software manufacturers today are increasingly depending on external referral agents to compliment their internal sales efforts, as evidenced by the success we’ve had at Repfolio attracting top SaaS companies like Coupa.com, Intand.com, and SurePayroll.com into the Repfolio virtual sales rep network.

So what does that mean for B2B bloggers?

These same companies that are relying on independent, external third party “referral agents” and “virtual sales reps” view you with the same lens. You’ve got what they need – relationships with their target customer – and they are willing to pay for it – handsomely.

Many SaaS companies are now looking for blogs relevant to their domain that they can leverage to drive sales of their product. Sure, prospects aren’t going to click a banner on your site and then drop $100,000 on an annual license with Coupa, but Coupa may be willing to pay you $5, $10, $15 for every click to their site they get from your site. They also may want to pay a % of sales (CPA) from leads generated from your blog — virtual reps are earning as much as 30% (in some cases more for smaller, newer companies) of sales by just providing a lead.

So where do you start? The easiest answer is to join a network as a publisher. They’ll review your blog content and audience and attempt to make matches on your behalf with SaaS companies looking to reach your target market. Don’t worry about slim traffic figures — if you’ve got focused and niche content in the B2B space, you’ve got enough to work with.

These companies will provide you with banners to work into your blog, where appropriate. You may even be given links with a dedicated affiliate ID if you want to send out Tweets or Facebook status updates about these solutions.

The best news of all is that now there is a way to make some money for all the hard work you’ve put into building up and nurturing a following for your blog. After all, delivering relevant and valuable content is what you, as a blogger, do best!

Effectively Monetizing Your B2B Blog


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

It’s no secret, everyone loves money and with Twitter’s huge growth, everyone is trying to profit off of it. Plus, the fact that we’re in a recession makes people even more eager to find legitimate ways to monetize their Twitter stream. Here are 6 great sites that can help you make some extra money on Twitter and all without spending a dime.

Twittad

Covered on Blogging Tips before, Twittad is a way to monetize your Twitter background. Here, you are basically selling your profile background to advertisers. There are 2 ways to monetize your profile — either by posting your Twitter account for advertisers to find you or by searching for advertisers yourself.

Be A Magpie

Has also been covered here on Blogging Tips before and caused quite a stir when it first hit the scene. With Be A Magpie, you send out sponsored tweets. Many think of it as spamming your Twitter followers. I personally feel that as long as you are choosing (since you can pick and choose) tweets that cater to and are useful to your Twitter followers, then it’s doable. Most of their campaigns are on a pay-per-click system so no clicks from your followers = no money.

TweetROI

Here’s another service where you send out sponsored tweets except with TweetROI you don’t need to get clicks from your followers to make money. Simply sending a tweet will make you money and you can even see up front how much you’ll get from that tweet. What’s even nicer is that TweetROI allows you to schedule tweets, so you don’t have to  log in  everyday and your Twitter stream won’t seem so obviously automated.

Tweetbucks

This is a URL shortener that allows you to make money by sharing links on Twitter. In order to make money on Tweetbucks you will need to enable the optional ad frame aka branding frame on your links. What’s nice about this “frame” is that you can add your own image URL for personal branding purposes. Whenever someone clicks on your link, they will see that image in the header of the window and you will make money.

RevTwt

Very similar to Be A Magpie, RevTwt gives you links to post in your tweets and you make money when someone clicks on them. Just be careful because for a lot of the tweets, only clicks from people in certain countries will make you money. They also just recently added a URL shortening feature very similar to Tweetbuck. Shorten a link, share it,  ads will be placed in the header and you make money.

TwitPub

This is definitely an interesting concept, with TwitPub you can charge users to subscribe to your tweets. You will need to set your account to private and then TwitPub will automate the subscription process from there. You can set the price that you’d like to charge each subscriber and you get paid 80% of that. This, of course, will only work if you have tweets worth paying for.

Affiliate Marketing

There are thousands of affiliate programs on the Web — pick a few and go for it. Remember, you don’t want to flood your Twitter stream with advertisements and affiliate links; they should be mixed in with your regular social interaction. Using affiliate links in conjunction with tools for scheduling your tweets can also be a great time-saver. Problogger has some excellent tips for those interested in affiliate marketing on Twitter.

Sites You Should Use With Caution

Here are some sites links that are thrown around all the time and will cost you some money. Most of them either include information that is freely available for you on hundreds of blogs and websites or software that will probably get your account deleted for spamming. So, be sure to use these at your own risk.

Some of these sites also sneak in extra fees in the fine print — which most people usually miss. Before you pay for anything like these, be sure to Google the name of the site along with the word “scam” and see what comes up. In general, it’s always just a good idea to research anything before spending money on it. A lot of things that sound too good to be true, really are just that.

• The Tweet Tank – Costs $77
• The Twitter Traffic Machine – Costs $27
• Twitter Online System – Costs $37 then $9.95 Monthly
• Twitter Cash Formula – Costs $27.97
• Turbo Cash Generator – Costs $67.97
• Twitter Affiliate Cash – Costs $27
• My Search Cash – Costs $1.97 for 7 Day Trial then $49.95 Monthly plus $32.90 worth of hidden fees
• Tweet For Cash – Costs $2.97 for 7 Day Trial then $89.90 Monthly
• Twitter Cash Kit – Costs $3.88 for 7 Day Trial then $49.87 Monthly
• Twitter Cash – Costs $2.29 then $39.95 Monthly plus $17.90 worth of hidden fees
• Tweet Tornado – Free for 24 hours then $99.99 Monthly

Are there any other ways that you know of to make money on Twitter?

Are there any other sites that our readers should be cautious of?

Please be sure to let us know in the comments!

7 Legit Ways To Make Money On Twitter


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

For example, one of the most common ways of making money through sites like Amazon is to create a store front and give visitors the impression that they are actually buying the product from you and not Amazon. I would consider this a white lie in some respects as you are helping the visitor find the product they were going to buy anyway.

However, there are lots of other more deceitful ways of making money through affiliate marketing (I won’t go into them in this post). This is something which I was never really comfortable with, which is why I will probably never make a lot of money from affiliate marketing.

I don’t have anything against people who do use more black hat techniques to generate affiliate sales but I don’t think these methods should be used on a blog. A large part of building a successful blog is building trust therefore it’s counter productive to mislead your visitors in order to generate some affiliate commissions. You might make a few quick sales in the short term long term, your integrity will definately come into question.

Trust, influence and integrity are attributes which mean nothing in the affiliate marketing world but in the blogging world they are essential to long term success.

Therefore I think it’s important not to cheat visitors in any way (I have to put my hand up and admit that I don’t always give full disclosure and tell visitors when I use an affiliate link when I link to a website or service because it is so common that I just assume the reader knows that it may be the case, I have disclosed it in many articles in the past though).

The Video Image

Recently, I have come across a technique to get people to click on a link which I think misleads visitors. It is when a blogger displays an image which looks like a video in order to encourage visitors to click on the link.

This seems to be a pretty common technique for marketing blog coaching programs. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Yaro Staraks Become a Blogger course is the one I would recommend most beginners sign up to. However, many of the bloggers who were recommending the course were using this video image trick to direct traffic to the course.

Here is an example to illustrate my point:

Once visitors clicked on the image a video did not start, instead they clicked on the bloggers affiliate link and were taken to the sales page for the course. Admittedly, I fell for this myself the first time I saw this used and I was a bit annoyed by it. I consider it to be very misleading to suggest to readers that they will see a video if they click on an image and then redirect them to the sales page of the service (via an affiliate referral link).

No doubt these bloggers made some great sales using this technique however it doesn’t sit right with me. I am not trying to be all high and mighty about this, I just don’t like being misled in this way and I have no doubt that others share the same view.

Would you use this technique to encourage visitors to visit the site you are recommending?

Kevin

p.s. Just to clarify, I am not suggesting that anyone who has used this technique is untrustworthy or is intentionally trying to cheat their visitors, I just think that it is very misleading.

Misleading Visitors To Generate Affiliate Sales


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

Next week, Contenture is launching what they call the “anti-ad network.”  The basic idea is that you would add a subscription component to your blog/website.  You would offer some type of premium benefits to visitors who are signed up with Contenture.  Those benefits could be priority access to new content, exclusive access to your archives, special commenting privileges, and/or an ad-free experience.

The twist to the subscription model is that the consumer only has to sign up with Contenture – not with dozens of individual blogs and websites.  Contenture plans to sign up bunches of sites to this model and users pay one flat monthly fee to have access to the premium services of all of these sites.   Every time a Contenture user visits your web site, you make money. You are paid a piece of every visitor’s monthly payment.  The amount will be based on how many visits they made to your site divided by the total number of visits they made to all Contenture sites.

Installation for the web site will be simple. Paste some Javascript code into your site, and then configure the premium services and content controls, if you choose. The setup doesn’t sound any harder than setting up affiliate links or AdSense.

The convenience, for both visitors and web site owners, is that there is only one sign up. I can sign up one time with Contenture, but in any given month my $5.99 might be paid out to 5, 10 or even a 100 websites.  It might only be pennies to each site, but for many folks AdSense is in the same ballpark on a per visitor basis.  If Contenture gets a volume of users it becomes interesting.

The challenge, like any network, is you to need to get a critical mass to sign up into the Contenture network.  Contenture is the team behind Clicky real time web analytics so they have an immediate base of over 100,000 web sites that they can market too.  They will pay websites $1 for every new paying user who signs up so all the member sites will have the incentive to advertise Contenture.

Contenture is launching what they call the Micropayment Revolution” on Tuesday, May 26.   So far no big names announced – but if they could land a social media site or two, Contenture could get interesting very quickly.  Without a big name – it is going to be hard to get the Contenture ball rolling.

Contenture – The anti-ad network


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

The Numbers Game

Sponsor’s love to look at statistical data. So, create a web page containing your blog’s estimated daily or monthly unique visitors. Don’t guess this. Use web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Elogic and Woopra to track and report this information. Woopra, in particular, provides additional insight on traffic source and visitor activity.

You should also include your blog’s Alexa ranking, subscriber base, keyword ranking and PageRank. All of these metrics are important to sponsors. They serve as quality indicators.

Charge the right price. If your blog is fairly new, my suggestion is to offer free advertising for the first month or two. This way a sponsor can test multiple ads without running the risk of financial loss. Unlike established blogs, a new blog has limited data to report. In order to compete, therefore, the blog owner must lower price. All other variables are outside his/her immediate influence.  For well-established blogs, I’d recommend a free one-week trial. This allows the advertiser to build confidence before fully investing in your blog. Look at what your competitors are charging. You want to be within their price range or lower. Unless you are getting in excess of 25,000 unique monthly visitors, $45/month should be the absolute price ceiling on a 468×60 banner ad and $30 on a 125×125 square ad.

Ad number and placement are also important to sponsors. Don’t offer more than eight 125×125 square ads. It creates too much distraction for your readers and lesser exposure for the advertiser. The same goes for 468×60 banner ads. I’d say one or two at best. In terms of location, you want to place your ads in areas of high visibility. This is entirely up to your discretion. Usually navigational areas work best for square ads. A 468×60 banner ad may work well in your blog’s header area.

Finding Sponsors

After creating your advertiser web page, the next step is to actively communicate this interest to a broad audience. How do you do this? Well, there are a number of different ways. Start by sending out an email to your opt-in list. Tell them your looking for sponsors and are willing to offer a one-week free trial. If you do not have any subscribers, you could consider traditional e-zine advertising or purchasing an opt-in list yourself. Try publishing in popular article directories for additional exposure. Actively participate in forums as well. This can create very good opportunities for your blog. Do not spam though. Check out the sponsors on your competitor’s blogs. If they provide contact info, approach them directly and see if they are interested.

Retaining Your Sponsors

The sponsor’s ad conversion rate will be a key factor in determining your blog’s monetization potential. Sponsors expect a certain percentage of your blog traffic to translate into sales for them. This is why they chose to advertise on your blog in the first place. Most MMO bloggers fail to realize that it is not the amount of traffic, but the quality that ultimately counts. In order to create value for the advertiser, you have to drive targeted traffic to your blog. This implicitly means that you will have to optimize your blog for search engines. Social traffic will often result in high click-thru rates and low conversions. Organic traffic, on the other hand, is laser targeted. It converts so much better. This is what attracts blog sponsors. In fact, many blog sponsors type in their keyword of choice in Google, observe the websites in position 1,2 or 3 and then contact the owners for advertising opportunities. Why? They know those websites are highly targeted. In general, search engine visitors often look for a certain type of product or service while browsing websites, making them very valuable. If your blog targets the right keywords, it will not only attract and retain blog sponsors, but also receive better recognition in its corresponding niche.

Take an active interest in your sponsor’s advertisement results. His success is your success. Make it a priority to contact him and inquire about your service. Were you able to generate any sales for his business? If so, how many? Tell him that you are committed to his ongoing success and if the advertisements are not converting into enough sales, you will either lower the price or offer better ad placement. In short, provide excellent customer service. How many bloggers seriously do that? Your relationship with the sponsor does not end with taking his money and posting his ad. It has to go well beyond that. Offer solutions for your blog sponsors when they run into problems. Help them turn a profit.

The benefit is mutual. In addition to providing value for the advertiser, you are also getting constant feedback on the performance of your blog’s advertising system. If this information is positive, it can be included in your advertising web page, thereby, boosting author credibility. If the information is negative, however, find ways to improve your blog.

I hope this post has provided some insight on the topic of blog sponsorship. Feel free to share your experiences or comments.

Are You Generating A Positive ROI For Your Blog Sponsors?


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

However, many, including those who currently use Twitter, have wondered just how useful the service really is. Though there is a lot being said by Twitter’s millions of users, it’s easy to wonder if any of it has any practical, business value.

So here are five practical things that you can do with Twitter, despite its 140-character limits. I’ve done all of these at one point or another and know well the potential for Twitter to be a boon to anyone’s site or their business.

5. Network

Networking is the most obvious use for Twitter. Using Twitter Search or a service such as Twitterfall, keep track of topics that interest you. Follow people who are discussing those issues and converse with them via @reply.

Twitter is a simple, effective way to find people who are interested in your field of choice and introduce yourself to them. Even with only a minimal amount of effort, one can easily grow their network by leaps and bounds over Twitter.

4. Public Speaking

Twitter blurs the lines between IM, chat and blogging by introducing elements of all three. As such it is possible to speak to a group of people using Twitter as the medium. Sites such as TweetChat make it easy to use the hashtag system to create impromptu chat rooms and groups, such as #indiechat, routinely have guest speakers (I was the speaker at their last meeting).

Though Twitter’s character limit makes it difficult to speak in a traditional sense, it does work well with a Q&A format. Also, one can use a service such as Twerbose to fit more into their tweets.

3. Find a Guest Blogger

If you need to fill a few holes in your posting schedule and you’ve got a network of people interested in your topic following you on Twitter, you can use that network to find guest bloggers to pick up the slack days.

I’ve found Twitter to be one of the easiest ways to recruit a guest blogger for your site, since it is easy to put out a call for help and instantly get replies. I’ve used this method at a few times (including once recently) with success.

2. Get Writing/Freelance Positions

On the other side of the coin, Twitter is rapidly becoming a very popular way for people to post job openings, especially short-term or one-off freelance writing gigs. If you follow a topic long enough, usually people will request some kind of service, such as Web design, blog setup, writing or more.

If this is a high priority for you, set up your Twitterfall or other twitter search service to track terms related to your job type and follow up on any potential clients. Even if there aren’t direct job offers, following up with people who have problems and needs can lead to one paying jobs down the road.

1. Monitor Your Field

The real beauty of Twitter has always been the immediacy of the medium. If a story breaks on Twitter, it is spread in a matter of minutes, not hours. It is by far the fastest and most reliable way to stay on top of your field.

Services like Twitterfall and apps lik Yahoo! Sideline can bring real-time Twitter searches to your computer, letting you know within seconds when a tweet of interest to you is put out on the network. Couple that with Twitter’s ability to send out links and you can find out about new stories hours or even days before reading them elsewhere.

This can provide a very real edge when applying your expertise, writing about the news on your site or just having bragging rights over your friends.

Bottom Line

Twitter can be a huge cesspool and a tremendous timesink, but if you dedicate yourself to it and approach it with the mindset that you are only going to use it for means that improve your business, it can be a very powerful tool as well.

In the end, you get out of Twitter what you put into it. If you approach it with a fun but pragmatic attitude, that is exactly what you’ll get back. If you treat it as a time waster, it will eat up your days with no real reward.

Obviously you don’t want to be someone that uses Twitter just for business, but it is perfectly acceptable to get some work done while having a little fun and being more personal. In fact, Twitter is surprisingly well-geared for just that.

5 Practical Things You Can Do with Twitter


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

I did so to hunker down and finish an ebook me and a co-author have been working on. As I said in my post to my Twitter account this morning, at first, it felt strange to unplug like this, then it felt downright exhilarating – freeing! I didn’t miss it at all, which should probably tell me something (ie, social networking is really not for me at all).

I like Twitter because it requires minimal effort.

So, what is the point of this post? Well, that to make money online, you have to be super focused. Let me tell you a snippet of a story which drives home this point. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll go over a few guidelines for unplugging to get things done “the right way” (I did it all wrong).

“I Want to Make Money Online, But . . .”

I was talking to a friend this past weekend about my latest ebook. I was explaining to him what it was all about, how hard I’d been working to get the thing done and how lucrative it was – which is why I was so anxious to get it done.

He was like, “You’ve convinced me to write an ebook; publishing is very profitable.” I said, “Yeah, it is. The writing is easy; the marketing takes tons of time.” And, we kind of left it at that.

Want to Make Money Online? Watch How You Spend Your Time

Later on, he was telling me about a two-hour video he watched online about the 911 commission. Actually, he’d watched two of them. This friend also happens to forward a lot of jokes, inspirational sayings and things of that ilk around. I delete them because I really just don’t have time during the day to devote to these types of things.

The more I listened to my friend explain the videos about 9/11 that he watched, the more I thought to myself, this is why most people never make money online – or achieve the dream of working for themselves. They waste too much time.

Time Is Your Number One, Make-Money-Online Resource

TIME is a precious commodity. As Benjamin Franklin so eloquently said, “If you love life, don’t waste time, for that is what life is made of.” I thought to myself, this guy spends an awful lot of time online but he doesn’t use it productively.

In finishing up this latest ebook, it took every second of my day to get it done. Writing is hard, time-consuming work. It leaves little time for surfing aimlessly, watching YouTube videos or chasing down the latest 9/11 conspiracy theory.

I’ve been self-employed for many years and have earned my living almost completely online the last three years or so. If there’s one piece of advice I would give to those who want to work for themselves and/or make a living online it would be this: look at your computer as an ATM machine.

Don’t stand around simply looking at the key pad (ie, aimlessly surfing). Put in your PIN code (sweat equity) and wait for the dollars to flow out. You’re going to get the PIN wrong plenty of times, but if you keep trying different combinations (ie, different, legitimate, well-thought-out, online business ideas), you will hit upon the right combination.

Then, you can go to that ATM and pull out dollars any time you want.

Making Money Online: Unplugging to Get Things Done


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

For small businesses or companies who previously have little experience with web design and site building, the process of building a website for their business can be an intimidating and often expensive venture. Beside the initial cost and time taken to create the site, there are considerations for updating, hosting and general site maintenance.

For those choosing to use Blogger as a means of building and maintaining a business website, such concerns about maintenance, hosting and updating the site are vastly reduced. As I’ve explained in previous articles, it is easily  possible to maintain a professional blog for as little as $10 a year (and possibly even less). Hosting with Blogger is free, no matter how many pages you publish or how many visitors you receive: realistically, the only payment required is the cost of purchasing a domain name.

Blogger’s simple yet powerful interface ensures we can adapt a regular blog into a fully functional and professional online presence . In this two part mini-series, I will offer an overview of how this may be achieved.

What are the requirements for a small business website?

For a business building an online presence for the first time, the requirements may be rather simple:

• A landing page/home page which explains a little about the business
• An about page, which goes into more detail about the business and what it offers
• Contact details (ie: location, telephone numbers, email address/contact form
• Business “branding” in the form of consistent design, an appropriate domain name and more.

It may also be useful to add pages for particular products and newsworthy content of interest to potential customers and clients.

How we can adapt a Blogger blog to meet these requirements

Blogs feature certain characteristics which can be adapted to function as a business website rather than appear to be an online journal:

• Blogs have a home page, which usually feature a selection of recent posts. By adding content which is only displayed on the home page, we can create a “landing page” with information about the small business, and recent newsworthy items beneath.
• Creating blog posts adds new pages to our blog. We can utilize these posts to function as “About”, “Contact” and “Product” pages, which we can then make accessible through additional navigation in the blog design.
• The huge selection of free/premium templates available ensures we can find a theme suitable for consistent business branding. Furthermore, a business logo can be added to the header section while images of products can be inserted into blog posts (pages) to provide more information for potential customers and clients.

To make a Blogger blog appear even more like a regular website, we can disable comments; remove “post author” details and add useful design features to enhance the overall impression of our business.

Let’s get into the details for effective business website building with Blogger.

First impressions are crucial! Finding the right template for your business blog.

In my opinion, the most crucial step in building an effective business presence with Blogger is choosing the right blog template.

While there is a huge selection of free templates available for Blogger, not all templates are created equal. My advice to business owners creating a site with Blogger is to find a template which appears more like a business site than a chronological journal from the start: this ensures less editing of the template is required, making it easier to get a head start when creating an online presence.

There are several particular templates which I recommend to those building an online presence for their business. These templates offer a layout and functions which are more appropriate for business sites and meet the expectations of potential customers in ways which regular blog templates do not.

While the overall color scheme and imagery may not resonate with the branding of your online business, be aware that these visual aspects may be changed much more easily than the overall layout and functions of the blog!

Here are five free Blogger templates which are an excellent starting point for small business site:

1. The Daily Inspired by Antonio Lupetti

This template offers a section which only appears on the home page, plus titles only for posts which appear beneath it, making this an ideal basis for a business site.

You could add details about your business in the home page section and utilize the “What’s New” section for important updates and news of interest to your site visitors.

Download this template

2. Transparency by Falcon Hive

Here is another template featuring a home page only section above the regular blog posts. The YouTube video space in the sidebar could be used used to add media relevant to the business.

Download this template

3. WP Polaroid by eBlog Templates

WP Polaroid proved one of the most popular Blogger templates of 2008. This features a significant section in the header for business information and the “Polaroid” image could easily be adapted to feature a company logo.

Download this template

4. Zinmag Primus by Falcon Hive

Zinmag Primus is an excellent template for a product-based business due to the slideshow feature above the main posts section. This area could be used to great effect for showcasing both the business and featured products, while the text beside images offers visitors useful information about the site and company motives.

Download this template

5. Alpha Minimalist template

While this template by Falcon Hive may seem minimalist in design, the beauty of this is that design adaptations to reflect a business brand are very easily made. Again we have a featured section below the header for company information, but the addition of links to the right of this section is particularly useful as links to important pages can be highlighted for ease of navigation.

Download this template

Adapting Blogger Templates to create Business Websites

If you have downloaded a new Blogger template as the basis for your small business website, chances are you will need to edit some aspects of the template in order to add your company details. Chances are you will find details for customizing your template from the author’s website and since each template differs in the manner of customization required, I will not detail these particular aspects here.

However, even after you have made these changes to your template, there will still be aspects of your design which require more attention.

Don’t forget that most Blogger templates are created under the premise of acting as a blog. Visitors to business sites have different expectations of how the site will function. So to meet these expectations, we need to tweak some aspects of the template even further.

Which widgets to use in your business blog design

When considering widgets to add to your Blogger layout, you should remember only to add widgets which are truly relevant to your business! If there are many irrelevant widgets in your design, these will detract attention away from the more important aspects of your site: your actual business, products and branding. Remember, we are building a site to act as an online presence for your business, not a blog (unless of course, your business is your blog!).

Aspects of the design which bloggers recognize as important are not particularly relevant for business sites. Your Blogger profile, subscriber count or the number of followers to your blog are not often relevant for visitors wanting to learn about your business. Therefore widgets such as these do not have a place in a business-orientated template: they make it appear more like a blog than the business website we are aiming for.

Instead, you should focus on adding product and company information, testimonials and other relevant information to your sidebar (and other widgetized areas) to ensure the focus of visitors remains on your business at all times. Videos are also useful if they demonstrate something useful to potential customers, as are any photos of your store-front or products which your business offers for sale.

Upload your company logo to the header

If your business uses a logo for branding purposes, be sure to add this logo to the header section of your blog.

To do this, go to the Page Elements tab of your Blogger dashboard and click on the “Edit” tab for the header section. Here you will be given the option to upload a header image to your blog’s header section.

Be sure to read any instructions offered by the designer of the template you are using in case there is an optimum size mentioned for your header image. If no header widget is available for your particular design (such as “The Daily Inspired”), you should find alternative instructions are offered from the download page.

Disable comments and backlinks from your blog

Most sites for small businesses do not allow visitors to add comments, nor do they offer details of other sites which link to each particular page. Of course, it it is important to you or your business to have such features in place, then leave these aspects alone.

If you would prefer to disable comments and backlinks from your template, here is how to achieve this:

1. In your Blogger dashboard, click on the Settings tab and then on the Comments link in the menu.
2. On this page you will be offered the option to “Show” or “Hide” both comments (right at the top of the page) and backlinks (about halfway down this page). Ensure you have checked “Hide” for both of these options, then save these settings using the link at the bottom of the page.
3. Next, go to the Layout>Page Elements page of your dashboard.
4. Click the Edit link for your Blog Posts widget.
5. On the pop-up page, you will see options for what can be included in your post footer section:
6. Ensure you have unchecked both of these boxes (to prevent anything appearing about comments or backlinks in your template) and finally save these changes.

These steps ensure there should be no confusing text mentioning either comments or backlinks in your overall business blog design.

Ensure there is a search function available for your blog

Search boxes have proved an extremely useful function for both blogs and websites in general. This is because searching makes it very easy for visitors to find the information they require.

The templates I have described above all include integrated search functions in the template. If you are using a different design which does not include a search function, I would advise you to add one to your design as this will enable visitors to search through your site with ease.

The simplest way to add search functionality is simply to add a Search Box widget to your sidebar through the Page Elements section of your Blogger dashboard. This relatively new widget uses Google Custom Search to locate information to your blog posts and can be applied in just a few clicks:

You can customize this search box by checking or unchecking the options on the pop-up page. I personally would advise you to only leave the “This Blog” option checked for a business site in order to keep visitors interested in your company (and not somebody elses!).

An overview so far…

In this installment of “Building a Small Business Website with Blogger” I have explained how Blogger blogs and templates can be easily adapted to perform the functions of a regular business website.

Rather than spend lots of cash or time in building an HTML based site from scratch, we can utilize Blogger templates and simple publishing utilities to present a professional site which appears as a regular website (rather than a blog) by using templates with particular styles of layout and making a few additional tweaks to the template code.

What’s next?

In the next installment of this mini-series, I’ll explain how to add business-related pages to your site using blog posts; how to link to and configure these pages, and how to present “news” to your visitors on the home page with ease so visitors feel they are visiting a dynamic and professional business site rather than a free, Blogger hosted blog!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this series so far. Please feel free to leave your comments and opinions by leaving your message below.

Building a Small Business Website with Blogger – Part 1


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

Whenever I’m stuck trying to make a decision, I always write it down in black and white, asking what I call “root questions” of myself along the way. There’s nothing like seeing it on paper to make it clear. With that being said, following are some questions to ask if you’re trying to decide whether or not to pursue joining a blog network.

Questions to Ask When Trying to Decide If a Blog Network is Right for You

How much control do I want to give up? If your gut is saying nil to very little, then you want to stay away from blog networks. The reason gut is italicized is no matter what your head says, your gut doesn’t lead you wrong.

So if the idea of giving up any type of control over your blog doesn’t sit right in your stomach, then listen to that. You’ll probably be miserable in a blog network.

How many hours a week can I devote to blogging? As mentioned in the previous posts, when you join a blog network, there are parameters you have to meet, eg, sticking to a regular posting schedule.

If you don’t have the time to do this – consistently – then a blog network is probably not for you (at least not right now).

How passionate am I about the subject matter of my blog? This piggybacks on the last point. If you’re not passionate about your blog’s topic, it can be difficult to not only adhere to a schedule, but to come up with fresh, relevant content day in and day out.

How much do I want/need/expect to make from my blog? This addresses the question of compensation. If blogging is a hobby and you don’t want, need or expect to make money from it, then anything you make is a bonus.

But, if you plan to make money from blogging, then you need to factor in the fact that whatever you make as part of a blog network is going to have to be split in some form or fashion. Now you could make more money quicker inside a blog network. But on the other hand, if you went it alone and started to make 4, 5 or 6 figures a month, then you’re going to have to split that.

Again, listen to your gut on this one. What’s it telling you?

For how long do I plan to blog? If your answer is, “I don’t know,” then don’t join a blog network for there are contractual obligations that have to be met. Your life plans may change, your desire may change, your passion may change.

If you do decide to join a blog network, you will at least have to commit to the contract terms. Just know this going in.

What are my life/career goals three years down the line? The reason I say three particularly is that you should have a life plan at least this far out. It’s hard to know where you’re going without a plan. If you have a life/career plan, then you can see where this “blogging thing” fits in – or not.

Judging by the number of dead blogs on the web, a lot of people don’t have any type of plans. To be successful takes first a plan, and then the implementation of that plan. You’ll start off on the right foot immediately if you can see where you want to be.

If you answer these questions honestly, you will be able to easily answer the question, “Is a blog network right for me?”

Blog Networks: A Faster Way to Make Money Online, or Not? (Part III)


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

4 Disadvantages of Joining a Blog Network

Control/Freedom: If you’re a control freak, joining a blog network might not work for you. To explain, most blog networks have guidelines you agree to adhere to when you join, eg, how much to post, when, on what topic, length of post, etc.

When you’re an independent blogger, you decide when you want to blog, about what, how often, how long the post is going to be, how you interact with readers, etc. If you like this type of freedom, a blog network is probably not for you.

Note: Every blog network is different. Some are more lax than others. But still, you are accountable to them. So if you do decide to join one AND you like having control for the most part, look for one that suits your personality (eg, gives you a lot of freedom).

Split Money: Most bloggers make basically nothing from their blogs, but still, every penny you make is yours. When you belong to a blog network, you have to share your earnings in some form or fashion.

As we discussed in yesterday’s post, a blog network can actually increase your income. But, what if you become one of those standout bloggers who starts to earn 4, 5 or six figures a month from your efforts? Are you going to want to split that?

Here’s a list of how much money bloggers make that will inspire you.

Change of Heart: As anyone who’s ever blogged knows, sometimes you just feel like giving up. And, many do – as the plethora of abandoned blogs on the net attest. And, what if your interests change or you want to take your blog in another direction?

You can’t just quit if you’ve joined a blog network – at least not until your contract term is up.

Content/Domain Ownership: This can perhaps be one of the biggest negatives of joining a blog network. Who owns the rights to the content created? Who owns the blog’s domain name? As mentioned before, every blog network is different.

Usually though, there’s some type of shared rights and/or the blog network owns the content and/or domain name outright. What this means is, if you decided to go independent again, you will have to start all over.

And, this may not even be so simple because you may have some type of non-compete clause in your contract that prevents you from starting a similar blog/website for a certain amount of time.

In perhaps the most famous case along these lines, two previous travel guide writers for About.com sued them over content rights and a few other things. It turned into a class action lawsuit. The initial plaintiffs own a network of some of the most popular travel sites on the web, eg, EuropeforVisitors.com, VeniceforVisitors and SwitzerlandforVisitors.

Do the Advantages Outweigh the Disadvantages of Joining a Blog Network?

As you can see, it’s hard to tell as there’s a lot to think about when it comes to joining a blog network. In the final part of this series tomorrow, I’ll put together a list of questions you should ask — and answer — before deciding to join one.

Blog Networks: A Faster Way to Make Money Online, or Not? (Part II)


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

But, there may be another way to reach blog fame and fortune. What is it? A blog network – the topic I’m going to discuss here this week. Hopefully by the end of this three-part series, you will be able to discern if blog networks are a faster way for you to make money online, or not?

What Is a Blog Network?

For those of you who know, be patient a second while some catch up. Blog networks are simply a conglomeration of blogs run under the auspices of one company/entity umbrella.

About.com is probably the most famous blog network. It has hundreds of blogs “about” everything under the sun practically. Some blog networks only have a few blogs though. Following are four advantages of joining a blog network.

4 Advantages of Joining a Blog Network

Traffic: This is probably the number one reason to join a blog network. As you may have hundreds of blogs in a network, when you join, you already have in-built sources of traffic to capitalize on.

You may spend months or a few years building up to this type of traffic on your own, so joining a blog network gives you an automatic leg up in the traffic department.

Monetization: As it takes traffic to start making money from blogging, you can ostensibly start making money quicker with a blog network. And, they pay you to be a part of their network. Some pay based on the traffic you bring in; some pay a flat fee per month; and yet others pay a flat rate, plus a percentage of traffic.

Every blog network is different. We’ll discuss this topic more in part three of this series when I lay out a series of questions you should ask yourself before joining a blog network.

Professionalism: When you join a blog network, you are usually asked to post a certain number of times per week. And of course, you have to post on time and on topic. All of this forces you to treat your blog professionally from the very beginning – something you may not do as an independent.

Back-end Issues Handled: As part of a blog network, usually all of the backend issues are handled for you. Some of these include design, technical issues, which monetization techniques to choose, etc.

This can be a huge advantage, especially if you are new to blogging because it frees you to focus on producing great content — the foundation of any successful blog.

List of Blog Networks

Here is a list of blog networks, the number of blogs they include and what the topics are. Peruse them and get a feel for some of the perks discussed just above. What do they pay, how much traffic do they generate, what guidelines do they expect bloggers to follow, which back-end issues do they handle for them, etc.

Now that we’ve covered the major positives of joining a blog network, tomorrow, we’ll look at the cons.

Blog Networks: A Faster Way to Make Money Online, or Not? (Part I)


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

Some of the questions I answered in the comment sections, some I didn’t. This post serves as a kind of roundup of the series – a place to get answers to most of your questions in one place. FYI, at the end of this post, I tell you how to find all the posts in this series.

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing or Free Classifieds: Which Works Better to Promote Affiliate Products?

QUESTION: . . . writing articles on a daily basis can be tough isnt it? Dont you feel bankrupt of ideas to write on? I mean how can you be so consistent?

ANSWER: As a freelance writer, my brain is a wealth of ideas. I’m one of those fortunate people who can always find something to write about. But you can train your brain to do the same thing. Following are two tips for doing that.

Read/Watch the News: It’s amazing how staying abreast of current events spurs a wealth of ideas. Try to tie what’s going on in the world to your niche. Sometimes, it may not be an obvious connection, but if you are constantly on the hunt for ideas, they will start to flow naturally.

Just Write: Sometimes, just sitting down to write will spur ideas. Many wait until they have an idea to write on to write. I don’t. If I know I have to bang out an article, I sit my but down until I . . . bang out an article. Just by going through the motions, you train your whole body – physically and mentally – to accomplish the task at hand (ie, write an article).

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing: The Plan I Use to Bring in $100-$200/Day

QUESTION: Do you think it’s ok to submit to the big guys(ezine articles,go articles) manually in addition to submitting the same article to Article Marketer? I just want to make sure it’s listing on the top sites but don’t want to be penalized for duplicate postings!

ANSWER: I actually answered this in the post. Yes, I still submit to several directories manually, in addition to using ArticleMarketer, the one-click article submission service.

As I said in the post, it’s force of habit.

And, you don’t have to worry about the duplicate content penalty as it’s really not a penalty, but a “weeding out” device used by search engines. It’s a bit much to explain here, but I explain it thoroughly in the internet marketing tutorial I wrote. If you’re really interested, you can download and read it for a full explanation.

COMMENT: Then again, newbies shouldn’t forget things such as SEO’ing their articles, CopyWriting, Resource Boxes and of course the content itself.

ANSWER: This is very true. There’s a lot that goes into article marketing over and beyond just the writing and submitting. It’s a skill, like anything else that can make you money.

If you’re going to use it, do as much reading as you can to learn about it. And the rules aren’t static, so you must constantly stay up-to-date on what’s working and what’s not. But it’s soooooo worth it, in my opinion.

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing: Is it Worth It to Submit to Thousands of Directories

QUESTION: Have you found a notable impact on traffic using article marketing?

ANSWER: As I responded to one commenter, I don’t measure traffic. I measure sales. While ostensibly more traffic means more sales, for me, the bottom line is what does my PayPal account read at the end of the day.

I’ve almost doubled my affiliate marketing sales since I signed up with ArticleMarketer. That’s the only stat I care about. I think too many online entrepreneurs get hung up on numbers, eg, how many subscribers they have on Twitter, how many visitors they have to their site, how many MySpace friends they have.

Who cares? The only number that should matter are your sales numbers.

QUESTION: I hear lots of good things about article marketing but I don’t understand how an article can help promote your site or blog if it doesn’t contain any links.

ANSWER: Article marketing works because you get a link in the resource box, ie, that little “About the Author” box at the end of every article you distribute. If your article is informative enough, it should make readers curious enough to click through to your site. And, the fact that articles are distributed to hundreds, sometimes thousands of sites and blogs means more backlinks, which means more traffic, which means more sales.

THAT’S how an article helps to promote your site or blog.

COMMENT: I guess my only issue is that my articles are VERY niche and specialized so I’m not sure this is going to be particularly helpful for me.

ANSWER: This is EXACTLY WHY article marketing will work for you. When you speak to a highly targeted niche, you get to brand yourself as an expert. As consumers buy from those they (i) know, (ii) like, (iii) trust; and (iv) who know what the heck they’re talking about — article marketing helps you to accomplish all of this.

No matter what kind of product or service you’re selling, if it’s worth selling and has a large enough client base (which is a must for every sustainable business), it can be profitably advertised via article marketing.

Again, it takes time, but if you’re in business for the long haul, it’s some of the cheapest — and best — online marketing you can do.

QUESTION: How many different profiles or author resource boxes can you create at all? I mean – if you want to promote different sites in different niches you do want to be able to replace links and anchor text.

ANSWER: Using ArticleMarketer, you can put in different profiles and resource boxes. This means you can promote as many sites as you want. Just change the resource box with each article you submit.

The following question is from the post, Article Marketing or Free Classifieds: Which Works Better to Promote Affiliate Products?

QUESTION: I submit atleast one article per day and I dont [get] results like that [ie, make 3-6 sales per day]! what in the world are you doing differently than me?

ANSWER: Remember, it’s the product you promote as much as the method you use to market. I don’t care how many articles you write, if you’re promoting a product that prospects aren’t interested in buying, you’re not going to make any sales.

This could be because the niche is too small, the niche is too crowded (ie, a lot of other affiliates are promoting the same thing), the product is no good – and a host of other reasons.

But, if you’re not getting the sales you want, the beautiful thing about affiliate marketing is that you can find something else to promote. It’s trial and error. But by all means, don’t stick with a product that isn’t moving – especially if you’re actively and consistently promoting it. This is why a lot of affiliates fail at affiliate marketing – they don’t put in the marketing effort. In my opinion, you literally have to do something every day – or at least every other day — to promote your product. Otherwise, you just won’t succeed.

CONCLUSION

This series has been fun to write and I so appreciate all the feedback I’ve gotten. I realize that many will have more questions. Unfortunately, I just don’t have time to respond, which is why I write posts like this and the one I wrote yesterday.

If you’re really serious about article marketing and making money promoting affiliate products, everything you need to be a success can be found right on the web. A lot of it is truly trial and error. So sit down, do your research and just get started.

While planning for success is great, it’s only when you implement the plan that you start “failing” your way to success. And what I mean by that is, you will make a ton of mistakes. But you’ll learn from each one. And that’s the value of actually doing, instead of constantly seeking advice from others and staying stuck in the planning phase.

Read All Posts in the Affiliate Marketing and Article Marketing Series

I started this series in my January 19th post here. To access all posts in the series, click on my name (Yuwanda Black) at the top of this post. This will take you to my author page here on BloggingTips.com, which lists all posts I’ve written for this blog.

This series is covered in my posts on Jan 19th, 20th, 21st, 26th, 27th, 28th and Feb 2nd, 3rd and 4th (today).

Good luck!

Article Marketing: Answers to Commonly Asked Questions


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

I received quite a few emails asking me which article directories I use. I answered in the comment section of one post, but wanted to spell it out here for all to see.

Now remember, every product is different so you may experience more or less success with the specifics I outline below. In my limited experience with affiliate marketing, one thing I now know for sure is that your success depends a lot on what you’re promoting. IE, you need a “hot” product.

Another thing I want to say up front is you will only get out of article and affiliate marketing what you put in it. Most want to write a few articles, submit them to a few directories and sit back and watch the money roll in. It doesn’t happen like that. It takes a consistent effort.

I’m amazed at how my sales drop off when I don’t submit for two or three days (I rarely go longer than this without writing and submitting a new article).

So with all of that in mind, following are some specifics of my article marketing plan.

Article Directories I Submit to Manually

I submit to five or six directories manually. They are EzineArticles, Amazines, IdeaMarketers, AfroArticles, GoArticles and ArticleonRamp. If I’m really rushed, two I absolutely submit to are EzineArticles and Amazines.

How Often I Submit to Article Directories

As I alluded to above, I’m pretty consistent. I submit 3-5 times a week. I rarely go more than three days without submitting. Usually, I miss Fridays and of course I almost never submit on the weekends.

ArticleMarketer.com: Submit to Thousands of Places at Once

I recently signed up to ArticleMarketer.com, which I discussed here. Love, love, love the service. My first article was distributed on January 11th and my affiliate sales have almost consistently doubled since I started with the service.

FYI, I still submit to the above directories manually – call it force of habit.

PRLog.com: Another Good Place to Submit Articles for Distribution

There are hundreds, if not a few thousand, free press release distribution sites on the web. I sometimes rewrite articles in a more journalistic style and submit them to PRLog.com. I do this because this site has good search engine juice (ie, it gets indexed by search engines a lot). This means your material hits the web that much sooner.

Basically, that’s it. That’s all I do as far as article marketing.

I can’t stress enough that this is by no means a get-rich-quick, make money online scheme. Your articles have to be well written. That way, when they’re distributed, publishers will want to reprint them on their site, blog, newsletter, etc.

Some of my articles have even appeared in print (ie, local newspapers) because they are so well written and relevant. This of course means wider distribution.

What I’ve Learned So Far about How to Make Money as an Affiliate Marketer

If you decide to pursue article marketing to promote an affiliate product, remember, choose a “hot” product. Then, write very good articles of 400-500 words and distribute them far and wide. With this formula, you practically can’t help but make money as an affiliate marketer.

With my one little affiliate product, I consistently make $100-$200/day. And that’s the payoff of good affiliate marketing, powered by a consistent article marketing campaign.

Article Marketing: The Plan I Use to Bring in $100-$200/Day


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/

When I visit some blogs and they have a long list of “favorited” blogs, I think to myself, “How in the world can they keep up with all those blogs?” Even trying to keep up with a few is time-consuming for me.

So, what does all this have to do with using blogs to grow your online income? Quite simply this: information overload. I read a few blogs – and implement as much of what those blogs tell me – as I possibly can.

You see, it’s not in the reading of information that grows your income, it’s the implementation of the ideas you read about on blogs that increases your online income.

How to Choose Blogs That Will Increase Your Online Income

There are a few blogs that come to mind immediately when you think of making money online – especially with blogs — eg, ProBlogger.net, JohnChow.com and ShoeMoney.com. Blogs like these are what I call “foundational blogs,” for they are good sources of honest, hard-hitting information from those who have actually – well, made money online from their blogs.

A lot of bloggers will try to tell you how to make money blogging, but many of them have never actually succeeded beyond a certain point.

Rule #1 How to Choose Blogs That Will Increase Your Online Income

So rule number one in choosing blogs that will increase your online income is read the blogs of those who’ve actually done what you want to do. If they haven’t done it themselves, how can they tell you how to? I’m amazed at the number of blogs like this.

Rule #2 How to Choose Blogs That Will Increase Your Online Income

Rule number two is – where possible – choose blogs written by those who are in your niche. This is important because while there are some fundamental rules for making money online that cut across niches, there are some tweaks that certain niches may call for.

Rule #3 How to Choose Blogs That Will Increase Your Online Income

Rule number three is choose blogs that have an active community – eg, lots of comments, a forum, etc. This is important because many times, it’s the comments left by others that give you golden nuggets of information that may not have been covered in the actual post.

Conclusion to How to Choose Blogs That Will Increase Your Online Income

There are only so many hours in a day. And, I find that many who want to make money online spend so much time surfing, reading and interacting on social media sites that they never get around to the number one rule of making money – online or off – ACTION!

You can talk about it, research it and plan for it until the cows come home. BUT, you will never make money online until you actually start doing it. And that means knowing when to turn off the information faucet, and turn on the entrepreneurial faucet (ie, take action).

How to Use Blogs to Increase Your Online Income


A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger. Find out more at www.bloggingtips.com/books/