As the blogging world grows the opportunities to monetize your blog grows. However, the number of people actually wanting to buy is not really growing at the same proportions. Let’s face it, most people click on ads if the product interests them.
The only exception are the Pay Per Click ads – here people will click through if they are wanting to find more information as part of their search routine. Unfortunately, I think many people use search as I do. I enter in a search term and look at the results. I then generally open the first three or four results in separate tabs. If I don’t find what I want – I do another search. The majority of the time I don’t even notice if there are any PPC ads with relevant links (is anyone else the same?).
So how do the pro’s monetize their sites? From my many trips around the blogging world, I have come to the following conclusions:
Quality Content – as everyone says – content is king. If you have the content then people will want to come and read. It’s a no brainer really – provide what users are looking for.
Posting Frequency - consistency and quality over quantity. If you can provide an excellent post once per week it is better than a poor post everyday. The more regular you post, the more visitors you will receive. The more visitors, obviously the better the income opportunities. However I come back to quality of quantity. For new bloggers, start slow, be consistent and good and then increase frequency. If you post once per week, make it the same day each week.
Fingers in Pies – Pies? Having many fingers in many pies. Don’t just dump an Adsense unit on your site and hope for the best. What is needed is a variety of ad units. Affiliate ads and a variety of pay per click or pay per impression ads are required. It is also better to use more than one pay per click advertiser. If you do use Adsense, a variety of different ad units is better than just sticking to the one type.
Blog Space – maximize your space and place ads where they will do the most good. There are many sites that advise on where to place ad units. Generally speaking, above the fold and either top right, center top and within posts seem to work best.
Promote Your Cause – the one area that most pro’s seem to excel at is in their ad promotion – particularly affiliate advertising. Let’s face it, if you can promote a multi level affiliate program, over time you need do nothing more than collect your payments. This takes time, often several years, but if you one or two hundred people directly under you in an affiliate program, you are going to make some serious money.
Give Yourself Time – time is your biggest ally. You are never going to make a fortune overnight. It is going to take time to develop a regular reader base and it is going to take time to develop an affiliate network. As a small business adviser in a past life, my first piece of advice to anyone about to start a business is not to expect a profit for the first nine to twelve months. It all takes time and if you treat your blog as an online business, the same is going to be true.
It Is A Business – as mentioned, you need to treat your blog as a business. If you were running a bricks and mortar business you would be looking to trade in areas that were either profitable, or in high demand that produced a small profit but a lot of sales. Treat your blog like a business when it comes to time, advertising, advertising space and revenue streams. Treat is as a hobby and your income will be hobby income.
Readers Are Customers - my final observation – readers are customers, or at least potential customers. Again, comparing your blog to a bricks and mortar business, you would want to ensure your customers were happy with their purchase and buying experience – you want their recommendation. Your blog is no different. Treat your readers as you would a customer. If they have questions – answer them. If they make comments, respond to them as well – you want the recommendations from your readers.
These are all fairly straightforward suggestions. They are not always easy to put into place in reality. All you can do is try – one step at a time.
This blog will go through another metamorphosis at the end of this month. I hoping by then to have finally limped over that magic $100 Google payout level. Then I will be canning those ads in preference for the Rubicon network ads – they pay reasonably well and pay monthly no matter what your balance is. I will also be changing the theme, I am on the lookout for that ‘right’ theme. Finally I am looking into a variety of affiliate programs that I can promote.
Together with a more regular posting schedule I hope to produce a more professional looking blog that caters to a reading niche, provides me with an outlet, and perhaps over time produces an income. In the mean time, I am not giving up my day job just yet.
