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Posted by paul novak on June 29, 2010 at 8:18 pm
In my previous post I told you what you probably already knew or suspected. Lets consider that gotten out of the way and move on to something more helpful now shall we? So let’s say you’ve busted your butt and have some good traffic coming in. Congratulations. Give yourself a pat on the back and an extra shot when 5:00 comes. You’ve earned it. Now what?
First and foremost make sure that you have a good about page on your site. Spell out who you are, your experience, your sites purpose or goals, and keep personal details light unless your site is geared towards a more personal niche’.
Make sure you can be easily contacted. Have an e-mail address located where it is easily found and a contact page set up. Avoid free e-mail services if possible to help promote a more professional appearance. When possible advertisers visit your site you want to provide them with the info they’ll need to consider approaching you worth the effort and a way to be easily reached. Needless to say, return all contacts promptly and stick to pleasant yet formal language in your replies until you have a rapport established with a contact. No “Omg it is so cool that you contacted me! I’d love to promote your ****!”.
Approaching potential clients
Target a company or individual who has a product that is relevant. Don’t be afraid to contact a company or individual you think would benefit from exposure on your site even if you think you are too small for them to be interested. Chances are, if you have the traffic and audience they’ll be very interested. Always remember, the worst that can happen is that they’ll just decline your offer. Make sure you research their product or services even if you think you already know all about them. Attention to detail can make all the difference and potential clients will appreciate that you took the time to learn about them before making the decision to give them a proposal.
When contacting them be sure to be positive and promote yourself as a solution to their needs. You’re there to help them and advertising on your site would be a great benefit, so make sure that is the impression you leave them with. Think about products you prefer to use or that relate strongly to your audience. If you spend a lot of time talking about website design, why not approach a few producers of web design software? Write about child rearing a lot? Approach some parenting resources like clubs or websites devoted to the subject; you get the idea.
Show them some proof
The most important factor to the majority of potential advertisers is how much traffic your site has. As I said in my last post, “if you don’t have a decent volume of traffic, your sales if any are going to be dismal.” This applies to gaining direct sponsors and advertisers every bit as much as joining affiliate programs. 90% of the time, the first thing a potential client is going to want to know is how much traffic your site receives. Put together a file containing a compilation of relevant traffic data for your site like unique visits, total monthly visits, daily visits and monthly averages and bounce rate. Keep the file updated at least once a month so if a potential client is in the works, you can quickly provide them with evidence of your sites strengths. If you are a small niche’ site and have modest traffic you can try selling them on your ability to provide highly targeted advertising, but expect this to be more difficult.
Put together a form letter
Putting all of your information into an easily modified form letter can speed things up and allow you to effectively approach several prospects in a shorter amount of time. Put together a letter with your name, contact info, proposal, supportive information like a short teaser or summary of your traffic data and a closing that expresses your willingness to negotiate and appreciation for their time. Don’t be completely lazy and put together a generic form then shoot if off to anyone you can find. Spend some time tailoring the proposal contained within it to each prospect. This will give prospective clients an easy to review source of information that can save a lot of time and simplify the decision of whether or not to engage your services.
Have several options available
There are many ways to sell advertising or promotion on you site or blog. Banner ads have lost some favor in the last few years, but are still an effective advertising tool and command a decent price on a well ranked site. Offer rates based on different promotional methods. Put those methods together in a list and be ready to present them when the time comes to discuss advertising options. Banner ads, side bar buttons, text links, are all good sources of monthly revenue and should be included. Personal reviews and promotions command the highest prices and should be kept negotiable. Have a list of options and average rates, and make certain it is clear which ones are non-negotiable and which are open to haggling.
A side note about text links.
There is some controversy over paid text links to be aware of. My suggestion is to avoid any problems and make sure text links are directly relevant to your audience and that they are geared more towards selling a product rather than selling your sites ranking. It’s up to you to decide how to handle selling text links, but keep in mind that there is a slight chance the search engines could ding you for selling links if you don’t make them no-follow. You really shouldn’t have problems if the links are highly relevant and reputable however. Just be responsible and do not let the lure of income compromise the ranking and traffic you have worked so hard to build. The controversy over paid links is complicated so let it suffice for now to say stick to directly relevant text link ads and make sure they are clearly labled as advertisements if you’re a novice. Include nofollow with the links if you are really worried, but make sure the advertiser is aware of this. This leads me to my last bit of advice on finding clients.
What to promote
What you promote will be based on your sites content. The items you are putting in front of your audience need to be relevant to their interests and credible. You spent a lot of time and effort getting your site well ranked and building your audience, don’t compromise or sell them out by promoting products you don’t have a good opinion of yourself. A lot of bloggers complain that they are not comfortable promoting something if they know nothing about it and that is as it should be. Make sure you have a few guidelines to go by like the following suggestions when looking for products to promote.
Trust*
Your audience is your biggest asset. Sell them on a bad idea and they’ll never forget it. Do your research and make sure advertisers are reputable. It’s your credibility you are selling when you get right down to it and what you sell reflects on you personally.
True benefit to your audience*
Don’t try to force something on your audience they could care less about. Choose items that will help solve audience problems or answers questions that frequently arise. Promote items that will help achieve the common goals associated with your focus and would be of real benefit to your visitors. Remember that relevancy is key.
Use your experience*
Promote items you actually use or admire. Promotion is a million times easier and much more genuine when you can personally vouch for the items you are putting in front of your readers. Try to avoid paid reviews and testimonials if you have no experience at all with a product. If you do promotions and can only rely on second hand information, do the research required to prove why it is a valuable and worthwhile product to have and let your readers know that you’ve done the work for them.
Getting started with monetizing your website or blog really isn’t as difficult as it may seem at first glance. Patience and perseverance will pay off in the long run and you will become more proficient at promotion the more you work with it. Be willing to invest the time required and don’t be discouraged when you receive rejection. Like everything else it is a learning process and the more you learn, the better you will do and the easier it will be. If you’ve got a question or an idea regarding monetization I’d love to hear about it.
~Paul
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Posted by paul novak on June 26, 2010 at 6:59 pm
The last couple weeks have been pretty heavy on the monetary aspect of blogging and writing for me so I figure, what better topic for a post? As well as the ComLuv contest which has consumed a good deal of my time and now suggests giving valuable free advertising to its sponsors in exchange for contest points, I have received a few questions regarding monetizing a blog and how to go about doing it. I empathize with those who are somewhat reluctant or intimidated by the prospect of actually using their blog to create income. It can seem at first glance like a daunting task, as if there is some secret or special method to doing it successfully. The truth is a whole lot different, and I think that after you read what I’m about to show you in the next couple days you’ll not only no longer be hesitant, but eager to give it a shot.
The most fundamental fact first
One of the most important things you must have before you even begin to entertain monetizing your blog is traffic. No matter if it is Adsense or ClickBank, if you don’t have a decent volume of traffic, your sales if any are going to be dismal. Part of the reason for needing traffic is of course just plain exposure for the products you’ll be promoting. Programs like Adsense work best when there is a high volume of visitors to present the ads to, and it is the click through rates that are going to matter most.
Some people will tell you to go ahead and get some affiliate ads posted to your site before you even get it launched, which is fine really. I’ve done it myself. Just don’t expect to see much happen with them if anything. The rationale behind putting up ads from the start is that visitors may be put off by your suddenly adding advertisements to your blog when before it was free of them. The refutation to this rationale is this; if you have good content and you are providing a valued resource to your visitors, they aren’t going to care very much if you include some ads later. As long as your ads are placed with some common sense and don’t conflict with your content, visitors will likely not care that you now have some ads. How many good sites have you avoided because they have ads? Exactly.
My opinion on the matter is that your time is better spent working on your content and building your audience before spending any time on setting up for advertisements. That way, when you do monetize your site, you’ll be better able to test and evaluate whatever advertising strategy you decide to use because you’ll have an audience response to use when gauging results.
What really makes traffic so important
The other reason traffic is so vital is the most important part of the picture. While you can sign up for an affiliate program like ClickBank and make a little money with little effort, to get the really good money that comes from true sponsors you need to have a good amount of traffic in order to prove to them that your promotion is worth paying for. For small blogs and niche’s you should expect to have approximately 300-500 visits a day before anyone is going to be willing to pay you real money to promote their products. The more traffic you have, the more interested advertisers will be in securing your services.
Think of it this way. How much people charge for advertising on their site is highly variable and dependent upon their traffic volume. There really are no set rates. If you have quality traffic and over 3-5,000 visits a month, averages could be $25.00 for a simple text link in a post or carried in a sidebar for a month, or $150.00- $500.00 for a 450 word post promoting a product. A small 200×200 button in your sidebar could fetch $100.00 per month, while a large banner ad at the top of your site could fetch $300.00 a month, while an all out permalinked promotion complete with endorsement and reviews could net you as high as $2,000 if you have some really good traffic. The key is having the traffic that makes asking these prices credible.
There is no easy money, just smart money
Kind of drives home just why so many people seem completely obsessed with getting anybody and everybody to visit their site doesn’t it? So before you decide to begin seriously monetizing your blog, first take the time to get it well ranked and pulling in steady traffic. This takes time and is probably not what most folks want to hear, but it goes back to the very basics of being successful no matter what you are doing. The only way you’ll enjoy lasting success is by putting in the effort.
This subject deserves a great deal more than just one post so I am going to break it up into a few installments. Next post, I will be explaining a little bit about approaching potential advertisers and how to go about promoting them. Till then I invite your comments. I’m always interested in hearing how other folks go about putting their content to work.
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Posted by paul novak on June 11, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I know in my last post I said I was going to continue with the subject of Demand Studios and its effect on freelance writing, but when I sat down to work on it I realized that I was just not interested in the subject enough to merit doing a worthwhile analysis. My own opinion is that the work a writer chooses to accept is entirely up to them and painting any potential income stream with a broad brush is counterproductive. Rather than sit here and tell people how great a job is, or how terrible, I much prefer to simply put information out there along with my own experiences, and let others make their own judgments. I cannot tell you what to write, who to write for, or what will be best for you, because I don’t know you. Each writer’s situation and goals are different and the best choices can only be made by the writer and not someone with an axe to grind or unrelated experience. Writing for Demand may be a horrible experience for one person, while a great experience for another. It’s all dependent on the individual. Nuff said.
I’d rather mention a bit about SEO and traffic building. At least there I can find something more productive and perhaps useful for readers to take away from this post.
As you can probably tell, I’ve put little SEO practices to use in running this blog. Writingfourmylife.com* is not a professional portal, and my goal isn’t related to conversions. I’ve decided however to begin incorporating SEO into running this thing and figured a few tips for others considering improving their blogs search engine referred traffic would probably make for some good blogger Karma.
Most bloggers put little thought into SEO unless they are concerned with ROI and conversions. Given that there is so much material out there related to SEO already, learning about it can be an extremely daunting task for the more casual blogger. Any search on SEO is going to return massive numbers of pages, most devoted to selling you something, and others full of information that is either just not very useful or so weighed down with jargon and geek speak that average folks give up after a few minutes of reading. Wouldn’t you rather just get some basic straightforward info and some advice on how to use it? Sure you would, so here goes.
First and foremost
Sign up for Google analytics and get the code embedded in your site. Unless you have excellent access to all your stats, you’ll never be able to tell if anything you are doing is making a difference. Google Analytics will tell you great things like where your visitors are coming from, how long they stay, and how many came from organic sources. If you are going to do some SEO work on your site, Analytics will make the job much easier.
Keywords
The backbone of most SEO tactics, keywords are probably the most important and basic part of building search engine referrals or “organic traffic”. Specific keywords and keyword phrases relate to the interests of those inputting search terms into a search engine. So George is looking for “wooden Widgets”, types it into Google and voila, nine million page results pop up for him to look through. If you have a page about Wooden Widgets, then you’re all set right? Not really. Where you rank in those nine million results is the holy grail of SEO, and if you come up anywhere beyond the third page of search engine results, chances are your page will never be found by George. So what do you do?
For starters, spend some time thinking about your sites focus. This will determine in large part your keyword choices. If you are focused on Wooden Widgets, then you want your keywords to demonstrate that. The next thing, and perhaps hardest part, is finding the keywords that are most likely to be typed into a search engine by the average George, aren’t already used to death by nine million other pages, and properly using them in your pages.
First, understand that most searches are done in phrases and not on a single word. Instead of “Widgets”, the Georges of the world are looking for “Cheap Wooden Widgets”, or “The Best Wooden Widgets”. Since Wooden Widgets has nine million results showing, that means if you choose that phrase, you’ll be competing with those nine million. Not a good prospect. Try to narrow your focus to work with less saturated terms that have less competition instead. Your best bet here is to use a tool like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find keyword terms that have the best chances of driving traffic to your site.
First do a Google search on the terms you’re thinking of using and note the return results. Terms with the highest returns are the most “popular”. Then plug those terms into the Google tool and note the suggested terms and their results. I prefer to work with the results that show steady trending and moderate competition. Keep in mind that the real value in tools like this is not in having keyword phrases suggested for you, but in showing you how terms and their results relate to your chosen focus. This allows you to use some creativity to devise your own terms which can help you avoid competition yet still improve your standing in search results.
Placement
Where your chosen keywords appear in your pages is also important. The commonly accepted practice is to have them appear in your title, headers (the title in your content on the page) first sentence, in the middle of the body of your content and in the closing. At the very least, make sure the title of your blog posts includes your keywords and that the body has them at least twice as well. An important aside is to remember that repeating these keywords over and over will not improve their effectiveness. You do not want your keyword use to affect the quality of your content, and search engines long ago learned to disregard keyword saturated pages. Instead, use your keywords as I suggested, and use variations of them in the body of your content. So if you are using “Killer Wooden Widgets”, feel free to occasionally use “exceptional widgets”, “these wooden widgets”, “Fantasmaorgasmic Widgets” in your core content as well as killer wooden widgets. You get the idea.
As usual I have gotten long winded, but I hope that if you’ve made it this far, you also take the time t try these simple basics out when you go back and work on your own blog. I plan on showing in a month or two what focusing on SEO has done for Writingfourmylife.com* and it would be great if a few of you were able to come back and show your results as well. Good luck folks.
BTW, someone remind me to do a search on Wooden Widgets next week. Of course, you can always hire someone to handle this sort of work for you, like me for instance.
Update: 20 hours after putting this post up, I am on the first page of Google Search for “wooden Widgets” .
Your results may vary;)
Jun 11, 2010 … I know in my last post I said I was going to continue with the subject of Demand Studios and its effect on freelance writing, but when I sat …
writingfourmylife.com/…/wooden-widgets-exceptional-widgets-and-fantasmaorgasmic-widgets/ – 20 hours ago
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Posted by paul novak on May 27, 2010 at 1:47 pm
One of the biggest challenges many writers face is coming up with fresh ideas for their projects. No matter what your niche is, it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself banging your head against the wall when the idea machine in your head decides to take a breather. For those who run into this problem all too often, the challenge can become quite frustrating. Since sitting at the keyboard and willing the ideas into existence rarely works, finding some reliable sources of inspiration is probably a better bet. Lucky for us, inspiration is all around us. Instead of waiting for it to find you, you can give it a helping hand and find it yourself.
Google Alerts is just another useful service from Google that can provide you with regular e-mail notifications of what’s happening in your particular areas of interest. The news notifications and related commentary and conversations that often accompany them are great ways to not only inspire your own creativity, but keep yourself up to date on what’s trending right now. All over the web there are similar services offered, from e-mail updates to newsfeeds. Chances are, your preferred outlets have one. Best of all, they’re usually free.
Well “duh” right? Of course, I am not talking about swiping content here. What I mean when I suggest using other blogs for creating content is allowing your own personality and style to make the best use of their content. How? Well, rather than adding comments to their blog when the inspiration takes you, why not take the time to put your desire to respond into a post on your own blog? Think of all those comments you’ve posted, and now think of the potential many of them had. Capitalize on that potential. Disagree, analyze, editorialize, just keep it tactful and respectful. The blogosphere thrives on controversy and discussion. Use it. And don’t forget those link-backs.
Involve Yourself
So you’ve got your niche nailed down. You’ve built your blog, secured some followers, and even a few advertisers. Without fresh ideas, how do you keep it going and growing? One of the best ways to work with a subject, is to be a part of it. It doesn’t matter if its environmentalism, crafting, politics, or building ships in bottles from Popsicle sticks. More than likely, there are groups, newsletters, events, and discussion forums dedicated to the subject. Even something as simple as regularly reading the topics and replies on a message board can provide you with an endless supply of ideas as well as help you to establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche’. If you really want to know about something, be a part of it.
Be Flexible
Painted yourself into a corner? Written every possible variation on a theme you can think of? Who says you have to write about one thing and one thing only? The great thing about blogging is that you decide what you write about. Covering the same thing day after day can not only burn you out, it can bore the begeezus out of your visitors as well. Take some advantage of your freedom and go off the beaten path now and then. Explore something only peripherally related, or even better, not related at all. Off topic posts are a great way to build on the human element of your blogs character and draw readers into discussion. If readers enjoy your blog and visit often but rarely comment, writing about less formal subjects like personal issues or events can often be a good way to bring them out of their shells.
Take Notes, A Lot of Them
Chances are, that as you surf the web, read the paper, or talk to people, you recognize all sorts of great ideas. Half an hour later, you’ve already forgotten them. How many times have you had an inspiration, and because you were not at your keyboard, it ended up forgotten and unused? Make a habit of carrying a pen and notepad with you when you’re out and about. When those brief flashes of brilliance present themselves, write them down before they can get away. You’ll be surprised after a week or two of doing this just how easy finding inspiration can be.
Let Others Write
A great way to keep the words flowing on your pages, and build some good web Karma at the same time, is to invite a few guest writers in now and then. With no more effort than it takes to set some guidelines, a guest writer can provide you with a much needed break now and then. There are scores of writers out there who would love to have their work featured somewhere besides their own unnoticed corner of the web. Go out and find em, and don’t forget to mention how great writing a piece or two for you will be for them.
These are just a few of the possible ideas that can help you keep the original content flowing onto your pages. Contrary to popular beliefs and marketing spiels, writing isn’t easy. It’s work. But with some forethought and planning, you can improve your consistency with very little effort. While it pays to have good content, even the best writers aren’t walking repositories of brilliant ideas who churn out masterpieces every time they put fingers to the keys. But they are consistent, and the more they write, the better they get. So will you. They key is to just write, and write often.
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