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How to make money with your website or blog.
It’s not easy to make your website or blog profitable but it is possible.
Here are, what I believe to be the most important things you need to have.
The Blogger’s Bible
by Pat Sutton
FREE when you buy our full e-book package.
1. Products that sell.
2. An opt-in box on your website with a sign up gift like a useful e-book.
3. A great opt-in mailing list.
4. An easy to use e-mail marketing system.
5. Good affiliate partnerships.
6. Good publisher partnerships.
7. Traffic
8. Traffic.
9. Traffic.
10. Traffic.
1.) Here is a list of items that sell quite well on the Internet.
- Tangibles – items like mobile phones, gadgets and other IT stuff. The reason that people buy these things online is that they are usually cheaper than on the high street and sometimes difficult to find. The problem with selling tangible items is that you would either have to risk a lot of money to buy stock or you would have to use a drop shipping company. Drop shipping companies hold the stock and you merely showcase the products and set up a good shopping cart. When you make a sale they then ship the item to your customer.
- E-Books, any electronic device that features a controllable viewing screen can be used to read e-books. You can buy e-books to give to people who opt-in to your newsletter or you could even sell the e-books on your website. It is important to choose great titles and well written books to sell. We at “The Business Woman” sell our e-books for just $1 each to cover administration but you could sell them for much more. It is important that you buy e-books that give you reseller rights, as ours do, or you would not legally be allowed to sell them on. Take a look at our bookshop.
- Internet services, if you were looking for digital services like website builders or domain name registrations then you would automatically go to the web to find them.
- Normal books and DVDs. Amazon do very well selling paperbacks and hard cover’s as they have a massive infrastructure in place. It would not be a good choice for you as a start up for obvious reasons. Can you imagine how many books you would need to stock.
- Tarot readings and esoteric goods. There are so many Tarot reader hosting sites. The readers wait at the end of a phone for your call and you pay them for the reading by the minute. As a professional Tarot reader myself I am a little skeptical that one could read for someone they have never met. I believe that there is no replacement for a comforting, inspirational reading, face to face, but many people swear by these telephone services.
- Dreams. The Internet has spawned an enormous amount of “get rich quick” schemes. Some are great but some are…quite honestly, a mis-representation. My rule of thumb is…if it sounds too good to be true then it is too good to be true!
What ever you are selling there is one thing that is paramount….give them a risk free call to action! In other words make them feel safe buying from you.
Think of all the things that could be going through their head at that moment before they buy.
Is there a catch?
If I don’t like it, can I have my money back?
Can I hear from someone who has used this?
Do I trust this person?
Will my hair fall out?
Will my………
Remember a busy website with the right money making products can actually make money for you while you sleep but you need to work very hard at marketing it when you’re awake!
I have made a pact with myself, I will only sell products that I firmly believe in, like Darren Rowse’s Bloggers Workbook. This course actually helped me to change my blog into a great little business.
So my advice to you is to only sell the stuff that you would use yourself, that way you have more conviction in your sales pitch.
2.) and 3.) The mailing list is your life’s blood. Always have a sign up box on your website. If you can give something away as a sweetener then that is even better. Make sure that it is something worth having.
I would like to E-SHOUT an important point at you….do not abuse your mailing list. If they have signed up to receive a newsletter then that is what you should send them. Your marketing can be inside your newsletter.
If thay have signed up to a general mailing list then you have a little more freedom but the content of anything you send to them should be, value, value, value, a subtle sales pitch, then more value.
4.) There are many marketing systems out there, the one I use is Aweber, I find them the easiest to use and one of the cheapest. There are many more like IContact, Constant Contact, Getresponse.
The marketing system works by allowing you to set up e-mail campaigns. So when your visitor registers to be added to your mailing list it automatically generates an e-mail from you. You will have already been in to the system and prepared your follow up emails, all you need to do is tell the system which ones you want sent and when.
It’s as simple as that!
The beauty of this system is that any new subscriber, no matter when they join, will receive the first message and then the second and so on.
You can actually configure your sign up box within the system too! Here is a link to Aweber, take a look and see what they have to offer.
5.) Affiliate partnerships. Most online businesses have affiliate schemes nowadays. If you like a product, either you have used it or have bought it then search their website and see if they have an affiliate scheme. The other option is to join Commission Junction or one of the many other Affiliate management companies. Once you join you can search and apply to many different schemes.
6.) Good publisher partnerships. I am a publisher for a company called LinkLift. They are a link placement service. I would write a blog post and they would ask me to include keywords and phrases that would link to their client’s website. You see having external links is a great way to encourage Google to spider their site so people pay LinkLift to pay me to host the links in my posts. You would need to have a relatively busy website to become a publisher so that leads me to the last on my list….
7.) and 8.) and 9.) and 10.) Traffic.
We would all love to be seen on the first pages of the search engines and if you are selling something unique then you will probably be there after a couple of days. But there are many thousands of blogging sites out there, all trying to get to the top spots so the competition is fierce for us.
My answer for you is to do what you do best…blogs, blogs, blogs and more blogs.
“Blogging is a lucrative source of profit and blogs are easy to set up and maintain. Imagine a life where you are paid to write on stuff that interests you, whenever you want, wherever you are. The mere flexibility of blogging makes it easy for you to just kick back, relax and go on a vacation whenever you feel like it.
In this book, we are going to look into the profitability of a blog and set up a blog of our own at no cost! Interested? Read on!” from The Blogger’s Bible by Pat Sutton
When you write your blog post on your website you need to also upload it to the best networking sites as well, sites like EZines, Ecademy, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
There is no easy way to do this, you need to work hard at it but the rewards can be great. To make it a little easier, make sure that you have social bookmarking share buttons at the bottom of your blog posts so that you and your visitors can syndicate your writing out across the web.
Here is a screenshot of Google, notice how my blog, “6 steps closer to monetising your blog”, had actually got three….not just one spot, on the front page of Google and that’s not paying a penny in advertising.
Clever eh!
One last word:
“The baker puts bread on your table, not to feed your family but to feed his own“.
Using the right words in Advertising
Personalize, and be specific!
Whenever, and as often as you can possible work it in, you should use the word ‘you’ in your headline, and throughout your copy. After all, your ad should be directed to ‘one’ person, and the person reading your ad wants to feel that you’re talking to him personally, not everyone who lives on his street. 
You can throw the teachings of your English teachers out the window and the rules of ‘third person, singular’ or whatever else tends to inhibit your writing.
Whenever you sit down to write advertising copy intended to pull the orders – sell the product – you should picture yourself in a one-on-one situation and ‘talk’ to your reader just as if you were sitting across from him at your dining room table.
Say what you mean, and sell HIM on the product your offering. Be specific and ask him if these are the things that bother him – are these the things he wants – and he’s the one you want to buy the product.
Lots of ads are beautiful, almost perfectly written and quite convincing – yet they fail to ask for or demand action from the reader. If you want the reader to have your product, then tell him so and that he should send his money now.
Unless you enjoy entertaining your prospects with your beautiful writing skills, always demand that he complete the sale now, by taking action now – by clicking a link, calling a telephone number and ordering.
How to optimize your site for search
There are two trains of thought when it comes to SEO.
The first is, content is king. Creating sharable content and building a community is the only organic way to increase your search rankings.
The other is inbound links, or backlinks. Having sites and blogs linking to your own site through blogrolls, referrals, and 3 lists.
Which is right? Neither. The two should go hand-in-hand in your efforts to optimize your site for search. Yes, you need websites linking to your site to catch the attention of Google’s search spiders, but you also need quality content to encourage the people who run other websites to link to yours.
To create quality content, Wikihow recommends that you write for people, not search engines. In other words, take your time and write content that is useful and engaging.
“Your readers will share your work generating additional backlinks, not to mention extra traffic, and search engines will recognize your quality piece because it will flow naturally with not too many keywords,” according to Wikihow.
With quality content in hand you need to spread the word to get those backlinks. To accomplish this, find similar websites and request a link exchange, submit your website to sites such as Reddit, Delicious and Digg, participate in social media to publicize your content (also comment favorably on the websites that you wish to be backlinked to yours) and publish an RSS feed and submit it to aggregators.
Of course, there is more to SEO than content and backlinks.
Mashable recommends the following:
- So you can take additional steps to make your site easily discoverable in search, you need to have a basic understanding of SEO. Check out the highly popular, easy-to-read Beginner’s Guide to SEO from SEOmoz.
- Have your site graded with Hubspot’s free Marketing Grader. The tool analyzes your website and provides actionable insights to improve your site’s web marketing. With results in hand, make whatever tweaks to your website that Marketing Grader suggests, such as meta tags or keywords in your title tags.
- Many content management systems for blogs have SEO plugins. Use them. For example, WordPress has the All in One SEO Pack, a great plug-in for automatically optimizing your blog for SEO.
Wikihow also offers some fine-tuning guidance:
- Complete all image attributes. Pictures dress up your pages but search engines don’t really know how to deal with them unless you complete all the nitty-gritty details like title, caption, alternate text and description. And don’t use this as an opportunity to cram an extra few keywords onto the page as this will likely have a negative impact on your search engine ranking.
- Diversify anchor text links. There needs to be some variations in the text when one creates those blue-highlighted anchor text links.
Take note of word count. Although it’s been a classic rule that “readers online do not read,” it simply doesn’t mean that one has to deprive visitors of good, meaty content. Stick to at least 250 words a page.
And remember that optimizing your site for search isn’t a one-time sprint, but more like a slow-paced moving marathon that is always continuing.
“Search engine marketing is a constant process that requires trial-and-error and self-education,” according to Mashable. “People stay on websites because of great content or great products, but if they can’t find them, it’s essentially useless.”
Joshua is the Digital Strategist at MBA@UNC, the online MBA program at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, and MPA@UNC, the online MPA program at the University of North Carolina’s School of Government. Follow him on Twitter at @joshuavjohn
Drive traffic to your website by blogging on “The Business Woman”
How would you like a blog post written by you syndicated to our
thousands of followers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many
other social networks?
Come on, take advantage of this fantastic, FREE, marketing opportunity!
Sign up on the left and start blogging.
If you are new to blog writing, here are a few tips on writing a basic yet
effective blog post.
1. If it is a “how to” post then formulate it into a list, like this one,
it keeps it neat and easy to read.
2. Put a lot of thought into the title of your blog post,
it needs to catch the readers attention.
3. Keep the introduction and conclusion short.
4. Don’t try to include too much info, keep the tips clear,
clean and concise and to the point.
5. Keep one post focused on one topic. If you have
several things you want to talk about then try writing
separate posts for each topic.
6. Write with a sincere desire to help your reader.
7. Don’t write an article that is basically just a
sales letter for your company. You can promote yourself,
un-ashamedly, in the signature at the end of the post.
8. When writing a good signature make sure it is good enough
to entice your reader to go to your site or request more
information from you.
9. Don’t forget to mention the subjects of any future posts
to encourage them to click through to your website where they may
even subscribe to your blog.
10. If possible, on your website, offer a free gift such as an eBook, newsletter or email course.
This will enable you to capture their email addresses but make it clear to them that
they will be added to your mailing list in return for the gift.
In your post, tell them about the free gift, it is a strong motivator to entice them to follow the
links to your website.
Make sure you have many clear links back to your website in your signature.
Using your blog post to sell products.
It’s funny how a text laden-ed front page of a website is said to be a “no no”. The reason for this is that you probably skim website content, you rarely read every word, yet if you came across a blog post that interests you then you are likely to take it all in, even referring to it later.
A great way to make money with your blog is to blog with a product in mind. This kind of blogging is becoming more and more popular.
A word of warning, the blog post should not be a blatant pitch, it must give enormous value too.
This is how it works.
OK, so you want to write a blog post that is built around selling one or more products, this could be an affiliate’s product, your own products or even joint ventures with others.
Whatever your product is, you need to be a bit of a wordsmith if you want to send the right message and make money with your efforts. In other words, you’ll need to learn how to sell in your blog post without the reader ever realising that they are being sold to.
Here are some key pointers.
What is the first thing you want people to do with your blog post?
You want them to read it!
So you need to write a great headline.
Which of these headlines are more powerful?
How to make money with your blog.
or
10 effective ways to turn your blog into a money making machine.
(A little tip here…people like lists…top 10 tips, 6 best ways, 5 reasons why, you know what I mean.)
The format of any blog post, article or even a book should be….one sentence so compelling that the reader wants to read the next one and so on and so on.
The backbone of the article or blog should be….an article consisting of many variations of the word “you”. You need to focus on the reader, they have to believe that they are going to get something valuable out of reading your blog.
The underlying strength of your article should be….your credibility, why you are the expert. You should try to mention proof of your credibility throughout the article and also in your signature.
Once you have made the reader feel at home and that they are important, you can then move onto your pitch.
Tips like this and more are available in The Blogger’s Bible.
Why not take a look at my Blogger’s Bible which, at the moment, is available for Free from this website?
In The Blogger’s Bible, you’ll find detailed information on promoting your blog.
You will learn how to promote your blog on the internet for free so that you can receive thousands of unique visitors each month, or week!
The Blogger’s Bible will also show you how those visitors who stop by your website can earn you a nice residual income.
The Blogger’s Workbook
I have Darren Rowse to thank for motivating me to start a business Blogging.
This little course changed the way I did it and turned, what was just a hobby into a lucrative business.
10 quick, wicked blogging tips
1. Put your blog post into a list, like this one.
It keeps it neat and easy to read, (doesn’t look so onerous).
2. Put a lot of thought into the title of your blog post, 
it needs to catch their attention.
3. Keep the introduction and conclusion short.
4. Don’t try to include too much info, keep the tips clear,
clean and concise and to the point.
5. Keep one post focused on one topic. If you have
several things you want to talk about then try writing
separate posts for each topic.
6. Write with a sincere desire to help your reader.
7. Don’t write an article that is basically just a
sales letter for your company. You can promote yourself,
un-ashamedly, in the signature at the end of the post.
8. When writing a good signature make sure it is good enough
to entice your reader to go to your site or request more
information from you.
9. Don’t forget to mention what you have coming in future posts
to encourage them to subscribe to your blog.
10. Give something away free. In the past I have offered a free
marketing email course. This gave me the opportunity to create a
relationship with my readers.
Surround Yourself with Helpful People
Surround Yourself with Helpful People
When I was working for an $8 billion publicly traded company as a Director of Information Systems (IS) years ago, I reported to a Vice President of the IS. He was a great guy to work for, but I felt like I wasn’t learning much from him. In addition to that, there was a very slim chance be promoted to the next higher level, let alone to CIO (Chief Information Officer). I knew there must be something I could do and learn regardless of my next corporate career move.
So, I did the unthinkable. I called my boss’s boss, Barbara, the CIO. We met and I expressed that I needed some help. Although, I did not know what I needed help with, I asked Barbara point blank, “Would you be my mentor?” Barbara said, “YES.”
She opened up many doors for me, but not from a promotion stand point. She helped me connect with outside industry mentors and nominated me to be a member of the Society of Information Management (SIM). She also enrolled me in the Regional Leadership Forum (RLF), a 9-month long leadership forum with industry peers. During that 9-month RLF program, I read 35 books and presented as well as facilitated many discussions. Most importantly, I gained peer support as well as great mentors nationwide. The entire experience helped me clarify my goals, and shortly after my graduation from the RLF, I restarted my business.
“Surround yourself with helpful people” is my motto. We can’t do things alone. We need plenty of helpful people to help us along the journey.
I’ve used many coaches, consultants, advisors and mentors throughout my career in corporate America and in my business. Some people who identify themselves as mentors when they are actually a coach, or a consultant who claims to be a coach do often confuse me. I’ve created this “helpful people locator” to help me decide who will be of most help to me at any particular time and place along in my journey.
You’ll see the “Technical skills or Knowledge” on the vertical axis and “Leadership skills or Knowledge” on the horizontal axis.
- Consultant: Someone who has high technical skills or knowledge with low leadership skills or knowledge. They are so technical that you can expect the work they do for you to be delivered in a tactical nature. For example, I have an I.S. consultant working for me today, Akhilesh knows exactly what to do when it comes to our website programming. But he gets direction from me, and provides consulting in a tactical nature.
- Advisor: Someone who has high technical skills or knowledge with high leadership skills or knowledge. They can do work for you as well as provide strategic thinking. For example, I have a CPA firm as an advisor who advises me on any company finance decision. Ed doesn’t get into my detailed accounting, but certainly has provided me great strategic advice over the years in matters such as licensing, pricing structure, etc.
- Coach: Someone who has low technical skills or knowledge and low leadership skills or knowledge. (This is from my personal experience with no reflection regarding how or if the coach has been certified.) A Coach is someone who helps YOU get the answer out of YOU, often tactical in nature. They believe you already have the answers and strive to get them out of you and put them in application. For example, I worked with my marketing coach Ravel for two years. He helped me create a solid branding message, taught me how networking plays a part and showed me how to put together my 1-minute commercial. All the answers are from me, but he was so good at getting them out of me. Today, I work with entirely different marketing coach, who focuses on external communication with proper tension.
- Mentor: Someone who has low technical skills or knowledge and high leadership skills or knowledge. A mentor has “been there and done that” and knows what the path is. Barbara, my CIO example, is a mentor. Today, I have two business owner mentors who have been successful not only in their field, but also successful in the sale of many of their businesses. Our conversation is on a strategic level. Most importantly, my mentors are great connections to other industry top guns.
No matter who you decide to surround yourself with, take some time to determine what you actually need before you decide who to work with. You might want to consider the following:
1. Have one or two mentors any time during your career. They’re your sounding board and your connectors.
2. Mentor one or two people and pay it forward. The more you teach, the more you learn.
3. Work with a coach to help obtain your vision and clarify your goals, but remember they are not your therapists. I agree with a coach’s approach in that you do have all the answers within you. You need a coach to help you sort that through. They’re great for personal development.
Surround yourself with helpful people! Why do it alone?
Chia-Li Chien, CFP®, CRPC, PMP; helps women entrepreneurs to convert their business into meaningful personal wealth. She is the author of Show Me The Money and columnist for WomenEntrepreneur.com & Fox Business online. She is available for consulting, speaking engagements and workshops. She can be reached at http://www.chialichien.com or jolly@chialichien.com.
How Soccer Relates to Business–Author Linda J Lord “The Pitch”–Virtual Book Tour Starting May 3, 2010
During the month of May, Linda will be interviewed on May 19th at The Business Women – Official Blog.
Linda will be discussing her recently published novel that reaches out to business owners, entrepreneurs, and working women who are looking for practical business strategies.
Her book “The Pitch” explains how soccer has very similar strategies that can be used to be successful in business.
This book provides sound business concepts in a fable format. This engaging story traces the journey of a single mother, whose business is floundering, from the brink of personal and professional disaster through the tumultuous learning curve of self-awareness to a place of success and self-acceptance.
One dollar from the sale of each book goes to the Hemophilia Society of Ontario, South Western Ontario Region.
Leave a comment, Linda will be available to answer questions.
Go to http://virtualbooktour-theyppublishing.blogspot.com/ website to follow Linda’s full tour schedule or visit her website http://www.lindajlord.com/.
There will be an Amazon contest at many of her virtual book tour stops. Visit participating sites to find out more about contests and giveaways!
Blogging for Business: 6 Ways to Get More Paying Clients
How do you turn blog visitors into paying clients? Although we are moving away from using terms like marketing and client and moving toward relationship building and making connections, you are still in business to make money from those connections and relationships, right? Your blog can actually help you do that, despite what you may be hearing about it.
If you are starting to worry about whether your blog is helping your business, read on for 6 easy ways you can turn your blog into a valuable, profitable tool for your business.
Remember that the purpose is to attract and convert potential clients
If your approach to blogging is a free giveaway for all who want to receive, that is what your blog will become. Similarly, if you create a newsletter and put an opt-in form on your blog to try and catch as many fish as you can, whether or not they are interested in paying you for the time you will spend writing to them, that is what you will get.
It’s true that marketing is a game of numbers, and the wider your reach, the more clients you will end up with. But, smart bloggers don’t take their chances with that. The best strategy is to develop a well-defined goal for your blog and focus all of your energy on it.
1. Describe Your Services in a Prominent Place
You should create pages that talk about you and about your work. Always be sure to include an About page. Then, use additional pages for the main services you offer (it’s best if you can group them into 2-4 pages). Be specific about these services (don’t use cheeky or clever titles, just be direct). For example, if you are a real estate agent, your services pages could be titled “Sell Your Home” “Buy a New Home” or “Relocation Assistance.” If you are a salon and spa club owner, your pages could be called “Massage Therapy” “Salon Services” and “Club Membership,” for example.
Create categories that have the same titles as your service pages, and be sure to organize your posts using these categories.
2. Talk About Your Clients
One of the common misconceptions about blogging for business is that in order to attract readers, you should only write about your field or industry, but not about your specific services or your work. What ends up happening is that your blog becomes stuffed with information also found elsewhere and other, more experienced writers are doing it better. If your blog focuses on information that can only be found there, you will have much less competition and increase the likelihood that people will start talking about your blog.
Your potential clients want to know you before they hire you (usually), so talk about what’s going on with your business. This is your opportunity to showcase work you’ve done for someone else. Whenever possible, appeal to people on a human, emotional level – try talking about a particularly challenging case or ask a client if you can share their story.
3. Make It Easy to Contact You
Your contact information should be plainly visible either on a Contact page or at the top of your sidebar. Always include your email address in additional to a form people can fill out and submit online. Somewhere along the way, people stopped displaying their email addresses because of spam problems. By the time your site gets so many hits that you start seeing a huge influx of spam, feel free to remove your email address and just include a contact form. But for now, you really should display your contact information plainly for people to see. If you’re still very concerned, simply write out your email address, such as email: tia at bizchickblogs.com. Some savvy web users will understand that, but many won’t, so you’re taking your chances by doing that.
If you are a local service provider, you should always include a phone number.
4. Write for Your Clients, Not Your Colleagues
Many of you are becoming adept at blogging and using Facebook and Twitter, and that is excellent. However, unless you’re planning to launch a career in social media marketing, remember that your clients are not as interested in your marketing methods as you are. If you are itching to talk about that stuff, join a forum. But your clients want to hear about them and what you can offer them, so use your blog for that.
People who sell social media services want you to believe that everyone in the whole world is a social media maven and addict and that’s all anyone anywhere is talking about. That’s just not the case, and even if it was, people looking for social media information aren’t going to be coming to you for it, so there is not point in talking about it at length on your blog. If you are a massage therapist, focus your content on massage therapy, not on how your Twitter account is going. If you operate a children’s advocacy program, talk about that, not about Facebook. If you are a carpenter, talk about your latest projects and how great you are at being on time and under budget, rather than about how other carpenters can set up a social bookmarking account.
It’s not that you shouldn’t be real or yourself on your blog. It’s that your blog is a tool, and it serves a purpose. Every minute of time you invest in your blog translates into dollars, so be sure that what you spend your time doing is inline with your goals.
The more content you have that revolves around your services, the more likely it is that people will find you in search engines when looking for your services in their area.
5. Don’t Just Link to Your Website, Integrate It
Your blog should be your website. Your blog is likely to attract many more visitors than a static website, especially if your content is great and you promote your blog well.
Integrate your blog into your website or vice versa. Keep whichever URL currently has more traffic and links, and then move the other to that one. For example, if your website has been around for 12 years and gets 300 unique visitors a day, and your blog is 6 months old and gets 5 visitors a day, move your blog to your website to leverage the existing traffic.
When you connect your blog and website with just a link, you take the chance that people aren’t going to click it just because you tell them to.
6. Be Open for Business
Are you looking for business? Really? Can you tell that by browsing your blog?
It’s OK to use language like “Work with Me” and “Hire Me.” Trust me, it will not offend people who are actually looking for someone to hire or work with. It may come off as pushy to the casual reader, but that’s not your target visitor.
If you’re not looking to get clients from your blog, leave that out. But if you are, be sure to include something like that. It will make a difference, and you’ll notice that page getting visits because people will want to know how to hire you/work with you.
Your Turn
What works for you? Is your blog working for you or is it starting to feel like a waste of time? Lemme know! 
See this post as it was originally published on BizChickBlogs.com.
Why are blog posts becoming a better tool for showcasing your products than websites?
It is because blog posts provide the opportunity to promote, discuss and persuade in a gentle and informative way.
When people are reading a website they will skip things and will probably not read pages that are text ladened.
Yet, strangely enough, they will read every word of a blog post, so it is better to do your pitch in a blog post than on a website.
Always remember that the blog post must contain something of value, the pitch should be secondary.
It is also much easier to include the keywords you need for search engine optimization, (SEO).
Take a look at your website – of-course you provide information about your business but it is very difficult to incorporate, much needed, effective keywords without making the website unattractive and sometimes unreadable.
The Blog post provides the opportunity to include the right keywords.
So, to really benefit from the SEO potential of a Blog, the keywords, (the words that people will use when they are searching for your product or service), need to be in the title, the headings and throughout the document.
It is also beneficial to have a keyword to an external website that has a relevance to your product or service.
I know that I have often mentioned that capitals and bold text are not a good idea they look like you are shouting at the reader but on this occasion it would not be a bad thing to highlight one or two keywords in your post by capitalization or italics.
One more important note, don’t add too many keywords. This could do the opposite effect and get you penalized by the search engines.
What affiliates should I use in my blog?
A lot of people ask me to suggest affiliates. They want to know which ones are the most effective at monetising their blog. I suppose it would be safe to say that I have done a hell of a lot of research on this subject as bad choices can make the difference between a profitable blogging business and bad choices can mean no business at all.
It is a difficult one because it all depends on your target audience.
Of-course there are some great generic ones like Chitika which is an online advertising network which works a little like Adsense. For me Chitika far surpasses Adsense because not only can you earn with click throughs you can also earn a residual income for 15 months on your referrals earnings. Read More…
How to market your website so that people buy from you!
It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have and how benevolent you are, you can give things away for free, you can raise money for great causes, you can hold people’s hands but everyone at sometime needs to make a living.
The baker puts bread on your table, not to feed your family but to feed his own!
I am sure, if you own a bakery or a grocers then online marketing is not so important but if you have a product or service that has a website at it’s heart then you need to know how to drive traffic, create a contact list and to make sales.
Ok, so you have a great website that showcases your products or services or you have signed up for an online, work at home business that has provided you with their propriatory website to promote – what next?
It doesn’t matter what kind of online or offline business you have, if you sell from a website then you need to get it out there to the right target audience.
Not many of us are really clever enough to know, for sure, who will buy from us, I promise you, I have had many surprises! But somehow we need to work out how to get our business in front of buying customers. So a scatter gun approach is not really the way to do it, you need to target the right people.
So how do you recruit people to an online business. How do you get people to come to your website?
Online? Offline? Cold calling? Friends and family?
Let’s look at Friends and Family first.
If you want to lose friends then pitch to them, the same with family members. I don’t know about you but I would hate it if my loved ones avoided me because they felt guilty for not buying into my business! So that is a definite “no no”.
Cold calling? Hey! I’m into this online gig because I want to enjoy it, I want a better quality of life and cold calling just does not do it for me! So, for me, that’s out too.
Offline – now here’s a thing – yes it can work, even for an online business. You could:
1. Get out there to your local business networking events.
2. Build relationships with local business owners to encourage referrals.
3. Take stands at exhibitions.
4. Advertise in the newspapers.
5. Give out flyer’s in shopping malls and markets.
6. Carry business cards for those chance encounters!
Then there’s ONLINE.
Now this is where your marketing can really rock!
Here are my 5 very best online marketing tips.
1. Any good at writing?
You don’t have to be Jeffrey Archer but a good clear blog with all the right keywords can be a fantastic marketing tool.
The article should not be about your business but about something helpful for the reader. Of-course it should be linked to your business, for instance if you are a garden landscaper then an article or blog about growing roses would be good but a blog about baking a chocolate cake may not be.
You need to engage with the reader, they need to see you as a leader and expert.
Once you have constructed your blog or article you then need to add a clear succinct signature at the bottom, this is very important for obvious reasons.
I know what you’re asking….what do I do with my blog once it is finished?
Well if you have a blog section on your website then that is ideal as readers can click to your website to read the blog.
You would open your blog on your website, copy the URL or address and add that link along with a catchy intro like:
An easy way to bake a chocolate cake – if you love chocolate you’ll love this – http://www……
You would add it to places like Facebook, Twitter, Ecademy, LinkedIn etc that’s assuming that you are a member of all these social sites, if not why not???
If you have written your blog on someone else’s website, like Blogger, Ezines or another blogging platform like my site for business women, TheBusinessWoman then you need to make sure that all your website details are in your signature.
2. Twitter!
I know a lot of people think that Twitter is a waste of time well, I promise you that it is not, if you do it right.
A daily tweet containing great advice to followers who are your target audience can really boost your profile. If you have a good profile then people will see you in a good light and are more likely to buy from you. If you read my blog, How to market on Twitter, you will see how you can make Twitter really work for your business.
3. Facebook Fan Pages.
Create a fan page with the same name as your business then set to work making friends and then inviting them to become fans of your page. Once you have a reasonable amount of members you can create a badge to upload onto your website. This creates a sense of community and will give confidence to your website visitors. Of-course you also have your fans to market to as well.
4. Relationships.
Join groups and forums to get to know people, (not to pitch to them), once they get to know you they will eventually ask you what you do and then you can get away with a subtle pitch.
5. LinkedIn groups.
Join the groups on LinkedIn, you are allowed upto 50 group memberships. Of-course you need to find groups of people who would be interested in your sector and will be beneficial to you as well. Then once in a group you can upload your articles or blogs to their discussion pages. These are then sent out by the system to the group members in update e-mails. Some of the groups have memberships of thousands of people each so your one article alone can get you enormous exposure.
Pat Sutton – Internet Marketing Specialist – Official Blog Site http://www.PatSutton.com
Business Mentor with LifePath Unlimited – http://www.ThisBusinessRocks.com
To Retweet – What does it mean and how important is it?
A Retweet allows Twitter users to share their favourite tweets with their own followers.
So if someone has 10,000 followers and they like one of your tweets and they retweet it, then it will go out to all of their followers, good eh!
It is done by copying and pasting the original tweet and sending it out. It’s usual to put “RT” plus the originator’s username at the beginning of the tweet. Here’s an example:
RT@thebizwoman: How to monetize your blog!
Obviously, if you regularly tweet great content then people will pick up on it and retweet you. They will also retweet you if your tweets are relevant to them or even, dare I say it, complementary.
A good way to get people to retweet you is to to ask to be retweeted.
This works really well if your tweets are for a good cause or are likely to be helpful to your follower’s audience.
Here’s an example:
Entrepreneurs – learn how to monetize your blog PLEASE RETWEET ME!
This is only about 66 characters; very important if you don’t want retweets with clipped off ends as you are only allowed a total of 140 characters in your tweets.
It is always better to simplify the procedure for your retweeter.
There is a great little application called PleaseRT.me – http://pleasert.me/
You add your tweet and it makes you keep it short then it adds a plea for a retweet at the end of your message, (I’m saying “message” because I’m fed up of saying “tweet”), which your follower can then click on to easily retweet without all the copy and pasting.
You can try it out now by retweeting this post.
Let’s face it if you don’t ask you don’t get!
Pat Sutton – Official Blog, http://www.patsutton.com
6 steps closer to monetising your blog!
I’m often asked how to make money from Blogging.
Not wanting to dampen enthusiasm, it’s not a get rich quick scheme.
But it’s not impossible.
To get you there you need to have these six crucial skills:
1. Patience
2. Resilience.
3. A great imagination.
4. Knowledge.
5. The discipline to learn.
6. Multiple Income streams?
Why patience you say?
If you do everything right.
Join blogging forums, create networks of friends and acquaintances, got seen on social media websites and actively collaborate on other blog websites.
Then it can still take months, even years before your have any kind of recognition.
With a legible writing style and perseverance you will make it in the end!
Resilience?
By resilience, I mean being able to take it on the chin!
Being able to fail without labelling yourself a failure.
Being successful at something doesn’t make you a success. When that publisher or editor rejects you, pick yourself up and start all over again with even more resiliance!
A Great Imagination is imperative!
You need to be able to see outside the box.
Knowledge and information is widely available on the web but you need to have the imagination to create a useful blog from that information. When you compose your next blog you need to know who your target audience is going to be, then you need to work out ways of getting in front of them.
Your title, (absolutely essential if you want your blog to be read), needs to grab them and say, “READ ME!”.
Knowledge.
It is all too easy for someone to claim to be an expert.
There’s no Internet police checking your credentials but I believe “what goes around comes around” so don’t copy, don’t pinch other’s stuff and don’t claim to be what you are not!
A lot of people will read other blogs and articles and do a good job of copying them by not copying them. But it is easy to recognise the fakers. Take a look at their other work. If the writing style is different every time then they are probably seasoned fake artists.
Don’t get me wrong, we all do our research, that’s what the web is for, but there’s a lot of difference between learning and passing that knowledge on and copying someone elses articles and changing a few phrases.
If I see something that excites me, then I print the article and read it and then do my report on it. This is a great lesson as not having it sitting there on your computer you are not tempted to copy and paste – you have to use your own words.
One more point on KNOWLEDGE. As is normal with a business, you must be prepared to invest financially – you could do worse than taking up a few subscriptions for products and courses on good blogger’s websites, you will be amazed how much you’ll learn.
The Discipline to Learn.
If you want to keep up with the times you need to be ever evolving. The Internet and Social Media changes on a daily basis.
What was a great strategy yesterday could be a waste of time today.
When I first started to market my blogs on Twitter, I was in-undated with visits to my website even though my followers were under a thousand. Now I have many thousand followers yet the response has not gone up that much in relation. I am afraid that we are victims of our own actions.
We know that most people who ask us to pop over to their website for some great stuff are almost certainly going to have a hidden agenda and alteria motives. But that’s Ok if what you get from then is of value!
If you are like me and you are always inquisitive to see if there are any snippets of information that you can pass on to your readers then you may well profit from these opportunities but many of you are probably far too busy, so the offerings are ignored.
The lesson here is, don’t be too hasty, if there is one thing that has come out of all this, it is that people know that if they give something of value then people will be attracted to them or their business so it is rare that the info is worthless.
Mutliple income streams!
Google AdSense on your website? You’re not going to get rich but you can make enough to pay for the odd evening out. Good affiliates? They may bring in a little more than AdSense, but you have to have a mighty busy website to make any real money from affiliates.
The most efficient way of getting closer to monetising your blog is to create a subscriber list. As they say, “The Money Is In The List!”.
Create a subscribe box on your website where they can get something worthwhile for free then once you have your subscribers you can start to work on the relationship. When they see you as a leader and as an expert in your field then you can start to market to them. The format is: give them good stuff, give them more good stuff, give them more good stuff then, when you have their attention, do the pitch then follow that with more good stuff. Be careful, gently does it! You don’t want them to un-subscribe.
Watch this space for my next article, “How to make big money from Blogging”.
Pat Sutton – Official Blog http://www.PatSutton.com
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