Internet Business Blog

These are the million dollar questions of todays blogging community. Our topic for today sparks a lot of interest in our industry whether it be via the forums, post comments, emails, or even at keynote speaker conferences - and we’ve all asked it ourselves at one point in time or another. When is the right time to start monetizing your blog? And if the time is right now, how should you monetize it to reap the highest rewards that the internet has to offer?

When to Monetize

This is something that can be debated over and over, but I truly believe that you can and in most cases should start to monetize your blog or website from the the very beginning. However, you need to be extremely careful about the type of advertisements you display. Different advertisements give off different vibes (some good, some bad) so you need to make sure that the advertisements you’re displaying are both relevant to the visitor and mesh well with your blog design, or you will have very disappointing results.

Whether your blog receives 50 or 5,000 visitors per day, there is a common pattern involved. If your advertisements are targeted toward your audience you have pretty solid chance at making some real money. If your advertisements aren’t targeted, you will make next to nothing. You’ll also find that different forms of advertisements will perform better than others, which I will tell you about next.

How to Monetize

Here are some popular methods of blog monetization to get you started. This list is in no particular order, and I’m trying to be as unbiased as possible, so please bare with me until the end of this post (then you will see my honest advice).

1. Going Contextual. This is seemingly still the most popular form of blog advertisement circulating in the blogosphere. The biggest player in this market is undoubtedly Google Adsense, though there are many, many others as well. I’ve run many successful campaigns using contextual publishing, and their piece of the pie is still growing at a rapid pace.

2. Affiliate Programs. Affiliate programs are all around us, though most surfers never notice them for what they actually are. With proper masking, you can recommend products to your visitors, and they won’t even recognize the commi$$ion that you’ve just made. Furthermore, if you whole-heartedly believe in the product it’s a win/win situation. There are many excellent affiliate programs out there, just be sure that the products you choose could be of real value to your visitor demographic.

3. Consulting. You’ll notice a pattern when surfing many of the more recognizable blogs in various industries. The blog authors are generally available for consultation. This can be a very lucrative source of income assuming you have the expertise that others may be looking for.

4. Please Donate. This technique is sometimes frowned upon, but often misunderstood. Not every blogger likes to plaster their perfect design with advertisements. Some prefer to take donations. The WordPress “Buy Me a Beer” plugin comes to mind. After all, bloggers deserve a beer after a hard day of typing - correct?

5. Text Links. Selling text links is nothing new, in fact it’s been around for a very long time. The only difference is that now there are middle men who can do the leg work for you. Depending upon some key factors such as your PR and Alexa Rating, you can do quite well from selling text link advertisements alone.

No matter what sort of traffic your blog pulls in, advertising placement is crucial. Think about it. If you have an advertisement at the very top of your blog, many visitors will skim right past it due to banner blindness. Likewise, if you have an advertisement running in the bottom corner most will never even see it. For advertisements to be truly effective, they have to be within your visitor’s area of focus.

My Advice

You want my honest advice? Don’t put all of your eggs into one single basket. Use multiple methods of monetization. For blogs, I highly recommend affiliate programs, text links, and consulting (assuming you have the skill). If you have enough traffic, directly selling advertising space is also a very real option. I advise to stay away from contextual advertising when possible. I say this because not only does it look unprofessional, but I feel that the market has seen better days for this form of advertising as it pertains to the serious blogger.

A blog page on an online home business website is one of the best ways to increase the traffic inflow. Organization websites discuss topics related to there service and products where as banks website blog page discuss about banking issues i.e. tax credit, bad credit loans, chase credit card etc. Different professional have there personal blog pages to increase there awareness i.e. a banker may have blog related to credit card in which the topic under discussion could be secured loans, business credit cards etc.

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It’s been awhile since I have done one of these lists. I actually prefer lists, because a) they are easy to write and b) they are easy to read. Anyhow - without further ado, I present to you the list of 5 ways to write picture perfect marketing copy for internet business:

1. The Inverted Pyramid method works. Use the journalistic method of the inverted pyramid by displaying the most important information at the top of your page. Listen up affiliate marketers because this works extremely well for you. Most readers don’t make it past the paragraph so be sure to get your most important points across as early as possible.

2. Make Use of Strong Headlines. A strong headline will grab readers by the collar, and do wonders for you on social bookmarking sites. In fact, a great headline can make the difference between good copy and mediocre copy. Combine this with catchy sub headlines with different colors and fonts to appeal to your readers and make it easier to read.

3. Write Solid Leads. The first sentence on your page is generally called the “lead”. Hook readers in by telling them why they need to read your website, buy your product, etc. Be sure to include search terms to cash in on organic traffic as well.

4. Keep It Short. This reminds me of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid). People are busy, and A.D.D.-like. So unless you’re an extremely talented writer, you’re chances of losing them in a long article are good. Keep it short and get to the point!

5. Use Bullet or Keyword Lists. People love lists. They are short and easy to read. If you’re selling a product or service, use a list to summarize a long piece of copy.

There you have it. Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to increasing sales, conversions, and readers. If this entry becomes popular, expect many more of this style and subject from me – as I have years of Internet Marketing and Business experience to share with my loyal readers.

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Social bookmarking has taken the internet by storm over the past couple of years. It now even has its own category on many established webmaster forums, and certainly has its own special spot within my list of proven internet marketing techniques.

Per Wikipedia:

On a social bookmarking system or network, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists can be accessible to the public by users of a specific network or website. Other users with similar interests can view the links by topic, category, tags, or even randomly.

Other than web page bookmarks, services specialized to a specific subject or format - feeds, books, videos, shopping items, map locations, wineries, etc. - can be found.

There are many reasons why you should use social networking to your benefit, but let’s take a look at three specific advantages for the sake of this post.

Reason 1

Reach people, fast. Social Bookmarking is the way to reach a large audience quickly, without having a large audience-base yourself. Though this traffic is often temporary, that is not always the case because I do see traffic from posts of mine which were first social bookmarked about months ago. I also like this method because many visitors’ will either a) become active readers through either bookmarking the site themselves or b) subscribe to my Feedburner RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

Reason 2

The Snowball effect. Often times when a great post is submitted to a social bookmarking site it will be bumped higher and higher and may even eventually hit their front page. When a post of mine is Dugg or Stumbled traffic can often skyrocket. It’s not uncommon to see a website temporarily exceed its bandwidth limits thanks to social bookmarking and in my opinion that is an excellent problem to have.

Reason 3

It’s Cost effective. It doesn’t get any more cost effective than free and social bookmarking is just that, Free. It only takes a few minutes of your time but I highly recommend that if you do bookmark your own sites to take the time to bookmark others as well. Not only will this make you look better in the long run but it will support the cause, and you will undoubtedly learn something new each time.

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I feel that it’s important to note that social networking isn’t just for blogs anymore. You can bookmark many press releases (think PRWeb), news, retail product sales, and classified advertisements if they are deemed bookmark worthy. If you’re not sure where to start, visit Digg or StumbleUpon and start bookmarking!

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