Passion can be the fuel which drives you forwards toward your dreams and goals. Without it, you could be running on empty and when you hit an obstacle (and you will), what will carry you forward?
If you are passionate about your business/subject then this will make overcoming any obstacles MUCH easier.
Is having passion a guarantee of success? No, but it does give you a much better chance!
Monetizing Your BlogAs a niche blogger, you want to always be thinking about your reader, but not to the point where you neglect your own financial success. That should be a strong part of your formula.
So after you map out the categories for your blog, you can rotate the topics when you create new content. Each time you pick a topic, think of two things:
So let’s use weight training as our example again. Suppose you wanted to create a blog post called 7 Tips for Weight Training at Home. You would create 7 tips and for one or more of those, include a casual mention and link to a particular product.
For example, you might have a tip about choosing an area with plenty of space, and you could talk about why that’s important, and then say something such as, “If you live in a small area, then I recommend choosing space-saving equipment, like resistance bands that use your body weight.”
Then link to the one you recommend and talk a bit about it before going on to your next tip. The last thing you want to do is write one big ad. The reader should walk away feeling fulfilled if they don’t happen to buy anything that day.
You’ll be building trust with your readers that way.
What other monetization can you place on your blog? Banner ads – but don’t create a hostile environment on your blog where banner ads and buttons are flashing all over the place, blinding your readers.
Depending on your theme, you might be able to place a horizontal banner ad right below your header. You can promote products as an affiliate or promote your own products. These are usually called Leaderboard size.
The sidebar provides ample opportunity for vertical banners and smaller buttons. Try to select choices where they match the color of your site, or complete it in coloring – as long as it doesn’t clash.
You can also put banner ads and buttons inside your actual blog posts. So let’s say you were reviewing an info product from JVZoo or ClickBank. You could look for affiliate tools from the product creator and embed them into your posts so that they align with your text to the right or left, or break up lengthy blog posts right in the middle, too.
Make sure you monetize with text hyperlinks whenever you blog. These convert well. You don’t want every other word to be a hyperlink, but sprinkle them throughout wherever relevant.
Some blog themes don’t make your links stand out very well when you make them, so always go to the extra step of bolding the word or phrase and underlining it. Depending on the colors of your blog, you might also want to make them blue, like a traditional hyperlink.
Some of your monetization will occur from repeat contact with your readers. If your reader doesn’t notice your sidebar opt in form, they might sign up if you include the form at the bottom of your post.
There are plugins that can do this – or, you can simply paste the HTML code into the text – not visual – portion of your blog post. That way, not only are they expose to your offer during that first blog read, but you can promote to them repeatedly (as you serve their needs) over time and enjoy repeat commissions and sales.
Optimizing Your Widgets
Widgets are what goes into your sidebar – and this is a prime monetization spot for most marketers in any niche.
You can have the small search widget at the top, but directly under that, make sure you have a Text widget with the code for your opt in form. There are also plugins you can get to do the same job, depending on what email autoresponder you’re using.
As a newbie, you might have no money for start-up costs. If so, go with a tool like MailChimp. It’s free, but limited. If you have $1 for a first month trial, and $19 a month after that, then go with Aweber.
When you’re in your autoresponder tool, it will ask you if you want to grab the code and you will grab the HTML code and paste it into the Text widget before saving it.
You always want to be building your list form your blog. Marketers don’t say “the money’s in the list” for no reason. They know that it takes multiple encounters with a person to get them to trust your recommendations, and having a list is the only way to ensure they interact with you again.
You can use Text widgets for any kind of HTML code you want to place there, so if you’re an affiliate, you can put vertical banners to promote products, or you can install AdSense code if you want to go that route.
Some bloggers, as they gain footing in a niche, will sell ad space in their sidebar to other marketers. You can do this, too, but just starting out, it’s not a viable income stream.
Include links to your social networking business pages in a Text widget, including:
The other widgets are all under your control – categories, recent posts, recent comments, etc. Just be mindful of the user’s experience. You want them to see comments because it’s a way of showcasing the fact that you have a thriving blog. You won’t at first – and that’s okay. No need to go pay for phony blog comments.
In part 5 we will look at your Pages…
Optimize Your Settings
Most default settings are perfect, but there are a few things you want to do to ensure that your site performs at its best. Go through the sidebar on your blog dashboard and check each area to make sure everything is filled out.
Under Settings and General, add the name of your site and a tagline. Set your timezone and make sure the other elements are how you prefer the.
Under Settings and Writing, scroll down to where it says Update Services and add a list of ping sites that you want notified whenever your site has fresh content. You can find recommended sites online, so just cut and paste that list in there.
Under Settings and Reading, make sure your blog is set to show the Latest content, not a static page. Remember, when people land, they may not be bloggers themselves, so they might quickly glance to see if you have fresh content and, not realizing that it’s a set static page, assume you haven’t blogged in a long time and leave.
Make the settings show a few posts, such as 5 and the syndication feed much more, like 55. In the feed, choose to show the full text. Double check to make sure the Search Engine Visibility is UNchecked. You don’t want to block search engines from visiting your site.
Under Settings and Discussion, check to allow people to comment on new articles, make them fill out their name and email, enable threaded comments, and choose to manually approve and get notifications whenever anyone posts a comment.
Under default Avatar, choose Gravatar. This is where most people have their avatar registered. Go to Gravatar.com and use the same email address as you use for the site. Upload a headshot so that your blog readers can build that trusted bond with you and put a face to the name.
Under Settings and Permalinks, it should be defaulted correctly, but you want to make sure it uses this format:
http://www.yourdomain.com/sample-post
You don’t want to use the official default where it uses ?p=123 instead of the sample-post style because you want the URL of your blog posts to include the keywords in your title. Just glancing at, you can see which is helpful to both humans and search engines:
http://www.yourdomain.com/how-to-stop-panic-attacks
versus…
http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=995
The first one is clear. The second could be any topic under the sun.
In part 3 we will look at plugins…
If you’re going to start Live Streaming you need to check this article out from Entrepreneur.com. It is interesting reading:
In today’s post, we are going to go over some of the important do’s and don’t of list building, so that you can get started building your own profitable list right away.
One of the most powerful tools in online marketing is an email list. An optin list is simply a database of people’s names and email addresses. Usually this information is collected from them via a web form, which gives the list owner permission to send subscribers periodic emails on specific topics that interest them.
The best part of this powerful tool is that it gives the list owner the ability to communicate and build a relationship with people who are interested in their business, products, or services. When it comes to effective list building there are a few do’s and don’ts that you should know before you start your own optin mailing list.
First lets go over some of the things you should do:
– Always inform people that they can subscribe or unsubscribe at any time. Be sure to let them know that their information is safe and that you will never rent, sell or share their email address with anyone.
– Make sure that let your subscribers know what you will be sending them. It is important that you ask people permission to send them promotional email when they subscribe to your mailing list so that you can reduce your risk of being accused of sending SPAM.
– Be clear about how people can benefit from subscribing and how often will you contact them. Let them know exactly what they will be receiving.
– If you can, contact any new subscriber as soon as you can. Welcome them with notes and tell them what to expect. A good autoresponder service will help you do this automatically.
– Make it easy to subscribe by having a highly visible optin form or link on the main pages of your website. Signing up should take as little time as possible and don’t ask for too much information right away. A name and email address is all you need to get started.
– After someone subscribes then you should collect more data. For instance, you may want to know their company name, industry, or location. You can do this by including a survey in your emails to gauge interests. It’s important to understand where people are coming from so you can make adjustments in your communications or promotions.
– When you write an email, put yourself in the reader’s shoes and ask, “Why shouldn’t I hit the delete key right now?” Your readers didn’t subscribe because they want to hear a sales pitch. They have a reason for wanting information from you. It could be to save time, money, or effort, or improve productivity and success. Your emails must be compelling enough to convince people to sign up, valuable enough to keep them wanting more, and useful enough to pass along.
Next, are the things you shouldn’t do:
– Add everyone who has ever emailed you to your list. Always ask permission first.
– Purchase bulk email lists that you are not 100% sure that are optin. Always have evidence to prove the legitimacy of the email addresses.
– Never abuse the trust of your subscribers. This is a sure way to ruin your reputation, business and your chance of success. When you abuse your subscribers and bombard them with unwanted email, they will ignore your messages, unsubscribe or even worse report you as a spammer.
– Don’t offer fantastic incentives for subscribing. Although this may seem like a great idea, you will end up getting subscribers that only want the reward, not to learn valuable information about what your business, products and services can do for them. Instead, use incentives that are useful such as a free report, seminar, or more information about your products & services.
– Don’t bombard your subscribers with too many emails. How many are too many? This will depend on your message. During the subscription process, let people know what they are getting before they join.
– Don’t be reluctant to address the needs of your subscribers. Keep your information focused. It is important to give them what they want. This will keep them on your list and wanting more. If you’re information drifts off topic or is too generic you will lose subscribers as fast as you get them.
– Don’t spend too much money acquiring email addresses. An optin list is a valuable asset and that means there is an investment on your part to build and maintain it. But, budget reasonably and in advance, find the most cost effective ways for reaching your target audience and know exactly how much it will cost to acquire each new subscriber. Keep in mind potential revenue, and lifetime value of each customer, and chose accordingly.
That’s it for today’s post. In the next post, we will be talking more about building and managing your new list.
Many people new to online marketing are attracted to affiliate marketing as they enjoy the behind-the-scenes direction of connecting buyers and sellers and making a commission off of that process.
But you eventually need to increase your expert status (even if you don’t have a product of your own) and doing this will convert visitors to your site into buyers more easily. And one way to do this is to use video.
Video isn’t hard to create. You can start off with an iPhone or a mini video camera to capture the video. And getting it live online is as easy as creating a free account on YouTube and then clicking the upload and file selection buttons.
Typically, you won’t even need to do any editing or fancy formatting to your product reviews, but as you get better you will be able to deliver a more polished and professional compilation. You basically want to put out the best video that you can, and here are some tips to help you do that:
1. Look directly into the camera.
You want to be speaking directly to the viewer. You want them to feel like you’re right across the table from them having a friendly conversation. Consumers need to feel like a product is being chosen for them specifically.
2. Have good lighting in the room when you create a video.
You don’t want to be recording in a dark or poorly lit room. Natural sunlight is perfect, so if you can open the curtains and let the sun shine it, it will work wonderfully.
3. Speak up.
Your viewers need to hear you! Also try to minimize any background noise. You can either make sure the house is quiet, or use a noise canceling microphone so that you keep background noises to a minimum. If there is noise you can use a free piece of software called Audacity to clean up and remove any background noise.
4. Try not to speak in a monotone voice.
There’s nothing worse than listening a boring speaker try to make someone enthusiastic about buying their product recommendation. On the other hand, there’s no need to sound like one of those loud used car dealership commercials, either. Just be yourself.
5. Don’t read off a script.
Some people make the mistake of trying to read their product review on camera. Unless you have years of experience that allow you to achieve this flawlessly like a newsreader, don’t try it but do have your thoughts organized. Why not create a few bullet points to help jog your memory and keep you on track. You don’t want to lose focus and sit there for 30-60 seconds saying, “Um, where was I? What did I want to tell you about next? Oh yeah…” That looks unprofessional and people will click out because they don’t want to wait for you to finish. Now, you can edit this out if you have video editing software such as Camtasia but this is expensive, so the best approach is to be organised in advance and get it right first time.
Add the video reviews to your blog and YouTube channel to maximise visibility and see your affiliate commissions increase.
Do you remember when you first made the decision to become an internet marketer? Many of you will have felt the heady rush of quitting your boring 9-to-5 job in favor of starting afresh where the success or failure of your business rests squarely on your shoulders and yours alone; you are in control of your own destiny now! And you look at the financial gains which are virtually unlimited and the possibilities seem endless. It’s an exciting moment, to be sure… but are you still excited?
The problem is that far too many marketers end up treading down a road of frustration and drudgery; what happened to the path that was laid in gold?!? This causes them to burn out. They get discouraged as they hit an obstacle, or perhaps they get bored and lose interest; this is a problem with the instant gratification culture we live in today. Whatever the reason, it’s important to know how to get yourself back on track if you see yourself floundering or lacking motivation.
Many of your biggest obstacles will be mental: While you want to be constantly learning and getting smarter from your experiences, you don’t want to lose sight of your original vision and mindset. And don’t learn for learning’s sake; you should be implementing what you learn and not just keep learning more. Learn from your experiences whether they be success or failure and don’t let them make you overly cynical or worse, discourage you. Remember the excitement you felt about being your own boss. And remember how excited you felt about bringing your business/product/vision to the market and having a positive influence in peoples lives. Feel that way again and become that idealistic, go-getter again.
Never underestimate the power of routines to help nurture such mindsets. One of the biggest struggles with working for yourself is actually motivating yourself to do the work as there are so many distractions at home. Having a strict daily schedule in place can help you stay focused on the task at hand. Many productive people use their first few actions of the day as a psychological trigger to set them up for the rest of the day. For example, you might begin each day by walking your dog (or going for a stroll by yourself if you don’t have a pet), then brew your morning cup of tea/coffee before sitting down at your desk and writing your first 500 words of the day. Repeating your process each day can get you in the mood to work and it becomes a habit.
Don’t be afraid to expand or outsource tasks. This may be difficult at first if you have little spare capital but think of it as an investment; if yo. can get someone to do the tasks you hate then you can focus on those you enjoy and bring money into the business. Not long ago, article/content marketing was huge. But do you think that the people making serious money from it were spending every waking hour glued to the keyboard? No, these people quickly hired writers to allow them to capitalize on the opportunity and grow (and profit) quickly. Alternatively they may have started a large writing outfit to cater to the marketers working with content volume. Whatever they were doing, they were running a business and not a self-employment hobby. Remember that a business makes you money whilst a hobby costs you money.
Look at your business and identify which tasks can be quickly outssourced to freelancers to help give you more time to work on your business, not in it. For most entrepreneurs the first task to outsource is content creation as it is cheap and easy to get done and gives you content or products that you can quickly bring to market. For others, it may be SEO tactics to increase the ranking of their website. Outsource the tasks you hate as soon as financially possible and you will be a much happier marketer.
Finally, you need to be able to adapt You may have started your marketing journey two years ago, and a lot can change in two years, especially in the online marketing world. Keep learning, researching, and ensuring that your own methods are still considered best practice today; never mistake comfort with effectiveness. But be careful to implement what you learn or you will be left behind.
The key to making your vision a reality is to set goals – both long and short term – and start working on your highest value tasks first thing in the morning, everyday.