Give Something Away

2. Give Something Away 

 

 One of the best early examples of building a business by giving something away is Hotmail. Hotmail gave away free email services and email addresses free to anyone who signed up for one, and a lot of people did (and still do). Today millions of users have Hotmail addresses. What made hotmail successful was one of the early successes of viral traffic building on the internet. At the bottom of every email that was sent through one of the free Hotmail accounts was a message telling others how they could get a free Hotmail account. Every time a  Hotmail user sent a message, they were helping spread the name of Hotmail. How did Hotmail make any money off of free accounts? They did it by offering premium services to their customers such as additional storage space, and the ability to send emails without any advertising attached. Hotmail became successful enough that in 1997, less than 2 years after it was created, it boasted over 8 million users and was purchased by Microsoft. It is still one of the top web based email services in the world. While you may not be able to achieve the same amount of buzz that Hotmail was able to generate, it does demonstrate the power of getting your message out be attaching it to something that people are willing to share with their friends, family, and co-workers. Do not discount the fact that people love to get things for free. If it looks interesting, and it is free, people are more than happy to give it a try. While it is easy to get them to try your offer initially, it is a different challenge to get them to continue using it once the novelty has worn off. Repeated use is critical for your success because multiple exposures will cement your companies name in your customer’s minds. People are more likely to buy something from a company they have heard of than from one they have not heard of. They might not even know how or why they know the name, but that sense of familiarity will make them more susceptible to your message. What ever you are offering has to be functional, easy to use, and add value to the user. You customers have to feel that it is worth their time and effort to pass the information along. Then, and only then, will they be willing to tell their friends and family what they have found.

Provide Quality Content, Products, Or Services

1. Provide Quality Content, Products, Or Services   

 Providing quality content, products, or service is by far the best way to build your reputation, and build repeat traffic to your site. Research has shown that on average, when someone has a positive experience they will tell two other people about that experience. On the other hand, if they have had a bad experience, they will tell seven other people. That act of telling others is how the viral traffic generation techniques start. If your customers never tell anyone else about you and your site, you are back to doing all of the marketing on your own. To build returning customers to your site, you need to establish a reputation as an expert in your field, very entertaining, or someone who has unique insights. That does not happen if all you are offering is cheap, recycled drivel that you found on someone else’s website. Make sure that what you offer is your own work, and something that is different from what can be found on every other website. As your reputation as an expert increases, other websites and bloggers will start to pay attention to your website. They will begin to talk about what you are doing, and will even give links from their website to yours. Suddenly every one of their readers becomes a potential customer. The higher the quality of material you produce, the more often your site will be linked to. Each link to your site is an avenue for new visitors to your business. If you do not think you have the ability to create something that will touch people like it needs to, you may have to spend the money and hire someone else to do it for you. Fortunately for you, there are a lot of service that will put you in touch with freelance writers, site designers, and program designers. If you have an idea about what you want, chances are there is someone available to do it for you. If you are willing to take a chance on a freelancer who has not yet established themselves, you can often find one that will work for a low wage in exchange for the experience the job will give them. Be careful though; often times you get what you pay for. Make sure the work you get is up to the standards necessary to appeal to your audience.

21 Viral Traffic Generation Techniques

Below are 21 techniques that you can use to bring traffic to your website. Whether there is a flood or a trickle really depends on your ability to give your visitors something they can use or enjoy. It is important to remember that your customers are not stupid. They will know whether what you are offering is something they want, or if it is a cheap advertising ploy. If it is, they will pass the word along. If it is not useful, they will leave your site and say nothing to others about you. The key to all of these techniques is to give something that adds to the user.s experience. This can be by offering useful information, telling them about something new and exciting, or something that is entertaining or humorous, but the key is to make it the highest quality possible. With so much information on the internet that is just a click away, what you are offering has to be unique. This can mean being completely new, or it could mean looking at something old from a different and unique point of view. If your message does not touch them in some way, your message will not go viral. You may still get some traffic out of it, but that traffic will come the old fashioned way,  through hard work, search engine optimization, and daily on-going marketing efforts. While for many people, going viral is a one-time accomplishment, others manage to see repeated success. When one of your messages goes viral, not only does it drive a flood of traffic to your site on a short term, but many of those people will become subscribers, which increases your daily traffic. If you can continue to write unique, compelling material, those people will be more than likely to return to your site, and to tell others. The more eyes that see you message, the better your chances of repeating your viral success. Viral traffic generation should not be used as a stand alone technique. It needs to be a part of a larger marketing strategy. Many of the techniques by themselves may only send a small stream of traffic to your site. That is why you need to use more than one marketing method. One stream may not amount to much traffic, but several streams could be significant. As your message starts to go viral, these several streams could quickly become a flood. Look though the list of items listed and think about which ones will work for you. Chances are, not all of them will work for everyone. Some of them will naturally go together, others will not. The list is not meant to be a comprehensive list of everything possible. It is meant to be a tool; an example of things that have worked for others. As you read through the different techniques, keep thinking about your own business. It may help you to come up with other ideas on your own. Be creative. Modify some of the ideas listed and come up  with something new that is unique to you and your business. The only limit to what is possible is your imagination.

How Can I Make My Message Go Viral?

This is an often asked question, and there has been a lot of time and money spent to find the answer. The truth is, there is no guaranteed way to make your message go viral. There are some things you can do to increase the chances that it will take off, but you can not “make” it happen. Successful viral traffic generation is part skill, part creativity, part timing and circumstances, and part luck. You may try dozens of things with no real success, and then strike gold in a completely unexpected place. There is a quote that says “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” If you continue to market your site, and continue to lay the groundwork for success, you greatly increase the odds that you will be “lucky”. For some sites it takes a long time to become an overnight success. By presenting your message in a useful, unique or entertaining way, it encourages people to spread the word. It requires creating a message with a wide appeal, and has a high potential of getting passed along.  Once it begins, there is no telling where it will go, how far it will spread, or who it will reach. If you happen to be one of the fortunate ones who have several messages going viral, you could easily reach millions of people. It does not happen for everyone, but it could happen for you. 

How Much Does Viral Traffic Generation Cost?

The cost of viral marketing really depends on the type of marketing campaign you decide to use. With the 21 Viral Traffic Generation Techniques listed below, there are many that are free, or very low cost. Some may cost a little more to produce and get started, while others could become quite expensive. How much you spend is entirely up to you and the how you want to use the different methods. One of the greatest things about viral traffic generation is, once you get the initial message out, it really doesn.t cost you any more once it goes viral. Your customers bear all of the time and expense of spreading the word. All you have to do is be prepared to handle the traffic when it comes. Depending on your website hosting service, there may be some costs for additional bandwidth as more customers flood your site, but if your sales increase because of the traffic it is worth the additional cost. 

Why Should I Use Viral Traffic Generation?

You may be thinking that viral marketing techniques are only for the major players with big budgets, and that it can not work for small businesses with small budgets. If that is your thinking, I can assure you, you are wrong. You might not be able to afford to produce the highly polished ads like the big companies, but there are still a lot of opportunities for success. Any business or individual with a message to get out or a service or product to sell can benefit from a well crafted marketing campaign. There are several reasons that you should be using viral traffic generation techniques to build your business and attract customers to your website.

1.) It is a fast, effective way to drive traffic to your site. Like I mentioned above, once the word starts to spread, it can spread very quickly, and there is really no limit to how many people can hear your message. Because your message often comes to someone from a person they already know, it has more credibility than if the message showed up uninvited in an email from someone they do not know. Once the message starts to spread it picks up size and speed as it goes, like a snowball rolling down a hill. You may start out thinking that your efforts were not very effective, then one morning you open your email to find it full of new orders. When it works, it can work very fast.

2.) It can be very inexpensive. Once the word starts to spread, there is not much additional cost. The biggest cost you will face is paying for all the additional traffic to your site. All of the cost and effort of spreading the word about what you have to offer is taken care of by the people spreading the word. More than likely, the biggest expense will be the upfront set up or production costs. Depending on which technique you decide to use. After that initial expense, the cost remaining costs are nominal.

3.) It can help shield you from negative comments One thing to remember is that a negative message can go viral, too. Unfortunately, you are not going to be able to please everyone. If you do enough business, eventually you are going to have someone who is unhappy with you and your business. It only takes one customer that is dissatisfied to put a shadow of doubt in your customer’s minds about whether they should do business with you or not. Once that doubt is there, it is hard to remove it. If people are not happy with the service they received, they are more likely to tell people about it than if they are happy customers. As unhappy customers start spreading negative messages about you, the word will start to spread, and there is not much you can do to stop it. The more it spreads, the more untrustworthy your business appears. All you can do is have enough of a buffer in place that the negative messages do not overpower the positive messages. If your message goes viral, not only will is send a flood of traffic to your site, but other sites will link to you, and your site will rank higher in the search engines. Your name will also appear on other high ranking sites. If a negative message does start to go around, it will have a much harder time getting out, because your positive message is already so highly ranked that the negative messages can not find their way to the top of the search engine listings.

4.) It can find hidden customers. Despite the time and money you spend trying to narrowly define your customers, figuring out who they are, and more importantly, where they are, there will always be people that you have missed. Once your message goes viral, there is no telling where it will end up, or who will see it. Because of the widespread coverage that can occur, people that you had not even considered to be your customers will get a chance to see your message. They will decide whether they are potential customers or not. As word continues to spread about what you are offering, you do not have to worry about finding all the possible niches your customers might be hiding. You do not have to go find them, they will find you.

What Is Viral Traffic Generation?

In recent years there has been more and more written about Viral Marketing and why you should be using it to drive traffic to your site. So, what is viral marketing, and why should you care? Is this just another fad that will soon fade away? In short, viral marketing involves getting other people to willingly spread your message for you. People who like what you have done tell other people, and the message spreads from person to person like a virus. When that happens, it is referred to as your message “going viral.” It relies heavily on word of mouth advertising; someone sees or reads what you have to offer and tells a couple of their friends. Their friends see or read your message and they tell a couple of their friends, and they tell a couple of their friends, and so on. The number of people who are aware of you and your message increases exponentially. The more people hear about your site, the faster your traffic grows. How large will it grow? There is really no way to tell. The only real limit to the amount of traffic possible is how many people your site host can handle. Just think about how quickly it could spread. If one person saw your message and told 2 people, who told 2 people, who told 2 people, and it continued, your message would very quickly be in front of thousands of people. If each person just told two other people, look how quickly it can grow.

1 x2 = 2

2 x2 = 4

4 x2 = 8

8 x 2 = 16

16 x 2 = 32

32 x 2 = 64

64 x 2 = 128

128 x 2 = 256

256 x 2 = 512

512 x 2 = 1024

Now just imagine if you started with 100 people spreading your message, or 1,000 people. You can see that it doesn.t take long before hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people are aware of who you are, and better still, are visiting your web site and buying your products or services. Viral marketing effectively taps into pre-existing social networks that your customers are already using. By creating something that is worth talking about and passing along, you create a “buzz” that spreads across the internet, and traffic floods to your site to see what the buzz is about. Once they are there, if they like what they see, they pass the information along, and the buzz continues to grow. Word of mouth marketing is by far the most effective way to get word out about your site. People will listen to others that they already know and trust much more readily than they will listen to you. These people do not know you, so why should they trust what you are telling them? After all, you might be likely to say anything in order to make a sale. However, they will listen to a friend or family member, especially if the person spreading the word does not have anything to gain by telling them. It is just a friend passing along a great deal they found, or some useful or interesting information.

disclamer

This digital eBook is for informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this report, neither the author, publisher nor the marketer assume any responsibility for errors or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are unintentional and the development of this eBook is bonafide. The producer and marketer have no intention whatsoever to convey any idea affecting the reputation of any person or business enterprise. The trademarks, screen-shots, website links, products and services mentioned in this eBook are copyrighted by their respective owners. This eBook has been distributed with the understanding that we are not engaged in rendering technical, legal, medical, accounting or other professional advice. We do not give any kind of guarantee about the accuracy of information provided. In no event will the author and/or marketer be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or other loss or damage arising out of the use of the information in this document by any person, regardless of whether or not informed of the possibility of damages in advance. Thank you for  our attention to this message.

 All right reserved @yashpalsingh 2013  

Picking The Best Cash Generator

 Every blog is different, and each blogger may find success with a different monetization method. The topic of your blog, the amount of traffic your blog receives, and your personal goals are the biggest factors to consider when deciding which method of making money are best for your blog. Before you decide to advertise, become an affiliate, or review products for payment, you have to take the time to develop your blog and make it successful. Your focus should always be creating and interesting, entertaining, or informative blog that will attract readers.  Do not lose sight of the reason people read blogs, it is not to be marketed to or to see ads, it is because they like the content in the blog. If you focus on ways to make money before you develop a popular blog, your money making efforts will probably fail.  This is not to say that you should not consider ways to make money, but you should always stay concerned with giving readers great content that makes them want to come back. The more readers you have, the better your monetization methods will work. So which money making method is best for your blog?  AdSense and other advertising services that place ads work the best in content based blogs that talk about a specific topic or give information. If you blog about a specific topic, Google will have no problem finding relevant ads to display and your readers will probably be interested in them. If you have an opinion or entertainment based blog  AdSense type advertising may not work as well for you. If your readers visit your blog for entertainment they may be less effected by these types of ads because there is less informational content to display relevant ads for. If your readers come to enjoy and respect your opinions, affiliate marketing may be a better fit for you as you can offer your opinion or recommendation of a product. If you don’t mind getting paid to blog about products or websites (without disclosing it) reviewing products may be a good way to make money for you. Any type of blog can profit from this type of monetization, provided the website you get your topics from has things that relate to your blog. Your blog will also have to have enough traffic and be indexed by search engines in most cases to qualify for these programs. The best way to find the right money making method for your blog is to try them all and se which one makes you the most profit. You can track your profits with each method and get exact profit numbers. Sometimes what doesn’t work at first will be successful later after you have more traffic, so never give up! 

Donations

Another thing you can consider to make money from your blog is to ask for donations. This method is not for everyone, but if your blog provides information to readers, especially if this information is not readily available in a free format, readers will not have a problem donating.  If your blog is opinion based, you may not get as much of a response, but it can still be worth a shot. Likewise, if your blog is monetized with many other advertising and affiliate opportunities, readers will be less inclined to make donations.   You may want to consider giving readers a way to donate if your blog is just starting out and you offer information of value to your readers. If you do not have a huge readership, donations may be a good way to make enough income to continue your blog until you can utilize other monetization methods that require more traffic.  You may have dismissed donations on your blog because it seems tacky or dishonest, but many bloggers rely on donations for all or part of their income. Your time is valuable, and unless you are happy to write simply as a hobby and not get paid, you have to start somewhere.   Not everyone will donate, but those who do will do so from their own free will because they enjoy reading your blog and wish to see it continue. Most readers will not be put off by a donation button, those who do not wish to donate will not and those who do will. Very few blogs end up loosing traffic as a result of adding a donation button.  There are a few places you can go to set up an account to take donation. Companies such as Pay Pal and Amazon make collecting donations easy and only take a few minutes to set up.  If you already have a Pay Pal account, you can go to their website and look into setting up a donation request. It doesn’t take long and you simply insert a button into your blog that users can click and then make donations via Pay Pal. Amazon also has a similar donation program called the Honor System where bloggers can sign up and insert a button in their blog to accept donations. You can get the information you need from amazon.com by clicking the Honor System link at the bottom of the home page.  Remember, like any monetization method having a good amount of traffic and offering quality content is the key to being successful. You will not collect many donations if you do not have many readers or offer them something of value. This is why your blogs content and traffic are important.   Make sure you give your readers a reason to come back and a reason to donate, so they do not miss the next installment of your blog. If readers value what you write they will not hesitate to donate to keep your blog going. 

Create Your Own Products

If you have a popular blog, especially one that deals with topics that are important to others, you can earn money by selling your own products from your blog. People are always willing to buy merchandise that makes a statement, or support a cause they believe in. If your blog is popular you should consider making merchandise to sell on your blog.  You do not have to create merchandise that is branded to your blog, you can sell things that are relevant to your blogs topic and that relate to the content of your entries. Just make sure that your audience will be interested in the merchandise you create or you may find that you make few sales.  For example, if you blog about gaming, creating merchandise that relates to games and software will probably sell on your blog. You can also create merchandise that contains your blogs logo or other graphics, and get some free advertising every time a reader wears it as well. Creating merchandise to sell on your blog is not as hard as it sounds. There are a few websites out there that allow you to create t-Shirts, mouse pads, mugs, hats, and other things that you can personalize any way you wish and sell for a profit.   Most websites handle orders, payments, and shipping, leaving you to do nothing but design your merchandise and profit. Here are some websites that you should consider if you want to create merchandise to sell on your blog:

Cafepress  – This is a very popular website and allows you to create a variety of merchandise to sell on your blog, or anywhere else for that matter.   Basic membership is free and even includes a simple online store hosted on Cafepress. The merchandise you create has a base price and you mark it up to the price you wish and keep the profit. They handle orders, payments, and shipping.

Printfection  – Printfection is relatively new and is similar to Cafepress. They have less merchandise you can create, limited mostly to different styles of shirts.   On the other hand, they offer a free online store that is comparable to the one you have to pay for on Cafepress. They also print  with high quality and offer many color choices. 

Zazzle  – Another print on demand company, although they are more geared toward individuals rather than people trying to sell their products online.  The payment structure is different form Cafepress and Printfection where you set your markup. At Zazzle, you earn a fixed percentage. Prices are slightly higher at Zazzle than at Cafépress and Printfection as well.  

Each of these websites allows you to create merchandise that you can sell on your blog, either with your blog logo, slogan, or something related to your blog’s topic.  

Create A Newsletter

If you have a successful blog with a large readership, you can consider branching out with a newsletter or email campaign to make some extra cash. Creating this type of campaign will require extra work, but if done correctly can ultimately leads to more profit.  Chances are if you have dedicated readers who enjoy your blogs, you can profit from giving them an interesting opt in newsletter or email campaign. This list can then be used for other marketing promotions or you can monetize your newsletter.  If your blogs offer something of value to your readers, chances are they will expect your newsletter or email campaign to do the same. This is a good thing because you will attract subscribers, but if you don’t deliver you will find that many of your readers end up unsubscribing. Add value to your email correspondences in the same way you make your blogs interesting to retain and attract subscribers.   Make sure you give readers something of value in these emails and give them a reason to read them so that your advertising methods have the greatest chances of being successful. If you promise little known tips or hard to find information, you better deliver or readers will unsubscribe. A good way to drive subscriptions is to include extra information in your newsletter or to conclude a blog entry in an email for subscribers only. Readers will be eager to get the whole story and will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter if you give them a reason. Sign up systems that include free incentives are also a good way to get subscribers, it doesn’t have to be something fancy, a free e-book or list of tips is all you need.  Monetizing a newsletter or email campaign is similar to monetizing your blog. While you cannot use AdSense and other similar advertising methods, you can directly sell ad space, and depending on the size of your subscriber list you can charge a hefty sum.   You can also use affiliate marketing in your newsletter, just be sure to have the bulk of your newsletter contains relevant content and not just ads or else your readership will fall. Make sure your affiliate marketing is related to the content of your newsletter or email and that your audience will be interested in what you are promoting.  You can also sell your own merchandise through your newsletter. If you have created merchandise with your blog logo or related slogans, adding a link in your news letter asking readers to check out your store or merchandise won’t hurt, just make sure it is paired with good content.  If you build up a large subscriber base, you can also use it to send other email campaigns and promotions for your merchandise, book, or affiliate products. A word of caution, however, no one likes unsolicited emails so you should be sure that you have permission to send additional emails and that they offer something of value and are not just viewed as annoyances.

Join a Blogging Network

If you are just starting a blog, you should consider blogging on an established network. Most of the time, joining a network is free or low cost and can help greatly in driving traffic to your blog and with setting up advertising opportunities.  There are many blogging networks, some are more popular than others and depending on what your needs are, some may be better suited for you. Some of the most popular blogging networks are:

Weblogs, Inc  – Weblogs is one of the most popular blogging networks. Sign up is free although you do have to apply for an account by submitting a few sample entries to make sure they are suitable for the site.

Blogger  – Blogger is easy to use and free, and allows you to create your blog in a few easy steps. You can customize the look of your blog easily from the Blogger website and gain traffic from being a part of the Blogger network. 

451 Press  –  Although they are still in Beta, 451 Press accepts bloggers who want to gain exposure and write about their passions. You can make money right from the site with your blog and there are plenty of blogging categories to choose from.

Joining a Blogging Network may be the best thing for you, especially if you are just starting out with your blog. You should consider all the benefits of joining a blogging network, with the drawbacks before starting your blog. If you already have a blog, but it is not receiving much traffic, you can consider sw itching to a blogging network where your blog will receive more attention. If you are just starting out, a blogging network will help you to gain traffic but it may limit you in the long run if you want to make changes to your blog or if your blog becomes wildly popular.  f you already have a successful blog, then joining a blogging networks is probably not a good idea for you. You will be limited by the bandwidth your blog can receive and may not be able to carry over your existing design elements.

 

Review Products

Some bloggers do not participate in paid reviews and product inclusion  because it can be misleading if you do not state that you are being paid for your testimonial or recommendation. If you feel as though reviewing products or recommending them to your readers without disclosing that you are being paid is dishonest, then the practice is not for you.  On the other hand, if you think the products you review are worthwhile and are worthy of mention in your blog, what better way to make money then sharing these products with your readers.   There are a few different websites that will connect you with companies that will pay you to include their product or service in your blog. The pay ranges per assignment and you may be required to write a few sentences about a specific product or a few paragraphs, or even a whole blog entry. Generally your blog has to receive a good deal of traffic to get accepted by these websites, and depending on how much work you do for them payment can be slight or substantial. If you want to try your hand at reviewing products for payment, check out these sites:

Creamaid  – While this site is not solely dedicated to reviewing products, many of their opportunities are for posting your opinion in your blog for payment. Different “conversations” are started on the site and you pick the ones that look interesting to you. Some require you to review a product or website in your blog and other require you to post comments elsewhere; of course you can always include a link to your blog which will bring it more traffic.

Reviewme  – This site is dedicated to connecting bloggers with companies who want reviews written. You submit your blog and if it is accepted, companies will request that you write a review for them depending on the content of your blog.  Reviewme states that you get paid between $20 and $200 per review. Your blog does have to have a minimum number of readers to qualify but you can always resubmit if it does not meet the criteria the first time. 

Pay Per Post  – Pay Per Post is similar to Reviewme. You submit your blog for approval and when it is approved you can start reviewing products and websites in your blog for cash.  Pay Per Post has a market place where you can pick which opportunities you want to write about and payment varies according to the assignment you choose. 

Sponsored Revie ws  – This site lets you submit your blog and then pick from a listing of review opportunities or lets companies contact you directly and request a review. Payment varies by assignment.

Smorty  – Smorty is all about providing your opinion in your blog about an available advertiser’s campaign. you may not be reviewing a product per say, but you will be giving your opinion. Your blog has to be indexed by google, older than three months, and have at least two new posts per week. Posting your opinion or review for advertisers is a good way to make cash from your blog. You should remember, however, that like affiliate marketing blatant attempts to advertise to readers does not usually work as well as naturally including a review or opinion in your blog.

Affiliate Marketing

If you do not want to run ads on your blog, or you are looking for an additional way to monetize your blog, affiliate marketing is a good way to make money provided you have plenty of readers to market to.   Affiliate marketing does not have to be blatant “hey buy this” advertising, rather bloggers can subtly slip in a review or recommendation for a product and include their affiliate link in their blog.   If you can find an affiliate product that is relevant to the topic of your blog and you do a good job of slipping it in, you can stand to make some tidy profits. Affiliate marketing generally pays more per sale than you would make per click with other forms of advertising, but you have to have visitors that both click on your affiliate link and purchase the product.  The best way to make sure readers purchase the affiliate products you market is to pick products your audience will be interested in and that are relevant to your blog. If you blog about outdoor living, chances are no one will respond to your affiliate marketing attempts at selling PSP downloads.   Make sure the product you are trying sell will appeal to your readers and that you can do a good job of including it in your blog without seeming to preachy or desperate. Keep your marketing attempts natural and make sure they fit in with the flow of your blog. there are plenty of places to go to find affiliate marketing opportunities. Many websites such as Amazon and eBay have affiliate programs. Your favorite website or company may even have an affiliate program and it can’t hurt to look, especially if they are related to your blog.    You can also find affiliate marketing opportunities on websites that specialize in connecting companies with publishers. The good thing about using one of these websites is that you have a huge list of products to choose form and the website will manage your payments and track your selling statistics. Here is a list of websites you can use to find affiliate marketing opportunities. 

Clickbank  – The most popular affiliate marketing website, Clickbank offers bloggers a dizzying array of products to market as an affiliate. All of their products are digital products, such as e-books and reports.  You can find things on virtually every product, arranged by category. So no matter what you blog about, chances are that you can find an affiliate product on Clickbank. Payouts range from a few dollars per sale to fifty dollars or more.

Commission Junction  – This affiliate website operates in much the same way as Clickbank. Companies add their products to the Commission Junction  marketplace and publishers add links to these products in their blogs. Commission junction offers a wider variety of products, however, some require visitors to buy a product for you to get paid and others require visitors to sign up for newsletters or fill out a form.

Link Share  – Another affiliate website that connects affiliates with products to market. You can pick from a wide variety of products to market on your blog and like Commission Junction, you do not always have to sell something in order to get paid. Sometimes the required action is to get visitors to sign up for a newsletter or fill out a form in order to get paid. 

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money from your blog. Remember to keep your marketing attempts natural and try not to “sell,” rather rate or inform. Most affiliate websites that connect you with products to market will keep track of your earnings and statistics which makes them very convenient

Other Advertising Options

Other Advertising Options

There are plenty of other advertising options if you do not want to go with 

AdSense. A search for “ AdSense alternatives” will net you a long list of

other advertising opportunities.  Some work in much the same way as 

AdSense, others provide inline ads or

banners. You should try a few different advertising programs to see which

one works the best for your blog.  Some advertising opportunities are similar to

 AdSense and display text ads;

others display contextual ads, the double underline words in the body of

your text, and others work with graphic ads. Here is a list of other

advertising sources for your blog, any of which may be the perfect

advertising solution for you.

Clicksor  – This advertising solution serves contextual ads within the body of

your blog. These ads are simply words that are underlined twice and when

clicked, send users to the sponsor’s website. 

TargetPoint  – Cost per click ads that display ads relevant to your content.

They claim to pay out 50% of click revenue and offer many customizable

features.

Adbrite  – They have a few different advertising options including text ads,

banner ads, inline ads, and full page ads.

Chitika  – This advertising option is designed specifically for blogs and there

are different advertising programs to choose form including text ads, inline

ads, and graphic ads. Most of them operate on a cost per click basis.

 

Veoda  – They also have different ad options including text, graphical, flash

and inline ads. The good thing about Veoda is that they do not require a

minimum number of visitors to sign up and do not require tax information

which is good for small blogs that are just starting out.

Kontera  – This is another inline advertising source where ads are placed as

highlighted words that display a message when they are hovered over.

Text Link Ads  – This site allows purchasers to buy text ads on blogs for a

fixed monthly fee. The more popular your blog is, the more your ads will

cost and the more money you will make.

Affilia te Sensor  – This advertising solution combines the best of text ads

with affiliate marketing. You earn revenue through Clickbank, an affiliate

marketing program, without having to market directly in your blog. Text ads

are placed, matched to your content, on your blog that link to Clickbank

products.

AllFeeds  – You can display a variety of ads through AllFeeds, from

contextual ads, popaway ads, and text links. You can also display news and

whether right form your blog with this service.

Bidvertiser  – You only display ads from the highest bidder with this

advertising soloution and you can block ads that you do not want to appear

on your site. The payout level is set relatively low at just $10.   

As you can see, there are plenty of other advertising solutions for your blog,

and there are plenty more out there besides the ones mentioned here. You

can always sell ad space directly, to companies or businesses that are

related to your blog topic.  There are a few things you should remember

 before placing ads on your blog, however. Unobtrusive ads will seldom drive

 traffic away, but too many tacky ads will cause visitors to leave. You want to

find a good balance where you can earn income but not chase off visitors.

 Make sure your ads are relevant and not annoying. Make sure that they

do not take up too much space or become the focal point of your blog.

Using AdSense In Your Blog

Using AdSense In Your Blog

Now that you know ho to make your blog popular, it is time to profit from it. One of the best ways to monetize your blog is  AdSense, and this advertising program will work with just about any blog and if you receive enough traffic, it  can be very lucrative.  AdSense puts relevant ads on your blog after you sign up and insert a few lines of code into your blog; this requires some basic HTML knowledge and a blog that allows you to modify the HTML. Don’t be intimidated, it is easy to do. The good thing about  AdSense is that the ads are displayed based on the content of your blog, so readers only see ads that will likely appeal to them, increasing the chances that they will click on them.   AdSense operates by pairing relevant ads with your content. As long as your blog has enough content to support a few text ads, you will be able to run a few non intrusive ads along the side of your blog. You will need to have a blog that allows you to add a few lines of HTML code into your blog in order to use AdSense. If your blog is hosted independently, chances are youwill be able to make the necessary modifications. If you blog on a network or on another site, you will have to check to see if it is compatible with AdSense, many are. To get started with  AdSense, go to www.adsense.com and sign up. It is free to use  AdSense and if you have an existing Google account you can use it as your  AdSense account as well. Signing up with  AdSense is free, but you must provide tax information and report your earnings.     you then choose what type of ads you want displayed on your blog. You have the choice of text ads that run along the top, side, or bottom of your blog or graphic ads that display an ad with a picture on your blog, either in a size  like a banner ad or in a smaller size.   AdSense is a cost per click advertising program, which means that every time that a visitor clicks on an ad in your blog you get paid. Google does not disclose exactly how much you make for each click before you sign up, but you can track your daily, weekly and monthly earnings once you have started running  AdSense and calculate how much you are making per click. If you do not have a large readership base, most types of monetization on your blog will probably not be successful and  AdSense is no exception. The more people you have clicking your ads, the more money you make.Earnings will vary widely depending on how many visitors you receive and if your blog is very popular you can make a good income from  AdSense alone.

Creating A Popular Blog

Creating A Popular Blog

If you want to make money through blogging, creating a popular blog is the key to success. If your blog receives very little traffic, you will not havemuch success monetizing it. No matter which method you use to makemoney from your blog, you will find the most success if you have a largereadership. Because of this, making your blog popular and growingreadership should beone of your primary concerns. There are many ways to make your blog more popular. The first thing youshould consider is who your audience is and who you are writing for. Youshould always write about something that interests you, and that willinterest others. You may think that your new kitten is the greatest thingsince sliced bread, but there are probably not very many other people whowant to read a blog about it. It is best to find a niche audience that is largeenough to support a wide readership but not to vague. One of the

great things about blogging is that you do not have to be a professional writer to have a popular blog. You do have to obey common grammatical rules and at least be able to put together coherent sentences, but you do not have to be a highly skilled writer.  Blog readers are looking for interesting, relevant topics to read, not the next work of Shakespeare. Make sure what you write is interesting, edgy, or even controversial. Popular blogs are never boring and add value to reader’s lives either through information or entertainment. Make sure your blog adds something of value to your reader’s life otherwise you will not develop a large fan base.  Making your blog popular is a lot like  driving traffic to a website. You can use many of the same techniques to drive traffic to your blog. Finding places to link back to your blog is a good way to drive traffic. Social sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and You tube provide lots of opportunities for this. You can also use social book marking sites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg to promote your blog. Blogging on a popular blog site such as Wordpress and Blogger are also good ways to make your  log more popular as these blogging sites help to bring in traffic for your blog.  Whether you blog on a blogging network or you have an independently hosted blog, you need to make sure your blog is designed well. It is true that content is king and if a blog has great content is may receive lots of traffic even though it is ugly, having a well designed blog that is not ugly or annoying will help to drive repeat traffic. You want your blog to look unique, but not too unique. Keep with internet formalities such as blue links and use large font for headings.   You should break your post up into small paragraphs each with a headline if possible as internet readers tend to scan the screen looking for relevant  information rather than reading everything word for word. Make sure your colors do not contrast too harshly and that the text is easy to read. Using good design will make your blog aesthetically pleasing and make readers more likely to come back and remain on your page.   No matter where your blog is hosted, you should try to get it indexed by all the major search engines. Some forms of blog monetization require that your blog be indexed by search engines before they will allow you to participate in your program. The higher ranked your blog is, the more visitors you will receive and the more popular your blog will become.   All forms of monetization for your blog require readers to work successfully. Before you try to implement your monetization strategies, make sure your blog has enough readers to make your efforts work. If there is no one to click your ads, visit your affiliate sites, or read your reviews, you do not stand much of a chance of making money.