Blog To Great

Sponsored Posts for Increased Blog Revenue

BLOG TIPS - With your blog, or blogs, up and running another money making method to consider are "sponsored posts".  There continues to be discussion over whether these type of posts are ethical, you need to decide how you feel about the issue.  Under "sponsored posts" you advertise to your readers another blog,  web site, business or a link for money.  It's certainly a touchy subject that could do harm to your blog and impact its' credibility. 

Once you determine if it's right for you and accept the arrangement only as a revenue generating system, you're able to market directly to your contacts to get paying sponsors, or use outside firms to help you find advertisers.  If you decide to go direct, you should be able to generate more revenue per post, but it does take time and effort to find sponsors to advertise on your blog or site.

Affiliate Marketing, Great Revenue Techniques for Your Blog

BLOG TIPS - Certainly a popular method for bloggers to make money, affiliate marketer is one of the most effective ways to advertise online and is one of the easiest ways for you to make a profit online. Affiliate
Marketing is a simple agreement between a merchant and a blogger, the affiliate, to allow the use of the blog for the promotion of the merchant’s products.  It's accomplished by a simple link to the merchant’s website.

For that, the merchant will pay you a commission on all of the sales generated by your blog / site. Every time a reader clicks on the link on your blog and makes a purchase you'll earn your  commission.

Affiliate marketing programs are said to be win-win situations for both the merchant and the affiliate (blogger) because of the pay-for-performance arrangement. Both the merchant and the affiliate get some benefits in the affiliate marketing deal. For the merchant, they get a wider market and more prospective customers for their product or service.  The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic their product / service gets which may become actual sales.

Live Nation's New Affiliate Program

BLOG NEWS - Concert promotion company, Live Nation has launched their own affiliate program  through Commission Junction, good to consider for your blog, but if you're a ticket broker or reseller, don't bother trying to sign on.  The huge firm says in its “Advertiser Details” page at Commission Junction: “Ticket brokers and other companies involved in the resale of tickets are not permitted. Companies, websites or newsletters that promote ticket presale passwords or access codes are not permitted.”   The company's only quietly launching their site, by advertising and taking applications on their CJ page only, while leaving their own official affiliates site empty, with a “ Live Nation Affiliates Program coming soon!” header.

But before you rush to sign on, note that LN is offering only 1.5 percent commisstion on sales, considerably lower number than the industry average of around 7%. So, bloggers should consider that for a ticket purchase of $350, you'd make just $5.25.

If you're interested in signing up, bloggers must first register with Commission Junction to participate in Live Nation’s affiliate program. Commission Junction tracks orders through referral cookies, but these cookies expire after 45 days, allowing for receipt of commissions on customers who purchase tickets up to 45 days after their initial visit to the site.  

No word yet on which Live Nation events will be part of the affiliate program.

The Value of Niche Blogs, A Great Way to Monetize

     BLOG TIPS - Bloggers can, of course, write about any topic on a blog, but it's likely to be more effective if you decide on a specific niche to blog about (and use an quality domain name) . Quite a few experienced bloggers have said that niche blogging is a quicker way to build your online crediblilty and a better way to monetize a blog. When starting a blog to earn money, or turnng an established blog into an income-generating blog, here are several key reasons to focus on a certain niche in order to be blog successful ! -

Gain loyal readers-  When you cover a niche with your blog, it's much easier for readers to follow you regularly.  Readers will visit your blog each time they are looking for more info on the topic and each time you post, if they subscribed to your blog and thru topic searches.  More readers will result in greater online traffic.

Need to be part of a community-  Blogging on a certain niche allows you to be part of a specifc online community.  This way, you can start to network with others who are interested in the sames topic as you are.  This way you can develope a network to share info and learn new information, helping you come up with new data to post

Importance of your credibility-  As your blog covers a particular nicde, over time you will become more credible on the topic and develope a good reputation.  This will open up other opportunities to promote your blog, thru guest posts / authoring on other blogs, writing opportunities in other media, invitations to participation in forums, etc.  All the while, you can promote your blog and grow its' readership. With this credibility, you will attrack sponsors and advertisers that want to promote to your readership.

Ease of new posts - Through focusing on a particular niche with your blog, your knowledge will enable you to write on the topic more easily.  You will have in-depth info on the subject and find that readers contact you with questions, tips, etc that you can share and turn into new blog posts.

Personal fulfillment -  Hopefully (and ideally), the niche you blog about is a topic you enjoy !  This way, not only will you blog better but you will have fun and find it easier to continue blogging !  What can be better than making money through what you love !!!

BlogHer COO Talks Blogging !

     BLOG TIPS- The COO of BlogHer, Elisa Camahort Page, recently talked with eMarketer about blogs, blogging and monetizing blogs. She discussed current revenue generating models; advertising, sponsorship and affiliates as means with which you can generate income.  She comments that "It's a numbers game, " meaning great blog content, blog marketing, blog promotion will get you a bigger audience.  And with a larger audience comes more readers to support your blog thru click thrus or purchases.  BlogHer is well known internet community as a network and guide to blogs by women. BlogHer states their mission "is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment".  Ms Page comments on the current economic climate, it's impact on blogging and how BlogHer continues to see new blogs being created.  Blogging is a great tool for self-expression that so easy to implement she says and notes that money is NOT the biggest motivator for new bloggers.  That's likely a good thing, because the passion to blog needs to be there first.  With that you can continue to grow your blog and monetize as it builds.  Grab that great domain name, and start a blog!

See story at eMarketer and continue to  Blog to Great !

Striving for Better Blog Content, A Few Tips

     BLOG TIPS-  Blog writing should be hard work, so coming up with new, fresh blog content is often hard.  But that's OK, because it will separate you, your blog from others in you niche that don't work as hard.   And sometimes, blog post ideas come to you, but you don't know if you have enough to go on to build a solid, worthy post out of it.  Look at the tips below on ways to draw more out of "slim" content ideas -

1. Have you looked at every angle?  Go beyond the basic idea and look at every possible side. Become part of the idea. Get inside it and act as if you were telling the story first hand, not just as an observer/viewer

2. Make the post controversal, make it into a discussion.  Don't just give one side, gave both and argue against yourself.  Make your readers ask questions, draw them into it!  It works on every topic / niche, as there are many sides to every issue.  By doing this, you'll likely get other post ideas from the varying viewpoints

3. Write as if your reader knows nothing about the topic.   This works for nearly all blogs, unless you're writing a highly scientific blog (in which case why are you reader my stuff - you're too smart), take to extra time to be very clear and start with the basics.  Don't worry, you won't offend anyone, as long as you're clear about your topic and post.  When you start with the basics you allow yourself feel refreshed on the topic and helps you be reinvigorated.

4. Keep the information fresh, new.  Always put a new twist on the information, readers want the latest.  Keep it to your blog's niche (though as your blog grows, you can expand and test the limits) but always present it in a fresh, unique way.  Don't get trapped into using the same phrases and cliches.  Be you, but always a better you.  The freshness angle also helps you find new post ideas.

5.  Read, read, research.  Always work to learn more on your topic so you can give the news to your readers and followers.  Ask questions of other bloggers and experts and by challenging them, you'll learn more in order to write better. Blogger networking and discussions will help you grow your post ideas too.

Let me know how these work for you, feel free to comment below.

Great Blog Domain Names That Are Under-used

     BLOG TIPS - Your blog's domain name is not the only key to your blog's success, but a "perfect" domain name is great to find.  We're happy with the  Blog to Great name and have many positive notes about it.  Though it gets more and more difficult these days, as most "great" names are already registered, keep searching, be creative and register your domain name.  With so many cheap domain name registration companies out there, folks have registered names with no intention of using them.   Knowing the importance of a good domain name, it's even more frustrating when you find that excellent blog domain name is taken, and under utilized. Seems that Andrew over at The Blog Herald  has noted the same thing and posted a short list- of "Under used" domain names-

Blog.com - Blog hosting company I have never heard of.

Blogging.com - Filled with questionable ads

Blog.net - Nothing - registered in Tokyo

Blog.org - A UK-based individual’s blog

Blogger.net - Google seems to have abandoned it.

Blogger.org - Google seems to have abandoned it.

The Blog Herald reports that several premium names have been sold-

problogger.org = $5,000
faceblogger.com = $20
betterblogger.com = $200
1blog.com = $10,000

What domain name would you like to have, but can't, and found that they are dormant and not properly used?  Comment below...

Reader and Subscriber Development for a Better Blog

     BLOG TIPS - When you want to grow your blog, no matter if it's is a personal, professional or company blog that you manage, and no matter what your blog's niche, the first thing that comes to your mind is likely to be about increasing traffic or adding subscribers.  As we know, getting more traffic or subscribers is always a good thing, such a blog can never have too many readers.  The more readers, the more possible revenue.  But, to  sustain your traffic you need to understand who the people are that come to your blog.

Time to consolidate your blog efforts into the key tasks that will bring returns.  Some key areas that bloggers need to fully understand involve knowledge of who readers are, how they've found your blog with the cool domain name and how often they're visiting & staying at your blog (how sticky is your blog?). These Metrics,such as time on site, bounce rate, and percentage of return visitors will help you tremendously.  To do all this, you'll need a good system of analytics and your own plan of engagement to maximize your blog's full potential. Lijit and Google Analytics SITE SEARCH are both good tools for internal search data analysis.  And to continue to engage your readers, make your posts interesting, ask questions, solicit commenting and use Twitter .  Make sure you respond to all comments and reply to each e-mail received. 

Thanks to Neil Patel (of QuickSprout.com), see his guest post at WashingtonPost.com.  Questions / comments, your advice?  Feel free to add below, and Blog to Great !

"Bloggers for Hire" Concept Expands

    Blog Tips- We've know bloggers are hired writers for quite some time, but it would seem it's a new arrangement if your read the April 21 Wall Street Journal piece on their site. Bloggers for hire has certainly grown over the last few years, and with 20M blogs in the USA with around 1.7M of them generating some type of income.  But of that, it's mostly part time wages that pays for the blogging costs and allows the blogger to learn and share information with others on their topic.

Only a small % (about 2%) are the top tier of full time, well paid bloggers, as you need around 100,000 unique visitors monthly to generate an income of $75,000 a year. Getting those readership numbers is hard work and needs great dedication, SEO and marketing efforts.  It much easier to work to earn $75 - $200 for a good post, and many act as "spokesbloggers"; that is, paid by companies and  advertisers to blog favorably about products.  The opportunities continue to exist for those that want to monetize a blog, stick with it and know your topic & niche !  So get going, set up new blog, register your domain name and share what you know with the world !  But do it for the love of it first, and the money will follow.  

See full WSJ story  and let us know how you're profiting from your blog...

Earn $$ with WidgetBucks

Should Companies Pay Blogs / Bloggers for Good PR ?

     Blog Tips- I saw a great post in response to a new research report by Forrester that suggests that companies should start "sponsoring" blogs for good PR and positive posts.  I agree completely with ReadWriteWeb that the practice "sponsored conversations"  would be a big mistake for bloggers and advertiser/companies alike.  It's a dangerous trend (like Word of Mouth Marketing - WOM) that will lead to suspicion by readers & consumers and cast blogs & new media in a very negative light.  I feel the practice would likely do more harm to the advertiser than it's worth.  I've always advised my readers for transparency with their blogs (and advertising) as a means to foster trust with readers.  To risk losing that trust for some ad funds or free goods would risk losing all that's been built into a blog and the great blog marketing previously gained.  Bloggers work hard to monetize their blog, to risk that for short term financial gain (or some free stuff) to write a blog post is dangerous and not wothe risking continued blog success.

Read more on the report, and/or buy a copy for $795 if you'd like at Forrester.com