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Build A Blog And Make Money Part 5
Creating Your Pages
In your dashboard sidebar, go to Pages and if it’s not already taken down, delete the sample page. Now it’s time to add the pages that will help you create a formidable presence online.
Start with your About page. The About page is intended to help your readers get to know who you are, what the site is all about, and how you intend to help them. It’s best to include a picture or video along with the text so that they can get to know you.
Watch how you word things. You don’t want to be an Eeyore about things. If you’re launching a “make money online” blog but you yourself haven’t succeeded, then word it like this:
“I learned a long time ago that it’s beneficial to send the elevator back down to help the person on a lower level than you. So as I discover great, new information on how to make money online, I’ll be teaching it to you, to help you climb the ladder of success.”
That sounds much better than something like this:
“I am a struggling, out of work man who is about to get kicked out his apartment if I don’t learn this Internet Marketing stuff fast, so this is my journey to see if I can succeed. I’ve been trying for 2 years and haven’t yet made a dime.”
No one will want to learn from that person. There’s no need to lie, either. The first example is a simple, motivating and inspiring account of how you like to help people. And even newbies usually know more than some other newbie, so approach it as a community where everyone helps one another learn best practices.
Create a Disclaimer page for your blog. This is where you should comply with any laws and terms of service, disclosing that you might make money as an affiliate, for example.
Another good page to have is a Contact page, which we discussed earlier. You want some way of people contacting you easily. On your contact page, you also might want to include links to your social media profiles.
Depending on where you are in your journey, you may want to have a Products or Services page – if you yourself have created products or offer services of your own.
Just make sure it’s relevant to the blog’s topic. For example, don’t have a blog about cooking and put an offer to read Tarot cards for your cooking blog readers. The topics don’t match.
If you’re not yet a product creator or service provider, then create a Resources page. Here, you can list certain products you want to recommend, or you can link to search results pages in sites like Amazon.
If you do have your own products, then you’ll want to have an Affiliates page where you provide information on how people can become an affiliate to promote your products.
In part 6 we will look at Posting your content…
Build A Blog And Make Money Part 4
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:
- Google Plus
- YouTube
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…
Build A Blog And Make Money Part 3
Useful Plugins
Newbies can get carried away with plugins, if they’re not careful. The more plugins you use, the slower your site functions. But there are some things that help your visitors have a good experience while on your domain.
You want to use Akismet to help stop spam. No blogger wants to be dealing with the amount of spam that comes in automatically to their site. This filters out most of it.
Install Contact Form 7. This will be used for your Contact page and it’s a free plugin. Instead of just putting your email address live on your Contact page (which helps spammers scrape and use your email address), use this form. They will need to fill in their name, email address and leave a message for you. This gets sent directly to your inbox.
Greg’s Threaded Comment Numbering is a good plugin that’s free to use. It helps your visitors communicate with one another on your blog and helps you build a community. If Mary wants to respond to Jack, she can – and then Jack can respond to her comment. It helps people see the flow of conversation better.
WP Socializer is a good plugin that’s free for social sharing buttons, but you can pick any you prefer. Basically, you want to make sure it has all of the hot social sites, including:
- Google Plus
You can have others, but those are the big ones. For increased sharing, traffic and profits, make sure you place the buttons above and below the content, and possibly hovering as they scroll on the side. When people can share content, it helps you make more sales.
There’s a good plugin that you can use to help you build a list and promote products. It’s called Covert Messenger. You can get the lite or Pro version, and this is a discreet, non-intrusive popup that gently appears in the lower right side of your screen.
It doesn’t block the reader from seeing the content they’re looking at, so they never get frustrated and have to exit out of it. But it does catch their attention from the corner of their eye.
Here, you can promote products you created, products you’re an affiliate for, tout your opt in freebie, etc. The Pro version has more options, but if you’re new, you might want to start with the lite one and upgrade later.
You’re going to get bombarded by plugin offers over the years. There are plugins that do just about everything under the sun. Resist the urge to automate everything on your site.
Some automation is good, but overdoing it erases you (the human element) from the site, and you won’t be able to build that bond with your readers. Look for the best plugins to help with whatever task drags you down most.
For example, if you’re running an Amazon review blog, there will be plugins to help you quickly and easily create links to products. The faster you can do this, the more time you’ll have to write more reviews and increase your commissions.
In part 4 we will look at widgets…
How to Create a Versatile and Effective Logo
When you create your logo, you will be developing a symbol or a stylish way of writing your company name that you will subsequently use to represent the entirety of your brand. As you can imagine, this is an important consideration as you are going to be using that image in every piece of marketing and on every product and service you put out.
So it needs to be good. The question is; how do you make sure it is?
Brainstorming The Idea
Coming up with a killer idea is going to be the most difficult part to start with but there are a few ways you can get over that blank screen staring back at you.
The first is to look for inspiration. Create a mood board by collecting anything that gives you ideas or that you like the looks of. At the same time, draw down all the related images and symbols that you associate with your industry or niche.
The next thing you can do is to try combining that imagery in various ways alongside your company name written in various fonts. Don’t be afraid at this stage to try absolutely anything – just throw out every idea and see what sticks. You will eventually end up with a few different designs which you can then decide upon by asking around. As a rule, the simpler ones are preferable as they will prove to be more versatile ultimately.
It’s worth noting at this stage that the colors you choose are likely to affect the coloring of your website, of your products and more – so don’t choose a color that’s too garish!
Creating Your Logo
To actually create your logos, you need to use vector software, the most popular example of which is Adobe Illustrator. This software has the advantage of creating images that you can subsequently edit with ease and which you can scale to any size with no loss of quality.
You might find in future that you need to use different versions of your logo. For instance, if your logo is white and it needs to appear on a white background, then you might have to invert it or make it a light grey. Illustrator will allow you to do this quickly and easily, as will having a relatively straightforward and simple logo to begin with. Follow this advice then and you’ll be able to ensure your branding works in as many different situations as possible.
If you want to know more about branding and how it can fit into YOUR business, take a look at this FREE video here
Content Marketing Strategy To Establish Authority In Your Niche
Once you’ve created a brand for yourself, the next job is to start making that brand recognisable by creating a reputation around it that will encourage people to seek you out and to (hopefully) order more of your products and services. The idea here is to establish your brand to the point where people consider your logo and/or your name to be a ‘guarantee of quality’ so that they know they can trust you. People will then seek you out to get your opinion and at that point, selling will become a LOT easier. This is essentially how you become an authority and a thought leader for your chosen subject matter.
One of the best ways to reach this point is through content marketing. This means publishing content on your site and on other channels that will demonstrate your knowledge and gradually help you to build a name for yourself.
The mistake that a lot of bloggers and business owners make here is in thinking that they can build that name for them with just one or two posts. But in reality the ‘process’ of content marketing and of building trust is a long term strategy.
These are the steps that any blog must go through to become an authority in the eyes of any one customer…
- A visitor finds a blog post by accident and reads it, finds it valuable and entertaining. They then leave your site and give you no further thought.
- They then come across another blog post and finds it this one entertaining too. Now they might make a note of your website name/brand.
- They then find your blog a few more times and eventually come to think of you as someone they can trust on a particular subject. They may actively start to look around the rest of your site at this point and may even subscribe to your mailing list.
- In future, when they are looking for information about a given topic, they will specifically search for your website or business name along with their question because they believe they can trust your answer.
- At this point they now consider you an industry leader and if you suggest something for them to buy they will be more likely to trust your judgement and make a purchase.
As you can see, a content marketing strategy is a long process and is predicated on you delivering consistently high quality content for a long time! But it will be worth it in the long run.