make-money-online
Build A Blog And Make Money Part 2
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 it, 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=1077
The first one is clear. The second could be any topic under the sun.
In part 3 we will look at plugins…
Build A Blog And Make Money Part 1
When you pick a niche and have a domain, you want to move to the next step and start creating your site. Many newbies want to know whether they need a website or a blog.
Static sites are great for narrow topics like a little minisite where you’re reviewing one particular coffeemaker and you want a page on brewing tips, a page on the specs of the machine, a page on comparisons with another coffeemaker, etc.
They’re also great for service providers like freelancer ghostwriters who want a page of samples, a page of testimonials, a page of rates, etc. But for most marketers, who are leading a niche, you want a blog.
Blogs provide freshness that Google (and humans) crave. As long as you stay committed to the topic and post on it continually, it will be an evolving online entity that grows in authority over time. Don’t worry about the thought of continual content – we’ll address that later.
For now, let’s just talk about the important elements you need to remember when you have a blog platform and want to profit from it. Before you get started, set your domain up with hosting and then log into your hosting account’s cpanel.
Click on QuickInstall and then WordPress and follow the prompts to install your blog. Ideally, your blog will be located at yourdomain.com – but some of you may have future plans to put a squeeze page on yourdomain.com, so you might want your blog installed at yourdomain.com/blog – either will work.
Once you have it installed, log into your WordPress dashboard. It will always be located at yourdomain.com/wp-admin. It’s time to set it up for maximum authority and monetization!
Install An Appropriate Theme
If you’re a newbie with deep pockets and want to start out with a premium paid theme, more power to you! But it’s completely not necessary. Free themes that are built into WordPress are great starts and you can always upgrade your theme and keep everything intact at any time in the future.
What you want to watch out for is downloading free themes off the Internet randomly. These often have things you don’t want in there, like hard to find links to seedy websites. Just keep in mind that nothing is totally free – they have a reason they put that out for the masses to use.
A better way to do it is to choose a free theme from those already installed. So in your dashboard click on Appearances and then Themes. You’ll see a variety of themes if you click on Add New.
You can sort by Featured, newest, Recently Updated – or check off theme specifics you want, like colors, columns, layout, features and subject. But there are some things you want to make sure you get.
Unless your blog is a photography-based blog, you want one where text is showcased more than images on the home page. It’s good to have some images, but not just images.
You also want a theme where the header doesn’t take up the entire “above the fold” area. The above the fold area is everything you see before have you to start scrolling down the page.
You want your above the fold area to show your header, navigation bar and the first snippet of the latest blog post as well as the sidebar that has your opt in form and freebie item in sight.
So you might notice the Twenty-Eleven theme has a huge header – takes up almost he whole screen. But the Twenty-Ten is much smaller. You can also upload your own theme if you want to.
There are some newbies who plan to launch an affiliate site for Amazon so they consider going with a specific review theme. That’s okay – as long as it’s not some automated system that simply pulls content in to your site.
In order to truly succeed, you want unique content with a personal style, not scraper sites that simply grab text from elsewhere. People don’t trust that. You might get the traffic, but when a consumer is looking for a review, they can tell the difference between a personalized post and scraped content.
In part 2 we will look at optimizing your settings…
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Every business desires to make profits by getting as many customers as possible and in the process increasing sales. There are many ways to drive sales, and one of them that is very convenient and preferable to many entrepreneurs is affiliate marketing. Some people are familiar with the term because they’ve probably heard it thrown around from different quarters. So what really is this type of marketing and what does it entail?
In simple terms, it is a form of internet marketing where the affiliate (person referring customers), signs up for a merchant’s affiliate marketing program. The affiliate then recommends the merchant’s products to customers and earns a commission on every sale made. It’s similar to what used to exist before internet marketing became mainstream; where sales representatives would go out and get customers and then be paid a commission for every sale made. To some extent, this type of marketing also intertwines with some internet marketing methods because affiliates use conventional advertising methods to create product awareness. Some of these methods include making use of search engine optimization tools, email marketing and pay per click.
Affiliate marketing should never be confused with referral marketing as is often the case because the two are very different. The main motivation behind affiliate programs is financial gain as a way of driving sales while referral marketing uses personal relationships and trust to increase the amount of sales. By relying on loyal existing customers and business connections, a business can use referrals to increase revenue generation. In affiliate marketing, you only get paid commissions when you bring in customers and they actually make purchases.
This marketing program requires the affiliate or publisher to use an affiliate link anytime that they mention the advertiser or merchant on their website. When a potential customer visits the affiliate’s website and clicks on the link, he or she is taken to the merchant’s website. At the same time, a cookie gets dropped on the customer’s computer. The customer then makes a purchase from the merchant’s website. As he logs out, the merchant finds a cookie that belongs to a specific affiliate and thereafter makes a credit for the sale in accordance with the initial agreement. For transparency purposes, the merchant avails reports showing breakdowns of the amount of traffic from the affiliate’s link and the sales made. This ensures that the publisher is paid his rightful dues without being taken advantage of by the merchant. The commission payments are usually made after certain durations, on most occasions on a monthly basis. At least that allows the merchant to receive a reasonable amount as opposed to the payments coming in small bits.
The most common compensation method is the one described above where the affiliate is only paid commissions for actual sales made. The cost per click method of compensation is not favored by many merchants because there is always the danger of the marketing program not resulting into reasonable sales numbers. An affiliate can also just sit around and earn money for actually doing nothing. Affiliate marketing is sometimes referred to as performance marketing because of the compensation method.
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What is the secret to being successful on social media?
The answer is simple: delivering value.
This might sound obvious to you, or perhaps it’s just obtuse and confusing. Either way, it’s undeniable and perhaps the best way to explain what I mean by this is to show you the opposite.
Which happens to be how most brands use social media…
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The way that a lot of businesses use social media is to set up their accounts and then occasionally post to them. They’re not posting regularly enough to be considered consistent but what’s worse is the nature of what they’re posting: posts talking about their products and services.
You’ve probably seen these kinds of social media pages in the past. They say things like:
“Our new POS is the best in the industry!”
“Check out our new range of clothing!”
“For service you can trust, give us a whirl”
The thing you have to ask yourself then is: why would anyone want to read that? What incentive are you giving for following your page?
This is something that a lot of businesses simply forget about: in order to get people to listen to them, they need to be offering something in return. The best litmus test you can always use is this: would you follow your own page?
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The solution is to turn your thinking on its head and to change the way you approach social media. Instead of thinking of this as a chance to promote yourself, think of it as a chance to provide an additional free service to your audience. This should be the same audience you’re trying to monetize but in this case you’re offering something completely free whether that is information, entertainment, news or inspiration. Either way, people need to look forward to your posts and they need to know what to expect.
Maybe you sell fitness products? In that case, you could provide a good service to your audience by posting new workout ideas or inspirational quotes every day. Maybe you sell clothes? In that case how about posting images of outfits to give people ideas?
Then, when you want to make a sale, you offer a genuinely exclusive discount. You have the ears and the trust of your audience and now you’re providing a limited time and exclusive opportunity. That’s how you influence through social media!
How to Create a Brand That People Will Love
If you want to make a big impact on the web, then it’s simply not enough to have a social account and a blog. You also need to make sure that there is a brand behind that social media account and blog – something that ties all of your posts and comments together under a instantly recognisable single banner and something that people will feel is more than the sum of its parts.
And you need to realise that a brand doesn’t just mean a logo. In order to have a real brand that has a base of raving fans, you need to know what it is that makes something like this work and the best way to approach building yourself an image and then gaining exposure for that image.
So What is a Brand?
So if a brand isn’t just a logo, then what is it?
Well, one obvious thing that a brand also needs is a catchy name. Your business/company needs a name and in all likelihood, this name will also be the name of your website. Having a brand like this for your website is one of the best things you can do right away to start getting attention for your business as it is easy for someone to search for your brand name and land on your website.
Google has actually stated that brands are far more successful at search engine optimization these days (although this is always subject to the ever changing algorithm!), while from a user’s perspective brands are also a lot more memorable and professional sounding. In other words, calling your website ‘FitLand’ will work much better than ‘FitnessAndHealthArticles’ as this is far too generic and not recognisable.
You also need a visual language. Once you’ve created your logo, you’ll have a basic color palette and maybe some images that will relate to your business and that will form the basis of these logos. Now you need to take those colors and shapes and work them into everything else you do. If your logo is red, your website and your social media pages need red accents. This consistency increases your brand recognition so don’t miss this step out!
Your Mission Statement
Another crucial component is creating a mission statement for your brand. Ideally this should be done first as it should underpin all your branding so it is probably the most important step.
So what is a mission statement? Basically it is a short paragraph or line that states what your business is about, what you do and why you do it. This is your goal, your vision and your commitment.
From here, you then have a more inspiring vision that you can use in order to inform your other choices – such as your choice of logo and name.
Now your logo and brand actually stands for something and when that’s the case, people can buy into it and really get behind you.