How To Monetize Your Website

It is important to have a monetization strategy as you build your blog or website.Sure you want to be giving away great free content  put at some point there has to be a buy button on your site.That or some other form of monetization such as advertising.So let’s look at what’s out there.?

Most people start with Google Adsense as it is easy to install and you can forget about it once it’s on your site.Adsense is  the other side of Adwords.Google will place ads on your site that are related to your site’s niche.These advertisers pay each time one clicks through from your site to their’s.Google keep about 75% of the charge and give 25% to you.

You cannot rely on this strategy alone for your internet lifestyle income as initially the traffic to your site will not be enough to earn anything substantial.Only sites that get massive traffic do well from Adsense.

The other problem with Adsense is that people will click away from your site to another which may be a competitor of yours.So even though you get an income from that click you may be helping a competitor more than yourself.

On the plus side the ads that appear on your site will give you ideas on future topics to write about.It’s also useful to go these sites and see who is linking to these sites.Backlinks as we know are important in improving your ranking.

You can find out who links to any website by going to Alexa.com.Type in the name of the website you want details on,then click on the “sites linking in ” tab.

This will list all the sites.You can then contact the site owners and see if they will link to you.

Affiliate links

Depending what your site is about you can promote digital affiliate products or physical products.

For the former go to Clickbank or Pay dot Com and for physical go to Commission Junction or Amazon who sell a whole range of products not just books.At Clickbank you browse products in your niche then you either grab a banner ad of the product you select or just use a text link.

Private advertising

This is where companies approach you to advertise on your site.This will only happen once you start to rank highly on Google.

So have a message on your navigation bar that invites people to advertise with you.This will lead to a page you create which allows the visitor to leave their contact details.

You then contact them a do a deal.

As to the price well that’s up to you but think of a figure a double it and see what reaction you get.They may say yes.

One way of estimating demand is to use the Google Keyword tool to see what Google are charging for the keyword that relates to you potential advertise.

If say it’s $2 per click and you’re getting say 5000 visits a day to your site,well assume a 5% click through on the ad.Your advertiser would be paying $500 per month if they an Adsense ad on your site.

So negotiate something a bit below this figure.

These are just a few ways of generating income on your site.I’ll be looking at some more in future posts.

Writing good content

Writing good content will always beat SEO because it is good content that Google is looking for.

That is why they have are now giving more weight to backlinks from sites with high page rankings because then they know the content must be good.

So what can you write about?

There is a temptation to go for a subject you are already an expert on and this makes sense most of the time,because less research is required.However it can sometimes be an advantage to pick a niche you know very little about but would have high monetization potential.

The advantage with this approach is you can get into the mindset of a visitor to your site who know little about the subject themselves but wants to learn more.So what questions would you ask if you were a newbie to a niche?The answers to those questions will form the content of your site.

If you need inspiration as to what questions would be asked go to Yahoo Answers and do a search on your niche.Somebody,hopefully,will be asking the questions you can give answers to.

What is your keyword phrase?

You must decide on your site concept keyword that will go in your URL if possible.This is a word that has good demand but not too much competition.You can use the Google Keyword Tool for that and as for competition just type the keyword into Google and under the search result you will get a number.If it’s not too big,under a million ,then you are in business.

It is important that there is depth in your keyword so any derivative of that keyword still gets good traffic.It is no use if your keyword has good demand but any derivative gets little traffic.You will have a very small website if you go after such as keyword.

After building up a good list of keywords that have your primary keyword in it,you want to find good keywords that are related to your keyword but do not have the keyword in it.An example would be a primary keyword of rock climbing having a secondary keyword phrase of climbing rope.

I use a website building system called Site Sell which has a great keyword search tool.It will pull in all the keywords that relate to your primary keyword phrase, some you just would not have thought of.

So do you keyword research first before you ever start thinking about SEO.If you keyword phrase gets no traffic or would be difficult to monetize then you should move on to another niche. Site Sell also has a great tool called Brainstorming which you can use when you know the general area you are looking at.It will bring back more specific niches which you can then research futher.

All this research may seem to take a long time,but believe me you will be glad you did when the money starts rolling in.

How to set up a blog

How to set up a blog

If you a going to create a niche site then there are two options create a web site or create a blog.In this post I am going with a blog seeing as how this platform is one!

Which blogging platform to use.

There are several platforms including WordPress.org,WordPress.com and Blogger.com.The last two are free services but the URL you will be assigned includes blogger or wordpress which detracts from the professional image you will want to portray.It’s like using a Hotmail account for your business you just don’t do it.

The best option is WordPress.org which gives you greater flexibility and your own URL.There is a cost to pay being the purchase of the domain name which is around $10 per annum.I use Namecheap.com which offer domain names slightly lower than the big ISPs such as GoDaddy.

For hosting I would recommend Hostgator where for $7.95 a month you can host an unlimited number of websites or blogs.In fact you can install WordPress inside you cpanel in a matter of seconds.Once the site is live you can change the theme from the WordPress default theme to another be it free or paid.

If you do use say Namecheap to register the domain name and Hostgator for hosting you will have to change the Nameserver settings inside Namecheap so they point to Hostgator but there are instructions inside both Namecheap and Hostgator as to how this is done.

Plug Ins

There are a number of plugins that you will need to optimize the blog for the search engines.They are:

1. All In One Seo- This plug in overrides your normal WordPress setting for the page title and description.A box will appear at the base of any post you are writing where you can insert the title and description that will appear in the Google search results.The title is the bit that appears as dark blue in Google and the description is the bit that comes next.Be sure to use your keyword phrase in both.There is also a box for keywords that are inserted in the HTML metatag part of you page but do not appear on the page.

These keywords are not given as much weight as they once were,because people were using keywords unrelated to the page in order to gain high ranking.Google now give more importance to backlinking from sites with a high page ranking.

2. XML Site map- this plug in creates a file that is used by the Google spiders to index the site.

3.Easy Privacy Policy creates a privacy policy page plus privacy content which Google likes to see.The page is automatically shown in your navigation bar.

4.Permalinks allows you to alter the url of your blog post so that you can incorporate your keyword phrase.

 
You want to select the custom structure option as shown above and the use the coding /%postname%/.Then when you write a post you can change the file name to whatever you want.

5.You will want to track where your traffic is coming from so you can use Google Analytics.This plug in will link to a Google Analytics account you have already created.You can set up your account here.This plug in gets round the problem of inserting the analytics code in your html directly if the thought of that makes you nervous.

The Theme

The next important part is the look and feel of the blog.Just as with hosting you can have free or paid themes the latter giving you more flexibility but if you are on a budget then the free ones do just fine.Look for the appearance tab on your wordpress dashboard and look for the themes option.

This will open a page which shows the current theme you have but look for a search box where you can find more to chose from.There is even a filter function where you can specify the colours used and how many columns are deployed.Then with one click the current theme is removed and your new one goes in.It’s that simple.

Content

Once you have completed all these tasks you are ready to write your first blog post.Remember each blog post must be keyword focused so you need to know what are good keywords to write about in your niche.We can say the people come to the internet looking for information that will solve a problem.They will not stay on your site or buy from you if you are not offering a solution to a problem.

So you need to find they keyword phrases people are using to find those solutions and then build blog posts around those keywords.I use Wordtracker for my research though this is a paid service.For free keyword searches use the Google keyword tool.

Another tool to find what question are being asked in your niche is to go to Yahoo Answers .There is a search function where you can find the questions.As well as getting post ideas you can start answering the questions yourself and post a link back to your blog.

Well this post has gone on rather a bit so look out for the next one where I will go into more content strategy as content will always beat SEO in the end, as it is content  that people really want.

Happy Blogging

Andrew Collinson

Backlinking-strategies-that-work

Backlinking Strategies That Works

Building multiple backlinks to your website is vital if it is to rank highly on the search engines.One of the most popular methods is to write articles which can then be “spun” to produce even more versions.These are then posted in article directories which contain links back to your website.

The Google spiders see all these backlinks and start to rank your website.The problem is if you use one of these article submission sites then Google will see all these backlinks going to your site and know it’s unnatural.The use of these article submitters may therefore be counter productive.

The solution is to have a a tier of sites that point to your main site and have all the mass submitted articles point to this tier of sites.These are sites which have high Google ranking and can therefore handle and massive amount of inbound links.Google would have no problem with this.

Then you link from that tier of sites back to your main page so that the SEO linking can happen without Goole getting suspicious.The sites for this protective tier are

1. WordPress.com ( not WordPress.org where you have to pay for a domain name and hosting.)
2. Blogger.com-free and owned by Google.
3. Squidoo.com created by Seth Godin.
4. Hubpages has a PR of 6 and an Alexa ranking of 188 at the time of writing this article.

So now I have shown the reasons for this system let’s see how it works:

Create an article for your niche site.

You first write and article that is original or outsource this function if you are confident with this method.I use Elance.com when I outsource.You will need to find someone good to work with who has a strong track record in your niche.The article should be 400 to 600 words in length.Post this article to your blog and ensure is optimized for the search engines using All in One SEO plug in.

Set up your tier of website that surround your niche site.

These are the sites mentioned above and are all free.You will need to create content for each site and ensure there is a link back to your main site.You can re-use the same content as the article or blog post by creating a You Tube video which you can embed on the Squidoo/Hub page site with a hyperlink from You Tube.

Submit to the article directories

You do this using your article submission software.I use  Submityourarticle.com which spins your article first  then submits it over a number of days, the choice is yours as to how many days.All the big article directories are covered such as Ezine.com and GoArticles.com.

Make sure these article link to your Squdioo,Hubpage WordPress.com and Blogger.com pages NOT your niche site.

Rinse and repeat

Go back to step one and start again.The whole process will take some time unless you outsource and for me is all free except the article submitter software which is a paid service.

Tel me what your strategies are to get backlinks  by leaving a comment and let’s see who’s got the best system.

How to find joint venture partners

If you have created a product then you need affiliates or joint venture partners to promote it.You may have you own substantial list but how much better your sales will be if you leverage off others who have bigger lists.

This is the world of joint ventures and in the "make money online " niche there are lots of them.There are even websites where people who have products to launch meet with people who are willing to promote that product to their list.

Two that I know of are http://www.jv-network.com

and http://www.jvnotifypro.com/

These sites notify you of all current launches or pre launches in the internet marketing niche and a few other non IM niches.Before you launch your first product it's a good idea to become an affiliate of a launch to see how it works.

First there is the pre launch phase.All launches now have a specific time and day,to allow a sense of excitement and build up to be created.

Get in with products that are in pre launch so you can grab the swipe files banners and email messages.Then start promoting the product to your list.At the same time build a blog about the product and start creating back links to it by writing articles ,recording videos,and commenting in social media.

Once you have learnt the craft from the affiliates side you know how to support your affiliates when launching your products.

Watch out for my next blog post when I will talk about how to approach specific JV partners when you are in pre launch.

How do you approach JV partners? Leave your comments below.

Yours in Mastery

Andrew Collinson

Can NoFollow Follow?

DoFollow is the absence of the NoFollow code in your links. The NoFollow is a special HTML code that you can add to links to prevent search engines from passing any page attributes such as page  rank.

The purpose of NoFollow was to discourage spammers leaving meaningless comments on blogs just to get backlinks to their sites.

Most major sites use the NoFollow code and on self hosted WordPress sites,NoFollow is the default code.

So you may think that there is no point in leaving comments on a NoFollow site.Well some surveys have been done and it has been shown that back linking from NoFollow sites will still boost your ranking if you focus on one particular keyword.So don't let NoFollow puut you off.

The key is to leave quality comments.Don't just say "great post".It is likely that the moderator of that blog will delete your post.Leave comments that add to the debate.The more focused your comment is on the the blog post subject the more credibility you will gain.

People will then start coming to your blog to see what you are about.

So find some relevant blogs in your niche and start commenting.

Yours in Mastery

Andrew Collinson

ps now leave a good comment below.

Make your blog better

Here are 7 strategies that you need to look at if your blog is just not getting the traffic you wish it had.

1. Compare your blog with others and look how a high traffic blog presents itself.
2. If your content is poor you will get no comments.Are you sure you are giving good value?
3. Too many banner ads.Have a few but not to the extent they crowd out your content.
4. Get the right SEO plug ins  such as All in One SEO do keyword research.Make sure the keyword phrase your want to use is in the permalink.
5. Change you blog design.Maybe it's time to go to a more versatile  theme like Thesis.
6. Choose another niche,maybe the one you are in is just not right for you.
7. Is your blog content too general? Are you trying to all things to all people?Perhaps you need to narrow your focus.There will be less competition the more focused your niche.

Product Creation

I have come to the conclusion that product creation is an absolute necessity if one is to gain credibility in this industry.As you may notice I do not have one ,but by making this post I declare before the world that I will make one and it will be live by 30th April 2011.

It will be in the internet marketing niche,so I will keep you posted.

Yours in mastery

Andrew Collinson

Finding a JV partner

One of the ways to grow your list is to JV or joint venture with someone who is also in  your niche.

There is a right and wrong way of approaching a potential JV partner.

1.Until you have a big list do not approach the big gurus like Frank Kern or Eban Pagan,they will ignore you.

2.Find up and coming marketers in your niche and start posting on their blogs or Facebook Fan Pages.Try and be a bit controversial,as the blog owner may come back to you.Then you get a conversation going and you will build trust.Then offer to promote THEIR product to your list.Once you have helped them they will want to help you.A good way of promoting to your list is to do a joint webinar with your JV.

3.A way of finding such up and coming JVers is to become an affiliate of one of the big boys as they launch a new product.They usually hold a competition to see which affiliates bring in the most sales.Google there people and find their blogs.Then start posting.

4.Still got a small list?Under 500?Build the list first,use Google Ads to drive traffic to your squeeze.

Hope that helps,what strategies do you use to attract JVs?

All the best

Andrew

Affiliate Success

Well I have got my first sale on Clickbank so it it time to reveal the training I have been following to build an online business.

It is a great feeling when you get that first sale.All that hard work is finally starting to pay off.

Now that first sale may not seem like very much and certainly won’t be enough to quit the day job,but in many ways it will be the most important sale of your online career.It proves that you can do it.

All that is required now is the repeat the process that got you that sale,so that it increases to a level that matches or beats your current monthly income.Then sack the boss!.

So anyway, the course I have been following is the Kickstart Course by Tony Sheperd.You can get it here

The link actually gives you three other freebies as well as the opportunity to sign up for the Kickstart course on a 14 day trial for $1.For that $1 you get the first for lessons for free.If you like the system after the 14 days you are billed $27 per month.The course last for 12 months,so you get 52 lessons.

Tony’s program is a weekly pdf file delivered to your inbox,each one packed with information on how to build an online business.How to find a niche,how to build a sales page and drive traffic to it.Each lesson gives you real hands on advice of how to perform a task on a click by click basis.Lots of screenshots,which I like.

So many online business building course give only vague instructions on how to do something leaving you scratching your head.Not this course.I have created 4 sales pages and an autorepsonder follow up system that is getting me traffic and now sales.All this from Tony’s training.

So try the Kick Start course now.It works for me.Click here for instant access.

Best Wishes

Andrew Collinson