PureBlogging

Part of being a blogger is to write interesting content, but another part of your job as a blogger should be getting to know your readers. When you learn more about your blog readers, the following could happen:

1. Increased affiliate sales. Knowing more about your blog readers helps you decide which products to promote.

2. Repeat visitors and new subscribers. Once you get to know more about your blog readers, you’ll be able to give them what they want. Moreover, if you write the content they want to read, they might subscribe to your RSS feed.

Now that you know the possible benefits to getting to know your blog readers, I’ll tell you how you can learn more about them…

1. Post a “call to action.” A “call to action” is where you’ll ask your blog readers for suggestions on topics they’d like you to blog about. See “Your Assistance is Needed, Please” as an example of a “call to action” post.

2. Monitor your blog’s stats. Your blog’s stats will tell you which of your past blog posts are the most popular, where the largest percentage of your visitors come from and what days of the week you get the most visitors (schedule your blog posts for these days). A great program for gathering these stats is Google Analytics, which is free.

3. Poll your blog readers (weekly or monthly) to collect demographics. The polls will not only tell you more about our readers, but you could post the results on your “Advertise” page. Some questions you could ask in your polls include annual income, occupation, age, gender, online shopping habits (what do they buy the most) and what type of books they read. Let’s elaborate on those possible poll questions, shall we?

The annual income of your blog readers helps you decide what kind of products to market. For example, if the majority of your readers have a low income, you don’t want to sell them products and services that are too expensive. Instead, focus on marketing products and services within their budgets.

When creating a poll to determine the annual income of your blog readers, make the question a multiple choice (i.e. Less than $20,000; $30,000 – $49,000; More than $50,000). In addition, let them answer all your polls anonymously. To do this, just include the question and the choices. Don’t ask for their name or e-mail address. Besides, many may not participate if you ask for this information, especially when they’re revealing their income.

Ask them to choose their occupation. Some choices could include professional blogger, professional writer, website designer, editor, publisher and/or etc.

When attempting to determine the age and gender of your blog readers, you could create a two question poll to collect both the age and gender. Furthermore, you can make the questions multiple choices or allow them to type in their answers.

By asking your blog readers what they buy the most when shopping online, you’ll be able to offer products that you know the majority of your blog readers buy. This too could be a multiple choice poll, but list choices related to your blog. For example, a blog on dog grooming probably attracts readers who buy dog-grooming products, so you could include choices such as dog toys, books on dogs and/or etc. Be sure the answer is set to allow your blog readers to select as many products as they wish.

Allow your blog readers to tell you what types of books they read. Then, if you’re not already a member of Amazon Associates, join and create a widget for your blog’s sidebar that includes books based on the results. If the greater part of your blog readers enjoy books about blogging, then include those books in the widget. Later, you can change the books on your widget by logging in to your Amazon Associate account.

What are you waiting for? Start getting to know your blog readers today, and then deliver what they want based on your research and polls.

Popularity: 11% [?]

All the cool stuff happens at the edges of things. In nature, the transition between two ecosystems is called an ecotone. The two ecosystems overlap each other and the give and take between them is greater. Between a positive and a negative charge, a transfer of electricity takes place. In an extreme form, we call it lightning. When the first world and the third world commingle, opportunity abounds for everyone. At the forefront of any field, be it technology, music, art, whatever, there is the edge.

But not just the edge. There is the edge of the edge: the “cutting edge” or the “bleeding edge” we call it. That’s where the juice is. That’s where you want to think about being. If you’re in the middle, you’re in a very crowded space and it’s hard to stand out. The people in the middle look to the people at the edges for ideas and for inspiration. The cool stuff happens at the edge and makes its way towards the mainstream (where, of course, after a while, it isn’t cool anymore, but there’s always new cool stuff coming down the path).

Being on the edge makes you a transfer agent for the edge heading into the mainstream, and you can siphon that energy. You can build a smaller audience at the edge that grows and becomes mainstream after a while. You can make money off of the difference between economic and technological “ecosystems” by occupying the ecotone area where there is overlap. You can blog from there, from the edge.

photo by Binary Ape

Popularity: 8% [?]

Like most writers, I like to spend a lot of time reading about how to write. There’s lots of really useful information out there, and it’s a better way to rationalize procrastination than playing Chain Factor or watching Mythbusters reruns. Here are a few of the best resources I’ve found on my travels around the Web — some of them have actually helped me, and I hope to integrate those that haven’t into my writing as soon as I become a more responsible and productive person. Which should happen any day now.

10 Benefits of Rising Early from Zen Habits. Technically this isn’t specifically about writing, but it has helped me to become an early riser, which has helped my writing and overall productivity dramatically. Whenever I wake up late, I always end up working late into the night — which means getting to bed late, which means the cycle starts all over again.

10 Steps to Creating the Habit of Writing from Write to Done. I particularly like the “No Exceptions” rule — again, I find when I fall out of the writing habit, it’s very hard to get back into it.

The Greatest Sales Letter of All Time from Copyblogger. I could easily place the entirety of Copyblogger’s material on here and be done with it, but that would cross the line from “lazy” to “really pathetically lazy,” and I’m not quite there yet. A great example of writing that achieves its goal with absolutely no fat or prevarication.

Ten Timeless Creative Writing Techniques, again from Copyblogger. At the risk of inching closer to that “really pathetically lazy” label, I offer this as well. The information in this post helped me turn half-decent ad copy into something that I’m really pleased with.

How to Rewrite from Justine Larbalestier. Justine, a real, honest-to-goodness fantasy writer, tells the hard truth about the revision process. Spoiler alert: It ain’t easy.

Title Tags: First Impressions at the Search Engines from Flyte Web Marketing. This post isn’t big on details, but it really helped me to understand the importance of title tags in selling Web copy.

How to Write and Use Description Meta Tags on Your Web Pages from Zero Million. The page is a little ad-heavy, but this is a really great tutorial for writing great, concise meta descriptions. The first piece of advice (“Write Like a Journalist”) was the best for me (but that may be because I used to be a journalist).

Is the Net Good for Writers? from 10 Zen Monkeys. Long article. Good read. Quite a bit of insight from a wide variety of writers, Web entrepreneurs, publishing professionals and overall geeks.

How to Write Faster, Better and Easier from Pick the Brain. When I first read this post, I hated it. “Duh!” I thought. “Who doesn’t know this stuff?” Then I realized that while I knew the information presented here, I rarely practiced it. A good reminder of what a good writing process entails.

Live and Write from Ask MetaFilter. Some great advice in the comments here. Particularly good is the final comment about dream writing vs. lucrative writing.

10+ Unusual Ways to Make Easy Money on the Internet if You Love Writing from NicheGeek. Some of these are a bit on the skeezy side (“Social Bookmark Whoring?”), but it certainly got my creative muscles pumping.

The Complete Nobody’s Guide to Writing Query Letters by Lynn Flewelling. I dread writing query letters. It almost makes me thankful I don’t have a finished novel under my belt. But this tutorial is thorough, and gentle on the first-timer.

An Introduction to Journal Writing from D*I*Y Planner. This post really helped me get over my self-consciousness when it comes to journal writing. I used to get upset if every entry wasn’t Chatwin-quality. Not any more.

Hack Your Way Out of Writer’s Block from 43 Folders. I’ve used each of these suggestions at least once. The Brian Eno reference is also cool.

Lost in Your Own Writing? from JCM Enterprises. Good advice overall here. Also, it references one of the two best dramas currently on network TV. The other one is Battlestar Galactica. No arguments please.

50 Tools That Can Improve Your Writing Skills from Dumb Little Man. All 50 tips are from the Poynter Institute, one of the most respected journalistic institutions in the nation. Many of these are technical rather than conceptual, so I’d wager this is the most useful item on this list. That’s why I finished with it.

Popularity: 27% [?]

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always liked the idea that I could monetize my blog and make passive income. I’m going to write the content anyway, so why shouldn’t it make a bit of money? The trouble is, how do you decide which advertising system is best? Here’s what I’ve discovered so far on my blog advertising quest.

Adsense

I started out with Google Adsense. It was easy to get an account, and relatively easy to set up. In the few years that I’ve been using Adsense, ad creation has got even easier. However, it took more than 18 months to reach first payout. Why was this? Because when I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I though I would stick some ads there and the income would roll in. I knew nothing about ad placement and hotspots. Heck, I was only just learning about blogging.

Adsense Placement

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about where to put ads so that people will see them and occasionally click on them. Depending on my blog theme, I may put an ad in the header (though usually I avoid this in favour of having information relating to my blog). I put a block in the sidebar, and I usually put some under the post title or above the comments on single post pages (not both, as I wouldn’t want the pages to look too cluttered).

What really made the difference to Adsense earnings was having the ads on a blog with great content. My first blog was fun, but had no identifiable purpose. With Get Paid To Write Online, everyone knew what it was about and the ad income increased quickly. Of course, Google keeps making changes and the income fluctuates, but it makes some nice pocket change. I don’t think I’ll get rich on it any time soon, though.

Kontera

That’s why I decided to try some alternatives. One that I’d heard a lot about was Kontera. Those are those hideous double underlined links that pop up all over blog posts. I have to be honest; I don’t like the look, but at least it means that they can’t be confused with Google ads. More people seem to click on the links and those ads are also bringing in pocket change.

Good features with Kontera are that it’s easy to make sure that the ads only appear in certain places. Although Kontera tells you how to do that with code, I find it easier to use the Kontera Integration plugin. I usually switch off the ads on current posts and switch them on again on old posts. After all, people still click on ads in the archives.

They’ve also got a new publisher interface which tells me which keywords attracted the most clicks in the last week, and which pages got the most clicks. In my latest report, it was a post on creating a writing portfolio. Incidentally, checking my analytics stats reveals that that was my second most popular post in the last week.

Affiliate Ads

Finally, I have also been experimenting with Commission Junction, Clickbank and others. So far, I am underwhelmed, but I know what I have to do to fix that. All the 125×125 ads bar one are for products and services that I have actually used. In order to get people interested, I need to talk about those services. Otherwise, why should anyone even bother to click? Some have, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the next one.

That aside, it’s also a question of finding complementary products. For a writing blog, that might include ads about writing courses, self promotion and blogging. I’m still searching for those that are the best fit for my site (suggestions welcome). In the meantime, I’m trying out Project Wonderful, which was recommended to me. I’ll update you on how that goes in a few weeks.

My conclusion is that no single company has all the answers. Perhaps I should pay more attention to private ad sales instead, as these seem to be more lucrative. If you monetize, what have you found to be most effective?

Popularity: 10% [?]

Hey, want to make money blogging?

Normally I’d be writing some deeply philosophical post about blogging and What It All Means. But all I want to do here is show you something good to help you monetize your blog via advertising. I’ll get right to it:

Mark Wielgus of 45n5 is one of my favorite make-money guys online, because he’s the real deal: just a dude with a knack for programming and good marketing chops. A lethal combination (like ShoeMoney and Dillsmack combined). He really does make good money and he truly wants to help you make money too. He has a habit of simply building the tools he wished existed. Just so happens they’re great ideas.

Show Your Ad Here is the latest project. It’s a free ad server service. You can be a publisher and display ads on your site, or you can be an advertiser and run ads on the network. Mark’s got a dedicated server–blazing fast for this. He’s got a bunch of new features ready to roll and wants feedback for more.

And get this: 75% payouts! Not only that, but the payouts are instant and happen as soon as an ad is sold. See what I mean about building the tools he wished existed? It almost makes me want to put ads on my blog.

Here’s the deal:

• Free hosted ad server. Serve up affiliate banners, or any banner, all day long, on them.
• If an ad is sold, the publishers keep 75%. (plus they cover the PayPal fees).
• Instant Payments. When someone buys an ad, you get paid!
• Rotate your own ads with ease. (cuts down on banner blindness and makes split testing a breeze).
• GeoTargeting – You choose who sees your ad.
• Manage ads for multiple adzones and multiple sites all from one place.
• Feedback system. Buyers and sellers can leave messages for each ad.
• Social ratings. Add or substract from each person’s community score with each ad buy. See who is new, good, or bad to deal with.

By the way, Mark didn’t ask me or pay me to do this. These links are not affiliate links. I’m pimping this because he’s one of the good guys and because, well… everybody wants to make money blogging. I get nothing for this. I’m doing it to provide you with a new and potentially profitable resource for making money online from blogging.

So… is there a down side? Sure. It’s new, and doesn’t have big traffic yet, so you’re taking a bit of a chance with that. And although this may not matter to most people, it matters to me: I have to confess the site is pretty ugly. I’m sure Mark will get it spiffed up at some point. After all, 45n5 is a decent-looking site. I think he’s got other things on his mind, right now.

Again, that’s Show Your Ad Here.

Popularity: 13% [?]

For a long time now bloggers and website owners have been trying to find way to gain traffic for nothing, well really its a fact of life everyone wants something for nothing. What is the answer? Well I think Entrecard is the answer!

After the great review by Sharon on Entrecard, there was little point talking about Entrecard in more depth. Therefore, I thought I would write a little post and let everyone know about an Entrecard competition that will really boost your visibility within the Entrecard community and on other sites such as Problogger, John Chow, Tyler Cruz, Adii, Bloggingtips, Pureblogging and of course my site Crenk.

Currently, im giving away 500 Entrecard credits on Crenk. It is an easy competition to enter and best of all for entering you will receive a free link back from Crenk to your site.

So enjoy the competition and good luck.

Popularity: 8% [?]