Archive | blogging

41 How to Recruit Affiliates

By Randy R on August 18, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, blogging, Blogs, Internet Marketing, New Blogging

Recruiting Affiliates: Part 2

You should understand that many affiliates have been doing this for some time and they know exactly what they want or don’t want. The kind of plan you choose to use when paying your affiliates will decide, in many instances, who will join with you and who won’t. There are three main plan categories for you to choose between. Furthermore, there are tiers. We’ll begin with the plans, and then continue onto a talk about tiers.

Pay-per-click, or PPC, plans are the type of programs you may have heard mentioned most often. This kind of affiliate plan, as well as the other choices, is performance based. The way it works is easy. A visitor to a website notices a banner ad or another kind link to a site. He or she clicks on that link. Every click is worth a certain amount of money to the web master of that site. While this is a wonderful plan, there has been some worry recently about “click fraud”, which means clicks are being made with the only purpose being to generate more money for the host site.

Pay-per-sale, or PPS, plans enable greater discretion. With this type of plan the seller only pays the affiliate if a sale is made. Whatever the commission rate is, the seller pays according to the price of the item sold.

Pay-per-lead, or PPL, is the last kind of commission plan. With this arrangement the seller will pay the commission to the affiliate whenever a lead is created. This can result from either directed traffic that visits the seller’s site and registers for something, or is a lead based on a pre-determined criterion.

Now let’s discuss tiers. Tiers work in an easy to understand manner. It all boils down to referrals. Let’s pretend you set up 2 tiers. The first tier is affiliates who approached you directly. They will earn commission on both the traffic they generate and on the traffic generated by their referrals. The second tier consists of affiliates who were sent to you by another affiliate. These affiliates earn commission on their referred visitors, and the first tier affiliate also earns a lower commission, without having to do any work.

These are the main choices you have regarding setting up an affiliate plan. You can iron out the details whatever way suits you best. Keep in mind that the primary question is whether or not your plan will be competitive enough to make affiliates want to join.

How to Promote Your Blog

By Randy Roedl on June 18, 2010 in Blog Posting, Blog Tools, blogging, Blogs

There are tons of methods to promote your blog and you shouldn’t limit yourself to only a few of these methods because to ensure a successful blog you need to utilize all of them. If you’re new to blogging then you don’t need to worry about using all the methods listed below right away but as time allows you should start implementing the methods listed below. Everyone says content is king, which is true because you’ll need awesome content in order to keep your visitors but without promoting your blog properly nobody will find your content that you’ve spent time writing. This is why I believe promotion is just as vital as the content you write because without people reading the content there is no point in writing it. I think many new bloggers get lost in the hype of writing killer content and then lose their way once they realize they have no traffic coming to the blog. You should make sure you have a good ten to twenty posts of solid content before promoting your blog, but once you hit that number of posts you need to start promoting right away, and frankly I begin using some of the methods below right from the get-go. The methods and techniques I list below will all be beneficial to your blog and you should work on implementing them as soon as possible.

Social Bookmarking

Bloggers have the ability to utilize social bookmarking everyday and if you want traffic you need to use them. I use them everyday when I post to my blogs and it doesn’t take long at all. There are hundreds of these social bookmarking sites to use, but since time is an issue for bloggers you should only use a handful of them on a daily basis. I typically use StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Propeller and BlogsVine which only takes me about three minutes a day to submit my posts to. I’ve gotten over a thousand unique visitors some days from social bookmarking sites and you always get traffic coming from the sites for the life of your blog which is why I love using this method. It takes a few minutes a day to ensure that you get some daily traffic coming from these sites and although some people say that the traffic isn’t targeted I know for a fact that I’ve had some sales from social bookmarking in the past.

Article Marketing

Not only do bloggers need to write posts for their blog, but they also need to distribute articles across the internet so that people can find their blog. There are thousands of websites where you can post articles to and there are lots of great lists on the internet. If you only use one directory to submit your articles to then make sure it’s EzineArticles as they bring the most traffic to your blog. You simply write a 250+ word article and add your links at the bottom and submit it to the site. They have some guidelines which you need to follow, but there simple and can be found on their website. If you have time you should really be submitting articles on a daily basis to different directories. You shouldn’t limit yourself to only EzineArticles but if time only allows you to use one directory then use that one. If you have time though then submit articles to new directories each day. Typically I try submitting one article to EzineArticles and one article to another directory. I always switch the second directory around everyday so that I’m gaining links and exposure on different sites.

Buying Links & Blog Posts

Bloggers often buy links and blog posts to boost their search engine rankings and to gain exposure. Buying these types of advertising is beneficial as long as you’re buying the links on sites or blogs that don’t have tons of links and appear like a link farm. If you can find good sites and blogs to buy posts or links on then you should analyze the blog and see if it’s worth it. If the blog has a high page rank and a good authority in Google then buying a link or blog post would be great for boosting your search engine rankings which is ideal. Depending on how well the blog or site is known on the internet will reflect the cost, but you can find many great deals on the internet for links and blog posts. The main thing here is to remember to only buy links and posts on relevant sites or blogs meaning on the same topic as your blog, and you also need to ensure that the site or blog you’re buying a link or post on isn’t full of links.

There are still tons of other methods you can use to promote your blog but following these simple techniques will ensure you maintain a steady stream of traffic to your blog. Once you get into a routine of completing all of the above then you can start looking for other methods of promotion which can be anything that draws traffic to your blog. You need to get creative with your techniques to see maximum benefit and the more you do that your competitor doesn’t, the better chance you have of becoming more successful.

Blogging_For_Profesionals_Articles

By Randy R on June 16, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Adsense Earnings, Blog Beginning, Blog Business, Blog Feeds, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs

Professional blogging is a very new idea with a great deal of potential for enterprising individuals who have insight, drive, and an elementary understanding of today’s innovative web technology. Those dubbed “pro bloggers” are a rare breed, and there are less still who make a living solely from writing weblogs. The amount of people that successfully use their weblogs to supplement their income, increases every day.

The amount of pro bloggers is growing by leaps and bounds, but it is difficult to say whether this fashion will continue.

Many bloggers dream of entering the arena of professional blogging. Most people who spend an hour or more each day on their blog their blog hope to earn some kind of compensation for their difficult work.

Several models exist for making money with a weblog, the most common being to sell marketing space through Google’s AdSense program or directly to a company that wishes to reach the demographic that your weblog appeals to. Not that numerous people, all the same, can earn enough of an income to live on just through marketing on their blog.

Many of the individuals who are reading weblogs are bloggers themselves because they like to follow with what other bloggers are doing with their weblogs.

Individuals who have succeeded in the world of pro blogging have only done so because of their ambition to learning, talking, and writing about blogging. Pro bloggers love to write about the art of blogging more than anything else. Professional bloggers sometimes make use of the field of blogging itself as subject material for their blogs.

Pro blogging is certain to become more complex, as time goes on.

Blogging concerning blogging – researching the blogging movement and offer advice to newcomers – is one of the most popular and profitable types of blogs on the Internet today. As blogging software becomes easier to use and more widely adopted, both bloggers and weblog readers will be more diverse.

As a matter of fact, it is very likely indeed that the world of pro blogging will also start to reflect these shifts. There is no way to anticipate which blogs will be turning over a profit in 5 years, let alone 10. Pro blogging is full of continual change and flux, therefor making it exciting to certain people.

Determining Whether a Blog Is a Good Idea for You

By Randy R on June 13, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Adsense Earnings, Blog Beginning, Blog Business, Blog Feeds, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs

Before you even think about investing money into blogging you should take a close look at whether or not you’ll be suitable for blogging. There has been a lot of noise made about how blogging is everyone’s key to riches, but the fact remains not everyone is going to be suitable for blogging. There are plenty of factors out there that you need to weigh out in order to determine whether blogging is right for you. In this article I’m going to show you some of the questions you should be asking yourself before you go out and spend money on hosting and domains, not to mention all the other cool tools most bloggers invest in.

Do You Like Writing?

If you don’t enjoy writing then blogging won’t work for you at all. Writing is the backbone of every blog and if you aren’t willing to write content everyday then blogging is not for you. There are plenty of options out there for other types of websites that don’t require daily updates, but as a blogger if you want to be successful you need to make blog posts everyday.

Writing or Speaking?

Most people can consider themselves either a writer or a speaker. I personally consider myself a writer and I actually have lots of problems speaking in public. I get nervous when I’m speaking in public and this is normal for some people which make them good candidates for blogging. If you love to speak though, then you might want to consider starting a video website or podcasting website.

How Much Time Do You Have?

To really run a blog you’re going to need about two hours everyday and you can’t leave days out because you just don’t feel like blogging that day. You need to take it seriously as you’ll be the one paying for your hosting and domains. If you’re not going to be consistent then you’re not going to make money and you’ll be throwing money away for hosting and domains with no return. Make sure you have plenty of time each day so that you can write a blog post and build some links.

Technical Ability?

You’ll want to have some technical understanding when it comes to the computer and the internet before you start blogging. There is plenty of small things you need to do in order to have wordpress run properly and you don’t want to hire someone every time you need to do something. WordPress is one of the easiest CMS systems to use, but you need to still possess some technical ability.

Do You Like Reading?

As a blogger you need to become active on other blogs as well and if you don’t then you will fall behind the competition quickly. If you like reading blogs and commenting on what you read then you’re really looking like you’d be a great blogging candidate.

Working Ability?

You need to be ready before you even begin blogging to work hard. You should know ahead of time that blogging is a lot of work and you won’t see quick results. A lot of people neglect to mention that money isn’t found quickly in blogging and you need to invest time, sweat and a bit of money to make any sort of return.

These are only the questions I came up with off of the top of my head, there are plenty more you should ask yourself before committing any money and time to blogging. I would say that roughly 80% of everyone who starts a blog gives up after a month or less due to not seeing any instant results. It takes time to rank in the search engines and build trust between your readers so the money will come if you can pass the test. You need to build a blog with loyal readers the first few months and if you can manage to do that then the money will start rolling in. In some instances it can take weeks only before seeing money from your blog, but I don’t like giving false impressions so expect to spend six months working on your blog before seeing any results.

WordPress Settings

By Randy R on June 10, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Adsense Earnings, Blog Beginning, Blog Business, Blog Feeds, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs

There are quite a few WordPress settings that you need to remember and constantly check to ensure that they are working or running properly and sometimes people forget very important settings that aren’t talked about often. Most people always understand that they need to enable plug-ins to get to them work and to change the theme and basic settings like this, but some of the most vital settings are usually overlooked by people.

One of these settings that most people often overlook is the privacy setting which is the setting that will determine whether or not you will be found by search engines. Sometimes by default this will be switched to block the search engines from accessing your blog and if you do this then you won’t be indexed or receive any search engine traffic. This setting is under the settings area in the WordPress admin section and called privacy. Make sure that it’s switched to the option that will allow search engines to crawl your site, after all the most targeted traffic comes from the search engines and you’ll need this traffic to make any money as a blogger.

The second setting is the permalink structure which is in the same row as the privacy button in the setting menu on the WordPress admin. By default the permalink structure is set to page number but you definitely don’t want this for SEO purposes and instead you’ll want to not use any of the options except for the custom option. The custom option allows you to set your own permalink structure and there are two options ideal for SEO purposes.

Either…

/%postname%/

/%postname%//%category%/

Either of the two is great for SEO purposes as you should be making sure your title has your keywords in it. Using the second option might be beneficial but depending on your category names it may also not be beneficial. If you use keywords as category names then by all means use the second custom permalink option, but if you don’t then only use the post name option.

Both of these settings are important to making sure your blog is set-up properly and you should double check both of these settings if you have any doubt.

Easy Ways to Make Money with Blogs

By Randy R on June 7, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Adsense Earnings, Blog Beginning, Blog Business, Blog Feeds, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs

Easy Ways to Make Money with Blogs

Internet is undoubtedly the most revolutionary invention of modern
times. And to add to the interest associated with it, internet keeps
evolving continuously. One of the major reasons for the growing
popularity of internet is that it provides ample money making
opportunities to people. With a little bit of effort and hard work, one
can easily create decent earnings through the internet and it would not
be wrong to say that blogging is one of the easiest ways of making
money on the internet. It is because of this reason that many people
have dropped their regular jobs to make it big in the blogging industry.

Given below are some tips and strategies which will help you in
earning a decent income through blogs:

Placing a Google Ad sense on your blog can prove to be the initiation of a regular source of income for yourself. Since these
ads are usually for products or services which are related to the
topic of your blog, it is more than likely that the readers will click
on those ads, which in turn will result in constant income for
you. In fact, direct ad sales contribute to about 70% of the total
revenue generated from a blog. It is highly recommended that
one secures an advertisement page on the blog; this will ensure
that your customers can easily buy ad space on your blog.

Another easy way to make money through blogging is by
becoming an affiliate of an ad or affiliate network. This form of
money making becomes more relevant if your blog is related to
a technical niche. These networks require you to promote their
products or services through your blogs and offer you a monthly
amount for doing so.

One of the smartest ways of making money is by reviewing the
affiliate products of your advertisers. This can result in double benefits
for you as a review will not only add content to your
blog but will also earn some extra cash for your blog

If you have a service to offer, utilize your blog to offer your
services to your readers. Since your audience is already
interested in the content of you blog, it is more than a
probability that they would try your services which will add to
your monthly income.

Writing an e-book which is on the same niche as your blog will
result in extra income. Just remember to make your e-book
more spicy and juicy. An e-book is a smart way of creating a
win-win situation for oneself, as if the readers cannot afford to
buy the e-book, they would definitely visit the blog to pull some
information on the niche which will result in a boosted traffic for
your blog.

There are several other ways of making money through blogs;
however the above mentioned methods are by far the easiest ones
and can take your efforts of money making through blogging to
another level.

Blogging Can Help Your Business

By Randy R on June 4, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Adsense Earnings, Blog Beginning, Blog Business, Blog Feeds, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs

Blogging Can Help Your Business

Blogging can have miraculous effects on the success of any business
and that is the reason why many businesses are indulging themselves
in blogging. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that
millions of individuals and businesses have woken up to the
importance of blogging and hence have created their own blogs. If you
are wondering how a blog can boost your sales and business then read
on, as this chapter has all the relevant information.

A blog is the cheapest and the best marketing tool

Blogs are very easy to create and hence take very less time and effort
to be created. Not only that, a blog requires very less investment. On
the other hand, the impact of a blog is far-reaching and it can act as a
great marketing tool for the products and services offered by your
business.

Blogs come handy in market research

Since the blogs generate traffic which is already interested in your
business, conducting a survey or a poll can create a win-win situation
for you. Not only will it help you in market research, but it will also
help you in abiding the interests of the visitors of your blog.

Blogging is much easier than maintaining a website

Blogging does not compulsorily require one to be technically correct.
Blogging is as easy as sending emails or typing letters on a word pad.
This makes the maintenance of blogs much easier than maintaining
websites where one has to pay a web designer or a web developer to
add content to the website. The best part is that, blogging allows you
to add latest information on your products and services without any
additional cost.

Blogs allow you to interact with the target audience

It is more than a probability that, majority of the traffic is visiting
your blog to know more about your products and services. Blogs
provide an amazing platform to interact with your potential customers
and hence provide you with ample opportunities to impress and
encourage them to try your products and services.

Blogs are an effective tool to collect constructive feedback

Most of the customers, who have purchased your products or services
through your blog, are likely to leave a review or feedback for your
products or services on your blog after using it. It is best to collect all
such entries which can help in the improvement of your business.
Once the suggestions of those customers have been implemented, it
can be added as a special entry in your blog, which will result in more
feedback and more traffic for your website.

Earn money through monetizing your blog

However large or small your business is, it always pays to monetize
your blog. You can place ads of related products and services, and you
can get paid for placing those ads on your blog.

Someone rightly said that best things come free in life. Though a blog
might sometimes ask for a small investment, it would not be an
exaggeration to say that it can work wonders for your business.

WordPress Plug-Ins Every Webmaster should be using

By Randy R on June 1, 2010 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Adsense Earnings, Blog Beginning, Blog Business, Blog Feeds, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs

If you use wordpress as your content management system then you need to take advantage of the many plug-ins available to use. Everyday there are more plug-ins added to wordpress from developers all across the globe and you should make sure you implement the useful ones into your blog. In this article we’re going to look at some of the free wordpress plug-ins that every webmaster should use on there blogs.

#1 – Google Sitemap Generator Plug-in

There are a couple Google sitemap generator plug-ins on the market for wordpress and you can choose whichever one you want. By using this plug-in you’ll allow the search engines to easily find all your posts and pages which will allow them to index your pages quicker.

#2 – All-In-One-SEO-Plug-in

The All-In-One-SEO-Plug-in optimizes your blog posts and pages for the search engines. You will be able to input your own title, keywords and description for the search engines so it allows you to target the keywords that you want to target. This plug-in is viral for attracting search engine traffic from long-tail keywords and if you don’t use this plug-in you shouldn’t blog.

#3 – WordPress Back-up Plug-in

The wordpress back-up plug-in is very important to ensuring that you never lose any of your blog data. When you start customizing and changing things on your blog things can go wrong and if you don’t have a back-up of your blog then you could be in trouble. By activating this plug-in it will automatically create back-ups of your blog for you.

#4 – Related Posts Plug-in

The related-posts plug-in inputs links to older posts at the bottom of every new post you make. This is great for two reasons which are the fact that your visitors will be able to find related content on your blog to read which keeps them on your blog longer, and you’ll also have great inter-linking throughout your blog with this plug-in which is important for the search engines.

#5 – Sociable Plug-in

The sociable plug-in will place a small box of icons at the bottom of your posts and it will allow your blog readers to submit your posts to the social bookmarking websites. This is a good way to get free traffic from your visitors and if you get enough votes your posts could go viral.

There are plenty other wordpress plug-ins that you should use, but these ones are vital and should be installed instantly every time you start a new blog. Once you have them all on your computer then it’s quick to upload them to your new blogs and it’s important that you spend the time setting-up your blog properly so that it’s optimized for the search engines and blog readers.

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