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Archive for the ‘Monetization Strategies’ Category

How to Make More Money Without Getting More Traffic

By Shaun Connell On June 29, 2009 6 Comments

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This is a guest post by Shaun Connell.

Very few bloggers have reached their income goals. Unfortunately, most seem to think that the way to achieve their income goals is by just crushing as much traffic as they can through their blog, somehow expecting the traffic to convert into more traffic, popularity and links until the money starts to flow.

But that’s not usually the case. In this post we’ll cover the other side of increasing your revenue: focusing on making your blog’s monetization more efficient. Doing this will allow you to up your income without having to actually increase your traffic.

Traffic is Often Overrated

I have several websites that pull anywhere from a few hundred visitors per day to a few thousand. Oddly enough to some, my most trafficked blog isn’t my biggest income blog.

I can’t stress this enough: Lot’s of traffic does not equal lots of money.

Traffic is just a fuel. It doesn’t matter how much or what kind of fuel you put into your riding lawnmower, it will never beat a racecar. When you’re trying to go as fast as you can, you need to focus on your engine.

Of course, the engine of making money online is how you actually monetize your website. Increasing the efficiency of your “engine” will let you go much faster than just tinkering with the fuel. If you efficiently monetize your website, you can literally double your income without seeing a change in traffic at all.

If you’ve read any of my articles before, you know I’m a huge fan of systematic business. An online business is a business just the same. Every internet business needs a business plan, as I explained in The 1-2-3 Plan: How to Make Money With SEO.

But enough theory. Let’s look at actual ways to you can increase you monetization’s efficiency without needing to increase traffic.

How to Convert Traffic Better

Re-Research Your Niche. Research your niche to find out which keywords are the highest paying. No guess work. If you have to, get a pen and paper out and use Google’s keyword tool. Now reorganize your post titles and keywords to make sure you’re targeting the highest paying keywords. I’ve seen this increase my AdSense earnings nearly 50%

Place Advertisements Better. Where you place your ads are critical to their success. For AdSense, the ads most likely to be clicked should be at the top of the page. Don’t forget about Google’s link units. These are surprisingly good at nudging your CTR up a few notches, and are grossly underused by bloggers in general.

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Making Money Without Jeopardizing Your Blog’s Theme

By Lyndsay On March 3, 2009 13 Comments

This article is guest posted by Lyndsay from Latest Fashion Trends from a Fashion Girl- Lyndsay Cabildo.

Tip #1-  Traffic

When you have enough traffic, you have audience that will be your potential customers when you start making money from your blog.  It is the first key.

Tip #2-  Blog Content

Your blog is your world.  Your blog is the biggest component of your money maker machine online, so you would like to write good contents for your blog as that will make readers stay longer reading and browsing more pages in your blog.

Tip #3- Related Affiliate Partners

Signing up with the Affiliates related to your sites get more potential buyers as they are already interested reading your blog content, they are more likely to browse on the related items or program affiliate you are with, gaining you possible commission when they do buy the product or service.

Tip #4- Using Product Links

As you write about the specific product, it is better to use a specific image from the Affiliate Partner and link it directly to the product page(if possible).  It increases more possible sales that way, minimizing their time to browse for the specific product.(e.g Your Fave Shoe image- Link it to the exact location)

Tip #5- Related Banners

Pick cautiously the banners that you would use on your page, as they will be present in every page the reader will browse on your blog.  Choose Very Related and high commission rate affiliates because they occupy more space on your blog.  Do not waste the opportunity, yet be smart, and anticipate possible reader reactions to your ads.

Make Money Online With Ecommerce

By Laura Abro On February 10, 2009 6 Comments

This article is guest posted by Laura Abro.

I was shocked to find that in the nearly two years that Carl Ocab dot com has been online, not one single post has been written about ecommerce! Ecommerce is overlooked by most people because they feel that it’s too hard and/or too expensive, but there are a lot of good reasons to consider it.

First of all there’s the money. Obviously there are no guarantees, but most of the successful ecommerce owners I’ve met make six and seven figure incomes.

Second, there’s demand. Get your product in front of someone who wants to buy it, and they will. No 10-page salesletter required.

Third, ecommerce is surprisingly recession-resistant. With gas prices up and a very shaky economy, people are turning to online shopping to save money. Overall demand is down for sure, but online commerce is doing very well compared to offline stores.

Fourth, there are some markets you simply can’t enter unless you sell a physical product. When someone want to buy a titanium wedding ring, you can’t fill their need without selling rings. You might possibly be able to sell them an ebook on wedding planning – but they’ll still need that ring.

I know some people are probably thinking, “But there are so many problems, too!” and I will be the first to tell you that running an ecommerce site is not easy. You have to deal with suppliers,  talk to customers, and worry about sales tax. And it can be expensive, too. Most designers charge $3000+ for an ecommerce store design – and that doesn’t include plugins, which can cost you several thousand more. Then there’s the problem of products: you need to buy them, store them, and ship them. Not to mention stores like Amazon – they sell everything you do plus more, and at prices you can’t possibly match.

But these problems can also become advantages. Have you ever heard the term “barriers to entry“? All the problems I listed are barriers that prevent people from entering ecommerce. Sure, it keeps you out – but it keeps everyone else out too. If you can overcome the barriers, you’re looking at less competition than you would find in affiliate marketing or info products. Why? Barriers to entry are higher for ecommerce than for other online businesses.

But are the barriers as high as they look? Not really.

Now I’ve already told you that running an ecommerce store isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as you think, either.

Don’t want to stock products? You don’t have to, thanks to the magic of fulfillment and dropshipping. The two options are similar: in both cases, someone else will be storing and shipping the products for you. With fulfillment, you’re buying the products and hiring someone to store and ship for you. There are many companies that do fulfillment, including Amazon.com. Dropshipping is even more convenient. In this case, you’re dealing directly with the manufacturer, and you don’t pay them for any products until after you’ve already sold them. This is great for starting on a small budget, but not all manufacturers are willing to dropship. The best way to find dropshippers is to use a reputable directory like World Wide Brands.

Don’t like to talk to customers? Most of my customers have never contacted me directly, and the ones that did have always been very nice, friendly people.

Sales tax? It’s a pain, but you need to charge it in one state at most, so you won’t need to worry about it for the majority of your orders.

Think an ecommerce cart is too expensive? There are several free carts like osCommerce and ZenCart, and paid options like Yahoo Merchant Solutions start as low as $40/month.

Worried about design and plugin costs? Yes, a designer will cost you a lot of money – so look into premade templates. They usually cost about $50-$150. Plugins are another major expense, but you don’t need to buy them all when you’re starting out. If you’re on a budget, get an SEO plugin and buy the rest from your profits after you’ve started making money.

What about Amazon or Ebay? There’s too much price competition! This is a major myth about ecommerce. Contrary to popular belief, most Internet shoppers are not hard-core bargain hunters. They’re usually more concerned about reliability, service, and convenience than they are about price.

Don’t live in the US? Even that’s not a problem! It does make some things more difficult, but I have seen people in South America, Europe, and even Asia running ecommerce stores in the US. Heck, I started my first ecommerce venture while I was still living in Pakistan!

Ecommerce is definitely not for everyone, but neither is affiliate marketing, Adsense, info products, or any other monetization strategy. There is no perfect way to make money online – but there is a perfect way for you to make money online. Ecommerce could be it.

Laura Abro is a ecommerce store owner and the author of Infinite Backlinks, a free link-building guide. She is also one of the three founders of Acorn Pad, offering online business training courses.

The Blog Theme That Almost Always Made Me Money

By Carl On October 19, 2008 85 Comments

Imagine this…

What if you could, hire a world-class designer who would create an amazing WordPress theme that makes almost certain you have the best combination of a Google friendly site, optimized advertising income, and chic design in your blog?

All these for less than $100?

Only a dream? Before probably, but something kicks off today…

Ultimate Blogging Theme

When I first started my blog, I was prowling the web like you – searching for the “perfect” WordPres theme that would combine…

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A Hardcore Advice On Making Money with AdSense

By Carl On November 27, 2007 18 Comments

This post is guest posted by  Grandstart – Hardcore Strategies to Make Money Online.

Forget about blending your ads, disregard the heat map, toss away Joel Comm’s book. Don’t bother reading those tips dished out by make money online bloggers who have never even seen a Google checque.

If you want to make money with AdSense, read closely.

Simple sites make more money with AdSense

How do these sites look? Scroll below.

These sites are pretty clear-cut. There are no clutters and they don’t confuse the visitors. They don’t offer 97 or so options.

I did post about this in “Tighten your page and get 20-30% AdSense CTR” four months back. After that article, I redesigned my sites – further stretching their simplicity. Well, the result was an even better CTR.

It was not without a model. I followed closely the sites of the real AdSense gurus. And one of them is Michael Green. Michael, an internet marketer par excellence, is also a Conservative Member of the Parliament (UK).

Michael’s site is earning six figures monthly. Well, yes the traffic is already there. But the point is you have to convert that traffic into clicks.

Michael made his site incredibly simple that his CTR went to an amazing 30-40%.

Look at his site:

Here’s another example of a website that rakes in tons of AdSense money:

Now you know what a simple site looks. Yes, it’s on the edge of being ugly!

But do YOU care if it brings in 5 to 10 times more than your current earnings?

Ha!Ha! I feel your pain if you do a complete overhaul of your beautiful site.

If you still doubt that simple sites make more AdSense money than your 3 columned blog, why not try typing www.google.com? The site is the mother of all the simple sites. It collected tons of clicks in 2006.

Look at the Google site again. Ridiculously simple. While its competitors were busy converting their sites into a doorway of all information, Google concentrated on being simple. A plain logo and no banners. Content on the left and money ads on the right. Hey! there are even ads on the left.

The Google visitor is left with only a few choices. It’s either the content on the left or the persuasive ad on the right. The visitor is always in a hurry and decides quickly which makes Google’s CTR shoot thru the roof.

Follow Google’s example. Why have we not done this before? Google is showing us how it makes tons of money.

Should I say more of the elements of a simple site? Like above the fold ads and white background? Watch out for my succeeding posts at www.grandstart.com

Monetize Lost Visitors: Make Money With Your Error Pages

By Carl On September 29, 2007 7 Comments

I know you hate to see these:

Why do browsers still call this as a 404 page?! Only geeks know what 404 page!

When you visit a site, and you have typed in the wrong folder of a domain, on most occasions 404 pages will show up. If that website haven’t customized it yet, the browser will automatically generate a 404 page like above.

Although it’s really handy to see some warnings like these, it doesn’t make you any money at all! All you have is a lost/unknown visitor that most likely won’t come back.

A lot of sites are talking about how to monetize your traffic, they mumble about ad placement, blah blah blah, but I’m pretty sure some forgot about the error pages! On my everyday surfing activity, I always land to 1 or 2 404 page everyday, that sadly has nothing in it.

Here’s a useful plugin that notifies you through email whenever a person visits a 404 page. Try it for yourself and you’ll see the potential, on the other hand you can just check your awstats in your cpanel and check how many people came by on your 404 page.

How Do You Set It Up?

If you’re on WordPress, professionally designed themes include a 404.php file. Just log-in in your admin panel, add some custom text in the 404 page template and you’re done.

If the theme you are currently on doesn’t have a 404.php file. You can create one and upload it where your current theme is located.

Add these common codes and save it as 404.php:

<?php header(”HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found”); ?>
<?php get_header(); ?>

<div class=”post”>
Custom text goes here
</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

For some websites, you can add this one liner code to your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.example.com/404.html

If you like you can also add 401 (which will show up if a person visits an authorized page) and 403 (if a person visits a forbidden page) Just change the domain to where you want the visitor to be redirected if they have typed the wrong extension.

Monetization Ideas

After you have set up the error page, let’s now edit the files where your visitor will go. Here are some ideas to start off:

Affiliate Links

The easiest perhaps is this, just add the banners, links, etc… of the product you’re promoting and you’re all done.

Special Offer

If you have a product that you are promoting right now, you can sell it to them in a much lower price and make them think that it’s a big steal. You can also sell PLR (Private Label Prodcuts) products in alternative if you haven’t created your own product yet.

Capture Them!

As what I said before, capturing emails really matter. It’s a big benefit. You can read the 3 part series here:

Part 1: Why Capturing emails matter
Part 2: Give It Away And Get Rich
Part 3: The Power Of Words And Colors

CPC Ads

If you’re just really lazy to sign-up for an affiliate program, then this might be the last option for you, because I bet you have an AdSense account. Just plaster the page with ads! Though, I do not recommend doing this, you’ll get lower results.

Just for some inspiration, have a look at my own 404 page ;)