Money Secrets

Finally, I can relax. The fact I’m not posting to Money Secrets every day, (or even every week/month in most cases) isn’t hurting me in Google’s eyes.

The trouble is, when you’re blogging, you want to please both the search engines and the visitors. It’s ok for Matt Cutts to say Google is more bothered about great content than they are about whether you post every day, but wouldn’t your visitors want great content?

That’s kind of like saying as long as you post something every day your visitors won’t mind if it’s not up to par as long as it means they’re not reading the same thing they read yesterday. And really that all depends on what sort of blog you’re crafting.

Fresh Content

If you’re running a news site, you’re going to have to post every day. But what about something like Money Secrets? I’m not really interested in writing about every single fad related to the different ways you can make money online.

Over 90% of my readers come from the Search Engines (usually Google and Yahoo). And they’re landing on particular pages that relate to whatever it is they’re looking for. For them, the content is fresh even if I posted it weeks, months or years ago.

If they like it, they’ll come back and read some more. ( I hope )and this is where I might lose them because I don’t post all that often. In which case all I can really do is hope they subscribe to the RSS feed and only come back when I do have something new up.

Great Content

You can’t post great content every single day. You just can’t. You might be able to manage it for a month or so if you’re really organised and have it all set up on a schedule. But otherwise, great content on a blog only happens once in a while.

Besides, your definition of ‘great’ most likely doesn’t fit with mine. Search engines might define great content similarly because they’re robots, but people aren’t robots. So you can forget about trying to write something everyone is going to think is great.

Blogging Secret

When I started out with Money Secrets, I didn’t really have a clue about much of anything. Certainly no idea of what went into creating a really great blog. (still haven’t got that figured out actually, )

But over time, more by good luck than good judgement, this blog has increased it’s traffic and it’s income. Blogging is a long term strategy. If you want to make money from it, you need to stick at it.

I get emails from folks asking why their blog isn’t making them any money, why they’re on the first page one day and nowhere to be found the next, why they’re not getting hundreds of vistors every day…. and their blog has been up maybe a month or two at most.

If you’re looking to make money fast, blogging isn’t the way to do it.  Whether you opt for posting every day or every week is entirely up to you and what sort of blog it is you’re trying to create. But in the end, committment is what will make the difference.

If you’ve been inspired by Daniel’s book on blogging and are thinking that maybe you’d like to set up your own blog, you’re probably busy scouring the Internet to find the best way to set one up. And of course, your reason for doing this is so that you can start seeing some money rolling into your bank account.

The problem is that you will find too much information and end up getting lost in the maze of ‘Blogging Secrets of the Rich and Famous’. Forget it. There are no blogging secrets, apart from the obvious ones.

• Keep it simple. Don’t go thinking you have to come up with a perfect blog right out of the box.
• Choose something you know you can actually be bothered to write about - make sure it’s also something that other folks are going to be interested in.
• Be prepared to make a committment to it. Don’t choose blogging as your method of making money if you don’t want to keep putting in the effort on a regular basis. It’s not a set and forget means to making money online. Unless of course, you want to just create a spam blog full of other folks content that you’ve scraped using one of the myriad ‘autoblogging’ software products out there.

If you’re sure you’re ready to go down the blogging route, then you have some decisions to make.

• Domain - make sure you choose a domain for your blog that is related to what you’re actually going to write about. Sounds like common sense, but have you seen some of the blogs out there? For those more experienced who know how to drive traffic in droves, you can get away with dumb names that aren’t related at all, but if you’re just starting out, stick with keeping it related. It’ll pay dividends in helping the search engines put you in front of the folks most interested in what you’re posting.
• Hosting - probably the biggest question when it comes to blogging is whether you should choose to host it yourself or use one of the free hosted options like Wordpress or Blogger. The biggest advantage to using your own hosting is that you have total control. Do you really want to risk losing everything if Blogger or Wordpress decide they don’t like what you’ve written and take down your blog?
• Monetization - unless you’re planning on setting up a  blog as a hobby then presumably you’re looking at it as a way to make money. Whether you want to make lots of it or just a little extra to help out with the bills every month, you’re better off deciding on your money making options before you just jump in and start throwing all sorts of different ads all over the place.

So let’s look at them in turn.

Domain

As far as you can, you want the domain (address) of your blog to match it’s title. And that title should be based on the main keyword you want the blog to rank for. Now, unfortunately, it’s not always possible to get the domain you want.  So you might have to think out of the box, or get one as closely related as possible.

If you’re setting up a pretty generic blog then the domain and title aren’t quite as important for SEO purposes as they are for being catchy and easy to remember. It’s amazing how, if you post entertaining, informative, useful content, the blog will catch on. And then, as long as your name is easy to remember a few readers will pass it along, and before you know it you’ve got a huge following.

Hosting

Comes down to two main choices - free or paid. Personally, imo you’re better off going down the paid route every time. This gives you complete control, plus you get added benefits of looking more professional.

However, if you’re not sure whether blogging is for you, then start off with a free one. The most popular are Wordpress and Blogger, but there are loads of others. Just ask Google. Blogger is a lot simpler to manage if you’re a total technophobe, but Wordpress isn’t exactly rocket science. And it offers a lot more options in terms of different themes and plugins you can get to make it work even better.

If you do elect to go for your own hosting, then you will have to learn how to install and configure a blog on your server. Again, it’s not rocket science, but when you’ve never done it then it sure as hell seems like learning rocket science would be a whole lot easier. (Tip - make sure you choose a good, friendly, supportive webhost. Money Secrets would never have come about if it wasn’t for my choice of hosting).

Monetization

Assuming you’re not getting into blogging as a way to pass your spare time, (and even if you are), then how you choose to make money from it is entirely up to you. This is of course also assuming you’re hosting it yourself. Many of the free hosted blogs have their own advertising going on and / or don’t permit certain types of advertising on their sites.

Adsense - Google’s advertising power at your fingertips. Very simple to install, (choose a layout and copy the code Google gives you, paste the code in your blog where you want it to appear), and once set up, it just keeps going. However, while some people earn a full time living from Adsense income alone, it really isn’t that simple.

The key to earning money with Adsense is traffic. Lots of it. The more visitors you get, the more chances are some of them will click an ad and you’ll earn a percentage of what the advertiser is paying Google.  You’ll need to choose keywords that people use when they are searching for information.

You’ll also need to test out things like, where to display the ads, and what colours work best on your site, in order to get as many clicks as possible. Also be aware that not all ads are created equal. Depending on what you’re writing about, the amount you get paid for each click can vary from a few pennies, (cents) to a few quid (dollars). If you want to make more money, target high paying keywords.

Affiiliate Products - No matter which subject you happen to be blogging about, you’re bound to be able to find a product that you can sell as an affiliate. Whether it’s a book from Amazon, or a piece of jewellery from Tiffany’s, someone, somewhere will be willing to pay you a commission if you can make them a sale.

Making money with affiliate products however is very different to making money with Adsense. Instead of looking for lots of traffic, you’ll need to concentrate on getting targeted traffic. That means you only want visitors who are interested in the product you’re trying to sell and are actively searching to buy it, not just researching about it.

Make sure that whatever product you recommend is actually of some use to your visitors. Resist the temptation to put up a link to the highest paying affiliate product just because you think it’ll make you more money. It won’t. And not only that, it’ll destroy any chance you have of building up a relationship with your readers so the chances of them coming back and perhaps buying another product from you are reduced to about zero.

Direct Sales - Now, if you’re really clever you’ll realize that the best way to make the most amount of money is to sell your own stuff. This means you get to keep 100% of the profits. And if the product you’re offering is something that can be downloaded, those profits can be pretty amazing, even if you’re only selling it for a few bucks. After all, your only real cost is the hosting and merchant fees.

However, very few people buy the first time they see something. Sad, but true. To get the most from selling directly to your visitors you need to set up a way that you can capture their information and build up a relationship with them over time. As they get to know you and your product better,there’s a greater chance they’ll end up buying it from you.

List building is crucial to direct selling. If you don’t want to go down this route then don’t try to monetize your blog with your own product. You’ll leave more money on the table than you’ll put in your bank account.

Legal Stuff

It’s always best to be upfront with your readers, and especially with all the recent changes to the FTC regulations. So make sure you comply with all the legal requirements and that your visitors can easily find your privacy policy.

Never, never, never (let me repeat that, NEVER) send out unsolicited emails to anyone who hasn’t requested to recieve information from you. And also make sure that even if they have requested it, they can just as easily request to not recieve any more.

The biggest mistake people make when they start building a list (and this isnt’ just true of bloggers) is that they think when someone has signed up to their list, that they have to try and sell them something. Anything - doesn’t matter if it’s any good, or if it will be of any use to them, just as long as it offers a way of earning some money for the list owner. >:XX

Whew! And you thought all you needed to know was how to set up a blog from a technical standpoint. If only it was that simple. But better to think it through before you get into the actual ‘doing the doing’. That way you know you’re starting out on the right track and it should save a whole lot of time and trouble further down the line.