Blog Money Strategies: Don’t Make These Mistakes! #bwe09

Welcome back!

The title of this blog post better represents the content of my panel at BlogWorld Expo.  The original title was some convoluted, grammatically incorrect session title that we changed to “I Can Haz $$.”

I was honored to present the panel with Dave Taylor, Chris Pirillo, and Chloe Spencer.  As a panel, we each discussed our own blogs to open the session and what money-making strategies we employ on our own blogs.  These money-getting strategies included, but were not limited to:

• Google Adsense
• Affiliate Marketing
• Coupons
• RSS feed integration and manipulation
• Product creation
• Community involvement

Ultimately, the key to making money blogging (as per our panel) is to try everything.  Test, test, test.  Stick with what works and exploit it.

Some additional action items we suggested to people included:

• At a minimum, upgrade to a premium theme.  If you want to make money blogging, you need to treat it as a business and look like a business.  Spend the $150+ to get a premium theme to set yourself apart from the crowd.  Stop using the same 3 free themes that everyone else uses.  (Even though I use Ultimate Blogging Theme, because I like the way it works and looks, I think Thesis provides a lot more flexibility for creating a truly custom-looking blog without paying for a custom theme.)
• Make it easy for readers to engage — RSS, email blog post delivery, easy to comment, and so on.
• What’s your blog about?  You have approximately 7 seconds to capture your readers attention.  They better be able to figure out what value your providing in those 7 seconds, without scrolling down the page or you’ve just lost them.
• Create a product!  You’re already providing quality content to your readers.  Why not compile that product into a valuable information product to sell.
• Take the time to consider keywords every time you post.  Use tools like Google Trends and Google Keyword Tool to refine the keywords you’re targeting.  It’s an extra step that can make a huge difference in traffic.
• Work with affiliate networks and companies to maximize your commissions and coupons.
• Make it easy to integrate affiliate links into your site using a plugin like Ninja Affiliate.  There are lots of options available for affiliate link “cloaking” — changing an affiliate link to something manageable and trackable — including many free options.  Although, I’ve yet to find a free affiliate link cloaking plugin that works as well or as easily as a paid plugin, like Ninja Affiliate.  Your content lives on forever, your affiliate links should, too.  A good affiliate link plugin will go back through all your old posts and change keywords to affiliate links, too.

Do you have any to add?  Feel free!  Comment, below!

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