Power Maxx Blog

In the previous installment, Make Money with a Blog for Dummies: Part 1, I discussed all the basics of getting your blog setup, including all the plugins you’ll need, as well as making it stand out from the others with a free downloadable theme. As I previously mentioned, I am seeking to simplify the book by John Chow, as I myself found some parts a bit confusing for a beginner blogger.

I give all credit to John where it is due, and I will simply seek to get to the meat of the book so that someone can get setup and running as quickly as possible. I will also continue to add my own information where I have found it to be useful.

Alright! Now that you’re blog is all setup, and you’ve hopefully got a few posts up, its time to add a few money makers to your pages. You don’t want to go overboard from the beginning, as too many ads is a bad thing, and you want to keep your readers coming back, not drive them away. In the following section, I will detail the Recommended Money Makers for the beginner blogger.

The book by John Chow details 9 different ideas of where to start to begin generating ad revenue. I found that if you were to put all of these into effect on your blog, it would simply be too much. As your blog expands, you should gradually make use of these ad networks on your blog. For the beginner blogger, there are three good ad networks I suggest you sign up to first.

THE BIG THREE FOR THE LITTLE GUY

1. Google Adsense - A must have for the beginner blogger. Easy to use, and it will direct the ads specifically to the content of each blog post, thus increasing the likelihood that the reader will visit the advertiser. This content targeting also helps the ads to be less obnoxious to the average blog reader
2. Text link ads - These make money by selling the links you see under featured sites. They are non-intrusive and thats what the beginner blogger needs and wants.
3. Affiliate ads through Linkshare.com - This will eventually grow (if done correctly) to be your greatest source of ad revenue, so you might as well start early. Affiliate advertising earns you money through a comission of all the products you sell. I will discuss affiliate advertising later on.

Now that you’ve got these three basic ads running on your site, any traffic you bring to your blog has the chance of generating your ad revenue. During the first little while, this will be minimal at best, but as your site traffic grows, so will your ad revenue! As John Chow says, the way to make money on the internet is to get a lot of traffic, and then maximize the hell out of it! This guy knows what’s up.

As your site grows, I would again refer you to his book for other ad networks that larger blogs can take advantage of. Many require a certain amount of site traffic to even accept you, so its not worth wasting your time on until your page views start increasing. That brings us on to the next topic, of how to bring readers to your site and keep them coming back. The key to this, is CONTENT!

CONTENT AND A SUCCESSFUL BLOG

At the end of the day, the only reason people will continue to come back to your blog is if you have good content. Content isn’t the only thing that will bring traffic to your site, and John Chow lists many elements to what will make a successful blog, and the one key section I would like to highlight is John’s section on “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers.” In this section, he discusses what is essentially the 7 main things that any good blog will have, and I’m going to briefly discuss them with you.

1. Blog on a Consistent Basis - You should pick a posting frequency, and stick to it. On again off again bloggers will not be successful. As I write this, I try to do at least 2 new posts a day.
2. Be Passionate About your Topic - As John mentions, blogs attract likeminded people, and this will encourage them to come back. If you’re blogging about something that you have no idea about, or no passion towards, your blog is destined to failure.
3. Interact with your Readers - If someone posts a comment - Respond! Blogging is a two way street, with give and take. This interaction will build trust and loyalty, and eventually a solid reader base.
4. Link to Other Blogs - As John Chow says, give out link love! This means linking to other blogs that speak of similar topics as yours does. As you probably noticed, I frequently link to John Chow’s website as he is the inspiration for many-a-blogger including myself, as well as the basis of my blogging for dummies articles. When you link to people, people will link to you! And that is an important element of site traffic.
5. Know How to Brand Yourself - What makes your blog unique and why does it stand out from millions of other blogs out there? In my case, I try to bring my readers the best and most interesting topics from around the world, and the internet. Something for everyone, presented with a classy theme, and good information.
6. Be a Good Writer - Not only is the content important, but how you present it to your readers. If writing is not your strong suit, have someone proof read before you submit your article. The most important thing is to be able to get your ideas across to the reader in a way that they will understand.
7. Read John Chow dot Com - This is an invaluable source for information on not only this topic, but many others, and in the end, successful bloggers read the blogs of other successful bloggers!

Alright - now that you’ve got some advertisers, and an understanding of what readers need to see to convert them from simply readers into subscribers, get out there and make some posts! In my next installment, I will get into some of the fine details of the blog posts themselves, as well more technical ways to drive traffic to your newly created blog. Until next time, happy surfing!!

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