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Blog Optimization for Profit - Part 5
By Jim DeSantis
You should be working diligently to produce good-quality, original content on your blog and are attracting a decent amount of traffic. However, money is not going to appear out of thin air just because you have traffic. You have to turn your traffic into money.
There are several ways to generate profits from the visitors of your blog. Google's Adsense program allows you to do so with ultimate ease. First, visit their website at adsense.google.com. You'll find out more detail about their advertising program there but here are some quick tips.
First, Google Adsense is an easy and automated way to monetize your blog because it scans your blog and only serves Ads that fit your blog content. You can even block certain types of Ads which may be Adult in nature or may be from your competitors. Anyway, when users finish reading your newest post, they are going to move on. You can catch them before they do. If your Adsense advertisement block is visible on your blog, they might see advertisements relevant to them and click on them to exit your blog. Ka-ching! You've just cashed in on your first virtual pennies!
Yes, your profits will only be pennies for each click of an Ad but you can turn those pennies into dollars if you "do it right"! This involves placing your Google ads in the right places and ensuring they blend in to your site so that they appear more like links rather than advertisements to your visitors. Consult the page to see the "heat map" of your blog. The "hotter" a certain area, the greater the chances of someone looking at your blog and clicking on a Google Ad.
Once you get a Google Adsense account, you can change the color of your advertisement text and links. You will want them to match the colors on your blog. If your blog's text is black and the links are red, do the same for the ad blocks too! It's that simple.
Another way to earn profits from your blog is to recommend products to your readers. When your visitors buy from the merchants you recommend, you get to keep a little commission too. This is known as affiliate marketing and it is very easy to start because you don't have to create your own products or services.
It's very important that you watch out for scams. I edit 15 blogs and all have affiliate links on them. These are advertisers I personally trust and I only display advertisers who offer a 100% Guarantee of Satisfaction. I checked out each one before adding them. They are hand picked for their knowledge, expertise, and Guarantee. Your reputation is on the line when you place affiliates on your blog. Enough said.
Anyway, let's refer back to our technological gadgets blog example. Let's say you discover "Gadget X" on a merchant's website and they offer an affilliate program. What you would do is sign up for the affiliate program only after you have checked them out. Do not believe the Testimonials in their sales page. Check them out for yourself. You can do this simply by searching for their product through Google or Yahoo or MSN. See what others have to say about it. Or, purchase the product yourself and try it. Then, create a post in your blog and do a mini-review on "Gadget X". Point out its benefits and bad points, if any, and include a link (which is given to you by the merchant) for the visitor to purchase Gadget X through your blog.
If your visitor clicks and purchases the gadget, the merchant tracks your referral link and will send you your share of the profits. Imagine if 1 out of every 100 visitors you get purchases this product, and you earn $27.00 commission from each purchase! If you get 10,000 visitors in a month that would be a $2,700.00 paycheck for you just for writing about ONE product.
Now, affiliate programs are a popular way to generate profit, but how do you find affiliate programs that are related to your blog's theme? Just go to Google and, using our example for tech gadgets, search for "tech gadgets" +"affiliate programs", without the quotes. Another, slightly better way is to go to associateprograms.com/search to look for affiliate programs in your niche.
Yours for success in life.
Jim DeSantis
P.S. - Please forward this article to someone who can use it.
About the Author
Jim DeSantis is a 15 year broadcast News veteran. For all Parts of this 6 Part Series and lots of Free Resources go to Jim's blog at http://on-line-tribune-you-can-blog-too.blogspot.com
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