Blogmanic

Google AdSense – no need to explain this one. It has been one of my best producers and my CTR is midway between 0 and 10% – I can’t put in details because it’s against Google’s TOS.

Direct Sponsorship – this has paid off well for me. I sell different packages and have most sponsors pay a monthly fee through PayPal subscriptions. The bigger clients are invoiced regularly. Tip: put an advertising page on your website and a note in your signature about your special packages. Mine reads: Want to reach more small business owners? Reply to this email with ‘EC-Promo’ in the subject line and get a special discount off of our Advertising packages.

Exelate – this is a company that contacted me on behalf of a major client of theirs. They want to reach small business owners and we worked out a CPC arrangement. They have been great to deal with so far.

Kontera – they do inline ads. My CTR is just over 1% with them and I’ve found it to have very low payouts per click compared to AdSense. I have reduced my involvement with them but still have some pages with Kontera.

Chitika – I tested them out but found I was not getting a good CTR. My website is about small business and not products though so it may not be a good fit. I still have some pages with Chitika but it is not very prominent.

ReviewMe – I’ve tested this with one of my blogs and have had some success but not enough to make it meaningful – I will continue testing.

The other programs I have recently signed up for an am testing are: adbrite, adify, right media, auction ads. I read about them in business 2.0 or online. I have only done limited testing but so far none of them have brought in the kind of numbers I’m looking for to expand with them. Again, it could just be my site and the content I have on it.

I have also tested affiliate programs like ClickBank and CommissionJunction but have not had too much success here in compared to the other programs I have already mentioned.

The key is to test, try it out, optimize the best you can, see if it works, and if it doesn’t move on to something else.

Overall the web has been good for me. It supports me, my building, the people who work for me and lets me create my own work schedule.

I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say about what works for them!

Really what you’re saying here is that you want to use your blog to ’sell yourself’ instead of to sell a product or ad space.

Here are a few things to work hard at:

• build trust - increasingly marketers are finding that people want to know and be in some sort of trusting relationship with those that they buy products or services from. This is particularly true for a personal service like consulting. Be open about your agenda and about what you do and don’t know. Talk both about your successes and failures. If all you do is use a blog for ’spin’ you’ll present as too good to be true.
• be personal – building on the last point – one way to make a deeper connection with potential clients is to show something of who you are. This doesn’t mean blogging about your personal life, but show you’re human injecting humor, a photo or two of yourself and showing your personality.
• use story – I find readers respond very well to story on blogs. Stories of my own experience, stories of other clients (shared with permission as case studies) etc. Using relevant stories can help build credibility in your niche.
• establish expertise – people won’t give you the ‘expert’ label without you earning it. Show what you know (without being arrogant), show how you apply it (it’s one thing to know a lot – but can you translate your knowledge into something constructive and useful) and be a thought leader in your niche (ie break some new ground and show people that you’re capable of original thought).
• be generous – some consultants use their blogs to talk very abstractly about their field of expertise but don’t actually give their readers much in the way of practical and applicable content. My approach is to give away quite a bit of information and to be quite generous with what you share. If you help someone for free I find that the next time they need something they’ll quite often be willing to pay for it. You might not want to give everything away for free but free reports, ideas and tips should feature pretty heavily on these types of blogs.
• establish relationships in your niche – while building relationships on your own blog with potential clients can be very effective – when another blogger recommends you it can be even more powerful. Get to know other bloggers in your niche and you’ll find they will add to your credibility with their links and mentions on their blogs.
• be consistent – while there’s no problem with changing, growing and developing in your ideas over time you do need to present some consistent messages over time. If you’re constantly chopping and changing what you’re on about and focusing on you’ll find that readers find it hard to connect with you and build a ‘relationship’ over time. Remember that every time you post you have the opportunity to add to or take from your reputation and brand

Writing with keyword-rich content helps your blog be found and readers to fully understand what you are writing about. Write consistent and purposeful content.

The more inline your content is with your blog’s purpose, the more concentrated your use of keywords will be throughout the entire blog, not just on a per-post basis. The more diverse your blog’s content, the more diffused your keyword usage will be across all of your blog.

Make a plan for your content. Make lists of the topics you will write about in keeping with your blog’s purpose. Stick to those subjects as much as possible to build your blog’s reputation as the place to come for answers on those subjects.

What Are The Benefits Of A Focused Blog?

• Content is synonymous with the subject.
• Links are synonymous with the subject.
• It builds a reputation.
• It builds authority.
• It becomes a destination.
• It becomes a source.

Your Blog’s Content Labels Your Blog

If your blog tells more stories about your life than reports on the news and world around you, then it’s a personal journal or memoir. If your blog reports and comments on politics, it’s a political blog. If it has more reviews of products and services than other content, it’s a review blog. If it has more photographs than text, it’s a photoblog. If it has more music than text and pictures, then it’s a music blog. If it has more video than music, text, and pictures, then it’s a video blog, vid-blog or v-blog. If your blog has more ads than content, it’s in the business of blogging.

The majority of the content on your blog indicates the purpose of your blog. When labeling your blog, take a serious look at its content. As your blog evolves, the value of your blog comes from the content you build over time.

Readers Thrive On Consistency And Continuity

If you create an expectation of content on your blog, readers return expecting to find similar content. If you switch one week from blogging about grooming pets to blogging about grooming horses, you have set an expectation that your blog is about grooming animals. If you switch from grooming dogs to racing cars, readers are thrown off and their expectations aren’t met. The odds are they will not return for more.

It used to be said that predictability was boring. In blogging, predictability builds return customers. They know you are the expert on this subject and that you are the source for information. Meet their expectations when they return

There are several “first impressions” your blog makes as it struggles to attract and hold on to readers. Few of those first impressions come directly from your blog’s design and layout.

Search Engine Results: The first impression most people get of your blog is found within search engine results. They see a post title, blog title, and content excerpts around the keywords of their search terms.

Blog Feed Aggregator: An aggregator is a blog or website which displays titles or post excerpts from various blogs. Aggregators usually list your blog title, post title, and first 100-300 words of your post.

Feed Reader: A feed delivered to a feed reader displays the content as text, with few images, and none of your blog’s design. Depending upon how the feed reader is set, it showcases the blog title, post title, first 100-400 words of your post or the full post content, if the blog owner has set the feeds to full. Typically, the post title and first 100-400 words are the first impression.

From Other Bloggers: Another first impression a potential visitor gets comes from the words other bloggers have to say about you. It could be a simple link to your post title, or a paragraph or two recommending your blog and/or your blog post. The information in and around the link can make or break a reader’s decision to click through to your blog.

Front Page: Many web designers design the front page of the blog before the rest of the pages, creating a gateway to your blog. This is old “print-think”. Nowadays, visitors may arrive on any page on your blog. If they get lost navigating, or need more information, they will click to your blog’s front page. Every page, including the front page, must visually represent the purpose and intent of the blog. The front page must also still be the gateway to all the categories, sections, and pages of your blog.

Single Post Pageview: Most visitors arrive on a blog post page. The first impression is to the visual presentation, blog title, post title, and content, followed by other visual images. It must also offer easy-to-find navigational aids to help them find related and more content.

About Page: More than anything on your blog, your blog’s About page cements the first impression with information on the blog’s purpose and intent, as well as the blogger’s expertise. If they get past the visual presentation, they will look for more information about the author.

Category Page Views: The page views of your category, tags, and archives showcase the content within your blog in related groups. The first impression of category pages are the post titles, followed by the first 100-200 words of the post content. Most visitors scan the post titles looking for information related to their needs.

Go through each of these “first impressions” to see what kind of an impression your blog makes on the web.

If you have been blogging on the default blog template, or one of the first free templates you found, chances are good that your current template isn’t doing the job it should to enhance your blog. And unfortunately many blogs are using templates that actually detract from the user experience on your blog, whether due to a mismatch of template to blog theme or simply a theme that isn’t really presenting itself in the best possible way to your readers.

A good blog template will truly enhance what you present rather than detract from it, which a poorly chosen blog template can do. If you are one of those bloggers that put little time and effort into finding that perfect blog template for your blog, it is definitely time to find that killer blog template that is more suited to your style and content.

Where to find

Wordpress theme templates seem to be much more prevalent that themes for other blogging platforms, but no matter what type of platform you are using, do a search for “free Wordpress templates” changing it to match the platform you are using. There are so many people releasing templates today that you are sure to find something. If you have a particular theme in mind, add a couple keywords about that and see what turns up. The same goes for color. If you have your heart set on a purple template, throw the word purple into your keyword search.

Finding one that fits

If your blog is about white water rafting but the blog template you ended up choosing originally has a picture of a subway station in the header, it is a complete mismatch between design and content. So you want to make sure that what you present visually matches what the content of what people are reading.

Swap images

You might find that perfect template, but it is a mismatch like the subway station one. So instead, look to find an image that you could swap out for the subway picture. Maybe you have a picture from one of your white water rafting trips that would match perfectly or you can find one on Flickr under creative commons. So don’t completely eliminate templates simply because the header image isn’t quite what you have in mind.

Find a few

Sometimes that seemingly perfect template just doesn’t seem to do your blog justice once you actually upload it and install it. So as you find various templates, save them and upload them. Then you have a few different ones to try out and once, so you can easily compare then, check for any odd bugs, and pick the one you think compliments your blog the most. Don’t forget, you can always remove the ones you don’t ultimately end up with if you want, so download all those “maybe” templates too, it wouldn’t be the first time that a “maybe” template actually ends up being the perfect fit after it is tried out on the actual blog, instead of viewing a screenshot of it in action.

Still can’t find the perfect template?

Do what I do, and that is find a template that is “almost” and then go code diving and make the tweaks yourself. Often, you can change the code to make some of the changes yourself. Perhaps you want an ad block in the sidebar or a slightly larger or smaller design width. Or perhaps you just need to add your own custom logo to make it yours. You may discover tweaking it is easier than you realize, or you can call in a favor from a coding friend if the changes will take someone inexperienced just a short amount of time to do.

Many people don’t realize how important having a suitable template for a blog is, especially when the current one you have just seems completely inappropriate for the type of blog entries you are writing. If you are using a blog template, take the time to look closely at it and see if it really is a template that suits your blog, and if not, take the time to search for that perfect blog template that is clean, presentable and most importantly, goes with the theme of your blog.

This week I learnt two things about blogging:

1. Getting your readers to DO something on your blog is a powerful thing.
2. Personal contact with readers makes a real impact

Last week i ran a quick and small competition on ProBlogger to promote the ProBlogger Book.

The competition was simple – leave a comment on the competition post that told me why you wanted the book in 250 words or less.

The competition ran for 24 hours and at the end of that time there were 193 entries (more than I expected). The entries were so good that I felt bad just giving one book away so selected three submissions to get a copy of it.

At this point in running competitions I usually send the prizes, make a quick post announcing the winners and then do nothing else – but this time I decided to do something different.

I felt bad that so many had missed out on the book after going to the trouble of entering so on the spur of the moment I emailed each of the 190 entrants who didn’t win. It took me a while to pull all their emails into an email but I wanted them to know that I appreciated the effort that they’d gone to.

The email thanked them for their comment and told them that I was said that there couldn’t be more winners. I also pointed out that the book was on special at Amazon and said that I hope they’d be able to get a copy at some point.

I was a little hesitant to mention the book on sale as I didn’t want it to come off as a sales technique (the primary purpose of the email was to thank them) but decided to do it on the spur of the moment.

I sent the email.

What happened next was surprising.

I started getting emails from the 190 that I’d sent my email out to. Over the next 24 hours I had 70 emails!

There were two main themes in the emails:

1. They appreciated and were surprised by the personal contact - quite a few readers emailed that they’d been taken aback by the follow up email.

2. They’d bought the book – most of those who emailed said that they’d just bought the book (or were about to). Whether they all did or not I’m not sure but the book’s ranking on Amazon leapt up that day by 600 spots – so something happened.

In the days since my competition I’ve noticed a third flow-on effect of my email.

3. More Reader Interaction – a number of the people that I’d emailed had never commented before on ProBlogger before the competition – they’d been lurking but never active on the blog. However in the last few days they’ve been commenting like crazy.

Take Home Lessons

I’ve been reflecting upon this experience over the last couple of days and two ‘lessons’ have struck me.

1. Getting your readers to DO something on your blog is a powerful thing – this hit home on two levels. Firstly the act of getting readers to write why they wanted the book to play a big part in them actually buying it. I guess when you invest a few minutes into thinking about why you want something and then go to the trouble of writing those reasons up you ’sell’ yourself on actually buying it. Secondly – the act of making a first comment on a blog can often be enough to make a lurking reader an active reader. I’ve noticed this before – people often feel shy about commenting but once they take the step to do so they open the flood gates.2. Personal contact with readers makes a real impact – this is something I’ve known for a long time but have had to re-learn many times. It can be difficult to interact with all of your blog’s readers but when you do it can really impact them and help them to become more loyal to your blog.

Read more tips like this from Darren Rowse at ProBlogger Blog Tips