Important Blog Monetization Factors
Of the many reasons why people start blogging, making money from it is the most popular. Hundreds if not thousands of bloggers jump into blogging everyday with the thought that it is simply by creating blog posts that one can make money. It is more than that. Some bloggers can have many visitors to their blog sites, yet they still do not make money out of this. The challenge is converting your blog traffic into money, which only means making your blog readers or traffic to whatever it is you would like them to do on your blog so that you get money. This is called conversion optimization.
With a blog, you can make money through various strategies, including the following:
- Direct selling of ad space
- Selling affiliate products such as those of Amazon’s program, Commission Junction etcetera
- CPM Ad networks such as ContextWeb, AdClickMedia, Adbrite, BuzzLogic and others
- CPC Ad Networks including AdSense and Chitika
- Selling eBooks and other products on your blog
However, even with a well-planned and designed blog with all these strategies of making money, it can still be difficult to ensure that your readers take your call action if you do not carefully strategize on enhancing your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). But how best can you do it to ensure that you reap the maximum benefits from your site visitors? Here are the best tips and tricks revolving around SEO, blog design, use of social media and other marketing tricks.
How to Improve the CRO of Your Blog
SEO for CRO
SEO starts right with the tittles of your blog posts. Create precise post titles so that they relate directly to the content of your posts’ body. You do not want to create posts that turn away visitors as soon as they read your first sentence. This can increase your bounce rate and start the story of your site’s failure.
- Post titles must be meaningful. For instance, French Barbeque Recipe is a focused title compared to The Best French Delicacy I Have Ever Tasted My Whole Life. The former title is good for search engines and is likely to bring you more relevant visitors than the latter.
- If you resort to article marketing as an SEO strategy, ensure that the links pointing towards your site are well anchored, as this is important in narrowing down your site visitors to the most relevant ones. If possible, the anchor text should contain the objective that the visitor is likely to find on your site. Above all, the links you build should remain quality and genuine.
- Research has shown that people only commit to buying when they are informed and not sold to in a blatant way. What does this mean to you? Create your content in such a way that it is highly informative. Let your content do the selling. Content is king, and search engines know this, so they will rank your blog high for having informative content. The result is that you will enjoy more niche relevant organic traffic that is easier to convert into leads.
Blog Design for CRO
You can design your blog to anything you can imagine. It is all about being creative. However, before you think of the design to choose, evaluate the ways through which you intend to make money from that blog. For most bloggers, ads and affiliate marketing forms most reliable way of making money. Therefore, the design of the blog should be optimized for this.
- Design your ad banners to match the theme of your blog. This is called ad unit aesthetics and site placement. Click Through Rate (CTR) is one of the functions of conversion optimization. It is not the vibrant colors that get you clicks on your ads. To change click through rate, bear in mind that shape, colors, size and placement can have a huge impact on your CTR. Always select fonts and colors that will blend into your website, but maintain the element of peculiarity. Such ads are more creative and appear as part of your content thus enticing clicks. That is why they are called chameleon ads, and will enhance the website’s CTR.
- Study carefully on the right areas of your content to place CPC and CPM ads, because the positioning is also likely to have an impact on the way your site visitors respond to them. For instance, if you give the ads the first priority of space on your site, it means that the site’s objective is marketing and not informing the visitor.
Leveraging on Social Media to Enhance CRO
Social media is said to be an evolutionary solution to internet marketing, yet tapping its potential is not as simple as ABC. Making your blog or business present on social media networks is something everyone is doing, but is it all you need to churn all the fans into buyers? To tap into the potential that social media brings, every blogger needs to ensure that they strategize carefully on how to use social media to their advantage.
- If you are selling something on your blog and you are using social media networks such as Facebook to run ads, ensure that you make your ads as relevant as possible. For instance, running localized ads is a much more productive way of getting leads than running ads that will cover a wide audience that is not within your target. You might get traffic with the latter, but it will not be that of potential leads.
- With social media campaigns, you can get the right audience if you refine your search to a specific niche. LinkedIn is one of the social networks that can allow you to do that. Its subject relevant groups that can make it easy to target people interested in your niche.
- Use social media as a listening tool and for studying your audience. This will help you learn the preferences of your audience before you device a strategy of marketing to them. This will help you come up with offers, competitions and other promotional tactics that are likely to spark desired activity on your blog. If you are creative enough, it will be very easy to sell on your blog with this strategy.
After following all the relevant steps of improving your blog’s CRO, you will realize that the missing part is that of your own sales pages, especially if there is something you are selling on it. If so, make your landing pages highly convincing and sticky. In addition to that, the main strategy of CRO should be targeting relevant audiences or traffic in everything that you do. This should include all your CPM and CPC ads.
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Great info… These tips will definitely help me in improving my site. I really liked your point that keyword research and proper titles are very important for your post. Also the content matters a lot as good informative content in your post gives way to increased ranking for your site by search engines.
Thanks Rayna, keyword research is one of my favorite subjects, I should dedicate a post or two on it.
Hi Brian,
It’s been a while that I check HBT because I was offline for some reasons known to me. However coming back and reading a post like this is really a blessing to me because that’s exactly where I’m in need of tips at this point in time. Thanks for your points and tips
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Olawale Daniel recently posted..Why Bloggers Need to Be in Good Health in Order to Make Money and 12 Tips for a Blogger to Stay Fit
Rayna, with the last updates of Google informative content is one of the best instruments to make your site higher in search engines!
This article is very detailed and true lesson for most of the bloggers. From my own experience, I consider that sires with quality content and focused on certain topics have greater chances to perform well.
Makes sense to me Jack, quality content and the right niche and the rest is easy fun stuff.
From my own experience, I consider that sires with quality content and focused on certain topics have greater chances to perform well.
[This Low Life Spammer almost got through]
perrygee_16@yahoo.com
IP Address: 112.206.66.252
Promoting: fertilityandpregnancyadvice.com
Perry, sometimes, if you have really quality content, people will link to you and you gain natural links.
Many advertisers contact me to place ads on my blog bu the problem is that i have no PayPal account.
You must live in an area that bans PayPal or something Mohsin, am I right? That has to be pretty tough since PayPal has all but become the standard.
Hi Yauhen,
these are great tips and advice on how to improve conversation rate for blog as targeted traffic + high conversation rate = good money. thanks again for sharing your thoughts which will really help me improve my blog.
Thanks! Sorry to answer you so late, I’m in hospital now(( I hope these tips will help you to improve conversation rate and money earned on this improvement.
You have to make sure your blog is successful to begin monetizing it. It can prove devastating so always think when it is the best time to do it!
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Rashmi Sinha recently posted..Google Pagerank Matters:- TechInitio is PR2!
I’ve been saying the same thing for years Rashmi, establish some traffic and credibility before going after advertising dollars.
This is a very good post very well put together. I monetize my blog through affiliate products, I sell ad space, and most imporatantly my most important monetizaton tool is building up my email list through my blog’s leads.
Aah, the all important email list Jay, I wouldn’t blog anywhere without it.
Thats a nice post. I prefer adsense, direct selling ad spots and BSA. BSA is just wonderful but the problem is its commisions. It has too high commisions, Still its great for money making sites.
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Atish recently posted..Boost Your Online Business With The Strength of Facebook
Hi Atish, I don’t see any AdSense on your site but I do see you’re using BuySellAds.com, how’s that working for you?
Yauhen, nice to see you guest posting here on Hot Blog Tips. There is only one thing I wanted to mention. I don’t think that most people start blogs to make money. I think most people start a blog for personal reasons and to share their thoughts with the world. But in no time at all they hear about all the money there is to be made on the internet and they start throwing up ads! LOL
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Ileane recently posted..How to Run a Successful Twitter Ad Campaign
This is very true and i am happy about it. Blogging is not only about making money. It is expressing yourself as a free person. That is why there are so many good and so many bad blogs!
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Rashmi Sinha recently posted..Google Pagerank Matters:- TechInitio is PR2!
Hi Ileane, Yauhen seems to be missing in action for the moment, hopefully he’ll find his way back here.
You have a great point about not every blogger wanting to make money blogging. I used to have a personal blog that I refused to even link to an affiliate product from. Like you said, in the beginning, right? lol
Ileane, I live in Russia and in our country one of the reasons to start blog is an opportunity to start earning money in future. It is really great that most people in English Internet start blog to share thoughts!
Hey Yauhen and Brian,
This was a very informative post.
Now I’ll admit not really optimizing my blog posts the way they should for targeted traffic but I’m working on that right now.
Over at my blog I mainly write about what I’ve learned and that has lead to sales of products and services that I use but I mainly use my blog for building relationships.
Now I need to buckle down and start making a little more money by sharing some of the tools that I use because I need to think more of helping my readers move in the direction they need to go.
This post was really helpful so thanks for sharing this great information.
~Adrienne
Adrienne recently posted..What Is Posting On Purpose For Profit
Well you got off to a great start with What Is Posting On Purpose For Profit Adrienne, that was awesome.
Excellent post. As a writer I really appreciated the difference between the two titles in your example. However, I’m sure you know that we see a lot of titles looking just like your second example, which I agree is really not a smart move.
For sure, just having a blog and posting on it every week is not enough to make sales from it. A lot of working and right thinking goes into it as well.
Thanks for those great tips that any blogger can us to increase sales.
Sylviane Nuccio recently posted..How To Turn A Browser Into A Reader – Part Three
This is literally the best blog monetization guide I have read. I am glad I finally bumped into this site of yours while doing a Google search for one of my free giveaways.
Isabel, I really hope it will help you! Blog monetization is very interesting process!
I can see that! Sure it will. Thanks for the reply friend. Have a nice day!
in my point of view direct ad sales is far better than ecpm based ad networks.
Hi Yauhen & Brian,
This post sure was packed with some incredible value and actionable tips. Thank you for that!
I have heard so many people wonder endlessly why it is that their blogs do not convert sales. This seems to be a hot topic and also one which plagues many. I’ve been very fortunate to make consistent and nice income from my blog since around last Summer. I think that some of the elements discussed herein must be at play!
What you mentioned about using Facebook as a “listening tool” made a great deal of sense to me. I think there’s so much we may gauge by these social media tools that it’s truly more evidence for us that these should be a non-negotiable element to the overall strategy so that it is cohesive and so that we are able to gauge our effectiveness.
Thanks for the wonderful insights!
Cat Alexandra
Cat Alexandra recently posted..Reputation silent killers, purpose and integrity in marketing | Perception equals reality
To be honest, I found that cheap AW campaigns on long tail keywords, will bring me quite the amount of clicks on ads. On another blog of mine, the “ad clickers” come from social media (facebook in majority).
It all depends on the niche and how you position your ads on your website.
Great article. Make money online is not as easy as it says, it take a lot of efforts.
I like how you explain about blog design and social media for CRO, it’s a new lesson for me. Thanks yauhen
An affiliate program is one in which you are paid for referring a customer to a product or service. Using affiliate programs is a way to make money from your blog..
Hi Yauhen and Brian,
Thanks for the great tips, some I am aware of while others have opened my eyes.
I’m not earning a great deal from my blog as yet but when I have earned money it has been from writing reviews of products and when i review a product I follow each step in the product and tell my readers how I done it, what was involved, how I found it and what the product creator is like with their support.
I never tell the product creator that I’m reviewing the product until after I have completed it and all through the stages I send emails asking how do I….. When the answer is right there in the product.
Doing it this way has given me the most success so far.
I haven’t added any banners to my blog other than from products/courses that I have taken and approve of. I do get your point about making any promotional banners fit in with the overall theme.
Great post Brian, I’ll be referring back to this from time to time.
Barry
Barry Wells recently posted..A Solution To Your Plugin Nightmares and Slow Loading Blogs
This was perfect timing for me.
My blog traffic is going up week on week. I have been concentrating on building traffic and relationships up until now. I get a lot of search engine traffic too.
Only this morning I was thinking about doing more to monetize my blog. This afternoon your post popped up on Facebook and it’s a peach of a post at that.
Thank you.
Brian, this is so weird but I stumbled across your blog before I even realized you were part of my blog group and at the time I thought “huh, good stuff!” Now as I came back to read it again, it sounded familiar and I realized I had read it…. but I read it again and guess what I thought… “huh, good stuff!”
So it must be true
Anyway, this is a nice, thorough review of how the heck to make some money blogging without just slapping some crummy ads everywhere. I like the idea of making ads work with your design. I think they become much more natural and they’re not just big glaring “hey I’m an ad!” things. I actually don’t mind ads if they’re not big and glaring. Sometimes they can be really obtrusive, like those link ads that pop up over the content every time you accidentally hover on one. I wonder if those things work or just piss people off.
It’s definitely about trying and testing. Isn’t everything! The precise “where” can mean a big difference to everything from sign up boxes to product placement to ads so paying attention to results is super important.
Thanks for the tips, and I’ll let you know if I read this a third time
Carol Lynn recently posted..You’ve Got Facebook’s Timeline For Business! Now What?
Great tips to follow. I like the way you explained SEO because that is something people get confused about. You made it simple to follow.
As for monetizing my blog, I use a free opt-in to create an email list, then I can sell affiliates or my own product (in the making)
Thanks again,
Donna
Donna Merrill recently posted..5 WAYS TO ENGAGE IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Brian as always you throw out great nuggets. May you at some point write about how you managed to quickly (in a very short period of time) rake up high Alexa ranking. You have touched on this topic a bit without give away the how bit. May be am asking too much here.
I love how you said, “let the content do the selling”. I read a post the other day about a new ebook from a blogger I read all the time and what made this post no different than her other content: she doesn’t “lead” with a sale.
I get that people want to make money, but if its done where it sounds like a “sales pitch”, I am already gone. But, if information is provided that is useful, solves a problem and gives you something to act on, it makes more sense to buy. I purchased the ebook without question and went on to promote it more that day.
People also want to know that the product you are promoting is something you actually use as well. I won’t believe a post if the writer has never had any experience with it. Posts like that devalue the product and the writer behind the post.
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Sonia recently posted..Blogger Spotlight: Jason Fonceca, RyzeOnline.com
Content is king but it also depends on the keywords that you utilize for your articles. Researching keywords with Google keyword tool is very confusing, it returns different results when you do certain things. For example when you are not logged into your Google account you get certain results. When you log in, you also get different results.
How do you do your keyword research on the cheap?
You know, I never realised the potential of direct selling of ad space on sites but it works. Sell it directly, allow others to buy your ad space, its a great way to make money with your website.
direct ads selling is best way to generate more income and also cpa ads can do better but it takes little time to make some bucks.
I understand most bloggers seek for extra money through running their blogs. However, in order to maximise their efforts they should run a blog they are passionate about, for example with an accent on a topic they know what to write about. In that way they ensure their blogs can be found useful for other people, thus this method guarantees people will visit their sites more often.
Alex recently posted..Home
As you have mentioned CRO starts with blog titles as we have good and keyword enabled titles it will helps us in many ways.. thanks
Very Interesting take on blog monetization and optimization technique. I am a blog optimization specialist myself and I am impressed by your work. Have you ever tried working with business blogs? I would love to hear your views of how you optimize business blogs.
Eddie Gear recently posted..4 Top bloggers and how they struggled when they started blogging