I wrote about the importance of images a short while back and how I was quite chuffed that I'd had 50+ referrals from Google Images in a day.
Now I don't know what has happened in the last nine days, since I wrote that post, but I presume Google must have done some sort of update. I say this because over the last two days I've had over 1000 referrals from Google Images on my celebrity blog.
So I say again, to emphasise the point, images/photos can bring traffic. Well they can, providing you have a blog that lends itself to publishing several a day.
I look on photos as I do old posts - they are my back catalogue.
Pink Floyd's Back Catalogue
It's a little like a pop stars' old hits. They may not be in the charts and selling hundreds of thousands of copies but they hang around and they still get bought or played on the radio. So they continue to make money.
It's the same with old blog posts and their images. They may not get the same number of hits as newer articles but they can still attract traffic. It's why it's important that archives are easily accessible and aren't deleted.
It's also another indicator of the importance of trying to include the right keywords and so on within each post. A little extra effort now can reap dividends.
If we do it right, old posts can bring us visitors today.
I have touched on this previously but I reckon that most banner style ads, and even those popular small squares, are in the main a waste of time - in respect of making money from them, that is.
To me a lot of the stuff we pack in our blog side columns is wasted space and gets very little response. Though I know some prominent bloggers may disagree it's AdSense that gets me by far the most clicks. The pretty, and sometimes flashing banners, just turn people off.
Text style ads are King! Well sort of.
When we join all of those different money making affiliate programs what do most of us do? We get the banners and plonk them on our blogs and then we ... do nothing. So what happens ... nothing.
Okay, there are always exceptions but to move products we have to write about them and tell everyone how great they actually are - because text is King.
This can be done by:
(1) what I call an advertorial post or (2) a couple of sentences at the end of a post.
These two methods, in my experience, have more authority and get better responses - and therefore make more money - than any flash banner style advertisement.
I especially feel that this is true for the average blog that perhaps doesn't have a big readership. If you have hundreds of thousands of visitors of course a few will click on banner ads.
To a degree making money with blogs is a numbers game but ... by using text to sell (make money) you up the stakes so that the odds are slightly better in your favour.
Try King Text and see if it works for you.
Good luck, Mike.
The ad on the left is okay but the following will get a better response: AdultFriend Finder. I have made nearly $1000 from this affiliate program. It will do well in January - over 20 websites to promote. Source: Mike's Money Making Mission
It's strange sometimes where an idea actually comes from. Why, for example, would anyone want to publish a magazine or a blog about 'To-Do Lists'? And why, for that matter, would anyone want to read such magazines or blogs?
But they do, and this illustrates that success can arrive from all sorts of directions, especially if we start from somewhere new.
It's what Sasha Cogen has done and her blog is now a book.
Seven years ago she began collecting these lists and became publisher of a magazine called appropriately To-Do List.
Sasha asked for people to send her their To-Do lists and they did just that - thousands of them. So many in fact that a selection of them have now been made into a book called, yes you've guessed: To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us. Well you probably got the first couple of words!
Why did she get fascinated by To-Do Lists? She says she, 'became fascinated by them because they are such a rare window into our everyday lives – and everything that’s on our minds.'
Often when we think about publishing a blog we tend to start with the obvious. This is fine but thousands of others will also be thinking along similar lines. Now if we could get our minds working differently who knows what we could come up with. Perhaps a unique gemthat might just catch on in a big way.
Thinking differently from the herd is one way to success.
The video below is Sasha talking about ... To-Do Lists - obviously.
I must admit that I've been a little slow in reading my favourite blogs recently and I was surprised, therefore, to hear from Rob that CashQuests.com had been sold.
You may have read that CashQuests was the blog that sent me the most traffic for November.
The interesting point about this is that the blog, or perhaps the domain name, sold for $15,000. A not insignificant sum for a blog that had been only up and running for about 12 months.
It makes you think, doesn't it? Perhaps building and selling blogs is the way to go - or at least another stream of income to consider.
With CashQuests the supposed income was about $1400 per month, but $580 of this was from writing reviews and sponsored posts. Will the new owner be able to attract this sort of business? Obviously that's not the problem for Kumiko who now has $15000 in her bank.
I don't fully understand why anyone would want to pay this sort of amount, for a blog type website, where the success is based on the writer's particular style of writing. It will be difficult for anyone else to duplicate this.
Okay they've got a PR5 domain name but most of us could build this if we went about things the right way (and didn't sell links or do sponsored posts!). As for the income this will go down the drain unless the new owner can retain subscribers and readership.
'Tis all very interesting as several blogs have sold recently - you may find a few on offer here.
So are you ready to build a blog, with a domain name, and sell it?
On Tuesday I wrote about how Images Bring Traffic. One of the comments, from ahsoon, suggested taking this a further step and use the images also to make money.
I must admit I had previously toyed with this idea. He suggested using PicsPay.
The two things that have put me off using similar programs have been:
(1) Being unsure of the reliability of the website to ensure that the photos are uploaded quickly onto my blogs. I dislike seeing blogs where the photos are missing and you end up with blank squares with a little red cross in the top left corner.
(2) The payments offered are generally quite small.
Anyway I thought I'd have a look at PicsPay and do a small test to see if it is viable and works properly.
I've only just joined so I can't give a full opinion at the moment. I'll do this later after I've seen it all in action.
It all seems straightforward enough. You upload photos, put these on your blog and get paid for the number of clicks on the actual photos.
Now what you earn isn't a lot! It's $1 per 5000 clicks, so it's not going to make you rich. But if you are publishing images/photos anyway you might as well try and make them work for their keep. Every little helps.
Payments are made following $10 earnings and are made by PayPal.
I'll leave it at that for now until I can give some proper 'proven' facts and figures. If anyone knows a similar, reliable program with better remuneration please leave the details in a comment.
The two photos, by the way, are of a local visitor attraction, the Eden Project, here in Cornwall.
Another month so time to say thank you for all of your visits and/or referrals during November.
The Top Five Blogs sending referrals to MMMM were:
1. cashquests.com Kumiko wrote a very positive post about MMMM and this brought a lot of referrals. The thing about Kumiko's blog is that it is controversial and opinionated but never dull. Her post titled 'WidgetBucks Is Run By Monkeys' emphasises this point. I think she got her figures a little skew-whiff in the article but she says what she thinks. No wishy-washy sitting on the fence.
2. Make Money Fa$t Rob is always in my top five. A genuine guy from New Zealand who wants to make a million dollars and, with his positive attitude, he'll no doubt succeed.
3. Blog About Your Blog Another of my favourites. We started our blogs at about the same time and it's been interesting watching BAYB grow and develop into the success it is today.
4. Money Money Money Money Money Money is another of my regular top five entries. I reckon from the title you can guess what it's all about.
5. Web-Dosh 'An Investigation into whether the Internet can be used to make money' is the strap line. And do you know what? I reckon it can!
Each month my Top Five Blogs are listed in the left hand side column.
I always get a few surpises as to where referrals come from. Last month I had unexpected good responses from Netvibes, and StumbleUpon without doing anything.
The MMMM Top 10 Keywords for the month were: money making, making money, voxant, adultfriendfinder, mike perry, mikes money making, mikes money making mission, money making blogs, shoppingads and wealth toolbox. Pretty much as expected.
Thank you to everyone who has had anything to do with this blog - it's appreciated very much.
As long standing readers will know I always used to do a Weekly Money Making Report stating how much I had earned each week.
I have now stopped doing this but I'm still often asked as to what sort of money I make each month. For various reasons I'm not going to say any more but will give an indication for the month just gone. All I'll say is that it was over $1250 but less than $4000 for November.
What I have done today is shown a few proofs of some of the money I have received (but not all of it). This isn't meant as a boast but purely to show that it is possible to make money from free blogs and without any capital outlay. Providing I continue blogging, and don't move onto something different, I would hope that my earnings will now increase month on month.
I would stress, however, that this hasn't been an overnight success. I've had to work at it and I feel that most people will need a full year to get established. Okay, some may do it quicker but I think that an average 12 months continuous, daily effort should reap rewards. Remember though that most bloggers pack it all in within three months.
It's the sustained effort that brings results.
On the page you'll find my PayPal November payments received, checks (cheques) I have received and are ready for banking tomorrow and AdSense earnings - note that with AdSense you get September commission in November. I think the 'proof' on this post adds up to about $950.
If you want to make money with free blogs it can be done. I purposely didn't spend any money in doing so - that was the 'mission' I set myself at the very beginning. This is why I haven't got my own domain name and why I have stuck with Blogger - this puzzles some people.
I do have the outlay of my broadband connection but I would have this whether I blogged or not.
It is based on a UK television reality show which was only running for three weeks, and finished last Friday.
The experiment wasn't all that successful, probably too short a time span, but as with most things I gained some knowledge from doing the blog.
The blog really ran for only 46 days, thought it'll hang around the blogosphere for a long time - as I don't cancel old blogs.
The most visitors I managed to attract on a daily basis was 371 and for the 46 days, starting from scratch, the blog had a total of just over 7000 unique hits. The interesting thing was that 4250 of these came from the search engines.
What this emphasised was the value of the right name for a blog and having this within the URL. I got lots of referrals from people searching 'Imacelebritygetmeoutofhere'. In other words it's seems beneficial to use keywords for a title and domain name.
As the show has been around for eight years there was a lot of competition from established websites and the tabloid newspapers. They had the advantage of being set up and running long before I got going.
I also realised that virtually everyone was regurgitating the same material - only so much happens on a TV show each night. So why should anyone regularly visit my blog when they could get the info from a newspaper website?
I found that the only way to boost traffic was by concentrating on a couple of the contestants - and yes, it was the attractive girls (Gemma Atkinson and Cerys Matthews) who pulled, if that's the right word, best. It's the old thing about how 'sex sells'.
All in all it was worthwhile trying. I managed to get some Amazon orders, a few AdSense clicks and I was able to use ads directed at the UK - as 75% of the traffic was from the UK. I also got referrals from I'm A Celeb to my main celebrity blog.
I shall update the I'm A Celeb blog from time to time if any of the contestants do anything newsworthy.
I'm now looking for another niche for a blog to experiment with.
I wrote on the 22nd of this month that I had joined Smorty to see how it works in practice. This is my experience - and, no, I'm not being paid to write this!
I applied to join Smorty on the 14th of November and received confirmation that my blog was deemed suitable on the 16th.
Note: To be accepted blogs must be at least three months old and averaging a minimum of two posts per week. They must also be indexed by Google and Yahoo. They also state that, 'It can take up to 72 hours to have your blog approved/declined'.
On the 17th I wrote a post for them. The value was only $6 but this was really as a test more than for making money.
Note: At the time of me choosing an offer to complete there were five available.
On the 24th my post was officially approved.
Note: Advertisers have five full days to review posts. If they have not by then been disputed they are automatically approved. In other words it takes five full days for a post to be okayed.
On the 28th $6 was paid into my PayPal account.
Note: The official quoted Smorty pay schedule: 'Bloggers get paid on a weekly basis. As soon as your post has been approved, which takes 5 days, you will be paid for that blog article on the first payment day of that week.' Payments are made to members by PayPal.
So there you go: 14 days after submitting my blog I received a first payment. All of that seems to work just fine - no complaints at all.
Let's look a little deeper at the potential to make money with Smorty. They write, 'As soon as there is a new available campaign for your blog(s) you will be receiving an email from us describing the task and deadlines.'
Since I joined I have received four such emails offering me between $6 and $10.80 to write a post. Problem was that by the time I clicked to look at these offers three of them had all been taken.
Generally when I've logged in to Smorty there are four or five offers listed for me to take up if I wish to do so. The values of these range between $6 and $12 and I don't usually feel that they are suitable for this blog. Two today, for example, are for casinos.
If I was asked to compare Smorty with PayPerPost I would say that PPP is far superior. Today PPP had 16 offers I could take up and these ranged from $5 to $29 (though with this one a video was required). PPP also offer $20 for a new members first post.
The advantage with Smorty is that you are paid quicker than with PPP - they take 30 days from when you first publish your post.
If I was to give a score for smorty it would be 3/5.
Pros: Efficient, quick payments for work carried out. Cons: Low value offers, offers taken up quickly, it won't make you rich.
If you are just looking to make a few dollars and want to be paid reasonably quickly then Smorty is fine. If you want more earnings potential then PayPerPost is a better bet. Of course, there's no reason why they both can't be used in tandem.
Happy New Year! Do you follow the Boy Scout's motto 'Be Prepared'? If you do you'll be getting ready for 2008.
"Hang on a minute," you might say, "We haven't had Christmas yet."
True but, when we make money with blogs, we have to get ready for all peak seasons, special days and holidays.
Do you know what you'll be promoting as soon as 2008 comes waltzing into our lives? It's a time for New Year Resolutions so anything to do with them will sell well.
In the past I've had a couple of experiences of this. First, when I published my magazines one of them was for penfriends. And when did they sell best? January. People want to make new friends and relationships.
I was also a distributor for Herbalife, quite a while back, and business went mad at the start of each new year. Everyone seemed to want to try and lose weight, so their products sold well.
It's the same with making money with blogs. If you have the right products at the right time they are more likely to earn you commission. It's pretty obvious but it's no good waiting until January, in the case of New Year orientated products, before looking for the right affiliate program.
Be Prepared and plan ahead so that you are ready to swing into action on January 1st and on February 14th and on ....
Make sure 2008 starts off with a bang - of sales and commission, that is.
I was checking through my stats for yesterday and it suddenly struck home the value of images for attracting visitors to blogs. It's something that we, well I, often overlook. Below are the search engine referrals for yesterday for my celebrity blog.
Search Engine Referrals Nov 26, 2007
As usual Google heads the list, as it no doubt does for most blogs, but in third place is Google (again) but for Image Searches. For me 52 referrals from them for yesterday was a very worthwhile contribution.
Of course some blog niches lend themselves more to images (photos) than others but they are always of value.
Firstly because they make posts more interesting. And there's that saying about a picture being worth a thousand words and to a degree this can be true.
If, for example, I had simply written in this post that I had 'xx' amount of search engine referrals it wouldn't have had the same authority as seeing the actual report from which I got the information. Images can also confirm what we write is true.
The second reason is, because of what I have already said, images can produce hits/traffic/referrals or whatever else you may want to call them.
From my own experience I believe that it's best to name the image exactly what it is. Many people just give them a number - I'm sure search engines appraciate this.
It's also important, I feel, to use "alt" and describe what the photo is.
Some say alt was originally introduced in case the image wasn't always visible, because of differing formats. This may be true but it's also an opportunity to use a keyword and maybe a couple of other secondary words - all useful for SEO. Seemingly Yahoo search engine likes this.
So sprinkle a few images, photos, illustrations around your blog and at the very least it will make it more pleasing on the eye. Hopefully it may bring a few additional benefits as well.
Good luck, Mike.
Blogging Good Blogs. Books on blogging and how to become a successful blogger.
I was chatting to a bloke yesterday about supermarkets. He was something to do with the planning of where everything goes on their store shelves to maximise profits.
It seems to be quite an art: those essential items at the back of the store, so that everyone has to pass through all of the other goods to get to them, the small tempting, low cost items by the checkout - sweets, batteries, chewing gum - and so on.
I wonder how many of us plan our blogs with such detail? Do we just plonk ads anywhere? Is our subscriber info in a prominent position? Are all of the links we carry really necessary etc. etc?
I think sometimes we have to step back and look at our blogs as if we had never seen them before. Are we playing to our strengths, for example?
Often we get so carried away with writing our posts and doing the routine things that we forget the real purpose of our blogs. If it's for making money then that is the priority.
Our side columns, header and footers are our shelves. Pack them with the right goods, in the right positions, to maximise earnings. It really can make a difference.
Here is a quick list, but there are hundreds of others once you give the subject some proper thought. Some may work, some won't - that's life.
The thing to remember with stores/shops is that you have to do something to create traffic to your free website. It won't just arrive by itself. You can't simply join, create your site and sit back.
Anyway, here's that quick 'brainstorm' list. I'm sure you'll be able to add many more ideas.
1. Join forums and discussion groups and have a link within your signature. 2. Write press releases and submit them to press PR websites. 3. Write and submit articles to the many article directories. 4. Submit your website to any directories with similar niches. 5. Promote them on your blogs - both with banners and small text ads at the end of posts. 6. Get links from other blogs. 7. Write a freebie ebook or report with links to your store/shop. 8. Obtain referrals from similar but non competing sites. 9. Try free traffic exchanges such as Blog Soldiers, Blog Explosion, Traffic Swarm, Blog Mad 10. Leave comments on other blogs with a backlink. 11. Advertise on free advertising sites such as Craigs List. 12. Include your URL on all emails sent out. 13. Exchange links with related sites. 14. Join myLot and leave URL when you write comments and join discussions. You'll also get a small commission for your participation. 15. Start your own newsletter or eZine to build a database of names and email addresses. 16. Start a new blog relative to your store/shop website and submit this to all of the blog directories - there are 100's of them. 17. Make sure you submit your store/shop to Google and Yahoo. 18. Join a link or banner exchange program. 19. Use free ads on non Internet publications. 20. Join things such as Squidoo and create pages about your store/shop. 21. Leave your link on every profile page of social network sites.
As most of us know a good source of income can arrive from introducing other bloggers and webmasters to the various affiliate and money making programs that we join. There is usually a percentage bonus based on what these people earn.
This is great because it is virtually unearned income but, at the same time, it's where a lot of people also get disheartened.
There is a truth that not many affiliate programs want you to know. This is the fact that most of the people you introduce will do either no business at all or very little.
This doesn't reflect on the affiliate program. It's simply how things work out in any selling niche.
This may sound negative but it shouldn't. There's not a lot you can do about human nature.
What you have to do is to try and introduce as many people as possible and make this as important as selling, or getting clicks, for whatever the products or service is.
Once more this is a numbers game. The more people you introduce the more likely you are to hit on the one or two who will actually produce an income for you.
Before I was self employed and published magazines I was a manager for a finance and credit company and had a team of around twenty sales men and women.
Out of these twenty there would normally be one real go getter who would smash sales targets, win prizes and do a mountain of business.
After this there would be four or five who did okay and then things deteriorated with the moaners at the bottom of the pile - who would have many excuses as to why they hadn't done well.
And this is how it was, no matter how you swapped personnel.
It was the same when I was involved with multi-level marketing. Sign up dozens of new distributors and only a couple would do any worthwhile sales.
Saying this shouldn't put anyone off from trying to get new affiliates, agents or whatever you want to call them. It's simply meant as a reality check.
If you keep going what you will eventually get are one, two or three really productive people who will earn you a good income. They are out there but you have to wade through a lot bodies to reach them. Once you do the cash tills will start to ker-ching.
Always play to your strengths not your weaknesses. If you get someone good and there is a way to help them then do so. Forget the strugglers as it's doubtful that, however much effort you put in, they will make you anything worthwhile.
It's a sad fact but, in all walks of life, there are winners and losers. Sign up a few winners and the world is your oyster - and other such cliches.
I recently joined Smorty as an alternative to PayPerPost. This was recommended to me by Rob at Make Money Fa$t.
What interested me today was the the advice they had entered on their website. To quote:
"There have been some recent changes that Google have made with regard to sponsored postings.
Smorty would like to offer you some advice on this issue. Google has primarily targeted PayPerPost member blogs and reduced their PageRanks across the board.
To prevent any future loss of PageRank due to this issue you can take the following steps:
1. Remove all sponsored post tags on each of your posts. Google can follow these tags to determine if you are being paid for posts.
2. Remove any PayPerPost tags on your posts for 'hire me' and 'review me'. Any general affiliate banners are fine to keep."
From what I can see it isn't necessary to mention that posts are sponsored with Smorty, but is this really right. Shouldn't our readers know when we are paid for a review?
As an alternative it's possible to have a Disclosure Policy on your blog - you can get help with this at disclosurepolicy.org - saying words to the effect that you are sometimes paid for posts and therefore may be biased in your opinions. And also that these posts will not necessrily be marked as such.
This is okay but not many readers will ever bother to read Disclosure Policies - there's enough small print in our lives. If we all do this no one will know what is genuine and what isn't and an element of trust will be lost.
The Sponsored Post problem won't go away and it's a bit of a Catch 22 situation. If you do such posts, and declare that is what they are, you'll have your PR cut. If this happens your income will also be cut as lower PRs mean lower amounts earned for such posts.
It's Google dictating what we can and can't do. Is a sponsored post so very different from an advert, for instance?
It's not if it's used to promote a product or service.
It is, however, if it is used purely for the value of the link - and this is really what Google wants to stop. And, dare I say this, it does make some sense.
I have always been against artificial means of inflating any figures. I've never joined viral chains/trains and the like to push up various rankings (though I have still been included on a few).
It's a bit like cosmetic surgery it makes blogs out to be something they aren't.
As regards Smorty I'll write more about them after I have received payment and find that everything works as it should.
I can confirm so far that my blog was approved by them within 24 hours and I have been offered posts to write for payment.
Yesterday I wrote about making money by parking a domain. The idea being to look for misspelled domain names, similar to high traffic websites, and then filling these with ads or promotional material.
Now there are also other variations on this theme and some people claim to be making decent money from this. Take, for example, Brian at DomainMoneyParking.
He has an interesting website that gives ideas, information and help about Domain Parking.
I shan't enlarge on this subject, at the present time, because I haven't any personal experience -but see what you make of Brian's website and his videos.
Changing Track Completely
Regarding WidgetBucks again. I see my earnings have actually gone down. Never had this with a money making program before!
It's gone down because the Rate Per Click has been altered and backdated (none of these figures were in red). Mmmmm!
Also many WidgetBucks accounts have been suspended. In their own words:
"We continue to suspend many violating accounts, and naturally, many of those suspended publishers feel wronged, angered and frustrated. Along with our automated click fraud alert system, our account review team is dedicating significant time and energy to hand-reviewing these sites where WidgetBucks widgets are placed -- and taking swift action in removing these accounts from the network."
They go on to explain:
"WidgetBucks will become a "gated" ad network that will require approval to join. For current publishers, this does not change much for you. You are "grandfathered" into the network; however, we will continue to review sites for Terms violations."
Regarding non USA members they write:
"... we do pay publishers outside US and Canada, provided terms of use are met.
Anyone else feeling a bit uneasy? The underlining in quotes is mine.
What do you think of Parking Domains? By this I mean purchasing domain names but 'special ones' that might just bring a reasonable amount of traffic without any effort.
I know of someone who does this and reckons he does okay. He concentrates on popular websites where their name might just be misspelled.
An example might be: www.maazon.com which people often accidentally enter when trying for www.amazon.com.
The idea is then to load up your misspelled domain with adverts, or some sort of promotional material. This then produces an income, well that's the theory, and all without having to do anything else. Park it and count the dollars!
You are too late, by the way, for www.maazon.com as Amazon have already bought this themselves. If you type in the URL you will end up at Amazon.
You've got to look for very high traffic possibilities. If a website is getting hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of hits a day it's highly likely that many people will misspell the name, either by accident or because they aren't sure of the correct spelling.
I haven't as yet dabbled in this idea myself but, time permitting, I'm going to try and find a few possible domains worth a gamble. A domain name only usually costs a few dollars so it should be possible, at the very minimum, to get a return on the investment.
What do you reckon?
Obviously other people are also doing this so it'll take a bit of hunting to track down juicy names.
Well my first year at blogging is now over. It's been an interesting journey and I guess I've answered my own question, with which I started my very first post - well at least partly.
This was my first post:
"Is it possible to make money from free blogs? This is the question that I want to answer.
My mission, therefore, is to try and make money, starting with this blog.
At the moment I have no idea as to what direction to follow but I hope to learn fast. I also hope that other bloggers will give me some ideas and help along the way. I don't want to get flooded with spam and chain mail things, of course, but I'll be grateful for any genuine assistance.
I intend to let readers know how I get on. I'll give exact details of what I do and how it turns out. If I'm successful, even in a small way, then others will be able to copy what I do. If I make mistakes they can learn from these as well.
I'll be updating regularly."
So the answer to my question is: Yes, you can make money with free blogs - and without any capital outlay.
When I started I genuinely had no idea as to the direction I would take and would never have guessed that I would wander into the world of celebrity blogs. As I said, it's been interesting.
My first Money Making Report included the following:
"I've realised that getting visitors to a blog takes a while. In my first week my counter is showing 100 visitors from 13 countries, the largest percentage being from the USA and UK. I'm satisfied with this. My income has been 84cents. "
I would never have dreamed back then that I would ever get over 46,000 visitors in a week to a blog as I did last week. It illustrates though, the possibilities of blogs and the potential of the Internet.
I'm not sure what the future holds for me and blogging. I've yet to decide.
I would like to say thank you to everyone who has been with me for at least part of my blogging education. There are some great bloggers about. I won't mention any names in case I forget anyone.
I'll now be away for about eight or nine days as my wife and I are having a short break. It's been an emotional year for us, especially for my wife, because of what happened earlier this year.
So, will catch up with everyone in about nine days time.
As it's a new month my thanks to everyone who has referred visitors to this blog, and also to my celebrity blog, during September. The Top Five Referrersfrom other blogs were:
1. Google 43157 referrals 2. Microsoft Live 2068 3. Technorati 1742 4. Google Images 716 5. Yahoo 641
It's interesting that Google Images sent over 700 visitors - this is an area of possible referrals that is often overlooked.
I also must mention Zimbio who referred 3862 visitors. As I've previously said I don't think Zimbio will work well for all types of blogs but it's done well with my celebrity interests - though very little for this blog.
Thanks to everyone who has visited the blog, subscribed, left comments, referred others and so on. It's appreciated very much.
Good luck, Mike.
The video below is by success coach, Robin Sharma and is called No More Excuses. Robin talks about APR - no, not annual percentage rate but Absolute Personal Responsibility.
Ed of the excellent The Pisstakers website raised an interesting subject about at what stage a blog should be monetized.
Should you start trying to make money from day 1 or wait until the blog or website is established with a regular readership?
Ed took the view that it's important to build traffic first and this is generally the view that the 'experts' take. But, as yc of Internet Marketing Mind has mentioned, "If you get only 10 visitors a day and only 1 of them generates revenue of some sort, that is still revenue." And that is very true. I have always been of the opinion that: Any profit is good profit.
If I was asked for an opinion it would be that you might as well monetize as soon as the blog is set up as long as ...
(1) You don't over do things and plaster the blog full of flashing banners so that it detracts from what you are writing - the content is the important bit of the blog. I can't see that putting something like, say, AdSense on your blog is going to do any harm.
To me having a few ads gives a little substance to the blog. It doesn't appear so empty and uninviting when the visitors arrive.
(2) And, of course you mustn't get disappointed when you don't get many clicks. They will come as the traffic increases - providing you do the proper things.
When I got my first few cents shown on AdSense you would have thought I'd have made a million. It was a great feeling and when I hit a full dollar sheer ecstasy! Okay, perhaps a bit exaggerated but even a few cents show that you can make money and encourages you to keep going.
What happens if you take the other viewpoint and build your traffic first and then nobody clicks on your banners, or whatever you are promoting? Disappointment? A feeling that it's all been a waste of time?
Monetize straight away, be realistic with your expectations and remember that thing about oaks and acorns ... or perhaps you disagree. Whatever ...
