Learn To Build Cash

With the number of blogs on the Web now in the hundreds of millions, it is more critical than ever to ensure that yours is doing the most for your business and not merely existing in cyberspace.

Affiliate marketing has always been an effective method for increasing a blog’s earning potential, but it is just one piece of the puzzle. The most successful blogs are built on a multilayered revenue model in which affiliate earnings are just some of the key ingredients.

Below are the three main areas to focus on if you want to get the most bang out of your blog.

1) Your own expertise

The content of your blog will play a significant role in driving traffic to your website and creating exposure for your business, as well as in determining the potential for advertising and affiliate marketing revenues. Your blog is the gateway to an entire community of users that has shown some level of interest in your industry or niche, and the information and ideas you present to them will have a profound effect on how your business and products are perceived. This is why it is imperative to keep your focus on subjects that you are passionate and deeply knowledgeable about, whether it is your own products or services, other offerings throughout your industry that you strongly believe in, or additional topics of interest within the industry or niche in which your business thrives. It is important to never lose sight of the fact that your blog’s aim is to provide service and education to an audience of similarly impassioned visitors. Once your blog has developed somewhat of a following, invite guests within the community to share their own knowledge and expertise. This practice will serve your business by adding a fresh perspective to your own, as well as potentially opening the door to valuable partnerships and affiliate relationships.

2) Finding a sponsor

Building partnerships with other companies or websites that have a vision similar to your own can be an enormously beneficial aspect to a blog. The financial rewards are obvious, even if the relationship starts with your new partner or sponsor covering a small amount of your overall costs, but aligning your blog with a respected member of your industry’s community will do wonders for your business’ visibility and credibility. Once you have built a distinguishable voice through focused and informative posts to your blog, you can approach businesses and other websites in your niche to find out their level of interest in some kind of partnership. If you are having trouble making any headway finding a sponsor, try to entice one by offering discounted products or services to initiate the relationship. If you stand behind the integrity of your blog and your business in general, the partnership will undoubtedly grow, and additional sponsors may even come knocking on your door.

3) Filling in the gaps

This is the layer in which affiliate marketing and other advertising opportunities exist. Where affiliates are concerned, it is vital to seek out and limit your partnerships to those companies and products that fit directly in your industry and the subject matter of your blog posts, and to those businesses and products in which you sincerely endorse. If you treat your affiliate partnerships with the same integrity that you put into maintaining your blog and the rest of your business, it will only enhance your standing among the community of users. Seek out individual partnerships and programs that are best suited to the needs of your visitors, and do your due diligence wherever necessary. The remaining gaps can be filled in with a variety of advertising methods, but be careful not to turn your blog into a billboard that promotes products you’ve never heard of. Google’s AdSense and other targeted contextual ads are one good source of revenue, but they will generally earn revenues on a cost-per-click basis rather than impressions or views, and too many of them may scare away visitors.

Why not examine the earnings of your own blog and see how it compares? Is your product or industry expertise generating significant sales? Are you getting a substantial amount of revenues from your relationships with sponsors, or are affiliate marketing and other advertising vehicles your blog’s main sources of earnings?

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I’ve been blogging since WordPress Beta 1.0 and Google’s Blogger first hit the web. In the beginning I would do a blog post once and week, and it took me that long to write it. Now I maintain 5 blogs and do about 20 posts a week. To go from 1 per week to 20 per week took learning some easy techniques to speed the process.

Over the last three to four months I made great efforts to document how I was cutting my blog writing time considerably by being more productive. In this blog post I’m going to explain how I achieved that.

1. Create a Daily Routine

This is a quite hard part, especially when you are just getting started with your blog. Getting into the habit of writing one blog post every day (or three times per week) is a challenged when you first try it.

But once you establish a daily writing routine it will get much easier because you just get used to it. You will still blog because you want to and because you like it, but you will grow the habit and force yourself to write no matter what.

2. Use a To-Do List

Or just a schedule. When you have a daily to-do list or a schedule you will be able to manage your time much better. You know what you need to do, when you need to do it and so on.

If you know you only have 30 minutes available, for example, you should skip working on a larger task and instead get rid of smaller things on your to-do list. The list itself, though, will be useful to make sure you spend your time as efficiently as possible.

3. Shut Down Distractions

Close down stuff like Thunderbird (e-mail client), Twitter client, Skype, Messenger and similar. If you don’t want to close Skype or Messenger, just set your status to “Message if important only” or simply just “Busy.” You just need to be able to set a point where you need to be very productive (while writing blog posts).

4. Take Notes When Something Important Comes to Your Mind

If you are in the middle of a task (for an example writing a blog post) have a notepad with you and write the idea there instead of doing it right now. If you jump from task to task you’ll lose focus and efficiency.

Just remember you need to finish whatever you are working on before you jump to the next task.

5. Outsource Stuff You Aren’t Good At

This is probably the best time-saver ever. You should always try to get help from people who are qualified on areas you are not. If you are not a good designer, for example, focus on writing content and outsource the design tasks on your blog to a designer. This will save you time and money in the long run.

Anthony Teshaveli

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Is Promoting Online That Different
Than Promoting Offline?

This month is all about promoting and you can’t talk about promoting your business without including the internet. Is promoting online that much different than our traditional advertising? Yes and no. Let me explain — the web offers ways of telling your story, your advertising and promotions in multiple formats. You can easily record a video or audio explaining the promotion. That’s not difficult or expensive today and you don’t have to buy an expensive camera either. Actually almost any digital camera works. I compiled a list of the 7 Rules to Online Promotions. Many of these points will apply to offline advertising as well.

1. Know the Visitor’s Mindset:
The following are questions that customers ask themselves online. They ask similar questions offline, but they are not as pronounced. This is because online we are exposed to new businesses in seconds and make decisions much quicker than offline.

a. Why are they there?

b. What do they want?

c. Does it make sense?

d. Does it look easy?

e. Do you trust them?

2. Above the Fold:
This is just like in a newspaper. When you do any promotion you want to make sure the reader doesn’t have to scroll down the page because if they do, you will probably lose them.

3. The Offer:
Is your offer clear and understandable, short and simple to use?  We can’t confuse the customer because if you do, you have lost them. Here is an example: a Coupon for $5.00 without restrictions is understandable, where $5.00 on a $50 purchase and a list all of the restrictions can be confusing. The customer wants it their way and too many restrictions create the wrong image for your store.

4. The Blink Test:
Customers rarely read copy. Customers skim pages. Customers read headlines. Look at your offer as the customer looks at the offer with a “blink of an eye.” There is no time for week headlines and copy.

5. Going Naked:
This means there is no way off of a webpage. There are no links. The only way out is to use the back button on the reader’s computer. This eliminates all distractions. It’s as if you have reached a dead end and you have to make a decision

6. Graphics Matter:
Pictures, Icons, & even Charts work well but offline they are expensive. It is inexpensive online. We always knew that color was important and helps to sell and it is easy and inexpensive to use online.

7. Alignment with Your Brand:
It is critically important that your website represents the same look and image of your store. You can’t represent one thing in the store and another on your website. Yes, if you are just an online merchant, that’s one thing but for the rest of us who are multi channeled retailers, we must make the look and feel be the same.

This is just a small taste of this new world of promotion. Next week we are going to start my look at Social Marketing and what it means to you.

Keep your minds open and start to embrace the change, because it will benefit the smaller and independent. I will start to demystifying Facebook and what it should mean to you. If there are any Successful Facebook users, please email me. I want the success stories to shares. Write to me at Anthony@LearnToBuildCash.com and let’s share your experiences.

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