I came across a neat little widget at Cooqy.com that is great for eBay sellers. I've placed it at the bottom of this blog. I'm calling it the Seller Showcase. It's a tool to help promote a sellers product from their blog or MySpace profile. I will be featuring a different seller each month. So if you are an eBay veteran check it out, maybe you will see something new and if you are a Newbie, nows the time to start your eBay experience.
I figured rather than writing a long boring treatise on “How to Monetize Your Blog” I would come up with a series of posts on how to make money from these things. Some of these ideas are new and have not been tested, some have been moderately successful and some have worked well for me.
Today's Idea: (Under the Classification – New and Untested)
I've spent a great deal of time trying to design my blogs to be visually appealing and easy to read, hoping to increase return visits but I’m not doing this more my health – well actually, I do blog to maintain my mental health – I also want to make some money from this effort so I spend additional time placing Google AdSense ads and my Affiliate links in high visibility areas hoping to increase click-thru rates. There is a delicate balance between writing an informative and interesting blog and creating an online ad.
I recently realized there was a hole in my advertising approach. Many of my readers subscribe to my RSS feed and read my posts from their reader application rather than visiting the blog directly. Because of this I wasn’t exposing them to my advertising and affiliate links. I was getting readers to my posts but there was no means to monetize the traffic. I subscribe to roughly 20 blogs and rarely revisit the blog after I have subscribed; my guess is many readers do the same thing. So, I came up with a fairly unobtrusive idea to get my advertisers in front of these RSS subscribers.
I’ve begun to add text links to my affiliates at the bottom of each post. These links show-up in each RSS posts and provide exposure for my affiliates. I try and make the link germane to the topic discussed hopefully increasing the likelihood that a reader will click-thru. Sometimes, I just send them to a specific book or other resource that might be of value.
Okay, now for the test: If you use an RSS reader (like Google Reader) to review recent posts from your favorite blogs make sure and subscribe to The Digital Napkin’s RSS feed to see how this works.
Today’s Link is for bloggers who want to start their own email newsletter:
Send an email newsletter like this one in minutes!
When I came up with the concept for this blog I was most interested in celebrating good ideas I found on the web as well as expressing some of my own. A good idea just sitting in your brain or in a notepad on your dresser doesn't accomplish much. As I've fleshed out the concept I've also become aware of a great many ideas out there that, how can I put this nicely, suck! So occasionally I will comment on those ideas, not to celebrate them but to should them down and hopefully make them go away.
Here are a couple to get us started:
Here are some responses to the stories above:
It seems most of the bad ideas come from politicians! If I find a good idea from one of them I'll make sure and point it out.
I like to listen to music while I surf the web and read my favorite blogs and I have found that I really enjoy listening to new and different artists, “not my regular cup of tea” as they say. They say (I’m not sure who they are...) that variety is the spice of life and part of the appeal of blogging, to me, is reading someone else’s perspective on life and issues and that often includes their choices in music and entertainment. One of the best features of MySpace is their audio player where you get to hear a song that the writer of that profile finds interesting. This audio player has had a major impact on the independent music scene by introducing new acts to the MySpace set.
I've been scouring the web to find a player for my blog that will allow me to share some of my favorite tunes with my readers but also provide more flexibility than the MySpace player allowed. Well, I think I found it! I came across Dizzler.com (where do they come up with these names). This player allows me to put together play lists for my readers but also gives them the flexibility of searching the web for their favorite tunes, if they don't like what I provide.
My goal is to pick tunes I feel speak to the subject of that particular blog, or are just songs I like and increase the stickiness of the blog. Since I come across very few blogs that have this capability I often load my MySpace profile in the morning and play my tunes while I surf.
I’ve added the Dizzler player to The Digital Napkin. It is at the bottom of the page. To hear my selections just click on the playlist or search the web for your favorite tunes.
Take a look and listen. It might be something you want to add to your blog.
49th Grammy Award Winners
Amazon has developed a wonderful new application for their Associate program (affiliate program to the rest of the world). They call it the aStore, a fully functioning ecommerce website. I actually used something similar to this in the late 90's called the VStore and it is a great way to generate incremental income.
You need to join the Amazon Associate Program to have access to this great money making tool. Referral fees start at 4% and can go all the way to 8.5%. In my case within 2 days of opening my store I hade earned $6.25 It doesn't sound like much but my AdSense account took nearly a month to generate $8.25
For the blogging community, it is a great way to introduce your readers to products that you think they will be most interested in. I created then Blog Utopia Store. I chose the products I thought would be best suited to my audience. There is no need to overwhelm the reader with the entire product breadth of Amazon, just take a little time to merchandise to your specific crowd.
Remember, in order to generate money on the web you still need to have a sizable audience, so continue your marketing efforts to bring in new readers. If you set your profit expectations at the low end even $6.25 is cause for celebration.
A few tips once you get started:
I will update you on how my store is doing as I move forward, you might want to make your next Amazon purchase through one of my stores (thanks in advance) to see how it works and then get started on your own store.
