3 Powerful Ways to Grow Your Freelance Business With Twitter – Right Now
Tags: Business, Social Networking, Twitter
Posted in Articles, Social Networking 
2 Comments »
Article by Henry Bingaman
At the Web Copywriting Intensive in Austin, I talked to a few of the speakers and attendees about Twitter. The conversation seemed to go one of two ways …
“Oh, yeah, Twitter is a great business tool.”
Or …
“I don’t understand the point.”
If you haven’t seen it on the news or heard about it from a friend, Twitter is the newest craze in social networking.
It already has over 6 million users and is nipping at the heels of other social-networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and even powerhouse search engines like Google. more
10 Ways to Build a High-Quality, Opt-in Email List
Tags: Building a Website, Getting Traffic, Marketing, Newsletter
Posted in Articles 2 Comments »
Article by John Wood, AWAI Staff Writer
If you’re an online marketer (or your client is!) and you’re not asking every visitor to your website or blog to sign up to receive a regular email from you – you’re leaving money on the table.
Because, next to meeting each subscriber in person, sending out email messages is the best way to establish an ongoing relationship with your prospect. It’s also one of the easiest ways to grow your income to a level most people only get to dream about.
The most important thing about any email list is quality, not quantity. And the only sure way to guarantee your list is comprised of people who have a real interest in what you’re selling is to build it yourself.
How do you go about it? Here are 10 ways to quickly build up a quality email list: more
24 Sites You Can Use to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
Tags: Blog, Blogging, How to get traffic, Make money from your blog, Social Networking
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Getting Traffic, Social Networking 5 Comments »
Article by John Wood, AWAI Staff Writer
There are a lot of lonely blogs in this crazy online world.
Their owners had the best intentions when they started out … they prettied them up … they made them very user-friendly … and they gave them a lot of interesting things to say.
Yet hardly anyone was willing to commit to visiting their blog on a regular basis.
And because of the lack of attention their blog received, posting to it regularly was no longer a priority for their owners. Soon they stopped updating them altogether, and their blog lost any appeal it once had.
Don’t let this happen to your blog.
If you’re serious about making money from your blog, you can’t sit back and wait for people to find it … you have to pro-actively drive traffic to it.
The good news is there are plenty of sites you can “partner” with to help you drive a steady stream of visitors to your blog.
Now, how you “partner” with these sites may take various forms depending upon the nature, theme or features of the site. For instance, with a social networking site like MySpace, you can add friends and send out subtle marketing messages to them. Plus, MySpace has a blog feature that you can post articles to.
Some sites involve displaying a “widget” on your blog. Others (Squidoo) allow you to set up a webpage on a topic of your choosing … which you can add a link to your blog, website or the sales pages of affiliate products you’re promoting.
Others involve a one-time submission of your blog to their database, while some involve an ongoing, interactive commitment.
It’s important to choose the sites that are the best fit for you in terms of your personality and the commitment level each individual site requires.
No matter what you do though, the most important thing is to never make it obvious you’re trying to sell something. If people sense that what they’re reading is a sales pitch, they may react negatively toward it and you. Every time you post something, make it relevant, topical and interesting – then end off with a very mild call to action or just simply add a link to your blog under your name.
So without further ado, here are 24 sites you can use to promote your blog:
Note: To give you a rough idea of how popular these sites are, at the end of each description in brackets, I’ve listed the estimated monthly unique U.S. visitors as of October 24, 2008 (according to Quantcast.com).
MySpace.com – Still the number one social networking site. Create a profile, add some friends and gently promote your blog. (68.3 million)
Facebook.com – The second most popular social networking site on the Internet. (42.1 million)
Squidoo.com – Join Squidoo and set up a page related to your blogging topic with links to your blog. (5.4 million)
HubPages.com – HubPages is a site that has a similar business model to Squidoo. Users, or “hubbers,” create hub pages, where you can discuss any topic you’d like. (4.5 million)
Knol.com – Knol is a Google service that is also based on the same business concept as Squidoo. It hasn’t really caught on in a big way yet. (64,000)
Twitter.com is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets). (2.2 million)
Stumbleupon.com – StumbleUpon is a site that helps people discover new sites based on their interests. Users can rate websites, comment on them and share them with other users. It’s a free service, but you can also pay to have your site “stumbled upon.” It’s also a great way to get feedback from people who visit your blog. (1.1 million)
Digg.com is a social news site with a social networking aspect to it. It allows you to share your site’s content with other “diggers.” (11.2 million)
Mixx.com – Not as popular as Digg.com, but certainly one of its up-and-coming competitors. (1.8 million)
Craigslist.com – It’s free and it will only take a few minutes to register and post an ad for your blog. (569,000)
Technorati.com – Technorati is a search engine for blogs. Register with them, “claim” your blog and then use their tools to promote your blog. (3.6 million)
YouTube.com – Make a video about some aspect of your blog topic and include your blog link in the video description and the video itself. Post it on YouTube. Sign up for a YouTube account and create what YouTube calls a “channel.” You can customize your channel, add a link to your blog, and add as many videos as you’d like to it. (72.1 million)
EntreCard.com – They advertise their “Entre Card” as your online business card. The idea is that you place the EntreCard widget on your blog, and others can “drop” their card for you. Then you can drop a card by visiting them back. Each time you drop a card you acquire a credit that you can use to advertise on thousands of blogs. You can even sell the credits for money. (77,200)
Blogcatalog.com – They advertise themselves as a social network for bloggers. It’s a place for you to connect with other bloggers, participate in groups and discussions and so on. (577,700)
Delicio.us.com – De.licio.us is a social bookmarking site that was purchased by Yahoo in 2005. It’s a place where users can store, share and discover web bookmarks. (347,800)
Pownce.com – They advertise themselves as a great way to keep in touch with and share stuff (files, links, events, and messages) with your friends. They haven’t really gained a strong following yet. (16,000)
My.Yahoo.com – Set up a My.Yahoo page and add a link to your blog. (11.8 million)
Yahoo Answers – Answer questions related to your blog topic at Yahoo Answers, and at the end put a link to your blog. (22.5 million)
Blogsearch.Google.com – Submit your blog to Google’s blogging directory (542, 400) and other online blogging directories.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a social networking site geared toward business professionals. As of October 2008, it has 30 million registered users. (5.5 million)
Online Directories – Submit your blog to “regular” online directories such as DMOZ (1.9 million), Yahoo (2.9 million) and Google directories (Quantcast total not available).
User Groups – Join or start a User Group about your blog topic. Membership is free. User Groups are a great way to rub elbows with like-minded people. Some of the more popular “group” communities are Google Groups (3.8 million), Yahoo Groups (6.7 million) and MSN Groups (1.7 million).
Participate in Forums – Join one or two (or more) message boards related to your topic. Add your blog address to your profile and signature.
Blog Pinging Sites – When you “ping” your blog, what you are doing is letting a number of sites (search engines, for example) know that your blog has been updated. They will then crawl and index your site so your new post is updated in their records.
Pingomatic.com (12,500) is one of the more popular “pinging” services. (Note: WordPress software automatically pings their blog.)
So if you feel “lonely blog syndrome” coming on, remember it’s a self-inflicted disease. Put together a marketing plan. Add as many of the above sites as you can to it, and you’ll never be short of blog traffic.
This article appears courtesy of The Golden Thread, an e-letter from AWAI that delivers original, no-nonsense advice on how to build your freelance copywriting business. For a free subscription, visit http://www.awaionline.com/thegoldenthread
10 Ways to Make Money From Your Blog
Tags: Blog, Blogger, Blogging, Make Money Online, Word Press, Work from home
Posted in Articles, Blogging 2 Comments »
By John Wood, AWAI Staff Writer
There are over 133 million blogs on the Internet.
This figure is according to Technorati.com, which also lists the average annual blogger revenue at $6,000 per year. They’re quick to point out that the $6,000 number is seriously skewed upward by the top 1% of blog owners, who make $250,000 or more per year.
The average median income for U.S. and European bloggers is only $200 a year.
Not a lot of money.
One thing is clear, though – it’s possible to make a good living from your blog.
However, if you’re going to bring in more than $200 a year, you need a good “blog monetization” strategy.
Heather Armstrong from Salt Lake City knows how to make money from her blog. Her motherhood-themed blog, www.dooce.com, has a loyal following of over 850,000 (mostly women) monthly readers. The estimated $40,000 in revenue it brings in each month has allowed both her and her husband to say goodbye forever to their 9-to-5 jobs.
So how does Heather do it?
And more importantly, how can you do it?
You can start by implementing one or more of the following money-making strategies:
Search Ads – Placing search ads on your site is the most popular way among blog owners to bring in revenue. According to Technorati, 38% of bloggers use search ads on their blog. The most well known “search ad” provide is Google with their Adsense program. Microsoft and Yahoo have similar programs.
Display Ads – Display ads are the second most popular way to make money with your blog. According to Technorati.com, 28% of bloggers use display ads. A display ad typically includes an image or logo. To arrange for display ads on your blog, you can contact a company directly, or you can go through online advertising sites such as chitika.com, shoppingads.com, text-link-ads.com, widgetbucks.com, and advertising.com.
Rich Media Ads– These are the ads what temporarily take over your computer display. They are very flashy, and it’s impossible to ignore them. I’ve seen them used when promoting an upcoming movie opening or a new television series. Although not widely utilized (according to Technorati.com, only 4% of blog owners use them), they are still relatively new and could grow in popularity.
Promote Your Own Products – Market your own products such as e-books, online courses, coaching, etc. Soft sell approaches work the best. Talk about something interesting and then relate it to your product or service near the end of your post. Include the appropriate link and suggest to your prospect that it might be a good idea if he clicked on it.
Promote Affiliate Products – There are no shortage of sites that offer affiliate programs. They are quick and easy to sign up for – and some will even approve you as an affiliate on the spot. If you’re writing a post that mentions a product you’ve had a good experience with, find out if it has an affiliate program connected with it. For example, if you run a poker blog, talk about the different types of poker chips that are available and supply affiliate links to purchase each grade of chip. You can also sign up with sites that administer affiliate programs for other sites such as Commission Junction (cj.com), Clickbooth.com, Linkshare.com, and Blogads.com.
Paid Postings – Some may find “paid postings” a somewhat unethical way to make money blogging. The idea is that advertisers pay you to mention their products in your blog posts (without revealing that what you’re doing is a form of advertising). Two of the most popular paid posting companies are blogdistributor.com and payperpost.com.
Spokesblogger – A “spokesblogger” is a spokesman for a government official, company, or non-profit entity. They get paid to promote their employer’s point-of-view. Like a paid postings blogger, a spokesblogger generally does not reveal that they are a paid spokesperson for the cause or organization they advocate in their blog.
Donations– If the content you provide is useful and free (and/or ad-free), you can ask your readers if they’d like to donate money to keep your blog up-and-running. You see this quite often on political-oriented and “computer technical help” sites. You simply add a “donate button” to your site and link it to your online transaction processor (Paypal or Paypal equivalent).
Set Up an e-Store – Some websites will provide you with everything you need to set up your own online store. Amazon.com provides their affiliates with the opportunity to set up and customize an “AStore.” Zlio.com is another popular site that lets you set up your own personal online storefront. Cafepress.com allows you to personalize merchandise. It’s a great way to establish a blog brand, flex your creativity and make a few bucks in the process.
Flip Your Blog – Once you’re familiar with how to get a blog up and running, and you’re ready to make money, you might want to sell your blog. Especially if you enjoy starting a blog more than you do maintaining and nurturing one. SitePoint (marketplace.sitepoint.com) is just one of the sites where you could list your blog for sale.
Of course, not all blog owners set up a blog with the intent of making money. They use their blog to enhance their reputation within their industry. Which indirectly may lead to more money through speaking engagements, high profile writing assignments, and even business partnerships.
Put one or more of these 10 techniques into action, continually update your blog with fresh, interesting, relevant content … and as your search engine rankings and visitors increase, so will the income it generates for you.
This article appears courtesy of The Golden Thread, an e-letter from AWAI that delivers original, no-nonsense advice on how to build your freelance copywriting business. For a free subscription, visit http://www.awaionline.com/thegoldenthread