The Internet is chock full of get-rich-quick books and CDs about how to make "$60,000 a year" from your blog. There's so much of stuff, I wonder if I should be selling books too.

I found a site today called, "Blogging for Dollars", after seeing a banner ad with this guy saying, "I earn $6,000 a month from my blog". Being that I'm in this business, I had to look at it, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Here's what it said...

1. Start your own blog site using your BlogToolKit. There is absolutely no technical experience required! The site is completely set up for you!



2. Begin writing about the things you enjoy; your pet, your favorite sport’s team, etc. Rest assured that there are people who share the same passion and want to read and participate!



3. Your BlogToolKit will automatically help you setup advertising offers on your blog in just a few easy steps. Then when people visit and read your blog, they will click on the ads and you will make money!

This is exactly what I do already. Except I don't need "BlogToolKit". Google AdSense sets up these ads automatically, as well as Yahoo Publisher. You can also set up similar rotational ads from Commission Junction, or create your own ad rotation from a wide variety of scripts.

The difference is that this site, "Blogging for Dollars", is selling you an instruction manual telling you how to do this.

Folks, don't buy this stuff.

There are already thousands of blogs and websites that tell you how to do this for free. There are hundreds more web forums devoted to this stuff. I'm telling you how to do this for free also.

In my town, there's this gal who's in the same business as I am, building websites and blogs, and making money from the ads. Except she spent tens of thousands of dollars on these books and CDs, on how to get rich from the Internet. She purchased memberships to other websites that sell this information. She spent more money travelling to conventions (air, hotel, meals), just to learn what she could have learned for free.

There's this guy named, "Joel Comm", who apparently has made millions of dollars writing blogs and monetizing them with AdSense. He's really famous in this line of work. But the fact is that he's not actually exceptional with AdSense, he's no more skilled than I am. He's just a guy who sells books and CDs, that teaches people how to do this. That's where his marketing expertise lies, taking advantage of people's desperation.

Labels: Making-Money-Online

When it comes to making money by publishing websites, there are passive ways, and active ways to do this. I largely focus on the passive ways. I find it easier to manage, and it offers me more time to spend with my wife, friends, and motorcycling.

I'll just give you a brief overview of making money from blogging, and will publish more articles later on that go deeper in depth.

Passive Income

You'll hear the term "passive income" a lot within the website publishing circles, because it's what everyone strives to achieve. It basically works like this...

1. You build a website or blog


2. You design the site to optimize well on search engines


3. You spent time creating content


4. Simultaneously, you also spend time building traffic


5. You add some revenue generating components, like ads, affiliate links, donation boxes, etc.


6. Over time, your site builds traffic from search engines. The search engine constantly feeds more traffic to you, as you increase the amount of content.


7. The visitors click the ads, and you make money.

As long as traffic maintains its volume, or increases its volume, you don't have to do anymore work. You let the search engines send you visitors, and you let the visitors click the ads. The advertisers will even deposit your income directly into PayPal, or to your checking account. Your website becomes a perpetual money-making machine.

This basically allows you stop updating your website for months on end, giving you time to build more websites, or taking that cross-country motorcycle trip you've been dreaming about.

If you don't update your website ever again, it will eventually lose its traffic. I have some blogs that I haven't updated in about 5 months, and the search engines continue to send me thousands of visitors, each day, to each blog, and I continue to earn money from them. I don't know how long I can go without updating them, however.

That's why everyone wants to achieve "passive income". It's not easy to achieve, but you can get there if you work at it.

Content is King

You'll hear the phrase "content is king" many times in this business. And it's true.

If you want people to visit your website, without having to "buy traffic", then you'll need some really good content to attract them. Moreover, you need to publish new content frequently to keep them coming back.

If you can do this, then you'll also get other website publishers and bloggers to put a link to your website. Getting these links will increase your search engine rankings.

Focus is the Key

As a motorcycle blogger, think about the different kinds of content you publish: gear reviews, personal thoughts, news, cool videos, ride reports, etc., and fragment that stuff out on their own unique blogs. That way, you can focus the audience.

Other websites tend to broaden themselves by covering every aspect of motorcycling into one place. What often happens, is that they discover it's very tough to create a reputation as "general" authority on motorcycles, mainly because there are already several magazines out there that do this job better.

By focusing down to a more narrow niche, you can achieve that "authority" more quickly, and attract links more quickly. Better yet, having a focused audience makes it easier to match them up with relevant ads. If you're using Google AdSense, you'll find higher click through rates when you narrow down your niche.

Focusing also improves your search engine marketing efforts. A website that's focused only on helmet reviews, will do a better job of attracting people who are interested in buying helmets. Google tends to reward these sites with higher rankings, than the general motorcycle sites.

Having five blogs that are focused on different aspects of motorcycling does not get less traffic than one blog focused on all aspects. If anything, you'll get more. Refer back to my previous article, "Content Fragmentation" for more info.

Revenue Sources Overview

The two most popular forms of revenue are advertising networks, and affiliate programs. Both warrant several articles focused on various aspects. I'll just touch on them here.

Google AdSense is an advertising network. Interestingly, they actually have an affiliate program embedded within the advertising network, they call it, "AdSense Referrals". AdSense is probably the most popular form of revenue for website publishers, because its so huge it can provide relevant ads to just about any website.

Value Click is another advertising network that focuses on banner ads, as opposed to Google's text ads. It's the most popular banner ad network around. They have a client-base of advertisers that buy "impressions" from them. An "impression" is when an ad is displayed on a website. Each advertiser buys up millions of impressions, and Value Click spreads those impressions out across its network of website publishers. Value Click shares the money from these impressions with its publishers on a "CPM" basis. I'll explain this in a future article.

Commission Junction is an affiliate program network, and is most the popular. They have thousands of "merchants", who are companies that sell products and services. They also have millions of website publishers signed up as well. Each merchant has an affiliate program set up in Commission Junction, and each website publisher can join that program, and earn revenue from it. Commission Junction acts as a neutral third-party that monitors merchants and publishers, and figures out who owes what. Affiliate programs typically reimburse publishers based on a percentage of sale. If your website visitor buys something from a merchant, you'll earn anywhere from 1% to 50% of that sale.

Labels: Making-Money-Online