1. Premium placement – it is recommended for you to put the sign-up form prominently on the home page. It should be visible to the reader before the break (towards the top of the page without the need to scroll down). You can also use graphics or even animation or rotating images to draw their eyes to the registration form.
2. Use multiple forms – you can put the subscription form on most of your web pages. Putting the form at the end of the article after the reader has read the content has been proven to be effective. Not only will the added reminder help your subscription rate, but if you place forms after your content there’s a good chance prospects have already been exposed to your information and enjoyed it (otherwise why would they keep reading?).
3. Provide incentives – you hear this tip all over the internet but I will repeat it here because it works. You should offer something for free such as free articles, free e-books, and free contests. You can even offer discount coupons to your products if you are selling something.
4. Provide rationale – information overload is an inevitable part of being an internet user. Realize that your readers suffer from information overload as well so take time to explain why they will benefit from subscribing to your site.
5. Offline methods – exhibits are a great way to solicit subscriptions. When people visit your booth, you can ask them to sign up personally. Many of the methods I discussed in Take Blog Promotion Offline can also be effectively applied to list building.
6. Co-registration – this is a great way to get subscriptions from other websites. You need to have partners who will place your form at their “thank you page” when their readers have already subscribed to their newsletters. Take note that you will need to return the favor.

What other methods have you used for list building? Have you tried any of these that I listed? If so, please feel free to share your experiences with us in the comment section below! Finally, if you are looking to change management training, be sure to check out Capture Training.

Analyze Your Competitor’s Backlinks

One of the best tried-and-tested recommendations is to analyze your competitor’s backlinks. You can make this the starting point of your link building campaign. Remember though that you need to keep track of all information you get in excel or word file; this will not only make you organized, you will also discover the link map of the whole industry as you progress along. Soon, you will have an impressive list of link prospects.

When you visit the sites that your competitors are linked from, look for the “recommend as site” and “add URL” links. There are times when it would be easy to just fill out the form and submit your link but there will also be times when you need to dig a little before you find the “add URL” link or even find their contact info.

Stay Organized

Once you have a healthy list, stay focused and organized by grouping your prospects into different sections including authority links, blog links, directory links, social media links, newsgroup links, and forum links among others. And depending on your industry, you can further categorize your list. For example, if you have a “make money online” site, you can categorize your links into:

• Sites about Blogging
• E-commerce Sites
• Auction Sites
• Search Engine Optimization Sites
• Web Development
• Business Information Websites

Having an organized list will also help you determine the anchor text you should use. Once you’re organized, you’re ready to start your successful link building campaign.

The first is where the website’s purpose is to educate the reader.

This can include things like teaching valuable lessons, giving outstanding advice to people in their market, sharing things that most people don’t know about, etc.

This is basically the model I chose when I took over the BloggingExperiment blog a couple months ago. Since taking over the site, the traffic level remains pretty steady compared to when we bought it. The RSS subscribers has increased slightly. Income has increased significantly. BUT, the site hasn’t taken off to the equivalent of an A-List Blog…

My initial thought was, people NEED to learn how to make money online, and I was determined to teach people what I knew. I’m not saying this model is flawed, but it may not be the best option if you want a super popular website.

The second path people take with their sites is to primarily entertain their readers.

I was listening to an interview Frank Kern did a while back where he gave this example. I can’t remember the exact way he stated it, but it was something like this: ”People are painfully bored in their lives and they are desperate for entertainment…your job with your website should be 15% content, 85% entertainment” (something to that effect anyway)

Then he gave this example: He said “close your eyes for 10 seconds, and think of 4 things you learned in college. Next, close your eyes for 10 seconds and think of 4 characters from the tv show Seinfeld”.

Sure enough, Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer came to my mind MUCH faster than anything I learned in college. In fact, not one single thing came to mind when I thought about what I learned in college.

The difference? Entertainment is more enjoyable and easier to remember than even the best education or training. Is this the reason why JohnChow and Shoemoney are two of the most popular blogs in the make money online niche? Probably so. Do they always give out the best content? Not even close…

So, what direction are you taking your website or blog?

Are you so focused on educational content that even though you have incredibly valuable stuff to share, it’s just not catching on because you are “not entertaining enough”? That’s why celebrity gossip is so popular, as well as reality TV, soap operas and Youtube. Entertainment trumps true content every time, but is it a more profitable direction to take your business?

Which do you think is best?

A few years ago, it was not that difficult to get a high SERP ranking because there is only a limited number of people who blog about certain niches. In fact, “niche” probably became popular because only a few people actually write about their expertise. But nowadays, these seemingly niche topics are no longer “niche” in its true definition.

A lot of bloggers are exploring ways to make money online and they are discovering that it can be profitable to write about specialty topics even if they don’t necessarily have the expertise for it. But these bloggers know how to use optimization techniques so they achieve a high ranking and people inevitably visit their blogs. You will discover that your promotional techniques are no longer as effective as before because there are many people using the same techniques. So what can you do to get a competitive edge? Try to go offline.

Trying out offline blog promotion will result to better exposure and you will get a higher number of contacts. In addition, most people have the tendency to associate e-commerce sites that are being promoted online as being more credible than those that promote exclusively online; the same can be true for blogs. So how exactly can you effectively promote your blog offline? Well, below are some tips:

1. Attend Blogging Conventions – most popular bloggers attend blogging conventions in their area; this activity has a purpose. You will establish a lot of contacts within the blogging community and you will get a lot of potential readers. In addition, you can learn a lot from other bloggers as well.
2. Give out promotional items – whether it is a mug, a shirt, or even bumper sticker, make sure to give out some promotional items. This should include your blog URL with the description or motto of your blog.
3. Sponsor Events - Depending on the topic of your blog, there will often be events or meetings that you can sponsor. Shoemoney recently mentioned this type of promotion as a method he has used for his newest project, fighters.com.
4. Meetup with other bloggers – Often, members of popular forums, social networks, or blogs will organize “meetups” wherein the members can physically meet each other, allowing personal interaction among people that up until that point had just been another online personality. I would highly suggest trying to attend these events. Not only will you meet other bloggers or like minded individuals (who can be good for the occasional link or two from their sites), you’ll also be able to exchange ideas or even act as an informal Mastermind Group.

Whenever the term linkbait crops up, I almost always hear people complain that it’s a practice that only works for tech or internet related blogs. Not to be harsh, but that thought couldn’t be more wrong. Just to prove my point, here are 5 Linkbait ideas (and a brief description of each) that will work for ANY blog.

10 Myths About…

The principle of linkbait is to provide people with content that is not only interesting, but something that’s noteworthy. You’re goal is to create something that another blogger or webmaster would want to point their friends or readers to. To that end, calling commonly held misconceptions (myths) into question works great. Not only are you implying that these things are incorrect, you’re also stating that a lot of people are wrong about them. For example, if you had a baseball blog, 10 Myths About Steroids or 10 Playoff Myths would immediately draw readers attention and would probably have them pointing other fans or readers to your post. The key here is to pick a popular or controversial topic, and of course, one that has several myths associated with it. Debunk those myths, and even if people disagree with you, links and traffic will begin to pour in.

Lego Reconstructions

This linkbait tactic is probably the most difficult on the entire list. However, if you search Digg’s front page stories for the word Lego, you’ll find over 200 results. The basic concept is pretty simple, anything built with Lego’s is automatically 10 times cooler. Some of the most successful examples of this tactic would be a recreation of a battle in Lord of the Rings, the first level of Super Mario Brothers, and an enormous aircraft carrier. Now, I realize that some of you may not have grown up playing with the colorful plastic building blocks, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t still use this method to create a unique piece of linkbait for your blog. Once you figure out the scene or the structure you’d like to recreate, you can either go out and buy a mess of bricks and give it a go yourself, or find the nearest college and I guarantee you there will be more than a few lego experts ready to “work” on your project.

7 Secrets for…

This is another tried and true method of grabbing attention for your post. In reality, most of the great linkbait tactics have been used for years in traditional media sources (newspapers, magazines, etc) and this is no exception. Much like the 10 Myths method above, this makes use of two great pillars of linkbaiting, the list, and exclusivity. The list format tells people that they’ll be able to quickly skim the content and find out what they want to know. For better or worse people reading online often want to digest content in small, scan-able, bite size pieces and lists are built for that.

By throwing in the word “secrets” you’re once again implying that you know something they don’t. Unlike the Myths method, these secrets don’t have to be widely held beliefs, in fact the fewer people that know about them the better. What makes this method so easy to use, however, is that your secrets can be geared to all sorts of different skill or knowledge levels in your niche. For example, you could write “7 Secrets that the Experts won’t Tell You” which could simply be 7 advanced tactics or methods in your niche that the average person doesn’t know. You could also write something along the lines of “7 Secrets of for the (whatever your niche is) Newbie” which would obviously be even more basic and targeted at people who are new to your field. The ability to target different groups of people within your niche or industry is what makes this method so widely applicable and successful.

The Beginner’s Guide to…

Another pillar of the linkbait repertoire is the Beginner’s Guide. In any given niche or industry there are always differing skill levels. If it’s a popular niche, and for your sake, I would hope you picked at least a somewhat popular niche to blog in, there will always be new people being attracted to it. Those people will obviously not have the same skill or knowledge of the niche and therefore, have a lot to learn. The Beginner’s Guide is successful for largely two reasons. The first is that people generally like to have all the information presented to them in one place, if possible. Secondly, those who are more advanced in a given niche, often like to have a single place to direct newbies to that will answer most of the typical questions they have. The advanced members of the community have probably been asked the same set of questions several times and if your guide answers them well, they’ll just point people your way (by linking to your post) rather than answering them over and over. And, if done well, not only will a Beginner’s Guide act as linkbait, it can also establish your site as an authority in your niche

Interviews

Another linkbait method that any blogger can pull off is an interview. It doesn’t matter whether you’re new to your field or an established blogger, an interview with an authority in your given niche will leverage their reputation to draw attention to your blog. While this is an effective linkbait tactic, you shouldn’t take it for granted. Not only can it be difficult to land the interview(s), they’re also becoming more and more common. You’ll still need to be sure to ask questions and gather content that is useful and noteworthy to your readers. Other variations of this method would include several shorter interviews with top members of your industry or interviewing two authorities on the opposite side of a controversial topic.

Linkbaiting is far from an exact science, but these 5 topics can be applied by almost any blog for an immediate influx of traffic and links. If you are seeking to increase the traffic to your site, I’d encourage you to give one of these methods a shot, and let us know how it goes.

Max – I’m really struggling here. It feels like I work so hard and nothing is working. I made a blog and have been adding lots of content. I’m trying to make money selling ads on my site, but it’s not doing much. I spent hundreds of dollars on search engine optimization ebooks and I am just starting to get some rankings. I spend a lot of money on other marketing ebooks to try to get an edge. I tried Adwords, but never made a profit. I tried the article submission thing and that didn’t do much either. I’m doing everything the gurus are telling me to do, but I’m not getting results anywhere near what the gurus are getting. What gives? You obviously know the secret to making lots of money online. Can you help?

- Richard

Richard’s not alone. Everytime I look at internet marketing forums, blog posts or comments left by readers, this same sort of topic comes up a lot. Most people don’t know where to start, so they just try to do everything at once, hoping *something* works.

Well, I didn’t want to give Richard a “Guru” type answer such as “Try to use the <insert latest fad technique here using my affiliate link> method. I’m sure it’s not the techniques he’s lacking. Maybe his niche topic sucks? Nope, based on the URL he sent me, it’s a pretty decent market.

So, I started thinking back to all of my successes (and huge failures) to see what it was exactly that made me the most money over the years. I thought back over all of my online businesses, and there was one thing that kept popping up over and over again.

I honestly feel this is THE SECRET for the average “little guy” to make a lot of money online. Ok, maybe the second secret to making lots of money (the first would be to sell your website)…

Here is the one thing you should do to make the most amount of money online:

** Develop Your Own Product **

 
I don’t care if you decide to write an ebook, create a huge cookbook, make training videos, have software developed or make wire jewelry to sell, YOU NEED YOUR OWN PRODUCT.

There are hundreds of things to distract you online when it comes to internet marketing (search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, list building, blogging, link building, forum chatting, etc). Most people spend all their time trying to master these “things”, but these “things” really don’t put money in your pocket. They are simply pieces to the larger puzzle of making money.

I’ve said it many times before, blogging is not the way to make money. It’s a great way to “help” you make money, but blogging by itself just won’t do it. There are a few rare exceptions obviously, but for most people blogging is not the best way to make an income.

If you have your own unique product that nobody else in the world has, you have a great way to make money. Since you own the product, you have an incredible amount of flexibility to work with.

There are plenty of other people out there who are experts in getting traffic to websites or building email subscriber lists or search engine optimization. Let THEM focus on their area of expertise while you focus on creating the best possible product you can.

Once your product is made, you can then have all these other people sell your product for you (as an affiliate or by buying ads from these people). It’s called leveraging the assets of other people, and it’s probably the most important tip on making money there is.

Look at it this way. You could spend an entire year on your website trying to get its search engine rankings up, learning about Adwords and building a list of subscribers. At the end of 12 months, sure you have ONE website that is ranked in the search engines and you have SOME subscribers. Big deal.

What if you spent 6 months working on one product full time, making this product absolutely amazing. Then you spent 6 months building relationships with website owners who are ALREADY ranked high in the search engines, who ALREADY know Adwords and ALREADY have subscriber lists.

At the end of the year, rather than you having ONE “decent” website where you try to rely on making money from advertising, you can instead have your unique product selling on HUNDREDS of websites.

I think many people make the mistake in thinking they have to do everything the “gurus” tell them. There is no reason to master every single marketing technique out there. It’s impossible to do that anyway because you will be so distracted and confused, the results will be horrible. So stop wasting your time. You can’t possibly be good at everything.

It’s Better To Be A Master Of One Thing (Your Product) Than A Jack Of All Trades (And Master Of Nothing).

Of all the online businesses I’ve started, bought or sold, the most profitable ones were those that had their own unique product. It makes perfect sense looking back on it.

You can spend all your time on one website, whether it’s a blog or a content site, doesn’t matter. Even if you get that site to become hugely popular, it’s still only one site out of the tens of billions of sites out there. There’s no way you can reach everyone who is interested in your topic.

So to reach other people in your market, how can you do that if you just have a content based website? You can ask for a link exchange from other websites in your market (good luck on that one). You can pay for links on other sites (doesn’t make financial sense if you have nothing to sell). You can leave comments on other blogs hoping others will follow your link and become a loyal follower (not likely).

When you have your own product, it’s much easier to get exposure on other sites. Related sites will WANT to promote your site (to earn money as an affiliate). You can afford to buy ads because you can directly see income coming in as a result of that ad.

Let’s Run Some Numbers (I’m a numbers guy if you couldn’t tell)…

 
Option 1 – Build One Content Website

• After one year, you have a website getting 20,000 visitors per month.
• You sell 10 advertising blocks at $40/month = $400
• You have an email list / RSS readership of 1500 people.
• You make $150/month from Adsense
• You make $450/month from affiliate promotions.
• After one year of hard work, you are up to $1,000 per month in income. Yippee!

Option 2 – Create Your Own Product – (in this case an ebook)

• After one year, your ebook is selling on 300 different websites.
• The price of the ebook is only $20 (to be conservative in this example). You pay your affiliates $10 per sale and you keep $10 as profit.
• Of the 300 websites that are promoting your ebook, lets say each one only makes 1 sale per week (again being extremely conservative, some affiliates can make 5+ sales per day easily).
• So, 300 sales per week x 4 weeks per month = 1200 sales per month.
• 1200 sales x $10 profit per sale after paying affiliates = $12,000 per month.

Which one makes more sense to you?

Think this example isn’t realistic? Guess again. Imagine if you spent all of your time for 6 months ONLY promoting your ebook, trying to get affiliates, etc rather than what you are doing now. No more fussing with SEO, wasting money with adwords, struggling to build a subscriber list, all that stuff.

6 months of nothing but promotion is pretty powerful. Getting 300 websites on board over 6 months is less than 2 new affiliates/website partners per day. If you had nothing else to do but try to find affiliates and websites to partner with, do you think you could find just TWO per day?

I’ll tell you right now, creating your own product and marketing that one product is LESS work than trying to build a massive content site. Hmm, less work and more profitable too? What a concept. So, to answer Richard’s question, I think there are two things he is doing wrong, maybe you are too?

First, he’s not doing things that will directly put money in his pocket. He’s spinning his wheels trying to do everything at once, and while he is getting ok results, it’s nothing to get excited about. He needs to develop his own product first, then spend his time promoting that product.

Second, he has to stop buying the latest “fad” techniques that come out. Yes, perhaps you can make $500 per day making silly Youtube videos this week, but next week that technique will stop working (it always does). So, you gotta buy the next groundbreaking trick and repeat the process over and over.

It’s no wonder people get frustrated trying to make money online…

What do you think about this “Secret”?

Comment

The first step I’d take when networking with any blogger would be to visit their site and comment on their posts. Bloggers love having an audience, and commenting lets authors know that people are actually reading the content they’ve worked so hard on. I don’t know a blogger out there that doesn’t read and often respond to comments left on their blog. Also, commenting on a regular basis will draw the blogger’s attention, especially if they employ the Top Commentator’s plugin or something similar. Popular blogs often have a community feel to them and commenting on a regular basis is the quickest and easiest way to join that community.

Link

credit: robert_a_dickinsonAnother great step to put yourself on a blogger’s radar is to link to their site. While A-list bloggers receive many more links and trackbacks than the average blogger, they’ll often check out the different sites that are talking about their content. For example, my post covering Copyblogger’s Keyword Research Guide linked out to the guide and it wasn’t long before Brian left a comment on my post.

Links not only send traffic, they also help a site’s search engine rankings. Because of that value, giving away links freely to bloggers you’re trying to network with is another great step to get yourself noticed and start the relationship off on the right foot. People are much more likely to do something for you, once you’ve helped them, and bloggers are no different in this regard.

Vote

Much like linking, this step is a great way to make yourself known to A-List bloggers. Social media sites are powerful weapons in a blogger’s arsenal and submitting posts to social media sites or regularly voting on their submissions is another effective step to networking. This one can be a bit of a double edged sword, however. If you do submit a post or article, make sure to do it well. Craft and interesting headline and description that is likely to succeed on the specific social site you’re dealing with. Also, it helps if you have a history of having stories promoted to the front page or going hot, etc. The objective here is to help the blogger get more traffic to their site, not prevent it. Simply voting to help existing submissions carries less risk of aggravating the blogger, but it also has a smaller reward.

With that being said, many bloggers have social media accounts themselves and often, voting on the stories they submit, even if the submissions aren’t for a site they own, will catch the blogger’s eye. As with the first two steps outlined, the purpose here is to interact, and perhaps provide the blogger some value, rather than just popping up out of the woodwork and begging for something.

Twitter

If I had written this post 6 months ago this step wouldn’t have made the list. But, after “tweeting” for a couple of months, I would urge you to give it a shot. The process is pretty simple; find a few A-listers, follow them (chances are they’ll notice and follow you back) and then simply engage in their discussions. Twitter allows you to notify members of a message using the @ symbol (@blogex, for example would make sure I saw the message) as well as send direct (pr private) messages as well. One great thing about Twitter is that even if the person isn’t following you, an @ message will very often be seen and responded to.

In just the short time I’ve been using the site, I’ve had several exchanges with prominant bloggers that I honestly don’t think would have happened in any other medium. Also, the short format of the messages (maximum of 140 characters) and the informal nature of the site promotes a lot of “posts” so to speak that would probably not make it onto any blog or into any comments. It creates a level of familiarity that I’ve not found on any social networking site and that in turn leads to more opportunities which is what networking is all about.

Personalize

There’s really nothing worse than getting an email about your site and realizing the person didn’t even take the time to make it specific to your site or personal to you. Instead of saying “Hey Ben” it says “Dear Webmaster” or instead of “Blogging Experiment”, it says “your site.” The list can go on and on but my point is, people can tell when they’re reading a form letter that you’ve sent out to as many bloggers as you could find email addresses for. Whenever you interact with someone you’re networking with, make sure you make it personal to them. If you send an email, don’t use the same form letter for each blogger, take the extra time to let them know that it was written specifically for them. If you’re commenting on their site, make it specific to the article or post and show that you’ve actually read it as well.

Save Time

credit: ƒregAs I mentioned yesterday, one of the biggest things that differentiate A-List bloggers from the rest of us (aside from the balance of their bank account), is the amount of time they have. As this blog has grown in popularity I’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of people writing to me asking me questions, asking for interviews, pitching me ideas, etc. I can not imagine the amount of email alone the A-Listers get, not to mention Tweets, comments, and messages on social media sites or in forums. Just about every big blog I’ve read, has a disclaimer that somehow addresses the sheer volume of email they receive.

My point is that A-Listers have a LOT less time to spend answering emails or replying to comments than many of us. In reality though, even many new bloggers have other things to do with their time. So, whenever emailing or corresponding with a blogger, try to use their time effectively and efficiently. Shoemoney often mentions that if you want to interview him, just send an email with the questions. Don’t make them take the time multiple back and forth messages will. If you want to guest post, don’t write and ask for permission to submit a post, just send it in. When you do land the interview, understand that they might not spend the next two hours answering the 134 questions you just asked them.

Be Sincere

The single most important step of all is to be genuine. If you can’t be genuine in your correspondence with the person you’re trying to network with, you’re better off not doing any of these steps. People can smell a rat and most people will pick up in insincerity right off the bat. If your only goal from the relationship is to get something out of them, you probably won’t be successful. There is a very good reason the first three steps I mentioned focus on you providing value to the blogger. The only person that likes to be in a one sided relationship is the recipient and those kinds relationships don’t tend to last very long.

On the other end of the spectrum, don’t spend the majority of your interactions putting bloggers on some sort of pedastle. Yes A-listers are successful and yes we can learn quite a bit from them, but remember the lesson from yesterday, they’re just people. While I’m nowhere near the A-list, I’ve had some people treat me with almost a reverence and to be honest, it is just uncomfortable. I’d much rather just have a normal conversation with someone and the A-list bloggers I’ve talked to feel the same way.

While I’m not guaranteeing that you’ll land every guest posting gig you ask for or are granted every interview request you send out, following these 7 Steps to Successful Networking will help you make the most of your networking efforts. Have you used any of these steps before? If so, what was your experience? Do you have other tips or suggestions that have helped you? As always, please feel free to chime in via the comment form below!

credit: bookgrlHave you ever seen a three legged stool? Unlike a chair a three legged stool will never wobble – even if the floor is uneven. Mathematicians will explain that three points define a plane which is just a fancy way of saying that a three legged stool won’t wobble. As long as the legs are reasonably close to the same length a three legged stool will always be a good stable base.

Websites are built on a a three legged base of their own. If any leg is lacking, the site won’t have a stable base for building traffic. What are the three legs of your website stool?

Content

The saying “content is king”, has always been and always will be true. Good unique content in an accessible form is the first thing you need when building a website. Before you launch a site, create content. When you think you have enough, build more. If you’re launching a blog, consider writing a bunch of posts that you can save for the future when you’re focusing on some of those other legs.

What about a site that allows for user generated content – a Flickr or Twitter or MySpace? If you’re launching a site like this, the software is your contribution to the content. If at all possible you’ll want friends and others you can convince to be early adopters to build some content before you move on to the next step. And while I’m a big believer that content rules over design, the look and feel of your site is also part of what I call content in this context. Good looking is great if you can do it, but easy to use is absolutely necessary.

Promotion

“If you build it, they will come.” Trust me, it only applies in the movies. A beautiful, easy to use website with the greatest content in the world will draw no traffic if you don’t promote it. Promotion is a huge umbrella term that encompasses a bunch of tasks from optimizing your site for search engines, building back links, purchasing advertising and otherwise driving traffic to your site. There are so many sites out there that you really need to have a plan for promoting yours. Luckily there are thousands of sites and blogs that talk about how to promote your site. For bloggers, guest blogging is great. For almost any site participating in social bookmarking sites and getting your name out and about (commenting on blogs, posting on forums) are all great. Be careful though to always promote within the terms of the service your using – some social bookmarking sites allow you to promote your own content while on others it will get you shunned. And if you’re promoting via blog comments or forum posts, be sure that you’re contributing to the conversation and not just dropping your link.

Monetization

If you’ve built that great content and done your promotion you’ll start getting that traffic that all web developers crave. Unfortunately you can’t take unique visits to the bank and visitors won’t just hand you money either. If you’re going to make any money off of this venture you need to monetize your site. Again there are a lot of different ways to monetize your site and lots of resources out there to help you. For most people monetizing their site will come through some for of advertising – display ads through a network, affiliate offers, paid links or reviews are all forms of advertising. The key with monetizing your site is to find that point where you can extract as much as possible from your audience without driving them away. What’s available to you, what your visitors will tolerate and what will work best is very highly dependent on your individual site. The key is constant testing and measuring. And to make it more fun what works today will often not work tomorrow.

Don’t Sit on Your Stool!

If you’ve created the content, driven the traffic, and monetized your site you may think it’s time to sit back and enjoy yourself. It’s not. It’s time to go back to the beginning and start all over again. Create more content, do more promotion, monitor and optimize your monetization techniques. You’ll find that this is a repetitive loop that is never done. You’ll need to address whichever leg of your stool seems to be the shortest to ensure that your site retains that stable base that you’re building upon. Initially you may spend weeks or months at a time focusing on just one aspect but as time goes on you should be cycling through the various legs on a much shorter period. If your site is well established you may find that you need to focus on each of the legs more than once each week.

You won’t find many guarantees in entrepreneurship. Building that solid three legged base for your project doesn’t guarantee you’ll be raking in millions. The one guarantee I can give you however is that without that three legged base your project will fail.

The truth is, I didn’t do any more Sponsored Reviews than normal. I just made more on the ones that I did write. A lot more in fact.

So how did I do this? The answer is pretty simple… I raised my price. SponsoredReviews like all the other review marketplaces ranks blogs on several criteria. SR specifically looks at Link Pop, Technorati ranking, and Alexa rankings to help the place a general value on your blog. For example, a review on a 3 star (in this case check marks) blog will probably be worth more than a review on a one check blog. When advertisers browse Sponsored Reviews marketplace, the blogs are displayed by two criteria, first, the number of check marks. Next, the blogs are sorted by price.

A couple of weeks back I noticed that Blogging Experiment’s ranking had moved up to a 5. And, since 5 checks is the most that any blog can get, I decided to make sure my blog showed up first according to the next criteria, price. Unlike bargain stores where the best deal is always promoted first, Sponsored Reviews lists the blogs with the highest priced 5 star blogs first. To show up first, I simple increased the list price. Instead of listing a review at $200, I set the price at $801 (the previous top blog was charging $800) and, as you can see, this blog now shows up first when advertisers browse the listings.

In reality this isn’t all that much of a secret, but a lot of people will hesitate to pull the trigger. By putting the price so high, you’re going to get fewer reviews and that’s very much true. However, for the Blogging Experiment I’ve only had ta few reviews purchased through the market, without me having to bid on them initially. So what I’ve essentially done, is made roughly 4 times as much per review that is purchased through the marketplace. Also, by being listed first, I receive a lot more exposure and chances at having a review purchased outright. Time will tell for sure whether my tactic works over the long haul, but at least for last month, it paid off well.

I still have no real idea on what exactly this beast is, or how to use it to benefit my site but I figured hey, why not right? As best I can tell, you are supposed to follow your friends around so if anyone would like to follow me, my user name is BlogEx. I should have it set up to alert me if or when you follow me but you might want to drop me a comment here just to make sure. Since Twitter is all about keeping things short, I’ll end the post here, but don’t worry, this won’t be my only one today and I’ll post more on Twitter when I feel like I actually know what I’m doing.