If you have a successful blog with a large readership, you can create an additional stream of income (and repeat visitors) by having a newsletter. Depending on the topic of your blog, you may have readers who wish to receive a newsletter that contains more in-depth information. You start by creating an email opt-in list of newsletter subscribers. This list can then be used for other marketing promotions or you can monetize your newsletter through sponsor ads.

If your blogs offer something of value to your readers, chances are they will expect your newsletter or email campaign to do the same. This is a good thing because you will attract subscribers, but if you don’t deliver you will find that many of your readers end up unsubscribing. Add value to your email correspondences in the same way you make your blogs interesting to retain and attract subscribers.

Make sure you give readers something of value in these emails and give them a reason to read them so that your advertising methods have the greatest chances of being successful. If you promise little known tips or hard to find information, you better deliver or readers will unsubscribe.

A good way to increase the number of people subscribing is to reveal extra information that can be found only in the newsletter.

One example is to conclude a blog entry in an email for subscribers only.

Readers who are eager to get the whole story and will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter. Free incentives are also a good way to get subscribers, it doesn’t have to be something fancy. Some ideas include offering a free report or list of tips. Even the free info you give out should be useful. Don’t just offer up junk. If your free information is that good, people will come back for more.

Monetizing a newsletter or email campaign is similar to monetizing your blog. While you cannot use Adsense and other similar advertising methods, you can directly sell ad space and depending on the size of your subscriber list you can charge a hefty sum.

You can also use affiliate marketing in your newsletter, just be sure to have the bulk of your newsletter contains relevant content and not just ads or else your readers will start dropping like flies. Make sure your affiliate marketing is related to the content of your newsletter or email and that your audience will be interested in what you are promoting. Don’t overdo it. Treat your subscribers well!

You can also sell your own merchandise through your newsletter. If you have created merchandise with your blog logo or related slogans, adding a link in your news letter asking readers to check out your store or merchandise won’t hurt, just make sure it is paired with good content.

If you build up a large subscriber base, you can also use it to send other email campaigns and promotions for your merchandise, book, or affiliate products. A word of caution, however, no one likes unsolicited emails so you should be sure that you have permission to send additional emails and that they offer something of value and are not just viewed as annoyances.

Finally, over time as your readership and brand grows, you can also offer a paid version of your newsletter that contains more information than the free one.

If you decide to start a newsletter, make sure you pick an autoresponder system that is reliable and has high deliverability rates.

Technorati Tags: create multiple streams of income, start your own newsletter, setting up a newsletter

Popularity: 42% [?]

I’m going to show you some stats of this site from Entrecard. As you can see the number of drops are increasing as well as the number of ad clicks and organic clicks. Most of the clicks are from casual droppers who don’t stay on the site but judging from my Clicky stats, there are a few that stay for a few minutes to look through the site. These are the types of visitors that I would like to have!

With Entrecard, you can drop up to 300 cards per day. Now if you don’t want to drop 300 cards everyday, you can get lots of credits to start you off by buying them on Ebay. Take a look:

Currently, I have 1125 credits to burn up. At some point, this blog went over the hump and started moving up in the number of credits required to advertise on the blog. I have a constant stream of advertisers wanting to place their ad here and sometimes I have to reject those that are irrelevant to the topic here.

Regarding card drops, an easy way to reciprocate card drops (if you’re using FireFox) is to go to your drops inbox and while holding on the CTRL key, click on each card that’s there. This will open up a new tab for each site and you can drop your card and then do a CTRL+W to close the tab and move on to the next one.

This will help you get some credits when your site is new and you need to build up some credits.

Technorati Tags: Entrecard, credits for sale on eBay, Entrecard stats

Popularity: 44% [?]

There is so much crying for our attention these days. Information overload is a common thing. Think of it, over the course of the day, you get bombarded with messages from the radio, TV, internet, your co-workers, your boss, your family - everyone is trying to get your attention.

My point is this - if you are merely relying on your RSS feed to reach your readers, you are missing out on a large piece of the pie. After all, as RSS feed readers get more popular these days, people start subscribing to so many different feeds that they RARELY get to scan every single post that goes into the feed reader. So what you need to do is to maximize every opportunity you have to keep in touch with your readers and/or potential readers.

Email subscription

Many blogs will benefit from having an email subscription list that you can use to send out special announcements, updates, tips, tricks, strategies and what have you. I’ve been using EmailAces for the longest time but I feel that it’s time for me to move over to Aweber.

Actually I have been using Aweber for quite a while too, but not just for readers of this site. I have many other sub-lists on different topics which are hosted over there. But the reason I’m moving over is because I like the features that Aweber has introduced over time. They are an innovative company in this space that keeps coming up with new ways to reach out to people.

It’s not to say that EmailAces isn’t a good service but nothing has changed over the years. One of the features that I like about Aweber is the ability to split-test your messages. You can partition your list into sub-groups and send out different messages and measure the responses. This is something that direct mail folks do all the time.

You can also do click tracking with all the email messages you send out. This is crucial for measuring response and the effectiveness of your split-testing.

Another thing Aweber does that makes me think they really care about their customers is that when you first sign up with them, you’ll get a letter in the mail (yes, snail mail!) welcoming you to their service along with a little note with all the important information like how to contact them, your login information, etc. It makes like easier for you. You know that when companies go out of their way to do that, they’ll be successful.

If you are interested in receiving updates from me, please sign up using the form on the sidebar on the right. It’s the one that says “Money Making Blogs Newsletter”. If you were on my previous list (and I thank you), please sign up again using this form. After some time, I’m going to retire that old list.

Technorati Tags: Aweber, Email Aces, email subscription, mailing list

Popularity: 46% [?]

One way of generating more buzz and traffic for your blog is by running a cool contest and telling people about it. Remember those count and guess the number of jellybeans contests?

If you have an outrageous prize like lots of cold hard cash or some fancy gadget like a certain type of cell phone, you can generate a lot of interest and other bloggers will write about your blog and link to you.

A word of caution

However, be careful that you don’t ask people to link to you using a specified anchor text or you could be seen as trying to manipulate the search engine rankings. Anything that looks unnatural to the search engines will raise red flags. Imagine that your backlinks suddenly increased by the hundreds within a few days and they all have the same anchor text. That can get you penalized and your site may drop in the rankings or worse still, be totally de-indexed.

Some bloggers focus primarily on contests as the theme of their blogs. Others run contests from time to time to grow their blog readership and build a brand. You can also run a contest with a specific goal. For example, a contest to give away Entrecard credits or a contest to give away some ad space on your blog.

Examples of blog contests

To get some ideas, check out a few of these blog contests:

$5000 Search Marketing Scholarship Contest

Tutorial Writing Contest

Affiliate Summit Passes Contest

From these examples, you should be able to get a good idea of how to set up your blog contest, the rules to have and prizes to offer.

Getting people to participate

Once you’ve set up your contest, it’s time to get the word out!

1. Contact other bloggers that you know that have closely related blogs. Chances are their readers will be interested in your contest as well.

2. You can also ask other bloggers to contribute prizes. The more prizes you have, the more people will participate as they feel that their chances of winning something are greater.

3. You can submit press releases.

4. Spread the word in forums related to your niche.

5. Buy advertising. You can buy ad spots on popular blogs in your niche to advertise your contest. Buying PPC traffic is another option. But you’ll want to set a specific budget for that.

Finally, once the contest is over, you should gather all your data and analyze your results to see if you met your original goal for the contest.

Good luck!

Image credit: the 10 cent designer

Technorati Tags: blog contests, gaining readers for your blog, building blog popularity

Popularity: 32% [?]

Here are some interesting search phrases bringing traffic here…

earn money like Ashbo - sure, why not?

jobs making outrageous money, is it true - unless you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500, sorry!

making with blog - umm… making what with blog?

Every now and then you should comb through your web stats and check for phrases that people are finding your blog with. This will give you an idea of what kind of content your readers are looking for.

Technorati Tags: search traffic

Popularity: 27% [?]

My initial thoughts about Entrecard is that the traffic quality is lousy. Most of the people are just surfing through to gain credits.

According to Google Analytics, since I set this blog up in Entrecard on November 28th, I’ve gotten 211 visits through Entrecard, that is including people who click through ads I placed as well as people browsing my site through the Entrecard inventory. Folks who intend to advertise usually click through the blog to check it out.

The number of card drops on my blog:

The number of ad clicks through ads placed on other blogs:

Clicks on my card from the Entrecard site (organic clicks):

Here’s the kicker - the average time on the site is 75% less than visitors through other referrals. Entrecard visitors look through 40% less pages and the bounce rate is 37% higher.

Here are more stats:

1. On average, I’m getting about 15 card drops per day.

2. I did manage to get an ad on JohnCow.com for a day - that brought in a measly 23 clicks. You would think that with the number of credits required to advertise (80 credits per day when I did it - it’s now 160 credits per day) on JohnCow that my return would be better.

3. Advertising on DormEarning.com with 12 credits per day brought 10 clicks. Moral of the story, test your advertising and measure the returns. Spending more credits on ads doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll get more visitors clicking to your site.

Tips for using Entrecard effectively:

1. When looking to advertise, check out the blog you intend to advertise on. Make sure that your card will appear somewhere uncluttered and easily noticeable - somewhere above the fold is the best. If the blog has a ton of ads all over the place, chances of your card getting click gets lower. If your card appears all the way on the bottom of the page, once again, you’ll likely not get any clicks.

2. Try other categories. If your site is about making money online, you can also try advertising in other categories like hobbies, internet, lifestyle, etc. This might also cost you less credits as the popular make money blogs require lots of credits.

3. Advertise on newer blogs listed on Entrecard. These require few credits to advertise on, so you won’t have much to lose while getting more exposure for your ads.

4. When you visit other blogs you find through Entrecard, leave them a comment and let them know. Network with other bloggers.

5. Leave recommendations for people you know. They might do the same for you.

6. Design a more attractive card. Don’t know how to do it yourself? Ask people for help or hire someone. An attractive card will increase your chances of getting your ad noticed. It will also help build your brand.

It’s harder to track things like how many people who visit through Entrecard become RSS subscribers or mailing list subscribers. Harder but not impossible. If you’re serious about measuring your traffic, you should consider tracking all these things.

Technorati Tags: Entrecard, getting traffic to your blog

Popularity: 26% [?]

This post is a commentary on “There’s No Money in the Long Tail of the Blogosphere”.

Many blogs started by aspiring probloggers fall into this “long tail” category in terms of traffic and readership. I haven’t read Chris Anderson’s book but the concept of the long tail is quite simple. We can apply the concept to blogs and websites. For example, having many niche websites is to try to capitalize on the long tail effect. If you have some traffic to all of these sites, the total of all the sites in your network would generate quite substantial traffic.

Instead of building a general catch-all site, build smaller tightly niched sites and capture highly targeted traffic. Then when you think about monetizing those sites, you may see that your conversion rates are higher than if you have a huge general site.

The same goes for blogs. Think about the audience you are writing for. Although blogs in the true sense of the word is a “weblog” i.e. a web journal or a web diary, for probloggers, they are writing mainly for an audience and not for themselves. The question is then how do you monetize your blog based on the audience you are writing for?

The key is to build traffic in your specific niche. Even if you’re not pulling in massive traffic like Engadget or Perez Hilton, you can still build up your traffic base by advertising on other blogs with readers that will be interested in your blog. For example, if you’re a personal finance blogger, your readers may also be readers of blogs about making money online. Tech blog readers will probably also be interested in gadget blogs.

The question isn’t if there IS any money in the long tail. The question is HOW MUCH. How much money is enough?

Technorati Tags: long tail blogs

Popularity: 33% [?]

Danny Choo is a blogger who has nearly 10 million pageviews and 56,610 unique visitors PER DAY in Oct. 07 (see his Oct stats here). What draws visitors to the blog is content and DannyChoo.com has tons of it, some of which are user-generated. The blog is primarily drawing anime fans and folks who came through the various stormtrooper videos posted on YouTube. (Hint, hint - that’s a good way to draw traffic to your blog if you have something funny that you can post on YouTube)

Yeah… videos like this one:

Revenue generation is through AdSense where he uses a revenue sharing model. Affiliate sales also generate revenues for the site.

So what are the earnings for DannyChoo.com?

Here are some quotes from the site:

“Google Adsense is actually the lowest generating form of income for me.”

“On a good day I get about 50 USD and make enough from it to pay for all my monthly bills (hosting, telephone, electric, gas yada yada), my monthly mags and a few figures.”

“The most I have ever made through all my affiliate programs is just over 1000 USD per day last December (06) - my next goal is to keep it a steady 1000 by Q4 of this year - nearly there. ”

Since these data are a bit dated (from around April 07 or thereabouts), going by the reported affliate+AdSense earnings, I’m guessing that the site is now making around $40,000 - $50,000 per month.

Danny used to work for companies like Amazon and Microsoft before deciding to venture out on his own. He is using the earnings from his blog to fund his company rather than taking money from VCs. You should definitely check out his site and learn from his success.

Technorati Tags: Danny Choo, blog earnings

Popularity: 81% [?]

One thing you have to do to succeed as a blogger is to build up your readership. If you have a base of returning visitors who come to your site often, then you’ll be able to sustain a community and those readers will tell their friends about your blog as well.

Let’s take a look at some popular blogs and how many readers they have. We can find out (not in absolutes but the ball park figure) by looking at the FeedBurner stats that many bloggers post on their sites.

For example, if you think that ProBlogger has a lot of readers (over 25,000 according to FeedBurner), then you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Consider, BoingBoing which has had over 2 million unique visitors so far this month according to their published stats.

TechCrunch has at least 432,000 RSS subscribers.

Nice, huh?

How many readers do you think a blog about recipes can have? Have you ever visited Simply Recipes?

The site is all about different type of recipes. How does 235,000 readers sound? Check it out…

I wonder if those counters can exceed 1,000,000. If you’ve seen one, please let me know.

Here are a few more popular blogs…

ValleyWag’s sitemeter reports over 32,000 daily visitors.

Want to learn some interesting facts everyday? 157,000 people do.

Find an idea that catches on and you will build a blog following.

Technorati Tags: blog readers, popular blogs, blog subscriber counts

Popularity: 13% [?]

Here’s a tip for getting more traffic to your blog. Claim it at Technorati. Create a free account there and claim your blog by typing in the URL. Many people use Technorati to search for blogs they are interested in. There’s something called ‘tags’ in Technorati that you can use to identify the keywords that relate to your posts. Let’s say you’re searching for a celebrity like ‘Britney Spears.’ All the blog posts that are tagged with the term ‘Britney Spears’ will be returned in the search results starting with the most recent ones.

So you see, people use Technorati like a search engine for blogs. You can help them find your blog by making it easier for them and provide the relevant tags.

Another thing you can use Technorati for is to see you is linking to your blog. You have a ‘Technorati Rank’ which ranks your blog popularity. It’s just like the Alexa ranking for website popularity.

Finally, you can also use Technorati to network with other bloggers in similar fields. Let’s say you have a blog on digital cameras and would like to exchange links with blogs about PDAs, you can use Technorati to search for these blogs.

Technorati Tags: Technorati, tags

Popularity: 13% [?]