If you don’t have a way for readers to subscribe to your email list, you are losing a lot of repeat traffic. Think about it, how many blogs do you visit on a daily basis? There are too many blogs to keep up with - yes, even the good ones. Sometimes I visit a blog that I find interesting and I will check it frequently for a while until they start going off topic and I lose interest. However if I sign up for their email notification list and I get a “friendly email reminder” that a particularly interesting post has been written chances are I will go and visit that blog again.

Previously, I have written about capturing all your blog readers. Having an email subscription system is one of the ways to keep in touch with your readers. Of course, if you’re into social networking, there’s also Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Pick your poison.

Sidenote: By the way, if you use Twitter, Tweetscan is a great search engine specifically for Twitter.

My favorite autoresponder is Aweber. With Aweber, they claim you’ll get great deliverability (how does one check?). But the features I like are the ability to set up different sub-lists and transfer subscribers from one list to another based on certain actions. Suppose you’re selling your own product and you collect a list of prospects.

Now if someone on the prospects list buys your product, you can have them automatically switched to your customer list. This saves a lot of manual work.

Another feature that I like is the ability to do a split test on your email list. If you have a list of 6000 people, you can create a 3 way split-test message and you can partition it evenly (2000/2000/2000) or in any proportion that you like. This is a good way to test message titles (think direct marketing) and also message styles.

For those of you who are crazy about tracking, the reporting options are fantastic. You can keep a tabs on the daily trends of new leads, unverified vs. verified leads, countries, states, area codes, follow up status, etc. This is particularly useful if you want to keep a tab on how many people subscribe to your blog after a post that really appeals to your audience.

At $19.95 a month (if you have less than 10,000 people on your list) Aweber is unbeatable value!

Technorati Tags: autoresponders, Aweber, email list, followup

Popularity: 90% [?]

If you’re just starting out with WordPress, my friend Caroline Middlebrook has written up a guide to help you out. The focus of the guide is on using WP as a means to develop niche sites.

Here is a preview of the table of contents:

• Chapter 1: Getting and Installing WordPress
• Chapter 2: Basic WordPress Administration
• Chapter 3: Installing a New Theme
• Chapter 4: Setting up Adsense On Your Site
• Chapter 5: WordPress Plugins
• Chapter 6: Creating Your Site Content
• Chapter 7: Final Thoughts
• Appendix 1: Uploading Using FTP
• Appendix 2: External Resources

As you might already know, I’m a big fan of using WordPress for blog management. This blog uses WP as well along with a ton of plugins.

Check out the guide. It’s completely free. You don’t even have to give your email address.

By the way, if you need a good webhosting company to host your blog, I highly recommend Hostgator. I’ve been using them for the past few years and their uptime and support are top-notch. They are currently running a Valentine’s Day special where you get 20% off using the coupon code: HEART (expires March 1st).

Technorati Tags: WordPress guide

Popularity: 21% [?]

Last month’s TLA earnings across my network of sites - $716.31

Not really something to write home about but it’s really passive income. I haven’t done anything else since submitting my sites to TLA.

It looks like the earnings have levelled off. And the recent changes with Google didn’t really change much in terms of the number of advertisers advertising on the sites. Look at my previous post showing the growth of Text Link Ads earnings.

Want some extra income for your blog?

Technorati Tags: passive income, blog income

Popularity: 33% [?]



So far the WidgetBucks program has been very promising. Since the launch on October 2nd, they have reported the following:

WidgetBucks has registered 5,000 publishers, bloggers and affiliates, as well as 25 million impressions during its first seven days.

I’ve installed it on a few different websites. The ones where it works best are product-focused blogs. As far as ad formats are concerned, personally I like the 160×600 (great for sidebars) and the 300×250 sizes (for placement in the main fold of the site or below your top post) as you can show the most information to your site visitors.

But on top of that, the most money is actually coming from referrals. Each referral that you send will make you $25. So you can see how it can add up fast! If you have a list of email subscribers, make sure you tell them about it. The time to promote this is now since it is still relatively new and unsaturated.

If you haven’t already joined, make sure that you check out WidgetBucks.

Technorati Tags: WidgetBucks, blog monetization

Popularity: 35% [?]

Whether you are an occasional blogger or a fanatic multi-post-per-day blogger, you’ll always need to come up with ideas for things to write about. Don’t worry, even professional bloggers or “pro-bloggers” who blog full-time face the writer’s block from time to time. There is a great source of ideas which can help you in this regard and it’s called Google Trends.

The thing that is so cool about Google Trends is that it is updated daily and often multiple times per day. It gives you the behind the scenes look at what internet users are searching for or what’s the hottest topics of the day. Blogging about these topics will often create search engine bait especially if there aren’t a lot of pages already written about the topic. On top of that, search engines love fresh news and blogs are often the source for them.

Take a look at what’s hot today. Among the top topics are kenny lofton and cc sabathia. That’s right - it’s baseball postseason!

When you’re at the results page, you’ll see links to news story, blog posts and web results. How’s that for research all done for you. If you’re an info-junkie, Google Trends can be quite addictive, so don’t say that I haven’t warned you.

Popularity: 28% [?]

WidgetBucks can work really well for you for this holiday season if you have a blog that is shopping or product-related. It’s based on the pay-per-click model, that means you get paid for each click and not when someone buys something. If you’re familiar with Chitika, it’s quite similar.

You place a widget on your blog. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Blogger or Wordpress or Typepad. Just copy the piece of code and place it in your blog template. There are no limitations to the number of widgets you can place (they come in different sizes for different locations - sidebar, top of posts, below posts, etc.) but on a site where I tried it out, two different widgets were showing the same products so I decided to stick to a single 160×600 widget on the sidebar.

Also, they say you can run it along with AdSense, but you should check with Google just to make sure.

Widget Sizes

Widgets are available in the following sizes: 160×600, 468×60, 728×90, 300×250, 660×330. As an example, here is what the 300×250 widget looks like:

Categories

There are a number of categories that you can manually select from to display products. The other option is to use their contextual targeting “smarts” to automatically select the products for you.

The categories available so far are:

• Video games
• Sports and Outdoors
• Musical Instruments
• Media
• Kids and Family
• Jewelry and Watches
• Home and Garden
• Camera and Photo
• Electronics
• Computers
• Clothing and Accessories
• Cars

How much can you make from it?

According to the site, “A number of publishers who have tested WidgetBucks are seeing a $3-6 CPM.”

Translation: If you’re getting 10,000 visitors per day, you can $30-$60 dollars a day. It’s too early at this point to point to anyone who has publicly come out to say how much they’ve made with this program since it’s still new. However, I’m sure you’ll see some bloggers report their numbers soon.

Payment Terms

This is important if you have cash flow issues. The nice thing about WB is that they pay on the 1st of the month for all the revenues earned the previous month. You’ll get paid if you’ve made at least $50 and you can opt for payment by check or PayPal. At this point, I’m skeptical about how they will filter out invalid clicks as there’s bound to be people who will try to cheat the system.

How does WidgetBucks compare with Chitika?

From my own tests so far, I see that the WB widget doesn’t reload with too many different products when you reload the page. I have it on the sidebar of a blog in the 160×600 format vs. a Chitika 468×180 banner which actually shows a different product every time I refresh the page.

There also doesn’t seem to be very many products in the inventory at the moment. It might also due to their contextual targeting code not working fully yet. On this particular shopping blog, I have different posts about a variety of products but I only see a couple of variations of the WB widget.

Want to get $25 in your account?

When you sign-up with WidgetBucks, you’ll automatically receive a $25 bonus into your account to get the ball rolling. This means you are half way to your first payout with WidgetBucks.

Sign up for WidgetBucks.

Want to make MORE money?

You can recruit other bloggers to join WB. Here’s how it works. You’ll get 10% of all their earnings for a whole year.

When you refer a new WidgetBucks user, you will receive a 10 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people you refer. You?ll receive this 10 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins. Your referral fees will be credited to your account and paid monthly, along with your commission payout. So, if you refer someone, and they make $100 in commissions, we pay you $10; if they make $1,000, we pay you $100. This continues for a whole year on all the commissions they earn.

All the more reason to join WidgetBucks now.

Popularity: 31% [?]

DealDotCom is a new program that is set to launch on Tuesday, September 18, 2007. It will feature daily deals on internet marketing and online business related products. The way it works is that when you refer someone who joins the site, that person will automatically be placed under you for the rest of their life. While other sites offer 30, 60 or 90 day cookies, DealDotCom gives you lifetime commissions. So someone who is referred by you who doesn’t buy anything now but decides to buy something in 2012, guess what? You’ll still get the commission.

The program is still in pre-launch and you can only join by getting an invitation.

Because the affiliate program is two-tiered, more people will scramble to join just to get in on the action early. Like many multi-tiered programs, the earlier you join in, the better off you are. By the way, the first tier pays out 35% and the second tier is 15%. This can become a lucrative source of passive income for your blog.

Get an invitation to join here.

Popularity: 34% [?]

If you haven’t got a chance to grab a copy of John Reese’s Traffic Secrets, now is the time to do it. The original course (workbooks, CDs, DVDs, cheat sheets) was sold for $997 and has never been sold for less (except if you find used copies on eBay). But John is coming out with Traffic Secrets 2.0 and he wants to clear out the remaining inventory (this is a physical product - not an ebook).

You may be asking why you shouldn’t just wait for Traffic Secrets 2.0? The reason is because the first course covered EVERYTHING you need to know about Internet marketing (including things such as building a list, increasing conversions, PPC, affiliate marketing, etc) but the upcoming version will focus solely on traffic acquisition techniques.

Once the inventory sells out, the original Traffic Secrets course will not be produced or sold again. Here’s the best part - for the blowout sale, you can get the course for only $377.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Text Link Ads (TLA) is another good way to monetize your site without taking up a lot of precious real estate on the screen. TLA is a link broker or a middleman who sells text links on your behalf. If you’re considering selling text links, you’ll have to register for an account and submit your site for consideration. I’ve submitted a few sites and I’ve noticed that those with low or no PR get rejected.

Background information

TLA was founded by Patrick Gavin who has given some interviews here and here. I also saw their booth at SearchEngineStrategies 2006 in NYC.

How to choose which category to advertise in?

Here’s a tip. If you choose a category that doesn’t already have a lot of sites advertising (less competition), your chances of selling your text links are much higher. You can scope out the competition by clicking on “Buy Links.”

You’ll see the categories on the left side of your screen.

Notice that some categories are further subdivided into smaller sections. Others like “Baby” and “Books” are just by themselves. I checked on the baby category and there are currently no sites listed. That means that if your site gets accepted, it’ll be the only one shown on the page. If there are many sites listed for the category, there is a chance that your site may be listed on the next page which decreases the likelihood that it’ll be seen by prospective advertisers.

How much can you make?

I’ve seen prices listed from $20 to $1000 per month, depending on the popularity of the sites and the number of pages the links will be placed on. Your share is 50% of the revenue. So if your link sells for $100 a piece, your share will be $50. You’re allowed to sell up to 8 links, so you could potentially have $400 in passive income every month as long as the advertisers keep their orders.

You can also recruit other webmasters or advertisers and get paid a flat fee of $25 per referral. They either have to get accepted into the publishers program or purchase a link (as an advertiser).

So the bottom line is, if you’ve got an inventory of websites and want to make some extra passive income, be sure to check out Text Link Ads.

Technorati Tags: text links, text link ads, selling links, link broker

Popularity: 39% [?]

JoeBucks is a good affiliate program to check out if you have a blog that’s related to natural health and organic lifestyles. They have very high revenue share - 50% and you can earn up to $120 per sale.

The great thing is that you’ll get credit for the sale even if the customer orders by phone, fax, mail or pays by check. You also get credit if that same customer comes back and reorders. The tracking system is real time. Also you’ll get paid twice a month (unlike many other affiliate programs that pay only once a month) and there is no minimum payment threshold.

If this sounds right for you, check out JoeBucks now.

Technorati Tags: Joe Bucks, herbal affiliate program, affiliate programs

Popularity: 30% [?]