I just read a post on a blog that had 6 (yes, I counted them all) affiliate links to the same product - all in a single post. This is a bad idea if your target audience is in the make money online niche.

C’mon, your readers aren’t stupid and having that many affiliate links will surely turn them off. I don’t have anything against using affiliate links but to overdo it is being shortsighted while chasing near-term profits and sacrificing the long term sustainability of your blog.

Here are a couple of reasons why you shouldn’t overload your posts with affiliate links:

1. Your readers will start to distrust your motives. Trust is the highest commodity in the blogosphere. Once you lose the trust and respect of your readers, it’s extremely difficult to get it back.

2. Even if you think your readers are that dumb, the search engines aren’t. Don’t you think it will raise a few red flags if you have 10 links in your post and 6 of them all point to the same product? Search engines like natural linking patterns.

A few words about the make money niche

While you will hear the advice that you should stay away from this crowded niche, ignore that. People will always want to hear about ways to make more money. This is a HUNGRY crowd and it’s a great niche to be in. Of course, you will have to find your own voice and give a reason for why people should be listening to you.

With the economic downturn, the opportunity is even bigger. As companies downsize, people are nervous about losing their jobs and look for alternative ways to support their families. Working online is a great way to supplement your income. So again, there will always be interest in this niche and the marketplace will support a large number of players.

Technorati Tags: affiliate links, make money online

Popularity: 34% [?]

I expect to see more people coming online with their blogs and trying to make money online, especially since stories about ‘probloggers’ keep popping up in the mainstream media, in this case the Wall Street Journal. According to the story, this site rakes in $15,000 to $18,000 per month from Google AdSense. Rhett Butler, the owner of the site, says that he gets about 1.3 million uniques per month. I’ve never heard of his site, Mongabay, until now.

The other usual suspects included in the article is Darren Rowse of Problogger.net. That’s what making the Forbes Internet celebrity list can get you. He sneaked in at #25.

For your convenience, here’s the full list:

1. Perez Hilton
2. Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
3. Mark Frauenfelder (who? think BoingBoing)
4. Seth Godin
5. Cory Doctorow
6. Matt Drudge (Drudge Report)
7. Gina Trapani (LifeHacker)
8. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
9. Harry Knowles
10. Robert Scoble
11. Frank Warren (PostSecret) - hosted on Blogger!!!
12. Om Malik
13. Will Leitch (DeadSpin)
14. Jeff Jarvis
15. Kevin Rose (Digg)
16. Kathy Sierra
17. Fake Steve Jobs (We LOVE Fake Steve Jobs!)
18. Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos)
19. Xeni Jardin
20. Ryan Block (Engadget)
21. Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)
22. Pete Cashmore (Mashable)
23. Steve Rubel
24. Heather Armstrong
25. Darren Rowse

Technorati Tags: celebrity bloggers, mongabay, problogger, wall street journal, full time blogging, influential bloggers

Popularity: 35% [?]

Maybe that statement is an exaggeration but the point is that too many blogs are depending on AdSense as their major source of revenue. And I’d say that the major motivation that’s keeping a lot of blogs alive is the fact that they can make some money off AdSense.

While many small-time bloggers can make some extra cash through AdSense on their sites, don’t fall into the trap of relying solely on one source of revenue. This is especially true if you’re planning to quit your day job and think that you can survive on AdSense alone.

image credit: blmurch (Flickr)

The importance of diversification

Imagine that you wake up one day and Google bans your AdSense account. Will that kill 80% of your revenues? 95%?

That’s what happened to Incredimail, a public listed company (NASDAQ:MAIL) that saw its stock fall 30% today after they announced that Google has banned them from AdSense.

According to Maxim Group analyst, Matthew Weiss:

“This announcement is a big blow for IncrediMail as we believe that approximately 85 percent of the company’s advertising revenues are attributable to its AdSense relationship”

According to an article in the MotleyFool:

“Through the first nine months of 2007, revenues soared 94% to $13.3 million. The company is taking advantage of its popular email applications to launch Instant Messaging and social networking.”

If 85% of the revenues are from AdSense, that would amount to about $11 million dollars for the first nine months of 2007.

Use your earnings to invest for the future

While you are getting some decent checks from Google, set aside a part of it to invest in your continuing education and also for growing your revenue streams. Maybe you can plan to acquire some other websites. Or use some of your profits to hire writers and invest in building up new sites.

Or you can invest it off-line in traditional stuff like the stock market, CDs, forex, or pick your favorite investment vehicle.

Think of it this way. Look at what happened to Polaroid. They should have seen the trends occurring in the photography business with the advent of digital photography. Instead they were relying too much on their instant cameras which use film and look at where they are today.

When you think of photography who do you think of? Kodak? Polaroid? Hardly. I think the winners are Nikon and Canon.

So be sure to keep up with what’s happening in the industry.

Once again, I see that so many blogs are following the same layout as some A-list bloggers, you know, having the 125×125 ad blocks on the right hand sidebar. It’s like lemmings.

The supply and demand for these ads will eventually adjust their prices. However, there will always be suckers who are willing to pay more than the market price for them. While some popular blogs can charge hundreds of dollars per month for these ad spots, the advertisers will soon come to their senses if they are really measuring the results of putting up those ads.

Ad buying tips

If you’re considering buying an ad spot, be sure to set it up in such a way that you can measure the results. For example, you can use Google analytics and look at the referrals coming from the site that you’ve placed your ad on. You can look at the traffic coming from that referral and compare it to your average visitor in terms of time spent on your site, pages viewed, etc. Don’t just advertise blindly.

Another way is to set up a specific landing page and link it to the ad. Place an opt-in box and measure the conversion rate from the traffic you are getting. In some cases, it may be worth it. If you’re paying $30 per month for a spot, that means about $1 per day. If you’re getting 20 visitors per day, you’re paying 5 cents per visitor. Let’s say 1 out of 20 visitors opt-in, that means your acquisition cost per subscriber is $1. This isn’t too bad compared to putting up an AdWords ad.

Who says that Google won’t penalize sites selling 125×125 ad spots next? It would be in their interest to squash the competition for advertisers who would otherwise be advertising on AdWords.

It’s almost like the heady days of banner advertising in the first dot com boom. Everyone was into selling banner ads on their sites until the whole thing came apart. Some of the Web 2.0 properties may face the same fate. You can’t base your business model on AdSense alone.

Technorati Tags: Google AdSense, Incredimail, getting banned from AdSense, revenue streams, diversification, banner ads, 125×125 ads, lemmings

Popularity: 53% [?]

I’ve been reading up on a lot of Warren Buffett lately. His business acumen and common sense is legendary as proven by his track record. If you’re interested in investing, I suggest going to your local library or bookstore and picking up some books on Buffett. Another source of lots of Buffett wisdom is the Berkshire annual reports.

This is Buffett giving advice about being successful in life…

To protect your business, you’ve gotta build a castle and a big moat around it. Your business is your castle. As a money-making blogger, your blog is your business. You have to build a moat around your blog. Now, what does that mean, you ask?

In business, the moat is the barrier to entry to the business. If your business model and product is easily replicable and there’s not much to distinguish you from your competitor, then you’ve got a small moat. As a blogger, what is your competitive edge?

Your network is your moat. You may have built relationships with other bloggers in your niche. That’s a competitive advantage. For example, a mention on an A-list blog could get your traffic shooting up for a few days.

The links to your blog is your moat. If you have spent time marketing your blog and building your brand, then you’ll get links back to your blog which help you get better search engine rankings. That’s a barrier to entry for new bloggers.

Your web stats are your moat. By mining your data, you’ll understand more about your visitors and where they come from. You’ll know the return on your advertising and marketing efforts. You’ll know which keywords you are ranked for that are bringing most of the traffic. With all that data, you can tailor your blog to target the people you want to reach.

Your domain age and search rankings are your moats. Blogs on older domains that have a history of constant posting tend to get lots of attention from search engine spiders. As a result, it’s a lot easier to rank for lots of different long tail phrases that, in aggregate, can bring you significant traffic. I’ve seen with this blog that a lot of phrases I use in the title of the post will come up on the first page of the search engine results after a few days.

If you’re thinking of starting a blog, get your own domain name. Forget about saving a few dollars with free hosting on Blogger or Wordpress. You want to own your domain and build a recognizable brand.

These are just a few examples of how you can build a competitive advantage even in the fast-moving world of blogging.

So go ahead and widen your moat. Every day.

And while you’re at it, throw some sharks and alligators in there as well.

Technorati Tags: Warren Buffett, competitive advantage

Popularity: 30% [?]

If you want to learn about what not to do, read this interview with a blogger who is blogging on high paying AdSense keywords.

Okay, Rule #1 - NEVER reveal all your URLs.

You’ll either:

1. Get lots of people copying the themes of your blogs

or

2. Some people may think your “keyword-targeted” blog is a spam blog and report it to Google.

It’s best to keep the URLs to yourself.

Technorati Tags: niche blogs

Popularity: 14% [?]