Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging - ProBlogger
One is the loneliest number…. and today’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog reader submissions illustrate it – there’s just one.
Submit your blog tip by writing them up on your blog and letting me know of your URL.
This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs
Commission Junction is another affiliate program mega store (like clickbank) that offers thousands of products from different industries for you to get commissions from.
In a sense CJ is a middleman between you the affiliate and companies who have products to sell.
I’ve used Commission Junction for a year or so now and have never really had much success with it – partly because I’ve not found many products in it that quite fit with the topics that I write on and partly because I have found other programs (like Amazon) to be easier to add to my blogs.
In fact I’ve used Commission Junction so little in the past few months that today when I logged onto it I found that my account has been deactivated (I’ve since reactivated it).
Once you’ve applied to join Commission Junction you then need to apply to join some of the many programs that run within it. Each advertisers in the system has their own program and if you wish to promote their products you apply to do so. Once your application is approved you are then able to use links provided to promote their products.
Yesterday I mentioned that Jeff Jarvis has made the decision to add Ads to his Blog (BuzzMachine). After posting this I emailed Jeff to let him know that I’d be happy to give a few free tips on how to get the most out of his Adsense ads. I’m yet to hear back from him (I know he’s a busy guy – so I’m not offended) but as I thought about what I’d suggest to him I thought it might make an interesting case study post here at ProBlogger as part of the 31 Days Project.
So consider this an open letter of advice for Jeff – but also for the many other bloggers who have similar blogs. Jeff uses a fairly standard WordPress template so what I share here might be useful for others too. Feel free to add your suggestions and tips to the comments section below.
The first thing I would recommend that Jeff does is go and have a look at the advice the Adsense team give publishers at their optimization page. Of particular usefulness is the heat map that they give that shows hot zones for the best positioning of ads (see diagram below).
Time flies when you’re having fun – and blogging has been fun this past few weeks. I can hardly believe we’re up to day 23 of the 31 Day Project already! Here are the reader submitted posts from the past 24 hours:
Do you have a Blog Tip that might help your fellow bloggers? Write it up and let me know of the URL and I’ll link up tomorrow.
Here is a quote from Paul Allen that I should be tattooed to the foreheads of all bloggers hoping to make it rich via their blogging efforts:
‘My brother Curt, founder of Folio Corp, former CEO of MyFamily.com, and current CEO of Agilix, a venture-backed company, is fond of saying telling how his company was going to be an overnight success…after 10 years of hard work.
I believe that the single most important key to success in an online venture is doing the little things day after day for years and years until you magically reach the tipping point and everyone seems to have heard of you. In other words, persistence is required for most successful ventures.’
Last night I had just finished posting on 15 new digital cameras and printers that had been announced by Canon – it was 2am – and I was just about to close my laptop when my instant messenger beeped – signaling someone wanted a chat. 2am is not my favorite time of the day to start IM conversations but my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the window to find out who it was. It turned out to be a journalist from a pretty major online publication wanting an interview (glad I checked).
Day 22 has arrived in the 31 Day Project and here are the submitted posts from readers.
This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs
Amazon Associates Program
Amazon’s Associate Program is perhaps one of the most popular ones for bloggers because it is pretty simple to use and has such a wide range of products in their system ranging from books, to electronics, to jewelry, to CDs and DVDs etc. It’s also great because there are many tools that can be used to integrate it into your blog including WordPress Plug ins. Some bloggers even integrate Amazon stores into their blogs (something I need to get set up).
Another beauty of the Amazon program is the variety of ways that they give you to link to their products. Even using just their basic tools on the Associates page you have the option to link to products using text links, pictures, buttons and a variety of keyword triggered techniques.
Ok – it’s time to kick the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog into overdrive and talk about a few ways that you can make money from your blog.
Let’s start with Affiliate programs (this will be a mini series).
What is an Affiliate Program?
To oversimplify it – an affiliate program is a system that pays you a commission when people buy a product having found that product via your blog. Let me use an example. If you click on this link for Jeremy Wright’s upcoming book – Blog Marketing (something I’m genuinely interested in reading myself) you’ll be taken to Amazon.com’s page for that book. IF you purchase it I will get a small commission for sending you there (the commission is somewhere between 4 and 9% of the price at Amazon – depending upon how much you sell, what the product is and a number of other factors).
Affiliate programs come in a massive array of shapes and sizes and on thousands of different niche topics. Over the next few days I’m going to speak about a few Affiliate programs that you might wish to try out and then will give some tips as to how to use them most effectively.
This series continues at – Amazon Associates Program, Clickbank Affiliate Program, Commission Junction Affiliate Program and Linkshare’s program. Also read the final post in the series – 10 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on your Blog.
It’s day 21 in the 31 Days Project today and I’ll keep it simple today – here are the reader submissions for today. Feel free to let me know about any blog tip posts that you post. Here’s the last 24 hours of submitted tips:
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My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from blogs like Digital Photography School and TwiTip - Twitter Tips.
In 2002 I stumbled upon an article about ‘Blogging’. I didn’t know it at the time but that moment changed my life. Read more about Darren or contact him. Connect with me on Twitter at , Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.
