Too Much Too Soon

Many monetizing bloggers got stuck in the “I can make a million in 3 days” Thought pattern. They move from there to signing up for everything that promises to send them money and traffic.

They earn a cent here, and a cent there, (maybe even more>) Most of them however, aren’t earning what they could be because they can’t see the forest for the trees. Add insult to injury when you earn a little, you are afraid of losing those many small streams by removing ads. The end result is a blog that looks more like a Hong Kong street than anything.

All that data - No information

What a smart monetizer needs isn’t data - It’s information. Information that will tell them what is, and what isn’t working. Is it better to do A or B. What about B and C, or C and A… or… or… or… you get the point. Most advertising networks will give you loads and loads of data, and in some ways organize it for you. But to get real information, you have to do the work yourself.
You need a way to compare and streamline your advertising, getting the most out of what you can offer. The only way you can really do this, is to test, measure, change, and retest.

When this post was written, I’m using Adsense and Adbrite on this site. Here are three reasons for this combination;

- Adbrite is allowed to be on the same page as Adsense.

- They are similar in both appearance and functionality

- Adbrite also allows me to control pricing to a larger extent, this is interesting both because it can help me tweak the return, but more importantly, it will tell me whether I can do better than the automatic pricing option.

What this gives me is an easy way to compare the two against each other. In addition, wordpress has some great features for handling widgets and sidebar entries, and I’m quickly able to make changes and do test comparisons.

So what should you do when you test ads?

Get a Base Line

My suggestion for a new blogger would be to create a simple ad, and stick it in a place where you will keep it for a very long time. This ad will give you your base line. Something to compare other things to while you are testing your options. Keep this there for the first two or three months and do nothing to it. It will earn you a little, probably not much, but that’s not the important part. What you need it for is to compare the overall clicks to the new ads you are testing.
Don’t forget to create a channel for it.

1. Channels

If the ad network you choose allows you to use channels, Use them!
Create channels for every ad you use, in every location you use them.
Say for instance that you are using an ad in one column above the fold (the fold is what is shown on a normal screen without having to scroll down.) Create an easy to understand channel name for it. (rightcolumn_abovefold_image/text_120by160)

2. Time and timing

No ad should be tested for less than a week, it might be that you have a weekend audience that is very different from your weekday reader. Don’t sell yourself short by not testing it for at least one week in every location. I suggest 2 at the bare minimum.

3. Traffic Control

Don’t make the mistake of missing your traffic data, you have to determine not only the amount of earnings, but also compare it with two very important other numbers.
Total number of visitors, and where they came from.

It’s fairly well known that search engine traffic is best for converting to ad clicks. But there are differences on the other approaches as well. This is why click through rate is not a great comparison method. If you get 100 hits a day, and 90 comes from Search Engines, and then all of a sudden get a blast of traffic from a social bookmarking site like Digg or Stumble. Your click through rate will be lower. (Probably much lower.)

If that happens to coincide with testing a new ad placement, the wrong interpretation would be that the new placement didn’t work, When in fact the CTR rate was a result to a different type of visitor. This is why you need to keep an eye on your referrers.

This is why you should never test one ad alone, but always have your baseline to compare it to. There may be changes in your visitor type that you can’t easily see. But a drop in the baseline along with the rest will confirm this to you.

Multivariate Testing

This is a great term, and a lot of people are making great money doing it for you. Google Website Optimizer also allows you to do some of this for free. It means that you use several layouts and test them comparatively. (You can read about it here) However, when you do it that way, you can’t be sure that you are getting the right result since you are not really controlling where the visitors came from.

I also don’t think these systems are great tools for Blogs, it’s much better for websites, and especially websites that are trying to sell something. If you are selling merchandize, then by all means use it to test that page. But the ad-placement on a blog needs your personal attention.

A Little Now, or A Lot More Later

The way of testing ad types and ad placements on a blog is more of a slow and steady progress. I prefer to do it myself than to try and use the automated systems. Slowly and over time, doing it yourself will not only get you the best return, but it will have given you something automatic processes never can understanding and insight.

Test Patterns

Always keep one thing static. You can’t trust the numbers alone, something else might have changed, and will throw off your numbers compared to what you think they should be. Keeping the baseline ad, or something else static to compare against will help you keep your head straight.

1. Test two ads, in two locations, then let them change place. This will tell you if the location or the ad is the important part. Once you have determined which of the two performed best in that spot, move that ad there and leave it there for now.

2. Keep the best performing ad in that location, and move the other one around. This will tell you if the location can be improved. Once you have found the best performing spot. Let them change again. Determine what the result is, and lose the least performing ad and replace it with something else.

3. Test separate colors, For instance, I’m currently testing two separate headline colors on very similar ads. This will help you find the best performing palette with your blog. Keep testing, you might be surprised. Test color variations but keep everything else the same,

Ad Placement Maps

There are several guides and “hot zone” maps showing you how to place ads. And although it’s definitely a place to start, don’t trust it without question. You will be surprised how the general design of a blog, especially how it uses color and images will affect the click through rates. The only way to find out, is to test, and test some more.

I’ve said it before. Blogging for money is a business, treat it as one and you’ll be successful.

Do focused organized testing and allow yourself to take the time to do it right. Be methodical, and you will end up with a better looking blog that gives you better returns as well.

If you are intending to market your business to - or through - media channels, your best friend will be a well designed Media kit.

Media kits (also called Press Kits) help interested parties to find key information about you, your company and your products right when they need it. The easier this information is to obtain, and use, the better your chances are of getting it picked up.
Getting free publicity is never a bad thing.

A Media Kit is Useful For:

1. Spreading the word
Press kits act as a marketing tool to reporters of all kinds. Whether the person is producing materials for a blog or a major newspaper, a well designed press kit will get their attention. If you create a press kit that can get a reporters attention, you will be rewarded with increased exposure. Then it’s up to you to convert that exposure to whatever goal you are pursuing.

2. Attracting Advertisers
A press kit will give a potential advertiser access to the information they are looking for to make a decision. Having the right information in there tells them that you are the sign post they are looking for. Transparency, sells advertising. Don’t skimp on facts and figures.

3. Projecting Authority
Press kits are bragging posts. You can add things here that my may not want to publish in your own publication. How many are referencing you, what is being said about you. Things that might go against the normal rules of modesty can and SHOULD be in a press kit. Projecting authority is the key to bridging into new areas. If you write great blog posts, you might get asked to comment on a TV show. But you have to be able to show why you are the person they want.

Appeal to their Laziness

Remember, you are dealing with people looking for something. If they are looking for something to publish, chances are that they are on a deadline. Make it complete, interesting and do as much of their work for them as you can. You’ll see your press kit appear in places you never thought of. The stressed writer will gladly take well written text from press kits and republish it instead of missing a deadline.

People are inherently lazy; write text in third person that can be reused unaltered. if it gets republished, the sentence "We are a company who builds…" will have to be rewritten. Writing in third person appeals to the laziness inherent in most people. (And to the stressed journalist even more.)

What to Include

A press kit is comprised of three basic elements. (Static, Images, Dynamic)

1. Static Information
Facts about the company, things that don’t change or at least stays relatively fixed. This is where you can put all your background information.

Answer the standard battery of questions:
Whom - What - When - Where - Why - How

Write this information in easy to read, friendly, third person voice. DON’T make it read like a vision statement. A mission or vision statement is almost only republished when someone is writing about mission or visions statements.

The Press Release Trick

The static section should include Press-Releases. You should make a press release or two every month. A steady flow of press releases shows activity, which makes you newsworthy on its own. If you have tree releases spanning the last 18 months, you are not looking very active. Appeal to a publisher by telling them you are a business that is worth taking notice of.

You are also telling them that they better move before someone else gets the all important scoop on the next one. News people HATE being scooped, which works to your advantage.

Awards, recognitions, and references

Show them that you are the authority. Any accolade you have received should be noted and if possible shown in the static section. This is a lemming syndrome. If others think you are noteworthy, the person reading your press kit will think so too. If it’s an ego boost to you, put in in there.

2. Images
Remember that images are often a requirement, Logos, as well as pictures of relevant people and events.

Cover the Bases
Remember the lazy aspect. Don’t make them work to publish your image.

Include several versions of logos, banners and images. It is better for you to have several sizes than have your logo cut and butchered or even worse, skipped, because it doesn’t fit. If they can pick one that fits their available space, you don’t risk losing information because they re-sized your full width banner to a thumbnail.

Several formats

Have Black and White images ready. Some images just don’t look good when converted to B/W so it’s better to have done your own work there as well.

Print quality - Which normally is 300 dpi (dots per inch)
Try to include at least two of the following formats: TIFF, GIF, EPS (PDF is becoming more acceptable to most).

Web quality - which normally is 72 dpi
Try to include both JPEG and GIF

List images with a thumbnail and a clear description, and list the file formats available under as download links.

3. Dynamic Information
This is information that appeals to advertisers looking for a website or blog to publish their ads on. Show them everything they want in a simple easy for follow format. And keep it up to date. If possible use things like widgets to show your data in real time.

Hits and visits
How many hits you get on your site per day/week/month. How many customers frequent your location. You can also be even more specific, and tell them Weekday vs. Weekend, Data, I’ve seen that this can swing a publisher that has a specific target audience.

Subscribers
If you have an RSS feed or a mailing list, tell them how many you are reaching. Easiest way to do this is to have a feed widget published that shows your current number of subscriptions. Do not publish that widget however if your readers are low (some say 50, i’d say 100.) It turns away future subscribers to see low RSS Counts. But more on that in another post.

Demographics
Demographics are a huge selling point to advertisers. Get as much info as possible. You can gather information in several ways. A quick sidebar poll for instance is easy to create and a powerful way to get this information. Having it ready for your potential advertiser will increase your sales dramatically.

Display demographic information in charts and numbers. The Visual is a great selling tool.

Previous Advertiser Click through rates
If you’ve had ads before, tell them how many hits they generated.. If you can justify the price you are asking, you’ll get less apprehension from future buyers.

Be specific if you can. Tell them the difference between separate sizes and positions etc

Tell them the Price
If you are selling advertising space, don’t make it a mystery to find out how much. Let them know what you offer, what locations, sizes and prices of each opportunity.

Here is a pricing policy tip, Give them several levels with the second to last made unattractive by the top level.
- Text ad in RSS feed - $79/month
- 120 by 120 Thumbnails in sidebar - $199/month
- Banner $ 299/month
- RSS Feed and Banner $300 per month.

This trick actually increases the sales of the top level. The third option will get no sales, but it makes the top offer look attractive. If you get rid of the "package" top level, less people will buy the $299 banner than would the $300 package. opting for one of the lower levels instead . Always have the "duh" price in there. It might seem silly, but it has proven very effective.

Actual Factual

Don’t subject a publisher to hype. If you make a claim, make it a truthful one. They will not be very pleased with you if they publish something that turns out to be false. These people are spreading your name and increasing your notoriety, don’t make them regret it.

If you sell advertising space based on inflated numbers, you are guilty of false advertising yourself. You sell advertising more if you already have advertising there. So losing advertisers because they didn’t get what they expected will slow down your future sales as well when your ad slots are sitting empty.

Give them everything they need

If you are looking to get noticed, try to have everything that a publisher might want in one easy to access location. This includes the text, images, facts and figures etc. Make this accessible in one single file. A .zip or .rar file is online publishing standard. Again, appeal to their laziness. Give them what they want prepackaged, and ready to go.

They will want a quick fact sheet of information that includes:
- Name of Company and or Publication
- Contact information
- Exact URL
- Submission Deadlines
- Payment and Ordering information

Tell Them the Copyrights

Give clear instructions what they can publish, what they can change. And what they have to either keep as is, or request permission before changing. This is a common concern for someone looking to republish information, and if they can’t get it quick enough. They might skip you for someone that has it clearly listed.

Make it Easy to Find

Don’t hide your press kit in a link under "about" or "contact", give it its own link prominently displayed.
PRESS - PRESS KIT - MEDIA KIT work very well as link names. Whatever you choose, Just make sure that people don’t have to look around to find it. Although many hide it in the footer, if you want to sell ads, your better off putting it in the header.

Don’t Lose Out

A well designed media kit resolves the major problem of time. If it is available when needed, you don’t have to worry about missing an opportunity because you couldn’t take a call or answer an email in time.

Most bloggers will agree that rather than signing up for the ad networks, actually doing the work yourself, contacting the advertisers and selling your real estate is more powerful as a money earner. It’s obvious; no one else is taking a percentage of the price. The downside is that now you have to figure out how to get these advertisers.

So how do you attract someone when you are just starting out?

You need to build your blog to a certain extent in order for it to be attractive, if you have 12 visitors a month, No one is going to want to pay much for space. So the trick would be to boost your numbers first. Advertisers are paying for exposure. You’ll have to figure out how to get those numbers before you will be interesting to most.

Always consider having a media kit on your site for advertisers to look at. It increases the conversion rate for every attempt you’ll make on selling a slot. Media Kits are complete information packages about you, your blog, its demographics, and its current statistical data.

You should always have a page set up for advertisers to look at regardless of whether you have a media kit or not. The page should contain the sales and payment information for instance. I suggest putting a price chart on there as well. Let them know from the start what they are buying and for how much.

But there is more that you can do than just having a media kit, tricks that you can apply that are powerful, simple, and most of all effective.

Start by setting yourself up right. Make some space for your ads, Find the placements you want to sell and create the areas for it. You really need to have something before you can sell it. Find out the most common Banner sizes; pick the ones you think will fit well with your current layout. Don’t just slap oversized ads on your blog, it looks unprofessional and it will cost you sales.

Now, you can consider the “your ad here” blank ad space linked to your information page. But I would not recommend that in case you don’t have other ads up already. It looks unattractive to an advertiser to be the only one buying the spot. If no one else is, why should they? Never have just that space on your blog, it tells people that no one wants to advertise there.
Instead of the blank space, use The “You’re Losing Business” trick

Find a company that advertises on blogs like yours, and simply copy the ad to your spot. If you choose wisely, they normally won’t mind the extra exposure, and you’ll appear to have advertisers.
Pick wisely, because you are going to use the ad to sell it to other people in the same industry. Showing them that their competitor is getting exposure and that they can either “buy them out” or get a spot next to it.

As soon as you have sold some other spaces, you can contact the company you gave free publicity to, and show them the data. How many hits you generated etc., and ask them if they are willing to continue the exposure. Don’t forget to tell them what competitors of theirs you are branding at this time.

Advertise yourself or your Friends

If you feel uncomfortable with that, just create ads for other sites that you or friends own. Anything is really better than nothing. Again, no one wants to be the first. It’s always better to appear to be popular in a popularity game.

A third option, and perhaps the most ethical is to contact the companies that you feel make a good target for your advertising, and offer them a free trial. Once that trial is about to run out. Contact them and try to sell them on continuing based on the numbers you have already produced.

Either way you want to do it, remember that before you have substantial numbers. You won’t be getting much income. Once that happens, advertising sales can be one of the most rewarding ways to build a steady income.

How to Price

Determining how much you should charge for ad space is the hard part. A very simple way to determine this is to Use AdSense “channels” to help you out.

If you want to sell a 125×125 spot. Put an AdSense button there assigned to a specific channel and see what it generates. Then I would suggest a decent starting point would be to add 25% to that income for a fixed ad. In other words, if your AdSense earned you $1 dollar in a given day, then sell it for $1.25, and do a little simple math.
Week = $1.25 x 7 = $8.75 - sell it for $9 per week.

Start reasonably low, Its better to undersell your opposition and make a little less, than getting nothing. Instead of worrying about if you could be making more, remember that before your first sale, you were making nothing. Take your time, build you business with good planning, one step at a time. You’ll be better off in the long run.

Digger wrote very good article on how to calculate your prices once you get your feet wet. Where you’ll also learn a lot about how to calculate long term discounts. A strongly suggested read.
Check it out here. A Calculator For Properly Pricing Your BlogAds And Sponsorships

A little planning. Some basic preparation, and good old fashioned hard work can turn a blog into a money maker. How much? That is really up to you and your determination.

Some ways are easier than others; some will earn you more money than others. But in the long run, it’s all about building a solid brand and a good base of readers before you will see much return.

1. Advertising Networks
Advertising networks such as AdSense, Adready, etc. is the most common way of monetizing.
It’s Important to realize that most ad networks don’t work very well until you have search engine traffic. People who arrive from other sources don’t click as much as you’d think. However, a few cents can always be made on page impressions alone. Never a bad idea, but not the goldmine its painted out to be.

It’s easy to sign up, it’s easy to implement, and in most cases, it’s problem free. It is however not a great way to make a lot of money unless you have serious amounts of good search engine traffic.

2. Direct Selling Ads
You can sell Ad-Space to companies direct. This is not that hard to do, but it does require you to do a little more work on your own. You also need to monitor the ads, adding and removing as contracts expire. Your price and revenue will depend on both your traffic, and your negotiating skills.

3. E-Books
If you have quality material to sell, then you can write an e-book and sell it through your website. You can also upload e-books for sale to Amazon. The E-book is the most common gateway to serious diversified monetization. It is also a powerful traffic builder if used right.

4. Print Books
If you are a blogger, you might have it in your to write a full book for print.
Print on demand, Google, Amazon and other services have great ways to market print books alongside your own blog. A book has the additional benefit of being a perpetual money earner. Once it’s out there, you can reap the benefits for a very long time.

5. Merchandise
You have a blog? Maybe there is a market for some t-shirts, posters, Coffee Mugs or other ideas. Cafepress has made it very easy to make merchandize with zero cost. You can of course do it the traditional way too. Which gives you better profit per item, but has the problem of finding a manufacturer of your products, stock and shipping.

If you are already producing something, you can of course add a web shop to the blog. But that’s really not about blogging. That’s more a traditional e-business approach.

6. Affiliate Marketing
Some businesses will make you their sales person. Either by just advertising, or by actually doing the sales work for them and earning a commission (see point 7.) This is one of the most popular ways of monetizing, but it has also become a bit of a scourge of the blogging world. Be careful since this can damage your brand.

7. Build your own Amazon (or other) shop
Amazon allows you to advertize a specific product. You can choose the exact ad you want to show. This can allow you to make a product review, and advertise the sale through Amazon. Doing this tastefully can actually be a very good way to earn a living, I’ve seen some very sophisticated applications of this approach.

8. Member Services
Provide a subscription based part of the website that gives access to VIP information, services etc. If you are trying this one, make sure that the value given is worth the investment. Or you will get plenty of bad reviews written about you and your service.

9. Consulting / Coaching
If you are a specialist, or have a business where you can give advice, you can leverage that by giving either online advice or channeling customers to your real world business. This works especially well for Consultants and Personal Coaches, but designers, programmers, and other computer oriented blogs can make good money this way too.

10. Paid Posts
There are plenty of companies out there that will pay you to make a post on your blog. You’ll need some traffic and basic notoriety before this becomes an option. Be careful! You might lose credibility if you do not disclose that you are making a paid post. There are enough bloggers out there that get the same offers as you do. Your readers will know what’s real and whats been paid for sooner or later.

11. Links
Another common offer is to get paid for links from your page. This only becomes viable once you have a decent pagerank, and since this is frowned upon by Google, you might get that pagerank taken away. Not something I’d advice on doing.

12. Sell it
Blogs are being sold all the time, once you have designed your blog and brought it up to speed, there might be a market to sell it. However, building a blog and traffic etc just to sell it rarely is a very effective way to spend your time. If you are a great blogger, that has all the tricks of Traffic building down. Then you might be the person to have this as a goal. Otherwise, time/value is just not there.

Blogging for a living is not as easy as many advertisers out there might want you to believe. But it is possible for those with drive, determination and a firm grasp on the difference between leveraging, and selling their brand name down the tube.

Good Luck!

You can still read The Blogpreneur 1

So you are still convinced that you want to try your hand at the business of blogging for money? Good for you, determination and drive are the most important aspects of any business venture. You’ll need plenty of both to be a successful blogpreneur.

Now, remember what was said In Part 1. This IS a business, and you should treat it as such. Like any other business the better prepared you are before getting into it, the sooner you will see the results. Although learning on the job is a popular way to go with blogging, there are very few bloggers who can’t write a post called “what I wish I knew before I started blogging.”
This list is a combination of things I wish I had known and common problems I’ve observed.

1. Patience
It takes time, and you won’t see much return early on. It is however possible to succeed with hard work and staying power. If you don’t love the idea of working on this for months - maybe even years - before you start showing any real income. Do yourself a favor and spend the time doing other things. You’ll be less frustrated and just by walking down the street you have a better chance of picking up cents than a bad blog will.

2. Set Yourself Up For Success From The Beginning
Don’t try the “let’s see what happens” approach, remember this is a business, and businesses do better with good planning and preparation. Research everything, make a plan and research it again.

Frustration and disillusion are the two major killers of the blogpreneur. Be your own worst critic before you start and you’ll do a lot better once you get going. By doing your legwork early, you’ll produce a better blog and see less setbacks. Trust me, you’ll see enough of them as it is.

3. Get Self Hosted
Get your domain name, it’s not expensive, get your design worked out, do all the legwork before you get half way and have to make changes, redirecting your blog etc. It’s worth the $6 a month to get self hosted right away. If only to avoid future problems.

Although you can be successful on hosted blogs like Blogger etc., most professional bloggers choose the freedom of self hosting. You have much better control over anything from your layout to your content. I also think that you also have better control over your statistics than most free services offer. And good stats are key to understanding what your customers are doing.

4. Read Your Competition
The more you read, the better you will get at understanding why the big ones are constantly hitting it big. It’s not just their size, it’s the fact that they have tapped into what people want to read. Read their posts and read the comments that are left there. The number of comments are a decent indicator of the overall popularity of a post. So pay close attention to the posts with many comments.
Make sure that you don’t ignore the lessons they are teaching with every post they put out there. The giants are where they are because they know this game better than you do.

Never steal posts; it’s just bad business to get a bad name in the blogging world. It will make success a whole lot harder in the long run. That being said, when you read others posts that you like or maybe disagree with. Posting your own thoughts and linking back to their post is perfectly acceptable. Again, treat this like a real business. Approach it with integrity; it might not be as easy as cheating and stealing. But it’s the only way to last long enough to actually make a profit.

The more you read, the easier you will have to find topics you want to write about as well. Think of it this way. Whenever you see a photo from a famous author’s home, you will see books, lots and lots of books. And I bet you that the RSS readers of most A-list bloggers looks like the library of congress.

5. Make Blogging Friends
There are lots of blogging networks out there. BlogCatalog is a good example. Start by joining one or more of these communities, participate in the discussions. You will be able to pick up a ton of great advice before you have to learn through your own mistakes.

Treating blogging as a business means that you need to network. Set time aside everyday to participate in some kind of forum or other area. You will save time, frustration and money listening to the ones that have been doing this for a while.

6. Write For Your Readers, Not For The Money
Sure, you want to make money, but the second you forget that you have to get and keep readers, you will lose them and your potential earnings with them. Great writing on interesting topics brings people. And people are what is going to bring you money.

You will see the phrase “content is king” enough times to want to choke the person that coined it with their underwear. It’s a cliché, but like every cliché it became one because it’s true. If your writing isn’t great, chances are that you won’t get very far.

7. Forget About The 3 Million Dollar First Month
Forget about the 20 dollar first month too.
You probably won’t make money in the beginning, at least not to any great extent. The reason why so many quit early on is because they are writing their hearts out and getting close to nothing in return. Few readers, no money, little recognition are the trademarks of a new blog. Add to that the mistake of thinking that in 9 articles will be able to retire, and the disillusion is complete. (The reason for all those abandoned blogs I mentioned)

Blogging is hard and harsh. Unless you are prepared to stick with it, you have absolutely no chance of getting anywhere. Check out any of the great sites. And you will see that they have hundreds of articles. A basic reason they are here now is that they made it past the initial hump when things weren’t going so well.

8. Don’t Promote Something You Don’t Have
When you are new, write and write some more, tweak your layout, get it looking right. Each time someone visits a brand new, mostly empty blog, you may be losing a potential future reader because they don’t find anything worth coming back for. Get a good 10 - 15 posts online before you even consider hardcore promotion.

Use this early time to have friends look it over, tell you what they think, give you feedback on your writing and everything else. This is your product development. The sooner you get it right, the better off you’ll be.

9. Promote Others Before You Promote Yourself
While you are still new, use the time wisely to build good relationship and networks on the social media sites. Reddit , Technorati , Stumble , Digg , etc. Building a strong network of people who can help you drive traffic later will get you much better results than starting too soon. And doing it yourself is not very effective.

By actively participating in these networks without excessive self promoting, you will build a strong base for when you need the leverage.

10. Learn Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are a ton of books, blogs and sites out there, and your competition is reading them. You should too. Learn enough to understand what works, and what is absolutely essential. The best earning websites are often the ones with page one listings on Google. There are no two ways around this. You won’t need to be the best SEO guru in the world right off the bat. But stay on top of this as well. The rules of this marketplace changes every time Google rewrites their algorithm, and you’ll have to adapt with it.

Also, those that arrive from a search engine are more likely to click ads than those that arrive from other sources. Since they are already searching for something, and the ads on your page are likely to be as relevant as your own page.

And for goodness sake, avoid that black hat temptation like the plague. A lot of your work will be for nothing if you get banned. It might be tempting to take that shortcut to the Google first page, but it will bite you in the rear eventually.

11. Patience
Yes I said that before, but it seems to be in such short supply among new bloggers I thought I’d mention it twice.

12. Write 20 Timeless Posts Before You Even Think About Launching
Writers block is something that happens to everyone, and can kill a new blog very quickly. If you have a set of posts that you can drop on the days that you have gotten completely stuck, you will be able to maintain your blog. Also remember that you will get sick, stuck in an emergency or have something else go wrong that will stop your writing. Having a backup is never a bad idea.

This is also a great way to ensure that you have enough to say about your topic to actually have a blog on it. If you can’t come up with 20 posts when it’s fresh, you’ll probably have trouble coming up with it later too. Making them timeless means that you can use one whenever you need it, any other blog post is to be treated like perishable goods.

When you do use one, try to write a replacement for it so that you never run out of posts.

13. Think of the next step (Yes I know this is a list of 12, but 11 doesn’t really count)

Always think one step further, what is the next level of your blog. Is it a book? Webcast? Vlog? The options are out there to keep innovating yourself. Keeping up with trends lets you stay on - if not ahead - of the curve and keep your blog fresh and inviting. Also thinking to the next step of what you can offer your readers is the best way to make sure you are leveraging the earning potential. Just go slow and produce quality, remember that value in your offer is everything to maintaining a good relationship.

Remember, as a business, the blog is like any other, you need to meet your customers’ expectations in order to get return business.

Blogging as a business is probably one of the lowest cost enterprises you can attempt, but with that comes the hoards of others who have the same idea. You have to be able to both stand up over the crowd as well as outlast most of them before your investment will give you a lasting and significant return.

The Blogpreneur-3 will focus on the monetizing itself. Ads, products and services you can use to earn an income. Don’t forget to subscribe to get the remainder of this series.

So you started a blog to get rich? You saw all the promises, heard all the great ways to monetize and you jumped right in expecting to see your bank account ticking away like the Energizer Bunny. You were going to sleep ‘til noon and write a post every three weeks between the champagne brunches in your ocean sized pool and your dates with the supermodel-twins. And then take the private jet to your Hawaii beach home for a nice late dinner. Right?

What? It didn’t work? The hell you say! You’ve made 9 cents on AdSense since you started 12 days ago and you are wondering what part of blogging school you slept through? You want to know why your new Mercedes isn’t sitting in the driveway already. Why is that moldy slip-n’-slide still sitting where your pool was supposed to be by now?  Why haven’t you gotten a single call from the bank asking what they should do with all the money that’s piling up?

Well, let me clue you in to the real secret here. If you want to make money doing it, blogging is a business . And like every other business ever invented, it takes time, effort, energy, and creativity to get anywhere. It also takes money (Professional blogging is cheap - not free.)

Top 6 Reasons You Aren’t Making Money

1. You are New

The blogs making it big have been at this for a long time.People like Darren Rowse at ProBlogger for instance are indeed professional bloggers. They make a very decent living. But in no way is it a matter of sitting back and doing nothing.  Darren is a smart businessman, with great writing skills who works very hard at providing the best blog about blogging he can. (Along with some other blogs that he also publishes.) And he has been at this since 2002 - that’s six years of building his brand. Until you have six years under the belt, comparing yourself to him is a bad idea.

True, some people might blast off in a week or two, hitting it big right away, that happens in all businesses. Just don’t count on it being you. It is not the norm.  Most of those claiming to have done it have remarkably little proof of the fact. Some blurred out AdSense screenshots maybe.  They are however very eager to sell you their super duper secrets in a $19.95 e-book. You do the math.

2.      Competition is Fierce

Blogging is often marketed as a way for anyone, to make a Billion in 9 minutes. This means that there are going to be thousands and thousands of people thinking that this is their new way to freedom.  This is why small blogs are getting so little attention. There is a dime a dozen of them and most disappear within weeks, maybe months.

The problem for a new blogger is that many of these abandoned blogs sit there indefinitely, and when you are new, you are still competing with them since they have about the same amount of content. So not only are you competing with other bloggers, you are competing with bloggers that have already given up. and they are outperforming you on Google too… The unfairness of it all!

3. You are Blogging for the Wrong Reasons

Blogging with the intent of making money is becoming less and less possible. Blogs designed for this purpose try to hide it, but more often than not fail miserably. The intent shines through clearly, and people don’t like wasting time going to sites that offer nothing. If your only intent is to earn money, you probably won’t.

4. You Forgot the Other 90%

AdSense is the dominant “gateway-drug” of monetizing a blog. But advertising isn’t the only way you can make money. Most of the big time bloggers have created products that they sell for revenue. E-books, Print books, T-shirts, seminars, consulting, there are 1001 ways to leverage your blog.

Hold on for a second and consider that. They produced something they are selling? Doesn’t that sounds remarkably like a…. a…. Business?  Oh the horror! It IS a business after all.

Just remember to produce something that has VALUE! Before you go and sell it, this is a social media, and people will let you and the world know if they think you scammed them.

5. You are Overdoing it

If your blog has enough ads on it to choke a supercomputer, you will create sensory overload, and they will probably leave your site before it even finishes loading. Or if it does load, they surely will bounce on by as soon as the headache appears.

6. You Picked a Niche That 18 Million Other Bloggers Picked Before You

Your niche is making money, so you can welcome yourself to the largest blogging niche there is. It’s the same nice as every other blogger who started with the thought “I want to make a million sleeping in everyday.”

Since this is your objective, forget what you claim your blog is about. If making money was your idea, then you’re in that niche. And that niche is drying up fast. Long gone are the days where any old blog was considered newsworthy and cool. Welcome to the real world of grit your teeth and write blogging.

You can be a professional blogger, it’s just not going to be as easy as that $19.95 e-book said it was.

Blogging for a living sure beats a lot of other jobs, just don’t fool yourself into thinking that it’s any less work. It is a business; being successful requires the same amount of determination and drive as any other business. Oh, and work, lots and lots of work.

Now start writing already. Mercedes is not in the business of trading samples for product reviews.

If this article didn’t depress you, make sure you subscribe to get the second part. “How to get your blogging business off to a good start.”