Hi, I've been blogging for just over a year and have built my self improvement blog upgradereality[dot]com up to 2500 subscribed readers. I'm currently making about $200 a month from the blog, which is way too little in my opinion. I have just redone my newsletter and set up product reviews and suggestions that will be sent in about 2 weeks (after the useful info and my own products get sent first). I have created an ebook and a healthy cooking course that I promote on my blog. But my questions is...how do I make good money from the blog? The traffic is there, 500-1000 uniques a day. The readers are there. Do I start doing weekly product reviews? (Not too sure if this will hurt my reputation, but If i recommend good products im sure its okay) Do I keep creating my own products and promote them on the blog? I'm no newbie to blogging, but I'm definitely not a pro and would love some suggestions or feedback as to what you would do in my situation. Thanks Diggy
I just checked our your site and there's definitely money to be made there. I've worked with blogs similar in nature to yours (but in a different industry) and I know I could help you monetize it.
How about putting more ads? Maybe adsense and infolinks? You got high Alexa ranking and thats something to consider...it means advertisers will be willing to put their ads in your site. Also how about promote your site more in FB as 323 likes isn't much for this kind of site/blog.
In the self-improvement niche people are always interested in product reviews. You could probably make a great amount of money just by referring your readers to specific products and services.
Yeah infolinks or textlink ads might be something. I've considered it but I don't want to make my blog look cheap or spammy... How do I go about building this up on FB, is it something I could do myself or would I need to outsource?
Hi Dominique, Yeah that is my next logical step, searching out the top self improvement products, buying them and writing proper reviews about it. I will also continure to make my own products, but each product takes 1-2 months to make and finalize so very time consuming. Thanks for your input!
Hey Diggy, You are in a great niche with a great site to back you up. The beauty of the self development niche is the amount of other self development blogs and people you can look to for guidance and inspiration, people to network with and help you launch products, JV's etc. People in that niche are all about giving value and are always open to hear from someone else within this vertical. Get making contacts with other personal development bloggers, work on projects together. He runs viperchill now but check out glen allsopp and what he did with pluginid. Good luck.
Join affiliate networks and send your followers weekly or monthly sales letter with your affiliate links on it.
Not necessary to spend 1 to 2 months on product development. There's a stack of good quality plr around the net now. Find something that exactly fits or compliments your niche and where the licence isn't too restrictive. Then weave your own magic with it. To make it unique to you, you'll need to: Rename the product and the chapter titles, rehash the graphics (better still, do new), edit the eBook or report and see what else you've got on your harddrive that you could add to it, to increase the value of it. Offer the resell rights as an upgrade, but keep it to an MRR (Master Resell Rights) licence so your clients could onsell it, but not change it in any way. Monetize it with links to your other products, or affiliate products before you lock the pdf. That starts to spread your name (read "reputation") around the net. Then do another. When your blog features say six or seven of your products, put together your affiliate program with a good rate of commission (i.e. more than 50%) and invite affiliates to start promoting your blog. Good luck.
Hey J! Yeah you are right, I have a lot of connections and planning some cool JV's for early next year. I know Glen personally, in fact I'll probably be sharing an apartment with him next year Thanks for your advice!
Start an RSS ecourse or start giving away tips to your readers via email. This is how they will beg fore more!
An Ebook or any product where you get a large chunk of the revenue is going to be solid for you. Product reviews can also work out well, but I'd really focus on an ebook you own first. Video reviews for products also convert really well.
Awesome, It seems like you're on the right path with JV's and building connections for next year. Leverage these realtionships, launch your own product coupled with an additional upsell for a membership site, video series, hypnosis programme e.t.c. As long as you have a loyal readershiip you will kill it. The fact that you know Glenn is a huge advantage, pick his brain as much as you can. Good luck, will be watching your site closely.
Some services offer payment per CPM like Adbrite, paying you per thousand impressions and per thousand unique IP addresses. You should be able to make a decent amount of Adsense and other related advertising PPC but if you think your visitors are not as likely to click then maybe CPM would be better for you.
I'm in the self-improvement niche as well. I can probably help you out if you would like to be an affiliate for a few of my products. I offer 50% commission. If you're interested, check out my site at: www.ldcarter.com