Shout out to my friend Liza for inspiring this post.
She’s a dedicated blogger who wants to make money without using tons of banner ads, and you can learn how to do this right along with her!
–Let’s back up just a sec…the reason I’m posting about this is because lots of friends have said they don’t make much money using AdSense–
My advice is pretty simple:
- Link to a trusted service (affiliate marketing) or
- Create and merchandise a product of your own (product marketing)
Making Money is a Good Thing
Anyone who tells you that making money blogging is bad, disreputable, or unseemly is full of crap misinformed. You dedicate a lot of time putting together kick ass content, right?
Then you need to figure out a way to get paid for it!
If you read this blog you’ve no doubt seen the Thesis Theme and Scribe SEO ads in my sidebar (these are not AdSense ads, they link directly to information pages about the WordPress tools that I use regularly). This sort of brings me to the whole point:
Represent what you use and can recommend wholeheartedly
Putting these links on your site is as easy as going to the share-a-sale affiliate website and signing up (less than five minute process).
Hmmm, I like the affiliate deal because it earns me a little beer money, but there’s nothing like owning the keys to the car (offering your own product or service).
Creatively Merchandise Your Services
Don’t push product — people hate it and you won’t sell anything anyways.
Instead try showing people why they should want to get in touch with you. The way I do this is by adding links to my services in the ‘after the post box’. Wait, that’s not really creative, right?
OK, you got me, it’s more of a necessity — letting people know how to get in touch.
The creative stuff is YouTube videos, this blog, offline networking (like attending local TweetUps), and sharing on Twitter, Facebook and more. Seriously, if you want more leads and sales, show people how to use stuff. Let them know what’s cool about your merchandise by appealing to all the needs they have.
Got it? Cool, here’s an example of one of my Facebook ‘How To Videos’: