Tag: blog traffic

  • 5 Insights You Should Know About Make Money Blogging

    5 Insights You Should Know About Make Money Blogging

    According to one source, there are about 60 million blogs out there and the number is increasing every day.

    You might be asking why there are so many bloggers out there and the answer is simple; They believe that they can make money blogging.

    Your mind might be playing tricks on you right now, wondering if it is really possible to make a living out of blogging.

    And the truth is yes, it is very possible to make a living out of several blogs … which leads to my second question.

    So, why there are so many bloggers who failed to make money?

    Here are a few reasons. Yes, dive in and enjoy 🙂

    Could it be caused by:

    • Hundreds of ‘myths’ that successful bloggers are making thousands of dollars monthly?
    • Lack of earnings in the first 6 months?
    • Not so promising stream of blog traffic?

    Honestly, I could list down a dozen more but does the above seems obvious to you?

    Most bloggers are too obsessed with making money blogging. Seriously.

    Before we proceed further, here’s a quick video I had done in regards to make money through blogging.

    Is it possible to really make money blogging?

    The answer is yes. There’s no doubt you can make money through your blog or website but the biggest question is “How?”

    Question of the day: How do you make money through blogging?

    Let’s see what other successful bloggers say about this:

    So to recap, yes it darn possible to make money through your blogs.

    I too make money but I am no where close to them … honestly 🙂

    Okay. This brings to the next part of our discussion; How to make money through your blogs?

    How to monetize a blog?

    1. The relationship between traffic and blog earnings

    Fact 101 – Traffic and blog earnings are inter-related

    A blog is nothing without traffic and a low traffic blog doesn’t really make a lot of money.

    Now, how much do you agree with this?

    Debate all you want but the truth is, you can make money through your blog with both high and low traffic. It all boils down to your own ‘blogging game plan’.

    Don’t worry. I know you are pretty confused now but let’s head over to the next part to make things … clearer.

    High traffic but low blog earnings?

    Let’s assume you have a blog and it is doing very well. You are getting like 1,000 visitors a day but you are not able to convert them into successful sales.

    So, what’s wrong?

    The problem could probably lies in you and your plan.

    Conversion rate has a long history with bloggers and even myself. I could get 500 traffic a day but at times, zero sales or very less sales.

    And what did I learn from this?

    High traffic doesn’t guarantees a good blog earnings but … good amount of traffic does increase the chances of you landing a sale, click etc on your blog.

    Make sense to you?

    I am not saying that high amount of traffic doesn’t help in blog earning and I am saying it absolutely does!

    However, if you are not focusing on the right visitor or traffic, you are wasting your effort.

    My recommendation: Have a read what Steve Scott wrote in his eBook, 8 Simple Steps to Get 100,000 Blog Visitors without Working 8 Days a Week.

    Low traffic but high earnings?

    Now, let’s say you want to go the Mexican style (okay I made that up) and aim for low traffic instead.

    Why not? Chances is that you may earn more money with low traffic compared to a high traffic blog.

    This is extremely useful when it comes to building a niche website. The trick here is to focus on specific traffic and not general traffic.

    Personally, I would rather have just 50 traffic a day (who are very determine to buy something) instead of 500 traffic who are here for shopping.

    Ever heard about targeted traffic? There you go.

    To wrap this up, imagine you have 50 traffic a day which is highly optimized and targeted. This means that you would have an idea on what they are looking for.

    Here, you need to provide them with the right solutions and you would have a high chance of closing the sale.

    2. Monetizing a blog

    I could discuss about this the whole night long when it comes to monetizing. When we talk about make money through blogging or monetizing a blog, there are several ways you can go with such as using advertisement banners, affiliate sales and providing a service.

    There’s no trick on this! Really.

    You just got to know what is your goal, who are your potential customers and of course, not putting all your eggs in one basket.

    Google Adsense and other advertising companies

    In early stages of a blog development, Google Adsense and these advertising banners really help when it comes to generating income.

    This is a good way to start to earn few dollars a day but nothing more unless you are doing a very specific niche blog.

    For example, blogging niche has a superb low payout of less than $0.50 per click while some other niches could fetch up to $25 per click and maybe even more.

    You could monetize a blog using Google Adsense or ad banners but unless you are having a high traffic blog, you won’t be earning a lot.

    Remember that you cannot control what advertisements are shown on your site and all you can do is to specify the categories of the advertisements shown.

    Tip: Don’t place too many banners on one page but instead, focus on placing them on hot spots to increase click rates.

    Affiliate sales

    This is actually my major contributor when it comes to monetizing my blog. When it comes to affiliate sales, providing a solution will potentially lead to a sale.

    Affiliate sales offer huge monetizing chances for blogger but the reason behind so many failed bloggers is because they focus too much on closing the sales or making money out of their blogs.

    C’mon guys. Let’s face it.

    It is always great to see the extra money in your account from affiliate sales right?

    Yup, I know how that feels like ~ Felt like jumping around especially when you are getting $100 or more per successful sales.

    Here’s the ‘not-so-good’ part about affiliate sales. You could probably go weeks long without earning a single cent.

    When I wrote my blogging journey in the first 60 days, I shared my earnings and many readers (some emailed me) said that it was great to see that I am able to earn like well over $200 thanks to ShareASale (which you can sign up for free) in just 60 days on a fresh blog.

    Some said it was good planning but for me, affiliate sales is all about luck. You could probably write a damn good article but without luck, you might not even close a sale.

    Of course, unless you are a very successful blogger with thousands of followers, we are on the same boat 🙂

    How do you make money from blogging?

    Make money providing a service

    You could probably earn money by serving ads and doing affiliate sales but those earning (in my honest opinion) are mainly due to luck.

    When you are popular or having the right type of blog traffic, you might decide that “Hey, it’s time to venture out to the open sea”. You know … stepping out of your comfort zone.

    That’s when you can start deciding if you want to provide a service instead.

    Providing a service could actually turn out to be a very lucrative profession if you have the skills.

    Okay guys, before you grab a piece of paper and pen to write down your brilliant idea, this ‘service’ is harder than you think.

    Let me ask you these:

    1. Do you think you have the expertise to provide such service?
    2. Are you experienced enough to provide one hell of a service?
    3. How many times have you done that before? (providing that service of your choice)

    Now, you are not ready if your you have these terms in your answer: “I think”, “probably”, “may be” etc.

    Yes. If you are going to provide a service, do not have the plan that sounds like this; “If A doesn’t work, I will think of B.”

    You need to tell your potential clients like “Hey, I know what I am talking about and this is my advise” sort of thing.

    Sound harsh? Not really.

    Here’s another example which I received from Facebook two days ago. This dude was asking if I need any SEO service for my website (duh). 

    Doesn’t sound like a problem? It was disastrous … for him and here’s why.

    The problem is he didn’t have a tiny piece of clue what SEO is! He just wanted to sell his ‘how to SEO’ to me. 

    Do you think he made the sale? Obviously not.

    • Firstly, he targeted the wrong person.
    • Secondly, he didn’t know the product he is selling.
    • Lastly, failing the first two and he basically lost his chance to sell.

    Making money through blogging depends on you

    Do you have any tricks when it comes to make money blogging?

    I am always very interested to learn new ways to make money online or more specifically through my blogs. The truth is, 9 out of 10 times of trying would leave us nothing but disappointment.

    When you find the momentum you are looking for, you need to learn how to ‘plug’ that into your blogging business and grow it from there.

    Do you have any tips and tricks when it comes to monetizing your blog? Let’s discuss it using the comment form below.

    If you like this article, could you please share this for me by clicking on the red and shiny button?

  • 7,977 Blog Traffic And 60 Days Later – My Blogging Journey

    7,977 Blog Traffic And 60 Days Later – My Blogging Journey

    Today is 13th August 2013 and this marks exactly 2 months since the day this website is created.

    This blogging journey had taught me a lot especially when it comes to building authority, increasing traffic to blogs and foster relationships with other bloggers.

    Before that, I had created a simple video (yes, my second YouTube video) as a summary of this whole article:

    Did you enjoy the video? I hope you do! (p/s it would be great if you could just give me a ‘Like’ on YouTube)

    Let’s see how far this website had gone, shall we?

    My blog traffic stats
    This is how my website traffic looks like during the first 60 days

    Total traffic: 7,977 (100%)

    Organic traffic / Google: 2,446 (30.66%)

    Direct traffic: 2,302 (28.86%)

    Referral traffic: 3,229 (40.48%)

    On an average,  the website is getting about 132 traffic a day or approximately 3,988 traffic a month. No biggy right?

    I got to admit, I am ashamed of publishing the stats but for the sake of learning and sharing, I believe this is the best interest for all 🙂

    Here’s a quick summary of what this whole article is all about:

    • My website traffic experience (organic traffic vs referral traffic)
    • Monetizing my blog
    • Satisfaction issues as a blogger

    It all comes down to blog traffic

    If you are planning to start blogging, then you got to know that traffic is the lifeline of a blog. It doesn’t really matter if you are blogging for money, passion or as a hobby.

    You need traffic to sustain and maintain your site. Moreover, running a self hosted domain isn’t that cheap after all.

    When I started this blog, I wanted to make this blog different. This means that I do NOT want to do the same mistakes I did years back with probably a dozen or more websites.

    Instead of focusing on organic traffic, I wanted to focus on referral traffic instead. Let’s see what makes them different. 

    1. The differences between organic and referral traffic 

    Organic traffic vs Referral Trafffic
    Which is the better choice when it comes to building traffic for your blogs?

    Organic traffic vs Referral traffic … what?!

    Let’s see what the web has to say about them:

    Organic traffic – Visitors who come to your website from unpaid organic or natural search engine results

    Referral traffic –  Visitors who come to your website from other domains (and pages in those domains)

    Source: Google

    In my own words …

    Organic traffic can easily be defined as traffic gained from search engines. If you are getting more of this, it is safe to say that you are doing the right search engine optimization techniques to rank well on SERP’s.

    Referral traffic (aka referred traffic) is traffic that comes from a second party and it doesn’t come through search engines. This type of traffic usually comes from social media, other domains and blogs who are sharing your links.

    2. Why I decided NOT to be normal – focus more on referral traffic

    Organic traffic vs Referral traffic
    Are you focusing in the conventional (organic traffic) or the unconventional (referral traffic) for your blog?

    Some bloggers say focusing on organic traffic is risky and I got to agree with this.

    Google can easily change its algorithm several times a year but building a website from scratch would take months or maybe longer. You can’t just change your game plan overnight even if you have the manpower to do so.

    So yes, I took the road less taken and I know what I did would actually be beneficial for my organic traffic as well (indirectly).

    This brings me to the next related point below. Before that, ask yourself why did you do blogging. Could it be:

    • Earning some side income?
    • As a hobby?
    • Living your dreams?

    For me, I blog because I love it and the ability to earn some side income is definitely a good plus point.

    Okay you will be asking, “So, what would these have to do with referral traffic?”

    I want to make sure that every traffic that lands on my blog counts. This means that if I can have 100 readers daily who really enjoy my writing, then I would have struck the gold mine … literally speaking.

    Here’s what I think. Readers won’t click on a link shared on Twitter or Facebook if they are not interested with the topic. Therefore, is it safe to say that referral traffic means targeted traffic?

    Yup, you can say that!

    Now, do you see where this is going?

    Monetizating my blog with referral traffic

    Make money blogging tips for bloggers
    How you make money blogging … the smart way?

    Personally, I think I did rather okay even though I wish I could do more 🙂

    Here are the stats after 60 days of uptime:

    Google Adsense: $ 1.69

    Affiliate sales: $ 209.96

    Again, I know most of you guys could be earning more than this. Shame on me!

    But here’s the thing. For those who been visiting my site during June would realized that I have more Google Adsense banners.

    Compared to now, I only place Google Adsense banners on several spots or categories. But why? I had replaced them with specific banners that are closely related to the said categories.

    For example, I will be featuring a web hosting affiliate banner if that category is about website creation. Chances is, those targeted readers will be probably looking for a cheap hosting to go with their self hosted domains.

    Oh yes, this is rather crazy as I ended up with 68 widgets on my blog.

    Like what I said, the earnings above could just be a fraction of what many other bloggers are earning. Nonetheless, it is a good start. At least, I know that what I did (mostly) are bearing fruits 🙂

    Recommended freemium tool for social media management: Socialoomph

    You can’t please everyone. So, stop trying!

    You can't satisfy everyone as a blogger 

    1. Making your readers happy …

    As a blogger, you can’t possibly make everyone happy and you are bound to have lots of enemies when you are above the rest.

    When I wrote “3 Disappointing Truth About MailChimp Email Marketing Solutions“, I was so sure that what I wrote is going to spark anger among MailChimp fans.

    And for the record, I do receive hate mails and some super epic comments (which sadly, still lying in my moderation folder due to too many 4-letters words).

    Here’s the thing about blogging. As long as you are doing it right, you don’t worry about what others think.

    I very interesting quote I would love to share from someone I really respect:

    It is impossible for a blogger to please all his readers.
    Source: Smart Passive Income

    The above is taken from Pat Flynn (the guy behind SPI) and the author of the eBook, ‘Let Go‘ which explains how unemployment changed his life completely and currently earning more than $100,000 monthly.

    2. Unforeseen issues with blog subscribers

    I had just a small number of followers for my newsletter and I too, received some feedbacks from them. Here are some of those:

    1. My emails are either too long or too short
    2. Wanting more freebies
    3. 15% of them subscribed as they thought I was doing more reviews instead
    4. Some of them were expecting me to email them during specific days of the week
    5. And the list continues …

    Disclaimer: Feel free to think if I’m BS-ing but these are the things that REALLY happened to me recently.

    My reply to them are the same (including the ones who leave comments on my blogs); I am not forcing you to subscribe to my newsletter and you are free to unsubscribe at any time.

    I’m sorry if it might feel a little cocky but I am just one man and obviously, I don’t have super powers to make everyone happy.

    Note: It is still rather sad to see that there are people who doesn’t really appreciate you and your writings.

    Brighter sky after some stormy days

    Building blogger's authority is important to main website ranking and trust.
    There is always sunlight after a stormy day

    I am sure that all of us have our ups and downs.

    Being a blogger is very fun and I am very honored to meet up with some seriously great friends (bloggers).

    There are definitely more than this list but they are the ones that truly make my day:

    Adrienne Smith ~ Lovely woman who never STOP giving you encouragements especially in blogging and life.

    Barry Wells ~ Nice guy and pretty good in IT related stuffs. LOVE his writings too! He’s also one of the guys behind Marketing Mini Classes.

    Corina Ramos ~ Another nice lady. If I would give her a nickname, it would definitely be ‘Work From Home GURU’!

    Adam Connell ~ Great writer and one hell of a marketer. Learned from him a lot especially when it comes to building authority and Internet marketing.

    Harleena ~ One of the most inspiring bloggers I ever seen. She teaches me that you can be good in anything as long as you have the passion.

    Again, I felt truly honored to meet up with so many bloggers and lovely friends. I would possibly given up last week or earlier but thanks to them, I felt that everything will be just A-okay for me.

    60 days and 7,977 website traffic later …

    So, what did I actually learn about blogging after this life changing experience?

    We need to:

    1. Focus on the right traffic for our blog.
    2. Make friends with other bloggers and most importantly, learn from them.
    3. Mistakes are common in blogging. Use them to improve yourself.
    4. If you want to make money blogging, start improving your blogging skills and focus on traffic first.
    5. There are many ways to build your blog traffic. Choose the one that fits you best.
    6. Don’t ever give up on negative feedbacks. They will make you stronger!

    Before I end

    I truly hope that you enjoy this blog post as much as I do. So, did I miss out anything? Hit the reply button below and tell me what you think!

    *p/s If you like my writing, feel free to signup for my newsletter and could you please share it for me using the red button below?