SoftwareGirl, Author at Monetization Magic

How to Make Money From Your Blog

A lot of people are really perplexed about how people make money online. There are many ways to do this. Once my students take my free 7-Day Blogging eCourse, I schedule a time for them so that we can map out the many ways that they can specifically make money with their chosen niche.

For beginners just starting out, I will show them how to add Google Adsense to their blogs along with Kontera and Chitika ads. If these words are foreign to you, let me explain. There are two sides to the advertising equation. There are those who buy advertising and those who sell advertising. It’s a very simple concept. Most bloggers just starting out don’t care much about selling advertising; however, getting the money from advertising is something that can hold some interest. Adsense, Kontera, and Chitika are three types of services where you can apply to host ads on your blog. These services will look at your blog and serve up ads that match the content of your blog. For example, if you blog has content about artichoke recipes, you will likely attract ads about cooking, recipes, and such. You will accumulate money by providing meaningful content for your readers and when they click on your ads, you will make money from your blog.

Another popular way bloggers make money is by offering products on their website. It is very easy to affiliate with Amazon to open your own store with products supplied by Amazon and get paid a commission for each product sold from your website. Amazon takes care of fulfilling the order and collecting the payment and paying you the commission. You are even able to pick and choose which products you would like to offer on your blog. You can place one or two products in your sidebar or open a full store if you prefer.

Some people will create their own content and products to add to the offerings on the website. Your knowledge is valuable! You can easily create an eBook about a topic in your niche using Microsoft Word and then saving it as a PDF file. You can then sell that eBook on your blog or website. A friend of mine actually has created his own eBook store where he sells eBooks that others have written. You can find many eBooks at the Gutenburg Project to get your creative juices flowing.

Becoming an affiliate through Clickbank or Commission Junction offers many opportunities to sell other peoples products by posting a review of the product online. The way this works is by signing up with Clickbank and/or Commission Junction, finding a product that fits your niche and then writing articles about the product with links to the product that you’re reviewing. When people read your review and purchase the product, you get paid. It’s just that easy!

The main concept to keep in mind is to provide quality content, products and services for your readers. People are smart and can instinctively sense when something is not being represented accurately. Offer quality and you will receive quality in return. Just as a brick and mortar store has to sell quality merchandise that is dust free and something their customers want, you much do the same with your blog by providing up-to-date, fresh and relevant content on a regular basis so that your readers remain interested in what you are offering.

How to Install the Latest Release of WordPress 3.0.5

By SoftwareGirl

WordPress 3.0.5 Addresses Security Vulnerabilities

2 Vulnerabilities:

Could have allowed a Contributor‐ or Author‐level user to gain further access to the site.
An information disclosure issue has also been fixed that allowed Author‐level users to view the contents of posts which they should not be able to see, such as draft and private posts.

I have prepared a step-by-step video to assist you through the process of updating WordPress to the latest release or you can follow along with the detailed instructions below the video.

In WordPress, log in to your dashboard. In the dashboard at the top of the screen in the gold bar, you will see a message that advises that WordPress 3.0.5 is available.

On the left at the top of the screen underneath Dashboard, you will see an option called Updates with a circle and a number in the circle.

Go ahead and click on Updates. You will now see a screen for WordPress Updates. Click on the Update Automatically button which will launch the update process.

Once it has successfully loaded, it will display a screen telling you the steps that it is undertaking to update WordPress

As you can see, WordPress has updated successfully. From here, you can click on the Go To Dashboard link to return you to the dashboard.

If you have any questions, submit your question on the Ask SoftwareGirl tab.

New 7-Day eCourse Teaches How to Make a Blog

By SoftwareGirl

You’ve heard of a blog but you’ve not really sure if you really can blog to the bank. Having a blog that is monetized properly can introduce 10 or more additional independent streams of income to your business.

A website is the equivalent of a billboard that is passed by everyday by thousands of people…but who passed by? A blog is the equivalent of having a pleasant greeter at the door of your business who can provide your customer with valuable content. It can collect your readers information for you so that you can continue providing information that your customer desires time and time again.

The blog you will learn to create from this training is not the same as a free blog. You will actually own and control the content in this blog. It will become an asset that increases the value of your business. How many other assets can you create that provide 10 or more independent streams of income to your business?

It creates a massive amount of leverage for your advertising dollar. It can help you establish your personal brand and it helps prospective customers get a good flavor for your knowledge and expertise. It helps your audience to identify with the services that you offer as well as learning how they can best interact with your business.

Your blog always gives out the proper information about your business. It never gets sick, goes on vacation, gets sick or goes to sleep. It is available to your prospective customer all the time. It’s never rude or in a bad mood. It always says the exact words you want it to say and gives the impression about your business that you design.

You don’t have to be a great writer to have a blog. There are lots of high school and college age students who can assist you in creating your content for very little money.

This 7-day eCourse is a step-by step tutorial that will guide you to creating your first blog and is available to you by simply providing your information below. You do not need to know how to program or write HTML code. If you can write an e-mail, you can create your own blog!

Take your first step! Get registered at http://monetizationmagic.com/upcoming-classes/ today!

Facebook Fanpages Attract New Clients

By SoftwareGirl

Facebook is a wonderful tool to help you attract potential clients. I have put together a video to assist you in creating a fan page for your business and a landing page.

A fan page is a page that describes your business or organization. A landing page is a separate page within Facebook where you can make an incredible offer to a potential client while receiving their name and e-mail in return. This information helps you to ethically market to your potential client and build a fruitful relationship.

I have put together a step-by-step video to teach you how to create your fan page and your landing page. Take a look and let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

Do You REALLY Need Membership Software?

By SoftwareGirl

According to the author of the following video, membership software is imperative. Oddly enough, he also happens to be selling membership software and only gives one choice of membership software.

I respectfully disagree. Watch the video because his other tips are valuable and read below to learn about creating your membership program without membership software.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8rZxNtcT4k
All you need for a basic membership program is an e-mail program. It could be something as simple as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird (which is still free!). Depending on the size of your list, you could use an actual autoresponder program like AWeber or iContact.

If you’re just starting out, think about what you are offering in your membership program and how many clients you wish to serve. For example, let’s say you have a $97/mo coaching membership and you have 20 clients, you may not need a membership software program. Once you’ve gotten a few $2k months under your belt, you may decide to begin another membership program and are better able to handle the additional software expense.

You want your membership program to deliver content to your membership clients in a timely manner and you want them to be able to “opt out” when they’ve had enough. It’s really that simple.

If you provide too much content to your members at one time, they may become overwhelmed by the amount and opt out because they cannot possibly digest that much in one session. So spoon feed them a bit at a time and give them time to process the information and put it into use.

Remember to employ the simple solutions first and fully utilize the resources you already possess before you invest in software that may or may not give you a return on your money. The software does not always determine the success of your membership program.

The marketing of your membership program will give you a much larger return on your investment…then you can afford and will need the fancy software. Get the clients in the door first and use the magic of OPM (other people’s money) to purchase the membership tools.

8 Things to NOT Do when Link Building

By SoftwareGirl

Don’t go requesting reciprocal links from every website on the planet. This might have helped several years ago, but you can be penalized for it today. If you do engage in reciprocal links, make sure they are with related sites and make the links natural within your site. In other words, don’t just make a “Links Page” and list links. Add your partner’s link to relevant content pages or wherever it just “makes sense” to do so.
Don’t engage in comment spam. In most cases it’s a complete waste of time, because filters do a good job of catching spam comments. It’s also a good way to make bloggers angry with you. Only add your link in the space provided for your link and don’t add links within the body of your comment, unless it’s very relevant and you know it’s acceptable to the blogger.
Don’t submit every page of your site to social news sites. We’re talking about sites like digg.com, reddit.com, etc. You’ll just end up getting ignored, and you’ll probably be banned too. A better idea is to encourage others to submit you instead.
Resist the urge to submit to every directory you run across. There are only a few that are worth your time. Directories that post sites without reviewing them are usually considered link farms, and their links are penalized in the search engines.
Show Restraint and Be Relevant. Avoid posting links to your site in forum posts unless they are extremely relevant to the subject at hand and is allowed. That’s what your signature is for.
Don’t bother with web rings and other dated link building techniques. Concentrate on creating good content and promoting it, and links will come.
Don’t make outrageous claims if you’re offering a service or selling a product. You’re credibility is worth more than any sale and it’s cheapens any legitimate offers that you are making.
Don’t make ugly comments to the webmaster about their website or the webmaster personally if you want your links listed. This was covered well in “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Even if the comment is grammatically incorrect, generally I will accept it and give folks the benefit of the doubt. Constructive criticism = good, just plain meanness = delete. 😉

10 Ways to Build Quality Links to Your Website

By SoftwareGirl

Write guest posts on blogs that are related to your field. Many bloggers will be glad to allow you to provide some fresh content for them in exchange for a link back to your site. Just contact the blogger and make an offer.
Answer questions on sites such as Answers.Yahoo.com, AllExperts.com and JustAnswer.com. By providing quality advice on subjects related to your site, you link to your pages as related information. Just understand that sites like this frown on website owners simply linking to their sites. You can link when it’s relevant, but you don’t need to say it’s your own site.
Offer testimonials for the sales pages of products you enjoy. Internet marketers love to get them, and most will gladly post an active link or at least a URL to your site in return.
Find other organizations that link to members’ websites to join. For best results, choose ones related to your niche.
Offer to write articles for a fellow blogger or news media organization. You’ll want to voluntarily send them a sample of your work ahead of time so that they get a taste of what you’re offering.
Join and participate in forums. Add links to your site to your signature.
Comment on blogs whose subject matter is related to your site. If you take the time to read the post and write a good, relevant comment, the blogger is unlikely to consider this spamming. Be respectful; keep your link in the space provided for your link.
Sponsor giveaways on blogs. You supply the product, and the blogger holds the giveaway. You’ll get a link from the blogger, and you could also request that entrants be required to link to your site. Make sure that the blog is in a related field and readers are interested in what you’re giving away!
Create profiles on popular social networking sites, and link to your site from them. Some of these will be “no follow” links, but when link building, don’t worry about this…just build good, quality links.
Make yourself available for interviews, not only online, but with offline media. Most media outlets have websites, and they often post transcripts of interviews there along with relevant links.

Do you have other ways that you have used that work well for building quality links? Please do share what you’ve done and how well it worked in the comment section below! Hint: This is a great example of a invitation for #7 above!

The Great Blog Checklist

By SoftwareGirl

We’ve all heard of blogs. There are free blogs. There are paid blogs. Blogs have been around for about 10 years. How are blogs judged? Are they judged by the number of unique visitors, amount of income they generate, amount of time a reader spends on the site, value they provide to readers? Are there different features that need to be included to achieve a given goal? What is it that makes a blog great? I’ve combined a list of basic elements that will launch your blog above the rest.

1. Create value for your reader! Your reader is usually looking for something in particular when they click upon your site. Determine what they are looking for by posting articles and watching to see what that does to your traffic and providing more if the traffic increases significantly. Provide the reader the ability to leave comments as they can provide valuable insight in this manner.

2. Use keywords to attract readers. Using Google Adwords, you can determine valuable keywords to include in your articles to drive traffic to your site.

3. Provide resources to your readers. What a valuable resource is to your reader will vary depending upon the niche chosen. Typically checklists, templates, diagrams, how to series are great resources.

4. Keep the blog active by posting articles every 2-3 days at a minimum. Blogging is not a set it and forget it method of making money. A lot of blogs are literal electronic ghost towns. It is very apparent to the reader when the date is not on the article and the information is outdated or they visit several times and nothing has changed in the last week or so. I’ve been guilty of this myself; however, a good way to work around this is to write several articles at once and schedule them to be released during your busy periods so that the site is still fresh and alive even though you may be basking on the beach in Maui.

5. Give something to your reader and provide an opt-in box. Provide the reader with valuable content and ask them to provide their name and e-mail so that you can open the communication channel to include e-mail as well as online communication.

6. Use Google Adsense. Google Adsense is a great way to earn a few pennies here and there to offset the cost of hosting. While you cannot click on your own Adsense ads, you can give others some “Google Love” by clicking on their ads. It only takes a moment and it helps the other guy out.

7. Use video. This is where blogs beat books hands down. Use video on your blog to further establish a connection with your reader. Video is a great way to convey your personality to your reader and I’ve seen statistics saying that it boosts readership by over 300%!

8. Know what sizes and colors to use when placing ads on your blog. In this particular case, size, placement and color do matter! Humans are sensitized to know what is an ad and typically will not click on it unless they are looking for that particular item. Ads within the body of the post should be 336×280 or 300×250 for best results. Ads at the bottom of the post should be 468×60 or 234×60 for best results. The leaderboard display panel which places advertising unit above your posts is best at 728×90 pixels. Colors of ads should blend into your theme, have no border (color FFFFFF) and the link needs to be blue because most humans are trained to believe that all links are blue.

9. Know who your competition is and what their keywords are. Use Google search to find some of your keywords. The blogs that show up in the top 5 results are your competition. Use SpyFu to determine not only what their keywords are but also for which AdWords they are currently paying. It’s a great tool!

10. Personalize the reader experience. Make the reader’s experience fun and valuable and you will create a great following. Create a contest to add some excitement. Recommend resources they may not be aware of. When writing speak to your reader as you would a friend at the coffee shop to create a closer connection. If you’re having fun chances are your readers are enjoying their experience as well!