There are times when you’d rather not have a particular post “bleed” down and off the first page of your blog. You may have an offer that’s just too good to resist or you may even have a blog that is designed to do nothing but direct people to a particular offer.

So you’ve written an excellent sales or review page type of post and you want that post to be the first thing your visitors see when they hit your site. But you’re also making additional posts to get some search engine love. These new posts are pushing the link to your sales/review page further and further down the page. It you don’t do something, many people won’t even see all the hard work you’ve put into your action page.

There are several ways to make a post “sticky” and keep it right on top of the first page. WordPress makes it extremely easy to do this but it’s a bit hidden so some bloggers don’t even know it exists.

When you are creating or editing a post, you’ll see the visibility option as below.

Click on the edit link and you get the option to make the post sticky like this…

Simply check the box that says “Stick this post to the front page” and it’s there!

Update or publish the post and check it. Now all your hard work is displayed right up front on the first page of your blog for all the world to see. And hopefully be so excited about your offers that they will click on through to your money pages and help your bottom line!

If you’re not using WordPress you may be out of luck, but try a search for “your blogging platform” and “sticky”, e.g. “blogger sticky”. I just did that and found several ways to do it.

So make your favorite posts sticky and be sure to keep your offers right there on the first page to insure the best visibility and best opportunities for increased sales!

Until next time, wishing you success in everything you do!

Ken

This is a fair question. If you are blogging to make money you should at least know how much money can be expected. I mean, why do it if it’s not worth it to you? Right?

But this is not an easy question to answer. It depends entirely on you. There are a lot of variables to be considered. How much time do you have to maintain your blog? How much quality original content can you come up with? The last thing you want to do is to spend tons of time creating and maintaining your blog only to find out in the end that you could have made just as much working at McDonalds!

The great thing about blogs is, if you select your niche well, the amount of money you can make is nearly unlimited. There are people making 6 figures with blogs. Granted, most have more than one blog, but there are a few that concentrate on one niche, one blog, and do very well.

The keys to having a very successful money-making blog are basically pretty simple.

1. Choose your niche well. It is much easier to blog about something you have a genuine interest in and are passionate about. It takes all the work out of it and nothing is more fun than getting paid for something you love to do. Or if you have an interest that you just haven’t got around to learning yet, pick that. You will learn about that interest while blogging about it and if others are interested they will follow your blog to learn about it as well. It saves them time while still supplying their want or need to learn about your niche.

You do not have to be an expert in your niche to have a successful blog. Several blogs I read regularly are by people who are just starting out in a particular niche. They blog about the things they learn along the way and I get a condensed digest of the things they have discovered. It saves me time and makes my learning curve a little less steep.

2. Make sure you are monetizing your blog well. This warrants a whole category and I bet if you look in the categories link you’ll find one!

Give your readers what they want and supply them with things they need. The whole reason they are reading your blog is to get information. So give them what they want. If you’re blogging about Plasma TVs, make sure you have a link or ad somewhere on the page allowing them to purchase a Plasma TV. Common sense?

3. Promote, Promote, Promote! In the early days of the internet there weren’t many people or websites trying to make money.

As a matter of fact it was met with more than a little resistance. Us old-schoolers were used to everything on the internet being free. Ah… the good old days. You could build a site and people would come.

Now there are thousands and thousands of websites covering just about anything you can imagine. It’s getting harder and harder to get noticed. You need to promote on a consistent basis in order to get traffic. Luckily, only the serious bloggers are using traffic generating methods effectively and consistently. This makes the competition much more manageable. Again, look to the category list for promotional ideas.

4. There are thousands of methods to make money online. Don’t give up! This is the biggest key to making it online no matter what method you choose. Up to 99% of fledgling online marketers try one or two things for a couple weeks to a month, and then when they haven’t seen any sales, they give up. I’ll make this promise to you right now, start a blog, work with it consistently for a year, post often, monetize well, and you WILL make money with it period!

Until next time,
To your success!
Ken

Blogs have been around for a while but in the last few years have taken off for internet marketers in a big way.

What is a blog? In case you’ve been living under a rock (just kidding), the word blog is short for “web log” which you can think of as an online diary. Most blogs are date and category sorted. The proliferation of blogging services and blogging software has made it very easy for anyone to have a web presence without having to know how to code in html or build a webpage.

You can use a blog for whatever you want. They can be simple, just an online journal so your friends can check in from time to time and see what’s going on with you. Or they can be as complex as an online storefront or membership sites with products, audio and video, or even picture galleries.

Blog marketing is one of the easiest ways to get started making money on the internet today. There are free blogging sites where you can set up a blog in a matter of minutes at absolutely no cost. However, there are also definite advantages to having your own site and your own URL (domain name). But if you’re a true beginner there is nothing wrong with starting out with a free WordPress or Blogger blog and get the ball rolling. The only way you can gain experience is by doing. By getting a free blog up and running you will learn what it takes to keep a blog going. You can even set your blog as private if you’re worried about what others will think of it while you’re learning. However, I’d advise that you make it public and see where it goes.

Using a blog to market has some distinct advantages over a normal website. For one thing, the search engines love blogs right now and this makes getting ranked in them and the traffic that goes along with it much easier than with a traditional website. Another big advantage is that blogs are in most cases much cheaper to build and maintain. I host my own blogs and with the tools my hosting provider makes available, I can have a blog set up in as little as 15 minutes. Also there are tons of free templates for the most popular blogging platforms so you should not have any trouble finding a layout that you like and fits your subject matter. But perhaps the one thing that makes blogs so popular is that adding content to your blog is as simple as logging into your blog’s admin panel and filling in a form just like typing an email. The blogging software takes care of formatting, positioning on the page, categorizing the posts and creating the navigation (links) to all your posts. You do not have to know how to build web pages, do database queries, or learn html coding at all! With a traditional website, you would have to learn these things or hire them out.

Blogging can be simple or hard. It’s up to you. There are more people than you can imagine making 6 figures a year from blogging. But 99 times out of a hundred they have multiple blogs. And in most case they have had to hire out some of the work, but with that kind of income they can afford it. But in every case, they all started out with one blog just as you are now. They built it up using tips like you will find on this blog, then created another and did the same thing. Once you have one up and running and making decent income it takes less time to maintain it so you have the time to create another and so on. Once it gets to the point where you can’t keep all your blogs supplied with fresh content you’ll be in a position to outsource some of the time consuming tasks. But for now, start a blog, work on it daily and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how fast it grows and how much you’ll enjoy the extra income!

Until next time,
To your success!

Ken

When you are first starting out with a marketing blog it’s easy to be overwhelmed. But once you’ve got your feet wet things become much easier and fun! Like any other online marketing endeavor, blog marketing takes some work and self discipline. Where blogging differs is you have to be more consistent with your updates and posts in order to keep your readers interested. It also takes time for blogs to build up a following and rankings in the search engines. This may make it seem like you are doing a lot of work for nothing in the beginning. Just by staying with it and continuing to write valuable posts and marketing your blog on a daily (or at least weekly basis) will put you way ahead of those that drop out early.

Most of the things you can do to build your blog readership and make money with your blog are common sense. But for those that are new to blog marketing, I’ll go over a few of the most important techniques.

1. Number one is ALWAYS… post often and post valuable unique content. No one is going to visit your blog if you only update it once a month. No matter how good your content is they will forget about you. It is much harder to get someone to your blog initially than it is to keep them coming back. So post valuable content and post often! Once a week is good, once a day is better.

2. Post on other related blogs daily. This may seem counter-productive but you will be surprised at how much traffic and ranking you can get from this. Don’t just post comments to get a link back either. Too many bloggers think that the quantity of links back to their blog is the key. They will post something like, “nice post” then move on to the next and do the same thing. Even if that’s all you have to say about the post, at least make your comment a couple sentences and bring up a specific thing you liked about the post. Better yet, post something of value, a new related idea, a different take on the subject, or even a respectful disagreement. This will show that you actually read the post and have something of value to add. When others come later and see your comment they will be much more likely to click on your link to see what else you have to say.

3. When someone posts a comment on your blog, take the time to reply. This is especially true if they have added value to your post with their comment. Most people will check back to see if there has been any replies to their comment and if there has been no response it will seem to them that their comment has fallen on deaf ears. No one wants to be the only one in a conversation. Do this and you will be ahead of 50% of the blogs out there. People (including me) tend to feel important when their comment is appreciated and replied to.

4. Network with other bloggers. Especially those with related interests. Of course it’s better if those bloggers are complimentary rather than competition. For instance, if your blog is about pet diets, an ideal blogging friend would maybe have a blog about pet health issues. These two go hand in hand and there is some overlap but there is also enough subject matter in each to stand on it’s own. Always think partnerships as well. Sometimes when you have an ideal situation like the example above you can have a very successful link exchange and cross promote each other’s offerings. And if you want to take this one step further, create the second blog yourself and reap the benefits from both blogs. Then find another related and complimentary subject (pet drugs?) and link them all together. By creating a separate blog for each of these sub-niches you will get highly targeted traffic with the added potential of being able to direct the same traffic between your blogs.

5. Track all of your traffic. This is probably the most undervalued and overlooked part of blog marketing. You NEED to know where your traffic is coming from in order to fine tune and capitalize on these sources. If you have a WordPress blog there is a free plugin for Google Analytics that gives you great reports on inbound traffic including what keywords were used if the visit came from a search. This is vital information that most bloggers do not even consider. Track everything and you’ll quickly see patterns of where most of your visitors are coming from and with little more work you can see where your sales are coming from which is paramount.

6. Test your monetization methods. If you’re monetizing your blog with nothing except Adsense, try putting and ad for a clickbank product or a Amazon affiliate link somewhere on the page. Does it covert as well or better than adsense? If so, you should devote more real estate to the monetization method that gives the best profits. This is common sense but again, 50% of the bloggers out there don’t do this simple thing. They get into the mindset that Adsense is the only way to make money with their blog and concentrate one hundred percent of their promotion efforts to that end. Little do they realize that they could be serving their readers and themselves better by offering affiliate products with or instead of just Adsense ads. Don’t forget to move your ads, whether they be Adsense or affiliate offerings, around on your page from time to time and test the results. Sometimes 100 to 200% increases in revenue can be had by using this very simple technique.

Blogging can be a great way to make extra money while at the same time giving your readership something they need. Whether you’re just looking for some extra spending money, I call it funny money , or if you’re looking for a full time 6 figure income from blogging, following the tips above will make success much easier.

Above everything else, keep providing valuable content!

To your success!

Ken