Let’s Network! Friend Me on FaceBook.

It’s been a while since I last logged into my Facebook account. I just logged in yesterday and had around 50 new friend requests and noticed a few of them were current blog readers/commenters. I’m going to try and start utilizing Facebook a bit more and see what I can do about incorporating some social networking in with the blog. Not only will this help in spreading the word, but it will also keep you updated with new posts and any promotions I run to my Facebook friends. I still have a massive amount of tshirts and freebies to give away. Let me know if you have any ideas on some fun promotions to give them away!

So here is my open invite… Friend me on Facebook if you aren’t already! Every 25th friend request til the end of the month will get a Free MoneyReign Shirt! If you are a winner, I’ll contact you through FaceBook. If the response is large enough, I will make a follow up post at the beginning of each month and continually hold new Facebook related contests each month.

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Is Your Email Dragging Your Performance Down?

Yesterday John made a post asking “How Much Spam Do You Get Per Day?“. John also posted a picture of his Gmail account, which showed 1,022 spam emails within a twenty four hour period. It’s funny that John wrote the post, because I’ve been meaning to write something like this as well, as I’ve noticed quite a large number in my Gmail account for the spam folder.

I really like the Gmail interface and how easy it is to search out emails, and it’s really great because you don’t have to worry about data storage since Google provides an always growing amount. So as of now, my Gmail spam folder currently has 177,576 emails over the past thirty days. Another nice feature of Gmail, is that they automatically delete spam email once it has been around for 30 days. This works out to around 5,919 spam emails receive a day… or nearly 1 every 4 mins. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bother looking through my spam folder. I had a spam filter placed on my servers, but it was actually causing more problems than helping. Gmail has been doing a better job sorting through the spam and has a good idea of what to sort out and what not. It hasn’t been a problem, but if someone can’t get me by email they can always use my blog contact form, AIM or my cell.

Not only do I have a massive amount of email in my spam folder, but I have over 12,000 unread messages in my INBOX as well! The majority of these are emails I wanted to check and didn’t get a chance to… and any crap mail I simply missed deleting. I always read and try to reply to all of my blog email. If you’ve sent an email in the past and haven’t received a response, don’t take it personal… I either meant to reply earlier and the delay had it pushed down in the pile or it was overlooked somehow.

I’ve been using Gmail almost since it first came out. Compared to when I was using Microsoft Outlook, my overall experience is phenomenally better. What type of email provider are you using, and how much time is spent during your day checking and replying to your email? You’d be surprised how fast the time builds up and how much of a distraction it can be!

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How to Effectively Sell Private Advertising on Your Blog

I get emails all the time from bloggers and web site owners, asking how they can get more advertising for their site, when they should start placing ads and how much they should charge. Since there is always such a high demand for advertising and answers to these questions, I thought I would write an article which might help you out. Here are a few ways you can start monetizing your blog or web site with advertisements and paid sponsorships.

Quality Content & Traffic First, Ads Later
Often, too many people start a web site or blog with the intention to immediately start making money. While this is a great intention, it usually isn’t likely… especially if you are focusing on a blog. When I first start my blog last year, I wanted to have a clean design and focus on my content. The blog went ad free for nearly 8 months, till I had an established reader base and over 1,000 rss subscribers. Once I went live with a new design, I was able to monetize the site design with different ad spots, while still focusing on content and key points to the site. In the beginning stages of your blog or web site, you most likely won’t be receiving a lot of traffic, so don’t start off with a design full of ads. Wait until you have an established blog with decent traffic, then advertisers will want to start advertising on your site.

Don’t Leave Multiple Open Ad Spots
I’ve seen this on so many blogs… and it just doesn’t make sense! For instance, say you visit a blog and they have four or six 125×125 ad spots. Only a couple of them are an actual advertisement, then the rest of them say “advertise here”. This is just a loss of potential earnings. If you have six advertisement spots and only two of them are actually sold spots, fill the other three with cpa offers or referral ads. You can then leave only one of the six ad spots open as an “advertise here” spot. Not only will this make it look like you have advertisers, but it really looks a lot more professional. No one wants to see a bunch of blank ad spots.

Limit Your Advertising Spots
You must remember that the only reason people are coming to your blog, is because they want to read your content. Most people aren’t on the hunt for web sites and blogs oversaturated with banner ads. Every week I am getting emails from new advertisers who are interested in getting listed on this blog. Unfortunately, I am sold out for quite a while. I have limitations on how many advertisements I will place on my blog, even though it would help the blog earn an extra thousand or so a month. Look at your blog/site design, and make sure it’s not distracting your main content and interest of the user from what counts. Provide a quality experience and an overflow of advertisers will be there waiting.

Bargain a Deal or Trade Links
Going back to my previous point. If you have some open ad spots, it’s better to try and negotiate a lower price with an advertiser or setup a reciprocal link with another blog related to your content. At the very least you will get some free traffic from the blog you are linking with. When looking to make a deal or bargain with a potential advertiser, you can offer them a discount, or give them a trial run for a week. Once they have seen how your traffic has performed, re-evaluate the situation and try to keep them as a long term advertiser.

Price Your Ad Spots Accordingly
Finding the right price for your ad spots can be very tricky. The amount you can charge, while keeping your advertisers happy, is something you will have to base off your current site traffic, ad location and a comparison of rates of other blogs related to your size and niche area. Discounted trial advertising and long term deals are always great, and advertisers will usually buy an extra month or two if you can offer them a 25% discount. This is something I usually offer to long term advertisers. It much easier and beneficial to have a long standing advertising at a discounted rate, than having to search out a new advertiser each month.

I hope my advice has helped you on your journey to effectively selling private advertising on your web site. There are still many other ways for you to profit with your blog, such as rss advertising and text link advertising. The key points to running a successful and profitable blog are to have a passion for what you write about, and to continually provide quality content. Once you have both of these down, readers will flock to your blog, along with many advertisers along the way.

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The Blogger Face-Off

DailyBlogTips.com is a top blogging resource blog, with nearly 10,000 rss subscribers, run by Daniel Scocco. Along with covering various area about blogs and web site promotion, he has a cool feature on their site, called “Blogger Face-Off”, where he sends a few questions to some well known bloggers, then face their responses off against easy other. Last week Daniel asked if I would like to take part in his next series for the Blogger Face-Off, I gladly accepted. He would be putting me up against TylerCluz.com. The post went live today and you can view the full version here.

A few notable past bloggers appearing in the Blogger Face-Off are shown below:

- Darren Rowse vs. Jeremy Schoemaker
- John Chow vs. Matt Coddington
- Rand Fishkin vs. Lee Oden
- Al Carlton vs. Vic Da Silva
- Danny Sullivan vs. Barry Schwartz
- Liz Strauss vs. Mike Sansone
- Brian Gardner vs. Cory Miller
- Jeremy Wright vs. Nandini Maheshwari
- Anita vs. Juergen
- Brian Clark vs. Chris Garrett

You may notice that most of the past Blogger Face-Offs have a voting poll at the bottom of each post. For some reason, a poll wasn’t added to the recent post with myself and Tyler Cruz. I sent an email to Daniel asking if he will be adding a poll, and to update my answer to the #2 question, as it seems to be the wrong answer to the question. Either way, go check out the blog post and the many other blogger face-offs that Daniel has compiled on his blog.

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Super Affiliate Blog Birthday, 1 Year Later…

One year ago today, I wrote my first post and the blog going live. Awesomely enough the blog went live on St.Patrick’s day… so it would seem I’ve had the luck of the Irish on my side. Thousands of comments, 2,100+ subscribers and 300+ posts later, the blog has become everything I had hoped for. Not only have I been able to help spread my wealth of information, but I have also met so many readers and other influential bloggers along the way. After attending BlogWorld back in November and Affiliate Summit just last month, it only impressed upon me that much more how important the blog is, and how many people actually read the blog that I didn’t even know about.

So what’s to come? The first nine months of running the blog were on a custom designed layout with no advertisements or revenue monetization in place. Once I met up with UniqueBlogDesigns at BlogWorld, ZacJohnson.com quickly went live with it’s new design, which allowed for monthly case study reports on how blogs can be monetized to turn a profit. Since then the blog has successfully be earning a few thousands dollars a month, while giving better exposure to top article posts, comments, picture galleries and top advertisers/affiliate networks in the industry. Through the life of this blog I will continue to post on industry news, new affiliate programs, marketing methods, conference coverage and my experiences over the years… things will only continue to get better!

Comparison Between Original Design & New Monetized Blog Design

When I first started ZacJohnson.com back in March 2007, it was my first attempt at running a blog, and I wanted to make sure it was done right. There is so much anticipation when you are starting a new blog. You want to provide the best content you can, but in the beginning you have no readers. However, as the saying goes, “build it and they will come“. I did my best to focus on providing quality content and tried to write a new post at least 3-5 times a week, now I try and get a least one post in daily. In the beginning it’s tough and we all hit “writer’s block” sometimes, but as you get more familiar with your readers and writing it gets easier. After working on the blog and writing for a few weeks, I went ahead with my first review, which was featured on John Chow’s blog. Now it’s becoming a passion… and something I look forward to everyday!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Here we are, one year later and I am so excited for the future. With the recent explosion of “Make Money” blogs, they seem to be everywhere. Some people are complaining, but I think it’s a good thing… even if some of these bloggers are new to the industry, I’m sure they still have something we can learn from. Happy St. Patrick’s Day and I wish you, your families and your blog/business or money making efforts all the luck and success of the Irish! (and a little luck from Rocky too)

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