Now that you have your blog up and running, you need to start earning money. Revenue streams from affiliate sales, on-site sales, donations or advertising can bring good returns. You cannot derive substantial online income without visitors coming to your site, so you need to spend time developing ways to attract traffic from key online sources.
The Google search engine remains one of the top destinations for Internet users around the world, so a favorable position in Google search results can become the key to transforming your website from a hobby to a career. Your blog must have valuable and well-written content, images and carefully selected keywords for it to gain favor with Google. A slew of search engine optimization strategies exist that give bloggers like you a way to improve your position in Google search results. Your income will improve along with the traffic that comes to your site from Google.
YouTube
Internet video is hot, so having a presence on the world’s premier video site will send tons of targeted traffic in your direction. All you need to do is create interesting, informative and valuable video content for public consumption. You can then add relevant keywords that will attract YouTube visitors. To develop a traffic stream from YouTube, you must add links back to your blog to give users a way to learn more about your products and services. You can also include the URL of your blog in the opening frame of every video you create. If you need ideas for YouTube content, try posting video responses to popular YouTube videos.
iTunes
You can generate tons of lucrative traffic by posting a regularly scheduled podcast on iTunes. In each edition, you can offer your expertise on relevant topics and then encourage subscribers to visit your blog. This method helps promote your credentials contribute value to the online community and draw crowds of interested visitors to your blog looking for more information.
Positive social signals on popular social networking platforms like Facebook can become a vital part of your blog’s success. Many bloggers share their blog content on Facebook, respond to visitors and leave comments for other users. This helps them build a good rapport with their potential audience, leading many to become faithful blog readers and profitable customers.
Other Blogs
When you establish yourself as a knowledgeable blogger in your field, you will find that other bloggers will post links to your content. When popular blogs link to your blog, you will receive consistent traffic from Internet users with a valid interest in your content. To promote a sense of community, you should consider posting links to other blogs on your websites.
Sometimes, other bloggers will not readily link to your blog. In such cases, you can often create your own links on other sites by leaving comments on other blogs. You can also earn traffic from other blogs by becoming a guest blogger on relevant blogs. Other bloggers like to have bloggers like you write posts for them to give their blogs diversity and to give host bloggers some time off. If you write a guest blog post for someone else’s blog, you usually can include a link back to your own blog.
Article Marketing
Website owners and bloggers always want to find quality content for their sites, so they often turn to article services like EzineArticles.com. Bloggers can publish articles from those repositories according to the terms of each service. When you write an article for one of these services, other bloggers can publish it as long as they include a link to your blog contained in the “About the Author” section of the article. If you spend some time creating quality content for article distribution services, you could pick up impressive amounts of traffic for your blog.
Always monitor the sources of your incoming traffic by checking your Web server logs. Doing so will help you refine your strategy and redirect your efforts in ways that will bring the greatest number of visitors to your blog and deliver the highest amount of revenue to your wallet.
Jeff has been blogging since 2007 & contributing on many websites since that time. He is also co-owner of www.nPromote.com , SEO & Internet Marketing company from Long Island, NY.
