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Advice from a Pro on How to Monetize Your Site

Written by: Donna Ann Peck 780 views

How do bloggers make money off their blogs? Do they rake in money from speaking engagements and high consulting fees? I doubt it. John Chow, a high-earning blogger, makes about $40,000 a month on the back end, peddling highly desirable information in a subtle series of sales pitches. He capitalizes on the internet’s capability to deliver information automatically. Subscribers receive auto-responder emails while he can be touring Europe in a roadster if he wishes.

What this web entrepreneur didn’t know when he started out could fill a book. “I worked at a job for a total of eight months in my entire life,” Chow says.

He decided early on that working for someone else wasn’t for him. It grated on him that his paycheck was a small pittance compared to what his boss was earning off him. He decided to make money off himself.

In December 2005, he changed his static homepage into a personal blog and started posting about cars and technology.

He helped people monetize their websites and discovered that his posts became increasingly more about how to monetize blogsites. “People began asking me to look at their websites and tell them how to monetize them,” he said.

Meanwhile his blog made no money.

“I was having fun, but people told me ‘you talk a great talk about monetizing a blog, but your blog makes no money,” he said. “That was the turning point.”

He initiated a case study on monetizing his site, posting weekly progress reports. He wanted his site to generate $3,000 a month, and only require two hours a day to operate.

The first month as a monetized site, he made $352. In three months he reached his goal of $3,000.

In 2009 he will make $500,000 only working two hours per day on his site. John Chow’s earnings rose because he uncovered five rules.

Treat your blog as a business

From the beginning, Chow set himself up as an internet marketer, not a blogger. He runs it like a business even though it’s essentially a hobby.

“When there is little initial investment, people don’t take it seriously. It takes a long time. It takes consistency. It takes a topic you can write about with passion,” he said.

Have a subscriber box on your homepage

Start an email list at the very beginning. Make the purpose of each post to capture the person’s email address.

Marketers suggest giving a free incentive with a high perceived value. Chow offers a free ebook that he wrote awhile ago. His subscribe box is decked out in bells and whistles. He uses a pop up and hovering light box. Chow gets 100 subscribers per day.  “Get in their face. Put it right in front of them. Advertising is not subtle,” he says.

If the person wants the ebook they have to double opt in. They click the confirmation link in their email, then they can download the book. Next they receive a welcome letter.

Build a relationship

Your blog establishes you as the authority on your topic. Chow’s claim to fame is making money on the internet. He reinforces this impression through a series of auto-responder emails. He sends six emails spaced one week apart. Every time someone opts in, they go through the rotation.

“People receive the same sequence of emails no matter when they sign up,” Chow says. “To build a sustainable readership, they have to see you multiple times.”

Get them into a sales funnel

After you build a relationship, put them through your sales funnel. Gradually sell them your products or products you can make money from. Chow’s next email is a sales letter for his Blog Mastermind Group, a six-month course for $500.

He recommends products and adds those to the auto-responder email series, earning 2 percent to 30 percent through his affiliate networks. This works well because people regard Chow as the expert.

“As you get bigger, you can renegotiate fees. 10 percent for life is best because it’s passive income,” he says. “Even if I took my site down, I would still get money.”

Automate emails, products, newsletters and advertising

Lessons are delivered in audio format, all with PayPal and auto-responder. His newsletter is automatic and goes out to 20,000 people who want to hear The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul.

When people email him about advertising rates, he directs them to the website’s advertising page. The page links to PayPal’s automatic billing system. Monthly payments of $500 are deducted until the advertiser cancels. Chow makes a commission when people pay him through PayPal’s automatic billing system.

He also says that Google’s ad rates are a bust. “You have to have so much traffic to make money from Google AdSense; only $2 to $4 a day if you have 2,000 visitors a day,” he says.

Chow pays the Pennsylvania-based Aweber to automate everything on his website. Aweber creates a newsletter from his most recent 15 blog posts. “An email service is more important than RSS, Twitter, Facebook,” he says.

Is this something that anyone can do? You bet! Spread this post.

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