Still not making much money from site

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by InterfaceLeader

For the record, I couldn't post a comment. :3 It came up "you haven't filled out the field for spam protection", but I couldn't find any field to fill out!

I stumbled it though, so you might start getting some traffic for that

I had a spam protection plugin enabled, the box should have appeared, I'll disable it for now until I can find out where the box went.

Did it ask you a math question anywhere?

[bluskygirl]

Hey, this is a great thread. I just started blogging recently and I haven't been working too hard on the income side of things yet, but I love hearing what everyone has to say about getting things up and running.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by bluskygirl

Hey, this is a great thread. I just started blogging recently and I haven't been working too hard on the income side of things yet, but I love hearing what everyone has to say about getting things up and running.

Glad my troubles could help others out, as I didn't know how much else goes into site operation besides writing (marketing, profitablity, technical skills, etc.)

[John Hill]

I didn't make much money from my first site in the first 6 months but the Adsense money does start to add up after 6 months if you stick with in consistently. I think you will probably still need to get a job in the mean time but keep growing your site or build some new sites but stick to topics you know about.

Here is some information on attracting people to your website.

John

[MadHyeNa]

First and foremost when have you launched your site?

Second, you should get a job and spend only your free time working on your site.

Third, it'd really helpful to research, study and learn about SEO-ing. Marketing is crucial as Steve pointed out so. I couldn't agree more. Being involved in the business of writing articles, CMS, publishing them and then marketing, SEO-ing and advertising, I know how marketing plays a major role.

That's why I'm curious to know when you launched your site. Also, it'd be helpful to focus on keyword rich content. Sometimes after I've written an article I am rereading it and replacing, adding some of those pretty much required keywords. I am required to so. I have got personal advices given from SEO experts what and how to do to increase the traffic for the articles that were written by me. Even though, some of these might not apply directly for your specific website but still you get my drift.

I, for one, enjoyed quite much to endeavor into fields of SEO and Internet Marketing. That is because I could see the secrets unfolding, high traffic ranking, hits, PageRanks and so forth demystified, and ultimately I could see the results applying the techniques. I also have had the chance to see "how the pros do it."

Oh, and I like your website. Pretty ingenious idea. Congrats!

Keep up the great job, keep us posted, give us a little more details regarding your site launch, what have you done that's particular to SEO-ing and where you were advertising your site or not, also, follow Steve's advices one-by-one and be amazed.

All the best,

PS: Invest your time more productively. Don't spend meaningless hours working on your site if there is little or no gain at all. Better read a few SEO articles, apply those, and expect the results. Spend your time on valuable activities. Do the marketing. Advertise. Optimize. Reap the results.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by John Hill

I didn't make much money from my first site in the first 6 months but the Adsense money does start to add up after 6 months if you stick with in consistently. but keep growing your site or build some new sites but stick to topics you know about

That’s how I felt too, do more than plenty of work at the start to build a base, then add to it from time to time (to keep it fresh) and begin to generate income. Also, I would think it’s even more difficult to build and keep track of more than one site.

Originally Posted by John Hill

I think you will probably still need to get a job in the mean time.

Originally Posted by MadHyeNa

Second, you should get a job and spend only your free time working on your site.

I have gotten various advice on whether I should get one or not by both sides, sorting through the pros and cons (along with rereading 10 reasons to never get a job, 10 self employment mistakes, etc.) and I still remain conflicted about it,
Pros:
-immediate income
-work experience (practically no one will hire without it)

Cons:
-loss of freedom
-no time for business (with a job AND full time college, might as well just scrap the site idea)
-looking for one (nowadays, not even entry level jobs will hire without experience, so looking for one could take weeks, and suck up lots of time)

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by MadHyeNa

First and foremost when have you launched your site?

It first went online this February using basic design software, it was a pretty crappy design, and worked on that for a while. My current wordpress incarnation of it was finished around middle of June, so the site is relatively young.

Originally Posted by MadHyeNa

Third, it'd really helpful to research, study and learn about SEO-ing. Marketing is crucial as Steve pointed out so. I couldn't agree more. Being involved in the business of writing articles, CMS, publishing them and then marketing, SEO-ing and advertising, I know how marketing plays a major role.

There are tons of sites, questions I had regarding SEO out on the net, so I didn’t really know where to start, and just began with the basics.

Originally Posted by MadHyeNa

Also, it'd be helpful to focus on keyword rich content. Sometimes after I've written an article I am rereading it and replacing, adding some of those pretty much required keywords. I am required to so. I have got personal advices given from SEO experts what and how to do to increase the traffic for the articles that were written by me. Even though, some of these might not apply directly for your specific website but still you get my drift.

I did try to use a diverse selection of keywords as I wrote my articles, and believed they could cover more ground, however I didn’t spend hours researching every individual keyword I used.

Originally Posted by MadHyeNa

Oh, and I like your website. Pretty ingenious idea. Congrats!

Keep up the great job, keep us posted, give us a little more details regarding your site launch, what have you done that's particular to SEO-ing and where you were advertising your site or not, also, follow Steve's advices one-by-one and be amazed.

All the best,

PS: Invest your time more productively. Don't spend meaningless hours working on your site if there is little or no gain at all. Better read a few SEO articles, apply those, and expect the results. Spend your time on valuable activities. Do the marketing. Advertise. Optimize. Reap the results.

Thanks,
I figured if I invest lots in the beginning (and continue to invest), I would “reap the results” later.

SEO wise, I’ve read some articles and a couple of books about it. Earned a few links, posted in forums, wrote a few ezines, submitted to some directories, search engines. I’ve also dabbled into social bookmarking, dig, stumbleupon, delicious, and received a little recognition (nothing really big). And I just started with blogcarnival, and have seen traffic increases so far.

[lizthefair]

In addition to the rest of this great advice you might try Squidoo. I'm fairly new to it myself, but much like this site it will give you another community of people interested in helping you succeed. It's also another link, and a place for you to try new things before you put them on your blog. Finally, you can make some money there as well, but probably nothing like what you'll make on your current site once things get going.

As for images, try Creative Commons. There are lots of images out there that are in the public domain, or are free for the taking (even in commercial ventures). Creative Commons is a great place to get started on finding them.

[Edited to add: This is obviously up to you, but you might consider removing the ads all together until your traffic is up. I've read (and now I can't find the link, sorry!) that before you are getting 500 visitors a day the ads don't do you any good and may actually turn people off of your site.]

Good Luck! You do have a great site and I wish you the best.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

3) Spend the bulk of your time commenting on other people's blogs and forums in your field, especially the most popular ones, and include your link in your signature. Share some of your article links if you can do so in a way that helps people and doesn't spam.

As far as comments go, can someone explain why this works? Meaning, most blogs do not display the comments on their home page when an article is written. It just says ">> 8 Comments" or something like that, and it is only when you click on the actual page of that article, where the blog displays only that article do you see the comments below.

The thing is that while the home page of a hot blog site might be Google Ranked at 5 or 6 or higher, the individual article pages are usually ranked 0 especially if the blog pumps out 3 posts a day.

Speaking strictly from a traffic creation point of view, not morally right/wrong, would it actually benefit my traffic largely if I went and posted comments on lets say the top 10 blogs in my category just saying "Great Article!" for example? Assuming the blog authors allowed the comments, would it actually build links to my blog?

I heard of this "tactic" before, but I never understood how/why it would work. For some reason I thought that having fewer links from highly rated sites was better than more links from lower rated sites? Is this not true?

Someone please enlighten me.

Thanks.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by lizthefair

In addition to the rest of this great advice you might try Squidoo. I'm fairly new to it myself, but much like this site it will give you another community of people interested in helping you succeed. It's also another link, and a place for you to try new things before you put them on your blog. Finally, you can make some money there as well, but probably nothing like what you'll make on your current site once things get going.

As for images, try Creative Commons. There are lots of images out there that are in the public domain, or are free for the taking (even in commercial ventures). Creative Commons is a great place to get started on finding them.

Thanks for the links, I’ll check them out.

Originally Posted by lizthefair

[Edited to add: This is obviously up to you, but you might consider removing the ads all together until your traffic is up. I've read (and now I can't find the link, sorry!) that before you are getting 500 visitors a day the ads don't do you any good and may actually turn people off of your site.]

Good Luck! You do have a great site and I wish you the best.

I am earning *some* money, and all I am using currently is Google Adsense text ads, so I don’t think it is that invasive.

Originally Posted by impaul99

As far as comments go, can someone explain why this works? Meaning, most blogs do not display the comments on their home page when an article is written. It just says ">> 8 Comments" or something like that, and it is only when you click on the actual page of that article, where the blog displays only that article do you see the comments below.

Comments are basically made on “posts”, not “pages”. For example, static pages that never change, such as most homepages, privacy statements, etc. are created with “pages”

“Posts” are what you would use to write your various articles, lists, ideas, etc. and posts are where people can comment on them, if you want them to.

It is possible to put comments on your wordpress theme template though (Not sure about other software). I believe in the widget section there is a widget called “recent comments”. It really depends on the blog writer’s personal preference.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

Comments are basically made on “posts”, not “pages”. For example, static pages that never change, such as most homepages, privacy statements, etc. are created with “pages”

“Posts” are what you would use to write your various articles, lists, ideas, etc. and posts are where people can comment on them, if you want them to.

It is possible to put comments on your wordpress theme template though (Not sure about other software). I believe in the widget section there is a widget called “recent comments”. It really depends on the blog writer’s personal preference.

No, I get all that. What I was asking is why I would want to go and post comments on OTHER people's blogs to get links to my site when the comments on most blogs are hidden unless you go to the individual post.

For example. If you go to my site's home page at:
> SelfHelpWisdom.com - A Blog Dedicated to Self Improvement and Personal Growth Topics by Paul Piotrowski

You'll see that my Google Ranking is 4/10. So if you had a link on that page it would be coming from a 4/10 page, which would be decent. So lets say you post a comment on one of my pages. You wouldn't see your comment on my home page. To see your comment, you would have to click on the actual article page, like for example:

» Igniting Myself on Fire: Committing to a Life of Passion > SelfHelpWisdom.com - A Blog Dedicated to Self Improvement and Personal Growth Topics by Paul Piotrowski

This page has 3 comments. The first comment is from "Kevin" and when you hover over his name it links to fitparents.com which is his site. So when google sees this page it would see a link to his site, which I understand. However, this page is ranked 0/10 by Google, because it's nowhere near as popular as my home page. SO, that is what I'm asking about. Why do people use posting comments as a way to get more links to their site when the pages they are getting links on are 0/10 Google ranking??? Does it still benefit them?

[jamestl2]

Well, blog carnival is beginning to help me get a few links. Does anyone know any other good sources to work for links, and increase search engine rankings?

I've also already tried ezine articles (hardly any links from their users), manual social bookmarking (digging a few of my posts, bookmarking some on delicious, etc., but no one else who uses those functions seem that interested), and forum posting (such as here, but I don't think the sigs are that powerful).

[lizthefair]

Part of the power of sigs is making sure you are posting to forums directly related to your topic. Try a search for top ten lists in google-- or use stumbleupon to find other sites about top ten lists--or people with blogs who like to post top ten lists.

If you post in forums where top ten lists are people's thing, I bet you will have better luck with the sig thing.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by lizthefair

Part of the power of sigs is making sure you are posting to forums directly related to your topic. Try a search for top ten lists in google-- or use stumbleupon to find other sites about top ten lists--or people with blogs who like to post top ten lists.

If you post in forums where top ten lists are people's thing, I bet you will have better luck with the sig thing.

I didn't mean I was posting in the wrong forums or anything, I just didn't believe that any forum sigs in general gave that much power to search engines, high traffic links, etc.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

I didn't mean I was posting in the wrong forums or anything, I just didn't believe that any forum sigs in general gave that much power to search engines, high traffic links, etc.

James, I'm starting to believe that all the stuff that people talk about as useful blog traffic building tips are just "talk". People do the stuff because it can't hurt to do it, but does it actually build big amounts of traffic to your site?

Don't get me wrong, I DO think there is a duplicatable approach to building traffic but I am really starting to think that most poeple don't really know what it is. They *think* they know, but they don't really know. They just repeat what they heard. I would even go as far as saying that a lot of people with successful blogs don't really know what actually made them successful because they basically did "everything".

What I've seen in traffic patterns time and time again with blogs is not linear growth which might look like this:
500 Hits
600 Hits
700 Hits
etc.

Nor do you see exponential growth that might look like:
320 Hits
640 Hits
1280 Hits
etc.

What I've seen time and time again is a pattern like this:
320 Hits
400 Hits
800 Hits
825 Hits
5,099,388 Hits

It's like all of a sudden it's BAM! a crapload of traffic just shows up and then it grows linear/exponential from there... What I'm interested in looking for is why this happens. What CAUSES these QUANTUM LEAPS in traffic. Study Steve's traffic, study JohnChow.com and you'll see what I mean.

[nightdiamond]

Hi All, I have another suggestion if you hadn't done this already; Start your own email newsletter. When the subscribers become used to you, trust you, like what you have to offer, they will be more than ready to buy your products from you.

When you have a list of say 500 subscribers, and you offer them something they'll be interested in the through your own newsletter or a stand alone special letter to each of them, if only 20 of them respond, and your product is about $20, you can see the profit. Imagine having a subscriber base of 2,000 then.

You will have to first make your site interesting to get them interested in your newsletter. When they sign up, they give you their email address and permission to send them your newsletter as well as offers.
You then have to send them useful, interesting information so they'll look forward to reading it, and begin to trust you as well.

You can then send each of them your offers, or the product or service you're selling. Make sure it's honest and intereting though.

Let us know what you think, take care....

[Globalflow]

Just read this whole thread and learned lot about blogging... I think


I've been marketing online full time for six years now and I've learned
the most important thing is market research. Know your market.
And give them what they want. Target marketing and Direct Response
Marketing should be the leader in your business... not the site or the
blog.

The site and the blog should be custom built for the target market
you've already identified and have prepared to market to.

Know exactly what it is you want them to do... buy, opt-in to newsletter,
download free info... etc. And have the full process already set up.

If you let them just float around and "surf"... that's exactly what they'll
do... nothing.

I'm just starting to work on a blog... not only blog, but on creating
an authority site in a specific niche... to complement my existing set
up... and to generate organic, but highly targeted traffic...

But the core marketing process is unchanged... I know my target. I
know what they're looking for... and my system converts well enough
for me to be full time for six years... just ramping up to the next level.

What I saw with your site James, it's nice... but what's the marketing
goal? What's the purpose? Work on that, and then you can generate
traffic to it... just getting traffic is meaningless unless it's targeted
and you know what you're going to do with it...

Anyway, it's a process for sure...

Franco Gonzalez

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

When you have a list of say 500 subscribers, and you offer them something they'll be interested in the through your own newsletter or a stand alone special letter to each of them, if only 20 of them respond, and your product is about $20, you can see the profit. Imagine having a subscriber base of 2,000 then.

Are you saying I should charge people to subscribe to a site newsletter?

Originally Posted by Globalflow

Know exactly what it is you want them to do... buy, opt-in to newsletter, download free info... etc. And have the full process already set up.

If you let them just float around and "surf"... that's exactly what they'll do... nothing.

I’d like them to click on ads, as I plan on having my primary income source from ad revenue, but you can’t exactly tell people to click, because then you could get banned from their programs. All my offerings on my site are free (viewing my info, registering, etc.)

Originally Posted by Globalflow

What I saw with your site James, it's nice... but what's the marketing goal? What's the purpose? Work on that, and then you can generate traffic to it... just getting traffic is meaningless unless it's targeted and you know what you're going to do with it...

I suppose my site is more of a “fun site”, and I write about a variety of topics, so I’m unsure of what exactly the “niche” would be, and whether my traffic is targeted or not.

[JimC]

So I have noticed my hits are going something like this:

50
80
2000
1500
800
100
100
1800
150
150

The 2000 spot was when my article about America got stumbled, the 1500 was the same but it was falling, 800 etc... then 100 it was back to normal but slightly higher, then I got 1800 for stumbling my recent article on writers block, then it went back to normal but higher again...

I got the most ad clicks BETWEEN the 2 stumble bursts... so from my experience, StumbleUpon gives you temporary traffic, usually people who just skip the page (still counts as a visitor), but once in a while someone will stop to read what they stumbled, and if they return- then you get a reader and a high chance that they will click the ad.

So Stumble will give you a chance at returning visitors (like 1/100, which click your ads. Not many Stumblers will stumble to your site just to click your ad.

My point? Stumble is good for traffic- use it... but try to find READERS from other sources.

1 Unique visitor who accidently finds your site is not as valuable as 1 Unique visitor that purposely visits your site.

[lizthefair]

Originally Posted by JimC

1 Unique visitor who accidentally finds your site is not as valuable as 1 Unique visitor that purposely visits your site.

That's probably true, but does the traffic from the accidental people make it easier for the people looking for you (or someone like you) to find you? Me thinks it might.

[JimC]

Originally Posted by lizthefair

That's probably true, but does the traffic from the accidental people make it easier for the people looking for you (or someone like you) to find you? Me thinks it might.

It certainly does- all traffic is valuable, just some more than others. Accidental visitors can turn in to frequent readers. In fact, I accidentally Stumbled upon Steve's blog and I have been active here ever since.

[GuerillaInternetMarketing]

I think the single biggest issue with your site is that it lacks focus to one specific topic. Sure, you can say the topic is Top 10 lists, but from an SEO standpoint very little people search for the phrase (less than 5,000 a year according to Keyword Discovery). That means that even if you focus heavily on this phrase and received good rankings for it, you would only get a small percentage of that number.

You do cover a broad spectrum of topics, but the pages themselves are not content-rich, they are short lists. Also, because your site doesn't focus on a particular topic, it would be very difficult to obtain rankings for these broad phrases.

I don't want to be negative, but from an SEO standpoint, I wouldn't be hopeful of generating much traffic to your site. I think your key to success it to somehow generate a buzz, maybe by focusing on the controversial top 10 lists and making sure you post them like crazy to blog sites. If you have some kind of budget, you may want to recruit friends to setup lots of accounts on the various sites so they can favorite some of your posts and do other 'blog outreach'.

Maybe try video posts on YouTube as well which can also be embedded into your blog. If you have any movie production skills or know someone who does, you can get a little creative and act them out a bit. If they're funny enough, you may be able to create a buzz on YouTube that can translate to your site.

Best of luck!

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by GuerillaInternetMarketing

I think the single biggest issue with your site is that it lacks focus to one specific topic. Sure, you can say the topic is Top 10 lists, but from an SEO standpoint very little people search for the phrase (less than 5,000 a year according to Keyword Discovery). That means that even if you focus heavily on this phrase and received good rankings for it, you would only get a small percentage of that number.

It’s not that I’m expecting people to search for a “Top 10” phrase; it’s what comes after it in the title I try to think of what people would search for, and they would click on the link because it is a top 10 list.

Originally Posted by GuerillaInternetMarketing

You do cover a broad spectrum of topics, but the pages themselves are not content-rich, they are short lists. Also, because your site doesn't focus on a particular topic, it would be very difficult to obtain rankings for these broad phrases.

What do you mean by “short”, most of my posts are close to or over 500 words long? (Some user-made posts are really short, not that it means they’re bad though)

Since my site does cover a broader range, doesn’t that also mean more potential for different sources of links?

Originally Posted by GuerillaInternetMarketing

I don't want to be negative, but from an SEO standpoint, I wouldn't be hopeful of generating much traffic to your site. I think your key to success it to somehow generate a buzz, maybe by focusing on the controversial top 10 lists and making sure you post them like crazy to blog sites. If you have some kind of budget, you may want to recruit friends to setup lots of accounts on the various sites so they can favorite some of your posts and do other 'blog outreach'.

Are you saying (from a SEO standpoint), that my site has very little chance of generating traffic, and I shouldn’t focus as much on building links, rather on “creating crazy lists” of just one topic?

Also as I said in my first post, I don’t have that much money, whether they do it for free or not, I don’t know.

Originally Posted by GuerillaInternetMarketing

Maybe try video posts on YouTube as well which can also be embedded into your blog. If you have any movie production skills or know someone who does, you can get a little creative and act them out a bit. If they're funny enough, you may be able to create a buzz on YouTube that can translate to your site.

I don’t have any video making experience, nor the tools to create something spectacular for youtube.

[nightdiamond]

Hi James, no you don't charge them for the newsletter. It's offered absolutely free to the surfers of your website.

You then send them by email a newsletter with interesting, useful information that they'll love to read and receive. Once they look forward to getting your newsletter, then it means they also trust you as well. This makes it easier and more likely for them to buy from you than when they just arrived at your site.

So imagine that you managed to sign up about 3,000 subscribers over time. You've been sending them your newsletter regularly and they read it, look forward to it. Then one day you send a special full page ad to each of them offering your product, describing it to them. The price is just $20.00.... Out of the 3,000, just 50 respond. That is the profit you made by just sending out an email ad to them.

First in order to get those subscribers, you have to make your offer of a newsletter get their attention, make it interesting so they will sign up for it.

This means you will need an actual product or service to offer them. That product will obviously have to be related to your site or it's content, BUT- because it's slightly general in nature, you could offer something like ebooks- really interesting ebooks, either write one yourself or become an affiliate and sell other people's ebooks.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

You then send them by email a newsletter with interesting, useful information that they'll love to read and receive. Once they look forward to getting your newsletter, then it means they also trust you as well. This makes it easier and more likely for them to buy from you than when they just arrived at your site.

While I have heard good stories about newsletters, I don’t know if a newsletter would really go with the theme of my site. What could I possibly write to people about? My site is a collection of top 10 lists.

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

First in order to get those subscribers, you have to make your offer of a newsletter get their attention, make it interesting so they will sign up for it.

This means you will need an actual product or service to offer them. That product will obviously have to be related to your site or it's content, BUT- because it's slightly general in nature, you could offer something like ebooks- really interesting ebooks, either write one yourself or become an affiliate and sell other people's ebooks.

Are you suggesting that *after* I would create a newsletter and have a base of loyal subscribers, I would start referring them to products like amazon, ebooks, or whatever, through the newsletters?

[JimC]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

While I have heard good stories about newsletters, I don’t know if a newsletter would really go with the theme of my site. What could I possibly write to people about? My site is a collection of top 10 lists.

You could write about updates for your site, future plans, maybe a special top 10 list for subscribers only... it could be a monthly news letter, I'm sure you could come up with enough stuff in 1 month.

On that note... don't newsletter managers cost money? You can maintain your own e-mail list but once you get to 100+ it might get kind of tedious, especially when managing people who wish to opt-out. Unless you are making enough through ads to pay for a newsletter manager, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by JimC

You could write about updates for your site, future plans, maybe a special top 10 list for subscribers only... it could be a monthly news letter, I'm sure you could come up with enough stuff in 1 month.

Thanks for the newsletter ideas, Jim. I wouldn’t have thought they would care about my site’s future plans or updates. (I’ll be changing the theme in a few days to give it a more “fun” feel)

Originally Posted by JimC

On that note... don't newsletter managers cost money? You can maintain your own e-mail list but once you get to 100+ it might get kind of tedious, especially when managing people who wish to opt-out. Unless you are making enough through ads to pay for a newsletter manager, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

I’ve never heard of newsletter managers before (specifically). Besides, aren’t most newsletters automated? The program you’d use to send it out might just keep track of who wants an email and which registered members doesn’t, right? (At least that’s how I believed they’d function.)

[JimC]

Yes, but when you send the newsletters, your email provider has to process all of the traffic, if you are using your webhost to send them, then I believe it takes part of your bandwidth allocation. If you send through another provider (with pop3) like Gmail or your ISP, then they might have different rules.

Once you get a ton of subscribers, it's a lot of work on mail servers... so I think it depends on who you are using to handle the mail. Some people use newsletter managers because they have mail servers specifically for that reason and offer something like 20,000+ letters a month.

But like I said, unless you have tons of subscribers you could just do it yourself and be ok.

[nightdiamond]

This is where you get to have fun and use your creativity. You get to write your own newsletter, create the topics, write the content. It's pretty easy too, you might be surprised at the ideas you can come up with.

As for ideas about the content of the newsletter, it is better to have a strong theme from your website. For example, if your website is about cars, then offering a newsletter about how to tweak your car, secret tips for saving money on gas, how to repair them yourself, ect, would certainly make the surfers want to subscribe.

Then you design your newsletter around what you promised- how to repair cars, saving money on gas ect. Then one day you offer an ebook to your subscribers in a special full page email ad- no newsletter this time- about how to fix any car problem easily. Now at least SOME of those subscribers are going to be interested, lol. And if you have a lot, 5,000 for example and let's say 100 purchased it at $20.00, you made $2,000. That's just an example, depending on how good you write your ads and what you offer you could possibly make a lot more or less, it's up to your skill.

So the task if you're still interested is to design a newsletter around the theme of your site. To show that it's possible to get subscribers, notice how one of your lists actually got a comment!

Yes, you can sign up as an affiliate where you can sell the ebooks of other companies-You offer the ebook in a one page email ad with the text link- they take care everything else, they will provide you with either a picture ad or a simple text link with a special code that represents you. The link, when they click it, leads to their own website offering the ebook and selling it for you. When they purchase it, you'll get a certain percentage of the sale. By the way, you can offer affiliate ads on your site too as well as your newsletter, but the newsletter ad has certain advantages.

There is special software out there that handle mass mailing and a few free isps that may be able to handle the bandwith. Even free mass mailing software if you're willing to look for it!

[jamestl2]

Thanks for the tips

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

As for ideas about the content of the newsletter, it is better to have a strong theme from your website. For example, if your website is about cars, then offering a newsletter about how to tweak your car, secret tips for saving money on gas, how to repair them yourself, ect, would certainly make the surfers want to subscribe.

It is more difficult when trying to think of something to write when the theme is more generalized (as is mine)

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

So the task if you're still interested is to design a newsletter around the theme of your site. To show that it's possible to get subscribers, notice how one of your lists actually got a comment!

Yeah, my “Top 10 reasons to not believe in god” list is creating a little buzz.

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

Yes, you can sign up as an affiliate where you can sell the ebooks of other companies-You offer the ebook in a one page email ad with the text link- they take care everything else, they will provide you with either a picture ad or a simple text link with a special code that represents you. The link, when they click it, leads to their own website offering the ebook and selling it for you. When they purchase it, you'll get a certain percentage of the sale. By the way, you can offer affiliate ads on your site too as well as your newsletter, but the newsletter ad has certain advantages.

These sound good (affiliate ads), but they don’t really sound like they would go with newsletters, well, maybe not right away.

Originally Posted by nightdiamond

There is special software out there that handle mass mailing and a few free isps that may be able to handle the bandwith. Even free mass mailing software if you're willing to look for it!

I believe my hosting company (total choice) offers some features like this, I’ll check into it.