On Blog Monetization at BlogWorldExpo 2011: It's Not Just About Google

Below are a few insights from the blog monetization panel at BlogWorldExpo this past week in New York. It's not just about Google SEO and affiliate marketing and blogging panelists say. 

Find something you can promote in your industry and check out CJ's Link Share or Click Bank. Ask yourself, how do you turn your blog’s content into a premium item? If you’re doing a blog on fashion, you can easily link to products on Amazon or eBay. You can create a tab for special travel coupons or deals. You'd be amazed at how many places offer affiliate places.

They talked about Impact Radius, a fairly new program started by CJ (Commission Junction), which has really great tracking and analytics. You can get a coupon from Impact Radius which includes a tracking code.

 Syed M. Balkhi says to be careful of contextual links, you know, the kind of request where some random marketing person posing as a contact for a site with respectable clients which are apparently so relevant to your site they won't tell you the name. They want to pay you some nominal amount for a link for the year. "You can't afford them," Syed says. "If you say $1,500 per link per month, then they’ll go away. If they ask you to review your product, then that's a different story." Also check out InfoLinks.com which sells affiliate links. If an advertiser is trying to rank higher for specific links to www.skincare.com but then sends you to Avon.com, Google may penalize you for it.

John Chow built up a list over time and focused on branding rather than relying on Google traffic. He says, "I do keywords but I don’t monitor the keyword ratio to content flow. I focus my time on really controversial posts, like why feminism is the cause of global warming, etc. It draws people in. I am also very consistent – I do two blog posts a day."

In other words, when readers go to to www.johnchow.com, they will get two blog posts per day. He encourages bloggers to think down the road and think what will be useful for long term customers and readers, reinforcing these two messages: Be consistent and make a commitment that you will blog X amount per week. He doesn't rely on Google and thinks there are far more important things you can do.

Zac Johnson said he did a lot of branding as well and that it also isn't just about Google. He says, "I focused on having a really great custom design as well as having a mascot. I also created a lot of really great content and using my mascot a lot since it was something visually compelling that people would remember in the future."

What about eBooks asks the audience? They can work if the content is great they all agree. You can easily turn any word document into a PDF file, which you can upload to your blog, create a sign up box for the free eBook along with an opt in. (AWeber is one service for example, which will send an email confirmation so people have to double opt in, i.e., before we can send you the book, we have to confirm that its your email and once you do, you can download the PDF for free for signing up).

John Chow photo from his blog.