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How a Blogger Creates a REAL Full-Time Income

Posted: 18 Dec 2008 02:25 PM PST

Internet Marketers and Bloggers are often seen as two very different types of online entrepreneurs. In this guest post David Risley looks at these two worlds and suggests some middle ground.

One of the questions I get very often when I tell people what I do for a living is this: How do you make money blogging? The readers of ProBlogger have a fairly good understanding of the answer to that question.

However, Darren’s latest poll clearly shows that the majority of bloggers out there are clearly not generating a full-time income. What is the difference between the blogger making serious money and those who are not?

Well, let us look at the stereotype of what a blogger does. A blogger writes. We write great posts, generate a lot of powerful content and then hit the "Publish" button. Stereotypically, then, we’d get paid by generating a lot of attention, getting lots of traffic, then monetizing our sites via various forms of online advertising.

This method of problogging is long and tedious. Many new bloggers become frustrated because it seemingly takes so long to generate enough traffic to make any serious money.

If we look at the most successful bloggers out there, you’ll find a common trait: They are MARKETERS, too.

Two Different Worlds

Herein, we are combining the often thought separate world of blogging and traditional internet marketing. In my experience in dealing both with bloggers and internet marketers, I have found that these two worlds often seem to be separate. The blogger is all about building traffic through publishing lots of really great content for free. The internet marketer jumps right into how to monetize traffic immediately. The blogger is all about the page views. The marketer thinks about qualified leads which he can then convert into a sale.

I have been to gatherings of internet marketers. Many times, they simply don’t GET blogging. In fact, they’re right on the verge of seeing the blog as a waste of time. Perhaps they have a blog, but they’ll use it as a tool in their product launch strategy. Once the product is launched, the blog is all but forgotten. Many internet marketers are only just now catching on with social media.

On the other hand, many bloggers often have a bit of an adverse reaction to internet marketers. They may think that marketers are spammers or that they’ll do literally anything to make a buck. They think of pop-ups, long-form sales letters and lots of hype. Sure enough, the world of internet marketing has lots of these kinds of tactics.

I’ve had my feet in both worlds. I understand the paradigm of both. What I have observed is that the most successful bloggers out there are able to successfully bridge the gap, take the best of both worlds, and turn that knowledge into a little online empire.

The Best of Both

The simple truth is this: The most successful bloggers out there are great writers who employ solid marketing skills on their sites.

In fact, most of the really successful bloggers out there spend time studying the most successful online marketers. I have personally studied the works of people like Frank Kern, John Reese, Jeff Walker, Eben Pagan and many other names which frequent the circles of internet marketing. I make a point to learn about internet marketing tactics. I am also a member of an internet marketing mastermind group. I would venture to say that these are things that a majority of bloggers don’t do.

The principle of creating lots of quality content will always remain true as a blogger. Making real money as a blogger means you need to SELL things. In order to sell things, you need to know how to market them. There is no more potent weapon than being able to build a loyal following in your market as a blogger and then be able to competently sell something to that audience.

You don’t necessarily need many thousands of page views every day to make respectable money online as a blogger. You can make good money with a blog which pulls in significantly less than that. The secret is to know marketing. Know your sales funnel. Know conversion tactics. Then put that knowledge to work to treat your incoming blog readers as sales leads. Like it or not, if your blog is your business, your readers are LEADS.

When a lead (a reader) arrives on your blog, you want them to read your content. You also want to convert the lead into something - a newsletter subscription or a sale. The answer depends on your particular audience and your market. Direct your reader into what you want them to do and place particular effort on improving the conversion rate.

What Do You Think?

Like Darren, I also make a six figure yearly income through my blogs. I do this in various ways, but I most definitely have gotten benefit through consistent learning of internet marketing strategies.

For many bloggers, this may be a paradigm shift. In addition to looking at your blog as a source of great content for your audience, you can look at it as a lead generator for something which makes you money.

Is this a view you already share? Do you find the world of internet marketing to be disrelated to blogging? Do you already spend time learning about marketing?

“David Risley is a pro blogger who generates six figures per year in his blogging business. David Risley dot com is a pull-no-punches tale of his life as an Internet entrepreneur and problogger.”

What is a Twitter Landing Page?

In short - a twitter landing page is a page on your blog or website that is specifically written for those arriving at your blog having clicked on the link in your twitter profile.

Why Develop a Twitter Landing Page?

I recently wrote a post on ProBlogger suggesting 3 alternatives to promoting your blogs homepage - the reasoning behind this post was that when you promote your blog’s front page you send people to a page that at times can be confusing and is less likely to convert people into regular readers.

The idea behind a landing page is that it can be tailored to suit the audience who arrives on it.

Think about why people click the URL on a Twitter profile?

Most times that I do it - I want to know more about the person behind the Twitter account. I want to know who they are, what they do and how I can connect with them.

Being taken to the front page of their blog doesn’t really answer all of these questions without me having to do some more work (looking for an about page, sifting through their latest posts etc).

A Twitter Landing Page can quickly answer some of these basic questions and at the same time give a strong call to action (what this Call to Action is will depend upon your goals).

My Twitter Landing Page

My Twitter Landing Page is designed simply to give more information and a relatively quick introduction into who I am and where people can find out more about the different aspects of what I do. It includes:

A prominent personal picture - the the same one as my Twitter avatar which hopefully reinforces the brand. There’s also images of my book and the ProBlogger logo.
My story - a very brief version of my blogging story - with a link where they can read an extended version
Introductions to my blogs - links to where people can read more of my content
A stronger introduction to ProBlogger - as my twitter account is centered around this blog I wanted to highlight what it is about and call people to subscribe to it.
A call to follow me on Twitter and introduction to what people get if they do
Introductions to my other projects - b5media, the ProBlogger Book, the Problogger job boards

In addition to that I’ve personalized the page so that people know it is written specifically for Twitter users in the hope that this personalization will make them feel a little more personally welcomed.

Extend this Idea

Of course Twitter Landing Pages are just the tip of the social media iceberg. Extend it further by creating Facebook Landing Pages, LinkedIn Landing Pages, Plurk Landing Pages, Digg Landing Pages and more.