Today I want to make two points; maybe more. But to start I
will say that as with anything, it takes discipline to keep your blogs fresh,
updated and interesting. And secondly that to do so, having a system helps.
As you may know, I maintain over 100 blogs (Google Ter Scott
Blog and you’ll probably see that I’m the “Man of 100 Blogs”, just sayin’). But
I could not do this if I did not have some kind of system or systems and some
kind of routine. Here I will show you one thing that I’m doing to take
advantage of my previous blog posts.
If you don’t know, you can update you blog posts and you
should. I’m not talking about the content as you should have considered keeping
it “evergreen” when you wrote it. What I’m talking about here is with your ads
and affiliate links.
Over time, you’ll see which of your posts have gotten the
most views. This is because they strike a not with your readers, you’ve used
good key word phrases in your title (and
pictures) and/or you maybe just got lucky.
Now I’m going back in my blogs to see which posts were most
popular and placing Amazon ads in them. Here are the basic steps to do the
same. If you have questions on anything, place them in the comment area and I
will respond.
- Have an Amazon account; it’s the same as your buying account. If you don’t have one, what are you waiting for. Go to www.amazon.com.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see “Make Money With Us” and then “Become an Affiliate”, click on “Become an Affiliate”.
- This opens a new page, click on the “Earn” icon.
- This opens another page; the one you’ll be on for a while. If you’ve not yet logged in, do so here. Two things, ignore all of the bells and whistles this site has for now, you can always go back later play around. For now, let’s get one of the widgets into your blog so you’ll start making some money! Also, there probably is a more direct way to get to this page, but I’ve not found it. I just do the above steps each time to get here. But I can now do it pretty fast.
- You now see the tabs at the top of the page, click on “Widgets”.
I will show you how to put a widget such as this one within your blog. Note that I do not charge for my teaching here so if you see a book that you'd like within this widget, please consider purchasing via the widget (don't go direct to Amazon and buy it) so that I can get a few cents with the sale, but more importantly the "robots" will see you do this and rank this blog a bit higher. I can talk to you about that in another blog). Here's the widget:
- This opens yet another page; stay with me. Again, forget the other tabs for now. This page offers you several widget options. My two favorites are the carousel and the slideshow. I use the carousel for the sidebars in my blogs but today I will show you how to place a slideshow inside your blog post so people see it and are more apt to click on something to go to Amazon from your blog post and buy something.
- Find the Slideshow icon and click on it. You’ll see a search box for Amazon and products. I usually leave the left box; Amazon alone which searches the entire site and products. Many times I just want “books” on my blog so I’ll scroll down and click on books. It’s the right box that I type in search words for what I want to find relevant products for my blog post. The key word in that sentence is “relevant”; always make sure your products are relevant to your blog topic. No cat food books or products on a vintage car blog, got it?
For example for my J Cash Lives blog: http://jcashlives.blogspot.com/, I
want things about Johnny Cash or more specifically if my post is about his
daughter Rosanne, I will search for her products. Today I’m going to find some
books about public speaking that I can put in my public speaking blog: http://publicspeakingqanda.blogspot.com/.
- I put the words “public speaking” in the box and a bunch of things come up. This is such a broad subject that there are probably thousands. I usually choose the first 6 to 10 because they are the most popular (thinking if so, they should “sell”) and then I may narrow my search term a bit to get more specific things (such as my own books and Kindle Books).
- Add product step by step; you’ll need 6 minimum but don’t over do it. 10 is usually a good number
- Click Next.
- This page allows you to choose your size and transitions; do so.
- Click: Add to my webpage; allow it to populate your html code. (Don’t get scared if you don’t know about this stuff). Copy it. (It’s now on your clipboard; but don’t close this page in case you need to come back and recopy it.
- Now open your Blogger account if you are not already there, go into your blog posts and find one that has a lot of views. Click edit to open it.
- Here’s where people usually don’t know how to get this widget “inside” your post. Click on the html button at the top of you blog post box. Put your cursor somewhere between >< somewhere. Then paste your html code there; between the > and the <. If you mess up, no worries; just close your post and it won’t be saved. Then repeat. If it was pasted in, click now on compose so you’ll be in the area where you can “read” your words. NOTE: For me, the widget doesn’t “show” until I publish. It may be different for you if you are using a different browser so don’t be alarmed, just click on UPDATE. And then view blog.
- You should now have a wonderful, good looking sales widget that will bring you money into your Paypal or other account you’ve set up with Amazon. (If you’ve not done so, better do it!).
- Now, go into most or all of your popular posts and paste in this same widget and start selling! Of course you can create a new widget with different products if you want. To see a finished product, check out: http://publicspeakingqanda.blogspot.com/2012/05/plan-and-spend-15-minutes-daily-on-your.html.
HINT/TIP: You can even take this further and contact the
author of the book and ask him or her to write an article for your blog. Tell
them you are selling their products and want them to comment on it. Some
bloggers will not sell products on their blog unless one, they’ve read or
experienced the product and like it and/or they’ve had communication with the
author. It’s your call!
