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Amazon Affiliate Tutorial {How I Write a Blog Post: Part 6a} is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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source: drown

To monetize means TO MAKE MONEY ON YOUR BLOG. Yes, it’s possible without private sponsors or paychecks from big companies. You can do affiliate marketing on almost every post. Ready to hear how I monetize my posts?

Monetizing New Posts

When I write a post I see as evergreen content (any of my party posts, Disney posts, Christmas posts or how-to’s), I try to monetize them because I know at some point, I’ll get some traffic on them. And I might as well make money on it as have it sit there.

Sometimes I even think up posts that will be great for monetizing: a book list, an ebook list or best iPad apps. (OK, I haven’t done that yet, but it’s a good idea!) Of course, these posts are real and appropriate–things I’d write even if I weren’t making money on them.

Monetizing Old Posts

When I was at Blissdom last year, my biggest take-home was from Sarah. She said she heavily monetizes old posts that get big traffic.

For example, my Creative Guest Book post is my most-read post ever. I get hundreds of hits on it every day. In fact, I get more traffic on it now than I did the first few months it was posted. So, I put some regular Google-type ads on it and other affiliates ads–the type of ads I don’t want to have on my normal, everyday posts.

I know that most of the people reading that post are just going to click away quickly after reading, so I’d rather them click away on an ad than something else!

How I Use Affiliate Links

Affiliate programs are awesome because many of them don’t care what kind of blog you are. Big or small, old or new, they’ll take you because basically you’re giving them cheap advertising!

I’m an Amazon Associate because they have EVERYTHING known to man. So, if I mention a book, a movie or even a kind of craft supply, I link to it on Amazon. Also, on my party posts, I usually make a widget with additional party supplies not mentioned in my post. (See?)

On my Disney posts, I put affiliate ads and links to The Disney Food Blog’s ebooks.

My Wedding Guest Book post has Tiny Prints wedding invitation affiliate links.

Whenever I mention food or menu planning, usually put in a link to eMeals.

I just look for appropriate (and non-spammy) spots to add links that will make me money! People are gonna click anyway, so you might as well make money on it!

Is it Worth It?

I think so. I’d say I make $50-100 on Amazon per month (and better at Christmas-time!). My last e-mealz check was $50. I’d be linking to these things anyway. So, it’s not much more work anyway.

So, look through your stats. What’s your top post? Add some money-making links!

Here are some fabulous make-money-blogging posts for your perusal:

How To Make Money Blogging series at Money Saving Mom
Affiliate Marketing from Blogging With Amy
Earning Online Through Affiliate Marketing and Why Affiliate Programs Work Well for Mom Bloggers at Savvy Blogging
How To Use Affiliate Marketing by moi!
How To Insert Amazon Affiliate Links Into Your Blog Posts also by moi!

Coming Soon: Part 7-9: Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest!

affiliate links used

Monetize It: How I Write a Blog Post {Part 6} is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
:: :: ::

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Have you been following along with my How *I* Write a Blog Post series? Well, it originally started as a crazy-long Top Ten {Tuesday} post which I turned into a series. I’m basically outlining every single detail of what I do when I write a post. It’s a nice step-by-step series if you’re a newbie and if you’re an old-timer, you might learn a trick, too!

Part 5 and 6 of this series were on the same topic: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but I decided to stir them up together in this one post and attack it Top Ten {Tuesday} style. So here we go…

The Top Ten Things I Know About {Basic} SEO

{wow. awesome, right?}

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically it’s helping Google lead people to your site. Optimizing your posts so the search engine can help you! Google crawls through your post noticing repeated words, key words, bold phrases and headings and then holds onto that info until someone starts searching for it.

2. Bold

One of the easiest things you can do is to bold keywords in your post. If you’ve written a post about, oh, I don’t know SEO, if you can bold the words SEO in your post, Google is going to notice that.

And it’s not just for Google, either. It really helps your readers when you bold important phrases so they can easily scan. This may be the first sentence of each paragraph, the sucker-punch phrases or just your key words. They say readers stay on a blog post for mere seconds before clicking away. Help them stay with you with a little bit o’ bold!

3. Headings

If Google likes bold, then it definitely likes Headings. In WordPress you can find them in the dropdown menu labeled Paragraph. Or you can use the HTML codes <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc if you speak HTML. I tend to use <h2> most often. Otherwise it gets too big and crazy. You’ll have to experiment with how it looks on your site.

For example, my title, The Top Ten Things I Know About SEO  above is with the <h2>. It’s like putting a Google exclamation point beside my title and I think it looks better and makes my post flow better.

4. URL

The other main factor for Google is your URL. There are several ways you can set up your URLs:

http://yourblog.com/?p-123

http://yourblog.com/2012/02/06/your-post-title

http://yourblog.com/your-post-title

and a few more to boot. You’ve got 70 characters to let Google know what your post is about. And if Google searches your URL to find ?p-123, they won’t bring it up for any searches! Unless you’re searching for ?p-123, of course.

(Look in your DASHBOARD-SETTINGS-PERMALINKS to change your URL to how you want.)

So, you need to make sure your URL is something searchable. For example, I would LOVE to name my post about Lydia’s Tangled Party something like, “Let Down Your Hair!” but if someone is searching for fun ideas for their daughter’s Tangled Party, are they going to google “let down your hair”? Nope. They’re going to type in “rapunzel birthday ideas” or something like that . And what do you see when you type those in? Well, looky here…

And the URL on that post? http://ohamanda.com/2011/01/11/rapunzels-golden-hair-birthday-party/ I probably should have put the word “Tangled” in it, too.

5. Title

If it really bothers you having an SEO-friendly title, you can change the title of your post and the URL of your post in WordPress. Just click edit permalink right below your title on the Edit Post page.

See? Now your title can be, “Let Down Your Hair”, while your permalink is “http://…/tangled-birthday-party-ideas”. Cool, huh?

6. Photos

I’ve gone over the SEO of photos, haven’t I? Yes, I may have mentioned it a time or twenty.

7. Categories & Tags

I am not great at this. In fact, I’m terrible at it. That’s because when I started blogging there were no categories. Only tags. So, my poor early posts have like 12,000 tags each. Here’s Amy’s take on categories versus tags. And I like it.

8. All in One SEO Pack

This is a plug-in that helps with SEO. I use it. And it makes me feel like I have a security blanket–like if I didn’t do any of the other SEO stuff right in my post, at least I did this one thing! So, get it. And feel better about yourself.

9. Unique Evergreen Content

The best thing you can do for SEO is write good content. No one is googling what Lydia and Asa did today. But some people are googling “Toy Story 3 Party” or “Creative Advent Calendars“. The more unique, helpful and evergreen (meaning it’s something people will be searching for year after year) content I write, the better chance I have at search engine hits.

My biggest traffic spike is around November when people start searching for Christmas ideas. I get constant search engine hits for my birthday party posts, Disney posts and wedding posts. For example, my top ten posts this week:
Rapunzel’s *Golden Hair* Birthday Party, Creative Wedding Guest Books, A Picture is Worth: How I Write a Blog Post, Rapunzel Party Decorations, Lydia’s Birthday Party: Top Ten {Tuesday}, The Snow White Party, Nursing School Graduation Party, The Pirate Party: Top Ten {Tuesday}, How To Throw The Coolest Muppet Type Party and Asa’s Toy Story 3 Party.

Crazy, huh? Sometimes I wonder if anyone actually reads my posts on the day I actually publish.

10. You remember the title of this post, don’t you? What *I* Know About {Basic} SEO. I am not remotely an expert. And honestly, I don’t want to be. SEO can be complicated. And it’s not a science. But I do think about it with every post and the little rules I do know, I stick by. Even little steps can help your SEO. Here are some other fabulous resources for understanding and mastering SEO:

A Comprehensive Post on SEO at ProBlogger
Mom Blog SEO by Kelby Carr {an ebook}
What is SEO? from Blogging with Amy

OK. That’s all I got. I hope you’re not embarrassed at my lack of SEO-knowledge. Or maybe you learned something. What’s your SEO tip?

:: :: ::

OK. You know what to do! WRITE a fabulous top ten list on your own blog. LINK back to me somewhere in it. PASTE your post’s URL in the linky below. Start LOVIN’ on the rest of the participants with tweets (#toptentues), pins, stumbles, comments or just straight up clicks! For more and specific details, rules and a fun little button see my Top Ten {Tuesday} page!

SEO: How *I* Write a Blog Post Part 5–Top Ten {Tuesday} Style! is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
:: :: ::

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1. How I Write a Blog Post: Part 1 This post started out as a joke. I was going...
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source: bethan

When I first started blogging I did not want any pictures on it because I didn’t want them to take the place of my “writing”. [insert guffaw here] But if you want your posts to be noticed and immediately attractive, get a picture in them!

YOUR PHOTOS

Of course a personal photo is best IF you are taking some good photos. You don’t have to own a DSLR to take good pictures. There are so many places to find good photo tips. It only takes a few good ideas to get you started. I usually just play with the exposure and saturation levels in iPhoto.

Then I have to watermark and rename my photos. I already wrote a whole post about this. Check it. It might change your life.

NOT YOUR PHOTOS

If you need someone else’s photo, you MUST make sure it is has a Creative Commons license. If it doesn’t you are effectively stealing that photographer’s work. You can find all kinds of creative commons photos on Flickr and of course you can buy them on istockphoto or other sites.

I have recently found a few photographers on flickr who have sets of free photos. I also search through some of my photographer friends‘ photostreams to see if they have any creative commons photos so I can give them traffic.

Oh, and my flickr-searching tip? Add a descriptive word. For example, I didn’t just search for “camera” for the above picture. I searched “vintage camera” and found more interesting photos. For me and my tastes, I usually add the word “vintage”, “retro” or “bokeh” and can usually find some creative stuff that way.

NOW WHAT?

Once you find the picture you want, you need to upload it to your blog. I used to just copy the HTML from flickr or photobucket, but if the owner deletes the photo for some reason, it will be gone from your site, too. So, it takes an extra step, but one that will save you later on!

When it’s uploaded, I like to center it and size it to 500 pixels wide. I don’t want the pictures so big you can’t see any text without scrolling. But not so little it looks like a thumbnail either.

Finally, you must link back to the photographer. This is called attribution. I usually just write photo source: photographer. Sometimes I put it in the caption so it’s right next to the photo, other times I shrink it (using the <small> tag) and put it at the very bottom of the post.

This doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but finding pictures is one of the biggest times sucks for me. I usually have the perfect photo in my head and can never seem to find it!

What’s your blog-and-photo tip?

Coming Soon: Part 5 {SEO}

A Picture is Worth: How I Write a Blog Post {Part 4} is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
:: :: ::

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source: .imelda

I’ve written my post, done some proofreading and now it’s time to make the post sticky. I don’t want people to read my post then leave. So, adding links TO MY OWN BLOG within my posts help them stick around.

For example, on Asa’s Toy Story Party Food post, I linked to myself FOUR times: back to a post about my original party ideas, one on my Snow White party, one recipe and another about Asa’s Ace Party. (<–Oh, look! I just did it again!)

This really is a service to my readers because I have to assume that my readers have never met me, that they just stumbled onto my blog. If that’s the case, I don’t want them to be confused about something I say. And linking back to it may pique their interest and have them clicking around my site for awhile. And the more they read about me, the more they might like me or subscribe or leave a comment. This also leads to more pageviews and if you have some ads that work off pageviews, this equals more money for you!

You can also go back and do this on some of your exit pages and top posts. It doesn’t take long and it’s a small thing that can bring big return!

Stat tuned for Part 4: Photos

Sticky Posts: How I Write a Blog Post {Part 3} is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
:: :: ::

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1. How I Write a Blog Post: Part 1 This post started out as a joke. I was going...
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OK. So, after I write my post, I have to proofread it. Now, before we begin, I have to tell you (and this won’t be a surprise if you have read my blog for any length of time). I am not the Grammar Police. I’m all for the correct their/there/they’re and for using loose/lose appropriately. But you will find many a dangling participle and sentences ending in a preposition in these here parts.

It’s just how I roll.

I find it to be more conversational. I tend to write the way I actually speak. (Don’t you think, people who know me in real life?)

Anywhoo. THE POINT IS, grammar doesn’t have to be perfect but it does need to be tidied up a bit! So, the first thing I do is read my post OUTLOUD. It is amazing all the mistakes you will hear when you read aloud.

Here’s a few things I always listen for:

1. Duplicate words. I tend to overuse words. Amazing, awesome and so are my faves. If I see a duplicate word, I pull out my handy dandy thesaurus and come up with an amazing new word.

2. Non-Sentences. For some reason I am in the habit of writing incomplete sentences. For no good reason.

3. That. Did you know you almost never need to use the word “that”? Try it. You’ll see.

4. Strange Paragraphs. Short paragraphs are the way to go. Even if your post is super long,  several short paragraphs will help people keep on reading. (This is only a guess, as I’m not sure if people actually read every word of my posts!) But because I am very short-paragraph-oriented, I end up having strange breaks in my paragraphs. I always have to rearrange first and closing sentences.

After reading my post out loud in my dashboard, I usually click PREVIEW and read it again on the preview page so I can get the feel for it on my blog. This will usually show me a few more mistakes. Then after I do everything else (like Parts 3-10 of this series) I probably re-read the whole thing about 5 more times. I’m not joking. And about half the time after I publish, I still read with an editor’s eye to make sure I didn’t miss a thing!

If you are insecure in your commas, grammar and sentence structure, you MUST READ Jessie‘s series, Before You Hit Publish. Jessie is an editor by trade (she edited Truth in the Tinsel for me) and clearly explains some basic editing you need to do on every post. You will glad you read it–and probably refer back to it often!

I’ll see you tomorrow for Part 3: Making Your Post STICKY!

Proofread: How I Write a Blog Post {Part 2} is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
:: :: ::

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