My post last week: 10 Reasons Why You’re Not Making Any Money Online Yet seems to have struck a raw nerve with many of you. It has been a while since I have had so many people say that a post really got them to take action – so I am very pleased about that.

I have to admit now I was in a bit of a ‘rage’ last week (in a good way) as I meet so many talented people who just don’t seem to get this blogging thing! I woke up and fired off that post very quickly and yes I was at my dyslexic best with lots of spelling and grammar errors – but I just had to RANT, let of steam!

I was speaking to a business coach recently who said that the biggest challenge is not that of getting people to understand what they need to do – but rather to get people to actually do it!

Every post I write is intended to get my readers to take action – clearly I am more successful at that sometimes than others.

Today I want to tackle a big subject:

How I Really Make Money With My Website and How You Can To!

Notice the word: REALLY – that is deliberate as I am sure some people still think I make money in a different way to how I explain it in all my blog posts. I REALLY am telling you as it is – all you need to do is follow and take action.

On first glance of my website, you probably wonder how I even make money from my website as there are no visible adverts like you would see on most other websites. In some cases I even have readers email me to thank me for all the great information and asked if there was any think they could buy of me to thank me. When you’re readers don’t even know your monetizing your blog, you are doing a real good job. Some of the following may be different from what you have been taught in the past, so it’s only right I reassure you with some figures:

I have two websites, both in the same niche, both with the same amount of traffic, one has advertising and the other promotes affiliate offers. The second blog with affiliate offers makes at least 5 times the amount as the other one.

Real quickly, I will tell you why you don’t want to sell advertising:

• Customers are hard work and they blame you for their mistakes
• Constantly adding/editing/deleting advertisers
• Paper work – trying to keep up with them
• Ugly and take away from user experience
• Most importantly… makes you less money!

In most cases I would say traffic is the most important thing for a website, without it you can’t make money – but if you don’t know how to monetize your website, then surely the traffic is pointless?

If you could only take 3 things away from this post, I hope they are:

1. Using a Lightbox optin I was able to significantly increase my daily email opt-in rate (304% +). I wish now I had used one sooner.

2. Test promoting different products, one product I promote out sells all others by at least 20 to 1 and I wouldn’t have know that if I had not switched around promotions on my site.

3. ASK! My conversions and sales continual to increase because I’m always asking my affiliate managers for more, a free trial, coupon codes, different landing pages – if it’s going to make you more sales, it’s going to make them more money and so they should at least make an effort to help you.

Finding Affiliate Programs To Promote

The majority of my income comes from promoting eBooks and online courses. Compared to other things I promote, I don’t sell as many eBooks say compared to services and software, however the commission is much higher, usually between 50% and 75%.

At this point, most “gurus” would tell you to search ClickBank and pick a product to promote on your website but it really isn’t as simple as that, depending on what you pick, your conversion rate will differ. Typically I will pick a product from a sub category such as eMarketing > Blog Marketing and choose a blog marketing eBook (for a blog like this), such as Blogging to the Bank.

Screen Shot From ClickBank.com

From the above picture you will see two things, on the left, the subcategory I chose and on the right, the stats of the top converting product, in this case, Blogging Espionage. When you go to any category or subcategory page, at the top of the page will be the highest selling product, note GRAV (Gravity!)- the higher the number, the more sales it’s making. Also you want to look at ‘future’ in the Stats, because this is the money you can make on top of the Total Sale if people who buy the product you are promoting then go on to buy other products from the seller – for example, they join a membership website. Apart from this, you also want to make sure the product is a good match for your site, would it add to what your offering? Would you buy it yourself? These are questions you should ask yourself, if every box is ticketed then click Promote and you will be given an affiliate link to use. One thing I would also add, is to ask your readers and followers what products they have bought in the past? This has helped me understand better what products interest my readers. (For those of you who are wondering the %/refd: STAT above refers to the percentage of sales that have come from Affiliates – in this case, 89% of the sellers sales have come via affiliates)

Depending on what type of products you want to promote, you may also want to try Commission Junction for services, Amazon Associates Program for physical products and E-Junkie has a few good things to promote, however I never find their sales pages convert as high as the previous mentioned sites.

Promoting Affiliate Products On Your Blog

This is where a lot of people go wrong, they simply add a couple affiliate offers to their blog and cross their fingers, hoping someone will buy from them. There is a lot, a lot more to it than that!

Promote Things You Use

This works because people can actively see you using the service or product, for example with IncomeDiary I recommend my hosting company, domain registrar and my designer. This can be used for any niche, for example a Cookery or Restaurant review blog could promote cookware from their favorite celebrity chef via an affiliate link to the Kitchen & Dining store on Amazon. I actually am at the moment transferring my website over to VPS.net because of a recommendation on a sidebar of another blog – I did this because I respected the guys opinion and could see it was working well for him.

Below we have an excellent example from ChrisBrogan.com showing how he is promoting a product (a wordpress theme) that he actually is using himself. If your readers see you using a product then they are more likely to respond to your offer.

Here's an Example of Chris promoting the blog theme he uses.

Promoting Recommended eBooks

I have found that two things that convert really well – the first being the ‘Offer Box’ below. In the past I have used banners provided by affiliate managers and also had some really snazzy boxes designed however this real clean, simple box with a green stop sign converts the highest.

My Top Converting Offer Box:

Recommended Reading Box Used On IncomeDiary.com

The box above is one of my best converting strategies and because of that, I will allow any IncomeDiary reader/fan to use it on their blog, dozens already are! I like to promote two offers in the box, one low priced and one high price. Fortunately for my higher priced offer above, I was able to secure a $1 trial and that has seen conversions go even higher. (Top Tip: If you are promoting a higher priced offer – try and get a special rate or introductory offer to get people interested in taking action. I do this with AWeber also and it works a treat)

The second thing that converts really well is adding a text advert at the top of my list posts, such as on my Top Earning Bloggers post. I add a link saying, “Want to follow in their footsteps? Check out this product”. This works because as the read the post the reader is highly motivated and inspired and wants to see themselves – on this list one day.

Comparison and Resources Page

These pages are usually to reinforce and to monetize other blog posts you have on your site. When you are selling any service or product, there are always other products to compare to and on most occasions these other products have affiliate programs also. I personally promote web hosting, domains etc.. but you could choose anything from computer games to house insurance. (Anyone notice how successful Price Comparison websites are these days? – I am just using the same principle)

You can see my website hosting comparison page here: Website Hosting Comparisons

The goal of the comparison page it to do two things. First to make it clear that the original offer that you mentioned in your post is the best priced and the one they should choose. The other is to increase conversions. It is quite likely that your visitor will want to shop around – it is natural and the right thing to do. You are giving them the opportunity to compare offers without having to go and search Google – and the longer the visitor is on your website the more chance there is you will earn a commission, either with your No 1 recommendation or via some of the comparison offers. Special Note: It is also OK to put in some comparisons that will not earn you any commissions – if you are being authentic and creating trust, which you should be, then your visitors, especially your more ‘internet marketing aware’ visitors will appreciate your ‘impartial’ approach.

Email Marketing Funnel

Getting people to Opt-in is perhaps the most profitable thing you can do with your blog – especially if you then followup with quality information and interesting offers.

If you ask any big internet marketer, one of the main things they would tell you is that they wished they had started to build their list earlier. Done right (which means first delivering quality information — not some load of spammy offers) than email marketing to a Strong List of followers is about as close as it gets online to printing money.

A brief overview of how my funnel works:

1. Opt-in boxes are displayed through out my website – for this I offer a special free gift to entice people into signing up. I also add a well designed eCover to give even more value to this FREE product. I display opt-in box’s in 3 ways, a squeeze page, a sidebar box and the highest converting, a lightbox advert, which increased my conversions by over 200%!

2. Visitors sign up and confirm their email address.

3. When I find good quality offers related to my niche (for example on Clickbank) I email subscribers. Sometimes I can earn several thousand dollars from just one mailing by doing this.

When it comes down to email marketing and autoresponder software, I believe there is only one you should use and that’s AWeber which is who I use and pretty much all my competitor, if you order today you can have your first month for only $1. Apart from AWeber, you may want to consider iContact.

Content Orientated Blog Posts

This has started to make me more and more money as I test different affiliate offers. Their are 3 main types of blog posts that make me money. They are Interviews, Guides and Reviews.

I shall point out the advantages of each below:

The easiest way to get affiliate sales with blog posts is to find out when a new Clickbank product is being launched, or even an old one for that matter. As long as the sales page converts (view the stats as I pointed out above) – you are going to make money provided it is targeted correctly for your niche / list. Contact the creator of the Clickbank product and email them requesting an interview. I recommend you do the interview over the phone (I use Skype) and record the call and get it transcribed. You then add the call to your site as an MP3 / Podcast and add the transcription for those who prefer to read rather than listen. (The transcription also gives you lots of valuable search engine content). When conducting interviews you can also review the interviewee’s products, ask them questions about it – and then at the end of the interview you can add if you wish your own mini-review of the product and the reasons why visitors should buy it.

Typically your interview will only touch generally on the strategies the interviewee uses but done correctly your listener / reader will be left wanting more. This is when you promote the Interviewee’s product as away for your followers to followup / learn more and grow their own business. Depending on the interviewee and the product, you can easily walk away with dozens of sales and continuous future sales depending on how often future readers find the interview.

Below is an example of the offers I was able to provide to my readers after I interviewed: Adam Horwitz

Promoting an Interviewees Affiliate Products at The Top Of His Interview

Another tactic I use is producing “How to’ or Guide Posts – just like this one. You give away great content that really helps your readers and at the same time you promote affiliate products. Visitors can see you using the products so they can decide if it’s for them or not and those who do notice you are promoting an affiliate product don’t mind because you are helping them out for free. Very Important: This is very important – do take the time to produce good content / how to posts. Despite what some gurus try to imply — there is no such thing as Free Money – you need to work at providing real value to your readers — do that and the money will follow via affiliate sales. So often I see bloggers making ‘half efforts’ at producing guides – frankly you may as well not bother if that is what you are going to do. Readers can tell your passion and commitment in your posts!

Review Posts: Just about every post you do can be a partial review post if you are doing it correctly. This is the essential bit here — no one is really going to pay any attention to your review posts unless they respect you, believe in you, have rapport with you. In other words they feel you can be trusted. As mentioned in previous posts this is why pages such as the ABOUT PAGE and the MY STORY PAGE are so essential.

To start building that trust and rapport you must first provide good content, valuable content. So often readers tell me they cannot believe how much good content I give away for free – if you start to get comments like that then you are doing it right. Build rapport and anything your recommend will stand a far better chance of being sold. I don’t do that many purely review only posts – but one recent example is: My Review Post For MarketMeTweet

Increasing Your Conversions

Although the following may seem like small things, the increase in conversions can be as much as 1000% in some cases so do pay attention.

Ask For a Coupon Code

Most companies will have the ability to create custom coupon codes, all you have to do is ask for them. These are great for increasing conversions as the coupon can make a huge difference such as making it a trial offer or get something free.

Offering Coupon Codes Increase Conversions

Ask For a Special Offer

Some of my best converting affiliate links convert so well because of the special offers I am able to offer my readers. For example a $1 Trial or a Bonus offer only available to my readers.

I could go on – but as I said at the beginning, the most important thing to do is TAKE ACTION. I appreciate you reading this of course, but ultimately unless you put these strategies into action they count for nothing.

Take Action Today

And just in case you have not already done it – do check out my Blogging eCourse – it is the Blueprint I followed myself to get where I am today.

Zac has long been an inspiration to me, each time I visit his blog I am blown away with just how much income can be made selling others peoples products as an affiliate.

Imagine having a business were you can earning $100,000′s per year or even millions and you don’t even have to create the product yourself. That is the kind of business Zac Johnson has and it is the kind of business Michael Dunlop wants to have

Enjoy the interview — and as always I look forward to your comments.

Zac Johnson Interview

Q1: You personally endorse a lot of affiliate products and networks, Do you think having trust with your readers is important for promoting affiliate products?

Whenever I come across a new affiliate network, I always make sure to join them. With the massive amount of networks now available, it’s best to weed out the good ones from the bad. The networks I list on the blogs are ones that I’ve joined and have had success with over the years… some of which I have been making money with for nearly 10 years now. With over $2 million in referred earnings to these networks, it proves that recommending only the best networks, works out not only for myself… but also for the affiliates and networks involved.

Q2: Affiliate marketing is something your obviously good at and have a passion for, do you think your blog would be anywhere near as successful if it wasn’t something you had a key interest in? If so why?

The affiliate industry is growing rapidly, but still very small. Unless I was an “in your face” and super passionate guy like how Gary Vaynerchuck, and how he is in the wine industry, I think it would be tough… but not impossible. When I first started making money online in the late 90s, I knew it was going somewhere, but never planned on making a blog or becoming a voice in the industry.

Q3: How has blogging affected your business? Has it opened up any doors for you? Has it got you anything cool

The before and after effect of the blog has made a huge difference. Before the blog I had my own set of online friends, contacts and networks and wasn’t out there too much. Once you go live with a blog and it catches on, you really put yourself out there. You have a whole new audience that is reading what you write, new networks and advertisers that want your business, and with that comes more responsibility and time… but it’s been completely worth it.

As for anything cool… it’s great to be able to setup contest and have networks donate big prizes for the blog readers, but I would have to say the “coolest” thing, is that the blog has generated over $2 million in “new money” for affiliates and networks on the site. This is just through a few trackable resources, so the number is probably much larger… but it’s great to see it’s helping more people become financially independent.

Q4: What do you think is the most important aspect of a blog and why?

It’s easy to say “be creative and have your own story”, and that’s the secret sauce to having a successful blog. While that’s true, it also comes down to branding, advertising and what you can bring to the table. One of the most important factors is your branding. I have my cartoon logo and my name… they both have caught on and new articles about both are written often. This is the type of advertising and effect that will continually grow your blog in the long run. Even before your branding, you still need readers and content… so it all works hand in hand.

Q5: I understand you started making money online when you were still in your teens, what’s the biggest lesson you have learned from being an Internet entrepreneur.

Even when I was in elementary school I have a business mindset. Instead of carrying books in my backpack, I would be carrying cans of soda to sell at lunch. If the internet wasn’t around, I would surely be running some other type of business. Fortunately, the internet did come along and I got in early and started making money while I was in high school. The “biggest lesson” I’ve probably learned over the years, is that it’s all about connections and getting it done. No one else is going to do it for you, and you can’t do it all by yourself.

You have branded yourself very well, what advice would you give to a new blogger wanting to brand there name on their blog?
When I first launched the blog, I wanted to make sure it stood out from the rest. I made sure I had my own cartoon logo and a unique blog design. With time and readership growth, these both caught on. I also partnered with one of the best blog design companies, UniqueBlogDesign.com, which brings out a new version of the blog each year. Make sure you create a brandable image for yourself or your company. Just think about the most popular companies in the world, and their logo… they are unique and recognized world wide.

Running an Internet Business gives you choices and freedom to do what you want, when you want. What would you say the Internet Lifestyle is for you?

No doubt about it… the internet business is better than anything out there. Years ago you would have to take out a business loan, start up a brick and mortar business, pay rent, employ staff… and really have the odds against you for success. Now anyone with a computer and a corner of a room can potentially make millions by themselves.

For me, the “internet lifestyle” is all able financial freedom and enjoying what I do. Even if I had all the money in the world, and never had to work another day, I would still be making sites and cranking out new ideas. We are entreprenuers and that’s what we do!

Q6: If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what advice would you give yourself regarding making money online?

I’ve always done everything by myself and it was all self taught. I don’t have a techie or programming background, so that was always a missing factor. I always wonder what it would have been like if I built a team around me and went after some of those bigger ideas I had, that would have taken more time, programmers and more people to manage. I’m not doubting myself, or the path I’ve taken… but it’s always in the back of your mind in the “what if” scenerios.

Q7: What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Not so much advice… but a life (business) lesson. You can’t let others decide your path, especially in business. With so much competition, criticism and jealousy out there, you are bound to come across critics and just people who don’t want to see you succeed. At the end of the day, it’s your business and your life, you have to go for what you beleive in. You will kick yourself later if you pass on an opportunity just because you cared what someone else might think.

More about Zac Johnson:

Zac Johnson Blog

AND

How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!