Landing Pages for eBooks

 Blogging, Design  No Responses »
Aug 132011
 

If you are a blogger, you already have a lot to say and little problem saying it. So why not go the extra step? It’s time for you to consider ebooks for blog and website monetizing.

Profit and LossMany pro bloggers report a substantial increase in revenues when shifting their focus from advertising revenue to selling their own products. And ebooks are one of the most common products easily made by anyone with writing skills, and the knowledge to help others.

The advantages of selling ebooks over focusing on advertising revenue are obvious. First and foremost, you get to keep 100% of the profit from each sale. Secondly, you can target your blog articles and ebooks toward the same niche subjects. This ensures you will have an interested potential buyer. While targeted ads usually do a good job at matching the subject matter of a blog, sometimes they do not.

Another problem with using an ad service is that every time someone clicks on one, you gain money but lose the reader to another site. With an ebook, they stay within your network.

Landing Pages increase Conversions

An entire book could be devoted to the construction of landing pages. We won’t go that far into depth. But know that you really need to consider a quality landing page if you want to convert potential customers into sales.

A landing page is the page your visitor sees when he or she follows a link to your product. In general you want Beach Relaxationyour landing page to have the same basic design scheme as your blog. And you want to have clear calls to action. Consider a nice shiny, bright red “Buy Now” icon.

Also very important is the removal of distractions, such as links to the rest of your blog. Once you have the buyer on your purchase page, you want to keep them focused on the task at hand. If the visitor decides not to purchase, so be it. But if the visitor clicks out to another link when they were ready to buy, your design has cost you a sale.

Another tip to consider is using a color scheme on your purchase page which exudes relaxation. Nice calming light blues for example. Studies show that customers who are relaxed are more willing to checkout their shopping cart.

- Dan Padavona, Warmpicture

Passive Income from Blogging Part 2

 Blogging  No Responses »
Jun 232011
 

In Part 1 we discussed how to increase our passive income from blogging by monetizing our websites with ad programs and affiliate programs such as Amazon.  Much more sizable profits can be had when we begin to sell our own products.  If we have a product that appeals to our readership, we can leverage our content and web traffic to sell our product.

Woman on hammockExamples of products we can market are limitless.  Some of the more common include e-books, books, mentor services, tutorial DVD’s, and so on.  These products assume mastery of a subject, and not everyone qualifies to write an e-book on a given subject.  For instance I am a fan of American football and like to study defensive theory.  I am qualified to write a blog post on my favorite defensive scheme.  But I am not qualified to write an e-book on the subject.

You may have enough mastery of your blog content to qualify as an e-book author.  If so, Great!  You have an excellent way to boost your profits significantly higher than the typical ad profits.  If you aren’t ready to write an e-book, or cannot come up with an idea for a cool product, don’t worry.

What if I told you that I could show you a way to create a product in less than 10 minutes, and have it up for sale to the entire world immediately after?  I bet you would be interested.  The good news is I have a very good suggestion.

A Winning Product in 10 Minutes or Less

I like to tell people how to increase the look of their blogs, and hence their profit margins, by using affordable professional images.  Well you can take those same images and create some interesting products from them.  It will completely change how you hunt for images.  You will now be looking for interesting photography or art which will look cool on a shirt, mug, card, etc.  The great thing is once you find that cool image, you can use websites such as Zazzle and CafePress to design and sell your product.  You don’t have any upfront costs beyond the image purchase, and no inventory to purchase or track.  This is Passive Income at its best!

Your initial cost for your product is going to be about $100.  That is the typical ballpark cost of an Extended License, which is required for any image you plan to use on a product you plan to resell.  The new blogger may have some sticker shock at this price.  But the pro blogger has learned that this initial investment is quite small compared to the profits which can be made.

In general, you will find more potential images for your product if you search or browse for abstract and conceptual images.  A beautiful flower image on a card can speak of love and romance, or sorrow over the loss of someone close.  When you see an image, think of the different messages it can convey.

For instance the image to the left shows a gnome pushing a bicycle up a rocky mountain at sunset or sunrise.  Images such as this are perfect abstract for creating cards, shirts, and more.  There are multiple messages which can be conveyed.  Perseverance against life’s Gnome Climbing Mountaintroubles, overcoming adversity, searching for spirituality, achieving an important goal, turning 50…

You can very quickly create products following this method.  Someone else (the stock artist) has already done the legwork of creating the image.  All you have to do is use a little imagination, and the right marketing plan, and you could have a big money maker on your hands.  There are countless other product options, but this is one of the quickest paths to product creation you will find.

Putting your product up for sale at Zazzle or CafePress is not likely to generate many views on its own.  But that is why you have a blog.  Leverage your readership and create your own ad to your new product.  A highly trafficked blog can generate more views for your product in 1 day than Zazzle or CafePress can get you in a year (unless you are lucky enough to be a featured artist).

This is the point which many sellers on these sites fail to grasp.  It isn’t enough to set up a store and wait for buyers to find you.  You need to drive them there.

- Dan Padavona, Warmpicture

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Monetizing a Website

 Blogging  No Responses »
Apr 102011
 

I recently answered a question by a vector artist about monetizing his blog.  The artist is currently offering free vectors through his blog, but wants to get some return for his efforts.  In this article, I explain the advice I gave to him and how you can apply it to your own website or blog.

Woman typingFree stuff sells.  People love free stuff, especially on the internet.  Giving away quality free stuff is often seen as poor business practice, but real world studies suggest just the opposite.  The freebies attract web traffic, and a lot of it.  The key is to leverage that traffic and turn it into sales.

There are many ways to generate revenue off of a high traffic website or blog, and here are my three favorites:

1.  Up Sell.  When you Up Sell, you give away free material but offer higher quality material to visitors who want a higher level of information or product.  In the case of our vector artist, he could give away simple vectors for free, while offering more intricate vectors for a fair price.  Another example is giving away free articles which help everyone, but offering a private, paid website area for subscribers who want direct access to ask questions and download more in depth articles.

2.  Sell a Product.  This could be any product, but a popular method is selling an e-book.  Writing an e-book requires the author have expert knowledge of a subject which his or her visitors has an interest in.  In our example, the artist could write an e-book helping designers.  Or he could offer a million other products, including a library of his vector art for a set price.

3.  Advertising.  Advertising is the simplest way to monetize a website or blog.  But with its simplicity, don’t expect the high returns from selling your own service or product.  There are various ways to put advertising on your website or blog.  Google Ads and Amazon Affiliates are two high quality products which are well known.  You can even solicit space on your website direct to advertisers.

Advertising has to be handled with care.  Some visitors are put off by ads getting in the way of content and may decide not to visit your site again.  Click through rates (CTR) are highly variable, and many times very low paying.  I know some bloggers and website owners who make a ton of money off Google Ads and Amazon Affiliates, but I know many more who make next to nothing.  It takes trial and effort to make simple advertising work.

Finally, keep in mind that quality content drives visitor traffic, while low quality content drives it away.  Even if you are giving away articles, royalty free images, vectors, or a product, it has to be something which people actually want.  Nobody wants a bad product even if it is free.

Stop looking at this method as “giving your work away.”  Instead look at it as a cost of advertising.

Dan Padavona, Warmpicture.com

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Making Products from Royalty Free Images

 Design, Stock Photography  No Responses »
Apr 042011
 

Royalty free images have uses beyond blogs, websites, brochures, and magazines.  Did you know you can make your own product from a royalty free image, and sell it for your own profit?  In this article I will show you an easy way to make money using royalty free images.

Making your own greeting card, calendar, t-shirt, coffee mug, etc., has never been easier.  There are literally hundreds of online options which can allow you to create your own product in just a few minutes, and even help you set up your own store front.  No programming skills necessary!

Cute Cat SleepingSome of the best known are Zazzle and Cafepress, but many smaller alternatives do just as good a job and offer higher sales commissions.  Check around and you may find that your friendly local printer provides the same services.

Choose the Right Image

All you need is an idea, and the right image.  When I create products from images, I like to find abstract and humorous royalty free pictures.  But that’s just me.  If you have a dark idea which you think is cool, go for it.  Just remember that cute sells!

Once we find the right image, the next thing we need to do is make sure we purchase the right license.  In order to put an image on a product, we need to purchase an “Extended License.”  This costs more than a standard license, but we get the image in its full native resolution and have far more rights related to how we can use the image.

If we create a great product, we should be able to make many times the cost of the license.

Let’s Make Some Money!

Now that we have our cool image, all we have to do is upload it to the website we are using to make our products.  This is super simple at Cafepress and Zazzle.  A few clicks, and our image is placed on the product just the way we want it.  A few more clicks and we can set our selling price, and get the product out there to the public.

Isn’t the power of the internet amazing?  Twenty years ago, it would have taken months to put together our own products.  Chances are we would have quit before we got started.  Now we can get the job done in 5 minutes, and see sales the same evening.

When you use one of our images for a project, don’t hesitate to contact us if you ever have a question about which license you need.

Dan Padavona, Warmpicture.com

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