Interacting With Your Community - More Important Than Money

This post is part of August - Make Money Online Month.

One of the first things you need to know about making money online, in a blog setup, is to interact with your community. Because without them more or less a blog cannot be a blog. Sure you can blog for yourself, your family, your inner friends circle etc…but since I’m concentrating on better monetization techniques the readers that read you regularly are your community and without them your blog is nothing.

So the first rule about better monetization techniques for your blog is to interact as much as you can with your community. Because it is your community that will spread the word about your blog for you and drive more traffic your way. Most everybody already knows this, it’s not a new ground breaking tip and I’m not making it out to be one. But I believe it’s the best way to start off the focus for this month.

Here’s a couple of emails I’ve received from readers -

Aarif of Creative UAE writes -

I have started a new blog a month ago, it’s about advertisments, new online services, some graphics tips n tricks. I am working as a full time creative designer in a firm in Dubai Internet City. I want to know how about some tips how can I increase traffic to my blog and how I can make it better.

First off, I like the advertising arena myself so you can count me as one of your readers.

I’ll answer the question about making it better first. Even though you have no Ads “above the fold” you have way too many “below the fold“. Word of advice cut down on the Ads and just stick with a few that fits your topic of discussion. You’ll see a higher click through rate and possible more conversions that way. Everything else seems fine.

As for increasing traffic, my suggestion would be to just blog for the beginning about what you like and not to worry too much about numbers. Since you have an Ad focused blog stuff like that can really drive traffic in hordes from social sites like digg and reddit. But for that to happen you need to get some never before seen or read stuff that could easily start the digg traffic avalanche on your blog. Remember to do it because you love to, not because you just want traffic. People on the internet can see your intent behind your words. Also, don’t be afraid to submit your own content to digg and reddit.

Francis Lim writes -

I liked your Share This widget because with minimal use of space, it provides for all the ways to share the post or blog. Can you share with me how to do this?

Sure, you can download it here, also it is not my plugin. I couldn’t make a WP plugin to save my life - well OK maybe I would then. You need to have your own self hosted WordPress blog to install the plugin.

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Recommended Reading

• Recap - August Make Money Online Month
• Ask Me Anything - January
• MyBlogLog Community and Money
• ProBlogger Book: Pre-Order Today