Affiliate links are key tools in your affiliate strategy that can either make or break your campaigns. That’s why it’s vital to know how to include affiliate links into the text in the most effective way in order to optimize them for success. This post will teach you how to properly harness affiliate links and make the most of them.
How to place affiliate links efficiently
Before we delve more deeply into the art of using affiliate links to drive tons of conversions and revenue, let’s have a quick look at how they work.
So, what is an affiliate link and how do affiliate links work?
Affiliate links are special URLs containing the ID or username of the affiliate. They are used for tracking affiliate performance and giving them credit for affiliate sales. While some marketers say that affiliate links are their most powerful money-making tool, others complain that all their efforts go waste because these links are useless.
You may ask: How do I put affiliate links on my website to optimize my campaigns and drive better results? Here’re some tried-and-tested strategies on how to use affiliate links to bring out their full potential.
1. Integrate links logically
Don’t use affiliate links to hard sell. Make sure they are relevant to the ideas in the post and serve as a logical extension to them. Your links should come across as a useful personal recommendation.
It’s also vital to create a logical lead to all your affiliate links by explaining how your readers will benefit from clicking them.
For example, My friend, an avid traveler and , created an overview of the best backpacks for various types of travelers and embedded affiliate links to the backpacks he considers worth buying. This type of post is a win-win. Readers get expert advice that help them with a purchasing decision, while enjoys the affiliate commissions rolling in.
It’s also crucial to maintain balance and use the right number of affiliate links in your content. Sometimes, affiliates go to extremes and overload their content with affiliate links. This makes content looks spams and may put some readers off. However, if you use affiliate links too sparingly, your audience might not pay attention to them and you’ll leave money on the table.
So, what do you need to do to strike the right balance? The best practice is to write content that provides value to your audience and solves some of their pain points. By employing this strategy, affiliate links appear natural and create a seamless user experience.
For example , if you ask me a deal from amazon which i like on top because thats useful to me on day to day basis that is a clothes draying stand . Im using this stand last from 6 months and trust me its a perfect option for person who do not have big open space for drying clothes.
If you promote several affiliate products in one post, you can also save readers the trouble of scrolling up and down by presenting all your affiliate links in one block at the end of the post.
For example, today itself when im writing this post i have ordered some product from amazon , which i need for my upcoming days and there is no doubt this all are very useful things to single living person who is alone managing is house singly .
Affiliate links must also be attention-grabbing and click-enticing. So, make sure your affiliate links stand out. Use bright colors or bold fonts to highlight your links and garner more attention.
5. Link to the offer, not the homepage
When promoting a product/service or giving recommendations, make sure you create deep links and direct users to the page for that specific offer. This will save your readers a lot of time and boost the conversion rate.
Like as above i showed link , where you can make choice as per your need but sometime when its about dresses which i think i should buy, i prefer product which is best . The product which have good review and in budget too where i have to make less effort.
As my niece send me direct link to buy this dress for her outing and when she select it than i dont have to make any effort . The direct link work best in some situation.
6. Use CTA buttons
To drive more conversions, remember to encourage your readers to take a specific action. To do so, craft many different attention-grabbing CTAs and incorporate them into your content. These can be CTA buttons, text-only CTAs, CTA images, or a combination to achieve the best possible results.
It’s also important that your CTAs align with your goals and post content. For example, if you need more traffic, you can incentivize your readers to share your posts on social media.
7. Cloak your links
As a rule, affiliate links are quite long and not extremely pleasing to the eye. This is why it’s better to use affiliate link cloaking to make your links appear cleaner, shorter, and more visually appealing. However, this is not the only benefit to reap from link cloaking. Here are some other advantages:
Cloaking can protect links from being stolen.
A short, good-looking link is easier to share.
Link cloakers can make link management a piece of cake.
The web offers loads of software for link cloaking, such as the Pretty Links Plugin, Thirsty Affiliates, WooCommerce, etc.
8. Add links to your most effective posts
As a blogger, you know which posts and content types perform best with your audience. If you don’t, make sure to track your statistics and identify which posts garner a lot of attention. Then, add affiliate links to the most popular.
Why should I add affiliate links to my website’s top-ranking posts? The reason is simple. The more eyes you get on your content and tools, the higher your conversion rate will be. Embedding affiliate links in top-performing posts guarantees a steady flow of traffic to those links, which will lead to increased revenue.
9. Diversify link placement
Blog posts are not the only place to post your affiliate links. So, what are some other choices?
Within images in blog posts. Images are extremely click-enticing, so don’t miss the chance to drive more clicks by adding clickable visuals to your posts.
Within digital products or inside your courses. When creating a digital product, such as an eBook, guide, or course, think about which products and services can best make your readers’ life easier and add affiliate links to them.
In the comments. Communicate with your audience and offer affiliate links as an effective way to tackle their problems.
In reviews. Reviews are a place to promote affiliate links. You can review and compare one or several products
On social media. Using social media for your affiliate campaigns can skyrocket their performance, as social media helps you engage directly with your audience. Though you can do affiliate marketing on almost every social media platform, some are more suitable than others. Discover the best tips for promoting affiliate links on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Telegram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc.
Within tables. Tables are a great way to compare and highlight the pros and cons of different products. Tables help readers make purchasing decisions and allow you to promote multiple affiliate links.
10. Make sure you disclose affiliate links
Audience trust is one of the underlying factors determining the success of your affiliate campaigns. To build rapport, it’s vital to be crystal clear that you’re involved in affiliate relationships.
Besides, link disclosure is a legal requirement. To steer clear of any legal or reputational trouble, make sure you are open about your affiliate relationships and disclose all affiliate links. This post teaches you how to properly disclose affiliate links.
11. Place other tools as well
When choosing promo tools, it’s best to keep your options open and leverage a wide range of tools in your affiliate campaigns. People perceive information differently. While some of us are likely to click affiliate links within a block of text, others pay more attention to compelling banners or interactive widgets. Thus, it’s vital to combine different tools and techniques to identify which approaches perform best with your audience.
The Violet-backed Starling (Cinnyricinclusleucogaster) belongs to the family of birds classified as Sturnidae. This species, also known as the Plum-coloured Starling or Amethyst Starling, is the smallest of the Southern African starlings, reaching only about 18cm in length. It is a successful breeder, and is fortunately not listed as a threatened species.
The sexes are strongly sexually dimorphic, meaning that there is a distinct difference in the appearance of the male and female. The breeding male is brilliantly coloured, with feathers an iridescent shining plum violet colour along the length of is back, wings, face and throat, contrasting with bright white on the rest of the body. Females (and juveniles) are a streaky brown and buff colour, and can easily be mistaken for a thrush.
Less noisy than other starlings, this bird is a monogamous species, and will remain so unless its mate dies. Under those circumstances it will seek a new mate in replacement. These starlings are normally seen in small flocks in summer, just before the breeding season when they will break off into pairs to nest.
Violet-backed starlings will nest in cavities such as tree holes high off the ground, holes in river banks, even in old hollow fence posts, lining the nests with dung, leaves and other plant material. They have been known to reuse nests in successive breeding seasons. The oval, spotted blue eggs are incubated for a period of roughly 2 weeks. It is believed that only the female incubates the eggs, but both adults feed the hatchlings.
Like all starlings, this species is omnivorous, eating both fruit such as mulberries and figs, and insects such as butterflies, bees, wasps and locusts. They are adept at catching prey both on the wing or off tree branches. When termites swarm, the violet-backed starlings can be found in abundance, gorging themselves on these insects, taking their prey back to a secluded area to tear and consume it.
These exquisite bird are intra-African migrants, found in much of sub-Saharan Africa – typically in woodland, grassland or riverine areas. They are eagerly awaited, common summer visitors whose brightly coloured arrival is greeted with great enthusiasm by rangers and guests at Sabi Sabi. The species moves north in winter, leaving us all longing for its bright flashes of violet colour to once more appear.
Zebra finches are a small bird species that originate from Australia and can be found worldwide. They live in warm climates with plenty of trees for nesting and food sources, though they do not fly very well, so they will choose to stay on the ground or low branches.
Zebra finches can make wonderful pets, being sweet-tempered, ornately-patterned and highly active. Their call is little more than a happy “chirp” and they will readily socialize with a wide range of other birds, such as budgies and cockatiels. In short, these are sociable and inquisitive little birds which seem to bring a smile to every face.
Zebra finches are small birds that occur naturally in the wilds of Australia. Indeed, they’re often found in flocks, flying alongside wild budgerigars. They naturally feed mainly on grass seed, moving across the dry outback, looking for fresh seed to enjoy.
Appearance
As with so many other domesticated pets, breeders have selectively bred zebra finches over the years to produce a dizzying array of different colour forms. To many, though, the classic “wild type” is still the best of all.
At its most basic, a zebra finch is a small grey bird with red/orange legs and bill. They are perhaps most notable for the black “tear drops” found beneath the eye.
While the female is reasonably drab, the males can be positively resplendent with bright orange cheek patches and attracting barring across the chest. Often the bill will also be a much deeper shade of red than seen in the females.
On average zebra finches will live to around five years in captivity.
Mates
Social birds form large flocks outside of their breeding season, which lasts around nine months out of the year. They have been known to mate for life when given an opportunity and may have a territory of up to 160 acres with over 50 nests! Their popularity stems from the fact that they are relatively inexpensive to buy, easy to care for, and offer hours of entertainment as they sing and play with their toys.
Amazon provides a very simple-to-use interface where sellers can populate all the data relevant to their product. Once you know what to put in these fields, it makes it very easy to implement any changes. However, because A9 is a maturing algorithm, frequent and unpredictable updates are a common point of frustration for many sellers on Amazon.
A9 is the name of the algorithm Amazon uses for product search. A9.com, a subsidiary of Amazon, develops the company’s search engine advertising technology. However, for the time being, it operates on what appears to be a very simple keyword search method without much, if any, regard for how closely a product matches the query.
you still want to populate as many relevant terms as possible for your listing to show up despite variations and misspellings to increase your visibility, sales and overall rank in the search results.
Essentially there are three things you need to optimize for:
Visibility.
Relevance.
Conversions.
More simply, you want to make sure customers will see, click and buy your product. According to Amazon:
Customers must be able to find your products before they can buy your products. Search is the primary way that customers use to locate products on Amazon. Customers search by entering keywords, which are matched against the information (title, description etc.) you provide for a product.
Factors such as degree of text match, price, availability, selection, and sales history help determine where your product appears in a customer’s search results. By providing relevant and complete information for your product, you can increase your product’s visibility and sales. Below are some general guidelines to improve your product listings.
So, let’s have a look at the different pieces of the listing and how we can start optimizing each of them.
I’ll cover the different ranking factors in the categories:
Product.
Performance.
Anecdotal.
For anecdotal, there’s no supporting Amazon documentation; however, we’ve seen a strong correlation between Amazon Search Engine Ranking Position (SERP) and these factors.
Product Listing Optimization
1. Optimize your Amazon listing title.
Your listing’s title is the most valuable real estate on your Amazon product listing. Your product title is the part of your listing that will have the greatest impact (both positive and negative) on product performance in search. Per Amazon suggested best practices, your title should contain elements such as:
Brand.
Product line.
Material or key feature.
Product type.
Color.
Size.
Packaging/Quantity.
The secret to an effective title is how you order these elements, along with one other major ranking factor: additional target keywords.
In our experience, keyword order and keyword choice can dramatically influence Amazon product sales and rank. First let’s discuss order, then we’ll address our favorite way to determine the best keyword choices for a particular product. Do you notice anything different between the various sponsored placements?
Yes, the number of characters in the title!
Titles in organic results typically have between 115-144 characters depending on the product/category.
Titles in right rail ads have around 30-33 characters and mobile titles have between 55-63 characters.
So what does that tell us?
We must place the absolute most relevant keywords first. This has both practical and algorithmic implications. From a practical standpoint, we want to make sure every customer, regardless of search result location, knows exactly what we’re selling.
Anecdotally, the algorithm correlates higher relevance with keywords that appear earlier in the title. Therefore, we recommend making a list of your most important keywords and strategically placing them before each character breakpoint in the title.
One very common question with clients is if they should use the brand name in the title or not. Frankly, this is something you should test with your own product to see what converts best. We generally always lead with the brand name to establish our clients’ brands as legitimate companies and not generic “marble bowl.”
One thing to note: don’t keyword stuff your titles.
This was a common strategy a few years back. Both shoppers and Amazon are wise to this and it’s no longer effective and may result in an adverse impact to sales. The backend search terms, however, are a great place to keyword stuff and we’ll cover that shortly. Whether you have an existing listing or a brand-new one, chances are you can always make some tweaks to help optimize for more visibility and sales.
The challenge with a brand-new listing is you don’t have any product data to lean on, so it’s important to see what’s currently working for your competitors and replicate that. Fortunately, there are tools that help us determine what’s working. My two favorite tools are Helium 10 – Magnet and Keyword Inspector.
By looking at competitor listings and using these tools, we can determine the best words and placement to start with. From there, we can use Amazon PPC to gather data on which terms help our listing convert and optimize for those keywords. We call it the “optimization cycle” .
Optimizing Amazon Product Titles: Action Steps
Use Magnet to research the most popular two or three keywords for your product.
Additionally, use Keyword Inspector to do an ‘Extensive Reverse ASIN’ search on your top competitor (Or, use our free ASIN Lookup Tool!).
Try to pick a competitor in the top three spots with the most reviews. This is generally an indication they’ve been selling longer, which will provide more data.
Once you have these 3-4 sets of data, combine them and remove any search terms that are irrelevant to your product. Then, use a word and two-word phrase frequency counter and start writing out your title based on this frequency.
A great Amazon SEO tool that can help with this is The Helium 10 Scribbles Tool.
You’ll want to make sure the title reads naturally, yet contains all of the essential elements of the product along with target keywords.
Again, look at your top competitors for guidance. Make use of special characters, like the ones below, to add some style and naturally break up phrases:
|
,
&
–
Next, let’s discuss the bullets and how we can further entice shoppers to buy.
Bullets: Another Chance to Increase Conversions, Relevance and Rank
While the bullet points don’t directly impact your rank in the search results, they are an opportunity to influence two very important factors in the Amazon SERP:
Conversion rate.
Product relevance.
The listing bullets are an opportunity to present the features and benefits of your product. Most sellers will tell you they know this, yet I’m surprised how often people get their product features and their product benefits mixed up.
For example, leather seats are a feature and the feeling of luxury and arriving refreshed are benefits.
Also, just like the title, words used in the bullets will be indexed by the Amazon A9 algorithm and used to help identify your product when customers use the search bar. However, in our experience, terms in the bullets don’t carry the same weight as those in the title.
2. Optimize product bullets.
Essentially, whatever keywords weren’t used in the title, from the master list you compiled earlier, should be worked into the bullets. Again, Helium 10 – Scribbles is an awesome tool for building out your listing as it simultaneously eliminates words from your master list as you populate your listing details.
This is also a good time to point out products your listing may be compatible with. For example, if you’re selling a phone case you may point out several brands and models it’s compatible with.
In most cases, these terms will get indexed so your listing can appear for searches like “Samsung phone case” or “Galaxy S7 phone case.”
Also, if you have a product warranty, most sellers will typically include these details in the last bullet. In general, we highly recommend testing the copy and order of the bullet points. On occasion, we’ve seen different combinations result in higher conversions.
3. Create product descriptions that tell a story.
Much like the bullet points, the product description doesn’t directly impact rank. However, it is indexed and will impact visibility. Additionally, well-written copy with a strong call to action can certainly have an effect on conversions. This is a great time to tell a bit about your brand and product, while throwing in some valuable keywords you want indexed.
Also, make sure to include a strong call to action at the end. Make it direct and to the point (i.e. Buy Now, Order Today, etc.).
Again, this is a great opportunity to keep using the Helium 10 – Scribbles Tool and include as many keywords as you can while still writing engaging copy. Another tip is to make use of simple HTML.
My favorite tool for converting text to HTML is Word to Clean HTML.
It’s free and very easy to use. Simply paste your formatted text and click convert. You can then paste the HTML into your product detail page. Way back in the early days of Amazon FBA, around 12-18 months ago, people would create the ugly keyword-stuffed titles, bullets and descriptions.
Thankfully, the market and the algorithm will penalize you for this type of behavior. However, there is a place you can stuff all of the remaining keywords from your master list: the backend search terms!
These terms are not visible to customers, yet get indexed just like the terms in your bullets and description — similar to the now-outdated meta keywords HTML tag. This is a great place to type any terms that will compete and long-tail searches as well.
For example, if you sell a sleeping bag and couldn’t stylishly insert the terms “…for camping that fits 2 big-boned people,” the backend search terms are perfect for that.
HOW TO USE BACKEND SEARCH TERMS
Backend search terms are also a great place to drop some Spanish terms, misspellings and words commonly used in your niche. For example, if I sold dog accessories, I may include the top 50 or 100 dog breeds since most owners will search “dog collar for Labrador.”
As for misspellings, Amazon says they account for them but our experience shows otherwise, so we include them.
4. Utilize backend search terms.
Just like before, keep using your Helium 10 – Scribbles Tool to knock out the remaining terms you didn’t capture in the title, bullets and description.
THERE’S NO NEED FOR COMMAS
Just separate the terms with a space. Another thing to note is you don’t need to duplicate keywords in your listing. Once a term is typed in the title, bullets, description or backend search terms, you don’t need to repeat it anywhere else.
5. Don’t worry about selection.
Selection is named as one of the ranking factors, although we have not noticed a correlation between selection and the SERP.
Performance Optimization Strategies for Amazon Listings
1. Sales are King.
After all the testing we’ve done, nothing moves the search rank needle like sales. In particular, your sales velocity relative to your competition. A spike in sales that your competition didn’t see will dramatically impact your ranking position. As you can imagine, this is very can be tough to accomplish when you first list and appear somewhere on page 20 – especially when only 30% of customers ever make it to page 2!
Your first option for generating sales is by driving both internal and external traffic to your Amazon listing. This is part of the full management Amazon SEO service we offer our clients. You drive internal traffic via Amazon PPC and external traffic via outside ads like Facebook, Google AdWords, etc.
Commonly, AMZ Profit Pro clients will use one of the following strategies for their external traffic:
Ad to Amazon Listing.
Ad to Pre-Sell Page to Amazon Listing.
Ad to Squeeze Page to Opt-In for Single Use Discount Code delivered by email.
Ad to Product Sales Funnel.
Second, you can use a launch service.
Launch services are meant to create a natural spike in sales that moves the product up the ranks. Ultimately, whether this rank “sticks” will depend on the organic demand for the product once it becomes visible on page 1 or 2.
There is some controversy surrounding these services and whether they violate Amazon’s terms of service. Instead, I recommend Viral Launch.
They have a proprietary system that can help move products up the SERP without violating Amazon TOS and they happen to have great customer service.
2. Product Reviews are Queen.
If sales are king then reviews are queen. Amazon knows customers rely on reviews to make informed decisions about their purchases. That is why Amazon has been cracking down so hard on fake review services where people are getting paid to write fake positive reviews — and why improving Amazon reviews is top-of-mind for many sellers.
Reviews serve as social proof and let buyers know it’s safe to spend their money on your product. Plus who wants to “be the first to leave a review for this product?” Additionally, reviews factor heavily into product rank in the search results.
I can recall a product one of our clients launched that started selling really well from day one with no reviews. However, it could never break past the page 5 mark. Once the first two reviews came in, the product jumped to page 2.
Sales continued to come in and once the product received its 10th review, it hit page 1 almost the same day. So the moral of the story is, do what you can to get honest and unbiased reviews as soon as possible. The first thing to get in place is an email feedback sequence that communicates with buyers through the buyer-seller messaging service in seller central.
Two of our favorite tools are:
Feedback Genius.
Sales Backer.
With these services, you can write custom email sequences to your buyers that help develop a customer relationship and ask for honest feedback and reviews. If you’d like to launch a discounted product campaign in order to generate sales and reviews, I highly recommend working with Snagshout (same company as Feedback Genius).
Anecdotal Amazon Search Engine Optimization Strategies to Help Rank
In this section, I’ve lumped a few ranking factor observations we’ve made that aren’t directly documented by Amazon but seem to have an impact on the SERP.
1. Consider using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA).
Items that are Fulfilled by Amazon seem to rank higher than items Fulfilled by Merchant, all else being equal.
2. Use brand names in your Amazon product listings.
It appears a brand name which also happens to contain the main keywords may help increase organic rank in search.
3. Include seller name.
Same as brand name, it appears seller name may help increase organic rank if it contains the main keywords for the product.
4. Fill out other fields in the edit product page.
Make sure to fill out all applicable fields in the edit product page as some of these have been shown to influence rank position and filtering in search.
5. Quality photos help rankings and conversions.
Not only do quality photos that zoom influence conversions, which certainly impacts rank in search, it appears that more photos is positively correlated with rank in the search results.
Besides optimizing your product pages for user experience, you want to make sure these pages are as good as possible for SEO as well. Obviously, you might think. In this post, we’ll show you a couple less obvious — at least for most website owners — elements of product page SEO and tell you why it’s so important to take these things into account.
1. Basics of product page SEO
A product page on an e-commerce site or online store is a page as well, so all the SEO things that matter for your content page, go for product pages as well. We could go even more into detail when discussing product page SEO, but for now, this will be your basic optimization.
Add a great title — including a manufacturer name, if applicable. If your product is, for instance, a small part of a larger machine (screw, tube), include the SKU as well. People might search that specific.
Add a proper, unique description of the product. Most of the times, that isn’t the description the manufacturer shipped with the product. That description might be used on hundreds of websites, only to be duplicate content and a sign of low quality for your website (to Google). Prevent duplicate content due to manufacturer descriptions at all times. If all your content (content pages, category pages, blog) is unique, and the content used on thousands of product pages isn’t, most of your site isn’t. Think about that and don’t take that lightly. Google’s collection of black and white animals is waiting for you. Create unique content.
The Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin comes with a product-specific content and SEO analysis that helps you produce great product descriptions.
Add an inviting meta description. Usually, a product page contains a lot of general information as well, varying from dimensions to terms of service. To avoid Google using that unrelated text in a meta description, you want to add a meta description to your product pages, even more than to content pages. We often see that meta descriptions are added in some kind of templated way, where just the product name is changed per product. That’s ok to start with, but ideally, all meta descriptions are unique.
Pick a great, easy to remember URL for your product pages.
Add high-quality, well-optimized images with proper ALT text. Include the product name in at least the main product image. This will help you do better in visual search. Also, don’t forget video — if applicable.
Add all the things mentioned in our Product Page UX post. UX is an important part of holistic SEO.
2. Structured data for your products and get rich results
Structured data is an essential part of a modern SEO strategy. You can’t do without structured data for your product pages anymore. There is specific Product Schema that helps you get highlighted search results, so-called rich results. In addition, you’d better mark up the reviews of your customers with Review structured data. All of this will make your product page stand out and increase the chance a potential customer clicks on your link in the search results.
The importance of this for your product page SEO is that the major search engines came up with this markup, not the W3C consortium. Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex agreed upon this markup, so they could identify product pages and all the product elements and characteristics more easily.
Why would they want that? So they could
a) understand these pages a lot better and
b) show you rich snippets
The Product schema tells the search engine more about the product. It could include characteristics like product description, manufacturer, brand, name, dimensions, and color, but also the SKU we mentioned earlier. The Offer schema includes more information on price and availability, like currency and stock. It can even include something called price Valid Until to let search engines know that the price offer is for a limited time only.
Many options to add structured data for your product page SEO
Schema.org has a lot of options, but only a limited set of properties are supported by search engines. For instance, see Google’s page on product page structured data to see what that search engines expect in your code and what it can do with it.
So this is why you want to add Schema.org data for product page SEO: easier to recognize for Google, and it makes sure to include important extra’s in Google already. If you have a WooCommerce shop, our WooCommerce SEO plugin takes care of a lot of this stuff behind the scenes.
Another reason to add it is to manage expectations from customers. Your visitor knows your price up front and knows that the product is in stock. Your potential client can even see how well-regarded your product or service is by looking at those beautiful stars in search. How’s that for user experience! And that brings us to number three.
3. Add real reviews
According to Pew Research, 93% of US consumers check reviews before buying anything online. Although not everyone trusts online reviews – research says they are probably right -, they can be very helpful.
And if you are a local company online reviews are even more important. Most reviews tend to be extremely positive, but it might just be the negative reviews that give a better sense of what is going on with a company or product.
Try to get your customers to leave reviews and show them on your product page. Do you get negative reviews? Contact the writer, find out what’s wrong and try to mitigate the situation. Maybe they can turn their negative reviews into positive ones. And you’ve gained a great new insight into your work. In addition, getting awesome testimonials is another way of showing your business means business.
Be sure to mark up your reviews and ratings with Review and Rating schema so search engines can pick them up and show rich results in the search results pages.
4. Make your product page lightning fast
People don’t like to wait. Waiting for a page to load costs money. In today’s mobile-focused world, every second counts. Even more so if you spent a lot of time and energy trying to get that potential customer to your product page in the first place. People expect a fast page and Google does so too. Of course, there’s a lot you can do.
5. User test your product page
Looking at numbers in Google Analytics, Search Console or other analytical tools can give you a lot of insights into how people find and interact with your page. These insights might help you make changes to improve the performance of the page even more. While it’s essential to keep an eye on your product pages, there’s another way of ensuring the page is as awesome as it can be: user testing.
There are loads of issues to check out, from terrible use of images, including non-functioning galleries to bad handling of out-of-stock products. It also seems that many sites fail to provide accurate shipping information and return information, which leads to trust issues – see the bonus item next in this article.
While you compare your product pages to external user research, don’t forget to do your own user testing! Doing proper research will give you eye-opening results that you probably wouldn’t have found yourself.
Bonus: Build trust and show people you are for real
Getting a stranger to buy something on your site revolves a lot around trust. Someone needs to know you are for real before handing you their hard-earned money, right? Google puts a lot of emphasis on the element of trust — it’s all over their famous Search Quality Raters Guidelines. The search engine tries to evaluate trust and expertise by looking at stuff like online reviews, the accolade a site or its authors receive, et cetera.
One of the most important things to come out of that is that you should really have your About us and Customer service pages in order. So be sure that people can easily find your contact information, plus information about returns and shipping, payment, privacy et cetera. Don’t forget!
Be serious about your product page SEO
If you’re serious about optimizing your product page, you shouldn’t focus on the regular SEO and user experience alone. You’ll have to dig a little deeper into the other aspects of the product page in your online store. For instance, add Product and Offer Schema, so Google can easily index all the details about your product and show these as rich results in search result pages. Make your product pages load super fast, add user reviews and try to enhance the trustworthiness. Don’t forget to test everything you do!
Expanding your retail store by starting an online store is probably the most acceptable decision you will take for yourself in terms of revenue escalation. With the advent of the digital world, to stay ahead of your competitors, you must explore eCommerce’s benefits.
Many popular eCommerce platforms allow you to create your online store. Naming a few popular ones, Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, BigCommerce, etc. To clarify, an eCommerce platform is a software/plugin that allows you to construct an online store. Additionally, it enables you to handle commercial functions such as marketing, product sales, sales management, and customer service.
Setting up an online store might sound a bit overwhelming initially because of all its associated terms. That is to say, WooCommerce, payment gateways, plugins, integrations, configuration, web hosting, multi-store setup, themes, and the list is never-ending.
Why Is WooCommerce Best for Online Stores?
With the pros and cons, not every eCommerce platform shall be a fit for your online business. That is to say, select one based on your business needs. On the other hand, opting for WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce software among all solutions available online, offers you the following benefits:
Firstly, WooCommerce is free, open-source, highly customizable, and provides full authority to the store owners. Hence, you can do all the experiments you want to do with your store without any restriction! Nothing is wrong or factually correct when you work with WooCommerce. Affordable & Scalable!
Secondly, there are hundreds of highest-rated WordPress plugins and a choice of many free & premium themes that enhance your WooCommerce store. Just install them and run.
Lastly, with safe and flexible payment integrations, you can sell any product, subscription service, or collect
How to Setup Your Online Store With WooCommerce?
I can assure you, if you go through this step-by-step guide, you can have your store in a running state in less than 1 hour. Let’s start building your online store using WooCommerce!
STEP 1: Pick Your Niche
Before setting up your WooCommerce store, one thing that you need to be sure of should be your eCommerce niche.
How to Choose a Niche for Your Online Store?
Before heading towards the installation steps, ask yourself whether you know-
What is your goal?
What products do you want to sell?
Do you know about the market trend?
Who is your target audience?
What is your budget?
Who is your competitor?
What inspires you the most?
Define Your Goal
If you ever come across a new website, what is the first thing you do? You try to find the purpose of that website. For this, you scroll down and read the first paragraph. If you succeed in understanding the objective and if it can benefit you in any form, you scroll more. But if not, then you immediately click on the X button to never visit that site again. This is consumer behavior.
WooCommerce Store Goals
That is to say, if your website doesn’t represent your business objective, you would never be able to convert your traffic. Therefore, before installing WooCommerce for your WordPress website, note down all the points that specify why you’re actually building an eCommerce store and what basic things you need for the same. Moreover, the process of creating and completing goals after creating your WooCommerce store does not stop. You need to come up with a new set of smart goals, ideas, and targets for your online business.
Speaking of ideas, selling membership and subscription services to expand your revenue is a good one.
Present yourself in front of millions of online consumers, but only when you know about your website objectives. Many people create their websites without identifying their objectives ultimately getting no results. So, if you don’t want to shut down your store within 3-4 months, then identify your website objectives today.
Your Products
WooCommerce doesn’t create a restriction on the type of product you want to sell! It can be both, a physical product and a digital one. But before adding products to WooCommerce, you need to check the most popular/trending products in the market.
You can use Google trends, to check what is selling most on eBay, Amazon, and other online marketplaces. Google Trend allows you to compare products, analyze their trends in different countries over time, and much more.
Google trends
You can list down all the products/services that are directly or indirectly related to your business. Once you’ve filtered out all the products/services that can fulfill your target audience requirements, enter the name of your product to review its trend. Similarly, use Youtube and other popular blogging sites for the same.
Above all, trends change more frequently. So, it’s impossible to predict the lifespan of any product. If product A is trending in 2021, it might not necessarily trend in 2022 as well.
Therefore, create a product that provides a solution to your customers’ problems. If you create customer-centric products, then the probability that your products will survive in the market automatically increases.
Decide whether you want to go with the trend or choose to create customer-centric products. Once you’ve prepared the list of products you want to sell, then prepare a description for the same. Make sure your product descriptions are elaborative and accurate. Your users should capture its working the moment they start reading the product description.
Is WooCommerce free? Yes, WooCommerce costs you the bare minimum. And that can wait. But, if you do not have the inspiration to come up with the idea that completes the demand of the users, you will lose all the efforts you applied to set up your WooCommerce store. Don’t try to copy others. If something is benefiting someone, then it doesn’t also need to benefit you!
Always choose the path that inspires you to do better! If someone has created a bookshop it means they’re interested in books and have knowledge about it. But if you’re creating the same shop just because they are creating great revenue from it then do yourself a favor, don’t do that! I’m not saying don’t create a bookshop.
Create it when you have the knowledge and you’re interested in it. Create a shop that encourages you to push yourself to reach better heights. It’ll surely help you gain better results.
Your WooCommerce Audience!
Suppose you want to sell smartwatches. To increase its purchase frequency, you decided to run ads. But even after putting in all the effort, you fail to get purchases! But why? Poor customer segmentation or zero segmentation can be a reason for not getting the sale you wanted. So, ask yourself, do you know how many people want to buy smartwatches? Where are they?
Demographic information is nothing but your consumers’ personal information like their name, age, gender, email address, phone number, etc. Businesses create contact us and pop-up forms to get their customers’ demographic information. You can also do the same.
After getting all the required details, you need to create two groups. In group one, list out all the consumers who can purchase your products and vice-versa in group two. After segmenting your WooCommerce audience, you would be able to reach your target audience for better business results. This can help you a lot!
Your WooCommerce Competitors!
Before you start selling anything to anyone, you should know the competition behind selling it. If you’re selling smartwatches, it doesn’t indicate that others can’t sell the same product. Therefore, check your competitors’ products, websites, support, popularity, and determine whether you can survive their existence or not.
STEP 2: Purchase a Domain Name & SSL Certificate for Your eCommerce Store
What Is a Domain Name?
The name that displays on your website URL is your eCommerce store’s domain name. It is the real identity of your online business. Your customers use this name to reach and request your services.
A good domain name can help you make your place, whereas a bad domain name can do exactly the opposite.
Select the Right Domain Name Extension
There are more than 280 different domain names ending except for .com, .net, .edu, and .org. The most popular domain name extensions of all time are .com, .org, .co, .us, and .net, but the list also includes .actor, .auction, .agency, etc. Select the right domain name extension that describes your WooCommerce brand exactly the way it is!
Goal of Your Brand
Your domain name is your brand identity. Consider your objectives and then brainstorm the words that can best describe your brand. Your brand name should be the same as your domain name(URL). So, when your website receives traffic, it won’t bounce back!
Create a Memorable Domain Name With Acceptable Length
Therapistinabox.com. Was it easy to pronounce? Can you write it right after seeing the spelling for the first time? I don’t think so.
To clarify, lengthy domain names create difficulty for your users to remember. This eventually creates a gap between you and your consumers. Hence, create a domain name that is easy to read, write, and unforgettable.
Additionally, the ideal character length for domain names is 6-14. Your website domain length shouldn’t be too small or too long. A domain name with an exact word length is perfect!
Include SEO Keywords
You can also leverage SEO keywords while creating your domain name. It will help you get recognized by making your presence in search results. Several SEO tools can provide you with keywords based on your business niche and location with search volume and keyword difficulty.
There are also plenty of platforms that show SEO-Friendliness of your domain name like GoDaddy. Is WooCommerce SEO Friendly? Yes. WooCommerec may shine brighter in terms of plugin integrations, but it offers a great value in terms of SEO. All you need to make sure is that it shouldn’t look like keyword stuffing!
Be Unique, Trending & Real, Follow Domain Policies
Your domain name shouldn’t be used by any website or trademark before. It should be new and follow all the terms and policies required for creating a domain name. You wouldn’t want to suspend your domain name! Additionally, check its availability on social networking sites.
Moreover, it should be unique and professional. Therefore include trending words to make your brand stand out from your competitors. Make it creative but don’t include funny words like gonzo and hocus-pocus! Just imagine a site with the name hocus-pocusseotool.com. Would you like to trust this site? Of course not!
You can use alphabets, numbers, and hyphens in your domain name. But, I won’t term it as a best practice because it can often be confusing. Also, avoid practicing confusing words.
Some More Suggestions for Domain Name Registration
Firstly, avoid the use of consecutive hyphens but you can’t start or end your domain name with a hyphen
Secondly, domain names are free from case sensitivity
Thirdly, rules and regulations are county-specific
Finally, it shouldn’t exceed your budget line
You can generate your domain name using Google Domains, GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Bluehost. These tools are easy to use and assist you to find the best name for your business.
SSL Certificate
Purchase an SSL certificate to protect the sensitive data of your website from unauthorized users. In more simple words, an SSL certificate adds an extra ‘s’ to your website URL i.e. HTTPS.
You can not only encrypt your data from unwanted users but can also create your presence in the search results – as Google prefers to rank the websites that have an SSL certificate otherwise represent them as Not Secure.
Furthermore, online consumers favor websites that have HTTPS in their URL for their online activities like shopping, reading, and watching.
You can purchase your SSL certificate from Domain.com or choose to go free using platforms like Bluehost, Dreamhost, HostGator, and WP Engine. By using these platforms, you can save money that can be utilized in purchasing other useful WooCommerce extensions.
STEP 3: Purchase a Hosting Plan
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that means you need to create a hosting account where you can save all your website files. While purchasing a hosting plan you need to consider factors like uptime, speed, customer support, security, and your business size.
There are hosting companies like WP Engine, Bluehost, Kinsta, Hostgator, DreamHost, and InMotion.
WP Engine Hosting
WP Engine hosting plans start from $25/month to $292/month. Choose the hosting company that can help you fulfill your needs, provide effortless site management, and excellent customer support & security.
If you are on WooCommerce, enjoy Woo optimized infrastructure, push-button ElasticPress, easy eCommerce site building tools, and automated plugin updates with visual regression testing to help keep your store secure with WP Engine. Highly recommended. Choose your WordPress Hosting with WP Engine.
STEP 4: Setup Your WooCommerce Store With WordPress
How to build a WordPress eCommerce website? After knowing all the things required to set up an online store with WooCommerce, it’s time to explore all the steps through which you can install WordPress and WooCommerce. So, let’s start exploring all the steps.
Install WordPress
Installing WordPress isn’t a tough job. You can have your WordPress site in five minutes if you proceed with the right procedure. You can either install WordPress manually or automatically through your hosting account- as nowadays, many hosting providers allow you to leverage one-click installation.
Using WooCommerce with WordPress is really simple. But first, you need to decide whether you want to install WordPress manually or leverage the one-click functionality.
If you want to install WordPress all by yourself, then:
Download and extract your zip file.
Create your WordPress database and username for the same
Rename your existing file with wp-config.php (*Optional- you can skip this step if you want to do so)
Upload your WordPress file
Now run the installation script in a browser
However, if you don’t want to go through the lengthy manual process of installing WordPress for setting up your WooCommerce store, you can install WordPress with one click through your web hosting providers.
Install WooCommerce
After you install WordPress, proceed to WooCommerce. You can install WooCommerce – the best-hosted eCommerce solution in three ways:
Create an account on WooCommerce.com
Download the WooCommerce plugin from wordpress.org
Type WooCommerce in the search bar inside your WordPress site
For the 1st Approach Follow the Listed Steps:
Log in to your WordPress Account
Leverage one-click install using Bluehost (or any that provides one-click install)
Download the zip file of the plugin.
Install & Activate
For the 2nd & 3rd Approaches Follow These Steps:
Download the plugin for free from wordpress.org
Log in to your WordPress website
From Dashboard go to Plugins > Add New
Upload your plugin – WooCommerce (or use the search bar and type WooCommerce)
Click on the Install > Activate button
Access WooCommerce Setup Wizard (after clicking on the Activate button, you’ll be redirected to setup wizard)
WooCommerce Setup Wizard
Using the WooCommerce setup wizard, you can personalize your eCommerce store to provide a better user experience. The moment you complete the installation process, you’ll be redirected to access the WooCommerce setup wizard. The setup wizard is like your personal assistant that helps you set up your WooCommerce store.
You can choose to either complete the wizard steps or skip them by clicking on the “Not Right Now” button. But I would highly recommend completing the wizard setup process as it brings more flexibility and makes your store ready to sell. So, let’s proceed with the steps involved in setting up your wizard.
You don’t need to worry. You can change your details anytime you want in the WooCommerce Setting.
Setup WooCommerce Store
How to set up a WooCommerce store?
Select your store location from the drop-down.
Enter your complete (authentic) store address [street address]
Fill address line 2 [apartment, suite, or any other address]
Enter your City and Postcode
Enter the currency you want to accept using the drop-down
Select the type of products you want to sell (Physical, Digital, or Both)
Cross-check the checkbox if you want to sell products/services in person.
Now click on the Let’s Go! button.
After clicking on the button a pop-up appears asking you to enable usage tracking to help WooCommerce improve its performance. Within the pop-up, there are several options present to help you understand what is usage tracking and how you can help WooCommerce to improve!
WooCommerce Payment Gateway
WooCommerce accepts both online and offline payments. Depending on your requirements, you can also add more payment extensions (both free/paid) later on. In the first step, if you haven’t cross-checked the box with content – sell products/services in person – then you’ll get payment options Stripe and PayPal.
WooCommerce Shipping
In this step, you can grant the wizard to print shipping labels at home but this option is available to business locations present in the US and Canada. You can also select your product weights and dimensions.
Tools Recommended
Here, WooCommerce recommends tools like Facebook, StoreFront, MailChimp, and more for enhancing your store performance. None of them is required (necessary) to set up your online store, but still, you can select the one you want to use for your business. You can uninstall these extensions later on when you don’t feel their need and find them inappropriate for your business.
Note: WooCommerce setup wizard shows extensions depending on your business location.
Connect Your Store to JetPack
JetPack is a WordPress plugin that consists of the utmost features of WordPress in one plugin. You can select and manage the features you want to use for your store. But WooCommerce wizard brings this step as an optional one. So, you can decide whether you want to use JetPack for your business or skip it. Take some time and then only click on any of the available options.
WooCommerce Store Is Ready!
You’ve configured your WooCommerce wizard. Now you can add/import products to start selling and earning. Additionally, subscribing to the WooCommerce newsletter brings practical tips/tricks and new/updated extensions to help WooCommerce store owners expand their business. Moreover, navigate to your WooCommerce Dashboard, Review Setting to view and customize the wizard you just configured anytime.
You can change any of the WooCommerce wizard settings by visiting WooCommerce Dashboard > Products > Setup Wizard.
After completing your store setup, the WooCommerce setup wizard will be replaced by Store Management Wizard.
STEP 5: Choose a WooCommerce Theme
To add colors and design to your website there is a wide variety of free and paid themes. Depending on your business, you can choose whether you want to install a premium or free theme.
If there are themes that provide exceptional functionalities, design, and support then there are also themes that consist of malicious codes. So, it would be good if you check and cross-check the theme you’re planning to purchase.
If your WooCommerce theme is responsive, check whether it supports page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi Builder, and Thrive Architect.
If your selected theme provides compatibility with any page builders, you can easily customize your theme without hiring a developer. These page builders offer you the ability to change your website look using drag and drop functionality. You may also use plugins to create a sticky header and other elements to make your job easier.
You can select your WooCommerce theme from platforms like WooCommerce, WordPress, Themeforest, and WP Swings.
They provide excellent customer support and a user-friendly dashboard. You can also customize your website the way you want and that too without putting in much effort. So, check out the themes they provide and select a perfect piece for your business model!
If you have selected your WooCommerce theme, then proceed toward its installation part.
WooCommerce Theme Installation Steps
Download your free theme from WordPress Themes
Login to your WordPress Admin Panel
From the left sidebar go to Appearance > Themes Page
On the top of the page, there is a button named Add New you need to click on the same button
You’ll be redirected to the Add Theme Page
Now click on the Upload button present on the top
An upload box appears, browse your downloaded free theme and click on the install button
A notification appears when the theme is successfully installed!
Click on the Live Preview button to preview the look and feel of your installed theme
Now click on the Activate button to make your theme LIVE
Some Points To Remember
Using these steps, you can install your free theme downloaded from wordpress.org. But if you’ve purchased your theme from a commercial theme provider or marketplace, then use the upload method. You need to follow all the steps mentioned above except for the 1st step in the upload method.
But if you don’t want to use any of these methods, you can use the FTP method. To use this method, you first need to connect your eCommerce website using FTP. After connecting your website, successfully install your theme using the same steps mentioned above.
If you’re using the FTP method, then you can’t directly upload your zip file. You first need to extract your files.
STEP 6: Choose the Right Plugins After Set-up of Your WooCommerce Store
After you set up your WooCommerce store, the fun part is that you can add more functionalities and make your website more flexible by purchasing wooCommerce extensions. There are numerous marketing and store management extensions. You can easily find the extension you want for your store.
Choose the WooCommerce extension that comes under your budget and feel the need for the same.
STEP 7: Start Adding Products to Your WooCommerce Store
If you have selected the products you want to sell to your customers, check out the steps that show how you can add your products. But first, how many products can WooCommerce handle? The sky’s the limit. WooCommerce is highly scalable and can manage a vast inventory. So, no worry on that part.
Are you thinking, “What type of products can I add to my WooCommerce store?” To explain, by default, WooCommerce has six types of products:
Simple Products
Virtual Products
Grouped Product
Downloadable Products
Grouped Products
External Products
Variable Products
WooCommerce also supports custom product types. You can add unique product types like auctions, subscriptions, and bookable products using WooCommerce extensions and other compatible plugins.
STEP 8: Choose the Right Payment Gateway
As a WooCommerce store owner, you can provide your customers with the payment options they want for their shopping. You might be wondering why there is a need to invest in multiple payment gateways when you can use one option! Setting up a WooCommerce store for payments is essential for an eCommerce business.
Additionally, offering multiple payment options for customers to complete their shopping also reduces your cart abandonment rate.
You can select your payment gateway considering your business and target audience behavior. Don’t be afraid to add local payment gateways to your WooCommerce store.
STEP 9: Choose the Right Shipping Platform
The ability to deliver the purchased product in the least possible time has increased online shopping frequency.
Customers crave to touch and feel their purchased product as soon as possible. And that’s why customers prefer to shop from websites that provide quick shipping.
STEP 10. Promote & Market Your WooCommerce Store
We just finished the WooCommerce store setup. Now you can decide on the marketing platforms where you want to promote your business and the products you sell.
Depending on your budget, you can decide the platforms you want to leverage for marketing and promoting your business.
Content Marketing for Your WooCommerce Store
Content marketing is the foundation of any marketing campaign. It would be best to have content for everything, whether product descriptions, landing pages, social media, or emails. Regular blogging builds the ranking on the one hand and keeps the customers’ engaged on the other.
Variation in content types keeps your customers entertained. Being a WooCommerce store owner, you can take the content inspiration from the customer queries you face regularly and draft FAQs, knowledgebase, or other related content resources. Or you can create content for the target sales in a particular season, events, or trends.
Since visual content demand is increasing in the market, memes, infographics, videos, and GIFs are also considered ways to share social media content.
Email Marketing Is a Yes for Your WooCommerce Store
Sending emails regularly to the subscribers and potential audience is email marketing in its broadest sense. It is the oldest marketing method used by marketers to convert their potential leads.
In email marketing, you need to create a detailed workflow to define the flow of sending emails. You can use HubSpot for managing your email marketing campaigns effectively. Additionally, Mautic helps in the marketing automation of your eCommerce business.
It is also essential to plan the content and CTAs in the email first while designing the campaign and deciding the frequency of emails. So that it isn’t considered spam or reported and you can make a profit from your email efforts.
WooCommerce Social Media Marketing
Networking platforms let you spread your business boundaries and build strong relationships. Social media promotes branding, enhances customer loyalty programs, and most importantly helps to generate leads.
When starting with social media marketing, you should be clear about your social media objectives, i.e., what you want to do on social platforms, how you want to do it, and what results you expect in return?
You need to decide the platforms you want to leverage before you start posting, sharing, or commenting. If you succeed in selecting the niche platform, then you would be saving lots of money and time.
Improve Your WooCommerce Website SEO
After setting up your WooCommerce store, it also needs to get caught in the eye of customers. To make your eCommerce store visible on Google pages, you need to perform SEO on your product and blog pages. Work on your website SEO to improve your organic traffic and user behavior. Additionally, it helps you in improving your site performance. Yoast SEO WordPress plugin includes everything you’ll need to keep track of your SEO.
Run Ads & Retarget Your Segmented Audience
Through digital advertising, you can make more profit in less time. For this, you need to go through advertising terms like pay-per-click, Facebook pixel, remarketing tags, and a lot more. By running ads you can target your potential leads and lapsed customers.
I would suggest using Google ads to improve your conversion rates. Don’t forget to remarket to your existing customers. You will probably get more sales from users who have already done business with you.
Use Analytics for Better WooCommerce Sale Results
Using analytics, you can detect all the loopholes and take appropriate actions that will help you meet your business target. You can also append your current marketing strategies after analyzing your users’ behavior on your online shop.
Analytics data also enables you to increase your revenue by detecting the stage where your maximum users abandon your site. In short, analytics will grant complete control over your site data and performance.
Build a WooCommerce store to expand your business boundaries and acquire better results!
You can use WordPress and blogging to earn money online by doing what you love. You can work from home, at your own time, and there is no limit on how much money you can make.
In this article, we will share top “proven” ways to make money online blogging with WordPress.
First, a word of warning: these aren’t ‘Get rich quick’ schemes. If you are looking for a way to get rich quick by making money online, then you’re in the wrong place.
Many of these methods require some investment of time and/or money to get started. As long as you’re willing to put in the effort, you’ll reap the reward. Before you can start using any of these methods, you’ll need to have your own self-hosted WordPress blog.
1. Monetize Your Blog Content
When you think of how to make money blogging, advertising is often the first thing that comes to mind. Yes, it is possible to make money with ads on WordPress, but there are also other ways you can monetize your blog content. Here are a few methods that work:
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service to your audience using special tracking links, and then get a referral commission for every time someone buys after clicking your link.
A real-life example of affiliate marketing would be when you help a friend open a bank account at your bank branch. Usually, they give you a gift card or a bonus of some sort. Similar to that many products and services online have affiliate programs that you can join. There are affiliate programs available for every industry (niche). If you’re interested in getting started with affiliate marketing, you can start by thinking about the products you already use that your readers may be interested in as well. Then you can see if they have an affiliate program that you can sign up for.
You can find a huge list of products to promote from:
Amazon
Commission Junction
ShareASale
Once you have selected the products to promote, then you can use a WordPress plugin like PrettyLinks to manage your affiliate links. It allows you to quickly insert links into posts, create branded links, auto-replace keywords into links, and even see how each link is performing on your site.
Affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money because you can promote a wide variety of products. Just about every popular store like Walmart, BestBuy, Amazon, and others have an affiliate program.
2. Google AdSense
Google Adsense is an easy way to make money from your blog. All you need to do is add a script from Google to your website and start displaying ads. You will get paid for every time a user clicks on the ad. These are called CPC ads.
What is CPC? CPC stands for “cost per click.” By displaying CPC ads with Google Adsense, you receive a set fee every time a visitor clicks on an ad. The cost per click is set by the advertiser. (This is in contrast to CPM ads, where you’re paid for ad views instead of clicks. CPM means “cost per thousand impressions,” where M is the roman numeral for 1,000.)
Google Adsense is a good way to start earning money online when you are first starting out. Looking for a Google AdSense alternative? Try Media.net. They also have a large pool of advertisers, and their payouts are good.
3. Advertising Plugin to Sell Ads Directly
Google AdSense is easy to set up, but the amount of money you can earn is limited. Each ad click earning will vary. Directly selling banner ad space on your website can be more lucrative. Instead of having to rely on an intermediary who takes a cut of the money, you negotiate the price and terms on your own.
Above we mentioned the difference between CPC and CPM ads, where you are paid per click or per thousand views. While you could use one of those models for selling banner ads, most bloggers charge a flat rate instead. Charging a flat rate is easier than keeping track of views or clicks.
Still, directly selling ads takes more work to manage than using Google AdSense. Instead of just adding a bit of code to your website, you’ll have to negotiate the pricing, come up with an agreement and terms, and take care of administrative work like invoicing.
However, using a WordPress ad management plugin can make the process easier. We recommend using AdSanity, it allows you to manage Google AdSense as well as your own ads.
4. Sponsored Blog Posts
Some bloggers aren’t interested in displaying ads to their audience and wonder how to monetize a blog without ads. With ad networks, you lose some control over the content displayed on your site. Some readers will get annoyed or offended by ads, and more and more people are using ad blockers which affects your earning potential.
An alternative way to monetize a blog is through sponsorships.
A sponsorship works just like it does in sports, TV shows, or other industries. Basically, a company pays you to represent their product, talk about it, and promote it to your readers. To get started, it’s a good idea to put together a one-page media kit that details your traffic stats, social media following, audience demographics, and any other data that will make your site more appealing to advertisers. Then, you can approach companies to negotiate a sponsorship deal.
When publishing sponsored posts, it’s crucial to know about the laws in your area about disclosure.
For example, in the United States, a blogger who publishes a sponsored post must comply with the FTC’s Endorsement Guides. This includes disclosing whenever a post is sponsored. You can do that by adding a sponsored post prefix to your post title in WordPress.
5. Paid Reviews
Similar to sponsored posts, you can also make money by writing paid reviews on your site. This is a slightly different monetization method than a review site with affiliate links, as mentioned above.
Instead, you get to try out products related to your niche for free, and even get paid for writing a review. The process for doing this can be similar to getting sponsored posts. You’ll want to review products that are relevant to your niche, that your audience would be interested in.
You can approach companies on your own to ask about doing paid reviews. There are also websites like PayPerPost that can help to connect you with businesses that may be interested.
6. Money Online by Flipping Websites
If you know how to build a WordPress website, then you’re way ahead of most people. Sometimes entrepreneurs like to buy already established websites that they can use for their own businesses.
If you can build a WordPress blog and start getting traffic to it, then you can sell it and make money for your efforts. This requires knowing the type of websites in demand, and how to price and sell them. There are websites like Flippa that serve as auction sites and brokers for selling websites.
7. Influencer
If you are promoting your own brand along with your blog, then over time you will get a decent following establishing you as an influencer in your space. You can utilize this recognition to get some public speaking jobs. Many bloggers make a lot of money by speaking at conferences.
Speaking at events whether you are paid or not helps you promote your blog and your personal brand. If you are good at networking and public speaking, then you would be able to find lots of new opportunities on the way. Here are some general tips you need to keep in mind if you want to make money as a paid public speaker.
Be an expert in your field. If you don’t have enough knowledge/skills at the moment, then start learning right away.
Be consistent – You need to continuously promote your expertise on the topic through your blogging and social media activities.
Let people know that you are available. You can announce on social media or privately reach out to event organizers.
You may not find paid public speaking gigs right away. Many successful speakers start their public speaking careers from smaller, more casual, and free community events and meetups.
Paid Membership Website
If you’re not interested in selling ads or sponsored posts, there are plenty of other ways you can earn money online from your blog. A popular method is by having your audience pay to access certain content or areas of your site. Here are a couple of ways to do that.
8. Create Restricted Members Only Content
Your most loyal readers are huge fans and may be willing to pay to read more of your work. You can create a members-only area for them to share more in-depth blog posts, downloads, videos, audio content, and more. Membership sites can be a big-time investment since you must continually create premium content for your paying members. But they can be very lucrative because they are recurring revenue .
You can easily create a membership site using a WordPress membership plugin. We recommend using MemberPress, it is the most beginner-friendly and robust membership plugin for WordPress.
9. Private Forum
Another option for creating a paid membership site is to create private forums that users must pay to get access to. Forums are a great way for your audience to get one-on-one advice from you. Other members of the community can also interact and help each other out.
While moderating a forum can be a lot of work, a paid forum is a great way to earn recurring revenue from your WordPress site.
10. Questions and answers community
Question and answers communities like Stack Exchange and Quora are huge. They help you build an online community that is driven, motivated, and highly engaged. Just like forums, you will have to spend some time building a sizable community. After that, you will be able to monetize user-generated content on your website using advertisements, affiliate ads, and other methods.
Popular question and answer websites are able to get direct advertisement and sponsorship deals from advertisers in their industry. This helps them negotiate a much higher rate and extra perks.
Create a Directory Website With WordPress
Another option for making money online with WordPress is to create a directory or listing website. You can then charge visitors to advertise their listings on your site.
11. Create a Paid Business Directory
Web directories may make you think of the early days of the web before bots started indexing everything automatically, but they’re not completely obsolete. Some famous website directories include Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Angie’s List.
Generic web directories are no longer necessary, but local or niche directories can be extremely useful. For example, you can create a real estate directory for your local community. Directories might gather reviews of local businesses, share the best podcasts on a given topic, or list the best products in a certain niche.
12. Create a WordPress Job Board With Paid Submissions
Another option is to create a paid job board. Companies who want to advertise an open position to your audience can pay you to submit a listing. It’s easier to create a successful job board if you narrow it down to a specific niche. That way you can become the go-to site for anyone looking for a job in that industry, with minimal competition.
This works great for established blogs in a narrow niche. For example, ProBlogger is now famous for its job board for professional bloggers.
13. Create a WordPress Event Calendar With Paid Submissions
Instead of a job board, you could create an event calendar where you charge people to advertise their events. This also works well if you already have an established audience, because businesses will be willing to pay to reach your audience.
A paid event calendar is a good monetization method for local or industry-specific websites. You might choose to advertise events in your local city, conferences in a certain industry, or even webinars or live streaming events.
Sell Digital Products With WordPress
If you’re looking for a more low-maintenance way to make money online blogging with WordPress, then selling your own digital products may be a good choice. While you do have to invest the time to create the product up front, after it’s created your work is very minimal.
Here are a few digital products you can create and sell on your website.
14. Sell Ebooks on WordPress
Ebooks are an obvious choice for creating digital products. They are relatively simple to write and produce. If you’ve been blogging for a while, then you can collect some of your old blog posts and turn them into chapters of a book. Once your book is written, you can design a cover using a tool like Canva and create a PDF of your ebook.
For digital downloads, we recommend Easy Digital Downloads. It’s relatively easy to use and includes all the features you need to create your online store.
15. Sell Online Courses
Selling an online course is another great way to make money online. Courses usually sell for a much higher price point than ebooks. You can charge a premium for your expertise. You’ll need to create the lessons for your course, plus any supporting materials that you want to include such as downloads, slides, checklists, templates, etc.
You will also need to decide whether you want to offer personalized support for your course. Some sites offer two tiers of each course: a basic version without support, and a premium version with email support.
Once your course is ready, you can use a learning management system (LMS) plugin to deliver the course to your audience. We recommend using MemberPress since they have a built-in course builder.
16. Host a Paid Webinar
Webinars are a great way to build your audience, share your experience, and grow your business. But did you know they’re also a smart way to make money online? Webinars are similar to online courses, but a webinar is live and often includes a question and answer section.
WordPress makes it easy to host a paid webinar. Whether you’re using your site to actually host the webinar, or just to advertise your webinar and register participants, it’s crucial for your webinar’s success.
Sell Services Online Using WordPress
If you’re looking for easy ways to make money online, selling services is the fastest way to get started. There’s no up front investment in creating a product or investing in inventory. Instead, you can just create a “hire me” page on your website and start looking for your first client.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
17. Offer Freelance Services
As a blogger, you’re already an expert on your niche. You can start earning an income by offering your skills and expertise as a freelancer. Freelancing is a popular way to make money online because it doesn’t necessarily require any upfront investment of time or money. You can just start offering your services to your current audience.
Once you start freelancing, you’ll need a way to invoice and collect payments from your clients. We recommend using either WP Simple Pay or FreshBooks, but there are also other invoicing plugins for WordPress.
18. Start Your Own Consulting Business
Consulting is another way to make money online from your blog and share your expertise. Instead of offering your services, a consultant offers advice and strategy so that their clients can become more effective.
As with freelancing, there is no startup investment. You can start offering consulting services on your existing blog. All you need is to create a page with a form so users can request more information.
To easily create a professional, mobile-friendly form, we recommend WPForms.
19. Become a Coach
If “consultant” doesn’t feel like the right title for you, you can consider becoming a coach instead. A life coach offers advice, guidance, and accountability for setting goals and improving one’s life. There are also other kinds of coaches, such as blog coaches, writing coaches, and more.
Whatever your area of expertise is, you can provide one-on-one help to your audience with coaching sessions.
To save time and make things convenient for your clients, you can set up a booking form so readers can schedule coaching sessions right from your WordPress blog.
Sell Physical Products Online Using WordPress
While selling digital products or services can be an easy way to start making money online, there’s nothing quite like selling real, physical products. Here are a few ways you can get started selling products with WordPress.
20. Start an Ecommerce Business With WooCommerce
Have an idea for your own product? Why not start your own online store?
WordPress makes it easy to create a shop or even add a shop to your existing blog using the free WooCommerce plugin. Starting an online store can be a lot of work since you need to create or buy the products and then ship them out yourself.
But selling physical products can be a rewarding experience, and sometimes a physical product is exactly what your audience wants. You can also use Shopify or BigCommerce as a WooCommerce alternative.
21. Create an Online T-shirt Store With WordPress
Creating your own t-shirt shop is easy with WordPress. Almost everyone wears t-shirts, so opening up a t-shirt shop is a great way to monetize any kind of blog. Designing t-shirts allows you to be creative and offer something unique to your audience. It’s easy because there are services out there that allow you to upload your own designs, and they print/ship them for you. You get a profit share.
You can easily create your own t-shirt shop on your WordPress site using WP-Spreadplugin by Spreadshirt. If you want a faster solution, then you can use a Shopify store that connects with dozens of t-shirt printing companies.
22. Create a WooCommerce Dropshipping Store
Dropshipping is another way you can create an eCommerce store on your WordPress website without having to handle inventory or ship items yourself. With dropshipping, you create the store, manage the website, and customer service. But a dropshipping service will take your orders and ship them out to your customers. They’re an invisible third party that your customers don’t even know about.
You can use the WooCommerce plugin to create a dropshipping store. There’s also a WooCommerce Dropshipping addon plugin that allows you to automate the process.
23. Amazon Affiliate WordPress Shop
One downside of dropshipping is that you have to find a good supplier, which can be a challenge, and sometimes you have to place a large order up front. This can make it difficult to get started without investing a lot of money.
If you want an easier way to set up an eCommerce site without having to ship products yourself, then you may want to try an Amazon Affiliate shop.
As with many of the items on this list, this works best if you specialize in a niche. If you offer everything, it’s impossible to compete with a big shop like Amazon. But in a small niche, you can differentiate yourself and really stand out.
WordPress comes with some incredibly powerful plugins that are actually full-fledged platforms in their own right. You can add such a platform to your blog or e-commerce store and offer it as a paid service. You get a cut from each sell, which allows you to earn passive income from user activity on your website.
24. Create an Online Marketplace Website
An online marketplace is like an eCommerce store where users cannot just buy but also sell their own products. Normally, WooCommerce assumes that you run a single-vendor website. You will need a plugin like WC Vendors to turn WooCommerce into a multi-vendor capable platform. After that, vendors will be able to register on your site and start selling.
You can make money by charging a commission on each sale, or you can allow vendors to buy membership packages for their listings.
25. Auctions Website
An auctions website allows users to bid on products to purchase them. This allows the sellers to maximize their profits and customers to find unique deals. eBay is probably the best example of an online auctions marketplace.
You can run auctions on your WordPress website and even allow third-party vendors to list their products as well. You can make money by charging for the listing or by getting a cut on each sale.
To build an auctions marketplace with WordPress, you will need the following add-ons.
WooCommerce (for shopping cart and payment features).
An auctions add-on
A multi-vendor add-on
26. Create a Job Marketplace website
Unlike a regular job listings website, a job marketplace allows you to make money on each job listing. Fiverr and UpWork are probably the best examples of online job marketplace websites. You can promote your job marketplace as a micro-job platform for people working in the same niche as your blog. To make your platform more competitive you can select a very specific niche.
This will help you easily find customers and professionals who are unable to use large platforms because of too much irrelevant competition. You can charge a small fee for job listings or when a job is completed. More successful completion of jobs will bring you more customers and freelancers in the future.
If you’re more technically inclined, then you can become a WordPress developer or designer in order to make money online. This will take more technical skills, but it’s not too hard to get started.
27. WordPress Plugins
Plugins are what make WordPress so flexible and powerful. Plugins work like apps, allowing you to extend and modify any feature of your WordPress website.
Plugins come in all varieties, from very simple code modifications to complex software applications. If you have a basic grasp of how WordPress works and some simple PHP knowledge, you can create your own WordPress plugin.
As a plugin developer, there are many ways you can distribute your plugins. Anyone can submit a free plugin to the WordPress.org plugin directory, as long as they follow the WordPress plugin guidelines. This is a great way to gain experience and build a reputation for yourself as a WordPress plugin developer.
Once you’re ready to start selling premium plugins, you could use your existing WordPress blog to sell them. You’ll want to make sure that the plugin you create directly fulfills a need of your audience before offering it for sale. You can create a survey to see what problems they need to solve on their WordPress site, and then create a plugin that solves that problem.
You can then sell the plugin on your site using Easy Digital Downloads.
28. Sell WordPress Themes
If you enjoy web design and development, you could start creating your own WordPress themes to sell.
This requires both design and technical skills. You have to know how to create a good-looking design, and also how to code it for WordPress.
Using a WordPress theme framework such as Genesis can give you a head start. Then you’ll need to design and code a beautiful child theme.
29. Sell Graphics on Your WordPress Site
If you like design more than coding, another option is to design and sell graphics on your WordPress site. You can create graphics such as stock images or logos and sell them on your site using an eCommerce plugin. You can also join online marketplaces to sell your graphics as well.
30. Accept Donations
Last but not least, one way you can make money from your WordPress blog is simply to ask for it.
You can begin accepting donations in a few different ways. You could add a Paypal donate button or a Stripe donate button to your website. Or for a more professional look and advanced features like email marketing integration, you could use WPForms to create a donation form on your WordPress site.
Donations are last on the list because of their limited effectiveness, since you have to rely on the generosity of your readers. It’s usually more lucrative to offer them something in return.
FAQs about making money blogging with WordPress?
At WPBeginner, we have helped thousands of beginners start their blogging journey. We have heard almost every question you can think of. Here are the top questions beginners ask us about making money online by blogging.
1. Which one of these proven ways is right for me?
Depends on what you are passionate about and which method would work best with your blog’s topics.
For example, if you run a blog about photography, then affiliate marketing, advertisements, and paid memberships may all work well for your blog.
Focus on offering useful, quality content, that users will find helpful and money will follow. Or as the saying goes, do what you love and the money will follow.
2. How much money can I make from blogging?
It really depends on how much effort you put in and the time you are willing to invest. To be honest, many beginner bloggers lose interest and give up quickly.
You will be making money based on how much traffic you get, the monetization methods you use, and the work you put in. Many successful bloggers make six and even seven-figure incomes.
3. How long would it take before I start making some serious money from blogging?
Making money online is not a ‘get-rich-quick’ scam. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably trying to scam you. If you want to make money by starting a blog, then you will have to work hard and invest a lot of your time into it.
There is no easy way to tell you how soon you would start making money. Some bloggers start making small amounts soon after starting their blogs. Others struggle to get their blogs to take off.
However, those who continuously work and stick to a planned strategy are the ones most likely to see encouraging results very early on.
4. How do I get started?
Getting started with your own WordPress blog is easy. However, make sure that you are using the right platform.
Basically, there are two types of WordPress available. WordPress.com which is a hosted solution, and WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted WordPress. We recommend using WordPress.org because it will allow you to start making money without any limitations.
You wrote it years ago. It did well at the time. People liked it …they clicked and opened, commented and shared. But your readers moved on. And you never looked back. Maybe it’s time to revisit that old blog post, update it and promote it again.
Updating old blog posts has been one of the most effective SEO strategies we’ve found.
We’re not the only ones.
The bloggers that update past content are three times more likely to report “strong results” from content marketing. It’s a powerful strategy for any content marketing program.
Why is it so effective to update old articles?
There are at least five reasons to update an old post then write something new:
The topic has been vetted because you have data from the first version
It’s faster to make because some of the research is already done
It’s higher quality because the updated article goes deeper into the topics
It’s easier to promote in social media because you’ll know just who to share it with
It may rank higher in search because the URL may already have backlinks and authority.
In other words, you’ll get better results with less effort.
Here is our guide for updating content. We’ll show you which posts to revisit, how to update them and finally how to promote updated content. By the time you get to the examples below, it will already be obvious just now effective this content strategy can be.
Which blog posts should you update?
This works well if you’ve been blogging for a while. You have 100+ published articles. You’ve been checking Analytics and you know that some blog posts are getting 10x the results of others. Our goal is to push more articles into that 10x results category. Certain types of articles have the best opportunities to become big winners:
Articles that almost rank high. They could become traffic magnets with a little boost.
Articles that are already high ranking traffic magnets, but at risk of being surpassed by rivals.
Articles that created a lot of buzz when they were first published
Research articles that have gone out of date
Two of these are specific SEO opportunities, easily discoverable through our 8-step content marketing audit.
Update articles that almost rank high
You probably have some older content that ranks high …on page two of Google. Find them, improve them and within a few days, they’ll likely bump up to page one of Google.
Unlike classic key phrase research (find phrases, create content, check rankings) this is Google telling you what phrases to target (check rankings, find phrases, improve content). It’s backwards and way more effective.
The data is in your Google Search Console (GSC) reports. You can access this report directly in GSC, in Google Analytics or in any rank tracking reports in your SEO tool of choice.
In Analytics, go to the Acquisition > Search Console > Queries report.
Choose a date range that gives you enough data for analysis, usually several months.
Create an advanced filter to show only queries for which you don’t already rank high:
The report will now show you the best SEO opportunities, each of which you can capture by updating the associated page.
Update articles that rank well but are starting to slip
This is the second big SEO opportunity. There are two ways to find them. The first is traffic. Just check changes in traffic over time to any page in the Behavior > Site Content > All Pages report.
Another way to monitor changes in rankings is with SEO software, such as SEMrush or Moz. These aren’t free, but they’ll give you a report that you won’t find in Analytics or Search Console: changes in rankings for specific keywords over time.
How to update old blog posts for SEO and higher rankings
There are two approaches to updating blog articles, one small and one big. Some bloggers use a light touch and simply update the headline and a few sections. Others go big and actually rewrite the entire post.
We typically take the second approach. Go big and completely overhaul the article.
To take the blog post to the next level, we step back and look at the topic again.
Is there new research on this topic?
Has our thinking or approach changed?
Do we have new examples to include?
Which visuals could best support this content?
What influencers should we collaborate with?
In the end, some sentences and sections will be kept, but it’s really a rewrite. The process for blogging is similar to that of any new article, from researching the keyphrase research to designing the final image. Here’s our typical process looks like minute-by-minute.
What is URL Recycling?
By writing a new article where an old article used to live, you are basically recycling the original URL. If that URL has been linked to from other websites, you are leveraging the existing authority of that page, which could be substantial.
You can check to see if a page has been linked to using Google Search Console, which shows you the number of domains that link to a given page.
Google Search Console
Either way, by reusing an old URL, you can target keyphrases that would otherwise be out of reach for a new post. The URL is “pre-authorized” to rank well if it has been linked to by other websites. The foundation is in place to build higher.
With this in mind, I can imagine a two-step SEO strategy, based on building then recycling URLs.
Publish short-form content that is likely to attract links (infographics, strong opinion, quick research pieces). Don’t worry too much about on-page SEO.
After the URL has attracted links (could be months or a year later) recycle it by writing a long-form keyphrase-focused article at that same address.
Now the page will have both authority and relevance, the two main search ranking factors.
This strategy might be slow (literally 1+ years) but allows the SEO to target impossible-to-rank-for phrases. See example #2 below.
URL best practices for bloggers
Once you start recycling URLs, you’ll quickly realize that all new URLs should be created with this approach in mind. Make these your new rules for making URLs that are easy to reuse later:
Never put a number in a URL
…that’s bad because when update it next year, it may have 12 best practices. If you recycle the URL, they’ll be a mismatch with the title and header.
Never put a format in a URL
…that’s bad because you may want to publish an article on this URL later. It may not mostly be an infographic (or webinar or ebook) when you update it next year.
Every article’s URL should be short, simple and descriptive. No numbers. No formats.
This took me years to learn.
How to promote updated blog posts
Rewritten articles have special opportunities that fresh content does not. There are specific content promotion tactics for every channel: search, social, email and influencer marketing.
1. SEO: The keyphrase research is already done
You may have selected the article based on keyphrase performance. We showed this process above. You can use that same analysis to do semantic SEO, incorporating all of the related phrases and subtopics into the new piece.
2. Social: Share with people who shared it last time
Using a paid tool such as Buzzsumo, you can look up the “top shares” of the original version. Scan through, find some good ones, then reach out. Or tag them when you share again.
3. Email: Data-informed subject lines
Social is high-data, low-engagement. Email is low-data, high-engagement. But you can leverage social data to guide email marketing decisions. Find the social posts of the article that were engaged with the most (using Buzzsumo or your social media management tool) and use those words in the email subject line.
4. Influencer Marketing for SEO
Find articles that linked to the original (using SEMrush, Moz, Buzzsumo, etc.) and then let the author know that the article has been updated. They may cover it again, especially if the new version includes updated research. (Related: 29 Ways to Promotee Original Research)
5. Influencer Marketing for Collaboration
The outreach to influencers is easier this time around: “This piece was a big hit, so we’ve decided to revisit it…” or “I’m hoping you’ll contribute to one of our most successful articles…”
Definitely don’t miss the opportunity to collaborate with influencers when updating your content. They can improve the content quality, social reach and backlinks. They also grow your network and make your job a lot more fun. Making friends is the best part of life.
White bellbird (Procnias albus) is a medium size bird species of the Cotingdae genus. They are one of the loudest bird species to be found on the record. The sound of their loud cry is estimated to be more than 125 dB in terms of loudness. In addition, the males of these birds produce louder sounds than females. As researched by Anselmo d’affonseca and other researchers like Cohn Haft, bellbirds’ songs are estimated to be louder than Pihas.
The specific epithet is often spelled alba, but albus is correct due to the masculine gender of “Procnias”. It is found in forests in the Guianas, with small numbers in Venezuela and the Brazilian state of Pará, as well as Trinidad and Tobago. As in two other members of Procnias, the males have wattles, fleshy structures akin to the red skin flap that hangs from the throat of roosters.
wattled Bellbird
Species and Their Ranges
Genus Procnias :Three of the four species are restricted to South America, while the last, the Three-wattled Bellbird, is restricted to southern Central America.
Three-wattled Bellbird, Procnias tricarunculata -Western Honduras south to eastern Panama
White Bellbird, Procnias alba / Procnias albus -Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
Bearded Bellbird, Procnias averano -Tropical northern South America.
Bare-throated Bellbird, Procnias nudicollis -Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.
Three-wattled Bellbird, Procnias tricarunculata
White Bellbird, Procnias alba / Procnias albus
Bearded Bellbird, Procnias averano
Bare-throated Bellbird, Procnias nudicollis
Description
These bellbirds are strongly sexually dimorphic.
Males have an at least partially white plumage, as well as distinctive facial wattles or bare facial skin.
Female Bellbird
Females are mostly olive-colored with yellowish streaks below. They lack the wattles or bare facial skin that can be seen in the male.
Song / Call
The bellbirds are known for their loud calls; although only one, the White Bellbirds (Procnias alba), have calls that can actually be described as “bell-like.”
Only the male vocalize. In breeding season males give resonant, far-carrying boing sounds, often preceded by piercing whistles or twangs. The calls of some Procnias males are thought to be among the loudest bird calls on Earth – audible to humans from over 0.5 mi (0.80 km) away.
Habitat and distribution
They are all restricted to tropical or subtropical humid forested regions, often in low mountains or foothills.
Diet
A large part of their diet consists of fruits and berries, as well as various plant matter and seeds. Their short bills with a wide gape are adaptations for gorging on quantities of fruit.
Breeding
The nest is built on open branches.
One or two eggs are laid per clutch. The female cares for the young alone, regurgitating fruit and cleaning the nest of fecal sacks and regurgitated seeds.
The chicks leave the nest at 33 days, and take three years to come into full color.
What do I have to say that’s important enough to be worth publishing? Will anyone even care? This isn’t working. I’ll try again tomorrow.
We’ve all been there.
It’s terrifying, at times, pushing fresh content out into the world. It can be unnerving wondering how your peers are going to judge your words. Is what you’ve written good? Will it be received well, or will it create a negative response? Or worse… no response at all?
This thinking often forces us to repress ideas and throw them into the “not worth publishing” bucket. It’s a shame because it stifles creativity. This is why we’re often left staring at computer screens knowing that we should publish something, but unable to decide on exactly what.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
To combat this: Today we’re going to look at some proven techniques for coming up with blog post ideas even when you feel like you’ve got no creativity left to give. These tips can be used by any type of blogger or publisher, whether you’re creating for a public blog, a weekly newsletter, or a membership website!
#1 – Keep an ideas file
The most important thing about inspiration is that you can’t predict when it’s going to strike. That’s why it’s essential to build a system that supports your creative work. Many writers, bloggers, and publishers create something called an ideas file where they drop in thoughts, opinions, questions, and prompts whenever you come across them.
When it’s time to plan a blog post, simply look into the file and pull out any of the ideas that waiting to be developed. One tool you can use to help accomplish this is Notion. They even have a free content calendar template you get started with.
The most important element is to build a habit of writing down ideas so that you can build an inventory of inspiration.
#2 – Steal content ideas from others
A great way to come up with initial ideas for blog posts is to consistently expose yourself to the type of content you want to emulate.
Use a feed reader (we like Feedly) to subscribe to your favorite blogs and check daily to see what’s been published.
Sign up for your favorite writers’ newsletters so that you never miss a post.
Set a weekly calendar appointment as a designated blog reading time for inspiration and ideas.
Don’t be afraid to steal ideas that are clearly working for other people. There’s a vast amount that can be learned from the success of others.
Just don’t actually steal their content. Iterate upon it. Make your version better, unique, and valuable.
#3 – Audience Guide
You can crowdsource content ideas from your readers by asking them to reply to your emails or tweets, starting a private community on Discourse or Circle to host conversations, or even meeting up with your audience at in-person events.
Reader participation and community-driven content are key components for many successful independent bloggers and membership business owners.
Ask your readers to tell you what they would like to read more of — and then give it to them. It sounds simple, but remarkably few people actually do it.
#4 – Ask the internet
Many-a-noble-blogger has been stuck searching for blog post ideas before you, and while that has been an insurmountable hurdle for some, there are many more who have conquered it and documented the process.
Start by figuring out the types of questions people are asking about related to your topic. You can do this by searching forums or websites like Reddit and Quora. Twitter is also a great place to see what people are saying in real-time about a particular subject.
This is one scenario in which falling down internet rabbit holes can lead to something good: an abundance of ideas you can write about, questions you can answer, and people you can reach out to for follow-up.
#5 – Expand existing blog posts
Look through your analytics history and figure out what your most popular blog posts of all time are. These are your blockbusters. Weeks, months, and years after publication, they still bring in a steady stream of new visitors.
So you know this content works, the next question is: How could you expand on it? Could you do a follow-up? Could you refresh the content in the post with a new and improved version?
Updating posts is a great SEO tactic to catch some low-hanging fruit and get even more people reading your post. You’ve already done most of the hard work.
#6 – Identify trending topics
There are lots of ways to find out what’s trending online, as well as tools for discovering what people actually search for related to specific topics of interest. Leveraging these trends into article ideas is an excellent tactic that can increase your traffic by staying ahead of the curve. Here are a few tools to help you do that:
Google Trends – Figure out what topics are trending over a specific timeframe.
BuzzSumo – Enter a keyword to find out who ranks and what they’re writing about.
AnswerThePublic.com – Enter any term and get a huge list of synonyms and related terms that people actually search for.
Exploding Topics – Discover niche ideas before they explode into mainstream trends.
#7 – Share your story
Sometimes the best content idea is the one that tells the story of all the other posts. Regardless of what you blog about, you’ve probably been doing it for a while now.
What have you learned in that time?
What has changed since you started?
If you had to go back and give yourself one piece of advice at the start of your career, what would it be?
These posts aren’t just an exercise in narcissism, they can be incredibly useful for other people in your industry. Everyone has to start somewhere, and by learning from your mistakes the next generation can progress even quicker.
Give something back to your audience by offering them a behind-the-scenes look into your journey and thought process.
#8 – Write a detailed guide
What’s the best kind of blog post? The kind that gets people to read 12 more.
Linking your existing posts together (called internal linking) properly is a good way to capitalize on this.
Sit down and go through your old posts. Group related posts together and see if you can order them in a way that makes sense as a mini-guide so that reading them sequentially increases the value.
This allows you to take advantage of ideas you’ve already written about.
Add an introduction, a conclusion, light descriptions, and updated links to each post. You now have a guidepost that will send people off on a click-quest around your blog.
#9 – Borrow another creator or expert’s brain
Is your brain tired? Borrow someone else’s!
Who do you look up to in your industry who your readers might be interested in? Send them an email and ask if you can do an interview.
The real challenge is to come up with interesting questions to get your subject talking. After that, they’ll do the hard work of generating fantastic content on your behalf.
But remember, interview quality is paramount.
The web is littered with boring “so tell us who you are and what you do” posts that add little value. Don’t repeat their mistakes.
Instead, write a proper introduction for your subject rather than asking them to do it for you. Do your research and ask them questions (A) they want to answer and (B) they might not have answered in any other previous interview.
That’s where the magic lies.
#10 – Do competitor analysis to find content gaps
What works well for your peers and competitors might also work well for you. Do some research to find out what keywords your competitors rank for, and check out their top-performing articles.
The key here is to identify opportunities with a low enough keyword difficulty where you can create unique content, thereby capturing a slice of the pie.
Could you expand on what has already been written and dramatically improve it? Do you have a new and interesting angle on the same topic? Have you got proprietary data which you can use to craft a new and interesting blog post?
Your creativity, opinions, and niche are assets you can leverage to stand out by offering readers something they can’t find anywhere else.
#11 – Train your idea muscle
Coming up with ideas is a muscle that needs exercising. The more often you do it, the stronger that muscle becomes. Come up with blog post ideas every single day and you’ll soon start to notice it becoming more natural.
Spend a few minutes each day using these resources to generate new ideas, then move over the best ones into the idea column on your content calendar (or whatever equivalent tool you use). This will keep your creative momentum fired up!
What to do next
Great content ideas are the heart of a successful creator business. Without great ideas, you’ve got nothing to publish, promote, or monetize.
The priority is to find a system that works for you, from dreaming up new ideas, to organizing them for easy access, and finally to building systems around them that make bringing them to life a breeze.
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Autumn 