Earning Money

I completely disappeared for quite a few days without giving my readers any idea of where I was going and when I would return. Because of that, I saw a slight drop in my stats and that’s something that as a web earner, you never want to do. So, this post is going to be one of those posts where I give you advice on what not to do after I already have made the mistake. And it is based off of something that I really did realize from taking the unexpected break.

There is nothing wrong with taking a short break every once in a while to focus on yourself, to rejuvinate, to recover, to whatever you want to call it. The one thing, though, is the length of time. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take month long breaks like John Cow did. But, what they did that I did not do was tell my readers that I was disappearing. That is the fault in it and that is what I have to learn to fix. There are times when I get so overwhelmed with school, my guitar, and friends, that I forget to post. But, the thing that I need to remember and other bloggers need to remember is that this IS a business. Your blog is a business even if it is a passion.

I spent some time today as I was planning this blog post to try and determine what sorts of things I think I should do if I ever want to take another break, whether it is long or short. One of the first things that I realized I needed to do is set aside about three or four blog posts to have set up just in case I can’t get time to sit down and type. One weekend, I just need to sit down, type a few posts, save them as drafts and when the time comes that I can’t post or I just want to take a break, put them on auto-post and voila, I am done.

Another thing that I can do is take the time out to e-mail some of my friends and invite them to write a guest blog post. I am sure that if I offered a few links to them in the post as well as an intro, they’d be more than willing to write a guest post or two. I know that if I were to get an e-mail asking for a guest blog post, I’d write one for the individual. The point is, you are hoping to find another few posts that you can time stamp and by doing this, you are ensuring that your blog is updated when you are ‘disappearing.’ But, like I wrote once before, don’t rely entirely on guest blog posts. People are there to read your content, not others.

One final thing that you really ought to do when you are going to disappear is have all of your private advertisers prepped for your disappearance. For instance, if you are going away for a month and during that month, someone’s ad needs to be added because they have been added to a ‘list’ of pre-paid advertisers, they will be incredibly upset if their ad is not added the SECOND the day starts. So, one thing that you may want to do is let people know that you are going to be disappearing. You can either give your current advertiser a nice little deal that gives them until when you get back or you just tell the private advertiser that they will only have to pay for half the month. My advice, though, would be to get someone you know to update your advertisers for you (if you trust them) when the time comes.

Disappearing can sometimes be an unavoidable thing. We intend on getting something done and then - for whatever reason - we just disappear. To prevent against your blog deteriorating, just ensure that you do a few things to prepare for the disappearing act. Write a few posts for time stamp, get some guest blog posts, and also get your advertisers prepped for the period of time that you will be away. We’re entitled to have some time to ourselves; however, as long as we are writing and trying to make money from this, we need to ensure that we keep things consistent. So, I just wanted to apologize for disappearing and I’m back.

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Sex sells. It’s why advertisers of many different things put beautiful people next to their products. “If you buy this perfume, you will be as sexy as this incredibly gorgeous woman!” The way it works is that they, in a sense, tell you that if you buy this perfume, you will magically transform into the beautiful person that is advertising it. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t happen. Yet, it does not change the fact that a pretty face can definitely increase your sales and your traffic to any sort of website. Why? Sex sells.

A few weeks ago, John mentioned that to increase traffic, add booth babes. The addition of these beautiful women makes for something nice to look at. For instance, I love beautiful women. My friends love beautiful women. Most men love beautiful women. Well, there you go, now you have men who will love what they see. Women love beautiful women. Why? They love to see what they want to be. That’s why the above example of perfume works. They want to be beautiful and seeing other women makes them feel beautiful. Understanding the mind of the person you’re selling to IS the way to make money.

Another example of a pretty face making you money is over at JonWaraas.com. He wrote once about how he got some traffic because people were searching for “Jon Waraas’ Girlfriend” in the search engines. These were his SEO results. Once again, as you can see, the pretty face definitely brought in more traffic. Jon has a gorgeous girlfriend and because of that, he can manipulate the way people think to get people to come to his blog by use of his girlfriend. He’s using her appearances to manipulate us.

So, what does this all really mean? Should we all start writing about pretty women and throwing awesome pictures up? No. What it means is that we need to get into the minds of those that read our blog posts. But, that’s an entirely different thing. To get into the minds of those that read our blog posts, we need to understand WHO is coming to our blog. But, the point of this post is to try and understand how we can manipulate the minds of people in regards to sex.

I’ve seen people make posts with simple images in the blog post that DO fit, but are of a gorgeous individual. Whether it is a man in the picture or a female in the picture, the individual is attractive enough that it makes the reader intrigued. It makes them think and that keeps them on the page longer. The longer you can keep someone on your website, the more likely you will be able to convert them into either a RSS subscriber or an ad clicker. If they take the time to think, they might see an ad that intrigues them, interests them, provokes them, whatever. And they may click.

Sex sells. If you use beauty in the right way, you can definitely increase the traffic to your site. Don’t go overboard, though. If your blog is about making money online, don’t post pictures of girls in bikinis unless it fits. The importance of keeping things relevant far outweighs the potential of a boost in traffic from an out of place image. But, the point stands: sex sells. How can you manipulate it and how can you alter things so that it works for your site? Can it work for every site? Or, is it only certain types of sites that work with the ’sex appeal?’ You tell me.

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