Do free Blog Hosts allow affiliate links or product sales?

15 years ago

Blogger does. Wordpress does not.

You can actually build an entire business around Google.

Let me reprint a post I made about this here.

===============================================

Sign up for a Google account. Free. Blogger, Adsense, Analytics.

Use the free Google Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

to find keywords that have more than 3000 searches a month which comes out to 100 searches a day. But, look at advertiser competition (little bar with green line that tells you the strength of competition) you want to find something UNDER average (little green bar at half).

So, more than 3000 searches a month and less than half advertiser competition.

Now go to Blogger and create a free blogspot blog but try to fit that keyword you just found into the title of the blog.

Designing your blog will become self explanatory. Use your keyword as title of your first post. Write about that keyword. DO NOT spam the keyword throughout the post.

Use the Gadget option on your dashboard to add Adsense to your blog. If you signed up for Adsense already then it will automatically know your code and will place it for you.

You can also add other Google Gadgets like videos, pictures, and anything that would pertain to your keyword.

When finished, grab the url to your new site and head over to Analytics.

This puts a tracking code on your new site.

Now take your url and go ping it Ping-o-Matic!

Congratulations! You're in business.

Read through posts here on how to advertise your site for free and keep track of how people are finding your site through the Analytics.

Write new posts based on the keywords people have used to find you and go to Google Suggest and type in your keyword to find related keywords and write some posts about those new words.

You are now learning how to operate an online business and after you get the hang of this you can exchange the Adsense links with other affiliate products or even your own.

This will give you a basic idea and you can decide if you want to invest in your own domain and start learning other types of business models.

Matt

[ 2 ] Thanks
1 reply

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Gringo

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Matthew Maiden

Blogger does. Wordpress does not.

You can actually build an entire business around Google.

Let me reprint a post I made about this here.

===============================================

Sign up for a Google account. Free. Blogger, Adsense, Analytics.

Use the free Google Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

to find keywords that have more than 3000 searches a month which comes out to 100 searches a day. But, look at advertiser competition (little bar with green line that tells you the strength of competition) you want to find something UNDER average (little green bar at half).

So, more than 3000 searches a month and less than half advertiser competition.

Now go to Blogger and create a free blogspot blog but try to fit that keyword you just found into the title of the blog.

Designing your blog will become self explanatory. Use your keyword as title of your first post. Write about that keyword. DO NOT spam the keyword throughout the post.

Use the Gadget option on your dashboard to add Adsense to your blog. If you signed up for Adsense already then it will automatically know your code and will place it for you.

You can also add other Google Gadgets like videos, pictures, and anything that would pertain to your keyword.

When finished, grab the url to your new site and head over to Analytics.

This puts a tracking code on your new site.

Now take your url and go ping it Ping-o-Matic!

Congratulations! You're in business.

Read through posts here on how to advertise your site for free and keep track of how people are finding your site through the Analytics.

Write new posts based on the keywords people have used to find you and go to Google Suggest and type in your keyword to find related keywords and write some posts about those new words.

You are now learning how to operate an online business and after you get the hang of this you can exchange the Adsense links with other affiliate products or even your own.

This will give you a basic idea and you can decide if you want to invest in your own domain and start learning other types of business models.

Matt

If I read this correctly Matt you are my hero.
I have started up a few blogs in the past couple of days and my wife decided she wanted 1 also. English is he second language so all it was in my opinion was a bunch of garbage however in 3 days time with no marketing what so ever she had 300+ hits while my pages had about 25-50 most. I was getting pissed. I think I have just seen the light and she might just become my Gold mine. If I found a key word that has 11,100,000 approx search volume for December with a lower advertising competition your saying just to put those words in the title and have her talk about it and then watch the ad's run correct?
I must be missing something. This sounds way too good to be true.

Thanks
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Matt Bard 15 years ago

Gringo,

You said you were looking at the month of December right? Make sure you don't go off of those numbers. Go a little more to the right and look at

Approx Avg Search Volume

When you look at the column before it, the month, which in this case is December there could have been a very popular search term just for that month. In this case if you looked up something like how to wrap a Christmas gift you are going to get a ton of searches but you can see that you will not get those all year round.

When you use the Approx Avg Search Volume this is closer to what you can expect normally. I know that this too is not exact science but you want to base your searches on that second Avg not the December.

Also, you said that your wife could just write about that in a post and get hits? Basically yes! And yes it's that easy believe it or not.

If you find keywords that are supported by the numbers and there is no competition then you with just a little bit of marketing savy, the kind you can learn right here in this forum, then you can start to dominate for those related keywords.

The more competition you have the harder you will have to work but for just starting out this is perfect for learning the game. It's all about numbers and creating content that Google thinks is sincere and not spammed.

So even if you are not a great writier and your posts are kind of goofy, as long as you are sincerely trying to talk about a subject that not a lot of other people are talking about then you are going to get on the first few pages and get the hits.

As a matter of fact, if you get the hits and then when people don't get your writing or are not satisfied with your limited writing skills they are more likely to jump on one of those Adsense links on the side of your page;0

Matt
- Thanks
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madison_avenue

15 years ago

Thanks for that awesome post Matthew! Yes this is something I an looking at seriously. Even for testing purposes it is an excellent method, allowing you to gather intelligence before committing to your own domain.

I am looking to try this with my own products, selling then directly to get an idea if there is a market for them. Even mini review sites are a possibility.

I appreciate you explaining the business model in such lucid terms. Getting Wordpress MU is also an option, enabling you to to set up lots of sites more efficiently.

Thanks

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Matt Bard

15 years ago

Hey Madison,

I use this as a way to find out how to structure my blog for best results and then use what I've learned to set it up on Wordpress.

Another great tool to use is the timestamp feature at the bottom corner of the "edit posts" screen.

You can change the times for your posts around which leats you rearrange them and test the page results after pinging. Just as powerful is the ability to go to your settings page and set the number of posts per main page.

I have found some incredible results from page ranking by doing this.

It's kind of like powerful "split testing". I can create posts as different elements of a sales page and then using some of the editing techniques already explained, I am able to test which order the searchers respond to better.

Matt

Thanks

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Mark Brock

15 years ago

Originally Posted by madison_avenue

Do the free blog Hosts like Wordpress.org and Blogger.com (when you are not using your own domain hosting), allow you to use affiliate links or sell your own products directly?

What sort of strategies do you recommend, if there are restrictions, when using these platforms? Are there any free sites which are better than others? :confused:

I don't know about Bloggers' ToS personally, but Wordpress don't allow affiliate links.

This only really stands for Wordpress.com though.

Wordpress.org (as you stated in your post) is your own blog entirely as you host it on your own hosting account. It becomes your property, not Wordpress'; therefore you would be allowed to put affiliate links on a Wordpress.org site (not .com though)!

Mark

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madison_avenue

15 years ago

Yes thanks Mark! I got the .org and .com the wrong way round.

Mathew you say that:

You use your Blogger.com testing to find out how to structure your blog for best results and then use what you've learned to set it up on Wordpress. I was wondering how you monezite your Wordpress site or do you then use Wordpress on your own Host to enable you to add affiliate links etc.

all the best
fazal

Thanks
1 reply

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Matt Bard 15 years ago

Yes when I use Wordpress I use it with my own host and domain so that it can be used for professional site.

Matt
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trafficwave

15 years ago

I use blogger and it was very easy to add a subscription form for my AutoResponder. I use my blog to build my list. Then my AutoResponder follows up with any links to offers.

Thanks

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-----------------------------
Brian Rooney, CEO
TrafficWave.net Email Marketing AutoResponders
Email Marketing Blog

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Matt Bard

15 years ago

Hey trafficwave,

That's a good idea. It just goes to show there are a lot of ways to use a free Blogger to not only get your biz up and running but as a tool for other parts of our business.

In these tough times it's not only important to try and keep the profit coming in but also find ways to lower the overhead.

Matt

Thanks

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Jon Alexander

15 years ago

the best way to use free blogger and wordpress hosting is to create blogs that shove backlinks at your real sites. You'll also get some direct traffic from them. Don't try to monetize the free sites - just let them boost your real sites.

Thanks
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madison_avenue

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Jon Alexander

the best way to use free blogger and wordpress hosting is to create blogs that shove backlinks at your real sites. You'll also get some direct traffic from them. Don't try to monetize the free sites - just let them boost your real sites.

On the whole I would agree with that. You could do drive links to the free blogs through very targeted key words then point these free blogs at your main static sites.

However you don't have to do it this way. You could just drive traffic to the traffic to the free blogs and monetize them adsense, affiliate links and your own products. As well use it, as Brian suggests, to build your list.

I would be careful with adsense because Google can track what you are doing through your adsense code, so I would not spread it around too liberally on the free blogs.

Thanks
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Enquirer

15 years ago

Matthew, great informative post, thanks.

Now, I'm about to ask some questions that might seem daft to experienced marketers but they are about things that have me puzzled. I could try to find answers myself by trial and error but that could take months and so I thought I'd ask to save a lot of time.

Do you not check to see how many pages come up in searches when someone types in your keywords, or is that not so important with this method of marketing because it's based on adsense?

You say that once your blog is up, you use Analytics to see what keywords were used by people who found your site. Do you do an adwords.google search on those before using them to make sure there's not too much advertiser competition and also check to make sure there aren't too many competing pages? I'll try to answer that myself: If your keywords are 'better frying pans' and someone searching for 'best fried dishes' found your page, you take it for granted that there couldn't have been much competition, otherwise they wouldn't have found you. And so there's not much point in checking for competition for those new keywords. Am I right?
------------

Madison_avenue, in your latest post you advised caution about spreading adsense too liberally around the blog. Do you only put it on a few pages? If so, which ones are best - the current posts, perhaps?
------------

Thanks in advance for any answers.

A.C.

Thanks
2 replies

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Matt Bard

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Enquirer

Do you not check to see how many pages come up in searches when someone types in your keywords...You say that once your blog is up, you use Analytics to see what keywords were used by people who found your site. Do you do an adwords.google search on those before using them to make sure there's not too much advertiser competition and also check to make sure there aren't too many competing pages?

Hi Enquirer,

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool that I use already tells me the competitors based on Google searches because Google owns the tool we are using and they are reporting numbers form their searches already.

Google is already telling us the strength of the competition with those little bar meters. If you hover your cursor over one of those little bars you will see a highlighted note pop up and say something like "low competition". Or whatever the strength is based on their numbers.

Without going into a complex course on this, I have found that using simple to follow SEO techniques that you can learn right here in the forum that it's pretty easy to compete in those niches that Google is telling you that there is very low competition.

The reson you want to find the higher search numbers is that there really is no reason to go after a niche that only gets 3 or 4 hits a day. You're not going to make any money with that.

Now the second part of your question, using Analytics to see what people are using to find you. Let's say that your main keyword is The Warrior Forum and your blog has that in your title thewarriorforumandme and you write your first post "The Warrior Forum and Me" now in the next few days in Analytics you see that people have been finding your site by not only using your main keywords but also some you didn't think about like who are the coolest gurus on the warrior forum.

Now you will have search terms that you can build on and write more posts around these and write articles around these and you are basically letting people that find you help you write your next topics.

Does this make sense? I'm up early and writing this in a little quick reply screen.

pm me if you're having a hard time with this.

Matt

Thanks

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madison_avenue

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Enquirer

Matthew, great informative post, thanks.

Now, I'm about to ask some questions that might seem daft to experienced marketers but they are about things that have me puzzled. I could try to find answers myself by trial and error but that could take months and so I thought I'd ask to save a lot of time.

Do you not check to see how many pages come up in searches when someone types in your keywords, or is that not so important with this method of marketing because it's based on adsense?

You say that once your blog is up, you use Analytics to see what keywords were used by people who found your site. Do you do an adwords.google search on those before using them to make sure there's not too much advertiser competition and also check to make sure there aren't too many competing pages? I'll try to answer that myself: If your keywords are 'better frying pans' and someone searching for 'best fried dishes' found your page, you take it for granted that there couldn't have been much competition, otherwise they wouldn't have found you. And so there's not much point in checking for competition for those new keywords. Am I right?
------------

Madison_avenue, in your latest post you advised caution about spreading adsense too liberally around the blog. Do you only put it on a few pages? If so, which ones are best - the current posts, perhaps?
------------

Thanks in advance for any answers.

A.C.

It is not so much the platform rather the quality of the sites. Sites with low quality plr or "spun" content I would not put adsense on but rather use them to point links to the better quality sites . I would only put adsense on to good quality sites with unique content. These can be squidoo, Blogger, Myspace etc as well hosted on my own domains.

If you have a network of sites with your adsense affiliate id on all of them, it immediately tells google you own them all.. you want the linking to look natural not related to your adsense code.

Thanks

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TLTheLiberator

15 years ago

Blogger.com and many other free blogs on the net allow you to do anything you want but not wordpress.com so stay away from them for free blogging.

TL

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tommygadget

15 years ago

I was just on blogger the other day and found a lady with over 320 blogger blogs. Wow, she's really busy, so it must work

TomG.

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Enquirer 15 years ago

Yes thanks, Matthew. Clarified it a lot.

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I set up a blogger account last night and bought a domain through them. It's very easy but time consuming - had to spend nearly an hour reading the godaddy terms of service and then over an hour reading the google terms of service. It is to test the waters and, eventually, to have other things linking to it. I was going to get a wordpress one and set it up on my website but until this morning I didn't know if my website still existed. Long, boring story. So, blogger it is. When I am successful (not 'if') I'll branch out with other blogger blogs and word press ones. I want to put quite a few ideas I've learned about in this and other threads into action.

I'll probably link to squidoo lenses and have links to affiliates on them before I try putting any affiliate links on the blog.
- Thanks
- 1 reply
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- Matt Bard 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Enquirer
  
  bought a domain through them.
  
  Just for others reading, you don't have to buy a domain to use Adsense with Blogger. You can go with your free keyword.blogspot.com and use affiliate links.
  
  But if you find a hot keyword domain that you just gotta have, well $10 registration and no monthly hosting fees is ok.
  
  Matt
  
  Thanks
  
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Do free Blog Hosts allow affiliate links or product sales?

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