This weeks question is from Mena again over at Cool Moms, Cool Tips.

She asks “ How do you monetize your blog?”

When I first started blogging, I could have only imagined that someone would want to purchase ad space or sponsor a post.  I was so happy to get companies on board to do reviews and giveaways, I didn’t really give much thought to having anything paid on my website.

When my daughter was younger (and slept a lot during the day), I spent hours and hours and hours working on my blog, all for free – essentially.  I was not paid for a review and did not have any ads on my site.  My husband, who is more tech savvy than I am, suggested that I make a spot on my site where advertisers could put their logo.  I thought it was crazy, but with the traffic I was getting at the time, he said it would be a good opportunity.

When I first started with ad space, I made a button which showed companies where they could have their ad.  I also had a  Media Kit link on my blog that allowed retailers to know how much my prices were.  Companies did not have to contact me for pricing, it was laid out there for everyone to see.

I have a few different prices for ad space depending where the company would like their ad to be placed on my website.  Premium space, which is above the page fold (meaning there is no need to scroll down and the companies ad will be shown as soon as visitors land on my website) is the most popular, and is more expensive than ads below the page fold. I also have a banner ad at the top of my site that I let people know about when they ask.  I do not advertise this space for sale, it is something that I mention to people if it is available when they inquire about as space.

Another type of ad that you can add to your blog , feed and newsletter is Google Ads.  You will get  paid each time someone clicks on A Google Ad that is on your webpage.  Google Ads will change as your posts change.  Google will look for the content on  your blog, and match it with their customers so the ads posted on your site will be similar  in demographic to your readers.  Prices per click are different for each company, and you can keep track of your earnings by signing into Google Adsense.  Make sure that you (or anyone else using your computer) does not click on any of your own ads as Google can track this and your account could get suspended.   These type of clicks are considered fraudulent.  Google Ads are paid out at the end of the month, once you reach $100 USD, so sometimes you have to wait a little while for your $$ to make it into your account.

You can also monetize your blog by offering paid sponsored posts.  In my case, if a company wants to host a giveaway through my site without offering a product to review, I will write a company profile for them.  I do charge money for these types of posts, for my time.  The benefit to the company is that they do not have to send a product, pay shipping charges, or risk that I may encounter a problem with one of their products.  With these types of posts, I do not write reviews about any of the products, because I have not experienced them, and I do not want to endorse any product that has not been tested.  However, the companies still get to reach my audience.

You can also monetize your blog by affiliate marketing.  This is where a company will pay you a percentage for each sale they receive that came through your website.  There are websites like Shareasale, and Commission Junction which make affiliate marketing very easy to use for both you and the company.  I just started (this week) looking at this option.  So far, it has been easy to set up, but I have not yet made a penny.

These are the most effective and popular ways to monetize a blog.  I’m sure there are a lot more ways to make money blogging, but this is all I have time for right now.  Although I make a few dollars every month, I am in no way ready to leave my full time job for blogging.

If you have any advise for Mena on Monetizing your blog, please leave a comment below.

This weeks question comes from Kathy Hodson, she has just started a site called A Mom’s Impression

How did you get your website set up?  I see a lot of different sites use website designers, but as a new site just starting out, I don’t have the cash flow to do that.  I can’t seem to find just the right template on Wordpress.  What would you recommend?

To be honest, I did not set up my website myself, my husband did it all for me.  So, I went to the source (my hubby) and asked for his advise.

This is the answer I received…

Go to the Wordpress.org forum and don’t be afraid to ask a question about customizing a template.  You will never find the perfect template for you.  Each website is personalized, and you can do this yourself by adding widgets and plugins.  If you don’t feel comfortable editing the temple, ask the question on the Wordpress forum, and someone will probably be willing to help you.  They may be even willing to give you the code (but no promises).

Another thing you can do, is ask the theme creator for help.  My husband needed some help with one of the plugins on my site, so he asked the plugin author directly for help.  The plugin creator was more than helpful in working with my husband to get the exact code for what I wanted done.

If all else fails, you can visit a site like Elance .  Elance is a website that connects small businesses to do freelance web designers, programmers, and graphic designers together for a very affordable price.  You simply have to make a post about what you want done and how much you are willing to pay.  Value for dollar, you can get a lot of help.

Do you have any suggestions for Kathy?

Hi Everyone,

I just came across some new Facebook policies in regards to promoting giveaways.  Who knew so much could change after being away from my computer for a few days ?!?

With the new rules Facebook is putting into place, it seems that updating your Facebook status, and becoming a Fan to enter the giveaways are in violation of the new policies (I think?!?).  For sure updating your status is against the new rules.

Before I bore you will all the legal jargon, I also want to let you know that since “I have been in trouble with the law before” (everyone “ooohhhhh” here), I think I am going to limit Facebook usage.

So, if you rely on Facebook to know what giveaways are going on at My Wee View, I suggest that you subscribe by email (put your email address in the space below) or RRS Feed so you don’t miss any of the great prizes.

To subscribe enter your email:

Thanks again to all of you for being Fans of My Wee View – I still encourage you to be fans if you like My Wee View!

Here is the legal jargon (the important information is in bold):

You can: Instruct users to visit the third-party application to enter the promotion (as described in Section 3.4(i)). Since users must have a Facebook account in order to access an application on the Facebook Platform, if you give this instruction, they will be prompted to sign up for a Facebook account if they do not already have one.

This weeks question comes from Mena from Cool Moms, Cool Tips…

She Writes “I have my own new blog, and have been trying to build a following and people interested to get the products we are giving away, which are vey cool prizes. What is the best recommendation to get people to enter giveaways?”

Good question Mena.  It’s great to have giveaways, but how do you get people to enter?

First, I suggest posting your giveaways in every place you can – OnlineSweeps, Contest Girl, Prizey, Mom Giveaways, along with many blogs that offer a weekly linky.  Make sure your listing explains the prize, not just the company name.

Second, and this is the most important part, make sure that people know how to enter the giveaway.  Some giveaway sites have their whole entire post in one huge paragraph, including the giveaway prize and the entry methods.  I am not a seasoned sweeper, but I enter giveaways once in a while so I get how giveaways work.  However, if you get a first timer stumble across your blog, and can’t make heads or tails of the prize or what the heck they are suppose to do to enter – guess what – they wont enter!

Make the directions really simple.  Lay everything out step by step.  Like a resume, spaces and white areas makes things easy to read, and is more visually appealing.  Get someone who isn’t used to the internet to look at your website, and try to enter the giveaway.  If you need someone to test it out for you, let me know,,, I have the perfect test subject (My Mom).

I have done a step by step How to Enter guide on my blog, so new visitors can follow the guide if they have questions about how to enter the giveaways.  This has reduced the amount of “I love it”, and “include me in the giveaway” entries.

Hope these tips help to get people to enter your giveaways.

Happy blogging!

I learned an important lesson, and thought it was important to pass it along to all of you.  A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about being able to find your email address on your blog, well this is along the same lines as that post.

I use Google Chrome as my web browser, and I must say I love it!  Google Chrome is really smart, too smart actually, it corrects all the “mistakes” that otherwise I would see while browsing the internet.  One of the most common mistakes is coding.  Google Chrome is so smart, it knows that there is a mistake in the code, and fixes it, so I never see any weird wingdings or code in any of the websites I visit.  Although this sounds great (and it really is), there is a down side to using it.

The other day I was on a computer that uses Internet Explorer as the web browser, I visited my website and was shocked to see the number of “mistakes” and coding errors that appeared on my website!  I could hardly believe it.  I know my blog isn’t perfect, I have a number of typos and could probably straighten a few things out, but for something so obviously “wrong” on my blog, I must say I was disappointed in myself.

So my lesson was this, check your blogs on another browser regularly to see how your blog looks.  Even though the layout may look great on your computer, but for some reason, it doesn’t quite “work” on another browser.  You can use browsershots.org to see your site on numerous browsers.

This weeks question comes from fellow Nova Scotian Blogger – Simply Stacie.

Her question is about products that don’t stand up to what they claim to be, how to approach the companies, and whether or not to write the review.

This is totally up to each blog owner.  In my case, I only write about products that I would want to tell my family and friends about.  If a product does have minor issues, such as sizing or shrinking, this is no big deal really.  I include it in my review so when people are going to purchase the product, they know to get a size bigger or smaller.

On the other hand, if a product breaks, or just doesn’t do what it claims to do, I will send the company an email explaining my situation.  The email usually sounds something like this:

Dear So & So,

I would like to Thank you for sending your products on My Wee View for a product review.  My Wee View’s intention is to bring positive online exposure for sponsors, and recommend products to my readers.  I have tested  your product for this past month, and unfortunately, the lift came out of my shoe/ the strap broke/ the lettering on my shirt fell off/ the stitching came undone, etc.  I will have to disclose these issues in the review, please let me know if you would like a review to be written and published.

Most retailers really appreciate the feedback, and in some cases, it was just a freak product that was sent.  They understand my situation, and will decline a review.  However, for the sponsor it was good that I was sent the product rather than a paying customer.  For example, my daughter was recently sent a pair of shoes that were too small because it was put in the wrong packaging.  Hopefully that company did some quality control to ensure that would not happen in the future.

However, some companies can be very upset about not writing a positive review.  In fact, I have lost a huge PR firm because I refused to budge on some issues I had with a product.  I reviewed one product and had 3 separate issues with it.  I told the PR rep I would write the review, but that I would have to include all three items.  The PR firm wanted me to exclude 1 issue, but I refused.  The PR firm then threatened to never work with me again.  I still refused to change my view, and lost the PR firm – but it was worth it – for your guys!!!!

To all my readers, you can be rest assured that although my reviews are mostly always positive, it is because I have had no issues with the products.

So to Stacie, and the rest of you out there,  you have 2 options if you receive a product that is faulty and does not meet your standards:

Option 1: Before getting started with review blogging, decide if you are going to publish negative reviews

Option 2: (If you haven’t chosen Option 1) Let the company know about the problem, and they can decide whether or not they want the review written and published

Hope this helps!

To the rest of you, what do you do?!?

This weeks question comes from Monique. She wants to know how to get sponsors to host giveaways through your site, her question is:

How do you get sponsors to send you giveaways for your site?

This is the meat and potatoes of review and giveaway blogging.  Here are some of the things that have helped me along the way.

First, I have to tell you this takes a lot of time.  Before starting My Wee View, I contacted many, many, many companies to tell them about my site and what I hoped to accomplish.  Many never responded, but to my surprise, many thought it was a great idea, and sure enough agreed to sponsor a review and giveaway.  So, if you are contacting many companies, with no response don’t be discouraged, it takes a lot of work upfront, but it will all pay off in the long run when companies start contacting you.

Most companies have contact information right on their website.  Some require you to email them from your email account, while others have a contact us form.  Either way, this is how I contact many companies.  Simply send an email and ask.  Remember that old saying “If you don’t ask, you wont receive” – this is the case with review and giveaway blogging.  When you are starting out, you will never receive anything if you don’t ask.

So what is is that we are suppose to ask for?  Glad you asked,,, this is what works for me…

In my email to the companies, I simply tell them what my site is about, and what services I can offer to them – an honest review of a product or redirect traffic to their site through a giveaway.  I have tried many different approaches, and I have found that short and sweet usually gets the best response.  Company owners are very busy, and will not have the time to read a 1000 word request for a review and giveaway.  So, to respect their time, I keep my request very short and to the point.

If you are brand new to review and giveaway blogging, and don’t have a following yet, there is no need to include stats in your pitch at this point, unless they ask.  If they do ask, make sure to give accurate data, because they may ask for a screen shot. When companies ask, I tend to give unique visitors.  This is probably the best stat out there in terms of how your website compares to other websites.   Google Page Rank can be “created” with tricks, Alexa only tracks websites that are searched with the Alexa tool bar, and Website Grader only ranks sites that have been ranked by Website Grader – although this is probably my favourite, because it does take many different ratings into it’s calculation.

To get started with review and giveaway blogging, ask some of the companies that seem to be on many review and giveaway sites.  They are probably having a marketing blitz, and you will probably have a better chance of getting on board with them.   There are other sites such as Blog Friendly PR, that lists both review and giveaway blogs and companies that are looking for review and giveaway bloggers.  The companies will list their contact information, simply send an email, tell them what you are about, and ask if they want to be on your site.

So, the biggest advise I can give to Monique, and others who would like sponsors to provide giveaways through their site is, just ask – don’t be shy, what’s the worst they can say?!?  ”No”, and many times, they won’t say no at all, they just wont reply to your email.

Do you have any tips for Monique?

Dana Watson from Fun and Funky Mommy had a  question about how to grow readership.  Here is her question:

I joined your blog back when you first stared up, I have since then started up my own review/giveaway blog and was wondering if you have any tips on how to grow my readership?

Although we all want our blog to be huge as soon as we start out, it does take time to build up readers.  Here are some suggestions to get people to come to your site, and build your readers.

One great thing about Mommy bloggers is that they are involved with many Meme’s – what a Meme? Glad you asked – I just found out a few weeks ago myself.  I looked up Meme in Wiki and this is what I got:

A meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with “cream”^[1]) is a postulated unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, and is transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena.

If you have been to other Mommy bloggers websites, you will see things like Wordless Wednesdays, Make it Mondays, or quizzes about this or that, these are all Memes.  Many of these sites will then have a section where you can link up your website to that post.  If you participate in the same Meme, link your site and you should get some traffic to your blog and some readers.  Maybe you want to start having Meme’s on your site just so you can link to other blogs.  There are many many different types of Memes so find one or 2 or 3 that appeal to you.

Another thing you can do to increase your readership is to posts on other blogs.  If you have a review and giveaway blog, visit other review and giveaway blogs and make posts and enter giveaways.  Many giveaway blogs have a section where you can post your website when making a comment (like on my site).  Make sure to put your URL in this section – you will be surprised how many people click on those links.  Or, if you have a cooking blog, visit other cooking blogs and make comments.

If you visit regular forums or websites where you can chat with people, put your website address at the bottom of your signature.  Usually if you are involved with a forum these are people that you get to know, but maybe you don’t want to bombard them with your new site.  By putting your web address in your signature, curious people will visit.  Also include your website address at the bottom of your emails.  Whether you are sending emails to friends or PR reps, include your website along with any other places you are (Twitter or Facebook) in your signature.

The biggest way to grow your readership – especially if you have a review and giveaway blog, is to post your giveaways to sites that list giveaways.  You can read more about this in a previous post I wrote about Promoting Your Giveaways.

Growing readership takes time, a lot of time.  You also have to acknowledge your current readers, to keep them loyal and make them feel valued.  Many times I will thank people for blogging about the giveaways on my site.  I wish I had time to thank each and every person that tweets and posts on Facebook, but there is just not enough time.

Thanks to Dana for the great question this week.

If you have a blog or website, what have you done to help to grow your readership?

This is just a simple tip this week, but it is a very important one!  If you plan on creating a review and giveaway blog – make your email address visible.  There are so many blogs that I visit that do not have any way to contact them.  If you would like companies to contact you,  they have to know how to get a hold of you.  Check your site right now and make sure your email address is visible.

If you already have an email address or contact form on your site, get someone who doesn’t have very much computer experience to send you an email through your site.  This is an excellent way to see how user friendly your website is.  If the person can’t find your email address or contact info then you have to update your website.  If you need someone to test our your site, just let me know – I will get my Mom to test it for you

What have been your experiences with finding email addresses?!?

Is your email address at an easy to find place?!?