Both Authors and Speakers currently sell such products on their website as books. Many times they also sell add-ons such as audio cd’s, journals, video dvd’s and more. Speakers are experts on a specific topic and are selling their services, access to membership sites, and training videos.

Many times both are currently selling passive income products on their site and are looking for more opportunities to build more traffic and add more passive income products on their website.  Having advertisers on your website can be an easy way to generate more income. Finding economical ways to advertise your business can also provide you with a fruitful return on investment.

How do I start?

Place advertise banners on your site. Let potential advertisers know that you want advertisers on your site by placing an “advertise with us” banner on your site. Put up house ads, affiliate banners, or partner ads so that you can encourage similar ads.

Keep the ads on your site specific to the theme of your site. If your target market is women business owners, make sure the ads interest women business owners; that the ads complement your mission statement; that the ads are attracting the right demographics.

Show your site stats. Monthly unique visitors and total number of impressions are important. Having such demographics as age, location, and sex is also useful.  You can get this information through polls or having google analytics placed on your site. From this you can create a report or place the information on your site for potential advertisers. If your monthly visitors are not yet a large audience, sell advertisers on the fact that you attract a specific niche and that you are different.

Draw traffic by participating in virtual book tours or product tours.  Becoming a reviewer or posting articles can be an effective and free way of not only advertising authors and other products but advertising your blog as well.  These tours use such advertising media as press releases, videos, and email campaigns. Your site is advertised on their website or tour page and benefits from traffic that visits that page. Your site will also be included in social media advertising and email marketing advertising of the tour.

Backlink to sites that complement your business. A great free way to build your rating on the web search engines which makes it easier for advertisers to find you. This is mutually beneficial for both sites because both sites draw new visitors who are interested in the same subject matter.

Why would you not want advertisers on your site? Some sites do not allow advertisers on their site because they feel that it makes their site to spammy or that it takes the visitor away from the content of their site.  But advertisements that cater to your sites demographics and are placed to enhance the look of the site or current product offering is always beneficial.

Are you interested in becoming a Virtual Book Tour or Product Tour Host? Learn more here

Download a Preview Copy of the Book Here!

Blogging for Smarties: Blogging for Authors and Speakers

Syndicating your blog through an RSS feed, allows your readership quick access all of your blog posts without requiring them to visit your blog.

When you syndicate your blog, you are listing your blog or RSS feed to various blog directories and forums. You are allowing readers to subscribe to your blog in offline newsreaders. Other websites display your latest posts. 

 Readers can read your latest blog entry without visiting your website.

Why syndicate your blog?

Syndication is an effective, cheap way of advertising your blog and content on your blog. Syndication has become a highly effective strategy for link building. Links are embedded within the syndicated content. When you write about a specific topic, eg. creating a blog, you generate keywords that when typed into search engines by readers may result in your website being listed, increasing traffic, and improving your search engine rankings.

Most people do not have the time to visit your blog to view latest posts, so viewing your posts through an RSS feed allows them to keep up with your syndicated content, and other content.

They can still click through to visit your blog, especially for the purpose of leaving comments, viewing other content, or participating in the conversation.

How and where do you Syndicate your blog?

You will need to list your blog or RSS feed on online directories, various forums, and social media, as well as having your RSS feed address available on your site. Here are some examples:

Syndicate to social media. Syndicating to social media means sharing your latest blog posts on your social media profiles. Some sites that have automatic syndication are Networked Blogs, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitterfeed .

Syndicate to blog directories and forums. Browse around to see how the directories share other blogs’ latest content. Many online Forums, such as Ning, allow you to list your recent posts from your RSS feed on your profile.

Syndicate full content. Some sites allow you to sign up and add your RSS feed to their network. They will then review your latest posts, and if they like the post, they will publish it in full on their own site. One example is Social Media Today.

To view your WordPress blog RSS feed, you simply need to navigate to your domain name and add /feed to the end. Example http://www.yourdomainname.com/feed depending on the name of your blog.

You should always include internal links within your blog post that link to other posts and pages in your website, so that readers will read other articles and view related products and services you offer.

The YP Publishing offers website services including web maintenance, membership sites and syndicating your blog services.

Learn More Here

Download a Preview Copy of the Book Here!

Blogging for Smarties: Blogging for Authors and Speakers

Thanks to the increased use of tablets and smartphones access, increased popularity of the internet has increased exposure for bloggers. Technoratii  State of the Blogosphere reports, in 2010, significant growth of mobile blogging is a key trend this year.

One  of the reasons I am so in love with WordPress is not only is this website easy to maintain but you can upgrade your site by using WordPress Plugins. Must have WordPress plugins for Authors and Speakers are:

All in One SEO Pack

This plugin lets you focus on writing good content for your website. Attract a specific audience who reads your book’s genre.  The XML Sitemaps is an essential part of current day SEO Plugin. This allows you to be indexed in such search engines as Google.  Many speakers and authors develop various products  (cd’s, dvd’s, ebooks, books, video downloads) that they sell on their website. All in One SEO Pack is the  ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites. (Read more: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/)

Display Scheduled Posts

Speakers spend a large amount of time traveling to the venues that they will speak at. Many times Authors have their website centered around their book but may also have other employment. This plugin lets a user create a page or a post and schedule this post to be published at a specific date and time.
(Read more: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/display-scheduled-posts/)

W3 Total Cache
Speakers and Authors have media pages on their website that contain video and audio interviews. Total Cache improves the user experience of your site by reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network integration.
(Read more: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/)

Sociable Plugin

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are popular social sharing websites, with Digg, following not far behind. This plugin will promote your social media profiles and encourage visitors to share your content with their friends and followers.
(Read more: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/)

eShop
eShop is a great full e-commerce system for WordPress. Products have multiple options so adding products, reviewing products, and checking stats, is easy. You can even download sales data. Also, eShop can be used with different merchant gateways.
(Read more: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eshop/)

NextGEN Gallery

The plugin allows you to upload a large number of photos onto your WordPress site and create an attractive slideshow. This plugin creates a visual appeal when advertising products, or creating a media portfolio.
(Read more: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/)

The YP Publishing provides these plugins and more when creating Professional Websites for Authors and Speakers. Learn More Here.

Download a Preview Copy of the Book Here!

Blogging for Smarties: Blogging for Authors and Speakers

To define the reasons why we blog, we need to look into the past. Wikipedia reports that a blog is a web log. It is a website that is maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other materials such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

The fact that Google purchased blogger.com in February 2003 tells us that blogging must definitely be rising in popularity. There are now international blog expo’s and there must be a reason for all this media attention. TV shows are now being produced that talk about blogs, i.e. TV shows like Ugly Betty- and movies like Julie & Julia.

The fact that Google purchased blogger.com in February 2003 tells us that blogging must definitely be rising in popularity. There are now international blog expos, and there

must be a reason for all this media attention. TV shows are now being produced that talk about blogs — such as TV shows like Ugly Betty — and movies like Julie & Julia.

The reasons why we blog are as follows:

• To be used as websites;

• To be used as online diaries;

• To provide the possibility to leave comments;

• To create podcasts;

• To display one’s products and services;

• To show one’s articles;

• To advertise one’s books;

• To interact with one’s audience;

• To rank higher in search engines; and

• To test products.

One of the reasons why blogs have become so popular is that they can be maintained by individuals with limited HTML or programming skills. As a customer, you need less technical skills. Businesses can just log in and make changes to the pages themselves without a monthly fee. You are provided with free or paid templates. They can be hosted by the blog company, or you can host them yourself on your server.

You are able to respond to comments and build relationships. Individual’s comments provide insight and give feedback in regards to potential products or services you may be selling. They are definitely a test market. Blogs are a quick way for media to search for much needed content. As a writer, you can see if your idea generates interest.

The YP Publishing offers blog integration services find out more here.

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