Heya! You've landed on the internet business blog of Angela Wills. I blog about solopreneur-ism, small business, affiliate marketing and more! 
Ways I Don’t Want to Make Money Blogging
As some of you may know I’m on a big mission to make a living through this blog and business right here at Marketers Mojo.
In planning and figuring out how I’m going to do that I’ve made some decisions on ways I don’t want to make money.
Paid Advertising
You see, the first thing a lot of people think of when they want to make money with a website is advertising. If you can get a lot of traffic to your website you can get advertising paying you for a piece of that traffic. My site traffic is high enough at this point that I could start offering ad spots for a decent price but I’m choosing not to.
I’m not a big fan of ads. When I’m online and I go to sites full of ads I don’t usually want to stick around because I feel like my value to them is money. Of course I understand everyone needs to make money but I so much more enjoy attraction marketing over interruption marketing.
Paid Endorsements or Reviews
In the ‘mommy blogging’ niche it seems to be quite popular for moms to get free products from very large corporations for review. I’m not interested in making this part of my own marketing plan. If I endorse a product I want to go out and buy it and get the full customer experience from beginning to end.
Paid endorsements are just advertising in disguise. I know some bloggers will review the product, good or bad, but I think if the audience knows the blogger gained the product for free or was paid to write the review it will create suspicion and I don’t want to do that.
Adsense
I haven’t had much luck with Adsense in the past and I just don’t like the look of it. Again it is interruption marketing.
When it comes down to it I guess I just won’t be looking for ways to use ‘interruption marketing’ on my blog and in my business.
I mean, how many people go to Google and think: “I need to find me a good ad for that computer I want to buy” No, they want information and real reviews from real people. Instead of making my advertising look ‘real’ I’m just going to be ‘real’ and let the people who need what I blog about be attracted to that, for real.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have used and will continue to use the methods above. I’m talking specifically about my plan for Marketers Mojo, right here, my ‘baby’. I have a few niche sites where I will use Adsense and possibly even do paid ads. But here my choice is not to do those methods mentioned above. The other sites I will play around and who knows, maybe I’ll even prove myself wrong – we’ll see.
What do you think? Am I wrong about advertising? Do you feel advertising doesn’t affect reputation in any way? Do you use advertising with great results?
I’d love to hear your comments – feel free to prove me wrong!
How Do I Actually Plan on Making Money?
Well I’ll be continuing my blog post series ‘How I Made Money‘ that will go into greater detail but here are the methods I plan on using:
Services
I will continue with some services over the next few years. My main being Blog Design and Internet Business Coaching right here through Marketers Mojo.
Email Marketing
Using email is more of a communication tool than a way to make money. I will use it to build the relationships that will allow my visitors, readers and subscribers to consider me a valuable source of information and trust my real recommendations.
Affiliate Marketing
Now when I said above that I wouldn’t be using Ads as a marketing strategy that doesn’t mean I will never place ads on my website. As an affiliate for a number of products I most certainly will be testing out various ads for the affiliate programs I promote.
The thing with affiliate marketing, though, is that the money won’t come first. Unlike advertising (like Adwords where you have no choice) I will be seeking out the affiliate programs that I choose are a perfect fit with my readers, making sure it is an extremely high quality product or service, and only then will I make the recommendation through my affiliate links.
My Own Products
Before I create anymore products I am listening. When I find that my market is looking for something or asking me for something then I will create it and sell it here through Marketers Mojo. I do have a few products already and they may go through overhauls or get discontinued over time.
My goal is to keep very current and creating my own products will always be secondary to recommending the products of others who are keeping up with current trends and providing the type of products and resources I just don’t have the ability or funds to do at this point.
Giving Stuff Away
I have already gained a reputation for giving away a lot of value to my readers, subscribers and listeners and I plan to continue to do that. Again, this is attraction marketing because the people who choose to take this free stuff are those who want the information. Then, within that information will be recommendations through affiliate programs that I have chosen to promote.
So there you have it, it’s a bit of a summary of my marketing plan here for Marketers Mojo.
The last year has been quite a personal growth stage for me.
I’ve gone from being completely overwhelmed in a service based business to choosing a new model that will build and grow to create the freedom and enjoyment from my business that I really wanted to start with.
I don’t mind telling you that over that time my income seriously dropped. I’m kind of starting from scratch and building again. Yes, I still have some income and some clients but it’s about 1/3 of what it was before.
Some people might consider that a huge step BACKWARDS but not me. I think about where I will be in 10 years from now and it looks amazing. I know I’m (finally) laying the foundation for true business freedom. I’m sharing it all with you because I want that for YOU too.
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A friend runs http://www.thekirkreport.com/ with no ads. It's a clean page. The only income link is a “Membership Information” navigation link where people can donate for access to a private area of the web site, an area with exclusive information. Some of Mr. Kirk's posts may mention certain information is now available in the membership area. But nothing interruptive.
Thanks for the comment Will and great example of a website without ads. I just think it's so much nicer to visit a clean blog like that when looking for info or wanting to check up on your favorite blogger.
Oh I should also add to this that I totally won't mind getting FREE STUFF and blogging about it. I just wouldn't pretend that I am reviewing it because I felt like it – I would totally disclose that the company sent it to me so that I can share it will my viewers. I would do that occasionally but certainly don't want to turn the blog into a big advertisement for free stuff I get either.
Oh I should also add to this that I totally won't mind getting FREE STUFF and blogging about it. I just wouldn't pretend that I am reviewing it because I felt like it – I would totally disclose that the company sent it to me so that I can share it will my viewers. I would do that occasionally but certainly don't want to turn the blog into a big advertisement for free stuff I get either.