5 Quick Tips For Monetizing Your WordPress Site - BobWP Monetizer Podcast

This podcast is full of monetizing tips, but this episode I thought I would go over just five of them briefly.

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I always hear from people asking me about monetizing their WordPress site or blog. Some are totally stumped, while others have tons of ideas but don’t know where to start. In fact, that was another reason I started this podcast. Here are a few quick tips to help you think through your monetization strategies.

5 Quick Tips for Monetizing Your WordPress Site

1. Balance the Free

Look at your site and evaluate what you are now offering for free. If you  are blogging, likely you are already giving some of your knowledge away. You will need to think deeply about how you can differentiate what you plan on selling vs. what you have been giving away. There is a lot of gray area here so you must watch that you don’t lose your current followers while attracting new followers who will see the value of what you are selling.

2. Make it Easy to Purchase

Someone should be able to find what they need on your site with the fewest click-throughs possible. And the process for payment should be just as seamless. Don’t make them jump through hoops or require more information than needed. As you probably know, cart abandonment is one of the biggest challenges of online sellers.

3. End-of-Post Sales

A lot of WordPress themes out there have an end-of-post widget area. If yours doesn’t, there is a good, free plugin that will do the trick. This allows you to add a banner ad to the end of posts for an action call. It’s a great way to advertise a product or service on your blog.

You can also do this using an ad plugin that lets you control what posts your ads will show up on through specific categories. We have a post here where you can see the overview of the ad plugin we use here on our site: How to Create and Manage Your Ads with the Advanced Ads Pro Plugin for WordPress.

One thing to remember is that you will need to test your ad placements. Depending on your site, your content, and what you advertise can determine if an ad is actionable there or just a distraction.

4. Avoid the Clutter

Sidebars on your site can be wonderful things. Or they can be a mess of confusion. Ad after ad after ad. Unending sales pitches. Cluttered to the point where no one can focus.

Be careful of the widgets you use and make sure they enhance your readers’ experience versus distracting them with unnecessary shiny objects. Consider custom sidebars that let you choose which widgets show on what pages. There is a module in Jetpack called Widget Visibility that allows you to do this, as well as other plugins, including one for Genesis themes and another one that works with most themes.

For example, currently we do not had sidebars anywhere because everything we want the reader to see is within the post, including any links or calls-to-action. It’s much easier to get someone to click through when it’s appropriate to the content, and, again, not one big distraction.

5. Be Authentic

I know, you hear this all the time and yes, it’s an overused term. But when selling, this is so important, especially if you are a smaller brand or an individual selling services. People want to know who the heck they are spending their money with.

I cannot tell you how many times I have landed on a new site and clicked on the about page on...