Make Money Online by Learning How To Adapt and Adjust
One of the best ways to make money online is by learning how to adapt and adjust. People often wonder why I change my blog design so often. To be honest, I haven’t changed my blog design as often as I used to. But I still do and if you are regular reader visiting my blog for the first time today, then I am sure that you noticed that I have updated my blog design. There are multiple reasons for this, all of which I will discuss with you. Also, I will explain to you everything that has changed and my ideas behind these changes.
My old blog design had a lot of clutter. Over time, my blog had become disorganized and I feel it was overwhelming to first time visitors. I use Google Analytics to observe my traffic, and the reports show me that a very large percentage of my overall traffic are first time visitors. It is important for me to focus on these people and convert these visitors into subscribers. My old design presented way too much information all at once and I feel that was the large reason for having a low conversion of first time visitors into RSS or Mailing List subscribers.
The new design has a lot less clutter and more focus on promoting my subscription options and earning income by monetizing the content. Visitors are welcome and encouraged to subscribe to my RSS Feed or my Mailing List. Both of which are totally free to join.
My sidebar is very simple and the information presented is very straight forward. The top section is my live stream. I have removed the stream box from my header and have reduced the size of the box to fit nicely in my sidebar. I really enjoy streaming live on the Internet and have been thrilled to see the increased number of people watching. Streaming is something I will continue to do and eventually I will open up the chat room feature and invite readers to Live Shows.
Below my live stream box is my subscription section. Visitors can easily subscribe to my blog at no charge. They have two options to subscribe: RSS Feed or Mailing List. Below my subscription section is my Sponsors section. This section advertises banner ads from sponsors who rent ad space on my blog. I would appreciate that you take time to visit my site sponsors as they help fund my blog and provide compensation for my time invested towards helping you.
The next three sections are very self-explanatory. Most Recent Posts, Most Recent Comments and a newly added section called Recently Popular. The Recently Popular section keeps a tab on the daily page views of my articles. The articles that have been viewed the most rank higher in this section.
Of all the blogs I own and operate, this blog is the most popular and has the most traffic, yet it earns the least amount of money. I have talked about this a few times in the past and a large reason why this blog is weak in earnings is because of the topic. One of the ways to earn more money would be to push and promote products that supposedly help my readership learn more about earning money online. Unfortunately though, many these products are scams or simply don’t work. Secondly, my readership tends to be very tight with their money, so when I do review products that I feel are legitimate, typically I have a super low conversion, thus making the effort a waste of time and energy.
To help increase earnings, I have removed many things on the blog that have been performing poorly. One of these items include the massive HostGator.com push. I converted many of my subscribers and today most of my subscribers who joined HostGator.com using my referral link are now HostGator.com affiliates themselves. Continuing to advertise HostGator.com as heavily as I was in the past is a waste of resources, space and time.
As a new plan, I will continue to use HostGator.com’s Affiliate Program but instead, I will be introducing more custom services that target new visitors – rather than force feed existing ones – and blend in HostGator.com’s web hosting services. These are things I have done in the past and have proven to be very successful for me and with the new plan soon to be in action, I predict a much higher conversion rate compared to the past.
Another method of earning additional money on the blog is using Google AdSense. In the past, my AdSense earnings on this blog have ranged from $200 to $400 per month. My new design makes use of the Google AdSense program and my ad positions are optimized to target search engine traffic. Last month I decided to remove AdSense so that I could push and promote more of my own internal services and products. The results ended poorly. For whatever reason – which I have my own speculations – regular visitors of my blog tend to not purchase products or services I promote. So instead, my plan is to utilize my new visitor base and create a balanced action between gaining new subscribers and earning money.
My goal is to continue to grow my advertisement services on the blog. I have three banner advertisement sections where advertisers can promote their business, products and services. The current positions are the 728×90 found in the header, the 468×60 found directly above the post titles, and the 300×250 located near the top on the sidebar. Each section has a maximum of 5 rotations. The cost are as follows: 728×90 = $149.95 / month, 468×60 = $69.95 / month, and the 300×250 = $99.95 / month. If you would like to advertise on my blog, please feel free to contact me.
The topics I write about on my blog are going to expand slightly. Ultimately, my goal is to earn money while writing and publishing information designed to help you learn more about making money online. I struggle to find ways to gain compensation for my time invested. To help counter balance my time invested, I am going to write articles that monetize better than prior. Also, the post frequency on my blog may increase as well. The next thing I want to address is commenting. As much as I enjoy receiving comments, I have noticed that overall commenting has been at an all time low. Not only on my blog, but others popular blogs as well such as John Chow and ShoeMoney.
Lack of receiving comments may soon result in the removal of the ability for people to comment on my blog. I encourage, value, and often reply directly to comments; however, If people do not want to leave comments on my blog, I can respect and understand that. With that said though, if comment counts don’t increase, I will need to optimize the blog to make better use of the dead space. One of the things that I am personally going to do is try to write content in a way that encourages people to leave comments and to also do so responses within the comments.
Popularity: 1% [?]
16 comments
So true. People are failing to adapt and then they fail.
The streamlined design looks great. Will be interested to see your expansion of articles and the results on comments. Seth Godin gets away with no comments on his blog.
I wonder if people are commenting less because article lengths on blogs are more than 140 characters. Once they reach that 140th character they lose interest.
I think the ability to change quickly is very important when trying to make money online. Testing is one of the best way to see what changes are working. For example when changing a site’s design. It is best to test which layouts and scenarios to see which perform best. If you moved the placement of a certain item and it got less clicks than before then you may want to reconsider the move. This way you can see which areas are the most valuable real estate on your site and tailor the layout accordingly.
Thanks for the compliments on the design. I think it will aid in my efforts towards stepping up the quality on the blog. It is interesting that you mention Twitter. Twitter has had a direct impact on blogging, but I don’t think it has done so negatively. I can only see as far as the MMO niche, because this is the only niche I socially interact in. Other niche topics I target, I don’t have much interaction with the readers. From what I can see, a lot of blogs within MMO have a decrease in author / reader interaction. I really hope that I can keep that virus away from GarryConn.com.
I totally agree. Often when I make changes, if the changes don’t work as well as the “control” or rather, previous design, I will “reset” and put things back the way they were and then go back to the drawing board towards creating a new change. If and when I find something that out performs the previous, then the new becomes the “control” and the process is repeated until the site can not perform any better.
I don’t think all people fail. But commonly people don’t like change. Change can be a good thing and a bad thing. I don’t know why a lot of people fear change, but many cases change can help improve things. In the case with adapting to change, that something that seems even more people handle very well. Fortunately, I guess changing things as well as adapting to external changes is something I handle well.
I like the design a lot better, Garry. Less stress on the eyes.
Thanks Mark! I do too… I just logged into my Google account also and it sure is nice to see clicks. I think finally I have created a very balanced design that compliments the needs of my readers while also compliments my need or desire to seek compensation for my time invested.
Tomorrow, I am going to add a small section at the bottom of each posts that helps promote my RSS Feed and Mailing List, but other than that, WYSIWYG. I think this design is one of my better ones for GCDC. Of course, any feedback from you guys is always appreciated.
Garry, I definitely enjoy this layout better than the last. You’re right man, as humans, for the most part, we are creatures of habit. Change messes up the flow lol, but it’s the ones that learn to adapt and grow that will continue.
If you go with the flow of change you’ll be fine, if you try to fight it you will fail. Being observant and adapting when needed is the best way to ensure you stay on top of things and relevant to your readers.
good stuff man.
Much much better, cleaner and more efficient. I gotta say, I really disliked the last GIANT black header. I too am about to unveil a much upgraded design.
What are you using for the recently popular?
Now I know why you removed it, but I must ask….has this drop in commenting occurred before or after the removal of CommentLuv.
I won’t be totally impressed until I see this theme last longer then one month. Hahaha
In regards to the new design, it’s nice to actually see content above the fold again!…well, except for on the individual post pages. It does look quite nice though.
As for comments, I haven’t really paid attention or noticed, but haven’t been leaving as many mostly due to lack of time for everything in life. I guess I’ll have to be sure to comment here more often so that we don’t lose the privilege
Garry,
You are brutally honest! You don’t candy coat anything-you tell it like it is!
If you really believe in some products to assist us in making money, please do promote them!
I like the new design myself, and where you’ve placed the two 300×250 ads is an interesting choice; I might have to think about that.
I would be dismayed if you decided to drop the comments section. Even when I receive few comments, I feel it’s important to get feedback from whomever decides to drop one. If you eliminated that, then the whole purpose of it being a blog in the first place goes away. Someone above mentioned Seth Godin; well, it’s precisely because he doesn’t accept comments that I won’t go to his blog, and precisely why I won’t follow him on Twitter because he follows no one back. Just feels kind of egocentric to me.
Good luck with it all in any case; I’m always reading.
I appreciate all the info you provide in your blog. I have been remiss in commenting in the past. I follow your blog regularly. Thanks for all your hard work.
Thanks for that well laid explanation Garry. You have covered many aspects to consider in
learning to adopt and adjust. Will take your tips into consideration definitely. And much cleaner design.
Thanks
“My old blog design had a lot of clutter. Over time, my blog had become disorganized and I feel it was overwhelming to first time visitors.”
I have to say when I landed on your site for the first time I was little bit disoriented
I appreciate the information you provide and the simple clean design for your readers, particularly those beginner ones and I’m one of them.
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