Posted 6/25/08 - Kellex


This is the second post in our latest series which will cover the process of selling advertising space on your sports blog!


Create a Blog Version of a Media Kit

Once advertisers decide your blog may be a potential site for them to put some ads on, they may come asking for your stats or reasons as to why they should be forking over the cash for that banner ad. At this point, you should have a media kit ready to be sent over to not delay your chances at landing that next big advertising deal.

In our previous post, we covered your "Advertise" page and I'm hoping you have completed that task already. Your media kit on the other hand, will essentially be your "Advertise" page except it will include even more info and should be personalized to the possible advertiser.

What should your media kit include? Here is an example of how we have ours laid out:

[TITLE]

[WEBSITE AND CONTACT INFO]

[INTRO PARAGRAPHS]

[STATS]

[ADVERTISING OPTIONS]

[CLOSING PITCH]

Title and Layout

As a blogger you should have no reason to make this thing over 2 pages long. Our layout above suggests a simple title that includes the names of your blogs followed by your contact info and website addresses. I wouldn't worry about making this as pretty as you would a resume, since most media planners are simply looking for the meat and potatoes, otherwise known as your stats.

Your Purpose and Stats

From there we recommend that you cover in a couple of brief paragraphs, what your blog is about and why it would be the perfect fit for the potential advertiser. We've thrown in the fact that our basketball blog is featured regularly on some of the big time sports sites which bring in thousands of targeted visitors per day at times. Anything to help right? Get creative!

Your stats (and the most important part) come next. Make sure you include your PageRank, Alexa rank, monthly pageviews, monthly unique visitors, number of RSS subscribers, if you have email list capabilities, and your Technorati rank. If you can think of other stats or worthy bragging material, make sure to include them. CTR anyone? Maybe some graphs?

Your Options and "the Close"

You'll want to make the advertiser aware of their ad possibilities with your site. We always include separate banner, text, and availability sections to help make the decision easier. Including price in this section is up to you but try to have a reason why you are or are not showing pricing.

Your closing statement should reinforce everything you've just covered through the entire media kit in a straight to the point sort of way. If the advertiser is having any concerns up to this point, then this is your last chance to seal the deal so go out with a bang.

This may seem like a daunting task, but once completed, you can keep it on file for years to come and make simple updates as needed. It is a worthy investment of time.


Questions? Let me have 'em!



Have you signed up for the PepperJAM Network and eBay.com, their newest affiliate?

Posted 6/19/08 - Kellex

Our friends over at ReviewME have started a new text link selling idea that actually seems worth trying. It's not one of those weird shticks like TNX.net that wants you to practically turn your blog over to their intrusive script to get it to work correctly.

This new site is called BlogRolled and the idea is to basically take your existing blogroll and sell links to it. There is absolutely no installation involved and all you need to do is manually place an advertisers link on your blogroll if they have purchased one from you. (Google is going to hate this!)

Sounds too good to be true? It probably is, but with the service just being released today, I have not had a chance to test it. I've definitely signed up for it and will let you know if I see anything weird going on, since the last thing I want to do is endorse something crappy for any of your blogs.

One thing I did notice was the difference in link prices they had initially set for this blog compared with Le Basketbawl. They must be basing those prices off of PageRanks which is not unlike any other text link selling service.

Give it a try and let me know what you think! I'll be working it and will hopefully be able to do a review before long to let the rest of you know if it's worth it or not. BlogRolled.com is the place!

Posted 6/8/08 - Kellex



This is the first post in our latest series which will cover the process of selling advertising space on your sports blog!


Creating an "Advertise" Page

If your blog has been growing steadily over the past few months and you have secured some solid traffic and a PageRank, you may want to think about selling some advertising on your blog! Selling advertising, although a pain in the ass sometimes, will easily provide the highest income on your blog. (Unless of course you are an affiliate marketer or Adsense freak of nature.)

The first step in this process is to create that "Advertise" page. Take a look at ours and see the set up we've gone with. You should list out each spot that you have potential to advertise on even if those spots are full already. You may also want to list the stats of your page including your PageRank, Alexa graph, subscriber count, and any other number you think will entice potential advertisers.

Notice that we have chosen to display the pricing for our ads. Including the price has been somewhat of a talking point amongst blogs as of late. Many think you should leave it a mystery or at least leave the potential advertiser wondering enough to inquire about the ad spot. If you can get someone to at least ask your price, you may be able to work out a system or price that both parties would agree on.

On the other side you can do like we've done and list the actual price for the spot. Our argument is that we only want serious advertisers to contact us. (I'm a busy man, and I don't have time to deal with empty offers!) Of course this option may scare away some advertisers, but we are also letting them know that we are serious about our ad spots and that premium advertising isn't found just anywhere.

If you don't have an "Advertise" page, then how is anyone going to know that you have space to sell?

Thoughts or questions on this first section?


Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 6/6/08 - Kellex

I'd like to introduce everyone to the newest writer here at the Sports Dollar, Joshua Lobdell! We've been busy during these first 3 months and thought it was a good idea to bring someone on to help share their views and success stories in the sports blogging world. Josh comes to us as a very successful online writer with hopes of something greater.

I may be somewhat of a cheeseball, but I asked him to write me a post that we could use as an introduction to our readers. Here is his take...

Who I am, and why you should care.

Hello to all you wonderful Sports Dollar readers. My name is Joshua Lobdell, and I, like many of you am a sports blogger. The powers that be here, have asked me to come along and share with you some of my wisdom on how to make a little cash writing sports blogs.

My Qualifications

I know what you are all thinking, “Who is this jerk off?” and “What makes him think he can tell me how to make money writing my sports blog?” Well in a little more than three years I have transformed from a writer, writing general sports stories on a weekly Myspace.com blog to the Head of the NASCAR department at www.fantasyinsideronline.com, a member of the fantasy sports writers of America, a full member of the NASCAR media, in line for a vote in the upcoming NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I make enough money doing this that it is my full time job working out of my home. This saves me a load of money on my taxes each year.

As soon as I finish my College Degree, I am in line for a beat writer position with mlb.com covering one of the 32 teams of Major league baseball. Once there, I will be a member of the Baseball Writers of America and after ten years I will also have a vote for the Baseball hall of Fame.

There is success out there to be had, but this is not an easy endeavor. First things first you must think of this as a job. It will take a lot of effort, networking, emails, business cards, appearing at events, and all that other stuff that makes things work.

Over the past three years I have labored at a great many things to get myself to this point. The main idea of me writing here as a blogger is to tell all of you how I did it and the other as a Department head is to show some of you what specific website editors are looking for.

At FIO I have the final say on every NASCAR writer we employ and I also have a minor say in the other sports writers the sites employ. With that base of knowledge I can show all of you how to avoid things that would make people like me move on to another blog instead of yours.

Also in the near future I will be hiring more writers, and this could be a very good way for some networking to occur. In this business one must always have an open mind, and the email you neglect to send is probably the one that doesn’t open the next door.

My History

Enough of all that for now, let’s look a little more at my unique history. I learned all of my promotion skills while serving as the Director of Community Relations for the 5 time World Champion Semi Pro Women’s Football team Detroit Demolition.

Before I did that, I ran a website dedicated to the Local Detroit Music scene and managed a few bands. I also spent some time as a GM of a movie theater.

What these jobs all had in common was the ability to get people to come to where I was and spend their money. It is with that idea that I embarked on my sports blogger career.

As you might have guessed I live in Detroit, I am married with a 2 year old son. Much of my work day is spent typing stories, I submit a column to FIO 4 times a week, I write at least two blog entries a day, and coming soon I will be doing a 5 minute spot on a sports pod cast, and then in the fall I will launch my own NASCAR themed pod cast.

Based on the traffic I see each day I would gather that I reach about 100 thousand people a day. Not to shabby for a guy sitting at his computer dissecting NASCAR stats and personnel moves.

Is this a legitimate career yet? Honestly no, but it does affect my tax return so that is a nice start. Honestly, I don’t even know what a good income doing this is, my family doesn’t want for anything and to me that is the measuring stick of success.

With all of that being said I look forward to showing all of you how to build a successful sports blog, for whatever your measuring stick of success happens to be.

Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 6/4/08 - Kellex

At this point in the game, I'd have to say "yes". In a comment the other day at Yardbarker.com on Cuzzy's 25 Traits post, I saw someone that was surprised that people are making money at sports blogging. It actually brought a smile to my face as I instantly realized the potential of this site and everyone else's.

This is a wild guess, but I would suspect that 80% of sports bloggers have no idea how to market or monetize their site. I would also take that a step further in saying that the majority of those 80% have no idea that they can even make a dollar at doing this!

How are we doing?

This site, after being up for almost a full 3 months now, is starting to see substantial increases in advertising income, subscribers, and traffic. My guess is that once Google does their next PageRank update, we will have fully established ourselves and this thing could really start to boom. (Note: Many advertisers and affiliates won't deal with your butt unless you have a PageRank.)

We've posted a position for a second writer at our Job Board that is close to being filled with the post being up for less than 10 days. (Not bad eh?) We're receiving more and more guest posts from some incredible people that we can't thank enough. And lastly, we're finding a ton of motivation these days to bring you every little bit of knowledge we can rip out from our sports obsessed brains!

Now to you!

With that said, I'd love to hear any stories that any of you have had after dealing with our site. Have we helped? Brought you major success or traffic? Are we full of shit? Do you want more/less affiliate info? Do you want more/less guest posts? What are we missing that you are dying to know?

Let us know!

Thank you again for joining us on this journey.


Have you signed up for the PepperJAM Network and Review ME yet?

Posted 4/16/08 - Kellex

Have you used Google’s Competitive Ad Filter yet? Did you know that there are such things as “Made For Adsense” (MFA) ads and “Low CPC” (LCPC) ads?

You see there are sites out there that abuse our friend Mr. Google Adsense. These sites are made simply to use the ad service it provides to generate a ton of traffic using specific keywords. Once that traffic hits their sites, the viewer is blessed with a ton of spam advertising. Neat huh! It only gets better.

Ever wonder why you get a click on one of your ads and you are paid a measly .01 or .03 cents? It is most likely because someone clicked on an MFA or LCPC ad that bid the minimum in order to be displayed on your site. Sounds ridiculous huh? (You can thank Google’s greedy fingers for this issue not being fixed.)

How about some good news now! There is an Ads Black List that was created to help eliminate these ads from appearing in your Google Adsense! Simply sign up for this site and go into your account. (It’s FREE btw.) Once in your account, add your website or blog in the “Add Domain” feature. From here go into “Generate Filter List” and choose the domain you just entered. Drag your websites or domains over to the Keywords box, check both MFA and CPC, and run the thing!

From there you will have list of domains that are spamming up your Adsense. Copy the list and plug it right into your Google Adsense Competitive Ad Filter and within 24 hours these ads should start to become blocked. (I think Google says within a few hours, but it really is at least 8.)

With these low CPC ads removed you should start to notice bigger payouts when your ads are clicked. One thing to remember is the 200 site maximum in the Ad Filter which pretty much sucks and is Google’s way of continuing to make money off of these scam sites. At least you can block 200 though, right?

Let me know if you have questions on how to use this amazing tool!

Posted 3/25/08 - Kellex

It looks like a fabulous fantasy football blog is up for sale! Fantasyfootballblog.net is on sale "as is" to anyone willing to pay $2000. That actually doesn't seem like much money for the potential you have with a domain name like that.

Here is the message on the site:

The time has come that I can no longer bring news & info to the masses in regards to fantasy football. So instead of providing mediocre content and updates, I feel it is best to allow someone else to utilize our awesome web presence.

Fantasy Football Blog is officially on the market for purchase.

Most of you know we are #1 on Google for most fantasy football searches - most importantly (with the explosion of blogs on the net), fantasyfootballblog.net is #1 for the terms: "Fantasy Football Blog". We also can be found on the first pages of the big search engines for "Fantasy Football Blog" as well.

This is valuable to anyone that is willing to take that and run with it.

This past year, we have sold ads & blog posts for the first time and made money off our venture - but we are only scratching the surface. If someone could pour the time into it, the sky is the limit to how much money could be made.

When we started this blog years ago, we never expected it to be a money-making thing, however we see now that it is worth money. Our time & writing has built the site up and we have a modest fan base and a strong network of fellow bloggers.

I say that to say this. We will be entertaining offers as they come in. So "Or Best Offer" applies here. We would like at the minimum - $2000 for the domain and all its content as is. This does not include hosting, but if you want to keep the hosting as is - we can arrange it with our hosting company (they will give us pricing to pass on).

We wish everyone the best and feel free to email me (James Cross) @ the following address with inquiries: doublecross [at] gmail [dot] com

This sounds like it needs a little TLC and could be one of the top fantasy football blogs in no time. Contact me or James to get the ball rolling on your new fantasy football excursion.

Posted 3/22/08 - Kellex

Although we've shortened this list down to 10 options, be mindful that you actually have many more that could be worth exploring as your blog grows. This gives you a solid list of websites that help you generate revenue while providing a brief description of each type to help you better understand the way online advertising and money making actually works.


1. Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Networks

The basic rundown: PPC advertising pays you every time someone clicks on your advertisement. This is the most popular option with contextually relevant ads appearing on your site.

The list:

• Chitika
• Bidvertiser
• Adbrite
  
• Google Adsense
• Yahoo Publisher Network
  

2. Direct Banner Advertising

The basic rundown: The most profitable but most difficult. Selling your own banner ad space can be difficult initially, but once your blog is rolling will make you the real money.

The list:

• How to find advertisers for your website.
• Finding advertisers for your blog.
• Direct advertising sales for beginners.

3. Text Link Ads

The basic rundown: Be careful with this as Google may penalize your page rank for using them. This option works for bloggers looking to sell link space on their site. Use a third party listed below to ease the process.

The list:

• Text-Link-Ads
• Linkworth
• Text Link Brokers

4. Affiliate Marketing

The basic rundown: Free services that allow you to post ads while earning commission. There are many out there with some having better ads than others.

The list:

• PepperJam Network
• Amazon Associates
• Commission Junction
  

5. Monetization Widgets

The basic rundown: Widgets are loved by all bloggers and someone finally decided to make money off of them. Then run like a widget, but pay you when people click on them.

The list:

• WidgetBucks
• Scratchback
• Smart Links
  

6. In-Text Adverting

The basic rundown: These are free links placed in the middle of your blog that give you money every time someone clicks on them. They usually include a balloon feature revealing the ad.

The list:

• Kontera
• Vibrant Media
  

7. Donations

The basic rundown: Placing a PayPal donation button is free and simple. You may get see considerable results here, but why not give the reader the option to donate to their favorite blog?


8. Sponsored Reviews

The basic rundown: Sites will post ads of companies looking for bloggers to review or post about a product or service. The price is laid out in front of you and then you decide if you'd like to blog it. Pretty simple.

The list:

• ReviewMe
• PayPerPost
• BlogVertise
  

9. Paid Surveys and Polls

The basic rundown: Sites will pay you to run a poll or survey on your blog.

The list:

• Vizu Answers
  

10. Sponsors for Columns or Events

The basic rundown: Allowing sponsors to write posts on your blog. The catch? You charge them whatever you want. Check out TechMeme to see an example.


Let us know if you have any questions on any of these!

Posted 3/20/08 - Kellex

There are essentially 2 types of sports blogs out there for you to take a crack at. You have the sports blog which is dedicated to a specific team and the you have the all around sports blog that is either dedicated to a specific sport or attempts to cover them all. Either type can make you money if you work at it the correct way.

Type 1: Team Specific Blog

The easiest way to get a sports blog off the ground is to start up a blog which is dedicated to a specific sports team. Many, of course, start a blog about their favorite sports team or a team located in the city they currently reside.

By allowing yourself to cover just one team, you immediately set yourself up with less work to do than if you decided to cover, lets say, the entire NFL. Covering the Seattle Seahawks allows you to focus your insight and coverage on one team. You are no longer fighting the rest of the blog world to try and unleash the next big story.

You also need to realize that you just took on a whole city's worth of fans! This is what makes this option a no brainer! Fans love their home town teams and they also love to read any little news bit they can find on them. Once you've discovered some great sources to feed your blog, you almost have to do no work.

One thing you may want to do is find some other team blogs and mimic some of their moves. Remember that you are just starting out and can use all of the help you can find!


Type 2: General Sports Blog

Running a general sports blog is probably the more difficult of the two but in the long run can be 10x more rewarding. Once you enter the realm of covering an entire sport, you now are in competition with the specific team blogs, the specific sports blogs and the general 'all' sports blogs.

You better understand from the get-go what your goals are with this blog and start pushing those concepts immediately. Starting a general sports blog will require much more work in order to build traffic, but once that traffic has started and you have some solid content, your traffic could potentially blow up.

A general sports blog may be competing with every other sports blog, but if you can create a better product you now start to pull traffic from all 3 types. This is where the long run pay off comes in. Are you starting to see it? Check out The Big Lead if you need the best reference in the business on a general sports blog.

Posted 3/17/08 - Kellex

A list of 100 tips to building a better money making sports blog! These can all be applied somehow to your specific niche whether you are a new or seasoned blogger.

1. Don’t use Blogger’s Minima Template.
2. Write more content.
3. Write GREAT content.
4. Create a Top 10 Sports Blogs list.
5. Your blog name should be short but catchy.
6. Create a blog schedule.
7. Read The Big Lead.
8. Read Deadspin.
9. Continue to play sports.
10. Have a daily blog list to read.
11. Submit to every search engine known to man.
12. Start pinging.
13. Break up long posts into part 1 and part 2.
14. Start a contest.
15. Create a widget.
16. Create a blog tool.
17. Join Google Adsense.
18. Join an affiliate network.
19. Join MyBlogLog.
20. Track your stats with Google Analytics.
21. Love Digg.
22. Love BallHype.
23. Submit to a Blog Carnival.
24. Start a Blog Carnival.
25. Tell your friends.
26. Join top blog lists.
27. Run “link posts”.
28. Create a solid blogroll.
29. Ask big name blogs to link you back.
30. Get your own domain.
31. Have a separate email address for your blog.
32. Create a Zimbio page.
33. Run a poll.
34. Use Feedburner.
35. Comment, comment, comment.
36. Tell your honest opinion.
37. Break news.
38. Do not be a robot, show some personality.
39. Do not obsessively check your stats .
40. Make a t-shirt for your blog.
41. Wear it to the grocery store or gym.
42. Run a bulletin announcing your blog on Myspace.
43. Join a blog community.
44. Create a blog community.
45. Guest blog for another.
46. Ask someone to guest blog for you.
47. Review products or blogs.
48. Run a day long blog-a-thon on a topic.
49. Use pictures.
50. Add social bookmarking buttons.
51. Write about a controversy.
52. Hate SEO, but know some of it.
53. Be humorous.
54. Make videos.
55. Utilize Google Alerts.
56. Submit your sitemap to Google.
57. Quicken your page load time.
58. Know your Alexa rank.
59. Know your Google page rank.
60. Join Technorati.
61. Tag everything.
62. Join Entrecard.
63. Blog about making money blogging.
64. Submit to SI: Extra Mustard.
65. Stop drooling over John Chow.
66. Read the Digital Point forums.
67. Write posts that link to your other posts.
68. Re-use successful material of yours.
69. Proofread more.
70. Write a “Worst Hair” post.
71. Interview someone.
72. Become a forum whore.
73. Link to your blog in your signature.
74. Post about upcoming events.
75. Attend that event and blog it.
76. Yahoo! Answers is your friend.
77. Have a “Hot Articles” list.
78. Have a “Recent Articles” list.
79. Have a legit “About Me” page.
80. Make stickers for your blog.
81. Submit blogs to your local independent newspaper.
82. Start podcasting.
83. Answer comments.
84. Become your sport’s expert.
85. Love what you write about.
86. Encourage readers to subscribe.
87. Customize your template.
88. Use Google News.
89. Know the best blogs and imitate them.
90. Blog from random places, not just at home.
91. Add ticketing to your site.
92. Ask your readers what they want.
93. Challenge a big dog’s opinion.
94. Blog about foreign sports.
95. Hold an online 1 on 1 contest.
96. Sell blog merchandise.
97. Write a “Trade Deadline Recap” post.
98. Linkbait.
99. Read, read, read.
100. Write a top 100 list!

Posted 3/17/08 - Kellex

Many bloggers have a money making identity crisis on their hands. What I mean by this, is they want to make money with a blog but are too scared or worried to actually go all the way with it. You really need to ask yourself the question, “Do you really want to make money blogging or not?”

By throwing up a couple of Google Adsense ads in the bottom right corner of one of your sidebars and maybe having an Amazon widget above that doesn’t mean you are seriously trying to make any money. You need to decide to be either all in or all out! When I first entered the blogging world I was just like that. I was too afraid that my readers would be offended or annoyed by my ads and would eventually leave me blog alone in the vast blog-o-sphere. And at the same time I kept questioning as to why no one was ever clicking on my advertisements.

The answer was simple: I was in mid-blogger crisis! I finally decided to take the plunge and just see what could happen if I threw up a couple more ads, adjusted my layout and promoted more. Within days my NBA basketball blog took off and the Google dollars started to soar. And the most important thing was, my blog wasn’t losing hits or traffic. In fact, once my mindset switched to uber-promotional mode, the traffic started to increase and I haven’t had one reader complain yet.

The ads on my basketball blog are in no way offensive but you definitely know they are there. You can overkill a blog with ads and it will be up to you to decide where your happy medium lies.

Posted 3/16/08 - Kellex

Looking to monetize your sports blog? Thousands of blogs are created on a daily basis and just like many others you probably wish to make some money off of one. Making money with a blog is not easy, but through the following we have provided our top 10 list to making money with your sports blog! These tips should help you grow your sports blog into a winner!

1. Money Makers: Once your blog has been created it needs to be set up with advertisements and you have hundreds of choices. Our top choices are Google Adsense, Adbrite, Chitika, Text-Link-Ads, pepperJam, and LinkWorth. You can see them all in our 'Recommended Money Makers' section. Each site gives you options to place advertisements on your websites so do some research on each and the rates at which they will pay you. There are all kinds of options out there and your site may benefit from having different ads than our favorites. These are your moneymakers so make sure they are going to appeal to your audience and make sure you understand the best ways to use them.

2. Great Content: To have a successful money making blog you need traffic and in order to get traffic you need to have great content. If you don’t write anything that anyone wants to read, how do you expect to get traffic and ad clicks? Writing interesting material may not be as difficult as you are thinking. Let’s say your blog topic is football, you can do a Google News search for NFL or football news and it will give you thousands of pages with up-to-date information you can use to inspire you to write new meaningful material. Keep your writing fresh and entertaining; the last thing the blog world needs is another “Sports Game Recap” blog. Remember, I can get my scores and highlights from ESPN.com!

3. Break News: To attract a high volume of readers, you need to be the first to break exciting news. Being one of the first to break news about your topic can send your page views through the roof. Monitoring sports forums and other major sports sites can be your biggest resource when looking for new topics that have not yet surfaced in the blog world. My favorite again is Google News. If you do a Google News search during the middle of the night, you tend to get news stories from around the world that have not yet entered into the blog world in. Use topics from here to break news and have the post delayed until the morning peak hours to be released. Don’t forget, we also always love a good top 10 list!

4. Key Words: Key words are your best friend. Every time you post a new blog you need to have specific key words built into it. What I mean by that is, depending on the topic, you should have key words that someone would think about using when searching for the topic you just wrote about. If I’m writing about “Super Bowl Drinking Games” or "Making Money With a Sports Blog" a link to my article on that topic better come up when I type in those key words into Google. Sure enough, that is the case here.

5. Promotion: Once you have some content and advertisements in place, your next step is to get your blog out to as many websites and people as possible. This will probably be the longest and hardest work you will do with your blog besides writing great material. There are thousands of blog search engines out there to join that will help you receive some traffic and are a good idea to join. Make sure you submit your site to Google, Yahoo and possibly to MSN. If you really want to see early volumes, working your magic in your topic related sports forums is your best bet. If you break news on a specific topic or wrote up a tidy little top 10 list, a forum is a great place to share. Depending on your sport, you need to find its top forums and make friends there fast! Become a regular to these forums and join in conversations. Once you have been heard and provided interesting insight to your topic, you will create some credibility for yourself. This will also give you a chance to find other related blogs and hopefully help your blogroll which we'll discuss in step 7.

6. Social Bookmarking: JOIN BALLHYPE, DIGG AND DEL.ICIO.US! If you do not know what these are, please visit them immediately. Each article you write should be placed on all 3 of these websites. Every time an article of yours is HYPED or DUGG, you stand a great chance at earning some traffic. If you look at DIGG’s main page you will see topics that have been DUGG thousands of times. You can multiply that number by at least 3 in order to get the amount of initial readers that topic alone created. These websites will be your biggest ally in the beginning stages of your blog and also into the future. Every successful blogger should become a master with DIGG and if you are a sports blogger, with BALLHYPE.

7. Blogroll: Creating a solid BlogRoll is a step you cannot miss. Linking to other relevant sports blogs can be a great asset to you. Your goal however, is to get those blogs to link back to you! Trading links can be a blog’s best friend if you can do it. The easiest way to do it is of course to simply ask the owner of the site. You will get yes’s and no’s but just keep working at it. The number of pages you have linking back to you is called your authority and can mean thousands of page views depending on how high yours is. Authority should be a research topic for you and is also a part of step 8.

8. Technorati: JOIN TECHNORATI! Most of the blog world tends to run through Technorati. Registering your blog with Technorati must happen in the beginning stages of your blog’s life. You can track your authority through this site and see who actually linked to you and is also a fan of you. Make sure to tweak your Technorati to appear as you’d like and make as many friends here as possible. Once your authority starts to grow you can see you rank within the site; the higher the rank the better.

9. Track Your Stats: Find some free blog tracking services. My favorite is MyBlogLog which can be easily set up if you have a Yahoo! Account. MyBlogLog allows you to track the different websites your readers are viewing and clicking on. It also allows you to see which of your ads are working the best and getting the most action. You can join communities and add friends to your MyBlogLog; it has been instrumental for us in growing our blog. Without the ability to track your stats, you will have zero idea on how your blog is actually doing. Google Adsense also gives you the opportunity to track traffic, ad clicks and lets you view all of these in report form.

10. Zimbio: Create a Zimbio page! Zimbio is the Wikipedia of blogs! You can write articles on other Zimbio pages as well as yours and Zimbio allows you to easily import your already written blogs into any page. This is a newer website and has been steadily increasing; you should jump all over this as it will soon be the next big thing in blogging!

Enjoy these steps and leave us your feedback on how your blog is coming along! You can find tons of useful articles out there to tweak and mold your site to its specific niche. Thanks for stopping by!

The following list is recommended by the Sports Dollar as programs we have had success with! Feel free to check them out and share your stories with us. There are a ton of programs and advertising campaigns out there to test, but we feel like these will make you the most money!


Pepperjam Network



Pepperjam Network represents an evolution in affiliate marketing. The creation of Pepperjam Network represents eight years of research and development and the combined ideas, feedback, and intelligence of hundreds of affiliate marketers and advertisers. Pepperjam Network offers a quick and easy way to get started in affiliate marketing with the pepperjamADS.

• Sign up for PepperJam Network

Clickbooth



A great alternative to LinkShare with a giant database full of any advertising option you could think of. Clickbooth even allows and helps you administer email programs or CPC programs. A no brainer!

• Sign up for Clickbooth

ReviewMe



ReviewMe allows advertisers to buy sponsored reviews on your blog. Review prices are based on your blog’s Alexa, Technorati and estimated RSS numbers. Publishers can set their own pricing if they don’t like the price ReviewMe set. Reviews can be positive or negative. The only requirement is the post must be at least 200 words long.

• Sign up for ReviewMe

Text Link Ads



The links offer advertisers traffic and search engine benefits and readers don’t seem to mind them at all because they are not intrusive. Your link price is set by Text Link Ads and is based on Alexa, Google PageRank, number of RSS subscribers, and other factors.

• Sign up for Text-Link-Ads

LinkShare



LinkShare is one of our newest money makers and we have enjoyed every minute of it. It has one of the largest affiliate databases on the planet. You should definitely join it even if you only use a few of its services. You will definitely find something for your particular niche.

• Sign up for LinkShare

Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser, a CPC ad network that competes with Google AdSense. Its main advantage over AdSense is its low $10 payout. You only need to make $10 in order to be paid. Big publishers wouldn’t care about this but for many small blogs that are still waiting to hit that magic $100 Google payout level, getting paid at a lower level is quite attractive.

• Sign up for Bidvertiser

Google Adsense

Do we really need an explanation for this one?

• Sign up for Google Adsense

WidgetBucks

Offering a unique idea, WidgetBucks allows you to put up a widget on your blog selling specific products that you decide on. We used it for a while and liked it a lot, but we ran out of room!

• Sign up for WidgetBucks

Kontera

Kontera ContentLink allows you to make money from advertising without giving up any current advertising spots. Their technology reads your post and turns certain words into an ad. The highlighted words are double underline and an ad pops up when you hover over it.

• Sign up for Kontera