Thursday, July 5, 2007

Does your Adsense Site Have a Newsletter?

One element every Adsense user should put on all their web sites is a newsletter form in order to collect email addresses.
Why? Because, if you do it correctly, setting up a newsletter can be a goldmine!
Let me start by listing the benefits of creating a newsletter:
Benefit 1: Your sites don't look like they were "Made for Adsense"
Now that Adsense has become very popular, more and more people are creating web sites solely for the purpose of making money with Adsense.
This is creating a backlash with people who see this as a negative thing. Plus, web sites that look like they were obviously made for Adsense are against the TOS. So you could actually get a warning from Google for this.
Adding special features to your Adsense sites make them more than just "Adsense sites".
Benefit 2: Another income stream
Having a newsletter allows you another way to make money with your web sites.
With a newsletter you can…
Promote affiliate programs… or your own products.
Sell advertising space to other web sites owners.
Advertise your other Adsense sites.
This is great because if your web site stops making money with Adsense, it can still make money from the newsletter!
Benefit 3: More repeat traffic for your web site
You should advertise your web site every time you send out your newsletter to your subscribers.
When you do this, it reminds them of your web site and many of them will return again and again. Every time they visit, there is a chance that they will click your Adsense ads!
Okay, Now that you know WHY you should have a newsletter, HOW do you start one?
Contrary to what most people think, creating a newsletter is actually very simple. There are two main ways to get started:
Using a third party service
There are quite a few companies that specialize in newsletter delivery. The two main companies are Aweber and GetResponse.
With both of these services, your subscriber list is hosted on their servers. When someone wants to unsubscribe from your list, they just click a link in your newsletter and they are taken off automatically.
When you want to send an email to your list, all you have to do is upload your content to the third party company and they send the emails from their servers.
Using your own servers
With this option you will probably need to install a script on your own server. There are scripts that will do everything that the third party services do. The only difference is, the emails are sent through your servers.
If you don't want to install a script, another option is to manually keep track of subscribers and manually remove them when they want to unsubscribe. This option is only viable when you only have a few people on your list but it will quickly become too difficult as your list grows.
We recommend using a third-party company when you first start. The cost is usually only about $20/month.
Providing content for your newsletter
Another misconception that people have is that you will need to write all the content for your newsletters. This isn't true!
The first way you can get content for your newsletters is by purchasing it.
You can find many freelance writers at eLance.com. All you have to do is post your project, wait for bids, and pick a writer. It typically costs about $5-20 per article.
We are currently working on an in-depth lesson on this subject… so look for that in the near future.
Another way to get FREE content for your newsletter is by reprinting articles that other people have written. You can find tons of targeted articles at web sites like ArticleCity.com, EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, IdeaMarketers.com, and many more!
You can also search for free articles on Google by typing "KEYWORD articles reprint" (replace KEYWORD with your actual Archiving Your newsletter
Every time you send out your newsletter, you NEED to archive them on your web site. Every issue should have its own HTML page.
The reasons why you need to archive every issue…
It’s more content for your web site. Each issue of your newsletter is full of keyword rich content. Search engines eat, breathe, and love content. Every page that you get indexed into the search engines is another opportunity for more traffic (and income!)
It’s another feature of your site. Having a newsletter archive is another feature that makes your site more than “just another Adsense site”. As we discussed earlier, any feature that you can add to your site that makes it different than all the other cookie cutter Adsense sites is a very good thing.
It gives people a reason to return. Having repeat visitors is great thing because it’s free traffic that has a good chance of converting to clicks. People will bookmark your article archive page and some will even recommend your site to their friends!
Some people will reprint your articles. Every time someone reprints your articles on their web site you will get a link pointing back to your web site. This helps boost your link popularity, which in turn helps your site rank better in the search engines.
It gives people a preview of your newsletter. You’ll get more people to sign up for your newsletter if you have an archive because it gives your visitors a taste of what they will receive when they sign up.
Article writers will submit their articles to you. When article writers see that you archive every issue of your newsletter, they will be more willing to send their articles to you for free. Why? Because they know that their articles (and the links to their sites in their articles) will be found by the search engines.
Hopefully you see why it's so important to have a newsletter on your Adsense sites.