When putting together a WordPress blog, deciding on what pages to include is essential. Even though you can add or delete these at a later date, it is always nice to get everything in place as early as possible. With that being said, how do you decide what blog pages to include?
On this blog, I have decided to keep things simple by adding only an “about me†and “contact†page. These are by far the most common pages, and in my opinion, two that every blog needs to have. The question is: what others are worth adding?
For blogs that sell direct advertising, a page based around this is always a good idea. John Chow recently wrote a great post on this. Being that he makes several thousand dollars each month by selling ads, it only makes sense that he includes this. But for smaller blogs without monetization, like mine, an advertising page would be all for not.
The nice thing about adding pages to a WordPress blog is the ease with which this can be done. Generally speaking, you can add a page in a matter of minutes, and to make things even better, it can be about whatever you want. If I wanted, I could have 10 pages ranging from my writing services to top posts and much more.
I feel that it is essential to find a happy medium between too few pages and too many pages. With too few pages your blog may appear bare to readers, and of course, this could leave them wanting more. But on the other side of things, too many pages can confuse visitors while also making it difficult for them to concentrate on the actual content.
As this blog continues to grow, it is safe to say that a few more pages will show up.
Text Link Ads recently released a new feature which allows bloggers to sell post level ads to interested advertisers. According to their website, post level ads will be exclusive to one advertiser, offering up to a 150 letter description, and will be positioned directly at the end of posts.
Since I am not quite ready to monetize this blog, I have come up with an idea of my own. I am going to include post level “ads†at the end of posts, but for now, there are two catches. First off, they are not going to cost any money! Sounds like a good deal, right? Additionally, I am going to choose the featured site at the end of each post. In other words, they cannot be bought; just yet at least.
At this time, my goal is to offer other blogs more exposure as opposed to trying to make money. This is why I am not charging for these ads, and instead making the decision on what to include based on my own personal decision.
So how am I going to choose what blog to feature? Better yet, how long will the ad stay in place?
1. I am going to choose the blog based on what I come across during my daily readings. For the most part, the blog that I feature will be related to the content of my post in some way, shape, or form.
2. The ad will stay in place forever! Even though the post will begin to drop down as each day goes by, the ad will always be on my blog. So obviously, this is a bit of link love that could help in the long run. In many cases, I may place the same ad on several posts.
I am going to start using these ads in my next post; which will probably be later today or tomorrow. To be fair, and to offer some fun to my readers, the first person to comment on this post will get the first post level ad. After that, I will make the decision on my own with each post!Â
Let me start off by saying that I think the world of PayPal. If it were not for this service, my freelance writing career would never have taken off. But with that being said, PayPal frustrates the heck out of me each and everyday. How so, you may ask? Simply put, I am tired of getting hit with fees each time that I receive a payment. While I know that this is there way of making money, it costs me hundreds of dollars each month.
PayPal charges several levels of fees, but most of us fall into the “PayPal Standard Rate†category. If this is the type of account that you have, you will be charged 2.9% plus $.30 on each transaction. For example, if you receive a $100 payment you will net $96.80; assuming that there are no cross border fees.
My biggest problem is when I receive large payments such as those close to $1,000. For these, I am docked with a fee of nearly $30! Sure, this is still better than waiting for a check, but that is a lot of money for a transaction that is done the same way as a lesser one.
Just as my freelance writing income fluctuates, so do the amount of PayPal fees that I incur monthly. But for the most part, I lose approximately $200/month. When looked at on a yearly basis, these fees total $2,400 or so; which is not a small chunk of change by any means.
It would be nice to have an online service similar to PayPal that buyers and sellers could use free of charge. But when it comes down to it, PayPal has always been the top dog in this industry, and probably always will be. Unless you want to wait around for checks to arrive in the mail, PayPal is your best option. It is no fun to find out that they are taking hundreds of dollars from you each month, but in the end, it is a service that online entrepreneurs have come to use on a regular basis.
