One of the biggest attractions of becoming an online publisher is that you get to become your own boss. You can work from home, at the hours you want... and completely alone.
Well, the first two at least are right.
Optimizing your ad units is certainly lonely work. It’s a task you have to do yourself and it involves no one but you, your computer and your stats tables.
But playing with your ad units is only part of the job of turning your content into income.
You also have to build traffic. And while that means spending time at the search engines, it also involves making connections with thousands of people across the Web.
Obviously, you’re not going to be talking to the owner of every site that links to you. But you will be in contact with many of them, and certainly with the biggest fish in your pond. Whatever the topic of your site, you will find that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people, with sites on similar themes.
What starts out as a job with plenty of independence and the potential to earn a high salary then can quickly turn into membership of a super-friendly club filled with people who think just like you and share your interests.
I can’t tell you how many fantastic friends I’ve made online while doing nothing more than building my site and attracting links. I’m in contact with these people almost daily and I get to meet them at talks and conferences. These are business relationships that have blossomed into warm friendships.
If you’re thinking of traffic acquisition as a chore, a challenge or an expense that you wish you could ignore, you’re thinking about it the wrong way. As you’re looking for sites to swap links with, you should be thinking of it as a chance to make new friends as well.
Swap emails with your link partners just to see how they’re getting on. Respond to comments on your blog so that your users feel that they have a relationship with you. Include a personal message in your newsletter to deepen your connection.
It makes good business sense, and it makes your business much more enjoyable too.
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