Monetizing from Templates

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Widgets

One can consider developing widgets for blogs/social networks for monetizing.

Widgets or gadgets are plugins to blog/social networks, which bring in information from external network and display inside the internal network.

Widgets can be considered to fall in following categories:

– Informational: RSS readers, clocks, countdowns, stock ticker, etc.
– Games: classic arcade, simplistic sports, arade bowling, etc.
– Utility: geolocation, visitor statistics, etc
– Silly: Penut Butter Jelly Time
– Interactive: chat based, message ability, user content, sliders, etc.

Think of idea which will set you apart in one of above categories.

Understanding path of building Templates to $$

So now you know what templates are, are motivated enough by reading story of Ashley Qualls.
For those of you who do not understand how distributing free templates resulted in $$, here is simple explanation:

You build templates, offering them either for free or for certain $$
People download your templates, use them for blogs/social network profiles.
Template contain link to your website/blog, creating natural backlinks from multiple sites
Backlinks raise your credibility with search engines and raise your ranking within Blog Search Engines

All this still may not result in revenue for you, unless you build templates which generate traffic , i.e. people really like your templates and are driven to your site.

Ad revenue is based on traffic, the higher it is, the more $$ you see.

Millionare at 17: Template Queen

Yes. She is 17 & Ashley Qualls is the CEO of a million-dollar internet business, "Whateverlife.com"

She is highschool dropout, had no business connections, no rich dad/mom or relatives, started the business of providing free templates for social networking site Myspace with borrowed $8 from her mom.

Her first Google Adsense paycheck was $2,790, which is astonishingly high for first paycheck, showcasing enourmous popularity of her website distributing templates. And currently she is making $70K/month from ad revenue from Google Adsense, Nabbr and Valueclick.

She started by making web page templates, but her recokoning came with her learning on customizing MySpace. She started sharing these templates in her high school, which spread like fire, and drove traffic like crazy to her site.

Her success factor: "Niche" : of Teenage Girls. She focused her templates/themes on Teenage Girls, which helped her reach to this stage.

Today she is busy honing her business skills, and diversifying into other social networking site templates, and even cell phone wrapper based on her designs.

Introducing Templates

Definition: "A template is a set of HTML files which define the appearance and functionality of the blog/website".

All the blog platforms and social networking sites provide extensibility of adding your style to look and feel of your personalized page. They define the layout format based on which one can define the personalized version, either by editing the basic versions provided or by building one from scratch.

Template is readymade version of personalized styles, which one can choose from and build the sites without knowing software programming.

Getting Started

Majority of people start blogging looking to make money out of it, after reading about how people are using blogs to make passive income.

Most of us start by searching for good visual template for out blog and look for "free blogger template" or "free wordpress template" on google. We find good templates and use them, thinking good template will be key in attracting traffic.

Like i started this blog by doing the same process and in turn downloading this nice looking blog template from "Our Blog Templates"

Well it does help you in building a professional looking blog, but while you will end up spending months or atleast weeks in building a blog and generating traffic for your blog, you actually are helping all the while in helping someone make money right from day one.

Yes you guessed it right: It is the guy whose free template you downloaded and started using :)

We will start by understanding what templates are, how do people make money using those while still distributing them for free, and how can you make money using same process: All while still blogging :)

What is this blog about

This blog is how to make money by building templates and selling or distributing those.