5 Ways to Support Your Favorite Bloggers

Let’s say you have a favorite blog (or two or three of four) that you read on a regular basis. Maybe that blog is this one (if so, great!). Maybe it’s another one (How dare you!). There’s a good chance your favorite blogs are run not by corporations or even small companies with multiple staffers, but by one person. Take this site, for example. I’m responsible for everything myself, from domain and hosting fees (which run close to $2000 a year) to content creation, editing, marketing, site design, ad sales and all that jazz. My mom, an English teacher, pitches in with copy editing, and Drew helps out a lot with all the other stuff (he even does dictation for the Dear Miles columns since Miles is unable to type them himself).

I love what I do and I plan to keep doing it even if I stop making money. But money is good. For one thing, it means I can hire a babysitter, which frees time in my schedule to invest in this site. And if I can contribute financially to my family while staying home with my kid, that sweetens the deal even more.

That’s where you come in. I know I’ve asked for your help before, and I will continue to remind you from time to time how important your support is and how much I appreciate it. Here are a few ways you can lend you support to DW or whatever blog(s) you hope to see stick around for a very long time.

1. SHARE THE CONTENT. This one is huge. The main way for many sites, including this one, to make money is through ad revenue. I don’t make ad revenue unless I have readers. I don’t get new readers unless they know this site exists. The very best way for people to learn about this site is by people like you sharing content with your friends, co-workers, blog readers, and fellow internetters. So if you like what you read here and want to see the site grow and succeed, share stuff on Facebook (like me on Facebook, if you haven’t already), Tweet my posts, pin stuff on Pinterest, submit content to Reddit and Digg and Fark and whatever other aggregator site you like.

2. Purchase stuff through affiliate links. I am an Amazon affiliate, which means I get a commission on any Amazon purchase you make through my affiliate link, which you can find in the sidebar (this is my direct affiliate link; you could even bookmark it to use when you want to shop). It doesn’t matter what you buy — as long as you go through my affiliate link, I get a commission on whatever sale is made. Some months I make $30, which pays for a couple hours of babysitting. Some months, particularly after I remind readers like I am now, I may make around $200, which covers 15 hours of babysitting (thank you!!) and helps in a big way.

3. Hit the “support” button. Many bloggers, like me, make it easy to send a small donation to keep the site going (you can find my support tab in the top menu bar). If you’re someone who might offer to buy me a drink in a bar if we happened to meet some time, consider sending five bucks to my Paypal account and I’ll have a drink on you the next time I’m out.

4. Purchase site products and services. Hey, did you know I’m selling DW mugs now? I am! And I know the shipping is a little high and maybe you already have two or three favorite mugs in your cabinet, but think of this as a way you can make a small donation to the site AND get something tangible in return. All the cool kids are doing it.

5. Sign up for the newsletter. I started a weekly newsletter last month, and so far there are close to 600 people signed up for it. I’d like for that number to be 1500 by Thanksgiving. Why? Because the newsletter gets people coming back to the site. It keeps people invested (in the site and in me). It allows me one more place I can promote products and services — and yes, sometimes even advertising — in a way that is unobtrusive. It’s one more way I can sell my relevance to potential advertisers (saying I have 1500 — or 3000 or 5000 or 10,000 — newsletter subscribers sounds a lot more impressive than saying I have 583 subscribers) and helps illustrate that I write a site people are invested in.

Unlike a lot of website newsletters, mine includes original content you won’t find on the site (not just links to posts you may have missed). The newsletter is sent out every Tuesday morning and my hope is it gives you a little boost as you start your day. I’ll be sharing some exciting news in coming weeks (not a pregnancy) that subscribers will know about long before everyone else. Sign up here.

Bonus suggestion:

6. Buy ad space. Do you have a small business (or big business!), product, service, or website you want to promote? Consider advertising it right here on DearWendy.com. We get about 6,000 visits, and roughly 20,000 pageviews a day, and readers are other cool, curious, active, intelligent people like yourself. I can work with you on a price that fits your budget. Contact me for more info.

Again, thank you so much to everyone who has and continues to support this site in ways big and small. It means more than you know. I hope to be doing this for a very long time and your support keeps me going, both financially and (especially) emotionally. Thank you!!!

by Wendy on October 11, 2012 · in Program notes