One of the many tools available that I absolutely love is Amember from CGI-Central. Amember not only manages my membership sites, it also handles digital product sales, delivery, and protection.

For instance, it protects download pages, offers backend sales and automation, allows protection of “external” folders and files, and it even comes with a built-in autoresponder. (And that’s just a partial list.)

I use Amember with WordPress for my membership sites, such as, for example, the all-new Success Chef University, among many others.

But Amember does have its flaws…

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First off, this post is in no way comprehensive. There are many different ways to monetize your blog.

Of course, there’s selling ad space on your blog, such as through the use of pay-per-click networks like Google AdSense — which is the most popular.

But offering willing advertisers to directly sponsor your blog by buying a post, an ad, or a link is one area that’s becoming increasingly popular.

Sites like ReviewMe.com, PayPerPost.com, and Text-Link-Ads.com are effective in allowing bloggers to get paid for selling content or links on their blogs. Basically, these networks bring both bloggers and advertisers together.

Granted, this has been the subject of a lot of controversy lately, particularly about disclosure. (And yes, all the links above are my affiliate links.)

But what if you want to make money directly? What if you want more control over how you monetize your blog? What if you want to make money based on sales (like an affiliate commission) and not just ad clicks or views?

Well, here are a few cool WordPress plugins I found.

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I love readers’ questions. And sometimes, the same questions keep coming up that I decide on posting a blanket answer on this blog to cover them.

I do this as a way to create content for this blog, help my readers find the answers they’re looking for, and save me time from not having to answer the same questions over and over again.

Problem is, many people never find the blog post that answers their question, particularly if it’s old and sitting deep in the archives. And many people don’t take the time to search for it, because it’s work and it’s simply easier to contact my staff for the answer.

I thought about creating a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page. But I wanted a brain-dead easy solution to be able to do this in a snap (much like posting to this blog), and offer more to my readers.

But also, I wanted one that would optimize my page for the search engines (where specific keywords are included in the titles and questions), and be easy enough for me to simply answer questions as I go along.

Finally, I found one…

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A couple of notes. First off, my personal coaching program has room for three more students. I will not raise the price until the three slots have been taken. It’s currently at $500 a month.

If you join, you will lock in your subscription at that rate, and it will never increase for as long as you remain active. As a member, you can ask me unlimited questions, one question at a time, which I will answer. This is a great opportunity to be mentored by me, personally.

Second, one of my students in my personal coaching program, asked: “Michel, I’m starting a blog using WordPress. Do you have any general tips on things like layout, plugins, design, etc?”

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I’ve done a couple of things to my blog, mostly “behind the scenes,” that I want to share with you.

My friend James Brausch has recently closed his comments on his blog. The primary and most important reason is to deal with the plethora of comment spam.

If you wanted to comment on any one of James’ posts, you’d now have to do it on your own blog by posting an article and linking back to his. Since his blog supports it, your link will automatically create a trackback on his post, which will be listed in the comments area.

But the wonderful byproduct of this is that it increases backlinks (i.e., link popularity) to his blog.

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After many months of virtual arm-twisting by my friends Armand Morin, Sherman Hu, Denis de Bernardy and others, I decided to finally dump Movable Type and go completely WordPress. Woohoo!

I love WordPress. But not just for its incredibly usable features, but also because Sylvie (my fiancée) and I have been running a battery of tests in the background with WP and the various plugins it offers.

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