In a previous post I compared blog navigation to the New York Subway system. Sure, there are local stops that people want to get off at. But some people need to get to the important stops faster – and you need them to get there faster too.

These more important “stops” are your money pages.

What makes a blog profitable? It can be boiled down to two simple things.

The first, is you need something of value to offer – to sell. This may seem like a no-brainer, but too many people don’t offer anything for sale and then wonder why they aren’t making any money.

And the second part of the equation is getting people to visit your “money pages” – the pages where you are providing your premium offer – be it a service or a product.

So how do you get people to your money pages faster? You make it easy to navigate there.

Here are a four examples of leading blogs that are doing just that – making it easy for visitors to navigate to the money pages (the important stops on the train).

Smart Passive Income

Pat Flynn covers a lot of different topics on his Smart Passive Income blog, but the general premise is right in the name – creating passive income for yourself.

And Pat has done a wonderful job of doing just that by talking about it. You can see his impressive income numbers from his monthly income reports. And a lot of that income comes right from his blog through affiliate earnings.

To expedite the process, and save people a lot of browsing time, Pat crated a “Resources” tab in his navigation (2nd one from the right).

On that page, Pat lists the tools that he uses to create his passive income streams. Some of the tools are free, some are paid. And Pat gets an affiliate commission for many of the paid tools that he lists there (assuming someone purchases through his link, of course).

Pat has stated himself that the “Resources” page is a big earner for him.

Socialmouths

Francisco Rosales runs one of the leading social media blogs on the net over at Socialmouths. And on his blog you really only have 3 choices of where to navigate.

You can go to the blog homepage. You can go to “Who Is This Dude?” (which is his about page). Or you can go to “Let’s work together!” where he describes the services that he provides (along with some testimonials from happy customers). There aren’t many options of where to go, so you are more likely to land on the money page.

Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes has quickly grown a very large and successful online business. He offers multiple products focusing on different aspects of online marketing (such as LinkedIn, Facebook and webinars).

His site’s navigation also offers view options. In fact, there isn’t even a “Home” link (but you can always click the header image). There are only 4 links, and if you notice, 2 of them are money pages.

The “Speaking” page is clearly a money page because this is where he gives you information about hiring him to speak. And the “Store” link gets you to a list of his product offerings. You probably also noticed that the “Store” link is highlighted to stand out from the other navigation links. Can you guess where he wants you to go?

Copyblogger

Copyblogger has become a bit of an internet marketing empire. Brian Clark and his team have grown the brand to encompass many aspects of content marketing. They are trying to give you solutions for anything you might need.

As you can see from the Copyblogger header, they are promoting four products – each providing a separate solution.

What I really like about how they did this, though, is the labels of the navigation links.

For instance, one of their products is “Scribe SEO.” But they didn’t label the link to that “money page” with the product name. They didn’t even label it as “SEO.” Rather, they labeled it with the outcome you would want by using their product: traffic.

The same goes for their landing page tool: “Premise.” They aren’t selling you on a landing page tool – they’re selling you conversions.

Very powerful.

Ok Ok… Content Strategy Hub

I guess I should mention a bit of what I am doing here at this blog.

I am always tweaking little things here and there. If you notice, I too have a “Store” link in my main navigation bar. But I decided to take it one step further to promote my product: Strategic Content Launch Pad.

Most people have an opt-in form at the top of their sidebar. I used to as well. But I decided to take up that real estate with a link to my paid product. Again, I am trying to get people to my “money page” faster.

I have since updated the blog design yet again. For a more detailed description of that re-design, check out this post about website conversions and design.

This is just a test, of course, so we’ll see how it goes. The only way to ever truly know if something will work or not, is to test it. (Tweet This)