Blog Income Life

Blogging for Money and Loving It!

Archive for category Plan Development

Summer’s Sabbatical Gone – Blogging’s On!

Oct 1

Posted by Valentina in Miscellaneous, Plan Development | No Comments

Blog Income Sabbatical FinishedThe Blog Income Life summer sabbatical is over, after all anything summer was officially over a week ago and the fourth quarter of the year is upon us.

I  took the summer off of blogging and called it my summer sabbatical ‘cause it just sounded better that way.  Taking the three months off was good.  It was one of chose choices that was made for me.   Have you ever had this happen to you?  Suddenly too much is coming at you, most of it good and most of it means an income, either right away or in the pipeline?   Now that’s not a bad place to be, but suddenly you’re caught up in a whirlwind and you don’t which way to go, what to do?  So you get the picture  and although a lot was happening precious little was actually being done.

That’s when I decided that I needed to pull back.  It happens to all of us.  When caught in a vortex the best thing to do is suspend yourself outside of the milieu and take a bird’s eye view of the maelstrom below.

It’s not something I recommend for everyone or every situation.  The sabbatical has cost me – it’s cost me traffic, growth and lovely Alexa has dropped Blog Income Life like a hot potato from a one time 239,072 to an embarrassing 1,560,842 (and possibly worse at press time). Testament to the importance of consistency and fresh content.  Google on the other hand has allowed my PR2 to remain.   I hope that my regular readers return and perhaps the search engines will once again take an interest in what is going on in this little corner of the blogosphere.

On the other hand the sabbatical allowed me time to take a breath and examine what was on the table. Sometimes we don’t see the forest for the trees, in my case opportunities.   It`s not as though I sat at the top of a mountain meditating, waiting for the universe to deliver  …what?  Something.   What I did was to engage myself in activities of a different sort from blogging but still within the sphere of internet marketing.

The result is exhilarating.  A new business partnership for one and another that is a joint venture.

While the money made from this site is negligible at best, neither of the two would have happened without this blog.  I thought I would share some of my experiences with you, perhaps there is something there that might resonate with you.

First and foremost the purpose of this site was to apply that which I knew, learn and grow.  This is an ongoing process.  The main thing is that by applying one learns a lot more than by just knowing.  Trust me.  It’s true.   You find holes in what you know.  You begin to know how little you know.  Sometimes that is discouraging but then you look at where you’ve come from and there is renewed zeal.  But sometimes that isn’t enough.

There were signs already in May … signs that pretty much said I’d need to clone myself, decline opportunities or do a half assed job of everything.  One morning I sat down and reviewed the state of Valentina  – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good was obvious. The bad was that I had no time.  The ugly was specific to this site – once again it seemed to be in a stall.  So I made some decisions.

Sometimes the best cure is a change of scenery.  I decided to take a leave of absence from Blog Income and concentrate on some of the other areas that needed addressing.

One:  Clean House –  Pocket Some Money.
 On several occasions I made mention that my dog sites are the ones that are at least giving me some income off the net.  I have several dog related sites.  The thing is I no longer have a dog.  Dear Darby went to doggie heaven.  For personal reasons I decided not to get another dog.  Even though the mere sight of a dog tugs at my heartstrings, my heart was no longer into the dog sites.  I put them up to auction and sold them – well at least a few.  Someone I know locally has offered a deal for the rest of them with a revenue share component.  We’re talking.

If you have stale blogs that are just gathering dust, you just might want to polish them up and put them up for sale.  You’re not likely to get a lot of money for them, but chances are you’re not getting much of it anyway if the blogs have gone into a catatonic state.  Clean house – pocket some money.

Two:   Navigating the Rabbit Trail.
Through a convoluted set of circumstances I was asked If I would help promote an early stage company going to IPO (Initial Public Offering).  Coincidentally this is a digital media company and wow!  Did I learn a lot about the importance of video in online marketing.   Here’s a statistic for you:  companies with websites that have a video are 51 times (that is times, not percent) more likely to end up on page one of Google for their product over companies that don’t have videos .  What that means is that a site that does not have one will be lost in the maze of a rabbit trail. Now that statistic is tumbling fast as I see an increasing number of businesses adding videos to their sites.

Three:  Joint Venture
Through my internet mastermind group I am now a legal  equal revenue sharing partner in a startup internet project – a site which is part of a bigger scheme.  Development costs in terms of time and money have been significant to date – none out of my pocket.  How good is that?

Four:  New Online Business
This one was an incubator for several months, inching along step by step.   Big change as someone with depth of online experience and offline business success expressed interest in a partnership – would I be interested ?  Oh Yes!

I know there are bloggers out there that are busting their butts trying to make their blogs fly, to make a bit of money, maybe that’s you.  All I can say is don’t give up … you just don’t know what and how your efforts will pay off.  Keep on keeping.

Wonder Wheel – Great Tool for Cluster Blog Posting

Apr 20

Posted by Valentina in Making Money, Plan Development | 11 Comments

Writing a series of related posts is a great way to market your blog.  Sometimes it’s a bit of a stretch to get the content all lined up so that it flows and stays on target.

At last night’s InternetMasterMind meeting, we were introduced to a really neat Google tool:  the Wonder Wheel.  It was presented as  another tool to your  keyword research arsenal but I looked at it and thought that it is an excellent tool for scoping out  and planning out your post series on a specific topic.

To show you what I mean, below are the screencasts for Blog Income:

1.  Just above the number one spot, there is a plus sign and a “show options” button.  Click that on.

2.  The resulting drop down will look like this:


3.   Click on the Wonder Wheel – this is the result I get for Blog Income.  See all the possible related topics that are an expansion of “blog income?”  To go even further, you can click on one of the “spokes” and generate another wonder wheel to expand on that topic.

How you can apply this to your own blog is to search the keyword of your blog and go through this process.  What I really like about this is that you can do this for every keyword and come up with a lot of different “series” … and that should keep you busy for some time to come.

I think this is an excellent way to make progress on your own blog and to cluster series on a given niche within your topic.

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!


Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S

Tags:

What is Your Blog’s USP?

Apr 6

Posted by Valentina in Plan Development | 8 Comments

What is your blog’ USP?

To earn a substantial blog income you need to define your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).  If you did not include this part in your original plan development this is a good time to revisit the process.

What is the feature of your blog?

What is the benefit?

We know the importance of USP when it comes to selling tangible items, but when it comes to the non-tangibles the lines begin to blur.  Consider:

Car
Feature: Heated/cooled seats and back rest in car
Benefit:  instant body comfort no matter what the temperature is outside.

Restaurant
Features:  authentic home-made Italian;
Benefits:  better tasting than others

A blog by definition is not a tangible, you can’t pick it up, package it and deliver it to someone.  But it is a product. To uncover the USP of your blog ask yourself these questions:

  1. BENEFITS
    What are the benefits of the blog?
  2. NICHE APPROPRIATE
    Are the benefits appropriate to your niche?  i.e.  does it solve a major problem?
    Helps people eliminate debt?
    Improve self esteem?
    Shows how to plant patio gardens?
  3. MEANINGFUL SPECIFICS
    What are the action steps
    What are the best tools
    What to look for when purchasing equipment
  4. EMOTIONAL TRIGGERS
    Whom do you appeal to and why do they keep coming back  time and time again?
    You can get a profile of your visitor at Alexa.  Alexa is not just a ranking system but is a good source of info on the type of traffic you attract.  So if your traffic is made up of mostly 50+  women, who have a college education, are empty nesters and looking to retirement in the near future, what are some of the emotional triggers that would keep them engaged with your blog?
  5. TIED TO MARKETING SALES PROCESS?
    Is it tied in to a marketing sales process?  i.e., do you offer products, either affiliate or your own that would be of interest to your niche?  If your blog is all about patio gardening and you attract women in their fifties who are empty nesters, what could you offer as an affiliate?  Videos on how to plant in planters, how to choose planters.  How to position them.  Outdoor living room. Show off your green thumb without spending hours of backbreaking work.   Maybe you are a horticulturalist.  Have you thought of making your own videos or DVDs and marketing  them to your traffic
  6. WOWFACTOR
    After your visitor finishes reading your latest post, is he intrigued?  Did he feel that you gave value for the 2 – 4  (or more) minutes it took him to read it.  So what do you think your WOW factor is?  AHA!  Could that be your blog’s USP?

I think that what each blogger brings to the net is their unique voice and that is difficult to define in a USP – unless the “voice” is a dog that publishes a blog, or a celebrity or a well known personality, but other than that, how do you try and differentiate your blog from that of your competitors?  Or do you follow the successful ones and use their formula with your own spin on the topic?  What has worked for you.  The comment section below is all yours.

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S ,

Tags: ,

Five Basic Steps to Online Networking

Mar 29

Posted by Valentina in Miscellaneous, Plan Development | 4 Comments

We all know how networking works in the offline world, but did you ever think that the same principles can be applied to the online world and that it works equally well across all spectrums of  internet marketing?  Whether you are blogging for money, or focusing on affiliate marketing to earn an online income, networking, whether offline or on can have a definite positive impact on your bottom line at the bank.  Online networking should be part of your plan to succeed on the internet.

How, you ask, do you network online?  Networking has spun a whole new business model –daily there are several networking events held throughout any major city at venues as diverse as the people who attend them.   For a small entrance fee and the cost of a wallet full of business cards you can attend these well orchestrated functions where it goes without saying that the reason you are there is to make connections and so is everyone else.  No need to chit chat about sports, kids or the last adventure down the Amazon.  Cut to the chase and go for the jugular:  What do you do?  What are you looking for?  How can I help you?  No fit, no worries, move on no offence taken.

But how do you do that on the internet?

There is no virtual room that you can enter, tap someone on the shoulder and exchange  URLs, contact info and other bits of   critical information about each other’s businesses.   But …  develop online  relationships you can

First off I am not a great fan of the organized network functions.  They are too frenzied for my liking.  Long before someone came up with the idea of throwing a party for no other reason than to facilitate encounters of the business kind, networking was alive and well.  Have you ever moved neighbourhoods or cities, perhaps even countries.  How did you meet your new neighbours ?  Chances are that you joined some associations,  societies, private clubs and extended and accepted invitations to social gatherings.

If you are new to internet marketing think of it as a new neighbourhood.  How might you meet others on the internet and more importantly how do you meet the right crowd?  Here are a few suggestions:

  1. FORUMS:
    Search for online forums that are either complimentary to or the same interest as your own. Register for an account and start visiting.   There is usually an introduction thread going, do that.  After that just hang out a bit, read what others are saying and if you like the tone and the content, participate.  Best way is to be helpful.  When someone is looking for an answer to something and you know it, supply it, or weigh in with your opinion or suggestion.  The key is to make your responses of value. Get noticed.
  2. BLOGS
    Find blogs in the same or complementary niche as yours.  Visit the blogs – some you’ll like some you won’t.  Bookmark the ones you do and make a habit of dropping in and not just reading the posts, but commenting as well.  Think of yourself as a guest and what is the role of a guest?  To enjoy oneself of course but also to add value to the host’s party.  The blog is the party. Be gracious, read the whole post and make a comment, either by complimenting the host on the article or suggesting something that may extend the value of it.
  3. TWITTER
    Twitter is a great place to socialize and is perhaps the best gateway to online relationships.  Done with an end purpose in mind you can develop strong relationships with others of a similar industry or common goal.  Most people go about “meeting” people on Twitter the wrong way – they immediately start following people without any thought as to whether they should.  I mean when you think about it would you go out on the street and tap people on the shoulder to say that you are new in town and want to get to know them?  Of course not.

    Similarly with Twitter.  Ideally you should start by only following people you already know, but if you are completely new to this scene and you don’t know anyone – or at least, you don’t know that you know anyone  –  you start with a simple search.  Look for people in your profession or industry, similar hobbies or common goals.  Select no more than 10 to start with and before you follow them, visit their profile.  Do you like what you see and read?  If you do then go ahead and follow.  Be sure to log in once a day to see what your new online compradres are tweeting about.    Follow the thread.  If you like what you are reading,  stay a follower and begin to engage in the conversation, if you don’t, then simply unfollow.

  4. FACEBOOK
    Similar to Twitter but different.  Matt Astifan likens it to the next step after Twitter.  Twitter is where you meet someone,  get to know a bit about them sort of like doing due diligence, and then if you decide that this is a keeper, invite them to your Facebook.  Facebook is a slower pace where you can get to know your new online friend a bit better – it’s like slow dancing vs rock or hip hop –   perhaps even give a referral or two.
  5. OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS
    Twitter and Facebook are the two most popular social networks out there, but you may want to look for specialized social networks – you know, something like where all the medical doctors hang out if you’re a doctor, or a neurosurgeon  or where budding authors exchange good tips on editors, agents and publishers.

Do all of the above without expectations.  You will find that visits will be returned, tweets will be forwarded, invitations will be given.  Not only will you be joining a community of like minded people but  people who are willing to support each other’s endeavours, perhaps even signing on as affiliates and even joint venture partners in the future.

Now doesn’t that look just like offline networking?  Have you in fact been doing online networking without knowing it?  What have you done that has grown your community?  Can you suggest other ways of online networking?  Have you benefitted from online networking?  How?  Don’t be shy, post your comments below.

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , ,

Tags: , , ,

Five Steps To Keep Your Blog Income Goal On Track

Mar 10

Posted by Valentina in Goal Setting, Internet Marketing, Plan Development | 2 Comments

Are you on pace for your 2010 internet marketing goal?

In three weeks and a day the first quarter of the year will have come and gone.  If you are serious about your blog income business this is the time to take a quick overview of where you’re going, where you are and where you’ve been so far this year.

Reviewing your progress in anything that you do is critical to success.  Goals drive success.  So you need to review the progress of your goal for the year.  I review by day, week, month and quarter.  I don’t spend a lot of time on all the details, but come the end of a quarter,my blog income business undergoes a microscopic review. Year to date results are tallied  and adjustments where necessary are made.

This is a good time to take a quick overview of the current situation vis a vis your blog income goal.  With three weeks to go there is still time to save the bacon.

Am I on track?

NO!

Do I know how far off track I am?

YES!

Here is a quick way to review your progress and maximize your internet marketing performance:

1.  Goal.
You can do this for any part of your life, but for the purpose of this blog and post let’s stay with your blog income business.  What was your goal for the year?  .

A common annual goal is to achieve a certain income.  Assume that your goal is $100K  for all your internet marketing streams.  A very simple plan might look like this

1Q = $10,000
2Q = $20,000
3Q = $30,000
4Q = $40,000

Total = $100,000

2.  Progress to date:
What is your year to date income?  With three weeks to go, if you do not make some quick adjustments will you achieve $10,000?  If not how far off the mark are you?  If the shortfall is just a projected thousand or two, what can you do to turn up the heat.

3.  High Gain Activities
A quick review will tell you what in your marketing mix has worked the best and brought you the money to date.  You will notice that every time you took action there was an upward  spike in the results.  Very quickly identify the action that brought you the most income.  Take that model and ramp it up for the rest of the month.  If it is affiliate marketing that is the major contributor, see which affiliate product contributed the most to your bottom line.

4. How Many Sales Needed?
If your current track projection shows that you will be $2000 short of your 1Q goal, what are the steps that will lead you to reaching $10K?  Ask yourself these questions:

a)  What is the commission for each sale?
b)  How many clicks to reach one conversion?
c)  How much traffic  per click?

For ease of calculation:
commission per sale:  $100
clicks to make one sale: 10
traffic to generate 1 click: 10

Armed with this information you come up with this formula
2000 visits = 200 clicks
200 clicks = 20 sales
20 sales @ $100 commission = $2000

5. Which Piston Is Firing  The Traffic Engine?
Look through your statistics to identify which marketing action drives the most traffic.  Isolate it and increase that marketing action in direct proportion to meet and deliver the additional numbers.

This is also a good time to look at your second quarter.  Based on your 1Q results what are the action steps for the coming quarter.  What adjustments do you need to make?

Look at your business as sailing.  When you sail you know what your destination is.  You have a mapped out route.  Depending on how the wind is blowing, how the currents are running and daily weather changes, you need to continuously tack your sailboat to reach your destination.  A review of your  results is just tacking your internet marketing business to success.

In short:  review, correct, continue.

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,

Five Easy Blogging Milestones To Reach

Jan 5

Posted by Valentina in Goal Setting, Plan Development | 7 Comments

A strong blog income does not happen overnight – for that matter what is a “strong” blog income?  For some a thousand dollars a month is manna from heaven, for others it is just a drop in the bucket.  The difference between the first and the second is where you are in your blogging career and how many milestones you have passed.

What does a blogging career look like?

If you are not currently employed, at some point or another in your life you have been.  When you got your first job you needed to present some credentials:  a diploma, a degree, or some experience at the very least, preferably a combination of the lot. Indeed, acquiring each credential was in itself a major milestone in your professional career.  The same applies to blogging.

While it is easy to start a blog, developing a blog income is an entirely different matter.  For serious newbies who want to become professional bloggers it is important to learn the most essential of the basics involved, just like you had to learn your alphabet, so too do you need to learn the ABC’s of  Blogging for Money.  After getting through the basics you need to keep your eye on the next step, or milestone.  It is a way of monitoring your success and keeping yourself on target.

Your success path will have many, many milestones but you have to get started somewhere.  Here are five easy ones to begin with:

1.  First 30 posts:
This is your entry into the world of blogging.  It tells the internet that you are serious.  Do you know that up to 90% of all blogs ever started have been abandoned after only a few posts?

Thirty posts also sets the tone for your blog, a culture of your own begins to emerge.  Now it will have an appeal to a certain audience. You begin to develop a style.  Blogging will always be a work in progress but this is your beginning, one to build on.

Hint:  post the30 as quickly as possible – one a day if you can, three a week at the very least.

next step:  100 posts.

2.  First 50 visitors

When you first begin to blog you will feel like the Lone Ranger.  No one knows who you are, no one drops by, even the spiders and bots are ignoring your efforts.  But lo!  One day the stats show that your site had a visitor, and the next day there are two.  For some the cumulative 50 visitors will be quick, for others it may take a month or even more.  Nevertheless, it is an important notch in your belt.

Next step:  first 50 visitors day

3.  First comment

This can happen before the 50 visitors, especially if you have promoted your blog amongst family and friends.  More than likely if you, like most bloggers, have decided to keep your newly embraced blogging career as your best kept secret from friends and family, the first comment will take a little bit longer (or a lot longer).

Getting comments on your posts is important.  It is a vote of confidence by your readers and a signal to the search engines that your readers like what you write and are willing to take the time to interact with you.  This is big in the eyes of the bots and spiders that come crawling through your posts.

There are strategies that you can employ to help this along.  Gabe Young over at Free Blog Help has posted an impressive lists of things to do to encourage comments on your blog.  I certainly found it helpful and rather than writing the list here, I encourage you to hop on over directly to his post for the whole meal deal.   “How I Get More Comments Than Blogs That Have 10 Times More Traffic”

Next Step:  Implement Gabe’s list, rinse and repeat.

4.  First Dollar Earned

Earning your first dollar on the internet is a validation that you can earn more.  It is so important that Ed Dale who hosts the annual 30 Day Challenge makes that the foremost goal of that free course.  If you have not participated in the 30 Day Challenge I encourage you to do so.  Every year in August Ed Dale puts up his 30-Day Challenge. The good thing is you don’t have to wait till August, he leaves it up for the entire year and you can go through it in your own sweet time, take months if you want to.

Next Step:  Eliminate one monthly bill with your blog income

5.  PR1 – Google Page Rank 1

While there may be  life without Google it is a difficult one.  Google is the world’s largest search engine and confers page ranks on blogs and sites from 0 to 10 -  the higher the better.  Yes, you can be below 0, it just shows up as “-“ when you look at your stats.  Page Rank, PR of 1 is a good starting point.  Google only updates a few times a year, so if you have been blogging for months and still nothing from Google, don’t despair.  Your tenacity will eventually be rewarded.

Next step:  PR2 and upwards.

There are other milestones that you will aspire to, but these are  good building blocks and should be included in the goals section when developing your blog income business plan.

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina


Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S ,

Tags: ,

Five Key Points to Consider When Buying Courses

Oct 24

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money, Plan Development | No Comments

‘Tis the season of launches and one time offers. If you have been in internet marketing for any length of time chances are that your inbox has a daily inflow of offers that you just cannot pass up.  During the “launch time” which can be as long as one week, a special price is offered along with a bundle of additional products that is enough to make the sugar plum fairy look positively parsimonious.  I love these offers.

Before you go diving into your wallet however, consider whether this is the right time for that unbelievable course that will finally have you the living the blog income life that you have been dreaming of. Some of those courses are indeed phenomenal.  Over the years we have seen some that are now considered classics.  The people who bought and applied have  prospered.  Those who still have the packages sitting on their shelves safely wrapped in their original cellophane  are still looking for the magic to happen.

Here is the thing.  There will always be phenomenal courses.  In my view, they can only get better.  Before you run off and buy one or two of the offers, you need to determine what your next step is, what your goals are and then decide to purchase the course that is a fit for you at this point in time.

I am guilty of having bought without giving much thought as to where I was going.  The offer was always great and seductive. The truth is that while I did unwrap the cellophane I have not always followed through and actually “taken” the course.  Now knowing better, I have created a criteria set that I refer to before buying.  This might be helpful for you too.

1.  Review your current position vis a vis where you were when you started your  internet marketing journey.  Because you are reading this blog may I make the assumption, that like me, you have decided to make money blogging. When looking at courses keep this in mind.

2.  Determine your next step?  I recommend that you make a business plan for the coming year.  It does not have to be a complicated one, a simple

- assessment of your current situation
- where you want to be at the close of next year
- a timeline  on the progression of results need to reach that goal
- Looking at that list, what is it that you need to get really good at?

3.  If you are in the early stages of developing your blog income, then you need to look at ways to increase your traffic.  This is an evergreen need.  No matter how successful you become, you will always want to increase traffic.  It makes sense then to look at courses geared towards driving traffic.

4. Is affiliate marketing in your marketing mix?   If so you need to look at courses that teach you how to build a list.  This is important.  As the saying goes the money is in the list.  Of course it goes without saying that courses on affiliate marketing should be on your shopping list as well.

5. If you are an experienced blogger/internet marketer, you may be ready to develop a product of your own, or start a membership site.  There are courses that are skewed towards these online business models. Look for them.

Personally, I look for systems or software that can help me automate some of my daily tasks.  I think that this is also one of those evergreen products. Before you buy, it is always a good idea to see if any reviews have been written on the product, or if it is a brand new launch, see what sort of buzz there is around the product, and the producer.  Do some online research to see what people are saying about the author.  What is his reputation?  What has he produced before?   What is the verdict on previous products?

Right now it is the result specific products that are being unveiled.   Set a budget.  There is something out there for everyone.  Invest in yourself and your Blog Income Life.   Shop well – shop wisely.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogging for Money and the Big Awesome (cheese that is).

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , ,

Tags: , , ,

Fork in the Road

Oct 21

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Link Building, Making Money, Plan Development | 2 Comments

You have now been on the blog income journey for several months and have come to that proverbial fork in the road. Which one to take?

In yesterday’s post I talked about the next step to take in developing your own Blog Income Life.

The two options covered in that post were:

1. Take the road most traveled. Continue polishing what you have learned so far and get really good at it. While it may seem that this is a static position to take, it really is not if you rinse and repeat with a purpose and have a new goal to aspire to. Certainly you will get more attention from Google and other search engines with a result of at least some incremental traffic increase. Your expertise on your chosen topic will expand – even if you already know a lot about it, it is amazing how much more knowledgeable you will get as you do more and more research so as to meet the fresh content requirement for a robust blog.

You might even want to put up another blog in the same field, using a different niche within it. Your current blog and the new one should be complimentary but preferably not identical. An example might be if your current blog is all about canning vegetables, a complimentary blog could be making your own fruit jams or preserves. Or, you may want to take the same topic but market to a different demographic. For example if your blog is about working a business from home, stay at home moms are a different demographic than boomers facing retirement. This is a strategy that is often taken by the gurus. In fact they often have a slew of complimentary blogs.

One of our exit strategies when we first build blogs is to sell them. When you have a grouping of related blogs, all of which are enjoying traffic, ranking and revenue producing, you can bundle the lot and sell them for a premium over selling just one blog.

2.Choice two is taking the unknown, the road less traveled. If you are ready to take on a new discipline to advance your internet marketing knowledge, to apply it to your blog and see exponential traffic growth (ok, eventually), then this is where you want to go.

This is a good time to decide what you want to tackle next. Here are some considerations:

- Learn how to market smartly using social media
- Choose one social marketing membership site to become an expert at, i.e., Twitter or Facebook
- Specialize in article marketing
- Learn how to effectively market affiliate products
- Become an expert on the importance of keywords and how to best use them
- Become a master at link building

There are plenty more but by now you have some familiarity with the above. This is where I recommend you pull out your wallet and buy a course on your choice. It doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact I recommend that you do not spend more than $100, $200 at best. There are lots of good courses that are significantly less than that.

In my “based on making money” opinion, affiliate marketing is the next obvious fit. Learning how to effectively market affiliates puts bigger dollars in your pocket and it is a good method of getting noticed by the owner of the product – why is that important? It opens the door for future joint ventures and then the big bucks begin to roll in. Yup! That would be the money truck.

Tomorrow more on Affiliate Marketing.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogging for my big cheese!

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , , , , , ,

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Blog Income Life: The Next Step

Oct 20

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money, Plan Development | 1 Comment

What should your next step be in developing your blog income life? If you have been following along with me then you have the basics of your blog set up and running well.  As a refresher here is what we have covered so far:

  1. Topic/Niche Selection
  2. Domain Name
  3. Selecting the right platform for your blog
  4. Posting on your blog
  5. Monetizing your blog
  6. Repurposing your posts into articles & submitting to article directories
  7. Link Building

It is time to decide on your next step.  As you have been learning how to blog for money you have also been learning about internet marketing … sneaky huh!  That is why I believe that blogging is the best introduction to internet marketing.  Its user friendly so that anyone can do it yet presents enough of a challenge so that you are learning new skill sets.  I like that part.  I find that my brain is quite happy to be exercised and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I overcome a challenge in my quest to master the art of blogging for money.

But now you have arrived at the fork in the road.

Here are your two choices right now:

1.  Continue applying what you have learned so far.  Keep polishing your skills.  You will find that with continued practice your skill level improves and your confidence level goes up.  You will find that it will take less  time to create a new post,  to re-purpose the post into articles, and to submit to article directories.  You will develop a system.

2. Add a new dimension.  This means learning a new application, or “task” which will take you further along the road to becoming an internet marketing master.  It means leaving your comfort zone and taking on a new challenge.   This is the option I recommend – but only if you are relatively comfortable with option one, and have set up a “system”  no matter how rudimentary, that you can follow.  This is the way to develop an awesome blog income life.

Tomorrow more on new dimensions

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Living a Blog Income Life
… going for the big cheese


Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , , , ,

Tags: , , , , ,

Planting For a Blog Income Life

Oct 16

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money, Plan Development | No Comments

To live a Blog Income Life you have to do some planning and some planting.  Read on.

Living the Blog Income Life to me means that I control my schedule and if I want, I can take a day in the middle of the week and go play.  A friend and I did just that this Wednesday.  Neither of us had been to Whistler for a while and we thought we should take a gander out that way to see how the Sea to Sky Highway had been improved and what the 2010 Olympic ski site looks like today.

It was a great day.

Our planning wasn’t the best — that’s what happens when you do things on the spur of the moment.  Unbeknownst to us many of the attractions had shut down last Sunday, not to be reopened until after  American Thanksgiving weekend which traditionally is the start of the winter season – so no gondola ride, no peak to peak ride, no decadent dining.

Would have been nice.  It did not matter.   We had a wonderful time anyway.

We walked throughout the village, stopped in to the vacant shops and chatted up the sales associates many of whom are Australian – for one brief moment I thought I had been transported to a different country.

Then I saw something that caught my attention.  A crew of gardeners were planting.  They were working on a freshly dug patch of earth in front of the Fairmont Hotel.  They had the bulbs set out in the exact spots they would be dug into the ground and the various bulbs were spaced according to whether they were tulips, daffodils or alium.  I was so intrigued that we stopped to chat with the gardeners and I  took a picture.

bulbs being planted Whistler

This got me thinking.  They were planting today for results that would be seen in the spring – perhaps as long as five months down the road.  For months there will be no sign of the fruits … errr flowers … of their labor.  Then one day, little green shoots will start poking their way out of the ground.  Hardly anyone will notice them.  The shoots will keep growing until one day there are buds on the ends of the stems and then suddenly they will bloom, rewarding us with a bountiful feast of beauty and color.

Blogging is the same thing.  At the beginning when we start posting blogs we do not see instant results.  Sometimes there is no traffic at all for the first few months.  Then visitors begin to drop in in dribs and drabs.  Some like what you blog about and subscribe to your RSS feed, or bookmark your blog, maybe even make a comment on your post.  Slowly your blog begins to get noticed.  It begins to bloom.

Back when I was in the corporate world we were always told that what we do today will begin to bear fruit months down the road.  Its never instantaneous.   Three to six months is common.  In blogging fresh content can bring you an instant positive blip on your stats chart, but what you are really doing is planting bulbs for your future.  The more planting you do the sooner the reward of being able to live  a Blog Income Life.

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S ,

Tags: ,