Blog Income Life

Blogging for Money and Loving It!

Posts Tagged blog income life

The Week That Was: May 17 – 23

May 24

Posted by Valentina in Weekly Review | 10 Comments

gather success
Gather Success

Today is a holiday here in Canada – Victoria Day.  Funny thing.  Every day of the weekend they have been predicting rain.  Every day of the weekend, the morning overcast turned to sunny.  Today appears to be a repeat!

What are some of the outstanding moments in my blog life this past week?

Well for one thing, the blog life has had to make way for a non- blog life and that may be the case for the next few months but it is all good.   To maximize my efforts and put some efficiencies into play I have made the following decisions regarding my Blog Income Life:

  • Focus on the “income” in Blog Income Life.  To that point I will be looking at my aggregate internet marketing income as my Blog Income Life.   I am giving myself the balance of Q2 and all of Q3 to ramp this up.  My first report will be published in October. 

    •  

  •  As the focus shifts to income, I have decided to concentrate on affiliate marketing.  Affiliate marketing has paid me in dribs and drabs, but nothing sustainable and no plan in place for sustained results.  I am currently looking at all the programs that I am affiliated with a view to begin to marketing  them – beginning with one.  Reviews on these programs will be posted here.  In the meantime, any advertising banners on Blog Income are those of products that I personally have bought and am pleased with … I know, none here right now, but there are quite a number and I’ll put them up soon.

 

There is plenty more on the horizon which I will share with you as time, plans and results unfold.  I am excited.

Now for the week that was – summary of new posts since May 16:

Gather  Success Challenge III – Affiliate Marketing :
As a contestant of Alvin Phang’s Gather Success Blogger Reality Show I “attend” the weekly call-in and take notes to both apply to my own efforts and to post here so that you can take away a gem or two that  may be helpful  too.  Lots of gems on this call.  Read them here.

sidenote:  this is the call-in that made the penny drop for me re affiliate marketing and earning a sustainable online income.

Gather Success Challenge IV – Retweet Challenge
My bête noir!  For some reason I have been dragging my feet when it comes to social media, particularly when it comes to Twitter.  Alvin  makes it clear:  we need to become more familiar with Mr. Twitter!   This week I have been reluctantly visiting Twitter and making a few tweets here and there (not enough I am sure to garner me in the top three, but ok, it’s dipping my toes.  This post is all about me being a shameless hussy and “chirping” for RTs … that would be “retweets!”  (I think).  

Sunday Morn Musings: Learning to Dance in the Rain
A very short post – I give deference to the video, which is (I think) profound.  I couldn’t say it better.  Enjoy the video!

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What Does a Blog Income Life Look Like?

Apr 17

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money | 6 Comments

“What does a Blog Income Life look like?”

This is a question I often get asked.

The real answer is that it differs blogger to blogger.  But that’s not what the question is about.  The question is about my blog income life.  It’s not stated that way but I know.  So I answer accordingly.

I think that there is some disappointment when my answer fails the litmus test.  People have read and heard that there are bloggers out there who are living the life of Riley, drinking fine wines, dining on epicurean delights, travelling to exotic destinations and living in the house of their dreams.

The answer is that yes, there are bloggers who do pull in the big bucks and enjoy a lifestyle to which many aspire – bloggers or otherwise.  The disappointment is in my answer.

Amongst my friends I am living the life of Riley – now wasn’t he the real life spy after whom Fleming supposedly modeled James Bond? – after all I ditched the 9 to 5 a long time ago, have the luxury of doing what I please during the week as opposed to leaving things like mountain hikes and day fun trips to places like Whistler for the weekends.

Actually I probably put in longer hours than my 9 to 5 friends.  Not all my time is devoted to blogging.  I have several businesses and each needs my time.  Internet marketing is a new venture for me and so far the ROI, both in terms of money and time invested is miniscule.  So if I do drink a fine wine even if only now and then it is not because of my blog income – not yet.

The question that goes begging then is why do I persist with blogging if my other sources of income are sufficient to buy me that fine wine – even if only now and then?

The answer is passive income and living the life of Riley – eventually.  Fine wine any time I want it!

Most of my business activities are linear – that is, produce the results and make the money.  There is no recurring income for having done something one time and having a  check arrive in the mail on a regular basis.  No, actually I do have one such business in network marketing and it is the reason I looked at internet marketing in the first place – to market it online.

I got hooked.

Internet marketing had a lot of intuitive appeal to me.  I dove in head first.

After taking several courses the penny dropped – the best place to cut your teeth on internet marketing is in blogging.  Hard costs are minimal.  Expertise is gained on the job and progress is largely dependent on time available and general comfort level with the internet.

So perhaps the proper question at this point of my blog income life is

“What does the time you spend on blogging look like?”

On average I put in four hours a day.  Not all those hours are devoted to Blog Income Life as I have other blogs which I market online.  Ironically it is these others that make bank for me.   Here are the activities that make up the four hours a day on blogging:

  1. Writing content.  I write fresh, original content for all my online marketing – that goes for blog posts, article marketing, long sales letters, squeeze pages  and feeder pages.
  2. Publishing to appropriate venues.
  3. Visiting similar content blogs
  4. Commenting on blogs
  5. Visiting forums
  6. Social media marketing

These activities are what I would term as high gain, their function is to ultimately make me money.

In addition to high gain activities I also schedule at least an hour a day to continue my internet marketing studies.  I still buy courses that I think will help broaden my knowledge and more importantly online experience – it`s what I call muscle building.  Confession:  sometimes this part of the day does not get done.

Sorry … the blogging money truck may have left but it has not arrived at my doorstep yet.  The little guy, the tonka truck makes frequent stops though.

What do you think is at the core of the question of “What does your blog income life look like?“

Curiosity for one.

But I think the question is deeper than that.  I think that the real question is `

“Is it true about what they say about blogging – that you can make a lot of money in no time flat and with little effort?”

They have seen the ads, read the long sales letters, watched the videos.  What they take away is that this is a piece of cake and anyone can have the cake and eat it too.  Overnight success is shouted from one guru to another.  The questioner wants me to validate this with an affirmative, that yes, I make gobs of money blogging.

The truth is that overnight success can and does happen – most often after months and months, even years of continuous effort.  Ask any guru – most have put in the time in some way or another on the internet.  Even John Chow who started to make $40K per month in less than two years on his blog already had another online business.  To hear him tell it, his John Chow blog kind of just happened.  It appears that way, but John has smarts and had already built up his internet muscles and when you already have muscles, the heavy lifting isn`t so heavy.

What I find enormously rewarding with my internet marketing in that for the first time in many years there is a learning curve to scale.   Too often we  get into a groove that has become comfortable and that groove provides us with what we need.  We don`t need to learn new things to perform well.  For me internet marketing was completely new.  I had to engage my brain and apply.

On this blog I write about things I have learned and experienced in my blogging career.   I hope that the content is of value to you, my visitor; that you can take a nugget or two away with you and that it will help you in your own journey to a profitable blog income life.

An unexpected bonus.  Well you could have knocked me over with a feather as I never would have thought that I would enjoy studying but I find  the challenge of learning invigorating, it’s like feeding your brain that has been starving all this time.  Feels good.

So for now my blog income life is mostly about learning, applying and measuring … and a whole lot of satisfaction with the progress I am making.  Financial success?  Promise, I’ll let you know.  If there is one piece of advice I can give it is simply this:  stay the course,  correct, continue.

Here’s to your blog income!

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Tools of the Trade

Jan 25

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing | 8 Comments

Now that you have selected an affiliate to promote and bought a unique domain name it is time to fill your box with some basic tools.

1. YOUR OWN SITE –  LANDING PAGE

The good thing about affiliate marketing is that the better affiliates already have collateral material ready for you including the “long sales letter” if you want to use it.  You could just redirect your new domain name to your affiliate URL – that way the traffic goes directly to the vendor’s site and buys the product.  You get the commission.  Easy as pie.

But you really want more.  You want to capture that buyer’s name and email address so that you can send your newsletters, emails, updates and valuable information to your customer.  That is where your own landing page …  alternately referred to as a squeeze, portal or capture page comes in. Now each of these have shades of difference, but basically their main job is to entice the visitor to give you their name and email address.

This is merely a mini site that is a page long – in this instance a “page” is not a designated size, it can be a short 5 x 8, a typical 8-1/2  x 11, or, go on and on like a roll of paper.  On this page you offer an ethical bribe so that the visitor gladly fills out her name and email address.  That ethical bribe can be in the form of a free ebook, a video or cd, a subscription to a free newsletter or if you can afford it a discounted price to the affiliate product (limited number, limited time), but in order to receive these they need to register through your landing page.

2. HOSTING

If your blog is already self hosted then that is where you host your new affiliate domain name.  I use Hostgator . This was the host that was recommend when I was going through the 30 Day Challenge last summer. I find their customer service to be excellent and their pricing is competitive with other hosting companies.  Another company I see cropping up more and more often is Blue Host.

3. AUTORESPONDER

An autoresponder manages your list.  It is a way to stay in touch with your prospects, to build rapport, establish credibility and promote new products and services.  You can program a thank you page to show up after a product has been purchased.  You can keep your prospects and customers updated on new developments in your business.  An autoresponder can have sub lists so that your customers are separated from your prospects, or perhaps they responded to different promotional material that way you can customize your messages to sync with their interests.

One of the most important features of an autoresponder is that about 90% of it is on autopilot – periodically you will want to interrupt pre-loaded messages with something new and fresh with a broadcast.  Use and abuse your autoresponder, it is there to serve you, your business and your subscribers – the more you know about how to use it, the stronger your business will be. A good autoresponder starts at about $10 per month and increases as your prospect list grows.  I use iContact . It was recommended to me by my mentor as a user friendly service and indeed I found that the learning curve was minimal.

4.  LINK TRACKING

Test, test & test again and make sure that everything you do to market your affiliate is tracked precisely.  What link tracking does is that it gives you information on every URL that you have published, whether it is by email, advertisement, articles, pay-per-click, even offline. A link tracking software is way over and above the statistics that your platform system or hosting company provide – those are just an overview of traffic and the source of that traffic. 

As you become more comfortable with your affiliate marketing efforts, you will want to mine deeper into which ad or words or  title drew the most traffic and converted in sales.  You can subscribe to a monthly link tracking software such as Website Gear from $10 a month or buy from about $300 upwards.

5.  LINK CLOAKING SOFTWARE

You don’t always need link cloaking but it is a good practice to get into.  What does link cloaking do?  It changes the original URL to a different one, while still leading the visitor to the same destination – in other words, the original URL is cloaked, or hidden. One of the reasons you may want to cloak the original URL is for sheer appearance.  Have you seen URLs that take up a whole line, something like (not a real URL)

http://www.valentinasaffiliates.com/linktracking=img&affID12345

I have seen URLs that are twice the length of the above.  Not only does it look cumbersome but it is much easier for the link to break, or it can be so long that your prospect needs to cut and paste it into the browser bar – some just won’t bother and another sale is gone.

Another reason to cloak your affiliate URL is, well people can be funny.  Onliners are becoming insreasingly savvy and recognize an affiliate URL when they see one.    Sometimes, for whatever their reason might be they don’t want to have someone make a commission on their purchase so they eliminate that part of the URL that is affiliate sensitive and buy directly from the vendor… I know, the price is the same, go figure!

There are URL shortening services such a Tiny URL which are free.  The problem is that you have no control over how long the redirect will last.  Affiliate Cloner Software will do the job for a one time fee.

There will be other tools that you will want to add to your toolbox.  The five mentioned here are a good start and signal  your professionalism.

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

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Five Basic Steps to Start Your Affiliate Marketing

Jan 21

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing | 11 Comments

Last week I had the honor of Mike Paetzold guesting here at Blog Income Life.  Mike’s posts were mostly directed to blogging yet the very same principles apply to affiliate marketing.  That’s how we get better and stronger  – reps at the gym build your body muscles, reps on the internet build your marketing muscles

Ewen Chia of Secret Affiliate Weapon says that when you master affiliate marketing you can your write own paycheck any time you want.  This self made mulit-millionaire made his first million focusing on affiliate marketing. In his book How I made My First Million on the Internet, Ewen sets out the step by step process that he employed to bring in the big bucks.

What is so powerful about affiliate marketing is that you do not need to have a product of your own.  You profit by someone else’s research, development, production and fulfillment.  All you need to do is promote and convert your promotion into sales. In other words you get to make money without the worry, stress and up front costs of developing a product.  You can even be choosy and take on products that are proven to convert well, its like betting on a sure horse.

Here are some basic tools that you will need to have:

#1.  HANG OUT YOUR SHINGLE

Tell the world you are open for business.  How are you going to promote your affiliate product?  Of course you can put up banner ads on the sidebar of your blog, as I have done here, but that of and on its own will not bring you many sales.  Have you ever noticed that in the offline world  big brand names appear in so many different media venues?  Coke ads  for example  appear in magazines, on billboards,  TV, as sponsors for major events, co-op with movie theaters, restaurants, and the list goes on and on.  That is marketing at its most.  As an affiliate marketer you need to do the same with your chosen product.

#2 – DIRECT MARKETING

One of the strongest methods of getting a message to your market is through direct opt-in marketing.  Strictly speaking direct marketing is the flyers and leaflets and “junk” mail that finds its way onto your porch or mailbox.  Internet marketing pioneers learned much from this method and with a few adjustments here and there developed a system that works.  So when I say “direct opt-in marketing” I am really referring to getting your message to your market’s inbox.  How do you do that without spamming?  You build an opt-in list.

#3 – OPT-IN LIST

This is a list of people in your market who have opted in to receive information from you.  It is permission based marketing by email that goes directly from your autoresponder to their inbox.  This is how you send them information about your product, about any specials that you may have, or an introduction to another similar type of product that may be a good add on to what they already have.  This works for both informational product as well as physical.

An example of this is the ABC’s of Blogging banner ad at the top of this page.  When you click that on you are taken to a long sales letter at the end of which you are invited to submit your name and email address and for that you will receive the link to a free PDF download of my e.book ABC’s of Blogging for Money.  Many marketers publish a newsletter and offer a free subscription – you may have seen such invites on other blogs.

#4 – VIRTUAL BILLBOARDS

Everything in the virtual world has a twin in the “real” world.  Virtual billboards  are mini sites and they are a full blown ad for the product that you are marketing.  Typically a good affiliate program will already have this type of collateral material ready for you,  and you can just go ahead and drive traffic to that mini-site, but it would be better if you could somehow manage to collect an opt-in before your prospect goes off to buy the product.  Don’t get me wrong, a sale is good but it’s better if in the process you can also add the name of the customer to your own list.  A future post will deal with how you can do this.

In future postings I’ll cover additional ways of growing your list.  As a point of clarification RSS feeds and email via Google does not contribute to your list.  Those are people who just want to know when you have fresh content on your blog or site – the contact information belongs to Google and you do not have access to it.

#5 – EZINE ADS

Look for online publications on your topic, be it a newsletter or an online magazine and place an ad.  This is going to cost money but you are advertising to a qualified target market.  Be sure to get the circulation numbers and other logistics such as the readership percentage and typical click through rate for each ezine broadcast.

These are some of the ways that you can promote your affiliate products.  As with anything it is starting, testing and tweaking.  It is best to start with one method, massage it till it starts to make money, then expand on the same method, when you get real good at it introduce another.  Indeed,  master affiliate marketing and you will be well on your way to living the big awesome on your blog income.

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina


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Blog Income Org Chart

Jan 19

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing | 8 Comments

Expand your thinking and your blog income.  It’s time to think beyond just a blog.  If you have not already incorporated yourself as a business, you will definitely want to do so as your online earnings grow.  I like to see things and thought it would be fun to put up an org chart of what my internet marketing business looks like.  It also gives me a structure, one I can add on to – or make adjustments as needed.  Here is what my org chart looks like:

I’ve put INTERNET MARKETING as the holding company.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT  and BLOGGING  are each an “Internet Marketing” company.

BLOGGING is  the owner of each blog.  Each blog has its own set of affiliates.  Under Blog Income I have listed my affiliates for that blog.  This list will continue to grow as I add other affiliates.  I have a white board in my office and have drawn this chart on it – I see it every day and it gives me a better sense of business – it’s easy to lose sight of that fact when the commute is a scant minute and the dress code doesn’t stop at pajamas.

Just for the fun of it, put up your own org chart.  The good thing is that you can draw one any way you want.  Just imagine what you want your internet marketing business to look like in five years.  The parts that you can flesh out right now are the affiliates.

Select just one affiliate to start with and treat it much the same way that you did your blog.  Experts recommend that you have a domain name for each of your affiliates, or, at the very least, have each of your affiliates as a sub domain.

An example would be:

-  www.AllanasFavoriteAffiliates.com or
-  www.BestAffiliates.com

Both are fictitious.

Then for each affiliate you can have a sub domain without paying for a new one.  Here are some examples:

- www.AllanasFavoriteAffiliates.com/dogtraining
- www.AllanasFavoriteAffiliates.com/rawdogfood
- www.AllanasFovoriteAffiliates.com/puppytreats

Next stop for me is getting unique domain names for my affiliates.  I haven’t decided on how to organize them yet.  For the moment they are just being marketed directly to the vendor’s sales pages.

I’ve mentioned this before but it begs repeating – choose an affiliate that you are familiar with, whose service or product you are personally pleased with.  This is particularly important in the early stages of your affiliate marketing.  Later as you get to know your vendors well and trust them you can forego the third degree before promoting a new product of theirs.

Last week Mike Paetzold talked about  getting quality affiliates and pointed to some that are so obvious that they slipped right under my nose.   He said that the services you are currently using make for a good start – most online services have affiliate programs.  The only “service” I promote is Hostgator by just putting up a banner ad.  I just checked Go Daddy where I buy all my domains, and yes, they have a revenue sharing program as well but I think you really need to be a substantial internet marketer before going that route.

What are your thoughts about where your online business is going?  Do you see yourself  incorporating it into some sort of a legal entity?  How do you envision your chart?  What does it look like today?  In five years?

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Best……………valentina

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Tackle Bills With A Blog Income

Jan 6

Posted by Valentina in Blogging for Money, Making Money | 2 Comments

Increasingly people are turning to blogging as a means of earning an additional income.  The reasons vary but I venture that the economic meltdown of 2009 was a major motivator. Sadly many jump on the bandwagon expecting instant results – and who can blame them, what with all the ads promising the money truck to roll in overnight!

I was speaking with a retired gentleman a few days ago.  He took early retirement because he could.  His income was almost entirely based on his stock portfolio.  With last year’s debacle he finds that he now has to look for a job, not exactly a promising prospect.  He knows I blog and asked if this might be a good direction for him.

It might be.  He brings a wealth of knowledge from the corporate world.  He could launch a business to business blog, start a paid subscription newsletter, build up traffic and subscribers and sell ad space on his blog and newsletter.  He’s a quick study and I have no doubt that with laser like focus, consistent effort and bulldog tenacity he would succeed.  But it wouldn’t be overnight.

When speaking with would be bloggers who want to earn an online income, my advice to them is to keep the big picture in the background, and work towards small achievements that are part of the picture.  Yesterday’s post was on 5 milestones that are easy to achieve and a good starting point for any blogging career.  One of those milestones was to eliminate one bill.

Intuitively the mind jumps to the biggest bill – the mortgage, or car payment.  But what if instead of the big bill, you decide to tackle the smallest one first?  Here is what you do:

  1. Make a list of all your standing order bills along with the monthly amount
  2. Pick the smallest bill and make that your first target
  3. When you eliminate that bill, take the next smallest one and add it to your blog income goal.
  4. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I’d like to take credit for this process but I believe I first heard it from Kevin Wilke of Nitro Marketing Its brilliant and here is why I think it is so:

  1. It’s doable.  You are not starting out to conquer Mt. Everest, just a local hill.  You can relate to it.
  2. It’s friendly:  you don’t need a lot of expensive equipment to scale this little incline in your neighborhood – just the will to step out and walk it.  Maybe you haven’t done any exercise for a long time and the top of the hill is a ways off.  Never mind, daily effort eventually brings you to the top of the hill.
  3. Success:  When you look at your standing order of services/payments, I bet you’ll find something that is less than $10.  Mine is $1.96 for a membership to Problogger’s Forum (I got in at the first offer – even at $5.95 it’s a good value).  Well, that was easy.  I have several recurring monthly fees that are in the $9.95 bracket – bet you do to.  Decide which one you want to topple first.
  4. Success builds on success.  A funny thing happens when you first experience success – your personal energy changes and that changes you forever.  It may be just $1.96, but that is one bill that your blog income is paying for and suddenly your backbone strengthens, suddenly there is a new will and resolve that keeps you moving to the next post and then the next.

Soon the process becomes a new habit – it’s now deeply embedded in your DNA, trust me.  The car payment and the mortgage?  They too will topple.  The debt?   That too will be erased as your blog income grows.

To An Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

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2010 Goal Under Knife

Jan 3

Posted by Valentina in Goal Setting, Making Money, Miscellaneous | 4 Comments

And now for something completely different for Blog Income.  Barely out of the gate and already one of my 2010 goals has been shot down in flames!

In my post on Reflections of 2009 and Things Yet To Be of December 15 I cited one of my goals as being:

-          Launch a project blog that is centered around a newly planned trip to China in June … it is both a human interest blog and based on a significant but not well known historical event.

Shot down may not be the right term, deferred would be more like it.  Identify, correct and proceed.  A little background:

The planned trip was (is) to Harbin and centers around the Russian connection that is unique to this city in Northeastern China. The connection dates back to 1898 when Harbin became the terminus for the Chinese Eastern Railway – an extension of the Trans Siberian Railway – and figures prominently until 1946 when Russia turned the city over to the Chinese Government of the day.  Actually, it was under Russia’s protection only during WWII, but the relationship between this city and Russia is long and even today there are many Chinese citizens who are of Russian decent.

My family history happens to run a short pace alongside this historical dateline.  The city was once known as the St. Petersburg of Asia not just because of its strong Russian presence but also because it’s buildings are built in the classic style of architecture that St. Petersburg is known for.  Today Harbin is famous for its Snow and Ice Festival which is held in February and is considered to be a strong contender for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

When a friend of mine mentioned that there are now societies being formed to mine and record this historical association and that a small conference was being planned for June 2010 I took up the invite and thought that it would make for a good blog project for 2010.

A “conference” may have been premature, or perhaps not enough thought given to it.  Perhaps it was meant to be a casual gathering of like minded souls, or not.  The fact is that China has a strict ruling re gatherings of 50 or more and it likely takes a bit of bureaucratic filing and stamping and time before approval is given.  Repeated requests for more info have gone unheeded.

I have therefore changed my bend on this.  I still want to visit Harbin and write about it, but perhaps it will be without any conference and therefore need not be in June 2010.  I now have a different process in mind. The blog I planned as a project will now make way for something else.  So an early in the year correction points to a stronger presence on Blog Income Life with a major thrust into Affiliate Marketing.  The bar has just been raised.

To An Awesome Blog Income Life in 2010!

Valentina


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Uber Blogger Scheduled to Guest Week of Jan 11

Jan 3

Posted by Valentina in Guests, Internet Marketing | No Comments

Mike Paetzold, “Wordpress Guy,” has been on tour since November 09.  For the benefit of newbie readers,  Mike has been on the net since ’00, learned the ropes,  built an enviable blog income and has been sharing his success with those of us who are serious about making a mark in this biz.   Best known for his tips on how to maximize WordPress, he packs an impressive curriculum vitae on anything to do with marketing on the net.

Mike’s tour has been a virtual one – a blog tour.  What a great idea!  Every week he visits a blog and takes up residency as a guest, posting daily on topics anchored to blogs.  Each week has a theme.  You can click on  Mike’s Blog Tour and visit the very same sites he guested and read his articles on list building, product, affiliate marketing and more.

Mike  took a two week break over Christmas and New Year’s and is now back on the road.  Next stop? Right here at Blog Income Life!  I am so excited!  Starting January 11 Mike will be a guest blogger right here for a whole week!

I can hardly wait to see what Mike will be writing about.  I have a strong suspicion that it might have to do with generating traffic. What makes me think that?  Well, it was what I put down as the item I wanted most to be covered,  and on one of his posts he said

“… traffic comes at the end once you have built a system and is not where you start…”

It seems that this would be an appropriate theme for Mike to blog on as Blog Income Life appears to be the last blog on his tour.

You don’t want to miss any of Mike’s posts.  If you have not already done so, I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feeder by clicking on the orange chiclet you find at the top left hand corner on this page.

Here’s To An Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina


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Forced Continuity Programs – Convenience or Nuisance?

Dec 14

Posted by Valentina in Making Money, Random Thoughts | No Comments

What are your thoughts on forced continuity membership programs?  Are they a convenience or a nuisance?

A guru offers a free CD or book or something that needs to be shipped and all you need to do is pay for the shipping.  Next thing you know, you get a whopping $97 or more charged to your credit card and suddenly your blog income business has a debit line entry.  Outside of the internet world this is known as negative billing and companies that employ this tactic fall under heavy fire.

Last week when I attended the Financial Meetup, John Chow

John Chow & Bernadette Giet of Wealthy Wilmas

John Chow & Bernadette Giet of Wealthy Wilmas

spoke briefly about just this very subject – which can be even more insidious than I thought.  At least the offerings that come into your and my inbox have a respected name attached to them and the long sales letter that roped you in in the first place does mention that you can cancel at any time.

It is the trial period of time that I have an issue with – sometimes as short as 7 days.

But what if your keyword search landed you on just such a sales letter on the open world wide web.  No identity, no respected name behind, just a freebie offer that requires your credit card number and then whamo!  An unexpected charge for a substantial amount on your card.  According to John there are plenty of such freebies with negative billing programs out there, and, as he put it “just try and cancel.”

Having fallen prey to negative billing on more than one occasion the practice has left a bad taste in my mouth.  Of course you can get the freebie and cancel immediately after.  Most people don’t.  I know that when I purchase a freebie, I want to read or listen to the CD or watch the video before deciding on the continuity program.

My thinking here is that these gurus might get the first month’s continuity fee, perhaps even the second, but after that the attrition is significant.  I have heard it whispered in the  hollowed halls of the internet marketing world that the average life of a forced continuity member is four months.  Is it worth ticking off a whole lot of people just to get the 4 months of fees?  Doesn’t sound like the best way to build an online income.

Have you had any experience with forced continuity programs?  What are your thoughts.  Should the freeloader just suck it up when the charge appears on the credit card statement?  Is the onus on the new “subscriber” or should there be a box for an optional check mark to become a continuity member?

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

Forced continuity programs?  Stinky Cheese!

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Blog Income Life: November Results

Dec 1

Posted by Valentina in Goal Setting, Month in Review | 2 Comments

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.  I celebrate Christmas – two of them.  My ancestral heritage is Russian.  The Russian Orthodox Church never switched over from the Julian to the Gregorian, so Christmas falls on January 07!  How cool is that?  This is a month of many celebrations, and whether you celebrate Christmas or something else, I want to begin by wishing each and everyone who comes here, joyous celebrations, goodwill and blessings for you and your loved ones.

It is the first of the month which means a review of the month past for Blog Income Life.   My goals for the month of November were:

1. Increase traffic by 20%+ (I’m following Darren Rowse’s formula here.
2. Get back on to earning some dollars.
3. Spend less time checking my daily stats.

Let’s look at the traffic first:
analytics - nov this is IT

analytics traffic source Nov 09Last month’s visitors = 130
Target: 20% increase = 156
Actual results                = 158

Just squeaked in!  In actual fact it is probably more like 15% growth seeing as last month’s stats did not include the first 5 days of the month!  I know this is anemic compared to many newbies who are getting that and more PER DAY. I am a great fan of Darren Rowse’s (is there anyone who isn’t), and I read with great interest that he focused on growing his blog traffic by 10% – 20% per month.  I am also a great believer in building momentum.  On that note I will be trying something in the new year that is meant to increase the traffic significantly – 200 per day by end of QI of 2010 is the big stretch.

Search engines stats fell from 15.38% to 8.3%.  I ascribe this to my letting up on my focusing on the keyword that I am fighting to get on page one for.  I am of two minds here.  Everything I have learned stresses the importance of optimizing your posts with the main keyword and sprinkling others here and here.   I feel that to do so for every post is somewhat artificial.  Yes, I want more search engine traffic, I also want to write in a non-forced style.  I think that my readers are intelligent enough to be able to tell the difference.  My readers are my guests.  Foremost in my mind is to treat them as welcome guests.  This probably comes with experience – write keyword optimized posts and make it flow in the most natural of ways.

Income:  Alas, none to report from this blog.  As mentioned before my performing blogs are my stable of doggie sites — even Adsense is delivering.  But I did have an awesome day – my first ever $1000 day!  This was in one of my other businesses.  What I loved about this experience is that it is now in my system.  Once experienced it’s in your DNA.   I look forward to many more $1000 days in 2010.

Checking Daily Stats:  Done!  The temptation, especially at the beginning was hard to overcome.  Eventually I just got fed up with myself in wasting time checking stats on my various sites.  I figured that I was wasting at least an hour.  Now, I check the stats in the mornings – it gives me a sense on what I need to concentrate on for the day and make adjustments to the plan I wrote the night before if needed – and leave them alone for the day.  Yes, sometimes I still sneak a peak before the end of day, but that too is declining.

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What is December to look like?  I realize now that focusing on income is premature for this blog.  I am going to concentrate on other factors and as these improve, I believe the income will too.  I will concentrate on that area that I have a greater control over and that is traffic.  I am also working through the Secret Affiliate Weapon course and implementing the steps along the way but then I am not anticipating results until QI of 2010.   So for December:

1. Traffic:  20% increase = 190.  Up the ante to 200
2. Add a subscription/email registration plugin and a “Tweet Me” button too!

Here’s to an Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina
Writing for an Awesome Blog Income Life … and yummy cheese!

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