Blog Income Life

Posts Tagged ‘making money online’

Nathan, dear boy, I love you  – honest I do.

I buy your products and visit your blog often but a recent post of yours  got my hackles up.  In your post of Feb 09 “Where 99% of Bloggers Go Wrong” you pulled no punches and pretty much told those of us who are blogging about blogging to pack it up.  The topic has been done to death and extremely well by uber bloggers who cut their chops on this subject and have entrenched themselves as experts for life.  They hold top positions and rankings with all the major search engines for just about every keyword associated with earning an online income and its not likely that any new blogger can add value or anything new to that which has already been written about in every which way except Sunday.

The “A” Listers have got it in spades and who are we to think that our humble efforts would ever see the light of day or  receive the blessings of Google and rub shoulder with the likes of Darren Rowse , Yaro Starak or John Chow – just to name a few.

Whew!  Nathan, you might be right.

That’s a lot of humble pie to eat.

But not so fast my boy.  At the risk of offending someone I admire – yes, you Nathan  here are my two cents worth, a retort if you will:

I am a “Z”Lister – no, you know what, make that a “Y” Lister (recently promoted myself).  I am a shameless hussy climbing the ladder to success and I notice that there are other aspiring bloggers blogging on blogging who are riders on the up escalator ahead of me.  I notice that they have good rankings of PR3 & PR4, and even PR5 with Alexa’s below the 100K mark.  That escalator is pretty crowded but my faves are:

Glen Alsopp of Viper Chill

Dave Doolin of Website in a Weekend

Gabe Young of Free Blog Help

Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income

Caroline Middlebrook of Caroline Middlebrook

There are plenty more and they all provide some valuable info.  Granted some of the above are not exactly wet behind the ears when it comes to internet marketing, and they brandish some sharp cyber smarts, but for all intents and purposes their blogs on blogging are.

I have learned a lot from these potential usurpers to the number one spot which is not to say that I have not learned from the current reigning kings.  But here are the reasons I like to visit the “new” blogs:

1. Inspiring.
   I can relate to these dudes.  Yes, they are ahead of me but not so far that I need to genuflect at the altar of their blog.  If they can be where they are in less than 2 years, and in Gabe’s case less than half a year, glory be.
2. Timely Information.
   Yes.  I can visit the uber bloggers blogs and go through their archives for content that is relevant to where I currently am in my blogging career.  But quite honestly, that content is somewhat wilted by now.   I realize and recognize that the basic info hasn’t changed, but I like the fresh approach that the new lot is bringing to the make money online market.  They are not so far ahead that I have to dig into back issues to understand what they are talking about.
3. Fresh Perspective
   Did I mention fresh approach?  No matter how grand the symphony a young conductor can infuse it with a new richness, a new energy, show a side that the audience may not have heard in quite that way before.  I also think of the new covers being recorded by no-name artists of the Beattles classics – and you know what?  Great as the originals are, the covers are smokin’
4. Community
   No offence here but what are the chances that a fledgling like myself would ever be noticed by oh say the likes of Darren Rowse (hey I like the guy and have opted in for the membership).  Those lower down the food chain still have the luxury of being able to mingle with us babes in swaddling clothes and actually helping us – they reciprocate with visits to our sites and leave valuable comments, they private message us with helpful suggestions, they give of their time in a way that the A Listers cannot if for no other reason than that logistics just get in the way.
5. Potential Alliances
   Just like the A Listers, this new lot is active and aggressive – they have products in the pipeline, we mere PR oners do too.  Can we ride on their coattails?  You betcha!  Can we form strong strategic alliances?  Ditto.  Can we eventually look to joint venture partnerships?  You bet your sweet bippy we can!

I don’t know why the current upwardly mobile bloggers blogging about blogging  got into that saturated niche.  My guess is that they felt it isn’t so saturated after all, that they had something of value to say.  Maybe they’re just an ornery lot who look at the face of impossibility, stare it down and grapple it to the ground.  I dunno know but I thank them.

I do know why I got this market.  Actually I was visiting Caroline Middlebrook one day and noticed that she was just blogging about her experience in blogging, talking about her success and failures and things to fix and so on.  I thought that was rather brave of her – moreover I liked her online voice, felt the sincerity and thought, hey, I can do that too.  Yup!  I quickly appropriated the idea and wrote and told her so.

By blogging about blogging, or at least my trials and tribulations and ultimate small granules of success I have learned things I probably never would have otherwise.  You see, I had been trying to get into the internet marketing arena for some time (well at least two years prior) and took course upon course.  In retrospect some of those courses were damn good, but honestly, I wasn’t fully up to them.  Almost without exception the early chapters were easy (they seemed to get easier with each course) but within a short period of time the eyes would glaze over and the brain would go on strike.

I thought about that and about Caroline and came to the conclusion that blogging would be the best way to put into practice that which I know – and I felt I knew plenty after all the credit card statements supported that feeling.  So I began my blog about blogging.

By applying things I knew I found holes.  Moreover, now that I was writing something, I had to do some checking to make sure that what I was saying was indeed so.  My atrophied internet marketing muscles began to gather strength.  I have laid a foundation, one that I can now build on.  I have launched other “niche” blogs which blush, yes, do bring in some shekels, but it is this blog that I look to as my flagship.  It is this blog that makes the others possible.

From this blog I learn.  It is my practicum.  Along the way I hope that my experiences are relevant to bloggers newer than I, that my content is helpful to them.  Because of my newbie status I still speak in a language that is devoid of blogspeak although I have caught myself drifting that way occasionally.  I am still at that place of my blog career that fledglings can look at me and say “I have a chance.”  And that is all I want.  It is a right of passage – maybe we will never sit side by side with the Darrens and Yaros and John’s, but we’ll have learned a hell of a lot by trying.

Nathan, forever your admirer …………..

Valentina

A needle mover is any activity that makes the needle on the results machine move, you know, kind of like a scale.  In my case it is an activity that makes my blog income go up.

I spend a lot of time on the computer.  I think that I am getting a lot done and moving my business forward and that the money truck is just around the corner … ok, Tonka truck will do for starters.  It is now almost a year since I decided to stop playing at internet marketing and to make it a serious business.  I remember that moment of decision as if it was yesterday.

In November I review the current year. In December I plan the coming year.

Last November’s year review was telling.  I was looking at a line item in my expenses – internet marketing courses, travel to and from those courses, time spent on those courses. It all added up to a pretty penny.  Then it hit me like a bolt of lightening.  Sure I was learning and doing the homework, even had a practicum or two tucked up my sleeve, but I wasn’t doing anything concrete with my newfound knowledge.  That’s when I decided to get going.  I didn’t know everything I needed to know but that was OK.  Mike Litman always says “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”

So I did.

I chose blogging as my preferred method of making money online. This blog is one of the results of that decision.

I sat down and made a business plan – paying attention to the needle movers in that plan.

My first move was to block a chunk of time daily that would be devoted to blogging.  I thought that if I calendared in four hours daily, five days a week I would be well on my way to a decent return on my investment of time.  Nine months into the game but the needle hasn’t moved all that much.

What gives?

Kevin Wilke of Nitro Marketing talks about the 100 hour rule, i.e., put in 100 focused “needle moving hours” of time into your internet marketing and your efforts should deliver at least $100 to $500 a month on a recurring basis.  OK … I’ve met that.  The next one is 500 hours which should gain you a replacement income, i.e., you should be able to cover your living costs at this point.  If you do the math at four hours a day five days a week in 25 weeks you should be pulling in the replacement income.  At this rate I have long since passed the 500 hour rule and if it weren’t for my other sources of income, I would still be doing the commute to a paid 9 to 5.

Kevin was talking about this recently and I got to thinking  – is the time I spend on the computer quality, productive needle moving time?  I decided to keep track. For two weeks I slavishly noted the time spent on various computer related tasks.  Boy!  Was I ever shocked!  Four hours?  Try one hour, two at best on most days.

It’s easy to spend time on the computer and think that you are “working” on your internet marketing. I found that of the four hours I calendared into the day for internet marketing the bulk of the time went  into:

1. Opening and reading email
2.  Replying to email
3.  Sending email re info I think might be of interest to colleagues
4.  Checking statistics (this one has just increased now that I am watching my “new” stats since    being on Wordpress for the majority of my sites
5.  Reading other blogs & commenting  – this is the first “needle” moving activity:  commenting on other blogs, but it is not a high gain activity.
6.  Researching & writing blog posts
7.  Repurposing my articles
8.  Publishing articles to article directories
9.  Other marketing activities which mostly include more publishing.

Only items 6 through 9 are high gain and I can tell you they did not get much attention on a daily basis, in fact items 1 through 5 took so much of my time that I was really short changing myself and not paying much attention to the real needle movers.

I’ve changed that.

Priorities have been re-arranged.  I do start the day by checking the stats.  I give this about 15 minutes.  While this activity of and on its own is not a needles mover it is important as it is a measuring stick and tells me if I am making headway in my marketing efforts.  I see day to day what is working and what is not and make adjustments as needed.

My mind works best in the morning, so research and writing is the next item.  I calendar in 2 hours.  After that I take a short break, pour myself some tea and relax for a bit.  Then I check the emails.  I have become ruthless with the delete key.  I flag anything that looks like something I would like to look into and get back to those items end of the four hour block.  I now have an hour and a half left to do some marketing. If this is Monday I decide which “site” to devote this time to for the week.  I check in to Market Samurai and see how I can tweak my efforts for this site, find a new affiliate product perhaps and set up a mini campaign for the current week.  That means that the selected site gets seven and a half hours of focused time for that week.

Do I follow this time schedule?
No.  I still get distracted but I am getting better at it.

Is it working?
You bet! Things are beginning to happen.

I have seen an increase in traffic, the stats look better, clicks are higher, conversions are on the rise.  Most importantly my motivation factor is up 100%.  I am now excited.  I get an adrenalin rush every time the needle moves. It gives me the feeling that I am in control of my business and that’s an awesome feeling.

What about you?  Does any of this resonate with you?  What do you do to keep the needle moving?  I’d love to hear from you … post your comments below.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogger for Money
…. and the cheese ain’t bad either!

I just read a post by a blogger colleague and I am super disappointed … in essence this blogger is saying that you should first and foremost blog because you have a passion for blogging and to forget about blogging for the purpose of money. That most bloggers blog from the crack of dawn and deep into the night. This person obviously subscribes to that group that believes in living your passion and the money will follow!!! Or another way they put it “do what you love and the money will come.”

Bull Dung!

I am getting tired of hearing this refrain. It gets me angry. It does a disservice to those who are serious about making money online. Blogging for money is a business and should be treated as such. If you are going to spend your waking hours blogging then why not make money? I have yet to meet anyone who was able to walk into a bank and deposit a whole bunch passion. Try paying your rent or buying groceries with love. Lets get serious.

First, if you want to make money at blogging you have to treat it like a business. That is why I wrote my ABC’s of Blogging for Money so that people can follow a system to lay down a foundation for success.

Yes, you also have to work at it. Nothing for nothing. But from crack of dawn into the dead of night??? I know several bloggers that are making money that CEOs of companies would eye with envy. You do need to put in consistent effort but I can guarantee you that these successful bloggers are not not up at the crack of dawn and working into the dead of night blogging.

You also need to be an ongoing student. Even my ABC’s of Blogging for Money is just the start. You need to be continuously learning about how to be a better internet marketer – that’s how you become a successful blogger. That’s how you start making a bit of money which with effort becomes some money and then one day you wake up to lots of money.

It helps if you blog about something that you are knowledgeable on, and if it happens to be a passion, great! If you want to make money blogging about it, you need to make sure that there is a market out there that actually wants to know more about your subject (covered in my ABC’s of Blogging for Money). No market, no money honey.

As I mentioned earlier, blogging for money is a business. Apply business principles and through diligent effort the money will indeed come. There is an excellent online course right now, the 30 Day Challenge that I encourage everyone to register for and apply. It is free. You learn how to select a profitable niche, install a blog with Wordpress Direct and most importantly you learn how to market. If you have not signed up for it yet it is not too late. What is great about this is that you can work on it at your own pace.

Happy Blogging

Valentina
Blogger for Money

PS… oooh! It gets me angry when someone tries to tell me there is no cheese!

Quick Links:
Fee PDF Download of ABC’s of Blogging for Money
Register for 30 Day Challenge