Blog Income Life

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Posts Tagged passive income

Quality vs Quantity? One Blogger’s Reply to Pat Flynn

Mar 19

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Traffic | 7 Comments

Pat Flynn is one smart dude and is a great poster child for the earn online income crowd.  If you haven’t visited his blog Smart Passive Income yet, hop on over there and get a good dose of what quality looks like when it comes to blogging.

In fact I was just visiting over there this morning, and was keying away my comment to his post and question What’s more important to you: Quantity, or Quality?” when my flying fingers hit the wrong key and voila!  The whole comment vanished.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Thoughts were running away and the comment was in danger of gulp! Becoming a post … which is why I decided to tackle Pat’s question here and well,  make it a post.

Pat is a master at posting thought provoking content and this was no exception.  The devil has a wicked streak of bent humor and easily bounces from seemingly complete irrelevance to “… right on, that hits the nail on the head …”  AHA moment for the reader.  So bananas to you Pat!

The question at hand quality vs quantity deals with blog content vs frequency of posting, i.e. which do you subscribe to.   Predictably most of the commenters  opted for quality which is both admirable and intuitive to our “better, inner” selves.

Pat’s own answer to this question is “It depends”

I agree with the “it depends” and have a few thoughts of my own.

#1. QUALITY
The first thought that comes to mind is that quality to some degree is subjective, particularly when it comes to writing.  What might be quality to one person may be just recycled drib drab to another.  So to some degree quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Some might point to style, or correctness of grammar and spelling as constituting quality, yet, I have read some really good stuff on some blogs where English is definitely a struggle but the info was good, grammatical, spelling errors et al and conversely where the spelling and grammar were stellar but the content was not.   And then throw style into the mix … you want to talk subjective?

Another spread in perception of quality would be determined by the demographics of your readership.  A blog who’s readership tends to be in the 34-45 age bracket – apparently Blog Income -  may not be considered quality by say the early twenties crowd.   You can get your blog demographics from Alexa.

#2 QUANTITY
The argument for posting quantity is driven by the attract search engine traffic crowd.  The more fresh content on the blog, the more frequently the bots crawl the site, the higher the ranking, the more traffic the search engines send your way.

“Screw the search engines” said one commenter.

OK.

If you blog purely for the joy of blogging and have nary a thought of earning an online income, by all means post as the moment moves you and let the reader decide whether that is a quality post or not and worthy of a return visit to your blog.  That of course presumes that you do indeed have a reader.  An established blog hopefully does, a brand new one is just whistling Dixie.

Exceptions abound of course – Glen Allsopp at Viper Chill immediately comes to mind as he seems to break every rule in blogging:  infrequent posting, long articles, free of monetization(at least  on his Viper Chill blog – he does extraordinarily well with his online business) and that domain name certainly doesn’t scream “blogging”  but damn!  The content is to kill for and his followers boarder on being cult fanatics  and the numbers just keep growing and growing.

If on the other hand you are blogging for money then you cannot ignore the engines – they are the lifeline to your earning an online income and frequency of posting should be part of your blog income business plan.   I can tell you from experience that how often you post is how pretty the search engines will play with you.

Daily posting draws daily traffic, some of which is return and some new, but more importantly there seems to be a spill over effect.  The more new traffic that comes to your blog, the greater the chance that your return traffic also begins to gain traction.

I stop at the 2 to 3 times daily though.  There are bloggers who do that, and do so successfully but my thought here is that the post does not have the benefit of time exposure and I wonder if multiple daily posts enjoy a significant return of visitor metric.

#3 : QUALITY & QUANTITY
The perfectionist in us cries out “Both!  Both” but I can tell you, it just ain’t a gonna happen!  Even the uber bloggers who do indeed post daily, have off days … and many of them have staff!

If you are a part time blogger holding down a 9-5, posting daily may be a stretch, yet if you can do it, its the best way to get your blog off the ground.  Many new bloggers bust their keesters for the first three months to gain traffic and ranking, then scale back a bit to say 3 times a week.  At this point they have established a presence and a readership and can concentrate more on quality.

So as with the bananananananas … you need to read Pat’s post … the answer is:  IT DEPENDS!

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Musings on a Sunday Morn: Done? Never!

Feb 7

Posted by Valentina in Sunday Morn Musings | 8 Comments

Welcome to Sunday Morn Musings.  This is my weekly free fall – writing about whatever it is that occupies the mind on a Sunday Morn.  The idea of a “no topic” posting is the stepchild to a blog I used to write:  Four O’Clock Thursdays which is still up there if you want to check it out – more likely, I will republish some of those posts here over time.  On Sunday Morn Musings the topic may be about blogging but just as likely it may not be.

As I was doing my blog rounds this morning, I came across a comment on Website In A Weekend The topic of the day’s post was on being “done” with something … you know, like a plumber goes and does his job and at the end its done.  No more planning, continuity, fine tuning etc.  The comment that got my attention was this one:carlos' comment

That’s why I like doing dishes. when they’re done they’re done…clean, dry, and warm.

Carlos is a wicked blogger. He’s brand new to the game – or at least his blog Conscious One is and he knows a thing or two about life… but Carlos, darling, sweetheart, have you never heard of that old and now hackneyed saying “a woman’s work is never done?”  … back in the oooolllldddd days, men would not be caught dead anywhere near a sink let alone doing the dishes!  I know, times have changed.

That comment brought up an image of residual.  You know how we all want to have a residual income where you get paid over and over and over for doing something once.  Authors and movie stars come to mind as the obvious candidates – they get money dropping down to their bottom line every time a book sells or a movie is viewed, at least while the royalty legal is in effect.  A residual or passive income is what blogging for money is about.

But residual dishwashing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah!   I know you don’t get paid over and over and over for doing the dishes once, in fact unless you are the dishwasher at a restaurant you don’t get even a measly dinero for your effort no matter how often the dirty deed is done.   No, what I am thinking here is that doing dishes is like residual work – you get them done and put away nicely into the cupboard and like magic, there they are again, all dirty and smudged with sauces or residues of a meal, and they need to get washed again!

I have noticed in our household – all two of us, so I know who the culprit is and it is not I – that not only do the dishes need daily attention, but they even have this nasty habit of just collecting in the sink!  Huh?  I mean, how hard is it to put them in the dishwasher?  OK … ongoing domestic issue which I won’t get into here.  Ohhh, and while on the subject, once they do get into the dishwasher and get all suddsed up, scrubbed clean and dried who is it that eventually empties them and puts them into their nice little spaces in the cupboards?  Hmmm?  Hmmm?  It is not he I guarantee.  Oh, slightly off topic here, not meaning for this to become a rant (just don’t get my hackles up) or air my laundry in the blogosphere.

In fact this kind of residual work is the least rewarding – at least it is to me.  The results are fleeting at best.  Hardly the sort of motivational material that the feel good gurus go mining for.

Same thing with cleaning.  Vacuum.  Damp mop the floors.  Clean the bathroom!  Oh the list is endless.  Now I know, that there are actually women out there who claim to love to clean house.  There may even be such men, but I have never met one while I have heard with my very own ears, these most strangest and foreign of words “… I love cleaning my house….” drop from the lips of a woman.  More than once!  Yes.  Honest.  I have heard these very words even from friends.

There is something wrong with this statement.  Upon hearing that one of my own circle loves to clean, of course I immediately step up to the plate and offer her more happiness – my own house for her to clean.  You would think that anyone who LOVES to clean would jump at the opportunity to do more of what she loves so I really don’t understand the why of the painfully withered look that I am subjected to with nary a word of explanation for the contorted muscles on her face.

Now take doing the laundry … puhleeze, someone?  The laundry basket is a perpetual source of clothing, surely it can’t be just ours, I mean there is only the two of us and since my wardrobe takes me from morn to noon to night there isn’t a whole lot of changing going on (such are the blessings of a stay at home blogger) – obviously it is HE!  AGAIN!

And they say that women are clotheshorses!  Weeelll…. ok, in my previous corporate life I had a vereeee nice closet filled with clothes destined for certain “jobs” but that may be a post for another day. But with a Blog Income Life business, drop dead gorgeous suits, silky blouses and shirts, soft hand tooled leather shoes don’t draw traffic to your site (not to mention that the paycheck hasn’t reached the point of supporting  …  oh but the Armani suits!  Hmmm….. be still my beating heart, do not apply for that executive position that a certain well connected friend mentioned.  Remember the commute, the corporate politics, the quotas, the backstabbing, the deadlines, yes, take a deep breath, feet firmly planted on the ground,  aaahhh, I am over it.

Armani?  Did I hear Armani?

Shush!

Oh. Off topic again!

Carlos my darling, you are delusional.  Dishes never get “done”

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

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Mental Meanderings on a Sunday Morning

Dec 27

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Random Thoughts | 2 Comments

The sun is streaming through my windows.  Hmmm – they definitely need some washing, but in the winter!  Even here in mild Vancouver washing windows in the winter is a futile exercise, not because it’s cold, but because of the rain!  No sooner are the windows clean than the rain “washes” them again, leaving them splattered with raindrops.

Had a wonderful Christmas.  Quick jaunt to LAX for a few fun days with my daughter, back in time for local festivities.

Typically my Sunday mornings are given to musings on whatever it is that  captures my thoughts on any given Sunday morning. Today it is my blog income life that is top of mind.  As the year draws to a close I find that I am examining my blog income life in greater detail – both in terms of the blog itself and indeed, the life that I am leading because of blogging.

As mentioned in a previous  post, I am nominally pleased with the progress of the blog and am confident that it will continue to improve in the coming year and beyond.

Now the life.  The money truck has not rolled up the driveway so drinking fine wines and dining out on epicurean delights has not happened with any regularity yet. I do spend a good deal of my time writing, oh heck, most of my time.  Blogging is addictive and I love it!

One of the things that keeps niggling on my mind is time.  I am fortunate that I derive enough from my businesses so that I can spend a lot of time writing.  Reading is also something I enjoy.  I have an ever lengthening list of books to read.  On the list for the longest time has been The 4-Hour Workweek.  I never bought it – other books kept taking precedence – until last week.

Whenever I fly I buy a book at the airport bookstore.  Last week I was on my way to Los Angeles – that is a good two and a half hour flight, enough for a good read.  I walked into the bookstore and what should be there front and center but The 4-hour Workweek!  Expanded and Updated yet!  A whole100 pages more than the original, of course I snapped it up.

Days later I am visiting Pat’s Smart Passive Income Blog and lo!  The 4-hour Workweek is prominently featured again. The Universe is sending me a message, right? Right?

Now it’s got me in a conundrum.  Of course I buy into doing less and getting more – who doesn’t?  The idea I have nurtured whilst taking internet marketing courses  was that I would build an online business that would allow me to be anywhere I wanted to be at any time and if I needed some additional funds all I would need to do – as the gurus say –  is press “send” and make money.

Reading Tim Ferriss’ book however has put a whole different spin on my idea.  My business plan for 2010 is pretty much complete.  Throughout the year I always tweak as needed. I suspect that much of that tweaking will be centered around The 4-Hour Workweek.  Dan Lok , a local internet marketing wunderkind once told me that he worked like the devil the first year in internet marketing, but now he is down to 4 hours a day, 4 days a week (he is in his seventh year in the biz). Maybe I can just “tweak” down to not working past a certain hour in the day for starters but still have better and better results.

For now, from my mental meanderings to yours … what’s on your mind when it comes to the time you spend blogging?

To an Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

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Review: Secret Affiliate Weapon

Nov 21

Posted by Valentina in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Making Money, Reviews | 2 Comments

Every journey eventually comes to a fork in the road where we have to make a choice.  I wrote about that in the October 21 post, titled Fork in the Road as it applied to the journey of developing a blog income.  The choice was to repeat or take on something new.

There was no right or wrong answer.  In the past I have often repeated a course as I found that the second round gave me a stronger grounding and I picked up things that I missed the first time.

The next step I chose for Blog Income Life was to take on affiliate marketing.  This was already on my mind and earlier I had purchased several courses that would take me through the basics of affiliate marketing.  I knew that to be successful in affiliate marketing it meant more than just slapping on an affiliate banner or two and hope that the traffic that came to my website would click on the banner and buy that product.

I picked Ewen Chia’s Secret Affiliate Weapon to start with.  If previous material I bought from Ewen was anything to judge from, then this would be an easy to understand, follow and implement course.  I was right.

I like the way that Ewen makes everything so simple.  I like the way that his whole course follows the most basic of teachings:

- Tell them what you are going to tell them
- Tell it to them
- Tell them what you just told them.

His video tutorials show screenshots of everything, from forms to be completed, what to enter on the forms, how to submit to what to expect when you complete your task, and what that should look like.  He explains the importance of each step and how it will affect your marketing results.

As a reader of this blog you are probably aware that I have a grouping of dog related blogs.  I have several affiliates but one in particular has been paying me some income.  The plan is to apply this course to that affiliate on all the sites.  I figure that by the time I get all of them done they’ll be running on a “set it and leave it” mode … ok, close to it anyway.  It will be interesting to see the increase in sales and whether it will become a passive income.  I am also an affiliate of this course and will go through the same process to see what kind of dollars I can drum up.   Will you keep you updated via the Month in Review stats that I publish on this blog.

Some of the information covered is not new to me.  It won’t be for you either.  What I like about the course however is that it sets out a systemic approach to affiliate marketing which when followed thoroughly should drop paychecks into your mailbox with increasing regularity.

Something that was not new for me was how to set up an account with Ezine Articles.  I was going to skip this tutorial but thought that if I was going to review this course, I should go over everything with a fine tooth comb. I was surprised at how poorly I had set up my Ezine Articles account.  That was in the early stages of my internet marketing career and I did a poor job on the resource boxes and the bio.  This also underlines the importance of continuous tweaking – small changes can reap big rewards.

Affiliate Weapon leads you through the mechanics of autoresponders, web pages, thank you pages, how to use Squidoo, Tube Mogul and more.  I have to say that Ewen’s tutorial on installing Wordpress is by far  the easiest of tutorials  on this subject that I have ever watched (it was included in a previous course of Ewen’s that I bought) – even though all my blogs are now on Wordpress Direct I still occasionally refer to Ewen’s video when I need to tweak something in the admin area.

One item I was not completely crazy about.  There is an excellent interview with Stone Evans who is one of those super affiliate marketers.  The story is inspiring and I liked it.

Stone’s product is Plug In Profits and I must say the business model is brilliant.  The short of the long of it is that you sign up for five network marketing businesses and Plug In Profit takes you to well, profits.  I have over ten years of experience in network marketing and while I do not dispute that Stone and many others do indeed make money on these companies, none of the chosen ones would float my boat.

Aside from that one personal quirk, I found that Secret Affiliate Weapon is an excellent course.  It starts off gently easing you into the process.  Soon without your even noticing it your internet marketing literacy has taken on a significant upswing, your language now includes viral marketing and you actually know what that means!  The simplicity of the course is ideal for newbies, the content makes it a good buy for advanced internet marketers and at $27 it’s a bargain for everyone!

Happy Affiliate Marketing!

Valentina

PS. Secret Affiliate Weapon offers an affiliate.  You could open your affiliate account and apply the course to promoting it – and make a few dollars while learning “on the job”

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Disclosure:  I own and paid for my copy of the Secret Affiliate Weapon.  I did not receive any compensation for this review.  I am an affiliate and should you decide to buy it through my links, my Bank of Blog Income will thank you.

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Residual Income – The Holy Grail of Affiliate Marketing

Nov 13

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

How do you develop a residual income and what exactly is residual income? This is the holy grail of internet marketing and when you finally build up a decent residual blog income then you can indeed live the big awesome:  drink fine wines, dine on epicurean delights, travel on exotic vacations and live in the house of your dreams (yes I know, it’s a recurring theme with me).

Residual income, also known as passive income is a set it and leave it money machine.  This type of income is most often associated with music, movies and runaway best sellers.  Every time a blockbuster movie is played in theaters a whole lot of people get paid royalties which is yet another name for residual income.  Now wouldn’t you want to wake up every morning, check in with your computer and see that while you were asleep, your online business made you some money?  Absolutely!

Affiliate marketing is one such money machine and works best when powered on all three cylinders.  We already covered:

Digital affiliates

Physical affiliates

Now we add Residual Affiliate Marketing.  This is any program that has a continuity component built into it.  Membership programs are an excellent example as are renewable subscriptions.

Most of the digital affiliate programs already offer a continuity program which can include but are not limited to: memberships which give access to the latest updates via newsletters, webinars, podcasts, exclusive interviews with professionals in their field and often advance notice of a new program about to be rolled out.

In the physical affiliate sector a common type of continuity program would be a product of the month club.  You often see this in coffee, chocolate, wine, and florist industries.  Gift basket business are also a good fit especially if marketing to the corporate sector.

In both the above instances you earn a recurring monthly income for as long as the customer is an active member.  In addition to Clickbank, Commission Junction and the search engines, you can check out these two directories:

http://www.lifetimecommissions.com
 http://www.affiliateguide.com/residual.html

Here is what this three pronged effort looks like:

Digital product:  Even if your visitor is looking for a physical product such as cigars, you can still have an informational product that gives more information about cigars, their history, where tobacco is grown, etc.

Physical product:  That would be the cigar itself, clippers, a humidor, and other accessories for cigars.

Residual product:  Membership in a cigar of the month club.

In summary, effective marketing in all three areas will triple your income over just employing one of the affiliate marketing options. Set up your affiliate marketing in such a way that you have something to offer to every visitor that comes to your site.

Here is to an awesome blog income life!

Valentina
Affiliates are cheesy!

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Affiliate Marketing – Good Building Block for a Blog Income Life

Oct 26

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

At my blog income fork in the road,just like with a real fork, there are plenty of tines to choose from.  It’s like one of those roads in real life where when you come to a crossroads, and it is called “Five Corners” or even six!  I have looked at the options and have chosen to get real good at affiliate marketing. Maybe you would like to get real good at affiliate marketing too.

In my view affiliate marketing is the obvious next step not just for me, but for those of you who are looking at the road less traveled and want to develop a good passive income. You’ve got the basics and are using them every time you work on your blog.  Hopefully your blog is already monetized, with at least Adsense and some products from Amazon.  Although there are people who make decent coin from each of these sources the commissions are minimal.  As your traffic increases these commissions will grow but I can bet you dollars for donuts that you won’t be retiring on the income generated from these sources any time soon.

It’s time to get serious, roll up your sleeves and look for some affiliate products that can pay up to as much as 75% of the selling price.  This part depends on what your niche is.  If yours is a dog related site and you sell a physical product such as a pet ointment, the commission will more than likely be in the 10% – 20% range.

To arm myself for better success in this area I went shopping and have bought several courses — five to be exact.  They are all instantly downloadable – so no cellophane wrapping to discard!   I will be giving a review on all of them in due course, however, in the meantime from previous experience with the authors and the little bit that I have already gone through, I am confident that these two are going to be well worth the purchase price:

Secret Affiliate Weapon – Ewen Chia .
You can still buy this one.

Affiliate Launch Bluepring – Michael Rasmussen .
Michael Rasmussen’s Affiliate Launch Blueprint sold out, but I just checked and see that the signup is available again.  This sometime happens because of duplicate purchases and some that may not have gone through.

Both of these are excellent products.

We’re on the road to a great blog income life!
Valentina
Blogger for Money …
…. would that be cheddar or Appenzeller?

Relative Posts and Articles
http://www.blogincomelife.com/making-money/the-blog-income-fork-in-the-road
http://www.earnpassiveincomedollars.com/passive-income/passive-income-most-desired-least-pursued


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Secret Affiliate Weapon

Sep 1

Posted by Valentina in Making Money | No Comments

Ewen Chia is one of my favorite Internet Marketing Gurus … I have been receiving his newsletters for some time now, bought the book How I Made My First Million on the Internet and How You Can Too!: The Complete Insider’s Guide to Making Millions with Your Internet Business and his course.

What I really like about Ewen is the easy to follow, step by step instructions on how to do something. I mean it’s like learning ABC’s.  As mentioned many times here, anything techie and my spine stiffens (I am getting better). When I first started looking at Wordpress, I found it a bit of challenge. I downloaded several e.books/instructions on how to install, upload, download, FTP and all that stuff.  Frustration set in. Then I remembered it was part of Ewen’s course that I had (at the time this part of the course was beyond my capability, so I left it alone). I quickly went to my files, opened the videos, and voila! Easy as a cake walk! I now refer to them all the time.

Why am I telling you all this (and isn’t today the “statistics” day for August?

Yes … it is.

But the reason I am telling you this is because Ewen has just launched his Secret Affiliate Weapon 2.0. I knew it was being launched today so was watching my Inbox like a hawk as I wanted to grab a copy of it quickly.

Affiliate marketing is my next step in developing my internet marketing muscles and it should be yours too. It’s the natural progression to making money. I like Ewen’s easy to follow style. As I write this, I am busy downloading. All I can say is that if this is only half as easy/good as Ewen’s other stuff, it will take my internet marketing up a notch or two … or ten!

What hooked me on this is that this is an automated system. After doing the 30 Day Challenge I am on the lookout for anything that will save me time and help me generate a PASSIVE INCOME … Ewen says this is the same system that he uses to generate $18,291.75 per month from ONE affiliate product!

OK. I’m game. But I was SHOCKED at the price … you will be too! I think the boy has lost his marbles or his brain has turned to mush. I am certain it will not last at this price for too long. I recommend, without reservation that you go and get your own copy of the Secret Affiliate Weapon 2.0

Happy Blogging … and Affiliate Marketing!

Valentina
Blogger for Money

PS. This is cheese is rare.

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