Where Is The Real Money In Blogging?

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There are two types of bloggers in the world - The reporters and the experts.

Expert bloggers will usually perform both roles. It's easy for an expert to report, but it’s hard for a reporter to become an expert.

If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies.

Usually these courses and seminars teach people to start as reporters, and if possible, step up as an expert.

I’ll be frank... You Want To Be The Expert!

People buy from experts. Reporters leverage the content of the experts. In most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise.

Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value. Experts find it easier to get publicity.

Clients are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek them out. Joint ventures are easier.

Basically, experts make more money and attract more attention!

Expertise requires experience. You can not become an expert without doing things and learning. New bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).

There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise.

Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.

Don’t Replicate Your Teacher

If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern.

Many people first study Internet Marketing from a "guru." The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student takes is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.

The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry - the Internet marketing industry - not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.

Even people, who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people.

Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche - Internet marketing - and rarely have any key points of differentiation.

How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things - email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing.

It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it - making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) - your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.

If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.

Report on Your Process, Not Others

The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey.

When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.

It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing.

If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) But you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not their’s.

Frame things using your opinion - your stories - and don’t regurgitate the expert comments.

The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.

Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.

You Are Already An Expert

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know.

Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something.

The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, as not everyone wants to be an expert). But if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously; you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know, and what you are presently learning along your journey.

I know so many people in my life, who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of… well, fear!

Blogs and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach.

If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert.

Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.

Reporting Is A Stepping Stone

If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from "scratch", then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.

Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog.

In many cases people make a career of reporting - journalism is just that. But if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone who is good at something, and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.

Have patience and focus on what you do to learn, and then translate that experience into lessons for others. And remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click the link below:

http://www.ian-mcconnell.com/blog-mastermind.html


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The Top 10 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Blog!

Image via WikipediaIn every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else''s blog, chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you.

Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that''s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

1 - Write at least five major "pillar" articles.

A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

2 - Write one new blog post per day minimum.

Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don''t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

3 - Use a proper domain name.

If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily remembed domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?)

So you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!)

4 - Start commenting on other blogs.

Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commenter and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

5 - Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts.

A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger''s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it's sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

6 - Encourage comments on your own blog.

One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

7 - Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival.

A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

8 - Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com.

To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it''s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it''s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

9 - Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com.

This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it''s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

10 - Write more pillar articles.

Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it''s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

Do you have any other tips to drive traffic to your blog?

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Buying And Selling Websites To Make More Money

Like real estate there is money to be made with flipping websites (buy and then on sell) or renovating websites (buy, tweak and then sell.)

Yaro Starak is a blogger I follow closely. His posts are incredibly well written and he is one of those genuine down-to-earth people that has been there and done it. This is what his personal experiences have been...

"I remember my first website sale. I made $13,000 Australian dollars selling a website that I had built from scratch myself. That sale was a big windfall for me and a moment I won’t forget because it was the first time I saw the real potential of online property investment.

Since that sale I’ve gone on to sell more than $150,000 USD in websites. Some of the sites I built myself, investing my own time and sometimes money, while others I have purchased and then sold for a profit at a later date.

I’ve never lost money on a website investment, although I have bought some sites that were not big money spinners - I got out with pretty much the same as I went in with. When profits are made though, the worst I have done is double my money." rest of Yaro's post here...

Why Blogging Is The Easiest Way To Make Money Online!

In the few minutes it takes you to read this article, hundreds of new blogs will be created and thousands, upon thousands of posts will have been made, world wide.

The information age we live in, has allowed everyone, from the local teenager to large corporations to jump on to the blogging wagon.

The lure of being able to have a blog installed in under 15 minutes, the incredibly low start-up costs, and the ability to post to that blog from any computer with internet access, has provided many people and corporations with an immediate web presence.

Stories are common place about full time bloggers earning over $100,000 a year while blogging for less than 2 hours a day. And they usually do this while traveling the world!

The most popular blog type for the newbie is one that documents their everyday lives, ramblings and opinions. They use it as a way to express themselves.

Each new blog post generates content which the search engines absolutely love. The conversational and informal nature of blogs usually provides great reading. Readers have the option to easily comment on the posts, providing feedback and their opinions.

Blogs become interactive and service the needs of writers and readers. Video and audio can now easily be inserted on blogs, providing a different experience for all its readers.

All blogs can be monetized with advertising, selling affiliate products or selling your own products. A blog with a great readership will attract high paying advertisers often paying for 6 months advertising in advance.

However, similar to any small business, the abandonment rate of blogs is incredibly high. Bloggers often enjoy the initial novelty of blogging, but if they started blogging to make some extra income, the novelty will wear off quickly if the results don't look promising.

Here are 3 secrets which virtually guarantee success for any blogger:


The First Secret:

A blog must be tightly themed around a niche, with posts that provide benefits for its readers.

If your blog posts do not provide significant value for your readers, they will not return to read any other posts. Remember blogs make money from its readers, so your content must keep them coming back.

Don't make the common mistake of blogging about anything and everything. If someone is reading your gardening blog, they have an interest in gardening. If you start blogging about the new car you just bought, you may lose that reader. They want to read about gardening, not cars.

Your readers are reading your posts with a "what's in it for me" mindset and if its not satisfied they will go somewhere else to find it.

Your blog is similar to an online magazine in many ways, just more informal and updated regularly.


The Second Secret:

Your blog must load fast, look the part and be easy to navigate. When your new readers arrive they should know within 5 seconds which niche you are targeting.

First impressions are everything!

It is very easy to use the default template in any blogging platform, but it will do nothing for your reader's experience. Look around at the successful blogs and you will find customized themes designed to suit their niche.

Customized themes will cost you less than $100, but this is money very well spent, as it will improve your readers experience ten-fold. And make sure you check your blog in various browsers not just Internet Explorer. A blog that looks fantastic in Internet Explorer could look terrible in other browsers.


The Third Secret:

Continuously generate targeted traffic to your blog. A great looking blog with quality content is not worth anything to anyone without consistent and targeted traffic to it.

You need to continuously promote your blog to attract visitors.

With its incredible speed, power and coverage, the internet can distribute a blog post around the world in seconds. A good looking blog fulfilling the needs, wants and desires of its readers can quickly become an authority site, in its niche, providing the owner with a very healthy income.

Have you had any success with blogging, or know of any one that has?

P.S. Don't forget to click here and Claim Your Free "How To Make Money While You Sleep" Reports!

Yaro Starak Lives The Bloggers Dream... Or Does He?

With an average income of $10,000 per month, working 3 to 4 hours a day, traveling around the world while working... Does Yaro Starak live a bloggers dream?

Lets look at it... say Yaro works 4 hours a day, 350 days a year (got to have some days doing nothing) thats 1,400 hours a year to earn $120,000 ($10,000 x 12) which works out to $85.71 per hour.

That's worst case scenario, because Yaro probably works less hours over the year and his income will be growing as he tweaks his blog. More posts means more exposure to product, more people on his list, more sales, etc.

Also remember, Yaro earns recurring income from people who have joined subscription sites through his affiliate link. So by doing nothing he still earns this income... very nice income!

Yaro's hours are flexible, he can work anywhere in the world (as long as he has an internet connection), he has no-one telling him what to do and he is doing something that he is passionate about... you just need to read his blog posts to feel that.

Granted he's taken 3 years to get to this level of income, and like most of us, started part time until the momentum kicked in... but this gives all newbies hope! And now the time frame can be drastically shortened.

There is so much training online now like Yaro's coaching or the Blog Classroom that what Yaro took 3 years to achieve, others are achieving in half the time or less.

Yaro Starak has got blogging down to a fine art. His blog is clean, crisp and easy to read. He absolutely rocks as a blogger and the best part is that he's a fellow Ozzie... only he lives on the wrong side! :)

He misses all the magical sunsets we get to experience in Western Australia... oh well I guess he can't have everything!

For anyone wanting to start making some money online, blogging is without a doubt the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to go. Within 15 minutes you could have a presence on the web and begin posting in your own voice.

Yaro Starak offers a free report "Blog Profits Blueprint" which is an awesome read and will give you a great idea about blogging and get you started, so you too can live your blogging dream...

Please leave your comment below, I always love reading them and so do my readers...

Rosalind Gardner And The Blog Classroom Neglect The Blogger Blogs

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Rosalind Gardner and Anik Singal have done Wordpress proud.

For years I've been persisting with my blogger blogs... thinking "it's owned by Google, so from an SEO stand point its gotta be a good thing!"

Well Rosalind and Anik have done a superb job with the free content they are providing at Blog Classroom and I'm convinced that Wordpress is the way to go. The plugins, the customization, the flexibility and the look of Wordpress blogs make it an absolute no-brainer way to go.

So what to do with my blogger blogs? Is there a way to convert them or maybe just set them up in a new directory with the last blogger post saying "Click here for our new blog."

I can't wait to see the product Rosalind and Anik release on the 29th April. I bet it's a ripper! Rosalind Gardner always produces great products as seen with the "Super Affiliate Handbook." This is a very comprehensive ebook that will help any newbie make affiliate sales in a short time.

The Blog Classroom is going to be a crowd pleaser... another great education is watching their product launch and all their rabid fans commenting to their hearts content... its a wonderful sight!