Bloggers: Your Theme Matters January 19, 2007
I’ve never seen anything on this but if you know about this disregard.
I have two similar sites content wise, and are roughly the same domains (one is pluralized form of the other) I noticed that one of the sites has weird stuff indexed (ie feedlinks, wp login page etc.) and seems to be neglected by google while the other one seems to be indexing fine.
I had a hunch because of how one was being indexed it may have something to do with theme I was using.
If you use firefox and the web developer plugin you can disable styles and see the page as a spider would.
Get it here: FireFox Web Developer Plugin
Sure enough when I compared the two themes (without css styling as the spiders see it), one (the neglected one) was displaying all the menu stuff up top, while the other one had the content (ie posts) up top and all the menu stuff at the bottom.
To see the two example themes:
the theme with with menu stuff up top was juice 2.0 from themes.wordpress.net
the other theme was unsleepable from the same site. If you have the firefox plugin to disable css, just do “test run” on both themes and disable styles right on the test site.
Theme designers, you should check out your templates to see how the content is really displaying.
On a side not if you interested in blog advertising or buying text links on thousands of sites for one low flat price check out Bliggo and Phrase Links
They are invite only systems but I have been in private beat for nearly a year now, and have tremendous results with them.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is a Fraud January 18, 2007
There is an SEO contest for the phrase “GlobalWarming awareness2007.” I don’t really care too much about the contest, but there is something I have wanted to write About Global Warming for a while now and this GlobalWarming Awareness2007 contest is the perfect excuse. It’s this:
Claims of significant anthropogenic global warming due to CO2 emissions are either overblown or completely unfounded. The greatest scientific fraud in the history of mankind is this “Global Warming / Climate Change” tandem. Any doomsday scenarios concocted on these theories are a scientific embarrassment that have as much credibility as Creationism, Refrigerator Gnomes, or the Late Iraqi Information Minister.
The Global Warming scam was designed to 1. Scare people into giving time, money and power to charlatan scientists and sham politicians 2. Dramatically increase the size and scope of government and proliferate a worldwide socialist agenda 3. Oppress developing Nations
Sadly, the scam is working.
This fraud was dreamed up by intellectually dishonest scientific professionals coveting government grant money: Was latched on to by politicians and political groups that seek to expand their own influence as well as the size and scope of government and is perpetuated by the ignorant masses who do not have the capacity to refute what Hitler coined the “The Big Lie.”
Billions of dollars in taxes, private donations and political contributions are raised every year to fight the global warming boogieman. This sham has taken many otherwise intelligent and good intentioned people and turned them into quasi-religious zealots on a crusade for a bigger, more intrusive, more powerful world government.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
* Al Gore is trying to resurrect his political life with Global Warming Scare Mongering. * Virgin CEO Richard Branson has pledged $3 Billion to fight global warming. * Billions of Taxpayer and education dollars are wasted each year in the name of global warming. * People like to believe in significant anthropogenic global warming because it makes them feel good and lulls them into a sense of intellectually superiority.
When you follow the money and politics, it’s easy to see why this charade of smoke and mirrors is occurring. The “why” of the scam is a thesis in and of itself. However, it’s more important for Global Warming Awareness 2007 to shed the light of truth on the debate to dispel many of the myths surrounding the climate change debate. Grab your popcorn or delicious this for later, because we have a few “incontinent Truths” of our own to cover and this is gonna take a while.
Global Warming Awareness 2007, Here comes the Science . . .
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 1.
The Earth is 1, 2, 5 or 10 degrees warmer than it was 100 years ago.
Truth: At most we’ve had an average 0.6 degree C (and probably closer to 0.3 degree C) increase over the last 100 years.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 2.
“I know Anthropogenic Global Warming is occurring because it’s warmer here in _____. I know it’s warmer, I can feel it.”
Truth: Just because it may be warmer where you are, doesn’t mean that the Earth’s temperature is changing globally; and it certainly does not mean that any climate change is occurring because of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Anecdotal testimonials in a microcosm are not scientifically valid.
As we pointed out, the average global temperature increase has been between 0.3-0.6 degrees over the last hundred years. That works out to 0.003-0.006 degrees per year; a change that is certainly imperceptible without instruments.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 3 CO2 levels and the average Global Temperatures are near all time highs in Earths history.
Truth: We have records of CO2 and temperatures going back *millions* of years, and we presently have some of the lowest CO2 levels in the same amount of time; before now, CO2 levels have been several orders of magnitude higher… all without human intervention. Also, the earth’s temperature was dramatically warmer. Guess what, doomsayers? The earth has natural CO2/temperature cycles and climate science is only just now starting to put some of the bigger pieces of the puzzle together.
Check out Milankovitch Cycles to learn more about these natural cycles.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 4. There is evidence that a rise in CO2 has led to a rise in Global Temperatures throughout millions of years of the Earth’s history.
Truth: Here is the graph of Temperature levels and CO2 Levels.
The double graph, reproduced below lists CO2 concentration above temperature: but, if the two graphs were superimposed at sufficient scale, as is customary when comparing such similar curves, changes in temperature would be seen to precede changes in CO2 concentration by 400 to 4,000 years.
Can anyone explain to me why CO2 level rising lags about 800 years behind the temperature rises?
While correlation does not equal causation (contrary to what these global warming shysters would have you believe) the logical conclusion is NOT that higher CO2 Levels cause an increase in Global Temperatures, but rather that global temperature increases cause a rise in CO2 levels. These graphs also show that CO2 in and of itself is incapable of sustaining temperature growth.
If their “CO2 causes significant global warming” theories were correct we should see temperature levels increasing after rising CO2 levels - not the other way around.
It looks more like CO2 is what the planet uses stunt temperature upsurges and cool back off after an interglacial period.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 5 Receding Ice Sheets is proof that anthropogenic Global Warming is occurring.
Truth: Here are some photos showing the shrinking of Glacial Ice Sheets.
They sure look like they are shrinking, don’t they? Problem is, those are pictures of the Glacial Ice Caps on Mars. Yes, they are shrinking, but one could hardly argue it’s because of some US soccer mom driving an SUV. There are no humans on Mars.
Caltech planetary scientists have been keeping a close eye on the dozens of deep, wide pits in the southern martian ice caps. These pits have been growing larger every year, but they never get any deeper.
The scientists believe this means that there is a layer of dry ice that is evaporating off of a thicker layer of water ice. The yearly increases in evaporation may be caused by A global warming trend happening on Mars (Source NASA)
The residual martian south polar cap is changing. The fact that it is changing suggests that Mars may have major, global climate changes that are occurring on the same time scales as Earth’s most recent climate shifts, including the last Ice Age.
If both Mars and Earth are experiencing global warming, then perhaps there is a larger phenomenon going on in the Solar System that is causing their global climates to change.
Yea – like maybe the sun is a little bit hotter and brighter?
So, we know the sun is getting hotter. We know that it is warmer on Mars. It is also warmer on Earth. How does one look at those facts and come up with “I think the Earth is warmer because Jane drives a Hummer”? Get a grip people!
If there is Global Warming on Mars, doesn’t that indicate that a significant portion, if not all, of the 0.3-0.6 degree C increase in the Earth’s average temperature over the last 100 years is being caused by the sun or other cosmic forces that have nothing to do with humans?
Oh and by the way, Earth’s Antarctic Ice sheet is actually growing.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 6
CO2 is the most significant Greenhouse Gas in Earth’s Atmosphere.
Truth: More than 95% of the “Greenhouse Gas” effect comes from water vapor.
Water vapor constitutes Earth’s most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth’s greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many “facts and figures’ regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.
Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC’s, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 7
Only Bible Banging Creationist and big oil lobbyist deny anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing significant global warming.
I am an Atheist leaning agnostic. Evolution is as good as fact in my book; there is no missing link. I don’t own a dime in oil stocks and have never worked for nor received any money from any lobbying group. I’m neither anti-environment nor against renewable energy ideas like Biodiesel or Solar Tower power stations. The world could go 100% solar powered tomorrow and I’d stay just as happy as a pig in shit.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 8
So and so says it’s true so it must be
Truth: Follow the money. In Science there is a saying “No Problem, no funding.”
I’ve read what the Royal Society has published about anthropogenic global warming. It’s an embarrassment: nothing but conjecture, glad-handing, postulates and guesses. Where is the Science?!? Where is the evidence that concretely demonstrates that an X increase in atmospheric CO2 leads to a temperature increase of FunctionX on a planetary scale? Nowhere! Because this type of evidence simply does not exist. All we have are rigged computer models that fail at even the most rudimentary attempts to predict climate or weather changes and “scientists” referencing those models as if they were somehow bastions of truth and authority.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 9 Human caused C02 emissions will cause a temperature increase that will melt the ice caps and flood all coastlines in the next 50-100 years.
I call Bullshit.
When someone can predict the temperature range (high and low) for the 50 largest cites in the world 30 days out to within a half of a degree of accuracy, then maybe I’ll listen to what they have to say about the average global temperature 50 years from now. Until then, we’ll just have to agree to disagree about whether or not these climatologists and meteorologist know what the hell they’re talking about.
You think these scientists can see 100 years into the future? 100 years ago, there was a different environmental concern. People worried that we needed to come up with a solution for all the horse shit from the increase in the number of horse and buggy carriages in major cities. Here are some of the great predictions of the past.
Trying to predict what’s going to happen even this year is an exercise in futility. Remember how 2006 was supposed to be the biggest hurricane season on record? How’d that prediction turn out? Thinking that one can predict 100 years into the future goes beyond the wildest stretches of absurdity into pure insanity. Alas! Fools seem to love giving these psychics their money; nothing I say is going to stop them.
For me, I’ll put my money where my mouth is and buy some nice beachfront property. Why don’t you global warming zealots put your money where your mouth is and buy a nice cabin in the mountains somewhere? Then in 50 years we’ll look at whose property is worth more to see who was right.
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 10
If real we can do something about it
According to NASA, the average global temperature has risen only 0.3-0.6 degrees over the past 100 years. Even if 100% of this warming could be attributed to mankind’s CO2 emissions (which, as we have demonstrated, it cannot), none of the proposed “solutions” would decrease worldwide CO2 levels, none of them would stop or significantly curb this alleged cause of anthropogenic global warming (if it is occurring) and most of these big government “solutions” would dramatically degrade the quality of life for the poorest and most impoverished people on Earth.
Indeed, the risks of handing power over to politicians who clad themselves in the global warming cloak to spread their socialist agendas far out ways any danger associated with anthropogenic global warming or “climate change.”
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Myth Buster 11
Global Warming is bad for the human race.
Truth: The Warming of the earth has coincided with prosperity and development. Periods of frost or cold have caused global famine, periods of stagnation and economic recession. A warmer earth and more CO2 means more plant life, greater farm yields and worldwide prosperity. It’s quite amazing how closely economic cycles have tracked increases and decreases in the average global temperature.
More interesting thoughts on Global Warming include Apocalypse canceled its referenced pdf, and Extra Terrestrials Caused Global Warming.
And before you throw out your ad hak attacks, the one thing I can say for those two intelligent people is that are not chasing Global Warming Funding Dollars or coveting political influence. Can the same be said for whomever you site?
GlobalWarming Awareness2007 Conclusion:
The overwhelming evidence is that manmade CO2 emissions account for only a fraction of the mere 0.3-0.6 degree rise in temperature over the last 100 years – if at all. Even if mankind accounted for all of it (we don’t) and we could accurately predict (we can’t) that mankind would quadruple that temperature increase over the next 100 years (we probably couldn’t even if we wanted to), it would not be cause for concern. History has demonstrated time and time again that a warmer Earth will mean greater prosperity for mankind. So in fact, the best we can hope for is that these doomsday prophets are correct and that we will somehow raise the Earth’s temperature for the sake of our great grandchildren. Unfortunately for them, the bulk of the genuine scientific evidence suggests that these Global Warming charlatans are spouting nothing but hot air.
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Original Article syndicated via RSS from SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog
The Key Resource For A Sustainable Blogging Business
Welcome to the next article in my series on blogging as a sustainable business model. In part one of this series you learned about the staple monetization strategy that most probloggers use - creating content to bring in traffic and increase income.
Using the example of Darren Rowse in article two, I concluded that despite the fact that a few top bloggers earn a full time income blogging, and even more money in the case of Darren and bloggers like him, it is still not a sustainable business model when so much responsibility for output rests on one person. In the previous article before this one I listed some of the advantages that many top bloggers enjoy, which the average person does not.
If you have not read the first three parts in this series please do so before continuing with this article.
- Part 1: Is Professional Blogging A Sustainable Business Model?
- Part 2: Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Professional Blogger?
- Part 3: The Advantages Top Bloggers Have That You Don’t
Points of Leverage
The problem with the current model for professional blogging is the lack of a strategy that actually leverages the content = traffic = money equation in a non-linear way. Most professional bloggers apply the time = money formula directly to the content = traffic = money formula, placing a big limitation on the total output possible. This as I mentioned is self employment applied to blogging. Blogging is not a bad job, but it is still a job - and you may not want a job forever if you share my belief that happiness comes from freedom.
What we need to do is create a model that doesn’t restrict content = traffic = money, but instead exponentially multiplies it, and to do this we need to finds way to leverage our resources.
Leverage is all about creating systems that multiply a monetization strategy. We have a proven way to make money via blogs by publishing content that people love, which is rewarded with traffic that we can monetize by showing advertisements or affiliate programs or AdSense clicks etc. This is a monetization strategy that works, now we need to multiply it.
The most crucial leveragable resource for all organizations is people. It is no different for blogging.
If there is a way to create new and original content that doesn’t involve people who write the content, I have yet to find it. When it comes to something creative - like writing - only human beings suffice.
What Would You Do Given This Situation?
I was once offered $2000 USD per month to take over a new blog and help it grow.
My immediate gut response was no thanks because I didn’t need to write for another blog - I was struggling with the two blogs I had at the time. I thought about it some more and came up with a good idea, which was inline with my philosophy of creating sustainable business systems.
I could take 50% of the income and use the other 50% to hire 2-4 bloggers who would do the writing for the blog, leaving me $1000 a month to make sure the employed bloggers do a good job and oversee the management of everything. Using this model more content is produced than just what I could do myself and I walk away with a nice slice of the pay for less work. Plenty of bloggers are looking for paid writing gigs and with time invested hiring good writers, it should work.
I work less, yet the blog grows quicker with four writers contributing instead of one. That’s leveraging money and people resources for greater growth.
Even after coming up with this model I thought I was stretching my responsibilities too far - I just had too much on my plate to take on anything extra. The idea of having to recruit top bloggers and make sure they did a good job was too much of a time commitment.
Then I had another idea - why not hire a blog manager as well!
I could pay the manager to write to the blog and also screen, hire and train the other blog writers. In this case I only have to hire one person - the blog manager - and leave him or her to manage the blog and oversee the other bloggers. I would still need to check in and ensure everything is running smoothly, but this model reduces my responsibility and involvement even further.
To fund this new position the pay would have to be higher than just a standard blog writer wage, because of the greater responsibility - perhaps $500-$750 per month. Add $500 for two more blog writers still leaving me with $750 per month minimum. I’m pretty sure given the current rates bloggers work for that it would be possible to structure a better deal than this, but it shows what is possible even if you pay top dollar.
In the end the deal never eventuated, but you can see the thought process I went through to create an income stream and not a job, and build points of leverage.
Not Everyone Has The Same Motivations
Early on as a business owner you may feel uncomfortable employing people and wonder why they wouldn’t want to run their own business and become independent as well. Why would a person be willing to work for me at X dollars an hour or month knowing that I may earn significantly more as a result of their labor? Doesn’t this article series argue against working hard by yourself for a fixed income - why subject anyone else to it?
Take the example scenario above. Why would a person agree to manage and write for my blog knowing that their salary is fixed and yet I may earn as much or many times more than they do off the back of their labor?
One of the lessons I have had to accept is that everyone is in a different place in their lives and has a different personality. Some people will never be able to take the ambiguity or responsibility of being in charge and prefer the “stability” of a job with a regular paycheck. I could argue that the “stability” aspect of employment is a mental illusion, but let’s leave that discussion alone and assume some people will always look at employment as more secure, stable, safer and desirable.
Some bloggers are like this too and look at a paid writing gig as an ideal way to earn money from blogging. At this point in their life they just want to write and if they can get paid a steady income for it, without worrying about anything else, that’s awesome.
Others may have the awareness and corresponding desire to realize that a paid salary or even volunteer blogging for someone else may not be an ideal situation - they want to be in charge of their own destiny eventually - but the current circumstance dictates that they accept the situation as a stepping stone to get where they want to go.
If a person has a knowledge or experience gap then the possibility of filling that gap working under someone else performing a job, is payback enough - for the time being. Other benefits include building contacts with experienced people in the industry and enhanced exposure for your personal brand and expertise.
Whatever the reason, there are many people willing to work for money or for experience or for exposure, so always assume the talent is out there and happy to work with you, providing you can locate and attract it with a motivating proposition. Never feel you are cheating someone if they feel they are adequately rewarded for their work.
Cashflow
There is one other very common reason why a person looking to work their way up to a sustainable blogging model may consider employment early in their career - a lack of cashflow.
Just as a young entrepreneur needs to work a day job to produce cashflow to fund their start-up business, a new blogger may need to work as an employed blogger, either independently as a professional blogger or by writing for someone else’s blog in exchange for money. This is one of the advantages that top bloggers have that you don’t - they have cashflow from another source, leaving ample time to blog.
I suspect nearly every person interested in this article who considers themself a professional blogger in progress has a cashflow problem. You may have already inferred that one of my recommendations coming up in order to build a sustainable business model using blogs is to hire people to write for you - many of the current blog networks use this model - but you can’t yet afford to pay anyone to write for you, so you have to do it all by yourself.
If you have a cashflow problem it’s perfectly fine for you to blog for money by yourself. There are ways to start with zero funding and still bring on people to blog for you - take on partners with equity in the business, offer your services in other areas in exchange for blogging, inspire people with your cause (might be better for non-profit blogging), hire interns and offer them training in exchange for blogging - but the easiest and quickest way is almost always with money.
You could shoot for funding from other people, but if you are just starting and you have no blogs or no audience it will be very hard to convince anyone of your future potential and inspire them enough to hand over some cash. The most likely scenario from day one, if you don’t have your own money, is to work with what you do have - your time and energy.
What is important, if you have no cashflow right now, is that you realize long term self employment is not what you want and you structure your blogs as a business from day one. This may mean using a generic/brand as the name for your blog and not your own name so in the future you can bring in new writers without disrupting audience expectations or changing the current blog design. You have to accept that every dollar you earn early on goes to building your business, hiring bloggers and other talented people - you can’t go shopping for fun with your first AdSense check if you want to create a sustainable business eventually.
Coming up in the final (I think!) article in this series is what you have all been waiting for - suggestions and examples of sustainable business models that use blogs.
Yaro Starak
Blogging For Business
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Internal Tags: blogger, blogs, business model, darren rowse, problogger professional blogging
Original Article syndicated via RSS from Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
Pipeline Profits Now Available - For Only 2 More Hours!
Notice: This post has my affiliate link.
I’ve been so busy writing my series on professional blogging that I haven’t kept up with this launch, but I know many people who read my blog have closely kept an eye on the Pipeline Profits launch.
I wrote about the start of the launch in this article -
Pipeline Profits - A Million Dollar Internet Business With No SEO, No PPC And No Affiliates?
Today is launch day for the product and since I’m so late you only have about two hours left to buy. You can view the sales page here -
http://videos.pipeline-profits.com/
If you want to buy the product you better get in quick since there are only a couple of hours left as I write this, but I think (hope) the free videos are remaining online longer since I want to finish watching them myself.
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Internal Tags: Brock Felt, Buck Rizvi, pipeline profits product launch
Original Article syndicated via RSS from Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
Hacker Crime Spree in the SEO Space January 16, 2007
As you have probably seen by now, a few SEO blogs have been hit by a hacker going after a wordpress exploit. He got Wolf-howl, stuntdubl (still down), and boogybonbon.
Here is the Coverage on threadwatch.org and ha.ckers.org.
True, the SEO blogosphere is a bit of an echo chamber but a little hacking /defacement is not more interesting than when that Polish girl got 4 billion plus pages indexed; pull something like that off and you have a real accomplishment.
Original Article syndicated via RSS from SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog
Sponsor Wanted for 2nd SEO Poker Tournament January 11, 2007
We need a sponsor for the 2nd SEO poker tournament. The plan for how to do this one is absolutely amazing: I’m pretty sure nothing like it has ever been done before and it’s brilliant (if I do say so myself).
Last time around we had a few problems with the sponsors. The first one could not perform as they said they could and the 2nd asked that the name be removed after the tournament because of the “Black Hat” association. This after they contacted me to sponsor the event.
The setup for this next one will be incredible. Before we proceed, however, we need a sponsor with some balls. The Requirements for a Poker sponsor are:
1. To put up $5,000 for Cash Prizes.
2. A person dedicated to making sure the tournament goes smoothly (sign-ups, contact with players, and minor admin).
3. A Competitive Affiliate Program
4. A Webmaster Referral or “2 tier” Affiliate Program
5. A Kick ass poker site.
This one will be run differently from the last one and I have a strong sense that It will be absolutely huge.
If you’re a sponsor and are interested, please leave a comment on this post (which won’t be approved) and I’ll contact you.
Original Article syndicated via RSS from SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog
The Advantages Top Bloggers Have That You Don’t
The first article in this series on professional blogging as a business model, I introduced you to the core formula behind how most bloggers attempt to make money - content = traffic = money. In the second part I concluded that professional blogging is NOT a sustainable business model after taking a close look behind the success of the professional blogger Darren Rowse.
Be sure to read the first two parts in this series before continuing to read this article.
- Part 1: Is Professional Blogging A Sustainable Business Model?
- Part 2: Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Professional Blogger?
No One Can Do It On Their Own Forever
Darren Rowse is the best example of a blogger who can make blogging work as a business, afterall he is one of the highest earning bloggers and makes most of his money from blogs he built himself.
Darren, despite his super-human blogging powers, cannot sustain his output forever and more importantly, I don’t think many other bloggers want to replicate Darren’s work ethic. We may want to replicate his results but most of us don’t have the motivation to do so - nor would I recommend you attempt to be as prolific as Darren because the odds are that you will end up disappointed and bitter, or just plain tired.
Another problem is the blogging marketplace isn’t as small as it used to be and like any industry that is maturing, there is increased competition, which demands a higher quality of output from bloggers if they want to compete. Niches that already have key bloggers dominating or many bloggers vying for traffic, are very difficult to enter with any success - it’s hard to beat the incumbents.
The “luck” Darren enjoyed when he first started out is hard to replicate because of the amount of bloggers in the blogosphere, and of course we can’t replicate Darren’s good timing, although it is possible to find “new” good timing if you start doing something early before everyone else catches on - as long as it does catch on.
The traditional sequence of content = traffic = money may hold true as a formula for a monetization model using blogs, but the main problem is bloggers treat blogging like a job, and not a business. The result of this is self-employment, which as glorious as it may sound for people who currently work for others, as entrepreneurs know it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
The stresses of operating in a situation where your direct output is the key ingredient for success, makes for a harrowing work environment. This is exactly what a professional blogger does. They create a situation where their business lives and dies by their output.
The key to breaking out of self employment and into business ownership as a professional blogger, is to realize that you can’t do what you do by yourself forever - you must learn how to come to rely on the input of others.
How Do Top Bloggers Do It?
If you stop and analyze the success of most solo bloggers, particular those bloggers who have copious amounts of traffic (whether they monetize that traffic or not doesn’t matter), you will notice a trend. Many have a successful business currently or have had one or several in their past.
The businesses these bloggers run do not rely entirely on their sole input. They are in partnerships or have built systems that allow their businesses to run without them or at least without requiring constant input from them.
As a result of not focusing on professional blogging (blogging for money) many of the most successful bloggers enjoy ample time and lack of financial pressures, which gives them freedom to blog as regularly as they want to.
Top bloggers, like Seth Godin, blog purely because they want to. No doubt they enjoy the feeling of importance and helping others, but some don’t even try to make money from blogging despite the fact they have the most well trafficked blogs in the blogosphere.
The life experience and education process that led to building a successful business also gives entrepreneurs who blog ample material from which to draw upon to produce content that people love on their blog. However if they one day grow tired of blogging they can stop at any time without threat to their livelihood. They can blog twice this week, once next week and then ten times the week after. They can reduce or increase their output without the stress of needing to main a certain level of content in order to meet monetary goals.
This is an ideal situation but really doesn’t represent a true professional blogger. Entrepreneurs who blog earn income from other stable sources and they blog as a means to vent creatively or help others. Yet it’s often these bloggers that earn the most from blogging since they offer the best advice from their experience, talents and previous life successes and failures, drawing the most traffic and potentially earning significant income, if they so chose to monetize their blog. The rich get richer.
Blogging As A Lead Generator
Another group of bloggers use blogs as a lead generation tool - a marketing channel - to produce sales for their business. They don’t need to blog for income, but blogging certainly can indirectly provide money. As many small business owners who blog are discovering, a blog is often the best online marketing tool available to spread awareness of their expertise and their services or products at little to no cost but time.
Again these bloggers are not pressured to produce content and do not depend on their blog for income, they are merely testing what is available from their marketing arsenal. If blogging has a good conversion rate for turning prospects into customers - or whatever action the blog is built to generate - then blogging remains part of their marketing strategy. If blogging becomes less effective they may move on to other marketing methods, or as the smart entrepreneurs do - outsource the task of managing their blog to others, removing the task from their personal to-do list.
Should You Rethink Your Decision To Become A Professional Blogger?
The two groups of bloggers I just discussed have one distinct difference from most professional bloggers - they have a stable source of income not dependent on them for existence.
I’m not advocating that you go and start a small business if you don’t have one so you can then blog for pleasure, or use blogs as a marketing tool for something else. What I do suggest is you think about where your professional blogging is going to lead to AND whether you actually have a strategy in place to remove yourself from the content production part of the equation and bring on help from other people.
A Common Situation
Many bloggers work full time at a normal job or study, and blog at night and on weekends. If this is your situation I doubt whether your current volume of blogging output will remain constant given we all go through lifestyle transitions like graduating from school or university or increasing pressures at work or in your home life, all of which can reek havoc on a blogging schedule.
If I just described you then I suspect you don’t make much money from blogging right now because your content output fluctuates all over the place. You are probably feeling the pressures of trying to find time to blog in order to keep your dream of one day quitting your job and calling yourself a true professional blogger, which impacts the quality of your output and creates additional stress.
Even worse - you may spend more time reading the blogs of other people who some how manage to blog every day and make good money doing so, which should inspire you, but after a while can depress you because of your own lack of success.
To add icing to the cake of reality, as I have explained in this article series, your dream of professional blogging if realized may one day become near or as stressful as your current working situation because for most it becomes a job - self employment - eventually. I certainly never want you to feel about blogging the way you might currently feel about your day job.
What Needs To Change
Enough of this doom and gloom about professional blogging. What we need now are answers and smart ways to use blogging to make money. Let’s begin with the main cause for your problems - your attitude towards how to make money in the world.
Most people have worked all their lives for income. The equation in this situation is time = money. You receive income directly in proportion to how many hours in the day you put in. That equation has a cap on both sides - you only have a certain amount of time each day to work and you only make a certain amount of money as a result. Unless you are in a senior position in your company, which is the minority of people and I doubt anyone reading this blog, you feel very restricted in your income potential.
However since everyone around you does the same thing, probably your family - in particular your parents who are usually the biggest role models in a person’s life - all work normal jobs and “get by” with a standard salary, you just figure that is the way life works.
This is an attitude that needs to be changed and your current concepts about how to make money must be shattered.
Thankfully you have already made a smart decision. You read my blog and blogs like mine, and likely books by authors who teach techniques to make money that are used by entrepreneurs and the rich, the role models you should follow, at least when it comes to making money in the world. Your mind has already turned towards changing your current situation.
In my life I’ve never thought that a normal job would suite me - I just hate working when I don’t want to on things that don’t directly benefit me in significant ways. Unfortunately growing up everyone around me was not like me. The idea of being in charge of your own destiny when it comes to making money is not the norm I encountered. Even today with greater exposure to more entrepreneurs the majority of the people I meet have strong fears around ever starting something that could lead to their own financial independence.
I hope as you read this if you have similar fears or feel trapped in a lifestyle you no longer want to lead, that you realize the possibilities if you just learn to think differently and take actions congruent with that new way of thinking.
Coming up in the next article in this series on professional blogging we look at some blogging business models that are sustainable, which any blogger, no matter your current situation, can apply. With this knowledge you can start a business that leverages blogs knowing you won’t face limitations on how much you can earn or be restricted by you own abilities to produce content on a consistent basis now or in the future.
Yaro Starak
Blogging For Business
Feature: Personalized Holiday & Christmas Cards
Internal Tags: darren rowse, lead generation, make money online, money attitudes, professional blogger seth godin
Original Article syndicated via RSS from Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
How Newbies Can Skyrocket Your Profits January 10, 2007
Ever notice that whenever you mention that you work with computers, every Tom, Dick and Harry with an AOL account wants to pick your brain as to why their computer doesn’t work? They can’t wait to get you on their 450 MHz Machine running XP so they can Dial into their AOL account and show you “the Problem.”
While the answer is almost always “User Error”, you can use this opportunity to get a better feel for how Newbies think and act on computers.
If you’ve every watched the web surfing habits of people who do not use a computer every day, you know it can be painful. They always seem to click the wrong things and don’t get to where they want to go. Plus they are slow. . . MY GOD ARE THEY SLOW. But what you will notice is that when a site has been designed to generate ad revenue, these newbies will invariably click the ads.
These people don’t know about adsense or affiliate links. They can’t tell the difference between what (to you) is obviously spam and a relevant link. They stumble through the web hoping to somehow land where they want to be. You need to take a step away from the computer, not give any directions, and just watch them read and click.
Most of your observations should bring you back to the basics:
1. Blend Ads with Content
2. Put the things you want clicked most towards the top and left.
3. The first link in a series gets clicked most
4. Certain Color combinations draw in the eye
5. Standard banner sizes in standard banner positions will get ignored
6. A frustrating or confusing navigation or layout will summon the “back” button
7. Habits are very difficult to break.
8. “Professional” looking sties with nice graphics are trusted more.
While that’s the meat of it, you should still take the time to watch Newbs surf. With the right eye, you will learn something you have not thought of before with regards to design and ad placement.
A click from a newb is just as valuable (and often more valuable) than a click from an expert. If you are only targeting expert users like yourself, you may be alienated 80%+ of the marketplace at your own peril.
You have to know your audience. To know them, you must observe them in action. So the next time you’re asked to help out with the computer problem of the day from someone who can’t even spell RSS, don’t just commandeer the computer: Ask them to show you the problem and just sit back and watch what they do: it may just skyrocket your profits.
Original Article syndicated via RSS from SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog
Sexy Mac Book Pros January 9, 2007
By now you must have seen a few Apple reviews that are so gushing that they almost cross the line to pornographic:
Are these reviewers so taken by the beauty and power of the machine that the reviews have to read like a trashy novel? What’s the deal?
I never quite understood how sexy the Mac Book Pro could be until Iarrived here in Rio De Janeiro. After finding an Open Wi-Fi Connection in my hotel room I set up my home-office and left for a night on the town.
Sure enough, when we returned from our night out, that hot and sexy Aluminum case was waiting to give us the Full Apple Experience.
Wasting no time, she beckoned us to Key Stroke and stroke and stroke. This Mac Book Pro Was Both incredibly FAST and EASY. It got me thinking, what could be better than Core2Duo?
2Core2Duo2!!!!!
2 Mac Book Pro Core 2 Duos - Now I am the Quad-Father! muhahahahahaha
Next, it was time to plug in the Special “Mac Lover” USB Microphone with harmonious cosmic hum. Intel’s not the only thing inside of these sensuous beauties.
Apple showed me how easily these two machines could interface as we heard what can only be described as a multiple Dual Corgasm:
The ecstasy didn’t stop there. These sexy beasts wanted to boast their performance, connectivity, and Serviceability. They screamed for a bigger, Harder 500 GB Drive and would not settle for anything less than 30 Inches of LDC Love:
This orgy of performance and connectivity has certainly turned me into a Mac lover. I can honestly say that, now, I do indeed “Think Different”.
Original Article syndicated via RSS from SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog
STILL No Gmail January 8, 2007
Since the problem started last wednesday, I recieved gmails on friday for about 10 minutes. For the Last 50 Hours, the only emails I have recieved have been from other people with gmail sending to my gmail account.
Sure, I’ve been on the beach playing volleyball here in rio, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to be receiving my emails.
The Google team has been no help, sending me only this form letter and not responding to my reply:
Hello,
Thanks for your report.
Please check Spam and Trash, and try performing a search in your Gmail
account. Make sure you haven’t created any filters that would affect
the messages in question. Also, verify that you haven’t enabled
auto-forwarding, and that your ‘Reply-to:’ address is defined as your Gmail
address.If you are using a custom ‘From:’ address to send mail, make sure
you’ve designated your Gmail address as the ‘Reply-to:’ address. Click
‘Settings’ at the top of any Gmail page to check.Keep in mind that messages you send to a mailing list that you
subscribe to, and messages you send to an email address that is automatically
forwarding your mail to Gmail, only appear in Sent Mail.If you’re still unable to find the messages, please ask the sender for
the full headers and include them in a response to this message.If you’ve received new mail, but experienced a delay, send us the full
headers. To display full message headers, click the down arrow next to
‘Reply,’ at the top-right of the message pane, and select ‘Show
original.’ Copy and paste the contents of the new window in to your reply. If
you don’t want to include the body text, please be sure that you paste
the entirety of all other information listed above.We appreciate your patience. Thanks for taking the time to send us your
feedback and concerns.Sincerely,
The Google Team
Not 1 spam message has been recieved in the last 50+ hours. Normally I get more than 3000 per day.
They have not replied to my reply. I would like to know how to quickly download everything from my archive to my hard drive. Not having email for week is unacceptable. I need amission critical service to handle my email and that is apparantly not Google.
All i need now is to figure out how to make the conversion.
I’m very dissapointed and thought Google was better than this.
Original Article syndicated via RSS from SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog | older posts »