Build It and Eventually the People with Money Will Come

I was having a chat this morning with one of my buddies who is one of those successful Bloggers/ Internet Marketers who many of us (at least I am) are striving to emulate. I called him up because this blog (Making Money Online Dot Com) has been live for about one month now and yesterday was my best day (as far as profits go) for this particular site.

Just yesterday alone, this site earned a whopping $148.97.  $145.20 came from 3 different affiliate product sales, and $3.77 from Adsense. Not a bad day at all for being such a new site. Unfortunately, as of me typing this… the site hasn’t made a penny yet today, but the day is not over yet.

The reason I am sharing this information with you is because of something my buddy told me when I first decided to start this blog. He gave me a very encouraging tip that I think a lot of the newer bloggers who aren’t making money online yet will really appreciate.

He said, “Build it, and eventually the people with the money will come”. When he first said it I chuckled, as it reminded me of the line from the movie, “Field of Dreams” where a voice keeps whispering to Kevin Costner’s character, “Build it and he will come”.

He explained to me that building a successful blog comes in basically 3 phases:

PHASE 1

When you first start out blogging you really have nothing but some (hopefully) good content. The next thing you need to do is market your site and build up your reputation, and the best way to do that is by networking with other bloggers in your niche. There are many ways to do that like leaving useful comments with back-links to your site on other blogger’s websites, as well a Guest Blogging. There are lots of ways to build traffic, but I am not going to go into that in this post. The key point here is to get your name in front of everyone you can.

PHASE 2

Soon your traffic will start to grow slowly, and hopefully your reputation. Here you will start to see some money, but the big money won’t start coming in just yet. The reason is that most of the traffic you are generating is from other bloggers in your same niche, many of whom are just starting out like you and don’t have a lot of money.

Traffic will continue to grow as more and more people learn about your site through word of mouth advertising, and you should start getting some organic search engine traffic in this phase as well. The key here is to not get discouraged that your aren’t making a lot of money yet, and to continue to do what you have been doing, as this phase can last for quite some time.

PHASE 3

This is the phase where the big money comes. Eventually, you will have built yourself an “Outstanding Reputation” as being an expert in your niche, and 95% (just a made up percentage, but probably close) of the bloggers that were around when you first started will have thrown in the towel… leaving you to shine with your other friends who have stuck it out. Now your name is everywhere and all the new bloggers are looking up to you. Your subscriber lists are all off the charts and anything you recommend sells like hotcakes!

I know it sounds a little oversimplified, but it absolutely makes sense.

So my question to you is…

Are you going to be one of the ones that stick it out to the end?

I know I am!

Do You Ever Get Distracted While Blogging?

I love the Internet! Unfortunately I think I am addicted to it… I have so many blogs and websites bookmarked it is scary. I can’t tell you how many times a day I check out sites like CNN.com and ESPN.com to see what is going on in the world, check the stock market, or to stay up with my favorite sports scores. Also I am subscribed to so many RSS feeds, as well as my favorite webmaster newsletter lists that there is always a continuous flow of emails I could be viewing. Plus I read at least a couple dozen of my favorite Blogger’s daily posts, and if I get the time I usually try to leave at least one comment on each.

Well as a blogger, this can be VERY DISTRACTING! Seriously… it seems every time I start to write a new post, I start out typing away… words just seem to flow out effortlessly. Next thing I know, my mind starts to drift and I start thinking about something else like, “I wonder if John has replied to my email yet”, or “I wonder if the S&P 500 is still down for the day”. So, inevitably I leave my partially completed post and go check on whatever distracted me. Next thing I know an hour or two has passed and if there is still enough time to get back to my post, usually I have lost my train of thought and it takes quite a while to get my mind back to the subject at hand.

Eventually I finish the post, but if I wasn’t distracted, I could have completed it in a fraction of the time. When I complain to my wife about this she always tells me to just disconnect from the Internet, so I can stay focused. Unfortunately, I just can’t find the willpower to do it.

Today I am testing my solution to my lack of willpower, and I will let you know how it works at the end of this post. I have owned a laptop (this is my second one) for several years now and the only time I HAVE EVER USED IT is when I go on business trips or vacations. I don’t think I have ever pulled it out at home, except for when I first purchased it to make sure it worked.

Well today is the start of a new day as far as my laptop is concerned. My goal for the summer and hopefully beyond is get out of the house every day and see if I can write a post or two while I am out of the office. Today I am sitting by the pool in my favorite outdoor chair with my boys, and they are playing in the water with a couple of their school buddies. They are having a great time and I am totally focused on this post… it is Heaven!

My boys actually have a week and a half left of school, as they are in year-round, so next week I am going to try a couple other locations and see how they work out. On Monday I am going to try writing at the Library, which I think is going to work out great, and one day I am going to head down to the beach and see how that works. I am really excited about trying this new routine.

OK… the post is over and I never stopped typing because of distractions, except once to tie my youngest boy’s swimsuit, as it kept falling down. So far this new technique is working! Now I get to jump in the pool and play for a while myself and then I might try and crank out another post for another blog!

How about you guys? Any of you get distracted by the Internet or just working at home? Do you have any tips for our readers to keep them focused? Please leave your comments below.

Making Your Blog More Than Just A Blog!

We have several blogs that we run; most of them are very typical blogs like this one… just basically a bunch of posts with ads sprinkled throughout the site. This site is probably similar in set-up to most of the blogs you see online nowadays. The cool thing is you can actually make your blog so much more (which we plan to do with this site as it evolves).

With the way blogging platforms are setup, they are basically content management systems (CMS). We use WordPress to run most of our sites, and with all the cool plug-ins and add-on scripts available online you can pretty much turn your blog into any type of site you like. And if you can’t find a plug-in to do what you need… you can always go to a site like Elance and hire someone to create it for you. With all this technology at your fingertips, the sky is the limit to where you can take your blog.

One of the sites dearest to my heart is MiraMesa.com. It took me about a year of negotiating and a LOT OF MONEY for me to obtain that domain from the previous owner.  I bought it because Mira Mesa is the town I grew up in and I know everything about it, so I just had to have it. It is one of the largest communities in San Diego with about 80 to 90 thousand residents and growing. It has a huge business sector as well. If you are familiar with Qualcomm, they started their business at the west end of Mira Mesa Blvd. and are still here today… just in a LOT MORE buildings!

When I first purchased the domain, I paid some programmers to build me an incredible website. It actually ended up being TOO INCREDIBLE, but I will save that for a future post. To make a long story short, the custom website I had created worked perfectly for several months, but it soon started getting all sorts of bugs and eventually I had to shut it down.

So I had to come up with a new platform to run my website. I actually checked out some CMS platforms like Drupal and Joomla, but I ended up going with WordPress, and I am so glad I did.

When I first switched MiraMesa.com over to WordPress I had no interesting plug-ins or scripts… I was just using some free template and no other features.

Since then we have added several cool functions to the site to make it more like a Community Portal, versus a basic blog. We have an awesome Events Calendar and Business Directory that people in the community tell us they love. We have also just added a Coupon Section which people have been bugging us for months. We are still working on its functionality, but it works for now. Also, our local advertising is really starting to pick-up, which we really love

So what is the point I am trying to make from this post? My point is you don’t have to limit your site to just writing posts. With today’s plug-ins and scripts you can turn your blog into anything you like. You can sell products and services directly from your site, you can create a membership site, you can do whatever… the skies the limit.

What can you add to your site to make it more “User Friendly”?

Does Your Blog Make Hardly Any Money?

Does your blog suck at making you any real amount of money? If you answered “Yes”, don’t be too discouraged as most blogs hardly make any money at all. But that doesn’t mean your blog never will… it just means you need to change the way you are currently doing things.

One of my favorite bloggers, David Risley has created a great video explaining why most bloggers have a hard time making money online. His video will show you how to take your current traffic and turn it into cash in your bank account.

What I found very interesting is that the real money in blogging actually comes from getting your visitors to leave your site. After you watch the video it will totally make sense to you.

Friendship Chain Award

We had an awesome weekend of hanging out with our friends and family to celebrate our Independence Day and it kept me off the computer for a couple of days (which my wife really liked).

When I finally got a chance to check my email, I received an interesting one from Deneil Merritt over at http://deneilmerritt.com giving us a Friendship Award and inviting us to join a the chain.

Now I am not too familiar with Friendship Chains, but supposedly they are a great way to get some backlinks to your site and build some friendships along the way… and we love both, so we are passing it along.

Here are the Blogging Friends I am Tagging

1. David Risley
2. Your Blog is Money
3. Extreme John
4. SEO Marketing & Promotion
5. Curious Little Person
6. Ahnternet
7. Business Accent
8. Serradinho
9. Asswass
10. Tycoon Blogger
11. Money Making Mommy
12. Arashka
13. Proson Cheng

When you blog about this chain, please be sure to copy and paste the content below to keep the chain alive…

— Begin Copy —

This is the easy way and the fastest way to :

1. Make your Authority Technorati explode.
2. Increase your Google Page Rank.
3. Get more traffic to your blog.
4. Makes more new friends.

Rules:

1. Start copy from “Begin Copy” until “End Copy” to your blog.
2. Put your own blog name and link.
3. Tag your friends as much as you can.

1. Picturing of Life 2. Juliana’s Site 3. Hazel-My Life, My Hope, My Future 4. Jeanne-The Callalily Space 5.My Family is my Life 6. The Simple Life of a Baghag 7. On A Wonderful Day Like Today 8. House Everything 9. The Creativity in Me 10. Travel and Photography 11. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow 12. You Are My Sunshine 13. Song to Remember 14. Super Blog 15. Philiippine Tv Marathon 16. Simply Blue 17. Breaking the Boundaries 18. Top Five 19. A Simple Life 20. Simple Happy Life 21. A Great Pleasure 22. Glossa~licious 23. Times Goes By 24. Empty Streets 1027 25. Serradinho 26. Extreme John 27. Deneil Merritt 28. Making Money Online 29. Your site here Spread the Love!

— End Copy —

If you name is on my list above, please try and find some time to post about it and pass this award along to your friends so they can do the same. Also, try and visit the sites listed to see what others are blogging about. It is  a great way to make new friends and everyone can always stand to have a few more friends.

Note: I just threw this list together, so I apologize if I did not mention you

If You Really Want to Make Money Blogging… Read This!

How many blogs do you think are on the Internet right now? I have no idea, as at least a few more were just created while I typed these two sentences (I type slowly). All I know is that there are millions and millions out there, and thousands more created each day.

So why do you think all these people are rushing to create new blogs? There are tons of different reasons, but one of the biggest reasons I know is so they can make money online. People have heard of all these “Regular Joes” getting rich blogging and they want to grab a chunk of that money for themselves.

Another reason they have chosen to blog versus creating some other type of site is that creating a blog is so simple to set-up. Even my 6 year old son has created one. We actually have big plans for his blog, but we will let you know more about that in a few months.

Let’s get back to making money online with blogs. What typically happens when a newbie creates their first blog is they are super excited and all gun-ho to start. They start out writing a bunch of posts, as they were told they always need to keep adding new content. They sign-up for Adsense and add as many ads as Google allows on each page and then they fill the rest of the blank space with affiliate banners.

Next thing they know, a few weeks have past and they haven’t made a dime yet. So they check their traffic stats and see that they are averaging only 5 visitors a day and those are probably just friends and family.

They are a little discouraged, but not ready to quit yet, so they do some research and learn all the traffic secrets they can find and start implementing them right away.

Another few weeks pass by and they check out there stats again and “YIPEE” they are now averaging over 100 visitors a day! The only bad part is they have not made any money to speak of except for a few dollars from Adsense. Not enough to even pay for the monthly hosting service.

Now even more discouragement sets in, but they are not ready to quit just yet. What happens is they start posting A LOT LESS frequently for the next few weeks as traffic starts to dwindle back down and money never seems to come. Next thing you know they are swearing off blogging as a way to make money and they just let their blog lay there to die until their hosting account runs out, or their domain name expires. ANOTHER BLOGGER BITES THE DUST!

So the question is, “Can you really make money online blogging?”

Heck yeah! You just need to know that you are not going to make a lot of money just throwing up a bunch of Adsense ads and affiliate banners. You might make some money, but you are never going to make a living that way.

To make a lot of money online, you really need to learn the basics of Internet Marketing and apply those concepts to your blog. There are a lot of simple things that you can do to start getting people to start spend money with you.

One of my favorite pro-bloggers, David Risley has created a FREE 6-Figure Blogger Blueprint that explains the important ingredient that most bloggers are missing on their sites which keeps them from earning the kind of money they dream about. I have purchased lots of ebooks and courses over the last few years and nobody teaches this stuff. I find that absolutely amazing, as this is how the big bloggers really make their money.

If you would like to get a free copy of David’s Blueprint, you can download it here.

Hey Bloggers, Scratch Our Blog and We’ll Scratch Yours

I was reading an article the other day explaining different ways to get people to leave comments on your blog and one technique that stood out to me was fairly simple (my favorite kind). He said that you should spend a little bit of time each day visiting blogs in your niche and to leave relevant helpful comments on blog posts that interest you. The more helpful you are the better chance you have of raising your profile, which hopefully will drive more traffic to your blog. That totally makes sense.

Well that got me thinking. How can we get people to leave comments on our site even faster? What can we do in exchange for them leaving a comment(s)? I know there are thousands of new blogs started each week and I am sure most of them would love to get comments. One thing I have noticed is… if you take the time and post comments on smaller blogs that don’t get a lot of activity (ones with fewer comments on them), that often the owner of that blog will checkout your blog to see what you have going. Many times he will leave a comment on your blog as gratitude for your comments. This can happen with the Big Boy blogger sites as well, but probably not as often.

So the next thing that popped in my head was a “comment exchange” program, so I did a quick search on Google and saw that there were some that already existed. We looked at a few of them and read different reviews, but we were not too impressed with any of the ones we saw. So we decided not to join any of them.

What we did decide to do is try our own non-formal comment exchange program. Here is how it works… If you leave at least one “helpful and relevant” comment on one of our blog posts (just writing “Great Post!” does not count), Mark and I will do our best to checkout your blog and return the favor with a comment as well. Sound good?

Now we are not guaranteeing anything, as we do not know who will be commenting on our site. But if you have a good blog started with some interesting content, we will definitely do our best to leave you a comment.

Now this is just a test, so we have to have a cutoff date just in case it doesn’t work or if it works too well and we get overwhelmed with comments. So let’s make the cutoff date July 15, 2009 and evaluate how it worked, and then decide if we should extend it.

Here is one more suggestion that will hopefully benefit any of you who decide to participate in our comment exchange. Why not visit the sites of the people commenting on our blog and leave a comment on their site as well? There is a chance that they are participating in this test too and they might leave you a comment back on yours as well. You have nothing to lose and you definitely will get more exposure.

UPDATE JULY 20, 2009 – We just wanted to thank everyone that has been leaving comments on our site and we have tried  to return the favor to each of you. In doing so we have found lots of great sites that we never knew exisited. Since this is working so well, we will continue to visit anyone’s site who leaves a comment on our site. We will also try and return the favor on your site and hopefully we can build lots of longterm friendships in the process.

How to Come Up with Blog Post Ideas

There are lots and lots of ways to come up with blog posts and everyone has their own. I am going to share some of the methods and tools we use to create posts.

First let’s talk about the tools we use. I am the sort of person who can think of a great idea and 5 minutes later, totally forget what it was. We use the following tools so that doesn’t happen (as often).

1.    A simple notepad, notebook or post-it-notes. I actually use all 3 depending on where I am at. I have a big yellow notepad on my desk, plus some post-it-notes that I stick to my computer screen, when I want to remember something that I want to use right away. I also carry a small spiral notebook in my car in case I come up with something good while I am driving.

2.    A small voice recorder. A few years ago when I was at a JV Alert Seminar, I purchased a small Sony voice recorder so I would miss anything at the event. Now I try to keep it in my pocket most of the time, so I can record ideas easily when I am away from my desk.

3.    My cell phone. Even though I try and keep my voice recorder with me most of the time, inevitably when I come up with a really good idea I don’t have it on me and there is not a pen or paper to be found anywhere. Fortunately, I almost always have my cell phone with me. I just call my office phone and leave a message to myself with my ideas, or to remind me to do something.

I know this sounds very basic, but I can’t tell you how many times those tools have saved me from forgetting something important and I am sure if you tried implementing them in your daily life, it will help you tremendously.

Okay, so those are the tools you should be using so you don’t forget the ideas you come up with. Now how do you get the ideas? I see that question asked all the time, “How do bloggers come up with new blog post topics?”

I can’t speak for everyone else, but these are a few of the methods that we use:

Read, Read, Read, and Read Some More – By far the best way to come up with ideas for your particular blog is to stay on top of what is going on in your industry and related industries. Read books, trade magazines, news sites, blogs, anything you can find that is related to your niche. The more that you know and learn about your niche, the easier it is to come up with new ideas.

One thing I like to do is when reading is to take notes of things that I find interesting, and that I think other people would like to read about. Many times writers will write on very broad categories and address the sub-categories with only a few lines of text. I like to take one of the individual sub-categories and expand them to full blown posts.

Ask Your Readers What They Want You to Write About – Once your blog is established enough that people are actually leaving comments on it, it is time to start asking your readers what they want you to write about. For example, if you run a blog on Landscaping, simply create a post titled, “What do you want to know about Landscaping?” Then have your readers tell you what they want to know about in the comments section.

Search Your Comments for Ideas – A great way to come up with new topics for your blog is to read your blog’s comments and see what your readers are saying. I like to ask open-ended questions at the end of posts to encourage readers to leave comments… and as long as people are responding, it makes a great way to find new topics for future posts.

Mining Other Blog’s Comment Section – But what if your blog is new, or people are just not leaving comments? Then go and check out the comments on other blogs in your niche and see what their readers want to know. This is a great way to come up with new ideas, especially when your blog is just starting out.

Again, these are just a few ideas on ways to come up with ideas for posts. How about your blog? Where do you come up with new ideas for posts?

« Previous Page