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10 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Blog

1. Excessive Ads - Hey, there’s nothing wrong with making some money from your blog (that’s why your reading this blog right?). But, when your advertisements begin to take up more space on your blog than your content, you’ve got a problem. People visit blog to learn and discuss topics that interest them. They want to share their ideas or ask questions. They DON’T want to have to sort through a million ads, to find your content. Think of it this way, you don’t tune in to your favorite TV show to watch the commercials do you? Well neither do your readers.
2. Lack of Interaction - Many people view blogging as the digital version of giving a sermon. The blogger sits behind his pulpit (keyboard) and preaches to his or her loyal followers. However, if you look at the most successful blogs online, you’ll notice that the interaction is a HUGE part of the blogs success. The ability to leave comments, read other comments, and interact with the content that you’re consuming is what has made blogging what it is. If you don’t make yourself available to your readers, don’t answer any questions and don’t accept any feedback on your content, you’re dooming yourself to the digital equivalent of talking to yourself.
3. Trolls - Everyone’s encountered a troll whether you knew it or not. The Urban Dictionary defines a troll as “someone who gets pleasure by typing annoying/controversial/offensive words on internet forums or message boards.” Unfortunately, trolls are no longer confined just to forums, they’ve invaded blogs as well. I can promise you, if you blog for long enough, and have any sort of success, you’re going to encounter one. Trolls bring absolutely NO value to the blog or your community and instead sit back and generally annoy you along with everyone else that takes the time to comment. They simply aren’t worth the hassle. To top it all of, many times, not only are trolls an annoyance, but they end up starting…
4. Fights - Now don’t think for one second that you’re going to agree with everyone all the time. And yes, I still stand by my statement that controversy is good. However, I’ve seen many bloggers allow themselves to get completely side-tracked by their fight with another blogger to the point that it consumes the blog. A good general rule of thumb is that when you get into name calling and personal attacks, it’s time to shut it down. If you allow a fight to go on long enough, you’ll lose readers who simply don’t want to hear the pissing and moaning anymore. Remember, your subscribers read your blog to get your thoughts and opinions on the subject matter. Unless that subject is fighting with other bloggers, chances are your fight will be interesting for a while, but in the end it will lack substance for your readers to survive on.
5. Playing Follow the Leader - I borrowed that phrase from Max but the premise behind it is 100% true. If you don’t bring anything unique to your blog, whether it’s a distinct style, a special way of covering the information, etc. chances are your blog will die. There are simply too many other options out there for people to read. If you’re not interesting and exceptional in some way, readers will have no reason to return to your site. Find the one thing that makes your blog exceptional, and make that your brand.
6. Under Posting - Ghost towns aren’t exactly hot tourist attractions. If you can’t manage to create fresh content for your readers to digest on a fairly regular basis, you might not be cut out for blogging. I’m not saying you need to post every day, or even every week, however, you need to post regularly enough that your readers know your blog is still active and you haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. On the opposite end of the spectrum…
7. Over Posting - Believe it or not, posting too often can drive away readers as well. If you’re slamming your readers with a high number of posts each and every day, there will be no way for them to keep up. Also, it’s going to be tough to keep up the quality of the posts if you’re cranking them out at such a frantic pace. If you slip into the mistake of posting too often, your “signal to noise” ratio will drop considerably, meaning readers will have to sort through more information to find something worthwhile or valuable to them. That’s a quick recipe for a failed blog.
8. Violating Privacy - This one’s a no-brainer. When people sign up for your blog, whether it’s to comment or subscribe by email, they almost always have to leave an email address. Quite simply don’t abuse that information. Don’t sell your email list or start spamming your readers with your latest chain letters. Trust me, they won’t appreciate it. You’ll damage your reputation and lose readers and commenters all in one fell swoop. Just don’t do it. See, I told you this one was simple.
9. Slow Site - You remember how slow dial-up internet access used to be? It sucked right? Especially if you’d ever used a high speed connection. Well, having too many ads (yes, it’s worth mentioning again), widgets, plugins, or those cool ad-ons included on your blog can drag your site back to the dark ages. It won’t matter how great your content is if it takes years for a single page to load! We’re now firmly entrenched in an age of instant gratification and if your site is slow to load, your readers and visitors simply won’t put up with it. They have too many other sites out there to sit around and wait for yours to get it’s act together.
10. Actually… there is no #10 - Oh wait! Over promising and under delivering. This is pretty much a good rule for life in general but it definitely applies to blogs. If you tell your readers you’re going to do something (add a feature, take care of a problem, listen to suggestions) then you’d better do it. Be very careful in what you promise and remember, this is a blog so everything is in print. You’d be surprised what people remember and call you on later. A couple of slip ups will likely be forgiven (they have been for me on this blog) but if you make a habit of getting people’s hopes up, only to disappoint them, don’t be surprised if you have fewer and fewer people to cry wolf to next time.

And my last bit of advice will be this… You’re going to make mistakes. It’s inevitable. But, if you follow the tips and lessons posted on this blog previously, and try to avoid things on this list, chances are, you and your blog will be able to withstand those occasional slip-ups. Most of all, be honest with your readers. You’ll be surprised how much slack they’ll be willing to cut you. I hope you enjoyed this post and as always, if you think I’m wrong, or left something out, feel free to chime in through the comment form below!

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How To Learn SEO Fast

Search engine optimization (SEO) is probably one of the most desired skills to learn as a website owner. When you know how to do SEO, you have no limits to the amount of money you can make online because you can literally create unlimited traffic to your websites without paying for each visitor (like PPC).

I get asked lots of questions about SEO tricks and techniques that I use, and I try to respond to each of these the best I can if I have free time to do so.

I consider myself an SEO expert, but not because I study SEO 8 hours per day and know precisely when each search engine changes their algorithms. I’m an expert because I know the 95% core knowledge that it takes to get a site ranked in the search engines. The last 5% is the highly technical, “nerdy” stuff that nobody even needs to know to be successful.

The core concepts of SEO haven’t really changed that much over the years. The blackhat strategies of trying to beat the search engines have changed and will change frequently because those methods always get caught by the search engines.

There’s really only 2 parts to the SEO puzzle.

First is the onsite stuff. This includes your website’s title tags, meta tags, internal linking strategies, proper use of alt tags, and quality of content.

Second is the offsite SEO stuff. This includes the number of incoming links from other sites, the quality of incoming links from other sites and the anchor text being used from other sites who link to you.

That’s all there is to it. I’ve gotten #1 rankings in VERY competitive niche markets using nothing more than this knowledge.

Sure, there are other nerdy SEO best practices and lots of theories about the best way to do SEO, but if you can do the two parts I listed above and do them very well, you will get high rankings, guaranteed.

The only trick to SEO is knowing how to do these things. Knowing how to write good title tags, how to get quality links to your website, how to link to your other pages within your site, etc. You need to learn the knowledge first, then you need to use the tools to make the process faster and easier.

Anytime someone would ask me for specific advice in the past, I would refer them to Aaron Wall’s SEO book. Unfortunately Aaron changed his business model from a fantastic SEO Ebook to a paid membership site that teaches all internet marketing topics now. I haven’t joined his membership site, so I can’t speak to its content, but I know anytime you go from an expert in one topic to a jack of all trades, you tend to lose quality in each individual topics.

If I had more time available, I’d probably just make my own training course to share all the things I’ve learn about getting sites to rank in search engines. But, between the buying and selling websites class I’m running now, updating this blog plus the other 4 web businesses I manage, there’s no time to take on another project.

So, I started my search to find a new training source I could refer people to who needed to learn SEO. I ended up buying this course and was pleasantly surprised to see how in depth it was and how easy it was to understand, even for a complete newbie (I had my 62 year old, computer illiterate neighbor read it to confirm how easy it is to understand..and no I’m not joking!)

The creator of the course is also the same guy who created the best SEO tool ever created for saving time and making SEO 100 times easier.

I’ll still be sharing my useful tips and SEO techniques via this blog, but if you want the full story, in depth and easy to follow SEO education you can put into use today, then you should pick up a copy of the course. It’s about a hundred bucks, but when you think about how much you’ll spend on PPC ads if you don’t learn SEO, it’s literally a drop in the bucket.

If you get into a competitive market and have to pay $0.50 per click for 100 visitors per day in Adwords, you’ll rack up $100 in just TWO DAYS. On the other hand, you can buy the course for $100, learn SEO and learn how to drive FREE traffic to your site forever. Shouldn’t be a tough decision…

The software tool is not required for SEO, but it will save you a ton of time when it comes to getting links to your site and researching the best keywords to go after.

This training book is the perfect compliment to the niche store money making idea I told you about a couple weeks ago. There were lots of questions when I posted that case study about how I was able to get free traffic to a new site as quickly as I did. Brad’s course will show you the same techniques I used (and a couple others I didn’t even know about myself that I’ll be testing this week).

Looking forward to reading the comments after you guys start implementing some of these SEO ideas and start getting your free traffic…

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April 2008 Blog Income Report

Seems like everyone likes to see income reports on blogs, so I figured I’d amuse you and share my April results. April was our first full month of ownership since taking over BloggingExperiment.com on March 27th. I didn’t post a March income report since there were lots of things in transition between the ownership change…

I’ve made several changes to this blog in the short month or so that we’ve owned it. You can be the judge if buying this website and making the changes was a good or bad idea.

First, I removed all paid advertising from the site. Since advertising was making up a small percentage of income, and sponsored reviews are a waste of everyone’s time, it was a simple decision. I’ll be bringing back an advertising option in the next month or two, but it will not be sponsored reviews or 125 ads.

Second, I made some layout changes by making the header section of the site smaller and added an opt-in form for people to download a free report I wrote. I also removed the feedburner subscriber counter (those things are nothing more than an ego boost, so a waste of prime screen space - the current count is 1,287 for those who are interested). Finally I shifted up the prime content to make the site more user friendly and valuable to readers.

Income

Here’s a look at April’s income. I’ve included the figures from February in the parentheses for easy comparison.

Scratch Back: $0.00 ($130)
Private Advertising: $0 ($210)
Sponsored Reviews: $0 ($100)
Affiliate Sales: $871 ($91)
Theme Sales: $750 ($1,425)
Buy & Sell Websites Training Class: $3,400 ($0)
________________________
Total: $5,021 ($1,826)

Expenses

The expenses have changed slightly from February since I didn’t renew the John Chow advertisement.

Advertising: $0 ($250)
Affiliate Payments: $25 ($100.00)
Contest Payments: $25 ($0.00)
________________________
Total: $50 ($350)

So, when all is said and done, I had profit of $4,971 this month which is $3,495 more than February’s income.

Analysis

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the results so far. If the income remains the same as April, this website purchase will have paid for itself within 4 months, which is a pretty good return on investment. This website acquisition is following the same pattern as most of our buying and selling websites projects we’ve taken on. The first buying and selling websites training class is well underway as we speak and I’m sharing the exact steps anyone can use to achieve results just like we are getting on the BloggingExperiment.

If you missed out on the class, shame on you : -)

You’ll have to wait until the next class opens up if you want to learn the exact steps I’m taking to turn this $1,500/month blog into a $10,000/month business.

Up Next

My goal is to hit the $6,000 profit mark next month, and I think that will be easily achievable at the current growth rate. Traffic is up about 20% since we bought the site and May is an extra day longer than April. I’ll be opening up the second buying and selling websites training class somewhere around the end of May, and since the second class will be $400 instead of the discounted $200 as mentioned here, reaching the $6k mark is not unreasonable.

Also, I’ll be testing a new advertising model hopefully starting in May if my programmer can get the software written by then. I have high hopes for this software program I’m having built, which will allow website owners and bloggers to sell advertising more easily. I’ll be testing the software on this site before releasing it to others.

Hopefully you can follow what I’m doing on this site and you can implement these ideas in your own business. Creating your own products are critical to your success online. Between my training class and this new software program, I have no doubt this website will be responsible for making $10,000 per month in profit within 3-4 months. We’ll have to wait and see I guess…

(image source: sehgal asad)

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How To Become A Guru Online

Ah, how great it must be to be a make money “guru”, right?

Well, I’m no guru myself, although I’ve been called that through some nasty emails lately. I’ve been getting emails like “You’re just like all the other gurus out there” or “You’ve turned into one of those gurus who won’t share the exact details of your success”.

First let me state that I hate the term “guru”, at least in a sense that most people use it online. The ORIGINAL definition of Guru is from the Indian culture meaning: A spiritual guide, teacher and leader who provides a sacred path to wisdom and guidance.

However, the definition has since changed to a more broad “person with knowledge or expertise”. I work with several Indian partners who are offended by the term guru being thrown around so often online, especially when it’s used to negatively describe someone.

But the point of this post is not to debate how the term guru is being used or what the meaning of the term is. The fact is, people love to use the term guru, especially in the internet marketing niche.

So, how do people become a “guru” these days? And more importantly, why would anyone WANT to become a “guru”?

Becoming an internet marketing guru is pretty easy. Here’s what you have to do to become one…

Step 1 - Start an internet business.

Step 2 - Work your butt off and have amazing success with it.

Step 3 - After reaching the “wealthy stage”, you decide to give back.

Step 4 - You work hard to share your knowledge with others.

Step 5 - You get criticized and scrutinized for your every move.

Step 6 - People think you are a fraud and are only out to rip people off.

Sounds pretty exciting! Where can I sign up?

I always find it amusing to see people ripping on successful people. I assume the biggest reason why people hate “gurus” is because they are simply jealous of their success and if this “guru” doesn’t literally take them by the hand and show them every tiny detail to become rich, then the guru is a fraud.

Don’t get me wrong, there are A LOT of scam artists online claiming to be a guru. Just because you hang out with other gurus doesn’t make you one yourself. But there are just as many real, honest, hard working gurus out there that ARE trying to help you become successful. Just because they might charge a fee to help you succeed doesn’t mean they are out to rip you off.

Sometimes charging a fee is the one thing that will make people accountable for their own success. Nobody puts value on anything that’s free. If you pay $500 for a coaching program, you’re much more likely to put the advice into practice because you need to recover that investment. If you get free advice, you will probably not take action because you are not out anything if you don’t.

Nobody in this world is “entitled” to anything. If you want something, you need to work for it, not EXPECT it to be handed to you. There is more opportunity in the world RIGHT NOW than there has ever been in history before. Even though the media makes it sound like the sky is falling and the economy is falling apart, nothing could be further from the truth.

There’s always an opportunity to succeed, no matter what the current economic situation is. Sure the housing market appears to be falling apart, but other people are absolutely loving it (foreclosure investors). Sure some people are losing their jobs, but many of these people are taking this misfortune and using it as a kick in the pants to start their own business, something they always wanted to do but had been putting off because they had a “cushy job”. Sure gas prices are approaching $4/gallon, but this will cause a rush to find alternative energy sources, which will help our environment and bring additional job opportunities.

This is the kind of mindset that a “guru” has. An internet marketing guru is simply, a regular person who has found an opportunity and created success from that opportunity.

If you truly want to become an internet guru, open your eyes, work hard and prepare to be criticized…

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3 Cheap Sources of PPC Traffic

When it comes to pay per click (PPC) advertising, the first company everyone thinks of is Google. More experienced advertisers will also know of Yahoo and Microsoft’s pay per click advertising options but for a large portion of online advertisers, that’s where their knowledge of PPC ends. The “Big 3″ as they’re know are certainly the largest suppliers of traffic, however, the large number of advertisers vying for that traffic will often drive the prices up. It’s not uncommon to pay anywhere from $0.50 on up to $10 per click through the big 3 depending on which terms you’re targeting. So how are those of us without tens of thousands of dollars in our advertising budget supposed to get the targeted traffic we’re looking for?

That’s where the so called “second tier” PPC suppliers come into play. While they certainly don’t have the volume of traffic that Google or Yahoo does, traffic can almost always be acquired for a fraction of the price it would cost from one of the big 3. I’ve used several different second tier providers in the past but I’m going to focus on the three I found most useful.

SearchFeed

http://searchfeed.com - Once you depart from the big 3, the quality of the traffic you’re paying for becomes the chief concern. Throughout my numerous campaigns and tests, SearchFeed seems to be the highest quality traffic from any of the second tier sites. The price per click ranges anywhere from one cent on up into the dollars for the highest priced terms, but the average price I’ve paid is about 8 to 10 cents. Like most of the other PPC sites, you select the terms you want to bid on, determine the price you’ll pay per click, and the highest bidder gets the most traffic.

7Search

http://7search.com - In my experience 7search has been slightly less consistent than SearchFeed. While the traffic is decent in terms of quality, I’ve run across a few terms and niches that 7search just doesn’t seem to have much traffic for. If you can deal with the hit or miss nature of the site, I’ve found the average click to cost between 4 and 6 cents each. However, over recent months it seems more and more people are discovering the site and prices have been slowly rising.

One slightly confusing aspect of 7search is that it’s actually made up of a network of sites that all funnel the traffic into one channel. However, each source has it’s own prices and it’s own bids so just because you have the tip bid on 7search, you might not have the top bid across the entire network. They do provide a tool for you to view the top bids on all the contributing sites, but the whole thing seems a little unnecessarily chaotic. I guess that’s the price you pay for using second tier sites but I’ll gladly deal with a few quirks if I’m paying 10% what I’d pay through Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

Miva

http://miva.com - Much like 7search, I’ve found Miva to be very hit or miss when it comes to traffic levels. The first few campaigns I set up on Miva worked well and had a slow but steady trickle of traffic being sent to my sites. Then all of the sudden a new campaign I set up apparently tapped into a pretty impressive flow of traffic and I nearly drained my account in the matter of a day or so. I pretty quickly figured out how to limit the amount of money I spent per campaign per day to prevent myself from over spending, but most of the campaigns I set up never needed it. They seemed to have pockets of terms very high traffic levels and they can be fairly difficult to predict. Overall, the traffic from Miva performed fairly well for me and I’d certainly suggest giving them a shot.

While there are plenty of other sources for PPC traffic, these three sites have been the ones that consistently produced the best results. As with any PPC campaign, whether it’s through Google or one of these second tier sites, always, always, ALWAYS track your results. You can blow through a lot of money in a very short period of time if you’re not careful. Keep an eye on your stats and make sure the money you’re spending converts into sales, registrations, or whatever your goal is. I’ve found that most often there are a handful of terms that constantly produce conversions for me while the rest of the terms are like flushing money down the drain. They key to a successful PPC campaign is finding those terms, sorting them out, and pumping as much money as possible into those productive channels.

The benefit of using these sites expands beyond the direct traffic as well. Once you find the productive terms on these cheaper, second tier PPC sites, you’ll often be able to use that knowledge to create successful campaigns on the larger more expensive sites. Not only that, but they are often the terms you should concentrate on in your SEO efforts as well.

Have you ever used any of the so called second tier PPC sites? If so, which ones worked for you and which ones were a waste of money? Feel free to chime in with your tips and experiences in the comment section below.