I’m not sure if this happened because of my Akashic record reading, but Havi Brooks (the one with the duck) and Naomi Dunford (pictured duckless) have created a course called “Self Promotion for Wimps: How to promote the hell out of that cool thing you do without being gross and/or getting tangled in scary, overwhelming horribleness.”

It’s a 6 week power course for creative types, small business owners, and people who are too busy freaking out to properly live their dreams. Yeah, that sounds like me.

They met each other through Twitter, and eventually had a conversation that went something like this:

Havi: Gee, Naomi. You know, every time I’ve put one of your marketing ideas into practice, I’ve made money. That’s so awesome.

Naomi: You rule. Every time I’ve put one of your stop-freaking-out ideas into practice I’ve made money. That IS awesome.

What’s interesting here is that they’re merging their two completely different areas of expertise (home business marketing and “not freaking out”) and making a course for “people who are ready to clear out the crap that’s standing in the way of their awesome life and start having more fun and making some money doing it.”

Starting this Wednesday, September 10th, they’ll be doing 6 weeks of group calls where they say what they’ve got to say, take questions live, and record the call for you. The call topics are explained on their landing page, but basically they’re going to help people get past their personal issues that are preventing them from actually making money from their business ideas. Here’s one example they give that I can definitely relate to:

“I’m NOT good enough, I’m NOT smart enough, and gosh darn it, people HATE me. There’s no way on God’s good earth that anyone will ever pay me for this. I totally suck. This was a stupid idea. Forget it, I’ll go back to my cubicle and/or bed and die.”

What you need is a phone, a thing you want to make big crazy progress on, and willingness to do a little homework. I’ve signed up and I don’t even have the “thing” nailed down yet. I figure that this course will address a major issue I’m having with making money from home (psychological blocks and limiting beliefs), be generic enough to apply to any business idea, and no matter what, it’s bound to be highly entertaining.

The only drawback is that it’s not cheap, but what did you expect for exclusive access to two superstars? The regular program (which I’m doing) includes 6 weeks of group calls, homework, recordings, notes, and “surprises,” for $205. The VIP option (limited to 8 people) includes all that plus one hour of private consulting with Havi, and one hour with the duckless wonder, for $365. But, use the coupon code “sale” to get $30 off either program. There’s also an affiliate program, so you can subsidize the cost that way.

For more details, read Self Promotion for Wimps. Hope to hear some of you on the calls!

Image courtesy of Alex Shalman

My guest post Bloggers Must Have These 3 Ducks In A Row is now up on Alex Shalman . com. If you’re trying to get your blog to take off and you’re busy learning all the many details of blogging, you still don’t want to lose sight of the fundamentals. Make sure you have your ducks in a row, or all the blogging tips in the world won’t save you.

This is the guest post I recently mentioned that I had forgotten about, but reading it again now, I’m pleased to find that I agree with myself!

Alex Shalman writes about a bunch of different topics related to human potential and personal growth, not unlike myself. And he’s from New Joisey, so he’s got that going for him too. And I just found out he’s only 23, which is very cool for a blogger!

Also, I just learned that Naomi Dunford will stop selling her ebook SEO School on August 8th. In her post Sell More Stuff: Legitimizing Scarcity, she explains why:

“This is because it’s a supported product, and I’m the only one supporting it. If readers have questions, I answer them. If they need advice, I give it, and there’s no limit. It’s not like one question per person. Lifetime support, dudes. I’m the last stop on the SEO School train, and enough people have bought it that I can’t afford to sell more and subsequently give [bad] service.”

So if you want to get a copy of SEO School, you have a bit over a week left. But before you worry too much about SEO, make sure you have your ducks in a row!

In ten minutes, Yaro Starak will reopen Blog Mastermind. This is his coaching program, where he teaches people how to make a full-time income from blogging part-time. It has been closed since December, and now it’s reopening with updated material.

I’m not planning to join it right now. I’ve read some reviews, all positive, but I just haven’t been convinced that it’s worth the money ($97 a month for six months, or a one time fee of $497). I’m sure it’s a great program, but I’m just not sure that anyone really knows the secret of blogging.

Actually, Leo Babauta recently told us his secret of blogging that made Zen Habits one of the top 50 blogs in the world in its first year:

“There’s no secret, really. If I have any secret, it’s this: pick topics that I know about that people want to learn about, and then provide as much useful information about those topics as I possibly can — and then write it in a clear, fairly concise, easily scannable (because people are busy) form with a catchy headline.”

That’s a simple formula for success, but there are a couple of problems here.

One is that not all successful bloggers follow the same formula. For example,

• Stuff White People Like is not about topics that people want to learn about (it’s funny, but you don’t learn anything).
• Brian Clark built up Copyblogger with two posts a week, not as many posts as possible.
• Manolo is not clear, using a strange voice in the third person.
• Leo himself is not concise. Not that I’m one to talk, I’m just saying…
• Steve Pavlina often writes posts that are not scannable.
• Seth Godin does not use catchy headlines.

The other problem is that many bloggers are following Leo’s formula without success. I’m not saying it’s a bad formula, just that it doesn’t make success guaranteed, or even likely.

If I were asked what I thought the secrets of blogging are, I’d say these are the three most important things (in order):

1. Don’t expect overnight success. It doesn’t matter what you do if you don’t give it enough time. Leo was an anomaly; the average age of blogs in the Technorati Top 100 is 33.8 months (this stat is almost two years old, but it probably hasn’t changed much).

2. Provide lots of value. There are countless blogs out there, and it’s too easy for someone to come across yours and say “next!” If people don’t have a reason to feel drawn to your blog, they won’t subscribe, stumble, link, etc. The tricky part is that value is highly subjective. All that matters is how your target audience perceives it, and this can be hard to figure out. (But one thing I know is that value is not cumulative; lots of low value posts do not add up to a high value blog!)

3. Do lots of promotion. I have no idea where people got the saying “If you build it, they will come.” I mean, yeah, Field of Dreams, but did any top blogger actually say it, or are we really taking blogging advice from a disembodied voice in an 80s movie? And wasn’t the quote “If you build it, he will come?” As in, one person, who happened to be a ghost? Regardless, the reality is that people won’t find you (until you’re well established). You have to find them, by leaving comments on other blogs, posting in forums, writing guest posts, and so forth.

Of course, if you’ve spent any significant time reading blogs about blogging, you probably already know this. And every blogger has plenty more secrets to share. In fact, I should have a guest post appearing this week where I talk about some more. (I wrote this upcoming guest post a month ago, and I don’t remember what I said!) Despite all this knowledge being passed around, plenty of bloggers still seem to be struggling.

Yaro did give some new (new to me, at least) blogging advice in his conversion blogging video. Using an email list in conjunction with a blog seems like it could be a good idea in theory, but if I had an email list I’d want it to be genuinely useful, and so far I haven’t seen a good example of a list that isn’t made up of sales pitches and duplicate content from the blog.

I’d be interested in joining Blog Mastermind, but for now, I just haven’t been convinced that it really holds the secrets of blogging. Yaro’s Blog Profits Blueprint is a great value for free though.

If you know the secrets of blogging, please share them in the comments!

Yaro Starak has just released a new video about a concept he calls Conversion Blogging. It’s basically what you get when you start by building a good blog, and then add an email list.

It’s no secret that most bloggers have a very hard time making money from their blogs, even if they can get decent traffic to them. Conversion blogging is Yaro’s idea of how to make a full time income without working yourself to death trying to generate page views. This concept has worked very well for himself and many of his students. And while I don’t have an email list of my own, I’m starting to warm up to the idea because of Yaro.

About a fourth of my subscribers are subscribed to my blog via email. This means that every time I publish a new post, they receive an email containing the content of the post. This is a lot more efficient than having to come to my blog every day to check if I’ve posted something new.

But the problem is that it becomes overwhelming when you start subscribing to more and more blogs. Email is a somewhat intrusive medium. It’s easier to ignore than a phone call, but it’s still kind of “in your face.” People are obsessed with checking their email many times a day, and they stress over keeping their inboxes clean.

So at some point, many blog readers will stop subscribing to blogs via email, and will start subscribing via RSS instead. This is a big step up from email subscriptions, because it keeps all your blogs in one place, and you only have to check your blog feeds when you want to read them (no cluttered inbox).

But from the point of view of the blogger, what’s the downside of having people subscribe via RSS? Your posts no longer stand out. They’re lost in a sea of posts from other blogs. When people get around to reading their blogs, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to read every single post. It’s bad enough that they might not see the posts you’ve worked so hard on, but also, they might not see the product launches and affiliate promotions that you depend on for your blogging income.

But consider this. Let’s say you have a blog that gets traffic through commenting on other blogs, StumbleUpon, and so forth. And you create engaging and entertaining content for your readers, so they keep coming back for more. And then in addition to your blog, you also have an email list where people can sign up for more specialized information on a particular subtopic, and they can get a free report or video for signing up.

Not all, but some of your blog readers will sign up for your email list. They’ll receive emails that are not just repeats of the blog posts, but original valuable content. They’re more likely to read an email than a blog post, and they pay more attention (after all, the emails are addressed to them by name). They look forward to the emails even more than the blog posts. And so, when some of these emails are promoting a product, they’re much more likely to buy it. That’s what conversion blogging is all about.

I don’t have an email list and I don’t think I’m close to creating one. I don’t even have any idea what the topic would be. But it’s something that’s been in the back of my mind for a while, and if I continue to learn about conversion blogging, I’ll have the knowledge ready if and when I get an idea for an email list.

You can watch the Conversion Blogging video for free, and you don’t even have to opt in to anything. It’s 33 minutes and I really like the presentation. You see Yaro talking up in one corner while the rest of the video is showing his computer screen.

After you watch that video, you’re invited to watch a brand new video version of Yaro’s hugely popular Blog Profits Blueprint, which has now been downloaded over 40,000 times. It’s 55 minutes and free, but you have to opt in to his mailing list to see the video. But because it’s done with AWeber, you know you can always unsubscribe with no problems.

How many of you have mailing lists, and what has your experience been?

“Stumble Stampede” was my suggested name for Caroline Middlebrook’s course on StumbleUpon, the wildly popular social media service that’s responsible for the bulk of my traffic. And while I was too late in making my suggestion, I have to admit that she picked a much less cheesy name: Stumble Rush.

Stumble Rush is a home study course in StumbleUpon consisting of 20 lessons and 20 videos. The 10 basic lessons are free, and the 10 advanced lessons are $47. I recently started the free lessons, and while I’m not planning to buy the advanced lessons at this time, that’s not to say that it wouldn’t be a great value for the right person.

In one of the early free lessons, Caroline makes the excellent point that unless your blog happens to be about internet marketing, many of your users probably don’t know what StumbleUpon is. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to give a basic introduction for those who have not yet dived into the wonderful world of StumbleUpon. If you have a blog, you need to know this.

If you’re already well-versed in StumbleUpon, feel free to jump to the very bottom and read my question about the right way to ask for social media votes. It’s a controversial topic, and I’d like to hear what you have to say about it.

What is social media?

Social media is a term encompassing many different types of collaborative systems for sharing content on the internet. Popular social media sites include StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us, Mixx, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

One of the most common reasons people use social media is to drive traffic to their blogs. Social media can easily deliver far more traffic than you would get naturally. For example, my blog has about 300 subscribers, but because my post 10 Reasons Japan Is Better Than America was submitted to StumbleUpon, it was viewed 28,620 times.

Out of all the social media sites, why use StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon is extremely popular. If you ask someone for a vote on Mixx or Reddit, there’s a good chance they won’t even have accounts for those services. If you ask someone for a stumble, they’re very likely to be able to do it, unless they just don’t use social media at all.

StumbleUpon is fun and easy to use. There’s an incredibly broad range of categories, so you can submit pretty much anything, as opposed to Digg for example, which is supposed to be just tech and news. You also don’t need very many votes to get some significant traffic, again as opposed to Digg, where you either hit the front page or you don’t.

And perhaps the best reason of all is that StumbleUpon is my biggest traffic source! While most of these visitors come and go very quickly, you’ll eventually turn some of them into loyal readers.

How do you use StumbleUpon?

Go to the StumbleUpon site and sign up for a free account. You pick a username and tell it which topics you’re interested in. Then you can download the StumbleUpon toolbar, which works in either Internet Explorer or Firefox.

The toolbar appears at the top of your browser, though I keep mine hidden when I’m not using it (Ctrl+F11 shows and hides the toolbar). Out of all the toolbar buttons, there are three I use far more than the rest:

Stumble: This button redirects you to a web page that StumbleUpon thinks you’ll like, based on the topics you chose, the pages you’ve voted for, and the pages your friends have voted for.

Thumbs up: This tells StumbleUpon that you like the page (or photo, or video) you’re on, you’d like to vote for it, and you’d like to see more pages like it in the future. When someone asks you to stumble a post, they mean they want you to visit their post and then click this button.

There’s also a thumbs down button, but I rarely use it. The idea is that StumbleUpon will learn not to show you similar pages in the future, but I doubt it works well. If you thumb a post down, how is StumbleUpon supposed to know whether you dislike it because it’s too long, or because it contains profanity, or because you’ve already read something similar, or because you disagree with the author’s opinions, or for some other reason? Plus, I’d rather use StumbleUpon to make friends than enemies.

Review: This button looks like a speech balloon. It lets you see what other people are saying about the current post, and it lets you write your own review too. It also lets you see how many people have clicked the thumbs up or thumbs down button.

Stumbling a post

Stumbling a post means clicking the thumbs up button, but this can actually mean two different things. Normally when you see a post you like, you click the thumbs up button and your vote is recorded. Then you can write a review if you like.

But if you’re the first one to stumble a post, it says “You’ve Discovered a New Site…Please let us know about it.” You enter a short review and select the topic this post best fits in. Then you click “Submit This Site,” and the post is now in the StumbleUpon database. Now all future stumblers can just click thumbs up without having to do this extra work.

How do you get traffic from StumbleUpon?

Simple! When you write a post people want to stumble, they click the thumbs up button. This causes StumbleUpon to send more stumblers to your post. If they like it, they’ll click the thumbs up button, and this in turn brings even more traffic. More thumbs up equals more traffic, and it can really add up. The key is to get a good number of stumbles within the first day or so, as time is a big factor. It’s also best if you get stumbled by “good stumblers;” people who stumble a wide variety of quality content, instead of just stumbling all their friends’ posts.

OK, but how do you get people to give you a thumbs up?

First of all, you’ll get the best results when you write a post that is specifically optimized for StumbleUpon. For example, Cosmo-type headlines, list posts, resource posts, and great images will help you. I’m sure Caroline will go into much more detail in even the free Stumble Rush lessons.

There’s definitely an art to it. Sometimes when I’m reading or writing a post, I’ll think “This is just screaming to be stumbled.” For example, regarding the post I mentioned before, “10 Reasons Japan Is Better Than America,” some people accused me of deliberately choosing a title that was designed to get traffic. Well, yeah, that was the idea!

So writing a stumble-worthy post is the first part. The next part is getting it in front of people who will stumble it. If you’re lucky enough to have a huge readership for your blog, you can just post something and since a tiny percentage of your readers are bound to stumble it, your post will take off with no effort. But if you have a small or medium-sized blog, you might want to consider asking for help.

Asking for stumbles

And now we’re getting into a very controversial topic. Isn’t StumbleUpon supposed to be organic? Aren’t posts supposed to rise to the top on their own merit, instead of by people gaming the system? Ideally, yes. But in reality, a blog with 50,000 subscribers is going to trounce your blog with 50 subscribers no matter how good your posts are. Gaming the system in an ethical way puts you on a more even footing with blogs that would otherwise have an unfair advantage.

When I say “gaming the system,” I simply mean taking any action specifically intended to win stumbles. Some methods are ethical, and some are not. Asking your friend to stumble your post is ethical. Hacking the StumbleUpon database is not. Creating fake accounts and writing fake reviews is somewhere in between, but I’d say it falls on the unethical side. We’re just going to talk about ethical methods here.

It’s very easy to email someone and ask them to stumble your post. The problem is that it can easily become excessive. If you email someone you know well once in a while, that’s fine. If you email a stranger every time you write a post, it gets annoying very quickly. And if you email someone multiple times every time you post, don’t be surprised if they file for a restraining order!

I had to turn off shouts (request notifications) on Digg because I was starting to get multiple people sending shouts for the same post. And this might have been a post that I had already been emailed about, possibly more than once. When you send emails out to different groups, there might be some overlap, meaning duplicate requests will go to the same person, and this gets annoying. A nice way to manage stumble requests is to create a group specifically for this purpose. Assemble a team of willing participants, set up a Google group, and email the group when you have something you’d like to be stumbled.

But an even simpler way of getting stumbles is just to be a good stumbler yourself. When you see a post you think is special, give it a thumbs up and write a review. Do this enough, and people will start to recognize and appreciate you. They’ll be likely to remember your generosity when reading your posts, and they may return the favor by giving you a stumble.

Discover new sites

I think StumbleUpon’s tagline used to be “discover new sites.” Ironically, I had very little interest in using it for this purpose. I don’t understand why someone would sit there clicking the stumble button to be directed to sites that may or may not be any good, when it’s very easy to fill up your RSS reader with your handpicked favorites.

Two exceptions to this, though. One is that if you keep stumbling the same sites over and over, it severely drains your StumbleUpon power crystals. You can recharge them by using StumbleUpon the way it was intended, by stumbling a wide variety of quality content. And a really easy way to do this is to every once in a while, just spend a few minutes clicking the stumble button and giving a few thumbs up.

The other exception is that I sometimes like to set StumbleUpon to only show me pages in the Humor category, and just go through a bunch of those. It’s a very entertaining way to spend a few minutes.

Is there any downside to using StumbleUpon?

The main thing is that people can write negative reviews of your posts. If you include a stumble link in your post, it will encourage people to write a review, and if they didn’t like your post, watch out! Caroline Middlebrook had a stumbler say: “May africanized bees find your page and leave a thousand welts on it.” She also received comments that were much less polite.

However, even if you don’t put up a stumble link, anyone can still easily use the toolbar to write a review, so you really can’t protect yourself from people who want to say something mean. I see this as a small problem though, because while I got a lot of negative comments on my Japan post, I also got more traffic and AdSense revenue than from any other post. You can’t please everyone, and controversy sometimes sells.

Another downside is that you could find yourself spending way too much time stumbling your way across the blogosphere. The initial thrill wears off pretty quickly though, so I don’t think this is too big a risk once you get used to it.

How to get started

1. Sign up for a free StumbleUpon account and start playing around.

2. Sign up for Caroline Middlebrook’s free Stumble Rush lessons, and optionally buy the advanced lessons.

3. Start growing your network by adding me as a friend on StumbleUpon. While you’re at it, you can follow me on Twitter.

The right way to ask for social media votes

Those of you who have been using StumbleUpon or other social media services for a while probably have an opinion about asking for votes. Do you mind being asked to vote for something? Are you comfortable asking other people to vote for your stuff? How much is too much, and what’s the right way to ask? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Photo by SqueakyMarmot

Well, it’s that time–the end of the 365-day period ending June 30, 2008. Why am I writing a year-end review in July? One, because everyone else does it in December, and for me it gets a little tiring to read a bunch of posts like this at the same time. Two, because I’ve never seen the need to wait until New Year’s to reassess your situation.

When I say “the year in review,” I mean regarding this blog and my life. A bit self-centered, yes, but this post will definitely apply to you if you’re trying to escape the rat race or you’re interested in making money online.

When I look at my life, the only major challenge I care about is escaping the rat race. What I mean by that is making a living (and preferably a good living) from an occupation I enjoy and have control over. This means everything to me. If I have any other problems, they’re so small that I’m not even noticing them.

I recently worked with a career coach who had the insight and the guts to say that I’ll never be happy in any job. Of course, I already knew that, but it’s good to have professional confirmation so I know for sure what I’m looking at. So what will I do about that? Well first, here’s my situation:

- I make a moderate salary as a software developer. It pays the bills and lets me save some money, but it’s certainly not going to let me retire tomorrow. Most importantly, I really don’t enjoy it. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, but employment just isn’t for me.

- Thanks to years of somewhat extreme frugality and compound interest, I make decent passive income from stock mutual funds. In the long run, this will be by far my favorite income stream, because given enough time it will result in a lot of income with basically no work. But for now, it’s not really that much. Furthermore, it comes mostly in the form of unrealized capital gains, so I can’t get the money out without selling and paying taxes (and I don’t like paying taxes).

- My next biggest income stream is from being a part-time network marketing consultant. This was doing well and growing for a while, but lately I’ve been struggling as new competitors have flooded the pay-per-click market, eager to set money on fire. I won’t bid more than 35 cents max for a click, but top bids for one important keyword are over $11! That can’t be profitable for them unless they’re really ripping off their customers, but it’s shutting out those of us who won’t play that game. I’ll have to see how this plays out. I have a more or less neutral feeling about the work; it’s way better than a job, but I can’t say that I actually like it for reasons other than generating income without having a boss.

- One income stream that I started 7 months ago is this blog. The income is extremely low, so don’t fall into the trap of thinking that blogging is an easy way to make 6 figures. But though the income is low, it’s growing steadily so far (with the exception that my blog income was down in June after being way up in May because of the 28,000 visitors to 10 Reasons Japan Is Better Than America). And it’s so much fun. I’d be incredibly happy if I could do it full time.

So back to what to do about the rat race. Here are some possibilities:

1. Do nothing.

Just do what “everyone” does and stay in the rat race. I believe that some people honestly like their jobs, but that’s sure not me. For me, taking the normal route isn’t an option. Even if I don’t succeed in any of the alternatives, I couldn’t forgive myself for not trying.

2. Find a higher paying job.

The idea with this strategy is that if more money is coming in, I can save more and retire earlier. Better than option 1, but far from ideal. I’d like to do a little more work for a little more money, or a lot more work for a lot more money, but in my experience, climbing the ladder means doing a lot more work for a little more money. And I want to enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

3. Find a part time job.

This is similar to #2. More money for more work, only the extra work is with a different company. But I haven’t been able to find any part time jobs in software development. I’m not necessarily restricting myself to that, but I sure don’t want a minimum wage job.

I did come close to getting this to work when a company I worked at went out of business. Someone started a company to service the clients that were left behind, and they wanted to pay developers $70 - $90 an hour for working nights and weekends. It would have been great, except they didn’t get as many clients as they wanted, and they ended up needing only one developer (who wasn’t me).

4. Make a decent income outside of a job.

Now things start getting interesting. I think making a modest income without a job is way better than making a high income with a job. This blog is a perfect example of a way to make money without a job, but I’m a long way from making any real money, let alone something to live on.

So far, I haven’t done much monetization. I put some AdSense ads up, but AdSense doesn’t pay much, and I’m making even less than other blogs with the same amount of traffic. I think this is for three reasons:

- I got most of my subscribers when ProBlogger linked to The Zen of Blogging. They’re likely to be bloggers themselves, and bloggers tend to show ad blindness.

- Search engine visitors like to click ads, but I’ve only recently emerged from the Google sandbox, so my search traffic has been essentially nil so far. And I still seem to be sandboxed for some keywords that I know I should rank well for (and in fact, I do rank well for them on Yahoo).

- I’ve refrained from putting ads in the best hotspot: the upper left corner of the content. Many successful AdSense publishers do that because it gets the most clicks, but I figured that since I don’t have search traffic yet, there’s no need for it. Besides, when I use an image, I want that to appear at the top, not an ad.

But to have a good chance of making money from a blog, you need to look beyond AdSense.

Consulting

In Skellie’s post A Practical Guide to Earning Six Figures: Re-inventing What You Have, she presents an idea that I found interesting:

“Consulting carries a high per-hour rate and is highly customizable. Aside from traditional types of consulting (SEO consulting, branding consultations, etc.), there’s nothing to stop a talented World of Warcraft player offering consulting to players who want to increase their skills…”

This caught my eye because my research project for my master’s degree in computer science was on Warcraft! I guess I have a master’s degree in Warcraft, if you will. So, does anyone out there need a Warcraft consultant? However, I’d need to update my knowledge, since my project was on Warcraft and Warcraft II, and I know nothing about the latest release.

This particular angle might not work, but the whole coaching/consulting/freelancing deal is certainly worth considering when you realize that a small blogger can make more money from one hour of consulting than they could from a year of AdSense.

Paul Piotrowski is a newcomer to making money online, making only $7 in March. But he made a whopping $1,528 in June! What I found most interesting about his June 2008 blog income report is that he made $600 from blog coaching. This shows that you can make money from consulting even before you’ve built up a reputation. Because of his posts, I believed that Paul was knowledgeable about making money online even before he had actually done it himself (just like I think I’m knowledgeable even though I haven’t done it yet). And because other people believed he could help them, he got some clients. Because of those clients, he has made what I would consider the start of good money online. And now that he’s done it, he has a reputation that will bring him more clients with less effort.

Ebooks

I’ve written two ebooks so far: The Zen of Blogging and Memoirs of a Gaijin. Both of these were free, and while I think I could have charged something for Memoirs, I felt better about doing it for free, even though it was a lot of work. But now I think it’s time to move on to paid ebooks. They take a lot of effort to write, but I think that when shared with the right person, they can be far more valuable than free posts or even real books. And in return for providing that value, you can be paid. Furthermore, by offering an affiliate program, you give your readers a chance to make money from recommending your ebooks. This is definitely something I want to pursue.

Freelancing

Freelancing is not really something I’ve considered. People call it a business, but I’m not sure how it’s that different from a job. You can work from home on your own schedule, but you still have a boss (or many bosses), and you might have limited control over what you do. It can also be hard to find work.

Let’s use freelance blogging as an example. When Skellie said in Freelance Blogging for Side Income: My Top 10 Tips that even a newbie freelance blogger should never write for less than $50 for a 500 word post, some people thought that rate was much too high to be realistic. Professional freelance writer Monika Mundell said “Prospective clients get shifty at the thought of paying $15 for 200 words and I’m only dreaming of being paid these rates.” (However, it wasn’t long before Monika reported being paid $50 for a post.)

Let’s say that you manage to snag what some people consider a fantastic rate of $50 for a 500 word post (which is supposed to take 2 hours to write). Even if you get that rate, that’s only $25 per hour, or $50,000 a year. And that’s only if you’re able to find enough work (4 posts a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year), and you’re able to write enough on whatever topics you’re given, and you’re able to write these posts in 2 hours. This post I’m writing now is going to take way longer than 2 hours. Of course, it’s way longer than 500 words, and I’m watching Jurassic Park in the background, but still…

In spite of these potential problems, I was considering doing some freelance blogging. But I couldn’t commit to any kind of schedule, like 5 posts per week. At this point, it would have to be a “write whenever you like” kind of deal. As I was wondering how to find someone who would pay $50 per post whenever I could come up with something, I noticed that one of the Anywired commenters gave the name “Michael Martin.” I clicked through for no other reason than because I thought maybe it was Michael Martine and he had just misspelled his name. Well, it was actually a guy named Michael Martin, and you wouldn’t believe what post came up: Hiring Blog Design Writers, $50 per post! I’m not sure how many posts I can write about blog design, but it’s certainly worth a try.

Being a programmer, I’ve looked into freelance programming, but I haven’t found anything. On RentACoder, I saw a lot of people with tons of skills trying to underbid each other for tiny jobs. I sure don’t want to spend hours searching for a 30-minute job at a low rate. If I were going to do this, I’d want something more permanent, like a long-term contract or a part-time job, and I haven’t been able to find one.

In A Practical Guide to Earning Six Figures: Reboot Your Career, Skellie said a friend of a friend earns over $200,000 by working 3 months a year in a difficult and obscure programming language with little competition. Sounds like an amazing deal, but I don’t suppose you happen to know what that language might be, do you?

Here’s to 2009!

As we begin the 365-day period ending June 30, 2009, I’m renewing my efforts to make a living online. Are you trying to do this too, or are you already doing it? Leave a comment and let us know how things are going for you!

I just read Naomi Dunford’s ebook SEO School. If you’ve read her blog IttyBiz, you know all about her irreverent style. And Naomi is true to form in her ebook, telling it like it is and swearing like a drunken sailor. Of course, some people will be put off by that, so if you’re bothered by profanity, then this is not for you.

But if you like the way Naomi writes, you’ll definitely like this ebook. She makes you feel very comfortable while reading, even telling you when it’s time to refill your drink. It’s really a pleasure to read.

As for the content, it doesn’t really have any secrets you don’t already know if you’re reasonably knowledgeable about SEO (like if you’ve read good blogs about it). And Naomi doesn’t claim to have access to Google’s crystal ball. But her ebook is 52 pages of solid information that will take someone from a complete newbie to being highly competent in SEO, understanding the psychology of search as well as the technical aspects.

Here’s a quick test to see if you need this ebook. In the first paragraph of this post, I gave Naomi two links. One of these links is much, much better for SEO purposes than the other. If you can’t instantly tell which one is better, and clearly understand why it’s better, then you need this ebook if search traffic is important to you. (Update: the link to the ebook is now an affiliate link through e-junkie, so this example no longer applies.)

If you’re already well-versed in SEO, then maybe you don’t need it. Heck, I didn’t need it. I already knew stuff about SEO, and I’m not even trying to get this blog ranked for any particular keywords because I don’t have a specific niche (though I’ll have niche sites in the future). But I bought this ebook because I knew that Naomi would be insightful, practical, and entertaining.

The one thing I have to quibble about is the price. At $39, it’s priced much higher than the $10 - $20 I would have expected. But I decided it was OK. Consider this:

• It’s 52 pages, which is kind of a lot. All value, no fluff.
• If you’re making any SEO mistakes, buying the ebook is a small price to pay compared to all the money you’re losing from poor SEO.
• It’s really entertaining!
• There’s a money-back guarantee.
• Naomi is cool, and worth supporting.

If you’re interested in SEO, you can’t go wrong with this ebook.

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In other news, my ebook about Japan is almost finished. I’ll be releasing it soon, at the attractive price of free! It ended up taking much longer than I expected, so I’m really glad to be wrapping it up. If you only read one ebook about Japan this year, read mine!

Do you have a Squidoo lens yet? I don’t, but I’m thinking about creating one (or more).

I usually don’t jump on the bandwagon right away. I wait until I hear enough good things about something before I take a look. And I think I may have reached that point with Squidoo.

For those of you who don’t know, Squidoo is the creation of marketing guru Seth Godin. It’s free and easy for anyone to create a “lens,” or web page, on a particular topic. But why would you want to do that?

If you currently have no online presence, I’d generally recommend starting a blog before branching out into things like Squidoo. But if you already have a blog up and running, Squidoo can help give you a traffic boost.

Marelisa mentioned in a comment here that her Squidoo lens called “100 Things To Do Before You Die - Create Your Bucket List” is giving her 5 to 10 visits to her blog every day. That’s because Squidoo is one of the 300 most popular websites in the U.S., with a mammoth Google PageRank of 7. Create a good lens, and you’ll probably get some people clicking through to your blog.

There are also some potential financial benefits. Squidoo automatically puts ads on all lenses, which generate revenue when someone clicks on them. 5% of the revenue goes to charity, 45% goes to Squidoo, and the remaining 50% goes to either you or a charity of your choice. I wouldn’t count on making more than pennies though.

Do you have a Squidoo lens? If so, feel free to give your link and tell us about it in the comments.

I saw this clip on IttyBiz, but it wasn’t working for me at first. I later tried it on a different computer and it worked. I’m really glad I tried it again, because it’s priceless.

Security Cam Footage of Cubicle Rage to the Extreme is Every Cube Dweller’s Fantasy

These videos show a guy who just couldn’t take any more of his cubicle paradise. Watch him fight coworkers, throw monitors, swing an axe, and just cause general destruction before finally being brought down with a taser.

Some people are saying it’s fake, and it might be. I’m not going to run it through my fraud filter, because deep down every employee wants it to be real. I just hope that no one got hurt.

Have you ever wanted to destroy an office? What would it take to make you lose it?

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I’m going out of town for a bit, coming back Tuesday night. Play nice.

Many of the people who read this blog are bloggers themselves. Some of them are running blogs that are much more successful than mine, but many of them are struggling to get off the ground. This is not unusual. In fact, less than 1 blog in 1,000 earns more than $20 a month.

If you want some guidance on how to create a successful blog, I highly recommend the free ebook Blog Profits Blueprint by Yaro Starak. If you haven’t heard of Yaro before, he’s an Australian entrepreneur and internet marketer who has gone from being a complete unknown on the internet to making over $15,000 per month as a result of his blog, all while working as little as two hours per day.

I read Yaro’s blog regularly, and there’s no denying that he knows his stuff. I admire his high level of practical knowledge as well as his refreshing transparency and integrity. He’s really hard core on the marketing side, and since what I love is content creation and not so much the marketing, some of his stuff is a bit beyond my level of understanding and interest. But his ebook is very accessible to people who are not internet marketing experts.

By the way, if you’re looking into starting a blog but you’re confused by the technical complexity of getting set up, Yaro has put together some wonderful instructional videos with his friend Gideon Shalwick at BecomeABlogger.com. These videos will be too basic for established bloggers, but they’re terrific for beginners.

Anyway, back to Yaro’s ebook. It covers his personal story, how blogs make money, choosing a topic, attracting attention, what kind of content to write, how to market, different kinds of traffic channels, networking, monetization methods, and so on. It’s by far the best ebook on blogging that I know of. Well, OK, I’m still partial to my own ebook The Zen of Blogging, but the Blog Profits Blueprint is far more practical!

Downloading Yaro’s ebook requires opting in to his newsletter. He runs his newsletter using AWeber, so you know you can safely unsubscribe if you don’t like it, but I’m still on his newsletter after reading his ebook months ago. If you want to get a better idea of what Yaro is about before downloading his ebook, I’ll give you some details here.

What follows is an article that Yaro wrote and gave me permission to repost (though I’ve made some cosmetic edits - sorry, can’t help myself!). If you like what he has to say, then you’ll probably like the Blog Profits Blueprint. I’ve included my own comments in his article, so you can see my take on things. Apologies for the 4,000-word post, but since not all of my readers are looking for blogging information, I thought it was best to put a lot of stuff in one post that can simply be skipped by those not interested.

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(The following is by Yaro Starak, with my comments interjected. The “me vs. Yaro” in the title is in good humor, as I do respect and often agree with Yaro’s opinions. But also I’m going to challenge some of his thoughts.)

In every blogger’s life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’s blog, chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog, but that’s about as far as you went when it comes to finding readers.

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

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

[Hunter's comments: This may be less true than we'd like it to be. Skellie said the same thing in The Butterfly Growth Model, that once you get to 500 subscribers, your readers will do most of the promotional work for you. Later, she said she found that it wasn't working as well as she'd hoped, and she wasn't getting many new readers without doing her own promotion. I think there's certainly some truth to the butterfly growth model, but it may work better for some blogs than for others.]

Top 10 Tips

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

[Hunter's comments: While Yaro is the one who coined the term "pillar article," it has a slightly different meaning for me. I think a pillar article need not be a "how-to" lesson. To me it's any post of exceptional value, original insight, or essential to understanding your blog's core message. It might not have "lots of very practical tips or advice;" for example, it might serve to instill a powerful mindset, and not offer any practical tips at all. My pillar articles tend to be 1,000 - 1,500 words, and my Boot Camp consists of my most important pillar articles (and by the way, I still have quite a few more to add...someday).

I agree with Yaro that pillar articles are essential. Of course I write plenty of lighter posts too, but without pillar articles, it's very hard to stand out in a competitive niche. And while we're on this topic, I don't use the term "article" when referring to my own writings. I call them posts, whether they're 200 words or 2,000. To me, an article is something you could submit to a magazine, something that adheres to strict rules of style and content. I write with my own style, not like a journalist--and I mean no disrespect to journalists! Some people use the terms "post" and "article" to refer to different quality standards in the blogosphere, but I don't. They're all posts to me.]

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

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

[Hunter's comments: With all due respect to Yaro, this is ridiculous. And I know that many successful bloggers will disagree with me, but I think feeling the need to post every day puts undue stress on a blogger, and is a major reason why most blogs suck. At least Yaro says it's not necessary after the first few months, but he's clearly showing his preference for super-frequent posts. If you're a full-time blogger, maybe you can come up with a good post every day. If you're blogging part time, and perhaps not even as your main part time activity, it's very unlikely that you're capable of cranking out that many thoughtful, original, and entertaining posts. That's why we see all these rehashed posts (e.g., "Top 10 Ways To Be Happy," pic of someone jumping, #1 Drink more water, #2 Exercise, #3 Be a vegetarian, etc). Even if a post isn't a pillar, I want every post I read or write to be good.

What if you get hit by a bus and end up in the hospital? Are you going to hop in your wheelchair and rush over to the internet cafe, where you frantically try to scramble some guest posters? Or are you going to take your time to recover, trusting that your readers are smart enough to realize that unsubscribing will not result in them getting more posts from you?

Even if you have time to write a great post every day, your audience doesn't have time to read it. They only have so much time available for reading blogs each day, and yours is not the only one they read. Your loyal readers don't want to miss anything you write, but they also want you to be respectful of their time. Regular content keeps you fresh in their mind, but at some point it becomes annoying. There are a couple of blogs that I'm reluctantly subscribed to even though they post more than once per day, but I just scan the titles and usually mark them all as read. I would read more of their posts, comment more, and link more, if only they posted less often. So where is their return on investment?

I realize the importance of putting significant time into your blogging, but a good chunk of that time can be spent on responding to comments, commenting on other blogs and forums, doing research, writing ebooks, etc. And some of my posts have taken well over 10 hours to write and edit. When writing on your own blog, you don't get paid per post.]

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging, be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog, you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’s the offline world, you remember that place, right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can, and focus on small, easy to remember domains rather than worrying about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and an easy to remember name, then you’ve done a good job!).

[Hunter's comments: I agree about the .com name. It's generally better than .net or .org, and definitely way better than something like blogspot. If you want to make money from your blog, you need to treat it like a business, and that includes giving it a real name.

I'm not sure how often blog referrals happen offline, but a memorable domain name always helps. His point about keywords is that having them in the domain helps with SEO by giving you better rankings and bolding the keyword in the search results to grab more attention. But as he says, it's more important to have a domain that sounds good to people. If you can do both, that's great.

Some people (like myself) use their own name as their domain. While not appropriate in all cases, it can sometimes be a good choice. For me, I have a very broad "niche," if you want to call it that, and it would be hard to think of a name that fits my blog well. Besides, what if I want to change my topics 10 years from now?]

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

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

[Hunter's comments: This is a very easy way to get exposure in the beginning. It takes time, but it's not hard. Try to be one of the first commenters so more people will read your comment. And try to avoid saying "great post!" That phrase has been ruined by all the people who have left comments saying only that, so I try not to use it even as part of a substantial comment. Be a regular commenter on some blogs to build a reputation, but also try to branch out and comment on new blogs to reach new people.]

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

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

[Hunter's comments: I don't think this is particularly effective at getting traffic from the other blog. I rarely click on trackback links, definitely less than I click on comment links. However, it's extremely effective at getting the other blogger to notice you. Bloggers always appreciate links because it helps their traffic, especially when you have good things to say about them. I wouldn't do it in expectation of a return link down the road, but that may very well happen. Another benefit is that your readers will appreciate you for pointing them to a good post.]

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

[Hunter's comments: Asking a question shows that you welcome input from other people, and it makes it easier for them to figure out what to say. In sales and marketing, this is known as a "call to action." If you tell people what you want them to do, they're much more likely to do it.

Responding to comments makes the commenters feel appreciated, and it can generate a good discussion in your comments section. Sometimes the comments can be more interesting than the post itself! The downside here is that it can be very time consuming. If you get very few comments, you have time to give a thoughtful reply to each one. If you get lots of comments, people will understand that you don't have time to respond to many. I'm at that awkward stage in the middle, where I can reply to each comment but it can sometimes take a lot of time. I'm looking forward to the point where I can say I just have too many comments to reply to each one, so some of the pressure will be lifted and I can reply only when I can easily think of something useful to say.]

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

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

[Hunter's comments: I've submitted posts to blog carnivals a couple of times, but I certainly haven't done it consistently. Since I write about a wide range of topics, it would be annoying to look for the right carnival each time. And I'm not sure how effective they are. If one edition of a carnival features 30 posts, would you read them all? However, you'll definitely get some traffic, as well as a link, so it can be a good idea, especially if you have a tightly focused niche and you know of some carnivals you can submit to each time.

I've seen a number of people recommending carnivals, but so far they haven't interested me enough to really look into them. I think I'll do better with guest posts, which I'm surprised not to see on this list. You can choose the audience you want, steal the spotlight and have all eyes on you, and write slightly outside of your niche if you want.]

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

[Hunter's comments: I hadn't heard of this site before. As I was reading this tip it didn't sound very worthwhile, and I didn't like how it requires registration and putting code on your blog, as well as picking a category (since I tend not to fit into any). But 1-10 readers per day? That's huge for a new blogger! I'm not sure what kind of traffic this is though. If it's the same quality traffic as you get from StumbleUpon, I don't think it's worth it. Has anyone tried this before? And Yaro, really? This makes your top 10?]

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

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

[Hunter's comments: I haven't done this yet, but I've heard good things about this method. I've also heard about Article Marketer, which, for a fee, lets you submit your content to many sites at once. I'd be interested in hearing what others have experienced with these services. What's the best way to do it, how much traffic did you get, and did you notice a duplicate content penalty?]

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

[Hunter's comments: Absolutely. I think that the single best thing any blogger can do is focus their attention on writing great content.]

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

[Hunter's comments: These are some very good tips for new bloggers to consider. Don't take my comments above to mean that I don't respect Yaro's advice. On the contrary, I think he has rightfully earned his reputation as a blogging and internet marketing guru. I just have my own strong opinions about blogging, and I think a little constructive debate is always in order. Like I said before, his Blog Profits Blueprint is easily the best ebook I know of about blogging.]

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

To get more information about Blog Mastermind, click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com