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Blogging for Profit (With Legendary GOLD Follow Up Posts)

IrishSpring600

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There is a difference between properly run and niched down blogs like the ones you talk about and the 99999999th iteration of a guy spitting out personal development, dating and fitness advice on his new wordpress install, which are the ones we usually get here in the forum and rightly discourage from wasting their time.

What's wrong with it? It's a content system.
 
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Daniel A

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This is the first relevant thread I found via search so I'll post this here.

I'm pretty sure we all know of Pat Flynn and his website / brand Smart Passive Income.

Well, there's this: http://www.studiopress.com/smart-passive-income-pro-theme/

If you're hesitant to click and read the link it's a post about how StudioPress is now offering a SPI clone WP theme.

So far I'm loving it! :D Perfect timing.
 

Green Destiny

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This is the first relevant thread I found via search so I'll post this here.

I'm pretty sure we all know of Pat Flynn and his website / brand Smart Passive Income.

Well, there's this: http://www.studiopress.com/smart-passive-income-pro-theme/

If you're hesitant to click and read the link it's a post about how StudioPress is now offering a SPI clone WP theme.

So far I'm loving it! :D Perfect timing.

It's interesting that if you look at his latest income report, only $4,000 of the $127k is actually from making a straight product. The rest is from teaching people how to make money from making a passive income product. Unless you have a long-game plan to use your blog to grow a big business this seems to be the way to make money from blogging.

I'm not having a go at the guy for this, not at all. But he's basically just selling shovels to gold prospectors. Fair play to him.
 

Greg R

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BLOGGING UPDATE:

Even though this is not a progress thread, I wanted to share with you some of my findings when I applied the things I learned from here.

This was mostly for experimental purposes, but the impact from these changes were very positive.

I dissected the top 13 money making blogs and tried to figured out what they did that I could apply to my own.

Here are the changes that I made:
  • Theme: After doing some research, I realized that the previous theme I was using was more for personal blogs. I changed the theme to look more like a BIG BLOG. My end goal is to come across as a high traffic media site.
  • About Page: I changed the whole damn thing. Instead of making the about page about us, I made it really about my readers. I also added staff profiles to show that it's not just me working on it and rewrote the all of the copy. The copy for the about page took me about 10 hours and I am still monitoring the conversions.
  • Contact Page: In the contact page I added a section for "contributors" and a sections for "advertisers." I gave a detailed outline for future contributors explaining what I expect~ should they want to send me writing. For the advertisers, I wrote some decent copy and told them to contact me. I also placed ads on the site to show that the site was advertiser friendly.
After I made these changes; I have gotten several request to post ads on my site for way more money than I thought I was ever going to make, many potential contributors have asked me to feature their work, and my traffic volume has significantly increased.

What I need to work on more:

Email subscribers

More content

I will give another update as I continue to work on these two things.

Thanks. :rockon:
 
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Green Destiny

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BLOGGING UPDATE:

Even though this is not a progress thread, I wanted to share with you some of my findings when I applied the things I learned from here.

This was mostly for experimental purposes, but the impact from these changes were very positive.

I dissected the top 13 money making blogs and tried to figured out what they did that I could apply to my own.

Here are the changes that I made:
  • Theme: After doing some research, I realized that the previous theme I was using was more for personal blogs. I changed the theme to look more like a BIG BLOG. My end goal is to come across as a high traffic media site.
  • About Page: I changed the whole damn thing. Instead of making the about page about us, I made it really about my readers. I also added staff profiles to show that it's not just me working on it and rewrote the all of the copy. The copy for the about page took me about 10 hours and I am still monitoring the conversions.
  • Contact Page: In the contact page I added a section for "contributors" and a sections for "advertisers." I gave a detailed outline for future contributors explaining what I expect~ should they want to send me writing. For the advertisers, I wrote some decent copy and told them to contact me. I also placed ads on the site to show that the site was advertiser friendly.
After I made these changes; I have gotten several request to post ads on my site for way more money than I thought I was ever going to make, many potential contributors have asked me to feature their work, and my traffic volume has significantly increased.

What I need to work on more:

Email subscribers

More content

I will give another update as I continue to work on these two things.

Thanks. :rockon:

Interesting. I hear a lot, on many of the "How to blog" type blogs, that you should try and make your blog as personal as possible since people like to get to know the person writing it. Interesting that you went the other way and improved your results. Well done mate. ;)
 

Green Destiny

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Maybe the secret sauce is BIG BLOG look and feel, with SMALL BLOG service.
In the Simpsons, the secret sauce for the burger joint turned out to be mayonnaise that had been left out in the sun.

You could be right though.
 
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Vigilante

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BLOGGING UPDATE:

Even though this is not a progress thread, I wanted to share with you some of my findings when I applied the things I learned from here.

This was mostly for experimental purposes, but the impact from these changes were very positive.

I dissected the top 13 money making blogs and tried to figured out what they did that I could apply to my own.

Here are the changes that I made:
  • Theme: After doing some research, I realized that the previous theme I was using was more for personal blogs. I changed the theme to look more like a BIG BLOG. My end goal is to come across as a high traffic media site.
  • About Page: I changed the whole damn thing. Instead of making the about page about us, I made it really about my readers. I also added staff profiles to show that it's not just me working on it and rewrote the all of the copy. The copy for the about page took me about 10 hours and I am still monitoring the conversions.
  • Contact Page: In the contact page I added a section for "contributors" and a sections for "advertisers." I gave a detailed outline for future contributors explaining what I expect~ should they want to send me writing. For the advertisers, I wrote some decent copy and told them to contact me. I also placed ads on the site to show that the site was advertiser friendly.
After I made these changes; I have gotten several request to post ads on my site for way more money than I thought I was ever going to make, many potential contributors have asked me to feature their work, and my traffic volume has significantly increased.

What I need to work on more:

Email subscribers

More content

I will give another update as I continue to work on these two things.

Thanks. :rockon:

When I said in the headline there were GOLD FOLLOW UPS, this exact post and poster is what I was referring to.
 

Vigilante

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It's interesting that if you look at his latest income report, only $4,000 of the $127k is actually from making a straight product. The rest is from teaching people how to make money from making a passive income product.

Cutting this out and reposting it to make sure people read this and understand it.
 

ExcelGuy

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...
But what is quality is click-bait and the copy.

The big guys know that if they can keep you clicking, well... you keep clicking.

Take it for what it's worth.

That's exactly why I don't think I'll be doing full time blogging anytime soon. I want to write quality content people need, not reel them in with psychological click-bait.

I know a copy-writer who wrote for an internet marketing company. "THEY" created a fitness site with her image and all her articles were about fitness and the whole site aimed at selling the equipment for one of their customers. Left a pretty bad taste in my mouth when I started realizing how much of the web content is professionally authored for click-generation.
 
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Andy Black

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That's exactly why I don't think I'll be doing full time blogging anytime soon. I want to write quality content people need, not reel them in with psychological click-bait.

I know a copy-writer who wrote for an internet marketing company. "THEY" created a fitness site with her image and all her articles were about fitness and the whole site aimed at selling the equipment for one of their customers. Left a pretty bad taste in my mouth when I started realizing how much of the web content is professionally authored for click-generation.
"The Internet is just one big lead generation machine." (Unknown)
 

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Sean Haddad

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Consuming the info in this thread has gotten me excited since I bought a blog on Flippa a couple months ago, but damn my pessimism just won't allow me to think I could possibly reach the height of success the top bloggers are at. It's a health nutrition/recipe blog, which are a dime dozen, but nutrition has been the closest thing to a passion I've ever had and one of the very few things I feel confident in my knowledge and authority. Being new to blogging and content writing, it's gonna be an effort to figure out how to set it apart from seemingly infinite sea of health blogs already on the web. Even so it's been pretty fun learning and trying something new.

Thanks all for the wisdom and experience.
 

TedM

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Maybe the secret sauce is BIG BLOG look and feel, with SMALL BLOG service.
Hey Greg-
I'm sticking my toe into this topic now - with a product that my friend and i are selling, and on a personal blog i've wanted to do (which should appeal to about 100,000,000 people in the US but probably will be read by only 20...)

Would you give some examples of BIG BLOG look, from the wide world?

Thanks for your contributions.
 

Greg R

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Hey Greg-
I'm sticking my toe into this topic now - with a product that my friend and i are selling, and on a personal blog i've wanted to do (which should appeal to about 100,000,000 people in the US but probably will be read by only 20...)

Would you give some examples of BIG BLOG look, from the wide world?

Thanks for your contributions.

Disclaimer: I do not consider myself a blogging expert and I have not made any noteworthy money blogging. I'm just a student observing and reporting.

Here is a link for the blogs that bring in the most revenue:

http://www.incomediary.com/top-earning-blogs

If you notice, many of them are not personal blogs but more of media sites that are updated on a daily (or hourly) basis.

Pay attention to the themes of the website too.

Also, note how these sites look more like real businesses (see about pages, contact pages, and so on).

Having the look of the big site with the service of a personal blog could be one great way to have SUCS (Sudden Unexpected Customer Service).

MJ mentioned this in the book with the Limo company (how he made the website look like he had employees and real business systems).

I hope this helps.
 
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DamienP

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My hunch is that the best blogs grow out of a purist with expertise in an area, or at least an interesting personality that can attract other people because they are funny, interesting, or knowledgeable. If I set out to do a blog on investing in penny stocks, it would crash and burn as I have no idea what I am talking about. If I set out to do a blog on eating right, it would crash and burn as nobody would give a shit.

I think you have to bring to the table a blend of expertise, strong articulation skills, marketing skills, and in general you have to be someone that has something to say that people want to hear.

Blogging for the sake of blogging still doesn't work. Blogging for money doesn't work. The cat and the tuna analogy still applies.

Couldn't agree more.

I still class my cosmetic surgery blog as small time in traffic terms (around 180k impressions per month), but between advertising, client referrals, paid-for emails to our subscribers and a couple of other things, we're pulling around £10k per month in revenue.

Not fastlane, but a good start. I'm now looking at ways to turn the blog into a bigger brand and take the message to an offline audience.
 

DamienP

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Following my previous post above....

I believe when choosing a niche, you should consider advertisers first. Choose a topic that will attract advertisers. You'll make WAY more money from direct niche advertiser relationships than you ever will from Adsense, affiliate marketing etc. I charge a flat monthly fee, never per impression, providing continuity of revenue and easy forecasting. I want more money, I don't have to worry about SEO or content. I just find more advertisers.

Oh, and think about an advertiser directory. I have 30+ advertisers. I could never load the site with 30+ graphical sidebar ads, but a directory makes lower value ads totally scalable.
 

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Andy Black

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I had a chat a couple of days ago with @TedM who was "thinking of starting a blog".

We decided to record the call in case it helps other forum members.

We've dropped it into this thread.
 

JasonR

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It's interesting that if you look at his latest income report, only $4,000 of the $127k is actually from making a straight product. The rest is from teaching people how to make money from making a passive income product. Unless you have a long-game plan to use your blog to grow a big business this seems to be the way to make money from blogging.

I'm not having a go at the guy for this, not at all. But he's basically just selling shovels to gold prospectors. Fair play to him.

You are correct, that's what he does. I've met Pat Flynn - he's a super nice guy in person, but he's very smart and know's what he's doing.

In my honest opinion, starting a blog just to "make money" is not going to get you very far financially.
 

Andy Black

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It's interesting that if you look at his latest income report, only $4,000 of the $127k is actually from making a straight product. The rest is from teaching people how to make money from making a passive income product. Unless you have a long-game plan to use your blog to grow a big business this seems to be the way to make money from blogging.

I'm not having a go at the guy for this, not at all. But he's basically just selling shovels to gold prospectors. Fair play to him.
I'd rather make money selling gold than shovels.
 
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Greg R

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I had a chat a couple of days ago with @TedM who was "thinking of starting a blog". ;)

We decided to record the call in case it helps other forum members.

We've dropped it into this thread.

Just got done listening to the whole thing and there is some good information here.

Key takeaway for me:

Like Amazon is to Ecommerce, Blogging is to Content Marketing- To elaborate, blogging is just one medium of many to distribute your content. Instead of starting your own blog, go to where you target readers hang out (forums) and publish your content there. You can later re-purpose that content on your own medium once you've built up a following.
 

Yoda

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I think some of you think blogging is simply publishing written content on your wordpress site and repeating.

You're not serious, right?

That's just writing. I don't want to start a rant here, but many of you are looking at blogging as a freelance writing career where you get paid more and more based on how much traffic you win over.

If you think blogging is writing content and publishing it, you're not even opening the door to possibility. That's child's play.

The written content, like any physical product in the entire world, is just the product.

Open your minds.
 

Polarbeans

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you're not even opening the door to possibility

@Yoda Me and 3 partners run a fitness business together. We are making a decent amount of revenue every month and in 2 weeks we are launching our own nutritional supplement on our own e-store.

We also sell fitness coaching (online) and we are in negotiation to start doing Events around the country in order to generate leads for customized packages.

Anywyay, as a long-term channel we are doing a lot of blogging in the industry. Or to be frank, we just started blogging. The goal is to do 1 well-written and detailed post each day for the rest of this year.

To make the most of the time put into the blog as a lead-generation tool and way to get organic traffic from Google, can you give some advice?

The overhead costs for content marketing are the same (give you only spend your own time creating it) even if the result is top notch or is turd.. So I rather save on the turd if I can up front. Thanks bud for your awesome advice in this thread.
 

Yoda

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To make the most of the time put into the blog as a lead-generation tool and way to get organic traffic from Google, can you give some advice?

Uh... Yeah... don't look at it like a way to get leads and traffic from Google.

It's there to add value, mate. The traffic and leads come after you give first.

People read articles online because they have questions or want to be entertained. There isn't anything else in the world you need to learn more about blogging than this sentence. Read it 1,000 times. Print it out. Make it your damn mouse pad.

If you answer questions and/or provide entertainment, leads will follow. Stop looking to get when you haven't given.

The questions you SHOULD be asking (and I say 'you' as in everyone, not just @rwiman) are:
  1. How can I make someone laugh/cry/get pissed/understand?
  2. How can I talk about a subject in a light it's never been talked about before?
  3. How can I bring something NEW to the table?
  4. How can I leverage every type of media for a singular topic?
  5. How do I refurbish old and make it new?
  6. How do I create a must-have resource (not product)?
A blog is a way to communicate, on a regular basis, to targeted customers. It's not a way to SELL... but a way to COMMUNICATE.

If your blog communicates value, fun, entertainment, learning, and BENEFITS...

Then you won't need to sell.

They'll buy first.
 

arfadugus

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"The Internet is just one big lead generation machine." (I can't remember who said that)

Do all monetisation strategies for a blog involve generating leads for some business?
I would imagine if you have enough followers you could sell your own ebooks, supplements, etc.
 
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arfadugus

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I know a few bloggers who make six figs with their personal blog, but the work they put in is damn near slavery.

The absolute ONLY way I can see this working is if you outsourced most of the writing.
If you are interested in only growing your blog so you can quit your 9-5 and sustain your current income level then it could be a lot funner and less slave driven. That way you free up time to work on bigger projects. What do you think?
 

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There is a much better way than blogging.

I think most of us want passive income and
traffic, right?

Is blogging passive?

No!

Because you have to write those blog posts. But I don't
want to write everyday or twice a week. I don't even
want to write once a month!

And I don't :)

Because when you write articles that are going to
be relevant and fresh even 10 years later, then
THAT IS the way to get passive traffic and passive
income.


The last blog post that I wrote was 3 years ago. I have
approx. 35 articles which I wrote 3 years ago.

And they bring about 160,000 unique visitors per month.

Yeah, 35 articles=160,000 unique visitors (my website has
a total of 70 pages approx.)

And I haven't written any new articles in the last 3 years.

And they still bring in traffic.

Even 10 years after those articles will be valuable and
fresh. And Google knows this. As years pass by, those
articles get more and more traffic.


So "you need fresh content, you have to write 100 posts
per day" is not 100% true.

And blogging is a bad idea, because you have to
actually write stuff on a regular basis.

I don't want to write stuff on a regular basis. It's HARD WORK.

I don't like hard work.

I want to write a few articles, and then I want them to
bring a ton of traffic and I don't want to write anymore.

So, in order to do that, all you have to do is do a really
really really good keyword research about evergreen
topics and then write those evergreen articles and
create a GREAT PRODUCT and then maintain the
system.

And do whatever you want after that. Create
other products, or go travel or get out of the
house, go to a club, and meet new people
using this line:

"Hey guys, I'm stupid, wanna be my friend? :)"

Yeah, I actually used to do this, and it works.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this:

You don't have to write lots of blog posts, you
can find the evergreen keywords and then
write articles that are going to be fresh
15 years from now.

So now, you won't have to write regularly.

But you have to do a really good keyword
research. And be smart when writing
articles.

You shouldn't write about a topic that will
be out of date a few years later.
I had to look up what evergreen topics are haha. But good post. Would you suggest writing your posts in your own words/ format and then paying someone to edit it for SEO?
 

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