What Is The Blog Masters Club?

In Part One, you took a car trip to the post office with me. While I drove there, I shared some thoughts about blogging for a living. In today’s video, I am back at home and I jump right into answering the question…

What is the Blog Masters Club?

NOTE: If you want to view the video much bigger, just click the full screen button on the player.

As I mentioned, on Monday afternoon, July 6th, I will be doing a live video broadcast from BlogBase 1A (aka my office). I will be answering any questions you have about Blog Masters Club. But, even more important than that, I will stay on the air for 2-3 hours and answer any and all questions you have about your own blog. Want me to take a look at your site? Want some ideas for building a list? Getting more traffic? Come on by and ask and I’ll do my best to help you out.

The live stream will be completely free, hosted by Ustream.Tv. Details will be announced via email (so make sure you’re on the list).

And on that note…

The official launch of the Club will be on July 7th, at around 12PM EST. If you get onto the early bird list, you will have a little head start to get your “seat” in the club. I might even throw in a surprise for you.

If you haven’t yet downloaded your copy of the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint, go here to get your copy.

To get onto the early-bird list, go to:

www.blogmastersclub.com/signup/

That is the URL where you will be able to enroll to work with me starting on July 7th.

In the meantime, enjoy this video and please leave a comment to let me know what you thought. And if you have any questions for me, please post them in the comments. I’ll make sure to answer them.

Thoughts on Blogging For A Living [Video]

The other day, I asked whether you would blog for a living if you could. I got some great responses from you guys!

In this video, you’ll take a car trip to the post office with me. I’m heading down to check my PO Box to see if I have any checks waiting for me. While I drive, I share some of my thoughts on blogging for a living and why I personally love this line of work…

NOTE: If you want to view the video much bigger, just click the full screen button on the player.

When I asked you guys about this, I got some great responses…

Jimi Jones said:

Going full-time with blogging is exactly what I am going to do. I committed to the effort months ago and continue to march toward that end.

My friend Tony Teegarden said:

Short answer? Would I go full time? Sure, as long as my blog developed me freedom and I wasn’t a prisoner of it. Leverage and true freedom is based on systems. I believe a blog can do that if set up properly.

Zemalf said:

I’d go for full-time with my blog, or maybe full-time *income* to be more precise. Why? The financial freedom is a compelling thought and something that inspires me to keep going. And I can’t deny that it feels good to put my experiences and expertise out there, with hopes that it will help others.

One comment I’d like to respond to is that of Darren Slaughter. He said:

Great question. And for most people it really is the “dream.” Problem is, once it goes from being a passion to source of income and a proper business, it also looses some of it’s luster.

Not to mention, making money, real money, as in replace your current income, blog on the beach type money doesn’t happen all that often.

I have talked to so called A-listers that confirm not making enough from their blogs to pay the bandwidth bill. So, while blogging for a living is a fantastic fantasy, reality says otherwise.

Blogging as a business is more than a “dream”. It is very much possible. And, it doesn’t lose any luster when you are making money. If anything, it motivates you even more to keep going with it. But, the statement “blog on the beach type money doesn’t happen all that often” seems to suggest that there is some other factor (like luck) which determines your success. NOT TRUE. It might not happen very often, but that is because most bloggers don’t know what steps to take to make it happen. Also, most bloggers are left to figure it out on their own and don’t really have help from those who have done it outside of free blog content (which often gives pieces to a puzzle but doesn’t really connect the dots).

Blogging for a living isn’t a fantasy. It can be done. The fact is that most “a-list” bloggers don’t know the first thing about marketing and that is why they can manage to build up a blog and yet make barely any money. What I’m here to show you is that there IS an approach to blogging which will lead to money. And I’d like to walk you through that approach.

And on that note…

I will be sharing much more about Blog Masters Club in the coming days. The official launch will be on July 7th, at around 12PM EST. If you get onto the early bird list, you will have a little head start to get your “seat” in the club. I might even throw in a surprise for you.

If you haven’t yet downloaded your copy of the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint, go here to get your copy.

To get onto the early-bird list, go to:

www.blogmastersclub.com/signup/

That is the URL where you will be able to enroll to work with me starting on July 7th.

In the meantime, enjoy this video and please leave a comment to let me know what you thought. Tomorrow, I will share more details about what the Blog Masters Club is all about.

Secret To Maximum Blog Income And Conversion [Tactic Video]

Confession: Blogs suck at converting visitors into money.

Say what?! In this video, I explain what I mean and what you can do to get maximum benefit from the visitors who come to your blog.

NOTE: If you want to view the video much bigger, just click the full screen button on the player.

This video shares with you the simple concept of click funneling. The idea is simple:

1. Blogs usually contain a lot of “clutter” and potential distraction and attention grabbers. So…
2. You can get and keep a reader’s attention and maximize conversion into a subscriber or a sale by getting them OFF your blog and into a specially designed funnel (whether it be a squeeze page or a sales page, or even an article designed to sell an affiliate offer.

It is one thing to attract readers to your blog. It is another thing completely to route your readers into what you want them to do.

This video was recorded for this blog, however this strategy is only one of a large collection of marketing strategies and tactics that I will be teaching in the Blog Masters Club. I have been working VERY hard behind the scenes to create a collection of training to bring a motivated blogger into the realm of professional blogging. And in this course, I will be working with you PERSONALLY to help you do exactly that.

I will be sharing much more about Blog Masters Club in the coming days. The official launch will be on July 7th, at around 12PM EST. If you get onto the early bird list, you will have a little head start to get your “seat” in the club. I might even throw in a surprise for you.

If you haven’t yet downloaded your copy of the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint, go here to get your copy.

To get onto the early-bird list, go to:

www.blogmastersclub.com/signup/

That is the URL where you will be able to enroll to work with me starting on July 7th.

In the meantime, enjoy this video and please leave a comment to let me know what you thought. I literally recorded this video at my dining room table! Gotta love working from home.

If You Could Go Full-Time With Your Blog, Would You?

I asked this question on Twitter yesterday and here are some of the answers I got…

@miklb said:

Absolutely, because I dig not wearing long pants and shoes.

@CardCycle said:

Hi David! Not sure because I just started. What do you enjoy about it?

@ShannonAlbert said:

Yes. Freedom to live anywhere while doing something creative and helpful to others.

@CrystalsQuest said:

Absolutely I’d love to make a living with my blog. It’s my passion, and it connects me with great and like thinking people worldwide.

So, I extend this question to my blog readers.

If you could go full-time with your blog, would you want to? Why or why not?

Please leave a comment and let us know.

And before I end off and wait for your replies, I wanted to let you know that I just uploaded an audio version (MP3) of the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint. Once you claim your copy of the PDF version, you’ll get immediate access to the MP3 (narrated personally by myself) so you can listen to it in the car, at work – wherever.

Be sure to carve out some time and go through that report or listen to the audio. The material in that report goes DIRECTLY at the heart of the very question you’re about to answer.

So, here’s what I want you to do:

1. If you haven’t gotten the Blueprint report yet, go get it now.
2. Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on going full-time with your blog, which of course means a full-time level income.

I look forward to talking with you soon.

NEW: Six Figure Blogger Blueprint

As we lead up to the launch of Blog Masters Club, I wanted to remind my audience to download and read the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint.

This report is my flagship report, as far as I’m concerned. I really poured a lot into it.

In it, I talk about things like…

…The REAL way to generate six-figure level income from a blog

…The 3 vital questions to help you pick a profitable market for your blog

…4 tactics for increasing your blogging production even though it seems like you “don’t have time”

…The exact layout of your six figure, traffic sucking empire.

…The exact reasons why most bloggers fail to make money (and how you can avoid it).

…The exact steps to launch a brand new blog - the RIGHT way!

The report is my gift to you. I created it as part of the lead-up to my brand new coaching program, Blog Masters Club.

To get your copy, simply head on over to the the club and opt into the club mailing list. You can also sign up to my list on this very blog and I’ll send you the Blueprint immediately.

Lastly, quite a few of you have already downloaded the Blueprint and I’ve gotten some great feedback so far. I’d like to hear YOUR thoughts on the Blueprint, so post your comments or questions below.

When Is The Launch?

The launch date for Blog Masters Club has been set for July 7th, at around 12PM EST.

Over the coming days, I’ll be telling you more about it.

For those of you who would like to be able to work with me personally over the coming months to improve your blog and start turning it into an income stream, this is your opportunity.

Are Marketers Ruining Twitter?

There has absolutely been a rapid increase in spam on Twitter lately.

It was a problem beforehand. But, then some celebrities brought more attention to Twitter and, all of a sudden, the rest of the world is catching onto Twitter. And where the people are, marketers follow.

Is it a bad thing? What should be done about it?

Good Versus Bad Marketers

I know there are going to be people who have a knee-jerk reaction to this question by lumping all marketers together. But, that is a mistake.

The smart, savvy marketers realize that Twitter is a SOCIAL site and they use it accordingly. Savvy marketers realize that it is insanely STUPID to do nothing but product pitches on Twitter. It isn’t going to work.

The marketers who I follow understand this. The marketers I follow are NOT the kind of people putting out stuff like “Get 16,000 followers in 30 days”. Instead, they are simply being real people and making connections with their audience. They realize that business takes place OFF Twitter. Twitter is like a big party and you have to treat it as such.

Bad Marketers Make It Suck For Everybody

So, with that delineation established, let me clearly state the way I see it:

1. There are a lot more lazy, BAD marketers online than there are good ones.
2. The bad ones are making Twitter increasingly annoying for everybody.

Bad marketers look at Twitter like fishing. They want to build up a big following, then just keep throwing a bunch of hooks into the pool to see how many idiots they can get to bite. As a result, we get more blatant “make money online” pitches from lazy marketers. We get porn on Twitter. We get the lame auto-DMs with overt sales pitches.

What Can (Or Should) Be Done?

The way I see it, Twitter is going though the same evolution as email did – but on fast forward. Email started out small, then it grew. Then the marketers learned the power of it and it ballooned into a huge spam problem. Then an entire filtering industry sprung up to combat it. Then anti-virus and other protections became necessary.

Twitter is following the standard product development curve, but it is happening faster than we’ve ever seen it.

Like email, nobody is ever going to be able to stop spam on Twitter. It will be a constant fight between spammers, users, and Twitter itself. The one difference I see is that Twitter is a single, central company unlike email. This means that Twitter can employ protections at the core level to combat the problem. This is where we’ll see things like:

1. System-level filtering.
2. Policing of user accounts, with suspensions, bans, etc.

What Twitter has to be careful of is not to get so overly aggressive with this that they harm the platform. And therein lies the crux of the issue. After all, it is the community inviting the problem. People can choose to follow or unfollow anybody they want. It isn’t as if the user is powerless over the situation.

So, I put the question to you, my readers.

What do you think should be done about Twitter spam?

Twitter Suspensions Show Need For Social Redundancy

It might go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: You don’t actually own your social media profiles. So, don’t depend on them.

Last week, a couple of friends of mine got suspended on Twitter. Neither one of them did anything shady in the slightest. My guess is that Twitter will eventually reinstate their accounts and that this was a result of fitting some kind of broad pattern.

What it goes to show, though, is that your Twitter profile (or any other profile on a third-party site) could be whipped out from under you at pretty much any moment without any explanation.

Build Your Network With Security In Mind

The old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” comes to mind yet again.

In this business, we always want to build out our reach on the Internet. What you don’t want to do, however, is place so much focus on building out one profile that you neglect the others.

Here are a couple of things I would definitely recommend:

1. Always, ALWAYS host your blog on your own domain and on your own web hosting account. This way your presence can never be removed and any audience you build up remains your’s.
2. Build out your social reach across the web. Don’t be overly focused on Twitter. Pay attention to Friendfeed, Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

When people build systems which are mission-critical, the idea of redundancy almost always comes into play. You want backup systems. You want a section to be able to fail without taking the whole thing down.

You could apply the same logic to your web network.

Don’t Make Waves With Twitter

I’ll make this point, too. Twitter is apparently going to be cracking down on people who aggressively build up their Twitter followings by following lots of people, waiting for auto-follows, then unfollowing the people who don’t return the follow. Tools like Hummingbird work on this principle.

I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with such tools. However, like any tool, it can be used in bad ways and in good ways. My recommendation is that you stay targeted with the people you follow, police who they are, and not get overly aggressive with how you use them. Twitter might allow 1,000 new follows per day, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it.

We have yet to see how Twitter will handle this issue, but they are aware of it and apparently not too happy about it. Realize, though, that Twitter is going through all the growing pains as email did, but MUCH faster. Twitter will need to make adjustments to deal with the increased spam and the gaming of the system. Just be aware of this and don’t do things that might lead to your account being suspended.

Let me ask you, however. Do you think Twitter should begin policing how you build up your follow list? Or do you think Twitter should let people do it as they want, as long as they don’t spam?

How To Sell Ads On Your Blog

Banner advertising is usually the first monetization option explored by any blogger looking to make some money. Within this method are two ways of going about it: (1) Using ad networks like Adsense and, (2) selling it yourself.

Some may get confused on the basics of how to sell your own ad space. In this article, I’ll shed some light on that by providing an overview.

When To Begin Selling Ad Space

Obviously, ads on your blog will be much more valuable to an advertiser if you have an audience and traffic. So, you’ll need to have that. The question is – how much?

There is no clear cut-off for this. Much of it depends on your market. Some markets don’t see much traffic by their nature, but the audience might be very dedicated. In this case, you can sell ads on your blog despite having what you perceive to be low traffic numbers.

Because of all the various markets out there, I’m not even going to try to give you a number for a cut-off. All I can say is that it depends.

How Much?

Ahhh…the age-old question – how much should you charge? Again, it depends. My recommendation is to check out other blogs in your niche and see what you can glean from them.

You can charge based on impressions (usually a set price per thousand impressions, aka “CPM”), or keep it simpler by charging a flat monthly rate. I tend to prefer flat rates myself.

My suggestion is that you pitch advertisers on the branding opportunity rather than raw traffic numbers. The ability to associate their brand with your content serves to put their business in front of your audience. To sweeten the post, you could offer to feature them in your email list, or do a post on your blog about them (announcing them as a new sponsor, etc.)

Final price will be a result of balance between what you can offer them (quantity of exposure) and your traffic numbers. A low traffic blog isn’t going to command that much money.

If you already have a history with Adsense and have been running Adsense on your blog, then go into your account and look at the average CPM being paid for those ads. Double that number (at a minimum) to arrive at a price for your direct sales. Why? Because Google is paying you half of what they make on your site.

What About Logistics?

You could go with an option like OIO Publisher plug-in. This system integrates directly with Wordpress and works pretty well. I also wrote up an article on how to configure OIO Publisher.

You could also go with a stand-alone system such as OpenX. OpenX used to be called PHPAdsNew, but has evolved into a much more robust solution. You can still download it for free, after giving your name and email address. You can also grab an older copy for free from Sourceforge without the registration. Once installed, you can set up your different ad zones. The system will give you ad tags which you will then insert into your Wordpress theme.

To my knowledge, OpenX does not handle the purchasing process, so you would need to take care of that separately. OIO Publisher does, however, have a direct sales process as part of it so that advertisers can literally purchase ads on their own and all you need to do is approve them for them to go live.

If you end up selling ad space on your own, you need to have a way to collect payments. You don’t necessarily need a business account with your bank, but that is up to you. Paypal is probably the easiest method of taking payment. You could even set up Paypal subscription buttons on your site so that advertisers could pay you quickly and easily and be re-billed each money until you cancel. This might work if you have set prices. Otherwise, just provide your Paypal email address to your client and they can pay you normally via Paypal.

Where To Put Ads On Your Blog

You’ve got two factors to consider here:

• Ad Placement
• Number of Ads

In terms of placement, most advertisers are going to want to be “above the fold”. This means that their ad will be visible without the user having to scroll down to see it. For this reason, ad space at the bottom of a site is usually very devalued. The best places to put ads on a blog are usually:

• Very top
• Sidebar, but toward the top
• In-content (whether it be top or bottom, as a call to action)

In-content ads usually work pretty well because that is the section of the site your readers will be paying most attention to. Sidebar ads on blogs are usually the small 125×125 ads, placed in a grid. Usually these ads are more for branding purposes than raw traffic click-throughs.

When deciding on ad space, be careful not to overrun your site with banners. Remember, banners detract from the user experience so you need to be very mindful of that. Secondly, the more banners you have, the less effective any placement will be for your advertisers. So, your ad space is more valuable if you don’t have that many ads on your blog to begin with.

Who Makes The Ad?

They do. It isn’t your job to create their ad banners for them. Most people won’t even ask you to. If they do, you can either just refuse or offer to have a designer create it at their cost.

Even though they create the ad, it is within your right to refuse the banner if it in any way detracts from your blog.

How To Go About Selling The Ads

To sell ad space, you need to make it known that you even offer it. So, my suggestion would be:

• Have a page on your blog which offers advertising options
• Have a “media kit” that you can send via email which more or less offers the same information as your advertising page online. The media kit doesn’t have to be long or involved. Just get the information to them and offer them some benefits to advertising on your blog. Put it in a PDF format and you can email that PDF to people as an attachment.

On your advertising page or media kit, include the following:

• The benefits of advertising on your blog (a little mini sales pitch)
• Your audience demographics (the more info, the better. You might want to consider surveying your audience to find this information out because advertisers will want to know). Important information would be gender, age spread, average household income.
• Traffic estimates (page views, unique visitors, list size, etc)
• Prices (unless everything is customized)
• Contact information and how to start (a call to action)

Balancing the Ad Space

Network ads are a lot easier to get than direct ad sales (unless your blog is already pretty established). My recommendation is to use network ads (Adsense or other networks) as fall-back inventory, meaning it will use space not used up by direct advertisers. As another option, you could simply leave the ad spots as blank if you have no advertisers. Some people choose to do that simply because the appearance of Adsense on a blog does cheapen the blog (in some circles).

Any ad system is also going to allow you to run more than one ad in any ad space using a rotation. This is fine, however rotations make the space less valuable (due to less face time for any single ad) and you’ll definitely want a cap on how many advertisers can rotate.

Don’t Depend on Ads

As I wrap up this overview, I want to again emphasize that you shouldn’t stop with banners as your main monetization source. I will remain an evangelist for idea that selling your own products to your audience will always be the best (and more lucrative) approach to blog monetization. That said, banner ads can definitely make you money, it is relatively hands-off, and the market for it will always be there.

For more on how to monetize a blog outside of simply banner ads, download and read a FREE copy of the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint.

Good luck!

25 [More] Random Things About Dave

Back in March, I did a post entitled 25 Random Things You Probably Didn’t Know About David Risley. It was a lot of fun to write and people seemed to enjoy it. Since I like to take occasional turns into other topics (plus, its Friday :)), I’d thought I’d extend that list of 25.

1. I scored a 1280 on my SATs in high school. Couldn’t care less.
2. I originally started online because of an article in Yahoo Internet Life about how to make a website in 20 minutes or less. That article served as the spark that led to what I do today for a living.
3. I didn’t go to prom in high school. Mainly because I was a loner at the time.
4. One of my favorite foods is sushi. We actually make it at home sometimes now. It is ironic, too, because I used to have sushi in that list of foods I hated.
5. If you think I’m famous or a guru, then I am. If you don’t, then I’m not. Fair?
6. When I was in high school, I used to wear the stupidest looking green flannel, long sleeve shirt over top a t-shirt. Did I mention I wore that EVERY DAY? Yeah, like I said before, I was weird.
7. My favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate mint.
8. I have never done any drugs worse than Tylenol. The one time I tried a cigarette I practically hacked up a lung.
9. I do like to smoke the occasional cigar. I’m not particular about brand. I don’t really get cigar aficionados… I mean, when you get right down to it, all these cigars are mostly the same as far as I’m concerned. It is an invented subject. Same with wines.
10. I don’t like to dance. Mostly because I completely suck at it and feel like a moron.
11. On a related note, I don’t like dance clubs either. I don’t understand what is so fun about music so loud you can’t hear yourself think and lights flashing around.
12. As much as it is politically incorrect, I don’t like American cars (for the most part). I’m partial to Honda, and generally think Japanese cars are better built. But, hey, I’m no mechanic.
13. I have never been in a car accident.
14. I am not allergic to anything that I know of.
15. I was born in Tampa and I still live in the Tampa Bay area. I have all my life. It seems I’m a rare breed. And, the thing is that I stay here because I really like it here, not because I’m afraid to live somewhere else.
16. My ideal lifestyle would be a tropical, island atmosphere near the water. That’s where I want to live. Nice and laid back. My wife, being from Russia, likes the cold and snow and I say “not gonna happen”.
17. I absolutely despise the corporate 9-5 lifestyle and I truly don’t understand people who aspire to nothing more.
18. I took having my first kid in stride. The things which people say make them nervous didn’t make me nervous.
19. The fastest I’ve ever been in a car is about 95 mph.
20. When people write me long emails to point out a typo in a blog post, my first reaction is that that person is very petty.
21. I like to sleep with a fan on. Little random noises in the room when I’m trying to sleep keep me up. I either need “white noise” or total silence.
22. I generally avoid the news media these days because I think they are a cancer on the ass of society that has metastasized and is taking everybody down with them.
23. I like So You Think You Can Dance. There, I said it.
24. I think people who think mankind is the only life in the universe are frickin idiots.
25. I think science is nothing but a religion of materialism. Many scientists are equally as close-minded as the religious people they demonize. In reality, science is just another of man’s attempts to figure out the world and is on no greater or lesser footing than religion when it comes to figuring it out.

Action Comments Gets An Upgrade

Some news I wanted to pass on this morning…

The Action Comments plug-in for Wordpress has been updated with a bunch of new features.

In short, Action Comments allows you to capture the name and email address of people who post a comment on your blog and add them to your mailing list. This allows you to take advantage (with their permission) of information they are ALREADY giving you in order to post a comment.

Action Comments 1.2 boasts the following enhancements:

• Redirect people to any URL you want after they leave a comment for the first time.
• Have different redirect URLS per category or even PER POST
• Control exactly which list commenters subscribe to. This is POWERFUL because it allows you to create targeted sub-lists and use your blog to properly funnel people into the right list.

I’ve talked numerous times about how you should use your blog as a lead generator. Action Comments is a POWERFUL tool to do that, and this 1.2 update gives you laser precision in how it’s done.

I recommend this to you.

Name:
Email: