Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner
Do you want to make money from your writing? Did you know that writers are making tens of thousands of dollars using their writing skills online… and those figures are verifiable on certain sites? Hmmm… THAT got your interest, didn't it?
Every business needs writers, and finding writing jobs online became easier when job boards created exclusively for writers were created, BUT… [Read more…]
Business is easy to think about but hard to run. It’s like a marathon and it’ll take a lot more from you than just the intention, the thought, and the execution. If you are planning to sell your goods online, there’s a lot more to it than just an idea, sourcing (or manufacturing) products, and making a profit. Is it really that easy? Or is it tough and competitive enough to discourage you even before you begin?
To start with, you have the basics to cover. As Mark Hayes points out on the Shopify blog, you have due diligence to find the perfect product to base your business on. Mark has quick examples to help you figure out your potential market size, the nature of your competition, ways to source the products, finding target customers, and setting pricing strategies.
Matt Winn of Volusion also has a comprehensive guide to help you sell your products online. But all that is a part of just “figuring things out.†The hustle, however, is a lot harder than it seems…
No matter what product you choose to sell, you need faith and absolute confidence in your products. If you were an authorized reseller or a premium reseller for Apple products and recommended accessories, you wouldn’t have a lack of confidence for sure. Instead, if you’re selling products that you make on your own or if you’re a reseller of less popular brands, it just gets harder to be honest and straightforward.
That, however, is not the only ingredient of the secret sauce. You’d have to know your products inside out before you can try explaining them to customers. Being a “product expert†gives you the additional advantage of being able to emphasize all the features and benefits of your product and even cross-sell or upsell other products.
For instance, your product descriptions could include suggestions that customers wouldn’t know unless you tell them.
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Obviously, you know a lot more about your products than your customers do (despite tons of information about products online).
Just be honest, upfront and vocal.
If you have a retail establishment with an ecommerce website, you can’t expect your customers to visit your store and then wait for them to go back home so that they can visit your online store to buy. If they made up their mind to make that purchase, the best time to allow them to buy is now. For this to happen, there needs to be a “bridge.â€
Customers walking in could touch, feel, try, and muse over your products. When they are ready to buy, you could bring the web to them. Using real world ecommerce integrated POS solutions, small businesses can build those bridges to help sell quickly and seamlessly. You can sell both online and offline with a simple iPad app, while being able to track inventory and purchases, and allowing customers to pay with multiple options.
Waiting for your customers to go back only so that they can connect to your store is disastrous for your business.
So, this customer walks into your store (or visits your ecommerce store). She surfs for a while. She browses through your products, adds a few to the shopping cart, and finally checks out (hopefully). But then, what else is happening? You see, making a purchase is an exciting thing to do: Most shoppers love the fact that that product they just bought is going to be theirs! This is an emotion that’s worth investing in for businesses.
Have social media buttons placed strategically at the time of checkout. Allow your customers to brag about their purchase. Open gateways for them to recommend products to friends and let the world know about their buy.
None of this is going to happen with the sharing gates closed. You have to facilitate these interactions and social engagements. Are you going to do it right?
Don’t get fixated on any one kind of digital marketing channel. For instance, don’t obsess about SEO, which includes stuffing product descriptions with keywords and links. One “keyword†in the product description (most likely the brand name) that piques customers’ interest is more than sufficient.
Focus on strategic content that does a lot more than manipulate the search engines. Work with your engagement strategy and brand conversation management on social media using tools such as Buffer for Business or HootSuite. Aim to please and persuade your visitors (rather than search bots) because income traffic won’t mean a thing if you can’t convert.
Work on the digital marketing channels that work best for you. Blogging works well, and so does creating and sharing parallel content such as slide decks, product videos, and tutorials. You can even have a self-managed community around your brand or products using a tool such as GetSatisfaction.
You can’t work with “perceived†feedback. While you can think of suitable upgrades on enhancements for your products, nothing works better than your own customers giving you criticism, advice or tips for improvement.
Then again, you’ll need a way to make it happen. Start by building simple input forms or questionnaires using Google Forms, Wufoo, or SurveyMonkey. You can also gain precious insights into user behavior by taking advantage of tools such as Qualaroo for surveying visitors while they’re browsing specific sections of your site and Olark for engaging them in a live chat.
Product improvement, if there has to be such a thing, ought to be quick and responsive.
Of course, all of this work is recurring. There’s no such thing as set it and forget it. It takes years of continuous work before you get anywhere close to your goals. It’s doable but difficult. Are you up for it?
Businesses are a result of meticulous planning, flawless execution, and an unflinching commitment to results.
You can’t do with anything less.
I’ll say it upfront: blogging isn’t exactly the best way to make money. There are some bloggers who did make it big but those are an exception. Most bloggers find it extremely hard to pull in revenue through their blogs. John Bardos makes an honest confession on JetSetCitizen, and we can feel it.
John said it out aloud that blogging is a lousy way to make money; most bloggers won’t tell you. There’s a sense of shame, self-aggrandizement, and fear of ridicule associated with failure. As long as we are human, coming out in the open about failure isn’t exactly natural.
Yet, blogging is not a lost cause. The cause is not lost as long as you realign your intent, passion, determination, and entrepreneurial ambitions. Here’s how you can still make it big with blogging:
Forget “Blogging,†Think “Publishingâ€
 Blogging is self-publishing. It’s the “self†that hurts the publishing part though. Individual bloggers have seen notable success. Take a look at what Gary Vaynerchuk (wine magnate cum social media evangelist), Ann Smarty (prolific blogger and founder of MyBlogGuest), or our very own super-marketer Ros Gardner have done, and that’s proof enough. Most people forget the years of sacrifice put in by these amazing bloggers, not to mention the fact that they started early, and then make the mistake of doing exactly what they’ve already done in more or less same niches.
When you start retailing online, you don’t compete with Amazon and eBay. In the same way, don’t bother trying to beat already established blogs. Take the publishing route and take on niches that haven’t been covered as much. Avoid personal finance, travel, health, making money online, and “blogging†as your niches to begin with.
Don’t Go It Alone
 Blogging is a way for individuals to start publishing for themselves. It is also a great way for companies to publish. Companies either hire in-house personnel or freelance copywriters to blog; most individual bloggers don’t have this luxury.
If don’t involve others in contributing to your blog, the fun that blogging is ends right there. Blogging alone is like getting a fancy job that doesn’t even pay. Being passionate about a topic and writing about it for a lifetime is something else. If you have to make money from blogging, you absolutely have to get in the professionals. Find experts, interested and opinionated readers, freelance writers, influencers and others to write for you.
That’s the only way you can scale.
Let Users Generate Content, So You Don’t Have To
Typically, you write blog posts that others read. If your blog becomes popular, you see healthy discussions around your posts that are pleasantly (and sometimes profitably) interactive.
That’s not enough, though. You’d need a strong input from users to create user generated content that has value in itself, both for those who contribute and those that read and consume.
The rise of social media can be attributed to the power of user-generated content. Quora, Urbanspoon, Glassdoor, and many more sites are all examples of reviews, comments and visitor-blogging ideas that propelled themselves on the power of user-generated content.
Everyone likes to be where the action is. We all want to know what others think. Combining the power of collective inputs on little-known areas is insanely powerful. The most popular publications tap into and depend on it. Why shouldn’t you too?
Find Parallel Paths for Publishing
Once you start blogging like it’s a business, you expand your scope for publishing. What used to be text and images on your blog now finds a way to extend into videos, podcasts, webinars, seminars, physical events, training courses, guest blog posts, interviews, and books.
If you have to make it big with blogging, you’ve got to think big first. Seek opportunities to publish a book, offer free training (on whatever it is that you blog about) for your readers, create on-location events, create slide decks, present them and put them up on SlideShare for people to view them for all eternity, share your videos on YouTube/Vimeo, or start a forum.
Your blog, given today’s state of blogging, is too small to make an impact. You have no choice but to grow big.
Run It Like a Business
When you start a business, you think of hiring staff, creating systems, creating value, and selling value in exchange for money. For bloggers, value lies in “information.†Instead of operating a never-ending avalanche of information conveyor belt all by yourself, run your blog like a business.
Think of monetizing your blog, selling information in exchange for dollars, paid subscription for access to your blog, and producing pay for access content.
GigaOm did that. Can you?
Plan for Revenue, Long-term
Read posts on “blogging†and you’ll hear some people lament: “avoid advertising initially,†“don’t look to monetize,†and “give and then take†– all of that is true. You don’t have to display advertising but you can “plan†to monetize. Create long-term goals on how you intend to make money out of your blog.
Brent Weaver, a web designer who runs his own agency at Hotpressweb.com, first started BCGurus.com as a blog where he’d publish all things connected to Adobe Business Catalyst. Later, the blog turned into a veritable source of information (including videos, cheat sheets, and downloadable information) exclusively for other business catalyst members.
Today, BCGurus is a thriving community complete with the original blog, directory, and even a marketplace for BC templates.
Brent didn’t plan everything from the start, but he did have a vision. He wanted the fruit of his labor, and he now uses BCGurus as a business model by itself while creating tons of precious social proof for his own business.
The common thread is that all popular blogs are monetized. They are built to bring in revenue. None of that happened in a day, though.
Here is a question that I receive all too often.
Hi Rosalind,
Have you heard of __________.com?
They offer a completely set up affiliate advertising site for $25 or so.
I'm wondering if you would recommend it or not.
Thank you,
Pam
My response…
Hi Pam,
I hate to burst your bubble, but $25 cannot possibly buy an internet or affiliate marketing business that is going to be successful.
Ever.
Sure, they may have a site set up to sell contact lenses, vitamins, acai berry or whatever the latest and greatest marketing trend may be, but THEIR pre-fabricated site isn't going to make YOU money.
Ever.
Selling the pre-fabricated site to you is what makes THEM money.
If YOU want to make money selling the latest and greatest trending product, YOU have to build and market YOUR own site… not some copycat site that will be sold to hundreds of others.
YOUR site has to be completely original.
Moreover, you must be HONEST in giving product recommendations.
Only then can you hope to garner Google's attention and therefore the attention of those who might actually buy the product.
Making those recommendations takes time, patience and commitment.
Otherwise, you're just wasting $25 on a marketing trend.
I suggest that you find a product or topic in which you are VERY interested. Do you have time to invest over the next year to blog about that topic frequently? Do you really want to talk about that topic that often?
If so, you may be on to something great.
If not, wait until you find a topic that interests you that fully AND has a viable market.
In the meantime, do NOT waste your money on silly schemes.
Cheers,
Ros
I've always believed that following your passion is the best way to succeed in business.
There's no doubt in my mind that being passionate about what I do is the primary reason my online business has been so successful for almost 15 years. That's why I always recommend my students follow their passion as opposed to chasing the money.
Chasing the money works some of the time, but it usually fizzles out quickly and you are back where you started — looking for another venture. Moreover, there's very little personal reward in simply chasing dollars. It's boring and tedious following a formula or spending your time on a topic that does not interest you in the least.
Most, if not all, of my most respected Internet Marketing colleagues (other experts in the field) have also follow their passion.
One glowing example is Chris Carpenter, whom you may remember best as author of “Google Cash“, a best-selling guide on how to make money using pay-per-click marketing.
Chris and I agree that working to live is considerably more fun and rewarding than living to work. Chris, a die-hard surfer, lives on a beach in Mexico and when not there, he travels the world in search of great surf. He also cares a lot about the people with whom he does business – he wants them to succeed.
It's in that vein that Chris has created a new course called the Profit from Your Passion BluePrint.
One of the first things you'll notice on the homepage of the membership site is the comment, “If you have any questions, comments or concerns – please contact me directly at __________”… with Chris' email address filling in the blank.
I can't think of any coach in the IM community who lets members contact them directly via email (OK, except for me, maybe. LOL)
The course consists of the following:
The course is a well-structured step-by-step-by-step guide. Modules also include PDF downloads that you can print out.
The only downside (for some) may be the $147 price tag. Too, you'll have to wait for Modules 3 and beyond to be released. However, if you follow the course correctly, you'll be learning and building your business during that time.
The Profit from Your Passion BluePrint officially opens October 2nd, 2012 at noon Eastern time.
Right now, there is a video on the page in which Chris explains the four real reasons why most people fail to make any real money on the Internet. Watch it… I have no doubt that you'll be able to relate, if you've been working to make money online for any length of time!
If you purchase Profit from Your Passion BluePrint through my link, I'll give you 30 days free access to my Affiliate Blogger PRO academy.
To be sure you are ordering through my link, check to see that [affiliate = webjv] shows up at the bottom of Clickbank's secure payment form when you are ordering.
After you order, send me your Clickbank receipt number for the Profit from Your Passion Blueprint along with your name and email address through our Contact Page, and I'll set you up.
Enjoy the course!
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
In so many cases, bloggers and website owners spend too much of their time and attention on SEO that they often lose focus and forget what's really important which is “quality content“.
They were made to believe that the best way to increase traffic and profits is via optimization. In some ways, this is true but you also need to understand that content is much more important than optimization.
That said, this article aims to show you how you can create viral content without doing any sort of search engine optimization tactic on it. It will show you how to stop writing to get the attention of search engine algorithms.
And instead, teach you how to start writing to get the attention of people who will distribute and share what you write.
In essence, you will have to kick SEO out the door and concentrate on writing posts with the goal of making them go viral.
If you still have doubts, allow me to point out two large publications that make use of said strategy – The Atlantic and The New York Times.
The New York Times built their online presence by focusing most of their attention on improving their brand and building the community around them.
The same cannot be said about content farms like About.com, however. This website relied heavily on search engine optimization when it came to creating their content.
So many people thought that the New York Times will fail when the publication decided to install pay walls. Instead, their profits increased significantly when they installed the pay walls. This happened because they have high-quality content that people are willing to pay for.
The Atlantic, on the other hand grew their web visitors from 500,000 a month to over 13.4 million a month. This increase occurred when they decided to take down their pay walls in early 2008.
The question here now is “Did The Atlantic and the New York Times achieve these positive results because of SEO?” Absolutely not. They were successful because they consistently created good content that people often shares in various online sites.
The Atlantic, in particular, achieved success by hiring high profile writers to create more content for them. They also set up two brand new online properties then built effective digital ads to cover the costs for said properties.
Furthermore, they efficiently modified their editorial strategies in order to adapt to the changing online landscape when it comes to social media. They spent a lot of time on strategies which aim to attract traffic from social media sites. Today, about 40% of The Atlantic's traffic comes from social media.
So, would you want to know how to write a story that has huge potential of going viral? Allow me to show you how to do it. It's much simpler than you might think.
Step #1: Create your own article headline using the following technique:
How do you create a viral-worthy article headline? This is not an easy task but there are certain tactics that you can follow to make the process much simpler and easier. One method is to follow the 4 U's approach. The 4 U's stand for useful, unique, ultra-specific and urgent. Let's take a look into each of these below:
Step #2: Have your headline rewritten by professionals
Just because you created a good headline by taking into account the 4 U's doesn't mean your headline couldn't be any better. This is where you let professionals review and rewrite your headline.
The Atlantic makes use of this strategy. Once the writers submit their stories, someone trained in headline writing will review the titles and change them if necessary. The headline can take several rewrites before it's finally published.
Step #3: Create killer content
Content is king online, do not forget this. This is even more true now that search engines keep on updating their algorithms to push quality content to the top of the search rankings. But how exactly do you write killer content?
Here are a few tips:
This is not to say that SEO is dead. Search optimization is still a formidable tool when it comes to getting the word out about your content online. The idea here is that you should not focus too much on it. Instead, give more of your time and efforts into creating viral-worthy content.
What’s the most important strategy of getting your blog to the number 1 spot in both Google and Yahoo and keep all the search traffic to yourself? Definitely the ideal answer is proper keyword research and building authoritative backlinks.
In this blog post you will learn how I used Google Insight tool and press release service (webwire.com) to accelerate my Google rankings to top 4 within 3 days.
The use of Google Insight Tool was to generate highly profitable keyword with considerable search traffic and the purpose of using press release was to generate authoritative backlinks to my blog site.
How I nailed down the top 4 spot in Google within 3 days
The main reason why i decided to push my blog site to be on the top spot in Google and Yahoo, was to generate highly targeted long tail keyword with commercial intent.
The reason why I am advocating for long tail keyword, it’s because they can convert results into sales and hence generate more business for your service or product.
How did I use this strategy to be on top 4 spot in Google?
It’s simple and clear: I used both Google Keyword tool and Google insight Tool to generate narrower long tail keywords.
Below is a step by step procedure of what I did:
Step 1:
I went to Google Keyword tool and I started with the main keyword and I selected a narrower search term which had a global traffic of 300,000 monthly search volume. The niche I selected was ”Greek Yogurt” as below:
Step 2:
I took the narrower search term from step 1 and I put it on Google Insight tool. The results were as per below screen shot:
Some of the example of narrower keywords that I found were:
Based from the above keyword analysis I managed to settle with recipes with Greek yogurt as my main keyword.
Link building strategy that accelerated my Google rankings
As we all know quality content and authoritative backlinks will make Google deliver results to your business. One of the strategies that I used to build high authoritative links was with the help of press release service.
I took 3 good months to learn how to write a press release that will be of high interest to the media and journalist. My first objective was to make sure that my blog site has all the required information such as high quality content, resources and links.
I wrote a powerful top notch news release that I distributed via press release service (webwire.com) and after 3 days my blog site sky rocketed to top 4 in Google and it was as a result of high quality links that I received from the press release service.
Below is a screenshot of the news release that was distributed with the help of webwire.com
After 3 days I managed to get the below results:
From the above results my blog site started to get more attention from the major search engine and other referral sites. If you plan early with the right mind set, i can really assure you that will achieve the same results that I did.
From my own experience, I really don’t think you need any Degree or Masters or any special software. The real truth is that you can follow the above simple steps and then replicate my results.
Do you have any results that you have achieved based on the above case study?