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Tearing Down The Fear Of Selling Physical Products: The Art Of The Pre-Sale

November 17, 2010 By 2 Comments

One of the more popular ways to make money blogging is to offer something for sale on your site. Typically, bloggers look towards digital products like eBooks and coaching programs as their first jump into the sell your own products realm, but physical products are not outside the list of options when you are looking to grow your business.

One of the biggest hurdles bloggers run into when they are looking to expand into physical products is high upfront cost of development, minimum orders and carrying inventory for fast shipping. This is a real fear as you can watch your income causally sit in your home office just stagnant…and that is never a good thing. When you are looking to jump into the world of soft goods (t-shirts, hats, etc.) or niche products, there are ways to get rid of your fears and tackle the obstacles in front of  you in a way that promotes growth and provides another resource to your readers.

As with most things on Blogging Labs, I am going to show you how I launched a new t-shirt line on Bike198 without using a single bit of operating capital (my cash) and was able to stock all inventory in the process.

Gauging Product Interest

As with any product you are going to release on your blog, you are going to want to gauge the interest of your readers to see if what you are about to release has any actual value to them. If they are not going to buy it, there is no reason to move forward and you need to find something your audience is actually willing to spend money on. This goes for any product including digital ones.

For the t-shirt line, I already knew that my audience likes to buy shirts related to the sport of mountain biking. There are companies that are completely dedicated to it so I had to find my niche in the sea of shirts to set myself apart. I decided to attack the sub-niches of mountain biking as riders are pretty passionate about their gear and trails. The first on the chopping block was “29ers Size Does Matter” and for those of you that don’t already know…29ers have a larger wheel size than typical 26″ bikes that we are all used to.

29er Size Does Matter T-Shirt

It had been a good review product week, so I sold a part on eBay and paid my product designer Adam Allen (adam-allen.com) to draw up the concept. He provided me with the initial comps and I went to my email list, Facebook page and Twitter account to start gauging interest on the shirt. While I did have to front the money for the design, I still didn’t want to go to the market with something that people didn’t want to buy. Luckily, interest in the shirt was great so we needed to move forward to the pre-sale process after I got the pricing nailed down with a friend of mine that owns a t-shirt printing company (scrappymusic.com).

The Art Of The Pre-Sale

A pre-sale can serve multiple purposes for bloggers. For example, you are releasing a coaching program and you want the forum to look active to new members, you can have a pre-sale to get your program populated before the launch. In my case, I needed to raise the funds necessary to complete the first order that would fulfill the orders for the pre-sale, give me stock to sell from and to get me the best price possible by being able to order in large quantities. Since I already knew the shirts were going to sell based off the interest I received from my readers and other riders, it was time to move forward and make the jump.

The Hook: How To Get Early Adopters

When you are asking a reader/customer to buy on a pre-sale, you are asking them to deal with longer lead times and uncertainty as they have zero testimonials or proof from others before they buy. Because of this, you need to have some added value for your customer for participating in the pre-sale process to encourage sales. In my case, I offered the shirt at $5 dollars less than the regular price during the week of the pre-sale. This gave a discount to my readers for buying early and helping me get together the necessary funds to make the order.

You can also throw in bonuses, free items and other hooks to get your readers to jump on the bandwagon early.

Time Is Running Out

With any pre-sale, there needs to be a sense of urgency. You are on a time-line to get the project or product live in its final form, so allowing a pre-sale to go on for too long can have a negative affect on earnings and overall perception from other readers or customers. For my t-shirt release, I set the pre-sale for one working week (starting Monday and ending on that Saturday). This also allowed me to add in the lead time for the actual order to let my customers know exactly when they could expect the shirts to ship. The sense of urgency and the definite shipping date calms any wonder on whether or not they are really going to get their shirt in the mail.

Leveraging Your Blogging Assets

At the beginning of the pre-sale process, I emailed my newsletter subscriber list through Aweber, I hit up my Facebook page, I tweeted and I sent out press releases to the major sites and forums in my niche. I even contacted manufacturers of 29ers and asked them to post about their shirt in their social media outlets announcing the pre-sale and the discount for ordering early. As you could probably guess already, my newsletter subscribers were my highest converting into sales (another reason you should start a newsletter with Aweber today if you haven’t already).

By leveraging my assets that my blog has built over time, I was able to draw readers and potential customers to my sales page and have them complete an order during the pre-order process. At the end of the week, I had enough sales to cover all of my costs including stock…so the order was placed and we are off to the races.

The Pre-Sale Timeline

What you have just read is my step by step process of the pre-sale, but there is also a defined time line that you need to be aware of when you are going to release a product in this manner. A pre-sale has an interesting component to it that affects how you react with your readers. Your “pre-sale week” or however long you choose it to be is going to see the following order process…

  • Day One: First initial order swarm
  • Day Two – Day Before The Last Day: The trickling in effect (lower quantity per day than day 1)
  • Last Day: Ending process order swarm

Your readers that order on day one are looking to get their order in fast so they don’t forget. They know they are going to order it anyway so they might as well get it off their mind and do it now. The readers that trickle in during the middle part of your launch process are typically ones that saw the email at work and had to wait until they got home or just saw the email at that point in time. Your readers that order on the last day at the last minute probably saw and read your first email, but they wanted to wait until the last day to place their order because they are lazy or they didn’t want their money tied up for an extended period of time without anything to show for it.

Because there are a large quantity of people in the “last day” part of the process, it is vital that you send out a second email to your subscribers, followers, etc. 24 hours before the pre-sale ends. That gives your email enough time to hit their inbox and allows your reader adequate time to order it online. You have no idea how many responses I get from readers thanking me for sending that last email because they had forgotten about the pre-sale end date. Your product is not the most important thing going on in the lives of your readers, so a casual reminder at the end of the week is a very effective closing tool.

Selling Physical Products On Your Blog

As you can see by this process, I was able to release a t-shirt that is the start of a complete line without having to put it on a credit card, pull funds from the bank or use personal income to fund the process. By simply selling a piece of review product and launching an effective pre-sale process, I was able to get everything accomplished and cover all initial costs. Now, my blog has another asset to sell that also promotes my brand. When you are looking at what your readers want to buy, do not rule out physical products as they can provide you with additional income, but…more importantly…they can jump start your credibility within your niche with a huge promotional tool.

You can buy the t-shirts here.

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Which One Of These 7 Monetization Strategies Is Best For Your Blog?

November 10, 2010 By 8 Comments

The world of making money online through generating content on a blog is not an easy one at times. While there are more options to bloggers than ever to generate revenue that can either be great supplemental income or the full enchilada for their family, the process of making that income a reality is a bumpy road filled with learning experiences. When you start to look objectively at your blog to dissect how it is going to generate income, it requires an outside look in completely independent of daily, weekly or monthly content generation. When I am looking to increase my blogs monetary value, there are several things I look at before I even think about implementing any new strategies and these are some basic questions.

  • Is my content attracting an audience that is ready to spend money?
    (Releated Reading: 2 Groups That Are 99% of Your Blog’s Income)
  • Am I generating content that has the possibility of making money on its own?
  • What are the problems that my readers need solved that I haven’t addressed yet?
  • What is my successful competition doing well that I am not?
  • How much traffic do I have and what is my monthly growth?

Once I have answered these questions, I can start searching for different revenue generating avenues for my blog, but if you do not even know your own audience and content, you are just going to be a hamster in a wheel…spinning really fast but going no where.

7 Basic Monetization Strategies for Bloggers

When it comes to blogging, there are 7 basic groups of monetization strategies that you can start applying today to make more money online.

  1. Selling Your Own Products – Selling either physical (soft goods, products, etc.) or digital (ebooks, recordings, reports, software, themes, plugins, etc.) is a great way to increase your bottom line and market your blog at the same time. For most bloggers, the look towards selling digital products is the first step into selling something of your own through your blog. With a low cost of entry…in most cases just your knowledge and time…you can release a digital product and enjoy very high profits which allow for high percentage affiliate programs to get it to spread like wildfire. For example, Ramped Blogging and Ramped Reviews both carry an affiliate program that pays out 65% and cost me nothing but my time and knowledge to develop.
  2. Selling Community Services – In recent years, the sale of memberships, coaching programs and premium content has gained a lot of traction in the blogging world as more affordable software for delivering these programs as become available and the “I can do that too!” idea has spread. One of the biggest advantages of these types of programs over digital products is the recursive income over the one time sale.
  3. Affiliate Marketing – When you suggest a product to your readers and get a percentage of that sale, you are participating in affiliate marketing. There is not a single market out there that does not carry at least a couple of affiliate marketing programs for retailers and other products that can have commissions ranging from 4% all the way up to 75% of the sale in some cases. This is typically the 2nd place bloggers start when they look to make more money with their blogs.
  4. Advertising – Just like with a magazine, your blog has a lot of physical real estate that can be sold. Whether it is through pay-per-click campaigns like Google Adsense or selling spots for a monthly fee, you are turning your empty white space into dollars by generating clicks or impressions. The more you have…the more you get.
  5. Professional Services – Many blogs (like this one) offer consulting or speaking services for a price. If you have built up a solid reputation in your niche to the point people really value your point of view, you can charge for that time.
  6. Selling/Flipping Blogs – There are companies and individuals out there that want a blog but need to have an audience right away or do not want to hassle with the beginning start up. On the flip side, there are bloggers that specialize in starting up blogs just to sell them off for profit. When these two needs meet, you get the art of blog flipping.
  7. Non-Measurable Benefits – For many bloggers online, they are not looking to be the next biggest thing in their niche. However, they are looking to get a new job, increase awareness of their photography or art or even just looking to make connections online. When these needs result in a positive outcome (like getting a new, higher paying job), that is an immeasurable, monetary benefit to blogging. While it may not fit next to the “how much money I made with Adsense” column of your spreadsheet, it does have a drastic influence on your life in a monetary sense.

There are always new and inventive ways to generate income online, but these 7 basic strategies are the most common and cover the complete gamut at this time.

Which One Of These 7 Monetization Strategies Is Best For My Blog?

As you look at each of these 7 strategies in pursuit of making more money online, which one is best for your blog? As much as I wish I had the easy answer for you (hoping I would say “that one!” weren’t you…), the solution to that question is not that easy on the surface. It really boils down to the answers you have from the questions at the beginning of this article.

Ideally, I like to mix as many monetization strategies that will operate successfully on my blogs. With each of my strategies taking up a smaller percentage of the big picture, I am able to handle swings in reader preferences and changes in the market much easier than blogs that rely solely on one or two methods. What happens to the blogs that rely on one affiliate program for the majority of their income when that program goes away (which I have had happen)? With Bike198:

  • I sell direct advertising space.
  • Have PPC campaigns like Adense.
  • Sell digital products (Ramped Riding).
  • Sell physical products (Bike198 kits and t-shirt line).
  • Refer products through affiliate marketing (reviews and suggestions through my active newsletter).

All of these methods are tested over and over again to increase results and to continue adding to my bottom line, so as you look at your blog…you need to ask more questions…

  • Do I have enough traffic to make any income through PPC?
  • What is the biggest issue I could solve with a digital product?
  • Is there another product or service that my readers would find useful that has an affiliate program?
  • Do have have the buying audience and capital to release a physical product and what do my readers want to buy?

After you answer those questions for yourself, you can start hammering away at making more money per month on your blog. Typically, bloggers look towards advertising and affiliate marketing techniques as their first jump into making money online. They are the easiest to implement and can have instant results. As you move up the effort chain to creating your own products and selling coaching programs and services, the risk and monetary benefit is higher with the added developmental time and work.

The best monetization strategy for your blog is the one that you have tested and it works. There will be bloggers that will tell you how you should do things, but at the end of the day…whatever performs the best on your blog is what you should be doing. You should then continually test and add over time to keep the snowball effect going. There are many ways bloggers can make money online, it just takes an objective look at your internet real estate and the willingness to step outside of the box and try something new. Most of your ideas will probably fail miserably, but the few that win will win big and the lessons you learn from the failures will prepare you for the next big win.

Side note…a blog without an active newsletter is a blog that is deciding to make very little money. Check out this series on why you need a newsletter on your blog to find out why…1 Thing Your Blog Can’t Live Without.

Which one of these monetization strategies have you found success with on your blog?

Filed Under: Blogging, Generating Cash Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Underground Blogging Secrets: Extracting Money From Your Blog

October 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

With the ultimate goal of pulling monetary value out of your content, you have to figure out how to extract dollars out of words. While we drive traffic to our blogs to get more eyes on our content, if you really want to make it online full-time, you have to build up a digital empire by applying underground blogging secrets that extract money out of your content.

We watch bloggers everyday do it wrong. They post up content, promote it on Twitter and Facebook, sit back and wait for a social media traffic spike and then rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, they keep checking their stats and wondering…”why am I not making any money?”

You are not making any money because content publishing on its own is not a monetization effort. Have you ever looked at a blog and wondered, “how the hell does this site make so much money?!” It is because 90% of all of the income made online (unless you have as much traffic as Perez Hilton and…if you are reading this post…you aren’t) is actually made off-site. If you are really planning on making money in your blogging, you have to realize that your blog content is the means of attracting more readers and your off-site marketing and promotion is your means of monetizing those readers.

So what can you include in your digital empire to actually generate income? While there are dozens of ways to generate revenue…here are the big three.

  1. It’s All In The List – The word email list makes most people flinch up and run for the hills. However, it is still the #1 resource online for generating income. Before you start thinking you have to be an email spammer to make money, that is actually the complete opposite from the truth. Your email list is your means to build up trust and respect with your readers…not spam the crap out of them. Your email list is a collection of your loyal minions that help you grow your business past the couple bucks a day stage. With that respect…comes responsibility to continue delivering the goods (both free and paid).
  2. Your Own Products – When you sell a product (eBooks, tangible goods, services), you income is generated outside of your normal blog content. By providing valuable resources and goods, you further solidify your reputation online and…through that…you create repeat business. The big question you have to ask yourself is…”what do my readers want to spend their money on in my niche?” Once you find the answer to that question, it is up to you to provide the solution.
  3. Exposure – The online world is growing rapidly. With major print productions looking to online resources as a way to evolve and grow, more readers are looking to digital resources over typical print. This opens a huge door for entrepreneurs looking to make it big as you no longer have to compete with the high, up-front capital investment required for print. With enough traffic (and email newsletter subscribers), you are able to provide exposure for companies in your niche for advertising. However, this requires you to step outside of the online world and go after the advertising dollars. If you are planning on putting up an “advertise with us” and sit back and wait for the offers…you are going to be consistently waiting. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, step outside the box and cold contact potential advertisers.

The key to success online is through diversification. If you can take one thing from vastly successful corporations, it is that diversification is the one thing that keeps a profit driven company consistent over the longhaul. By constantly evolving and adding in different methods of income generation, you are able to weather storms with ease.

What would happen if your primary income stream went away tomorrow?

The scary question that most bloggers never ask themselves. With as many viable income streams as you can manage coming into your digital empire, you are able to consistently grow and not worry about disastrous situations. You just keep rolling on…expanding and growing while others falter.

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"Content Is King" Are you really buying that load of shit?!

September 30, 2010 By 2 Comments

If you are constantly buying into the concept of “content is king” that gets pushed on bloggers around the world, you are buying a used car with sand dust in the gas tank. This same tired out line has been played out beyond belief in the blogging world.

Content is not king…content is the product.

When you are looking to create your successful blog online, consistent and quality content is the given product that is required in blogging, but…just like with every industry…there is a massive amount of sub-par crap that can greatly outperform your “pilar articles” and “high quality list posts” because the bloggers behind that content have already realized the huge secret to successful blogging that really isn’t a secret.

Successful promotion is king…content comes in a far off second.

It’s true…go ahead and marinate on that one for a bit. Have you ever read a highly successful website and thought there is a lot better content out there? Better yet…have you seen sub-par, worthless products get huge launches and massive sales? You even see it in the retail world! The #1 main reason a blog, company or product makes it in the marketplace is because of calculated and successful promotion…not because it is providing over the top quality.

So Why Promotion Over Quality?

Now…there are cases where enormous quality creates enough press to warrant high dollars and fame, but those cases are extremely rare. The high quality cases for blogs and products that you have seen or read are actually the by-product of having the double whammy…quality content and successful promotion.

Quality “content is king” content is absolutely nothing without new eyes digesting it and then spreading it out to others. Without this promotion, your articles and products do not get past the development stage. They are just words on a page or items on a shelf that no one knows about…or even cares to.

Next time you hear someone say “content is king”, you need to think of it as a used car salesman selling you a big steaming load of crap. Content is not king…the promotion of that content is far superior if you are looking to create a successful blog.

How Do I Get My Content In Front Of A Massive Amount Of Eyes?

Now…there are also bloggers out there that are going to tell you the “top 5 ways to get more traffic” or how you need to find traffic on your blog. First, anyone that tells me there is only 1 (or 5 ways to do things) are typically people that I discount their opinion greatly. One of the things that you need to realize in blogging is that all niches are different. There is never one top way of doing things as your readers are going to interact and spread content online differently dependent upon subject matter so taking advice like that can be dangerous and detrimental to your growth.

Proper testing of different promotion methods are the only way to find out what works in your niche.

That said…there is one theory that will greatly reduce your learning curve when looking for promotion techniques that will work well for your blog. It is one simple task that every blogger should be doing…

Find your target audience (and be specific) and then research how that specific target audience communicates and spreads content online.

Not every niche is going to know what RSS is…or use Stumbleupon…or even know how to use Twitter. It is up to you to find out how they communicate and how they like to digest content and then provide those methods. On top of that…you need to find methods that force call to actions (newsletter sign-ups, content spreading, etc.) like contests, giveaways and other viral content monsters.

There is no “one size fits all solution” for all bloggers and “content is not king”. It is up to you…as the blogger…to promote your products and content in a method that your audience will absorb to truly be successful. Hey…no one who was ever successful online used a cookie cutter tagline. They worked hard for it. That means you have to as well. Ramp it up!

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Extending Beyond Your Blog: Stop The Fear Of The Real World

September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In the blogging world, there is a ton of focus on social media, content and online promotion techniques. While all of this is fantastic information that can grow your blog and income over time…at some point, you are going to want to extend your blogging that you are running as a business into an area that many bloggers are scared to death of…the outside world.

Yes…creating your own digital products and promoting others is great and highly lucrative as a blogger…watching the cash roll in off of direct advertising and PPC campaigns can create great recursive income…but what happens when you want to step beyond that? What do you do when you want to expand your business into the lives of your readers? When you do want to stop being just a “blog” and start being serious competition for brick and mortar companies and publishing firms? You are sitting on one of the biggest launching platforms on the market…so it is time to take advantage.

Stop The Fear Of The Real World Products

The first thing you have to do as a blogger is get rid of the fear of the “real world”. Yes, creating products outside of digital goods takes a lot of time, research and effort, but the feedback and results can extend past your wildest dreams. The trick…find something that you can tackle and work with easily without taking on too steep of an upfront cost.

The nice thing about digital goods is the only cost of entry is basically your time. While you can get expensive with designers, coders and ghost writers, most successful digital products are made in the home office of the blogger. With real world products, you have to rely on manufacturers or other companies to work with you to make the dream happen. For this to ramp up…you need some cash to get the ball rolling before you can make your first dollar. This…on its own…scares away most bloggers from even trying.

The #1 thing you need to realize about stepping into real world product lines…you can raise the money upfront to get rid of the capital generating fear.

By having pre-sale deals (offering a discount for getting in on the first order), you can raise the money necessary to create your first order for just about any product you want to sell. Not only are you giving your readers a great price (that you still make a percentage profit on) but you do not have to step into your earnings to put in the cash for the first order. By removing this fear of money loss, you can make your first step into real world product markets.

How To Enter The Real World Product Market

When you are looking to expand your corner of the web into the daily lives of individuals in your niche, you need to start looking at what they are buying that you can provide outside of the digital world. In the beginning, you are going to want to locate markets with lower cost of entry points to get your feet wet. As with all things on RobbSutton.com, I find that the best way to show is through my own personal experience, so let’s take a look at what I am doing with Bike198.com to give you an idea on where to start looking.

In the biking community, I started looking for avenues in which I could not only promote my brand, but do so while also creating and fostering community. The natural progression given these parameters was to step into soft goods. Now…soft goods (t-shirts, etc.) is one of the #1 ways bloggers start the transition into real world market places because of the low cost of entry and the ability to promote your brand at the same time.

My first step into soft goods happened at the beginning of the month with the release of the Bike198 cycling jersey’s and shorts. To create buzz and a willingness to participate on the behalf of my readers, I also worked with the Livestrong Foundation and half of the profits of the kit sales are going to get donated for cancer research. I didn’t want it to be just another “website kit” so by incorporating the Livestrong Foundation, we are able to make it something bigger.

Bike198 Kits

Luckily, I have a friend of mine that is a kick ass designer that offered to help with the project (regularjoe), so the end result is incredible. The pre-sale process went great and we were able to meet the minimum order requirements easily to get the process started and get some kits in to take pictures for promotional materials.

The next step, start up the t-shirt line that I have had in my head for a long time.

Fringe Benefits Of Real World Product Sales For The Blogger

Now…the monetary side of releasing your own products is an easy concept to get your head around. You sell the product, pay your costs and keep the profit. But…the real benefit to releasing physical products into the marketplace is much harder to measure.

  • What do you think happens when riders wear a Bike198 jersey or t-shirt and hit the trail? They spread the Bike198 brand to new riders and potential readers.
  • What happens when their picture is taken and posted on a forum? Same result on a bigger scale…
  • What happens when cycle sells more t-shirts and jersey’s? The results multiply like crazy…

By creating products that your readers want to buy, you are strengthening your brand into something much bigger than just a blog. You are also strengthening the overall trust in your brand to deliver the goods because you are now perceived as more than just a blogger releasing your ideas. You are now a trusted source that has grown into a profitable product company. Through this…you get to watch your corner of the web grow exponentially over time at a much faster rate.

Yes…the income generation of the physical product is important and measurable, but the most important aspect of releasing physical products as a blogger is what they do to strengthen your brand presence outside of just your words.

How can you expand past your blog? What are your readers willing to spend their money on outside of your digital products? What do you need to do to make that dream a reality? These are the questions you need to ask yourself as you move forward in your blogging.

Image by Reinante El Pintor de Fuego

Filed Under: Blogging, Generating Cash, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

If You Can Achieve Something Without Struggle…

September 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As you probably know already, I am obsessed with all things cycling (that’s why I started Bike198.com). Cyclists…specifically pro road bikers…are known for overcoming struggles to achieve goals. With the epic stories of Lance Armstrong to come back victories of Greg LeMond and others, we can draw inspiration and motivation in our own lives from watching athletes perform above expectations in races and events like the Tour de France.

The following quote from Greg LeMond summarizes a very key point in my life that I felt warranted further explanation.

I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it’s not going to be satisfying.

-Greg LeMond-

What a killer quote. If you sit back and think about it for a second, it really starts to sink in and make sense. The story of the “free lunch gone bad” is one that goes down in history over and over again. Why do you think most lottery winners are worse off 5 years down the road than before they received their pile of cash?! When you are given something without the blood, sweat and tears that goes into the acquisition…you do hold hold the same perceived value with the feeling of accomplishment that goes with that achievement. Therefore…the easy come, easy go mentality sets in and you tend to not protect your asset as much as if you had worked your ass off for it.

Blogging And The Ultimate Grind

Truly successful blogs and businesses are not overnight successes. Yes…we hear the results of successful businesses online, but we very rarely hear the massive effort put forth on the back end and during the beginning stages to get there.

Whenever someone starts up a new blog and asks how to make it big…they look at the success of others and attempt to replicate it. However, 99% of those beginning bloggers are not willing to put in the effort when no one is reading. They are not willing to put in the late nights, the practice and patience of learning the craft or the dedication to treating this medium as a business. Instead…they want to see their little corner of the web explode income without putting in the work because the Internet…as a whole…is still perceived to be an “easy money” outlet when that could not be farther from the truth.

Blogging is not the easiest way to make money online.

Blogging is a grind. Day in and day out writing, promotion and innovation bring success over time. The reason you see such solid businesses built up around the online medium of blogs is because that asset is protected strongly by its creator due to the amount of effort it took to gain success. Do you think bloggers would protect their online real-estate as closely if it was just handed to them? Probably not.

The struggle in blogging is the reason for the payoff at the end of the rainbow. It is the reason we grind away at creating and promoting content. It feeds the love of connecting with other people around the world that share the same passion as you do. It is the story behind the success that in turn breeds more success.

If you are expecting to achieve your dreams through blogging without the grind and struggle…you are wasting your time. If you are ready to grow past your expectations and wildest dreams through hard work and improvement by learning through failures…you are at the right place.

It is a long road, but the journey defines the commitment and success over time.

Image by tricky

Filed Under: Blogging, Lifestyle Design Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How I Increased My Adsense Earnings 266%

September 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Over the past week, I have increased my Adsense earnings 266% on Bike198.com. Really…no lie. I made some serious changes on the site over the past week and the results have been staggering.

It all started with the idea of a complete overhaul and redesign that changed the way my readers interact with the content. As we took a look at how readers were interacting and how we wanted them to interact…we saw room for improvement. The fun part…we were absolutely right and all of the stats are through the roof. Now, let’s take a look at the subject of this article specifically as it relates to other forms of advertising on your blog as much as it does Adsense.

I Use Adsense As A Litmus Test

First, let me start by clarifying that I use Google Adsense as a Litmus test on my “non-blogging” blogs to see how direct advertising and other forms of banner style advertising will perform given certain designs and locations. Why do I do this? Adsense provides you with real time feedback on certain ad locations and sizes will perform. In certain niches, it can also give you some insight into how much you should be charging for a given location. In markets where Adsense performs well, advertisers could have to beat what Adense is generating for a given location.

For these reasons, Google Adsense is a great way to test out specific locations in terms of performance, but it does not mean that it is the best means for maximum revenue generation in all niches.

How I Increased My Adsense Revenue 266%

As mentioned before, this all started with a redesign project that was based around user interaction with Bike198.com. The #1 goal was to integrate the various subdomains into a more seamless design that allowed for ease of movement among the content. During this process, I saw a real need to extract more performance around the banner advertising sections of the site. Who doesn’t like to make more money?!

Let’s take a look at the before and after with Mountain.Bike198.com as the example…

Before: Mountain.Bike198.com

Old Bike198.com

Mountain Biking for Beginners Section

After: Mountain.Bike198.com

Home Bike198.com New

Beginner Section New Bike198.com

You can navigate through Mountain.Bike198.com and see the other ad locations, but these screenshots will serve a purpose as you are about to see.

What Changed: Reader Interaction

As you take a look at the before and after, let’s point out the significant changes.

  • Cleaner Overall Design
  • Sidebar Location Moved To The Left
  • Lighter Colors
  • 300×250 Ad Spot Moved To Top
  • Restructured Navigation

At first, I was a little bit nervous about removing a lot of the image elements of the new design as a lot of people liked that aspect of the site, but…after the fact…everyone is actually liking the lighter look and increased speed of the site (if the flood of “it looks great!” emails aren’t proof enough). Now…let’s get to what you are actually reading this article about…increasing revenue.

How The Site Re-Design Increased Revenue

The re-design of Bike198.com did two things that were specific goals that directly affect revenue.

  1. Put the emphasis back on the content.
  2. Put the ads in direct view of the reader without being obtrusive.

Having a lot of graphical elements, widgets and other miscellaneous “looks cool” items on your blog can get a good reaction from your readers, but you need to realize that…most times…those elements go against what you are ultimately trying to accomplish…more interaction with your content and revenue streams. The previous Bike198.com design got that “wow factor” but the image elements distracted from advertising and the content.

When we moved the sidebar to the left and brought the color of the design into the content and the ads instead of the design, we drew the eyes of our readers where it mattered the most without any distractions. The result…more conversions (rss, Facebook, YouTube), higher comment counts, more emails and ultimately more revenue on the site.

When you are trying to extract more dollars out of your blog, you need to be the eyes of your reader.

Where do you want your readers eyes to go? On an image that generates you nothing or on an ad that brings you income? How about an article or picture within an article that will bring you more traffic? It is not about what you think looks cool or getting a compliment about which background you chose, it is about increasing efficiencies and incorporating elements into your design that help you achieve your goals. After that…you start testing, moving and experimenting to see how you can increase these elements even further.

As a general rule, the simpler the design, the better it will convert as long as you have set defined goals. With less distraction from conversion elements, the eye will gravitate towards color and size, so structure your elements in a hierarchy of importance keeping those to aspects in mind. If you spend all of your time chasing what you think looks good without any technical backing on why, you will be spinning your wheels wondering why you are not making any income.

The redesign of Bike198.com drastically increased earnings because reader interaction, conversions and income generation was the ultimate goal.

Filed Under: Blogging, Generating Cash, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bridging The Blogging Gap Between A Hobby And A Business

August 24, 2010 By 1 Comment

Blogging is a wonderful thing. This same medium that can be used as an online diary can also be the source of a lucrative online business. Personally, I can not think of any other medium in the world with that kind of flexibility. However, this same flexibility creates some interesting gray area when you start talking about generating income as a business and just having a couple of extra bucks to throw around for another meal out during the month. The story about the city of Philadelphia requiring any blogger making over $50.00 per year to pick up a $300.00 business license should have some beginning bloggers thinking. At what point do you bridge the gap between a hobby and creating a business?

First…Is Becoming A Business Even Your Goal?

Let’s just get one thing straight. If you really want to generate a profit and create a business with a blog, you are going to have to take that mindset from the very start. There are very few “I started this hobby that just took off like crazy” bloggers out there that were hit with a business out of the blue. 99% of bloggers that generate enough income to quantify it as a sustainable business started day 1 with the premis that their corner of the web was going to achieve that end goal. It’s a mindset thing and without it…you are just spinning your wheels with a hobby.

Ok…off the soap box…let’s get at it…

When you are planning for the future with your blog, you need to have an idea of where you want to head. As mentioned before, blogging is a beautiful online medium in which you can release your creativity in any way you see fit. There is no right or wrong way to do things…it is all just a product of your goals. The vast majority of blogs online make next to nothing, but they allow the blogger to release their words on the web. For some bloggers, that is worth its weight in gold.

For others…we need something more. We want the freedom that having an online business provides. However, we need to be ready for the responsibilities that come along with business ownership at the same time…a part that many beginning (and experienced) bloggers are not ready for…

Bridging The Gap: Blogging As A Business

When you make the decision to make more than just a nice evening out with your blog, you are making a decision to run a business and not a hobby. You are changing you mindset from that of a hobbyist to a business owner and that can be trying for some bloggers looking to keep the fun in blogging and making money at the same time.

So what differentiates blogging as a business?

There are several things you are going to have to start doing as you start to build your business online.

  • You will have to come up with an actual name for your business (I am oneninety8, LLC)
  • You will have to file taxes and apply for a business license with your local and federal governments.
  • You will have to start keeping track of earnings, expenses and other necessary record keeping.
  • You will have to start watching statistics and look for new and unique ways to promote growth in those areas.
  • You will have to look into producing your own products and diversify income streams.
  • You will have to listen to the needs of your customers (readers and subscribers) to start filling their wants and needs through products and services you create or promote.
  • You will have to create goals and steps to achieve those goals.
  • You will have to be accountable to other bloggers and businesses in your niche.
  • You will have to figure out how to generate income outside of just publishing content (newsletter through Aweber, your own products, offline promotions)
  • You will have to be able to hire out work to freelancers and employees (the days of doing everything yourself are gone).

Long story short…you are going to have to start treating your blog like a brick and mortar business to be successful. There are a lot of bloggers that want the monetary success, but want it without the work of actually owning a business. Did you know that most successful bloggers have their own accountant, virtual assistants and designers? Did you also know that most of these successful bloggers started spending money in these areas way before they hit it big?!

This brings me to my next point…and probably the most important.

If you are not willing to reinvest back into your blog, you are making the decision to stay small time.

The #1 thing that allows you to bridge the gap between an hobby and a business is the willingness to take your own money and earnings from your blog to reinvest back in and promote faster growth. Blogging…like any business…can not grow quickly without capital reinvestment. The low barriers to entry in blogging create a mass entrance of eager bloggers looking to make it big, but the bloggers that are willing to look past the low cost of entry and start infusing money back into their blogs (design, new products, advertising, etc.) are the ones who make it big. The hard part…you as the reader never see that reinvestment but you are a product of that action.

Reinvesting Without Capital

Now…I know what you are probably thinking. I don’t have any money to put back into my blog and things are tight around the house right now so I need anything I can get to stay afloat. Guess what?! You are not alone and their is one way you can reinvest into your blog and create a business that will not cost you any money at all…just time.

GIVE AWAY THE FARM!

Some of the most successful bloggers online took one solid idea to heart as they grew their businesses. If you do not have monetary capital to throw at your aspiring online business, give away everything you can possibly get your hands on.

When you see bloggers holding contests for free stuff, giving away free eBooks and throwing other objects to the wind, they are doing that because giving stuff away for free is the #1 way to grow your blog without a huge capital investment. All you need…time to get it done.

Here are some examples.

  • Give away product you got in to review (can grow things exponentially).
  • Give away informational products.
  • Give away services (consulting, reviews, etc.)
  • Give away your paid products in a contest.
  • Have other companies and blogs sponsor a contest.

As you can see…there are plenty of things that you can give away and grow your business…but the key here is to actually grow your business online. Everyday…I see bloggers take the “give the farm away” mentality to heart, but the execution is terrible. When you give things away on your blog, there has to be some action taken on the part of the reader that not only provides you with an asset (newsletter subscriber, twitter follower, etc.), but they also provide you with free promotion (tweet, Facebook share, etc).

The trick with great giveaways is to create incredible value and getting that giveaway to spread like crazy with minimal effort on your part. The solution to that trick? You need to figure out how your readers communicate and tap into that medium of communication. If you do that successfully, you will see enormous growth in a short period of time.

Then…you can use capital to reinvest back in.

Bringing It All Home: Business and Blogging

This article bridged a gap on its own. From talking about setting up your online business to growing your online business, there are many aspects that all play into together that you need to consider before you make your first dime online.

The good news…just like anything else…your plans can adapt and change as you see fit. It is really all up to you and your decisions. Hopefully…I just got you thinking about where you want to end up at the end of the day and gave you some ideas on how to get there.

Bridge Image by esmtll

Filed Under: Blogging, Generating Cash Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Hot Chicks Are Always Going To Have More Twitter Followers Than You

August 5, 2010 By 14 Comments

It’s true…hot chicks are always going to have more Twitter followers than you, but…it doesn’t matter because 1/2 of them aren’t even real and the other 1/2 just have a bunch of worthless followers.

You see it all the time. Some hot chick avatar has 75,000+ followers but they are following 82,000+ and you say to yourself, “man…I wish I had that many followers. I am going to do whatever I can to get them.” I am here to tell you that you should much rather have your 1,000 or even 100 followers rather than their 75,000+ that they spam on a regular basis.

In today’s social media environment, there seems to be an obsession to race to the highest number. Whether it be Twitter followers, RSS feed subscribers or pageviews, aspiring bloggers and social media gurus are all watching stats closely to see where they stand. If you have some successful history in blogging/social media, you already know there is a numbers game and the more you have…the more you typically make. But…the really experienced know that the numbers game is about QUALITY more than it is about quantity.

In the pursuit of stat racing, many aspiring entrepreneurs take the road too much traveled of lowering themselves to sleazy tactics in the attempt to attract more followers or subscribers. They throw up controversial blog posts in the interest of viral spreading instead of quality content. They put up pictures of barely dressed women in their avatars and posts. They even go as far to try to call out other successful entrepreneurs to try to attract attention. If they are trying to use sleazy tactics like putting a hot chick as their avatar, they do not know the first thing about making money online and their business is failing before they even get started.

It’s Not A Race and Quality Matters More Than Quantity

I don’t know about you, but when I build up my online businesses, I do not want a bunch of dirty old men on my lists. I want targeted leads that actually want to digest what I have to say. While there is something to the whole “social proof” theory (more people sign up when they see a big stat…wish it wasn’t true but it is), I would much rather have 1,000 highly targeted followers/leads than 100,000 that are just random.

When you are seeking out new subscribers, followers or new visitors to your blogs and social media outlets, the #1 goal should be finding quality, targeted eyes not just a mass quantity.

How To Find Quality, Targeted Leads and Subscribers

So…we know you need to have better followers and subscribers than the internet marketing hot chick, so where do we find these targeted leads? The #1 way I have found to grow my online real estates is simple.

Find where your potential new visitors are hanging out and bring them back to your blogs, Twitter account, Facebook fan pages, etc.

New followers and subscribers are not going to magically find you online. The “build it and they will come” theory to online growth never held true so it is not going to work for you. If you really want to grow your blog and business online, you are going to have to actively search out new visitors and find a way to get them on your pages. Here are a couple of examples to get you started.

  • Actively Guest Post On Popular Blogs In Your Niche – One of the most popular ways to attract new readers is to guest post on other blogs. This theory works incredibly well in niches that have active bloggers. If you are in a niche that does not have a strong blogging community, you are going to have to look to other outlets to pull new readers in.
  • Build Up Online Forum Profiles – Online forums are still the #1 place for dedicated online obsessed to exert their passions and share them with others. For every niche that you would want to blog about, there are a ton of active forums that you can participate in. However, forum communities are extremely sensitive to spam, so becoming a valuable member of the community is essential before you start pushing your content.
  • SEO Targeted Content - In my biking niche, I rely on Google and other search engines to deliver a large portion of my new leads. By doing keyword research with Google Adwords and writing SEO optimized articles using Scribe, I can bring in a massive amount of targeted, new visitors a day. While building up a blog with strong SEO presence can take time, it is still the #1 way to pull in new visitors. For beginning blogs, focusing on long tail keyword strings can bring you in some early success when you can’t compete with the older, larger sites on high competition keywords in the beginning.
  • Use Your Search Functions - Within Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets, there is always a search function that allows you to find targeted leads. While this may not be the most efficient way to get a large number at once, they are highly targeted. By finding out which hash tags your audience is using in Twitter and which Fan Pages they are following on Facebook, you can open your blog and social media accounts to an entirely new audience.
  • Interact and Communicate – Blogging and social media is still a people business. Interact and talk with as many people in your niche as you can. Those friendships that you grow over time will help you grow your business exponentially.

It isn’t rocket science. The more you try to cheat the system and employ tactics that you think are going to get you drastic results with 1/2 the work, them more you are setting yourself up for failure. Just remember, the fake hot chick on Twitter is going to act like they are making butt loads online…but in reality…their un-targeted leads are not making them a thing. Focus on quality and the results will be bigger than you would have ever imagined.

Model photo by Mike__G

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , , ,
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