Don’t get too comfortable with who you are at any given time – you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be. - Jon Bon Jovi

Most of you know that I really like working from home despite the occasional cat-based distraction.

It is challenging, rewarding and sometimes a lot of fun.

But there are a lot of other serious reasons as to why a person might want to consider starting an online business and work from home.

In this post I’m talking about why I think more people should consider going down this path – even though it might be really scary at first.

Let’s jump in!

My changing experience

If you’re new here and haven’t read my About page then you might be unaware that I left my University degree with less than a semester remaining in order to step out on my own and start my business.

It was the right decision for me but it might not be right for everyone.

And the reason I put this section before all the juicy content is because I wanted to emphasize the fact that a big part of owning your own business is that you often have to work it out as you go.

It’s part of the fun!

I was always involved in building websites and selling blogs but my main focus changes almost yearly.

Don’t not start your own business because you can’t see all the parts at the start. It takes time.

8 reasons to start an online business and work from home

As always, I’ve probably missed all of the important ones! Feel free to add a comment if you run an online business or work from home and have something inspiring to share.

1. Avoid the office politics bulls#@t

Whenever I catch up with my real-world friends I find that the conversation always turns to how annoying their office is in one form or another. A bad co-worker, a micromanaging boss, not enough pay, etc.

The sad thing is, sometimes these issues are really quite serious. I know several people who have taken stress-leave after being pushed to the limits by managers or board directors. I know of people who get so depressed because they don’t see any way out in such a sub-optimal economic climate.

Well, when you run your own business you have a lot of other problems but you don’t have that one. You can choose who you work with and who works for you. You might have to put up with some annoying clients in the beginning but as you grow you can “filter” it all out.

2. Put your energy into your own asset

While you’re kissing the butt cheeks of that Michael Scott-style manager/owner you’re also working on someone else’s asset. It might even be his asset! That creative thinking and after hours sweat that you pour into your work does nothing for you in terms of ownership and equity.

Now this might be the entrepreneur in me but I find that idea really quite abhorrent. I’d rather work harder and earn less if it meant that I was building my own asset vs another guy/girl’s.

If you feel the urge to create something for yourself and see it grow or fail but do it because it was your own thing then the online space could be for you.

NOTE: This goes for starting a blog as well. Set it up on your own host instead of a free one so you are in complete control.

3. The internet is the modern Gold Rush

Now to some serious financial reasons. The internet is booming. And it has been booming for a long, long time. And if you start to think about stats like the fact that there are more smart phones on Earth than toothbrushes and that whole nations are moving to high speed fiber networks, you’d be wise to invest in the internet while it is growing so fast on so many platforms.

Please don’t take this to mean that making money on the internet is a really easy thing to do. It isn’t. I imagine it’s probably a bit easier than mining for gold (or bitcoins!) but it is still a lot of work.

The great thing about the internet is that you aren’t just doing one thing. There’s shops, forums, Apps, websites, blogs, software, tools, etc. You can jump on the rush and find something new or something to compete with.

4. The barriers to entry are really low

If you’ve ever been to an economics class you’ll hear a lot about barriers to entry. They present serious problems for many industries and even entire countries. Think about all the things you have to do if you want to start a physical business like a factory: get capital investment, purchase machines and vehicles, hire staff, get insurance… the list goes on.

Online businesses, on the other hand, have relatively low barriers to entry. You really just need a domain name and some hosting to get started. The major outlay, at least initially, is your own time. Sure, you can invest money and hire designers, coders, writers, marketers, etc. but you don’t have to.

This particular point means that you can start an online business while you’re still working and leave your job once it starts to take off.

5. You can be who you really want to be

I could be wrong but I don’t see many people who work in offices being themselves. You have to jump through so many hoops to please clients and seniors and usually that means doing or saying things that aren’t totally consistent with the person you’d like to be.

Well, when you work from home you can forget all of that. Don’t shave if you don’t want to. Don’t wear that pencil-skirt if you don’t want to. In fact, my friend Mayi Carles usually works in her pyjamas!

More importantly, working for yourself means that you (hopefully) never again have to compromise on the kind of person that you want to be. You set yourself up so that you’re surrounded by people and things that are important to you.

6. You can go after the things that matter

Okay, so now we are really getting into the deep and furry stuff! When you work for someone else you are severely limited in the other activities that you can pursue. You might get some weekend time and after work time but what if your son has a thing on when you need to be at work? What about if you want to go overseas or do some charity work (Break: I have something VERY different happening in this regard soon) while you write your blog?

Well, when you work have a truly online business you can set yourself up to make those things possible. One of my closest friends quit his job and started an online business so he could spend more time at home with his boys. He works late but he has most of the day with them. That is priceless.

Again, these things are not just “givens” for any online business. You need to make it happen but, unlike the traditional workplace, it is possible.

7. Your industry is changing (and might not be around long)

I don’t want to sound alarmist with this point but an actual consideration for workers these days is that their job might not be there when they wake up tomorrow. It happens all the time.

This is both a result of new technologies, the economic climate, and the changing nature of globalization. So, in this regard, your job might get taken over by a computer or robot, made redundant or outsourced to a cheaper workforce in China, India or the Philippines.

The great thing about starting a blog or an online business is that it can be a very part time affair. That means you get a few extra dollars in the door but also set it up in a way that you could expand if things go pear shaped in the “real world”.

8. You can play video games at lunch time

I couldn’t end this post without the obligatory work from home smugness. Yes, you an set your own hours. Yes, I usually play Battlefield 3 at lunch time. Sometimes I finish work at 4pm to go play tennis with my brother.

The “do your own thing” that comes with owning your own business can, however, be a double edged sword. If you aren’t disciplined you will wind up not being very productive. And if you aren’t very productive you might not have enough money to eat.

When it is all said and done you can have a long lunch break or go to a movie if you want. It might mean you have to make up the time at 11:02pm (like I am now) but at least you have the choice.

Why did you decide to start an online business?

Did you start an online business? Do you work from home? Leave a comment and tell me what motivated you to make the change and whether you found it scary/liberating/easy. I’ll be really interested to see if the Troops have any tips in this area.

A quick list of social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit, Digg, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Yelp, imgur… oh and your blog, that’s social media too!

Jeez there’s a lot!

So which one do you focus on?

Or, like me, perhaps you prefer to crawl up into a tiny ball in the corner of your office and rock back and forwards while listening to the “ding!” and “pop!” of the constant stream of social networking notifications emanating from your computer.

Is it all too damn hard?

Well, it can be if you don’t have a clearly defined social media strategy. If you’re not careful you will spend all your time checking these needy sites for updates only to realize that you aren’t actually creating anything valuable or doing anything productive.

In this post I’m going to talk about my own thoughts on this matter as well as sharing a few interesting facts and figures about where you might want to spend your social media time.

HONESTY TEST: Leave a comment now telling me where you focus your social media efforts and then read the post and see if you have changed your mind. I’m very interested to know who has thought their strategies through.

The uncompromising base for all your online activities

Let’s get something straight right from the beginning: the focus of all your online activities should be your blog or website.

People like Brian Clark have been saying it for years.

You see the whole point of a social networking site (for a business) is to increase traffic, engagement and sales for that business.

We’re not posting every 30 seconds to Twitter because we want more followers, unless those followers do something for your blog. We’re not uploading images to Pinterest because we really want Pinterest to succeed – they’re doing okay.

The whole point is to grow your asset.

But even that get’s confusing!

Why?

Well, a lot of bloggers seem to focus on growing an email list or getting more comments or getting more traffic. But those things are also completely useless unless they are making money.

Of course this stuff only applies to people who are using their blog as a means to make some sort of income. Not everyone is. But if you are, you need to remember that the whole blogging and social media thing is a means to an end.

So which social networking site should I use? Should you be everywhere?

Now that I’ve got the “focus on your blog!” rant out of my system we can go on and talk about how to determine which social networking site is best suited to your particular needs and aspirations.

And that is a very important point: there is a big difference between all these social media sites and the way people use them.

A furniture store will not get the same returns from Reddit as they would from a successful Pinterest account. Likewise, a local pizza shop would be better off with a healthy dose of Yelp and Google+ reviews than a super popular pizza-based Pinterest page.

Pat Flynn has become quite famous for the catch phrase “be everywhere” but is that a realistic expectation for bloggers and small businesses who don’t have unlimited time and resources?

And how do you know which one to focus on?

Well, there are a few things to think about first:

• What are you trying to achieve?
  It’s surprising how many businesses have no idea what results they want from their social media budgets. It’s important to know where you want your social media traffic to go and what the end result will be.
• What are your strengths?
  Not everyone has a Canon 10D SLR camera with 15 years of photography experience. The person who does will do really well on Pinterest because they love photos over there. You need to know what you’re good at.
• What is your target market?
  When people say “target market” they are usually talking about a demographic like age, sex, marital status, etc. I’m more talking about the “type” of user that you want to go after. For example, do you want people who regularly leave reviews or people that share photos?
• Do you have the staff power?
  Some social networks demand a lot of constant attention. For example, if you have a big Facebook presence and you are a relatively large company you’ll want to make sure there are enough people addressing complaints. If left too long without a response those people can get vicious!
• What is your budget?
  One thing that a lot of small businesses and bloggers forget is that social networking costs money, even if you aren’t doing a paid advertising campaign. Why? Because it is time you are spending there instead of on actual product development. Business owners often don’t understand that you are effectively still paid for your time.
• What is trending?
  If you spend enough time online you start to notice trends. This is both a good and bad thing in terms of where you should focus your energies. Trends can drive a lot of traffic but also die off quickly and can end up being a waste of time and money. Identifying value for time/money and the trend is very important.
• What is working?
  The last point I want to mention here is that, as simple as it might sound, you need to measure what is working as you go along. You’re not going to know which site is the best fit for your business until you have a go and see what happens.

Once you have thought about those preliminary things you can start to assess what kind of a social media player you might want to become.

Should I use one at the expense of all others?

I don’t want you to get the impression that you should be focusing on one social networking site at the expense of all others. That’s not wise.

What I am trying to get across, though, is that some social media outlets are better for some kinds of businesses. And some businesses only have limited amounts of time/money to throw at this stuff so it’s important to know what you’re up against.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some information that might help you make a more calculated decision.

Google+ (a.k.a. G+, Google Plus)

A description of Google+

Dubbed the “Facebook killer” because Google needed to come up with a solution that was so comprehensive that it became essential to use to help to stave off Facebook’s social domination. Google+ integrates all of your Google services into one social networking platform that is now intimately linked with SEO and personal branding.

A screen grab of your photo in Google search results after you have set up Google Authorship – a must for SEO.

Local search is now intimately linked with G+. Users can review your business, check in to locations and search results will be different depending on what your friends recommend.

Google Hangouts are video conferences that can be held between you and your various circles.

Google Communities are gatherings of people around niche topics. A good place to grow authority and renown.

The main users of this social network

Around 71% of Google+’s 500 million users are male between 25 and 34. It seems the most active types are business owners, bloggers, writers, technology sectors, individuals growing a personal profile, photographers, etc.

The main features of Google+

This is an extremely feature-rich platform that has many huge advantages for publishers, bloggers and small business owners. The main features of Google+ include:

• Circles -
  Following people on G+ is called Circling. You put people into different circles that you create based on how you might interact with them in real life. For example, you might put me in a “Blogging” circle or a “Jerks” circle. You then see updates from people you’ve circled on your homepage.
• Hangouts
  A massive feature of G+ is the ability to do video hangouts, much like a webinar. This is a great community building function that has even been used by the Australian Prime Minister and other high profile people.
• Communities
  Interested in landscape photography? Start a community about it or join one that already exists. Great hubs that form an integral learning base.
• Google Authorship
  One of the most important features of the whole deal. This is where you link your Google+ profile to any website/blog content that you’ve written in order to get your photo to appear in Google’s search results.
• Pages
  After much user backlash, Google+ finally launched a Pages feature much like the way Facebook Pages work. These still don’t seem to be a very popular part of the site, however, as it is much more focused on the “person” running the account.
• Complete Google service integration
  Unlike a standalone social networking site like Twitter, Google+ integrates with all your other Google services. Gmail, YouTube, Local, etc. are all now connected with this social device. You’ll see different search results based on what your Circled friends are talking about, etc.

The Advantages of Google+

Google+ is still relatively new and as such people are still “feeling it out”. That said, there are already some huge advantages to this social networking platform.

• Personal brand growth
  As Google+ is focused on individuals you have an opportunity to grow a really strong personal brand that you can then apply to your various business projects.
• SEO integral
  People on Google+ are already reporting many search engine optimization advantages. For example, having your profile picture appear in Google search results dramatically increases click through rates. Many SEOs are predicting a much higher weighting for active G+ users in the near future.
• Grow a broad authority
  As Google+ is integrated with your local restaurant reviews, YouTube channel, etc. you have the opportunity to create a really broad sense of authority and trust.
• Reach
  Google+ is now the second largest social network in the world behind Facebook. This is largely part to the huge swaths of Android mobile devices being sold but what it means is that there is a large and active community for you to reach and connect with. Many people are reporting better conversion rates than other social networks too.

The Disadvantages of Google+

As with every social network there are some pretty glaring disadvantages. The main ones are:

• Extremely complicated sign up
  Many people report that they find the sign up, activation and navigation of the site extremely complicated (slightly simpler on the app). It’s difficult to understand what exactly G+ does until you’re inside it making mistakes.
• Huge amount of settings
  Many tech-heads love this but a lot of mom and pop users hate it. The sheer number of setting is mind-boggling, especially because you’re talking about all your Google services, not just one social network.
• Pushy, pushy, pushy
  I’ve heard so many people complain that they are sick of Google+ encouraging them to sign up or, once signed up, encouraging them to change their user names on other Google sites to match their G+ profile.
• Privacy concerns
  Although I personally don’t buy into this, many people suggest that Google has too much information with our social activities being linked to emails, YouTube, local places, etc. I’ve heard of people staying away from G+ just because they want to retain some sense of privacy.

How should you use it?

As I’ve said before, Google+ is not an optional network if you want to succeed on any of Google’s platforms, particularly organic search results. If you have a physical business location you’ll need to make sure you’re letting your customers know they can leave positive reviews on Places and you’ll want to ensure Google Authorship is set up for any content marketing that you do. Join communities, share people’s content that is relevant to your own niche and become a “power-hub” for that industry. It appears that the more weight you have on G+ the more you’ll be able to organically rank an article or website.

Facebook Pages

Description of Facebook Pages

If you are using a personal Profile to grow a business you’re in the wrong place (according to the TOS). Facebook Pages are Facebook’s place to promote a business, community or create a fan base. These pages are controlled by moderators and allow you to create galleries, location-based checkins, contact details, posts, etc. People “like” your page or business and then interact with you by sharing, commenting or liking your updates and posts. There is also a paid promotion option.

Detailed statistics are one of the best features of Facebook Pages for businesses.

Porsche use beautiful photos and sneak-preview content to get massive brand awareness.

The main users of Facebook Pages

The major advantage of Facebook is the sheer diversity and size of the user base. Men, women and children (over age 14). Over 2/3rds of online adults say that they are on Facebook. Paid advert campaigns can be targeted towards specific demographics such as marriage status, city, etc.

The main features of Facebook Pages

Facebook Pages are an ever-changing and updating phenomena but the main features are:

• Galleries
  Photos are big on Facebook. Creating neat and well structured photo galleries of your products or related content can get a lot of shares and exposure.
• Status updates
  Once a way to connect with a large portion of your users, these days Edge Rank means that your text updates are seen by less of your fans and followers than before. Perhaps a reason for less business interest.
• Paid promotion
  You can now pay to promote your content if you want it to be seen by more of your fans or non-fans.
• Multiple moderators
  You can add several people to help you moderate the page. It is, in fact, a good idea because if you lose your personal account you can then maintain your Page.
• Apps
  You can develop or use certain apps to help change the functionality of your page, add different features under the header bar, etc.
• Invite friends
  Facebook Pages makes it pretty easy to invite your friends to any new page that you create. This can help small businesses get started quicker.
• Sharing
  People can share your content with their personal friends such that anything you post can potentially be seen by thousands of people that don’t actually follow your Page.

The main advantages of Facebook Pages:

There are a lot of people who claim that they get some very good results from Facebook Pages. Some of the main benefits include:

• Viral potential
  If you know what your posting and have the right people following you there is a good chance you can send something viral. The sharing and re-sharing is extremely potent.
• Connection
  People are on Facebook all day long so it’s a good place to connect with your existing users and develop the relationship further.
• Surveying
  It can be a very good method of surveying readers or customers to get feedback about the process.
• Increasing visibility
  People can check-in at your physical business location or store which can be great if you are a cafe or bar or somewhere that people want to be seen. All their friends see that they’re at your store.

The disadvantages of Facebook Pages

Although a lot of people have been raving about Facebook Pages there are also some pretty big critics. Some of the main criticism include:

• Constant changes
  Many big businesses have commented that it’s too risky to invest large amounts of money into Facebook now because it isn’t certain what access they’ll have to their followers in the future.
• Viral problems
  Just like the viral content can help your business it can also harm it. We’ve all seen the posts where someone has made a complaint about something and it’s been re-shared 10,000 times around the world. Be careful.
• Edge Rank
  While Edge Rank is a necessary evil, it is still really annoying. It means that you spend time and money getting followers and then those followers aren’t guaranteed to see your updates.
• Privacy concerns
  Critics of Facebook have long been saying that they gather too much information about users. While this may apply to personal accounts more than Pages it is still something to be wary of if you are worried about it.
• Ownership
  Who owns the content that you post on Facebook Pages once you put it on there?
• Actual conversions
  There have been some interesting studies come out lately into how effective Facebook campaigns based around pages actually are. It seems that perhaps people on FB are willing to interact with and share content but not buy it.

How should you use it?

I’m toning down my use of Facebook Pages. It still has high interaction for some niches but the constant changes and requirement of paying to reach users that you’ve already acquired is frustrating. It is a good medium for creating better relationships with existing customers but I question the idea that Facebook users are in a buy-ready mindset. Unfortunately, people expect you to be on Facebook if you are a business but the level of investment you make will depend on your own testing.

Use strategies like adding shareable content like photos, stories and memes as opposed to focusing on direct sales tactics. Use Facebook as a means to be seen as more human and in-touch.

Pinterest

Description of Pinterest

Pinterest is like any other social network (actually, a lot like the social bookmarking sites below) except that it is all based around the sharing of photos and videos and less about the people or the business. You organize photos by categories called “boards” and then repin other people’s photos into your relevant boards.

A Pinterest board I created where I post motivational quotes on photos that I’ve taken.

The main users of Pinterest

The experts tell us that 83% of Pinterest users are women from good income families between the ages of 35 and 50.

Main features of Pinterest

Pinterest has taken off almost unlike any other social network. The user base size and ability to drive traffic to websites has made Pinterest a serious consideration for many businesses. The main features include:

• Pin photos
  The main gist of the site is pinning photos. You can pin them from sites where you find them or you can upload your own photos straight to your account.
• Repin stuff
  You then repin the pins of the people you are following into your own boards. If you curate the content well enough people might think you’re a good person to follow.
• Follow boards
  As mentioned, the photos are organized into boards and you can follow certain boards about certain things or follow the person who published the board.

The main advantages of Pinterest

This site hasn’t got this much attention for no reason. Some of the main advantages of Pinterest include:

• Big traffic
  Pinterest is reported to drive more traffic than Google+ and YouTube combined which makes it a site you probably shouldn’t ignore.
• Get your products exposed worldwide –
  Imagine you own a business that sells some really beautiful products. You can get those products photographed well and then create boards by pinning those photos off of your website. If they get repinned by big users you can get seen all over the world.
• Become a topic authority –
  If you run an antique store, for example, you might create antique boards and pin content as a means to position yourself as an expert in the field. Occasional sprinkles of your own products then send you a lot of traffic.
• Build backlinks -
  Backlinks are really important for your SEO rankings. If you put photos on your website and then people pin those photos you get a link back to the original website page.

The main disadvantages of Pinterest

As always, there are a few downers. Some of the main concerns people have about Pinterest include:

• Photogenic businesses only
  Although Pinterest experts will say that anyone can find the right content to Pin, a lot of people complain that unless your business has some good photos to put up there’s not much you can do there. For example, an accounting firm might find it a bit limiting.
• Unresponsive
  Again, a lot of people will tell you the opposite of this but some users find that the site can be full of people pinning and creating boards but not really interacting with other people in a real way. Pinterest does drive sales, but not for every topic.

How should you use it?

Let me start this section by saying that my friend Jamie has written the best post ever on Pinterest over on ProBlogger. That is a good place to start. If you have a business that lends itself to photos, videos or quotes then you’d do well to get on Pinterest and start creating boards around your niche. Pin your own stuff from your blog and then re-pin lots of other relevant content from people that you follow.

Twitter

Description of Twitter:

Twitter is a micro-blogging service where you can send out Tweets of 140 characters or less. People only see those Tweets if they are following you. It is the third largest social network in the world and has global reach and has the potential to be the most “live and up to date” source of news.

My Twitter profile page that shows images I’ve uploaded, my latest Tweets and the cover image.

The main features of Twitter:

Twitter is extremely simple in its functionality – so much so that beginners often struggle to “get it”. The main features of the platform are:

• Short messages (tweets)
  Messages are capped at 140 characters so you have to be creative with how you communicate.
• Following
  Twitter is all about following people you are interested in. You then see a stream of all your followers’ updates. People often “follow back” when you follow them as a thank you.
• Ability to re-tweet
  If someone says something that you agree with you can re-tweet their original tweet which then spreads the news to your followers. This can drive huge amounts of traffic if you have a loyal and interested following.
• Direct messaging
  If two people are following each other you can direct message each other which is Twitter’s version of a private message.
• Mobile friendly
  Twitter is possibly the most mobile friendly social network and many people use it on the move to tweet about their daily activities. It also played a large role in the Arab Spring to mobilize people to certain locations in short spaces of time.

The main advantages of Twitter:

Twitter has an extremely vocal and loyal group of supporters and “experts” who believe it is the most effective network for building a client base, developing relationships and finding new customers. The main advantages of Twitter include:

• Active users
  A lot of people find that Twitter users are more active than other social media sites. For example, if you Tweet about a blog post you might get quite a few re-tweets from your followers.
• Faster interaction
  People leave their Twitter window open all day so you often find replies are extremely fast. This can be a great way to develop a relationship or stay on top of industry news.
• Public tech-support
  As a consumer/customer you often get extremely good tech support on Twitter because companies don’t want public complaints to go viral or be seen to remain unaddressed. Tell your phone company about bad coverage and they will reply within minutes.
• Visibility
  Due to the fact that re-tweeting is embedded in the Twitter culture you often find that even new accounts can get traction and visibility to their tweets early on and without many followers. For example, you may only have five followers but if one of those five has 100,000 followers and re-tweets your content you have an audience of 100,005.
• Broad user base
  Twitter is used by people of all ages and categories and as such it is quite easy to tap into at least some people who are interested in your niche.
• B2B is strong
  A lot of users comment that the main advantage of using Twitter is interacting with other people in your industry. It can be a great way to tee up new relationships or partnership.

The main disadvantages of Twitter:

Interestingly, the main advantages of Twitter also sometimes become the main disadvantages. For example:

• Public re-tweets
  If you write something slanderous or offensive in the heat of battle and it gets re-tweeted that message is out to thousands of people before you know what to do. People have been sued for libel.
• Public shaming
  If you run a company that has poor tech-support you can expect people to be vocal on Twitter – especially if you want to have a Twitter account for the company itself. If you want to do business on Twitter you need to address the good and the bad.
• Bot accounts and faking
  Quite a few people have noted in recent months that Twitter is being overrun with fake accounts, bots and spam. This means that those 20,000 followers that you have might actually only be a few thousand “real” people. Some studies have even shown that over 50% of people with accounts don’t use them.
• A lot of noise
  Stats can be deceiving. Many users have noted that Twitter seems to be very active but it’s often just people up on a soapbox and not interacting in a meaningful way.

How should you use it?

Twitter has become the “go-to” social network for many businesses and groups of people from around the world. It is such a fast paced medium which lends itself really well to news items as well as complaints or tech-support. Use Twitter to grow your authority in your topic by promoting other people’s content – this will, in turn, lead to you being promoted as an authority. Follow relevant people in your niche and talk to them. Reply to Tweets, especially negative ones.

YouTube

Description of YouTube:

Not everyone would consider YouTube a social networking site but it serves the same purposes, especially for people looking to build a new audience or drive traffic towards a website. With over 4 billion views a day, people upload videos of different kinds, subscribe to channels and share on other social networks.

The main features of YouTube:

The main things that you need to know about what you can do on YouTube include:

• Upload videos
  Obviously the main purpose of YouTube is to upload video content in order to grow an audience.
• Subscribe to channels
  Subscribe to other people’s channels in order to make contacts and keep up to date with people who might be interesting to your business.
• Comment on videos
  The main social activity of YouTube is to comment on various videos. Be warned, there is a huge amount of spam.
• Embed videos
  Once you have uploaded a video (or found one you like) you can then embed that video on your website or blog in order to provide a variety of content to your readers. This makes it a good hosting option.
• Promote your videos
  YouTube gives you many ways to promote your content. For example, you can do paid promotion through Google’s Adwords program or you can use your other videos to show new content that you’ve posted.

The main advantages of YouTube

There are a lot of really good things about this site, especially for people who have interesting ideas that may not always be well communicated with the written word.

• Huge traffic
  As mentioned, YouTube gets 4 billion views a day. There is a large and very global user base to tap into which is very important if your product is digital or shippable.
• Very sticky
  Sticky is a term web marketers use to describe sites where people click around and spend a lot of time. People don’t just watch one video – they look at the channel, view related videos and spend a lot of time down the rabbit hole.
• High quality content
  Videos give you an opportunity to create very high quality content on a network where people can help you do the marketing. As Pat Flynn always says, be everywhere.
• Relationship developing
  If you do “talking head” videos you have an opportunity to create a deeper relationship and more trust with your readers or customers. People love to know the person behind the brand.

The main disadvantages of YouTube

Here we go with the bad stuff, again:

• A lot of spam
  I am always really surprised at how much spam gets onto YouTube considering it is owned by Google. The comments on some popular videos are just full of link based advertising.
• Faceless negativity
  For some reason YouTube seems to attract a lot of faceless negativity. People will leave horrible and hurtful comments on wide range of video niches. These do get voted down by the community but continue to appear.
• A lot of noise
  Again, YouTube is extremely popular so it is difficult to cut through the noise and get your message out there. It is, as always, good to have an email list that you can promote new videos to and get help with the content spreading.
• A strange “featured content” system
  Popular YouTube users like Phillip DeFranco have noted that the new system of selected featured and popular content makes it very difficult for non-established users to hit the front page. This, again, can make it hard to cut through.

How should you use it?

I recommend only using YouTube if you have money to invest in quality content. Whether that is a charasmatic staff member (or actor) who can do educational videos or by paying a company to create animated or instructional videos that might help position you as an authority. Simple works best. You’ll get more traction on a quality “How to Make a Cake” video than you will on something complicated with a narrow appeal. Learn from the top subscribed accounts.

Bookmarking sites (Reddit, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.)

Description of the bookmarking sites

This part was a little difficult for me because I couldn’t decide whether to write about them individually or lump them into one group. When I really thought about it, however, I realized that the functionality, features and benefits of these sites is so similar that I may as well just put them together (although Reddit and imgur has the coolest users!). Essentially these sites let you create an account, bookmark content (photos, movies, articles, gifs, etc.) that you like and then vote on content that other people have uploaded.

Each of these sites does have a slightly different emphasis/interest so it is a good idea to examine them for yourself and see if it matches with your industry.

The main users of these sites

Regardless of what the stats say, the main active users of these sites are young people and technology professionals. Some sites (like StumbleUpon) that lend themselves to photos have a heavy photographer user base.

The main features of bookmarking sites

Let’s take a look at some of the common features that you’ll find on almost all of these sites:

• Profile creation
  Obviously you need a profile to be able to bookmark content and some people grow these over time such that they can send large amounts of traffic to whatever they post.
• Bookmarking
  The main thing you then do is find content on other sites and bookmark it to your profile in the appropriate category.
• Upvoting/downvoting
  If you like a bookmark that someone else has posted you give it an upvote (or a thumbs up, like, etc.) and if you don’t like it you downvote it (or bury, etc.).
• Community participation
  I became addicted to Reddit and imgur for a very long time because the communities there are made up of a lot of helpful, caring and very honest people. These two sites in particular are known for having a zero-tolerance policy against hateful or sexist users and often go out of their way to help people having a hard time.
• Niche sections
  These sites are usually broken up into lots of different sub-niches or categories where industry specialists hang out. For example, Reddit has thousands of sub-Reddits that are all individually moderated and based around one topic only.
• Following
  Of course, you can follow users that you think are interesting or match up with your interests. Some of these sites allow for one on one communication via private messages.
• Toolbars
  Some of these sites (StumbleUpon mainly) let you install a browser toolbar that allows you to “stumble” content that you like without having to log into the actual site. This is a very good feature for repeat use.

The main advantages of bookmarking sites

Let’s have a real quick look at the main benefits of these particular quasi-social networking sites:

• Trend discovery
  Reddit calls itself the “homepage of the internet” and in a way they are right. A lot of internet trends are pioneered on these sites. You’d be surprised at how many massive trends I see today that were “in” jokes on imgur a year ago.
• Traffic boost
  If you get your content bookmarked by a “power user” you will often find that you get a huge boost in traffic for the day as people browse the hot topics or homepages. Sites like Digg and Delicious used to crash servers.
• Content research
  Often you’ll get some really good ideas about the type of news/content/information that is popular with people that are doing the sharing. This can provide you with a plan for future videos, posts, articles, etc.
• Brand creation
  There have been some amazing brands come out of bookmarking sites. People who create different content with a clever twist have literally spanwed new careers. My favorite is a guy called Shitty Watercolour from Reddit. He would literally paint people’s comments.

The main disadvantages of social bookmarking sites

Oh, you bet there are some of these! Let’s take a look:

• Addictive traps
  Seriously, if you aren’t good at moderating your internet time you will spend hours and hours trawling through the daily updates to these sites. After a while, the going ons seem super important and you lose sight of what is going on in the world.
• Not a lot of interaction
  Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part your time spent on these sites is better spent on places with higher conversion rates. You might bookmark 200 articles before you find your account getting any sway or sending your business any traffic.
• Death by cool kids
  One of the sad facts about developing a profile anywhere other than your own blog or website is that after a while these cool sites become uncool and everyone leaves. It happened to MySpace and it happened to Digg. There’s an interesting (but old) read about Digg’s top user. Is it worth the risk?
• Big traffic but low conversions
  I’ve had days where StumbleUpon has sent over 15,000 unique visitors but only one or two new subscribers. Again, there are exceptions to this rule but has been noted by many people.

How should you use them?

In moderation! In all seriousness, there are so many of these sites that if you want to use one it’s a good idea to spend time browsing them and finding one that has a category or section that is useful to either eventually promote your niche or connect with some big players in your niche. Most of the people who use them do so socially and you’ll find that the leap from bookmarking site to sale is difficult but they can be useful for driving traffic and perhaps building back links. The best bet is to maintain an account and develop it as part of an overarching strategy involving other social networks.

Instagram

A description of Instagram

Instagram is a mobile-based app that let’s you take photos of things and then add a “filter” on top which converts the photo into an old-school style. You follow people and synch the app with Twitter and Facebook so that your new photos get shared over there as well. It gained massive popularity (especially with hipsters) and was bought by Facebook for a tiny $1 billion.

A photo event held on Instagram featuring the most beautiful libraries in the world.

The main users of Instagram

Although Instagram is pushing 100 million users it seems as though the main influencers are celebrities and the younger generations. It very much survives on a “cool” vibe and does well at festivals and big events as well as offices and workplaces that want to create a more in-touch vibe.

So how should you use Instagram?

Instagram seems to be a very cool medium for generating buzz around an event. For example, I’ve seen contests where the best Instagram of a music concert wins a prize. As the photos get shared on other social media sites it can be a good opportunity to get your physical location or product shared around in a well photographed manner.

What do I do now?

If you’ve read through the above descriptions, stats and articles you are probably more confused than ever. That’s good! That means you’re thinking about your strategy. And that means you will be less likely to “fiddle” around on social media without a clear set of goals or outcomes.

So what do you do now?

• Analyze the competition
  Take a look at what the competitors in your niche are doing. Are they doing it well? Could they improve something?
• Figure out your targets
  Sit down with your office (or office cat) and figure out what outcomes you want to target and what groups of people you think will help you reach those targets. Remember, social networking is often about a soft-sell that drives traffic, builds links and develops authority.
• Decide on your messaging
  Everything you do online affects your brand. Make sure your social networking is all “on message” in that it enhances your brand and makes you more visible, shareable and approachable.
• Research the sites
  Spend some time reading about the different sites and seeing which fit with your niche and user base.
• Jump in and test
  At some point you need to jump in and start testing for yourself. Give yourself 30 minutes or an hour every day to read, plan and interact on social networks. If you can do more or afford to pay someone else to do it that’s even better.

Of course, there will be frustrations and set backs but all this stuff has become so entrenched in modern-day business that there really is no escaping it.

What the heck have I missed?

This post is over 6,500 words long but it really is only a short summary of what’s out there. I’ve missed so much information deliberately and accidentally – I’ve even left out some major social networks (cough, Linkedin).

There are some amazing social media giants lurking in the Tyrant Troops ranks so please leave a comment with any tips that you might have. If your tips are good I’ll add them to the post.

I’d also really appreciate a share if you enjoyed the post.

When people start a blog they often think that things will take off as soon as the first post is published. Traffic will flow in, readers will give you their email address and your fame and wealth with blossom and flourish.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.

When you start a blog you need to do a lot of work away from the actual writing of posts. In fact, the writing is really only a fraction of what you need to succeed.

Weird, huh?

In this post I’m going to try and help you with a few things that you should do as soon as you start a blog. They might make all the difference.

Oh, and there’s a bit of news in number 14.

1. Make sure you’re on the right platform

This one might hurt a little bit if you have just set yourself up on Tumblr or Blogger but the fact of the matter remains that if you want to take your blogging seriously you probably should own your website. When you use Tumblr or Blogger or one of those other free platforms you actually don’t totally own and control the asset that you are building.

And that is a real worry.

I have always recommended that my reader use a self-hosted WordPress set up. This is an incredibly powerful blogging platform where you own the server that hosts the files as well as the domain name and blog. And the great news is that with platforms like BlueHost you can set the whole thing up in around five or ten minutes. I’ve done a post on why I recommend BlueHost as well as a tutorial on how to set up a blog.

2. Make sure you’ve found a distinctive angle

One of the most important things you can do for your entire career is find a way to be distinctive. Without this you will just become another one of the millions of boring blogs that are created every single day.

Being distinctive basically means that you have found a way to be remembered. As I’ve said before, you don’t necessarily need to be unique and original but you do need to find a way to present your stuff differently.

Take Mayi Carles as an example. There are probably tens of thousands of handmade, craft blogs out there but her’s is so distinct that you would never forget it. She has her own style, flavor, graphics and way of presenting ideas. She even writes her “and” as a “+” so you generally recognize something she has written!

If your blog currently doesn’t seem all that different to the others out there I encourage you to think long and hard about your brand and how you can make it stand out from the rest. Find that unique angle.

3. Set up Aweber to manage your email subscribers

If your goal is to make money as a blogger you will undoubtedly want to grow your mailing list. It is the mailing list that lets you do things like:

• Promote your posts
  When you write a new post you can email your subscribers and let them know it’s gone live. Those fans then share and Tweet your work and help you get the word out.
• Promote new products
  If you launch a new paid product or eBook you have a list of relevant and interested potential customers to promote to. This takes out a lot of promotional work that other companies have to do.
• Increase reader feedback and depth
  By emailing readers away from the blog you can increase the sense of loyalty that they feel towards your blog. This allows you to get new feedback as well as increase the depth that they will travel into your blog to find old articles or new information.

The sad thing is that a lot of new bloggers just use Feedburner as a poor substitute for this. As much as I love Feedburner as a service for managing RSS feeds, it is by no means comprehensive enough to mange your email subscribers.

For example, with Aweber you can do things like split test emails, set up multiple and separate lists, create sidebar and pop up opt-in forms without any coding, measure the conversion rate of individual forms, etc. This is stuff you just can’t do on Feedburner.

A screen shot of the Aweber optin form builder where you can design forms without code.

The other scary thing is that Google look like they are geared up to close down Feedburner forever which could be disasterous if you have been storing your subscribers in there and no where else. Now is the time to make the move if you haven’t already.

4. Clean up your textual layout

Your content is the most important part of your site. Not your photos. Not your graphics. Not your email subscriber form. All of that comes second to your content.

It is, therefore, extremely interesting to see how often people work on their blog design in every other area while leaving the textual part looking drab and hard to read. It’s a real shame. People are there to read – not look at your social media graphics or header images!

The first thing you need to do here is get a good font mixture for your header and body text. As a general rule your header should be sans serif if your content is serif or visa versa. (Tweet this)

Usually people choose Georgia for a serif font and Arial or Verdana for a sans serif font. These are considered “safe” as they are used commonly and people are used to reading them.

Brian Gardner wrote a really simple but intersting post on “sexy fonts” which talks about a great font size and spacing and how it can make a huge difference to how people interact with a site (unfortunately the site he was talking about has now changed their font).

It’s 16px and if you still think that is too big for a font size you could have a read of this extremely popular but controversial post.

5. Make sure you know your brand

Your brand is not just your logo. It’s not just your name. It’s not your website as a whole either.

I always find it quite interesting to see what people think their brand really is. Most of the time it’s a confused idea about a name and a tagline – after that everything sort of just gets tacked on in the hope that it will fit.

David Ogilvy defined a brand as:

“The intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it’s advertised.”

It’s a much more comprehensive idea about what you are communicating, not just what you look like. You need to know how your logo, tagline, site design, colors, Tweets, posts, advertising and all that stuff fit together to either enhance or detract from your brand. You need to make sure that everything is on message.

So if you have just started a blog (especially if you’ve done it on a whim) it’s a good idea to take some time and think about what you want your brand to be. Ask yourself questions like:

This can help you give you some direction and focus so that you are certain about the type of site that you want to create and the message that you want to give to people when they meet you. And remember, the individual behind that site plays a big role in the brand.

6. Set up Google Authorship

Google+ has been dubbed the “Facebook killer” by many fans. Quite rightly so, I might add.

In case you aren’t across it yet, it is basically Google’s social network on steroids. It seems to me that Google was so worried about Facebook’s dominance that they decided to create a social site that was totally integrated with all their other services. Google Maps, Google Places, YouTube and even email – it’s all now being pushed as a Google+ integration.

And it’s even more important for bloggers because it has re-shaped SEO forever.

Now people who run blogs can set up Google Authorship which is where you get your tiny little profile photo to appear next to your site’s results in Google search. Not only does this increase click through rate due to being more eye-catching, the very act of verifying your Authorship is seeming to boost people’s rankings.

I’ve done a tutorial on how to set up Google Authorship that includes a quick little video to hopefully make the process a bit easier. I highly encourage you to get on this one right away.

7. Tactically read other blogs in your niche

If you’ve been reading Blog Tyrant for a while you’ll probably be familiar with the famous Why You Shouldn’t Read Blogs post. This is the article where I told all of my blog readers why they should stop reading. It was an interesting exercise!

I sometimes wish I hadn’t written that post because it gets misinterpreted so often (probably due to bad authorship!) and people go away thinking that they should stop reading altogether.

That was not my intention.

In fact, I think it is really important to read blogs when the time is right. And one of the most important times that you can be reading and absorbing is when you are brand new to the game. It is, however, very important to do this tactically and with some method in mind. For example, read blogs in order to:

• Find out what competitors are doing
  Healthy research into your competitors is a very wise thing to do. All businesses do this. I would encourage you to think of them as “future friends” but you do need to have an idea about what they are up to.
• Find out how similar blogs made it big
  One of the most important things to do is read other big blogs in your niche and find out what it was that made them so successful. Was it a serious of posts? Was it a particular type of feature that they have? Was it a collaboration with another blog? Read up and see what they did well.
• Find out how they are failing
  The last interesting bit of reading/research you can do is to see where you think they might be going wrong with their approach. This is the most interesting part of the exercise because it gives you a lot of ideas for posts/products that you can launch on your own blog.

Again, my point is not to stop you from reading altogether – just to stop you wasting time reading when you don’t really need to.

8. Generate some good comment karma

When you first start out it is really difficult to get a lot of comments. In fact, that is one of the biggest complaints that I hear about – no one is commenting.

Well, I think the best place to start in this regard is to generate some good comment karma for yourself. Make a list of all the big blogs in your niche and then go and read and comment on their latest articles. If there aren’t any new articles to comment on then head over to their Facebook Pages or Google+ Profiles and interact that way.

I am also a firm believer in doing this for the smaller blogs that don’t already get a lot of comments. Those small bloggers might one day be the big guys and if you were around helping them out and leaving comments in the beginning you will be remembered. People like Marcus, Liz, Jen, Chris, Rachelle, Diggy, Scott, Cristina and Lisa did that for me. There are a LOT more of those original Tyrant Troops but I couldn’t mention everyone!

There are plenty of people out there who go around to 20 blogs everyday and leave comments like “Nice article.” That is not what we want. If you have a look at some of Marcus’ comments here on Blog Tyrant you will see that some of them are as long as the post itself! While you don’t have to go to those same lengths I can assure you that it made an impression on me and I will support Marcus in his online ventures if he ever asks.

9. Create evergreen articles of at least 3,000 words that solve problems

Evergreen content is content written in such a way that it will remain relevant forever. It is usually aimed at beginner topics.

This type of content does extremely well (if written properly) because it appeals to a large number of people and the type of people it appeals to are usually keen to learn more, subscribe to a list or buy a product.

The problem is that most bloggers forget about evergreen content and write about super-advanced issues or issues that are so personal to the blogger that no one can relate. Rather, what should be happeneing, is that bloggers are using personal experience to make wide-reaching topics more human. Not the other way around.

Let me say that again.

Not cool: Articles about your own life that don’t have relevance to anyone else.
Cool: Articles about everyday topics that are infused with your own life experiences.

The difficult task with evergreen content is find topics that are singular but not so singular that you run out of anything unique to say. And it is quite important to approach that topic in a unique way. The information itself doesn’t have to be unique (e.g. how many new ways are there really to shuffle cards?) but the personality that you inject into the article and the way you approach it must be.

3,000 words might seem like an arbritrary number to a lot of people reading this but I have found that you need around that amount to make a real impact on people. Of course you don’t want to ramble on just to meet a word count but you should think about trying to make the article as complete as possible without totally exhausting it.

I often find myself sharing Gregory Ciotti’s articles out of respect for the time and effort even if the topic isn’t a major interest to me.

10. Tweak your opt-in form placement and design for conversions

If you are using a free theme or a paid theme that is sold en-masse you might want to take a look at how your email forms are setup from both a positioning point of view and a design points of view. Often these themes go for the “good looking” solution instead of the one that converts.

Even a few pixels of bad placement can mean hundreds and thousands of subscribers lost.

The first thing you need to know here is that your blog has “hot spots” where a reader’s eye will naturally fall. These hot spots need to be taken advantage of. The main ones are:

• Above the fold
  This is the area of the screen that you see when you first load the site and haven’t scrolled yet.
• The top right of your sidebar
  If your sidebar is on the right the top part is usually a hot area. This is often thought to be a relic of the days where the mouse didn’t have a scroller and people had to position the cursor on the top right to grab the scroll bar with your left finger.

Of course there are a lot of other places to take advantage of like whatever area you call the popup and after each post when people are looking for something to do.

In terms of tweaking the design you need to think about colors, styles, fonts and font sizes. But we’ll get to that in the next part.

11. Create a split test

A split test is the only way to know whether your opt-in forms are performing as well as they could be. Have a look at how well it worked for Obama.

The idea is to create two different forms and then use Aweber’s technology to see which one performs best. It will show one form to 50% of readers and the other to the other 50% and then give you vital stats about which one gets you the most subscribers.

Once you get used to the idea you can split test variations of certain parts of your form. For example, I am currently split testing the sidebar form here on Blog Tyrant to see whether different button color and text makes a difference to sign up rates.

So far I have found that the words “SIGN UP” in all caps doesn’t seem to be too popular compared to almost any other variation.

I would never have been able to figure that out if I didn’t do a split test!

The above video is something I made quite a while ago to show you how to set up a split test with Aweber. Again, this is a major reason to switch to Aweber or at least make sure you are using a plugin like OptinSkin.

12. Set up a Gravatar

Ever wondered how people get their photo next to the comments down below? Well, it’s called a Gravatar and it takes literally two or three minutes to set up.

A screen shot of Pat Flynn’s Gravatar. Notice the consistent branding everywhere?

This particular service is great because it links your photo to your email address so anytime you leave a comment with that email you get your photo appearing right next to it.

Surprise, surprise! I’ve written a post on how to set up a gravatar and how to make sure you get the most out of it. Some of them are absolutely dreadful!

13. Know the power of the WordPress behind you

WordPress is much more than a blogging platform. It can be used to transform ordinary sites into e-commerce megastores or magazine style blogging themes. In fact, if you know the right coder you can make your WordPress site do practically anything.

But many bloggers don’t realize the power that lies beneath their simple template design.

I guess the best place to start is to emphasize that the right plugins can completeley transform how your blog functions on both a cosmetic level and an inner (invisible) level.

For example, on a cosmetic level you might use plugins to make your comments stand out or to add a new function to your sidebar. On an inner level you might use a powerful SEO plugin like Yoast in order to change the way Google looks at your blog and hopefully increase your rankings.

So how do you know what WordPress can do? Well, you need to read about it and play with it. Just like the best pilots know how to break down and reassemble their aircraft in order to know its limits, we need to know how WordPress functions and what we can do with it.

14. Create a goal-orientated content strategy

This is one of the most important things you can do when you start a new blog. So important, in fact, that I have written a complete guide to this that will be coming out soon. For that reason I’m not going to go over it all here.

What I will say, however, is that your content is not about getting traffic. It’s not about getting subscribers, even. You need to have a goal for your content that will eventally make you some money. Once you have that you can begin to craft a plan that will help you create content in a way that takes you closer and closer to that goal.

If you are struggling with this and want to know more make sure you subscribe to my list as I’ll be announcing something very soon that will hopefully change the way you think about writing content forever.

15. Begin researching the costs associated with hiring staff

Bloggers hate the idea of having staff. It’s very strange. Every other “real world” business has staff in order to help the main players focus on the main issues but bloggers want to avoid this at all cost.

It’s a big mistake.

Now I’m not saying that you need to hire full time workers that you pay insurance and superannuation to, but I do think it is a good idea if you can start outsourcing some of the more time consuming tasks to competent workers from around the world.

In my blogging business I’ve found that a lot of time gets wasted on “day to day” tasks that I really need to do but really don’t have time for. I’m best at working on business development and writing sexy new content. So it seems like a smart idea to get someone to help me with all the small stuff so that my time is opened up.

I highly recommend everyone head on over to Freelancer.com (aff) and have a look at how it works. Here is a rough overview:

• Set up a listing
  You set up listings based on individual jobs (like a WordPress design, image creation, etc.) and people then bid on those jobs.
• Browse the bids
  You then browse the bids and take note of the worker’s history, success rate, location, timezone, etc.
• Select a worker
  You then select a worker and they pay a 10% security deposit. This feature is unique to Freelancer.com and helps to make sure you get the work done on time.
• Manage and wait
  You then manage the worker through and problems or questions they have and then wait for the job to be completed. All communication must be done on site so that there is a record in case someone wants to make a complaint.
• Pay the worker
  Once the job is completed you release the funds to the worker and leave them a feedback score.

Once you have found a good worker you can send them an invite to any new jobs that you post. In this way you can create a very longterm and trusting relationship with a worker who gets all those little annoying things done.

It is tempting to think that, as a new blogger, you can’t really afford to hire anyone yet. I understand. But it is also good to shift your perspective a little bit and think about how much money you can save/make if you stopped working on all the little maintenance taks and started focusing on writing, sharing and creating stuff that people love.

16. Ensure your branding is consistent across all platforms

If you’ve just set up your blog and social networking profiles it is a good idea to make sure they all match your main branding.

A screen shot of the image used on my Google+ Profile. It’s absolutely enormous, right?

For example, Google+ now gives you this bloody giant header photo to crown your beautiful profile page. A lot of people use this to show something beautiful or fun but it is a good idea to use it to solidify and promote your brand.

The main reason for this is that you want people to recognize you and your stuff whenever they see it. As soon as my ugly mug pops up sitting on that couch in the woods I kind of hope that people know it is a Blog Tyrant area and some long, drivelly content is on it’s way!

17. Make plans for expansion into video

Do you know how many page views YouTube got today? Roughly four billion. Yes… billion.

Video is bigger than ever and it is only getting bigger. There are now more smartphones on Earth than tootbrushes (how good are my facts?!) and as such we’re finding that people are accessing video easier than ever before.

People like Pat Flynn have done extremely well by making the foray into video early on in their career. I started getting into it a few years ago (only recently on Blog Tyrant) on some of my other blogs and noticed some distinct advantages like more interaction, huge streams of new traffic, etc.

There are roughly four types of video that you can make. Here are some examples:

The first is the usual talking head video where you are speaking to a camera. You can do this with a webcam and a computer mic but if you want the sound and video quality to be professional you’ll need to spend a little bit of money. I’m using a Canon Rebel T2i SLR and a RODE Cold Shoe mic for that video although I’m not overly impressed with the mic sound yet.

The second type of video is called a screen capture and this is where you record the computer screen as you see it while you speak into a mic and give directions or a commentary. This is really only good for people who have blogs where computer-based tutorials are relevant. I used BSR Screen Recorder for this one but have also had good experiences with Camtasia.

The third type of video that you can make is a fully animated presentation. Unless you are a digital animator these will be expensive to make but are extremely good for launching products or explaining a service.

The fourth type of video is one where you produce or act in a movie/short film/TV show style presentation. Some YouTube channels have done extremely well with this format – many of them landing more “maintstream” gigs after reaching some internet fame.

Again, you need to make sure that these videos fit in with your content strategy that we talked about above. The goal is to find new readers/subscribers/customers – not just get random traffic.

18. Research guest posting gigs that make a difference

New bloggers tend to think that you need to write all of your content for your own site. This is a huge mistake. Blogs grow by getting content on other sites. That’s how you find new people!

With that in mind it is good to realize that finding the right guest posting gigs can be a real art form and takes a lot of research. For example, some of the things you’ll want to look out for include:

• Comment counts on regular posts
  How many comments do they get on their regular posts? Is it alive and active?
• Comment counts on guest posts
  Do the accept guest posts regularly and are they received well by the readers? Some readers really hate guest posts.
• Subscriber numbers
  How many subscribers will your article go out to? Are the active?
• Social media numbers
  Do they get a good amount of Tweets and Facebook likes? Again, how many people will see it?
• SEO value
  This is a post in itself but basically you want to know how much benefit this post will do for your own rankings and target keywords.

One of the most important factors, howevever, is how much input and future help you might be able to get from that site’s owner. These relationships are extrmely important to build and that leads us nicely on to the next point.

19. Make contact with influencers

Put simply, eveything that I have been able to achieve with this site has been thanks to the kindness of my readers and the other bloggers that have helped me out.

That’s it.

If you don’t make friends (and I mean genuinely) with the other guys and girls that are making progress around you then there is a good chance you won’t get anywhere. On a very basic level these people often have huge social media followings and a Tweet or shout out from them can put new life into your site. On a deeper level, these people have been in your shoes and thus can offer a lot of help if you ever need it (and they like you!).

As a new blogger it is important to start slowly. Go to their blog and share some of their main content. Link to it on your blog and talk about it on Twitter. That will get some attention. After that you can start chatting on Twitter and eventually move to email.

I know it’s harsh but please don’t email right away asking for huge promotional favors. As much as I’d love to help everyone out I only just met you and love my readers too much to send out content from a stranger.

20. Subscribe to the tops blogs (for funnel’s sake)

The other day I subscribed to Nerd Fitness after following the site for a very long time. For some reason I didn’t want to sign up to another mailing list and as such I just occasionally visited when I had time to read the geeky brilliance.

But once I signed up I was glad I did because the way Steve does the process is different to me and gave me some really good ideas. And it reminded me of the good old days where I’d sign up to blogs that excited me and learn from the way they did things. It was a great education!

If you find a blog that makes you think “Oh I wish I thought of that!” it’s a good idea to subscribe and follow them for a while to see if you can pick up any tips or hints. I am absolutely not suggesting that you copy them – you’re just looking for inspiration or a bit of guidance.

21. Think about a better permalink and page title structure

These two things can make a big difference to your SEO rankings as well as the readability of your post titles in search engines. If your not sure what they are I’ll give a quick explanation.

• Permalink structure
  The permalink structure is the shape that your URL takes on single posts and pages. For example, my URL at the top of this page has the root domain (http://blogtyrant.com) and then the post title after it (/21-critical-tasks-etc.). Sometimes I just use a key phrase in place of the post title so that it is really short. Some people add the date and the category too (http://blogtyrant.com/2013-07/blogging/21-critical-etc).
• Page title
  This is the title structure that is shown in the top information bar or tab. You’ll see on this page it just shows the post title. Some bloggers like to have Post Title | Blog Name or something like that. I’ve chosen to display post titles only single posts and a Blog Name | Description structure on my homepage.

I’ve chosen to use the post name for my default permalink structure. You can change yours by going to SETTINGS > PERMALINKS.

WARNING: CHANGING THIS WILL RUIN YOUR OLD URLS!

Please read this post to see what will happen if you’ve already written and published posts and then decide to change permalink style. If you’ve got some good links to those posts you might have to just do your URLs manually as you write each post.

To change your title structure you’ll need to tweak a bit of code so follow this tutorial. If you’re not sure about it just leave it alone for now – it can wait.

22. Use a keyword tool to research your topics and titles (reader submitted)

Yesterday I went on Facebook and asked people to answer the question, “What was the biggest change to your blog/blogging that you wish you had made earlier?“.

There were some phenomenally good answers but I said I would only pick one and that was submitted by Kevin Grunert. And yes, I promise it is only a coincidence that he is from my home state. I’ve never met him!

Kevin said:

“The biggest change for me has been to perform keyword research about the amount of traffic for any given keyword before beginning a blog, and using that keyword research to assist with creating SEO friendly titles for my content.”

This is a really good lesson to learn early on because even a simple change of tense or root keyword in your URL and title can make a huge difference to your traffic and rankings. For example, the title How to Bake a Pie might get thousands less searches than How to Cook a Pie.

Market Samurai is still, in my opinion, the best tool for people to use to do their keyword research in order find out competition, traffic and back link profiles. I’m happy to write a tutorial about it if enough people are interested.

How many have I missed?

This article is over 5,000 words long but without a doubt is missing some valuable points. I’d like to open up the comments now for the Tyrant Troops to answer the following question:

What was the most important change you made to your blog that you wish you had done earlier?

Feel free to discuss anything you want but I’m particularly interested in what answers you guys have to that cracker.

With an anxious stomach I dusted off the suitcase at the top of the cupboard. Throwing in socks, shirts and jumpers I packed lightly and then halved it. Tomorrow I’d be gone from here.

After a restless sleep I woke up before the alarm – way too early. But I was awake so decided to double check everything. It felt like I had forgotten something, but you always feel like that.

Three hours later I’d cleared customs and made my way to the brand new Airbus A330-300 seat.

Four or five on-demand movies later I was in India – bound for the fresh air and pine forests of the chilly Himalayas.

Ten days with no email, phone calls or websites.

Constantly plugged in but tuning out

When you’ve spent as much time as I have at home working for yourself you start to notice a few personal trends.

You’re always working because no one else can take care of it.

Stress arises in disproportionate waves when even the most minor of hiccups occur.

You put things like friends, exercise and healthy food down the bottom of the list.

But most worrying (for me) is the fact that you’re always plugged in. You can’t go five minutes without checking social media on your phone or reading the news. There’s a constant need for instant gratification that makes you anxious, dependent and murders your creativity and energy levels.

The more time you spend plugged in the more you tune out to actual human events and emotions. It becomes very hard to enjoy the simple things in life and, as all the wise people say, they are the things that bring the most happiness.

So I went to India for ten days and didn’t check my emails once.

A battery re-charge out of my comfort zone.

Why I went to India for 10 days

To be perfectly honest the trip wasn’t all about escaping and re-charging. A dear friend wanted to visit and I had always promised that I’d show them around as I’ve been there so many times before.

But every time I go there the effects are similar:

• A new perspective
  When you spend a lot of time indoors you lose perspective. Internet memes and events seem to become really important. Time away helps you reset or gain a new perspective and outlook.
• A battery re-charge
  As I said before, going overseas can really re-charge your energy levels and help you get out of a self-created rut. Meeting new people, seeing new things and developing new ideas in a foreign place.
• A new commitment to help others
  When you go to a place like India where there is extreme suffering at every corner you find that compassion and a wish to make a difference arises naturally. This can have a flow on effect to all areas of your life and make your work a lot more meaningful.

And although I find myself tired and sick now that I’m home I also feel renewed, alive and ready to put more of myself into my work and, most importantly, my much-loved readers. I’ve got so many ideas that I’ve had on the back burner that I now feel ready to put out into the world.

A man sleeping in Sarnath – the place where the Buddha first accepted a request to teach.

Could you go offline?

Going offline is one of the best things you can do for your online career. - Tweet this.

It can, however, be a really hard thing to do. We spend so much time setting ourselves up as internet business people and every part of our life is, in some way, tied up with what we do on the computer/phone/tablet.

But it is worth it.

I want to challenge all of the Tyrant Troops to think back to the last time you logged off and left it all behind for a period of time. How long ago was that? How long did it last? What effect did it have on you?

Lastly, if you haven’t spent time offline in a while I’d like to know whether you reckon you could manage it. Is it something that you think would benefit you? Is it something you could afford/have the time to do?

Please leave a comment and let me know.

This is where Google displays a little photo of your handsome mug next to any results that you have authored (I’ll show you how to set this up down below).

Here’s a screenshot of how one of mine looks:

Some of the benefits of this are obvious:

• Higher CTR
  Results with a photo are going to get a higher click through rate than those without. Unless, of course, you have a really ugly mug!
• Increased exposure
  An important part of a successful brand is making sure that your “image” appears in as many places as possible. This is great exposure for you and your brand.
• Increased trust and authority
  Results with Google Authorship look a lot more trustworthy than those without. It makes the result seem more official. This is particularly important for brands that are trying to sell a product.

But the less obvious benefit that many people are reporting is that they are ranking much higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions) since they set up Google+ and added Google Authorship to their blog (you need both for the latter to work).

And while this might seem like an awesome thing it does worry me a little bit.

Here’s why.

Why Google+ worries me

Let me start by saying that Google+ is completely essential for anyone wanting to succeed online.

It is no longer an “optional” social network. Brian Clark, of course, has been saying this for a while.

Why?

Because it is so intimately linked to search results and, over time, it will become integrated with every other Google service such that if you ignore it you will be left behind in more areas than just rankings.

And that is precisely why I am worried about it.

You see, I love Google. Incidentally, I also really love Google+.

Without Google probably half of the people reading this article would never have encountered my site.

Without Google I wouldn’t be able to make a regular income from affiliates and blogging.

Without Google… you get the idea.

But as blogger I am inherently wary of Google. Call it a healthy mistrust. I think anyone who makes money on the internet should have it.

And the reason is that we become too dependent on Google. And with Google+ being integrated into hundreds of millions of smart phones, local search results, videos, emails, etc. the reliance is going to get even heavier.

Don’t get me wrong here – it’s not that I don’t trust Google with my information. I do. I am a paranoid person by nature but I don’t think Google is some big giant corporation trying to gather data on us all so that we can be enslaved into some mindless zombie-race.

As far as corporations go I think Google is very honest.

But it’s still not a smart business decision to rely on them too heavily.

Two cautionary tales of Google reliance

If you’ve been reading Blog Tyrant for a while (nice work!) you’ve probably heard my story about getting de-indexed from Google’s results with one of my early blogs.

The first story

In case you haven’t, the story is pretty simple. I built up a fitness blog with quality, original content and then started making regular income from Adsense on the site. One day I woke up and with no warning found that my site had been de-indexed from Google and my revenue had completely dried up. The traffic was gone.

I was in trouble. But I was also an idiot.

I don’t know whether someone reported me for a made up offence or whether it was just a glitch in their update but Google tooketh awayeth as fast as they had giveth. I was relying on their organic search traffic almost 100% and when it went away so did my income.

Of course I still wanted to date Google (badly!) but I promised that we’d never be exclusive again. I needed to start seeing other people.

And then Google+ and Google Authorship came along.

The second story

I set up my G+ account and then added Google Authorship to my blog so that my photo would appear in the search results (I’ll show you how to do that later).

Everything was going swimmingly – one post in particular was performing quite well with the new photo and I was getting a little bit of extra affiliate income each week.

But then I noticed the photo disappeared.

And then came back again.

And then disappeared again.

And I wasn’t the only one who was experiencing the issue.

Guess what? When the photo was gone that affiliate income dropped in line with click throughs. Once again I found myself relying on Google traffic for an income source instead of building up my own self-reliant asset.

It happened to a lot of “real” businesses after the Panda update too.

What should I be doing instead?

As I said, there is nothing wrong with Google traffic.

There is nothing wrong with getting a crap-tonne of it either.

The problem is when you rely too heavily on it and my worry is that Google+ is making us all so integrated and dependent on Google services that a lot of bloggers, website owners, etc. will find it hard to live without them.

Here are some steps I think we should all be taking:

• Keep going with Google+ and SEO
  Don’t interpret this post as me telling you to run for the hills and leave Google behind. That’s crazy talk! Keep learning and growing on Google+ and with your SEO strategies.
• Keep writing solid content with a strategy
  Now, more than ever, you need to focus on writing solid content that has a strategy behind it. A lot of bloggers have problems with that strategy which is something I’m going to help you with very soon.
• Really focus on the email list
  Make sure you are using AWeber or MailChimp to grow a mail list that is engaged, involved and, most importantly, yours. These amazing people are your primary and your back up plans.
• Diversify your traffic sources
  I would say that you want to have greater than 50% of your traffic coming from non-Google sources. That means guest posts, sites that link to your wicked content, forum discussions that you participate in, legitimate advertising methods, etc. The more organic, non-search referrals the better.
• Diversify your content styles
  One of the best ways to get diverse traffic is to use different methods of content. Instead of just pumping out blog posts consider things like infographics, photos, tools, eBooks, podcasts, videos, tutorials, etc. These will attract different types of links to your site. All this quality content will also help keep you in good stead with Google.

If you are clever and plan your time well you will be able to get across all of these things without too much trouble.

How to set up Google Authorship and get your photo in search results

There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to set up Google Authorship but I thought I’d run over it in this post quickly to save you looking around. I’ve done a video version and a written out version below.

To get your face in the Google search results you need:

1. A Google+ account
2. A snippet of code added to your blog/posts that you author.
3. A link on your Google+ profile back to that blog/those posts.

So you start by getting a Google+ account if you haven’t done so already. Just go here to get started and make sure you think carefully about which email/Google Account that you use as it will be connected to your emails, YouTube Channel, analytics, etc.

Once you’ve done that go to your blog and open up the code for your About page. You need to add a special link back to your Google+ profile from your About page. Actually, it’s just a regular link but with a special element.

The link should look like this:

It is really important that you include the re=”author” part of the code as that is what tells Google that you are the author of that content.

Once you’ve done that, head back to your Google+ account and go the the Profile section.

Click Edit Profile and go to the About tab.

Scroll down until you find the Other Profiles are and then Add a Custom Link back to the page where you just added the special author link.

That’s it! After a few days or weeks you should start to see your face appearing in the search results. You can check my Profile to see what it should look like.

If you’ve authored articles in many places you can repeat the process and add links back to the other sites under Contributor To.

Are you worried about Google+?

Have you set up Google Authorship for your blog? Are you seeing any interesting results? I’d really like to hear from anyone who has an interesting experience in this area. I’d especially like to hear from you if you’re worried about Google+ for some reason and whether or not you’re resisting signing up.

You see, the moment after a person subscribes to your mailing list is a very important one.

One might even say it is a very intimate, romantic moment.

This person has found your blog, enjoyed your content and is now ready to take the relationship to the next level by giving out their email address.

So what do you do with it?

Here are some ideas.

Start by setting up an automatic Follow Up email response

Everything that you need to do (based on this beauty of an article) can be done through Aweber and their Follow Up functionality. I’m sure there are other ways to do it but I’m yet to find anything as affordable and simple.

What is a Follow Up email?
This is, simply put, a way you can automate the process whereby you send out a “welcome to the list” email immediately when someone signs up to get blog updates or your free eBook. Once you have set it up you can leave it alone and it will work without any input on your part.

I made a tutorial about how to set this up for the free eBook delivery but the process is identical for any Follow Up email so check out the video below if you’re keen to see how easy it is.

This automatic follow up email (or welcome email) is a very important step in the process. It is here that you can help to set the expectations that the new subscriber has about what content they are going to receive and how often.

Remember, failing to set expectations can often lead to a high unsubscribe rate when you send out emails because people wonder why the heck they are receiving your stuff.

8 things to do in your Follow Up immediately after someone subscribes

So what should you include in this welcome email in order to ensure you get the most from this transaction?

Try to include:

1. A personal message
   Write this email the most personal tone you can muster. You want to be developing the relationship – not just going through formalities. Try to remember that the person who just subscribed might have only read one of your articles and as such not really know your style or tone that well. By adding a personal feel to the message you can reduce a lot of stress.
2. A big ol’ thank you
   Don’t forget to thank the person for subscribing. By joining your mailing list they are playing a vital role in the development of your blog and business. I have had quite a few people mention to me that they like the idea of my free eBook being pitched as a “thank you gift” for signing up to my list. It made them feel less used.
3. A link to download the eBook from your site (not the email)
   If you are sending them a free eBook you want to make sure you include a link to a page on your blog where they can get their download as opposed to just sending them the eBook as an attachment. By doing this you are sending the new subscriber back to your blog as opposed to just hoping they’ll visit again.
4. Some old (but sexy) content
   The next thing you want to do is show them your oldest, newest, sexiest posts that they might have missed. Remember, readers don’t enter your blog just through the homepage – they come from all over the place. I actually use the eBook download page mentioned above to direct them to my favorite posts. Just add a “Now What?” paragraph and they might go exploring. I also do this after people leave a comment.
5. A place to share their concerns
   My buddy Derek ‘do what I tell you’ Halpern once mentioned that he uses his first Follow Up email to ask his subscribers where they are having the most troubles. This is a great idea because it gives him a free and very direct source of ideas for his blog. He simply answers the questions and solves the problems that people email him about! Give them an email address to contact you at or a social networking site where you are active an available.
6. Directions to your internet properties
   The next thing you want to do is make sure they know what else you have out there on the interwebs. For example, I am emphasizing Google+ a lot these days and so try to make sure people know where my profile is an how they can interact with me. You might prefer to link to your Twitter or Facebook pages depending on your goals and desired outcomes.
7. Explanations of how your content is delivered
   This is a really important one because, as I mentioned above, people need to know what to expect when they sign up for your blog. Surprises might be nice in some scenarios but when it comes to handing out your email address you really don’t want any. Start by telling them how often you plan on contacting them and perhaps let them know that another email might arrive really soon if they’ve signed up close to a publish day.
8. And then leave them alone
   The last thing I want to mention is that it is really important to leave them alone for a while. Don’t send them a sequence of Follow Up emails that go out every two days for weeks unless that is what they signed up for. Let the dust settle. In the younger days of Blog Tyrant I had a seven-part series that I sent out and it caused a lot more unsubscribes than I would have liked.

It’s quite important to make these Follow Up emails short, sharp and shiny so don’t feel like you need to cram everything into a giant 2,000 word email. Perhaps the best plan is to keep the email itself short and then send people off to a custom designed page if they want more information.

Wait… isn’t something missing here?

If you’re smart (and I know you are!) you will have noticed that there is a piece of the puzzle missing here: what if they don’t open the Follow Up email?

Well, then you’ve got a problem.

A really crucial part of capturing email subscribers is making sure that when they subscribe they are doing it for the right reasons. Make sure you read that carefully. You actually don’t want email subscribers unless they are targeted towards your goals and outcomes.

A screenshot of my first Follow Up open rate.

The above is a screen shot of my open rate for my first Follow Up email. Not perfect but not too bad. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be coming out with something that really gets into the nuts and bolts of not only how you get more email subscribers, but how you get the right ones. This is a topic that a lot of bloggers really need to know about. Make sure you subscribe if you want to be a part of this.

What is your experience?

I’ll be honest and confess that I haven’t subscribed to the email list of every Tyrant Troop so I don’t really know how yours are set up and what you do for your readers. I do know that a lot of you have really great open rates and as such might have a few lessons. Drop a comment if you’ve got an interesting success or failure in this area and we can (as usual) all chat about it and make suggestions.

It’s rumored that sites like Google+ and Tumblr and Pinterest have made it too hard to build an active, on-site community.

While I do agree with some of that theory I also think it’s only part of the story.

Many of us do still get a lot of comments.

Because I often get asked about my own bulging comment counts I decided to make a little video talking about what I do to encourage regular ranting (you know who you are!).

Ironically, I’d like you to leave a comment telling me whether you have trouble getting comments on your blog and what strategies you’ve tried.

Three strategies I use to get more comments

These three strategies are things I’ve talked about before but as they form a really important part of my own strategy I wanted to consolidate them in a short video. Check it out below and make sure you subscribe to my channel if you’d like to see more videos. These things take two hours to upload!

Some of the things I talk about include:

• Whether or not you should close comments after 30 days
• Why naming your community can help
• The impact of “the journey” on your community
• What Steve Kamb from Nerd Fitness told me about his blog comments
• An embarrassing blooper -as promised (sorry Steve!)

The ideas in the video are by no means the only things that you can do but I do feel like they form an important “base” for us to grow from.

If there’s enough interest (and people struggling to get comments!) then maybe we can go a little deeper and look at things like site layout, motivating copy, timing, etc. Here’s an example of the more advanced things we can explore.

Are you struggling?

Leave a comment and let me know whether you are struggling with this issue. What strategies have you tried? What has worked and what has failed? I’ll be really interested to hear what the more techno savvy Troops think about the issue of social networks killing comments too.

After thinking about it for a few seconds she settled on “Yes” – it seemed like a lot of money for a two year old blog so I should probably sell up.

She’s right, half a million dollars does seem like a lot of money when you have the whole lot in your bank account at one time (minus the sales taxes, etc.). But when you look at it from a longer perspective it might actually be a really bad idea.

The conversation got me thinking about how much my blog was really worth. It also got me thinking about how much I’d actually sell it for (if anything).

In this article I want to go over:

• How much your blog is worth to a potential buyer
• How much your blog is worth to you and your business
• Why you should think twice (or thrice) about selling your blog
• What you need to do if you decide to sell

As you know, I’ve sold blogs before and have a little bit of experience in the area. I’ve also got a few regrets that I’ll tell you about.

I also really want to know whether you’d sell your blog for $100,000.

How much is your blog worth to a buyer?

Let’s start this post by looking at how much you could sell your blog for. Now, it’s important to note that we’re talking about how much it is worth to a buyer not how much it is worth to you and your business. We’ll go over that later.

Actually, calculating what your blog would sell for is pretty simple:

Multiply whatever your blog makes in a month by 12 and you have your sale price. Sometimes you will get a bit less, sometimes a bit more. Occasionally you hear about someone reaching 24 months but, by and large, that is the equation that buyers use when purchasing blogs as investments.

Just a few years ago you’d find there was a lot more room to move. Every now and then you’d find buyers who really wanted to get hold of your domain name or eliminate some competition and thus you’d get a better price. But these days that is pretty rare.

In my experience, blog and site buyers almost never look at:

• A blog’s “potential”
  Often when you are looking at sites and blogs for sale on Flippa you’ll see the seller talk about the potential that it has and how it is really underdeveloped.
• Mistakes you’ve made
  Again, people often talk about errors they made in monetizing their blogs and why the buyer would be able to increase the income significantly.
• Blogs without income/traffic history
  If you are trying to sell your blog with only a few months traffic and income history you are going to find a lot of anxious people unwilling to part with their cash. Google updates happen so frequently and organicly monetized sites are risky.

Usually the people who are buying sites work for larger companies and they have very strict guidelines about what type of data they are looking for in a purchase. Rarely will you find a blogging or online marketing visionary willing to build a site up. They want a functioning business.

How much is your blog worth to you and your business?

Now, let’s say you were offered $100,000 for your blog. Would you take it?

Well, the first thing you have to think about is how much your blog currently makes for you and/or your business and how much it will make over the next two or three years. Unless you have some other sites in the pipeline you are going to need at least that long to get set up again.

Remember, a blog’s value is much more than how much it is presently making in dollar terms. It seems a little crazy to “value” a business for more that it actually makes but you have to think about all of the functions that it serves:

• A blog is a self-marketing device
  A blog is like a store that also owns the TV channel it advertises on. Even though your blog might not make any money at present you are building an asset that can one day promote your money-making material.
• A blog creates trust
  If you have a blog attached to a store or an online product you can use that blog to increase trust so that people are more likely to buy your material. This is very hard to quantify in dollar terms.
• A blog creates opportunities
  If Blog Tyrant suddenly started making zero dollars I would still keep it as it has opened doors like writing for ViperChill and developing relationships with big brand names. Darren Rowse has often said that while ProBlogger doesn’t make him rich it does give him a huge reputation.

While your blog might not actually directly make you a huge amount of cash every month, it might act as the “funnel” for other sales or activities. It might increase Google rankings for other money-making pages, drive traffic to future opportunities or act as a means of collecting email subscribers so you can launch big things.

Would you still sell for $100k?

Why you should think twice about selling your blog

If you are still on the “Yep, I’m selling!” side of the argument I’d like to raise a few more points for you to consider.

• Blogging is not as easy as it was
  When I look back to the time of my first big blog I realize that I had it so easy. Things were a lot simpler back then and if I’d stuck at it I wonder whether the profits would have been even greater.
• It takes time to build back up
  If you want to sell your blog to get a bit of cash you need to determine how long that cash needs to last before you have a new profitable site to replace the old one. Building quality blogs takes time.
• You can’t just write a blog in the same niche
  Often when you sell a blog you sign a contract that forbids you from starting a new blog in the same niche. It’s called an anti-competiton clause and essentially means that you better be good at something else because you might not be able to keep doing the same thing.

Still ready to sell up?

What to do if you decide to sell

If you can determine how much your blog is worth and do decide to sell then there are some things that you need to do. I really wish someone had told me about all this before I sold one or two of my blogs.

• Have restrictions on future use
  One of the reasons I don’t like to disclose which blogs I’ve sold (other than the privacy agreements) is because the new owners have taken the blogs in a direction that really upsets me. Simply put – one or two of them look like hell! If you are going to sell you should find out if the buyer is happy to agree to not do X, Y and Z in the future.
• Have something else ready
  Don’t sell up unless you already have other projects ticking over. Now I’m not talking about things at the idea stage, I’m talking about blogs or websites that are already alive and cooking. The sale can wait but you might not be able to eat if one of those other projects doesn’t eventuate quick enough.
• Understand what goes
  In my youthful naivity I probably didn’t realize that I’d lose all the brand ownership, all the say over the content quality, all the email subscribers, everything. Make sure you know that it’s all going.
• Stay on board
  If it’s possble you might want to ask if you can stay on board for six or 12 months as a writer or contact so as to make sure they take the blog in a direction that you are happy with. This leads me into my next point.
• Make sure you can live without the readers
  One of the main reasons I don’t think I could ever sell Blog Tyrant is because I love the readers too much. The Tyrant Troops have, over the last two years, provided me with so much support, laughs and practical knowledge – I can’t image letting that go. You might know what your blog is worth financially but can you put a price on those friendships and relationships?

If you do get the opportunity to sell your site it can be a really exciting time. By no means am I saying you should pull out, I just want to point out that your blog’s value and worth can be calculated in a variety of different ways.

You might just find that it’s worth more than you think.

What would you do?

I’d be really interested to know what you think your blog is worth. What would be your “too good to pass up” sale price? Leave a comment and let me know.

But I have to be honest and say that it’s not all sleep-ins and midday movies. Sure there are perks but you’ll also notice a few downsides.

The problem with working from home is…

This guy always wants to play. He’ll hide in buckets and attack me or even bring his little bell into the room and drop it right by my feet.

The sad part? I can’t seem to resist. A fleeting moment of weakness on my part can lead to half an hour of playing with the cat.

If I manage to resist he just sits in weird positions and stares at me mentally reciting, “Whoodja good boy den?” hoping I’ll hear his thoughts.

At least that’s what I imagine he’s doing.

God help me if I ever have kids.

When you work at home there is always something that needs doing. There are always heaps of dishes or cleaning (even if there isn’t) and you’ll likely find that your husband or wife will sometimes inadvertently give you all of chores just because you’re the one at home all day.

Right?

When you really need to get down to work you’ll often find your mind just manages to remember a bill that needs paying or a doormat that needs to be banged out on a tree before it gets too dusty.

Remember when I told you that you shouldn’t read blogs because you probably should just be working on your material instead? Yeah, well, books are no different.

It’s amazing how many times I’ll quickly look up a reference only to find I’m negotiating with myself for just a few more minutes research time.

I’ll just pop down to the shop and get myself a Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee. That’ll wake me up so that I can work more efficiently.

Oh, I may as well watch some news on the TV while I drink it. That way I won’t feel like going on Reddit or reading news blogs.

Idiot.

What! The world is ending on the 21st of December?

There is a zombie apocalypse taking place in Miami?

I’d better research as much as I possibly can because it will decrease my latent anxiety and genuinely help me survive if these things actually take place.

IDIOT!

I deserve to go to the beach today. I worked really hard this week.

This beach has actually been voted the most beautiful in the world and is a short drive from my house. Productivity died there.

Distractions and over-rewarding

You see the main problem with working from home is that it is really easy to get distracted when you aren’t stressed out of your mind trying to deal with everything that a self-employed person has to deal with.

Putting it off is just so easy. You have a small success and you think you can take some time off.

What you really need to do is find strategies for overcoming all of these little distractions. Sometimes they will be mental strategies and other times they will be physical things outside yourself.

That’s where you guys come in…

What do you do?

I’d really love to know how you manage to waste time on your work day. The stranger the better. And, I suppose, we should probably hear from those disciplined and successful folk among us who have figured out strategies to overcome their inner and outer distractions.

Drop a comment and let us know.

These are questions that almost every blogger will ask themselves at some point in their career. From the moment we get the itch and purchase our first WordPress blog host we are dying to make it big – or at least make some pocket money.

Well, one of the best ways to avoid pitfalls on the path is to study the history of those that came before you. And, funnily enough, it’s also a really good way to come up with new and profitable ideas. Remember the motto no ideas original?

In this post I want to show you some of the most controversial, interesting and inspirational events that have happened to people making money with blogs.

By looking back at these provocative histories I’m hoping we can avoid mistakes and come up with ideas that will help us in our time, with our journey.

Let’s dive in!

The problem with history

Have you ever heard anyone say that history is written by the victors?

It’s kind of true but what I really think is that history is can’t ever be that accurate because you are reading about it through the eyes of a person or people who have opinions.

And it’s also impossible to include everything while framing the event in the context of the time in which it happened.

So, with that little warning I’d like to make sure you realize that this post will never be complete. It’s more of a selection of the blogging events that I think we can learn from or that inspired/interested me while I was around.

Who’d really want to read the whole history anyway?

The history of making money with blogs

As usual I would love your help with this. The Blog Tyrant comments are often a lot more informative than the stuff I write in the post so make sure you include any other significant events or lessons if you think I’ve missed something.

And if I’ve made any errors on dates or timing please forgive me. It was actually quite hard to go back and figure out exactly when things happened. Add that to the fact that I still think the 90′s were 10 years ago and perhaps I’m not the best historian!

Here we go!

2002 – Dooce got fired for blogging about her work

Photo: Armstrong Media

As you probably know by now, I am a really big fan of Heather Armstrong. She is possibly the most famous female blogger in the world and it all started when she got fired from her job for writing about it on her personal blog.

This was a pretty monumental event and I actually think it was the birth of the “mommy blogger” (sorry to my readers who hate that term). She has an incredible ability to get her thoughts into typed words and has a massive and quite loyal group of readers who love her rants and her dog photos.

Heather serves as a wonderful example of how stay at home moms can make money using blogs. Because of her lead we now have a bunch of great female bloggers that might otherwise have not thought to put their wisdom and grace online.

2003 – WordPress started

Although the first versions of WordPress were nothing like the current ones, this event is probably the most important for the history of professional blogging.

It is by far the world’s most popular self-hosted blogging platform and is totally open-source having been downloaded over 65 million times.

It spawned the massive free and premium plugin and theme markets and revolutionized the way we go about building an income earning blog by giving us more flexibility and control over the way the site looks and functions.

2004 onwards – Free blogging platforms shifted towards self-hosted blogs

When I was first getting interested in the net there was Angelfire and a few other free website builders. But they weren’t really blogs. After a while we got introduced to Blogger and the other free platforms. Google even bought Blogger when it saw how fast the platform was taking off.

Finally, though, Google began to favor self-hosted blogs and websites as being more trustworthy and as such the trend moved away from the free hosted platforms.

The really important lesson here is that people began to realize the importance of totally owning the asset that they were building. This is something that we’d all do well to remember since the advent of Facebook and other places we put content that we don’t own or control.

2004 – Darren Rowse created ProBlogger

The influence of Darren Rowse can’t really be understated in the history of professional blogging. He is the ProBlogger after all!

Most importantly, however, Darren has from the very beginning advocated a very clean and value-based form of blogging. He never wrote about shady methods and always focused on developing lots of really useful content.

I think we, as bloggers, need to pay homage to that. There is hardly a blog out there that hasn’t been influenced by Darren and his work and I think that probably means there is a lot better content out there then there could have been if a different blogger had filled that space instead.

2004 to 2008 – Adsense was the main form of blog monetization

When I first started (and probably still, for some people) Adsense was the main way that people were making money with their blogs – especially when Google got good at matching ads to blog content.

My first big blog sale was pretty much based around Adsense revenue. It wasn’t enormous but it was very helpful for a Uni student.

After a while people started to realize that it was not a perfect model. As I wrote about in a controversial post, it seems a little bit wasteful to send a reader away from your site in exchange for a $0.10 – $2.00 click. Why not get them signed up to a mailing list and promote affiliates or future products?

2005 – Text link ads and paid posts took over

Around this time most bloggers were making money with ways that probably look insanely dangerous to bloggers these days.

Sites offering paid reviews and paid text links were hugely popular. You would sign up for an account, get your blog submitted and then accept offers for paid posts that included in-text links or sidebar text links that paid you on a monthly basis.

What this meant was that people started to create “fake” blog networks with high page rank (you needed usually a PR4 to get accepted) and then just do paid posts on them.

Google is still responding to this SEO strategy. Penguin and Panda updates have been particularly rough on bad text links with spammy anchor text. These days you wouldn’t want to put any links to other sites in your sidebar for fear of looking like you were paid to do it.

NOTE: Some of these “paid links” sites seem to be a bit more SEO friendly nowadays according to some bloggers but I personally wouldn’t risk it.

2006 – Shoemoney posted his Adsense photo

Photo: Jeremy Schoemaker

There was a time when Shoemoney was the go-to-blog for anyone wanting to make money online. Although Jeremy is still doing very well for himself, it seems as though his blog has sort of declined in popularity a bit if the comment numbers are a good indicator.

But it used to be a bustling metropolis – and it all started (I think) because of the photo of him holding an Adsense check for over $100,000. That one photo turned him into an overnight blogging celebrity.

Jeremy’s posts were characterized by really clever ideas and doing things that sort of pushed the boundaries. I was always really curious to see what fascinating tactics he would write about next. It was the perfect example of a quality content blog and an authority statement.

2006 – Blog carnivals and forum posting were big SEO favorites

One of the ways I built up my first blogs was by participating in Blog Carnivals. They were absolutely huge at the time and people would host these events where you’d submit a link and get it included in some person’s blog post about the related topic.

People still do this but it is not really a big a strategy as it used to be now that Google’s algorithm is a bit less forgiving. They are simply getting too good at sniffing out “unearned” links and it just isn’t worth the trouble.

These carnivals played a big part in the development of the way we do guest posts now. It’s not quite the same but I do think people wanted to continue with the underlying tradition of the carnivals. Nowadays people do them a bit differently like Pat Flynn’s reader challenges.

2007 – John Chow was banned from Google (and let back in)

John Chow was one of the first bloggers to make money by openly focusing on helping other people make money. But one of the things that actually really helped his career was his ongoing battle with Google.

It’s difficult to know the exact truth of the matter (because Google is quite private about their policies) but it seems as though John was de-indexed from the search results for running a competition that essentially asked people to link back to his blog. Google basically likened it to paying for links and kicked him off.

But it made him stronger. Word spread that he’d been banned and it caused a big influx of readers looking to learn from the guy who was making a fortune without any Google rankings at all. At the time it was really exciting.

Later on John met with someone from Google and managed to get himself re-indexed after explaining that he was all above board. All in all this guy has changed blogging by being pretty open about how he was making money and letting others learn from his example.

His “Google dramas”, to me, also pointed out how we must never rely on any one source of traffic for our own success. It’s just too risky.

2007 – Zen Habits was born and so was guest posting

Can you imagine a blogging world without Zen Habits and Leo Babauta? Well, as hard as it is to believe he wasn’t always there.

In fact, I remember being an avid blog reader in early college and seeing this unknown guy called Leo appearing on almost every blog you can think of. Back then his site was pretty ugly (sorry Leo!) and the whole thing was very unprofessional.

But his content was remarkable. And people knew it.

As far as I can remember he was the first blogger to go on a guest posting campaign that made his career skyrocket in a matter of months. He went from nobody to thousands and thousands of subscribers in record time and clued everyone into the idea of guest posting for growth. Since then he’s been in Time magazine and created one of the most popular blogs in the world.

As a side note, Leo gave me a month of free adverting on Zen Habits for one of my original blogs which helped me start my own career. So, Leo’s history is also quite linked to mine.

2007 – Twitter and Facebook started to take off

It’s hard to believe but there was a time when blogging existed without the major social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. They really are only recent additions to the whole online marketing puzzle.

Back in the day there were sites like Reddit, Digg and a lot of other bookmarking sites like Netscape which served as the place for bloggers to share and find content. But other than them and the good old forums there was really no centralized social networking hubs.

This totally changed blogging because it created a whole new method of promotion (and distraction!) for bloggers to explore. It even created pro-bloggers who just used them without the traditional blog.

2008 – Brian Gardner created the premium WordPress theme market

Brian Gardner is another blogger that you could probably ring up and ask him to help you move you house. He’s a really friendly guy and insanely talented when it comes to WordPress themes.

In 2008 he started Studiopress themes which are now a big part of Copyblogger Media. This marked a really big point in blogging history; showing people that they could take control of their blog design and giving developers a new market to tap in to. WordPress themes and theme design are now a huge industry.

Although I don’t use Genesis/Studiopress themes (yet!) they are extremely high quality and well worth a look.

2009 – Johns Wu sold his blog for $14.9 million

As Aaron Wall mentions in his interview, it took Johns Wu just three years to build and sell Bankaholic.com for almost $15 million.

Oh yeah, he was only 22.

This was a hugely exciting and inspirational story at the time as it signalled (for me anyway) the moment when traditional big business started to realize that blogging was a viable and upcoming way to make money. It also showed us how powerful one or two good rankings on Google really could be.

Well done Johns.

2009 – James Chartrand became a woman

One of the all time greatest reveals in the history of blogging. Better than mine even!

James Chartrand was another prolific guest poster and had made quite a name for himself. Then one day we were hit with a post on Copyblogger called Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s UnderPants and we found out that he was actually a she.

Great promotion, yes, but kind of sad when she explained the rationale: she hadn’t been getting a fair deal as a copywriter with female name. Once the male pen-name was introduced the earnings started to increase.

NOTE: Getting a guest post on Men with Pens is the hardest guest post you’ll ever land. Isn’t it, James?

2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, etc. – Blogging died

Every few years some bright spark would declare that blogging, as a medium for us to make money, was dead. And every year people like Brian Clark or Sonia Simone would write articles saying, “… guess I’ll give it all back, then.”

One of the really interesting things about blogging is that is has been a consistently reliable source of traffic, readers and, yes, income. The people who have focused on building a readership through the development of quality content have weathered all the trendy storms.

I am quite sure that someone will soon enough declare blogging to be dead, again. But I am betting that their declaration will be wrong – unless some scary SOPA-style statute gets in and makes it all too hard.

One thing we do have to look out for, however, is the changing mediums. The method of delivery is changing to mobile very rapidly and that might present some challenges/opportunities.

2010 – Dosh Dosh disappeared

Maki, the guy who wrote Dosh Dosh, famously took a leave of absence around this time and never came back. This was a hugely sad and strange development for his fans because it was one of the most unique and actionable blogs out there.

Considering he had over 50,000 subscribers when he vanished it still strikes some people as odd the way it went down. There are some articles that have a go at explaining his disappearance but, for me, this will always be a huge event in the professional blogging niche because Maki was one of those guys who would change things for the better. I can’t help but wonder where he would have taken it by now.

This was a really interesting lesson in terms of how supportive a bloggers readers can be. There were scores of people asking where he went and begging him to come back. Content creation at its absolute best.

2012 – Google opened a scary zoo of black and white animals

Two of the most recently significant events for professional bloggers was the massive changes to SEO that were brought about by the Penguin and Panda updates. So dramatic were these rollouts that some blogs and web businesses found themselves struggling to make any money at all.

The two updates focused on mainly the issues of bad social and link signals and as such they seemed to favor large and popular websites. For example, if your back link profile had too many links from ordinary blogs you might have got penalized.

What this meant was that the entire SEO industry has essentially been turned into a premium content creation one. As has happened so many times before, the lesson that came out of the Google updates was that you need to focus on quality content and an email list or suffer the consequences.

2012 – Digg died (or choked a little bit)

Digg really was a bit of a King Maker when it came to helping blogs reach new heights. Sites like Boing Boing, TechCrunch, Huffington Post and even our mates Darren Rowse and Leo Babauta would spend days on the front page and receive tens of thousands of visitors.

But since Twitter and Facebook came around it seems as though Digg has fallen off the edge a little bit. After being valued at $175 million it recently sold for just a few hundred thousand. It just doesn’t seem relevant anymore.

Again, this is a huge lesson for the egg basket. Meaning that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in a basket that you don’t own. Sites that people thought were too big to fail (like MySpace) always seem to fail eventually.

2012 – Brian Clark won the internet

Okay so maybe this is a little bit sensational but he’s getting kind of close.

Just a few years ago (or so it seems!) Copyblogger was just a regular blog with a mailing list and some brilliant content. But each year Brian and his awesome team developed new software and ideas and integrated them to the blog. This year the “blog home page” style design took a backseat to the slick new interface that promotes their products first and blog second.

When I saw the design I instantly thought that this is where a lot of us will end up going (like when Darren shifted to a “portal” blog theme). Brian, again, showed us the way forward as the blogosphere morphs and changes.

Lessons learned from the history of making money online

As I said at the start, this post was not intended to be a complete history of blogging as a whole. It wasn’t even intended to be a complete history of blogs that make money. Rather, I wanted to show you some of the events that I remember or remember reading about that had a big impact on my own path.

Some of the main lessons I think we can take away from these events are:

• Crisis breeds opportunity
  Both Dooce and Pat Flynn started their blogs because their work situation took a turn for the worse. John Chow succeeded without Google rankings. They are now absolutely smashing it online after landing on their feet and making something happen for themselves. Don’t let crisis get you down.
• You gotta love it
  Darren and Leo are perfect examples of guys who have made it because they love the work and throw themselves into it with as much effort as possible. If you don’t love your blog or your topic you really need to consider changing.
• You gotta own it
  Google is constantly changing their algorithm. If you rely too much on them for your traffic you could get stuck. The same has happened for people who have spend a lot of time growing Facebook Pages only to find that you now have to pay to increase your reach. Own your asset. Focus on email subscribers.
• Persistence produces ideas
  One of the things I’ve noticed is that sticking at it for a long time often causes “break throughs” where you find a gap in the market that needs filling. Look at Brian Gardner’s premium themes or Johns Wu’s bank site.
• Quality trumps gimmicks
  The guys and girls who have been developing distinct brands with quality content and a kind motivation seem to have weathered all the storms and changes in the blogging world. Forget promotional gimmicks and just work on a blog the helps people.

Learning from the past will hopefully mean that we all have a bright future as bloggers. But the best place to get an insight into where blogging is probably headed is in Glen’s incredible post on the future of blogging. It’s long and it’s detailed but it is full of knowledge that we all should pay attention to.

What have I missed?

So Tyrant Troops, what have I missed? There are undoubtedly a lot of other big events or trends that have made a huge difference to professional blogging. Please leave your usual amazing comments if you can think of anything special.