1. Create a landing page.

You should already have a landing page if you have followed the advice in my previous article and validated your idea.

Here’s what you need on a landing page:

• A description of your upcoming product.

• An opt-in incentive (free chapter, video series, etc.)

• A call to action that asks people to subscribe to your e-mail list.

Another way to go about this would be to make a really impressive freebie and then create a landing page all about that freebie (as opposed to a landing page which is all about the upcoming product).

2. Build an e-mail list.

The reason why most product launches fall flat is because people build a product,but don’t think the selling part through, and then just come out of nowhere and basically say to people “Yo, here’s my product, buy it!”.  Its much, much more effective to build an e-mail list PRIOR to launching the product. This way, at the day of the launch you can shoot an e-mail to hundreds or even thousands of people who have expressed an interest in your product before. How do you build an e-mail list like that?

The process itself is pretty straightforward:

• Guest post on popular blogs in your niche. 

• Drive the traffic from your guest posts to your landing page.

• Convert these new visitors into e-mail subscribers.

• Put those e-mail subscribers through your autoresponder sequence.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this process: it might be simple, but it’s not easy. Building a profitable e-mail list takes a lot of time, efforts, and persistence. It’s worth it, though, because the difference between launching a product when you have no e-mail list and launching a product when you have 1000 e-mail subscribers is MASSIVE. Don’t skip this step.

Note: You can read more about building a profitable e-mail list here.

3. Launch.

Keep in mind that the most important work is done BEFORE the launch, not during it or after it, therefore make sure that you have an e-mail list of at least 1000 subscribers before you make your product available for sale.

That being said, here are a few tips for your launch:

• Don’t launch a product out of the blue. It’s much better to keep your subscribers in the loop by letting them know about your progress. Tell them that you are planning to launch it next month, in two weeks, next week, etc. This works better than just shooting out e-mail “BOOM, here’s my product, buy it!”.

• Give your subscribers a sneak peak into your upcoming product. People are often cautious about buying things online because they are afraid they’ll end up getting less than they expected. Sending out a free chapter of a preview version or an excerpt of a video reassures your subscribers that your product is worth their money.

• Offer a special deal on the launch day/week. You might make more sales if you offer an “early bird” discount and some bonus (video, e-book, interview, etc.) to people who buy your product at this particular time.

Again, the most important work is done PRIOR to the launch, therefore make sure that you build an e-mail list and provide a lot of free value BEFORE you make your  offer.

4. Set up an “evergreen launch”

Okay, so now that you had a (hopefully) successful launch, how should you proceed with marketing your product so you could make money from it?

Most people set up a sales page and then drive traffic to it via guest posting. This works, but I think you would get a much bigger return on your time and energy investment if you would keep driving people to your landing page, converting them into e-mail subscribers, and putting them through an autoresponder sequence. You will make more sales this way.

The process itself remains pretty much the same:

• Guest post on popular blogs in your niche.

• Drive that traffic to your landing page.

• Convert new visitors into e-mail subscribers.

• Put those e-mail subscribers through your autoresponder sequence.

AND..

• Add e-mails  that present your offer to your autoresponder sequence.

This way, all you have to do is write great guest posts, since the rest of it (pre-selling, offer, follow up, etc.) are automated. It might not seem as exciting as sending people straight to your sales page,but it works much better in the long run.

Again.. Just do it!

I know I’m repeating myself, since I’ve explained this in the previous article, but..

Your first product is very likely to fail. You might do almost everything right, but miss one detail, and it might end up screwing up the whole thing. This is  completely normal. That’s why I suggest you to look at your product as an experiment and an opportunity to learn online marketing (as opposed to something super important  on which your whole life depends).  Don’t stress too much about it: in case your product falls flat, you will at least have gained valuable experience, and that’s the most important thing. It’s better to launch 10  products that fail and make the 11th one a success than to never fail simply because you have never launched anything. Just do it.

1. Pick a problem to solve

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Neil Patel (and yes, I know that I use this excerpt in every other article, but it’s just that good!):

Agota: What are the most important things that people who want to start an online business should be aware of?

Neil: The number one thing that you should be aware of is this:

Don’t create an idea that you just want to create, create a business that solves a unique problem that people are facing right now and they’re willing to pay to solve it.

This is the number one thing that you should be aware of, because if you’re not able to do that, you won’t be able to create a business that’s doing well.

Most people make a mistake of coming up with  a “cool idea” and falling in love with it. The problem here is that customers  don’t pay you for your “cool ideas”, they pay you to solve their problems, therefore if you want to actually make money with your product, look for a problem to solve.  How can you leverage your existing skills in order to provide a solution to a problem that people are experiencing right now?

2. Pick the right format for your product

There are quite a few ways you could go about building your product: you could write an e-book, record an audio book, create a video course, etc. How do you choose the right format for your product?

Here are some things that you should consider:

• How well the format serves the purpose of offering a solution to a particular problem. Different topics require different mediums, for example, text tutorials work well for coding, whereas video tutorials work well for web design topics. Think about it from a customer’s perspective: if you were looking for a product on this particular topic, which format would you prefer, and why?

• How comfortable you are with different formats. You might be really good at writing, but terrible in front of the camera, or vice versa.  It’s important to consider your personal strengths and weaknesses, because if you use a format you are struggling with, the shortcomings of your presentation will overshadow the quality of the information you offer.

• How much time and energy you are willing to invest in this particular product.  You might be able to write a short e-book on the topic in few weeks, meanwhile an in-depth video course might take a  few months to prepare, therefore you should know how much time and energy you are willing to invest in this project. Try to be as realistic as possible, because it’s better to build a small product and sell a few copies, than to try to build a massive product and never finish it.

Keep in mind that choosing a  wrong format for the product might heavily impact sales and customer satisfaction. For example, people who want to learn how to do a backflip are much more likely to buy a video course than an e-book, because the subject can be much better explained in a video guide than in a written tutorial. It’s wise to take some time to consider different options.

3. Validate your idea.

Here’s  a splash of cold harsh reality: no matter what you do, your product might fall flat, and you might end up having wasted a lot of time and energy creating something that nobody wants to buy. Even companies like Microsoft, Google or Apple have released products that flopped. It’s insane to think that you are immune to creating a product that ends up being a total failure. There are some things that you can do in order to minimize that risk, though. Validating your idea is number one of them.

Here’s a simple way to validate your product idea:

1. Create a landing page for your upcoming product. You should describe your upcoming product, offer an opt-in incentive, and ask people who want to be notified when the product comes out to subscribe to your e-mail list. 
   

2. Drive traffic to that landing page via guest posting. Publish 3-5 guest posts on big blogs in relevant niches (add a link to your landing page in your by-line). 
   

3. Evaluate the results: how many people have  subscribed to your e-mail list?  100-200 subscribers indicate that there’s at least some interest in your upcoming product. However, if you only got 5 people to subscribe, that means that there’s probably not enough interest in the product to justify creating it.
   

Most people skip this step, build a product, and then wonder why nobody wants to buy it. Don’t make the same mistake: always validate your ideas before you invest time, energy and money into implementing them.

4. Outline the product

You need to outline your product before you start building it. Otherwise, it might end up being incoherent and hard to follow. Also, having a plan helps you to follow through, because it’s much easier to abandon a project that is not outlined.

Here are a couple of tips for making the outline:

• Imagine yourself in your customer’s shoes. Take some time to understand the perspective of a person who has a problem that your product is aiming to solve. What would be important to you if you would be facing the same challenge?

• Write down all the ideas that you want to share in your product. Spend some time brainstorming. Then, once you have enough ideas, write them all down. Don’t censor yourself, the point is to write down as many things as possible, so you could arrange it later.

• Turn your ideas into a coherent outline.Spend some time playing with the ideas that you have, arranging and rearranging them, until you have an outline that looks like  a logical progression from one thing to another. Again, try to see it from a perspective of a person who has a problem that your product is trying to solve. Would this outline make sense to them?

It might be tempting to get started with product creation straight away, but believe, you’ll be much better off in the long run if you think things through.

5. Create the actual product.

Well, this part is rather straightforward,  isn’t it?

Here are a few tips, though:

• Make time for this project. People often overestimate their ability to follow through with big projects. You have to schedule time for creating your product, otherwise it’s very likely that you will never get around to it, or it will take much longer to complete than you though.

• Don’t mix  creating and editing. The most common reason why people experience creative blocks is that they feel the need to create content and edit that content at the same time. It’s much better to separate the two, because you can either be in one mode or the other, and if you mix them, you end up doing a crappy job at both. It often takes less time to create a lot  of mediocre content and then edit it until it becomes good than to try to create a masterpiece straight away.

• Don’t be a perfectionist. You have to accept that it’s impossible to make a product for which there isn’t any space for improvement. There will be always something that you will want to cut, add, or change. However,you shouldn’t aim to make your product perfect, you should aim to make it good enough, so you could ship it.

Remember, the most important thing is to create something, you can tweak it as you go along.

Just do it (and don’t get your hopes too high)!

I’m not going to sugarcoat the reality: it’s very likely that your first product will fall flat. That’s why I suggest you to look at it as a way to learn more about online business and not as the project of your life. This way, it doesn’t matter if you end up getting 3 sales, what matters is that you will have learned something, and, hopefully, you’ll do better with your next product. Now, g o create something. 

In my opinion the most effective way to do that is creating and selling your own products.

Have you ever  wondered how people who successfully make money online..

•  ..find  good ideas for their products?

• ..build   their products from scratch?

•  ..market their their products?

This is exactly what I’ll be covering this month. Stay tuned!

“Money is in the list, unless your list doesn’t give a shit..” describes the the reality of e-mail marketing much more accurately.

You are not going to make many sales unless your subscribers trust you and care about what you have to say.

How do you get to that point?

Image Source

Trust is what makes or breaks email marketing

E-mail marketing is so effective because it allows you to build relationships with your subscribers and gain their trust by continuously adding value over an extended period of time.

As the greatest investor of all times, Warren Buffet,said:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

You won’t be able to succeed in the long run if you lose the trust of your subscribers. Keep that in mind.

Autoresponder e-mails and broadcast emails

Okay, so now that we got the trust thing out of the way, let’s focus on the logistics.

There are two types of emails that you use when you have an e-mail list:

• Autoresponder sequence. This is a sequence of e-mails that is automatically delivered to every person that subscribers to your list.

• Broadcast e-mails. These are e-mails that are not a part of your autoresponder sequence which you send out once to all the people that are subscribed to your e-mail list at that moment.

In general, it’s best to have an autoresponder sequence with an evergreen content and only use broadcast e-mails to share time-sensitive information with your subscribers.

What should you include in your autoresponder sequence?

A lot of people, especially when they are only starting out, only do broadcast e-mails. The problem with that is that it’s very inefficient, because you keep producing great content, but it’s only available to people who are on the list at the time when you broadcast it, so people who join later don’t see it, which puts a constant  pressure on you to keep producing a lot of content. A much smarter thing to do is to set up a sequence of e-mails that will be delivered automatically to every single person who subscribes to your list. This will take a lot of pressure off your shoulders. What should you include in an autoresponder sequence, though?

Here’s my overly-simplistic explanation:

• A “Welcome!” e-mail. That is an e-mail in which you welcome your new subscriber to your list, reassure them that they will get their freebie, and maybe ask them to introduce themselves as well.
• A freebie sequence. You might remember that in my previous article I’ve suggested to use a offer a freebie that is an e-mail sequence, so this is the next step. You might want to schedule the first e-mail of the freebie sequence straight after the “Welcome!” e-mail.
• A general sequence. This should be e-mails that include content that you know is valuable and interesting to your reader. Think about something that you would publish on your blog, just better (they are your subscribers, after all).

A very good article on this is “7 Simple Steps To Launch A Profitable Newsletter In One Week”, which not only explains how to create a winning autoresponder sequence, but also gives you an Excel spreadsheet that will help you to plan it.

How frequently you should send out e-mails to your subscribers?

Another question that automatically arises is how often you should send e-mails to your subscribers?

The two problems that people encounter when they fail to find a golden middle in their e-mail frequency are these:

• They send out e-mails once in a blue moon, therefore people forget who they are, and unsubscribe.

• They send out e-mails too often, which makes people lose interest in them and stop reading them, or simply annoy people and make them unsubscribe.

Now, I’d love to tell you a particular schedule that works best, but the problem is that it isn’t as simple as that. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who use completely different approaches to that.

You will have to decide what kind of level of engagement you want with your audience and then experiment and tweak your approach until you figure out what works for you.

I’d say when in doubt, send less e-mails.

Actually build relationships with your subscribers

Now, different people do this in different ways, but everyone who is good at e-mail marketing will agree that you have to interact with your subscribers in order to get desired results.

Here are some pointers on how to build relationships with your subscribers:

• Ask them to introduce themselves.. This it not a rocket science, simply ask people to tell you something about themselves, and make it clear that you really want to hear from them. I’ve first seen this type of welcome e-mail on Derek Halpern’s list, but it seems to be getting more and more popular nowadays

• Ask people questions in your e-mails. People will send you feedback anyway (especially haters ), but if you actually ask people  what they think about this or that, they are much more likely to give you valuable feedback.

• Answer e-mails from your subscribers. There’s a varying degree of responsiveness between well known bloggers, but most of them answer to a lot of e-mails that they get, and some even answer to all of them (let’s say Danny Iny’s dedication to answering all e-mails within 24 hours makes me wonder whether he has some sort of secret e-mail superpower that enables him to pull this  off).

These might not seem like hot and  shiny e-mail marketing tactics, but these things are what make the difference between a dead list and a responsive list, and between  no sales and a lot of sales.

Shower your subscribers with all kinds of gifts and valuable content!

 It’s not enough to get someone on your list, you have to keep them, and the more happy you make them the more likely they are to buy something from you and spread the word about how awesome you are.

Ramit Sethi is a very good example of this.

Let’s take a look at some things he sent out to his subscribers so far:

• A bunch of interviews with interesting people + audio recordings + transcripts (I’ve listened to an interview with BJ Fogg several times already and probably keep re-listening  it for a long time).

• Some material from Ramit’s premium course Earn1k. In fact, the reason why I can make a living as a freelance writer now, is Ramit’s free material and excerpts from Earn1k.

• A lot of other valuable stuff that is exclusive to people who are subscribers, such as case studies, word-for-word scripts, a chapter of his NYT best-selling book, etc.

I understand why Ramit gives so much stuff away for free, but sometimes when I see what he sends out something really awesome, my first thought  is “WHY is he giving  away THAT for free???”.

Compare that to people who offer an e-book as an opt-in freebie and then occasionally send out some mediocre quality stuff in order to keep the list warm. Yeah. I know.

Yes, I know that continuously adding value  is  a lot of work, but be sure to keep your subscribers happy if you want to eventually make some sales.

Just so you know…

Okay, now that we’ve discussed how to keep your subscribers happy, let’s talk about how to keep yourself happy. I’m talking about happy as in “not stressed about your e-mail list.” You have a dirty mind, people! Jesus.

The thing is that there are a lot of stupid people in the world who have make themselves feel better by bullying others. You probably have met quite a few in high school. Internet is like a promised land for these idiots: here you can bully people  without any social consequences. The more popular you will get, the more haters you will attract. That’s just how success works.

A lot of people who have their e-mail list feel some sort of “subscriber is always right” style obligation to tolerate bullies and morons.

Newsflash: you don’t have to tolerate bullies and morons, even if they happen to be on your list. They are the  people who will never buy anything, but will give you a lot of headache nevertheless. That’s just  how they roll.

Let’s say you get an e-mail from an idiot telling you “How dare you to try to sell something to me???” when you launch a new product. What do you do? Tell him to unsubscribe. Doesn’t work? Unsubscribe him yourself.

In fact, you should actively encourage people who are not a good fit to unsubscribe.  Think about it like dating (yes, I shamelessly stole this metaphor from Danny Iny): you feel an initial attraction and go to a few dates. You might feel that there is no chemistry and break it off. Or you might like it and keep dating. There’s no obligation from either part to keep dating if they don’t feel that they are a good fit for each other. And there’s certainly no obligation for someone to date a rude bully. That’s the same with people on your e-mail list.

Don’t take your list for granted!

The most important take – away from this article should be that you can’t  take your list for granted. You probably wouldn’t be very keep to do a big favor to someone who only calls you when they need a favor. The same way, it’s plain foolish to expect to make a lot of sales when you only contact your subscribers when you want to sell them something. Invest your time and energy into building relationships with your subscribers and it will pay off nicely in the long run.

Keep your eyes on the prize!

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: building and maintaining a profitable e-mail list is tough. You have to keep adding value to the lives of your subscribers over an extended period of time.  It’s worth it, though: e-mail list is one of the most valuable asset that you can have as an online entrepreneur. Keep your eyes on the prize!

How can you build a profitable list when your potential subscribers are so hesitant?

The mechanics of building an e-mail list

It doesn’t matter whether you have a company website, a blog, or a simple landing page, this is one of the most effective ways to build an e-mail list:

• Guest post on well-known websites in your niche. You have to get your work in front of a big audience in order to grow your list fast. Guest posting is the best way to do that.

• Drive traffic from your guest post to your website. The whole point of guest posting is to get people to visit a site that you want them to visit. This one is easy, since if your guest post was really interesting in valuable, people will want to learn more about you can click on the link in your byline.

• Convert that traffic from random visitors to e-mail subscribers. Once people are on your site, you have to make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe to your e-mail list and give them an incentive to do so, otherwise they’ll leave and never come back.

Repeat this process enough time, and, sooner or later, you will have a profitable e-mail list. I’ve covered guest posting in one of my previous articles, therefore in this article, I’ll focus on the topic of optimizing a website in order to get more e-mail subscribers.

However, before we get into that, I want to address two common mistakes that people who try to build e-mail lists make..

Mistake #1 :Giving away low quality free content

Many people think that their content can be low quality as long as it is free. People should be happy with whatever free stuff you throw their way, right? Wrong. This is a big big mistake that can ruin your business in the long run.

It’s very important to understand this: your free material is a representation of your premium material.

• People will not click through to your website if your guest post is “meh”.

• People will not subscribe to your e-mail list if your free material is “meh”.

• People will not buy anything from you if your subscriber-only content is “meh”.

This is the harsh reality of running an online business: you have to provide a lot of free value before you can expect to make a sale.

You can’t afford to give away low quality material if your goal is to build a profitable e-mail list.

Mistake #2: Trying to get ANY traffic instead of TARGETED traffic

Many people get obsessed with their Google Analytics stats. They try to increase their traffic in whatever way they can: posting on as many blogs as they can, commenting on other websites, buying ads, etc. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but it’s not the amount of traffic you get that counts, it’s the amount of sales you make.

Traffic by itself is largely a vanity metric because not all traffic converts equally well.Imagine that you have a bodybuilding website that sells a program “How to get big biceps”. You can publish a great guest post on a leading health and fitness website for teenage girls, but it’s not going to bring you many subscribers, and it’s most definitely not going to bring you any sales. You might see a small traffic spike, but it’s meaningless, and that guest post is largely a waste of time and energy. Why? Teenage girls don’t want big biceps. This example sounds ridiculous, but many people do this kind of thing, and then wonder why they can’t make any sales. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you will get to your website: if that traffic is a bunch of teenage girls, you are not going to sell any copies of your “How to get big biceps program”, therefore stop obsessing over getting whatever traffic you can possibly get , and start focusing on driving targeted traffic to your website (guys who want bigger biceps).

3 ways to optimize your website for converting random visitors to e-mail subscribers

Okay, so now that we got those two common mistakes sorted out, let’s move to actually converting visitors into subscribers:

1. Make sure you have opt-in forms in all the right places

People often say that building an e-mail list is their priority,yet they only have one barely visible opt-in form on their websites. You are losing potential subscribers everyday if you follow this strategy. Don’t be shy about building your e-mail list!

• Feature box. This is a little box on the top of your homepage like the one you see here on FounderTips. Adding a feature box will dramatically increase your conversion rate. Don’t skip this.

• About page. About page is a one of the most frequently visited pages on a majority of websites. Why not use all that exposure to get more e-mail subscribers?

• Below each blogpost. It’s reasonable to assume that if someone read an entire article, they probably like what they see, and might be interested in some more content like that. This is a really good time to offer someone to subscribe to your e-mail list.

Don’t be afraid to come across as a spammer: majority of your readers won’t be bother by the abundance of opt-in forms on your site as long as you keep creating good content.

2. Offer an opt-in freebie (or maybe not..)

An opt-in freebie is a “bribe”, such as a free e-book, video or audio, that people use to encourage others to subscribe to their e-mail list. This is a rather controversial topic in the online marketing space. Why?

• On one hand, offering a freebie as an opt-in bonus seems to increase your conversion rates, hence the number of subscribers.

• On the other hand, this leads to a lot of people signing up just to get a freebie, which consequently leads to a lot of unsubscribes and a non-responsive list.

I’d say that you should only offer an opt-in freebie if you are confident that your subscribers will find it interesting and valuable.

Keep this in mind: no freebie is better than crappy freebie.

3. Consider creating a landing page

Okay, so here are two terms that you probably know already, but just in case:

• A landing page is a page where a person “lands” after pressing a link and which displays asks people to take certain actions (opt-in, buy a product, etc.).

• A conversion rate is a percentage that shows the how many people who visit your website subscribe to your e-mail list (say, if out of 100 people you got 20 new subscribers, the conversion rate is 20%).

Landing pages, especially well optimized ones, have way higher conversion rates than simple opt-in forms sprinkled over the website, therefore it’s smart to drive traffic from guest posting to your landing page instead of your home page or a blog. What exactly should be on that landing page?

This question is too complicated to give it a fair explanation here (I’ll probably cover copy-writing in April), but here are three main things:

• You must clearly explain to people what personal benefits they will get from subscribing to your e-mail list.

• You must make the process of subscribing to your e-mail list very easy by providing visible opt-in forms throuhgout your landing page.

• You must make a clear call to action and explicitly ask people to subscribe to your e-mail list.

I suggest you to read an article “Landing Pages For Online And Offline Businesses” by Peter Sandee to get a better understanding of this topic (+ the comments below it where Peter gives gives feedback to various people about their landing pages).

Warning: It’s not enough to collect a bunch of e-mail addresses!

I want to make something clear: simply collecting a lot of e-mail addresses is not enough to make a lot of sales.

I’ve already explained in my previous article that people buy things from individuals and companies that they trust. It’s obvious that if someone gave you their e-mail address they trust you to some extent. They probably don’t trust you enough to buy something from you, though, at least not yet. How do you get to that level of trust?

That’s the topic of my upcoming article “How to maintain a profitable e-mail list”. Stay tuned!

What DOESN’T work: selling right off the bat

People rarely buy something from someone right off the bat. They usually read their blog for a while, follow them on Twitter, join their e-mail list, and then, some time later, they decide to make a purchase. In short, people tend to buy things from individuals and companies that they trust, and building that trust takes time.

Nathan Barry illustrates it very well with this analogy:

“Imagine you and I meet for the first time on the street. After a quick introduction I ask,

“Do you by chance work with software?”

“Yes, I’m a developer.” you respond.

“Perfect! I just wrote a book about designing better web applications. Would you like to buy it?”

How many copies do you think I could sell this way?”

Nathan points out that this scenario seems completely ridiculous when described as an in-person encounter, but many entrepreneurs do the exact same thing online, then wonder why they can’t make any sales. People who have never heard about you before click a link and find themselves on a landing page that immediately asks them to buy whatever it is that you are selling. Is it surprising that they never come back? Fortunately, there is a better alternative.

What DOES work: giving a lot of value way before you make your offer

People tend to buy things from individuals and companies that they trust. You are not likely to get someone to trust you by bombarding them with endless sales pitches: people trust those who prove themselves by adding value over an extended period of time. Only when you have gained that trust you can expect to sell something.

E-mail marketing is an excellent way to do that:

• You offer people something valuable as an opt-in incentive (e-book, video, course, etc.)

• Few days after they have subscribed, you send them another piece of valuable content, something that helps them solve their problems

• Then, few days after that you send them another article or another video that adds value, and you keep doing that.

• ONLY when you have given them a lot of free valuable material you make your offer.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn’t, since the whole process is automated. You only  need to create that content and set up the autoresponder sequence. Then, you can relax, and watch the sales come in.

“Money is in the list.. Unless your list doesn’t give a shit.”

It’s important to keep in mind that e-mail marketing is useless if you don’t do it in the right way, though.

There are two main things that those who try to sell via e-mail struggle with:

• Building a profitable e-mail list. Nowadays, most people are bombarded with opt-in forms and freebies from left and right, therefore they are wary of giving their e-mail addresses to someone. How do you present your offer in such a way that your potential customers want to subscribe to your e-mail list?

• Maintaining a profitable e-mail list. There’s more to e-mail marketing than simply collecting a bunch of random e-mails: you have to keep your list “warm” if you want to make any sales through it. How do you run your list in a way that makes your subscribers eager to buy your products?

These are the topics that I will cover in-depth in my upcoming articles this month.

Make building an email list your #1 priority!

The reason why most people don’t focus on building their e-mail list is because it’s damn hard. It’s much easier to play around with social media than it is to set up a high quality autoresponder sequence. Don’t take the easy route, though, because a profitable e-mail list is the most valuable asset you can have as an online entrepreneur. Make it your #1 priority.

P.S. I’d like to quote Derek Halpern: ”If you’re not building an e-mail list, you are an idiot!”

]]> http://foundertips.com/blogging/why-building-an-email-list-should-be-your-number-one-priority/feed/ 5 http://foundertips.com/blogging/why-building-an-email-list-should-be-your-number-one-priority/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/foundertips/~3/TytFV3F7HZ0/ http://foundertips.com/blogging/march-2013-learn-how-to-build-a-profitable-e-mail-list/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:59:08 +0000 Agota Bialobzeskyte http://foundertips.com/?p=2549 Web designers and web developers who have their own websites (which means almost all of them) are leaving a lot of  money on a table by not having e-mail lists.

Having a profitable e-mail list makes your life a lot simpler, because:

• When you have a profitable e-mail list, it’s much easier to get clients to approach YOU.

• When you have a profitable e-mail list, it’s much easier to sell your products, because you already have an audience that respects you, trusts you, and WANTS to buy from you.

I mean, seriously, e-mail marketing is proven to be one of the most effective ways to sell your products and services online, yet even the biggest bloggers in the web design niche  don’t seem to be paying much attention to it. Not good.

You have probably noticed that I used the word “profitable” quite a few times already. That’s because you can’t simply collect a bunch of random e-mail addresses and expect to be rolling in the dough in no time. You have to build a profitable e-mail list.  How do you do that?

That’s exactly what we will be covering this month. Stay tuned!

Guest posting is the most effective method for promoting a new blog.

Guest posting (also known as guest blogging) is an online marketing method that works like this:

1. You have a website that you want to promote.
2. You pick a big website in your niche that has a similar target audience.
3. You write a high quality guest post, submit it to a website, and get published.
4. People who like your website click on the link in your byline and visit your website.

This marketing method allows you to get your work in front of a lot of people and consequently drive targeted traffic to your own website. It is time consuming, since you have to spend a lot of time researching websites in your niche, writing guest posts, and pitching to editors, but once the post gets published, hundreds of new visitors will rush to your blog. Honestly, I don’t know any other marketing method that is more effective for getting a new blog off the ground, therefore I suggest you to make it the core of your marketing strategy.

How to prepare your blog for the upcoming flood of traffic

It’s important to understand that it’s not enough to simply drive loads of traffic to your website. All your efforts are empty if people visit your blog then forget it five minutes later and never come back. You have to aim to convert your new visitors into loyal readers.

Here are two most important things that you have to take care of before your guest post goes live:

Content. You have to display interesting and valuable content if you want people to remember your blog and come back for more. No amount of traffic will help if your three most recent posts are about your cat, your favorite brand of cereal, and the latest “90210″ episode.

Opt-in forms. You need to capture e-mail addresses of your new visitors in order to increase the chances of them coming back in the future. Many bloggers are shy when it comes to that, because they don’t want to come across as spammers. In reality you have nothing to worry about if you put opt-in forms in the right places. Have an opt-in form below every post, on the top of the sidebar and on your “About” page. Also, make sure to have a feature box in place.

Don’t skip these. Many people rush to get their post published, but driving traffic to a website that is not optimized for converting new visitors to loyal readers is, frankly, a waste of time. It’s better to put in the work and get good results than to slack off and only get 2 or 3 subscribers.

5 steps to your first guest post

I’m always surprised when I hear people whining that “guest posting is hard” and complaining that “this guest posting stuff doesn’t work”. The truth is that guest posting works very well if you do it the right way and the process itself isn’t that complicated. You have to be prepared to put in the time and energy necessary, though.

1. Pick a website and analyze it’s content. Take time to understand what kind of content an editor of a website might be looking for. Again, if you want to get published, you have to do your homework.

2. Write a high quality guest post. Your post has to provide value to the readers. Try to offer a solution to a problem they might have. Make sure that your solutions are  detailed enough so that readers who try to follow the process you outlined would be able to get actual results. Also, don’t leave spelling or grammar mistakes, because that greatly reduces your chances of getting published.

3. Submit your guest post. Send a simple e-mail to the editor saying that you would like to do a guest post on a certain topic and attach the article to that e-mail. Don’t sweat it.

4. Get an answer from the editor. Make sure that you check your e-mail regularly so you wouldn’t miss the reply. In case it’s been few weeks and you haven’t heard from them, e-mail them again, politely reminding them about your guest post submission. Editors are very busy people, so sometimes they don’t notice your submission, or forget to send you a reply.

5. Rinse and repeat until you have a popular blog. Guest posting is most effective when you do it on a regular basis. Take a look at how many new visitors and e-mail subscribers you got from your first guest post. Now, imagine, what would happen if you would publish ten or twenty more guest posts like that?

Keep in mind that writing the article is the most important part of the guest posting process. You won’t be able to get a low quality guest post published no matter how hard you try. Moreover, the amount of traffic that you will get from a guest post heavily depends on it’s quality. It’s better to take your time and write the best post that you possibly can.

Where should you start?

Here are three major web design and web development websites that accept guest posts:

• SmashingMagazine
• SixRevisions
• Hongkiat
• Onextrapixel

These websites are on the constant lookout for fresh high quality content, so write an article that meets their requirements, and shoot an e-mail to the editors. Good luck!

Don’t get distracted, stay focused.

Guest posting is hard. You have to put in a lot of time and energy into it in order to make it work. However, it’s the most effective way to promote a new blog, therefore don’t get distracted with stuff that is easier and makes you feel good about yourself, but doesn’t bring any significant results (hello, social media). Stay focused on guest posting.

The Craigslists Penis Effect

Have you ever heard of the Craigslists Penis Effect? This term, which was coined by Ramit Sethi, describes a situation where everyone else is so horrible that you can win simply by being half-decent. It’s name comes from a strange phenomenon: apparently, if you are a woman, and you submit a nice g- rated “women seeking men” post to Craigslists, you will immediately get tens of e-mails with pictures of penises. No one knows why this happens. However, this means that if you are guy who writes a normal e-mail instead of sending the lucky girl yet another picture of a penis, you will look like Prince Charming in her eyes. Now, what does this all have to do with writing blogposts?

Well, I’m sorry to say that, but most people write very mediocre blog posts (..and I’m trying to be polite here..). Today, the blogosphere standard of writing seems to be short articles that rehash the-same-old-heard-it-a-thousand-times before ideas. The problem with these kind of posts is that the readers do not get any value from them and consequently forget them five minutes later. This sad thing is actually a golden opportunity for you: if you put in the extra time and efforts into writing an in-depth blogposts that offer some less common insights, you will stand out in the eyes of the readers, and they will come back for more. And it’s really not that hard to stand out when the bar is set very low.

Here are some general guidelines that will help you write better blogposts than most:

• Solve a problem. Don’t just write about random things, look for real problems that your readers are struggling with at the moment, and provide solutions to them.
  Example: I need an example here, Rean, can you suggest something?
  
• Present a unique take on a well-known issue. Don’t be controversial just for the sake of being controversial, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box, and to approach the usual topics from a new angle.
  Example: “Why Are Programming Languages Sites So Ugly?” by Sacha Greif
  
• Let your personality shine through. People tend forget dry articles that  might as well have been written by a robot very fast, so don’t be afraid to make some jokes or include personal stories. You are not writing for an academic journal.
  Example: “Of Responsive Images And Cute Puppies” by Sacha Greif.

You don’t really need to have mad writing skills in order to succeed as a blogger, especially in the web design and web development niche. Focus on providing as much value as possible and don’t obsess over the writing itself. This way, your content will stand out among all the fluff. Consequently, your readers will be impressed, and keep coming back for more.

Three types of articles that you should learn how to write well

The same blogpost might be considered bad in one niche and good in the other. An important thing to understand is that as a blogger, you are not writing for yourself, you are writing for your readers. This means that you have to make sure that your articles are relevant to your audience and meets it’s neeeds. You can’t publish “50 shades of grey” fan fiction and expect that it will help you to get ahead in your web design and/or web development career, can you?

Let’s discuss three types of articles that tend to do really well in the web design and web development niche:

Tutorials

More and more people are getting interested in web design and web development. They go online to learn more about it. You don’t need that much expertise in order to write something that would help these newcomers. Publishing comprehensive tutorials can help you to increase your credibility and get your first readers, followers and e-mail list subscribers.

Here are three tips for writing a great tutorial:

• Make it as timeless as possible. Write tutorials that you believe will be useful today, tomorrow, and three months from now. Emphasize not only specific techniques, but also general principles of the craft, because general principles in design and development rarely change.Also, make sure that it is easy for you to update your tutorial, so that it wouldn’t become useless after a slightest shift in the technology.
• Get straight to the point. People want read tutorials because they want to learn something new, so you will be doing them a favor if you will avoid beating around the bush and get straight to the point. Try to explain things as clearly and as briefly as possible.
• Make good formatting choices. You might write a great tutorial, but ruin it with bad formatting. Make sure to divide your tutorial into several steps and use images to help the readers visualize what’s happening.

Example: Rakhitha Nimesh from 1stWebDesigner writes great tutorials.

Case studies

Case studies are articles that analyze a certain event. They give readers a sneak peak into what’s happening behind the scenes when someone writes an app or launches an e-book. Well-written case studies tend to be received really well by the web design and web development community. It might really help you to increase your credibility, because when you do it right, you come across as a really knowledegable person.

Here are three tips for writing a winning case study:

• Make sure to pack it with data. Case studies are all about analyzing something that has already happened and drawing conclusions from it. Keep in mind that readers are always interested in various data, such as traffic statistics, conversion rates, revenue, etc., therefore the more of it you provide, the happier they will be.Also, you will always get bonus points for including pictures that visually represent the data that you use, such as diagrams or Google Analytics screenshots.
• Approach it from different angles. Present several different opinions on the issue, then use data and logical thinking to work out which one makes the most sense, and share your conclusion with the readers.
• Share both what went right and what went wrong. It’s important to point out mistakes if you want to give the readers the whole picture of an event. They will appreciate that, believe me.

Example: “1WD E-book Launch Case Study: How To Get 8000 Downloads In 3 Days” by Dainis Graveris.

Interviews

Interviews can be very helpful when you are only starting out with your blog. You can boost your credibility by interviewing well-known people: when people see an interview with their celebrity crush on a website they are visiting for the first time, they immediately assume that the mentioned website must be legit. On top of that, people tend to share links to their interviews with their own online followings, therefore if you interview someone with thousands of Twitter followers, it’s very likely that you will get a wave of new traffic because of it It might be really worth it to give this a try.

Many people think that it must be very hard to get someone relatively well-known to agree on an interview. Well, as someone who has 30+ published interviews under my belt, I can tell you that it is not as hard as it seems. You just have to not be afraid to ask.

Here are three tips for getting people do to an interview for your website:

• Use this e-mail template:

  Subject: Would you like to do an interview for (your website)?
  
  “Hello, (name)!
  
  My name is (your name). I’m a writer at (your website).
  I’d love to do an interview with you, because I believe your insights on (insert topic) would be very valuable for my readers.
  It would be an e-mail interview, meaning I’d send you the questions and you’d send me the answers, so it would be very easy and straightforward. Are you interested?
  Let me know!
  
  (your name)
  (your website).”
  
  

• Add social proof whenever you can. You need to include things that make you look credible in your e-mail. Have you ever interviewed a well-known person? Or maybe you have been featured in popular website? Does anyone influential like your website?You can mention this in an e-mail by adding a P.S. like these:”P.S. There are quite a few interviews on the site already in case you’d like to take a look, but here’s one with someone you probably have heard of, (name) (link)”P.S. My work has been recently featured in (website), here’s the link in case you want to take a look: (link)”..or something among those line.
• Make references that show that you know the person whenever possible. You might find yourself e-mailing a person whose work you have been following for a long time.When this is the case, don’t hesitate to mention that, and reference his or her work that you enjoyed. This will highly increase the chances of getting a response.

Most importantly, understand that doing interviews is a number’s game. You will have to approach a lot of people in order to land a single interview. Don’t take rejections personally. However, you will get lucky once in a while, so how to make the most out of it?

Here are three tips for doing an interesting interview:

• Always do your homework. The first step is always to take a look at the interviewee’s website Once you are aware of their background, it’s time to start digging. The most efficient way to quickly find out interesting things about someone is to google “their name + interview” and read all the interviews they did recently.
• Ask interesting questions.You have to put yourself in the place of a person who will read that interview and think about what questions would they want answered. Many people make mistakes of asking general questions that nobody cares about. Don’t be afraid to ask sophisticated or even controversial questions if you know that they will provide value to the readers.I suggest you to read an article “Better Interviews” by Sacha Greif to learn more about asking the right quesitons when interviewing people in the web design and web development niches.
• Add and introduction and a summary.A good introduction, besides introducing the person you are about to interview to your audience, should also point out what the interview will be about and what the readers will learn in it. A good summary briefly summarizes the key lessons from the interview that readers can apply in their own situation. Bulletpoints work well for both.Example: “Jarrod Drysdale Explains How He Earned More Than 38,000$ From His E-book” by me (yes, I’m tooting my own horn as always).

Publishing these three types of articles can help you to get noticed in the blogosphere. However, always keep in mind that you have to provide as much value as possible, otherwise people will skim through the article, say “meh..”, and forget about you. Only publish blog posts that you know will provide value to your readers.

How to write great blog posts in only few hours

You probably already realized that in order to build a popular blog you will have to write a lot. This might not seem like the best news ever, since writing good articles takes so long, right? Well, there are several tricks that can help you to produce content much faster without sacrificing it’s quality.

Here are few tips that will make writing great content a much easier task for you:

• Always have a plan. As Rean, our editor, said on his blog, “Writing is not the problem, it’s quite an easy task, but knowing what to write is a different matter.” You can easily write 1000+ words per hour if you know what you want to say. This is why you should always outline your a blog post before starting to write it.
• Write the first draft as quickly as possible. You have probably heard about the so called writer’s block. This is an experience of sitting in front of a blank page of paper or a blank text document for hours and not being able to write a single word. Well, the reason for creative paralysis is that people want to write a perfect piece from their first try, and because of that mental pressure they are unable to even start. It’s not likely that you will ever write a masterpiece this way, so you can just drop that idea altogether  and write the first draft from start to finish as quickly as possible, no matter how crappy it might be. It’s much easier to turn a horrible draft into a great article than it is to turn a blank page into a masterpiece.
• Don’t mix writing and editing. Some people might feel compelled to object to the previous tip by complaining that it’s not that easy to write that first draft. Well, my answer is that it is only hard if you try to write and edit at the same time. You can be either in creative mode (writing) or in analytical mode (editing), but if you try to be in both modes at the same time, you will do a bad job at both.
• When you write, block out all the distractions, and fully focus on writing. We live in an age of constant distraction. Most people write with their Skype, Facebook and Twitter on while reading Huffington Post and eating a sandwich. Then, they wonder why it takes so long for them to write something decent. The inconvenient truth is that writing is something thare requires hard focus for extensive periods of time. You have to make a choice between being constantly distracted and writing well.

You might think that this is a simple common sense, but really, common sense is not as common as you think. Even people who make their living as writers don’t always use these simple principles to their advantage. I suggest you to at least try to develop good writing habits from the very beginning, though. It will save you a lot of headache in the long run.

Practice makes perfect (or at least decent)

You don’t have to be a literature genius in order to build a successful blog. However, you have to provide value to your readers, and in order to succeed at that you have to be able to clearly express yourself through writing. An important thing to understand is that writing is a skill just like any other skill and it can be learned. Don’t believe the “you need a talent for writing” fairytales.

Here’s a great excerpt from the interview with Sacha Greif:

When it comes to writing e-books, a lot of designers seem to have this block “ I’m a designer, I’m not a writer, I don’t know-how to write.” Maybe you have some words encouragement for them? Or maybe an advice on how to overcome that block?

Not really.

You have to become a writer. You can do that by writing on your blog, or doing guest posts, or any other way you can. You need to practice. That’s the only way to get better at writing, I think.

I’ve read somewhere that the more you write, not only you get better at writing, but you also get more ideas on what to write about next.

Many people try to save their ideas, like save their idea for the ultimate blog post, but that’s not how it works, really.

You need to realize that first, you can write about the same thing twice and second, the more you write, the better you become at writing.

Just remember the time when you were only starting out as a web designer or a web developer. You probably were clumsy and couldn’t get the results that you wanted straight away, but with time and practice, you became better at it, and things that seemed like huge challenges back then are a piece of cake now. Well, writing is no different, and the more you practice, the better you become.

The pattern is obvious: people who are well-known in web design and web development industry tend to have blogs through which they have built strong personal brands.

Let’s take a look at the three web designers I’ve mentioned in the introduction:

• Chris Coyier launched CSS-Tricks in July 2007. This blog grew quickly and now it is a very popular online destination for designers and developers. Chris started several other projects since them and now is an recognized expert in the web design and web development community.
• Jacob Cass‘ blog was launched in November 2007. He managed to successfully grow his blog, which led to numerous opportunities (including landing a job in NYC via Twitter) and an impressive web design career.
• Sacha Greif‘s blog was launched in September 2011. He quickly made a name for himself and built a relatively small, but loyal following. Sacha then wrote an e-book on UI design and, by leveraging his online influence, made $15,000+ with it.

You might say that it’s just a coincidence that these three people became known through their blogs, or that I only go after web designers who have blogs, but take a moment and think about other well-known guys in the web design and web development niche. Fabio Sasso started Abduzeedo. Chris Spooner has SpoonGraphics. . David Airey runs Logo Design Love. You can see that there’s a clear correlation between having a popular blog and being well known among fellow designers and developers.

There are a lot of people with similar skills out there, but for some reason, those who manage to build popular blogs become recognized as experts in their fields. You might be wondering what it is about blogging that allowed these people to advanced their careers and become recognized in the community? Well, the truth is that it’s really not about blogs at all. It’s about having a personal brand… and blogging just happens to be one of the easiest ways to build one!

It’s not enough to merely be good at what you do!

Let’s talk about a higher education system in USA for a moment. You probably know that A+ might mean one thing in one school and another thing in another school, which makes it impossible for college admission officers to evaluate how well a potential student is prepared academically by school grades alone. This is why high school kids take standardized tests called SATs which allow universities to get a better picture of where a potential student stands in terms of academic knowledge. The maximum score for the main SAT test is 2400 and only a very small percentage of people get it. Now, an interesting thing about this is that although a perfect score is surely impressive, it will not necessarily get you into a school like Harvard. Why? Well, you might be the only one among your friends who got 2400 on SAT, but when it comes to getting into an elite school, your application will be in a pile with bunch of other applications from people who got that same score.

What does this all have to do with web design and web development?

When you are a great web designer or a web developer, you are often facing the same problem as kids with perfect scores who are applying to Ivy League schools, without even knowing it. You might think that your skills will be enough to sweep potential clients off their feet, but reality is quite different. The truth is that high quality clients get pitched by people with mad skills all the time. You might be the best at what you do among the people you know, but when it comes to landing serious projects, you will be just one of the many. Now, how do clients make their choice when they are bombarded with pitches from people who all have the same stellar skills? They look for someone who stands out in some other way.

People who have strong personal brands and decent online followings stand out for two reasons:

• Social proof: There’s a phenomenon in psychology that is called social proof. It basically means that when people are not sure what to do they tend to assume that behavior of others is a correct course of action in that particular situation. This means that when someone is not sure whether to hire you or not, and then see that you are recognized as an expert and a lot of people listen to your advice, they will decide that you are indeed an expert, which highly increases your chances of being hired.
• Likeability: There’s another phenomenon in psychology which states that people tend to favor those who they like (duh) and that they like those who are similar to them in some sense. This means that when you have a personal brand, potential clients see you not simply as a name and a last name in an e-mail, but as a real human being with your own story, sense of humor, likes and dislikes, etc., which consequently makes it easier for them to like you and relate to you, since they can see that you are similar to them in some sense. Consequently, this increases your chances of being hired dramatically.

Having a personal brand and a strong online presence provides you with a solid foundation on which you can build your career. I suggest you to watch this TEDx talk by Jacob Cass where he talks about this. However, there are more benefits to having a personal brand than simply landing jobs more easily.

Benefit No. 1: Clients approach YOU

The biggest headache for freelancers all over the world is “how to get paying clients” issue. You probably know from your personal experience that chasing potential clients is really a pain in the ass, especially considering that you are not getting paid for the time you spend trying to get more work. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if high quality clients would approach you instead?

Web designers and web developers who have built strong online presences don’t have to waste their time chasing potential clients, because people approach THEM with high quality work offers.

Over the years as exposure to my blog has grown, the number of people seeing my design work has also increased. This has helped me build a name for myself as a designer and as a result I’ve landed lots of cool design projects from people who have discovered me thanks to one of my tutorials or articles.

–Chris Spooner

I originally started the blog purely to share what I was learning (especially because back then, there wasn’t a huge amount of WordPress developer resources available). Not long after that, I started getting client requests through it, and since then, every one of our clients has either come through the blog or from word of mouth. I’ve never done any other advertising.

–ProBlogDesign

My blog is, and has been, the base platform for me to grow as a designer. It allows me to share my thoughts, insights and learn from others as well as provides a place to share my work, bring in clients, and make some passive income too. My blog and website is the backbone of my business.

–Jacob Cass, JUST Creative

In general, the more popular your blog is, the easier it is for you to get clients. You not only get a lot of exposure this way, but also become recognized as an expert in your field. Yes, there are a lot of web designers on Elance that are as good as you and who can do the work for a lower price, but they are not really your competition if you have a strong personal brand. High quality clients don’t want to bet their time and money on someone who they aren’t so sure about, so when they have to choose, they will choose someone who’s well-known and have a stellar reputation. This could be you, you know..

Benefit No. 2: It’s much easier to make passive income

When you are self-employed web designer or web developer, you know that unexpected things happen, and that you have to take extra measures in order to make yourself as financially secure as possible. The best way to do that is to have both active income (client work) and passive income (WordPress themes, e-books, apps, etc.) coming in. This way, even if you would hit a dry streak with client work, you would still have some income to help you get through that.

I think Sacha Greif put it very well:

“However, in general, having a source of passive income is important. It’s a must-have for me, because if you’re freelancer, you don’t have much job security. It’s hard to plan for the future without a safety net of some sort. Also, if you’re taking a holiday, or just stopping work for a couple of months, it’s nice to have an additional source of income that keeps going, even if it’s very small, even if it’s a few hundred dollars a month. At least it can cover your food bill or your rent, you know.”

Many people are intimidated by the idea of passive income and see it as a some sort of distant dream that will probably never become a reality. However, the idea of money coming in whether you are working or not is not as surreal as it seems, because a lot of web designers and developers are already earning passive income online. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could join them?

Blogging is the easiest way to build a personal brand

People often assume that those who are recognized as experts in their fields are the ones who have the sharpest skills. This is not entirely true, though. There’s no doubt that those who are considered to be experts are good at what they do, but I’d argue that their skills are not the most important factor. The real reason for their success is the fact that they share their knowledge with others and add value to the community. People are much more likely to notice your expertise if you share it.

I’ve already mentioned that blogging is one of the easiest ways to create a personal brand and build an online following. The reason for this is that blogging makes it very easy to share your knowledge with people from all over the world. I’d say that blogging is your best bet at building a personal brand as a web designer or a web developer.

Here’s a summary of this process:

1. You build a popular blog.
2. You build a decent e-mail list and/or social media following
3. You do all kinds of “extracurricular” activities such as speaking in conferences etc.

Again, I highly suggest you to watch TEDx talk “Building a personal brand” by Jacob Cass, because this guy successfully built a strong personal brand through blogging, and this talk will give you a better idea about this process.

I don’t want to give you wrong impressions, though, so here’s a splash of cold and harsh reality. Blogging might be one of the easiest ways to build a personal brand, but it’s definitely not an easy thing per se. You will have to work your tail off in order to build a popular blog. Most likely you will have to work at it for at least 6 months before you will start seeing any tangible results. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but believe me, when you pour your heart into your blog posts and nobody reads them for half a year, it is not the best feeling in the world. You have to know what you’re getting into so you wouldn’t end up disappointed and give up too early. Did I scare you off? Or are you still interested?

It’s not enough to blog, you have to do it right!

Many people think that it’s enough to write great blog posts and the readers will come.

Okay, sorry to be a downer here, but..

1. You can write great posts all you want, but if you don’t promote them, nobody will read them, because people won’t know that you exist.
2. You can get a decent amount of traffic, but unless you use it to build an e-mail list, growing your blog will be a constant uphill struggle.
3. You can have a big e-mail list, but if you don’t know how to run it properly, you won’t be able to monetize it.
4. You can succeed at selling something to your e-mail subscribers once, but if you failed to create a good product to begin with, you will disappoint them and ruin your reputation.

..and this goes on and on.

Where can you learn how to build a popular blog the right way?

Time is going to pass anyway, so why not use it wisely?

Have you notice d how fast the time flies? I remember when I was a child, summer seemed like an eternity. Now, it seems like one day it was still spring, and another day, it’s already autumn. I know that a lot of people in their 20s and 30s share the same experience. It’s scary sometimes. Doesn’t it make you think where you want to be in one year or two years from now?

In this interview, Jacob Cass warned fellow web designers not to expect quick results from blogging, and to keep in mind that it will probably take at least six months until a new blog will start taking off. Now, imagine that you start a blog today, and it takes you a year to get it going. This means that two years from now you would have a personal brand, an online following, and would be recognized as an expert in your field. That might seem like fantasy at the moment, but really, Jacob started his blog five years ago, and look where he is now. Don’t you think you can do similar thing in a shorter amount of time?

I actually think that yes, you can become a well known person in your field, and you can do it much faster than people who have popular blogs now. Why? Well, most of them had figure things out for themselves, and you can avoid a lot of mistakes they made by learning few simple online marketing principles, and apply those same principles in order to get results much faster. Yes, it will take a lot of work, and it will take some time. But you can either do nothing and find yourself in the same place two years from now, or you can take action, and see how far you’ve come in those two years. It’s your choice to make. Just remember that two years might seem like a long time now, but it’s really only a blink away, since time flies so damn fast.