Time management is the bete noire of productivity – or should that be, lack of time management?
I run three businesses.
None of them on their own provide a livable income. One is a mature business in network marketing which provides me with the biggest chunk of change for my livelihood. Another is one that I fell into less than a year ago: marketing a pet product to the retail pet industry. It is growing. The third is internet marketing. It is at once the most time consuming and the least profitable, yet, it is the one I am pursuing with unfettered enthusiasm.
None earn enough so that I could outsource some of the more tedious tasks
Conventional wisdom dictates that I work only one business, build it up to extraordinary success and only then turn my attention to a second one. And as they say: rinse and repeat. Indeed, I give that very same advice to others.
Why do I not follow my own advice?
Frankly, I enjoy the diversity. It keeps my brain active.
The question I am often asked is how do I manage to run three businesses. The answer is with great difficulty. But I have adopted a system that seems to work: time blocking.
Time blocking is a management system where you take blocks of time – in my case I use a one hour block - and you allot so many blocks for a certain activity. Each day I allot several blocks to each business. Neither the number of blocks nor the sequence is uniform for each day. For each business I have a monthly and a weekly goal. The daily blocks are then focused on making the weekly goal. An example might be:
July:
Internet Marketing: Increase traffic by 10% to each blog/site
How?
- Publish 10 articles in Article Directories
- Blog daily (I have several blogs – so not each one gets a post every day)
- Each week take the best blog posts and repurpose into an article to be published in Article Directories
- Visit “Do Follow” blogs and comment as appropriate
Those are not the only internet marketing activities I engage in, but they are the bones which are then fleshed out.
As I am still very much a student of Internet Marketing and spend a good deal of time reading, listening to or watching videos of a course or a subscription I block time for that as well. This keeps me growing, increases my knowledge and improves my skill sets. I do not implement everything I learn – indeed, sometimes I feel that something is beyond my current grasp, and I leave it, to be returned to later.
I decided on this model because the previous one, which was based on task oriented results as a measurement of time for each business, was not working. An example might be to write up 4 new retail orders for the pet product that I market for the day. Sometimes even after hours and hours of following up by email and calls to my key contacts, it just did not happen. It was frustrating. Now, I have flexibility as to how many blocks I assign to this project on any given day – and there are days when one of the businesses may not be assigned any block at all. At the end of the month I have measurable results which include new customers, repeat customers and added prospects in the pipeline. Adjust as necessary
You may have a regular day job. A family to raise. A fitness routine to fit in ....and, you have decided to enter the world of internet marketing by blogging for money. How do you do it?
Ewen Chia, author of How I made my First Million on the Internet had all that to juggle – well not sure about the fitness regime. He blocked 4 hours each night to work on his internet marketing, but get this he did that between 11.00 PM and 3.00 AM. It’s a wonder he did not keel over from sleep deprivation. Now that is what I call driven and many would term that as being extreme, but what it has done is delivered extreme success to him.
You may not want to follow in Ewen’s footsteps (heck, I would drop from sheer exhaustion myself), but do take a page out of his book ... block some time for your success, daily. Turn off the TV and use the weekends to chunk in some real quality effort, say four or six hours straight, you’d be surprised how that escalates your results.
I use this system for my businesses, but really, it can be used for anything. Managed well, with systemic time blocking you will see incremental progress. I love comparing where I end the month with where I began that month. There is always progress. Progress built on progress eventually takes on a rocket ship trajectory.
Believe it. It's true.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogger for Money
PS... How do you cut your cheese?
Quick Links:
How I Made My First Million on the Internet
My network marketing business
All Natural Pet Balm
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Google Alert - a useful tool for bloggers
The 30 Day Challenge pre-season is in full swing. New “tools” are introduced on a regular basis. Some of these tools are not new to me yet I decided to invest the five minutes or so to view the videos. Amazing. Even though I thought I knew how to use these tools, I found something that I was not fully utilizing from each video! It's always good to review!
One tool however was new to me – Google Alert. This is different from Google Reader. It made sense to check it out so I registered for my Google Alert account.
What Google Alert does is send you freshly minted content on the keyword phrase you want to be kept up to date on. You can put as many such phrases as you want and Google will send you the aggregate list of articles on the topic within the time intervals you choose. What I like about this service is that I don’t have to go searching for fresh material on my topic. I also become better informed on my subject and therefore more of an authority on it. One of the phrases I submitted was blogging for money.
In this morning’s serving there was an article that I thought was very interesting ... talk about “niche” marketing. A blogger in the UK has decided to blog about his very unique house as a way to market it to buyers. The blog has been up for two months or so and already he has had 10,000 visitors and a few who expressed further interest in possible purchasing it. The article’s title is Sold to the Highest Bidder and you can read it on Times Online
The real point of this little soupcon on Google Alert is that if you want to get returns that are exactly what you are looking for then you need to put quotation marks around the phrase, like so: “blogging for money”. Clearly the article in question about the house for sale by blog, while it met the criteria of blogging for money, was of a different stripe than what I am looking for.
Now the dilemma. Do I go and manage my Google Alert and change the instruction by encasing my phrase with quotation marks or, do I leave it? Reads such as above are interesting.
To make my decision I asked these critical questions.
Am I looking to expand my general interest knowledge or am I looking for targeted information? Which choice takes me towards my objective of making money online?
The answer is targeted information. I am an easy pushover for good reads. It is one of my biggest “distractions.” I could easily lose myself in this type of activity and spend precious little time on the real activities that make a difference to my business.
What about you? Is the time you spend on internet marketing put to productive use or are you just visiting in your own business?
Happy Blogging!
Valentina Bellicova
Blogger for Money
Free download ABC’s of Blogging for Money
PS. The cheese is not in the wheel.
Quick Links:
30 Day Challenge
Blogging for money
Google Alert
Sold to the highest bidder
One tool however was new to me – Google Alert. This is different from Google Reader. It made sense to check it out so I registered for my Google Alert account.
What Google Alert does is send you freshly minted content on the keyword phrase you want to be kept up to date on. You can put as many such phrases as you want and Google will send you the aggregate list of articles on the topic within the time intervals you choose. What I like about this service is that I don’t have to go searching for fresh material on my topic. I also become better informed on my subject and therefore more of an authority on it. One of the phrases I submitted was blogging for money.
In this morning’s serving there was an article that I thought was very interesting ... talk about “niche” marketing. A blogger in the UK has decided to blog about his very unique house as a way to market it to buyers. The blog has been up for two months or so and already he has had 10,000 visitors and a few who expressed further interest in possible purchasing it. The article’s title is Sold to the Highest Bidder and you can read it on Times Online
The real point of this little soupcon on Google Alert is that if you want to get returns that are exactly what you are looking for then you need to put quotation marks around the phrase, like so: “blogging for money”. Clearly the article in question about the house for sale by blog, while it met the criteria of blogging for money, was of a different stripe than what I am looking for.
Now the dilemma. Do I go and manage my Google Alert and change the instruction by encasing my phrase with quotation marks or, do I leave it? Reads such as above are interesting.
To make my decision I asked these critical questions.
Am I looking to expand my general interest knowledge or am I looking for targeted information? Which choice takes me towards my objective of making money online?
The answer is targeted information. I am an easy pushover for good reads. It is one of my biggest “distractions.” I could easily lose myself in this type of activity and spend precious little time on the real activities that make a difference to my business.
What about you? Is the time you spend on internet marketing put to productive use or are you just visiting in your own business?
Happy Blogging!
Valentina Bellicova
Blogger for Money
Free download ABC’s of Blogging for Money
PS. The cheese is not in the wheel.
Quick Links:
30 Day Challenge
Blogging for money
Google Alert
Sold to the highest bidder
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
June Statistics - into the summer
Holding steady, well almost. Bloggers I am following and who also frequently post their results for the previous month ... haven’t, yet! And I must say, that I am blogging away towards the close of day. Today is Canada Day – Canada’s birthday and today we celebrated Canada’s 142nd! Yup. As countries go, we are still just a babe in the woods - which is how I often feel about my own internet marketing career. Many years ago I came to this country and officially became a Canadian as soon as I qualified. Took my test. Was so proud to be sworn in. Am so proud to be a Canadian.
So, how did June pan out? A small downturn from May which is a bit disappointing ... I am looking for growth after all. But I have been told that the summer doldrums hit even the internet and my postings are not frequent enough to counteract.
As usual there are some peaks in the month. The two posts that drew the most traffic were
The Dot Com King
Ed Dale Kicks of 30 Day Challenge Pre-Season
The bright light is that it seems that the search engines are beginning to find this blog – at 15.93% it’s the highest to date.
The only earnings to report are Adsense at $6.83 ... no affiliates this month.
There were 46 downloads of my ebook ABC’s of Blogging for Money
Overall growth seems to be eluding me. I’ve looked at how I could improve the stats, get more traffic and have more people subscribing to my RSS feed (not sure I have that set up right), the newsletter or the “follow me” group. I checked to see what my more successful compatriots are doing:
John Chow who reportedly makes $40K per month really works hard at his blog. I just went over the past month and not only does he blog daily, but several times a day! And it’s all good stuff too ... some of it on his daily life, some of it on internet marketing, some of it on our buds in the biz. He’s got several products as well. He enjoys over 200K in traffic per month. Much of his revenue is from the paid sponsors. Not bad for someone who started to blog in 2006 “just because”
Yaro Starak who is known to have taken $100K to the bank at least one month – but more importantly, consistently pulls down over $35m monthly. Yaro has been blogging on one blog or another for nigh on ten years now and brings a lot of experience to the table. Not only does he post kick ass info but is now successfully joint venturing with other successful internet marketers -that's striking the gold vein in the mine!
Caroline Middlebrook – a software professional who started her blog some two years ago. Modest - compared to the two above - monthly income that hovers at the $2000 mark, but she’s been a rare presence on her own blog due to the time she is spending in developing a new software program.
How did I spend my Internet Marketing time blocks this past month?
- published 9 posts on this blog
- submitted 2 articles to one article directory
- kept up to date in the 30 Day Challenge pre-season
- researched niche topic for the 30 Day Challenge (I think I have one nailed)
- working on the beta project that Dan Lok put out
- Read my RSS feeds
- Read my favorite blogs and posted comments (got backlinks)
- Visited some forums
- Working on my postings for July which will be on linking.
Thoughts to Ponder: Now that I am much more familiar with WordPress I am seriously considering migrating this whole blog to that system. I am also seriously scared – scared that I’ll mess the whole thing up in the process techie type stuff not being my strong suite. But I now understand why the top dogs in the internet marketing scene choose Wordpress.
Soon I will unveil my project in the beta program which I think will work in good stead with the niche I am considering for the 30 Day Challenge. These will be covered in this blog in the future as each will have something to contribute to my progress and hopefully yours.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina Bellicova
Blogging for Money
PS. Another top notch blogger, Alvin Phang baked a cheesecake for his first anniversary. Pictures and recipe on his blog.
Quick Links:
The Dot Com King
Ed Dale Kicks of 30 Day Challenge Pre-Season
John Chow
Yaro Starak
Caroline Middlebrook
30 Day Challenge
Alvin Phang
So, how did June pan out? A small downturn from May which is a bit disappointing ... I am looking for growth after all. But I have been told that the summer doldrums hit even the internet and my postings are not frequent enough to counteract.
As usual there are some peaks in the month. The two posts that drew the most traffic were
The Dot Com King
Ed Dale Kicks of 30 Day Challenge Pre-Season
The bright light is that it seems that the search engines are beginning to find this blog – at 15.93% it’s the highest to date.
The only earnings to report are Adsense at $6.83 ... no affiliates this month.
There were 46 downloads of my ebook ABC’s of Blogging for Money
Overall growth seems to be eluding me. I’ve looked at how I could improve the stats, get more traffic and have more people subscribing to my RSS feed (not sure I have that set up right), the newsletter or the “follow me” group. I checked to see what my more successful compatriots are doing:
John Chow who reportedly makes $40K per month really works hard at his blog. I just went over the past month and not only does he blog daily, but several times a day! And it’s all good stuff too ... some of it on his daily life, some of it on internet marketing, some of it on our buds in the biz. He’s got several products as well. He enjoys over 200K in traffic per month. Much of his revenue is from the paid sponsors. Not bad for someone who started to blog in 2006 “just because”
Yaro Starak who is known to have taken $100K to the bank at least one month – but more importantly, consistently pulls down over $35m monthly. Yaro has been blogging on one blog or another for nigh on ten years now and brings a lot of experience to the table. Not only does he post kick ass info but is now successfully joint venturing with other successful internet marketers -that's striking the gold vein in the mine!
Caroline Middlebrook – a software professional who started her blog some two years ago. Modest - compared to the two above - monthly income that hovers at the $2000 mark, but she’s been a rare presence on her own blog due to the time she is spending in developing a new software program.
How did I spend my Internet Marketing time blocks this past month?
- published 9 posts on this blog
- submitted 2 articles to one article directory
- kept up to date in the 30 Day Challenge pre-season
- researched niche topic for the 30 Day Challenge (I think I have one nailed)
- working on the beta project that Dan Lok put out
- Read my RSS feeds
- Read my favorite blogs and posted comments (got backlinks)
- Visited some forums
- Working on my postings for July which will be on linking.
Thoughts to Ponder: Now that I am much more familiar with WordPress I am seriously considering migrating this whole blog to that system. I am also seriously scared – scared that I’ll mess the whole thing up in the process techie type stuff not being my strong suite. But I now understand why the top dogs in the internet marketing scene choose Wordpress.
Soon I will unveil my project in the beta program which I think will work in good stead with the niche I am considering for the 30 Day Challenge. These will be covered in this blog in the future as each will have something to contribute to my progress and hopefully yours.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina Bellicova
Blogging for Money
PS. Another top notch blogger, Alvin Phang baked a cheesecake for his first anniversary. Pictures and recipe on his blog.
Quick Links:
The Dot Com King
Ed Dale Kicks of 30 Day Challenge Pre-Season
John Chow
Yaro Starak
Caroline Middlebrook
30 Day Challenge
Alvin Phang
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Google Page One - How Important is It?
Is Page One on Google The Ultimate Goal?
In an earlier post this week I published that this blog was on Page One of Google. But is being on Page One of Google the end all and the be all in internet marketing?
NO!
There is a perception out there that unless your business/site is on Google’s page one, then you’ll be whistling Dixie. Yes. In terms of online real estate that is an enviable position to be in and certainly not to be discarded, but there are plenty of other ways to promote online and make good money without having reached the dizzying heights of PAGE ONE!
Before going into some of the other options I want to make it clear, that getting on page one is not all that difficult … or so it seems as witness my 6 month blog doing fairly decently for the keywords “blog along with me”. It really does depend on the keyword that you get ranked for and not all keywords are created equal. The collective wisdom of the gurus is that we should go for keywords that have a decent daily search, over 80, but which are in a small market of ideally not much more than 50,000 returns for that keyword - much more than that and the competition gets stiff. That is what is called a NICHE market or as they like to say “inch wide, mile deep”
But there are huge markets out there which if tackled right can bring in the moolah as well. Anything on money, wealth and wellness, and personal development is a huge market and not only are these markets huge, but they have a lot of activity, that is people are searching, clicking and buying. It may take longer to make money in these seemingly saturated markets, but there are ways to shorten that time:
Adwords: This takes money and you do need to know how to manage this option. You pay Google every time someone clicks on your ad, be that ad is placed in pages of the search result for a keyword or on someone’s content relative site. It is the other side of Adsense, which if you recall, is when Google pays you for hosting relative content sites by Google and when those ads are clicked. With Adwords you need to develop a plan and set a budget and really get to know which of your keywords brings in the business.
A friend of mine is in the travel business. She does almost all her advertising online with adwords. The result is a multi-million dollar business – enough to keep 7 agents busy and a thriving inbound tour business at the primary destination that she markets.
List. This is one of those chicken and egg things … build a list and now you have a target market that is interested in your product. It takes time to build such a list and you need to have something to offer for free that catches your market’s attention. But what if you have a mature offline business and want to branch out to online? You have an income and part of that income should be budgeted for online marketing. You “rent” a list of your market. There are lots of list brokers who will rent you a list of qualified buyers for your type of product … you email this list two or three times for that one time “rental”. The conversion rate will determine whether it is worth a repeat. Good copywriting plays a huge part in conversion rates. If you are not a copywriting professional, it is worth the expense to hire one. The difference can be between no business and a conversion of up to 20% and sometimes even more!
Article Marketing. Another good way to get traffic to your site is article marketing. Write articles on the product you are selling online and publish those articles. They will be published in the category that you select. There are plenty of article directories, my favorite free ones are
Idea Marketers
Ezine Articles
Article Dashboard
You can also submit to for fee article directories. These articles directories market in paid subscription publications and so the interest of the reader on your topic is of a higher quality.
Joint Ventures: Works best with complimentary products … yes, that may mean working with your competition. What if you have a site that specializes in handbags and you joint venture with someone who specializes in shoes. These are really complimentary markets. You are not really competitors but it would be safe to say that you share a common market. Each of you has a list that already buys from you. Cross market to each other's list. Again, this is one of those things that takes time to develop but you might want to identify some of the key players in your broad market and start developing a relationship.
Blogging. Lest I forget …blogging is yet another way to drive online business. While this blog is on blogging, there are plenty of blogs that are specifically set up to promote the main product which may be a natural pet balm or a site on handbags.
PAGE ONE? Important but increasingly less so as other forms of online marketing become available.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogging for Money
PS........... its all about sniffing out the cheese.
Quick Links:
PAGE ONE post
Idea Marketers
Ezine Articles
Article Dashboard
In an earlier post this week I published that this blog was on Page One of Google. But is being on Page One of Google the end all and the be all in internet marketing?
NO!
There is a perception out there that unless your business/site is on Google’s page one, then you’ll be whistling Dixie. Yes. In terms of online real estate that is an enviable position to be in and certainly not to be discarded, but there are plenty of other ways to promote online and make good money without having reached the dizzying heights of PAGE ONE!
Before going into some of the other options I want to make it clear, that getting on page one is not all that difficult … or so it seems as witness my 6 month blog doing fairly decently for the keywords “blog along with me”. It really does depend on the keyword that you get ranked for and not all keywords are created equal. The collective wisdom of the gurus is that we should go for keywords that have a decent daily search, over 80, but which are in a small market of ideally not much more than 50,000 returns for that keyword - much more than that and the competition gets stiff. That is what is called a NICHE market or as they like to say “inch wide, mile deep”
But there are huge markets out there which if tackled right can bring in the moolah as well. Anything on money, wealth and wellness, and personal development is a huge market and not only are these markets huge, but they have a lot of activity, that is people are searching, clicking and buying. It may take longer to make money in these seemingly saturated markets, but there are ways to shorten that time:
Adwords: This takes money and you do need to know how to manage this option. You pay Google every time someone clicks on your ad, be that ad is placed in pages of the search result for a keyword or on someone’s content relative site. It is the other side of Adsense, which if you recall, is when Google pays you for hosting relative content sites by Google and when those ads are clicked. With Adwords you need to develop a plan and set a budget and really get to know which of your keywords brings in the business.
A friend of mine is in the travel business. She does almost all her advertising online with adwords. The result is a multi-million dollar business – enough to keep 7 agents busy and a thriving inbound tour business at the primary destination that she markets.
List. This is one of those chicken and egg things … build a list and now you have a target market that is interested in your product. It takes time to build such a list and you need to have something to offer for free that catches your market’s attention. But what if you have a mature offline business and want to branch out to online? You have an income and part of that income should be budgeted for online marketing. You “rent” a list of your market. There are lots of list brokers who will rent you a list of qualified buyers for your type of product … you email this list two or three times for that one time “rental”. The conversion rate will determine whether it is worth a repeat. Good copywriting plays a huge part in conversion rates. If you are not a copywriting professional, it is worth the expense to hire one. The difference can be between no business and a conversion of up to 20% and sometimes even more!
Article Marketing. Another good way to get traffic to your site is article marketing. Write articles on the product you are selling online and publish those articles. They will be published in the category that you select. There are plenty of article directories, my favorite free ones are
Idea Marketers
Ezine Articles
Article Dashboard
You can also submit to for fee article directories. These articles directories market in paid subscription publications and so the interest of the reader on your topic is of a higher quality.
Joint Ventures: Works best with complimentary products … yes, that may mean working with your competition. What if you have a site that specializes in handbags and you joint venture with someone who specializes in shoes. These are really complimentary markets. You are not really competitors but it would be safe to say that you share a common market. Each of you has a list that already buys from you. Cross market to each other's list. Again, this is one of those things that takes time to develop but you might want to identify some of the key players in your broad market and start developing a relationship.
Blogging. Lest I forget …blogging is yet another way to drive online business. While this blog is on blogging, there are plenty of blogs that are specifically set up to promote the main product which may be a natural pet balm or a site on handbags.
PAGE ONE? Important but increasingly less so as other forms of online marketing become available.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogging for Money
PS........... its all about sniffing out the cheese.
Quick Links:
PAGE ONE post
Idea Marketers
Ezine Articles
Article Dashboard
Friday, June 26, 2009
30 Day Challenge Forum on Internet Marketing Courses
Earlier this month I posted an article on Internet Marketing Courses and the importance of being ready to take one.
I have always felt that often people do not complete the courses they buy because somewhere along the way the upward curve becomes overwhelming. It usually happens early on in the course. Mistakenly, they then go in search of another course that will take them to the heights of success of the gurus they read about. They start looking for the "secret", the magic bullet that will bring the money truck driving up to their driveway. The vicious cycle begins.
On the 30 Day Challenge forum a somewhat similar question was poised; “…should I first take Course A or do the 30 Day Challenge?”
The replies that came in from both the seasoned moderators and experienced internet marketers were unanimous: take the 30 Day Challenge first.
Why!
The 30 Day Challenge lays the foundation for an internet marketing business and prepares you for more challenging courses.
My point exactly.
Without a strong foundation the business you build will be like a house of cards lacking structural support and therefore susceptible to crashing with the slightest setback. It's a business. There will be setbacks. You need to be able to weather those setbacks.
Lay a strong internet marketing foundation. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to go an register for the 30 Day Challenge
.
The price is right - FREE! It doesn't get better than that.
Valentina
Blogging for Money
PS… go get your cheese!
Quicklinks:
Choosing the right Internet Marketing Course
Register for Thirty Day Challenge
I have always felt that often people do not complete the courses they buy because somewhere along the way the upward curve becomes overwhelming. It usually happens early on in the course. Mistakenly, they then go in search of another course that will take them to the heights of success of the gurus they read about. They start looking for the "secret", the magic bullet that will bring the money truck driving up to their driveway. The vicious cycle begins.
On the 30 Day Challenge forum a somewhat similar question was poised; “…should I first take Course A or do the 30 Day Challenge?”
The replies that came in from both the seasoned moderators and experienced internet marketers were unanimous: take the 30 Day Challenge first.
Why!
The 30 Day Challenge lays the foundation for an internet marketing business and prepares you for more challenging courses.
My point exactly.
Without a strong foundation the business you build will be like a house of cards lacking structural support and therefore susceptible to crashing with the slightest setback. It's a business. There will be setbacks. You need to be able to weather those setbacks.
Lay a strong internet marketing foundation. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to go an register for the 30 Day Challenge
.
The price is right - FREE! It doesn't get better than that.
Valentina
Blogging for Money
PS… go get your cheese!
Quicklinks:
Choosing the right Internet Marketing Course
Register for Thirty Day Challenge
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
ABC's of Blogging #1 on Page One of Google!
WOW! ABC’s of Blogging for Money is #1 on Google and Blog Along With Me holds a respectable #2 position on Google’s page one! I am soooooo happy … I don’t think I have ever been #1 before! But before I sink into the euphoria of this most honored position I have some explaining to do …………..
The next round of topics on this blog is going to be on linking. While I have a fairly good working knowledge of this marketing technique I thought it would be a good idea to bone up on what other top dog bloggers have to say.
The more I read, the lower my spirits sank. I thought once again I did not do enough homework before starting this blog. The glaring error?
Keywords! Or the lack of them in my links. The most powerful link that you have is your domain name. For this blog I had decided to fight for Blogging for Money … while I frequently pepper this phrase in my postings, the domain name rules and it is glaringly bereft of the keyword phrase that I want this blog to become known for.
In an earlier post I had mentioned that this is a long term blog. I am blogging on how to blog – that is a crowded market with professional sites such as Blogger and Wordpress sitting comfortably in the top ranks on page one. Then there is Darren Rowse with his long standing and very popular Problogger coming up strongly in the middle of page one. When I was researching my keyword phrases, I decided that I could live with going for the phrase “blogging for money” which generates a daily search of 145.
While I did not expect to be sharing page space with Blogger, Wordpress or Darren, I did think that at least I would have got Google’s blessing with a page rank … oh, even page rank 1(with Google the higher the number of the page rank, the better it is) would have been great. Nada. Not even a nod.
Linking. Aha. The more I read on linking the deeper the realization sank in … It’s the link, stupid! The domain link does not have the keyword phrase in it! What does it have? It has the far more competitive word “blog” in it. Over 2 million searches daily. Other established and more savvy marketers are cornering that market! Dumb!!!
Now there are other strategies that I can employ to overcome this error but it would take time and aggressive marketing techniques. I could also go for another domain name and have it redirected to this site – I already did that once. I read that as prominent a blogger as Yaro Starak changed his first blog’s domain name three times. But this linking thing kept niggling at me. Then I had an idea. I Googled “blog along with me” and voila, there is my blog on page 1 holding positions 2, 3, 4 and 5.
My first reaction was big deal! Who goes searching for “blog along with me” but then I looked at the numbers – there it was in the 1 -10 of a possible 111,000,000! Be still my heart. How did my little blog of just 6 months beat out over a 100 million other entries?
I looked at each position to see what it was that helped me get to page one and as best as I can figure it out:
Content: The title “Blog Along With Me” is in the header. The phrase “blog along with me” appears in the description of the blog beneath the title in the header. This is a static part of the blog so that everytime a new post is added and the spiders or bots crawl this site, Blog Along With Me keeps showing up. Fresh content, consistent keyword.
Adbrite: I recently added Adbrite as an alternate to Adsense to monetize the blog. It is an interesting advertising system which works in tandem with Adsense, but replacing it when it can do better. Adbrite advertises to prospective advertisers and its ad for Blog Along With Me got picked up by Google. That is a link pickup. It occupies position No. 3.
Blog Catalog: I had submitted Blog Along to Blog Catalog and that too got crawled by Google and once again it is a link pickup
Twitter: One of my readers (bless you Michael) tweeted one of the posts on Twitter. And even though it was a Twitter URL it was a backlink to this site again!
I keep thinking of Mike Litman who was my first mentor. His favorite saying is “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
I had an idea! What about my A B C’s of Blogging for Money? That has been up a scant month. To my surprise, there it was on page one holding top spot in the 1 – 10 out of a possible 27,500,000! This time the keyword phrase was in the domain title, and my press release got picked up.
This is really encouraging. It means that if you do enough of the right stuff it will eventually over ride the wrong stuff and your efforts will begin to pay off. More on that in the next post.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogging for Money
PS… That’s a big smiley on the cheese.
Quick Links:
ABC's Of Blogging for Money
Blogger
Wordpress
Adbrite
Blog Catalog
Twitter
The next round of topics on this blog is going to be on linking. While I have a fairly good working knowledge of this marketing technique I thought it would be a good idea to bone up on what other top dog bloggers have to say.
The more I read, the lower my spirits sank. I thought once again I did not do enough homework before starting this blog. The glaring error?
Keywords! Or the lack of them in my links. The most powerful link that you have is your domain name. For this blog I had decided to fight for Blogging for Money … while I frequently pepper this phrase in my postings, the domain name rules and it is glaringly bereft of the keyword phrase that I want this blog to become known for.
In an earlier post I had mentioned that this is a long term blog. I am blogging on how to blog – that is a crowded market with professional sites such as Blogger and Wordpress sitting comfortably in the top ranks on page one. Then there is Darren Rowse with his long standing and very popular Problogger coming up strongly in the middle of page one. When I was researching my keyword phrases, I decided that I could live with going for the phrase “blogging for money” which generates a daily search of 145.
While I did not expect to be sharing page space with Blogger, Wordpress or Darren, I did think that at least I would have got Google’s blessing with a page rank … oh, even page rank 1(with Google the higher the number of the page rank, the better it is) would have been great. Nada. Not even a nod.
Linking. Aha. The more I read on linking the deeper the realization sank in … It’s the link, stupid! The domain link does not have the keyword phrase in it! What does it have? It has the far more competitive word “blog” in it. Over 2 million searches daily. Other established and more savvy marketers are cornering that market! Dumb!!!
Now there are other strategies that I can employ to overcome this error but it would take time and aggressive marketing techniques. I could also go for another domain name and have it redirected to this site – I already did that once. I read that as prominent a blogger as Yaro Starak changed his first blog’s domain name three times. But this linking thing kept niggling at me. Then I had an idea. I Googled “blog along with me” and voila, there is my blog on page 1 holding positions 2, 3, 4 and 5.
My first reaction was big deal! Who goes searching for “blog along with me” but then I looked at the numbers – there it was in the 1 -10 of a possible 111,000,000! Be still my heart. How did my little blog of just 6 months beat out over a 100 million other entries?
I looked at each position to see what it was that helped me get to page one and as best as I can figure it out:
Content: The title “Blog Along With Me” is in the header. The phrase “blog along with me” appears in the description of the blog beneath the title in the header. This is a static part of the blog so that everytime a new post is added and the spiders or bots crawl this site, Blog Along With Me keeps showing up. Fresh content, consistent keyword.
Adbrite: I recently added Adbrite as an alternate to Adsense to monetize the blog. It is an interesting advertising system which works in tandem with Adsense, but replacing it when it can do better. Adbrite advertises to prospective advertisers and its ad for Blog Along With Me got picked up by Google. That is a link pickup. It occupies position No. 3.
Blog Catalog: I had submitted Blog Along to Blog Catalog and that too got crawled by Google and once again it is a link pickup
Twitter: One of my readers (bless you Michael) tweeted one of the posts on Twitter. And even though it was a Twitter URL it was a backlink to this site again!
I keep thinking of Mike Litman who was my first mentor. His favorite saying is “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
I had an idea! What about my A B C’s of Blogging for Money? That has been up a scant month. To my surprise, there it was on page one holding top spot in the 1 – 10 out of a possible 27,500,000! This time the keyword phrase was in the domain title, and my press release got picked up.
This is really encouraging. It means that if you do enough of the right stuff it will eventually over ride the wrong stuff and your efforts will begin to pay off. More on that in the next post.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogging for Money
PS… That’s a big smiley on the cheese.
Quick Links:
ABC's Of Blogging for Money
Blogger
Wordpress
Adbrite
Blog Catalog
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Dot Com King
Who is Kevin Ham & why have we never heard of him?
Kevin Ham is the Dot Com King. He reigns in the kingdom of Domain. Until recently I have never heard of him, bet you haven’t either. He rules his kingdom from the seat of Reinvent Media Group, a Vancouver based company that owns over half a million domain names and who is arguably the most powerful and successful member of a small, albeit growing elite group of Domainers; landlords of valuable real estate on the internet. Kevin appears to be a very private man.
I recently sat with royalty and didn’t even know it. No, it wasn’t with Kevin Ham, but with Conor Shankey, the CTO of Reinvent Media. Conor is no mean dude himself when it comes to internet savvy and his role in it. We were both guests at a birthday party at the Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver. Over dinner he sat across from me. I reached over my dish of lamb shanks – no, there was no asparagus; I did not ask him for a date and besides his lovely wife was seated by his side - and engaged him in polite dinner conversation.
Turned out that Conor was in internet marketing and that’s when all semblance of politeness dropped as at the mere mention of anything internet my ears perk up and my “inquisition mode” – as my husband likes to term my natural curiosity - kicks into overdrive. I was floored when I learned that his company owned over half a million domain names, the largest domain owner in the world. My eyes must been the size of saucers as the sheer enormity of that number sank in. He then told me about Kevin Ham.
Conor Shankey is the founder of the very successful Visual Knowledge which was acquired by Reinvent Media in 2008.
OK … enough with the name dropping. What am I getting at? For several years now I have been following the development of virtual real estate. Ed Dale
and Kevin Wilke to name just two big guns in the internet marketing world are big players in this niche, but I first heard of virtual real estate at a seminar I attended almost two years ago in Los Angeles. I honestly don’t remember who it was that spoke about it. What I do remember is that the concept immediately began to churn cogs and turn wheels into motion as the very idea galvanized me completely.
I wrote about virtual real estate on this blog:
- There’s Money in Them Thar Blogs - April 13
That was Danielle Friedland I was referring to.
And again in:
- Owning Google Real Estate: - April 04
Dealing in virtual real estate is a growing business. From domains being auctioned off at seemingly ridiculous prices – Kevin Ham is known to have paid as much as $350,000 for a single domain name – to buyers wheeling and dealing with existing performing sites such as Danielle’s celebrity babies blog and pulling in a mil or two and oftentimes more.
No matter how you look at it, it’s a big business. I began to assemble a portfolio of domains shortly after my return from that Los Angeles seminar. I thought I was doing ok with 27! ...lol... These are all domains that actually have a web presence as sites and require my attention. They are monetized and bring in money, but not enough yet to outsource any of the functions.
It never occurred to me to buy domain names and hold them for future resale whilst systemically monetizing them in the meantime. My previous understanding of virtual real estate has expanded exponentially. Henceforth I’ll view my modest domain portfolio with a little bit more respect and continue to buy, hmmm, that would be "invest." It’s a lot more affordable than the stock market; the downside is negligible and the upside at best stratospheric. It is after all still a game, a domain name game, and its not just kings who can play at it.
It’s a thought … have I expanded your horizons? Just a wee teenzy bit? I hope so.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogger for Money
PS. Now that’s cheese worth biting into!
Quick Links:
Reinvent Media Group
Cellar Jazz Club
“I reached over the asparagus and asked her for a date” John F. Kennedy
Kevin Ham
Conor Shankey
There’s Money in Them Thar Blogs
Danielle Friedland
Owning Google Real Estate:
Kevin Ham is the Dot Com King. He reigns in the kingdom of Domain. Until recently I have never heard of him, bet you haven’t either. He rules his kingdom from the seat of Reinvent Media Group, a Vancouver based company that owns over half a million domain names and who is arguably the most powerful and successful member of a small, albeit growing elite group of Domainers; landlords of valuable real estate on the internet. Kevin appears to be a very private man.
I recently sat with royalty and didn’t even know it. No, it wasn’t with Kevin Ham, but with Conor Shankey, the CTO of Reinvent Media. Conor is no mean dude himself when it comes to internet savvy and his role in it. We were both guests at a birthday party at the Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver. Over dinner he sat across from me. I reached over my dish of lamb shanks – no, there was no asparagus; I did not ask him for a date and besides his lovely wife was seated by his side - and engaged him in polite dinner conversation.
Turned out that Conor was in internet marketing and that’s when all semblance of politeness dropped as at the mere mention of anything internet my ears perk up and my “inquisition mode” – as my husband likes to term my natural curiosity - kicks into overdrive. I was floored when I learned that his company owned over half a million domain names, the largest domain owner in the world. My eyes must been the size of saucers as the sheer enormity of that number sank in. He then told me about Kevin Ham.
Conor Shankey is the founder of the very successful Visual Knowledge which was acquired by Reinvent Media in 2008.
OK … enough with the name dropping. What am I getting at? For several years now I have been following the development of virtual real estate. Ed Dale
and Kevin Wilke to name just two big guns in the internet marketing world are big players in this niche, but I first heard of virtual real estate at a seminar I attended almost two years ago in Los Angeles. I honestly don’t remember who it was that spoke about it. What I do remember is that the concept immediately began to churn cogs and turn wheels into motion as the very idea galvanized me completely.
I wrote about virtual real estate on this blog:
- There’s Money in Them Thar Blogs - April 13
That was Danielle Friedland I was referring to.
And again in:
- Owning Google Real Estate: - April 04
Dealing in virtual real estate is a growing business. From domains being auctioned off at seemingly ridiculous prices – Kevin Ham is known to have paid as much as $350,000 for a single domain name – to buyers wheeling and dealing with existing performing sites such as Danielle’s celebrity babies blog and pulling in a mil or two and oftentimes more.
No matter how you look at it, it’s a big business. I began to assemble a portfolio of domains shortly after my return from that Los Angeles seminar. I thought I was doing ok with 27! ...lol... These are all domains that actually have a web presence as sites and require my attention. They are monetized and bring in money, but not enough yet to outsource any of the functions.
It never occurred to me to buy domain names and hold them for future resale whilst systemically monetizing them in the meantime. My previous understanding of virtual real estate has expanded exponentially. Henceforth I’ll view my modest domain portfolio with a little bit more respect and continue to buy, hmmm, that would be "invest." It’s a lot more affordable than the stock market; the downside is negligible and the upside at best stratospheric. It is after all still a game, a domain name game, and its not just kings who can play at it.
It’s a thought … have I expanded your horizons? Just a wee teenzy bit? I hope so.
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
Blogger for Money
PS. Now that’s cheese worth biting into!
Quick Links:
Reinvent Media Group
Cellar Jazz Club
“I reached over the asparagus and asked her for a date” John F. Kennedy
Kevin Ham
Conor Shankey
There’s Money in Them Thar Blogs
Danielle Friedland
Owning Google Real Estate:
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