Category Archives: Uncategorized

Gary’s Blog World Expo Keynote in More Formats

For those of you that have been complaining about the huge file, or the bad quality of the Viddler upload in my previous post, a friend of mine, Tom Leroux, has created some more great ways for you guys to have access to Gary’s great keynote speech from Blog World Expo.

A nice compact 230MB Quicktime Movie version.
A MP3 version and a M4A version as the audio is the most important part.

Very cool stuff for those that haven’t checked this out yet.

Originally posted on September 29, 2008 @ 8:17 pm

You Can’t Take the Same Path

I know this might be frustrating to those that have bought a million different “get rich today” e-books, but the fact is that the Internet is changing hourly, and the tactics that made one person rich will most likely no longer work, and it is even worse if that tactic is rolled into an e-book because you will no doubt have competition from every other person that has bought that same e-book. Think about that next time before you buy one.

So many people try to follow the examples of others and find themselves hitting a wall. Sure, some of the general concepts work, and sure sometimes you can take the same route as someone successful if you tackle a different niche or market, but many of people that are doing so well today online couldn’t repeat their success if they had to start over and only use their original tactics, and so what makes you think that following their step-by-step advice will lead you to making tons of money online?

You would be better off learning how the web functions today, what people are looking for, how search engines work and capitalizing on that. I would also suggest again that everyone follow their passions as no niche is too crowded if you are passionate and persistent.

When I started this blog, everyone told me I was crazy, and that the competition and saturation was just too high, but here I am today, doing better and better thanks to my persistence while many competitors have disappeared long ago.

Blaze your own trail to success, and don’t just follow the stale advice of e-books.

Originally posted on September 18, 2008 @ 12:18 pm

You Can’t Take the Same Path

I know this might be frustrating to those that have bought a million different “get rich today” e-books, but the fact is that the Internet is changing hourly, and the tactics that made one person rich will most likely no longer work, and it is even worse if that tactic is rolled into an e-book because you will no doubt have competition from every other person that has bought that same e-book. Think about that next time before you buy one.

So many people try to follow the examples of others and find themselves hitting a wall. Sure, some of the general concepts work, and sure sometimes you can take the same route as someone successful if you tackle a different niche or market, but many of people that are doing so well today online couldn’t repeat their success if they had to start over and only use their original tactics, and so what makes you think that following their step-by-step advice will lead you to making tons of money online?

You would be better off learning how the web functions today, what people are looking for, how search engines work and capitalizing on that. I would also suggest again that everyone follow their passions as no niche is too crowded if you are passionate and persistent.

When I started this blog, everyone told me I was crazy, and that the competition and saturation was just too high, but here I am today, doing better and better thanks to my persistence while many competitors have disappeared long ago.

Blaze your own trail to success, and don’t just follow the stale advice of e-books.

Originally posted on September 18, 2008 @ 12:18 pm

Blog Advertising Difficulties: Blog Network Doesn’t Mean Big Money

There is a great set of posts and videos going around right now talking about advertising and blogs, and I wanted to chime in with my two cents.

Aaron Brazell started me thinking about this thanks to a video on his blog Technosailor about blog consolidation.

Then I saw a post on Inquisitr talking about what Aaron said and Duncan added his own thoughts and opinions on bringing blogs together under one flag to sell advertising as a group.

These are both people that I highly respect, and who probably have more knowledge about the business of blogging than I do, but in this area, I don’t think they know what the heck they are talking about.

I am the co-founder of Grand Effect, a great blog network, with great blogs, written by great bloggers. We were all independent and came together for the purpose of passing traffic to each other, as well as a bit of link juice and of course banding together for network wide advertising sales.

I assumed because there would be a great deal of higher quality, focused blogs that we could get some high advertising rates, and when you bring our traffic together, we have a fair bit of page views, but still the advertisers aren’t running to our doors. I’ve shopped around the network a bit to some companies trying to gauge their response, and so far it has been a really lukewarm response.

We just don’t have the five or ten million page views that the big brands are looking for, or a tight enough demographic or the required star/networking power to make those big deals with friendly companies. We also aren’t high enough currently on the thought leader chain in the blogosphere for certain brands, making things even more frustrating as we work hard to show how powerful our brands have become.

While we have a lot to offer an advertiser that can come in with a three to five dollar CPM rate, we haven’t been able to secure that yet across the network of nine sites, and so bringing together a few blogs under a banner is definitely not enough to entice companies to sign up and tap into that combined traffic.

Also, I have found that the more page views that you bring together, the lower these companies want their overall CPM rates to be. So while a 50,000 page view blog might be able to sell some advertising space for a consistent $2 CPM, or $100 per advertising spot per month, a 500,000 page view blog, won’t instantly get $1000 for the same advertising positions.

Everyone also seems to be forgetting the time and effort that needs to go into selling these companies on buying advertising from you. This can take an immense amount of time depending on the company and it can also be difficult when the coalition is young and thus the brand everyone is flying is unknown. I always thought 9rules should have done something to help its membership make money through a network advertising service, but I realize now, in working with Grand Effect, that it just takes so much time.

You either have to develop an advertising platform, use one that already exists (thus giving them a cut) or do things manually. Development costs a fair bit of time and/or money. Using one that already exists can be frustrating because it might not have the features you want, and they’ll want their cut. Doing things manually can take huge amounts of time, and lends itself to mistakes.

How does everyone expect to manage network wide advertisements? Who will take the lead to create relationships with companies and sell them on advertising positions, and does this person get extra money? Who will handle the receiving and disbursement of advertising payments?

The information that the others have put up don’t really cover the important questions, instead lingering on about other less important things like freedom of creative control on your own blogs, and trying to quickly pull everyone under your wing in hopes of selling big advertising blocks.

Too many unanswered questions. I think people are going to jump in with both feet, only to find themselves disappointed. Doesn’t anyone plan things out properly in the blogosphere anymore?

Originally posted on July 26, 2008 @ 1:03 am

When Your Best Posts Aren’t On Your Blog

Over the last few years, I have posted on a variety of blogs and I made some major mistakes in building my brand that I am still paying for today. While I produced great content, it wasn’t me that was getting credit for it, but instead the blogs I wrote on.

I have also been reading a bunch of blogs over the same period of time, and a friend of mine, who is doing well, has been posting all of their best work on blogs that aren’t his/her own, leaving their blog a wasteland for great content.

I have been there, and dealt with this issue. It seems like a great idea to get paid for your best content, but usually this means building someone else’s brand and the best thing you can do to continue to make sure you have jobs in the future is to build your own brand as much as possible.

Building your own brand can quickly differentiate you from the millions of others working solely for others.

Spend Time

The best thing you can do for yourself, and your site is to spend time. I am not talking about a huge commitment, but if you aren’t creating one pillar article every week or two, you are doing yourself a great disservice.

Promote Your Stuff

Even if your best content is not on your blog, make sure you promote your best work. Mention your work on other blogs, on your own blog. Make sure to mention your own blog here and there on the site you are publishing on. If the blog you are writing on doesn’t allow you to promote yourself in some way, they are not someone you want to work for, as they are stopping you from building your own brand.

In the current generation of the web, there isn’t Nike or Coke type brands in blogging, instead there are singular names that everyone knows. Darren Rowse is Problogger and without him writing on the site, who would read it?

Chris Garrett writes everywhere, but always makes sure to leave his own fingerprint on his writing, and as such, he continues to build his personal brand above all others.

Is It Worth It?

Is it worth it to write all of your best content on someone else’s site? For me, I really didn’t see any other option. I wanted to continue to be a full time blogger, and to do so, I had to sell my best thoughts, ideas, and writing to earn a living.

I still think that this is a great way to go, as building up a site that will pay your full time income is very difficult, but please, make sure you still take the time to put some great content on your own blog as that is your main portfolio. That is most likely what drew someone into hiring you in the first place, and that is most likely what will help secure you your next job.

To the friend that isn’t writing any great content, in my mind, on her/his blog, please read this, take it to heart and find an hour or two a week to really hammer out something amazing, like I know you can!

Originally posted on May 18, 2008 @ 12:14 pm