Author Archives: Admin

Voice of a Site is Not Always the Reality

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There are a few people that I know of that publish material on their blogs, not because they are actually following their own advice, or truly telling the truth, but instead, they are attempting the widely known “fake it until you make it” credo that many bloggers attempt to use to hide their actual personality, lifestyle and advice.

You’ll see this all the time on “make money online” blogs where the author will attempt to sound like an expert, despite not having half a clue regarding making money online. You will see them talk about the success of a person, product, or service, mostly in hopes that you will sign up under their affiliate membership identification, earning them rewards of some sort, or pushing their co-ventures on you without disclosing their partnership in a project.

You are all being duped, day after day by assuming that even the experts you “know and love” are giving you the full truth. Most of the strategies that work really well are never talked about publicly to make sure there is a limited amount of competition.

Someone once said to me that you’ll never see a true affiliate marketing expert at a conference talking about affiliate marketing, as they are too busy earning money, and wouldn’t want to share their secrets for fear of having them negated in the marketplace.

Others have said that all information that people need to be successful online is out there, and freely available, but the more I read, understand and test myself, the more I realize that the information given out en masse is wrong and being used to trick an endless supply of people looking to turn their fortunes around into providing the fake voice from the blogosphere more money in their pockets.

Just because they say something is great, or look like they are doing well in a certain aspect of their business, doesn’t mean that it is the reality. Far more people will tell you to look at their left hand while they pull money from your wallet with their right.

Originally posted on February 15, 2011 @ 10:48 am

Random Thoughts on the Business of Blogging

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Over the course of the weekend, I had some interesting discussions with people, especially Titus Ferguson, who was nice enough to let me car pool with him and share a hotel room, making my personal expenses regarding attending PodCamp Michigan much less than they otherwise would have been.

The conclusion that we came to is that there are many bloggers out there only in it to make money and pay their bills, and just like every other industry that is both understandable, but in many ways negative and a bit depressing. One of the things that many online publishers thought would remain sacred is the power and semi-prestige of online publishing, and that there are many grey areas between spam blogs and useful online publications.

I had recently had a back and forth with someone else who thought that there were things about how certain bloggers were handling themselves that he didn’t like, and of course with anything like blogging, there will always be disagreements, but it seemed to come back to a lack of understanding with regards to the business of blogging.

Bloggers only get paid money for the work that they do thanks to sales of products, services or whatnot. You are fooling yourself to think that it doesn’t come back to that somewhere. Money is always exchanged for something, no matter on who or what you are writing for if your goal is to make money.

So many people aren’t thinking straight if they think that they can write about what they enjoy and make a living off of it forever without worrying about the business aspect of blogging.

I have written numerous times about things I know little about because it is a good paying job and I enjoy researching and writing. If I could write about science fiction and make more money today than I do writing about other things, I would, but there is a long process that is required to get to that point that I can’t take due to other circumstances, so I focus on filling a need that allows me to live the way that I most enjoy.

That’s the key with regards to blogging for money: fill a need. If you can write for pennies for a year, and the writing you do is just a hobby that you want to eventually turn into a career because you are working full time at something else, then that’s great, but if you want to get full time pay, for full time work today, you’ll end up working for someone else, and following their topics, their rules, and finding your own enjoyment in what you do.

So while many bloggers have gotten a lot further in their careers than I, and might be making more money today, I started day one in being able to make a full time living and supporting myself and my wife. Not a bad deal in my book.

Sorry if this post is all over the place but this is sort of an emotional topic for me

Originally posted on April 20, 2011 @ 1:36 pm

Going Beyond Blogging

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If you are looking to assess the skills you’ve acquired by blogging over the last year or more, then Deb Ng’s e-book might have the inspiration and ideas you need to change from being just a blogger to becoming a published author, community manager or more.

Blogging teaches a variety of talents that can be used outside of just blogging, and Deb lives that every day as the Community Manager for BlogTalkRadio. You might know Deb from her famous site Freelance Writing Jobs where she and her friends hand out massive amounts of great advice for freelance writers and bloggers alike.

Her e-book, Beyond Blogging: Using Your Blogging Skills for Bigger and Better Things, is twenty three pages long and comes in at just under ten dollars. An extreme value if I have ever seen one.

Originally posted on February 10, 2011 @ 10:49 pm

Freelance Work: Full Time Frustrations

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I have been working on freelance work for almost a week now, and I have to say that I really don’t understand how people can make a full time living this way. While it is nice to have variety, and some choice in what I do, dealing with the almost random pay, and random number of work hours each day can be quite difficult.

Also, after writing two posts today for someone else, I almost didn’t feel like writing on this blog. While I believe that is only because the topics of this blog and the blog I wrote on have fairly similar audiences, I still am reminded of why I have decided to change my career path yet again. I want to write, and I want to enjoy writing. I want to create something, and build something that I can be proud of and maybe even build equity in.

Working for other people can mean getting paid, but building equity can mean enjoying a lifestyle.

How do people work freelance full time? Am I missing some meaningful reward that my varied salary positions will never give me?

Originally posted on July 11, 2011 @ 11:27 pm

Are Your Advertising Dollars Rising or Falling?

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So for many right now there is this opinion that advertising revenue is dropping quickly, some are saying as high as around fifteen percent per quarter, or around five percent a month. To me, that seems relatively extreme, but there is a simple reason behind this: many small companies had to pull back on their advertising budgets, and larger companies don’t trust web metrics for helping calculate ROI.

While I hate the term “return on investment” when it comes to web marketing, I can definitely understand why companies don’t really trust web metrics. b5media had to change the software they were using, and in doing so found out that the numbers they were previously getting were way off base, and not a realistic view of what was actually happening on their blogs.

For companies spending money on advertisements on a CPM basis, not having the “right” numbers can create waste.

But what I don’t understand is why certain advertisers are dropping out faster than others? Have you seen a drop in your advertising revenue, or is it still rising? Are certain niches outside the sphere of influence that the market is having?

For me, it looks as though advertising dollars have stalled. They aren’t declining, nor are they rising. Are you noticing the same thing? Let me know in the comments below. The more information we all share, the better prepared we might be for whatever comes next.

Originally posted on April 14, 2011 @ 1:32 pm