John Cow dot Com » Guest Bloggers

How to Develop Powerful Relationships in Internet Marketing and See Your Profits Soar?

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:38:06 +0000

If you living on a lone island the ability to generate a significant income online is going to become an uphill battle. Your network of colleagues, clients, mentors, and peers is the greatest asset you will possess in the Online Marketing industry. There is no such thing as a JV if there is only one party, and you can’t be mentored by someone if you have no contact with them. This business revolves around relationships.

What is the Importance of Building Solid Relationships?

Many new marketers entering the online industry focus much of their effort on building niche sites, optimizing these sites, writing articles and web content; and then they sit back and hope for the best. While you can’t sidestep any of these aspects, you should spend more of your time on the areas of marketing that will generate long-term rewards. If you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule, you will know that a great portion of your success in business comes from 20% of your effort. My experience has proven that spending a large part of that 20% on building solid relationships ensures long-term success.

Beside my personal experience, I have engaged with many leaders in this industry, and ALL of them are surrounded by a network of people who are of similar standing. These leaders have partnered with others to develop innovative products, some have helped their fellow vendors gain recognition by recommending their products, and some have entered into strategic alliances with others in an effort to dominate their chosen niche.

It is difficult for a lone-ranger to reach the top! You need the skills, experience, and influence that others bring to the table. The advice and opportunities that can come from a colleague or mentor can often expand your business considerably. And if you are surrounded by distinguished people, their success is bound to rub-off onto you.

Building Relationships is about Giving

If you are a newbie and find yourself surrounded by a community of prominent marketers, you should never take on the role of being a leech: someone who only takes and never gives, someone who marches to the most influential people requesting one-on-one assistance. This is completely the wrong approach! The best case scenario is that the influential marketer might feel sorry for you and give you a few titbits of information. On the other hand, you might establish yourself as the person to avoid completely.

The right approach will be for you to firstly take the initiative and gain a thorough understanding on a specific subject. Read, research and absorb all the information at your disposal. Before you know it you will be well-informed – maybe even a semi-expert – and you will be able to add value by actively participating in conversations on the subject matter. You might even find yourself assisting others. If you comment regularly on a highly-esteemed blog – ensure your comments stimulate conversation, and bring your newly acquired knowledge to the community. The more value you contribute, the more likely it is that you will get noticed.

I spend a lot of time removing spam comments from my blog, but on occasion I will come across a real “gem” of a comment. This type of comment makes me want to know who the person is that left the comment. If this particular person asks me a question in the future or requests assistance from me, I will be obliged to offer my help.

You see – the more you give in life and in business the greater the chances are of you receiving when you are in need. Although everyone isn’t wired the same: some people might still turn down your plea for help, but there will be others who you’ve positively affected through your contributions who will approach you with new opportunities and ventures.

A mutually beneficial relationship requires you to do your part – if you’ve proven that you have something of value to offer then you are well on your way to building solid business relationships.

Guest Post Author: Alex Papa is an internet entrepreneur and investor. Among the last websites he has started is the Business Opportunities Expo, which allows people to connect and exchange new business ideas. In his blog he also writes about Antivirus and Internet security solutions and he offers valid Norton promo codes.

Taking Social Media Local with a PodCamp Unconference

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:43:28 +0000

Over the past few weeks, with the help of a few local friends, I have been planning and organizing a local event called a “PodCamp” Unconference.

Have you heard of a “PodCamp” before?

Have you heard of an “Unconference” before?

If not… no worries… I only heard of them recently myself.

A PodCamp is a “usually” free open forum community UnConference for new media enthusiasts, professionals or those just curious or wanting to learn more about it. This is including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers (Facebook, Twitter, etc). It is meant for anyone with any level of interest, knowledge or experience in new media.

Do not get mislead by the “Pod” in PodCamp though… it isn’t just about podcasting! If you’re interested in blogging, social media, social networking, podcasting, video on the net or anything like that… for your business or personal use… this is for you.

OK but what is an “Unconference”?

An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The term “unconference” has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations.

The idea is based on the idea of transforming conferences from one way conversations to two way communications. Instead of attendees simply sitting there and being talked at, they can present topics, participate in conversations… or if they wish… simply sit there and soak it all in.

So why am I organizing one?

New Media is not just about communicating to the world… it is also about reaching deeper into your own backyard. There is a huge intimidation about how new media can be effectively used by small businesses and what I want to do is help my local community understand that by starting the conversation.

If you would like to learn more about attending or hosting a “PodCamp” in your local community, check out http://podcamp.pbworks.com/

If you are anywhere near my frigid northern town of Sault Ste Marie… and are free on February 20th… then check out…

Soo Pod Camp – The Sault Ste Marie Social Media Unconference at http://soopodcamp.com/
(still have a bit of work to do on the blog… but will get that finished over the next couple days)

Would love to see some of you there… heck would love to see any of you there… even one

8 Questions You Must Ask Yourself About The New FTC Guidelines

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:59:43 +0000

With the new guidelines from the FTC that came into effect on December 1st, a lot of people are wondering if their site is compliant. In my previous post on the new FTC regulations, I gave some general examples and definitions but now I want to help you take action. I’ve put together some questions that you need to ask yourself in regards to all your websites (it does not matter if it is a personal blog or commercial storefront).

While I recommend that you go check out the actual information from the FTC itself at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm (warning, it’s a boring read but it’s always good to go straight to the source), the following checklist should help considerably…. but remember we are not lawyers and are not offering legal advice, this is simply a guideline to consider.

Continue reading 8 Questions You Must Ask Yourself About The New FTC Guidelines

(I ended up ending this three part series with the last post as a guest post on Yaro’s http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/)

Let Me Help You Crush Your Competition

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:57:45 +0000

We opened the doors to our powerful Web2Mayhem system and you can sign up now… CHECK OUT THE MEMBER REVIEWS… It Is Crazy how powerful this system is… you will love it!

Click Here to Check it Out Now!

Click Here to Check Out the Other Countless Testimonials
Click Here to Check Out the Other Countless Testimonials

Oh and if you wonder if these testimonials are real… do you think with all the FTC crap we would not have proof of everything we post… these are real… very real. The amazing thing is we have to post about typical results and nobody has sent us anything negative about results who are using the system so we have to only assume that if you don’t use our tools as we tell you that you will not get these results!

So us having to post what you can expect for results… well you can expect our system to work for you just like we say as long as you use it… cause that is what is happening

How to Develop Buyer Personas

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:13:16 +0000

Successful communications strategies work because they identify one or more buyer personas to target. You need to make these personas part of your planning process.

Buyer profiles, or personas, will be the cornerstone of your communications strategy. They are a crucial part of your planning process, and, although it’s tempting, you shouldn’t rush through them to get on to the fun stuff.

While you may only have one persona, or you may have several, there are still things you need to know about each group:

Their goals and aspirations
Their problems (so you can solve them)
Where they go to try and solve aforementioned problems
How you can best reach them
What is important to them
What kind of language do they use
What kind of images appeal to them
What kind of multimedia do they use

By doing this kind of basic research, you can learn a lot about these groups, and apply those learnings to your communications strategy to make it even more effective.

If you’ve got more than one persona, then you will also have to segment your communications strategy in order to target each persona individually. We’re trying to get away from the one-size-fits-all mentality when it comes to communications; it won’t do you any good to go through the buyer persona process and then try to shoehorn all the personas into one communication strategy.

By doing this basic research, you can learn a lot about these groups, and apply those learnings to your communications strategy to make it even more effective. The best way to learn about these people is to interview them, although that’s not always possible.

Look for other ways to learn about their habits – how did they get to your site, where do they go afterwards. You can also ask for information from current customers when they are completing a purchase, or give away something for free in exchange for some useful (but not personal) information about them.

By using these personas, you have a chance to truly empathize with your target buyers and to understand what they need, instead of concentrating on selling your product. You can see what drives them through the decision process.

Information you should see in your persona profile includes their background, daily activities, and solutions for their problems. The more you know about your market, the easier this will be to do.

Here’s what you need to do:

Identify the possible buyer personas for your site.
Fill out as much information as you can about your target groups; make sure to develop them into a real personality (give them a name if that helps) that you can relate to, not just generalization about a group.

Health Business Confidential is NOT a Freaking Scam Dumbass!

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:13:25 +0000

Well I got to admit… this really frustrated the hell out of me… and warning I tell you to get your head out of your ass in the below video… but I am only talking to a select few of you that made comments like…

Looks like a scam
health industry to saturated
blah blah blah

Take a couple minutes and press play on the below video and if that does not convince you that this is potentially the BEST $10 you spend this year… well then maybe I am the dumbass (which is probably the case depending on who you ask anyway).

CLICK HERE to Check Out This Fantastic Offer Now… It Is a Freakin No Brainer!

Traffic, Subscribers and Backlinks From Guest Posting

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:16:32 +0000

This is a Guest Post by Shannon Lilly blogger over at CowBlogger.com. Check out his blog and subscribe to his mooalicious blog right now!

If you have any doubts about guest posting on another blog then today is your lucky day! I have guest posted on all the top blogs including JohnChow and A MarketingPilgrim among many smaller ones. I am a Guest Post Pro you could say, I have some useful tips for you to check out in regards to guest posting. Lets begin this mooalicious guest post!

The first point I want to make is how important it is to present the guest post in a quality manner. Anything other then a professional post simply will not do in the blogosphere today, if you want to be taken seriously you need to present it professionally. Remember when guest posting your main goal is to convince these people on another blog to give you a shot and click over to your blog and or subscribe to your RSS.

If you don’t present the post professionally you might as well forget the whole thing…

Secondly use the guest post to your advantage, link to your own blog in it but no more then 2 times or the post will most likely be rejected because bloggers don’t usually like to link-out to other blogs because they are competitors. Additionally don’t be afraid to take one of those 2 links andÂ ask the readers to subscribe to your RSS Feed directly from the guest-post. I have found this to work excellent and if you can get away with it (DO IT!).

If the post goes live on a popular blog you have the possibility of the RSS Feed being picked up by RSS Sites / Bots and of course gaining subscribers from the blog your posting on, especially if they use any FireFox RSS plugins!

The point is “Use the guest post to your advantage”.

Its sort of ironic that I would be making a guest post about guest posting is it not?

Thirdly bring something new to the table, take this guest post for example sure Guest Posting has been talked about for ages but what I did was bring a friendly twist to the subject and get you thinking about the guest posting you do.

I don’t know that I can say such a twist has ever been put on a guest post before, have you?

Guest posting really is all about being different, I can’t tell you how many great and negative comments I have had on my guest posts because of either bringing something new to the table or nothing new at all.

However don’t let that deter you, even if the post is not something 100% new or unique… If its published then its still a great way to get new bloggers to listen to your blogging voice!

They could very well have never heard about what your telling them. Don’t assume everyone knows something because the majority believes they do, there are people who don’t know anything and you could be the only source they find!

Plus a Guest Post can look great on a writers resume!

So how about it, do you believe guest posting is important? Would you attempt guest posting on smaller blogs or would you stick with the big ones only?

Moo below and let us know!

Sunday Morning Fun and the Real Life Rocket man

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:15:52 +0000

Since it is the weekend we thought we’d take a small break (and we mean small) from the normal posts today.

Everyday we spend a small bit of time getting up to date on the happenings of our little world and especially in the business and tech world. We have seen a lot of things but you need to check this out!

As you probably know, Iron Man has been KICKING some serious butt at the box office in the last week or so (great movie in our opinion) and we were wondering if the comic/movie version of Iron Man has giving some ideas to people.

What kind of ideas you ask?

Well, to fly of course!

Think we are crazy… well check out Yves Rossy!

This guy made his first public flight over the Swiss Alps on May 14^th 2008 while being strapped to his self-made jet powered wings.

This is what Mr. Rossy did – he hopped into a Pilatus Porter aircraft and waited until it rose to around 7,500 feet. Then he jumped out of the plane and unfolded his 8-foot wings that we’re strapped to his back.

After he jumped out of the plane he allowed himself to gently glide across the sky as a crowd of people watched below. He then triggered his four jet turbines and quickly accelerated to almost 200 mph while the crowd below him quickly gasped then began cheering loudly.

Yves Rossy allowed himself to sore above the Rhone valley as he sometimes rose 2,600 feet into the air and with one last pass he waved to the crowd below and simply tipped his wings, flipped to his back and leveled out again as he executed an amazing 360 (that he never tried before), he then deployed his parachute and safely hit the ground.

OK, so it is not exactly the same as Iron Man.. but you got to admit, that was pretty cool!

Check out the video of the whole event at…

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/14/photos.rocketman/index.html

So our question to you… would you jump out of a plane with a jet pack strapped to your butt?

Use Virtual WordPress Appliance to learn WordPress

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:44:41 +0000

For anyone who tries to be a blogger or create some sort of information resource, the most important issue is always with high quality of the blog or site. It relates both to design and content. It takes awhile until the design makes you happy, and it can also take few iterations until you’re happy with the posts.

You create the post, and proofreading it, and post as draft, and reading it again. Then you fix few things, post it online. And then you find that you’re not so happy with some phrases, and you change them and post again…it takes awhile until you’re totally happy. All these back and forth iterations are not always convenient – you may have a bad connection. Or you have a hosting with limited bandwidth. Or you’re not sure, or anything else. Or, maybe, you’d like to see how it would look like without actually posting.

Or, you’re just like me. I’ve posted few times already that I’m thinking about moving my blog to WordPress. I want to try WordPress and see how it looks and feels like before I do it on a real blog.

I might have a solution for you. It will help you to do anything you want without actual posting or making design changes to your blog. It is very simple actually, and the magic is in virtualization. It’s hardly a surprise for anyone. Our personal computers are strong enough to be the host for both our own tasks and also for virtual computers. So, what you can do is to create your own virtual server that will only run WordPress (and its all required components, such as web server, database and php engine). You can then work with your local server while you’re trying to verify issues such as design and/or posts, and only after you’re sure – you could post it to your official blog.

Now I will explain the procedure I tested. Just keep in mind that while it shows how to work with WordPress blog engine, the idea can work for any other web or other resource you’d like to use. I looked over the web for all sorts of virtualization techniques, and the one I found to be the easiest is the VMWare image of rPath WordPress Appliance. It is the basic VMWare image of a virtual computer, which includes all required software components needed to run WordPress. Its size is about 130Mb, which is while not that small, is not big either – a connection to DSL would be enough to get it in about half an hour.

The download includes WordPress version 2.2, so you will need to update it if you want the latest and the greatest. After the download is complete, unzip the file, and start VMWare Player with the file inside extracted folder. It will start the virtual machine. Here is the example of how will the login look like after the start. I have a DHCP server running on my network, so the appropriate IP address (the picture is clickable):

Then, go to {IP}/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php in your browser (IP will be written on that login screen, user: admin, password is: password) – it will allow you to update the MySQL database and now you will have the WordPress installed. To update it to the latest version from rPath, go back to the virtual machine, and do the following:

login as root, no password needed.
execute “conary updateall”

After all updates are done, the appliance will be updated to WordPress 2.3.1. Another way to update, is to follow the standard WordPress Update procedures.

After the update, go to {IP}/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php again – and then you have the up-to-date WordPress with basic installation.

Now, you’ll be able to “play” with themes, plugins and design without hurting your live site. You can try out and build your new site. You can post here and fix those posts until you’re happy. And after you are, you can post it on your live blog. Here’s the example of my “possible” blog after few tweaks – I imported my own blog there just to see how can it look like (click to see larger picture):

This technique allows to do all sorts of experimenting while your live site is still very untouched, functional and working. It is also very helpful if you don’t have a WordPress blog yet and thinking about the move. It would allow you to play with it and to test it and to decide whether it worth the effort.

Enjoy being your own webmaster!!!

I have my own technology blog at www.thetechandcents.com. There I review all the variety of effects that technology has on our lives.

Nuke The Blogosphere With Your Very Own Contest

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:59:39 +0000

*Lost episode 4 now online *
Before we begin, I’d like to apologize to all John Cow readers. You see, I tried and tried before I wrote this post – pretty hard in fact, but I have failed you all. My extreme apologies…. at not being able to come up with a suitable cow pun. You see, all the other guest posters before me milked the puns for all they were worth, and with their fast mooves, I was just unable to compete . Hopefully though, the post I’m about to provide you will help make up for the sadness you felt when you saw the lack of ‘cattle’, ‘farm’, ‘cow’ and ‘moonetize’ in this post’s title.

A lot of you have blogs. The majority of you I’d wager, and those that don’t probably thought of doing so at least once in their online lives. Online blogs are a way of getting your thoughts out and projected to hundreds (or in the Cow’s case, thousands) of prospective readers – readers that may have known nothing about you until that glorious day that they stumbled across your online ramblings.

I have a sad truth for you though – the majority of online blogs fail. Sure, a large part of that is due to rubbish content (how often have you come across a blogger that types in txt spk? ) but there are a lot of bloggers that started out, continued to produce quality content on a consistent basis and gave up because they had few visitors, and even less comments. You see, bloggers blog to form a community, to interact with their readers – without that, there is no real purpose to your writing.

The reason most blogs fail is because they don’t market their websites enough. Yes, you can keep producing quality – every single day, in fact but if no one knows about it, you’re not getting anywhere. There are plenty of ways to market a website, most of which I’m sure you’ve heard about – you could write a guest post on some of the bigger blogs, do the whole gaming of social networking sites, and even promote your website heavily on forums, but what about the bloggers that just don’t have the time to do so? For them, contests are the way forward – and that’s what I’ll be talking about in today’s post.

You see, all people – young or old, short or tall, thin or fat… they may have a lot of differences, but the one thing all people have in common is that they love free stuff. Sure, the stuff has to be useful, but everyone loves free stuff, and not just that – winning it. Handing a person something free is one thing, but telling them that they won it out of ten, twenty, one hundred or more… that’s something that’ll make them feeling pretty happy with life. Contests are a great way of generating buzz in the blogosphere, and that’s one of, if not the best way you can start off a traffic frenzy to a new blog.

All you have to do is look at a few live examples in the online world of blogging to see just how successful a well created contest is… the Cow, as one of the best examples has something up for grabs for his readers nearly every single week, and that (along with the various acts of link bait ) has contributed greatly to him racking up 1,300 readers in only ten or so months. Another great example is Gyutae Park of Winning The Web – his first contest had the innovative idea of decoding a word string to win a review on John Chow (and John Cow later), followed up with his second contest of beating Tyler Cruz in some sort of ~~beauty~~ blogger paegant (heck, he got my vote) helped him near 400 RSS subscribers so far and ever increasing.

You just have to look at a few of the contest blogs to keep track – nearly every day a new one starts, and if promoted and marketed the right way, you can not just send visitors (that will convert to readers, commenters and subscribers) but also leave an imprint in the memory of those that surf the common blogs – the next time they hear the name of your blog, they’ll go ‘Hey, wasn’t that the site that gave away $xxx/free t-shirts/advertising spots last week? I gotta check it out!’

What prizes should I give away and how do I get them?

There are a multitude of prizes you could give away – advertising such as banners and reviews, eBooks, WordPress themes and even cold hard cash. The one thing you’ve got to do is make those prizes useful – a high quality WordPress theme, for example is something any blogger can use (or give away on their blog if they don’t need it) – an eBook on fish farming when you’re aiming to reach bloggers in the ‘make money online’ niche will not be of much help.

Quite a few of you will have private label content sitting on your hard drive that you can dish out, and the money – well, you could take it out of your montly budget, or work hard to get it if you don’t have it, but a great way of getting prizes of top end quality is simply by asking. You might remember a recent contest held by Bloggin-Ads, where he used the Entrecard message system to send a quick one asking probably every single user in his related niche for prizes – racking up more than fifty donated prizes, a lot of them pretty useful.

Remember, if you ask politely, and speak about the exposure they’ll get by donating, most bloggers will be happy to offer up something, no matter how minor – and you might even get some links to help promote your contest from them as a helping hand.

Contest rules?

This post is pretty long now, and most of you have gone to sleep, but last thing before I go – I promise! Most contests will be started to aim on increasing various metrics for a blogger – traffic (Alexa rank), subscribers (RSS) and backlinks (Google Pagerank) but you should make it as easy as possible to enter – if you require your visitors to jump through too many hoops, they’re simply going to ignore your contest. Remember, whilst you may want backlinks, requiring it to enter will rule out many of your readers that don’t have blogs of their own – the less rules you have, the more people are likely to enter. In my contest for example, all I required were comments and an email subscription – nothing too difficult, and thus I’m getting lots of interested parties.

That’s all for now – good luck if you decide to start up your own contest, and remember – you can make it happen.

So, how many links are we allowed in this little blurb? Anyways, I’m Jason Pereira, who blogs at The University Kid – the name speaks for itself. I’m currently running a contest of my own that gives out $150 amongst other things in prizes; feel free to check it out. Oh yeah – subscribe to the feed if you haven’t!

Creating a GOOD advertising page

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:56:36 +0000

Guest Post by Lincoln Adams. Visit his blog at The Habitation of Justice.

Face it, most of the advertising pages you see on blogs today (if there even is one) sucks mighty moose balls.

I believe there are two crucial things advertisers want to know about your site: how much traffic you get, and what your reader demographics are. When I revamped my own advertising page, I took these two things into consideration and developed what I hope is now a much more informative (and attractive looking) landing page that will give advertisers everything they need to know about my site.

For the former, I realized in spite of their inaccuracies, it still pays to list your Alexa, PageRank, Compete and Technorati rankings. Rather than do it by hand though, I used MyRankings.Net to help me display my current rankings in real time, that way I don’t have to keep hand editing them whenever a ranking changes.

I then listed the actual organic traffic figures I get per month. Right now they are, *ahem*, shall we say… a bit modest, but then again my prices are dirt cheap as well, so it all balances out in the end.

As to the latter, it’s especially hard to describe your reader demographics and what they’re interested in when you don’t have a definitive niche (like yours truly), and since advertisers want more than anything to market their goods and services to a targeted audience, this might present a problem.

However, there’s an effective way to way to determine the makeup and interests of your audience, partly by analyzing the search engine keywords that brought them to your site.

Personally, I found the easiest way to do this was via HitTail, a free service that analyzes your search engine related traffic and helps you find optimal keywords to improve your rankings and traffic numbers. They also provide an easy to scan list of all the keywords that have been used to direct visitors to your site since it began tracking, and I believe the data can also be exported into a spreadsheet format as well.

Using HitTail then, I went back almost a year and scanned all the keywords that led people to my site. I tried to understand what most of the visitors were looking for, and what their search efforts told me about them, and also what keywords drew the most traffic. If someone found my site via the search phrase “natural cures for shingles” for example, that told me they were interested in alternative and herbal medicine. If another one was looking for “privacy software,” that told me that they were interested in… uh… privacy software.

After I finished that, my next step was to analyze the interests of my repeat visitors. Some of them were friends, so I already knew what their passions were. For other visitors, more often than not they tended to have blogs of their own, so in those cases I would visit their sites to see what they liked to write about. Was it literature, politics, gadgets or romance? What fueled their passions the most? What was on their wish list, if they had one? And so on.

From all this I was able to develop and list several categories that I believe accurately reflected the interests of my audience. If an advertiser had a product to sell that easily fit the description of one or more of these categories, he or she would know right off the bat that their ads will likely draw healthy attention and attract a higher clickthrough rate, which of course would hopefully lead to a higher conversion rate as well.

Finally, in order to encourage advertisers to book a campaign on my site, I offered a significant discount guaranteeing a certain clickthrough rate for their ads, or they would receive a partial but generous refund. Am I a swell guy or what?

Hopefully my experience will help some of you develop a more effective landing page for your advertisers. And if not, well then, feel free to send them my way.

Making Money Online – Reality or Just Another Scam?

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:56:54 +0000

We’ve seen them a million times – annoying pop up ads, spam emails, and flashing banners claiming that you can make $2000 a week in the comfort of your own home with only a few hours of effort. Is this true? Is it really possible to make over $100,000 a year with a few clicks of the mouse? Well if you believe that, then I have a bridge I can sell you. However, the recent rise in the number of “Make Money Online” blogs leaves one to wonder just how much money, if any, really can be made online. So I decided to do a little social experiment. I call it Buzz My Blog.

Buzz My Blog documents my personal adventure into the world of Internet Marketing and Making Money Online. The original intent was to provide an honest and personal account of my real-life experience starting a blog from scratch and growing it into a successful and profitable web site. I did not want to create another one of those Get Rick Quick sites or annoying blogs that pushes this product or that product just to make a couple bucks. Instead, my goal was to provide an informative and interesting discussion of what works and what doesn’t, sharing every detail along the way. Readers could follow along, contribute comments and suggestions, and learn as I learn, ways to improve and eventually profit from their blog.

In less than a month, I have learned quite a bit about what it takes to build a successful blog. Buzz My Blog has grown quickly and has seen a good number of visitors – some who actually return regularly. It is emerging as an informative and collaborative online community where fellow bloggers can learn and discuss ways to make their blog more successful. I have met a number of other bloggers that share a similar interest in the topic and we learn from each other (along with our readers). Most importantly, I have learned that it is, in fact, possible to make money from your blog. However, unlike the potential scams that end up in your Junk Mail folder every day, it cannot be done with little effort. It takes hard work, dedication, persistence, and a commitment to provide relevant and interesting content on a frequent basis. This is not an easy thing to do.

Do you have a blog? If so, I invite you to come along and join me on this journey. Buzz My Blog has barely earned more than a few cents so far, but I am on my way. Surprisingly, I am finding the journey just as rewarding as the ultimate destination. Sure, I hope it makes some good money eventually. And if it does, you’ll know exactly how!

Happy Blogging!
Jeff
http://www.buzzmyblog.com

Cow Announcement: Googletime.info has been sold, please stop emailing us about it

The Truth About Bloggers

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:19:37 +0000

All "bloggers" are alike. They’re here to share stuff about themselves and whatever skill they possess with the rest of the world. Always aiming to add some form of value on their own corner of the web. There was a time when people got into blogging because they wanted another outlet, an outlet to just write because they felt like and to connect with like-minded people. Today everyone’s in it for a quick buck.

Here are Top 10 reasons you became a blogger. Pick one, any one -

You hate your job.
You don’t have a girlfriend or wife.
You don’t have a social life.
You weigh too much.
You think making money online is as simple as posting what you eat for dinner and where you went last night. Not too mention putting an affiliate ad on your sidebar.
Because your mom said you’re funny.
You got fired.
You haven’t been able to hold a steady job.
Nobody leaves comments on your MySpace page anymore.
You typed "Mad Cow" into Google and ended up here.

If you’re outside of the spectrum of the above 10 reasons, Congratulations! Pat yourself on the back because you really are here to talk about stuff that hopefully a lot of people are interested about. Hopefully other people reading you will also agree with your mom about how funny you are.

Guest post by Blogfeld – This Blogging is Making Me Thirsty!

The Art of Making a Deal Online

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:28:12 +0000

After spending quite a few years online, you tend to learn a few things about the internet- such as marketing, networking, and of course, making money. I have done my fair share of it all. My favorite activity, believe it or not, is making deals with people online. Why do I enjoy it? Well, who doesn’t love to negotiate? Haggling is a great way for both parties to get what they want under their own terms and standards. One of the best aspects of negotiating is that you do not have to be wealthy in order to get what you want; you simply need to drive a good bargain.

Although it can be fun, there are some rules to making the deal. Let’s face it- you may not know who is on the other side of the computer screen. You need to watch out for scammers, liars, and crooks. Unfortunately, I have had my fair share of dealings with these folks. I’m sure that I’m not alone in loving to negotiate and barter for goods and services. So, I’d like to take a minute to share some tips based on my own experiences with any like-minded individuals out there. When you want to conduct a deal, you should:

1) If you want to strike a deal with someone you met in an online community, the first step is to check their status within that community. Even if you’re a little familiar with the person, it’s also best to seek out some objective opinions before making your final decision. If you have never met this individual before, then ask them for some references; an honest person won’t mind taking a few steps to reassure you.

2) Get to know the person you are interesting in making a deal with. Visit their website or blog. Comment and contact them if you have any questions with anything that they are currently doing. Research is the key to forming an opinion of this individual; remember, you may want to conduct business with them again in the future.

3) Nobody wants to get the short end of the stick, so make sure that your deal is fair for all parties involved. Do not ask for too much and make sure you offer something just as valuable in return. I always make sure that I have something to offer someone, even if they do not want anything in return. It’s all about playing fair and sharing. If you can do both, then not only will they want to work with you again, but it will also leave them with a positive impression of you. They will remember you as being trustworthy and for caring about the person that you are negotiating with.

4) Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment and jump the gun. Before you contact another party with your proposal, make a checklist so that you won’t forget any pertinent details. You’ll want to let this person know who you are, a little bit about your background, what you’re looking for, and what you are able to offer in return. Once you’ve reached out to this person, don’t pester them for a response. Wait a suitable amount of time before attempting a follow up. Nobody likes to feel harassed; it can definitely ruin any potential deal.

All kinds of people make deals online and everyday: Internet Marketers and Affiliate Marketers have Joint Ventures, Bloggers ask for Reviews and Guest Posting, and even Work At Home Moms trade products or services. Just remember to keep it honest and fair in the process. Not only will you build a new relationship, but it will be win-win for you both.
Jackie
http://www.jackiesbizblog.com

Milk your Cash Cows

Jason Katzenback — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:46:19 +0000

One of the problems that I “suffer” from is a desire to always be doing something new. Whether this means launching a new forum, or focusing my attention on one of my smaller websites, I just enjoy mixing up what I do online. I think that we can all agree that doing the same thing can grow stale because even if you’re making a lot of money off of one particular website you may still get a little burned out. I know this is one reason why I start new websites; however, what you need to keep in check is the amount of time you devote to these new ideas.

Managing the time you spend on your portfolio of websites is crucial to your success. For those of us that aren’t making enough money online to quit our full time jobs this becomes even more important. As a part time web entrepreneur I recently realized that my focus on starting new websites had actually started to hinder my business because of the extra time, money, and effort that these projects take. I recently wrote about focusing on the big picture over at my blog where I talked about selling off one of my smaller websites that took a fair amount of time to set up that in the end didn’t even contribute much to my bottom line. Mistakes like this are costly and it’s so important to maintain a healthy balance between managing your existing websites and starting those new projects. You never want to take on more than you can handle and that’s why I will probably get rid of a few of my other small websites that take up my time so that I can focus on what matters most – my cash cows.

Your cash cows should be the primary focus when you get home from the day job. Everything else should be secondary. Now by no way am I telling you not to try out new ideas that you believe will be successful, but it should never come at the expense of your cash cows. Don’t take on too much if the rest of your websites will suffer from the extra time you now have to allocate to new ventures. I made the mistake of neglecting some of my cash cows so that I could focus on new projects and now I have to put in even more time to build them back up to their former glory. Don’t make the same mistake I did!

Another reason why you should always milk your cash cows first before moving on to anything else is because of the perks that come along with owning a larger website. Owning a large website allows you to gain entry into publisher programs that have strict traffic requirements. These top tier programs often pay out more than programs anyone can access and occasionally allow you to negotiate revenue share. If you take one thing from this post I ask that you please tend to the cows that provide you the most mooney before you even think about launching a new venture.

This post was guest blogged by me - Chris Guthrie! I write about blogging, managing online communities and making money online. If you liked this post subscribe to my full RSS feed.

You Say Cow And Chow, I Say Choo

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:55:09 +0000

I had originally started this post with a spiel about the Make Money Online niche being over crowded. Since this posts first draft, I’ve read countless posts over the last few weeks that cover all the same points I’d written, most a lot more eloquently, so I’m going to bypass all that.

The Make Money Online niche is not my area of expertise; neither is SEO, Affiliate Marketing, everything most of you come here to read about. What I do know, is what I like, and that is to read from an educated source regardless of the topic I’m reading about.

Assessing Your Own Success

Success is relevant and everyone has a different opinion on what constitutes success based on their own situation in life. For ME, if I had a blog, more 12 months old, and I answered yes to anyone of the following I’d be re-thinking my strategy;

• It generates less than $1000 per month
• It has fewer than 500 RSS subscribers
• It was still hosted on a blogspot account

Remember, we’re talking about the Make Money Online niche here, If you are writing within that niche and you are not able to do so yourself, why would I be interested in reading what you had to say? Harsh but blatantly true.

Reference Site

I want to use Danny Choo as an example, a blogger from Japan, who earns a very tidy sum of money from his blog each month.

Who’s Danny Choo you ask? Danny’s about page reads as follows;

- A mix of Gundam, figures, anime, otaku and Japanese culture brought to you by Danny Choo (me) who resides in Tokyo Japan.
- The contents of this site seems to be popular based on the average of 10 million page views per month generated by an average of 50,000 daily unique users.
- This site is also occasionally featured in the Japanese press such as on TV and in magazines/newspapers.
- I also write tips on living in Japan (buying a house, working etc) and blogging tips (how to earn money through affiliating, discoverability, SEO etc).
- Occasionally write posts on how important it is to have a destination in life and remain focused.

All that might mean nothing to you and the Japan / Anime flavour may also be of no interest whatsoever, what it does mean though is Danny gets a whole lot of traffic through the door.

As far as turning all that traffic into cash goes, back in March 07 Danny wrote, “The most I have ever made through all my affiliate programs is just over USD$1000 per day last December – my next goal is to keep it a steady USD$1000 by Q4 of this year – nearly there” You can read the full article here

That was written about a year ago, I’m not sure whether Danny achieved his goal of constant USD$1000 per day, his blogs finances are rarely posted about. Judging by the continued growth of his site, I’m confident in saying he did.

As many of you are inspired by John Chow and specifically his monthly Blog Income Report I get inspired by Danny Choo. His ability to, and I’ll quote the figures conservatively, earn over $20K per month, writing about something he knows a lot about and enjoys from both a professional and personal level is a great achievement.

My Suggestion To You

Blog about something you know more about, something you are passionate about, something unique to you and your experiences surrounding it, your chance of success will be much greater.

This could be anything from sports you play or watch, hobbies and recreational activities or maybe you or someone in your family has an illness you are extremely knowledgeable about , the possibilities are endless and becoming an authority on any of these is so much easier. See Kens Blog as another example, he launched the site after being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, 6 months ago he was earning over $40K per annum.

As long as you’re not crossing any moral boundaries there’s no reason why you can’t provide the knowledge you have, on these topics to others, and make a few bucks along the way. If you’re not Making Money Online now then you have nothing to lose in trying something different, literally.

This post was written by Neil Duckett. Neil writes a blog based on his life as a Gaijin in Japan and the adventures, challenges and satisfaction that comes with it.

How to Increase Your Blog’s Profile and Make More Money

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:26:47 +0000

Would you like to explode your blog’s traffic and exposure? Want to make a name for yourself in the Blogosphere? If your answer is yes to either of these questions, you should definitely consider guest posting. Guest posting is a fantastic method to establish yourself as an authority in a particular niche, and get loyal readers to your own blog.

Still not convinced?

Take a recent success story from a blogger you may be familiar with – Skellie

With over 2500 subscribers (1,050 in only three months), Skellie has quickly established herself as a key figure in the productivity, blogging, and make money online niche, largely due to her spectacular guest posts on several high profile blogs including ProBlogger. Here’s what she had to say on the matter:

The benefits of guest-posting shouldn’t be viewed in terms of traffic alone. If you write a guest-post on a blog with 30,000 daily visitors, only 300 might click back to your blog, but 30,000 people will have seen your name. The capacity for brand-building is just as valuable as the traffic. – Skellie

How’s that for convincing reasons to start guest posting?

Tips on Crafting the Perfect Guest Post

Give More (Much More) Than You Take

The idea of spending hours toiling on a post that’s going to make another blog look good doesn’t appeal to some bloggers. Now I’m not saying you have to spend hours, but you must put your heart and soul into the post. The reality is, if it’s not your best work you wont attract loyal readers. Furthermore, a sizzling guest post will almost 100% guarantee that your future guest posts will be accepted. The most important lessons to learn is that in guest posting, the more you put into a post, the more you get out of it.

Be BOLD

It’s all in what you say. Readers don’t want the same old opinions. Be unique, fresh, and give it all you’ve got. Set the tone of the post from the very first line and you’ll have visitors reading untill the very end. If you bring a strong opinion, make sure you back it up with strong examples, and supporting content.

Tailor the Post to the Blog’s Audience

Choose a topic that will suit the blog’s readers, and is inline with the blog’s focus. Be sure that their audience will be interested in the topic and will benefit from the information you give them. Searching through the blog’s archives so you can experience firsthand the topics they write on, is a MUST before writing a guest post. The more useful, informative, or thought-provoking your post is, the more potential subscribers/readers/customers you will attain.

Look For Spaces to be Filled

Is there a interesting topic that hasn’t been covered on the blog? Write a post on it! A post on a less covered (but still appealing) topic has a great chance of being a huge hit on the blog. You’ll be doing the readers a huge favor by writing it… and remember what I said about giving more than you take?

Check Your Work for Spelling and Grammar

There’s nothing that makes me cringe more than reading a guest post with obvious spelling or grammar mistakes in it. It’s a perfect way to create a bad first impression, which is something you just can’t afford if you want to be successful. You’re going to go through all the work to craft the perfect guest post, so doesn’t it make sense to spend two minutes of your time to check your spelings? (No Pun Intended)

If followed correctly, these five tips should provide you with a fantastic recipe to getting started with guest posting. Writing for another blog might seem like a lot of work in the beginning, but will pay dividends in the end. An interesting post on an established blog like John Cow has a huge potential to become viral, as it already has a strong reader base. So what are you waiting for? Have a killer post idea? Register on John Cow. Increase your traffic, exposure, and establish yourself as an authority. You’ll never look back.

Hafiz Dhanani is a fourteen-year-old blogger who has a brand new blog – Make Money Blogging – where you will able to find can find tips, insights, and anything else related to blogging and making money online. If you enjoyed this post, make sure to subscribe to his RSS feed.

Give Up Already

Jason Katzenback — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:19:13 +0000

I know who you are. You’re one of those ‘Make Money Online’ people. You read this blog, and others like it, every day, hoping to pick up some useful little tidbit of information so you can start your own ‘make money online’ blog. Even though you’ve never made more than a few pennies through Adsense, you’ll join the sweaty, teeming masses that comprise the ‘make money online’ niche. I know what you’ll write about too: The same damn thing as everybody else. Entrecard. Adsense. SEO. You’ll “get your inspiration” from the big boys, and while you won’t commit outright plagiarism, it’ll be close enough. I have a phrase I like to use for people like you: “Emulate, duplicate, regurgitate.”

Hi, I’m Geoff, and I’m the author of the one blog out there that exists to counter-balance the thousands of ‘make money online’ blogs: Can’t Get Rich. That’s right, I’ve accepted the fact and you should too. You can’t get rich online. You know why? All of the good ideas are taken. In other words, you can’t bring anything new to the table. You’re old news, taking up space. Not interesting. Get what I’m saying?

Of course, I’m sure that you’ll take that as a challenge. “I’ll show that mean old Geoff.” Well, first of all, I’m not old, I’m only 21. Maybe a little jaded, but that’s beside the point. Second of all, no, I’m not kidding. Don’t try to make a ‘make money online’ blog, you’re just wasting your time.

You’re still interested? Psh, people sure are stubborn. If you insist on going through with it, please, please follow a few basic rules so you’ll stand out from the herd:

Pick a good theme – Don’t use the default WordPress theme, but don’t pick an incredibly flashy one either. Don’t even bother picking one with ad space, as you won’t be needing it for a long time (if ever).
Speaking of ads – Don’t put any up! You heard me. Get off of adsense and just think for a moment: When people visit a website, what do they want to see? No, not ads, content. You should be focusing on writing quality content and attracting new readers, not making a quick and shameless buck. My readers occasionally ask me when I’m going to start monetizing my site. I always tell them the same thing: When I hit 1,000 readers per day. Until then, I’m going to focus on attracting and keeping readers.
The Feedburner widget – For heaven’s sake, don’t put it up until you have a good number of RSS readers! Congratulations, you finally broke into the double digits and now have 11 RSS subscribers. Big deal. That’s laughable. Don’t even bother putting the widget up until you have at least 50.
Adsense blocks – You know what? Don’t use them. Ever. They’re ugly, they’re tacky, and they’ll drive off your readers. If you’re going to advertise (and you’d better have a good number of readers), find some other ad network. I don’t really care who. Go ask Cow or Chow.
Be original – Starting a blog in the most crowded niche probably wasn’t a good idea to begin with, but since you’re here, you might as well do something. Don’t just rehash things you’ve read on this site or Digital Point forums. Tell your readers (assuming you have any) about what you’re doing and what you’re learning. If I wanted to read about something the Cow said, I’d visit his site.
Hold a contest – A good way to attract first-time readers is by holding a contest. Get your hands on a $100 Apple store gift certificate and start promoting. A word of advice though: Make it clear that you won’t accept entries from tiny contest blogs. You know the ones I’m talking about: Those blogspot blogs that have 2 RSS readers and nothing but entries to other blog contests. Seriously, they’re worthless. The whole point of a blog contest is to attract readers, and a 15 year-old’s blogspot blog isn’t going to do that for you.

So you’ve got a blog in one of the most saturated niches on the Internet. Congratulations, you stubborn fool. I bet you’re just aching to prove me wrong. Well, let me know about your site. I offer a little service I like to call ReviewU (see what I did there?). Basically, it’s just like ReviewMe, except it’s free and I don’t have to review your blog if I don’t want to. Typically, I like to ignore blogs that are perfectly fine and really dig into the ones that are awful. So, if you’d like to risk a potentially scathing review of your ugly little blog, go ahead and contact me.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Write Multiple Blogs? Create Your Own Plugin Depot

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:09:50 +0000

Most of us here are bloggers. Many of us write for multiple blogs, which is a great way to explore a number of niches. But where do you store your blogs? No, not online, offline?

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have a folder deeply buried on your hard disk called “blogs” or “sites” or whatever “blogs” or “sites” is in your directory. What mine contains is a copy of wordpress that the site is currently running (very important, as you if you switch servers you save time from finding the version of wordpress that’s compatible with your database), and the blog’s theme.

Each of my blogs has this, but there’s one more folder – plugins. This contains a copy of the essential plugins I use for my blog. Why do I do that? Well, three reasons stand out:

Saves Time: Instead of constantly directory hopping, I simply upload the wp-plugins folder to the wp-content subfolder on my server.

Handles Legacy Plugins: Suppose a site with the plugin you want on goes down? I’ve still got a backup, and – more importantly – I know exactly where it is.

Familiarisation - Before, I had 3 different plugins on 3 different blogs that did the same thing. Now, on any new blogs I create, I will only have one.

So, if you want to speed up the process of making a blog, spending more time blogging and promoting, why not create your own Plugin Depot on your hard drive? It’ll make your life a lot easier.

Of course, in an ideal world, all your blogs will use the same plugin depot online, but I’ll leave wordpress plugin writers to come up with a nifty way of doing that .

This post is written by Rhys Wynne – a five year blogger who knows the joys associated with multiple blogs. He writes at The Gospel According To Rhys, and has recently launched My Brand New Brand – a tool to help affiliate marketers find brandable domain names.

Think Outside the Cow Pen and Cattle Drive Your Traffic

Jason Katzenback — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:45:06 +0000

Blogging can be hard work and having a lot of visitors to your blog is one of the best ways to feel rewarded for your hard work. Sometimes, though, getting a good number of loyal readers can feel like an up hill battle. Sometimes, just writing good articles is not enough. Here are a few things you can do to increase your readership quickly and without breaking your budget.

Have a contest
If you’re a blogger on a budget, you may think that you can’t pull off a great contest to promote your blog, but it’s easier than you may think. To offer a great contest that will get people participating you need to follow some rules of thumb:

- Work out all the details before announcing your contest.
- Only offer what you are ready to provide to your winner.
- Make entering as easy as possible.
- Offer various ways to enter.

The most important things to focus on are the prizes and the ways to enter. Prizes can be tricky if you don’t have a big budget, but if you get creative, you’ll find that you have a lot to offer. Try offering ad space on your blog, a 200 word review, or a spot in your blog roll. Offer all three to make it interesting. If you have a valuable skill other than writing, offer it up. Graphic designers can offer logo or theme creation services. Web developers can offer development services. You get the idea. What else can you offer? Better still, think about what an company might offer that you can give away for them? I suggested this very recently to a fellow blogger who managed to land some product promotions for his upcoming contest. The more creative you are, the less you will have to empty your own pockets for your contest.

Don’t make your contest impossible to enter. As amazing as your prizes may be, people are busy and don’t want to spend a long time entering your contest. Let your reader earn entries for actions as simple as posting a comment or writing a post on their own blog about your contest. The number of entries you give your reader for an action should be relative to both the time and effort involved and the value that action hold for you. One thing that will help convince people to write about your contest is to do most of the work for them. In one of my current contests, I created a text file that included the contest image code, the rules, and additional links needed. This made it very easy for people to post about the contest and a lot of people have.

Fill a need and get some links
Keep your ear to the web and look for any way you can fill a need. There’s almost always something that the growing population of bloggers will feel a need for. Develop something new or improve something that already exists to fill a need and take advantage when people notice. Recently, IZEA announced the launch of their new site ranking system called IZEA Real Rank. When it launched, it did so with a basic API and no existing widget to display the live rank of a site. As a developer, that screamed opportunity to me and I quickly created the first live IZEA Real Rank badge. I put that badge on my own blogs, announced it to my network of bloggers on MyBlogLog.com and then emailed IZEA about it. Within a day, a bunch of people were using the badge and IZEA mentioned it in their blog (while answering with their own badge). This benefits me because the badge code includes a link back to my site and a comment asking the blog owner to please include my link with the badge. The result was some very nice compliments combined with a lot of links back to my own blog, and all for only an hour of my time. If you’re not a developer, figure out what service you can offer and then figure out how to use it as a promotional tool. Alternatively, you can hire a developer to build something for you.

Develop a marketing tool that markets you
Would you waste time playing slots? What if I said it was free? What if I said prizes included text links to wherever you want? After Jason Boom handed me the great idea for Entrecard Slots, in which you visit a virtual slot machine for a chance to win credits to use in Entrecard, I decided to expand on it to create what I’m calling Free Ad Slots. The variation simply allows visitors to win text advertising links. For both versions, I created a simple widget and then found that I needed some kind of incentive for bloggers to add this widget to their own blogs. The incentive I decided upon was to match any jackpot a visitor hit to the site that sent them. This addition to my blog took about three hours to create both versions and after only a couple days, both have been used significantly, and many people have included the widget in their own blogs. Think of something you can offer your readers that is fun or entertaining, gives back to them, and offers some form of incentive for them to help you promote it.

Thinking outside the box has doubled my traffic and readership, gained me about 60 inbound links, and increased my brand recognition all in the space of a month. Creative promotions have far outweighed paid campaigns that I have tried in the past and have kept my wallet just a little fatter at the same time. Get creative and get more readers.