Making Business Choices With Happiness In Mind
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I’ve been dying to make a post to this blog. This has been the longest break I have had between posts in many months and while I don’t commit to any minimum amount of new posts per week I love writing so it’s been painful to stay away.
What have I been up to that has kept me away from blog writing? Well lots, let me report back to you…
BetterEdit.com Web Sales System
The main culprit has been my student editing and proofreading business, BetterEdit. I worked with Will Swayne and the team at Marketing-Results to do a complete overhaul of the BetterEdit website and online sales process.
After Marketing-Results finished I went to work tweaking a lot of little things. That tweaking ended up taking almost two months and just this week I had to say to myself ‘just launch it’ and then continue to tweak it, which I did. The new BetterEdit.com launched at the start of November and while it still has some errors and could use some proofing (always an issue when the business is proofreading) it’s at a functional stage. Over the next few weeks I will do the final cleaning and have an editor give it a once over and then I can psychologically sign-off on the project.
That’s been the biggest roadblock over the last month or two, in my mind I’ve always had “get the website done” gnawing at me, and while I enjoy working on BetterEdit a lot of the tasks I had to complete were not high on my “fun list” and were easy procrastination targets. And procrastinate I did. Lesson here folks – get the job done as soon as possible and *force* yourself to work through the not so fun tasks so you can get over the hump as soon as possible. Break it down into manageable chunks so you get a sense of achievement at the end of each working session and don’t procrastinate because there are more fun things you would prefer to be doing. The fun things stop being fun when the stress of things you should be doing starts to pressure you.
Besides the obvious cosmetic change at BetterEdit.com there are a few other key changes. The sales copy and overall positioning is now directed to students only, with the positioning statement “Get better grades”. The business editing arm of BetterEdit is no longer promoted. This I believe is a good tightening of the niche and brings the core focus to the target market we can best service and provide the most significant value. In particular the focus is attracting international students and as such the copy has been simplified to be digestible by those with English as a second language.
An autoresponder driven sales process has been established with a free report as the “bribe” to sign up. The report is aimed at international students and teaches some basic error checking procedures students should go through before handing in an essay for grading. A quick quote facility has also been created allowing an instant price quote to be returned to prospects. They are then subscribed to an autoresponder series. This all contributes to the slow relationship building process converting suspects to prospects and then to clients.
Overall the website now has a clearer message and a streamlined sales process. I feel confident now that after sending people to the website the potential for a client conversion is optimised. This is important since in the future as I spend money on marketing initiatives I know the backend will do the best job it can at capturing prospects and clients.
Bad Debts
One major downer I experienced recently was a few instances of bad clients. Now as you may know if you have read my business timeline I have had some not too enjoyable experiences with credit card fraud. I haven’t been too worried with BetterEdit and credit card fraud but I am still quite wary whenever a significant credit card project comes through but thanks to Paymate and the nature of the service we provide (what kind of credit card fraudster attends university?) I’ve been spared any credit card issues so far (touch wood).
The real problem is non-paying clients. Generally I’m pretty relaxed with clients paying after they receive their edited work back. Often with a tight deadline it may simply not be possible, outside of credit card payments that aren’t always possible if the client doesn’t have a card, to make a quick payment. In general if the client has a positive history of making payment or if it is a first time client but the amount at risk is below $200 I will allow the client to pay afterwards, providing time to send a money order or cheque if that is how they would prefer to pay. Up until recently this has proven to be a reasonably successful system and in the past two years I have not had one bad debt (we did have some earlier on though).
This Australian semester it appears that I may have a few bad debts. More than the money lost, it’s the type of person that does this sort of thing that really annoys and saddens me. If it turns out that the bad debts I have on my books are in fact bad debts – people that never had any intention of paying for the service – I will have to change my policy regarding upfront payments. This really disappoints me because these people lied to get as much work out of the business as they could. It’s the manner that they go about it that bugs me most, these people are cheaters that will probably continue to do dishonest things in their future lives. Yes I realise that people like this exist in the world, I just prefer to have as little exposure to them as possible.
Consequently I may have to change my policy to demand upfront payment from all new clients. This in turn may result in the loss of a few genuine clients that would have used the service given they had time to make payment after the job was complete. Unfortunately you just don’t know what type of person is at the end of an email and as a business you have to find a balance of minimising bad debts and keeping out the cheating clients without the loss of any legitimate honest clients. It’s a balance I thought I had right but perhaps as the business grows I will just have to be a little tighter with things. I don’t enjoy being suspicious but that may be the way that the game has to be played. Sigh.
My Direction And This Blog
Another issue I grappled with in the last month is what exactly I am trying to achieve with this blog. I went through an extremely motivated period where I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I kept working towards that. In general my goals haven’t changed in terms of desired outcomes, I’m just not certain how to get there. Everything has become a little fuzzy and the medium term future goals are changing. My current activities – writing great articles and producing fantastic podcasts are still my main goals, I’m just not sure exactly where it is leading me. Like BetterEdit, I’d prefer to be clear exactly on what I am selling so the backend works towards that goal 100% before I go to work marketing myself writing articles and recording podcasts.
Here are some of the ideas I have thought about:
Offer consulting/business coaching to help people to build businesses and generate new clients using online marketing. I enjoy working with entrepreneurs and solopreneurs to help them make use and understand Internet technologies and determine exactly what they want from their business. Talking business is always fun and I am confident I can guide people to define and reach goals and help them to nut out exactly what they want to achieve regarding lifestyle (I currently do ‘friendly’ consulting/coaching for some friends and contacts). I’m confident in my abilities to provide two types of consulting services – online marketing/business and overall business lifestyle happiness (coaching style goal setting). While I wouldn’t mind having a few clients I would never want to be a full time consultant. Unless I found it so completely fulfilling and rewarding of course and you don’t know until you try. I’d choose this role for intellectual stimulation and people interaction more than the money, but I would want it to be worth my while financially as well.
I’m still keen on focusing on writing and recording my own information products. This was my main goal for the past few months. Just recently however I’ve had a change of feelings regarding this direction given that I am having trouble finding a niche I can serve well. Without the niche there is simply too much competition in the online marketing and internet business training industry, ranging from the notoriously bad “get rich quick” schemes to the really good top marketing guru materials. If I don’t find a niche I care about, am able to attract the right people to and provide value for I won’t experience success with my own products.
I might put my time into turning this blog into a significant income stream. I’m quite keen on this direction given the foundation has been laid and I can continue to do what I enjoy, write and podcast, to build a larger audience. A possible income generation strategy is advertising on both the blog and in podcasts. Since the last Google updated I’ve noticed that the sites on my blogroll have greatly benefited since backlinks appear on all pages of this site – that’s collectively 300+ backlinks, some of which are PR5s and PR4s, probably enough to give a site a PR4 for just being in the blogroll. The most recent podcasts are nearing 2000 downloads each. Combing those two communication channels I’m sure I can offer advertisers some good exposure if they are interested in targeting the entrepreneur/internet business/online marketer/webmaster demographic. Again of course this income stream is dependent on me continuing to provide regular solid content, which is fine while my motivation is strong, but it is a labour = pay relationship.
Other options include creating some form of membership area on Entrepreneur’s Journey, or integrating an information product or two that is a direct spin off enhancement from this blog’s content.
I could work on building niche lists and sell other people’s products through affiliate relationships. The recent post I made regarding the Limited Time Special Price On AdWords E-Book was a test. Yes I do believe it was a good offer, I wouldn’t post it on this blog and pitch it to you guys and girls if I didn’t, but I also wanted to learn more about you, the readership of this blog. Initially I was disappointed with the response and I was beginning to think that the audience of this blog, for whatever reason, would not respond with their wallets to any products I discussed. Therefore the potential for affiliate sales would not be good until I redefined and narrowed the target market, although one test is not really enough to draw any significant conclusions from. Over the course of last week enough sales came through to keep me motivated that affiliate income could be a way to go. It was a terrible conversion rate but at least something to work with and build on, and not zero.
It’s A Matter Of Choice
The thing is all of the options mentioned above appeal to me, along with a handful of other projects I didn’t mention that I could play with (focus on flipping websites, set up new niche specific websites, purchase some sites already generating advertising revenue to build a portfolio, do some joint venture projects with other bloggers and the list goes on). The problem is choice. In a way it’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity or a collection of opportunities, but I must choose the options that collectively maximise one thing and one thing only – my happiness. Happiness is the most important variable and should always be the primary focus for any entrepreneur. However all the little variables that come together that lead to happiness paints a complex puzzle that can only truly be solved by getting stuck in and trying things.
In my experience one of the best ways to find the happiness answer is to open a few doors that don’t make you happy. You can then close the doors for good and know not to walk through again. Slowly over time you cross off all the things you don’t enjoy and through a process of elimination and trial and error you find what you do enjoy. Being human of course means you can’t stay happy all the time but as you figure out the right mix that leads to your happiness you can stay happy *most* of the time.
Niche Refinement
One of the things that I need to further refine is the niche, the target market, the itch I offer a scratch to. I will always suffer poor conversion rates if I don’t define exactly what I am trying to be to people. In my experience this is often the hardest part for most entrepreneurs, deciding exactly who they want to service and how they want to position themselves in the marketplace. At the moment my target market is entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, home based business people and general Internet business. That is just way too broad and undefined to make a dent in the marketplace because absolutely everyone is doing the same thing. Yes I have the advantage that there is only one Yaro Starak that can offer what I can offer but I haven’t found the exact way to sell my expertise so that it maximises my happiness, financial return and meets the needs of a tightly defined niche. I need to figure out what I am trying to be so that when I do it the results for everyone involved are fantastic.
Don’t Worry – Let Things Happen Naturally
For the time being I’m not committing to any of the ideas mentioned above (although I value any feedback you have on them – comments appreciated) but I will continue to maintain this blog as per usual. The beauty of blog writing and podcasts is work and opportunity tends to find you. The more you put yourself out there and demonstrate who you are and what you do the greater your exposure is and the more likely some interesting opportunities will land at your feet. I’ve already had a handful of opportunities come to me that I wasn’t expecting, including paid blogging/podcasting, consulting and online marketing work. I’m certainly open to any other unique and interesting opportunities that come my way.
The biggest emotional problem I generally feel that I’m sure many of you reading this have felt as well is excessive focus on accumulation of money. Too often I’m thinking about making money and doing calculations in my head about how much I can make doing this and that. Most of my poor decisions are made as a result of impatience to make a certain amount of money in a certain time or in a certain way. Impatience is the worst enemy of the entrepreneur, causing us to make the most mistakes and creating the most stresses.
The right attitude is one of relaxed enjoyment. I’ve experienced the most satisfaction when I focus on the type of work and people I want to meet rather than the dollars I can make. If you are relaxed about income then you can choose work you want to do for the pleasure of doing the work and interacting with people. The pressures of making a certain amount of money by a certain time don’t exist. Over time the chances are you will make more money then you will need if you stick to what you are good at and enjoy the journey at a comfortable pace, rather than forcing yourself to run everywhere as fast as you can.
Yaro Starak
Opportunist
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[...] I’d like to either sell the business or hire someone to manage it for me within two years and to do that I need to double the current income level. If I double it I can afford to hire someone or hopefully sell the site and earn enough to not worry about income for a few years and invest the money in other projects. As I recently wrote about in this blog, I just finished a redesign and refocus of the BetterEdit sales process, which provides some additional tools such as a free report lead generator to make use of to test different marketing techniques. The result of the redesign has also seen BetterEdit vault further up the global search engine results, which always helps. [...]
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[...] After my recent complaints regarding fraudsters not paying their bills and lying and cheating to get more free work out of my business (sheesh, that angry emotion just doesn’t die easily does it!) I think this story is a nice counter-balance and should even up the karma a little bit. This is how business is meant to work. [...]
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fun love test for a couple to take free
I am thinking of doing a blog, how many times a week do you think I should post?
Yaro
You may like to read this post on by blog that I made recently How to make money from affiliate programs.
Focusing on the ones that work is the most important thig! Matt
Yaro,
Regarding getting payments off people. I’d say that as a small business you should tighten up on payments. Have a look at how much time you are spending on chasing payments and how much you have in bad debt and then compare that to how much you think you might lose if new customers had to pay upfront.
Generally you should ask for payment upfront unless the person or business has proven themselves as having good credit.
My $0.02
Hi there Yaro,
I’ve seen this happen to so many blogs – at around the 6-mth or so period they get into a sort of blog depression, wondering we’re they’re going with it all, if it’s worth it etc.,
I see blogging in two ways – blogging as a pure business (ala Darren Rowse) or blogging as a marketing tool for your business – they’re both completetly different kinds of blogging.
About the niche thing, I’m like you – we’re both in a big and highly competitive market (lots of shonks around as well). I guess it all comes down to drilling down that niche so it’s so targeted that you can make a go of it.
Like myself: the drill down goes as this: Home Business Owners (Huge) > Running a Web Business (very big) > Internet Savvy genuine home-based web business, not get rich stuff (getting smaller) > Are serious about their business and want to learn and get advice … etc., you get the idea, hopefully
From what I know of you, I think you’d be suited to creating audio products, running online seminars and going the coaching route – especially by developing the “Yaro” brand. Write a great eBook, blog it’s development, get it out to the A-listers. These things take time, but beforte you know it it will have an snowball effect and you’ll have that name recognition.
Maybe blogging is not really for you, you love the massive posts which are great – maybe you should focus solely on podcasts.
I’d do one small podcast a week for free (get their emails of course) and every month or so do a big one that you can sell. Soon you’ll have a batch of great audio products that you can package together and sell … even turn it into a CD package, kit etc.,
Just my couple of cents …
Martin – I had a feeling someone might suggest blog depression but I feel like I need to defend myself and clarify that it’s definitely not depression about blogging or this blog – I love writing this blog and creating podcasts. My problem is that I want my blogging to be towards some purpose and I’m not certain what purpose that is. Without direction the topics will be all over the place and I will attract an audience that is all over the place too.
That’s okay if I plan on simply blogging to indulge in a creative outlet, and to be honest if BetterEdit and other business projects grew to a point where I made reasonably significant revenues (about 10% of Darren’s income should do
then I’d probably blog just to help and interact with others. In fact for the moment this is exactly what I am doing and seeing what doors open and where my motivation carries me.
Yes you are right about the niche markets we are looking to target are similar. I read your description of your niche marketing drill down and it just doesn’t appear refined enough to me.
If you said 30-45 year old work-at-home mums with families looking to make a few extra thousand dollars per month from the Internet selling home made crafts then I would be a believer.
Of course the proof is in the pudding and if you find your market and they buy from you then job done. I just don’t believe, at the moment, my niche is defined enough, and to be honest I don’t think HomeOfficeVoice is either. I realise you have other projects going AND of course I can’t test your audience, I’m merely making an unsubstantiated observation based on the kind of results I’ve had from my blog (I think our blogs are somewhat similar in focus).
I think the “Yaro” and “Martin” brands can carry us only so far. The solutions we sell must have a nice clear target consumer in focus and it’s up to us to clearly reinforce this with every article we write and every podcast we record. That’s if our main goal is to sell something.
Thank you for your comments and observations about me. I agree that I enjoy podcasting and certainly some form of audio recording will be in my future. As will be writing. I also appreciate your monetization strategies at the end of your post – I like them all
, the question is what niche is the topic of all this content focusing on…
Time will bring answers, patience right Martin
Martin’s suggestion is a bit like we discussed about the Interesting Thing of the Day blog and how he seels subscriptions to podcasts of all blog entries.
Generally I don’t like podcasts – overall from the ones on most sites they ramble – anything over 20 minutes means there is too broad an approach. Tight, to the point ,value for time (and money). Not everyone has the luxury of commuting time (certainly not at home entreps like us!
Stephan – Yes, quite right, in fact that is what I have been doing and largely it’s been working. Due to recent events and an increase in business I probably have to turn up the suspicious knob a little and turn away some first time clients if they don’t pay upfront. The balance is constantly being adjusted.
Hi Yaro. I enjoyed reading your post. You know, there’s a lot of advice out there on the Information Super Highway but there’s an awful lot of misinformation too.
I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and can see that real care and attention is taken into keeping it updated, interesting, and informative. Over time this kind of continuity breeds a trust element for your visitors and being able to interact too (comments, emails, Skype etc) only enhances this. Patience and persistence prevails in the end.
I made the mistake with my website as I thought that if I dedicated a full time commitment to the project (1 year now which includes 5 months live) I’d jump ahead of those guys that were patiently allowing for organic growth as they built their projects slowly and thoughtfully on a part-time basis.
WRONG! What I didn’t anticipate was that websites take a while to build credibility. Sites come, and go all the time, so before any potential advertisers become interested in my site, my product, my service, or my name, etc it all has to become well known and credible, and that takes as long as it takes despite myself. I believe this is the case with every new unknown webmaster no matter how impressively their site looks and functions on launch day.
The most important thing for me is what you pointed out. I still love it, I still believe in it, and I’m going to continue to drive it no matter what! Educate, educate, educate!
I have never had a website of my own before but the idea just popped into my head one day after a disastrous hi street business failure here in Thailand. I did research and read as much as I could about what makes a website successful. I designed the format, layout, and functions for the new project on paper first and then got professional web developers to put it all together for me.
Like your BetterEdit project, I was aiming for perfection before the site was uploaded to the World Wide Web, but it looked like I was never going to get the dam thing on line as one thing after another kept delaying this (mainly my unhealthy obsession for perfection!) so I bit the bullet one day and just put it out there. That was 5 months ago and I’m still tweaking it. I’m so glad I went live as there has been quite a bit of user feedback that has guided me on many of the updates since.
Anyway, I won’t waffle on any more. I just wanted to thank you for this and other useful posts that have given me inspiration and guidance. I refuse to admit defeat on my struggling internet business and hope to report back in the not to distant future with some positive results based on tips and tricks found here and elsewhere.
Best regards
Aitch
PS Some of these longer posts would make a much easier read if your system allowed breaks between paragraphs. Just an observation mate.
Aitch – Thanks for your lengthy reply, and quite right, I need to figure out how to have comments retain paragraph breaks. I can’t figure out which file controls that, it must be deep in the PHP of this theme somewhere because it’s not obvious to me. Anyone know how fix that with wordpress?
(*Update* – I figured it out, as you can no doubt tell.)
You know in a lot of ways I wish I could just blog to help everyone realise their dream of owning a profitable business or even just a popular website.
The satisfaction from helping others is a real boon from blogging and yes you do want to be financially rewarded for your work too, but the satisfaction of helping others is often of more value.
Hi Matt – quite right, not everyone has time to listen to long podcasts, then there are those that will be turned off by short podcasts because they don’t get enough from them. You must “ask” your market what they would prefer. Then do you decide to do what your market wants to maximise your profits or do what you prefer because you will do a better job rather than forcing yourself to create longer/shorter podcasts?
Initially I preferred to listen to and create short 15-20 min podcasts and I assumed others would also prefer short to the point podcasts. But then I realised that a lot of listeners are taking podcasts on the commute, often a 30-45 minute travel journey. I myself listen to podcasts on my 40 minute walks and because of this I prefer the high quality longer shows on topics I am interested in, usually online marketing.
I once listened to a show by a fellow that created 5 minute podcasts with prominent marketing professionals. He had them talk for 5 minutes on one topic, usually offering one tip. I downloaded a couple of the podcasts because of the quality of the guests on the show but after listening to them I immediately oversubscribed. They were next to useless because in 5 minutes you can’t discuss a topic in depth. The content was so “light” I was completely turned off.
I think it’s best to focus on quality, if you can do quality in 15 minutes great, if it takes you 45 minutes that’s okay too. If it’s quality you will get an audience. You will turn away some people because of time preferences, but you can’t please everyone.
I missed your posts Yaro, good to see another.
Here’s a few things I thought of:
- Podcast lengths – you could offer two versions; the full length and one which you’ve editted that provides the main points in 10 or 15min. Although it’ll take a while to edit I guess.
-Monetising this blog/podcasts – although I would like to be able to access all your content for free, there are a couple of subscription like services I would be willing to pay if I had to in order to access your content.
From listening to quite a few podcasts from tech to entrepreneurship I’ve found a few sites that do the following: (not sure how well they work though)
> http://www.greatergoodradio.com – What they do is offer a free podcast segment where they talk with someone about their business etc, then what users can do is purchase an ‘after show’ which I assume basically just continues the conversation
> http://www.diggnation.com – They have a weekly vidcast and users can pay a monthly fee/subscription and this gives them access to their products and vidcasts early. They then release the vidcast to the public a few days after.
> The other options are to completely lock out users from accessing your content unless they pay a subscription; or offer some podcasts/articles freely and then create, as you mentioned, a members section where good quality articles are accessible.
I don’t think paying an amount per podcast would really work, but a cheap monthly, half-yearly or yearly subscription fee may work.
But I’m sure you can find many multiple income streams from this site without needing to resort to obvious affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is fine in moderation so long as it is very subtle (whilst still being transparent)… so perhaps mentioning the Google SEO product subtly in a post about SEO tips and techniques, rather than an entire article about the Google SEO product.
An idea I had about a possible podcast (in the future) was to offer podcasts released early to subscribers who would pay something really cheap like $4.95 or $9.95 a month… although I guess it all comes down to whether the content is good enough and wanted enough for users to pay to access it, and then just hope that someone else doesn’t offer equally as good content for free.
A few comments about BetterEdit processing procedures. From a few looks I’ve had at your site it seems that students send their work via email to you and then you forward this to your editors… which sounds like quite a lot of manual work that could be minimised and free up some of your time (and remove some stresses).
Here’s an idea you can use if you like:
1) Students signup for an account with their credit card and pay something like a $5 administration/setup fee. You can then process this straight away to determine if the credit card is legit.
2) After this the student creates their essay and *uploads* it to your site. This then goes to a central location on the BetterEdit site. An email message is then sent to one or all of your editors to let them know that a new essay is up for editting.
3) The editor goes online and can either edit the essay directly online, or they download, edit the essay and then re-upload it to the site.
4) Once the essay has been editted and uploaded to the site (perhaps in a specific location for that particular customer) the customer/student is then sent a notification email letting them know that their essay has been editted.
5) The student goes online, and can perhaps freely view a sample of their editted essay before agreeing to pay for the service. (or the customer could pay for the editting service before-hand). The customer’s details are already recorded in a database and so payment is simply a matter of logging in and clicking ‘Pay’.
6) After payment, the student then has access to their essay and can download it.
Voila! Saves time and energy and increases productivity and hopefully sales.
…although then there’s the issue of actually setting up such a system
Have fun!
cheers
Nathan Waters
btw Yaro, do you still have the podcast regarding webhost reselling planned?
Nathan – Wow, I think you take the prize for the longest comment post made to this blog for that one!
Thank you for your suggestions and links regarding monetization of this blog. I’ve thought of similar ideas as those sites use and no doubt I will come up with something eventually, although I’d prefer to keep all the content on this site free so most likely the advertising root is the way to go until I get a proper info product ready for sale.
Regarding BetterEdit, you have the same idea I had years ago and has been suggested a few times to me. I went as far as working with a software design company to get the thing built and it was in fact because of this experience that I realised that it was just not going to feasible.
Due to the type of client BetterEdit services (often with English as a second language background) ensuring there is as little resistance, keeping the purchasing steps as simple as possible, is important. I realised if I tried to automate the process it would just become too confusing no matter how simple the design.
I’m better off building the business up to the point where I can hire someone to process jobs. It only takes about 10 minutes to process a job manually and really that’s not the stressful part, it’s dealing with the poorly qualified clients that creates the most problems. The web system that has just been put in place should hopefully further help to make sure only the exact target market BetterEdit is selling to decides to buy.
RE: Podcast on webhosting – sure, at some point, but it’s not high on the agenda. Start surfing around this forum – http://www.webhostingtalk.com – and I’m sure you will find what you need.
Yaro,
To be honest I think you should focus more on your blog. Why not add Adsense or something? I personally feel your blog has more potential then your website. While this could sound mean or coldhearted I say this because your blog seems to me to be exceptional. Many people can edit students papers. I feel I could even compete with you on that front if there was much money in the market. I think it would be virtually impossible to run an exceptional blog. It’s also unfortunate that you turn down advertising money. Why not just let people hand you money? lol
Possibly because, many people get turned off from a web site by advertising – whether it be execessive or minimal.
Whichever direction you [Mr. Starak] choose, don’t end up neglecting your blog.
This blog is great. I look to Yaro for his prudent sense and thorough review of things. Adsense is great and I expect to see it wherever I go, in fact, I often look at what Adsense offers for particular topics, and I occassionally buy from Adsense vendors.
So, its a good system Yaro, blogging, and especially your blog, and you already threw your hat into the ring. So, don’t stall at the ‘crossroads of indecision’, accelerate!
Obviously I recommned you go full gusto for the blog and advertise more. Also, amp up the overall image of the site (hate to say it, but remove the self-pic, or update it if need be, you look like your heading to chemistry extra credit class
)
I really hope you can get some good advice from the ‘made’ bloggers, those who are achieving financial independence from blogging.
Chris
Hehe, I would need some help with chemistry too!
This is what I love about blogging – everyone has an opinion on everything and they’re not afraid to leave a comment saying so.
Thanks for all the feedback everyone – and don’t worry, I won’t be neglecting this blog.
Here is a nice short Comment Yaro. Great Job! Your blog is one of the most helpful on the web. It’s actually very rare to find an straight-forward blog in the SEO niche. Keep up the great work..
John
Hi John,
Thanks for that, nice short comments are usually the best because you know what they are saying.
Interesting that people keep slotting my blog into the SEO niche though…hmmm.
Hi Yaro!!!
I think you are an AMAZING person. I’ve know about you for less that 24 hours and I already feel inspired by you. I was moved to tears by your blog about whether you really just work two hours a day. I forwarded that blog to key people in my life urging them to read it. You give really sound advice. You are incredibly wise at such a young age.
I wish you all the success your heart can stand.
–Tee Jenkins
Hi Tee – Thanks for your great comment, you made my day!