I received a tonne of feedback in response to my post Blog Traffic - From 0 to 1000 In Six Months and my question about whether people would take part in a blog traffic course. Thank you all for voicing your opinions.
There was so much feedback that I feel I need to address the points in a new post, so here goes…
About Pricing
It definitely appears that people are willing to pay quite a range of different prices, from $20 up to $300 and there were some suggestions for segmented pricing for different types of products as well. I’ve taken all your feedback on board but at the moment I have only some very rough pricing ideas because I haven’t created a course yet. Without knowing exactly what I’m offering I can’t come up with a price, but it certainly will be somewhere in the range suggested above.
Course? eBook? CDs?
There were some suggestions for a range of different products, from a standalone do it yourself course or ebook, a more consultative course, a CD series, perhaps an audio download podcast series, a screencast course or teleconferences. They are all options. Right now my gut instinct is a collaborative consulting course, focused on a blue print of course materials and an interactive forum for people to discuss results and methods and help each other, with my participation as teacher/coach.
I’d rather work with a small group of dedicated bloggers, foster relationships and end up with a fantastic course that has proven to work for other people, not just my blog. The fact is I don’t know whether my blueprint will work for everyone. I’m confident it will, but results will no doubt vary.
Running the course first will provide the foundations for further materials. I think an ebook/DIY option should be made available, but that will come from the results of the course. By taking part in the course I can get a better grasp on what parts of blog traffic generation people have the most trouble with. The input from course participants would go a long way to help produce stand alone products like an ebook or audio series.
Why Not Give It Away For Free?
Giving the course away for free would match my ideals. At this blog I give away all the information for free, some which is stuff I have spent quite a lot of time developing myself and/or have paid for. I’ve thought many times about creating a membership area or courses or paid for content, but each time I come back to the philosophy of free. This is smart in one way - it’s a fantastic traffic generation strategy (part of the course for sure) - your best materials will bring in an audience. However I make next to no money from giving away everything I have and if it wasn’t for my other business activities I simply couldn’t afford to do it.
I wouldn’t expect other bloggers to give away all their best information for free if they are planning on making a living from it unless their strategy is earning from advertising and affiliate programs. Steve Pavlina follows the free philosophy as well because he wants to help as many people as he can, including those that can’t afford a $50 course or $20 a month membership. As a result his content is fantastic, it’s his best stuff, he helps a broad range of people and because of his significant readership enjoys advertising income of at least $1000 a week, usually more.
Steve’s case is very rare though, and you have to have top knowledge to give away great information and operate in a profitable niche for it to work. In my opinion if I created the course and gave it away for free the income I would get would be minimal, simply because the market I operate in doesn’t bring in good advertising dollars. That’s okay, as I said I don’t mind giving away information for free, I like to be able to reach as many people as possible too, but I have other reasons why I don’t want to give away this course for free.
The first issue would be motivation. If I built the course for free it would probably end up being a handful of articles, basically like the blog posts I already do here. They would be good stuff, the core of what I have learnt about blog traffic building, but not a cohesive course because I wouldn’t be motivated to create something comprehensive. The same would hold true for those taking the course. I expect a few people would gain from the information and get results, but most wouldn’t because they wouldn’t be motivated. If you spend money to take a course you are much more likely to work harder and implement the course materials to get results.
The simple fact is that money motivates. Even in Steve Pavlina’s case this rule would hold true I believe. If you look at the comments Steve used to get when he had comments turned on whenever he would do a self improvement experiment and invite his audience to participate (for free of course) almost every person would fail. Steve wouldn’t, that’s why he’s good at what he does and can teach it because he’s done it, but most “average” humans aren’t like Steve. On the other hand when people pay $100 to take a course many more are successful. They put more energy into it because they have more invested in it. Some still fail to meet goals, but in most cases the success rate is a lot higher than giving it away for free. Money motivates, but unfortunately it also excludes and finding a balance is tough.
Another reason to charge from my point of view is to create a profitable information product. You may be surprised to know, but I’ve never actually created my own information product and profited from it, and my entrepreneurial side is just dying to do so. The main reason I haven’t done so before is I haven’t come across a niche that I was both confident enough that I could get people results and unique enough that I could distinguish myself from the rest of the marketplace. Blog traffic building is quite a new industry and I have experience in it, so I expect, with my own brand of Yaro uniqueness and hands on approach to teaching, and provided I could really get people results, I may have my niche and in fact it could take me quite far. I could become the “blog traffic guy” and dedicate myself to learning and staying up to date with everything about getting blog traffic. Maybe. You don’t know until you try of course and I’d have to like what I was doing too.
I’d relish the chance of working with other bloggers that have paid to participate. Because people are giving me money I would be very motivated to get results. I want people to enjoy the fun, excitement and opportunities that come from building a blog. I like teaching, I especially like getting feedback from people that get results from what I teach. If I get an income from it that’s just the perfect combination.
Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced?
Lyndon commented that he/she (?) would want more advanced materials about blog traffic building. I would say that definitely there would be some advanced information and certainly new ideas for anyone that took the course, but I wouldn’t pitch it at advanced bloggers. I wouldn’t because I don’t feel I could offer value for money from a course, an eBook would be more suited so they could quickly take in the new materials and not bother with what they already know. If 1000 unique visitors a day to you is a number you feel capable of achieving yourself or already have achieved then the course would not be right for you.
It would be for those just getting started blogging and wanting to grow their blogs to the 1000 visitors a day mark with hands-on help and a blueprint. When I say blueprint I mean ‘today you do this’, ‘the next day you do this’, with weekly checklists of what you must be getting done and access to mentoring and feedback advice when you need it.
It’s true that most of what I teach will be freely available from other websites. In fact nearly every eBook or course out there online pretty much contains information that is freely available on other websites. What people pay for is the results. A guide or book or manual that if they follow step-by-step will get results. The information is collected into a neat package and offered in a sequential order for efficient implementation. This is where value comes from when you buy information products - the guidance, roadmap and simple approach that leads to results - rather than the clutter of abundant resources already available online that often overwhelm and lead to apathy rather than results (apathy and information overload happens to me a lot online, I’m sure you can concur).
If you are confident and motivated enough on your own to figure things out I wouldn’t recommend taking the course. If you like the idea of working with other bloggers, having access to a mentor and community support through online forums and want to learn the theory and the practice of blog traffic generation, then the course is for you. I also strongly believe that the number 1000, while being the benchmark for the course, is certainly not the ceiling. If you keep implementing the blueprint over and over, which is exactly what I do every day for my blogs, then your traffic will keep growing and the sky is the limit! (to answer that question about Entrepreneur’s Journey traffic goals for 2006 - I think I would be quite happy to have 3000 daily uniques by the close of the year if I keep up the pace I am currently).
Stay Tuned
That addresses most of the main points I wanted to discuss. I’m still not entirely sure about where things will end up but I am really enthusiastic about a blog traffic course. I want to create something that will get people results. I know I won’t be able to please everyone, but hopefully enough people will get positive results. I don’t want to get ahead of myself - I haven’t even started creating the course yet! What I can tell you is I have registered two domains for it and I’m just waiting on the outcome of a meeting with two people that potentially I may work with on the course. I will definitely keep you all updated through this blog of course and I should also have a mailing list up soon.
This may be premature - but I look forward to working with you 
Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic Guy
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The course you describe sounds so exciting to me, I can’t wait for more details. Do you have a date in mind for when you might want to launch?
I think what I want is something more like a private club where bloggers share info and tips. I have absolutely no problem sharing what I do as I don’t think the market is anywhere near saturation point and I wouldn’t say my competition is bloggers anyway, it’s more likely to be the big corps.
I see where you are going with this Yaro, I think an Ebook would definately be a winner in the short term, but what’s the competition like? There is tons and tons of free info out there for bloggers to grab and the ironic thing is you are advertising Darrens course which I have heard is great.
What can you give that is unique?
This is off the top of my head so feel free to hammer, but what about forming a Pro bloggers guild/association where Bloggers who have already jumped a few hurdles and have got blogs that are cooking can become members.
I would help out anyone asking for advice, but first I would expect them to go read all the free materials out there like Problogger and Performancing and your blog Yaro
After that they will probably be able to teach me something, lol. The point being, you have to walk before you can run and it takes time and it takes work and then it takes more time.
There is an old Zen story about the novice monk wanting to know the “truth” from the Zen master. The master held the monks head under the water till he was close to drowning and then brougtht him up. He said when you want the information as much as you wanted to breathe send me an email. What, you think Zen masters aren’t online.
BTW Yaro I am a bloke.
I love your comments on giving away information for free. In fact, you’ve inspired me to start my own blog as a freelance web designer entrepreneur. I’ll be giving away my experiences as well so that other people who are looking at freelance web design can learn from my experience.
http://www.realmoneywebdesign.com is the URL. check it out and let me know what you think?
Cheers
Corby Simpson
I am just now catching up on my feeds from over the long weekend, and now I’m looking forward to what you decide to go ahead with.
I purposely did not respond to your request for feedback. Because, all I would be interested in is the tactics you used to increase the number of people reading your content via RSS and how you developed such an active group commenting on your blog.
Depending on your target market RSS may or may not be a totally appropriate or accurate way to measure success. It certainly is an accurate measure of a web savvy audience.
On my website, which has been targeting small business owners since 1998, it has taken me almost a year to change the focus and have that reflect in the type of visitors, inquiries, and participation.
Your comment about free information is an interesting one because there is a huge difference in people using the word ‘free’ in their search terms and then end up at your site vs. access to free information about the topic and focus on your blog.
I am interested in specific strategies to engage and develop a community to read more of my content and subscribe via RSS. My customers, while business savvy still do not know what RSS is. So if your ebook is focused on getting people to subscribe RSS and does not include how to get them involved via commenting etc. the book would not be a worthwhile investment for me.
Greg- There are three aspects of blog traffic that I would definitely be covering throughout the course:
1. Unique Visitors
2. RSS Subscribers
3. Community (comments, pageviews)
All three aspects are important and should impact each other positively. As RSS subscribers increase so do unique visits and pageviews etc. However there certainly are specific methods you can use to increase each aspect independently.
I would devote some specific time in the course to theory on each area and also provide ongoing practical tips within the activities to increase the numbers.
Lyndon - You sound like a guy (got it!) that is quite capable of studying up from free resources already available and, most importantly, putting them into practice to grow your blog. I don’t think there is much I could offer that you would be willing to pay for because it wouldn’t be of major benefit to you. I think it would probably be helpful for you to take my course, but you wouldn’t justify the cost. I’d have to really impress you with some free samples - ecourse - or something in order to convert you.
Offering a blueprint to you might be helpful then again you would probably prefer to do it your way so perhaps that’s why a advanced level community is ideal for you - you can learn from others and implement what you want, when you want to.
What I want to put together is a “hand-holding” course for those either not willing to study themselves and figure out what advice out there is good and worth implementing, or those that are time poor or just prefer to learn from a course environment. Paying a couple of hundred dollars to get the 80/20 advice is often a lot more efficient than trying to figure it out yourself from the abundant resources available at sites like mine, Darren’s and performancing. I certainly would not expect my students to have already read through those three blogs before taking the course.
My competitive edge would be me, my credibility, the fact that I have done it already, the way I write to educate, how I teach, my willingness to interact with students and, most importantly, how I position my course. This would not be “how to be a problogger” course - this would be advice on and activities to build traffic and community at a blog. In this regard it certainly could be helpful to probloggers out there - more traffic equals more money - but also others that want to create a popular blog for fun, for small business exposure, for corporate reasons etc etc.
I don’t doubt that I would cover a lot of what Darren and Andy have already covered in Six Figure Blogging but my course would be a completely different beast. I’m not Darren or Andy so the way I teach would be different, the goals are different and certainly a lot of my methodology would be different as well. I wouldn’t be teaching how best to use AdSense, or Chitika, or how to find a profitable niche. I would teach how to get more targeted eyeballs and long term fans to your blog. What you do with the traffic is up to you.
I also run a successful small business website, which gives me a different perspective regarding business blogging and Internet marketing in general. My 8 years of Internet marketing experience has some credence and relevance to blogging because I’ve seen the evolution of the web and how we got to where we are now. I know fundamentally why blogs work and how they fit into the evolution of ‘web architecture’. This is so important if you want to teach how to build a popular blog.
Anyway, that’s a ramble. As I said before, some will love my course, for some it will be completely redundant. My goal will be to make sure only the right people take the course so we all get fantastic results.
I better get to work. I hope within a few weeks I will have the first month’s worth of materials ready to go and I could take on a small “beta testers” group to try the course at a discounted rate.
I’ll have a mailing list set up shortly for those who are interested in keeping track of the course’s development and launch dates.
Sounds like you have a lot of work to do. Let me know when the course is ready and I will link to it.
It sounds like it will be valuable to a lot of people. The more people we help to blog the better it will be for everyone.
Up to $300 ??
It seems that only real internet noobs read this blog, here are the steps:
1-Publish good content updated daily.
I saved you $300.
cheers.
Qwerty makes a good point, it is all about content, if you create good content they will come and as far as I can tell Yaro is not going to be writing about how to create good content as far as I know.
There is often too much of technical focus about online business, Yaro your ofefring looks too much like technical treatment of blogging versus a content focus.
Too bad Qwerty did not provide a link, cause we cannot see the lurker.
I agree….Yaro…as mean as this sounds…do you really think you are qualified to write a book on generating traffic from a blog? C’mon! Generating traffic - again is the easy part..especially via a blog. Not to discredit your efforts…but if you were able to take this new traffic and convert it to sales….than I may consider it and recommend it to others….but honestly…like the previous post…the people reading your blog must be total noobs!
Thanks for your honest comments guys - but not much of what you write about are very compelling reasons not to create a course.
Jason’s comments - you talk about sales conversions, it sounds like you want a business marketing course, not a traffic course. While I would expect a lot of people taking a course on building blog traffic would fully intend to convert their traffic into customers that’s not what a blog traffic course would focus on. First comes targeted visitors, then comes conversion - I would focus on the first part. However that being said given that I run online businesses there will no doubt be moments where I talk about converting traffic, it just won’t always be about a sales conversion - more like a newsletter/RSS sign up etc.
Oh and Jason, yes I do feel quite qualified to write a course on generating blog traffic. You just may not need it by the sounds of things.
Remember everyone starts off as a newbie and they deserve to be treated with respect no matter what point on the learning curve they are. I think some people need to learn that lesson and not be so quick to pass judgement.
Qwerty is quite right - ultimately the foundation of blog traffic is content, but telling people to create good content is not going to get lots of traffic to a blog on it’s own. There are hundreds of processes that can be done to generate traffic and some people want a system to do it. I think it’s very naive for people to ever give one line responses like that when it comes to teaching a skill.
Greg - Your point about providing instruction on writing good content - content that gets traffic - is a good one. I’ve put together a framework for the first month of the course and most of it is devoted to content creation because you need to lay the foundations before you heavily promote a blog. There is no point seeking blog traffic if you don’t have anything to retain an audience when the traffic starts coming in.
Guys I really appreciate comments like yours because A) you provide me with an outlet to demonstrate what I can offer. While I suspect I won’t have you as clients you help me to convert others and B) you occasionally offer constructive feedback that I use to add to/modify what I am doing.
Keep up the nay-saying!
Yaro,
Actually, I think your course idea is a good one and you should go ahead and just do it.
It’s a good niche if you really stick to that - don’t worry about teaching converting visitors (that’s anthoer eProduct).
As you said, there are hundreds of processes available to get more traffic and that’s what a good information product does: thoroughly research a topic, compile it and deliver it into a easy-to-use package.
People have to remember that you don’t make a product for the whole population - eg: possibly many of us here would not need Yaro’s course, but I’m sure that many would.
Also, I think if Yaro thinks he is qualified enough then he is qualified full stop - the market will decide.
All the best, Yaro.
Thanks Martin, I appreciate the support.
I’ll have a mailing list sign-up hopefully tonight but it’s only for the E-J readers that are interested in the course and want advanced notice and news about progress, it’s not for mainstream promotion.
I’ve got the official website coming out hopefully by february.
[…] As I promised in my post Feedback On Blog Traffic School Course I have set up a mailing list for people interested in joining my blog traffic school course. […]
Hi Yaro,
You have some great tips in general, and I know your blog traffic tips will be fantastic. From experience, the pros and cons of giving away information are complex. Just to begin with, if you give it away, you get great publicity - perhaps more than money could ever buy you, and you could probably use it to build a great list, or create some wonderful alliances.
On the other hand, when information is in the public domain freely it can be misquoted, misconstrued, misinterpreted, and is harder to support.
Now if you charge for it as a course, you’re likely to make more money and be able to give better results to your clients, as you’re able to focus on them and address their specific concerns and issues, particularly since the name of the course intends a particular goal.
On the other hand, sometimes it can take half of your work schedule just to talk to people and work with them - so you really need to know how many clients you can take on and still maintain steady operations of every thing else.
The main drawback in my view is that you end up helping much fewer people. It balances with the fact that you get to help a lot more people really well, but my goal has always been to reach as many as people as I can.
So the middle of the road would be an ebook or a course on CD that can be mass distributed. The issue there is making the resource on that appeals across the board to all people and can fulfil the promise you set forth. If a person wants to blog about afterschool snacks for kids, can you still promise them they’ll get 1000 visitors a day? In other words, will the resource be equally useful for internat marketers and non-marketers alike? Of course, I don’t know what your audience is comprised of now, so I don’t even know if that would be your specific concern - it might be something else.
The great thing is when you find the right balance, and it really works for all your clients, its such a great feeling, as good as whatever amount of money you earn doing it. The only other thing I would say is charge what the course is worth - nothing will burn you out faster than having an underpriced product on the market, nothing has shorter returns than an overpriced one.
Good luck.
Hi Tinu - if it isn’t the traffic tips queen herself! Thank you for your lengthy comment, I appreciate your insights. I’m fairly certain you’ve had a few of your own products before so you know what you are talking about.
I agree pretty much with everything you said. I have plans for two of my own products and another one in partnership with two other prominent bloggers.
I hope to get a loyal group of hard working bloggers that work with me and each other to grow our blogs. I suspect with the right people regardless of the blog topic we can all reach one thousand uniques per day, or at least in the 500-1000 range in six months. Some in fact will likely do a lot better than that.
Like you said - I really want the community aspect where I can offer the most hands-on value to other bloggers so I hope it’s those type of people that gravitate to my blog traffic products, not the nay-saying off-target audience who will make my life difficult and not get value from what I offer. It’s all about the positioning in this case.
To be honest I simply can’t afford to offer everything I publish for free anymore. This year is crunch time for actually making money from information products. It should be fun no matter what happens though, I just hope I can make a decent living from it too.
[…] http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/359/feedback-on-blog-traffic-school-course/ - feedback on school blog programs. […]