Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

I’ll make this short and sweet as I suspect you have made your decision already about whether to join the Become A Blogger Premium 2.0, which starts today and is open until Friday midnight EST US time.

You can read about what is in the program and join at this page. Make sure you watch the welcome video if you want to visually see what is inside the members area -

www.becomeablogger.com/signup/

If you enjoyed the Roadmap report, the 10 videos on how to set up an optimized WordPress blog, my video on how to rapidly grow your blog traffic and Gideon’s presentation of 7 YouTube marketing tips that we released all for free during the last week, then I know you will love the Become A Blogger Premium 2.0 course.

Enrollments start today and our first coaching call is next week. We’re not opening this program again any time soon, so you have just a few days to decide. This happens to be the most affordable blog training program I have on the market, so if you’re ready to commit yourself to following professional online training and you’ve got under $50 a month budget, you’re in!

www.becomeablogger.com/signup/

I’ll see you on the inside.

Yaro (and on behalf of Gideon too!)

Gideon Shalwick has released another powerful X-Factor video from Become A Blogger Premium 2.0. This video is a special preview of the caliber of videos that members receive, this time focusing on the more practical training style from Gideon.

If you’ve ever wondered how people get traffic back to their blog using YouTube videos, this presentation will be pretty eye-opening for you.

I won’t say more, go watch it here –

X-Factor Video: 7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

While you are there don’t forget to pick up your copy of Roadmap Report and prepare for Monday when we open the program for five days only.

Enjoy your weekend and look for more from Gideon and me starting Monday!

Back in 2004 when I started blogging there really wasn’t anything such as a professional blogger. Those who were making money as a blogger weren’t talking about it… yet.

Over the next two years the idea of blogging for money, possibly even as a career, became a reality. Blog networks started up paying bloggers a salary, thanks to programs like Google Adsense generating income became easier for the average Internet user, and eventually blogging went mainstream.

Today thousands of bloggers make money and while the number of those who do it as their main job is small in comparison to the number of blogs in existence, for those who realize the lifestyle of a professional blogger, life is good.

I never intended to make money as a blogger when I started. It was an experiment aimed solely at gaining more traffic from search engines. Little did I know that my blog would eventually become my business and just a few short years later I’d sell off all my other businesses just to pursue blogging.

Today my blog has helped pay for my house, my car, an 8 month trip around the world and I’ve just purchased a plush two bedroom apartment in my favorite suburb, where I will be moving to next month just before my 30th birthday (pictures coming soon!).

Needless to say, I am extremely blessed by what blogging has done for my life, and part of my mission as a blogger is to help other people realize similar benefits and freedoms thanks to blogging. Here are some of the resources I offer that can help you follow in my footsteps…

Would You Like To Become A Blogger?

If you’re interested in starting your own blog, the first thing I recommend you do is go to the free video training site Gideon Shalwick and myself provide for absolute newbie bloggers called “Become A Blogger” –

www.BecomeABlogger.com

This site offers ten free videos that take you from zero, to setting up an optimized WordPress blog (and if you go to the blog portion of the site, you will find some additional free videos that give away even more powerful secrets to successful blogging).

While you are at the Become A Blogger site, make sure you download the free report – The Roadmap to Become A Blogger – which is a solid introduction to what it takes to build a successful blog.

Pay particular attention to the second half of the report where Gideon, who is an expert at leveraging social media, especially video, takes you through a series of techniques we call the “X-Factor”.

X-Factor techniques are particularly powerful leverage tools that combine multi-media with social media to bring traffic to your blog. In today’s online marketing world, if you don’t leverage new media when building your blog, you’re going to struggle to stand out from the crowd, which is exactly why we offer the “X-Factor” techniques to teach you how to be better than “average” blogger.

You can download the Roadmap report in both text and audio here -

www.BecomeABlogger.com/roadmap/

I strongly recommend you watch the free videos, get your blog set up and then devour the Roadmap report in one sitting (or listen to the audio version). You will then be a in a great starting position, better than most people who begin blogging, to really profit from your efforts.

Follow a roadmap and you are much more likely to succeed, especially if you are very new to the blogging game and want your hand held along the way.

Become A Blogger Premium 2.0 Opens Next Week

Next Monday, June 29th, for five days only, Gideon and I are opening up Become A Blogger Premium 2.0, the latest updated version of our introductory video training program for bloggers.

This course had over 1,000 students complete the training over the past six months (the best retention rate of any of my programs).

Now that the program is finished, the entire course is there laid out, including over 60 videos with discussion on each video, a private forum for members only, plus all the additional resources we offer like live group coaching calls twice a month with me and Gideon, master the mindset audio series and more.

The videos are split into two types –

1. Strategy presentations from me where I lay out my system for successful blogging to you
2. Practical how-to videos presented by Gideon, who teaches you the step-by-step to set-up and optimize your blog, and how to implement the techniques we teach

We’re now ready to begin training the next group of eager bloggers and I’m inviting you to work with me and Gideon over the next six months (if you haven’t already!). This time we’re opening the doors only for five days and then shutting down. If you want in, you have to decide next week.

This program really is for beginners who want to learn the how-to of successful blogging. If you’re confused by technology and blogs and websites, etc, and want your hand held throughout the process and prefer to be shown visually through video, there is no better blog trainer than Gideon and the resources inside Become A Blogger Premium 2.0.

If you don’t believe me, go watch the first ten free videos we give away –

www.BecomeABlogger.com

If you like the style of presentation in those videos, are eager to learn more (and DO more) and want to work closely with someone who is currently living out the professional blogger lifestyle, then stay tuned for next week to claim your spot in Become A Blogger Premium 2.0, the last public run through of the program for 2009.

I’ll have more information for you later in the week. For the time being, go watch the videos and read the Roadmap, it’s a brilliant report.

www.BecomeABlogger.com/roadmap/

Yaro Starak
Professional Blogger

Affiliate marketing is, and will likely always remain, my favorite method for making money online. At the risk of repeating myself, here’s why every blogger should get into the affiliate marketing game -

1. You make a margin per product sale that is often as good or better than the person or company that produces the product
2. You don’t have to do any product fulfillment, handle cancellations or any customer service whatsoever
3. You have a huge range of products to choose from in most mainstream product categories
4. You can enter new niches any time you like with zero switching cost, simply by finding a new product to promote as an affiliate (this is for those of you who like variety)
5. If you have a product of your own, one of the best ways to get affiliates to promote your product is to make sales of their product as an affiliate first (this is a big one!)

I could go on, but let’s state the obvious and most important aspect: Affiliate marketing is great because you can make very good money for very little effort.

Don’t get me wrong, it requires effort to get to a situation where you can make money as an affiliate, but once you are there the actual process for making money is very, very simple. It’s as easy as writing a blog post or sending an email.

It’s Like Printing Money

I remember about four years ago reading all those hyped-up sales pages from Internet marketers, and I come across the phrase “it’s like printing money”.

I’ve never been a hater of sales copy, although obvious hype agitates me just like anyone else. I certainly believed that some people were enjoying a situation where they could just send emails and make big money, but I was personally very far away from that. Jealousy mixed with depression about my own results, were the dominant emotions I felt at the time when I read what other people were achieving apparently so easily.

My first attempt at “printing money” as an affiliate was with my blog when it was about six months old. I put in a couple of hours to write a blog post about Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide To Google AdWords and managed to print about $20 in commissions – one sale.

I was disappointed given it had taken me six months of consistent work on my blog to make that $20, however I was also encouraged. I could see given enough time and energy, that $20 could be $200 and then $2,000 and even $20,000. Today I have the audacity to believe it could be $200,000 one day too.

Fast forward to the year 2009 and the first six month’s of affiliate promotions have gone like this…

Read the rest of this entry >>

Over the last week I attended three very different live events, although they all focused on the same thing – making money.

The first one was Roger Hamilton’s introduction night, a free event he puts on as a feeder to his 3-day workshop and breakfast pitch.

I’ve heard of Roger before, but I had some misconceptions. I thought he was one of the older crowd of “legacy” business folk still doing the speaking circuit. I was surprised when he turned out to be a younger fellow, with a unique accent (he is a strange combination of Hong Kong plus Scotland).

On Friday I attended the Andrew and Daryl Grant Sydney workshop and did my usual two presentations, one on website flipping and the other on blogging. The Grants put on a four day show that is unlike any other event I’ve been to, and is definitely more suited to my style (I’ll explain why in a moment).

On Saturday I popped into a Christopher Howard managed event, that brought together some well known Internet marketers, both locals and overseas speakers, including John Carlton, Brad Fallon, James Schramko and Ari Galper. This event is your typical pitch fest, with two hour sessions for each speaker ending with a sale for a $2,000+ product.

The Psychology Behind The Sale

I’ve been to many business events, some that were free, some I paid money for as part of coaching programs. It’s very interesting to observe the different psychology behind each event, especially when it comes to how they go about making sales.

All three events I attended during the last week were technically free to attend. Although there are pricing structures, in most cases you can score yourself a free ticket in some way. The organizers of these events do not profit from the seminar entry fees, rather it comes from money made when a person orders a product sold at the event.

I noticed three key elements were used as selling tools at each event, however they were applied in different ways. Here is how I observed each of the selling psychologies at the events…

Read the rest of this entry >>