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I was reading a post over at DoshDosh where Maki notes his RSS readership broke the 10,000 subscriber mark and what he did (or really, what he didn’t do) to realize that result. Here’s his post -

Dosh Dosh Reaches 10,000 Subscribers (and the Reason Why People Subscribe to a Blog)

I have to admit to feeling slightly irritated reading the post, or really, wanting to add more to the topic raised by Maki to clarify what I see as a keep point, something top bloggers sometimes forget about, so here goes…

Maki Has Talent

Maki is a great blogger (and writer), everyone knows this and his blog has grown into one of the top in the industry as a result. In his post he outlines a list of what I would call “traditional advice” about what it takes to grow a successful blog and how he didn’t do any of it, including -

• Not displaying his feedcount as a social proof tool until after he broke 10,000 subscribers
• Not submitting guest posts to other blogs
• Not running contents
• No paid advertising to promote his blog
• Not writing a blog post every day

…and the list goes on.

Maki has not done any major promotions with a free report, or video or podcasting either. Essentially he has sat down and week after week put out solid written content, responded to comments and emails from his readers and not been very proactive beyond that to grow his traffic. I don’t think he has an active comment marketing strategy either - in that I mean he’s not commenting on other blogs to bring traffic to his in a strategic and focused manner.

Basically, he has pretty much bucked the trend and not done anything I recommend in Blog Mastermind or countless other bloggers suggest as good practice to grow a successful blog (things even Maki recommends to other bloggers).

So do we have it all wrong? Should we follow in Maki’s footsteps and put out solid content week after week as the only marketing strategy we need to grow a top blog?

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Welcome to the next article in my series on blogging as a sustainable business model. In part one of this series you learned about the staple monetization strategy that most probloggers use - creating content to bring in traffic and increase income.

Using the example of Darren Rowse in article two, I concluded that despite the fact that a few top bloggers earn a full time income blogging, and even more money in the case of Darren and bloggers like him, it is still not a sustainable business model when so much responsibility for output rests on one person. In the previous article before this one I listed some of the advantages that many top bloggers enjoy, which the average person does not.

If you have not read the first three parts in this series please do so before continuing with this article.

• Part 1: Is Professional Blogging A Sustainable Business Model?
• Part 2: Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Professional Blogger?
• Part 3: The Advantages Top Bloggers Have That You Don’t

Points of Leverage

The problem with the current model for professional blogging is the lack of a strategy that actually leverages the content = traffic = money equation in a non-linear way. Most professional bloggers apply the time = money formula directly to the content = traffic = money formula, placing a big limitation on the total output possible. This as I mentioned is self employment applied to blogging. Blogging is not a bad job, but it is still a job - and you may not want a job forever if you share my belief that happiness comes from freedom.

What we need to do is create a model that doesn’t restrict content = traffic = money, but instead exponentially multiplies it, and to do this we need to finds way to leverage our resources.

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I recently completed reading Naked Conversations by A-List ex-Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. It’s a fresh book (2006) covering business blogging.

For a blog fanboy like myself this book provided no real insights or techniques I could apply to my own blogging, but of course the book is not intended to be a blogging guide, rather an introduction to the potential for blogs to be used as business tools.

There are numerous example cases provided, some of which I found quite interesting, others I scanned over quickly. In particular I enjoyed stories of small business owners who start blogging and go on to almost entirely rely on their blog for new leads, launching worldwide operations within a matter of months as word of mouth and the power of the blogosphere brings exposure to places the business could never have possibly reached, even with a standard website without blogging.

I enjoyed the flow and style of writing in Naked Conversations and it was fun to read mention many of the blogs and bloggers I’m familiar with already. It’s good when an online medium such as blogging gets exposure offline, like in this case through a book - it helps bridge the knowledge gap and increase awareness for the blogosphere. I’m sure this book has been recommended as a smart introduction for marketing and PR professionals to read to quickly grasp what exactly this whole “blogging” thing is about and how they can integrate a blogging strategy in their business.

Will You Enjoy This Book?

If you already blog this book will entertain for sure. Don’t expect a discussion from a technical standpoint - this is a business book - and if the psychology of commerce interests you, Naked Conversations will please.

If you are new to blogging and are looking for a “how-to” this is not the book to start with as it won’t teach you in a “for dummies” style how to do it. However if you work in a large organization and your boss has asked you to provide a report on the potential for blogging in your organization this book will teach you what you need to know and why blogs are such a revolutionary communications medium for business.

Yaro Starak
Stark-Naked Conversationalist

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June was a unique month for me in terms of blogging and business. A roller-coaster ride would be an apt description. Traffic growth at all my sites has been fantastic and in the last few weeks I have enjoyed a few consecutive days of 3000+ uniques here at Entrepreneur’s Journey. While that’s less than many other blogs out there I know it’s a lot more than the greater majority, so I’m doing something right.

As I reported my business has managed to turnover a profit and despite the occasional murmurings in my head that I want to leave it, I’m still here, still steering the ship and heading into the 6th year of operations, and my third full time tax year. Overall I’m excited about where the business is going, so I suspect I’ll be here next tax year saying the same things, at least I hope I will be!

Controversy

As you know doubt are aware of and probably enjoyed watching (you love your day time blogosphere soapies don’t you!), thanks to some mis-communication on my part, what should have been a minor thing blew up into a blogosphere incident of tremendous proportions (at least in my mind it was), which continued long after what I did set it off. I’ve said my sorrys to those people I felt I owed apologies to and have moved forward after a sleepless night or two.

I’d like to reiterate that I am not involved with any spam sites and I do not recommend spamming practices. If you search the web you will find my name attached to very few domains, most of which I have talked about on this blog. If you ever see my content on scraper sites or automatic generated blogs it’s because my content is being ripped off FROM my blogs, not that I have set these sites up (I would be pretty stupid to rip off my own content) and I’m actually working to have some of the sites shut down since they are basically stealing from me. Some of my articles are circulated as part of being published on EzineArticles.com, which is how article marketing works and is with my permission. I actually have a very small presence online in general and I’m quite open with everything I do - this blog is testament to that.

I do recommend products that could be used for spam - anything about improving search engine rankings, tips for better pay per click advertising campaigns, improving Google AdSense (or any advertising media) results, building websites, online marketing or pretty much anything to do with making money online can be abused by spammers. That’s the nature of business - there are always bad fish and they have access to the same tools that everyone else does, so when I help the good people I am inadvertently helping the bad people too. In my opinion it’s the job of the organizations who provide the income streams, such as Google, to make it difficult or impossible for people to abuse their systems.

Which brings me to another point - there is something wrong with AdSense. I’m not saying the system is bad, it works fine, what seems to be the problem is the effect it has on people. Once they taste the income greed sets in, some think only of the money and will go to any lengths to increase their earnings. It’s only a minority of course, certainly most AdSense publishers are good people, but the fact that there is so much negative energy and so many very charged opinions on the topic of AdSense spam shows that there is something wrong, something that Google needs to address, because the negativity will come back to bite them.

As a Google AdWords advertiser I’m experiencing pretty poor results on the content network (the AdSense network) and I think I’m not the only one, as a few of my colleagues have reported the same for all kinds of different campaigns. AdWords for search is fantastic, it always has been which probably has a lot do with the fact when people use a search engine they need answers, hence AdWords ads are valuable and relevant. AdWords campaigns on websites - the content network made up of AdSense publishers - doesn’t come close to providing valuable results, which yet again may be a sign that something needs to change regarding how AdSense works. I don’t know, these are just some thoughts based on my recent experiences, I’m sure Google has the data and are working to make things better.

Meanderings

Besides the lessons learnt on communication, I’ve also had a think about some other things. When controversy involving you happens you need to stop and take heed of why it happened, what it means and how you need to adjust what you are doing. Here are some of things I have been thinking about -

Affiliate Promotions

It’s clear people are hyper sensitive to affiliate marketing especially when you are a blogger with a profile based on integrity and credibility. Whether I intended to or not, I have managed to build my blogging personality into one of these personalities. My blog and my personal brand carry some weight and consequently what I write on my blogs are under scrutiny to a higher degree. When I make mistakes the backlash can be significant depending on what I did and who disagrees with it, regardless of my intentions. This fact alone has already started to impact the way I write blog posts when it comes to talking about other people’s products and actions. I suspect the paranoia will reduce, but I’ve definitely changed.

I’ve heard the grumblings that people don’t like the trend of affiliate promotions here at E-J. I’ve felt the transition myself and I’ve realized it’s not healthy for my blog or me. When I originally began blogging I started by producing content without thinking about specific ways I could make money from it. I wanted to teach people everything I knew and give as much as I could for free. If I was to make money It would happen as a result of providing value and as a side effect, the focus was 100% on free value. In the recent months perhaps the scale has changed slightly and my focus shifted towards making money to the degree that it impacted the quality of my blogging. I was still well aware that value is vital for success, but perhaps the percentage dropped a little.

Of course I’m not going to stop promoting via affiliate marketing. I like doing reviews and I know people appreciate my recommendations and feedback when I use a product or service because it helps them to determine whether the product or service is right for them. I rely on other people’s reviews and opinion when I make my initial choices and I don’t mind if the person who provides this opinion gets an affiliate commission. I consider it thanks for the work they put in and I’m sure many of you consider it as thanking me when you buy something via my affiliate links. This style of relationship is fine, as long as profiting isn’t the main focus - that’s when the quality drops and the errors occur.

What I am going to do is tighten up somewhat what I choose to promote. I will only promote products I have produced myself, I have made use of, read or sampled or know and trust the source well. Putting it simply I’ll endeavour to be as transparent and relevant as possible whenever I review a product, even more so than I have been in the past.

Value Proposition

My intentions are to move the focus back to giving as much value as I can, which as the universe intends, usually results in greater rewards anyway - financial and otherwise. I’ve already noticed an increase in rewards just from the slight realignment of my intentions that I have made mentally in the last few days. I think this really validates that giving as much as you can for free is the best formula for receiving value in return.

Terms of Service

One thing I will definitely be doing in the coming weeks is to put together a terms of service. It’s something I’ve meant to do for a while since I really need a set of rules for how I govern my blogs to be clear and public, so when I do take action I have justification for it and don’t appear quite so random.

Topic Re-focus

Another thing I noticed is that I’m breaking my own rules somewhat regarding staying on topic. Entrepreneur’s Journey has been an evolving blog and while it has a general theme at the moment I think the topic range needs tighten up, as does Small Business Branding’s purpose.

I’ve let my motivation take me where it’s wanted to go regarding the content of my blogs, most of which has been well received by you, which is great, but I know I’ve probably turned a few people off when suddenly a personal development topic follows on from one about getting traffic to blogs, which came before one on how to use pay per click advertising. While all my topics fit well enough under the banner of an “entrepreneur’s journey“, I feel I’m at a place now where I know where my interests lie and where I can provide value. Some changes are necessary to better reflect this and clarify what my blogging is about.

I’m currently planning to start a blog specifically on personal development for twenty somethings (people in the 20ish age bracket - young adults like myself). It will be the repository for all my future writings like the opinion and self development articles you have seen here at Entrepreneur’s Journey. I will no longer publish any personal development pieces on E-J. I don’t know whether this new blog will take off or whether I have enough motivation and content in me to keep it going but I do know it needs to have it’s own place on the web. Even if I publish only one article a month it will be nice to have a place to write about subjects related to personal development with a clear focus, and I definitely enjoy the topic.

There will be a similar story regarding topics related to blogging. The Blog Traffic School Pre-Launch Blog, after the launch of the course, will become a regular blog on blog traffic and Entrepreneur’s Journey will no longer have topics related to blogging unless it’s specifically related to Internet business and not appropriate for the Blog Traffic School blog (for example using blogs as a marketing tool for an Internet business). I think it’s important to separate the topic of blogging into it’s own blog and it makes sense for me to align that with my course on blog traffic.

The focus of Entrepreneur’s Journey will return to what it was originally - 100% Internet business and entrepreneurship, and no doubt the topics will largely reflect what I am personally learning and doing regarding my online enterprises. I plan to produce more reviews since I’ve been reading and testing products lately as part of building Blog Traffic School and I’d like to pass on what I have learnt to you. The podcasts will also continue as they have been and I will probably start to release some Camtasia presentations as well since I have recently bought the software.

I’m still not sure exactly where I am going with Small Business Branding. It’s been a great addition to my blogging family and has paid dividends beyond the purchase price but I’m still not exactly sure what I’m trying to achieve with it. Time will tell where this blog takes me.

None of these changes are set in stone of course, but that’s my current thinking.

Too Many Blogs!

Looking at my ever expanding portfolio of blogs one thing is clear - I can’t sustain the level of writing I have done at Entrepreneur’s Journey for the past year on every blog I run, I am not Darren Rowse. Entrepreneur’s Journey, Small Business Branding, a new personal development blog, Blog Traffic School Blog and another blog related to blog traffic (this one is still a secret), makes for a huge writing workload. I’m aiming to reduce my writing workload, not increase it, so I need to carefully plan what I want to get out of blogging and where I can best give back. I really need to 80/20 my blogging.

To be honest I’m not entirely sure what to do since I don’t know where my motivation is going to take me. I have a lot of vested interest in Entrepreneur’s Journey given I have worked hard to build it into what it is and I enjoy writing here, so I don’t see this changing for a while yet. However every blogger has to realize that they can’t blog forever, at some point they will have to stop writing and even the most prolific of us, those like Darren Rowse and Dane Carlson, won’t be able to keep up the frenetic pace forever. Something has to change eventually.

Ideally I want my income to not be dependent on active blogging so I can be free to write about what I want to, when I want to. I’d like to write a book one day, something like the Alchemist - personal development in the guise of fiction, and I think a blog is a great way to start creating the chapters and build up a ground roots following. Right now I don’t rely on the income from blogging to live off, but it really helps, and with the launch of Blog Traffic School I certainly want to stay heavily involved with it. Blogging is definitely part of my future, especially as long as I intend for writing to be a part of it.

Blogging Is Not Passive Income

Blogging is not a passive form of income so any blogger thinking about using blogs as their main source of income need to plan for those times when you can’t blog or no longer want to. If your income is based on posting 10 new articles a week on your blog so you make money from the good old formula of traffic+advertising, you do not have a financially sustainable operation because of the dependency on your labor. I want a financially sustainable business which generates passive income and grants me the freedom to blog when and how I want to.

Can blogging provide this? Perhaps. I think it can certainly be part of the picture but I’m not sure exactly how yet given that blogs are such “active” creatures and if update frequency slows down or even stops altogether they tend to die off eventually.

I’m not sure what the future holds for me and blogging mostly because despite knowing what I enjoy I am still not sure exactly how to make it all work together to create a financially secure lifestyle with abundant freedoms. I’m pretty close now, I’m not struggling for money and I have a lot of freedoms, but it’s not there yet, there is more work to be done.

I suspect there will always be more work to be done…

The Immediate Future

Now it’s time to stop speculating on the future and think of today and tomorrow. I’ve had a bunch of generous people submit articles in response to my call for contributions to cover me while I take a holiday from content production on my blogs during this month. The articles will be released over the coming weeks, some on Entrepreneur’s Journey and some on Small Business Branding, and cover quite a range of topics which I suspect you will enjoy - there is something for everyone. You will get to meet some great bloggers too so be sure to check out their blogs if you like their article.

I’ll be spending most of my time in July finishing the Blog Traffic School course and then getting it into the online system I have just finished setting up. All the details about the course will be released on the Pre-Launch Blog, so stay tuned to that blog if you want more information on building your blog’s traffic.

I’ll see you online,

Yaro Starak
Evolving Entrepreneur

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Let me ask you a question - when you first launched your blog did you have 12 people make comments on your very first entry? I didn’t.

I just found a new blog that did, and man, I am impressed. It’s called Lucky Mom. Go take a look and I think you will know why this blog has enjoyed such a successful launch. It is beautifully designed for the niche it is targeting and I believe because of the design it will very quickly garner an audience.

I’d love to see a case study follow the growth of this blog. I think it’s a perfect example of how to create a profitable blogging enterprise. It has so much going for it -

A) It is visually appealing
B) In a fantastic niche that’s ripe to make money once the traffic builds (think affiliate products and AdSense)
C) It starts off day one with a comment community ready to go

Not to mention that the author, Lucky Mom Kristine Watson, can simply blog about her life each day as a mother to create content that I suspect will attract a solid readership. No doubt many new mothers and fathers will be following this one and as long as the articles keep coming the audience is going to spread the word with little need for any proactive marketing. Heck I’m even linking to it now and I have no interest in the topic at all, I just admire the design and business potential. Go Lucky Mom!

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