Podcast: How Caroline Middlebrook Makes $1000 A Month Blogging
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Download the MP3 [ 39 Minutes - 18 MB]
Caroline Middlebrook has been on my radar for a long time. I enjoy her writing style, her candor and her honesty and of course, she writes about the industry I love, and mentions my name now and then on her blog too, which is guaranteed Yaro-linkbait. It was about time that I invited her on to my podcast for an interview.
In this call you will hear Caroline recount her history online, and she’s been in the game for a long time, even doing pay per click marketing back when Overture was the main player and AdWords didn’t exist! You will also hear a lot about Caroline’s techniques for building traffic to her blog, how she built up her audience (currently 5000+ subscribers) and how she’s managed to make at least $1,000 every month (as high as $3,000 some months).
The Bloggers Bible
The Bloggers Bible is Caroline’s latest project, a new book that teaches her methodology for building a successful blog and then generating an income from it. Caroline has some very unique ideas, is a great teacher and is the least hypey person I know in the industry, and her book does a great job of representing all these aspects.
Caroline is offering a 30% discount off her Bloggers Bible just for my readers, but there’s a catch – it expires January 16th – so you have one week to save yourself some money if you want her book.
You might wonder why bother getting Caroline’s book if you already follow my training on blogging? There’s a simple answer to that – she’s different.
We share many of the same philosophies and Caroline is a Blog Mastermind graduate, but as you will hear in the interview, she doesn’t agree with everything I teach and has her own system, so if you like what she says in the interview, definitely grab her book while the discount is available.
You can find the discount offer here -
Show Notes
- Caroline explains her first experiences making money online
- We learn how Caroline turned to internet marketing by taking Ed Dale’s 30 Day Challenge
- Next Caroline explains her time spent niche marketing and why she didn’t like it
- Caroline launches a blog after ending her niche marketing/30 day challenge days
- She offers some fantastic advice on building traffic to a new blog and how she did it
- Important: Caroline talks about her free report and how she used it to make thousands of dollars
- Caroline explains why she wrote her Bloggers Bible
Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 39 Minutes - 18 MB]
Do You Need Talent To Grow A Successful Blog?
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?
Free Reports Worth Reading
I just had a great weekend. It was the Australia day public holiday here on Monday so I hosted a traditional Aussie BBQ housewarming party at my place. It was nice to have friends over, eat some good food, play some cards and then head to the park for some running around.
Now of course, it’s back to work!
With the profile of this blog I’m constantly sent reports and e-books to look at and unfortunately nowadays I have little time to read them, but I try to squeeze some in when I can. Today I picked out a few of the best to recommend to you and they are all free!
5x Profits Secrets by Dr Mani
Dr Mani is blogging like crazy on his Money Power Wisdom blog. He knows his stuff, so it’s worth adding his feed to your readers if you are interested in blogging and Internet marketing, the Doc has been in the game for a long time.
Dr Mani is a real doctor and much of his Internet business profits are used to fund heart surgery for under-privileged children in India. That’s a pretty noble cause and one worth supporting.
His new report – 5x Profits Secrets – reveals some of the fundamentals of successful marketing, including:
Proof That Blog Commenting Still Works To Build Traffic
This has to be the most common traffic tip professional bloggers give to newbies: Leave comments on other blogs.
You know what I did when I was newbie blogger? – I left comments on other blogs, like crazy.
I did a lot of other things too, all of which I go through in some detail in Blog Mastermind, but commenting was definitely an integral part of my early marketing activities for this blog.
You might wonder though, does commenting actually work to drive traffic today in the more crowded blogosphere?
I actually argue that most people go about a blog commenting strategy the wrong way and there is a higher leverage technique that most bloggers don’t do, but even if you follow the basic advice and just get out there and be a prolific commenter it will build traffic, and here’s proof.
