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make money blogging

The biggest myth of “making money online”

By Christian

I don't mean to disappoint, but there are some "internet marketing" myths that really need to be cleared up 🙂

Do you want to “make money online”? Do you want to “make money blogging”? Do you want to “build an internet business”? Well, forget about it. This article describes why the whole “make money online” thing is completely misunderstood by most business owners!

I’ve spent some time thinking about the whole “internet business” thing lately, and this is part of what originally caused me to start this Dangerous Tactics blog. I’ve read articles recently like this one from David Risley, where he talks about his feelings on why some people make money online…and why most people don’t. Derek Jensen unloads on us here on why people need to stop talking about how to make money online. Sonia Simone has also shared some awesome thoughts with us about why you can’t make money blogging…ironically enough, her post appears on one of the most profitable blogs in existence. Bottom line, the internet is a misunderstood place. It’s a new frontier, and there’s a lot of opportunity here, but let’s not lose track of what the internet is…and what it is not.

The biggest myth of “making money online” is that the internet has somehow changed how business works. It hasn’t. Here’s the truth:

The internet is a place, not a tactic. The internet has changed HOW people buy, not WHY they buy.

On the surface, this may seem like a minor difference, but the difference has massive ramifications. If you take some time to absorb this truth, it will affect how you approach your business on many levels. It will make you more profitable, because you’ll realize all the flash-bang, snazzy products and courses on “how to make money online” are built on a false premise. They are built on the premise that the internet is some magical place that YOU don’t understand. And of course once you “get it”, you’ll be able to “leverage the internet” and make millions.

How to really make money online

To be completely fair, there ARE some things you need to learn about marketing online. There’s some jargon and some moderately techy stuff that you need to learn, but once you “get it”, you’ll realize the internet is just another place where people hang out. You’ll realize that technology has changed…quite a bit. But people…haven’t changed a bit. Most of us are a bit crazy, mixed up, emotional, awesome, a lot of fun…and we buy LOTS of stuff, spend TONS of money on things, and we buy things for the EXACT same reasons as we did a million years ago.

This is what we need to learn how to do: we need to learn dangerous ninja selling tactics, so we can be highly effective and sell lots of our stuff. And yes, we’re going to do it online. We’re going to run blogs and squeeze pages, and we’re going to build email lists and sell things on the internet, and I’m going to show you how to do it. But we’re NOT building an “internet business”. We’re building a “real” business. Does that make sense?

Real Tactics for Selling to Real People

On this blog I share with you many of the ways I’ve made money…both online and offline for the past decade or so. The tactics are solid. They work on the internet. They work off the internet too. How could it be the case that these tactics are so powerful? One reason: people buy for the same reasons, both online and offline. At the end of the day, you’re either running a real business or you’re not.

If you’re running a real business, you will make money. If you’re not, you can use all the blog formulas, make money online formulas, launch formulas or any other type of formulas, and it won’t matter. Formulas don’t make money. Businesses make money.

Now you can choose to market your business online, and that would be a smart decision, seeing as how so many people are here. But don’t think of your business as an “internet business”, and don’t think of your marketing as “internet marketing”. It’s business. And it’s marketing. Just plain old business and marketing.

Screw the internet

The internet could implode tomorrow, and I’d still be rockin, because I don’t run an internet business. I run a business that I happen to market exclusively online right now. If something happened to the interwebz, I would just change my marketing plan. Problem solved. I bet the chances are good that you want that type of flexibility and security in your business as well, no?

If you think of yourself as an “internet entrepreneur” or a “social media marketer” or whatever, then go visit your local shopping mall and try to find a business that considers itself a “mall business”. Try to find a “how to launch a mall business” ebook somewhere. Yeah. Just because a business is located at the mall doesn’t mean it’s a “mall business”, and just because your business is engaged primarily in marketing online shouldn’t define you either. Most internet-based businesses have a LOT more in common with their brick and mortar counterparts than they realize. Figure out your business, and I bet you will see you’re not an “internet entrepreneur” after all. You’re simply an entrepreneur. That’s pretty liberating, no?

How to Make Money Blogging Pt 2

By Christian

Hi guys! Well I promised a follow up on the last post about making money with your blog. As it turns out, I will be doing a few of these. I appreciate the emails I got on the last one. Interestingly also, most of them came in via Facebook. I like that the Facebook crowd is reading Next Level Blogger. Much thanks! I understand that a lot of you are concerned with getting some cash flow coming in from your blogging efforts quickly, so of course I am more than happy to describe what I’ve done and what works well for me. I welcome questions, comments and confused glances. This stuff is actually pretty simple when you look at it!

As a new blogger, you can make money talking with your readers on the phone. Do you truly have expertise to offer? Charge for your personal time. It's the simplest, most straightforward way to monetize when you're new 🙂 It sure as heck beats what you'll make with Adsense!

Making Money with Services

As I described in the last post, the traditional methods of producing cash flow from a site are things I usually avoid. So if I’m not going to put ads up and monetize that way, what are the alternatives? Making money with services is a no-brainer way to get started. This is where the bulk of my income from Next Level Blogger comes from currently. The thing about offering a service is that there’s no set up time. Simply put up a page describing your service, and voila, you’re in business.

I have a caveat about doing consulting, and it is this: it takes a lot of time. It’s not really scalable, so it’s not a long term focus for me, but it’s a great way to get income started right away. I’m a big fan of my time and value it highly. This is probably true for you also. As a result, I do not consider consulting an ideal long term business model. This is why a lot of consultants charge $250 an hour, $400 an hour or more. It minimizes the time commitment and ensures that the time you spend ear to ear with clients is as hard-hitting, focused and as valuable as possible. That said, working for an hourly rate is a way you can get off the ground quickly and getting some income going right away.

There’s an important point here that I don’t want to be overlooked. Many of you think this doesn’t apply to you, but it does. I know some of you have already written this off as not applicable to your business. If so, you’re wrong 🙂 Hear me out. A lot of you are small business owners. A lot of the people I’ve consulted with are network marketers, Realtors, attorneys, etc. You already have a business, and it’s not a consulting business. So therefore, this method of income generation doesn’t apply to you, correct? I’d argue no…you’re dead wrong.

One of the beauties of blogging is that it can open up entirely new income streams that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Creating a service is certainly an example of this for many businesses.

Right before creating Next Level Blogger, I was doing affiliate marketing exclusively for income (granted, my own flavor of affiliate marketing…I tend to do very little by the book), so does that mean my blog needed to be about affiliate marketing exclusively? Does it mean I can only write about affiliate marketing and only continue making money through affiliate marketing? Of course not! I have 10 years of sales experience and have been selling online in different capacities (PPC, Ebay, Yahoo Stores, ghost writing to name a few) for over 6 years. So why put myself in an affiliate marketing box? I can cover a lot of ground when it comes to marketing.

How does this relate to YOUR business? I see a lot of small business owners put themselves in a box unnecessarily. One of the industries I’ve worked with most heavily recently is real estate. Real estate professionals are really good (no offense guys!) at viewing their business in only one very limited way. List a house, find a buyer, get a commission. Go list another house, find another buyer, get a commission. No problem with that model I suppose, but what the heck is wrong with opening up your opportunity a little bit? Create some new income streams for yourself! I’ve written about many ways to do this, but a great way is by offering a service via your blog. What’s wrong with offering your real estate consulting over the phone? What’s wrong with knocking out a call or two with your blog readers before going on your regular appointments for the day? To me, making $150 an hour (my current rate at the time of this post) is no way to get rich, but it sure is a fine way to fill in some gaps 🙂

What is your niche? Where is the area of your true expertise? Who can you really help in a targeted way? Don’t underestimate yourself!

A lot of professionals I speak with get locked into just working out of their office and ignore the fact that the people reading their site who don’t necessarily even live in their state, could use their help also! Don’t ignore that opportunity!

If you’re truly an expert in a certain area that is valuable to others, you not only have a perfect foundation for starting a great blog, you have a perfect foundation for starting a powerful service. Do you have to do this? Of course not. I’m just sharing what’s worked well for me, and offering a service got income coming in the first month for me. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. I got an email from a guy that wasn’t even a subscriber. He’d never left a comment on the site or anything. I was barely up and running, and he hired me for a few hours. I was so excited I made something like $500 my first month blogging 🙂

Do you think I would have been hired for that job if I hadn’t made an offer? No way. All I did was put up a page with a service offer, and bam. It’s not a lot of money admittedly, but very few blogs make $500 their first month. And it sure beats putting up some Adsense like most bloggers do. That would have made me maybe $3.

I will write a more in depth article shortly covering some basics tips on creating a service for your blog, so keep an eye out for that.

I’m also not quite finished with this make money from blogging series. There are a few more points I will be covering in the next post or two. In the meantime, I encourage any questions or comments, and I’ll make sure to include any questions in future content 🙂

How to Make Money Blogging Pt 1

By Christian

Making money with a blog really has to be one of the biggest concerns out there I suppose, so I want to address it directly. There are different approaches of course, and I can only speak to the techniques I’ve personally employed, what has worked well for me and what HASN’T worked well for me. This will be a two-part rundown of what has not worked for me…and what has 😉

Today I’ll cover a couple things I’ve tried that have failed for me. I’ll follow up shortly with more info on what DOES work for me, and what I’m doing today to generate income from blogging.

My Blogging Failures

First off, I’ve failed in a number of areas over the last few years since I’ve been blogging and building niche sites. I made many mistakes when I first started, so hopefully you can read this and avoid the same time wasters. Monetizing a site is always a concern if you’re doing something as a business, and the two most common ways of monetizing are through ads and affiliate marketing.

Making Money with Ads

There are a number of ways to do this on your site. Adsense is the most common way to put ads on your site when you’re small and just starting. A lot of beginners don’t realize that putting ads on your site isn’t something you can just do on a whim, expect through Adsense. If you’re new and wanting to monetize your site, you’ll likely go down this path a bit and look into putting some ads on your site.

Hopefully I can save you some time here…what you’ll find is that most ad networks won’t even talk to you. Why? You don’t yet have the high level of traffic they’re looking for. The most popular networks really want you to have a high level of traffic to start. What do I mean by that? Requirements vary from vendor to vendor of course, but I’ll say it this way: if you’re not getting at least 50k visitors a month on a regular basis, your prospects will be limited. Some vendors won’t be interested til you get into six figures or higher. Adsense doesn’t have this requirement though. This makes Adsense highly accessible and easy to implement.

Adsense is also very simple to optimize and style to your site. How does it pay? It pays fairly well actually, if you compare what most other ad networks pay. The problem is that if you aren’t getting a high level of traffic, Adsense is not going to pay you more than a few dollars (I mean that quite literally) per month.

What do I mean by saying it pays well then? It pays well on a per visitor basis.

It’s important to understand that the larger ad networks (like Federated Media and others) don’t pay much better according to my research. It’s just that monetizing with ads does indeed pay well, if you’re bringing in a large number of visitors. If you’re not, it doesn’t. That’s pretty much all she wrote. Even A-list bloggers rarely depend solely on advertising income. There’s also a growing trend for well-established bloggers to be trimming back or even removing their ads altogether. They’re concentrating on much more profitable income sources. Even when you are getting tons of traffic, advertising still rarely cuts it on its own.

Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another avenue I tried when I was first starting. I didn’t sell a single thing. Nothing. This is just my personal experience. I’ve since learned how to do affiliate marketing more effectively, and it’s a terrific way to earn some extra money. It is not in any way a significant source of income for me at this point, but earning an extra few hundred bucks here and there is not something I’m gonna turn down 🙂

That said, most beginners (like me too when I was first starting) just put up some affiliate banners in their sidebar and wait for the orders to come in. In most cases, they just don’t.

As is the case with most things, you can overcome lack of skill with sheer numbers. Will you sell some product by simply placing an ad in your sidebar when you’re pulling in a ton of visitors? Yes, of course. If 200,000 people hit your site in any given month, it’s likely someone is going to click through and buy something.

I’d like to say I have no problem with this form of monetizing, except for one thing…it simply doesn’t apply to most sites. Yet ironically, it’s what most people try. And then when it doesn’t work, people conclude that “blogging doesn’t work”. It’s a massively incorrect conclusion to draw, although I understand why it happens.

These are the most common avenues I see new bloggers take, and they almost never work…for the same reasons. Hopefully you can read this and save yourself some headaches. However, let me assure you that there are some effective ways a new blogger can generate income. If you’ve read Next Level Blogger for a while, you already know…my experience is specifically in small niche websites. I generate 100% of my income online, and I don’t have a single website that pulls in more than 5-6k visitors a month.

I’m a blogging advocate for a reason! You can most definitely generate a good income and lifestyle with your blog. Even after only running this blog for a short time, I’m already seeing a significant change in the way I do business, and I expect this process to continue. This is what I’ll use to continue in Part 2. That is where I’ll cover some things that really work for me, and they’ll work for you too. In the meantime, please comment or contact me any feedback or questions. Talk to you more soon. Thanks!