{"id":232,"date":"2006-12-21T18:03:07","date_gmt":"2006-12-21T10:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/232\/problogger-7-reality-checks\/"},"modified":"2006-12-21T20:28:41","modified_gmt":"2006-12-21T12:28:41","slug":"problogger-7-reality-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/blogging\/problogger-7-reality-checks\/","title":{"rendered":"Kickstart Your Blogging Business and Make Big Money: 7 Reality Checks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[This post is my entry for Darren Rowse&#8217;s <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"ProBlogger\" href=\"http:\/\/www.problogger.net\/archives\/2006\/12\/18\/problogger-group-writing-project-reviews-and-predictions\/\">ProBlogger Group Writing Project &#8211; Reviews and Predictions<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>2006 was an interesting time for me as I plunged into Internet Marketing.<\/p>\n<p>Although I didn&#8217;t have a clear idea in the beginning, it was very clear that the path of least resistance would be to go with blogging.<\/p>\n<p>In the course of the last 5 months, I&#8217;ve had a series of interesting experiences and the questions I&#8217;ve dealt with appear to be common with all new bloggers, whether the questions originate from a blog, a forum, a blog network or a social networking site.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s 2006 in retrospective in a FAQ format with money making tips and 7 Reality Checks for bloggers and internet marketers.<br \/>\n<img title=\"Blogging is Evil\" alt=\"Blogging is Evil\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/bloggingisevil.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blogging Reality Check 1: Making Money from Blogging is Evil<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure of the intent of this often heard objection.<\/p>\n<p>I guess some might have &#8216;pure\/purist intentions&#8217; and expect that blogging is some form of &#8216;cathartic release&#8217; for heavy\/philosophical\/ponderous thinking.<\/p>\n<p>I see blogging as a form of personal journalism. And <!--more-->journalists have to eat.<\/p>\n<p>Like it or not, the reason why your newspaper or magazine doesn&#8217;t cost $100 a copy is because it&#8217;s sponsored by advertisements and the classifieds. Likewise, blogs can be financially self-sustaining through adsense, affiliate marketing and other monetization strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Expecting bloggers to provide free content is akin to expecting musicians to provide music free of charge.<\/p>\n<p>It takes time and resources to produce blog content and there is a measurable value to it.<\/p>\n<p>In a utopian society, writers, artists, musicians would be able to freely practise their craft without fear of finding their next meal. We don&#8217;t live in that world yet.<br \/>\n<img title=\"Making Millions\" alt=\"Making Millions\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/millions.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blogging Reality Check 2: I Will Make Millions Overnight<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the other extreme, I have spoken to bloggers who expect to make huge sums of money overnight.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unlikely to happen unless you are some sort of celebrity, likely a mega celebrity if you&#8217;re planning to bring in the megabucks.<\/p>\n<p>If you are not however, it&#8217;s time to face a reality check.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve also heard about products or software that can automatically build blogs by the hundreds every hour, and we&#8217;ve also heard about how if each blog earns a dollar each day, you&#8217;d be earning thousands of dollars in your sleep.<\/p>\n<p>While you might have some degree of success using these blogging-related &#8220;quick buck&#8221; schemes, it might not necessarily be sustainable (ie you are &#8216;de-indexed&#8217; and disappear from the search engine results, or your &#8216;innovative&#8217; monetization exploit is soon negated.) It then becomes a mad rush for the next &#8220;black hat template&#8221; or the next automated, broadband-enabled, stealth, power-enhanced, web2.0-enabled, ajax-enhanced, php-powered widget.<\/p>\n<p>Rinse and repeat until it gets disabled by one of the higher power. (see above paragraph)<br \/>\nIf you are a <strong>serious blogger<\/strong> for which blogging is a <strong>long term strategy <\/strong>to help you achieve your goals, here&#8217;s what I would advise you to do.<\/p>\n<p>Think of your blog as a <strong>business tool<\/strong>. Consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How does it fit in with your adsense or affiliate marketing plan?<\/li>\n<li>How would you go about establish trust and credibility for your business.<\/li>\n<li>Who would your strategic partners be.<\/li>\n<li>How are you building your <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Building the Me Brand\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/202\/ewen-chia-building-me-brand\/\">&#8220;me&#8221; brand<\/a>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img alt=\"Free tools\" title=\"Free tools\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/freetools.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blogging Reality Check 3: Free Tools and Services<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>New Internet Marketers ask me this all the time: &#8220;What are the free tools we can use besides blogger\/blogspot to growing our blogging efforts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d add to the list of useful tools such as <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Gimp\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gimp.org\">GIMP<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Pingoat\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pingoat.com\">PingOat<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Squidoo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.squidoo.com\">Squidoo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What troubles me however, is that some who aspire to earn online income aim to do it <strong>only<\/strong> using free tools.<\/p>\n<p>I think you could probably earn $50-$100 per month using free tools, and if you&#8217;re good earn maybe $500.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that could be highly challenging. I guess if you put your mind to it, you could come up with very interesting business models.<\/p>\n<p>For the vast majority of us however, I&#8217;d advise counting the value of your time.<\/p>\n<p>Sure you could surf 1,000 websites and gather the same information, or as one participant at the World Internet Summit said to me, I can just google for everything, I don&#8217;t need to buy anything (which was weird because he invested in a World Internet Summit ticket&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>To build a sustainable business, you need to value your time.<\/p>\n<p>Is your time worth $5 an hour? $10? $50? $500? $5,000?<\/p>\n<p>If your time is worth more than the cost of the product or service, you&#8217;d be foolish not to subscribe or invest in the product.<\/p>\n<p>Even if your time was worth $1 per hour, I couldn&#8217;t see how it&#8217;d make sense to manually maintain a mailing list of 1,000 and send them emails on a bi-weekly basis.<\/p>\n<p>I use a combination of free and paid tools and you&#8217;d generally be able to tell the difference between the two.<\/p>\n<p>If you have the mindset of starting and operating a business, your tools will generate many times their investment for you.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the useful tools which outweigh their investment include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Secret Blog Weapon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.secretblogweapon.com\">Secret Blog Weapon<\/a> (Blog Optimization)<\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Ultimate Affiliate Weapon\" href=\"htttp:\/\/www.ultimateaffiliateweapon.com\">Ultimate Affiliate Weapon<\/a> (Affiliate Marketing)<\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Secret Web Hosting Weapon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.secretwebhostingweapon.com\">Bluehost web hosting<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Autoresponder: <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"aweber\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/aweber\">Aweber<\/a> \/ <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Get Response\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/getresponse\">GetResponse<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once you have these fundamentals in place, you&#8217;d find that building your business is much easier.<\/p>\n<p><img title=\"WhoIsAndrewWee\" alt=\"WhoIsAndrewWee\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/alexa-wiaw061220.png\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blogging Reality Check 4: It Takes Tough Times<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s taken 4 months to get to the stage I&#8217;m currently at.<\/p>\n<p>Although I&#8217;d have preferred to get here within a week of starting up, building a business, blogging-based or otherwise is as much about the <strong>process<\/strong> of getting to your goal, as much as merely achieving it.<\/p>\n<p>As you&#8217;re building your blogging <strong>business<\/strong> you will encounter setbacks, perhaps days in which your visitor numbers or income drop drastically.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s something that people don&#8217;t often talk about.<\/p>\n<p>The measure of a mature blogger is not what happens when good times are rolling, but what you do when things go south.<\/p>\n<p>Do you merely throw in the towel? Do you kick your efforts up a notch?<\/p>\n<p>Often the most spectacular successes are built on the backs of the most dismal circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Look at the rise of Japan after the Second World War, or Apple after an ousted Steve Jobs rejoined and the company&#8217;s fortunes turned not once, but numerous times with the launch of the MacIntosh, the iMac and the iPod.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve watched real life events unfold during 9-11, you&#8217;d know that true heroes are forged in the moments of greatest adversity.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of months ago, I blogged about: <a title=\"Are you ready to give up on Internet Marketing\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/148\/give-up-internet-marketing\/\">Are you ready to give up on Internet Marketing?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s still relevant now. Perhaps more so.<\/p>\n<p>Some people seek to avoid difficulty and challenges, others actively seek it.<\/p>\n<p>Which are you?<\/p>\n<p><img title=\"Focus\" alt=\"Focus\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/focus.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Blogging Reality Check 5: I Will Make Millions Overnight<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Are you an &#8216;everything under the sun&#8217; blogger?<\/p>\n<p>If you are one of the myriad of blogger who blogs about &#8220;internet marketing&#8221;, &#8220;health and fitness&#8221; or &#8220;women&#8217;s issues&#8221;, you could be biting off more than you can chew.<\/p>\n<p>Catchall blogs work best if they&#8217;re run by a panel of bloggers (sometimes as many as 10), or by especially prolific bloggers.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re specializing in everything, you&#8217;re specializing in nothing.<\/p>\n<p>Finding your niche and entrenching yourself deeply in it means that your position is virtually unassailable.<\/p>\n<p>If you do choose to tackle &#8220;internet marketing&#8221;, maybe you want to niche it by focusing on &#8220;internet marketing for high school students&#8221;, &#8220;internet marketing for midcareer professionals&#8221; or &#8220;internet marketing for single mothers&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The brick and mortar businesses have moved towards speciality stores, rather than general concept stores (with Wal Mart being one of the few exceptions). Likewise, becoming a niche specialist helps you expand from a position of power.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Build A Community\" title=\"Build A Community\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/buildcommunity.jpg\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>Blogging Reality Check 6: Build A Community<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re starting out, you might be working in isolation.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re fortunate, you might be able to tap into a community. By tapping into these resources, you gain significant leverage as you&#8217;re expanding your efforts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Leverage&#8221;, comes in a few flavors. There&#8217;s technological leverage that a software or tool can help by automating your efforts. But far more powerful is social leverage or people-oriented leverage.<\/p>\n<p>And social leverage can easily move mountains.<\/p>\n<p>During the launch of <a title=\"Russell Brunson\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/190\/traffic-generation-from-russell-brunson-and-conquer-your-niche\/\">Russell Brunson&#8217;s Conquer Your Niche<\/a> Internet Marketing forum, the site&#8217;s traffic went off the charts.<\/p>\n<p>Other sites I frequently visit include:<\/p>\n<p>Forums such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Warrior Forum\" href=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/www.warriorforum.com\/forum\/\">Warrior Forum<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Digital Point\" href=\"http:\/\/forums.digitalpoint.com\/\">Digital Point<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Digital Keiretsu\" href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalkeiretsu.com\/dkforum\/\">Digital Keiretsu<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blogs such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Shoemoney\" href=\"http:\/\/www.shoemoney.com\">Shoemoney<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Problogger\" href=\"http:\/\/www.problogger.net\">ProBlogger<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"PlanetAndrea\" href=\"http:\/\/www.planetandrea.com\">PlanetAndrea<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" title=\"9rules\" href=\"http:\/\/www.9rules.com\/blog\">9rules Blog Network<\/a> (of which I am a member)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At it&#8217;s simplest, I believe build a community is nothing more than making friends, and I appreciate the opportunities to interact with the likes of <a title=\"Ewen Chia\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ultimateaffiliateweapon.com\">Ewen Chia<\/a>, Jo Han Mok, Social Media specialist <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Michelle Macphearson\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.michellemacphearson.com\/\">Michelle MacPhearson<\/a>, and my buddies Ryan Chua and Rachit Dayal.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Change the World\" title=\"Change the World\" src=\"http:\/\/www.whoisandrewwee.com\/images\/blog0612\/changetheworld.jpg\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>Blogging Reality Check 7: Change the World<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is probably the most important step.<\/p>\n<p>Have a focus bigger than yourself.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t necessarily need to choose &#8216;world peace&#8217;, but you want your blogging efforts to mean more than pounding out 300-700 words every 24 hours, inserting a few photos and hitting the publish button.<\/p>\n<p>We need meaning to keep going.<\/p>\n<p>Meaning is the glue that creates our motivation.<\/p>\n<p>We all have 24 hours a day, and we can choose to spend that time focusing on big project, or on small projects.<\/p>\n<p>When you embrace something huge, something weird happens to your thinking too, it expands.<\/p>\n<p>Your world view blows up and suddenly your universe is not just your neighbourhood, or the people in your village, city, state or country.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re seeing and blogging through the eyes of a world citizen, life (business or personal) can only continue to be a rich canvas to blog about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[This post is my entry for Darren Rowse&#8217;s ProBlogger Group Writing Project &#8211; Reviews and Predictions] 2006 was an interesting time for me as I plunged into Internet Marketing. Although I didn&#8217;t have a clear idea in the beginning, it was very clear that the path of least resistance would be to go with blogging. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[1806,209,1767,259,154,144,331,1782,1766,131,283,263,258,1793,277],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whoisandrewwee.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}