Sometimes we do have constraints that bump right up against our lack of skills. Common for many in this business is lack of technical skills. And this is often coupled with the habit of comparing yourself to others where you see other good looking blogs and you try like hell to make your own look that good despite not having the skillset to do it. You have two options here: Do it by yourself. Hire somebody to do it. Now, going the “do it yourself” route is a viable option for some, but I see some people basically grinding their entire progress to a halt over it. In the “real world”, you hire people all the time. You probably hire somebody to fix your car, or to do major repair work around the house. You hire them because they’re the expert and you want the result quickly. So, WHY is it that we lose this perspective when it comes to the Internet?

In our last issue, we met Bob. Bob set out to start up his own online business, but ended up drowning in information and left himself overwhelmed and confused on what to do next. And when we left Bob last time, I talked about how Bob needed structure and order… and he needed to implement “just in time learning”. He needed self-imposed tunnel vision in order to weed out any incoming information that took him off his goal or simply was talking about something which isn’t yet relevant to Bob. Let me give you a classic example… Let’s say our friend Bob here has a niche in mind. He’s even started his site up for it. He’s written a few blog posts, perhaps. But, his email list is still practically non-existent and he has yet to make his first buck online. So, Bob is still in the early phases here. But, Bob is subscribed to some “guru” who is pretty big into podcasting. Bob listens to that podcast. Loves it, in fact. The host of that podcast even publishes income reports and Bob finds it motivational. So, the “guru” launches a course all about podcasting. And it sounds freakin’ awesome to Bob. But, let’s back up here. And let’s talk a little sense into Bob, shall we?

Information overload and overwhelm are two of the biggest constraints to people looking to build their online business. But, here’s the rub… Most people are doing it to themselves voluntarily! Let’s look at a typical person who is trying to start and grow an online business. Let’s call him Bob. So, Bob wants this. He has visions of making enough money online so that he can walk out of his day job. He is under no illusions that it will be an overnight thing. He knows it will take a lot of work. But, Bob needs to figure out what to do. So, he goes out and starts searching for and reading various articles and “gurus” in the world of online business. He subscribes to several email lists. He puts a bunch of RSS feeds into his phone so he can keep track of different sites. He registers for some webinars. But, Bob is confused. He feels like he is understanding the theory behind things. He can start to use some of the terminology from the world of online marketing. But, he’s still personally confused on what HE should be doing. He tries to solve it by buying a few courses. Being on all these peoples’ lists, he sees things for sale. They look awesome. Certainly, the ad copy on those pages makes each of those things seem like the best thing ever. So, he picks up a few. He also picks up some tools. He picks up a couple WordPress plug-ins and some online services. Every time he buys one of those things, he feels like he did something concrete to grow his business. But, there’s still this nagging feeling… He’s still confused. He’s still feeling overwhelmed.

For #ASKBMA this week, I'm talking about what to do when you've been blogging for awhile, but it isn't working. Carl is in the personal development niche and is having a problem figuring out his unique selling proposition (USP). Also on the agenda... - Black Friday 2018 - The latest on The Daily - An update on the Coffee Break Blogging podcast. - What's new inside THE LAB Quick Links: - BLACK FRIDAY - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/blackfriday/ - THE DAILY - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/daily/ - PODCAST - http://www.coffeebreakblogging.com - THE LAB - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/lab/ - ASK BMA - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/ask/ That's our weekly update for 11/21/2018. See ya next week! And Happy Thanksgiving!

When we focus on what we don’t have, it will often lead to more of that. See… You get what you validate. And, when you validate your shortcomings by focusing on them, you’ll just magnify them. I’m about to get a little “woo woo” on you here, but I personally believe this… As beings, we imbue the world around us with energy. It is like we’re literally painting our environment with energy. That energy can either be positive or negative. And that “painting” is driven by our attention. Not only that, when we give something our attention, we’re also giving it power. We’re validating it. We’re imbuing energy into it, merely by focusing our spiritual energy on it. That energy has a quality to it, however. It can either be positive or negative. There are those people who, when they put their attention on things, things tend to go right. There are also some people who tend to screw up anything they get involved with. There are lot of different scenarios here, but all of it is summarized by simply saying that we imbue things with energy and that the nature of that energy has a lot to do with the effects. Positivity or negativity toward things is a learned skill. You might have a natural tendency toward one or the other, but you have control over it. You can train yourself to be more of an optimist by taking time each day to list one or more things you are grateful for. Being grateful is literally injecting beauty into the world. One might not think of gratitude as imbuing their world with positive energy. Many think of it as merely “being thankful for” something. But, it is so much more than that. It is something to strive for. And something to be aware of the next time you find yourself being rather negative about your own situation. When you’re doing that, ask yourself… What reality are you postulating for yourself right then?

Man, they appear to be doing so well. What’s wrong with me?” This is a pretty common thought to a lot of people. You may see somebody in a bigger house than you have… then look at your own and wonder what went wrong. You may see somebody else with a nicer car and wonder why you’re driving around such an average vehicle. Or, let’s make this even more common… You’re scrolling through Facebook and seeing pictures of people’s parties, their vacations, their fancy meals. They seem to be living the high life. What’s wrong with YOU? It has actually been proven through experiment that such use of social media actually helps further depression. People are unhappier due to social media, in a lot of cases. On top of the comparisons, it doesn’t help one bit that social media is being used these days to divide people and stir them up. But, that’s another discussion… But, if you’re the kind who makes a habit of comparing yourself to others, then you’re more likely to find unhappiness breeding in you when you are active on social media. But, let’s bring this back into the world of online business… When you want to make money online, one of the first things you often do is search the internet for how to make money online, or how to make money blogging. And you come across people who are talking about it. And often they talk about how much money they make. Pat Flynn, from Smart Passive Income, publicly posts his monthly income reports. It is a popular feature of his site, and many others have done the same. I actually used to do the same thing, but have long since stopped. Why is that? … because I believe it leads people into making comparisons between themselves and me, or themselves and Pat – or whoever. You get inspired by the money, then the next move is to try to do what they have done instead of charting your own path. Instead of doing what you need to do, you’re instead left trying to copy somebody else. And if you don’t get the forward movement, it is pretty deflating. Plus, income reports put the emphasis on the income and not what actually creates that income… which is delivering value to others. Comparing yourself to others will almost naturally lead to an attitude of “lack”. Your attention and your focus is on what you DON’T have. And you will inevitably get more of what you focus on. The ironic thing is that, most of the time, these comparisons are based on an outright LIE.

You ever seen the movie Shawshank Redemption? FANTASTIC movie. Hard to believe it was made 24 years ago now. Anyway… If you recall, Morgan Freeman’s character was in prison and he was afraid to leave prison. He saw what happened to some of his fellow prison mates when they were released. Free from the structure of the prison, they lost themselves and committed suicide in many cases. There’s that sad scene where the old man was released from prison, felt completely lost in the regular world without the prison rules, and ended up hanging himself. But, I thought about that. And I saw some parallels to people who are trying (or simply want to) gain freedom from a traditional 9-to-5 job. While there are negatives to having a 9-5 job, the truth is that it is actually easier than trying to build a business. With a job, you live within the confines laid out by somebody else. You play by their rules. You do what you’re told. You do it well enough and out pops a paycheck. There’s a kind of order to it. It is an order laid out by somebody else, so there isn’t that responsibility of having to drive the ship. Once you go into the uncharted territory of your own business, then you’re on your own. You’re like a pioneer. All of a sudden, the rulebook is gone and you’re the creator of your own rules. You have nobody to impose discipline on you but yourself.

One thing I know from all my time in the business is that there are a lot of things that people just do. Almost out of habit. Because it is considered normal and they see everybody else do it. They might not ever question whether it makes much sense, but they will just do it in another case of “follow the leader”. After all, if the “big guys” do it, it must be right. You see a lot of it in the world of podcasting. I got to thinking about the intros. Everybody seems to want to get some intro for their podcasts that sounds like a radio show. They hire somebody to record it, or maybe they cheap out and go to Fiverr. Either way, it is considered normal that you have to get an intro to make your show official. But, why?

The other day, I was reviewing somebody’s front-end offer. The central portion of the landing page for it was a video of him talking. And I noticed something… He was not portraying any confidence in his offer. In fact, he was practically apologizing for making it. He started off by saying he wasn’t trying to make a quick buck, saying it wasn’t a scam, etc. I mean, who puts forth a good offer by leading off with the fact that it isn’t a scam? I call this “selling from your heels”. It is delivering a sales message while leaning back, almost propitiating to your prospect for even making the offer. What do you do when you're seriously nervous about trying to make a sale?

My relationship with Twitter has changed a few times. Like a lot of bloggers, I used it. Built up a following, and used it to interact with others in my marketplace. But, like a lot of people, I felt Twitter got to be super noisy. And my enthusiasm for the platform dropped. To be honest, I slowly shifted away from actually using Twitter. I barely ever used it… and almost all the posts that I made were automated. Essentially, I was link-dropping my latest stuff to Twitter and otherwise forgetting my profile exists. And even though I was dropping those links out to over 14,000 followers, the results were a reflection of exactly the energy I was giving it. In other words… damn near zero. Twitter was almost zilch as a traffic source to the Blog Marketing Academy. It seemed as if Twitter shifted. It seems like it has gotten really political. It seems as if Twitter is more of a platform for people in the media, politicians, celebs, etc. A place for them to vent off over things which, frankly, they should probably just shut up about.  And then, those tweets end up becoming the basis for entire “news” stories. It works for reporters. Trump likes it.  But, for the rest of us, not so much. But, recently, I decided to give Twitter another “go”. Only this time, quite differently.

A quiz is a unique type of lead magnet to grow your list. Typically, creating an online quiz has been a real technical challenge. But, one of the more recent tools offered from Thrive Themes is the Thrive Quiz Builder. With Quiz Builder, you can create different kinds of quizzes. And here’s the best part… You can use them to create segmented email lists, offer them different lead magnets depending on their answers, and more. One of the biggest challenges can simply be coming up with an idea for a quiz. From a marketing perspective, the aim is to have a quiz which gets them to look at the problem that you solve with your business. It can help raise them on the customer awareness scale from being unaware to problem aware. Quizzes which give them a score on something they can improve can work well for this. The fact that you can build a simple assessment or quiz using a drag-and-drop interface like this is just amazing to me. Thrive Quiz Builder really is an amazing tool for that.

Mobile traffic is a really big deal these days. So many people are browsing our sites on mobile devices so it is VERY important that your site is mobile responsive to work on smaller screens. When I look at my own stats as of this writing, about 38% of my traffic over the last 30 days was on a mobile device. And, almost all of that was on a phone of some kind – not a tablet. We’re talking small screens. So, the question is… do your opt-in forms adjust properly and work well on such small screens? A sidebar opt-in will usually be pushed way to the bottom of the screen on a mobile device, since sidebars usually just get kicked to the bottom. Your opt-in rate will be garbage. If you use an exit pop or some other popup, the trigger settings might not work right on mobile. Plus, there’s little that’s more annoying than having an opt-in completely takeover my iPhone screen when I’m on a site. It is interruption marketing at it’s finest. So, you may want to change up your opt-in strategy for mobile devices. Display different forms that are more likely to work correctly on small screens.

Today, let’s talk about placement of your opt-in forms. We’ve already talked about running split tests on your opt-in forms. But, one of the things you definitely should be testing is placement of your opt-in forms. Most blogs have a primary lead magnet placed right in their sidebar. However, the sidebar is usually one of the worst performing locations for your opt-in.​ Typical conversion rates for this location are like 1%-2%. And frankly, that sucks. Most bloggers put that thing in the sidebar simply because they see everybody else doing it. So, it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind. Definitely experiment with opt-in form placement. Don’t just fall back on your sidebar because that’s what everybody else does. To grow your list effectively, you can’t just do the bare minimum. Your action item for today is… Set up a different form of opt-in placement than you are running right now and test it out.

For #ASKBMA this week, I'm answering: - Using other people's Youtube videos in your content. Is it OK? - Her email list isn't growing. What's she missing? - Offering private discounts to people who ask? Also on the agenda... - The latest on The Daily - An update on the Coffee Break Blogging podcast. - What's new inside THE LAB Quick Links: - THE DAILY - PODCAST - THE LAB - ASK BMA That's our weekly update for 11/1/2018. See ya next week!

All of us – and yes, you – have people who come to our blog who end up leaving without opting into our list. Sometimes it is because they’re not interested. Sometimes they just never saw your lead magnet. Sometimes, they’ve got such short attention spans that they could have the most awesome, relevant free download staring them in the face and they don’t see it. But, once they back away and leave, is that it? You’ll never see them again? Not necessarily. Bring in retargeting (sometimes called remarketing). You know it, even if you don’t think you do. Because we’ve all experienced going to some website to check it out. Then, we just happen to see their ads all over the place. It is like they’re FOLLOWING us! You might see an ad for them in your Facebook news feed. You might even see banner ads showing up on other websites you visit. That’s retargeting. And it is usually much cheaper to do this kind of paid advertising than going out to new people. Usually. In effect, you’re capturing traffic that bounces off your site and your circling back to give them another opportunity to connect with you.

Today, I’m going to share another strategy to build your list much more effectively. In fact, it works very, VERY well. It will, however, cost you a bit of money. But, the way I see it, if you’re one that is seeking to avoid any form of spending, you’ve already cut yourself off at the knees. My list growth trend was rather flat while I was out traveling in the RV all summer. I didn’t really have any major list building campaigns in effect. The business was just… coasting. But, as you can see, when I got back, I started things up again and you can clearly see the spike. Now, there’s a few things I did, but most of that spike is due to a single ad campaign that I re-started on Facebook. Specifically, it is an ad for one of my more popular lead magnets: The 90 Day Online Business Startup Plan. This episode covers how this worked, and what the specs of my campaign were.

A lead magnet squeeze page is like an island unto itself. It won’t have any top nav menu. No sidebar. No links to social media profiles. At most, it will have the typical boring links to your privacy policy and terms of service in the footer. At the top, it might have your logo. Also, most of the time, you would hide this squeeze page from your top blog navigation menu. You don’t HAVE to. You may want to try including it there. But, often these squeeze pages will just sit there and the only traffic it will get will be when you specifically link to it. So, where might you use this thing? Well, I could give you a bunch of ideas today. However, this whole list building challenge is about specificity. I don’t want to give you a ton to do all at once… otherwise it is more likely you won’t do it. So, today, let’s just talk one simple strategy. This strategy isn't so much about building your list... as it is about keeping your existing subscribers engaged.

In case you’re wondering, here’s some fairly typical opt-in rates for various types of forms: Typical blog sidebar opt-in form will typically not convert much better than 1%-2%. A contextual opt-in form inside a blog post (aka content upgrade) can convert anywhere from around 5% up to 12%. I’ve had them go as high as 30%, but usually that’s a temporary fluke. But, it happens. A dedicated landing page can convert anywhere from 30% up to 50%. Sometimes even higher. I’ve got one right now which seems to be converting at about 88%, but again, it might even out. I have found 50% to be a good, rough average. So, in this case, a squeeze page is the equivalent of using the electric drill compared to a screwdriver. It is simply FAR more efficient and converts far better than you’ll almost EVER see on a blog, regardless of location. Why is this? Well, the answer is pretty simple...

Here's our weekly update for 10/25/2018. For #ASKBMA this week, I'm answering: Transitioning from single products to a membership Daily blogging and building up to 25k subscribers BEFORE you monetize? Whuh?! How many blog posts do you need to launch? Also on the agenda... The latest on The Daily An update on the Coffee Break Blogging podcast. What's new inside THE LAB Sneak peak at what's coming up with the next training course Quick Links: THE DAILY PODCAST THE LAB ASK BMA MEMBERMOUSE New Blog Post: Pricing Strategy: The Non-Marketer’s Guide To Figuring Out What To Charge For Your Digital Products

Building your email list is always a marathon, not a race. It is a constant effort and something that you’re always doing. And, if all you do it throw up an opt-in form with a single lead magnet and then waiting it out, you’re just not doing it right. We’ve already talked about how you can magnify your list building power by creating additional lead magnets and/or content upgrades. But, what about the actual opt-in forms? How do you improve those and make them work better? Split testing. Now, decent chance you already know about split-testing. Thing is… Do you actually do it?

If you’ve not yet read my flagship blog post on The Redwood Strategy, I recommend you do now. It should be very clear that I’m big on the long-term use of a blog post. I like to build leverage… not a hamster wheel. In that post, too, you will see a content upgrade. A content upgrade is simply a lead magnet which is highly specific to a single blog post. As of this writing, that content upgrade is converting at 11.27%. This is a simple, concrete action you can take to more effectively build your list. Pick one post. Preferably one already getting some traffic. And make a content upgrade for it.

This week's (and the first) Weekly Update. :) On the docket this week... The latest on The Daily An update on the Coffee Break Blogging podcast. Is it coming back? What's new inside THE LAB #AskBMA For #ASKBMA this week, I'm answering: Third party landing page creator (like LeadPages) versus Wordpress landing page builders. Which is better? Should you put your customer downloads behind a login, or send it via email? Thrive Themes and SumoMe? Should you use a pop-up on your site to build your list? What (in my experience) works even better than a popup but isn't so annoying? Quick Links: THE DAILY - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/daily/ PODCAST - http://www.coffeebreakblogging.com THE LAB - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/lab/ ASK BMA - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/ask/ Thrive Leads - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/go/thriveleads Thrive Architect - http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/go/architect 

“Subscribe to our Newsletter” is quite possibly the dumbest call to action ever to litter the internet. It might have worked back in the 90’s when “You got Mail!” made people feel special. But, today? Ha! Today, you need to give people a damn compelling REASON to subscribe to your email list. And that reason is simply an opt-in offer, otherwise known as a lead magnet. Now, for most of you, I would imagine the concept of a lead magnet is nothing new. However, ask yourself this… Do you have only one or two lead magnets? If so, then time to get busy. Because… The more lead magnets you have, the easier it is to grow your list.

It has been a long time since we've done a new episode of Coffee Break Blogging. I've had many people ask if I had any plans on bringing it back. With this short episode, I explain what happened. And, what's coming.

Do you run a service business? Are you a consultant or a coach? If so, then you’ve likely thought about the issue of how to scale. The idea of trading time for money is something many people grow allergic to. There’s nothing wrong with it at all, however every service provider eventually starts to look ahead at how to evolve the business beyond that. How can you scale a service business? How can you turn it into a product? How can you begin to set things up so that it isn’t simply a trade between time and money? In this episode of Coffee Break, I’m talking specifically to people who run service businesses. We’ll be discussing 7 specific strategies to begin executing so that you can begin to scale a time-based business. This isn’t a transition one just jumps into. And I’m not going to recommend you just jump into the world of membership sites and online course creation. There are certain systemic things you need to be doing internally to strategically AIM your business toward more systematization and productization. It is a myth that the kind of marketing and revenue generation strategies we discuss around the Blog Marketing Academy somehow don’t apply to service businesses. They most certainly do.

In this episode of Coffee Break, we're taking a little side road off the usual fare and discussing the issue of money itself. Specifically, Bitcoin. The reason I think this topic is important is because we have to understand the very medium we deal in when it comes to generating money with our business. Most of us deal in the US dollar and we tend to think that higher quantities of dollars is automatically better. But, when you look at the nature of the dollar itself and it's colossal lack of purchasing power over the last few decades, we see that more isn't necessarily better. We run our businesses - or seek to build them - in order to provide purchasing power to ourselves. So, we discuss Bitcoin here as something new. We'll discuss the cryptocurrency and its advantages. Plus, we're talking about 6 specific reasons why I think all business owners (but, especially online businesses) should be considering accepting Bitcoin payments as a payment option on their checkout pages.

For the longest time inside The Lab, my private community was running inside of a closed Facebook group. My thinking was this: My members most likely are already on Facebook They find it easy to use It saves me hassle Notifications will mean they see conversations As I now sit here a couple years later, I realize I was mistaken. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, I share with you 7 specific reasons why I decided; after a couple years of having my member community on Facebook, I switched to a privately hosted forum for our Lab Community. I also recommend that anybody else looking to have a private community inside of their membership site should set up from the start on a private forum that you own and control. Make time for this episode... and learn from my mistakes.

Every blogger on the face of the earth wants more traffic. But, what are the most effective ways to get it? What are the best promotion strategies that are working in 2017? In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we dive into the world of blog promotion yet again... this time covering the top 10 most effective strategies for promoting your blog. What Works... What Doesn't. We are most definitely leaving behind the content "hamster wheel" that most bloggers run on to try to promote their blog. You know the one. It goes like this: Post a new blog post. Share it on social media. Rinse and repeat as often as you possibly can. Simply put... this technique doesn't work. Not anymore. Content volume shouldn't even be a thing in your mind at this point. What IS working are things such as: The Redwood Strategy Paid Advertising Guest Posts Guest Podcast Interviews Facebook Live Building Your List Link Building (correctly) Content Worth Sharing Product Launch Webinars I discuss each of these strategies in much more detail in this episode of CBB.

In this informal episode of Coffee Break Blogging - and the first episode in some 6 months - I cover the question of... What happened? This episode is primarily an internal look at the Blog Marketing Academy itself, this podcast, and some general news. I discuss: Why the podcast was originally discontinued Why I'm bring it back now What I've been working on behind the scenes

Continuing our topic of webinars, this episode is a walk-through of a general layout for a 60-minute webinar. You can download the reference for this episode at: http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/webinarplan We talk about a general plan for: Introduction (10 minutes) The Content (40 minutes) The Close (10 minutes) And we'll be discussing a lot of tips and strategies for how to execute each section of your webinar.

In just about any webinar you will ever do, the guts of it will be a content-rich presentation of some kind. How do you put this together? In this episode of CBB, we're talking specifically about the content portion of the webinar... that 30-40 minutes of "pure content" that you will deliver to educate your attendee and provide a transformation that they can walk away with whether they buy from you or not. How do you determine what the topic of your webinar should be? What should be in the webinar? How can you build in trust and likability? How do you make the slides? How can you help increase the chances that they will stay until the end of your webinar? These - and more - are all discussed in this episode of Coffee Break.   So today, we are going to continue talking about webinars; because the last couple of episodes we have been talking about webinars and various aspects of them, today specifically, I want to talk about how to plan out the actual content portion of your webinar.

In this episode, we get into specifics on how to set up an evergreen webinar. This one is chocked full of tips and advice on how to properly set up an evergreen recurring webinar. We'll be discussing: Tips for the presentation of your webinar for recurring use How to set the schedule of your evergreen webinar How to set up the registration landing page (and how I personally do it) How to set up the video recording itself so it plays properly How to handle the questions, chat, and the fake attendee list Setting up the pre-event and post-event emails What happens AFTER the event is over Tips for how to present the offer on your webinar This is a highly tactical episode of CBB, going into a lot of the internal details of running a webinar on automatic so that it is literally going 24/7.   Okay, so today we are continuing on our series here about doing webinars. At the last two episodes here, we talked about various aspects of webinars. In the last one, I talked about doing a live webinar versus doing a pre-recorded or Evergreen Webinar.  

There are two ways to do a webinar: doing it LIVE, or pre-recording it. Which should you do? In this episode, I walk through the basic process of doing both. First, I walk through the process of doing a live webinar, offering up a number of tips as well as some of the reality of what goes on behind the scenes. Next, I discuss the pre-recorded - or evergreen - webinar. Typically, after you have done a live webinar a number of times, you'll begin to think about automating it. What is different about it? What are some of the specifics that go into a pre-recorded webinar? Going evergreen on a webinar is the secret to scaling it and turning it into an automatic business builder. But, there's some things you need to know before going into it. And that's what this episode will cover. :-)  

Ever done a webinar before? If not, then after listening to this episode I hope you will consider doing so soon. :-) In this installment of CBB, we're discussing the benefits of webinars and 8 specific reasons why you should be doing them. This episode gives some "inside scoop" on my own personal history with webinars, starting all the way back in the days of my tech site. Then we discuss 8 specific reasons - with advice throughout - on why webinars are great for list building, relationship building and sales. Also why webinars are AWESOME for building leverage in your business and allowing you to make more income while spending less time doing it. This is the first of a multi-part series where we will be discussing webinars. Want a plan to get started? Check out the 6-minute webinar plan, which you can download in PDF at: http://www.blogmarketingacademy.com/webinarplan   By the way, we are going to start a new series  starting from today. So for the next few episodes, we are actually going to be discussing the topic of WEBINARS and various ins and outs of doing webinars. Now, of course you have probably heard about webinars in the past. It is possible that you have actually done one before. But if not, I want to convince you that you should. :-)

Many people who create information products have looked to the potential of publishing on Udemy.com. And, sure, Udemy is an attractive place. They have a lot of traffic from people who are actively looking to learn things. Plus, they make it easy since they provide the platform and take care of all the headaches. But, SHOULD you publish on Udemy? And if you do, how should you go about it? In this episode, we'll talk about Udemy and the pros and cons of publishing courses on this popular platform. I also discuss the best ways to use Udemy to build your own business. If you've ever looked at the potential of earnings from Udemy, be sure to make time for this episode. But before we get started with our discussion for today, let me first tell you about a couple of changes I am going to make here in this podcast...  

You've probably heard it a number of times by now... "The money is in the list". Great. Cool. But, what does that mean? And why is it true? Does it mean you're just constantly pitching to your list? No, not at all. If you back up to the last episode (#148) where I once again gave the bird's eye view of how this whole business works, you'll see how the primary purpose of the email list is to move people through your sales funnels. Those funnels are like pipes.... and the more people you can keep inside those pipes, the more money you make. And the email list is literally the force which flows people through those pipes or gets them to re-enter those pipes. In this episode of Coffee Break, I walk you through how this works. What happens when people get onto your list? What do you do with your "general list"? Are you constantly pitching? Let me show you how this works.   So today let's talk about how to use your email list to move people through your profit funnel; your sales funnel. The whole purpose of the email list, really, is to keep people flowing through your blog profit funnels. Now the blog profit funnels; these are essentially your sales funnels. I would like to call them blog profit funnels, personally, because... You know, my whole business revolves around the blog and how everything tacks in to the blog, so I am fairly specific about the way that I define it. But at the same time, it is essentially a sales funnel. That is what it is.

Periodically, I feel I need to go back and revisit the "big picture" about how a blog actually makes money. See, most people who start a blog with the intention of monetizing it do it with certain expectations in mind. Usually, it has to do with talking "about" something they find interesting, building a big community and audience, getting famous and getting a following.... THEN monetizing using ads and affiliate products. That's cute.... but it rarely works. It is what most people try.... and it works for some, but definitely not most. In this episode, I revisit the TRUE function of the blog and how a blog actually fits into the scheme of things. This episode will provide a "bird's eye view" of the business model, where a blog fits into it and what the purpose is.... and you'll see how a blog actually makes money. If you understand this, you'll save yourself a lot of time and effort chasing unicorns. ;-)

In the 4th (and last) installment of this 4-part series, we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Today we discuss: Sense of Belonging / Community Current Events Scarcity Controversy Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)   So like I said, what we are about to do is Part 4 of our Conversion Triggers series where we have been talking about various psychological components that you could build into your offers, your emails, even your blog post in order to move people into action. Now if you want to catch up with us, it is the last 3 Episodes here of the podcast where we have been talking all about these various Conversion Triggers. What we are going to do in this one is quickly wrap up 4 more; and this will actually wrap up this particular series on Conversion Triggers.

In the third installment of what will be a 4-part series, again we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Today we discuss: Anticipation Status Social Proof Reference Points Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)

In the second installment of what will be a 4-part series, we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Today we discuss: Stories Simple & Easy Common Enemy Curiosity Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)

In the first installment of what will be a 4-part series, we will discuss conversion triggers. In other words, we will talk about the psychological principles behind much of the marketing you see today and why they work. Understanding these "triggers" will allow you to move people into action.... whether that be to buy something, to opt into your email list, to open an email, to click on an email, to post a comment, to click on a tweet.... whatever it may be. Moving people into action is the name of the game, and these conversion triggers are a very important part of doing it. In this series, we will discuss many different conversion triggers, why they work, and examples of using them. And perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself. ;-)   So first of all, I want to welcome you to 2016. This is the first episode of Coffee Break for 2016. I took a few weeks off for the holidays. Christmas, New Year's... spent a lot of time not in my office. And then last week; it is was just kind of an interesting week, getting back into the groove in terms of business. But then, there are some personal stuff going on; not bad, in fact, very good. We actually purchased another RV for the family, not that matters very much to you but it is a little time consuming on my part. And it did have something to do with why I didn't release a couple of podcast episodes last week and kicked off 2016 earlier. The new RV is definitely a huge improvement over the one we had before. And you know, sometimes we travel and I do business from there, not like actual business; it is an online business so I can run it from anywhere. So sometimes while we are traveling the country, I can just run the business right from there. It is a lot of good times. One of the things that define me is that I love to go out and do that kind of thing. Anyway, enough about that. What I would like to do now is we are going to jump right in to our topic here. And this is going to be the topic that we are going to talk about for the next few episodes; and it is about Conversion Triggers.

This will be our final Coffee Break installment for the year 2015. We'll be on a brief hiatus and then hitting the ground running in the new year. But, to that end, I thought it'd be a good idea to review where we've been this year, how things are moving along, and where I intend to take the show in the year 2016. In this episode, we will discuss: The original reasons I started Coffee Break Blogging Why I do solo shows and don't generally have interview guests A review of the "7 Stages To Building An Online Business" and where this podcast currently stands in the 7 stages What I'm looking to do with this show in 2016 What is going to happen after the 7 stages are done?

As we bring 2015 to a close here on Coffee Break Blogging, I wanted to take a break from the usual programming.... and just talk to the general idea of growing your online business. ... Especially if you feel you are lacking for time. I've gotten that feedback from many people - including some Lab members. Short on time, not enough time... and for this reason they put their business goals on hold and go put out fires. And I get it. Jobs, kids, family. Life can be a messy business sometimes. :) So, in this situation, how can we continue to make headway on our business and not put the whole thing on perpetual hold? In this episode, I share my thoughts on expanding your "sphere of influence". It is the idea of being able to spend time on those other things.... AND your business at the same time. I also share a few productivity tips - and the underlying reason for each - to help you make more headway with your business. Hope you find this episode helpful.   So today, we are going to take a little bit of a hiatus from what we have been talking about. We have been talking here about monetization, so to speak; about making sales, about generating revenue. And we are going to continue on that track. But here is what we are going to be doing… We are going to take a little break today, we are going to talk a little bit about how to make progress or how to grow your online business when you think that you have got no time. And I am injecting this in here for a couple of reasons: One is because I have been seeing these feedback coming from many different people; including some of my Lab Members. The other thing is that we are heading into the Christmas break here and so I am going to be taking a little hiatus, myself. The next episode is going to be kind of a little pit stop episode; so to speak, that will be more clear when we get there, and then we are going to take a little bit and come back in going full steam ahead in 2016 with Coffee Break Blogging. So we are going to have a lot of fun with that.

You can't sell something on the Internet without some kind of a sales page. Whether it is a written sales page or a video one, the components are primarily the same. So, this episode is going to give you a full grand tour of the major elements of a converting sales page. We'll discuss: The headline Opening text Stories Credibility Sub-headings Testimonials Proof it works The offer Risk Reducer The Close For each of these 10 components, we go into detail about how to do it and what you should be thinking about in each. If you are new to copywriting or making sales pages, then this Coffee Break episode is highly important for you.   So let's get in to our topic for today, and that is... A Sales Page. Specifically, we are going to talk and give you a grand bird's eye view of the 10 components of a converting sales page. Now what this episode is NOT going to be for you is a full breakdown of copywriting and sales conversions and all that... We couldn't possibly cover that in one episode if I tried. But what I am going to do is kind of walk you through the 10 big components; the 10 big things to keep in mind when you are putting together a sales page to sell your product. So let's jump right in because there is 10 of them; it is going to take us a little bit to do. :-)

When it comes to giving your product a name, this is something you want to put some thought into and not just "shoot from the hip". I've had some real doosies for product names. My first product was called "3 Day Money"... which is probably my worst product name of all time. But, even the Blog Monetization Lab itself used to be called "Inner Circle"... then the "VIP". :D What is wrong with these names? Well, in this episode, I boil it down to 3 things to keep in mind with your product names: Brand-ability Communicating the benefit Avoiding Confusions I explain each of these in this episode. I also talk about the exercise you should go through to arrive at an awesome product name. Lastly, I discuss 3 specific followup tasks you should do, both while considering a name, as well as after you've chosen one. Don't take the name of your product lightly. This episode of Coffee Break can help you avoid problems down the road in your marketing.   So let us go in and get into our topic of today... We have already talked about it in several episodes of the show; the process of creating a product. We talked about that in a few different episodes here. Again, you can go view the archives and go back and find that. But we need to talk about naming the product, as well, because what you call the product is an important part of the marketing of the product and it then has something to do with selling it. So we need to discuss how we name it. Do we just name some summary type of title that just kind of says what it is about or do we need to think about some other considerations there? At the end of the day, your product name needs to serve as a brand name for that product. The name of your product needs to be something that can stand alone. It does not mean that it needs to go out and be on a whole separate website or it needs to stand alone from you, but it needs to be able to exist as a brand unto itself. To show you some examples of kind of how I have screwed this up in the past; because I am not going to sit here and tell you that product naming has always been my thing, even to this day this is something that I struggle with. Now, it certainly helps that today, my main offer with my business is the Blog Monetization Lab. So, right now, I only really have one central product and it is fairly well named, actually. But I want to give you a little bit of background into some of the stuff that I kind of pulled in the past and you can kind of see what I am talking about here.

So, you have that new product you'd like to bring to market. It could be a new ebook, a new course, a new membership site, etc. So, you start thinking about product launches. Launches are sexy - no doubt about it. You've like heard the tales of the huge pay days. The million dollar days. Hell, you'd be OK with a multi-thousand day, right? :-) And it seems as if some big product launch is the way to go. But, is it? Do you really need to do a traditional product launch? In this episode, I talk about the fun parts of a launch... as well as some of the realities of a launch. Behind the scenes, it isn't always as sexy as it can seem. When is a launch a good idea? When does it make sense? And when should you slow down and think a little longer term, and perhaps forget about a traditional launch? And how do you get started setting up an evergreen launch funnel? All this and more... in this episode of CBB.

For anybody who creates digital products for sale, there will inevitably come that concern of other people stealing it and making it available for free somewhere. It happens. How much should you really worry about it? Is it really that big a problem? And, what can you do to keep it from happening? In this episode, we'll talk about tools you can use to protect your paid content from getting stolen (at least easily). Keep in mind... if a person has the right tools and right knowledge, there is little you can do about this. Where there is a will, there is a way. :-) So, let's talk about what to do about it and to what degree you should let it occupy your thought process. So, let us get into that... Let's talk about Securing Your Product... Namely, how to keep people from stealing it.   Now, here is the thing... I know that especially when you are first getting started and you put products out there for sale that you want to prevent people who have not bought your product from being able to gain access to it. Now, I will be upfront with you, that I believe that many people who are first starting out tend to worry about this problem a lot more than they probably need to. I mean, the thing is... the nature of digital products is that it can be duplicated. There is not much that you can do about it at the end of the day. If it can appear in somebody's web browser and if somebody has the know-how, they can get it. They can download it; even if you try to keep them from downloading it, if they have the right knowledge and the right software, they can get it. Okay? So the first thing that I want to do is discuss the question of: Should you even worry about this? Should you put a lot of effort into keeping people from stealing your stuff?

There's always that tiny risk, yet many bloggers who are new to all this fear it almost out of proportion to the reality... You put your product out there, and somebody gets mad. "You've sold out!", they say. How do you deal with the haters, if they happen? There are two aspects to this that we discuss in this episode... The truths about the haters The truths about YOU. It goes both ways. So let's address this fear head on, in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging. Now, let us talk about our topic of today which is... HATERS.

We'll end off this multi-part series on pricing with a bird's eye view of the whole thing... So many bloggers out there don't have any product yet. They just use banner ads... or affiliate links. And, all this stuff about pricing doesn't yet apply to them. If that's you, then realize this... Until you make your first offer and name your price, you haven't even really gotten to the starting line. Your offer is the starting line. Give this episode a listen. It is important if you ever intend to make your blog the crux of a full-time income.

Figuring out your price for your product is usually a touchy subject. What if you price it too high and nobody buys it? What if you shoot too low? This is an episode you might want to have a note paper handy for before listening. In this episode, we'll discuss: The most common mistake product creators make when pricing their product How YOUR perception of value of your product can be different than your customers... The basis for determining your price How to survey your audience to find out what they'd be willing to pay How to ask them what they'll pay without directly asking 4 specific questions to learn price sensitivity Looking at the prices of your competition... and how to compete with them This is a meaty episode. Get ready. :-) So let us get in to our topic for today, which is pricing.

In the world of internet marketing, you very often see people price their products with prices that end in 7. $7.... $27.... $97... Why do they do that? Is there some hidden psychological reason for this? The answer is no, and this episode goes into it. We discuss: How the 7 prices got started How you never see an emphasis on 7 outside of the IM world Whether it makes any sense or not to test out incremental price changes When is the ONLY time it makes sense to make such tests? Let's put this into perspective. What we are going to be talking about today is going to be kind of informal but it is one that you guys have seen many, many times... And that is Prices that end in 7. Very, very popular in the whole internet marketing world. And you might wonder, is there any reason for it? Is there some deep reason you are unaware of why so many internet marketing prices end in the number 7?

A story that is all too common... You get a product idea. So, you ask a few people about it and they give you glowing feedback. They tell you its a great idea and they'd be interested in it. So, you think you have a winner on your hands. You're onto something! You go and make it, put it out there for sale and... Nothing. No sales. What the hell happened? Another common one is to create a product you think is awesome. You let a few people into it for free to get feedback. They tell you great things. Then, comes time to sell it and once again... No sales. So, this begs the question... How do you test out a product idea? How do you test out a price? Well, the short answer is "pre-sell". This episode describes the typical situation people find themselves in - and then walks step-by-step through the pre-sales process and how to do this for yourself. The Blog Monetization Model starts with "product/market fit". This process is a HUGE part of how you find and validate that fit.  

In terms of techniques to drive sales, the most common one out there is the low-ball the price. Put it on sale, offer a discount, put out a coupon. And sure, it works. For awhile. Until it doesn't. See, low prices is really lazy marketing. And if you end up relying on it too much, it puts your business into a poor position. That said, there IS a good time to have low prices. There's a specific reason for them - and a specific context to them. In this episode of CBB - and part 2 of our series on setting your prices - we talk all about low prices. The 5 dangers of relying on low prices as your primary sales strategy When the right time is to use low prices Specific " real world" examples of low price strategies being used correctly This is an important episode, because the last thing I want you to do is mislead yourself into thinking you're going to generate a really nice income online on the back of $7 eBooks. :)   Today we are going to go into Part 2 on how to determine and specify what to charge people... How to set your prices. And today, I want to specifically talk about When Is the Right Time to Have a Low Price Point? And this is a really important topic because I find a lot of people really do try to low-ball their price; almost as if it is a crutch, like they are depending on it. Like you can't make sales unless you low-ball the price or if you are giving discounts and coupon codes and things like that. Or I also see people who just instinctually go to low prices because, quite frankly, they are scared to charge anything more than that. And so, we need to talk about this. We need to talk about when is the right time to use low prices and when it is not the right time to use low prices.

In the first of a series where we'll be talking about how to set your prices, we're going to deep dive on the psychological factors that affect pricing - both for your customer... and for YOU. Many people struggle with what to charge for their products. And the easiest path is just to low-ball the price. While low prices have their place, it is too often done out of fear. Fear of being salesy Fear of not making sales Fear of being able to deliver So, how do we get past that? In this installment of CBB, we'll talk about how to get over the confidence issues with your offer and your price. We'll also talk about the foundation for how to set your price. Lastly, we're going to talk about how price affects what happens AFTER the sale has been made. This is a HIGHLY important topic... and may very well result in you confidently asking for higher prices. :-) This is the first of a multi-part series having to do with prices - an important aspect of product creation and the monetization of our businesses. Also, if you're finding these episodes valuable, I'd highly appreciate it if you could post a quick review over in iTunes. You can also share on social media and direct people to CoffeeBreakBlogging.com. Be sure to use hashtag #cbb so that I can see it and thank you.   So let us get in to our topic for today... Topics We'll Cover In This Series What I want to talk to you about today is actually the start of a multi-part series that we are going to run for the next few installments of Coffee Break Blogging. And we are going to talk specifically, about pricing... How to price your products. This is an often a very confusing topic for people; and me, too, at many times. And there is not an entrepreneur out there who has not second guess himself of what their pricing should be. So, if that is what you feel; it is totally normal, it is totally fine. So what we are going to be talking about here over the next few episodes is just some of what goes into deciding what price to have for the various products that you are selling. So if you are worried about pricing your product too high; or are you thinking maybe it will be better to aim low and hopefully make up for it and they'll buy them, or are you one of those people who just basically give everything away for free, then in a lot of times there are just psychological reasons behind that. Sometimes there are legitimate marketing reasons to give things away for free; in many cases like lead magnets and blog posts and stuff, but sometimes I find that bloggers are just giving things away for free because they are actually outright afraid to ask for money. So those are some of the things that I want to begin talking about on this episode and in the next few episodes. I want to talk about things like, our fear on charging higher prices; I want to talk about why the size of your product does not necessarily have to be humongous... I want to talk a little bit about what happens after they buy based on what they pay; because that is definitely something you need to keep in mind, especially with instructional products. I want to talk a little bit about the balance of exchange and how important that is. I want to talk a little bit about why aiming low on your prices is not always a good idea but there is a specific right place where low prices make sense. We are going to talk about how to test out a product idea that you want to charge money for and see if it has any legs. We are going to talk a little bit about those internet marketing style prices that end in seven, and whether there is really anything to it. We are going to talk about how price affects the perceived value of your product. We are going to talk about how to ask people what they pay, but without actually just straight up asking them... How much are you willing to pay; you know, it is going to be a lame question. And we are going to talk about how your pricing is affected by your competition. Not all of that are we going to be talking about today; but let us go and get started on this topic and talk about a few of them...

Should you have a community inside your membership site? Should you set up a forum or set up a private Facebook group? That's the topic of this installment of CBB. Truth is, while there are many benefits of having a community inside your membership, it also comes with several cons. And those cons are much more pronounced in the beginning. In this episode, we'll discuss: Pros and Cons of having a community Choosing a platform for your community When is a Facebook group better than a forum? When should you say "no" to a community for your membership? When is the right time to start a community? What is my preferred platform and why? Lastly, if you're finding these episodes valuable, I'd highly appreciate it if you could post a quick review over in iTunes. You can also share on social media and direct people to CoffeeBreakBlogging.com. Be sure to use #cbb so that I can see it and thank you.

In our last episode, we talked about member onboarding and how it helps you keep members in your membership site longer (member retention). In today's show, we're going to go right at the topic of retention head on... How do you increase member retention rates? We're going to cover 10 specific tactics to make it happen, including: Orientation A member challenge Community swag Get them to promote your program (and its for a specific reason) Gamification Payment Plans Monthly content teasers Community Stand For Something Promote best members to VIP For an explanation of each of these tactics, give this episode a good read. :-) Lastly, if you're finding these episodes valuable, I'd highly appreciate it if you could post a quick review over in iTunes. You can also share on social media and direct people to CoffeeBreakBlogging.com. Be sure to use hashtag #cbb so that I can see it and thank you.   In the last episode;  Episode 128, we talked about member onboarding which is that on ramp that you need to send new members to your Membership Site through in order to get them integrated and moving along. Now, that has a lot to do with retention; which is how long will your member stick around. Along that note, I want to go a little further on that topic of Member Retention. And we are going to talk about 10 different tactics for increasing your member retention rate on your membership site. And we are going to go fairly quick through this; we are not going to get super-detailed on them because this is a "coffee break" session.  It is not supposed to be that long. If you want to jump further into all these things, I actually am working on it currently and it will be posted soon inside the  Blog Monetization Lab, but I am creating a new very in-depth Action Plan called the Membership Site Blueprint. And this Membership Site Blueprint will be a full, beginning to end on a how to set up a membership site that is profitable. Not only that, I am going to take you behind the scenes on exactly how I built the  Blog Marketing Academy. Not only every little tool, but how those tools are configured. It is all going to be there, it is going to be a true blueprint and it will be only available to members of Blog Monetization Lab. So let's jump right in to it. ;-)

So, once you have a member sign up for your membership site, how do you get them started? How do you get them to stick around? After all, your monthly program really doesn't matter that much if people don't stay a member. An important component of this is called ONBOARDING. It is what happens immediately after they join in order to get them up to speed, get them consuming material, and get them winning. In this episode, I talk about the goals of onboarding and some ways of doing it. These tactics will also go along way toward increasing your member retention. Lastly, if you're finding these episodes valuable, I'd highly appreciate it if you could post a quick review over in iTunes. You can also share on social media and direct people to CoffeeBreakBlogging.com. Be sure to use hashtag #cbb so that I can see it and thank you. ;-)

How do you go about selling a monthly recurring membership? Is it harder to sell a monthly membership than a one-time payment? In this episode of CBB, we dive right into the topic of selling a recurring monthly membership. And we do that by discussing 5 different techniques for getting new members. We'll discuss: Webinars Front-End Offers and "Splintering" Different positioning Blog calls to action Trials How (and when) do you use these different things? Learn the in's and out's of each of the 5 techniques in this episode of Coffee Break.;-)

OK, let's be real... all this talk about membership sites lately here on CBB, and what really makes it "sexy" is the monthly recurring revenue. I've made it clear that a membership site can be used in many other ways, but people REALLY like that monthly recurring revenue. So, how can you do it? What can you offer that justifies a monthly subscription? We'll discuss: The one simple rule that you must follow to sell a subscription and keep them from cancelling The 5 things people will pay the MOST money for Examples of how to build these 5 things people buy into your membership 2 key factors of delivery to keep your members around How I deliver monthly content to my own members How to go about building a member community How to do what I call "outsourced thinking" and charge for it This episode will likely get the gears going and generate some ideas for you on how you could set up a monthly recurring subscription program for your blog. I hope it does, because this kind of business model is the "holy grail" of online business. Once you've set this up, you'll find there's no more preferable way to go. :-)

Hello there! I'm back with another episode of Coffee Break Blogging; Episode 125. It's amazing how these episode numbers just stack up so quickly! :-) In the last episode, we talked about how to take credit cards on your site. But, the next question is... how do you actually accept the order? That's where the shopping cart comes in. And, there are a TON of these things out there to choose from. But, what kind of shopping cart do you really need? In this episode, we'll discuss: The different kinds of shopping carts In which circumstances you should use each kind of cart Different options for keeping things SIMPLE, especially when you have just a few downloadable products to sell An overview of the hosted shopping cart systems and why you may want one The benefits of using a membership site platform as your shopping cart Exactly how I do it at the Blog Marketing Academy The shopping cart market is huge with lots of competitors. This episode of CBB will help you find your way through it all.

In order to sell much of anything on your blog, you're going to need to be able to accept credit cards. But, just HOW do you do that? This episode of Coffee Break is a 101-level overview of exactly how to accept credit cards. We'll discuss: What's a merchant account and payment gateway? Do you NEED a merchant account? How much does a merchant account cost? Is a merchant account cheaper than Stripe? Should you use Paypal? How does a credit card transaction work? If you need a "plan English" discussion on how to take credit cards on your site, give this episode a good focus right now. :-)

Today, here at Coffee Break, we are going to talk some more about membership sites. And because I've been asked many times what tools I use personally to build my membership site, the Blog Monetization Lab, this episode is my answer to that question. We'll discuss... What membership plug-in do I use? How do I build my sales pages and checkout page, and what do I REALLY think about Lead Pages? How do I process credit cards? How do I put together the Action Plans and courses? Today, actually, we are going to specifically get a little bit technical. We are going to talk about the tools that I use to build membership sites. So we are going to talk about some specific tools that basically, this is how the Blog Monetization Lab is built. So if you have ever wondered how I put it together, this podcast is going to answer that question.

Hello there! This is yet another new episode of Coffee Break Blogging, where today we are going to talk about 6 Reasons why you should probably think about turning your blog into a Membership Site. I've said this many times... A blog is NOT a business. It is merely a marketing platform for a business and the actual business almost always takes place somewhere else. But, there is just one exception... The membership site. I am a HUGE fan of the membership site. And, this goes way beyond recurring monthly billing (as that is only one application of a membership site). For many reasons, if you want to turn your blog into a business, I believe turning it into a membership site is the way to go. So in this episode, I share 6 specific reasons why I believe you should consider turning your blog into a membership site. If you intend to sell information-based products at all, especially on your blog, then this episode is made for you.   Now, I want to say right off the bat, that when you hear the word "Membership Site" and if you only associate that word with monthly recurring billing, I want you to realize that what we are going to be talking about today is bigger than that. Because what I am really talking about is turning your blog into a business platform. And the membership site is essentially just the platform of the business. It really will be the business itself and all of your products, not just recurring, can take place this way. So it is a different way of thinking about it. Certainly, the monthly recurring revenue is sexy; it is something that we all like and certainly I am a huge fan of, and it has its place in the funnel that we are looking to build behind our blogs. But realize that when I say that we should turn our blog into a membership site, we are talking about something bigger than just recurring monthly type of programs. So with that being said, I want to jump right in to why you should probably look into turning your blog into a membership site, and this of course is for people who are looking to actually make money doing this; to actually create an information centric business online via your blog.

Hello there! So we're here again in another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! This episode is going to be fun... and that's because I shed light on some of my big product creation screw-ups over the last 17 years. What can you learn from my mistakes? My goal is to save you time and effort by allowing you to see some of my... shall we say, "finer" decisions over the years. ;-) We'll discuss... Why the way to make more money with your business is NOT to focus on marketing and conversions Why you should literally SCHEDULE time for delivery The big mistake I made with my first training product Why you shouldn't make a BIG training course Why I moved from making big courses to creating "Action Plans" for my members How to structure your products so they're actually effective My somewhat humorous experiences with NAMING my products... how I screwed it up and what this means for you. Learn from my mistakes. When I teach this stuff, I do it from a lot of experience. :-)

Your entire business strategy depends on having effective products to offer to your audience. Preferably, more than one. And in order to do that, you need to be able to create these things quickly and effectively. In this episode of Coffee Break, we're going to talk about how to SPEED UP product creation. We'll discuss.... Why you should plan your product BEFORE you start making it The exact tool I use to outline my training products My internal process for producing Action Plans for the Blog Monetization Lab Why you should consider teaching your product (the first time) in a live environment Why it is OK to sell your product before you ever make it Put these tips to use and you'll drastically speed up your product creation. This doesn't have to be a big deal. And "lack of time" should not be an excuse for not having products of your own to sell.

Coming straight off an important discussion about how to build the different learning styles into your training products (see episode 118), we're now going to move into some of the specifics on how to create an awesome online training course. How can you make the course truly effective? How can you alleviate confusion? How do you put it together? In this episode, we'll discuss: 4 highly important aspects of a successful course What to do before you ever create your first training video Whether you need to use modules or not Should you give them everything at once or drip it out to them? How to make your job as the instructor much easier (and ensure you get the course done quickly) The learning management system I use to assemble my courses Where to host your training videos How to do a "digital whiteboard" video How to make your training videos more engaging and less boring There's a lot in this episode (and its a little bit longer than the average CBB episode). Be prepared to take notes. So now, let's get started with this new episode of Coffee Break Blogging!

If you're going to create informational training products that SELL, you're going to need to make it effective. With that in mind, you need to pay some attention to specifically engineering your product to get the stated result on the receiving end: your student. To do that, we need to look at the different learning styles people have and specifically create our training to cater to them. In this way, you'll have students who get results and end up praising your course. We'll discuss: The 7 primary learning styles How we can build each of these 7 learning styles into our product An overview of the 4MAT learning system A simple 5-party structure you can use to create training videos In the end, it doesn't matter how well you sell a course... if it doesn't actually get the result, it will ultimately all come down. This is how you make your course DELIVER.

Most people create the product they think will be wanted and loved... then proceed to make the sales page and offer afterward. This can result in a flop. In my opinion, the best way to do this is to start with your offer and then create the product to match it. But, what goes into creating the offer? In this episode, we'll discuss: Why most people get split testing all wrong 6 factors for creating an offer that will sell How to remove risk so people will trust you enough to buy What to do if your perfect offer isn't something you feel you can deliver

Hello there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to be talking today about creating an awesome information training product. And if you're in the business of creating training products (or plan to be), this is an important episode. I've been creating information training products for over a decade now - and this episode sums up 8 important tips I've learned over the years on how to make great products. You'll learn... Why the "thud factor" is a mistake and why your product should be smaller Why you need to outline your product before you make it Why you need to CONTROL your student The importance of a clear start and end The danger found in the WORDS you use inside your product How to design your product so that your student wins and they KNOW they did.

Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! Today we are going to talk about what kind of information product that you can sell. We are kind of going to do a little bit of a bird's eye overview over the different product types. But before we jump in to that I want to give you a quick reminder, especially for those of you who are newer to the show that this is of course a podcast but it is more than that. It is actually a course that goes in a particular order. And so, we are at a particular stage in our overall sequence of starting an online business from scratch and we happen to be at that point now where we are talking about building the actual business side of things where we are going to start talking about money and product creation and that type of thing; hence today's topic. But if you would like to play "catch up" and look at the past episodes of the show, you can go over to coffeebreakblogging.com, check out the archives, go back in time and check out everything that we have done. This is Episode 115, so obviously it goes back away. So once again, coffeebreakblogging.com.   Okay, let's jump right in to today's topic... What kind of information product should you sell? A Bird's Eye View Of Main Product Types You Can Make Physical product Software product (software as a service) Training/Info product Service I give the pros and cons of each, then we dive into the main types of information products. You'll find out: The problem with eBooks as a product type What a membership site is, really Why I prefer the membership site as a product platform How a live workshop has many benefits as an offer   I sat down and looked at the big types of products here and I came out with those 4 huge categories of products mentioned above. Let's discuss each one in bird's eye view, at least.

The LAST thing you want to do is spend a lot of time creating a product that nobody wants. And, quite frankly, even if you have a number of people TELL you it is a great idea... don't listen to them. ... because the ONLY valid test for a product idea is whether people will yank out their wallet and buy it right there on the spot. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, I discuss the PRE-SELL. Selling a product before you even make it. Not only is this a great way to test an offer, but it is also a way for you to generate some revenue (potentially) immediately because you can just create the offer out of thin air. Find out: Why an actual order is the only valid product test How to create an offer for something which doesn't yet exist How you can do this even if you don't have an audience yet The minimum number of people to bring to your offer page to consider it a valid test How you can use webinars to build leads AND test potential offers at the same time

We start off this episode with a matter of simple math... You're not going to create a nice six-figure online business on the back of little eBook sales. Remember, there are 3 ways to grow a business... Get more customers Get more frequent purchases Get higher ticket sales. With that in mind, we begin talking about DESIGNING your business with this in mind: Namely, your funnel and why you should lay it out BACKWARDS.   You'll learn: The inherent design flaw of any business which relies solely on low-ticket offers The huge benefit to the mere exercise of creating a high-end offer...even if you don't actually build it yet. The order in which to design your funnel The recommended order on how to BUILD the pieces of your sales funnel if you're just starting out.

In order to build a real business online and generate the most revenue, you'll need to create and offer products of your own rather than relying on affiliate marketing. And it ALL starts with getting solid ideas for products to create in the first place. In this episode, we discuss several methods for gathering ideas on what your audience needs and wants. We'll talk about... The first place to start when getting product ideas How to gather ideas from your market even if you don't have an audience of your own yet The 7 word question you can insert into your list to get endless ideas The most effective - yet most forgotten strategy for learning TONS about your target market An extremely important point about the makeup of any product you create moving forward I recommend you keep an idea list inside of Evernote or some other document, because this process of getting product ideas will be ongoing.  

The concept of the "funnel" has been used in sales for years. And it is quite possible that you've heard the idea of the sales funnel before. In this episode of CBB, I outline what I call the blog profit funnel. This is the sales funnel adapted to what I believe is the best version of it for a blog-based online business. In this episode, you'll learn: The 3 key ways to grow any business How these 3 business growth strategies are built right into our funnel The key role of each of the 3 stages of the funnel Why a membership site is, in my opinion, an awesome business model. Especially for bloggers How these funnels fit into the blog Today we are going to talk about what I call The Blog Profit Funnel. What we are basically going to be talking about here is the idea of a sales funnel. The reason I call it blog profit funnel is simply because the way that I put the system together is that it is very much integrated with the blog, which is something that not all marketers do. A lot of marketers run paid traffic and stuff; that stuff, we will be talking about as well. But being that we are talking about here is a blog centric business, I am basically just kind of adding a little naming tweak to the concept of the sales funnel because we are applying it to our blog. So I want to be clear about that; it is called the blog profit funnel, at least in my world. I want to also say that what are we going to be doing in this episode is kind of giving a broad overview of that funnel. But we are not going to be getting in to all the details of it. And I am actually not going to spend a lot of time on every little nitty-gritty detail of it only because it is the stuff that I teach inside the Blog Monetization Lab.  So with that being said, let us go ahead and start talking a little bit here about this funnel.

The first and possibly most fundamental concept to understand in order to build a profitable blog is the transformation. Everything begins with the transformation. Product/market fit is determined by the transformation that your audience is looking to achieve. In this episode, we'll cover: What do I mean by "transformation"? How the transformation maps out to potential products to offer How understanding the transformation is also the key to effective affiliate marketing How to move forward if you're in a niche where you can't figure out the transformation

As we begin our series on monetization and the business side of blogging, we simply MUST address the topic of banner advertising. Banner ads is usually the default way to monetize a blog. It just so happens to also be the DUMBEST way to go about it. In this episode, I'm going to make it very clear where I stand on banner ads. Even though I've made quite a bit of money with banners in the past, I still believe it isn't the best way to go for many blogs. It comes down to some problems which I give the details below...   The 5 Problems That Come With Banner Ads It doesn't make much money at all. It sends people away from your blog. Readers hate them. It delivers no value. It makes a mockery of what you're doing. In this episode, I explain all 5 points - with backup. I also reveal the one SMART way to make money with ads. Lastly, I talk about the one situation where banner ads is really the only way to go for you.

In this episode, we take one of our "pit stops" to look at the bird's eye view of what we're doing on this podcast, where we've been - and where we're heading. Based on the 7 Stages of Building An Online Business, this podcast goes in chronological order - to show you how to build a blog-centric online business from scratch. We are about to embark on stage 5: DELIVERY. For the next many episodes, we will be talking various aspects of the BUSINESS. This will include info product creation, course creation, sales funnels, membership sites, launches, making offers, increasing conversions - and more. But, first, let's take stock of where we've been so far...

Traffic has changed - big time. And many bloggers haven't realized it yet. In this episode, we talk about the new world of blog traffic and why your monetization strategies have EVERYTHING to do with how you're going to get traffic to your blog. Driving traffic to your blog is actually a secondary priority. The model you use to bring them in the door has everything to do with how this is going to work. Don't miss this episode of CBB to get acquainted with how you should be looking at blog traffic moving forward. You can get all the traffic you want to your blog if you just change the way that you think about it. So that is everything that we are going to be talking about in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging. We will be talking about "Why monetization is your key to building your traffic."

After talking about WHY to plan your content in advance in the last episode, in this episode we talk about the HOW. In a few steps, we talk about how to go about planning your editorial calendar for your blog. We then go over several different solutions to use to make your editorial calendar.

This podcast has been planned out through the end of 2015; through episode 146, to be exact. This is a level of content planning that I haven't done in quite some time. Thing is, it has been a HUGE time-saver. And that's the topic for today's episode of CBB - planning your content in advance. When you fly by the seat of your pants on your content, it leads to a lot confusion on what to talk about, a lot of pressure on yourself... and it generally turns your blog into a digital slave driver. It isn't that much fun anymore. It also happens to be not very effective, either. The answer is PLANNING. There are 4 specific reasons to plan your content in advance, which I share in this episode. Plus, I'll share some more details on exactly how I planned out this podcast so far in advance. Behind the scenes, baby! ;)

Do you really need to be everywhere? In this episode, I take a good hard look at "be everywhere" and whether it is necessary - or even smart - for a blogger looking to grow their web traffic. Is this the real secret... or a recipe for burnout? I'm a HUGE believer in leverage as we grow our business. Truth is, trying to be everywhere is just inviting you to spend time on very LOW LEVERAGE activities. I'll explain in full in this episode of CBB.

No doubt that YouTube is the big kahuna when it comes to video marketing. IT is the biggest video site in the world, also the world's second biggest search engine. You will no doubt be publishing any video you produce to YouTube. But, where else should you put it? Is YouTube the only place to bother with? In this episode, we look at the relative importance of some of the other video sites out there, such as Vimeo, Viddler, Veoh, DailyMotion, etc. And where exactly does Facebook fall into the mix? Surprisingly well, actually. If you've wondered if you should be bothering to post your videos anywhere besides YouTube, this episode will answer that for you.   Today is our last episode where we are going to be talking about YouTube here on our little traffic series. Okay? But today, we are actually going to mention it in the course of leaving it. We are going to actually talk about the world beyond YouTube. Should we post our videos anywhere else besides YouTube?

If you're going to use YouTube marketing to its fullest, then you're going to need to take the extra time to set up certain things for each YouTube video. One of those things is annotations. What are YouTube annotations and how do you use them? That's the topic of this episode of CBB. Also in this episode, I'll give you 5 specific tactics you can use annotations for in order to grow your list and increase engagement. I'll also share how this lazy guy (that's me) deals with annotations. ;-) And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging.

Welcome to Episode 101 of Coffee Break Blogging! Today we are going to continue talking about videos; specifically on how to make good looking videos. If we're going to use video marketing to grow our traffic, we want to make sure those videos look as "pro" as we can. It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be Hollywood. But, it does need to look somewhat pro so that people enjoy watching it. In this episode, we'll discuss: Microphones to use to make your videos Cameras to use to make your videos How to record audio and video separately and match them together How to script a video and not have it look robotic The hardware and software that I am using personally

We've just spent the last 4 episodes talking about using podcasting to grow your traffic and your business. Now, we move into the topic of video. And we'll start with Youtube. How exactly do you build up your Youtube channel? How do you get more video views? More subscribers? Like anything, if you're going to do it right, it takes some time. So, let's do it with some foundation in mind. In this episode, we'll talk about what I see as the two main approaches to YouTube: Being Helpful, and Being a Personality. For each, I'll share some of the things which go into it. Then I share 8 best practices to build into your habits so that you can effectively build up your YouTube channel. How you can control the "related videos" at the end of your video A little "trick" for dominating the related videos in the sidebar on YouTube.com, next to your own video. How to use your video stillshot to get more views. How to use Youtube as a social network to build your profile. How to look for good topics to make videos about. We also celebrate my 100th podcast! Really appreciate all of you - thanks for much being a part of it! ;-)

We're talking about podcasting in these few episodes because it can definitely help you increase your traffic - and that's the stage of our business that we're currently talking about on Coffee Break. But, surely... and ultimately, you want to build your list and sales. We start podcasts to grow our business. But, how? In this installment, I discuss a few specific strategies to help you monetize your podcast. How to deliver calls to action on your show Specific tactics to build your email list from your podcast The 3 ways to promote your own products on your podcast A more advanced tactic which will allow you to specifically track the ROI of your podcast How to learn how to build your email followup engine, so that your podcast will then result in residual sales down the road from your email list.  

Now that you've decided to start and launch your own podcast, it is time to start thinking about the long road to growing your audience. Podcasting is indeed a long-term content marketing play. Results are not immediate. This episode will show you some of the tactics you need to build into your podcasting for the long haul.   In this episode, you'll learn: Why your show's USP is so important How to cross-promote your podcasts on your blog Why you should have an official landing page for your podcast How you can use Facebook ads to promote your podcast How to use other podcasts to promote your own Much more ;-) If you're going to bother podcasting, you might as well do it for keeps. :-)

If you listened to the last podcast and decided YES to launching your own podcast, then let me help you get started. In this episode, I'll share with you how to get started with your show and how to go about launching it.   You'll learn: How to come up with a show title and description What to look for in good podcast cover art Why you should pre-record several instances in advance Equipment to get started podcasting How to "power" the podcast off your blog How to maximize your opportunity after iTunes publishes your show, and how to build real inertia from being in "New and Noteworthy"

You've possibly heard about the big surge in podcasting lately. And since we're talking about growing our traffic during this phase of the podcast, a natural question is.... "Should YOU Start A Podcast?" This episode starts with some basic stats on the growth and popularity of podcasting from the likes of Edison Research and Libsyn. Numerically speaking, it seems like podcasting makes a lot of sense. And for many, it does. But, there's some questions you need to ask before diving in so that you don't run into the wall quickly and sputter. I share 4 specific questions you need to ask yourself before starting a podcast. Also, I give you 3 things you need to think about before getting started. No doubt - podcasting can be a powerful extension of your blog and your brand. This very podcast is even beginning to catch up to my blog. When you compare my weekly downloads to my weekly blog visits, the podcast is now doing about 43% of the traffic of my main blog. Really cool! But, don't dive in without asking yourself these key questions. Learn from my mistakes.  :-)

A lot of bloggers spend a fair amount of time trying to grow vanity metrics like their Facebook fans and Twitter followers. But, we must ask the basic question... "Does it matter anymore?" In this episode, we'll discuss some basic statistics. Just what is the average organic reach of a post on Facebook? What is the average click-through rate on a tweet? And given these metrics, is this really where our time is best spent? How should you deal with the issue of your fanbase on social media? Need you worry much about the size? So let's talk about Facebook Page Likes and Twitter Followers and basically any of these vanity metrics that many people think about, here today at Coffee Break Blogging.

SEO has long been a thorn in the side of all blog owners. And a lot of sweating has been done over getting backlinks, proper keywords, keyword density, meta tags... yada yada. But, things have evolved. Today, the new SEO is User Experience Optimization or UXO for short. Do they click it? Do they read it? And do they ENGAGE with it? This episode talks about 5 key factors of UXO and immediate actions you can take to improve the quality of your content, but also optimize the user experience. Which will in turn help your rankings in the new world of search as it stands today.

In early 2014, Matt Cutts (from Google) all but declared guest posting to be dead. But, is it really? In past episodes of this podcast, I've even bad-mouthed guest posting to a degree. So, in this episode, it is time to clarify things. Does guest posting still work? IS it still worth your time? When is the right (and very WRONG) time to use guest posting as a traffic strategy?

Using social media can definitely be a big tool in your arsenal when it comes to growing your blog traffic. Thing is, it can also be a HUGE time suck. In order for it not to take over your life, you need to use tools to help you get the benefits of social media without sacrificing all your time. In this episode, I discuss 4 specific tools I have used in order to automate my social media (to a degree) and make it take less time. Social media purists might take issue with this. However, if you want to grow your blog and your revenue, you have to spend your time on the more effective things. And, playing around with social media all day isn't going to get you there. So today we are going to talk a little bit more about it, and specifically some of the tools that you can use to make it a more convenient thing to do.

The answer to getting blog traffic is to ensure your content is out there where your prospects and future readers are hanging out. In other words, you need to be found OUT THERE. The answer to doing that is called syndication. The "secret" to effective syndication is found in two words: leverage and repurposing. In this episode, I go over multiple syndication tactics you can use in order to get your blog content out there and into other formats. That's the key... to reach people where they're at rather than cross your fingers and hope they find your blog on their own.   Today, here at Coffee Break,  we are going to talk about blog post syndication... That’s how to get your blog post out there and make as much headway as we can with them, get as much traffic as we can with them.  

For many bloggers, promoting their new posts on social media is pretty much the only way they try to gain new traffic. Well, at least if you're going to do it, do it right. :-) In this episode, we talk about how to promote your posts on social media - primarily for free. We talk about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google Plus. I share some tools you can use to automate it, and I also share a strategy you can use on Facebook to give each new post a jumpstart in the very beginning.

All blogs have an inherent inefficiency in how they deal with traffic, and we see it show up in the form of our bounce rate. A certain percentage of people - often upwards of 80% - will visit a single page on your blog and then simply leave. And no matter what things you do to decrease that bounce rate, you can only fight it so much. Enter the world of retargeting... Retargeting is the absolute easiest way to get started in paid traffic. It is also very cheap and very easy to get a VERY good ROI with it. It also just so happens to short-circuit the entire problem of bounce rate. By "pixeling" every single person who comes to your blog, you are building what I call your "second list". It is a real asset almost as important as your email list. And in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, I'll show you exactly how it radically improves the efficiency of your blog as a marketing platform. You need to act on this information right away. As ad rates increase, it could become cost prohibitive to advertise at all, UNLESS you have a retargeting audience built. So, this episode is very important... and timely. If you back up one Episode, go back to the previous episode, we did a smackdown between free traffic and paid traffic. We did talk about the benefits of paid traffic and how you really do need to mix it in with your "free" traffic. Now when it comes to the paid traffic side of things, it just so happens that retargeting is one of the easiest ways to get started with this. It is really cheap and very, very effective. So that is what we are going to be talking about in this episode.

Paid traffic. Those two words usually scare the crap out of bloggers because... well... it costs money. However, it is really important that we understand the real differences between free traffic and paid traffic. In this episode, we directly pit free traffic methods up against paid traffic. I outline several different free traffic methods and how they work, then we compare up against how things work when you use paid traffic. If you really want to get more traffic to your blog and grow your online business, this will be a VERY important episode for you. So, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! And today we are going to get deeper into the topic of Traffic. Specifically what we are going to talk about today is free traffic versus paid traffic. And we are going to do a comparison between the two. We are going to call it the "smackdown". Because here is the thing, there are definitely differences between the ways the two types of traffic work. And it is not just because one costs money. So we really do need to look into what is involved with free traffic versus paid traffic. And also, I want to make the point to you that free traffic really isn't free. Okay? Most people don't even consider paid traffic because they just think "Well, that costs money; I therefore do not want to do it!" So they immediately go to the "free" traffic but I want you to understand that it isn't free. And not only that, your results are far from guaranteed. So let's go and get started...

The first key to growing your blog traffic is understanding what the world of traffic looks like today. Bloggers have been using the same techniques to grow their traffic for years now. Things like SEO, social media shares, guest posting, etc. But, does it work? Yes and no. They can work, but it is VERY slow. And for some people it just doesn't work because they have a hard time standing out in a sea of high quality content. Thing is, blog traffic is actually a lot like rice. You need to understand this. So, in this episode... You'll learn: How blog traffic has evolved over the last several years How monetization has everything to do with your blog traffic Why stating your blog and growing traffic is similar to driving a manual transmission car

This episode is a "pit stop" episode, as we end off on stage 3 of our business-building roadmap and move into Stage 4. In this episode: An overview of the 7 stages to building an online business. A review of Stage 3 (Email Marketing) A look at what's coming up with Coffee Break Blogging A few awesome iTunes reviews. :-) In the next episode, we'll get started on Stage 4 which is TRAFFIC BUILDING. Like I said, we're going to do a pit stop today. So let's get going! ;-)

Hello there! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging. We use a lot of funny words in online marketing - some of them a bit demeaning, actually. And one of them is the phrase "email blast". Not only do none of your subscribers sign up in order to be "blasted", but it doesn't even work that well anymore as a strategy. Sending the same message to every single person on your list regardless of who they are just doesn't work that well. In this episode, we'll talk about: Funny words marketers use Why the size of your email list doesn't matter The two metrics which are FAR more important than the size of your list How to adjust your email marketing strategy to this new world (or face extinction) How the world just isn't linear, and how your marketing has to adapt to this.

As we near the end of our series on email marketing and building our email lists here at Coffee Break Blogging, I want to talk about a more advanced topic... Marketing Automation Tools A marketing automation tool like Infusionsoft, Ontraport or ActiveCampaign.... when combined with your blog... makes a very powerful combination. In this episode, you'll learn: How to make your tool and your blog "talk" How to make your blog proactively reach out to prospects How you can use lead scoring in combination with your blog How to rescue lost sales using your automation tool

We've talked a lot about using a traditional lead magnet to build your list. But, there is another way. And it could even be more effective. And that's webinars. Webinars aren't just a way to make a sales presentation... they also work very well to build your list. In this episode, you'll learn: The psychological reason why webinars (or live events) work so well to create a bond between you and your subscriber. GotoWebinar versus Google Hangouts How to get people to register for a webinar AND join your list at the same time The "no prep" webinar that you can do immediately without any prep work. I encourage you to give a webinar a try. And record everything. You're gaining massive leverage by doing so! ;-)

Kevin Kelly said that it takes just 1000 true fans to totally make a living. 1000 true fans - who will all be on your email list - and you can make a living doing it. But, it also works as you build it up. In this episode, we talk about how you can actually make money while you build your list. We talk about the very beginning of the blog profit funnel and how to structure it so that every new subscriber has the potential to turn into a customer. We also talk about some basic metrics which will allow you to actually PAY to get people onto your list... and still make money as you do it. This is the name of the game. :-) We are now in Episode #82 of Coffee Break Blogging and once again, we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online. Today we are going to talk about how you can actually build your list and make money while you do it. And also, you could do it dependably because the other thing is that a lot of bloggers they try to build their list; they have got the opt-in on their sidebars, stuff like that, but just they do not have many people actually joining.

There's lots of talk about how to get people onto your email list. But, then what? What do you SEND them? How do you find good material to send to your email subscribers? That is what we are going to be talking about in this episode; Episode 81 of Coffee Break Blogging. There's no greater tragedy in this business than an email list which isn't being used. So in this episode, I will show you how not to make that mistake and also, we will talk about where to draw material from, to send to your email subscribers - both using your autoresponder and your broadcast emails. You'll learn: The important mindset to bear in mind here, especially if you've been blogging for awhile. The simple tactic to use right after they subscribe. How to cross-promote different lead magnets The biggest mistake people make when sending a new lead magnet to their EXISTING subscribers How to identify "money posts" to send to your list See, there's a lot of talk out there, including by yours truly, on how to get people to opt-in to your list. And that is certainly an important topic. I mean, really, your email list is the life boat of your entire business. So it is important to get people onto our list. And a lot of the last many episodes here on Coffee Break Blogging have talked about that in one way, shape or form. The question is, then what?

Well, hello there! Welcome to Episode 80 of Coffee Break Blogging. Today we are going to be discussing a little bit more about the whole idea of our email list. We are in Stage 3 of the overall 7-phase system to building up our online business. And what we are going to be talking about today is the one blog - one list strategy that most bloggers are using. Most bloggers who are building an email list have one list for their one blog. And this is certainly better than nothing... but it could be a LOT more effective. Today, we discuss the use of multiple lists for one blog and why it is so much more powerful. You'll learn: Why list segmentation is so important The most effective (and simplest) way to begin segmenting your list How you should structure multiple lists for your blog How to get people onto your "general list" This episode is important for your success with email marketing, moving forward.

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 79 of Coffee Break Blogging! Hollywood makes lots of multi-million dollar productions for us to enjoy - and we spend billions every year to be entertained by them. They must know a thing or two, right? Yes, they do. So in this episode of our series, we're going to apply the lessons of Hollywood to our emails. We are going to be looking at writing emails and how to write better emails for your list. You'll learn about: How we can use an email as an "episode" How you can build in "open loops" The usual storyline maps (like the hero's journey) and how you can use it in your marketing campaigns What comic books have in common with writing email campaigns

Hello there! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to talk about your email list some more. We are on Stage 3 of the overall cycle of building our online business; that we are talking about in Coffee Break Blogging and Stage 3 is all about building and using our email list effectively. Your autoresponder sequence is what allows you to put a large part of your business on automatic. At the very least, it saves you a lot of work. But, what do you put in your autoresponder? So in this episode, we discuss 7 different strategies you can include in your automatic email followups. These strategies will allow you to provide lots of value to your subscribers, make sales on auto, AND get an ongoing flow of feedback from your subscribers which you can use to make better content for them. When we started Stage 3; this is going back to Episode 70 or so, we talked the one about how to get people on to your list, we talked about lead magnets, we talked about putting together opt-in forms; things like that. In the last episode we talked about the perfect opt-in confirmation page. That is going to be the first page that they see right after they opt-in. Today, we are going to talk all about what do you send them after they have subscribed. Obviously, putting people on to your list is useless unless you send them things.  That part should be pretty obvious. Now the good thing about an autoresponder is that you can put a lot of this on automatic. Obviously you can email people, email your list on a one-off fashion. So you type something, you hit send and it is real time. And there is definitely a place for that. You will be doing that with your list. However, you also want to be using your autoresponder; your follow up sequence capability so you do not have to do everything manually. Because I have seen people make a mistake of doing this list and then they are like, "I don't know what to send them" and then they just don't send anything and that is such a waste of an asset when you do that. So let us jump right in to what to do with this autoresponder sequence. And we are going to talk about 7 specific things to do.

Hello! Welcome to a new episode of Coffee Break Blogging! Today we are going to talk about the perfect opt-in Confirmation Page. So this is that page that they are going to see as soon as they opt-in to your email list; as soon as they opt-in for one of your lead magnets. The question is going to be, what do they see? Your opt-in confirmation page is the very first page your subscriber will see after joining your email list. So, it is a highly important page and you want to optimize it for maximum results. In this episode, I share 7 important tips and tactics for how to maximize the marketing impact of the confirmation page. You'll learn: Why you might want to put an offer on this page (and how to price it) 3 tools for giving an immediate survey to your new subscribers How to get your new subscriber to SHARE your squeeze page on social media and get more vital impact A quick tip to get more people to actually confirm their email address How to give them a "hook" to also follow you on Twitter or Facebook.

The landing page software space has gotten extremely competitive in the last couple years - and it is now a much more complicated affair to choose which solution to use to make squeeze pages. LeadPages has been the market leader. But, is it any good? What are its real strengths and weaknesses? In this episode, I talk some "real talk" about what's good - and bad - about LeadPages. And he compares it to other solutions like OptimizePress, ClickFunnels and Ten Minute Funnels. If you're in the market, this is an important episode to listen to. So once again, David here... :-) Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging.

It is really easy to go nuts trying to figure out how to include nice looking opt-in forms into your blog. And, shopping for plug-ins is frustrating because it is hard to tell the difference between some of the available options. In this installment, we cover the top tools for creating opt-in forms for your blog. Discussed in this episode is: Thrive Leads Opt-in Monster Opt-in Skin SumoMe For each, I give my review of the plug-in... and then share which I would go with today if I were starting over. So with that being said, I welcome you to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! Let's get going!

Hello! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! In this episode, we go back to basics on this extremely important part of your email marketing and list building strategy. We can't rely on our blog sidebars to do all the heavy-lifting, so it is important that we make use of squeeze pages. Plus, the typical squeeze pages converts typically 10X to 20X better than the typical blog when it comes to building your list. If that isn't a good reason to do it, I don't know what is! And in this one, we talk about: What a squeeze page actually is How you use it alongside your blog Why you squeeze page should NOT look like your blog The 4 elements of a squeeze page Why the simplest squeeze pages usually convert better Now, for those of you who already know what these stuff are; I just want you to bear with me. I mean, understand that the Coffee Break Blogging podcast is essentially a course that goes from beginning to end in creating an online business and there are people of all experience levels that are listening. And I know that not everybody is fully familiar with what a squeeze page is or the different elements that go on it and there might be some questions related to squeeze pages so we are going to go ahead and just talk about this topic in this episode so that we do not leave anybody out.

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 73 of Coffee Break Blogging. In this episode, we talk about several different tools to make this happen. One of them you've likely never heard of, but looks very promising. :-) In the last installment, we talked about how your blog content itself will be the area where you can get the highest opt-ins to your list - IF you use the content upgrade strategy. But, how do you insert opt-in forms into a WordPress post or page without the editor screwing it up? WordPress is designed to be a blogging platform, not a marketing platform. This means that the post editor will tend to strip out things that you may want to put in there, including opt-in form HTML code. Today we are going to jump right in to how to easily insert opt-in forms inside of your actual blog post.

Now that we've talked about how to create the perfect lead magnet in episodes 70 and 71, it is time to talk about your general opt-in strategy on your blog. What are the most effective ways to build your email list from your blog? In this episode, we cover 7 different strategies for building your list effectively. These strategies are specifically chosen to increase your conversion rate on your blog and put more people onto your list. What are the best converting locations on your blog for opt-in forms? How do you integrate squeeze pages into your blog? Should you ask for their first name? When is it OK to turn OFF double opt-in? How does a two-step opt-in increase conversion rates? What's the most effective opt-in strategy for a blogger - bar none? All that, in this episode of Coffee Break Blogging.  :-)

This is part 2 of how to create a perfect lead magnet. In this part, we take the 7-point checklist from episode #70 and apply it to the "real world". What are some bad lead magnet ideas? And what are some good ones to aim for? What's wrong with the "big honker eBook"? What is the problem with offering a 7-day free course as a lead magnet? Also, we talk about why you should have MULTIPLE lead magnets rather than just one. This is an important episode, because the lead magnet sits right at the top of the blog profit funnel. So with that,  welcome to Episode 71 of our Coffee Break Blogging series. :-) Today we are going to do Part 2 of what we started in the last episode where we were talking about how to create our perfect lead magnet. So we are going to wrap that up today with this episode.

What is a lead magnet? Well, it is just something to give away to get people onto your email list. Right? Well, there's more to it. In this part 1 of 2, we're going to dive in to how to create the PERFECT lead magnet. And in this episode, I share the TWO main purposes of a lead magnet (most people forget the second one). And I'm going to share a 7-point checklist of criteria for the perfect lead magnet. And the good news is that it will save you a lot of time, because the perfect lead magnet is actually a lot LESS work. So, welcome to Episode 70 of Coffee Break Blogging!

In this episode, we delve into WHERE to host your email list. You'll learn the 3 biggest mistakes people make when hosting their email list. You'll also learn the 2 types of email hosts (and which type you should use). I then get specific and name names when it comes to the different hosts and which I believe you should use. This is a pretty core component of the blog monetization model, so we need to get it right. :-) So, once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging and this is Episode 69. And today we are going to be talking about our Email List and getting the hosting right with our email list. This is a really important topic; something that we do need to talk about and something that is a lot easier to get "right" at the start than to change the path later. So we are going to go and be on specific time on this, but first, I want to again remind everybody and ask everybody to kindly go over into iTunes and post a quick review and let me know how I am doing. If you find this episode that we are about to do, useful, at the end of it; I will highly encourage you to "pay me back" by simply going in iTunes and letting me know what your thoughts are by posting a review or a star rating. Those things are really important to us, podcasters. It is the way for many of us to actually listen back from our audiences because from our point of view, why we are doing these things, this can be a one-way medium for a lot of us where a lot of you; and I can tell from the stats... several hundreds of you guys every single day listening to this podcast but yet most often I do not hear from you and I really want to hear from you guys. So the best way you can do that is to run over into iTunes, just search for the word "blogging" in the iTunes Store; you will see Coffee Break Blogging pop right up there in the first few results of the podcast. Click on that and post a review for me and I would highly appreciate it. I do check those things and it would just be awesome! Okay? So let's check right-in into today's show and we are going to be talking about our email list...

Hello! Welcome to Episode 68 of Coffee Break Blogging! This installment of CBB marks the end of Stage 2 of 7 of our full progression of building up a profitable blog-based business from scratch. Before we delve into Stage 3, let's review the overall bird's eye view of what we're doing here and what we've covered so far. This is our "pit stop" episode before we delve into email list building starting in the next episode. So today, what we are going to be doing in this episode is we are going to take a little pit stop and we are going to kind of review where we are in the podcast; kind of take a little bird's eye view where we stand, where we are heading, kind of how the show is going... that kind of a thing.

Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging, once again! :-) The term "pillar post" is often used to refer to that initial batch of blog posts that you create to kick off a brand new blog. But, exactly HOW do you go about creating these pillar posts? In this episode, we discuss how to do data-driven pillar posts... meaning how to create highly strategic pillar posts based on real data that will not only help you kick start your traffic, your niche standing, but also help bring you traffic into the future.

Hey there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! If you have an archive of blog content developed over the months or years past, then this is an extremely important episode for you. We'll talk about doing a content audit - an exercise you should do periodically to gain maximum leverage from your existing blog archives. In this installment, we talk about the exact methodology to determine which posts to optimize, and the 3 key things to optimize for each post. So today, I am going to give you a tactic. This is going to be a very tactical episode. And this is something that you are going to need to follow through after you listen to this episode, especially if you have been blogging for a little bit of time. This is going to be something that you definitely want to put on to your list of projects to do with your own blog and it's called a... "Content Audit"

Hey there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! And today we are going to talk about another strategy that I think that you should probably implement into your blog sooner rather than later, if you have not already done it. We are going to be talking about a Getting Started Page; having a "start here" option on your site... We've seen many blogs offer a "getting started" page, and this is something I have talked about before as well. But, what is the REAL reason why this page is so important? In this episode, we deep-dive into the real reason why you need to give your readers a clear starting point. We also cover the two core functions of the "getting started" page to ensure your's is doing the right thing.

In many cases, it makes sense to take the "blog" out of blogging. When is it time to stop calling it a "blog" and start calling it a "learning center" or something similar? In this episode 64 of Coffee Break Blogging, we take a look at the "payload" that the word blogging has and how to work around it - and WHEN you should. Now for me, it feels like I'm getting back into the chair. :-) I know I'm releasing these things every couple of weeks but I actually, internally; I'm doing these things in batches. So I actually sit down and record either a couple of weeks of these things in advance. Sometimes I shoot all the way and go for the entire month in advance. So for me, the last time I sat down to record an episode of this show was about 2 weeks ago. And today, I'm sitting down to record a few more. So if you are watching the video component of this on YouTube you will all notice that my shirt will be the same for the next few episodes and that is exactly why. :D But today, I want to talk to you about this idea of Blogs versus the idea of a Learning Center.

Continuing on the theme of the last episode, this one contains several actionable tactics about high leverage content creation... How to work less and produce more when it comes to making content for your blog and social media channels. Hello! We are now on Episode #63 of Coffee Break Blogging and today we are going to continue talking about High Leverage Content Creation and how to make more content by putting in less effort to do it. This is highly important for those of us who were a little lacking for time; whether it is because we've got our families, whether we've got a day job, whatever it might be; we need to be able to create good content and do it without giving our entire lives to it. So that is what we are going to be talking about here.

No doubt, writing blog posts can be tedious and time consuming. And it can be a big problem for blog owners who hold a day job or have a business to run. In this installment of our series, we talk about how to leverage your time to make creating content less time consuming and more productive... So once again, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

The world of SEO has changed, and instead of just worrying about keywords and backlinks, we now need to think about user engagement. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we'll talk about what is going on with Google, and how this has everything to do with getting your readers to SCROLL and reach the end of your blog post. Now today we are going to continue on the theme of our Blog Content and we started it in the last episode. And today, we'll talk about how to actually get your reader to go down to the end of your blog post. That's a very important thing and it is actually more important now than it used to be.

The headline is the most important part of every blog post. In this episode, we discuss a counter-intuitive, but highly effective exercise you should go through on EVERY blog post in order to model and create highly effective blog post headlines. And so with that, I welcome you back to Coffee Break Blogging, Episode 60. ;-) Today we are going to dive right into the content of our blog post and talk a little bit about that. Obviously, with a podcast about blogging, content is a pretty big part of what we are doing here. And so that is what we are going to be talking about here...

It is all too easy to develop tunnel vision on your own blog. After all, you made all the decisions about it and you spend more time looking at it than anybody else. But, it is VERY easy to assume that your blog is going to strike others the same way it does you... and it isn't always true. User testing is how you get out of that tunnel vision. In this installment of our series, we'll talk about various tools to help you do user testing for your own blog and to see what you're doing from an outside perspective. And with that being said, let me welcome you back to Coffee Break Blogging!

Well hello... welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging Episode 58! The most effective opt-in strategy I've ever used on my blog was the content upgrade strategy. It out-performs every other list building strategy out there. In this installment of our series, we'll discuss what the content upgrade strategy actually is and how to implement it into your blogging habits.

Hello there! Welcome back once again to Coffee Break Blogging. :-) Choosing which colors to use on your blog should be more strategic than simply what looks pretty to you. Your color choices should be guided by the emotions that you want your blog and your brand to convey. So, it is useful to understand the psychology of color, and how this plays into the colors you use in your blog's theme. That's the topic we're going to be discussing today, in this 57th installment in our ongoing series. Here's the thing, most people when they decide what colors to use on a blog, they only think about it in terms of what they personally think looks nice. That's fine. That is definitely what I have done a lot of times as well, so I am definitely not going to blame anybody for that. However, there is a little bit more of a strategic way to think about it. And that is what we are going to discuss in this episode. Now the first thing that we are going to talk about and what we are going to through them here is the Psychology Of Color. Now, what does that actually mean? Well the thing is... and you probably know this instinctively; is that different colors sometimes will bring up different emotions or reactions to them. And it is helpful to know what those things are. They are not set in stone because every human being is different, but there tends to be an average that you will see and as I go through them, you will see as well. ;-)

Hello there! Welcome to this episode of Coffee Break Blogging. This is no. 56 and in this one we are going to talk about your blog's bounce rate and how to reduce that bounce rate. Bounce rate is one of those numbers which always shows up in your site stats... and you can't help but wonder what you should do. Is your bounce rate bad or good? What should you do about it? In this installment of our ongoing series, we discuss the bounce rate, how to decipher the causes of the bounce rate, and then what to do to improve it. ;-) Now, first of all, we should probably define what "bounce rate" is if you are not already familiar with it.

Blog categories are often one of the most overlooked parts of the setup of your content. People use them as little digital filing cabinets - and often they end up with way more categories than they need (or even intended). In this installment in our series of Coffee Break Blogging, we discuss a MUCH more strategic way to think about how you define your blog categories. The usual way... nobody will use them. Done THIS way... and they will. ;-) So today, we are going to be talking about our Blog Categories and how to actually set them up in the correct way.

The blog sidebar... It is that piece of real estate that is on every blog - and every blogger has to make the decision on what should and shouldn't go in that space. Thing is, most bloggers end up cluttering it up unnecessarily. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, we'll discuss the perfect contents of a strategic blog sidebar. It can actually be boiled down to 3 components. We're now on Episode 53 and today we are going to be talking about what should go in the sidebar of your blog. Now, this is an important episode for many people because I actually see; when I look at a lot of people's blogs, and I obviously do; given what I do for a living, I see a lot of them that are just simply "overloaded." It is almost as if people are going in there and going to the widgets' section of WordPress and thinking, "Well, there is a widget for that, I might as well drag that thing right into the sidebar" so there will be widgets for Top Commenters, for all their social media links like literally every damn one of them, your categories, your tag clouds, your blog rolls; all that stuff just stuffed into the sidebar and it is just an ungodly site to look at. So here is the thing... This is called the Blog Marketing Academy. That is the name of my website; that is the name of my company here. So... Blog Marketing. I am all about creating a blog that is going to serve as an effective marketing tool for you. And I am here to tell you that most of those widgets that are available to you inside of WordPress are actually a complete waste of your time and you should not be using them. Just because it is there does not mean it is a good idea.

Hello there! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging Episode 52! SEO and the topic of how to rank you blog posts in search engines has always been a pretty big topic for bloggers. Organic search rankings sometimes seems like the meal ticket to traffic. So, in this installment in our series, we'll talk about how to SEO your blog posts. I'll give you a step-by-step list of actions to take on your next blog post - and also put it all into relative importance for you. Now, what we are doing at this stage in our ongoing series here is we are moving on to Stage 2 of the 7 Stages of creating our online business where in this one we are talking all about the various steps of getting our platform set up. And today, we are going to be talking a little bit about SEO; and specifically... How To SEO Our Blog Post

The About page on your blog is one of the important core pages of your site. Most everybody has one, yet a majority of bloggers set it up in the completely wrong way. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, I talk about the most important mission of the About Page. I also share the exact layout that will make your About Page truly convert and grow your business - and essentially do what it was made to do. Welcome to Episode #51 of our podcast. :-) The About Page is one of those pages that most people have but I find that they undervalue its importance and therefore they treat it wrong. And so, I want to talk about that because it is one of the important core pages of your site. Your site needs to have an About Page. But not only that, it needs to be treated in a particular way that it will actually maximize your opt-in opportunities which is what the About Page is really all about.

As we move along in phase 2 of our series about setting up the blog platform, we need to focus on getting the blog design set up well for conversions. So in this episode, we'll talk about the 5 most common design mistakes we see bloggers making - and these mistakes all serve to clutter up the site and hence lowers conversions. Are you making these mistakes? Once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! This is our 50th episode and like I said, we are going to be talking about... The 5 Big Design Mistakes That Bloggers Often Make With Their Sites

Many people use the phrase "personal brand" without any real idea of what a brand actually is. In this installment of Coffee Break Blogging, let's talk about what a BRAND actually is - and the 4 essential elements you must build into your blog in order to create your brand. Once those 4 elements are in place, they should also follow over into Twitter, Facebook - and essentially everywhere you appear. Today, we are going to talk about a very important component to creating that profitable business online and that is your "brand". Now this is something that we want to think about at the beginning. Like the domain name that we spoke about in the last session; the brand is something that you can adjust over time. But it is something that you want to think about especially when you are choosing your domain name because it goes hand in hand.

The domain name for your blog is obviously a pretty important decision that has to be made at the beginning. In this episode, we talk about several important factors to keep in mind as you shop for a new domain name for your blog. So... welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-)

Selecting a Wordpress theme can be a pretty frustrating experience because there are SO many options out there. In this episode , I give my take on what to consider - as well as my specific recommendation for the best option which will give you a professional design now and a great foundation to build from, later. ;-) The thing I want to first start off with is the idea that I actually just want to acknowledge the fact that WordPress themes are a huge, huge business. And for that reason, you are going to find a lot of them out there. And as a consumer of WordPress theme, just somebody who is somebody trying to pick a WordPress theme for your site; you are going to be inundated with options. You are going to be wondering which way is the best way to go. There is just a colossal amount of choices out there. So I want to preface all of these by saying that you are not stuck with the decision, you can change to a different theme later and not only that, I recommend highly that you keep your eye on the ball, here and not get stuck in the decision of what theme to get. I want to recommend my personal recommendation here on this episode, but there are just so many options out there they are going to be very paralyzing and you need to have the discipline not to become paralyzed by the decision. Nothing that we do here is set in stone; you can change your mind later, so pick something and let's move on to more important endeavors in the development of our business here and not get stuck on the idea of what WordPress theme to get. It is not the most important decision that you have to make here.

The first decision that has to be made when setting up the ideal platform to build your business with... is web hosting. In this episode of Coffee Break Blogging, we talk about how to select the best web hosting for your blog. What's the problem with free web hosting? Should you use shared, VPS, dedicated, or managed Wordpress hosting? You'll find out my specific recommendations. ;-) Now, today we are going to move on to phase 2; Stage 2 of the 7 Stages of Building an Online Business. Now if you are wondering what I'm talking about when I say that; then back up to Episode no. 45 where we took a little bit of a pit stop and kind of reviewed where we are and where we are heading and I talked about the 7 stages there. So we are moving into Stage 2 today and we are going to be moving in to talking about the platform; building up the platform which is our blog... building it up in the right way. And we are going to be talking about various aspects of that for the next many episodes here of the show. Now what we are going to be talking about today is How to Choose Hosting for Your Site. It is a very important topic; something you do want to get right at the beginning. It is not something where it is set in stone. You can change your mind later when it comes to hosting but it is something that you want to get right because you probably hear horror stories out there who have had problems with their web host. I've got people in the VIP Program over at the Academy who told me about their experiences about web hosts. One where the web host from all practical sides literally went out of business and the person can't get their site off because nobody will pick up the phones are answer their emails. I mean, it is a heck of a thing, I've never heard of that one before. So this is something that you want to get right.

We take a minute to pause and look at the big picture of where we are with the Coffee Break Blogging series. In this episode I share with you the big vision of the show, review the full 7 stages we will be going through, and take stock of where we are now. Hello and welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based business online. Now actually, what we are going to do today is we are going to take a quick pit stop in our series and we are going to review where we are at. And also; it occurred to me that I have probably not done a super-fantastic job of explaining exactly how this podcast is going to be working, so let me try and do that now.

Marketers often talk about this concept of the avatar, but very often people new to the business are confused by what it is, how to use it, and how to make it up. In this episode, we discuss the reader avatar and how to actually develop it. Doing so will allow you to create much more effective content as well as products your audience will actually want down the road. First of all, I want to welcome you into 2015! This is my first podcast to the year. I almost thought I might not get this thing out on time today. See, I have a Wednesday and Saturday release schedule that I have imposed myself for this podcast, but I actually brought in the New Year with a cold, which kind of suck. :-( I actually went out in my RV to finish planning out all of my business goals for 2015 and I came down with a cold while I was in there. So I spent a lot of time snouting and all that. I only bring this up because I was really hoarse, I actually didn't know if I was going to sound okay to record this episode. But as it turns out, my voice is fairly normal today. Still coughing a little bit, but I am going to go and get this thing out because once I set a goal; if Wednesdays and Saturdays is my time to get these episodes out, I want to stick to it as much as I can. So that is what we are going to do. Today, we are going to talk about how to define your Reader Avatar.

Hello and welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! We wrap up the year with a different kind of episode than usual. This episode contains 101 different productivity tips to help you make the most of the upcoming year of 2015. This episode is longer than usual - but we want to make 2015 the best year we've ever had. You with me? ;-) Now, today, we are actually NOT going to continue on our series to creating an information based business online. We are actually going to take a little bit of a break and it is only because this is the last episode of 2014!

What transformation are you in the business of delivering with your blog and online business? You better figure it out if you want to make money. In this episode, we talk about the "transformation map"; a tool to help you define the transformation. This tool will help you map out blog content and products you will sell. So with that... once again, , welcome back to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! And actually, yes… I am having a cup of coffee. ;-) I do that a lot. It was actually something to do with the name of this podcast. Now in this episode, like I said earlier, we are going to talk about something called “The Transformation Map”. This is what I call it. And we are going to create this because it is really going to help you not only map out your content moving forward but it is also going to help you brainstorm product ideas. It is also really going to help you REALLY understand the person you are addressing with your content and ultimately what you want to sell them.

"The Only True Test Of A Business Idea Is Whether Anybody Will Buy" In this episode, I give a powerful strategy for testing out a niche and business idea... even when you don't have an existing audience in place yet. If you execute this strategy, you'll either save yourself a lot of time and money down the road... or (if successful) you'll give yourself a REAL foundation from which to build a very profitable blog-based business. That last episode was a lot of fun to record because A: it is a cool topic but B: I kind of flawed here and there. :D Here is the thing, I am trying to do these episodes in one take. It makes for faster production, it also is a little bit more natural for me. So, if there is a screw up on these things, I am probably not going to go back and edit it right away. And that is kind of what happened with our last episode. But anyway, I thought it came out okay... "considering" ;-) Anyway, we are going to go forward here talking a little bit more about testing our business idea. In Episode 40 we talked about the Lean Canvas and how to use it to verify a business idea and not waste a heck of a lot of time going down a path all that far when it may not have legs to begin with or possibly you need to make some adjustments there to make it truly a profitable idea. But we left that episode with this idea of... How are you going to test out these ideas when you do not yet have a blog audience to go to?

Once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! It is always best to, early on, move from the "niche" right into the actual business model. If you want to create a REAL online business based around your blog, then we definitely need to think of it as a business and not a topic. In this episode, we make that bridge into business. I introduce a one-page business plan idea and begin taking about how to TEST your business idea before investing a bunch of time into it. Now in our last few episodes we have been talking about selecting a good market or a niche to get into with our blog. And we were evaluating this based on its business potential. Now by this point in our series you should have some potential ideas if not the one main idea that we are going to go ahead and proceed in our process with. Because what we are going to start talking about in this episode is actually how to start verifying that business model. How to actually make that bridge from a niche to an actual business model because a lot of bloggers actually really fall short on the whole idea of actually developing a real business model. They literally go from having a niche idea to just start the blog right off the bat. And that is the problem where people come into this a little bit down the road and they try to "monetize" that blog because it tends to be an afterthought. They just went literally from "interest-niche-setup the blog" and that was it. That was their pathway into it and it just breeds so much complexity down the road usually in the area of coming to grips with the fact that they are not really going to make any money with that site. And that is not something that I want you guys to have to worry about. So what we are going to talk about in this episode is how to bridge into the actual business model. And what I want to introduce you to in this episode is a concept called... "The Lean Canvas"

So, today again, we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online. In order to be able to go into a market with your blog and make a dent (and make money), you need to be pretty in-tune with what they need and want. In this episode, we talk about how to learn what they want. We talk about how to use surveys to find out, and ways to get people to answer your survey - even when you don't have a blog yet. And so now, what we are going to talk about is the next step in evaluating a niche. And in this one, we are going to get a little bit into surveying; which is actually a skill that is going to become handy to you throughout your career in this particular business. But what we are going to talk about specifically today is how to find out what your market needs and wants. It's a very important thing because we have looked at demand, we have looked at what the level of money flowage (I know it's a made up word, but I'm going to use it anyway) :-) in this space, but now, if you are going to personally enter that particular market you need to be really in tuned with what people need and want.

Hello! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based business online. Now, part of evaluating a blogging niche isn't just looking at the demand and size of the audience, but also looking at the potential for monetization. In this episode, we'll talk about 4 important things to look at when judging the amount of money which is flowing in a particular market.

Once again, welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! Continuing in on our niche selection process, we move into evaluating the market itself and whether it has legs. What is the most important thing to consider when it comes to competition? What is the #1 most important rule when it comes to selecting a money-making niche? Also in this episode, we also discuss 5 indicators to look for.

Hello! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging where we are going to continue on our series to creating and growing a profitable blog-based information business online. This episode is for those aspiring blog owners who don't come into this with a pretty solid idea already. Where do you start when you know you want to build a profitable blog-based business, but you don't know which market you want to enter yet? You gotta start somewhere, right? In this episode, we start off with 4 questions to ask yourself to begin brainstorming possible niche ideas for yourself. Then we'll move into 4 criteria to use to evaluate your own personal "fit" for each of those ideas. Lastly, we'll discuss possibly the most important (and psychological) component you MUST look for in a solid niche idea.

Hello! Welcome back to Coffee Break Blogging! As we continue with our ongoing step-by-step series to building up a blog-based business, we're now going to launch into the first step. What MOST people do is get a bright idea then immediately go out and buy a domain and hosting. But, let's slow down... Because, if you want your blog to be PROFITABLE, there's a wrong way and a right way to start. So let's continue on our series to starting up a blog based information business online. Today we are going to talk a little bit about the very first step that you need to take in order to start a profitable blog. It's a little bit different than what many people do because we have to ask ourselves... "What is the first thing that most people do when they want to start up a profitable blog?"

Hello there! Welcome to the new episode of Coffee Break Blogging! In this particular episode, I'm actually going to do something different. I'm going to record a video of me actually doing this particular podcast just basically recording it. The video is not probably going to look very pretty, I'm literally just going to point the webcam on myself; but I'm going to try a little different. I'm going to try putting this thing up on YouTube and just kind of see what the heck happens. But anyway, from there let's just go and move on to the topic of the show.

Hello, there! David Risley here! Welcome to another episode of Coffee Break Blogging! ;-) With episode 33 of Coffee Break Blogging, we're still working on setting up the framework for moving forward on the 7 Stages of Building an Online Business. In this one, I talk about how to do all that we're going to talk about... but while holding down a full-time job. Specifically, I'm going to cover 7 specific strategies in order to build leverage. If you have a full-time job, but want to build up your blog-based business on the side, then give this episode a listen. So in this episode let's talk about my 7 Tips For Growing Your Blog While Having A Full-time Job.

This one came in from Karen. And Karen, you are the first person to submit a question to me for the podcast since I brought it back so I appreciate that very much. So, this question came from Karen and her blog is KipKitchen.com. And her question is probably one that many people feel. And it is this: "So far, we have been doing the maintenance of our food blog KipKitchen.com ourselves and it is often tough. We are not PHP programmers. Fixing broken links and other webmaster tasks are difficult to handle. Many internet marketers advise us to outsource the work but we have concerns as we are not making money yet. What would you recommend?" So, this is a great question to bring forth early on here because I know this is one that many people feel. You are up against that technical glass ceiling, so to speak, where you don't really know certain things with your blog or possibly you just straight up do not have time to do it but yet you do not want to spend any money at all because you are not making anything yet. First thing that I want to do before I talk about a solution to this is I want to talk about that catch-22 situation that you are in, Karen. It is a very common catch-22 but realize this... You are going to continue not to make any money with your blog if you spend all your time doing all these things or trying to do these things that you are not any good at. And that is probably the basic foundation of the advice that you are getting from many of these other marketers is the fact that you do not know how to do it, you should not be trying to spend your time figuring it out. And I agree with that advice because here is the thing... If you want to make money with this blog at KipKitchen.com, you are going to need to do certain things to allow the money to come to you. Probably in the order of building your list and building products to sell, making offers... Those are the things that are going to be the shortest path between where you are at and bringing that business in. And that really is where your time should be spent. Any time that you are spending not doing that but instead going around and trying to fix broken links or doing little maintenance tasks on your blog, that is time you are not going to be spending building those assets that are going to make you money. So it is a catch-22 but it is definitely one that is self-imposed and I would encourage you to question the assumption that you can't spend money if you are not making it yet. Now, if you go out into the real world (and what I mean here is go off the internet), you probably will see that no business out there is going to making money before they ever spend anything. Generally, we kind of know that there is going to be an initial investment upfront in order to put the place of business upfront, to invest in product that you can sell, things like that. In the regular world, we tend to have that expectation that for some reason when it gets to the internet, we think the rules are different and that we should be able to build up a nice income stream without ever spending a dime. I don't know where that expectation came from because it is actually not true. And this situation is proof of that concept. So you need to be willing to spend money before you've actually made it. And in fact, I've often found, and I've experienced this myself that your best chance of success is going to be found when you invest a little bit of money into it. Because until you have invested a little bit of money into it, it is almost like it's less serious. And that when you finally invest a little bit of money you got a little bit of skin in that game, you are more likely to pull it off so you didn't waste your investment. So with all that being said, I encourage you, Karen, to focus on what you need to do in the short term to build your business and be willing to outsource those things that are not an effective use of your time.

Hello! David here and I want to talk to you a little bit in this episode about the realities of blogging for a living. Now, I talked about in the last episode how the general plan moving forward with this podcast is going to be a true beginning to end walk through of building up a blog and starting an online business around that. And we are going to be going through the 7 Stages of Building An Online Business which was something that have been documented with an Infographic over at blogmarketingacademy.com. And if you haven't seen that, you'll see the link to it in the show notes for this particular episode. But I thought it would be useful, before we jump in with some of the actual work involved with all these; is to set some of the foundations, some of the mindset things for going in. Because, I find that when I talk to a lot of people, there's definitely some mindset things that need to be overcome in order to have a chance of success at this. And one of them really truly understands what the realities of blogging for a living truly are.

Hello there! David Risley here; from blogmarketingacademy.com with Episode 30 of The Blog Program. It's been a little while since you and I have spoken unless you are over at blogmarketingacademy.com and seeing what I have been doing there. I haven't actually done a podcast episode for quite a time and actually, the point of this particular episode is to tell you exactly what's been going on there and let you know what is going to be happening moving forward. :-) So first of all, I want to start out with what my big mistake had been. It's one of those things to where none of us are fool proof. And anybody who goes out there and puts on a facade that everything that they've ever done was the best decision they have ever made, is bull crapping you. And I think we all kind of know this.

In this episode, we wrap up the series: 30 Email Marketing Power Tips For Bloggers. In this episode of the show, I cover tips 21-30. To catch the prior email marketing tips, go back and listen to episodes #27 and #28 of the show. This time around, we'll talk about... A slick psychological tactic from storytelling which can drastically increase your open rates A source for some awesome autoresponder emails What you can learn from Hollywood production that works VERY nicely for email sequences How you should set up your FROM name and return address on our outgoing emails What you SHOULDN'T be emailing your entire list And more. After all, they're 10 of them in this episode.

In this episode, we continue with part 2 of the series: 30 Email Marketing Power Tips For Bloggers. If you didn't catch episode #27, go back and listen to it so that you get tips 1-10. In this episode of the show, I cover 11-20. We'll talk about... The one thing you need to make sure you do on every email you send to your list. The big mistake that way too many bloggers make with their email lists. The ideal length for that email. How you should format your emails to work best on mobile devices. How many times to include a link in the email. And more. After all, they're 10 of them in this episode.

Blogging and email marketing go together like fish and water. In that the fish just freakin' dies without the water. In the same way, your blog will usually limp along in life support with the email list. So, for that reason, every blogger has to engage in email marketing. In this episode of the podcast (as well as the next 2), I am talking about all email marketing. I am going through a list of 30 actionable tips... things you can immediately put to use to get more email opt-ins as well as properly utilize your list after they've subscribed. In this episode of the show, I cover 1-10. We'll talk about... Why a giveaway offer is a good idea... and what KIND to create to earn new subscribers. The typical conversion rates for sidebar opt-ins, and what converts FAR better. The one word that SO many bloggers use to describe their list - and they SHOULDN'T be. When - and when not - to use "blog broadcast" emails. And more. After all, they're 10 of them in this episode.

One of the reasons that growing an online business can be pretty difficult for some people is because it has a lot of other things piggy-backing along with it. Things like productivity, personal development, etc. Why? Because there's no buffer from yourself. If you have a day job, then you are sitting in a controlled environment of somebody else's making, doing tasks they defined for you, on a schedule they defined. And, if you don't get them done, you have the threat of being fired. When you're on your own, you don't have any of that. Nobody can fire you from your own business. The environmental control is completely up to you. Your schedule and tasks is up to you, too. Self discipline and self-defined structure are highly important - and this is a huge reason why it is the tigers who make it. Weak-minded people who can't seem to control themselves don't usually get that far in this business. On that note, episode 26 of The Blog Program talks about productivity. Namely... 5 Tricks To Get More Done In Less Time. In episode 26, you'll learn about... How I personally structure my day Why I use a timer The key to getting more done during production time The brain-dead simple tactic that all the productivity gurus seem to dance around Why you need to be a "ruthless son of a bitch" (probably not what you think I mean there ;) ) In this episode, I talk about my daily template that I keep inside of Evernote.

I've been thinking a little lately about how things have changed. Not in a bad way or anything.... just... different. See, I've been at this for 16 years now, starting with my tech blog (which I also recently announced that my intention is to retire from). And over the course of 16 years - which is a LOOONNNGGGG damn time on the Internet - I've seen things change drastically. It used to be easy. Today, only the tigers make it. Then, along this line, I recently saw two long-timers that I've known of for quite some time express similar sentiments. Chris Pirillo, of Lockergnome, recently expressed his frustrations on growing his business and how the things which used to work... don't. Chris comes from the tech space, as I do. So, I've known about Chris for years now and have watched him evolve. I watched an unlisted hangout video he did where he talked more about his current frustrations... and I know exactly where he's coming from. Then there's Yaro Starak, from Entrepreneurs Journey. Yaro recently posted Blogging For Money Has Changed: Here Is How Smart Bloggers Can Profit In 2014. In it, Yaro talks, too, about how things has changed. Yaro has been at it for 10 years. And he gives his perspective on how things has changed. So, that's two people I've known for awhile, both seeming to have similar thoughts as myself. And so I decided to comment on it in this week's episode of The Blog Program. In episode 25, you'll learn about... My review of the 13 points Yaro Starak mentioned in his post Why the "old school" model of "blog monetization" is deader today than it has ever been. Why blogging alone doesn't work anymore. The two pronged strategy I am personally pursuing, given the world we operate in today. Where the money really comes from. Why traffic numbers aren't nearly as important as they used to be, and what really matters more than traffic. I got a little.... ranty in this episode. I got quite passionate. And, be forewarned, I did drop the s-word. (gasp!) But, this is stuff I feel strongly about.

Here's the description for this episode... In this episode, David talks about why he has made the decision to walk away from the tech site (PCMECH.COM) which got him started in this business, and he has been operating for the last 16 years. It is a time to move forward. David gives the background and the thought process leading up to this... in his own words. I have already written a post talking about this, but I thought I would detail some more specifics about this my talking directly about it in the podcast. I am also going to let my PCMech.com audience know about this particular episode, so if you're coming over from there - WELCOME. In episode 24, you'll learn about... The background of PCMech and what's happened to it for the last few years Some "behind the scenes" info on the tech niche, and how PCMech has been operated lately. The MOST IMPORTANT lesson I have learned though this. Why you DON'T have to continue running with everything you've started Why you should build to sell - even if you don't intend to ever sell your site. This episode is different than the usual fare. Instead of talking about business growth and blogging growth, I'm talking about what is essentially a "fall from grace". But, there are lessons to be learned here by everybody - including myself.

In my years of helping bloggers monetize and build businesses, I've seen a host of common pitfalls. Unfortunately, too, I know that MOST people who embark on this journey won't make it. Why is that? Is it because of a lack of information, or marketers misleading them? Or is it something else? Well, I'm here to tell you that is almost all cases, the reason the online business doesn't succeed is because of certain bad habits or mistaken viewpoints of the person trying to do it. In this episode, I talk about 10 of the most common pitfalls that will ultimately lead to failure to build a business. Are you doing any of them? In episode 23, you'll learn about... How money is REALLY made online (or offline) The activity you're doing right now that you have to limit... otherwise you'll never get the necessary work done. How preparing for success can be taken a little too far How a fear of selling really gets in the way Why you can't assume you know what people really want. Why spending money is necessary in order to make it. Much more... This was a fun episode to record. I really enjoy getting into those topics where I get a little animated because... well, I have my opinions. :) But, also, some of these things are a bit frustrating because they actually get in the way of me helping people. At the same time, don't be discouraged. I've done MANY of these bad habits myself - and none of us are perfect. But, the first step is to realize the problem and acknowledge it.

Not long ago, I was looking for a local contractor to do a little work on our home. So, what did I do? I went and searched Google for local contractors who would do what I needed. I came up with several potential business and then I checked out their sites. And I noticed something... Their websites SUCKED. As a person who does new media marketing and knows the power of it, I saw a TON of glaring holes in their marketing. But, here's the question... Does a local "brick and mortar" business really need a blog? Should they be interested in online marketing? If you're a plumber, a dentist, a chiropractor, a lawn service - whatever it is - should you be blogging and doing online marketing? In episode 22, you'll learn about... Why a traditional business can most definitely benefit from a blog. How your website can attract leads - or scare them away - in an instant. Why even a traditional business needs an email list - and you should go about building it. What to send to your email list if you're in a "regular" business. How to deal with the concern of how long it would take to operate a blog for your business. Much more If you are running a more traditional business, definitely don't dismiss the kinds of online marketing strategies you'll see on a site like Blog Marketing Academy. It is highly relevant. Listen to this episode to find out how.

Since the beginning of 2014, I've been pretty regular about posting new videos to the video blog. Since I've done that, I've had some people (surprisingly) think that my setup is a lot fancier than it is. So, in this episode of the podcast, I break down the entire process I use to make these videos. I share the setup, the idea phase, the equipment, the entire process of actually recording them, etc. This episode is a little bit longer than the others, but it is insanely practically (if I do say so myself). :) In episode 21, you'll learn about... Why I stopped making videos in my car How I come up with and track topics for my web videos (and other things) The exact equipment I'm using for my videos The entire process, from beginning to end, I use to make every video blog entry How I use my 3-piece lighting kit How I got my video intro done Much, MUCH more This episode was very practical, so for that reason I mentioned a lot of tools.

In school, we're taught a lot of different rules about writing. We're taught different formats, different rules, and all kinds of grammar rules. Well, the good news is that you can toss most of that out the window when it comes to your blogging. In this episode, I talk about 5 specific aspects of effective blogging that just might piss off your English teacher. If you want your blog posts to be more effective, or you want your blogging to take less time, then listen to this episode now. In episode 20, you'll learn about... Why academic writers make crappy bloggers (most of the time) What paragraphs in blog posts have in common with comedic timing What happens when you use big fancy words in your blog posts How you should view people who point out typos and grammar issues in your blog posts What the true purpose is of all your blogging This episode was a lot of fun to record. I hope it is as fun to listen to. :)

Selecting a niche to blog in is perhaps one of the first decisions you will make. And it is a pretty important decision. Thing is, many bloggers have already been blogging in a particular niche for some time and they still have this nagging doubt about their market. Perhaps you're there. Maybe you're disappointed with the traction you're getting with your blog and you wonder if you are just in the wrong niche. In this episode, we talk about the 4 indicators that you've hopped into the wrong niche for your blogging efforts. In episode 19, you'll learn about... The 3 factors which businesses are made from. Why competition is actually AWESOME What you should do if your niche only has physical products and no information products What you should do if you're running out of post ideas Whether gaining no traction really means you're in the wrong niche

When it comes to making money as a blogger and online entrepreneur, we mostly think of information marketing. Thing is, the perceived value of information isn't what it used to be. We live in a world today where information solely for the sake of itself is a really hard thing to sell - and the perceived value of it in some markets is heading toward zero. So, what will your prospects pay the most money for? In this episode, we talk about 5 different things that your prospects will spend the most money for. Add these into your products and you can make more money. In episode 18, you'll learn about... 2 reasons why the perceived value of information is decreasing How information is really a lot like the U.S. dollar right now. :) What you're REALLY selling when you make any kind of product offer. Why low priced products aren't the stuff on which businesses are built. 5 things you can add to your products to increase their value.

It is common advice to hear... that the first priority of your blog is to build your email list. Cool... we got it. But, what is the SECOND priority? What is the one that so many people seem to forget about? It has everything to do with higher conversion rates and a more effective blog marketing strategy overall. It is email list segmentation. In episode 17, you'll learn about... The most effective way to get new email subscribers Why emailing your whole list every time is... well, rather dumb. Ways to segment your list. How to actually go about segmenting your list Some of the powerful marketing ideas you can implement using list segmentation. How your blog is really an extremely powerful tool for segmenting your subscribers. Also mentioned in this episode was one of my past posts: The Essential Guide To How To Build Your Email List [The List Building Formula].

Much of what bloggers do these days they do because they see everybody else doing it. It is a big game of "follow the leader"... or in this case, "follow the guru". But, sometimes when everybody else is zigging, it is a good time to zag. And in this episode of The Blog Program, I ask the question... Is the blog sidebar dead? My readers have probably noticed that in the last few months, I have gone to a no-sidebar layout here on BMA. It started out with just my feature posts - all of which were published in full width. Then, toward the end of 2013, I went ahead and flipped the switch to ditch the sidebar throughout the entire site. I did bring back a mini floating sidebar just to make a few shortcut links more easily accessible, but the traditional sidebar definitely doesn't exist here at the Academy. In episode 16, I talk about why exactly I made this switch. I talk about: What people usually put into the blog sidebar... and could it go anywhere else? Why I believe the sidebar might actually get in the way of your content marketing. Which elements of the traditional sidebar are worth keeping, and which are a waste of space. Why banner ads in your sidebar is practically a waste of time How removing the sidebar could change the way your audience views your landing pages.

Sometimes it is valuable to step back and look at the big picture. And in this episode of The Blog Program, that's exactly what we're doing when it comes to the state of blogging. See, if you stay in a bubble, then you'll just keep on doing things the same old way. And if the world is changing around you, you won't keep up. I know this more than most. Not only have I been doing this long enough to see just how much things have changed... but I also know what it is like to stay in a bubble and not adjust to change. I got sorta good at that last year. ;) In this episode, we step back and look at the trends - and what they mean for us as content creators. I talk about: How Google's search changes have affected the world of blogging. Why old-school link building is dead. Why sticking to written blogging only is a loser's proposition. What its going to take to stand out in the noise. How we're moving into a "pay to play" environment, and what this means about building your OWN platform. Why email delivery rates have fallen, and what you need to do about it.

In this episode, David comes back from never, neverland with Episode 14 of The Blog Program. 'Bout. Damn. Time. :) Actually, this was a decision I made while I was in Las Vegas recently, for the New Media Expo. While I can't remember exactly how many years I've been going there, it has to be at least my FIFTH time attending this conference. And I can tell you... Never before have I seen so many podcasters. Not only that, but many of my acquaintances in the business who were not podcasting are now... podcasting. Lewis Howes is now podcasting. Amy Porterfield is now podcasting. Pat Flynn is going to be starting a second DAILY podcast. Jason and Jeremy from Internet Business Mastery are flirting with the idea of a daily show (at least judging from a recent survey they ran). Listening to Cliff Ravenscraft and John Lee Dumas talk about their podcasting and trends also has me convinced that I'd be an IDIOT not to get regular about my own show. And, so it is. :) And, we usher in 2014 with episode #14. A dose of irony, there. In this episode, I talk about my biggest takeaway from the year 2013. In this one, I talk about: What its like having been in this business for 15 years. What went WRONG in 2013. The moment I had an "aha moment" which brought this lesson to mind. How business is like an art form How this lesson translates into ALL areas of our lives, including relationships, diets, and all of our goals. I also start off this episode singing a little bit of Britney Spears. So, there's that. ;)

One of the biggest things which differentiate a successful content marketer from the usual (broke) blogger is that he/she strategically plans their content in advance. When you plan your content in advance - even for as much as a quarter ahead of time - it allows you to ensure that your content serves a real purpose and isn't simply there to meet a quota self-imposed. In the last few posts, I have been talking about planning your blog content in advance. But, today, I wanted to "recap" it in a brand new episode of The Blog Program. In this episode, I talk about editorial calendars, and why you may want to consider pre-planning your blog content for as much as 3 months in advance. In this show, we talk about multiple reasons why strategic planning of your content is far better than "flying by the seat of your pants" (which is what most bloggers do.). We also go over a 6-step process to brainstorm and develop your editorial calendar.

It takes certain tools to run an online business, and there are choices that need to be made. In this episode of The Blog Program, I get into some of the behind-the-scenes nitty-gritty details of what makes an online business tick. Specifically, we'll be talking about email marketing, and why after YEARS of working with Aweber, I decided to switch away from it and make the move to Office AutoPilot (aka Ontraport). This was a pretty big move for me, and one which isn't going to be applicable to everybody in my audience. However, this episode will be a good one for those of you who... Are running established online businesses and find yourself getting frustrated with some of the limitations of your current software, and feel you're leaving money on the table because of it. OR... You're still fairly new, but are still interested in some of the considerations that go into an online business as it grows. This episode covers such topics as: Why I've been recommending Aweber over Mailchimp for my readers 8 different reasons why I decided to switch from Aweber to Office AutoPilot (aka Ontraport) What the #1 most important asset of your business is Some of the "holes" you may have in your business while using a traditional email marketing service like Mailchimp or Aweber.

I have been talking about Ten Minute Pages lately. It is no mystery that it is something I recommend to much of my readers and listeners. But, aside from the solution itself, there is also a business behind it. And around here, that topic interests me. We're all working to build and expand our businesses, and I find that there are usually certain common elements that entrepreneurs master before success comes. So, I decided to invite Kyle Graham, the creator of Ten Minute Pages, to come on The Blog Program. As of this recording, he was in the middle of his official product launch - which is always a pretty CRAZY experience (anybody who has done one will attest). In this interview, we go behind the scenes into the growth of a software business online. This interview covers such topics as: What its like being in the middle of a product launch The "aha moment" which suddenly lead from years of mediocre performance and client work... to the creation of Ten Minute Pages and really rockin' How important picking the right target market really is Some of the growing pains of a rapidly growing business - and how Kyle dealt with it. The #1 most important skill that you MUST master before you'll achieve rapid growth Definitely a good conversation.

One thing all blog owners want is TRAFFIC. It is one of those things that nobody thinks they have enough of. And, for brand new bloggers, it can seem like the hardest thing to get. In order to get traffic, you have to PROMOTE. But, what exactly do you do? What do you do to get the word out? How do you let people know what you're doing? How do you build leverage? In this episode, you'll hear about: Why you need to stop tweaking your blog. What it really means to create "good content". Why content creation should represent a minority of your blogging schedule. How most bloggers are grossly under-utilizing social media. How to alleviate all doubt about what content you need to be writing right now. ... and more. :)

After what SHOCKINGLY turned into a 9-month hiatus, The Blog Program is back! And, David has his tail between his legs, asking for forgiveness. ;-) Actually, in this episode, I sit down and talk about where my efforts have been for the last many months with Blog Marketing Academy. Go behind the scenes with me as I talk about some of the projects I have been working on to "clear out the underbrush" from years of business, and put some order into things using SYSTEMS. In this episode, you'll hear about: The real reason why this podcast hasn't come out in over 9 months. My conversion from Aweber to Office AutoPilot... and why. My thinking behind the "daily videos" (which aren't so daily anymore) My switch to the Genesis Framework... and why. Why I stopped using Wishlist Member (although I still love it), and switched to something else. The BIG bottleneck to my business over the last many months, and what I'm doing to solve it. I hope you enioy this one. It is long overdue.

When you go online with your blogging, one of your goals is to… get famous. Now, we might not be talking about celebrity famous. Chances are, we're talking about achieving recognition within your particular niche or field. After all, to earn business online, you need to become known. Laura Roeder, from LKR Social Media, comes on The Blog Program to discuss the idea of creating fame. Laura discussed the "big idea" which is necessary for creating fame, and how to go about getting out there into your marketplace even when you're starting from scratch. In this episode, you'll learn about: The importance of picking a kind of content to focus on (and how this can save you a lot of needless legwork, too) How to arrive at your "big idea" which will separate you from your competition. Her recommendation for post frequency How do you pitch a guest post do a larger blog (even if you feel like you're a bit of a nobody in comparison) How to get interviews (and how Laura got herself onto my show ;) ) Some of the changes Laura is making to allow her to continue to run her business while traveling for a year To learn all the details of Laura's strategy for creating fame, check out... Creating Fame (not an affiliate link). You can opt in there for some free video training. You'll also get word from her when she reopens the program (which she does 4 times per year). Big thanks to Laura for coming on the program. Oh, and everybody should send her a big congrats, because I found out she got engaged to be married very shortly before this interview. :)

You've likely heard the phrase many times now: "The money is in the list". And, it couldn't be more true. Your email list is the most important asset you have. So, in this "reverse interview", Srinivas from BlogcastFM interviews me about email marketing and list building. In this 40 minute interview, a number of topics are discussed such as the importance of list building, how to interact with the list, why ebooks are not as effective as list builders, and much more. In this episode, you'll learn about: Why building a list is so important (as if it wasn't obvious) ;) Why your email list growth is your most important metric, and FAR out-weights trivial concerns like # of Twitter followers, or even blog comments. How I personally raised my email open rates by close to 3X My internal thinking for creating the 30 Day Blog Transformation Challenge to build my list How (and why) to get your list subscribers to interact with you. How to drastically improve your emails to your list by focusing on a single person. Why you need a custom confirmation page (and some ideas on what to put on it) Ideas for repurposing your content for/from your list Why having a big email list isn't exactly the most important thing. The important of segmenting (and how), and why you should have a BUNCH of different email lists in your Aweber account

Bloggers often get hung up on the smallest things. Many times, things they probably shouldn't even be doing anyway. In this episode, I bring on a good friend, Chris Ducker from Virtual Business Lifestyle. Chris is an expert on outsourcing to the Philippines. We break down all the in's and out's of outsourcing, how it works, what you can have them do, how to find them, what to pay them - etc. You don't have to do everything yourself… and having somebody to help you is much easier than you may have realized. In this episode, you'll learn about: What kinds of things a blogger could have a VA do for them. What NOT to have your VA do for you. How to avoid pitfalls and growing pains with your first VA. How to actually find and hire a VA in the Phillipines. How to deal with concerns about whether a full-time person is overkill for you. How to go about training your VA on how you want things done. Cultural traits of people in the Phillipines, and how it compares to other countries. What to pay them. And this time, we've got a transcript! I want to thank Chris, in fact, for it. He had one of his people do the transcript for me - which I thought was quite fitting, given the topic. :)

In all the talk about themes, plug-ins, retweets and pings, it is easy to lose sight of the TRUE purpose of a blog. And that purpose is COMMUNICATION. Might seem obvious on the surface, but seeing how a lot of people blog, they don't really get it. In this episode, David breaks down exactly what this means and how it should impact what you do on your blog. The end result? An audience that actually pays attention to your content and responds to it. And ultimately... buys from you. In this episode, you'll learn about: Why most bloggers don't get ANY reaction from their blog posts. Why thinking of your blog like a magazine is a mistake. The communication sequence - broken down into components. Why acknowledgement is VERY fundamental to your success online. Specific tactics in order to "train" your audience to respond. What this all has to do with marketing and making sales. I hope you enjoy this episode. I was a little late on getting it produced. I encourage you to take the message of this episode to heart. A lot of people dismiss these basics. They think it is "obvious". But, then I see what they go and actually DO on their sites and it is clear that THEY DON'T GET IT. So, this stuff is NOT obvious.

I get asked to evaluate blogs a lot, either privately or for members of my various training programs. In this episode, I'm going to share some of the key things I look for in determining whether a blog is laid out well for grabbing attention, holding attention, converting visitors into readers, getting people onto an email list, and much more. In this episode, you'll learn about: The #1 priority of your blog The mental state most people arrive on your blog in (and how this impacts how you must do things) 4 of the big "no-no"'s I see people doing with their blog homepages The true purpose of your blog's byline and why you MUST get it right. Why you should AVOID most of the built-in sidebar widgets in Wordpress. How many people screw up their blog's navigation menu. How most bloggers totally screw up their about page. And a lot more.

In this episode, I jump into the subject of productivity and getting more done. Bloggers and online entrepreneurs are particularly prone to overwhelm and the shiny object syndrome. In order to succeed online, you've got to have yourself organized. In these 15 productivity tips, you'll discover real-world, actionable advice from the trenches to help you get more productive online - and not let all these shiny objects get the best of you. Even though this episode doesn't solely apply to bloggers, I thought it was important to cover this material early in the lineup of The Blog Program. ... Because, if you're not organized, you just won't get anywhere with your online business. If you're overwhelmed, little will happen. In this episode, you'll learn about: Why you should consider NOT reading very much. How I personally use Evernote to plan my week (and capture blog ideas) The solution to strategy overwhelm that usually follows reading a bunch of blogs about blogging. How to deal with your email. Why I've been a clean-freak lately (and my wife is lovin' it) Why a desk that you stand up at isn't as crazy as it seems. And a lot more.

It is time for episode #2 of The Blog Program. :) First of all, I want to THANK YOU for your support. The response to the first episode was awesome, and your reviews and ratings inside of iTunes help propel the show into the "New & Noteworthy" section of iTunes in the Business category! The show bounces around in there, but at one point it was #2 in that section. THANK YOU. :) So, I'm humbled, excited... and eager to get more shows out there. So eager that I've decided to kick out episode #2 NOW. This show was recorded even before #1 was published... and I recorded it using my Blue Snowball mic just to see how it went. It sounded pretty good, with just a few minor imperfections. However, I've got my new Heil PR40 all set up, and from episode #3 onward, it will all be recorded on that. :) Here's a quick photo of the new setup (to the right). In this episode, I'm talking about 11 of the top blog monetization strategies for your blog. Here's the breakdown of the show: Introduction, and some of what I've been working on over on my tech site, PCMech.com. The problem with "blog monetization". The breakdown of the 11 monetization strategies.

Finally! This is the first session of The Blog Program - a brand new podcast with your's truly. You can listen to it right here on the blog, or download it to your computer or MP3 player. I'm in the process of getting it set up in iTunes. Once that is up and in place, I'll be sure to let you guys know (of course). This podcast is something that I've been thinking of doing for awhile. I went back and forth on it, but finally decided to make 2012 the year I make it happen. Of course, one of the people who was helpful in putting me over the edge on this was my friend, Pat Flynn. His SPI podcast has done very well. Pat also helped me in private with a few recommendations behind the scenes, so... Pat, thanks dude. :) Which brings us to Episode #1. This episode includes: A short introduction to the show. A little bit about me (mainly for people who find me on the podcast and haven't been a reader for awhile). The step-by-step blog launch plan (I cover a LOT of info in this overview... much of it stuff I will get into more detail on in later episodes) A few words about what's coming with this podcast A Few Notes On The Path Forward Podcasting is pretty much a totally new thing for me. So, I full expect to get better at it over time. A few notes: The audio on this episode was pretty decent, but it was recorded on a headset mic. I am intending to equip myself with the Heil PR40 and really make sure the audio is great - especially for people who listen to me in headphones and can hear every little audio imperfection. I'll be getting all this stuff set up soon. The format of the show is a big experiment. The layout of it might change. Plus, I'm fully expecting to have guests on the show from time to time as well. The title - The Blog Program - wasn't accidental. It happened to work out really well for a podcast. But, the word "program" also refers to a step-by-step approach to executing something. And, that's certainly a huge component to what I have in mind with this podcast. Because one of the BIG things bloggers pine for is CLARITY and STEP-BY-STEP guidance. So, I'm hoping that my podcast (and I have some ideas on extending this beyond the podcast) will be that clarity... and provide some order to all the information and noise out there.