I’m developing an email based course on the usage of StumbleUpon to drive traffic to your website. This project is the account of my progress in developing and marketing that course. The course is now well underway, is called Stumble Rush and you can enroll right now at http://www.stumblerush.com/.
Progress Is Slow!
It’s been a whole month since my last update on this project and all I have to report is that I have developed another couple of installments of the course! It’s times like this when I regret starting this blog! It’s all very well blogging my progress when progress is happening but its embarrassing when all I can report on is procrastination!
It’s a little frustrating as I have no idea why I am procrastinating. I’m actually finding it rather easy to write the content because all the information is right there in my head so it’s not like I am trying to write about something I don’t know about. It’s also very satisfying to cross off another installment. The only thing I can think of is the sheer size of the project.
You may recall that this project came about after I did a review of an ebook called StumbleUpon Traffic about driving traffic with StumbleUpon and I was left with the feeling, “I could do better than that”, and so I decided to try. I didn’t want to just write another ebook so I decided on an email based course. At first I visualised this as a simple series of emails but as time went on the size and scope of the project started to expand.
First of all as I began to spec out all the topics I could write about, it just kept growing and I realised that I couldn’t do that much work for free so I decided to charge for it. As soon as I did that I felt like I wanted to create as much value as possible so I decided to produce videos along with the written content which was a bit of a learning curve at first.
Then I started thinking about the marketing and I decided to buy Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula to help me make the most of the process. I’ve almost finished module 2 and gosh this thing is huge! I think it has put me off a little bit - there is so much stuff to think about and it all feels a little over the top for my little course!
So, I think this is a case where looking at the project as a whole looks daunting and I need to just take it one step at a time and right now that means just working through the next part of the course or watching the next PLF video.
Accountability & Buzz
By announcing my course when I did and then opening up the enrollment before the course is released I have given myself an opportunity to generate buzz for the course. What this also does is make me accountable too. I’ve had quite a few people sign up for the course (the free half) already so I’m now obligated to follow through which makes me feel guilty that progress has been so slow!
Oh well, hopefully I can pick up the pace a little bit now but rest assured that I’m still chugging away and this is going to be a very meaty course :-)
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This somewhat confusingly titled post is about priorities, procrastination and getting through through tough times. I found a lovely little anecdote around the blogosphere recently. I didn’t bookmark the original post but I have found another copy of it at the Awasu blog:
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your health, your children, your friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. “The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.
The sand is everything else–the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. “Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.
The Moral of the Story - Take Care of The Golf Balls
So obviously, the moral of the story is to always prioritise on the Golf Balls - do the important stuff first. This is true not only in life in general but you can usually apply the same mentality to the individual aspects of life such as your job or perhaps your Internet Marketing endeavours.
About a month ago I suggested that we should be prepared to change strategy at any time and in that post I explained how I was going to be cutting back on various activities in order to be more able to focus on the important stuff - the Golf Balls.
It Takes Energy, Focus & Motivation to Deal With The Golf Balls!
If we’re talking about this metaphor in terms of your work/business and not life in general then we usually find that the most important work is often the most difficult in one way or another. If I prioritize my work right now I’d say that my most important work is writing content for Stumble Rush, followed by writing Blog Posts and then writing my Newsletter.
When all is good with the world, writing is easy for me and it flows. But sometimes all is not good with the world and with me! Sometimes shit happens! I’ve been a bit unwell recently - nothing major but enough to make me think “eurgh” at the idea of doing any of the work listed above.
Start With The Sand And Move Up
At the end of last year I went through a particularly painful relationship breakup and I couldn’t do a thing when I was going through that. I was just about able to pull myself together long enough to answer to emails and respond to blog comments (playing with the sand) but I couldn’t do any real work.
There are all sorts of reasons why we don’t feel great all the time. The trouble is that the typical “self help” material out there encourages you to get motivated, set your goals, blah blah and when you are feeling really low all that stuff just makes you want to groan!
From a work perspective, in order to do your best work you need to be at your best within yourself both emotionally and physically. If you’re sick, injured, in turmoil etc then you won’t be able to muster up the energy and drive you need to work on your toughest projects - AND THATS OK!
I have a tendency to beat myself up quite a lot about things. I get annoyed with myself if I procrastinate and waste my time on seemingly trivial activities. The trouble with that attitude however is that it ignores the connection between motivation and action.
If there is a reason why you don’t feel up to tackling your golf balls and then you beat yourself up about it you just make yourself feel worse and you end up going in a downward spiral! In these circumstances you shoud give yourself permission to take it easy whilst trying to get yourself in a better position to tackle the things you really want to do.
If you’re feeling low for whatever reason and the thought of doing your most important work makes you go “ugh!” then rather than berate yourself, have a look at what else you could do. Is there something else you could do, something less important that you could handle in your current situation? If so then great - do that! Doing so will hopefully give you a little sense of achievement so you can start to feel good about yourself rather than bad.
If the reasons for you not being at your best are physical then you’ll probably need to continue with this approach until the physical symptoms subside but if they are emotional then this may actually help you on your way to recovery. If you can do something, anything productive, that is a step up from doing nothing. When you do that you might then find that you feel ready to take on something a little more challenging and so on.
The Real Moral of the Story?
When you’re at your best then yes, focus on your Golf Balls but when you’re feeling low, just go play with the sand and see what happens…
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Each month I post my stats which includes the amount of income that I have earned. Every month I’ll get at least a handful of comments from people saying “wow that’s awesome you can make that much with my blog, I only made $2 with AdSense this month”, or something to that effect. Blog monetization is a complex subject and I’d like to pick it apart a little in this post.
Let’s Talk About AdSense
One area of confusion (I really should be more clear in my stats posts) is that the AdSense income that I report does not come from this blog. I have a small niche site that I setup months ago and then never touched. It earns around $1 a day. Many people think that I should run AdSense on my blog, however I disagree for two reasons.
AdSense Is Not For All Sites
When running AdSense ads, you are not paid a fixed amount per ad. The amount you are paid depends on the site that it is placed on, the standing of your overall account and probably many other factors that only Google knows about.
Google wants to maximise the revenue earned by their advertisers so they try to ensure that their ads are displayed on relevant pages, they want their ads to get lots of clicks and they want those clicks to be made by geniunely interested buyers. They have a system called “smart pricing” which means that if one of your sites performs poorly, you will be paid less per click. However, this penalty is applied to your entire AdSense account.
Now I’m only toying with AdSense and I hardly make any money with it so it doesn’t affect me all that much but if I had a whole bunch of niche sites running AdSense then I would not want to risk having the whole account smart priced by running ads on this blog.
You may be wondering why AdSense would perform poorly here? Simple - my readers are tech savvy Internet Marketers and social media users who know what an AdSense ad is and don’t click on them! Having said that, I have just learned from Courtney Tuttle about a WordPress plugin that allows you to show AdSense only to search traffic which is a major breakthrough.
But I still don’t want AdSense on my blog, and this is why…
AdSense Sends Visitors Away
Search traffic is lovely because it is so targeted. Somebody has searched for something in Google and arrived at your site and hopefully they have found just what they were looking for. So now that you have that visitor, what do you want to do with him? For my niche site I want him to click on my AdSense ads because that is the sole purpose of the site.
However that is not the case with my blog. My niche site took me a few hours to put together and that’s it. On the contrary, I have put thousands of hours of hard work into this blog and it is not worth all of that time and effort just to earn a few cents from AdSense.
I have said many times that the goal of this blog is not to make money. I do still make money with it and I’ll come back to that in a moment but for this particular blog I would much prefer to have an RSS subscriber or a Newsletter subscriber, a StumbleUpon Fan or a Twitter Follower than a few cents from AdSense. These goals are all about extending my reach as a blogger which has the potential to increase my sphere of influence over time and of course, if I work it well, that should also increase my revenue in the long term.
However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t use any direct monetization. Of course I do, but it tends to bring in much more bang-for-the-buck than AdSense. I’ll use ause affiliate promotions, display banner ads for affiliate products and sell private ad-space. All of these things tend to bring in several (or many!) dollars a time, and not just a few cents.
Selling private ad space is another very popular way to monetize your blog but I cringe quite a lot when I see what some bloggers are charging. Let me explain why…
Many Bloggers Under-Price Their Advertising
WordPress themes that optimise for ad-space, especially 125×125 sized square banners are all the rage now so more and more blogs are offering up private advertising. However I keep seeing well-read bloggers offering up their precious screen real estate up for a pittance. If you are in the market for some cheap advertising then read on!
Note that I have listed RSS readership in the above list and really that’s an irrelevant number as those readers don’t see the ads - it’s the actual traffic that counts. However, I can’t see traffic stats (well I could use Alexa but that’s not so easy to compare) and blogs with lots of RSS readers usually have lots of traffic too so it’s just a ballpark.
Banner ads are unsightly things that are usually ignored but they take up valuable space on your blog. Is it really worth taking up that space for an entire month just for a few bucks like the bloggers above? What else could you do with that space?
Pricing of ad-space is a very personal thing. I’m sure somebody like Garry Conn knows he could charge a lot more than $6 so he must have his reasons for doing so. However, I suspect that many bloggers simply pluck a figure out of the air and then just leave it like that.
This is exactly how I started. When I first put ads on the blog I had around 15,000 visitors to the blog that month and I charged $50. However, a short while later I doubled my advertising rates to $100. Why? Because I mixed in affiliate banners with private advertisers and I noticed that several of my banners were making me close to $100 a month so I increased the rates accordingly. I don’t get many advertisers now but I have removed most of the ads now anyway as I prefer to use the space to promote my writing and social media profiles.
Under-selling ad space isn’t the only way that many bloggers make me cringe.
Many Bloggers Don’t Build Beyond The Blog Itself
I have talked before about the benefits of building assets that generate revenue long after the initial work is done rather than always working for money month after month. A blog is an asset. All of the affiliate sales that I made last month (with the exception of BlueHost that I’ll discuss in a moment!) were either from posts that I had written a long time ago or from the affiliate banners that I mentioned earlier on.
I did not have to do any extra work in the month of April to earn that income. If I was to stop blogging completely, I would still earn some income for quite some time. However, a blog has much more potential than earning revenue from direct methods that I’ve talked about in this post. Once you have started to develop a good readership (a couple of hundred readers perhaps) then your blog takes on a whole new power as a platform from which to launch a whole business.
My blog is in the Internet Marketing niche so there is lots of potential there. I have already released an ebook which has brought me several thousand dollars in income over the last 3 months. You may not see the connection between the ebook and the blog - I would not have made anywhere near that much income if the book had not been so heavily promoted on both my own blog and the rest of the blogosphere. I could not have got other people to promote it for me if I had not had been a complete unknown. The relationships I have built up in that time allowed me to reach out to a far wider circle of influence than I could have reached on my own.
I’m now writing a course about driving traffic with StumbleUpon and I use this blog to talk about it. I’ll promote it in my newsletter and I’ll be offering it up to affiliates which again allows me to reach out to the audiences of other bloggers in my niche. I would not be able to do any one of those things without this blog! Without it, I would have to rely on getting traffic to my Stumble Rush site with methods such as pay-per-click advertising. I have already talked in depth about how you can make money blogging by selling your knowledge in this way.
Conclusion
Some bloggers have absolutely no interest in making money from it but I’m guessing that those bloggers don’t read this blog! If you do intend to make money online and a blog features in that strategy then I urge you carefully consider exactly how you want to do it. There’s more to blog monetization than just slapping up some AdSense ads and hoping for the best.
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One of the benefits of being self employed is that when you’re not well you can just take time off and not have to check in with the boss! Of course the downside is that the work doesn’t get done. I’ve had a very dodgy tummy for about a week and just haven’t felt like working. It was a struggle to do the stats post on Thursday.
Anyway, I still feel pretty crappy so I’ll probably take the rest of the week off too! If I do feel a bit better I’ll probably just do catching up with some of the courses I’m working through. I’ll see how I feel over the next few days…
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April has been a funny month. The blog has been very much secondary to my work on Stumble Rush and the only significant thing I have done this month blog-wise is to launch my newsletter. Let’s see how that has affected the stats:
Income
Total Income Earned During April 2008 - $1,308.08
Bluehost commissions are finally slowing down now which has greatly impacted my overall income level. Still, I haven’t done any promotional work for my ebook in over two months so all of the income is passive. In actual fact, the only income in this month’s list that I actually went after was the lowest one - the fifty cents from Butterfly Reports. I should have just trusted my instinct and ignored that program, took me hours to write that blog post :-)
All the rest of the income is from things I have done in the past. Note that I had no direct sales advertising at all this month. All of the affiliate sales are either from banners in my sidebar (most of which I have removed now, more on that in a minute), promotions I have done in past blog posts or affiliate links in my ebook. This highlights the value of building assets to generate long term revenue.
Obviously these kinds of sales wont continue forever but they do continue for many months after the work has ended. During April I have been working mainly on my Stumble Rush course and its nice to be able to concentrate on that and still have money coming in. Similarly, when the course is released I expect to have a larger influx of sales at the beginning but trickles of sales continue for hopefully many months later while I’m busy working on my next project.
I’ve Ditched Most Of My Ads
Recently I’ve got on my high horse a little bit over dodgy marketing tactics and I’ve also had some criticism directed at me about various aspects of my ebook and how I marketed it. Both these things have got me thinking. When I do a review of a product in the form of a blog post, I can be thorough and present an honest opinion. However when I just slap up an affiliate banner in the sidebar of my blog, I am effectively endorsing the product without any background information. Here’s the thing - most of the banners I had were for affiliate products I had never even used!
I felt this was wrong and I so I ditched nearly all of them. The only ones I have now are a banner for my own course and for Teaching Sells. I am a member of that, I have done a comprehensive review of it and feel as though I can endorse it so I have no qualms about the banner. But things like the SeoMoz membership or the Butterfly Reports system simply didn’t feel right.
There’s another reason too - I am trying to focus my efforts in every way towards what is most important. I have cut down on my blogging time so I can spend more time developing Stumble Rush. Similarly, I would rather free up the screen real estate of my blog to more effectively highlight the best content.
Newsletter Subscribers
I need to add in a new statistic this month - the number of subscribers to my newsletter. I don’t actually know anybody else who reveals details of their lists! I have shared all my statistics so far so I don’t see this any differently and also, I am using Feedburner / Aweber integration which means that these numbers get reported as part of my RSS stats so to get an accurate number of RSS subscribers I need to subtract the list members.
I only launched the newsletter a week ago and I have got 113 subscribers in that time which I’m quite pleased about. However I suspect that many of those subscribers are actually you guys - my blog readers! I don’t expect that number every week. Still, it’s off to a decent start.
RSS Subscribers
Feedburner is playing up today and showing 0 but the number yesterday ended on 2,269. Subtracting the 113 newsletter subscribers that means 2,156 actual RSS subscribers which is an increase of 345 for April. *hi guys!* I’m really pleased with that because it’s almost double the growth that I had in March despite actually posting to the blog a lot less.
In April I only made 16 posts, compared to 28 in March so obviously (for this blog at least) quality > quantity. I would have continued with my lighter posting schedule even if it had hurt the RSS readership but of course it’s always nice to see growth!
Traffic Stats
The graph looks surprisingly similar to March’s one. In fact, traffic wise it’s all rather similar with the other numbers coming in virtually the same this month:
However there is one quite big difference this month and that is where the traffic has come from:
Referral traffic is down and search engine traffic is up. This month that change has caused search engine traffic to account for 25% of all my traffic. This changes things because it means that literally 1 in 4 people who visited my blog in April had come from a search engine, had probably not heard of me before and that was their first visit. This is why I have been keen to clean up my blog design, removing crappy affiliate banners and to get the newsletter up there.
I want to be able to point those new readers to my best content and give them ways to keep in touch with me in one way or another.
Referral Traffic Analysis
Here is my top 10 referrers for April:
- StumbleUpon (2,214)
- Twitter (732)
- 45n5 Top 100 (444)
- Blogger Unleashed (338)
- The Warrior Forum (307)
- 16th Letter (295)
- Delicious (226)
- Yaro Starak (193)
- Teaching Sells (129)
- LifeHacker (125)
Hmm lots of interesting little details in this list. First of all, who is Blogger Unleashed and why is there no link? I mentioned earlier that I had received some negative criticism and it was primarily from this blog. It was not particularly pleasant and I don’t want to help give it exposure which is why there’s no link. However, I can’t accurately report my stats without including it so there you go! Vic, if you’re reading, thanks for the traffic :p
Twitter has taken a big jump this month which I’m pleased about as I have been interacting with Twitter a lot more recently and my followers have increased quite a lot too. I wonder if I should include those kinds of stats in these posts? StumbleUpon brought me less than last month but then I only posted half as much stuff so that’s to be expected really.
I still am continually amazed to get traffic from exposure that occured months ago - the Warrior Forum, Lifehacker and Delicious are all brining me traffic months after the event. I suppose this is the power of blogs - they tend to stick around and continue to draw traffic (and income) long after the work is done.
What is also apparent from this list is what is missing. All the blogs that are there sent me traffic because they linked to me. I have also cut down on my blog commenting this month. In fact, I rarely comment at all these days so of course I am not getting all those little trickles of traffic any more. But I have that much more time to spend on other activities.
Summary
This blog is evolving. I can see specific phases that it has been through and it feels like I am entering a new one now. In the first few months almost all of my time was spent blogging or marketing the blog. With a few good posts and some lucky links I got a load of exposure which took the blog to the next level. Then over the next few months it grew steadily while I experimented with various ways of generating income - mainly via my ebook.
Now I realise that I don’t want my living to be earned through blogging and I don’t want to pour all of my time and energy into it. I want to take the blog back to its roots and use it to simply report what I am doing, and share my experiences along the way. So this new phase has me taking more of a relaxed approach, posting just what I really feel like posting rater than trying to force out blog posts for the sake of it, and doing virtually no marketing and simply letting it grow on its own.
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