Make Money Blogging By ‘Selling’ Your Knowledge

Caroline - This is brilliant advice. I don’t really monetize my own blog much, because I’m working on my own products to sell too.

I haven’t done this on a blog before but I did it on a website years ago and it is a brilliant way to make money. And it’s really rewarding too, especially when people email to thank you for the information you’ve shared with them. You just don’t get that by selling other people’s stuff.

I love the way you’re building up the anticipation for your StumbleUpon course. It’s going to be hugely popular - I can tell.

Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Sometimes You Need To Hit Rock Bottom

Excellent information Caroline! I’ve been giving serious thought to producing an eBook myself, but haven’t yet delved into the How-To quite yet. (Mental note to self…..)

Lin’s last blog post..Top 10 List of Favorite Links

Very well written Caroline. I think people should follow by what you mentioned here if they wish to make money. Since most blogs these days wish to make a quick buck, they should realize it isn’t that simple.

-Mike

Mike Huang’s last blog post..Advertising Your Site The Correct Way - Part 1

Fantastic!

Caroline, once again, your post is very intelligent and full of valuable informations indeed…. i am still not thinking on monetizing my blog (started january 2008) but these are great things to remember for the future.

Thank You :)

NBWeb.it’s last blog post..Test per verificare se il vostro Antivirus funziona!

Hi Caroline,

I can see where you’re coming from about blog monetisation and I know very few people who make money from their blog directly. You mainly ;-) (And Mr Silver)
Certainly all my adsense colleagues are scraping crumbs on a daily basis…

Sadly I think most people set up a blog because it is supposed to be an EASY option. Countless tips about how search engines love blogs and how they format themselves, aka lazy man no work.

Compared to everyone and their dog having a badly designed, unpopulated regular website, or a shopping cart, or just a collection of multi-page sales letters, I guess it’s an improvement ;-)

But AYK and as you mentioned, having a blog is about starting your on-line identity. I can’t tell you how much traffic I’ve had for people looking for Todd Brown’s website (the infomercial star of Jeff Walkers video). People are dieing to find out about the man, or steal his niche, or both! They don’t want to buy from him. they just want to know about him. And that’s where blogs come in.

If you hadn’t had a blog as part of your reputation backbone, I doubt you’d have attracted your JV partners. I don’t think that’s so much about traffic, as having a verifiable, instant look up identity and to see what you stand for.

Like today, I commented on a blog. he instantly checked out my blog, before he even considered emailing me. But my blog is not popular ;-) But he could see what I stand for. Like you, I actually have original articles for instance to verify my communication.

Blogs have become the excuse for identity that we are too lazy to build. People don’t want to pick up the phone and talk, or network in person, any more. They’d rather set up a blog template.

My point is, people should not expect to monetise their blogs. That’s a bonus if it happens. Infact I think adsense lowers ones credibility and identity. It’s like you’re there to make money, not to be one self. Just me I’m sure. But I’m taking mine off once I have adigel set up fully.

I think like dogs, blogs are for life, not just for launches - ROFL.
I mean like who ever went to Frank or Jeffs (non existent) blogs until they wanted something, to launch to us… Franks trickling some content still, but it’s not as a real service to his fans, liek yours is.

I’m amazed you’re buying Jeff Walkers PFL2!
I will be interested to see what you think if it once you have it. $2k for 8 cds and a pdf ;-)
Mr Walker is obviously great at what he does, when he does it.

But I have similar issues with Frank Kern. When someone tells you exactly how they can conn people, it’s hard to believe a word they say ;-)

AFAIC the launch formula is already becoming really sad and the classic fumbling, out door, personal shots, regular guy, beta test discount, tactics are wearing really thin now.

There are 5 valuable lessons to learn from the process, but it’s very little different to when soap powder launched in the 1950’s (not that I was even born then!) but in terms of marketing history that I have read. (in a £12 book).

JM199700CW.
Peter

Peter Buick’s last blog post..The answer to how many Jeff Walker’s does it take to change a lightbulb

Caroline,

Fantastic post, most especially the “Selling Your Own Knowledge” was very cool. Epiphany-like :).

Thanks for taking the time to craft and tailor (like the posts you mention, this one is such) this post.

Kudos!

Stu’s last blog post..Going Back To School With Google Code University

@Cath, yeah thats a good point that I didn’t mention. I still get emails almost every day from people thanking me for my wordpress ebook and its really lovely to read those.

@Lin, if you want some ‘how-to’, have a look at the project page for my ebook project - there’s quite a lot of detail in there, especially about the marketing of it.

@NBWeb, don’t be in a rush to monetize. It took me about 4 months to monetize this blog and I think that was the right decision because it helped me get the blog established first.

@Peter, yeah these days its so easy to set up a blog that it lowers the barriers to entry so much so everybody starts there. The problem is, it may be easy to START a blog, but that doesn’t mean its easy to BUILD a blog.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a blog being there to make money. Its very hard work and time consuming so why should people produce all that great content for free forever? However I agree that AdSense lowers the tone somewhat. I would never use it on this blog.

There is one reason why I want to buy the PLF - well two. Firstly because I’m intending on launching several products over the next year and secondly because I believe in it, or more to the point I believe a few very select people (okay just Yaro) when they tell me how good it is.

I’ll also be very interested to see if it is worth it and believe me, if it does not live up to expectations (and for that money I have some serious expectations!) then you can be damn sure I will be extremely vocal about it!

I intend to run a case study of my own launch based on what I learn from the PLF. I would expect a product like that (so expensive and so heavily promoted) to allow me to make back many times the cost of the course and if it does then the investment was worth it. We shall see…

Excellent article thanks. You’re right - all the current monetization (and what an ugly word that is) methods rely on high traffic (blogs = magazines or newspapers) and this takes a very long time to build. Hence the recommendations to go tabloid - get attention, shock horror headlines and so forth. I think this leads to problems with quality and won’t be sustainable long-term (blogs will just be looked down on as web infomercials).

Blogs in a commercial sense are probably more PR than anything else (rather than beign about sales or even marketing). On which see Al and Laura Reis’ books - they’re all roughly the same.

I think you are absolutely right that we need to sell our own stuff. At the moment I am working on two free reports - one to publicise my blog the other to publicise a paid for on line course. Launch date is probably a couple of months away so we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll be interested to see other’s comments.

To Peter Buick. One advantage of blogs is cheap communication - for those of us in Australia anyway. Picking up the phone to talk to those in American and the UK would be a very expensive business.

Great post.

It is easy to get caught up in the whole Blogging phenomenon without really considering the purpose or outcome you are trying to achieve.

Great advice as always. I think the problem is differentiating yourself. Producing an ebook almost causes a gag reaction half the time now as there are so many which offer little value and are all pretty similar. However if your ebook does well, and gets some good reviews from popular blogs along the lines of Yaro’s, then everything changes. It becomes a serious product worth buying.

Tom Beaton’s last blog post..Top tips for dealing with technical problems

Great article Caroline. I read this right after listening to Yaro’s podcast on Jeff’s PLF. Great information all around. Thanks.

Bill Stevens’s last blog post..Who’s Visiting My Blog?

Caroline.After reflecting on your rebuff of my offer of marriage, I’ve recovered to the point that I can comment on your blog again. I am not a professional blogger. I have determined that I am a “Professional wheel spinner”. It seems the more I try to do the further behind I get. I admire the “A” list bloggers that can focus on a task and work to completion. If I can ever master this. Watch out!

“If you build it… they will come”.

A great ideal but a pointless exercise in Internet Marketing techniques.

I made sites, loaded them with Adsense ads and expected people to come, click and go. In the majority of cases, this did not happen and I ended up trying more “black hat” ways of getting the Adsense clicks - which worked - until Google blocked my domain for breaching the Adsense T&Cs (luckily not my whole acct tho!!).

I have just started the 30 Day Challenge and one comment from one of the first videos has stuck in my head so far:

“You will be selling sausage making machines to sausage making machine lovers”.

It all makes sense! Why would I write a blog/site about a certain product only to have Adsense ads displayed for competing sites and services! If people come to my site to read about the product - I want them to buy from me (or affiliate link) not click an ad and get it else where so I can get my $0.02 click through payment.

The clouds have parted and the light is shining through now…

Tao Schencks’s last blog post..Dodgeball

@Evan
Great point about Globalisation!

But it isn’t about cost, it’s about time zones.

There’s lots of free/cheap communication solutions and there are overlap time zones. I forget the URL now, but there’s a great site for working that out.

SKYPE and VOIP (phone over ip) in general, are incredibly cheap (ie 1p/min)
Also there are endless conference rooms, video chat rooms and whiteboard social sites now, where LIVE interaction can happen, GLOBALLY. Which IMHO is FANTASTIC…

There is one quite common theme among all the most profitable gurus. They “talk”. Many of them even play golf together;-) But the likes of the Dale (AYK also Australian like you Evan) is constantly on Skype and email and chat with his USA and British power buddies.

If you look at Jeff Walkers case study with Todd Brown, annotated on my own blog, his “success” was 100% down to “ringing” 100 people and getting 2 of that potential JV list to run with him, one being the top player in that niche. Those “phonecalls” are what propelled that niche to 5 figures.

Whilst we all think that the Internet is a faceless closet we can hide in, and we can have private and even different digital personas, “social marketing” which is even more horrible a phrase than monetisation (LOL) means communicating with your customer. The ultimate winners will be this who get more personal. Even blog comments like this are an example of getting more personal. This isn’t automated, or PLR , or copied from Wikipedia.

But if we were on the phone, you and I would probably be doing business together by now!

The big deals happen in person or on the phone. The big JV deals are not just email based. You can email ONCE you know somebody. And certainly not blog based.

And we, the little guys, need to start thinking a little bigger. And AFAIC that means thinking more personal and more direct.

With Ebay about to ban digital downloads, the post is back.
With JV partnerships required for launches, the phone is back.
Hopefully with web3point8, social community will be back, but probably not for 5 years.

Actually Evan, I think you’ve made me realise. I am going to put a PHONE ME BACK icon on my new web site when I launch. Several VOIP providers offer them free. And you call back at VOIP rates (which is obviously why they offer the button).

I was just thinking last night, I’m fed up with my life, sitting at my computer 20 hours per day. The phone could be my new Internet ;-)

And whilst I concur that 70% of most peoples traffic is from the USA, the USA is NOT the Internet ;-) I know that will come as a huge shock to Americans but the world is bigger than the USA. It may not be bigger than China is going to make it though!

@Caroline.
I’m very excited to read your review of the PLF2 course.
I have been too scared to talk about Frank Kern’s Mass Control, but you’re less blunt and bullish than me, so you will probably make it work ;-)

Peter.

Peter Buick’s last blog post..The answer to how many Jeff Walker’s does it take to change a lightbulb

@Mark ROFL ! Than you. haven;t laughed like that for a LONG time.

Can I offer one thought?
If you want to be a “finisher” someone who will stick at something until it flies, there are only 2 solutions I know.
1) fear or panic (ie being broke)
2) wanting to.
Number 2 comes when you are congruent with yourself. aka what you want to do. I have been battling with that myself for 10 years. And only in the last few weeks, have I got it.
Do what you WANT t do.
Do NOT find a niche. Do what you want to do and then market it in a niche way.
I hope you get that. I can’t go in to details for commercial reasons, but don;t battle to be someone, or talk about something, you don’t want to be anyway.

It just isn’t worth it just for money.
And the reality is, you will probably only make decent money, when you care about something. When it is who you are.

@TAO,
Sounds like you have it pinned ;-)
Two thoughts…

1) The above applies to you too. It applies to everyone, especially to me.

2) To sell to sausage lovers, you have to “connect” with them. A lot of the whole launch blueprint is about connecting.
When marketing becomes viral, it is because people want o share their connection. AKA I know this really good bloke at this garage.
Who do you ever know who has said “oh there’s this really great 7 page sales letter you should go read”.

And even blogs. People normally recommend individual posts, not bloggers. Think about that!

JM199700CW
Peter

Peter Buick’s last blog post..The answer to how many Jeff Walker’s does it take to change a lightbulb

Great post Caroline. I will be getting to a product eventually. But I do have to add to one thing you said.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t necessarily require subscribers. You also have the option of a little SEO work. I can track most of my sales on SM.com directly to search engine hits, not subscribers. And all of my other affiliate sales on other sites are the result of either SEO or PPC.

By the way, are you going to have affiliates. I think you will be surprised at the results.

Stephan Miller’s last blog post..Lessons Learned at Low Paying Jobs

Caroline, no disagreement on this post, its what my site revolves around. There are lots of people who don’t think its glitzy to sell what they know , but we all know something about something.

MSMM Home Based Business’s last blog post..Uh oh, What Is Don Doing Now?

Still looking into writing an ebook; I have a few notes written down on several notebooks (won’t be writing one about organization yet!);
Maybe I should succeed in something before I write a book about it!

Internet Junkie’s last blog post..I Have Reached Payout!

@Tom, ahh yes but that’s where the blog comes in useful as a tool to build the credibility first. If you write an ebook as an unknown and just release it into the wild it might just flop but when you use your blog to allow people to get to know you that should quell the gag factor.

@Stephen, yeah there is always search traffic but that takes serious time and effort to develop.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your detailed response. I’m an introvert and so don’t find the manic talk of some of the internet guru’s (Caroline thankfully being an exception) attractive.

You can email me and phone me if you want. But at a time when I’m awake. (Email me and I can send you the phone number.)

So much of internet marketing seems to revolve around talking continually - I find this kind of lifestyle repellent: it’s what I find attractive about the internet.

As to doing what you want - 100% agreement from me. Niches are not markets. Niches exist in people’s heads.

Evan’s last blog post..A Glitch and an Update

Thanks Caroline for this great inspiration!

This give me a lot of hope.

Gisele

Miss Gisele B.’s last blog post..Sephora’s 20 solutions to your most common skincare problems

“Why do all this work if all you are ever going to do is display ads for other people’s products?” Google on “Arte Moreno”. ;)

Frank C’s last blog post..Niche Blog Content Ideas and Experiences

@Evan, I admit I’m also quite allergic to talking on the phone! I’m quite happy to ‘talk’ via email but real live conversations are a bit scary!

Terrific post, Caroline!

@Peter Buick - You said, “Do what you WANT to do.
Do NOT find a niche. Do what you want to do and then market it in a niche way.”

That is a GREAT point and an area where I am currently struggling! I am doing what I want to do (i.e. living in the Caribbean) now if I can just find a way to successfully package pursuing personal freedom and living your dream (ala Tim Ferriss) then I should be able to generate some income online…

mark’s last blog post..Interview with Online Entrepreneur and Social Media Aficionado Shana Albert

Hi Caroline or some other experienced blogger,

How about a post about what is a niche. Especially what it means to find and/or create one.

I think the word is used in different ways (personal voice, market segment and so on) and that this can be awfully confusing.

I would be grateful for some clarity on this issue. It has come up in these comments a number of times.

Evan’s last blog post..Finding a Free-er Place

@Evan, interesting question, not sure what the answer is though. I think of a niche as just being a topic really.

Caroline, I think a niche can be a person. For example Tiger Woods, Larry the Cable guy,Caroline Middlebrook, Justakrusen. These IMHO could be considered niche’s in there market. What do you think?

Mark Krusen’s last blog post..Justa number

@Mark, I guess that could be a niche in terms of subject matter - you could create a blog / site about that person, but how would you create a product?

Caroline, I come back time and time again to read “you”. Your content is always great and informative. The hard work you put into your craft is what appeals to your audience. Just Like Tiger Woods. We all watch him play to watch him Win. How he plays is his Niche.Who he is is his product.Before he even swung a club he was wealthy beyond belief.So for me. If you just keep doing what your doing. You’ll make it.

Mark Krusen’s last blog post..Justa number