Turn Your Blog Into a Business NOW

Your blog isn't just supposed to be a blog.

That's if, like many of us, you want to build it into a business that succeeds. If you haven't thought about what it would be like to have a very successful, time consuming blog, maybe it's time to plan for it. There are a number of reasons why to do this.

First of all, and most obvious, is that once you get to this point, you won't be able to organize things and you won't have time to do everything you need to do. Blogging takes a LOT of time and effort. If you really want to make a killing off of it, do you really think you'll have enough hours in your day to do all of the things you do right now?

There are a few really easy ways to improve your infrastructure.

Create Your Own Guidebooks, For Yourself

Everybody who blogs has had to learn things the hard way - whether it was putting together a crappy ad campagin, throwing up a poll that nobody answered, marketing an article that nobody cared about, or running ads on their blog that never made enough money.

You need to create guidebooks for yourself of everything you do successfully. For instance, if you want to hold a contest for your blog, wouldn't it be nice to have a document put together of who you need to contact to get the word out, where you submit your contest information, and what sites you would advertise on? It's a lot simpler to do that than to have to remember these things again and again.

The only thing that many bloggers have recorded is their traffic stats and their earnings. Well, great. It's lots of fun to monitor those things. But, these are simply outputs of your inputs. When you want to relearn your inputs, you will need to go back and do it all again. Every blogger overestimates how much of this stuff they can remember and organize in their heads. In reality, they are wasting loads of time because they fail to view their blogging career as a systematic business.

If Your Blog isn't a Business, Nobody Will Treat it Like One

Imagine a wise CEO who had worked with a company for 15 years just got up and left. Do you think his shoes would be easily to fill? What about all of the things he had learned along the way which he hadn't written down?

If you turn your blog into a business, you make it easier to sell it. Your ability to sell your blog is highly dependent on its track record, and proof of how and why it will continue to succeed. If someone comes along wanting to buy your blog and finds out you can provide them with all the tools they need to keep it running the way it was, its value will skyrocket. If you can put an intangible value on your blog above projected earnings and stats, you'll be in a good place.

Prepare to Delegate Duties

Making money online doesn't have to mean minimizing costs.

Those were the words of Yaro Starak, an extremely successful online entrepreneur. He knew through his experience that if you don't plan to be a business down the road, you won't ever be. You need to be able to take your guidebooks and records of your blog and put them in somebody else's hands if you need them to work for you. If you don't have these things, you won't have the time or energy to delegate. And as your blog grows bigger, you will miss more and more opportunities to grow. Eventually, you will learn things the hard way and delegate powers long after you should have done.

You don't have to learn things the hard way. Listen to other bloggers who have already 'made' it. Ask them questions. Hear their story. Plan, from top to bottom, to run a business of that size one day. Once you see your blog as a business, others will too.

Quick Tips for Creating a Damn Good Sales Pitch

When I was in Shanghai this past month I was given an excellent sales pitch which left me extremely impressed. I didn't end up making a purchase, but I picked up on a few really simple pointers on how to gain the attention of even the least interested buyer. I was up in Jinmao Tower in Shanghai and I was walking around the observatory, when I came across a table with two ladies making pearl necklaces.

Grab Their Attention

The first thing they said to me to get my attention was 'May I see your ticket please?' I was unable to divert my attention from them because they established themselves as officials. I showed them my ticket, and they then told me 'You are eligible for a free pearl'.

Keep Their Attention

At this stage I thought, 'okay, this better be free, I am not going to forget the fact that I was told I was getting this for free no matter what they say'. My eyes were then drawn to the second part of their table, where the lady was prying open oysters and giving letting the customers look at them.

When I got my turn I was going to just turn around and leave with the pearl, but the lady then said, 'Would you like me to drill a hole through it so you can make it into a necklace? That is also free'. I said sure, why not. After all, it's free. At this stage I know that the pearl is going to be mine by the end of the salespitch.

When she finished drilling the hole, she then said, 'Because today is the 8th, we are giving away the necklace part for free too' (The 8th was the day of the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics). I said great, I will take that too.


She then told me that 'if I had a friend or girlfriend I might want to consider getting a custom designed connector piece' for my necklace. This was the first time anything which I had to buy was brought up. But because I already had a pearl, with a hole drilled in it, and a necklace, I just might find that useful.

I didn't end up going for the necklace, because I guess I'm just too conscious about when somebody is making a salespitch to me. But to the average customer, I just might buy.


Turn Them Into a Customer

The pearl sellers took it slowly with me and gave themselves the best possible chance to get me to buy their necklace. Here's what they did.

1. They caught my attention by establishing themselves as an authority/official. They did this not by trying to sell the product, but by engaging me with conversation.

2. They kept my attention with an actual demonstration of how the product was being made (Cool!).

3. They put a FREE product in my hand. (The Chinese absolutely love free stuff. More than us.)

4. They kept me at the table for an extended period of time, creating the illusion to myself that I am actually interested in a product which I had originally had NO intention to buy before.

5. They made me think about other people when making the purchase - girlfriend, friend, mom, etc. This made me consider of how much the product was worth to these other people in my life, not me. It almost made me buy it.

Don't Sell, Pre-sell

The necklace sellers put all of their efforts into the PRE-sale, not the actual sale. They turned the product buying into an adventure, and made me consider buying something I would never seek to buy. That's a little better of an effort than the vendors on the streets in China who ask you immediately to buy a watch or wallet from them.

How You Can Immediately Improve Your Sales Pitches

A good way to improve your sales pitches on your websites is to keep a dossier of what has and hasn't worked as a sales pitch. In fact, soon after this little occurrence happened, I took down the details on my cell phone.

If you keep a record of what you find good and bad, what works and doesn't work, what was unique and what turned you off, you are reminding yourself that you too are a customer. If you can look back at that, you will have a better grasp of the customer's perspective, and how to turn on the light in their head that gets them into a buying mood.

Making $100 A Day Without Spending a Single Penny

I found this post on tihomir.org, and found it pretty motivating. He found a great post on Warrior Forum by hemanmaximus that will give you some money making ideas for all of you with low or no budget. He proves that anyone can make money on the net if you think out of the box.

"Like i said we are going from $0 to upwards, which means $0 out of your pocket. When i tell people about how i started my online business with "NO MONEY" out of my own pocket, people just freeze up. Most people think "you need money to make money". Here is how i got started.

Step 1 - How to make money without any money upfront? Its darn simple, Write Articles. I wrote 10 articles about a particular niche at 400 words per article. I then sold those 10 articles at $5 each. Within 18 hours, I had sold the article pack and my paypal account had $50.

Step 2 - Do you keep writing articles? Heck NO !!! I invested my money. I went on to digitalpoint's forum and went to the Voucher section. I bought a varified google adwords account worth $100 for only $20. Thats right. So Now you have an adwords account good for $100.

Step 3 - Signing up for an affiliate program. I chose Azoogleads. The ringtone offers were really HOT.

Step 4 - Keyword research. I used the digitalpoint.com's keyword suggestion tool to pick out around 50 different keywords related to "ringtones". These keywords were getting good amount of searches per day (close to 300-400 per day). I then went to my adwords account and wrote up an "adcopy" similar to my competitors but not exactly same. And i set my spending limit to $50 a day which would ofcourse last me 2 days. After few hours, I checked my azoogle account and surprised to see i had 3 leads converted at $11 each. At this time i knew i was in a good spot because i was in profit. After the two days, my final figures were 34 leads earning me $374 (Minus $20 for adwords voucher). Pure profit of $354.

Step 5 - Do you stop? lol No way JOSE… Repeat and repeat. I repeated these steps, i believe 4 more times then i finally opened my "personal" adwords account with my own credit card. Because i finally knew that this is profitable and i had close to $2500 to back up my spendings…

So all in all, I went from $0 to $2500 within few weeks. Now remember, Its not as simple as it sounds. I researched every part of my system. Majority of my research was on PPC. I researched my competitors adcopy for few days. Then i created my own. Let me give you few tips…

Tip 1 - Write articles about something that you have knowledge of.
Tip 2 - I chose ringtone offers because at that time it was not saturated like right now it is. Research what's hot right now and then go for it.
Tip 3 - Research keywords properly. You do not want to have Ads running for a keyword which has 15 or more competitors. You'll just waste your money.
Tip 4 - Include your keywords in your Adcopy. #1 mistake most of the PPC marketers make is they don't include their keywords.
Tip 5 - Understand PPC, Read and learn about PPC from forums like warriorforum and digitalpoint.

So Now there you have it. Pure foolproof plan to making money online. Now it's your turn to take action.

PS - Please don't ask me to provide you with "screenshots" of the earnings as this was done many months ago.

PPS - This was how i got started from $0. You can do it too, Just take action."

My first reaction when I read this was how irrational it is to not want to spend money at the beginning, and how rational it is to have a sound marketing plan. People don't want to spend money to make money, but they'll spend it if they've just earned it. To me this doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if its still coming from your own pocket.

If you're confident enough to spend your own money, you shouldn't need to do extra work to get it. Just trust yourself.

Nevertheless, I believe the poster has more insight than that, and was simply trying to prove a point. If you go read those forums you will quickly learn that those guys are all business - they want to make money online. You can learn a thing or two from those guys and see what kind of a swagger they have about spending money on the internet to get it back in return.

Once you have enough confidence to spend your own money as an investment (and aren't an idiot), you know you're going to be able to make a profit in the long run.

Have You Considered Forum Marketing?

When you do internet marketing, the first thing you will think is...TRAFFIC! How do I generate traffic? You know that without traffic there won't be any sales.

When there are no sales, the only thing you'll earn is a gigantic goose egg. As an Internet Marketer, you will be looking at every single method to generate traffic. There are tons of methods – pay per click, ezine ads, solo ads, joint ventures and many more. Well, in this post, as the title suggests, I am going to talk about Forum Marketing. Have you ever considered it?

I do not know why some Internet Marketers overlook the forums to get new leads. Do you know that there is a forum for almost every niche? You just visit Google.com and key in "[niche keyword] forum" in the search box. For example, if your niche is about dogs, then key in "dog forum". You will see a list of forums related to dogs.

For example, you have a product talking about dog training. You can join some forums that are related to dog training. Write a post that offers your product as a solution to their dog training problems. Then, leave a backlink to your site. This will be your forum signature. Your forum signature is the thing that will generate targeted traffic to your website. Hence, make sure you create a powerful signature.

Obviously, I am not talking about success overnight. Forum marketing takes time. First, you need to build good relationships with other forum members. Make sure they feel that they can trust you. You must follow the forum rules and avoid spamming.

Before you join a forum, it is advisable to read the forum rules. Once you are familiar with the rules, make sure you follow them. Don't straightway sell your product. Make friends with other forum members. If you know a certain thing, share with them. Then, they will begin to respect you.

Forums is all about sharing ideas and helping one another. That's why, people like those who help them. The first reason people visit forums is to ask for help. Hence, help others when they are in need of answers to their problems. However, don't give the wrong information. That's why it is advisable that you are knowledgeable of the topic.

If you are an Internet Marketer like me, then visit these forums...

- Warriorforum
- DigitalPoint Forums

By joining these 2 forums, you will make more friends and you can increase your knowledge about Internet Marketing. Furthermore, you can sell your products, domains, links and many more at Warriorforum and DigitalPoint Forums.

Therefore, join a forum related to your niche and enjoy the benefits. I am sure that as time goes by, you will see an increase in your website/blog traffic. Before I finish this post, remember one thing - PATIENCE! You need patience to see success. Good Luck in forum marketing!