• My wife and I had a beautiful baby boy almost 6 months ago (you parents know what that means)
• I’m a University Professor teaching Anatomy, Neuroscience and Pathophysiology in a Doctoral program
• I run Become A Blogger and Interactive Biology – my two blogs/businesses
• I’ve had to travel to Colombia twice over the last month to be with my mother who’s going through medical treatment
• I’m about to start my pHD

Now, I’m definitely NOT complaining here, just setting the foundation for what you’re going to listen to in this episode. Life gets CRAZY, but there are things we can do to make sure that our blogs/businesses will continue to grow even in those hectic times.

For this episode, we have a special gest – my little Noah. Yep, I was on “daddy duty” while recording this episode, and Noah was well behaved. So together, we spoke about some of the things that I’ve done that have really allowed my business to continue even when I’m not able to work.

I also share some of the things I didn’t do well and how you can do better. The fact is – having an online business these days allows you to set systems up in place like never before – so why not take advantage of that?

Announcements

• I’m going through the process of redoing Become A Blogger Premium. I didn’t share all of the details, but I wanted you to be aware of that fact and to be on the lookout for awesome things to come.
• I WILL be doing a meetup in Cincinnati, OH while I’m there for the Savvy Blogging Conference. I’ll be working on the details over the next few weeks and letting you know about it.

Hotline Calls

• June, from Journey With June called in to ask for general tips on how to improve her blog.
• Vincent Duncombe from Rich Sinners, Poor Saints called in to ask about the best format for engaging your email list.

Right Click To Download Episode

Are you a blogger? Do you find yourself glued to a computer for hours without end? Are your social relationships being strained as a result? Are you not reaching your full potential despite working REALLY, REALLY hard?

Have I got the podcast episode for you. Yep, we’re stepping OUTSIDE of our blogs and interfacing with the REAL WORLD today.

I decided to do something a bit different – to talk about “non-blogging things”, but here’s the twist – these “non-blogging things” can actually help your blog grow.

The great thing is that they won’t only help your blog. They’ll also help your overall quality of life – now that’s some serious bang for your buck.

Also, they will keep you from going insane

Announcements

• I’m back from Colombia, but going back in 2 days. Because of this, there may or may not be an episode next week. Thank you for your patience as my family deals with medical issues.
• I will be speaking at the Savvy Blogging Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio. The dates are June 20-22. If you live in the Cincinnati area, or can make it out there for a meetup, let me know in the comments below.

Listener Questions

• Kathy Strahan from Learn Body Works called in to ask about adsense. Her account was banned and she wants to open a new account in her husband name, but wanted to know if she would run into any problems by using her same site.
• Lucy Jennings called in to ask me about my impressions of Feedblitz, the feedburner alternative that I recently started using.
• Tumi, from Nigeria, called in to ask me about the WordPress theme I use on my Biology Blog.

If you have questions for me to answer on the podcast, feel free to call the hotline at (888) 835 – 2414.

10 Things To Do Outside Of Blogging

This is the main content of the episode, where I go into detail about the following 10 Things:

1. Attend conferences related to your niche
2. Go to meetups
3. Go to events
4. Connect with people on Skype
5. Use social media to deepen connections
6. Mastermind groups
7. Taking classes
8. Reading books or listening to audiobooks
9. Do random fun stuff
10. Relax and take a break.

These 10 things, if done well, can really help what you do online, as well as in your personal and professional life. So in this episode, I try to dissect each of them, by giving you examples of how I’ve done them to grow what I’m currently doing.

Over the last few years, I’ve come to ask myself the following question – Why do I blog?

Seriously. My scheduled is packed! Why in the world do I take the time to do all of the things that are necessary to create successful blogs.

Here are my answers:

For my Biology Blog – I blog because I believe that biology can be fun. There are so many people who, when they think of biology, think about that thing that they are glad they finished and never have to go through again. This is a shame and I believe it needs to be fixed.

For Become A Blogger – I blog because I believe that individuals have the ability to change the world and a very effective way of doing so today is by blogging. So, I want to teach people HOW to do that so that we can Change The World One Blog At A Time.

So, I have a question for you – WHY DO YOU BLOG?

Why am I asking? I’m actually creating a video for my Become A Blogger premium course to help the members discover their Why, and I want a few examples from real people (like you) as to why you blog.

Yep, this is an opportunity to promote yourself and your blog. So, in the comments below, please do the following:

• First off, please use your real name. You can use another name if you’d like, but that would automatically exclude you from being selected to be used in the video.
• Include the URL to your blog, so that I (and everyone else) can check it out.
• Tell me (and everyone else) WHY you blog. I’m not giving you explicit instructions because I want it to come from your heart.

Once that’s done, I will select 3 people who have AWESOME Why’s to include in this video. If you are selected, I will contact you and let you know.

I’m looking forward to reading your why

Thank you so much.

After listening to that episode, I ended up being even more important that I needed to figure out what my Single Motivating Purpose is (or SMP for short).

I’m in the country of Colombia right now, and I’ve had a few days to myself to really hone in on what my SMP will be and ended up deciding to go with something that didn’t even seem to make sense when it comes to what I think a single motivating purpose is supposed to accomplish.

It was so different from what I expected that I had to move away from SMP to just coming up with a Main Focus of my life.

I’ve decided to make my Main FOCUS to Know Jesus. As a result of that, I’ve been studying His life and was fascinated to see that as soon as I started to focus on His life, I started getting Blogging Lessons.

So, I decided to share 5 of these lessons with you, and to drive it home even more, I decided to make a very Pinnable Infographic that drives home those 5 points.

Strange right? I know. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit biased about this blogging stuff, lol.

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking – I come here for blogging lessons, not to be preached to.

Don’t worry, I’m not a pastor and I fully understand. In many ways, I feel that we preach to often instead of just living life and letting our lives do the preaching.

However, even if you aren’t a Christian, I think you can still get value from this podcast episode and learn lessons that can help your blog reach to the Heavens (pun intended).

I’m reminded of a quote by Michael Hiatt, that’s especially applicable here:

Even if you are not a Christian – or don’t consider yourself a spiritually-inclined person – the Bible is worth reading. Without question, it has had a greater impact on Western civilization than any other book Published – Michael Hyatt

So, have a listen, and let me know what you think in the comments below.

This is a Learning With Leslie First, and I enjoyed it so much. In this interview, I got on the line with Marlee Ward to talk about . . . well . . . we had NO IDEA what we were going to talk about.

I considered this interview an experimental interview. No plan, no outline, and lets see what happens.

It turns out that Marlee was the PERFECT person to do this with. We laughed, we discussed, and Marlee shared her VERY interesting journey with us.

Now, even though the conversation started without a plan, it went in a very specific direction where Marlee ended up sharing some KILLER TIPS for anyone looking to make money from their blogs by offering coaching.

This is an EXCELLENT way to use your expertise to help out your audience, and get customers to pay you for your time.

I plan on offering coaching (eventually) and when I start, I will be coming back to this interview to listen again so that I can get started on the right foot.

Here are just a few of the topics Marlee got into:

• How to know who your target audience is. I know – you’re thinking that you’ve heard this before, but I REALLY LOVE Marlee’s take on this
• How to decide if the potential client is the right fit. If they aren’t, don’t work with them.
• How to get your potential client to share their compelling vision
• How to create a plan of action to help them achieve their goals
• How to execute that plan
• How to monitor results

Notice something? The first two words on all those topics are “How To”. Yep, that’s just how she rolls! She really got into some practical and ACTIONABLE tips that I KNOW you’re gonna love.

So stop reading this right now and start listening to the interview. Wait – don’t stop yet!

One more thing before you go. When you are finished, I would LOVE to get your feedback on how you think this unplanned interview went. What did you like? What didn’t you like?

Let me know in the comments section below!

I sent out an email last week asking for you guys to call in your blogging questions to the hotline, and I got about 12 questions called in. Some really GREAT questions.

Not knowing how many questions to expect, it ended up being more than I can handle in one episode, so I’m going to have to record it in two parts (or more, depending on how many more questions come in between now and when I record the next one).

I covered lots of ground in this episode, and I know that you will find lots of value in it.

Here are the questions that were called in:

1. Pete from alljeepsforsale.com asks about how to increase traffic generation to the site and increase interaction between readers and eventually build a community.
2. Butch from butchgibson.com wants to know how to structure pages, posts and categories more effectively.
3. Catherine Ibarra from MerelyExpressingMyOpinion.com asks if BAB has a course on Twitter. BAB has none but, I have gone on to share a few tips on using Twitter the right way.
4. Dr. Nicki from ReverseDiabetesHolistically.com asks which place would be the best place to sell e-Books – through the Kindle store or through one’s own website?
5. Fawaz Al-Malood from FoodHandlerHQ.com asks my opinion and feedback on using video distribution services for marketing purposes.
6. Gary Palmer from OregonFishShow.com asks what is the best way to add videos to iTunes.
7. Jason Love from JasonLovesLife.com asks my opinion about using Tweet Adders.
8. Kamil Kuczinski asks how to create a product in a niche that he is not an expert in.

So as you can see, that’s a whole lot of stuff. Listen and enjoy!

Oh, and if you have a question that you’d like for me to answer in part 2 (in 2 weeks), feel free to call the hotline at (888) 835-2414 or go to the Feedback Page to ask your question directly from your computer.

Who:

In a world where Google is in the business of Pimp Slapping online entrepreneurs with their algorithm updates, Court Tuttle from The Blog Builders comes along and says something like “SEO is EASIER today than it has ever been”.

How is that even possible?

How does that make ANY sense?

People are loosing online businesses left and right with each flexing of the Google Muscle, but Court comes and makes these kinds of claims.

Well – Court doesn’t just say it, he gives us practical steps to show us HOW to do SEO in today’s online Economy.

In this interview, we cover:

• Why SEO is STILL relevant today
• How he went from working at Radio Shack to becoming the “SEO guy”
• How he went from doing SEO to teaching
• How To optimize your blog for the search engines
• How to do keyword research quickly, easily and for free
• What kind of numbers should you be looking for
• The secret of Orphan posts
• How to get your stuff shared like crazy
• MUCH, MUCH MORE

Court definitely has a fascinating story. And to add to the story, this is one of those interviews where you get so much actionable data that you leave on a high, equipped to do the kinds of things that will grow your business.

So pull out a pen and paper (or simply your laptop) and start taking notes.

I also said that I would be using Become A Blogger and the Learning With Leslie Podcast to share what I’m doing with you.

The idea is pretty simple. By being ACTIVELY involved in building a blog that I’m so passionate about, I would have more actionable content to share with you.

Not some theoretical mumbo jumbo, but actual results from what I’m doing right now.

Well, to get it all started, the first step for me was to work on a Marketing Plan. Shoot, if I’m gonna be building my blog to 1 million monthly visitors, I have to have a plan in place.

You know what they say - if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I don’t like that plan, so I need something concrete.

In this episode, I decided to lay that plan out for you so that you can see how I’m structuring my plan, and hopefully be able to take some nuggets from it that can help you come up with your plan.

So, in this episode, I talk about the following:

The 2 courses that I decided to focus my efforts on – Autoresponder Madness and Mixergy premium.
Setting a strong foundation by coming up with my customer avatar
The 5 things I will be focusing my efforts on. These 5 things are – producing great quality content, connecting with bloggers in my niche, Facebook ads, iTunes, and Media exposure.

Of course, I don’t just mention them in the podcast episode, I also go into great detail about how I will be doing each.

So, if traffic is something you want more of, you should listen to this podcast episode to get an idea of how I will be going about growing my traffic.

My Question For You: What marketing strategy/strategies will you be focusing on to build YOUR blog? Let me know in the comments below.

When Moutassem Hammour contacted me and told me about how he launched his blog 6 months ago and then created a product, launched it and made $500, I was EXTREMELY excited.

Not just because he was able to make money. He is actually blogging about something that is helping people. Ok, so here are a few of the details:

Moutassem is a Chiropracter living in France. He decided to launch a blog about meditation because he had experience with the topic and has seen first hand how meditation helps so many people.

His blog is in French and is called Pratiquer La Meditation.

He knew that he wanted to turn it into a business and decided that the route to go was creating a digital product. After going through my Product Creation Simplified and Product Launch Simplified courses (you can find those on my courses page), he basically did EXACTLY what I covered in those courses and is thrilled with the results.

In this interview, we basically dissected what he did, one step at a time. Yes, it’s kind of strange that I would basically have him describe ALL the steps he went through, which is basically giving away almost all the details of what I cover in the course, but I was so excited that I just wanted him to share it all. Why? Because one of my main goals is to help you TAKE ACTION.

So, we dove into:

• How he started his blog
• How he used Facebook Ads to grow his exposure quickly – this is something I haven’t covered ANYWHERE!
• How he created the product – in great detail.
• How he launched the product – the exact steps
• How he made $500 from a list of 350 email subscribers

This is good stuff, and I think you’ll be excited after listening to it.

My Question For You: What’s Stopping you from launching YOUR PRODUCT? Let me know in the comments below.

Yes, we all know the typical answers we give. My answers are:

• I LOVE to teach
• I want to help people
• I want to Create Content that Inspires Others and Change The World.
• I want to equip people like YOU to do BIG things!

And if those truly are my answers, they will dictate every action I take.

Well, in this podcast episode, I talk about how I’m changing what I do to be able to accomplish more. I talk about my change in focus and my change in concept and I go into all the details.

Rather than explain those details in these show notes, I’m going to stop here. Why? Because I REALLY want you to LISTEN to it. Only then can you FULLY understand where I’m coming from.

So go ahead and have a listen, then leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on the changes I’m making.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

So, if you’re going to start a blog today, you can’t just throw anything out there. Well, I guess you can, but if you really want to Create Content that will Inspire Others and even Change The World, you’ve gotta come correct.

There are some Key mistakes that I see beginning bloggers make and I wanted to provide 5 tips for anyone starting a blog, so that they can set a firm foundation to build their Blogging Empire (muhahahaaa).

Actually, these tips can help you even if you’ve been blogging for years. The truth is, I’ve only recently started to implement some of them, and it has been extremely helpful.

What are the 5 Tips? I’m Glad you asked, because that’s exactly what I talk about in this podcast episode.

Tip #1: Blog about something you are passionate about or can be passionate about. I know, you’ve heard me say this over and over, but it’s SOOOO true. If you want motivation to make it through the hard times, choose passion!

Tip #2: Choose a specific niche and then niche it down even further.  In the episode, I give you examples that illustrate how I’ve done this so that you can apply the same principles I’ve applied.

Tip #3: Have a Unique Selling Proposition. How do you make your blog stand out? Listen to how I’ve done it so that you can apply the same concepts.

Tip #4. Write down your Customer Avatar. In the episode, I share my Customer Avatar in the form of a story I created. You just may be surprised at how DETAILED I get about my customer avatar.

Tip #5. Everything You Do should Focus on the Above Mentioned tips. Yes everything – from your content to your marketing, it should all form one comprehensive picture.

If you can do these five things, you can set a firm foundation for your blog. Of course, just reading them won’t do it justice. You’ve got to listen to the podcast to get the juicy details. So what are you waiting for?

Your Comments:

Today’s question is simple – what is your Unique Selling Proposition? Yes, I’ve asked this before, but I think it’s so important that I’m asking it again. Let me know in the comments below.

Loving this Podcast? Why not take it with you?

Doing so will automatically deliver the podcast to the device or service of your choice. It’s actually pretty simple to do using one of the following two links.

• Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes
• Subscribe to the podcast via RSS

Man, I just read the title of this post and it sounded so technical. You may be thinking the same thing, but don’t worry – I’ll keep it simple with some step by step pictures. It’ll still be pretty powerful though. So lets go . . .

Split testing (or A/B testing) is one of those terms that you hear thrown around by marketers that’s very simple in concept:

• You create 2 versions of a page
• Half (approximately) of the people who come to that page will see version 1 and the other half will see version 2
• Your split testing software will automatically calculate which page converts best (i.e. gets more signups, click throughs, or sales) and let you know.

Pretty simple – right? I know. However, as simple as it sounds, it’s pretty powerful. Lets do some simple math:

Lets say your Squeeze Page has a conversion rate of 40%. This means that for every 100 people that come to your site, you will get an average of 40 new email subscribers. Not too bad.

However, what if you do a split test and come up with a different version of your squeeze page that converts at 50%? That’s 10 ADDITIONAL email subscribers for every 100 visitors and 100 for every 1000 visitors. See – it adds up. AND, you can continue testing different versions to reach that 10% and increase from there.

Ok, lets take it one step further. Lets say you have a sales page that converts at 2%. This means that for every 100 visitors, you will make 2 sales. Lets say that like me, you have a product for sale that costs approximately $250. This means that for every 100 visitors, your 2 sales would equal $500.

Now, this is where it gets beautiful. You can double your income in 2 ways:

• You can double your traffic
• You can double your conversion rate

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me, doubling your traffic sounds like A TON OF WORK. No, it doesn’t just SOUND like a ton of work. IT IS a ton of work. Shoot, that’s a 100% increase in traffic.

However, doubling your conversion rate – not so bad. If you think about it all you need is a 2% increase in conversion. 2% increase in conversion is MUCH MORE doable than a 100% increase in traffic.

Makes sense right?

Ok, so it’s clear that split testing is a good thing. There are different services out there that allow you to run split tests. However, I’m not going to talk about all the various options, because they cost money. For this post, I’ll stick with the FREE option – Content Experiments in Google Analytics. Why? Because it’s free, very powerful, and does everything you need to do for simple split tests.

How To Setup Content Experiments In Google Analytics

For this walkthrough, I’m going to show you how we set up a split test for the Opt In for the 10 Free Videos Opt In page, where we tested 2 different versions of that page. The first version was a simple Video Opt In page with a video to the left with an opt in box to the left. Here’s a Screenshot of that version:

This was the page that I’ve been using since I created a squeeze page for the 10 free videos. I finally decided to start working on increasing conversions and got an even simpler design for an opt in page with a picture of a beach with an opt in form in the middle as shown below:

This one appealed to me even more but I didn’t think it would win because it didn’t have as much content as what was outlined in the video. But, I wanted to start with two very different designs just to see what would happen.

So, this is how this was done, and how you can do the same:

• First, create the pages that you want to test. For me, that was the above 2 pages.
• Login to www.google.com/analytics.
• Select the account where you want to setup the experiment
• In the sidebar, click on Content > Experiments
  
• Click “Create Experiment”
• Enter the URL of the page that you want to improve and click “Start Experimenting”
• Step 1: Choose experiment pages
• Enter the name of the experiment that you want to setup and the URL of the pages that you want to test. You can also label the pages that you are testing so you can identify them easily.
• Click “Next” to continue.
• Step 2: Set Experiment Options
  
  
• Select a goal from the drop-down menu or create a new goal. A goal is usually a page that the visitor is redirected to after they visit the pages that you are testing.
• Select the percentage of people who will see the test pages that you created.
• You can choose to receive notifications about important changes in the experiment.
• Click “Save & Next” to continue
• Step 4: Add and check experiment code
• Use the Google Content Experiments Plugin for WordPress to insert the code easily to your pages. Once you install the plugin you will have a section under your page editor where you can simply enter that code as shown below:
• After you have updated your pages with the experiment code, click “Next” to validate the code, review your configuration, and run the experiment.

That’s pretty much it. Google will do the rest of the work for you and you can simply wait for the experiment to finish.

The Results Of The Test

I know, you’re probably curious as to which page performed better. So was I. Well, here are the results:

As you can see, the winner of my experiment was the 10 Free Videos Variation, which was the one with the picture of the beach. The original version converter at 35.77% and the beach converted at 42.74%. It must be because beaches are so attractive

This is a 7% increase in conversion. Not only that, but now I can go ahead and test different pictures, headlines, and even other elements of that page to refine it even more and increase conversions further.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Your Comments

Have you been doing any split tests? If not, when do you plan on starting and what do you plan on testing? Let me know in the comments below.

Who:

Man, I remember it as if it were yesterday. I found out about this new social network that was quickly on the rise. I went to my wife to show her it because it seemed like something she would like.

And her response was something like – “Oh Pinterest? I LOVE Pinterest!

WHAT? My wife knew about a social network before I did? What was this world coming to? I’m the “Online Guy”. I tell her about social networks and she takes a while to come on board.

Our relationship was entering a new, weird space. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, but you get the point.

Pinterest is a very fascinating phenomena. As one of the FASTEST GROWING social networks, it’s a serious force to be reckoned with. It’s so serious that I’ve found myself curious as to how to best use Pinterest to expand what I’m doing here at Become A Blogger.

So, if their somethings strange, in the Pinterest hood. Who you gonna call? CYNTHIA SANCHEZ (modified ghost busters theme song – p.s. if you knew what this was, that’s an indication that you’re getting old).

Since I first time I met Cynthia at Blog World in New York, there was one thing that was GLARINGLY obvious – Cynthia Loves (and knows) Pinterest. From her blog, Oh So Pinteresting, she shares that passion with the world, educating people on how to effectively use Pinterest.

In this interview, Cynthia talks about:

• How she got into this whole Pinterest thing
• Making the tough decision to leave her stable job as an Oncology nurse to focus on her online business
• The Challenges she faced while building her blog
• How Blogging lead to some AWESOME Opportunities
• What Bloggers need to do to be AWESOME on Pinterest (Step By Step)
• How to grow a following on Pinterest
• How to Make Money With Pinterest

So, if you’ve heard of this Pinterest thing and want to know how YOU can best use it for your blog, business, or whatever else you’re into, make sure to check out this interview. You’re gonna love it.

Your Comments

Are you using Pinterest? If so, How? Let me know in the comments section below.

Let me start with a story. If you don’t know much about me, I LOVE music. From the age of 12, I lived on the piano. Singing in and playing for different church groups was a regular part of my existence.

In college, I started to get very interested in recording and started purchasing equipment to help me learn about recording. At the time, I browsed around a bunch of blogs and forums learning a tip here, a trick there. It was awesome.

However, at a certain point, I decided to take things even more seriously and bought a course to become a certified Recording Engineer.

If I remember correctly, the cost of the program was $299. At the time, that was A TON of money for me to the point that it was almost painful, but I was ready to take things seriously, and that’s exactly what I did.

A package was sent to me in the mail. It contained all of the resources I needed to learn about becoming a Certified Recording Engineer. My path was clearly laid out for me, and I went at it like nobodies business. The Result: I’m now a Certified Recording Engineer.

There was something about being fully invested into that program that encouraged me to take it SERIOUSLY. I can almost guarantee that if I hadn’t invested, I would NOT be a Certified Recording Engineer today.

The Value In Free

If you’ve been following what I do here at Become A Blogger for a while, you know what I think about Free. Free content is a great way to offer value and attract people to your brand. It’s a great way of providing value for your target audience.

I do a FREE Podcast, post FREE Blog updates here, create FREE videos, run a FREE community, AND give my time for FREE by responding to comments right here on the blog. Then, there’s my Biology Blog where 99% of what I do is create FREE Biology Videos. Some (including myself), would say that I give away TOO much for free.

Why? Because in my Crazy mind, I have the notion that I can change the world by doing so. And I seriously believe it.

Free is not all bad. In fact, Free allows me to make money. Needless to say, I place a high value in Free. But sometimes Free is not Enough.

Are You Building A Business?

My blog is my business! That’s not always something I used to believe. However, I now look at my blog as a business, and that concept has changed the way I look at my blog completely.

Now, if you are building a business, you are gonna have to make money. Money to get things done, to pay people for services rendered, to grow and expand your business, and yes – to PAY YOURSELF. Isn’t that why you got into business in the first place?

Don’t let your altruistic mentality Stop you from taking your business seriously. Trust me. That’s something that has held me back in the past, but I’m learning and growing, and becoming more accepting of the fact that I am a businessman.

Do You Want People To Take You Seriously?

If you don’t value your time enough to put a monetary value to it, why should anybody else?

Your time is the most valuable asset you have. However, it’s the thing that gets wasted the most. If you’re investing a ton of time building your blog, you want to show that there is value associated with that.

Whether you’re creating products, providing a service or promoting other people’s products, treating it like a business indicated to others that you are serious about what you’re doing.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I’ve been a part of a number of groups. From my experience, it VERY HARD to get a group of people together in a volunteer group, who are committed to being there on time, doing everything that they committed to doing and helping that group to grow.

However, whenever I’m a part of a Paid class, there is Significantly greater participation. Why? Because there’s a value associated with the class, people take it more seriously.

Help People Take Themselves Seriously

When I invested that $299 into my Recording Engineer course, I knew I had to take myself seriously. It was almost painful, and I needed to make sure that the investment wasn’t a waste.

So, as soon as I got the course in the mail, I went at it. I went through all of the written content, listened to the CDs and did all the exams. It was GAME TIME and I was invested, not only financially, but also mentally.

Paying that money really helps me to take myself seriously, and in MANY cases, it helps your audience take themselves seriously too. I didn’t want that money to go to waste, so I had to step up my game.

Yes, I know that there are some people who will pay for something and still do NOTHING about it. But hey, your job is to make sure you are providing value. It’s their job to Take Action. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Build Something Bigger Than Yourself

As I look at the kind of impact I would like to have on the world, I’ve started to realize that in order to have that kind of impact, I need to do more than what I can do on my own. It needs to involve other people, and resources will be needed to do big things (like changing the world).

In order to accomplish that, I know that my business will need LOTS of resources. I will need to have the right people in place to take care of the business and help it to grow.

The fact is, I’m NOT a good designer, I HATE dealing with financial records, I can’t code to save my life and the list goes on and on. I haven’t revealed all of my plans for Become A Blogger as yet, but lets just say that they’re big. I also haven’t revealed all of my plans for Interactive Biology as yet, but lets say the same thing there

If you have HUGE dreams, it will take money, and for your business to make money, you’ve gotta charge for SOMETHING!

When Should I Start Monetizing

Before I get into this, I want to emphasize something. Just because I say something, it doesn’t mean that you have to do it. You need to find what works best for you and then do THAT. In some cases, that will be exactly what I recommend. In other cases, it can be a modified version of what I recommend. And in other cases, it can be the complete opposite of what I recommend.

When I first start a blog, I try not to monetize. Why? Mostly because I want to focus SOLELY on content and providing the highest amount of value. Let me give you an example of how I’ve done this recently. Well, it’s how my partner has done it with my guidance.

In June of last year, I helped Cassandre Beccai start a Natural hair blog. I believed in her mission and decided to come to a partnership agreement. This is how we’ve built it to the stage where we are now going to be monetizing:

• We started the blog with the focus of delivering high quality, short videos on the topic of natural hair.
• She started reaching out to other bloggers in her niche, and as a result got a considerable amount of exposure.
• We set a goal of building her list to 1,000 subscribers and then monetizing with digital products
• She met that goal last month (January).
• She sent out a survey to her audience asking them what they were struggling with and got some GREAT feedback.
• Now that she knows EXACTLY what her audience is struggling with, we’re going to start creating that product and selling it from her blog

I predict that it’s gonna be awesomeness!

Now, there’s one thing I never mentioned about her blog before, and I’m not sure why. One of the things she does is that she creates hair products and sells them, and it only makes sense to sell them from her blog. And that’s exactly what she did, from the very beginning.

Guess what? She sells about $500/month now without significant promotion. Why? Because her audience is growing and the products are VERY relevant to them.

So when did we start monetizing? Day one. However, there was a HUGE FOCUS on providing value up front, while still having a business!

What Should You Hold Back?

Ahh man, the magic question. Ok, lets say you believe that you should charge for something even while living in this “everything should be free online” age. How do you decide what to charge for.

Well, that’s something that you have to decide for yourself, but here’s my philosophy. Yes, I give away a lot for free. However, I do have some set structured courses that help you get from point A to point B, with Video training that’s arranged in a sequence, audio lessons, an PDF downloads. In other words, it’s a fully thought out course that helps you accomplish a specific goal – to set up a blog, build it into an authority in your niche by driving relevant traffic, and then monetizing your blog in a number of different ways.

There’s a target destination and the course will take you through the steps to be able to reach that point.

However, on the blog, I talk about ANYTHING related to my niche. It doesn’t have to be as structured or as well laid out, but it’s still tremendously valuable.

In fact, if you want, you could actually go through ALLLLLLL the content here and get most, if not all of what’s in the course 100% free of charge. However, that would be a tremendous amount of digging. I’m not even sure what all you’ll find.

But there’s a balance to where someone could pay absolutely nothing, follow what I do here at the blog (which is what I want you to do either way) and get tremendous value. And if they want to take it one step further, they can choose to purchase my premium course – it’s a convenient option for MANY.

And what about my biology blog? I provide ALL of my videos 100% free of charge. However, I’ve decided to leverage the traffic I get there to be able to monetize using Adsense and will eventually look into advertising agencies with higher payouts.

I also created a study guide from the very same videos I give away for free. However, it organizes the content in a way that’s convenient for my audience.

Eventually, I will also add more products and services to my offerings, which will also include some level of private coaching.

The key lesson – People Will Pay For Convenience, whether that’s from a course that helps them reach their target destination, a repackaged, easy to consume guide to help them accomplish their goal or guidance from someone who is more experienced to help them do what they want to do.

So What About You?

What’s your perspective on Free vs. Paid. Should you give everything away, hold things back, or something in between?

Let me know in the comments below.

What followed were a bunch of suggestions, but there was one that stood out for me. Farnoosh Brock from Prolific Living posted the following:

When I read that I thought to myself – AHA, THAT’S IT!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from my partner Cassandre Beccai because she had started experiencing just that! She was slaving away creating awesome videos for her audience and within a few hours, she could tell that there were certain people hating on her by giving her videos a bunch of thumbs down.

What she wanted to know was How I would recommend dealing with those individuals.

This is something I’ve had to face and as you get YOUR blog out there, it doesn’t matter how awesome it is, you WILL start receiving negative comments.

In this Episode, I share 10 Tips on How To Handle Trolls, Personal Attacks and Negative comments on your blog.

What are my top tips? Here’s a quick summary:

• Tip 1: Acknowledge that YOUR blog is YOUR blog
• Tip 2: Make sure that what you are doing at your blog lines up with YOUR core values
• Tip 3: Keep track of ALL the positive comments you get
• Tip 4: Review those positive comments from time to time
• Tip 5: Celebrate the haters
• Tip 6: Decide on how you want to deal with those negative comments
• Tip 7: IF you decide respond to negative comments, respond with positivity
• Tip 8: Pay attention to trends
• Tip 9: Remember the positive comments and WHY you are doing what you are doing
• Tip 10: Plow straight ahead

Of course, in the episode I dig deep into each of these points, so make sure to have a listen

Listener Questions

I also answer a Question that was called in by Elby Higginbotham about How to drive traffic to your blog regularly when there are so many things to take into consideration like ALL the different social media sites.

Your Comments

Have you ever had to deal with trolls, personal attacks or negative comments on your blog? If so, how do YOU deal with it? Let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for your consideration!

- Your potential partner (this is going to be GREAT)!

That’s exactly what I read when I get those emails, and the more your blog gets out there, the more of these kinds of emails you get. Yes, of course, they will come in all kinds of sizes and flavors, but the gist is always the same – Help me help myself!

Ok, seriously – How do you expect ANY blogger who spent countless hours beating on their craft, struggling through the beginning stages of their blogging business, almost coming to the point of giving up, but eventually having some level of success?

Emails like this accomplish absolutely NOTHING, so if you’re doing it, please stop.

One Tweak To The Email

When I started my biology blog, I really wanted to get it out there relatively quickly, and I knew that one of the fastest ways to get a lot of traffic to your blog is to get someone who already has the traffic to send you some of theirs.

It definitely beats building traffic ONE visitor at a time (a potentially painfully slow process).

So I knew I had to reach out to others, and that’s exactly what I did. However, I knew that these kinds of cold emails accomplish absolutely nothing. They are one-sided and kinda selfish (usually unintentionally so).

I did what many new bloggers do – I sent out my email asking for a link. However, I made ONE simple tweak that changed the entire game, and that’s the tweak that I would like to suggest to anyone who is getting ready to click on the send button of that somewhat self-centered email.

That tweak is this – I changed the FOCUS of the email.

This is something I covered in some detail in my podcast episode on How I Get Over 50,000 Monthly Visitors To My Blog Using Free Traffic Sources, but it’s such a simple, yet VERY important concept that I needed to actually write this blog post about it. If you grasp the concept, it can literally end up resulting in a ton of traffic to your blog.

Lets analyze a sample email I sent out.

Hi Popular Blogger,

My name is Leslie Samuel and I’m a High School Science and Math teacher who loves the content of your website. So many great resources and labs that I’ve used in my class to enhance what I’m doing. I love how you’ve integrated technology with what you do, because I REALLY think it enhances the learning experience for students.

I’m also an Internet Marketer who has been doing a lot of stuff with WordPress and building businesses online and I love that you have yours in wordpress now. There are many advantages to doing this, as you have spoken about on your blog.

This is my introduction. Notice that I clearly state who I am and make it very obvious that I have gotten value from what they are doing. This lets them know that this isn’t some random person sending tons of emails to random people in a spammy way. Because I’d been PAYING ATTENTION to them online, I even knew that they had recently switched to WordPress. Once again, let me emphasize that I had been PAYING ATTENTION.

Lets continue . . .

Since I’ve been doing so much online and have learned so much about WordPress, I’ve decided to give back in a way similar to what you have been doing and since making that decision, I’ve started my blog at www.interactive-biology.com, where I will be doing something similar to what you have been doing. However, I will be using a lot of video. I’m doing screencasts of all my lectures, and videos on how to do different activities with custom animations, and providing it freely for my students and for other students and teachers to enhance what they are doing in their classes.

This is where I introduced my blog. Note however that I emphasize why I believe my blog is DIFFERENT. I focused on videos and customized animations. Hopefully, when that individual reads the email they would think to themselves – Hmm, that sounds interesting. Let me click on the link and check it out.

Now this is where we try to hit the ball out of the park . . .

The reason I’m contacting you is because I would love if we could work together. I’ve enjoyed what you do so much and see that you have been well established as an authority site for teaching resources and I believe that we can help each other out significantly by forming some kind of partnership.

Because I’m heavy into internet marketing, I have a lot of knowlege and resources that work well with wordpress, and people that I work with that are extremely good at designing. I do believe that there’s a lot that can be done to enhance the end user experience at your blog and would be willing to help you out with that in exchange for you linking to me as a good resource for Biology Video tutorials in a prominent place.

I would love to chat with you sometime about the possibilities. In terms of the tech stuff, I can pretty much help you get anything done with your blog and would be willing to do so because I think your blog provides tremendous value. Also, if you are looking for ways to enhance your blog, I can also help with that. In other words, I would really like to partner with you in some way because I think our blogs would make a good team.

We could work on putting together animations to explain some of the concepts on your site, if you wanted a logo designed, that could be done, or even an more user-friendly theme. Also, if you are interested in other ways of monetizing your site besides Google Adsense, we can work on those kinds of things. Adsense can be intrusive in some ways, but good for specific applications. I’m just shooting some random ideas out there.

Anyways, if you are interested, let me know and we can work something out.

- Leslie Samuel
www.interactive-biology
Making Biology Fun

Do you see it? It’s a beautiful thing. This is that stuff about the change in FOCUS. The focus on the email was NOT what you can do for ME, but what I can do for YOU.

Notice that I talk about SPECIFIC ways that I could help them. It was NOT just about them helping me. It was about a mutually beneficial relationship where they were getting TONS of value.

I had gone through and assessed where they were with their blog/business and figured out specific ways in which my experience could be of value to them.

So, to recap, here’s the general format:

• Introduce yourself, making it clear that this isn’t bulk mail (not by saying so, but by showing the connection to what they’re involved/interested in)
• Introduce your blog. Don’t make this a huge focus, but try to make the distinction clear. Why is your blog different?
• Make the Value Proposition. How can you help them and their audience. Don’t be generic. Based on where they are, offer something specific that can REALLY help them.
• Say bye bye. You can decide how to do this.

How Long Should The Email Be?

This is a very important question. Some people would say that my email was absolutely too long. In many cases, I would agree with them. However, in my case, I disagree.

From understanding my niche, and trying my best to understand the blogger I was email, I knew that reading a long email wouldn’t be something that dissuaded them from reading it. In fact, it probably helped.

He/she was an academic who blogged about biology. Chances are – reading is a big part of what he/she does, so the length was not a factor.

Now, if you are sending your email to an extremely busy entrepreneur, chances are – they will see a long email and get turned off. The truth is, I get nervous every time I see a long email, because I know how crazy my schedule is and how email can consume your life if you let it. So much that I have my assistant filter through and deal with 90% of the email that I get.

So, how long should it be? Understand the mindset of the person you are emailing and cater to them. Remember – that’s where the focus is – on THEM!

What Was The Result?

The ultimate result came after a few exchanges, but to summarize:

• She turned down my offer for help but ended up writing a post about my site.
• She eventually put a permanent link to my blog in her sidebar
• Other sites started linking to me after finding me on her site

This resulted in a SIGNIFICANT amount of traffic over the last few years and an increased authority as seen by Google, because her site was a HIGH AUTHORITY SITE. It was the jump start I needed to really get my blog going.

Conclusion

So, before you think about clicking on that send button, think about the value you are offering to the person you are emailing. Remember, they have the traffic and you don’t. Traffic is not something that’s easy to come by. It’s of HIGH VALUE.

Make sure you are offering at least the same amount of value, or preferably MUCH more. It might take some creativity, but it’s definitely worth it.

Your Input

Have you tried getting traffic from other bloggers? If so, how did it go? What were the results? If not, what value can you offer to that potential traffic sender? Let me know in the comments below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So yes, my blog is my business, and because of that – I take it seriously. Because of that, I will continue to work my behind off to create content that inspires others, and even change the world.

How seriously do you take your Blog? Is it your business?

Just in case you haven’t seen the video I referred to, here ya go:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In Episode 99 I dealt with How to get traffic to your blog. In that episode, I spoke about ALL the free methods I used to build my biology blog to over 50,000 visitors/month.

However, when Warren Gibbons from Salt Water Aquariums Explained called in a question about engagement, I thought to myself – “Yeah, I should definitely record an entire podcast episode answering his question”.

The fact is – getting people to your blog is only ONE part of the equation. The other part (which in my opinion is even more exciting) is getting to actually engage with your content. Whenever you get that one comment, it almost feel like validation of the work you put in.

So, in this episode I gave 10 ways to get more engagement. Those ways are:

1. Get More traffic. Yep, this one is an obvious one. The more people come to your blog, the more likely you are to get engagement. How do you get more traffic? Check out This Episode.

2. Create Great Content. This is something I keep saying OVER AND OVER, and you know what? I won’t stop saying it. If your content sucks. People won’t engage.

3. Create Emotional Content. This is something that I’m learning can have a significant impact on audience engagement. When you tug on people’s emotions (not in a manipulative way of course), engagement goes up. Just watch how this video makes you smile and you’ll see exactly what I mean:

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Facts tell, stories SELL. So, tell more stories. People don’t remember all those facts, but if you can embed the facts into an awesome story, that’s memorable.

5. Ask For It. This is the simplest of all the tips. If you want people to do something, ask them to do it. That’ll increase the likelihood that they’ll actually do it. Don’t just assume.

6. Give ONE call to action at a time. If you ask people to do more than one thing, the chances of them doing ANY of them decreases (at least, that’s what I’ve seen from my stats).

7. Respond to ALL your comments. Go ahead, leave a comment on this episode. I bet you’ll get a response from yours truly. And when people see that you respond, they’ll be more likely to comment.

8. Engage with others. Go out there and find other blogs, communities and groups in your niche. If people are passionate enough to be in those places, they are more likely to comment on your blog and engage with your content.

9. Do something special for your audience. This is something I “stole” from Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income. He calls it Random Acts of Kindness, and it works!

10. CARE. This one I stole from Gary Vaynerchuk’s book “Crush It”. Awesome book! The fact is – people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Now of course, In the episode I unpack all of the juicy details, so don’t just read the show notes and think that you got it all. Make sure to listen to the episode so that you can get the full effect.

Your Input

So, my question for you is simple – What do YOU do to increase engagement on your blog? Let me know in the comments bellow.

People who once had flourishing online businesses have lost EVERYTHING overnight. Whenever there’s a new update, there always seems to be a flurry of panic around the interwebs.

Google’s algorithm changes are so unpredictable that many influential marketers are even saying things like SEO is Dead!

My question is simple – If SEO is dead, why is Google sending me tens of thousands of visitors every month? To take it one step further – why does it seem that with each and every update, Google sends me more and more traffic? Doesn’t seem like death to me.

The SEO That IS Dead

Early in the days of SEO, things were pretty simple. If you wanted to rank high in Google all you had to do was a few simple things:

• Get an exact match domain with your main keywords. If you wanted to rank for “Become A Blogger”, get the domain becomeablogger.com
• Add a few seemingly relevant articles to your site/blog
• Get links back to your site with your keywords as anchor text. In other words, you would try to get a bunch of links that look like this – Become A Blogger.

The concept was pretty simple, the more back links you get from other sites with the right anchor text (especially high authority sites), the more Google recognized you as relevant to the keyword phrase you were targeting. It makes sense. Each link is kind of like a vote of approval. The more votes you get, the higher you rank.

Here’s the problem – human nature being the way it is, the more people realized how the system worked, the more people started gaming the system. Instead of focusing on creating high quality, relevant content that helps people, they started doing what they knew would get them to rank highly, without any care for value.

If I’m an affiliate marketer and I want to make a lot of money with affiliate marketing, all I needed to do was put a site up there with my affiliate links all over, go on a backlinking campaign to drive a ton of links to my site and watch my bank account grow and grow. A beautiful thing. Or is it?

You see – what ended up happening is that a bunch of crappy sites started showing up in the search results and the experience for the end user (you and I) was really deteriorating.

Google had to do Something. And they sure did!

How Google Makes Money

Hey, did you know that Google makes money? No seriously! They do. In fact, they make A LOT of money. And how do they make money? Advertising. But it involves more than just that.

Google’s main product (or the thing we know Google most for) is their search engine. People go to Google to search for EVERYTHING. If I want to know how to bake a pie, what do I do? I go to google and search for “How to bake a pie”.

The result should be a list of websites that show me exactly how to bake a pie. The more relevant those results, the more likely I am to use Google search in the future.

Now, when I get my great and relevant results to start my awesome pie baking journey, I also become a target for something else – Pie ads. Yes, people sell pies, and baking supplies, ingredients for pies, and maybe even the perfect pie oven (pardon my ignorance), and those people spend money with Google to get their awesome products and services in front of the unsuspecting pie searchers like myself.

What happens if the search results become less and less relevant to what I’m actually searching for? I become less and less likely to use Google search and less and less likely to see those great ads. The result is that Google makes less and less money, and Google no like less and less money.

Take home lesson ==> Google likes money. Nah, I’m just kidding. The take home lesson is that Google needs to make sure that it serves the most relevant content to their users. And you know what – Google is getting MUCH better at that, to the dismay of sleazy internet marketers. Yayyy for us, boo for them.

Now That You Know

Ok, so now you know what Google wants to accomplish. How do you respond? By studying the heck out of SEO to make sure you get every i dotted and T crossed? Maybe! I choose a different route.

Keeping in mind that the end user experience is of utmost importance to Google, it should also be of utmost importance to you and I as bloggers. So before I get into some of the nuts and bolts of SEO, I need to cover the foundational stuff. As you blog, make sure to:

• Create HIGH QUALITY content. It’s time for us to step up our game when it comes to our blogs. This is serious stuff. We’re trying to build an audience and establish ourselves as authorities in our niche. This is no longer as easy as it used to be and that’s a fact. You want to make sure to be creating Content that makes you go Ooooo <== Click Here To Tweet that. It’s that good!
• Make sure your content is focused and relevant. Become A Blogger is about blogging, so I want all of my content to be centered around that main topic. Yes, I may deviate slightly (because I’m just that kind of guy), but I want almost ALL my articles to enhance the experience of my target audience, which are beginning/intermediate bloggers who want to create content, inspire others and change the world while building their online businesses.

The Nuts And Bolts Of SEO

I’m gonna be 100% honest – I don’t get fully into the ALL the nuts and bolts of SEO. Why? Because I don’t believe that I need to. BUT there are some really basic things that as bloggers, we need to be aware of and practicing regularly when it comes to the content that we put out there.

Make Sure The Technical Details Are Taken Care Of

Ok, this will be the most technical part of this post, and it really won’t be very technical. Here goes . . . ready to put on your tech glasses? . . . lets do it!

There are a few simple steps that you can take to help Google know EXACTLY what your content is about. The key is this – the MORE info you can give Google, the better. When it comes to blogging (specifically with WordPress), there are two main things I tell people to do.

1. Choose the correct Permalink settings. A Permalink refers to the URL that points to a specific page/post on your site/blog. The last thing you want is for your permalink to be something like www.yourblog.com/?p=168. That tells Google absolutely nothing about what’s on that specific page. Instead, you want it to be something like www.yourblog.com/how-to-choose-the-right-permalink-settings/.

If you look at the second option, you see that even in that direct URL (permalink), Google is getting some information about the content of that page. With wordpress, this is EASY to do. All you have to do is log into your Admin Area, click on the “Settings” tab and then go to “Permalink” and choose ANYTHING that gives the post name in the URL (which in the settings will be sample-post) as shown below (you can choose any of the ones in the red boxes:

2. Make Sure Google gets the right Meta Data. Ok, we’re gonna get even more geeky. When Google’s awesome bots go out and crawl your blog to see what’s there, they don’t see this beautifully design website. Sorry to burst your bubble. All they see is a bunch of HTML code. Here’s some of what this blog looks like to Google.

Isn’t it Beautiful? Yeah, I know. I spent so much on my custom blog design and this is the result – at least in Google’s eyes. Now, what you may not notice is that my HTML code is set up in a way that Google likes. It gives Google what it needs. You want to make sure that you are doing the same thing and there are two ways to do that (without going into too much technical details):

• Installing a premium theme with SEO features. I use Woothemes for almost everything I do online (I also use Elegant Themes). In fact, the theme I use here at Become A Blogger is actually a modified Woothemes theme. Those themes have all of the SEO features built in so that I don’t have to worry about it. Yes, you can get a free theme, but this is one of the benefits of spending a few bucks on a quality theme.
• Using a SEO plugin like All-in-one-SEO. Lets say you don’t have the money for a premium theme. It’s all good. All is not lost. You can install a plugin like All In One SEO and that’ll take care of all the details for you.

Be Very Descriptive (and shallow) With Titles

This is the biggest mistake I see people make when it comes to SEO. For example, I could have tried to be somewhat deep with this article and called it “It’s not True” referring to the fact that SEO is not really dead. Yes, that might do great for curiosity. Someone might look at it and say to themselves – “Hmm, I wonder what’s true” and end up clicking on the link to read the content.

However, that tells Google and any other search engine ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about what the post is actually about. Instead, I chose “How To Optimize Your Blog For The Search Engines – SEO For Bloggers”. If you read that title and are unsure about what this post is about, then you shouldn’t be blogging. Just kidding, but you get the point.

STOP making posts/videos entitled “Video 1″, or “My first post”. Instead, be simple enough that people (and Google) knows exactly what your post is about just from reading the titles. That way, Google knows what to index your posts and pages as.

Here are some other good examples of post titles:

• How To Study For Your Biology Classes
• Top 5 Ways To Get A Girlfriend
• Why Young People Are Leaving The Church

Do you have any doubt as to what I’m covering in those posts? Nope, and neither does Google.

Highlight The Important Stuff

One of the best habits to have when writing blog posts is to break up your content into different sections with headers that let people know what the sections are about. This not only makes your written content MUCH easier for your audience to consume, but it also has another great side effect – It lets Google know what some of the “subtopics” are in your blog posts.

When Google’s bots scans this post, it will EASILY know that I’m addressing the statement that “SEO is Dead” and talking about “The Nuts And Bolts Of SEO”, and all the other things. Even the text that I make bold gives information to Google that there’s significance there.

Google can then do all kinds of calculations with its ever so elusive algorithm and determine the gist of who should see your blog posts when they do a specific search.

Link To Relevant Content

If I’m writing a blog post and I mention something about the fact that you should start a blog, I would link to another post on my blog where I give reasons why you should start a blog. In fact, I just did it above (in case you didn’t see that, read the last sentence and you’ll see that I linked to one of my other articles). When Google’s bots scans this post, it will see that link and follow it to my other post.

This is a beautiful thing, because the more I link to relevant content within my posts, the better of a picture I give Google about the types of topics my blog covers. And once again, the MORE information I can give to Google, the better. Are you seeing a trend here? You should be by now!

What About Keyword Research

Keyword research is great. Why? Because it gives you concrete information about what people are searching for and how many people are searching for it. It tells you whether a certain keyword phrase is valuable enough to try to rank for and how difficult it is.

If I were to do keyword research for all of my posts, I would probably have more traffic. BUT, for me it’s a question of time. Keyword research takes a significant amount of time, even if you use a tool like Market Samurai, which is what I’ve used extensively in the past when I have done my own keyword research.

What I find is this – If I stay in tuned with my target audience, I have a good idea of what they are searching for. So, I just create what I think they are looking for, or what I hear them asking for over and over. That’s my keyword research, and so far, it has done pretty well.

So, no – I’m not knocking Keyword Research. I just know that it’s not where I want to spend the bulk of my time. I want to take that time and invest it into Creating Content that Inspires Others, so that I can Change The World, while building a successful online business.

What About Backlinks?

Backlinking has always been a hot topic. Since Backlinks is a significant part of Algorithm, people have gone to the extent of creating software to automatically generate backlinks.

I’ve always stayed away from ALLLLL of that stuff. Why? Simple!

Why do people link to other sites (generally speaking)? They link to sites because the sites offer some kind of value. So, I focus on creating Valuable (and hopefully unique) content. What does that do? It increases the probability of people linking back to my blog. Sometimes, I contact other blog/website owners and intentionally ask them for a backlink – a process I detail in my podcast episode about How I Get Over 50,000 Monthly Visitors To My Blog Using Free Traffic Sources.

Bonus Tip – Get On Google Plus

I don’t know if you noticed this, but Google is getting more social. They’ve realized that if they are to continue showing relevant information to us Googlers, they need to start using more social information. The fact is – if you’re a trusted friend of mine and I know that you are into photography, I’m more likely to take your advice.

One of the main Goals of Google Plus is to give Google that level of social data so that it can taylor my search results more to what I’m looking for and how I’m influenced by my social circles (and yes, I do know that this is a gross oversimplification of what they are actually doing, but it makes sense).

Whether you like Google Plus or not, it is a force that I believe is here to stay and will be playing an increasing roll in our search results.

So, as a content creator, I would encourage you to get on Google Plus.

Further Study

Ok, ok – I know that navigating this whole blogging thing can be a challenge. Really, I know it can. I’ve been blogging since 2008 and I’ve had ups and downs. Fortunately, the ups FAR OUTWEIGH the downs, and as a result of everything I’ve gone through, I’ve learnt A LOT about what it takes to be a successful blogger.

One of my main missions is to help others get their blogs up and running and to help them avoid many of the pitfalls that so many bloggers make. It feeds into my mission of “Changing the world One Blog At A Time”.

This is why I created my Become A Blogger Premium Course. It’s a 9 module course where we not only teach you how to do all of the SEO stuff I wrote about in the post, but I also teach you how to create the right kind of content, drive targeted traffic to your blog, make great videos, podcasts AND how to turn it into a business.

So if you’re interested in taking your blogging to the next level, I’d encourage you to sign up for the course if you haven’t done so already.

Click Here To Sign Up For Become A Blogger Premium

Your Comments

So, I have ONE question for you. After reading this entire post, what is the ONE point that stands out to you the most? Was there something that really resonated with you? Let me know in the comments below.

Well that’s EXACTLY what I did. On January 8th, I was privileged to speak at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas, NV and I recorded this very special episode, both as an audio podcast AND as video. Yes, I went all out on this one.

In fact, you can watch the video right here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the presentation, I covered:

• Who I was and Why I got into Podcasting
• What my podcasting workflow looked like before and what it looks like now
• Different equipment options for podcasting professionally
• How To Go about PLANNING your episode
• How to deal with mistakes

But here’s the thing. This is Episode 100, which is a pretty big Milestone. And to celebrate, I decided to go all out and try to make this podcast episode and blog post into a significant resource for anyone interested in getting into podcasting.

That’s where this next section comes into play

What’s YOUR Podcasting Budget?

When it comes to podcasting, there are so many equipment options that it can be difficult to make a decision. I wanted to put together a resource to go along with my presentation that can work for any budget.

I know how it is to be just starting out and not have money to spend on expensive equipment. However, that’s no reason not to start podcasting. I put together packages that range from under $60 to $1,000+. With ALL of these setups, you will get a good quality recording. However, as expected – the more you spend, the better quality you will get.

These packages are put together in a way that you can start with the absolute minimum, get a good quality sound, and upgrade in the future by just adding other components to what you already have. So, you don’t have to worry about your equipment no longer being applicable as you grow.

If you have questions about any of the products, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments section below. I LOVE this stuff. In fact, many people don’t know this but I’m actually a certified Recording Engineer. I love audio production so much that I had to get all official and stuff!

To see the details of any of the packages, simply click on any of the following options . . .

Under $60 Budget

• Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone – $43.60
• Microphone Windscreen – $3.99
• Desktop Mic Stand – $10.15

Total Cost: $57.74

Notes: With this setup, you can get started with a good quality sound for a low price. Microphone is both USB AND XLR. This means that you can start recording by plugging it into your computer via USB directly, and if you decide to upgrade to a mixer in the future, you can bring it along with you.

Starting a blog is much more than getting a domain name and hosting, installing wordpress and getting the technical details taken care of. It starts WAYYYYY before that.

I recently wrote a post about My Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Start A Blog. Before starting a blog, I want you to ask yourself WHY you want to start a blog. This is important because your reason why will determine a lot of the How. And of course, if you need help finding a reason, you can always check out my ten.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, lets move on . . .

The Biggest Mistake Beginning Bloggers Make

I’ve been approached by a bunch of people wanting to start blogs. Anytime I hear this, excitement starts welling up inside me. The first question I ask is a very logical one – “What are you thinking about blogging about?”

In most cases, I’m disappointed by the answer. I get answers like:

I want to blog about life. I want to teach people how to live better. I want to be the one stop shop for all young people. I want to help people make more money.
What do you notice about the topics? I’ll tell you what I noticed – I have no idea what those blogs are about (specifically) and who they target. That’s the biggest mistake I see people make when starting a blog. By not having a well defined niche and trying to cater to EVERYONE, you end up serving no one.

In today’s over saturated and information overloaded environment, you want to make sure you are catering VERY WELL to a narrow subset of the population and giving them what they want.

How do you avoid making that mistake? Simple – by being very specific about what your niche is and who your target audience is.

Now let me be honest. I’ve had the same problem even with this blog. When I first started with Become A Blogger, it was a tremendous success, but mostly because I had well known bloggers promoting it.

Soon enough I started to realize that I wasn’t being specific enough with who my target audience was and because of that, I was looking in the wrong places for traffic.

I’ve recently gone through a reevaluation process and can now state exactly what my niche is and who my target audience is:

I teach beginning/intermediate bloggers how to build their blogs into a successful business where they can create content that inspires others and even change the world.

Notice the following:

• I’m very specific about what I’m teaching.
• I’m very specific about who I’m teaching it to.

The second point is probably the most important. Knowing that I’m targeting beginning/intermediate bloggers dictates:

• The type of content I should be producing
• Where I go to find my audience

In the past, I focused on targeting big bloggers who teach all kinds of advanced blogging strategies and tried to get me exposed to their audience. What’s the problem there? Well, if I’m giving advice for beginners but attracting advanced bloggers, there will be a disconnect.

Now I know that my target should be individuals who have audiences who maybe never even knew that they could build a business around a blog, or are interested in doing so but don’t know how – a totally different mindset.

As you think about the topic for your blog, think about stating it in a very specific way. Here are some other great examples of Niches from the Become A Blogger Community:

• Rochelle Hanson teaches Single Women to understand the connection between relationships, food and love at The Single Status
• Chris Deals from Day Job Knockout teaches individuals with a 9 to 5 how to supplement their income by doing side projects online

Step 1: Choosing And Registering a Domain Name

Now that you have your niche decided (or at least understand how to choose one), it’s time to register your domain name. That’s your web address. No, I’m not talking about a blahblahblah.wordpress.com. I’m talking about a www.yourdomainname.com. If you’re going to be a serious blogger, you’re going to want to do this – it’s more professional and people will take you more seriously.

Here are my top suggestions for choosing your domain name:

• Try to get key words in your domain name. I’m not going to get into a bunch of complicated details about keyword research. To keep it simple, just use common sense. If your blog is about baking cheese cakes (yummy), try to see if you can get a domain name that somehow lets people know.
• Make it memorable. The last thing you want is for people to forget your URL. You want them to keep coming back!
• Try to get a relatively short domain name. I’m not going to give you a specific length. Just keep in mind that www.ireallyandtrulylovebloggingabouteveryandanything.com is probably a bit too long.
• Try your best to get a .com. If you absolutely can’t find a .com, go with a .net, or a .org (if your blog is for an organization). .coms carry the most authority, which is why I recommend it.
• Don’t let the domain name slow you down. Yes, your domain name is important, but I’ve seen a lot of people get stuck at this step and not start a blog for this very reason. It’s better to choose a less than perfect domain name and start getting content out there.

Once you’ve brainstormed a list of domain names, it’s time to register it. I recommend the domain registrar Namecheap. They are good at what they do, and very inexpensive.

One of the questions that usually come up is about why I recommend for people to go with a separate Domain Registrar as opposed to registering your domain name with the same company that does hosting. My answer to this question is that by registering it with a domain registrar, you get full control of that domain name. In the future, if you need to transfer to a different host, it’s MUCH easier to do so. Generally speaking, having more control is better.

Click Here To Get Your Domain Name With Namecheap

Step 2: Getting A Web Host

Now that you have your domain name, it’s time to get a web host. This is basically a server (computer) out there somewhere where you are going to be storing (hosting) your blog.

The Web host I’ve used for YEARS (since the early 2000′s) is Hostgator. Yes, you guessed it. I use them because they are good at what they do AND inexpensive. Such a great combination. They have hosting plans for as little as $3.96 depending on how long you pay for. If you pay monthly, you can get in for less than $8 monthly. Pretty good for having your own space online.

Click Here To Sign Up With Hostgator

Step 3: Connecting Your Domain Name To Your Web Host

Once you have your domain name and your web host, you need to connect the two. Basically, when someone types www.yourdomainname.com into their address bar, you want “the internet” to know to load your blog/website from the correct web host. This is done using Nameservers.

When you sign up for hosting with Hostgator, you will get an email that gives you all of your hosting details including your nameservers. It will look something like this:

NS111.HOSTGATOR.COM
NS112.HOSTGATOR.COM

Now, this is the most technical part of the entire process, but it’s actually fairly simple. What you need to do is give that info to name cheap so that they will know where to send people. In other words, they will know what website to load.

To do so, follow these steps:

1. Log into your Namecheap account
2. Go to Manage Domains
3. Click on your domain name
4. Click on “Transfer DNS to Webhost”
5. Select “Specify Custom DNS Servers (Your own DNS Servers)”
6. Paste your DNS details into 2 of the spaces provided (get this from the hostgator welcome email)
7. Click on “Save Changes”

That’s pretty much it. Your domain name is now linked to the correct web host and you are ready to set up your blog.

Step 4: Install WordPress

This is where we REALLY make things happen. This is where we install and set up your blog. WordPress is a powerful piece of blogging software. It’s the one that most bloggers use, and with great reason. It just simply rocks. It makes it easy for the average person to set up an awesome looking blog with amazing features. Not only that – it’s also SUPER EASY to expand the functionality of WordPress to make it do awesome things.

Fortunately, it’s also SUPER EASY to set up. Rather than type it all out, I’m going to show you how to install it. The following video is the 4th video of my 10 Free Video Series where I walk you through the process of installing wordpress. Actually, those 10 free videos show you how to do all of this stuff I outline in this post. If you’d like to check them out, go here. For now, here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Step 5: Get a Nice Design (optional)

Your blog is set up, and it has everything it needs for you to start adding AWESOME content to it. But lets face it – the standard design that comes with wordpress is pretty . . . umm . . . standard.

You want your blog to stand out. You want to get a nice design. Fortunately, there are a ton of free and premium designs out there that are pretty awesome. I’m biased though – I generally use 2 sites for getting blog themes. Those sites are Woothemes and Elegant Themes.

Why? Because premium themes come with premium features and those two companies offer GREAT features and support. I don’t like the idea of risking getting a free unsupported theme, and run the risk that there’s a crucial security update that doesn’t happen.

So I stick with the tried and true.

Step 6: Start Blogging Away

That’s pretty much it for blog setup. Your blog should be up and ready to go after following these steps. This is where the important part comes in – the actual content creation.

When it comes to blogging, CONTENT IS KING! <<=== Click Here To Tweet That

This is the reason people come to your blog – to get awesome content that helps them accomplish there goals. Since content is so important, let me give you a few tips:

• Choose a content schedule and try to be as consistent as possible. If you decide to post once, twice or 3 times per week, do it. People need to know what to expect so that they can come back regularly and fall in love with you and your awesome blog.
• Infuse your personality in your blogging. There are SOO MANY blogs out there. Yours needs to be unique in order to stand out from the crowd. How do you do that? By putting your personality all up in it. There is no other you, so that will automatically make your blog unique.
• Tell stories. People love stories. They don’t want a bunch of facts. Stories make your content memorable.
• Take your content seriously. I’m not saying to write in a serious tone, but I’m saying that since content is king, treat it that way. Set aside time to write on a regular basis.
• Try experimenting with different media. Written content is great. However, podcasting and videos are great media for connecting with people on a different level.

Other Blogging Tips

Here are some miscellaneous tips to help you along your blogging journey. They will give you an extra umph.

Tip #1 – If you build it they will not come. Creating content is great, but you got to do work to actually get it out there. If you’re building awesome content, you might as well get it in front of as many interested eyes as possible. Go where your target audience is (Facebook, twitter, google+, forums, etc) and engage them. Then, when relevant, share your blog with them.

Tip #2 – Connect with other bloggers in your niche. One of the best ways to get a lot of traffic is by getting people with a lot of traffic to send you some of theirs. How do you do this? By networking in a way that’s not sleazy. I’m not talking about emailing them and saying – “Hey, link to me. Send me traffic”. I’m talking about offering them value first (commenting on their blog, guest posting, helping them out in whatever way you can), and then reaping the benefits down the line.

Tip #3 – Have a business model for your blog. If you’re going to be building a business around your blog, you need to have a business model. How are you going to make money? Creating and selling products? Promoting affiliate products? Offering Services? Make sure to be thinking about this, and even implementing it.

Tip #4 – Have fun with it. If you’re gonna be blogging, you might as well have fun. That makes it more interesting and enjoyable. Don’t be a bore

More Step By Step Guidance

As I mentioned before, I go through all of the steps to getting your blog up and running in a step by step way in my Ten Free Videos For Becoming A Blogger. Sometimes reading a bunch of text with all these technical details can be confusing, but watching along as someone else SHOWS YOU the steps makes it much easier.

That’s what I do in those videos. So if you’d like some extra hand holding, go ahead and check them out.

Click Here To Sign Up For The Ten Free Videos

Your Input

So, do you already have a blog? If so, let me know where you blog can be found and what it’s about. If you don’t have a blog, let me know what you think you’d enjoy blogging about. You can do so in the comments below.

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that I earn a commission if you decide to sign up for the service. I only promote things I know, use, and find value in that I know will help you accomplish your goals. This is one way for me to pay the bills. If you are uncomfortable with this, you may choose to go directly to the sites by going to www.thenameofthesite.com. All the best!

Sometimes, I actually open my big mouth and say that I’m going to do things that are a bit out there, and then I get tired and am tempted to just not do it.  To take it even further, sometimes I actually give into the temptation to do nothing. I sit on my butt, watch some TV or just go to sleep without accomplishing the tasks I had set out to do.

However, there are some times when I feel that way and someone steps in and holds me accountable to the goals I set out to accomplish, and it helps me to push beyond the way I’m feeling in the moment and get things done.

This video talks about one of those days. Oh, and I have some guests on the video. It’s fun stuff. Check it out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

After you watch the video, you can head over to join the Become A Blogger Community so that we can hold each other accountable. It’s a beautiful thing

If I had a nickel for every time I had someone ask me how to get traffic to their blog, I would quit blogging and just live off of that income.

Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating just a tad bit.

Either way, traffic is a HOT topic when it comes to building a blog and an online business. Unfortunately, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. You’ve actually got to go out there and get your stuff in front of the people who are looking for your awesome content.

So how exactly do you do that? I’m glad you asked.

Here’s what I talk about in this episode:

Answers to Listener Questions

Norma Hamilton calls in to ask about a wordpress plugin she can use to turn her blog into an eCommerce site. I tell her about the Woocommerce plugin from Woothemes. It’s the plugin we use on my partners blog at CassandreBeccai.com. It’s free and allows you to sell both physical and digital products.

Scarlet from the Teen Babble Blog calls in specifically to ask about how she can increase the traffic to her blog. I respond by going into how narrowing her niche even further can help her use the strategies I mention in this podcast episode to drive even more traffic to her blog.

10 Strategies For Driving FREE traffic

I then go into the ten strategies I’ve used for driving FREE traffic to my Interactive Biology Blog. Here’s a brief summary of everything I’ve done that has resulted in traffic to my blog.

• Strategy 1: Contacted one high profile blogger in my niche in a specific way that result in a HIGH VALUE link back to my site that gave me a jump start in terms of traffic.
• Strategy 2: Video Marketing on Youtube. I posted short videos on youtube with a clear call to action to come back to my blog and a link back to my blog in the description.
• Strategy 3: Posting in related forums in my niche. I found 2 biology forums and started participating and adding value.
• Strategy 4: Compiled a database of biology and education sites and contacted them for links.
• Strategy 5: Directory submission. I submitted my blog to Biology and Educational directories.
• Strategy 6: Facebook marketing. I started a Facebook page for my blog and interacted with my audience there regularly in specific ways.
• Strategy 7: Media Promotion. Was promoted by Leo Laporte on The Tech Guy show.
• Strategy 8: Built and used my list. Whenever I had something valuable to share on my blog, I sent a link to my list and that result in almost instant traffic.
• Strategy 9: Won 2 awards. I asked my list to nominate and vote for me for 2 awards. This brought exposure and traffic.
• Strategy 10: Guest posting. I guest posted on blogs that were outside my niche. This resulted in traffic and some of that traffic stuck.

In the episode, I don’t just mention the ten strategies, but I also go into detail about each one and shared how it resulted in the traffic that I have today.

Brought To You By

This podcast episode is brought to you by my 10 Free Videos on Becoming A Blogger at www.FreeBloggingVideos.com. You can go there and learn to get your blog up and running fast so that you can create content that inspires others and even change the world.

Click Here To Sign Up For My 10 Free Videos

Your Comments

What strategies have you tried that have worked for you in getting traffic back to your blog? Share them in the comments below.

Who are these weird “Blogger People”? Why is everyone talking about it? Are blogs really the future?

Or even more imminent – are blogs really the present? (that sounds kinda weird).

My name is Leslie Samuel, and yes – I’m a Blogger. 

Yes, the cat is out of the bag and I proudly admit to being one. THAT statement has opened up a lot of opportunities for me. So I want to share with you my Top 10 Reasons Why YOU Should Start A Blog.

And this will be from my personal experience – NOT just me taking what everyone else is saying and sharing it with you. Are you ready for them? Lets go.

Reason #1: Blogging Gives You A Platform For YOUR Voice To Be Heard

I’ve been blogging since September of 2008. I have this Blog here at Become A Blogger, and my Interactive Biology Blog. The truth is that I’m an opinionated guy who has learnt a little bit about a little bit and I enjoy sharing that with others.

At Become A Blogger, I teach people that they can Create Content that Inspires Others and even Change The World. That’s my big message, and without a platform like my blog, I don’t know how I’d be able to let people know.

At Interactive Biology, I teach people . . . you guessed it . . . Biology. I started it because I wanted to teach University Level biology but didn’t have a University Level Professor degree. In many cases, someone else would’ve resorted to just not doing it. Me? Nahhh, I couldn’t do that. I had something to say, and my Biology Blog gave me a platform from which I could say it.

Once again – Blogging gives you a platform for YOUR voice to be heard!

Reason #2: Blogging Helps You To Become A Better Communicator

One of the most beneficial skills to have (in my opinion) is the ability to communicate ideas to others. When I attended university, I had to take a class called Communication Skills. As a part of that class, we had to do some presentations and speeches.

They KNEW that communicating ideas was a very important skill and wanted to help us become better communicators. Now, I’ll be 100% honest. I don’t remember ANYTHING about that class, because it was just a class that we took ONE semester in college and then said goodbye.

According to Will Smith (and I love this quote):

Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft – Click Here To Tweet That Awesomeness

I resonate with that statement SOO MUCH. I can’t tell you how many hours and hours and hours I’ve spent building my blogs and it has definitely increased my communication skills. In every post, I need to think to myself – “How do I communicate what’s happening in my brain in a way that the content and intent gets accurately communicated”.

Once again – Blogging helps you to become a better communicator (by allowing you to spend hours and hours and hours beating on your craft).

Reason #3: Blogging Opens Up Awesome Opportunities

I started my Biology Blog because I wanted to be a university professor but was “unqualified” (notice the quotation marks). At the time I was a High School Biology teacher. Well, as many of you know, my biology blog opened up the doors for me to become a University Professor, teaching in a Doctor of Physical Therapy Program (and yes, without a PhD).

If I never started my blog, I would be still teaching at the high school level (or just working from home). Teaching at a university was my dream job. Now, it’s the job that I no longer dream about. It’s the job I do.opened up the doors for me to become a University Professor, teaching in a Doctor of Physical Therapy Program (and yes, without a PhD).

That’s not the only opportunity it has opened up. I’ve been able to speak at Blog World last June and New Media Expo this month. I’ve been the science consultant on the nationally syndicated Total Education Radio Show, and have been interviewed by a number of podcasters all across the globe.

Once again – Blogging REALLY opens up awesome opportunities. Btw, if you want to see another awesome opportunity that happened as a result of blogging, check out how Leo Laporte CRASHED MY SERVER, lol.

Reason #4: Blogging Connects You With Awesome People

I love people. Seriously, I love people. Why? Because people are interesting

Since starting my blog, I’ve been able to connect with people who have really contributed a significant amount of awesomeness to my life. The first person I always have to mention is my good buddy Chris Deals from Day Job Knockout. He was the first person I connected with online and we’ve done all kinds of projects.

I’ve also connected with other bloggers that I’ve looked up to for a while like Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick, the two guys without whom there would be no Become A Blogger.

I’ve been able to interview people like Andrew Warner from Mixergy (home of the ambitious upstart), Guy Kawasaki (co-founder of Alltop) and a bunch of other well known entrepreneurs.

Lastly, and most importantly, I’ve been able to connect with people like you – readers of my blog. This has been tremendously rewarding, especially those of you that have joined the brand new Become A Blogger community. You enrich my life in so many ways, so thank you.

Once again – Blogging connects you with Awesome People, and yes – you’re pretty darn AWESOME!

Reason #5: Blogging Helps you Build Trust

I remember the first time I saw this in effect. It was when I first heard about blogging as a business by stumbling on to a report written by Yaro Starak. It sounded interesting so I decided to check out his blog. When I checked it out, I remember thinking – man, this seems kinda awesome.

So I decided to sign up for his email newsletter. What happened next amazed me – he started sending me (note, I didn’t say selling me) all kinds of awesome, valuable info. I remember looking out for his email and getting excited whenever I saw his name in my inbox (hopefully he doesn’t read this and get an “awesome-complex”).

Here’s the thing – he was gaining my trust. So much so that when he eventually launched his coaching program, I knew I had to join.

Since I started blogging, I’ve seen the same thing. By putting valuable content out there, a lot of people have come to regard me as a trusted expert and that has gone a long way to helping me build something extremely valuable.

Once again – Blogging helps you build TRUST, if you’re providing value to your audience.

Reason #6: Blogging Makes You A More Well-Rounded Individual

Yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking – aren’t bloggers those withdrawn nerds who live in their basement attached to their computers? How is that well-rounded?

Well, sorry to break the news to you but we aren’t that sad (well, for the most part).

Here’s the thing – IF you are blogging the right way, you are doing research on different ideas, learning new information constantly so that you can present that info as an authority.

Doing that kind of research helps to make you more well-rounded. Connecting with awesome people (as mentioned above) even helps that process more.

Once again – Blogging makes you a more well-rounded individual IF you are blogging the right way.

Reason #7: Blogging Makes You Think

Ok, maybe you’re tired of thinking. Maybe you work at a job and have to think so much that by the time you get home, you don’t want to use ANY more neurons. I fully understand.

However, if you want to present your thoughts in a coherent way on a regular basis, this is something that you need to think about. The more you do this, the better you become. You’re forming synaptic connections between those 100 billion neurons in that awesome brain of yours.

Once again – Blogging Makes you Think – that’s how you come up with Awesome Content.

Reason #8: Blogging Helps Others

Instead of explaining this, I will share an email that I received a while back from someone who visited my Biology Blog:

I can’t begin to tell you how much your work means to me and my family! I’ve just taken my first teaching job after years in the healthcare industry and was thrown into a high school that has no text books, given one day’s orientation and well over 100 students who have been falling behind the state required standards because they’ve been waiting for new teachers………without your lectures and free materials, I never would have been able to survive this first week……it’s a critical job for my family as well….we’re down to the most bare food and I couldn’t afford to fail……….

God bless you for making this available. I will certainly remember your donations link just as soon as we have enough pay checks to refill our critically empty food cabinets……..you’ve kept me, my children and an impoverished inner city school afloat……..no better life’s work than that I’d imagine.

Can you imagine the feeling that comes when you get an email like that. Every time I get a thank you email/testimonial, I have my assistant put it in a special folder for me to be able to look through and find motivation to continue.

I just glanced in that folder and saw that there were over 2,600 messages in there. That’s just AWESOME!

Reason #9: Blogging Can Help You Build A Significant Online Business

Let me be 100% honest here. MOST people who blog won’t make ANY money doing it. That’s just a fact. According to a survey done by Blogging.org, 81% of bloggers have never made $100 from their blogging efforts.

When I started my blog back in 2008, that was one of my goals – to build a significant online business so that I can pay off a bunch of debt, take care of my growing family, and travel a little (or a lot, lol).That being said, if you’re smart about it, you can build a significant business around your blog.

Because of what I’ve learnt over the years, I’ve been able to do just that and I thank God for that. Not because it’s all about the money, but because I live on this earth, have accumulated debt, and I’m tired of it

Both my Biology blog and Become a Blogger make a significant income each and every month. It’s a beautiful thing.

Reason #10: Blogging Is A Ton Of Fun

If this were just another job, I don’t know that I’d be able to do it as long as I’ve been doing it. Part of what has kept me going is how much fun I’ve been having.

Seriously, I’ve been having a blast. When you take the 9 reasons mentioned above, you have a recipe for doing something extremely enjoyable.

From writing content to recording podcasts, to making videos, to interacting with you AWESOME folk, life is good.

Interested in Starting A Blog?

A lot of people think starting a blog is difficult. However, you can literally have a blog up and running in a very short period of time (I’d give yourself about an hour or so), have a nice design and start adding your awesome content to build an awesome blog.

That’s exactly why I created my 10 Free Videos for Becoming A Blogger. In those videos, I show you how to get your domain and hosting, install wordpress (your blogging platform) in 3 clicks, start adding content, and getting your blog setup for success.

If you have the “technical expertise” to check email and you can follow along as I show you one step at a time how to set it up, you can get your blog going.

Click Here To Sign Up For The 10 FREE Videos

What are YOUR reasons?

Ok, so I’ve given you my top 10 reasons why I think YOU should start a blog, but you probably have some reasons of your own. So, go ahead and let me know your reasons for starting (or wanting to start) a blog in the comments below.

I just got back from New Media Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I did a talk on How I do my podcast without having to edit.

While in Vegas, I had the privilege of recording an AWESOME podcast episode with my VERY good friends Chris Deals from Day Job Knockout and Crystal Collins from Savvy Blogging.

Since New Media Expo was right at the beginning of the year, we decided to have a discussion about Setting Goals for 2013.

What are your Goals?

How do you plan on achieving them?

Do you have a content strategy? A Marketing strategy?

Or are you just going into 2013 blindly?

Nahh, you don’t want to do that, and we want to help you. So, we got together and recorded this episode. We had lots of fun with it. I knew we would, so I decided to not only record the audio, but also do the video.

So you can listen to it above, or watch the video right here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this episode, we also spoke about a cool resource that Crystal put together with our good friend Dan Morris. What is it? I’m glad you asked.

The Marketing Calendar Blueprint

This is something that we spoke about before in my last Interview with Crystal. When we did that interview, the Marketing Calendar Blueprint sounded like a great idea, but I hadn’t checked it out as yet. Well now I have and I’m thoroughly impressed.

It’s a tool to help you come up with your marketing calendar, but it really does more than that.

It helps you to narrow down on WHAT your audience wants so that you can give it to them, how to actually reach your target audience, the best ways to engage them and a number of other important factors.

Then, taking that info, you can set up a Marketing Calendar that can help you accomplish your goals for 2013 and beyond.

If this is something you’re interested in, you should definitely check it out.

Click Here To Go To The Marketing Calendar Blueprint

I don’t like New Years Resolutions. Now don’t get me wrong. I understand why people like it. It makes us feel good to look ahead and make awesome plans. It’s a great concept . . . when it works.

In 2006, I started working at a Christian Boarding Academy as a Science and Math teacher. At the end of the school year, we did something called a Year-in-review, where we all got together and watched a video of highlights of the year. It was awesome fun. We got to see how we’ve grown in such a short period of time.

So, I’ve decided to do a Year In Review for my 2012 blogging efforts. But before I do that, I want to say something really quick about why I do what I do.

Why I do What I do

This is one of those relatively easy questions to answer. I do what I do for a number of reasons.

I LOVE IT. Seriously, I have so much fun doing this blogging stuff. I get to meet people from all over the world. People like you. I get to learn and share what I learn. I get to teach. I get PUMPED. Yep, it’s true.

Ok, now lets talk about some of the details . . .

Lets Talk Traffic

There are two blogs that I have the honor of running. My Biology Blog and this blog here at Become A Blogger. My biology blog has been visited 487,218 times by 354,729 people for a total of 1,365,217 Pageviews.

Become A Blogger has been visited 199,214 times by 104,099 people for a total of 534,531 Pageviews.

Think about this – I’m here in a little office in my apartment creating content that has reached a total of 458,828 people all over the world. That’s almost a half a million people.

The truth is, I consider myself blessed. However, this blessing comes with tremendous responsibility and this is not something I take lightly.

What About The List?

If you’ve read my stuff for a while, you know that I believe that one of the most important aspects of building an online business is building a list.

This is how you get to nurture relationships with your subscribers by providing them with value. It’s how you are able to establish trust. It’s how you get people back to your blog (yep, that’s traffic), and it can help you make a significant income, if you do it right (and that’s always good – right?).

My Biology list has grown from 5,109 to 12,572 subscribers. That’s a 146% increase over the last 12 months. For Become A Blogger, I started with a list of 0 and now it’s up to 13,249. That’s a total of 25,821 email subscribers

What’s the significance of this? Well, it’s quite simple. These people have opted in to my newsletters and have requested for me to be in contact with them.

I’ve been able to drive a bunch traffic to my blog as a result of sending one email.

I’ve been able to win awards by having my list vote for me

I’ve been able to nurture relationships with Awesome people because of my list.

Can You make Money Doing What You Love?

As you probably know, I’m a University professor. In fact, part of the reason why I’m a university professor is a direct result of my blogging.

But just because I’m a professor, doesn’t mean that I want to rely solely on that income. In fact, since my wife is no longer working (to stay at home with little Noah), I can no longer rely on that to take care of college loans, all of our current bills bills, our food and clothing, a ton of diapers (man, he poops a lot), and to deal with miscellaneous stuff like clothing, travels, and other fun stuff. Fortunately, our son is breastfed, so we don’t have to buy that, lol.

However, there is also another aspect to this Business stuff. I don’t like my income to be fully dependent on the work I do today. I like leveraged work, or as Pat Flynn puts it, Smart Passive Income, where you work hard today and reap the benefits later.

So, how did this year go financially? I’m glad you asked.

Interactive Biology

A lot of people ask how I’m able to monetize a blog about biology. Rather than going into that, I’ll just say to check out my Case Study post entitled “Can You Make Money Blogging About Your Passion?“. However, the short answer is that I make money with Adsense and by selling a PDF study guide I created.

Adsense has brought in $12,725.27 over the year and the study guide has brought in $4,508.55 That’s a total of $17,233.82.

Now some of you are thinking “Wow, that’s a decent amount for a Biology Blog” and others are probably thinking “That’s it? Very disappointing Leslie”.

Personally, I’m thinking WOOHOOOOO. Why? This is a blog that I started in January of 2011, and I did A LOT of work on it back then. This year. I probably worked on it for 1 month out of the year, if I were to add everything up (if that much).

Because of my new job, and my new kid, time has been EXTREMELY limited. Not to mention, since I’ve been doing so much here at Become A Blogger, that limits how much time I can spend over there. Even though my attention has NOT been there, it has generated that amount of money. I’d say that’s pretty good.

Become A Blogger

I haven’t been talking about income for Become A Blogger in my Monthly Transparency Reports. The reason for that is because I don’t want THAT to be as much of a focus of what I do here. I never want to be that guy who talks about making money teaching making money. I want what I do to inspire people to start blogs about their passions, like I did with Biology. And if your passion is making money, that’s fine too

Ok, enough small talk. How do I make money here at Become A Blogger? A few ways:

• Selling Become A Blogger Premium and my other Courses.
• Promoting a handful of affiliate products like Hostgator Hosting, Woothemes and Aweber.

Google Plus ROCKS!

Ok, maybe you don’t believe me yet. It’s ok. That’s why you’re reading this now. This is The Ultimate Guide To Google Plus for Bloggers.

Now, what’s the best way to teach about Google Plus? By doing a Google Plus Hangout of course.

That’s exactly what I did. This post has a video hangout I did with the Become A Blogger Community AND a number of QUICK tutorials to show you how to take advantage of the Awesome features contained within Google Plus.

I also talk about how YOU, as a blogger (or just a regular human being) can use Google+ effectively for growing your personal/business brand, AND connecting with others (even friends and family).

So, if you have about an hour and a half, watch the replay video of the hangout, and you’ll learn A TON.

IF you don’t have an hour and a half, watch some of it, and jump down to the Tutorials below.

Btw, this post will be updated on a regular basis with new Tutorials and resources for taking full advantage of Google+. Oh, and make sure to Join The Become A Blogger Community On Google Plus

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, you may also be wondering if mainstream media is keen to really using Google+. The answer is a resounding YES.

In fact, just check out this video where Alicia Keys did her album launch via Google Plus. Just check out the Awesomeness of this technology.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Links for this Hangout

• Click Here To Join The Become A Blogger Community On Google Plus

To ask questions, or to comment on the hangout, you can use the LiveFyre Commenting system below and I’ll be watching those comments for questions.

Thanks for joining the Fun!

Google Plus Tutorials

Ok, now it’s time for some step by step tutorials, especially for people who don’t have the time to watch the entire video to learn how to do some of the simple things. My recommendation – Bookmark this page so that you can come back to this ever expanding resource. You’re gonna wanna do it.

All you have to do is click on a title and Voila, the tutorial will Magically appear. Go ahead and give it a whirl . . .

Lastly, Guy Kawasaki wrote an excellent book on Google+ and it’s called What The Plus: Google+ For The Rest Of Us. It’s a GREAT overview of how awesome G+ is and how to use it effectively. If you haven’t checked it out, I would definitely recommend for you to do so. Click on the the picture below to download a FREE copy.

So, I decided to take our interaction to the next level by creating a Become A Blogger Community. So I’d like you to join.

Oh, and by doing so, you get to join me on some awesome hangouts.

Watch this video for more info:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Community Links

• Join The Become A Blogger Community 
• Read The Community Guidelines
• Hangout With Leslie (Must be a community member first)

I hope to see you in the community. Looking forward to interacting with you there.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Today’s episode is a bit different. Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done something like this.

As you may or may not know, I take questions for my podcast episode. In fact, you can always go to my Feedback Page, leave a question/comment and I will play it on the show and answer it, if it’s a question.

You can use that page to record your message as long as you have a mic attached to your computer. OR, you can call the hotline at (888) 835-2414.

Well, I’ve had a few questions that were called in over the last few weeks that I haven’t been able to get to. So I decided to rectify that situation by making this episode a Q&A episode.

Here are the five questions that were called in:

Ebook Promotion

Alain from AlainInternetMarketing.com called to ask for my advice on how to promote his ebook. So, I give him some actionable advice on how he can do just that.

Disappearing from iTunes

Bob Skelton from NetworkMarketersJournal.com called to ask if I dropped off of iTunes. In short, I did. Find out what happened.

Duplicate Content

Jason from ApplicationTalk.com referred back to my interview with Kim Roach and had some Duplicate Content concerns. He wanted to know if that was something he should be worried about. I talk about the downfalls of duplicate content and ways to avoid it.

Banned From Adsense

Kathy from LeanBodyWorks.com wanted to know her options for making money through advertising after being banned from Adsense. I share an interesting story about how I was banned from Adsense and what I did about it.

Problems with your Job

Paul wants to know how I deal with blogging in the same industry I work and whether that causes problems with my employer. I give some ways that I recommend dealing with this issue.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Another year of life. YAYYY. So, I decided to do something extra special. Some of you are going to LOVE this and some of you are going to HATE this. And that’s ok.

It’s not about blogging, it’s about something way bigger.

Warning: This episode is going to be VERY mushy, and if you aren’t into all that mushy love stuff, this isn’t the episode for you!

In this episode, I share the following:

• Where my wife and I met
• How we started doing music together
• The great disappointment that I faced when she disappeared one weekend
• How I asked her to be my girlfriend
• The longest proposal you’ve ever heard of
• Our new journey that we’re about to embark on

All of that, and a whole bunch of cheese in between. So I hope you enjoy, and if it’s not for you, I will see you again next week

Oh, and here’s a video of her singing a Duet:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s a video of her conducting

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yes, I was one of those people who didn’t think you could make any serious money with Adsense.

In fact, I had tried it before, back in my college days, and the results were pitiful. I won’t even go into that, because it’s a LONG story.

But I had been hearing that people with less traffic than I was getting, were making a few hundred dollars a month. I thought to myself – hey, it doesn’t take any extra energy. Lets test it out.

At the time, my blog was getting approximately 30,000 unique visitors/month. That had to mean something. Not only that, but I had seen that Youtube was allowing anyone to monetize their videos using Adsense.

So off I went to the Adsense website. I was still stuck with the idea that I probably wouldn’t make anything significant with Adsense, so instead of putting it on my baby (my blog), I decided to just activate Adsense on my videos.

That was the evening of January 26th of this year. What happened next kind of amazed me. By the end of the evening, I had made $5.23 and the next day, I made $8.29.

That’s when the lightbulb went on. I thought to myself – MAN, if I could get that to increase to $10/day, I could make a Whopping $300/month doing NOTHING. LETS DO THIS!

So I decided to get more into it and even put Adsense on my blog. Yes, I was going to let my baby be defiled with Ads. And you know what – I’m glad I did.

My earnings went from around $8-10 to $30+ almost immediately. WHAT? This is serious stuff. If I stick with this, I could potentially make $1,000/month doing nothing. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Fast forward a few months later, and in October (last month), Adsense was responsible for $2,563.90 of my income, as you can see in my October Transparency Report.

After seeing that, I decided that I need to do a detailed breakdown of my Adsense earnings from beginning to end, with instructions on how to get it all set up.

First Things First – Should you use Adsense?

Have you ever been to one of those blogs/websites where there are more Ads than content? What’s the first thing that comes to mind? For me, it’s – Oh, that person doesn’t care about content, just about making money. Forget this! And then I leave.

This was a concern that I had when thinking about putting ads on my blog initially. I didn’t want people to come to the site and be distracted by the ads. The most important thing is the content and that’s what I wanted them to focus on.

So I actually approached my audience on my Facebook page and asked them straight up. I told them that I was thinking about allowing ads on my blog so that I can make money to help grow the site and also make money for the effort that I was putting in.

I wanted to get their thoughts on that. I had heard of people starting to monetize their sites and getting terrible feedback from their audience, so I wanted to test the waters a little.

Well – the response was overwhelming – YES, PLEASE, Do it! We want you to make money because you are providing us with SO MUCH VALUE.

As you can imagine, that was all I needed to hear. So I dived right in.

This taught me a valuable lesson – one that I believe wholeheartedly today. If you are providing value, you should NEVER feel bad about monetizing the value you are putting out there.

That approach has allowed me to make a significant amount of money both on my Biology blog and here at Become A Blogger. As long was what you are doing is ethical and above board, there’s NO need to feel any kind of guilt.

Now with Adsense, there’s a glaring reality that the more traffic you have, the more money you will make. In fact, I’ve even heard some people say don’t use it unless you are getting 10,000 visitors per month.

Yes, if your traffic is Low, you won’t make any significant amount of money. So, at some point, you need to ask yourself – “If I’m putting a bunch of ads all over my blog and only making a few dollars a month, is it worth it?”. Ads ARE distracting, so in my opinion, it’s best to do it when your level of traffic makes it worth it.

The more your blog becomes established, the less people will mind ads, because they have come to trust you and your content.

Signing Up For Adsense

In order to sign up for Adsense, you will need to have:

1. A Google Account
2. A Website
3. A Postal address

Once you have those 3 things, you will need to apply for an account, and it will go through some sort of approval process. If it’s approved, they will send you an email and you can start creating ad campaigns to put on your site.

Click Here to go to the Signup Page

Creating Ads

Once your account is approved, you can then start creating ad units. You do that by clicking on the “My Ads” tab and then the “+New ad unit” button as shown below.

You can then go on to naming your ad, selecting a size, and deciding on how you want the ad to look.

You can even create campaigns to group your ads in any way you’d like to group them. I highly recommend for you to do this because it allows you to track your campaigns to see what’s performing well and what isn’t. This will come in handy later when you want to optimize your ad placement to make even more money.

The options are shown below.

Once your ad is created, it will give you an ad code, which will be some HTML code that you can ad to your site to automatically load ads.

It will look something like this:

You can now add that code to any part of your site and it will take care of the rest. You need to create an ad unit for every ad that you ad to your site. For example, if you are adding it to your sidebar, you will want one specifically for the sidebar with the correct dimensions so that it will fit right.

Adding Adsense to your Blog

There are two ways to add Adsense to your blog. You can do it the manual way (adding the code) or by using a plugin.

I’ve been using the manual way because I have my tech assistant do it, and she’s good at doing all kinds of code stuff. However, the plugin I recommend is called Google Adsense Plugin (go figure).

It’s a pretty simple plugin that allows you to adjust the look of the ad easily by just entering your published ID. You can get your publisher ID by looking at the top right in your Adsense account.

Now I must say that I’m not personally using the plugin, but according to the reviews, the plugin does a great job.

Adding Adsense to Youtube

Have you noticed that you are seeing MANY more ads on youtube recently? Yep, youtube is becoming more like regular TV when it comes to ads, and I think it’s a great thing. Why?

In the past, only the big dawgs were able to make money from video ads. You know – television stations, etc. Now, you and I can do it because Youtube has made it accessible to regular people. Back in the days, it was only available to youtube Partners, but now anyone can do it. It’s a change that I love.

To activate Ads on your Youtube account, you need to:

1. Log into your Youtube account
2. Go to your Youtube Account Settings
3. Click on Monetization
4. Click on “Monetize Videos”

It will then bring up a popup with the following options:

The Overlay in-video ads are those banner/text ads that you see at the bottom of your videos. The TrueView in-stream ads are those commercials that you see at the beginning of your videos.

If you are a Youtube partner, you are allowed to do Paid product placements, where a sponsor will pay you to promote their brand, product, service etc. For most people, this won’t apply.

A Word about Ad Placement

When I first started putting ads on my site, I had ads in 2 places:

A 728 x 15 (size) text ad beneath my navigation menu as shown below

And also a 300 x 250 ad in my sidebar as shown below

However, after speaking with Dan from Letters From Dan, a good friend who I met at Blogworld, he pointed out to me that you are allowed to have 3 Adsense units on your blog and recommended for me to ad one at the bottom of my page as shown here.

Needless to say, I’m happy I did, because that corresponded with the month that I made the most money from Adsense (last month).

Performance Analysis

I’d like for you to take a look at the following table:

As you can see, of the $2,563.87, $1,768.55 was made from Video alone. Then, text ads come in at second with $434.44, with the worse performing ad type being Flash and Animated images.

For those of you who are more visual, check out this graph.

As someone who loves video, this makes me VERY HAPPY. It makes me want to run out there and make a ton more videos.

Here’s the fact – the more videos you create, the more video views you can get. I’ve noticed this for traffic generation back to my site, and now I’m seeing that the same is true when it comes to monetization.

With Youtube being the #2 search engine in the world, it’s a great place to get your content out there, and also a great place to make money from your content.

Then, I’d like you to check out my Targeting results below

Pay attention to the first two: Contextual vs. Interest-based. This makes a bunch of sense to me. If someone comes to my blog to learn about biology, they are more likely to click on an ad that’s related to the content (contextual) than to an ad that’s based on another type of interest that’s unrelated.

However, interest-based ads still resulted in $969.33 in income. That’s definitely significant.

Lastly, lets look at the ad sizes on my blog

728×15 is the ads that are below the navigation menu, 300×250 are the ones in my sidebar, and 728×90 are the ones at the bottom of the page. In other words, the lower down you go, the less it appears to earn based on my October earnings.

My Take Home Lessons

• Make More Videos. This one is pretty obvious. If videos are performing that well, I might as well get more out there.
• Text ads outperform image ads. I don’t know if this is applicable across the board, but in my experience, text ads have been outperforming Image ads by almost a factor of 3. It makes me wonder if I should change my ads on my blog to all Text to see if that improves my earnings. I’m not going to make the change as yet, but it’s something I’ll be evaluating in the future.
• People are more likely to click on contextual ads than others. This shows me that relevancy is key, and helps me to recognize the importance of staying on topic, even when it comes to content generation.
• My most valuable real estate on my blog is above the fold – meaning that people don’t have to scroll down to get to it.
• It’s time to do some experimenting. I’ve known this for a while, but there are a number of ways to increase Adsense earnings. I will be looking into testing ad placements and making tweaks to see what performs best, to optimize my Adsense earnings in the future. Stay tuned for more on this.

Your Take

So, this was a pretty detailed report. My question for you is this: Have you tried ads on your site? If so, how have they performed.

I’d love to hear your experience in the comments below.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Since this blog is all about helping people start blogs that can change the world, and make some money, I decided that it was a good thing to do. You get to see EXACTLY what I’m doing – both my successes and failures, and you get to learn from them in a way that you can apply them to your blog and your online business.

And no, it’s not about some make money online blog that I started. It’s about my Biology Blog and Natural Hair Blog that I’m helping a friend to build.

Well, the response was overwhelming, and I’m not just saying that because it sounds cool. There are 66 comments on that blog post, with all positive things to say.

This is month #2, and I decided that I’ve been looking forward to doing this report, because it has been a very fascinating month, to say the least.

Why is it so fascinating Leslie? I’m glad you asked. That’s exactly what I’m going to answer in this post.

The Action Report

Interactive Biology

I’m so proud of the work I did in September on my Biology Blog. I was on a roll and made 25 videos. 25 VIDEOS! Can you imagine that? Impressive isn’t it.

Well, October . . . lets just say it didn’t go as well. My video-making high took a nose dive and I made 0 Videos. That’s not very impressive is it? Actually, I’m lying. I did make 1 video, but it wasn’t something I had to actually come up with content for.

As you may or may not know, I’m a University Professor who teaches Anatomy (among other things). Well, one day I walked into my class getting ready to do a lecture and my Anatomy students were humming a tune they made up to help them remember some of the concepts I taught them the class period before.

I was so excited about it that I pulled out my handy dandy iPhone, recorded it, and posted it to my blog.

Yeah, I know you wanna see it. So I’m including it right here for you to watch:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I know, I know – it’s not the kind of teaching you’d expect in a Doctoral Level Program, but hey – we learn a lot and have a ton of fun doing so

So that was the ONLY thing I posted for the entire month. What do you think the result of that was? You’d think that traffic and income went down. However, I’m here to report the opposite. Traffic and Income went up SIGNIFICANTLY. In fact, it was the best month ever. But wait . . . I’m getting ahead of myself there. We’ll get to that.

Cassandre Beccai

As you may or may not know, I decided to work on helping a friend get started with her Natural Hair Blog. I was so impressed by her passion for the topic and what she was already doing, that I decided to help her take her online presence to the next level.

You may also remember that one of the main strategies we decided to employ is getting her featured on other popular blogs in her niche. The idea is simple – instead of trying to build up all your traffic from scratch, one person at a time (which is not a terrible way to go), we wanted to get a jump start.

In last month’s report, I showed how she was able to get featured on 5 different blogs, which ended up sending a considerable amount of traffic to her relatively new blog.

This month however, she was only featured on one new blog, but it was one that goes beyond just Afro-textured hair and more into mainstream hair styles.

That guest post was entitled The Trendy Long Side Twist, and although it didn’t send a ton of traffic to her blog, it did get her noticed by seven-time Emmy Award winner and personal stylist to Oprah, Andre Walker, who tweeted about it saying loved what she did and that she was absolutely gorgeous. Click here to check out the twitter discussion.

In terms of the number of posts to her blog, she only was able to post 2 videos. As I mentioned in last month’s post, Cassandre ended up moving to the West Coast, so we weren’t able to continue making videos in my little studio, and we’re still working out some equipment issues (i.e. getting her good lighting), so her post count has been affected by that.

The Traffic Report

Interactive Biology

As I mentioned earlier on, this month was my absolute best month when it comes to traffic, which is exactly what I said last month. Last month, I had 35,389 unique visitors come to the blog. This month, that number increased to 50,619.

WOW! That’s a whole lot of people. Last month, I said that it looks like that number would continue to climb. I was right. Even though I probably spent an hour maximum working on the blog for the ENTIRE MONTH, my traffic is MUCH higher than ever.

Here’s a Screenshot of my Google Analytics Report

Man, it’s a beautiful thing!

What’s even more interesting is to look at the sources of my traffic. Check out the following figure:

As you can see, 55.77% of my traffic comes from the Search Engines. That’s the BIGGEST BULK of my traffic. Many bloggers and internet marketers have been complaining about the Google Panda and Penguin updates because of the reduction in traffic they have seen.

If you’ve listened to my podcast, you’d know that a big focus of mine is not building a blog “that will fall by the wayside when Google has a mood swing”. While others are fearing the Google Updates, I anticipate them. Why?

Because the Google Updates are meant to let quality content rise to the top and everyone else fall by the wayside.

So, my focus has been QUALITY CONTENT.

If you’re concerned about the Google Updates, you should be MORE concerned about the Quality of your Content. (Click here to Tweet That)

I do have one concern with this concept though. I never like to see one traffic source having so much influence on my overall traffic. What happens if something were to go wrong with Google (although, I doubt that is going to happen)? The great thing is that even if Google were to disappear, I would’ve still gotten 16,032 visits from referring sites and 12,836 Visits from people coming directly to the blog.

So, I wouldn’t be struggling with Google, but I do want to step up my game in terms of getting more sites to link to my blog (especially high-traffic sites) and in getting people to frequent my site more often. In my perfect world, it would be more of an equal distribution.

How do I plan on improving that? 2 things:

• Reaching out to other sites in my niche. This will increase my referral traffic.
• Posting more content regularly, so that people can come to expect new content on my blog, and start coming directly to the blog.

Sorry – got sidetracked there

Cassandre Beccai

The traffic to this blog was a little lower than last month, with 4,016 unique visitors as opposed to 4,516 in September. Also, if you look at the screenshot below, you will notice that the traffic started off higher at the beginning of the month, but then continued decreasing through the remainder of the month.

For a relatively new blog (4 months), I think the traffic stats look pretty great. Sure, it didn’t increase like Interactive Biology did. However, Interactive Biology is a very well-established blog that is now an authority blog in my niche. Google trusts my site and sends me a ton of traffic.

If you have a relatively new blog, you will need to prove yourself first, and that’s exactly what we plan to continue doing for Cassandre’s Blog.

One important thing to note is that although the Unique Visitors went down from 4,516 to 4,016, the number of visits increased from 5,968 to 6,551. What this mean is that the people who visited the site, revisited the site more often than in the previous month, which is always a good thing.

That’s a good indication that people are finding value in the site.

Now, when we look at the traffic sources, we something VERY interesting. Check it out:

Did you notice it? 55.7% of her traffic is coming from Referring sites. This is EXACTLY what you would expect if you’re doing your job the right way.

When your blog is relatively new, your focus should be to get others to refer traffic to you? How do you do that? Put great stuff out there and let people know about it. They will start linking to you and sending you traffic.

Then, as more and more people start linking to you because of your SUPER AWESOME CONTENT, Google will start paying more attention to you, and sending you much more traffic like they are doing with my Biology Blog.

The List Report

Interactive Biology

As of right now, my list is at 10,674 subscribers. Last month, I reported 10,406 subscribers. So my list has grown by 272 subscribers. I’ll be honest, I don’t like those numbers. For having over 50,000 people visiting my site, that number should be significantly higher.

However, I know the reason. My opt in form is not in a very obvious place. I removed the Popup domination plugin a while back when I changed the design of my site and my opt ins have decreased significantly. Since then, I planned on putting it back up, but just haven’t, since I’ve been pretty much dormant on my biology blog.

Well, that has just changed. While writing this post, I decided to add it back to my blog, and I will be reporting back on the results in next month’s report. As I mentioned in the last transparency report, when I first installed Popup Domination, it increased my opt ins by 568% overnight.

So I think we’ll have a very interesting Case Study on that soon. Stay tuned

Cassandre Beccai

Last month, I reported that we built her list to 272 . Well, I’m happy to say that her list has grown to 516 subscribers – an increase of 244 subscribers. I know what you’re thinking – that’s almost as many as my Interactive Biology Blog with its over 50,000 unique visitors.

Why in the world would that be?

Well, one thing for sure is that we’re using Popup Domination on her site. That automatically increases the percentage of people who will opt in to your site.

Secondly, I don’t know if you know anything about women’s hair care, but from the little I’ve seen, women REALLY get into their hair. I think it’s one of those niches where if you can really get into it, you can build an EXTREMELY passionate fan base, even more so than biology

All in all, I’m VERY pleased with how Cassandre’s list building efforts are going.

The Income Report

Interactive Biology

This is the most exciting part for me right now. Why? Because it’s great to see that it’s VERY possible to make money online without having to constantly work. It’s great to get paid over and over for work you already did in the past. It’s as close to passive income as I’ve ever experienced.

Like Pat Flynn says, “it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later”. Well – it really works. Last month, I made $1,723.23 in Adsense and $279.60 from my Study guide, for a total of $2,002.83. I was pretty happy about that.

Well, this month ended up laughing at last month, with a whopping $2,563.90 in Adsense and $594.15 from the study for a Grand Total of $3,158.05. Yes, that’s a 58% increase in income from one month to the next. Am I excited? YOU BET I AM!

Now, make no mistake – I worked like CRAZY to build the blog to where it is now. I don’t want you to get confused and think – Oh ok, I can put a blog up, do a little work and then sit back relax and rake in the dough. It DOES take hard work. But unlike your job (or my job), if you do it smart, you CAN continue to get paid from the work you did last year

Ok, I need to break this down even further, especially when it comes to Adsense. If you were to ask me last year what I think about Adsense, I would’ve told you to stay away. However, I’m pretty much in love with Adsense now.

What is interesting is to look at How I’m making my money with Adsense. Of the $2,563.87, here is the distribution among the Ad Types:

• Video - $1,768.55
• Text - $434.44
• Image - $145.03
• Rich Media - $118.67
• Flash - $65.95
• Animated Image - $31.24

Take Home Message: VIDEO IS POWERFUL AND YOUTUBE IS AWESOME!

Seriously, if you’re into online video, you have to be on youtube. Ok, you don’t have to, but they are making it very attractive for content producers on Youtube. Trust me on that one.

Side note: Analysing my Adsense stats this month has shown me A LOT in terms of what works well for Adsense and what doesn’t work as well – so much that I’m going to be doing a more detailed breakdown of my Adsense Report soon. I’ve learnt so many valuable lessons from it that I just HAVE TO share with you. I think I’ll post that article next week.

Cassandre Beccai

As I mentioned in last month’s report, we haven’t started monetizing Cassandre’s Blog as yet. We want to get it more established first and then we will add a monetization component. The plan is to create digital products and sell them from the blog. Stay tuned for more about this.

Interesting Opportunity

Speaking about video, I was approached by one of the Communications Managers from Youtube’s Education team who informed me that they reviewed my videos and found that they were strong enough to add to their new Youtube EDU Collection of videos. If you haven’t heard of Youtube EDU, it’s youtube new attempt to bring together educators and learners to build a Global Video Classroom.

So they are taking a select number of education video producers and trying to help them build their education channels to reach a wider audience. In her own words – “We look forward to watching your channel grow, and working with you in future programs”.

Initially, I thought it was just some automated email that I received. However, when I replied to the email, I was responded to within minutes by the same individual. I can see that they are really trying to support us Education Video Producers.

As you can imagine, after getting that email, I had to do a little Leslie dance in my mind. Yes, I’m excited, but I always seem to be excited these days.

I’m looking forward to being involved in this effort, and can’t wait to see the results of this new collaboration.

Key Performance Indicators

When I posted my last Monthly Transparency Report, I got an interesting comment from Debbie Burgermeister which went like this:

Great work Leslie,  it is a long detailed report which is nice. I suppose what I would be looking for as a business analyst is something like a KPI scorecard report all on the one table.

I was not sure what she meant, so I asked her to clarify. The result was a great suggestion, which I decided to implement from now on. In each of my Monthly transparency reports, I will be showing you tables that highlight the key aspects of my business so that you can easily glance at the table and get a good idea of where I am and how we’re progressing.

Thank you for the suggestion Debbie, and here are my tables . . .

Interactive Biology

Cassandre Beccai

KPI Instructions:

• You can click on the months in the table to go directly to the detailed transparency report for that month.
• As I update these on a monthly basis, they will automatically update in each of the reports so that you can easily navigate through the reports.
• If you’d like to sort the table by “Total Income” for example, you can click on the title of that column, and it will automatically sort it for you (this will come in handy in the future)

Plans For November

Ok, lets be real (not like I’m not always real). This month is a HUGE month for me. My wife and I are expecting our first child – little Noah. My life is about to get pretty interesting. To add to that, I’m coming down to the end of my teaching semester, and final exams are right around the corner.

Not only that – I’m also working on a FREE Video Training Series on Setting up your email Marketing Campaign. In fact, I recorded the first 4 of 10 videos this weekend (p.s. it’s Gonna Be AWESOME).

That being said – I predict that November will be another month of Inaction when it comes to Interactive Biology. I just don’t have the time to do anything with it this month. So, it’s going to be interesting to see what will happen with my traffic during the month of November.

One thing’s for sure – I will be sharing it with you. That’s what I do, and that’s how we both learn

My Concerns

Things are going great, but I’m interested to see how my traffic goes during the month of December. The reality is that MOST people come to my site because they have a specific pain point – they are trying to pass their classes.

That being said, my traffic goes down significantly during extended vacations, like Christmas, Spring and Summer breaks. It will be interesting to see how this affects my traffic during the Christmas season, now that my blog is pretty well established. I guess time will tell.

Your Comments

So how do you think I’m doing? What would you like to see me do better? I’d love to hear your feedback. Let me know in the comments below

Lastly, from the bottom of my heart – THANK YOU so much for all you do. You have no idea how much it means to me that you are reading this post right now, and that you are a part of this Become A Blogger community. You inspire me to keep going, because I believe that by doing what I’m doing, I can inspire you to create content that will inspire others, and that will result in positive change in this world we live in.

So THANK YOU!

But WAIT, There’s More

Ok, this has nothing to do with the post, but I wanted to let you know that my wife and I are expecting our first child in 3 weeks. You probably already know that because of how excited I’ve been.

In celebration of little Noah’s arrival, I’m doing a VERY SPECIAL promo where you can get 50% off all of my premium courses. If you’re interested in taking advantage of that special offer, check out my announcement post.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

What is it?

Watch the video below and Find out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, if you are interested in claiming your 50% discount, use the coupon code Noah when checking out.

Here are direct links to all of our courses:

• Become A Blogger Premium - My Premium Blogging course. More info
• Become A Blogger Premium Plus - My Premium Blogging Course, PLUS all the other simplified courses below.
• List Building Simplified - My Course On Building A Profitable Mailing List. More info
• Affiliate Marketing Simplified - Strategies For Making Money With Affiliate Marketing. More info
• Product Creation Simplified - How To Create Products To Make Money From Your Blog. More info
• Product Launch Simplified - How To Actually Get Your Products Out there. More info
• Outsourcing Simplified - How to outsource for your blog effectively and affordably. More info
• The Complete Simplified Course Package - All of the simplified courses listed above.

Who:

I’ve been blogging since September of 2008, which is a little over four years now. For most of that journey, it has been me, in my office (or any other part of the house – or world). It’s one of the things I REALLY love about blogging.

Then, something happened – I attended a live event. I was able to connect with people on a whole different level. It was where online and offline came together and had beautiful offspring

Well, in June of this year, I had the opportunity to attend Blog World and New Media Expo in New York city, and also take part in a panel discussion on how to Podcast your way to your Dream Job. Ahh mannn, it was sooo awesome.

Why? There are So many reasons. However, the BEST part was that I was able to meet some AWESOME like-minded individuals – People I had known from online, AND new friends who I know now.

Honestly, when I think about Blogworld, as awesome as the event was, I think mostly about individuals like Chris Deals from Day Job Knockout, Crystal Collins from The Thrifty Mama, Dan Morris from Letters From Dan.

I think about our trip into town looking for a place to hang out. I think about an weird and TWISTED moment we had going to a certain place that will remained nameless and hopefully never see the light of day again, lol (inside joke).

I think of the fact that I believe that I’ve gotten lifelong friends who I’ve been able to make REALLY deep connections with that would’ve NEVER happened if I didn’t get out of the internet box and ventured out into new territories.

These are a fraction of all the memories, and awesome people I’ve been able to connect with. Why? Because Rick Calvert and his team decided to put this great even together.

So, I decided to grab Rick on the line to talk about the history of Blog World and New Media Expo, where it is now and where it’s heading in the future.

In this interview, Rick talks about:

• Where he was before starting Blog World and New Media Expo
• Why he decided to start the conference
• How they managed to get 1,600 attendees to the first conference
• How they got Mark Cuban to speak at their very first event
• What’s the best part about coming to New Media Expo
• How they choose their speakers
• Advice for New Bloggers
• What to expect from New Media Expo in the future

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

Who:

Ok, I need to let you know how this happened. The truth is that I don’t know where I found out about Natalie, a.k.a. the “Mogul Mom”, but somehow I stumbled onto one of her videos.

When I saw the video, I said to myself – man, I need to check this girl out a little more.

Why? Because she seemed SO genuine. So, I followed the trail, checked her out in a number of places and was SO IMPRESSED with who she is and what she has been able to accomplish, while being a wife, mom, model, blogger AND entrepreneur.

And you guys thought I was crazy (in a good way of course)? This girl takes things to the next level!

In fact, after working online for ONLY 3 MONTHS, she ended up quitting her job so that she could be at home taking care of her daughter – I love it!

Ok, I know I know. You’re probably wondering what the video I saw was about, and how it lead me down this trail of getting her on the show. To satisfy your curiosity, here it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How can you NOT be instantly captivated? I know I was.

So, I connected with her and grabbed her on this interview, and she overdelivered (as my guests normally do).

Natalie is known for helping people use social media to get themselves and their ideas out there and in front of the world. Here are some of the things Natalie Covers in this interview:

• What the term Mogul Mom means
• How she got into social media/blogging
• How to use Social Media (especially Facebook) to grow your blog
• “My Story” marketing and how that can help maximize your success
• How to not Waste Time on social media
• Answers to questions from the community
• She even offers me a little bit of parenting advice, which my ears are ALWAYS open for

All in all, there was a TON of value offered in this interview. My recommendation – Sit back, relax, grab a cup of tea (or whatever else you drink when you’re relaxing) and listen in, undisturbed.

Then, once you’re finished, make sure to leave me a comment below with your thoughts

That’s all for now, until next time – Take Care and God Bless

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transcript of This Video

Some people like to be able to read a transcript while watching the videos, or just read the transcript without even listening. If you are one of those people, not to worry – We’ve made the transcript available for you below.

• How she started a website in High School that got 50,000 visitors per month and made $1,000 per month.
• How she learned the importance of a subscriber list
• What her Absolute BEST strategy is for driving HIGH QUALITY, targeted traffic to her blog is
• The importance of Epic Content
• How to Promote your content once you’ve created it
• How to start a Blogging alliance that will promote your content for you
• Why she doesn’t pay attention to Google anymore

I need to find a better way of dealing with all the emails, comments, engagement and overall GREAT stuff that’s happening at Become A Blogger. The only downside is that it’s taking SO MUCH TIME. Any suggestions? Should I just stop communicating with people? (JK on that last part. all the rest were serious questions).

• Start sharing some of that responsibility with your Virtual Assistants
• Don’t respond to every single message, only the ones that need a response
• Only respond to comments left within the first 2 hours
• People realize you are human, allow yourself honest limits. It’s obvious you try to help people.
• Start charging everyone

Ok Leslie, what are you changing?

Our Relationship

The Community Relationship

Your Support

But Leslie, What If I Want More?

What I’m Hoping Will Be The Results

1. I hope to have more time to work on producing HIGH QUALITY content to help you build your blog. That is – create content that will inspire others, resulting in positive change in this world.
2. I hope to increase the quality of our interactions by focusing our interactions on two platforms – the blog and on Facebook. By not trying to be EVERYWHERE, I can focus my energy on being a few places in a better way
3. I hope to increase the sense of community at Become A Blogger. It’s great that I get to know you, even personally. However, I believe that if you all can connect with each other and support each other through this journey, it will be even more powerful.

7 Steps To Achieving Maximum Success

• Step 1: Pres Play
• Step 2: IMMEDIATELY change the view to FULL SCREEN
• Step 3: Turn up The Volume to a Good Level (but one that won’t disturb your neighbors)
• Step 4: Nod your head to the beat
• Step 5: Smile (this should happen naturally, but I included it just in case)
• Step 6: Leave a Comment letting me know what you felt
• Step 7: Share this with someone else who needs to feel that same thing

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• What is a Squeeze Page
• What kinds of things can you give away to get people to Sign Up for your list
• Why You Should Create A Squeeze Page (or two, or three . . .)
• What You Will Need To Create Your Squeeze Page
• The 3 Elements Of An Effective Squeeze Page

About OptimizePress

Action Steps

Project #1 – Interactive Biology: Making Biology Fun

If you’re new to my blog, you may not know that on of my Main blogs is my Interactive Biology Blog. This is a blog that I built around my passion – Biology. Do I sound like a nerd? Yes? Why thank you

Project #2 – Cassandre Beccai: Afro Textured Hair Junkie

• I knew that women are CRAZY about their hair (not gonna say much about this because I don’t want to get into too much trouble).
• I saw that she was VERY PASSIONATE about what she was doing.
• I saw that she had accomplished AMAZING results with her hair
• I saw that she had been working HARD at building her online brand, but had been doing it in the wrong way so wasn’t accomplishing much online.

The Action Report

Interactive Biology

1. I know that by making more videos, I would increase the amount of traffic I was receiving. One of the main reasons people come to my blog is for the videos. So, I wanted to give them more of what they want.
2. I’m teaching Human Anatomy for the first time, and I wanted to produce a series of videos to help my students prepare for their exams.

Cassandre Beccai

• High, Chic Bun on Natural Hair
• Cassandre // 4B Natural Hair Style Icon
• Elegant Marley UpDo Hair Tutorial (Great for Shorter Length Naturals!)
• Amla Infused Almond Cocoa Oil Treatment

The Traffic Report

Interactive Biology

Cassandre Beccai

The List Report

Interactive Biology

Cassandre Beccai

The Income Report

Interactive Biology

• Adsense: $1,723.23
• Study Guide: $279.60
• Total: $2,002.83

Cassandre Beccai

October Goals

Interactive Biology

Cassandre Beccai

Feedback

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