So, this is the first time I’ve actually seen some of my gurus recommending a product that is specific to blogging and it arrived just as I was wondering what other strategies I could use to monetise my blog.
As some of you will know, I have started looking into being an affiliate for several products that are close to my heart and I talk about the subject matter passionately and with some background experience and knowledge.
A lot of affiliates, however, have clearly never read – and have no knowledge of – what it is that they are trying to flog you. They send you a link to a sales letter that, besides being full of grammatical inaccuracies and spelling mistakes, is one long mass of hype, designed to try to get you hysterically keen to buy. The writers use all sorts of auto-suggestion to try to persuade you to part with your cash.
And they also provide their affiliates with lots of selling tools in a similar vein.
However, I’m just not one of those ‘followers’. If I see a sales letter that is full of typos and am given a series of pre-written emails and reviews to use, I turn up my nose. I’m a writer ffs! And I’d like to think that I can do a better job of writing a review. So, I won’t insult you by posting all the guff that was given to me to persuade you to buy.
What I will do is tell you that I have bought and read Blogging To The Bank 2010 and begun implementing some of Rob’s advice on my main blog because, based on what I have learned at other internet marketing seminars, I believe it is a great way to get started in an area about which we all do actually know something. To us, blogging is not an unknown product or subject and the information here will help us all to learn what keywords to use to encourage the various spiders and bots to pick us up and drive traffic to our pages.
I have also joined his monthly on-line coaching scheme, which means that I will be receiving regular hands-on instruction via videos. This method of learning can be invaluable as to actually see someone doing something rather than trying to interpret from their written words – especially if they are a Geek, not a writer – can make a huge difference.
Back in 2005, Rob Benwell had dropped out of college and was trying to implement all the techniques that all the gurus recommend, but he just wasn’t getting anywhere, other than more deeply into debt. So he tore up the rule book and began working with his own ideas. Before long, he was making more and more money using simple blogs, reaching the magic £1 million before he was 24.
In 2006, Rob wrote about the best ways to make a fortune using blogging and he updated his information a year later. Both versions have been read by over 50,000 people. Some of the strategies in the second book were viewed as ‘black hat’ techniques and at least one of my gurus was not terribly impressed by the departure into this territory.
However, as with all things, the passage of time means that strategies become over-used or just out of date so, in 2010, Rob has another book out with all the latest information and has returned to the straight and narrow, which is why my mentors are recommending him.
The new book is full of the most up-to-date techniques that work online right now, with everything explained in plain English, rather than the Geek which is such a problem for beginners.
To put into practice the strategies expounded in the book, you are also encouraged to set up a domain with hosting.
Here’s the blog that has been set up for me. What will happen is that every month, Rob’s students will have access to the top ten hottest keywords and affiliate programmes. There is an option here to opt-in to another monthly programme, but I’m not jumping in straightaway. I want to wait until I have the knowledge to be able to use this information first. You can end up being completely overwelmed if you take on too much too soon.
The idea is that you select a niche that you think appeals most to you and try to work on the ‘short term blog’ using all the techniques that are recommended in the book. Plus, if you’ve joined the online coaching programme, Rob will be sending you more hands-on guidance via the monthly videos, so you can look over his shoulder and see how to make money from that blog.
Blogging To The Bank 2010 teaches you Rob’s new step-by-step blueprint to creating highly profitable long term niche blogs using the newest optimization techniques. The first few chapters cover keywords and searching for your niche and there’s also a section on advanced Search Engine Optimisation, which is explained in simple language that even I can understand
There are a few things that I would not yet be happy to apply to my main ‘long term blog’ because the effects of some of the strategies upon the set-up of a blog with a lot of posts on it is uncertain but, if you put everything into practice on the much smaller new blog that you have set up for this purpose, it gives you the opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t.
The reasons I chose to sign up to this project are that it is not over-priced and there is a 60 day money back guarantee on both the book and the coaching course so there is a lot of protection. I bought my domain and paid for six months of hosting in advance so, if I don’t like it in that time, then I can choose not to renew.
TWO IMPORTANT POINTS:
1. When signing up for something like the monthly training course, where a payment will be made every month, DO NOT USE YOUR CREDIT CARD. It can be incredibly difficult to cancel as you have to contact the seller to get him to stop the direct debits. As I understand it, it is far safer to use PayPal for this type of expenditure as you can just cancel the payments yourself at any time.
2. With most affiliate products, do not buy straightaway. Click on the X as if you are about to leave. Invariably, a little lady will appear in a box offering you the product at a discount.
Blogging To The Bank 2010 looks like the ideal guide to making money on line through blogging, a subject which is close to all our hearts.
If you do decide to join up, please send me an email to let me know as it would be great to start up some kind of group forum for the exchange of ideas and information, as well as to help each other if we are uncertain or confused by some of the ideas.
Yes, I will get a small commission if you use the link below to buy this product, but I’d like to think that you would rather I got it for reviewing the product fairly without hype, than someone else who followed the affiliate code. My thanks in advance.
Affiliate links and codes are explained quite early on in the book so, hopefully, you will soon have your own products out there and be reviewing them through your new blog.
Click Here for more information about this system.
Very informative, Joanna. I will look at this more closely.
Well, your description of it is right on the money.
Dang! Even had a double “stopper” at the end to attempt to veer me back into the offer.
Having actually bought e-mail stamps, though, means I’m overly skeptical until I check out other sources who are more acquainted wit the program.
But, it certainly looks nicely set up. Organized…
That’s very interesting stuff. I always assume most of these “Make Money with your Blog” things are bogus, but it sounds like this might be legit.
Way to go — I hope it pays dividends nd then some baby!!!
It always makes me a little sad when blogs start pushing these “get rich quick” schemes. Cynical me also has to ask was the post all your own work or a copy and paste from a sales pitch?
Slaps K with a wet kipper!
If you read the post, you’ll note that I told you I’d been sent blurb which I refused to use. I gave you the background behind the author and then my review of the product, as well as a link to the blogsite that I have bought and paid for and will be using to implement the strategies that I am being taught as part of the training course – so that you can watch my progress.
I put this up because several people have asked me recently about the internet marketing strategies that I am using and how they can make money from their blog. Because this is the first product that any of my mentors has actually recommended which related to making money through blogging, I have bought it myself and read it.
Having been on a fair number of marketing seminars and read a lot of stuff on the subject now, the first part of the book gets the reader up to speed on everything that it cost a lot of money for me to learn at those seminars…. all for about £21.
As I said upfront in the post, I make a commission on that sum. However, if you are not happy with the product, there is a 60 day money back guarantee.
I explained how to get the product at its cheapest option and also the safest way to purchase.
I would never put my name to something that I wouldn’t actually spend my money on and I don’t invest in strategies where they have not put a satisfaction guarantee on the product, for the obvious reasons.
Idea so briliant msjoana
oops, sorry if I touched a nerve.
I did read the post. I think that by the time I got to the end, I’d forgotten what you said at the outset. However, it was probably the slick delivery (you are a good writer after all) that made me think it was a pre written piece.
I’m not comfortable with the whole affiliate thing. As someone who tries to earn a living using my hard earned skills, getting work almost exclusively by recommendation from previous clients (I don’t even have an ad in yellow pages), I can’t easily relate to all this endless product promotion.
All that said, I shan’t stop coming here cos I really enjoy your writing. And if it helps, I might even click the occasional link.
K, I was a little miffed because I worked very hard to give a fair and honest review in my own words… partly because so much of the affiliate stuff I get on these things is so dire, but also because it just doesn’t sit right with me to plug something that I wouldn’t use myself.
There are so many people out there recommending stuff that they clearly haven’t actually got a clue about so, when I decided which niches I was going to work with, they were all things that I had problems with myself and which I had been researching for some time, giving a modicum of knowledge about the subject.
I think you have to accept that ‘marketing’ is with us now and guys like you can still work by recommendation but augment it by putting your presence ‘out there’ for other people to find when they need your service and search google for it x