using a blog to make enough to move out of parents house?

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Lol. The reason I was "busted" by the mods is because I posted a couple links that teach SEO. This was because I saw a lot of questions regarding the subject, so I thought it would make things easier. Seeker5 didn't agree, and we talked it over using PM. Obviously it's not a huge deal, or else I'd be banned. You think I was spamming affiliate links or something? Lol.

I think it's a pattern. Busted by the mods for spam, advocating making hundreds of spammy blogs as a money making technique, pretending to know how to make money at blogging when you actually haven't made any.

It all adds up to

[James81]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

I never said I'm not successful. I consider myself extremely successful for where I'm at in life. Yeah, I've only made $7 blogging. But I started LAST MONTH, and you need AGE to get authority with your domains. You can't just start a blog today and tomorrow have it making 3k a month. That doesn't mean you've FAILED though. How can I give advice? Because I've gotten blogs from non-indexed to on the front page for certain terms. If I can do that, I can do it for any term given enough time. SEO is all the same. If you can do it for one term, you can do it for any. The time and amount of effort required is the variable factor.

As far as the $5000 for domain names, you don't need to run your blog from a purchased domain name. Yes, it's easier, but you can also use free blogs. Many people do that, and I can show you a blogger blog that makes 9k a month. Man, seriously. If you don't think I'm "qualified" to give advice, then by all means, don't listen to me. I don't care if YOU think it's possible for ME to make money blogging.

Calm down, chief.

I'm just saying that you should get a little more experience under your belt before you start touting how easy it is to make money blogging. Especially with the form of blogging you are touting.

Personally, I think it's a damn shame that people write blog posts for a machine before they'll write one for people (which is exactly what you just described yourself doing). And I think what you are doing adds up to SPAM and puts a bunch of crap out there, but that's just my opinion.

In any case, what I said earlier stands: it takes a lot of work and time to build your blog up to any real monetary success.

[mikethedrummer44]

Yuck. I appreciate the work that went to obtaining that picture though.

Actually, if you read anything I said, you'd know that I don't advocate making spammy blogs. If you write spam content, you get google slapped.

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Yuck. I appreciate the work that went to obtaining that picture though.

Actually, if you read anything I said, you'd know that I don't advocate making spammy blogs. If you write spam content, you get google slapped.

Anything site you're doing 20 a week of is spam. It's hard enough to generate useful content for one site in 20 weeks.

[mikethedrummer44]

Originally Posted by James81

Calm down, chief.

I'm just saying that you should get a little more experience under your belt before you start touting how easy it is to make money blogging. Especially with the form of blogging you are touting.

Personally, I think it's a damn shame that people write blog posts for a machine before they'll write one for people (which is exactly what you just described yourself doing). And I think what you are doing adds up to SPAM and puts a bunch of crap out there, but that's just my opinion.

In any case, what I said earlier stands: it takes a lot of work and time to build your blog up to any real monetary success.

Well yes, it's true you write keyword targeted posts. Note: This does not mean SPAM. This means posts that actually contain valid information about a targeted keyword. In other words, if someone was searching for your keyword and they found your post, they would get all the information they need.

What's the shame, though? I mean, why is it necessarily wrong to write for google? If you're writing for readers, then I agree with Big D. There's a slim chance of creating the type of blog Steve has.

Is there a certain etiquette that comes with blogging? For some reason, it's really striking me as odd that you guys are so concerned with the spam thing. I guess maybe it's meant to be an insult, and it is. I spend a lot of time researching my articles, and I'm shocked how much I've learned just from writing them. I think you need to look at this from a business angle. I know blogs aren't usually the first thought when you think of an online business, but there's plenty of money to be made.

[mikethedrummer44]

Originally Posted by The Big D

Anything site you're doing 20 a week of is spam. It's hard enough to generate useful content for one site in 20 weeks.

That's quite the generalization. Just because it takes that long for you it should take that long for anyone?

You don't think that if you literally sat down for 10 hours a day, and worked on generating content for 20 blogs you couldn't do it?

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

That's quite the generalization. Just because it takes that long for you it should take that long for anyone?

You don't think that if you literally sat down for 10 hours a day, and worked on generating content for 20 blogs you couldn't do it?

It's not a matter of me being able to do it - no one could. It's a matter of the amount of work involved. A blog, at least one of value, usually has content on the order of a small (say, 100 page) book. Some have much more than that, but very few have less and are still valuable.

Now, if someone came to you and told you they could write AND edit 20 100 page books a week, would you believe them? Of course not. It's absurd. Doing one in a week would be on the edge of absurdity. If someone told you they were going to write and edit one 100 page book in 10 weeks, that would be more believable even mixed in with other activities.

What you're trying to peddle here just makes no sense. Any website you can make 20 of in a week is next to useless.

[mikethedrummer44]

Lol. I'm not trying to peddle anything. What's the big deal, man? I can understand you have a problem with the ignorance involved with me not making any money, but this has gone on for virtually two pages.

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

What's the shame, though? I mean, why is it necessarily wrong to write for google? If you're writing for readers, then I agree with Big D. There's a slim chance of creating the type of blog Steve has.

Well, at least we've gotten to the bottom of it. You're a keyword spammer.

You're going to find something out eventually - keyword spammers don't get to participate in the exponential/viral growth that drives the few blogs that do succeed. When actual people get to your site and realize it's written for the google bot, not them, the chances that they link it or recommend it to their friends or sign up for your newsletter or follow your RSS feed or whatever are pretty much zero. That means no growth from positive referrals, and that means that the only way to grow your traffic and income is to repeat the same spammy stuff over again for different keywords and gain another trickle of traffic. So if you work REALLY hard next month, you'll get your income up to $14. Wow.

What you've laid out here is an incredibly time consuming and difficult path to failure.

[joyfulgrowth]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

What's the shame, though? I mean, why is it necessarily wrong to write for google? If you're writing for readers, then I agree with Big D. There's a slim chance of creating the type of blog Steve has.

I guess the initial concern about your statement wasn't a moral one - everybody can choose the business model that suits him - but that it could be easily taken as you refering to the type of blog Steve has, since that probably is what most readers here have in mind.

And for hundreds of people here who dream of getting rich fast while just writing some texts about how they see life, "It's still easy (well, not easy) to make a blog that generates enough money for you to do whatever you want." can sound a little bit too promising, even if not meant by you that way.

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Lol. I'm not trying to peddle anything. What's the big deal, man? I can understand you have a problem with the ignorance involved with me not making any money, but this has gone on for virtually two pages.

Maybe it has been a waste of time. The one bit of value I can see is that you may be able to serve as an example of how not to blog for money. As a result, someone may learn something. That someone might even be you. I learned something about how the keyword spammer thinks - something I didn't understand up until this thread.

[mikethedrummer44]

Originally Posted by The Big D

Well, at least we've gotten to the bottom of it. You're a keyword spammer.

You're going to find something out eventually - keyword spammers don't get to participate in the exponential/viral growth that drives the few blogs that do succeed. When actual people get to your site and realize it's written for the google bot, not them, the chances that they link it or recommend it to their friends or sign up for your newsletter or follow your RSS feed or whatever are pretty much zero. That means no growth from positive referrals, and that means that the only way to grow your traffic and income is to repeat the same spammy stuff over again for different keywords and gain another trickle of traffic. So if you work REALLY hard next month, you'll get your income up to $14. Wow.

What you've laid out here is an incredibly time consuming and difficult path to failure.

You're right! I guess I am a spammer after all! I thought you knew about SEO? I don't care if I get readers, I don't care if people follow my RSS feed. I won't make a newsletter, so I don't care about that either. All I really care about is monetizing my blogs. If my readers find what they're looking for, great, if they don't, but they click an ad, much better.

If my income doubles every month, it's only going to be less than a year before I'm making thousands every month. I'm totally down for working my ass off to get that kind of money. I already know how to get my pages to the front page of google.

Call me a spammer if you like. I see an opportunity to make a lot of money, and i'm going to take it. Really, if you look at all the shady methods for making money, putting relevant content onto blogs with ads on them isn't so bad, is it?

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

You're right! I guess I am a spammer after all! I thought you knew about SEO? I don't care if I get readers, I don't care if people follow my RSS feed. I won't make a newsletter, so I don't care about that either. All I really care about is monetizing my blogs. If my readers find what they're looking for, great, if they don't, but they click an ad, much better.

If my income doubles every month, it's only going to be less than a year before I'm making thousands every month. I'm totally down for working my ass off to get that kind of money. I already know how to get my pages to the front page of google.

Call me a spammer if you like. I see an opportunity to make a lot of money, and i'm going to take it. Really, if you look at all the shady methods for making money, putting relevant content onto blogs with ads on them isn't so bad, is it?

I know about SEO from the perspective of connecting genuinely interested searchers with valuable content. What you're describing, well, if SEO was a house what you're doing would be the sewer line running out of it.

The point is, your income won't double every month. There is no "lot" of money where you're going. If you really work your ass off, it will grow linearly in $7 chunks. Exponential growth requires the respect and help of your readers, and because of your attitude and methods you won't get to participate in that.

[mikethedrummer44]

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. You can really compare it to a house and sewer line? It's not really that broad of a topic.

Yes. There is money in what I'm doing. I've made $7, and I and that's solely from people clicking my ads from article submission links. I get about 50 cents per click. When I get several blogs to the top of google for terms that get searched 3,000+ times a month, don't you think a fraction of those visitors will click ads? Of course they will. If I can get 100 blogs into that same position, do you think I'll make money? Of course I will.

[James81]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Is there a certain etiquette that comes with blogging? For some reason, it's really striking me as odd that you guys are so concerned with the spam thing. I guess maybe it's meant to be an insult, and it is. I spend a lot of time researching my articles, and I'm shocked how much I've learned just from writing them. I think you need to look at this from a business angle. I know blogs aren't usually the first thought when you think of an online business, but there's plenty of money to be made.

Well, to be fair, I shouldn't be judging your blogs without having read one. So if you are up to it, I'd love to look at one of your blogs.

And no, I'm not trying to insult you.

I'm just saying:

1. You really are in no place to tell people what makes a successful blog without having been there yourself. However, this does not immediately disqualify you from giving your opinions, and it doesn't mean you can't offer advice on things you've done that seem to be working. But labeling something "successful" without having been successful is just keyboard jockeying.

2. I'm a pretty intensive writer. I've been writing ever since I could pick up a pencil, so I have a pretty good hold on writing and what it takes to write something quality. To me, maintaining 20 blogs at a time while also posting quality content sounds like a pipe dream. On my most productive day, I managed to write over 8000 words once. That took me pretty much all day JUST TO WRITE it. Editting it (which came later because it was a novel) was something that took even longer. Now, I'm sorry, but you can't write an in depth article on a particular subject in under 1000 words. I know most bloggers think that writing 500-700 words is quality, but it's not. Most of my posts on my blog don't even get started until I hit about 500 words and I rarely land a post under a 1000 words. Most of the time, for me to write something of true value, it usually falls in the 1500 to 2000 word range. So, at 8000 words divided by 1000 word blog posts, that's posting only to 8 blogs per day.

Sorry man, but I just ain't buying it.

[mikethedrummer44]

Originally Posted by James81

Sorry man, but I just ain't buying it.

That's fine with me. Also, it's somewhat of an unwritten law in the internet marketing group to not give your niche's away. Besides that, I don't really care anymore if anyone thinks my methods for blogging online are "respectable."

[James81]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

That's fine with me. Also, it's somewhat of an unwritten law in the internet marketing group to not give your niche's away. Besides that, I don't really care anymore if anyone thinks my methods for blogging online are "respectable."

Ha ha, well you don't really have to worry about *me* stealing your niches. My own website keeps me busy enough.

[mikethedrummer44]

Just a precaution. A lot of people have trouble finding niches, so if I was to post one of mine on this thread, they might jump at the chance of competing with me. :P

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by The Big D

I think trying to get a profitable blog is about a 1 in 1000 shot at this point IF you do everything right. If you do anything wrong, it's a 0 in 1000 shot.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but that's how I see it. The boat sailed two years ago.

If you follow Steve's advice "create and deliver true value to people", and combine that with Eben Pagan's advice "give 1,000,000 people something that's worth $100 dollars, then ask for $10 in return", you're bound to be successful.

Saying that giving away high value isn't going to be successful, is like saying you won't get customers at a store that gives away free money. Only in the case of a blog, giving away value costs you nothing but your energy and $6 a month in hosting

[James81]

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Just a precaution. A lot of people have trouble finding niches, so if I was to post one of mine on this thread, they might jump at the chance of competing with me. :P

The thing I don't understand about this is that you assume that by posting it on a message board is more likely to get "stolen" as a niche than anybody who might stumble across it in google.

I mean, I can understand the need to not give away a certain affiliate product that is bringing you success or a bunch of people would latch onto it, but what is the difference between someone seeing your link here as opposed to on google?

[mikethedrummer44]

Yup. Most likely the people that are searching for my niches don't have a clue about internet marketing. Lol.

[The Big D]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

If you follow Steve's advice "create and deliver true value to people", and combine that with Eben Pagan's advice "give 1,000,000 people something that's worth $100 dollars, then ask for $10 in return", you're bound to be successful.

Reaching those 1,000,000 people is MUCH harder now than it was in 2007. Blogs are old news, so people with an interest in X are no longer looking for blogs about X. They've found nine already. Thanks to the keyword spammers, google has had to change their policies in ways that make it harder for new legitimate sites to get much traffic. People are suffering RSS overload and cutting back their feeds rather than adding every new thing that they see. I could go on, but the trend should be obvious.

The barriers to getting to 1,000,000 eyeballs, no matter how incredible your content, are now much higher. I think the relative dearth of blogs high in the Alexa ranks shows that it's a seriously uphill battle. As far as I can tell, if you want a ticket to the top do something that combines porn videos and social media. Then you're in

[Incognitus]

so its been a few months.

how much have your blogs grown, mikethedrummer?

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by The Big D

The barriers to getting to 1,000,000 eyeballs, no matter how incredible your content, are now much higher.

Very unclear use of the word "blog." Most people fill blogs with content that isn't evergreen, hence why they lack google juice.

The barriers to getting in front of 1,000,000 are the same as they have always been. The barrier to putting up a blog is lower than it was.

The bar is higher - uniqueness and content are king in the new web 2.0. Some people get upset that they can't compete when the competition steps in. You've just got to be 1 step ahead.

What do you think Curtis?

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by The Big D

Thanks to the keyword spammers, google has had to change their policies in ways that make it harder for new legitimate sites to get much traffic.

Google's goal, as far as search results, is to display only quality content that is relevant to the search term, and valuable to the reader.

Thus, Google is working 24/7 in order to rank legitimate websites at the top, and fakers at the bottom.

There will always be black hatters, but hopefully "Google is on our side" is reassuring to us honest folks.

Originally Posted by The Big D

I think the relative dearth of blogs high in the Alexa ranks shows that it's a seriously uphill battle.

Alexa is very unreliable. As I like to say, "it only matters as much as it matters", which happens to be very little at all.

I remember reading some posts in the SBI'er forum about someone who had ~23,000 visitors per day to his website, yet when I viewed his website, his Alexa rank was something like 800,000 (very bad).

If you have a niche unrelated to "techy" stuff, like gardening or golf, or nursing or whatever, then you are much less likely to attract the demographic of visitors that has the Alexa bar installed in their browser.

And Alexa only relies on those with the bar installed (a very small, very niche part of the population).

Originally Posted by The Big D

As far as I can tell, if you want a ticket to the top do something that combines porn videos and social media. Then you're in

I can't argue against porn

Originally Posted by Manomanman

Very unclear use of the word "blog." Most people fill blogs with content that isn't evergreen, hence why they lack google juice.

The barriers to getting in front of 1,000,000 are the same as they have always been. The barrier to putting up a blog is lower than it was.

The bar is higher - uniqueness and content are king in the new web 2.0. Some people get upset that they can't compete when the competition steps in. You've just got to be 1 step ahead.

What do you think Curtis?

The real question is simply "are you prepared to work long and hard (and smart) until you have reached those 1,000,000 people?"

I don't read many blogs, but occasionally I read a few posts at the ProBlogger and at the ChristianPF blog, which are both blogs that make in the $1000's/month.

From what I gather, it took both of the creators of those blogs something like a minimum of a year (2 years in ChristianPF's case) before they were actually making a good amount of money.

And as someone said, Steve only made a few bucks in his first 6 months of blogging.

Anybody who works hard and works smart has the ability to get good traffic. It's just that in order to work your way through the sludge of the competition and make it to the top, it will take you ~1 year minimum to get your blog/website to a point where it is making $1000's/month.

Now, 1 year is just an approximation, but I hope you get what I mean. Most people just don't have the dedication to "work now, get paid later" when the "working now" part lasts for a year or more.

Originally Posted by mikethedrummer44

Also, it's somewhat of an unwritten law in the internet marketing group to not give your niche's away.

This is actually more of an "unwritten law of fearful people's egos" instead.

People don't give away their "amazing ideas" and "great niches" because they are afraid someone will beat them to the punch, and that another person will win and they will be a loser.

The truth is that nobody gives a ♥♥♥♥♥ about your idea (or anyone else's) unless you are selling magic cancer-curing pills that double the size of your manhood and make unicorn farts turn into fairy dust.

I could tell you my "great idea" for a business right now, but you wouldn't go after it because you are at a different place in reality than me. You have different goals than me, and my dreams of success are not the same as yours. Frankly, you don't care about my dreams, you care about your dreams. And others don't care about your dreams (ie, they aren't going to "steal" your idea, unless it was exactly what they wanted to do anyways, for their own dreams' sake).

[side note: I said I could give away my great idea, so I will. My great idea is to work long and hard for the next several months to build up to 100+ content pages for my business website, and to build at least a dozen inbound links to it from PageRank 3+ external pages. Then, I will monetize it with Google Adsense, which happens to have a very high payout for business-related keywords. Finally, I will eventually be selling my own e-book or video guides on the website. Teaching things about online business, of course]

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Now, 1 year is just an approximation, but I hope you get what I mean. Most people just don't have the dedication to "work now, get paid later" when the "working now" part lasts for a year or more.

I think my business will take 6 months to reach the $800/month mark, which is what my living expenses will be in the 2nd half of 2010. I'm not using adsense.

It's impossible to tell how a "monetized" audience will react, but I'm a natural-born salesman, so I'm very very optimistic. I will be utterly ruthless when I begin selling. I am going at this online business thing with the Wrath of God, using every bit of information I've ever learned and every ounce of tenacity in my being.

Some of the stuff I'm doing NOBODY is doing right now, so I should stand out a fair bit from the competition. If I stand out enough, you can buy my info products

P.S. For those wondering what predicts success: I have no doubt I am going to succeed. Contrast me with the average, "I wanna blawg" person and you'll understand why so few people make it in blogging.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

The truth is that nobody gives a ♥♥♥♥♥ about your idea (or anyone else's) unless you are selling magic cancer-curing pills that double the size of your manhood and make unicorn farts turn into fairy dust.

When you put up a website, you're giving away your ideas for free. So, LOL @ people who are afraid of having ideas stolen. The "idea" itself has almost no value unless it is packaged and sold correctly.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Manomanman

Some of the stuff I'm doing NOBODY is doing right now, so I should stand out a fair bit from the competition. If I stand out enough, you can buy my info products

Lol sorry I had to.

Originally Posted by Manomanman

When you put up a website, you're giving away your ideas for free. So, LOL @ people who are afraid of having ideas stolen. The "idea" itself has almost no value unless it is packaged and sold correctly.

I think the idea is that he is afraid of giving away his strategy for making a profit, which is different (usually) from the actual content on his website/blog.

But, yes, it's all the same.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

A good salesman will sell the broken one as "art" and make 1000's of times what he makes on the others.

[allen080105]

lol. This thread took a detour somewhere.

I've been checking out your blogs. Good stuff people! keep going with em! I guess I could share what I know about blogging to help some people out...maybe get some other input.

My original intention was to see if there was anyone who had made enough from their blog(s) to where they could move out of a place they didn't want to be (what I wanted to do) and successfully support themselves with it.

I find that what you do takes on your consciousness. If you're happy, elated and cheerful your writing will reflect that and you spread that. If you're stressed or worried or angry your writing will reflect that too. I knew I could get some really good advice from a person who had been living with parents (or even anyone they felt really disconnected from), started a blog and made enough income to move out and be able to support themselves with it. I figured they probably would know a lot about state of mind/consciousness too.

I find it kind of funny that my most successful blog traffic wise, You Got Dunked On (500 visitors a day when I sold it, now at 1000/day) came about just from me playing around. There was kind of a lightness around it because money was very much secondary. At the time I was spending student loans like crazy so money wasn't that much of a concern. I made about $1000 with that blog so I figured if I can make that kinda money with just some pictures and video I could make way more with a more personal blog with a broader topic so I quit college (didn't have a job at the time) and moved back in with parents to try to build this blog up. Looking back, I think moving in with parents was where I made my mistake.

Everything started out perfect. I was networking, getting backlinks (blog carnivals and commenting were helping a lot) but eventually my environment became too much of a negative influence on me. It's hard to feel that same lightness when people are bugging you about money all the time or you feel you've really got to make money from that blog to survive. I didn't really want to spread that stress with my writing so I stopped writing too. I've kind of settled back in a super old comfort zone I had grown out of and it is frustrating but very eye-opening.