Here’s what happened AND what we can learn from it!

Blogs, bandwidth and the iPad launch

Every technology blog knew that Wednesday was going to be a monumental day for traffic, with the Apple iPad about to be announced to the world.  However, many of the world’s leading technology blogs literally ground to a halt, having not provided enough bandwidth for their iPad coverage.  Many top tech sites were impacted to some degree.  Worst was ZDNet, which they admit was down for several hours.

However, some tech sites planned ahead effectively and will have gained tens of thousands of new readers as a result.  That’s because when a reader in unable access a reliable service from a site, they go and find a working alternative!

This is a great example of what happens when a blog is either down or too slow to use.

What does this mean for bloggers like us?

Sure, that $5 a month hosting package might seem like great value in the short term, but if it’s so slow and unreliable that it’s stopping people from being able to actually read your blog, it’s a waste of $5!  It will also slow down your progress in developing the blog.  It’s hard to build a readership, when your content is hard to access.  And it doesn’t stop there.  Putting your blog on an unreliable host can also impact your search engine performance; if the blog is consistently down, when search engines try to crawl it!

If you are serious about developing your blog, I very strongly suggest you invest in the most reliable host you can afford.  Forget wasting your time and money on having kick-ass SEO and wonderful content – none of this has any value, if your site is down or too slow / unreliable for people to bother with.

This does not have to cost a fortune either!  Some of the less expensive providers are hundreds of percent more reliable than equally priced competitors.

Quick Tip for finding a great blog host

The best way I know for finding a reliable host, is to email the owner of a site, which you visit regularly and which tends to load quickly and reliably.  Ask who they use and what their experience has been.  For those of you that are interested, I use CSNewmedia (affiliate link) for hosting this blog and they provide me with exceptional value for money.  A fast, reliable and surprisingly inexpensive service.

Photo: Gizmodo

However, if you are working hard and not getting the results you deserve, read on!

Here’s one of the secrets behind every successful, commercial blog I have ever studied:

You can’t do everything yourself!

Every successful business has key people, who’s expertise can be called upon whenever they are needed.  Your blog-based business is just the same.

If you try and do everything yourself, the success of your blog will be limited to your expertise in a wide range of specialist areas.  So, you may know all about design, but have just average marketing abilities.  You may know how to get a ton of ‘traffic’ to your blog, but no idea how to turn that traffic into a community, which you can then monetise.  You may even know how to generate income through your blog, but not fully understand how profitable your blog-based business is or how to increase the profitability of it.

The bottom line here, is that your overall success will be limited by your performance in your weakest area.

Think of a relay race team

Think of an Olympic quality relay team, which has one of its four runners replaced my someone that’s never been to a gym, smokes cigarettes and is 30lb over weight.  That team would now finish last every time.  No matter how great the other runners are, that area of weakness will ruin their chances of success.

Yesterday, while I was writing 3 blog posts, my server guy was debugging a problem for me.  It took him 30 minutes.  It would have taken me a full day to locate and resolve that same issue, because I’m an amateur in that area.  Had I fumbled around and tried to fix it myself, you would not be reading this post – I would not have had time to write it.

My specialist areas are marketing and copy writing, so I hire in experts to cover the other areas of running a successful blog.  For example, I use AccountancyExtra for any financial questions or planning issues I have.  Stuart and the team there get a call from me whenever I’m thinking of making a significant financial decision.  End result, I make great decisions and avoid losing money.

I use the Headway wordpress theme on all my blogs and I’m an affiliate.  This one’s also no brainer.  Headway has already saved me a ton of money, because I am able to do 100% of my own blog design, with zero need to touch any code.  Just dragging and dropping – perfect.  Its paid for itself many times over.  In fact, just 2 weeks after placing an affiliate link to Headway on my blogs, I had generated hundreds of dollars in affiliate income.

But Jim, I can’t afford expert help!

I hear that excuse more than any other, whenever I speak with people about developing their business.  It’s as if they really believe that every new business is rolling in money, except theirs.

Here’s the thing: I have worked with well over a thousand small businesses and most of them started off with little or nothing.  However, the businesses that were serious, realised they would need to get expert help if they wanted to succeed, so they found a way to get the help they needed.

Found a way?

Yes!

They cut their spending in other areas and invested that money in developing their businesses.  Some started off with nothing at all, then slowly, as they started to develop their businesses, they invested in the most urgent areas, based on their need.

For example, many bloggers start off with a blog hosted for free at wordpress.com or blogger/blogspot, then realise they need the additional functionality, that comes from a self hosted blog.

So, they invest in a host that offers the best value they can find.  It’s a start!  Now, the added of functionality their self hosted blog opens a ton of valuable, new opportunities.  For instance, they can use plugins that will collect email addresses for a marketing list.  They can also offer java based advertisements.  In short, the only limitation now is their imagination!

But some people just don’t “get it!”

I once spoke with a business owner that spent around £700 a year on Starbucks coffee, but who said she couldn’t afford to invest $80 on a theme for her blog!  She was unaware that there’s a difference between not being prepared to invest in a business and not being able to.

There are trillions of webpages and billions of websites out there.  For your blog to stand out, generate an income and a healthy profit, it needs all the help it can get.  There are a lot of serious people out there, competing hard for the same readers, customers or clients as you.

To be in with a chance, you need to be just as dedicated and invest just as wisely as they do.  That’s how I developed a top 10 blog.

What do you think?

Have you come across people that want the rewards, without the investment required?  What have your experiences been? Please share them with a comment.

Photo: John Spooner

Firstly, if you want to succeed with any business, you need to make sure you using the correct strategy for what you want to achieve.  In my experience, most bloggers are doing the exact opposite!  They are copying an ineffective blog model.

For example, they see the top social media and business bloggers and copy their approach; unaware that most of those guys make their money from speaking at events, consulting and offering training etc – NOT online.  Or, they copy the get rich quick guys, with the photoshopped bank statements and promises of instant wealth.

The answer?

The answer is to look at the people that DO MAKE MONEY online and study their business model!  Here’s a great place to start; based on someone, who’s building (literally) an empire online.

Check out what Leo Laporte does

For those of you who don’t already know, Leo Laporte is the founder of perhaps the leading provider of niche podcasts and video casts in the world – These all come under his TWiT network.  Leo Laporte makes the vast majority of his income online and he does so using a model that’s there for all to see (and learn from).

Leo’s online income comes from sponsors that include blue chip organizations like Visa and Ford.  He also has a ton of advertisers, people that tend to keep on advertising with him – eager to stay part of Leo’s TWiT network.  The top people in technology queue up to be guests on his shows, knowing that a mention from Leo is enough to help THEIR business / brand grow.

So, what’s Leo Laporte’s secret?

Simple: He works REALLY hard producing valuable content, in an area of business that he knows extremely well.  Because of this, he has a huge (and growing) audience.  Not only that, it’s a highly targeted audience of people who trust what Leo says.  It’s a community. (this is an important distinction, which I will explain in moment.)

That is pure gold dust for advertisers!

I’ve been in marketing for over 20 years and in my experience, the people that do well financially in ANY area of business, including blogging, are not those who waste their time looking for silver bullets – the one killer idea that will make them a million overnight.  The people who thrive are those who get rich S-L-O-W-L-Y!

Here’s what I see the guys at the top of their game (including Leo) doing time and time again:

• They build a robust business on a strong foundation – not a series of failed get rich quick attempts.  This gives them longevity and credibility.
• They focus on value, so they produce non-generic content (or posts), that people will want to read and share.  This helps them grow a targeted audience.
• They guard their reputation and earn the trust of their audience.
• They then turn their audience into a community.
• Finally, they market to that community.

This is not the kind of get rich quick post that will go viral, because it’s message is not one of instant wealth or money for nothing.  And in honesty, that’s my point.  The reality is that it takes time, intelligence and work in order to genuinely earn a significant, predictable income online.

I would love to hear what you have to say, so please take a moment to share your feedback with a comment below.

Photo: Jeff Belmonte

This makes a lot of sense. Ebooks are easy to produce, they can be distributed with ease and there are no issues regarding stock levels etc.  Equally, if your readers value what you have to say, and they believe there will be something uniquely valuable in the ebook, you have a ready audience to market your ebook to.

However, as best-selling author and social media expert Chris Brogan has just discovered, there are some genuine issues regarding the ebook format and perceived value. This is an important subject for anyone wondering what price they can realistically charge for an ebook, if they want to maximise their profits from it.

Ebooks are rare, in that it costs around the same to produce and deliver 1,000,000 as it does for 10.  Once the initial design costs etc have been met, the actual digital ebook costs almost nothing.  In other words, you have the opportunity to make a million, by making a million sales at around $1 – or making 10,000 sales at $100.  So, setting the price correctly is essential – so that you get the balance right, to leverage the maximum number of sales.

Ebook pricing and value

Chris Brogan is one of over a dozen A-List bloggers, who have jointly authored an ebook, which promises to tell readers how to make money through their blogs.  When Chris wrote a blog post to promote the ebook, which he and the other authors are all affiliates of (called Beyond Blogging), a heated debate ensued in the comments section, regarding the ebook’s $47 price tag (which increases to almost $100 after the introductory period has expired!)

Reading through the comments, it seems the primary issues people have are related to the fact that the book is available in electronic format, rather than paper.  Some think that the price is simply unjustifiable for an ebook.

Common sense dictates that if an ebook contains $1,000 of value and costs $100, it represents good value.  The format should not become part of the value equation.  But it does.  And this is why I wanted to mention it here.  It’s something that budding ebook authors need to be aware of, so they can plan for value objections.

If an ebook that’s written and marketed by A-List bloggers has this kind of perceived value problem, just imagine the kind of problem it would create for mere mortals like us.

Those guys have fans.

We have readers.

Fans might pay $100 for an ebook from one of these A-Listers.  Some will even buy the book, just to get a mention or a “thank you” Tweet from them.  Readers will be a lot harder to convince.

What may happen as a result of this ebook and the debate its pricing has caused, is that there will be a shift in how people value ebook content.  I would really like to know what you think about that.

What do you think?

Would the ebook format stop you from paying $100 for some information?

Might the debate around this ebook and its price, increase the cost of ebooks generally?

What’s the most you have paid for an ebook?

Please share your thoughts on ebooks, with a comment.

Photo: Photos8.com

When I went back to the site (5 hours later), I found that the blog was ‘down.’  This can happen to literally anyone, so later that night I tried again and it was still offline. The next morning I tried it  again and found it was working, but really slow – too slow to use without going nuts!

I tried it again this morning (a week later) and once again it’s just too slow to use.

Get the best hosting you can afford

As with many things in life, when it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for – especially with ‘cheap’ hosting packages!

You can have the most optimised site, with the most kick-ass content and stunning design, but you will really struggle to build a readership, if people find your site to be unreliable.

A solid, reliable host should be the foundation of a commercial website, not a place to cut corners.  The cost to your business of using a cheap hosting provider can be immense.

However, many bloggers spend just a tiny percentage of their ’social media time’ actually blogging.  Their blogs are seldom updated, yet the blog owner is happy to ‘invest’ his or her social media time on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc.

One Twitter user I know, is a marketing consultant. He seems to be on Twitter every time I look at it – Yet he’s put content on his own blog just a handful of times in the past few months.  There are many, many like him.  I was thinking earlier how it must look, if a prospective client follows him from his Twitter account to his blog.

They’re going to see a blog with; very little content, few comments, no engagement, no energy – Because he’s building all that value on Twitter!

So I was wondering: Is it time for us to start investing more of our time and energy into developing our blogs and less of our time developing content for other peoples social media platforms?

Your blog really matters

I have to confess up front: I LOVE blogs!  I love reading them, commenting on them and I also have 3 blogs of my own too.  One of the things I love most about blogs is that unlike other forms of social media, when you build a blog, you own all the ‘value’ you have created.  A self-hosted blog is 100% yours and what’s more, you decide what happens to your blog.

So, unlike a Twitter account, it can’t be suspended for no reason.  Unlike Friendfeed, no one can buy your blog overnight and change it’s direction, without your consent. Unlike scores of other social media sites; it can’t simply disappear overnight, along with all that community building you did either!

Your blog is yours and you get to benefit 100% from your investment there.

Don’t get me wrong, I not suggesting that people should stop using other social media tools; far from it!  I am suggesting, however, that the role of blogging needs to be given the respect it deserves.  I use Twitter and Friendfeed myself and find both to be extremely valuable (especially Friendfeed.)  The thing is, neither of these are my primary social media tool – my blog is.  As a result, that’s where I share my content and where I invest most of my social media time.

Blogging your content, tweeting it or both?

Yesterday evening, I wrote a brief post on my tech news blog, it took me around 10 minutes.  It was a very short post about a hacker with autism, who faces 60 years in prison.  I could easily have spent twice as long ‘tweeting’ about it with a handful of people or discussing it on Friendfeed.  However, I decided to blog about it.  Within around 30 minutes, that post was picked up by CNN.  My blog’s the one at the top of the list:

CNN uses a clever blog recommendation program, which shows CNN readers what they call “the best stuff” that bloggers are saying on any particular news story.  So, people reading that story on CNN.com are being presented with three blogs to read, including mine. CNN.com is a very popular site, so I got a stack of new visitors, which helped me build my blogs community and widen my readership (Thanks CNN!)

Had I decided to Tweet about it instead, even if CNN picked my Tweet up, Twitter would have benefited and not me.  Incidentally, none of my tweets or Friendfeed comments have ever been picked up by any leading network, so the odds were not good.  However, many of the world’s most respected organisations have linked to my blog posts.

I love social media

I was an early(ish) adopter of Twitter and have had accounts there for around 2 years.  I also use Friendfeed.  Both of these tools are of great value to me and my business and I recommend them to you too.  Then there’s Facebook, Linkedin and many others, which people achieve great results from.

However, I’m wondering if it’s possible we are spending too much time developing content on these platforms, instead of our own?

What do you think?

• Some links provide relevant information to the reader, regarding the subject you are covering.
• Some point to affiliate partners.
• Some links manage to do both successfully. They send the reader to an affiliate partner, who offers a product that provides an answer that the reader of that particular post should find useful.

Full disclosure on hyper-links

Many websites and blogs link from their content to affiliate sites, without letting their readers know.  This has the opposite impact from what the site owner wants. Far from making more readers visit and buy from their affiliate partners, it causes readers to be cautious about the links on that site and many will either not return or not click future links for fear of being ’suckered’ again.

In my experience, the fastest way to earn the trust of your readers, is to let them know when a link points to an affiliate site.  By doing this, 2 things happen.

Firstly, the reader learns by default that any links not marked-up as affiliates, are going to send them to something the author is NOT being paid to promote.  This helps your readers learn to trust you and your content, because they know you are not trying to fool them into clicking on anything.  So, if you happen to mention that the new Satuma 1500 is a great camera and you link to that site, if there’s no disclosure about the link, your readers will know automatically that you are not being rewarded for that recommendation.

Secondly, the people that do click your fully disclosed affiliate links will not feel as if they were fooled into it.  This means that you retain their trust.

How does affiliate disclosure on hyper-links work?

It’s really easy to show your readers when a hyper-link points to an affiliate.  You simply put the word affiliate in brackets (or parentheses) next to the link.  For example, here’s how I would give a disclosed link to my Headway affiliate:

Using the Headway(affiliate) wordpress theme, anyone can build a blog from scratch, without knowing HTML or touching the CSS. That’s why I use it and recommend it to everyone.

So long as the reader knows that the link points to an affiliate, it doesn’t really matter how you do it.  I wrote a post here last week about becoming an affiliate of Headway and made sure not to link to Headway at all, until after I said that I was an affiliate. In other words, because the post was all about me using the product and becoming an affiliate, there was no need to use the (affiliate) text.

Many people think that it’s clever to fake people into clicking links. I have been in marketing for 23 years and had my own marketing business for the past 14 years and can assure you that NO ONE likes to be made a fool of.  Full disclosure of hyper-links is a great way to show you respect your readers and that’s the fastest way to earn their respect.

Don’t confuse luck with ‘chance’

• Luck can be created deliberately using a simple formula.
• Chance is random, like guessing the correct lottery numbers, and cannot.

It’s true – you make your own luck

Thankfully, the old saying really is true; you make your own luck.  There is nothing random or mysterious about ‘being in the right place at the right time.’  Everything happens for a reason, something scientists refer to as cause and effect.

For example, I was once referred to as lucky, when I told someone how I made a 400% profit on a property I bought.  However, the financial return I luckily made on that deal was the result of deliberate planning  – Not luck.  The property had been on the market for 3 months when I first heard about it and had been advertised to thousands of people in the local press and via the Internet!  None of these people invested in the house, but I did. I took an informed decision, based on lots of homework and feedback from experts, and then backed that decision up with action.

There was nothing random or mysterious about it. I identified a superb opportunity, took action and made my own good luck. It was just a matter of strategy.

If an opportunity comes your way when you are prepared for it (and you then take action), you will generate what other people refer to as good luck.  However, if an opportunity comes your way and you have not prepared for it – you will probably not even recognise it!  Equally, if an opportunity comes your way and you are prepared for it, BUT you fail to take action, you will stay unlucky. This lack of action is always the result of fear, (I will explain this in more detail in a moment.)

Why are most people so unlucky then?

The main reason so many people miss out on the opportunities that surround them every moment of every day, is that they fail in at least one of the following four key luck factors. To attract what most people believe to be good luck, you need to use all four luck factors. I have outlined these for you below:

Luck factor one: Recognise opportunities

Most people simply don’t recognise a great opportunity when it comes along! They assume that an opportunity is something that has a big, bright sign above it and some kind of no-lose guarantee. I have never seen a genuine opportunity that looked anything like that; but it is still what most people are looking for.

That’s why conmen have filled the Internet with get rich quick schemes, which ‘guarantee’ you massive wealth if you just buy into their ‘wonder product’. Conmen know that people are looking for an easy way to make lots of money, with little if any risk. If the conman’s message claims to fulfil this need for money-for-nothing, their scam will attract legions of victims.  According to John C Dvorak, police found around $2BILLION in the hands of one group of international Internet conmen last year!

Many genuine opportunities come disguised as a problem.  For example, a secretary who kept making typing errors decided to do something about it; so she mixed a flower and water based solution together that could be painted, with a tiny brush, over her typing errors. In the process, she created typing correction fluid that started a multimillion industry.

Luck factor two: Be prepared

In order to generate luck, you need to be prepared when opportunity comes knocking.  In the example of my property investment, I had already researched the marketplace and knew what I could afford to pay. I took expert advice and studied the locations that were most likely to improve over the coming years.

As a result, I was able to minimise my risk to a point where I was extremely confident that this property represented a genuine, great opportunity.

Luck factor three: Take action

One of the best-known success stories in recent years is a perfect example of why action is essential in the ‘good luck’ process. When Simon Woodroffe created the internationally acclaimed ‘Yo! Sushi’ restaurant chain, he did so after acting on an idea that came to him from a friend; a person who had the vision to see a successful sushi restaurant but who did not act on it!

The success that came from Simon’s venture made lots of restaurateurs ask themselves why THEY didn’t open a chain of suchi restaurants or bars. They could have, but just like the chap who had the original multimillion pound ‘Yo! Sushi’ idea, they did not.  You simply cannot ‘get lucky’ in business if you fail to take action.

Just about everyone agrees that the biggest cause of all failure in life is the inability to take action; yet people will do anything to avoid it. That’s why I developed my Motivation Master Class audio program.  I’ve seen countless examples where people have missed out on great opportunities, through their decision not to take action.

Luck factor four: Do not focus on fear – focus on outcomes

There are two distinct types of people.

The first group are fear-focused

These unlucky people look at every opportunity or deal based almost exclusively on what might go wrong.  As a result, they fear doing anything different to what they are already comfortable with (even if it’s not working for them). For example, businesses in this group are always easy to spot, because they quickly reach a plateau or levelling point and then remain stuck there, until the owner retires broke and in many cases broken too! Fear-focused people like to complain about their lack of success, yet refuse to take the actions required to improve their situation. They keep repeating the same mistakes, because they are ‘comfortable’ screwing things up for themselves!

‘Fear-focused’ people live their lives focusing on what they want to avoid; loss, lack, pain, unhappiness, rejection etc. In doing this, they have set into play their very own self-fulfilling prophecy; because as we all know, we attract what we think about. Fear attracts bad luck like a magnet! Just as plants need the sun and the rain to grow and thrive, bad luck needs fear.

The second group of people are ‘outcome focused.’

These lucky minority of people do their research and if everything stacks up, they take action. Do they get it right every time? NO – BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TO!

You only have to benefit from one great idea or opportunity to transform your entire future, so if they get it wrong occasionally, their successes massively overcompensate. Because they research everything before taking action, these people make very few mistakes and they minimise their risk at every turn; so any losses are minimal. They are risk reduction specialists.

People in this group are often wrongly called risk takers.  The reality is that they are the total opposite, they are risk minimisers!

Summing up luck

To attract the kind of great opportunities that will have others amazed at your extreme good luck, you need to adhere to the four luck factors mentioned above. By doing this, you can transform your fortunes (literally) and far, far faster than you ever imagined possible.

Are you lucky?

For example, have you ever heard the famous saying; “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink!”

The suggestion here, is that ‘people are just going to do what they are going to do’ and that they cannot be influenced.  This is 100% untrue, yet it’s repeated by people every day.  They fail to get the outcome they want, so they blame something outside their control.

The right strategy

In reality, if you lead a horse to water AFTER you have taken it for a nice long ride on a warm, sunny day, that horse will willingly drink water – lots and lots of water!  Equally, if you take a horse to water just after you have fed it a really salty snack, the horse will happily drink plenty of water every time.  It’s just a matter of knowing the correct strategy.

The reason so many people end up frustrated by their lack of business or career success, is that they work really hard, doing the wrong things.  As if rowing their boat in the wrong direction will get them where they want to be, so long as they row it hard enough for long enough.

However, when you are heading in the wrong direction, all that hard work is actually taking you further and further away from your target!

Stop!

If you are not getting the results you want in your business or career, the single best thing you can do is STOP!

It’s time to find a better strategy.

Speak with a proven expert; someone who knows exactly what you need to do to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.  They can get you pointing in the right direction, so that all your future hard work is taking you toward the results you want – not further away from them.

Whatever you do, don’t keep repeating the same mistakes hoping that things will magically just get better.  That kind of thinking can drive you nuts!  As Albert Einstein once said; “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

PS: If you found this post interesting, remember to subscribe to this blog using the RSS options on the top right of the page!

A brief look at The Twitter widget

The widget is a free download, which you can get via the main Twitter website.  It can be used not only on a blog; but also on your website, facebook or myspace page.

The Twitter widget is also extremely easy to install.  You simply choose the options you want from the download page and it will generate a preview for you. Then, if you are happy with the preview, you copy the code it generates for you and paste that code into a text widget. That’s it!

You can change what the feed displays.  For example, you can set it to show every time anyone mentions your Twitter user name (as in the image) or when anyone on Twitter mentions a certain word, location or maybe a hash tag that you are interested in.

You can also change the wording on the top of the Twitter widget, to reflect whatever you are following with it.  This personalisation is a great idea and makes the widget a lot more useful, as you can explain to readers what it is they are actually looking at.  You can also change the colours, so they match the theme of your site, blog or page.

All in all, it’s an easy way to quickly show visitors to your various sites, the kind of things you are interested in following.  For a brand new blog like this,with an equally new Twitter account, it’s been a great way to help people discover our new Twitter account.

If you use the Twitter widget, let us know what you do with it and share your ideas!