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2013

Celebrating Our Freedom to Read: See What the #NMX Community is Reading for Banned Book Week

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This week is Banned Book Week, a week where we celebrate the freedom to read here in the United States. Actually, this celebration has gone international ever since Amnesty International began celebrating it to help raise awareness for individuals who are persecuted for writing and reading books that governments and other organizations want to censor.

Banning books is a step down a very dangerous path. NMX is all about the media revolution…but some things will never change. Wherever there are people voicing their opinions about the world, whether that is in books or on your blog/podcast/videos or on social networks, there are people who want to keep them quiet. This is an issue that affects all of us.

To help celebrate our freedom to read, I asked NMX speakers, attendees, and staff to share their favorite banned books. Their answers (along with my own) are listed below, and you can get involved too: just tweet about your favorite banned book, and make sure to use the hashtag #NMX (and follow this hashtag to see what others are recommending you read). You can also leave a comment below to join the conversation! You can see a list of just some of the books that have been banned here.

Without further ado, here are some of the book the NMX community wants to encourage you to read:

rick headshot “The Bible and Canterbury Tales”
– Rick Calvert, NMX CEO, @blogworld and @NewMediaExpo
deb cole “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume – I can’t believe this book was banned!!! This was a pivotal book in my teens! And since I am unable to choose ONLY one (avid book lover) I’m also choosing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. In SHOCK this was also banned. W-T-F?!” – Deb Cole, NMX Media Marketing Director, @CoachDeb
tina baljian “Arabian Nights. I love it because it reminds me somewhat of my grandma’s stories, because I am middle eastern. Its a medieval Middle-Eastern literary epic which tells the story of Scheherazade, who tells stories to her husband, the King, to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of 1001 nights, and every night she ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day.” – Tina Baljian, NMX Travel Manager/Executive Assistant, @Tina_Baljian
CC Chapman “Call of the Wild will always hold a special place in my heart. That and Tom Sawyer were the first books that filled me with the wanderlust that I still have to this day. I have yet to get up to the Yukon, but it is a life long dream of mine and I can trace it back to reading that book.” – C.C. Chapman, Storyteller, Explorer & Humanitarian, @cc_chapman
john dumas “Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut!! Being a US Army Veteran of the Iraqi War, I have always thought it important to remember the suffering soldiers go through during war. War is an easy thing to glorify when you are not experiencing it, and books like Slaughterhouse-Five bring to light the true colors of war.” – John Lee Dumas, EntrepreneurOnFire.com, @johnleedumas
Sam Fiorella “My favorite banned book: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The book focuses on the psychosis experienced by Billy Pilgrim, an inexperienced American soldier, who was captured and imprisoned at the famous “Slaughterhouse number 5” by the Germans.  The American government and educational institutions believed the explicit story about the hallucinations and visions he experienced while held prisoner, including a vision of his own death, was too much for the general public. In a time where war is so highly politicized and  quickly called upon to right the world’s wrongs, it is important to have more personal accounts of the cost to those who actually fight the wars.” – Sam Fiorella, Sensei Inc, @samfiorella
Glenda Watson Hyatt “Looking through the list of books, I was surprised to see Black Beauty. I read it as a young girl while I was going through my horse phase. Before homework overtook my life, I loved crawling into bed, with a dog or cat or both beside me, and get lost in book. Black Beauty was enjoyed by this uber animal lover.” – Glenda Watson Hyatt, Motivational Speaker, @GlendaWH
Dustin Hartzler “My favorite banned books are: Goosebumps – definitely important because kids need to read fiction. The choose your own adventures were the best ones 😉 And Where’s Waldo – kids and adults alike need to be able to keep their memory sharp. Finding Waldo allows the time to pass quickly as well as helps to keep your brain active.” – Dustin Hartzler, Your Website Engineer, @dustinhartzler
ffc “Favorite banned book: Fahrenheit 451. It’s the ultimate book-burning book. ‘Nuff said.” – Jonathan Raines, ForeignFilmcast.com, @foreignfilmcast
ric dragon “Satanic Verses. As I went through the list of banned books on Wikipedia, I was thrown into an inner conflict. I’m horrible at making choices and here were several books that are near and dear to me. Finally, I settled on Satanic Verses. The turmoil around Salman Rushdie figured largely in the news of the late 80’s, and besides the death threats to the author, did result in the death of Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator.  When I finally read the book, I was mesmerized by the wonderful storytelling.” – Ric Dragon, DragonSearch, @ricdragon
allison headshot And here are my picks (yes, I have two favorites!): Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and A Wrinkle in Time. I think these books share something in common; they are both about exploring a whole new world that you never thought existed. That’s what books have always been to me, and I try to allow that to spill over into my everyday life as well. We can only grow if we’re willing to learn and explore.Also, they’re just plain fun!

Okay, your turn! Don’t forget to TWEET about your favorite banned book using the hashtag #NMX! We’ve even made a handy click to tweet link – just make sure you fill in your favorite title!

TweetButton

Or, comment below to join the conversation!

(And if you want to be involved with more community questions just like this, make sure you sign up for our email list on the sidebar! That way, you can answer the question ahead of time and be featured here like the above NMX community members!)

Meet Our Brand New NMX 2014 Speakers!

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We’re counting down the days to NMX 2014 – can you believe that we’re just a few months away? It feels like just yesterday we were wrapping up NMX 2013!

Over the past few months, we’ve announced some awesome speakers who will be joining us on stage in Vegas this coming January. We initially announced a first, small group, but since then have mentioned keynoters, podcasters, bloggers, and more! Today, I have another great group of speakers to introduce!

sept 24 speaker group

Coming to the NMX stage in Jan 2014, you’ll be able to see:

  • Abel James from Fat-Burning Man
  • Antonio Centeno from Real Men Real Style
  • Barry Feldmen from Feldman Creative
  • Bob Dunn, WordPress Trainer and Coach
  • David Risley from Blog Marketing Academy
  • Dustin Hartzler, from Your Website Engineer
  • Jason Ojalvo from Audible
  • Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammer Girl
  • Mitch Wilson from Sports Chat Place
  • Penny Sansevieri from Author Marketing Experts

You can see our complete list of speakers here, along with links to find more information on their bio pages. Make sure you visit all of the bios to see our “click to tweet” links so you can congratulate your favorites on being invited to speak at NMX 2014!

Also stay tuned: on Friday, we have a HUGE announcement coming about our Web TV and Video track at NMX 2014. You don’t want to miss this one, guys and gals.

If you haven’t picked up your ticket yet, there’s no better time to do so. Join the media revolution at NMX 2014. Learn more here! (And hey, we’re friends, right? Feel free to use ALLI20 for 20% off any ticket to the show.)

The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Selling Digital Products on Your Blog (Step Two)

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Step Two Choose the Perfect Product

Yesterday, I started this “selling digital products” series with step one, about building relationships. Today, let’s get into the meat of selling digital products and actually talk about the type of product you’re going to sell.

In the past, I’ve made the mistake of just starting to create, but in actuality, it behooves you to put a little thought into determining what product will be perfect for your audience. It might not be the product you’re initially inspired to create. This is one time that you don’t want to go with your gut, at least without giving your gut’s advice a little thought.

So, the second step in selling digital products is examining your options and choosing what kind of product to sell.

Step Two: Choosing the Perfect Product for Your Blog

In thinking about the product you’re going to sell, there are two main things to consider:

  1. Topic
  2. Type of Delivery

Topic is the most important category, so let’s start there–but make sure you read to the end to learn about type of delivery as well, as this makes a difference to your bottom line too.

Your Product’s Topic: How do you choose?

If you want to make money on your blog by selling a digital product, you have to think about what your audience really wants. A poll is a great place to start, but sometimes your audience doesn’t know what they want or need.

To have a better grasp on what will sell, think about Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs. If you’re not familiar with Maslov, his hierarchy lists what people want/need in life, in order of importance to survival. At the base of the pyramid, you have things you actually need to live, like food and water, and as you move up the pyramid, you see other wants/needs in order of importance. This video explains it well:

In the video, the speaker is talking about this pyramid in relationship to helping mental health patients. But anyone who is selling a product, digital or otherwise, should access where their product falls on this pyramid as well.

What problem does your product solve for people? The lower this need, the more people who are likely to buy it. For example, if you’re selling pills someone needs to live, that’s going to be a higher priority for someone than if you’re selling jewelry or tickets to a sports game.

Now, it is possible to sell products no matter where they fall on this hierarchy. But the higher you go on the pyramid, the more money you need people to have. If someone doesn’t have a ton of disposable income, they’re going to spend their money on an ebook about financial planning before they spend their money on an ebook novel.

Of course, not everyone makes smart financial decisions, and some people spend beyond their means, going to the movies when they don’t have enough money for rent. But in general, the higher your digital product falls on the hierarchy, the higher income your average customer needs to have.

Here are some more great tidbits of advice when it comes to choosing the topic for your next digital product:

Product Delivery: What Type of Digital Product to Sell

After choosing a topic, you also have to choose a delivery method for the information. You can choose this first, but I like to think about topic initially, before I decide how to deliver the information. In my mind, topic is key!

Here are some of your options for digitial products:

Ebooks: These can be anywhere from 10 or so pages to hundreds of pages long. The digital formatting means that you don’t have to keep inventory in stock or pay for printing, so you cut your self-publishing costs significantly.

Here are arguments from people much smarter than myself about why ebooks rock:

White Papers: Like ebooks, white papers are traditionally text-based. The terms are actually used interchangeably in many cases, though a white paper delves more deeply into the topic and focuses on thought-leadership, instead of a general overview like you get with an ebook, and are extremely data-driven. White papers also often focus on explaining the specific benefits of a product, service, technique, or way or thinking. They are also usually very text-heavy, as opposed to the “hipper” highly-designed ebooks that many people are producing.

I like to compare white papers versus ebooks to scholarly articles in journals to educational articles in well-respected magazines like Time or Rolling Stone or Popular Mechanics (or whatever is comparable in your niche). Both give you great information, and often cover similar topics, but the scholarly articles are on a different level (though that doesn’t make them better…they are just written with a different goal in mind).

Courses: Sometimes, an ebook isn’t quite as organized as you want the information to be. So, instead you can offer a course with lessons. This allows you to present the content in a way that encourages more action from anyone who purchases it. Course don’t just include text, like an ebook, but also activities for the student to complete. Course can include workbooks, suggested reading lists, videos, and more.

This video from David Siteman Garland is awesome for explaining why online courses are great for packing your information:

Tutorials: Maybe you don’t need a full course on your topic of choice. Maybe you just need a tutorial (which can be text, audio, video, or a combination). Tutorials are shorter, but typically teach a highly-desired skill to learn. For example, you might sell a tutorial on you beauty blog about how to achieve a certain hair style that you’d typically have to pay to get at a salon.

Membership Sites: If you have lots of content to share, a membership site might be the right route for you. Membership sites can include virtually any kind of content – blog posts, interviews, videos, even full courses, and you can also build an “inner circle” community behind the pay gate using forums and other means for members to talk to one another. One of the great thing about membership sites is the recurring revenue stream option. While someone might pay for your ebook once and be done, with a membership site, they’ll pay you a small amount every month, and often, even people who never log in don’t take the time to cancel!

Here are a few resources about why membership sites might be a good option for digital information distribution:

Webinars: You might be able to charge $100 for consulting or coaching on your topic of expertise, but there’s a ceiling with this business model. If you work 8 hours a day, you can only make $800 max. Even if you were super human and could work every single hour of the day, never sleeping, you’re still limited to making $2400 a day. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but what if you could do the same work, but make ten times that amount? With paid webinars, you can. Webinars allow you to teach a class on your topic to a live audience, then open the floor for questions. You won’t make as much per person as you would if you were working with them one-on-one, but you still have a higher earning potential this way. Instead of coaching one person for $100 an hour, you can coach 50 people at once for $20 an hour each – and make ten times the amount!

This is not an exhaustive list of infoproducts you can choose to sell, of course! You can sell just about anything if you have a community of willing buyers!

The key is to match your digital product’s topic with the format that makes the most sense. If you’re teaching someone a very visual skill, like how to bake bread for example, you probably want a video tutorial or course, or at least an ebook with a ton of pictures. The answer isn’t always what is cheapest or easiest to make. You’ll sell more products if you really think about what your audience needs, because when people like your product, they tell their friends!

So take some time to brainstorm. Then come back for tomorrow’s post in this series, all about how to actually create your product!

See Other Posts in This Series:

  1. Step One: Building Relationships
  2. Step Two: Choosing the Perfect Product (this post)
  3. Step Three: Creating Your Product
  4. Step Four: Planning Your Launch
  5. Step Five: Customers Service

Image credit (altered): Bigstock

The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide to Selling Digital Products on Your Blog (Step One)

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Step One Build Relationships

The right digital product can continue to make you money forever. You want to know how to make money on your blog? Sell your own product and pocket all of the profits instead of just getting a percentage like with affiliate sales.

It’s an appealing prospect: create a product–something that doesn’t require inventory or physical shipping, put it for sale on your blog’s sidebar, and watch the cash roll in. That’s what all the guru-expert-ninja-bad-ass Internet marketers say you can do, right?

In practice, things don’t really happen that way, unless you have one of two things:

  1. A huge audience of millions of people who follow you online and buy anything you try to sell them
  2. A plan

Unless you’re Lady Gaga, let’s focus on having a plan instead! This is my step-by-step guide to selling digital products on your blog the RIGHT way. Yes, it is a lot of work. But trust me, you’re setting yourself up for success.

Step One: Selling Products Online Starts with Relationship Building

Before you sell any product, you need to build two types of relationships: peer relationships and customer relationships. Sometimes there’s a bit of overlap, depending on what you’re selling, but it really depends on your specific market.

Please note: I believe you can start making money from day one, but if you put a product for sale on your blog immediately, before you have much traffic or a strong community, you won’t see much in the way of sales. Instead, consider a free product to get people on your mailing list while you build trust.

Peer Relationships

It’s hard to successfully sell a digital product if you don’t have the backing of your niche community. In other words, when other food bloggers like you, you’re going to be more successful at selling your cookbook. Why?

  • They send traffic to your posts, which can be converted to sales.
  • They review your product.
  • They mention your product to their fans.
  • They become an affiliate for your product.
  • They purchase your product themselves (this is the customer overlap I mentioned).

In the beginning days of blogging, it was fairly easy to get to know other bloggers in your niche, simply because there were only a few dozen people. Today, every niche is crowded. There are thousands of bloggers in your niche, no matter what you write about. Why should they notice your blog? Why should they let you into their circle of trusted friends?

Here are some of the top ways I’ve found to connect with other bloggers, even if you are brand new and don’t personally know anyone else in the niche:

  • Guest Posts

Contrary to popular believe, I’ve grown to learn that guest posting is not just about reaching new readers. In fact, it might actually have very little to do with reaching new readers. Instead, it’s about providing content that the blog owner loves. We’re all really busy. If someone sends you amazing content so you have a break from publishing on your blog, that’s a really good thing! Even better if that post sends a ton of traffic your way.

So write guest posts for other bloggers in your niche. Make sure it is your absolute best work, and support your guest posts with social shares and mentions on your own blog.

  • Community-Building Link Roundups

In every niche, there are certain topics that lots of people blog about. For example, if you’re in the fashion niche, during September and October, many people will likely be posting about fall fashion.

Do some legwork. Reach out to other bloggers, one by one, and ask them to submit a link to their top post about fall fashion (or whatever the topic might be). Then compile those posts into one giant roundup on your blog that includes pictures, links, and encouragement for readers to visit the other bloggers and follow them on social networks.

You can also do something similar, but instead of asking for a link, ask for a tip about a certain topic. For example, if you’re a travel blogger, you might ask other travel bloggers to submit a few sentences about the best restaurant they’ve ever been to or their top tip for traveling with kids. Again, after receiving everyone’s tips, you would create a roundup post on your blog that links back to everyone’s blogs and social profiles.

Doing community-building roundups puts you on the map for other bloggers in your niche, especially if you put work into making them special. Create a button for every participate to display on their blog. Tweet about the post, taking the time to @-reply to each blogger thanking them to participating. Be extremely complimentary about their submissions. Email them the link when it is posted (with no pressure to promote).

  • Social and Blog Interactions

Bloggers make an effort to know the leaders in their own blog communities. If you’re someone who comments on all of their posts, shares all their links on social sites, and otherwise supports their content, they’re going to notice you. Easy as that.

You can also interact with other bloggers by linking to them in some of your posts. Huge link roundups are one thing, but why not also take the time to individually link to specific posts when relevant? For example, if you’re writing about the best ways to use Pinterest, you might link to another blogger’s post on a similar topic.

Don’t be afraid to tell people when you’ve linked to them, but never be pushy about them sharing your stuff. Link to people because you want to show your readers great content and you want to say “thank you” to the blogger for writing it, not because you want someone to share your stuff.

  • In-Person Meetings

When you meet someone in person, it’s easy to remember them. So, if you can meet your favorite bloggers face-to-face, do so! Have an intelligent question ready, and keep the conversation short. You want to be memorable, but not because you droned on and on!

Where can you meet other bloggers?

  1. Events (like NMX of course) where they are speaking
  2. Events they are attending
  3. Book signings
  4. Tweet ups and Meet ups

If you’re going to be in town where one of your favorite bloggers lives, or you know they’re going to be in your town, you can also offer to take them for coffee. Don’t be afraid to ask. Not everyone will take you up on the offer, but heck, I would never turn down free coffee with someone who enjoys my blog!

There are tons of other ways to continue building your relationships with peers in your niche as well, depending on your specific niche. Just keep in mind that you also want to be a giver, not a taker. In other words, when you’re trying to build a relationships with someone, be helpful, flexible, friendly, and kind.

Customer Relationships

At the same time you’re building peer relationships, you also want to be building customer relationships. This falls into two categories:

  1. Reaching new people
  2. Strengthening the relationships you have.

Let’s talk about reaching new people first.

Most bloggers understand that making money is truly a numbers game. The more readers you have, the more money you’ll make. Now, this doesn’t mean that someone with 1000 readers per day is going to make more than someone with 100 readers per day. You can’t compare yourself to other bloggers. But if YOU have 1000 readers per day, you’re probably going to make more money than a few months ago when YOU have 100 readers per day.

So, you want to reach new people, constantly.

Whenever possible, target, target, target. Paying for targeted traffic is an option that we recently covered here on the NMX blog, but even when you’re looking for free (organic) traffic, spend your time looking for readers who are going to be extremely interested in your blog and able to purchase your product. For example, if you’re a food blogger, it probably makes more sense to focus your time on Pinterest than it does to build a presence on LinkedIn.

What most people don’t realize, however, is that strengthening the relationships you have with current readers is just as important, if not more important, than finding new readers. And it’s actually not very hard. Here are some of the best ways to strengthen your relationships with current readers so that someday, when you’re selling digital products, they throw their money at you:

  • Reply to comments. Sometimes you can’t respond to each comment and sometimes you have nothing to say in reply to a comment. That’s fine. But I know bloggers who don’t respond to any comments.
  • Reply to emails. When someone actually takes the time to write out an email to you, that means a lot. The least you can do is respond, as I wrote about here. If you don’t have time to respond, it’s time to hire a VA.
  • Take time to visit your readers’ blogs. I know, I know. There are only so many hours in a day. However, visiting someone’s blog can really make them feel special. So, once or twice a week, sit down and see where your commenters are blogging. Visit and leave a comment. They’ll feel like a rock star.
  • Follow your community on social sites. I really don’t like when I see bloggers following just a few people. It tells me that you want to broadcast your stuff but you don’t give a crap about what your fans are saying. Use the private list function on Twitter, circles on Google+, etc. to filter out the people you know personally so those messages aren’t lost in your stream, but occasionally see what your community is saying.

Most importantly, write content so valuable that they have to keep coming back.

“Valuable” is a term that means different things to different bloggers. It might mean that you write posts that are so entertaining, your readers have to come back for more. It might mean that you write posts filled with information that helps someone reach their own goals, even when nothing else could. It might mean that your content is presented with a unique voice that really makes them think about life in a new way.

In other words, you have to consistently publish content that people can’t get anywhere else. That way, when you have something to sell, people know they have to buy from you, because they aren’t going to be able to get the content they’ve grown to love anywhere else.

To summarize, step one of selling digital products has…well…nothing to do with digital products. It’s all about building relationships with your peers and with your readers!

Stay tuned for our next installment, about figuring out what kind of digital product to create.

See Other Posts in This Series:

  1. Step One: Building Relationships (this post)
  2. Step Two: Choosing the Perfect Product
  3. Step Three: Creating Your Product
  4. Step Four: Planning Your Launch
  5. Step Five: Customers Service

Image credit (altered): Bigstock

Three Ways to Brand Yourself as an Authority Blogger

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authority blogger The end goal for all bloggers is to create a blog that becomes an authority site and might even make you an authority figure in the process. Being an “authority” means you are the “go to” source for information. The good news is that you can be an authority in any given niche.

In the world of blogging and internet marketing you might consider well known names like John Chow, Darren Rowse, Jeremy Schoemaker, and Brian Clark  as authority figures. In the travel niche, you probably know the names Gary Arndt and Dave and Deb from The Planet D. Food bloggers know Ree Drummond. Fashion bloggers know Leandra Medine. These individuals were able to their skills and knowledge, start a blog and share it with the world. Once people find true value in your content and start commenting and sharing it with others, then the magic happens.

Becoming an authority figure or creating an authority site isn’t really something that can be done with money (unless you want to spend a ton), in the end it comes down to the quality of content on your site, how you interact with your audience and continue to grow over time.

Everyone can become an authority, it’s just a matter of putting in the time and effort. Here’s five ways you can brand yourself as an authority blogger.

Start By Creating Really Killer Content

The first step to creating an authority blog starts with your content. It’s so easy to create a blog and start throwing content out there, but it’s extremely hard to stand out from the crowd and be known for awesome content. This is where you really need to put the time and focus in before you even get started.

Here’s what you need to ask yourself.

  • Why am I creating this blog in the first place?
  • Who is going to be my target audience and why are they coming to the blog?
  • What can I give my audience that other blogs in my niche aren’t?

Ask and answer these simple questions and you will start off on the right path for success.

Blast Your Name and Face Everywhere

I’m not talking about hiring some $5 SEO service on Fiverr and blasting your content and links all over the place! I’m talking about legitimately getting your name out there and getting heard. This is exactly what I have done over the years to make ZacJohnson.com and authority site and recognized name in the affiliate marketing and blogging space. As Pat Flynn says… “Be Everywhere“.

  • Guest blog on relevant and high end sites in your niche
  • Speak at various conferences
  • Make friends with top names in the industry
  • Help everyone and answer all of your emails

Get Social – It’s All About Engagement

I have to say that over the years I’ve always been lacking in the social media department, but it’s something I’ve been getting better at and more active lately. To make your blog really stand out and build an authority around your name or business, you really need to have a great social following as well. This will allow you to connect with so many more people and allow you to be accessible and more personal to your readers. Having a social connection on all networks will also allow you to grow your follow through many different outlets and deliver your blog updates instantly to their news feeds.

Here’s a few more social updates for you to use.

  • Make sure you are definitely on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
  • Create a Facebook Fan Page for your brand/blog in addition to having a personal profile there
  • Sign up for and monitor Klout, which is a great way to bring all of your social network links together
  • Respond, comment and engage with other social users
  • Use the same picture for all of your social accounts to increase your branding

And there you have it… three simple yet extremely effective ways for you to start growing your blogging brand and eventually become an authority figure within your niche!

Want to learn more about becoming an authority in your niche? Learn from people who are authorities in their respected niches by attending NMX in Las Vegas this January!

Image credit (altered): Bigstock

How Should I Spend Money on My Blog?

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how should i spend money on my blog

Over the last few years, blogging has gone from “that kinda weird thing that Internet people do” to mainstream. My mother still uses a pre-paid cell phone, has never been on Facebook, and had dial-up Internet up until about a year ago. And she has a blog.

One of the biggest reasons that blogging is so attractive is that it is a way to enjoy your passion that requires little start-up cash. Heck, it costs more to go to a baseball game with your family than it does to start a blog. You can even get started with absolutely no money.

As your traffic starts to grow, however, you might want to spend a little money on your blog. Recently, we posted an infographic featuring bloggers who made millions online. You can bet your britches that these people have invested money into their blogs! Now, yesterday, I wrote a bit about the advantages of paid targeted traffic, but if you’re a beginner, there are other things you should start paying for first.

Without further ado, here are the top five ways you should spend money on your blog:

Hosting

The number one thing you should purchase if you want to continue growing as a blogger is hosting. While millions of bloggers have gotten their start on Blogger, WordPress.com, Tumblr, or another freely hosted blogging platform, very, very few free services allow you enough freedom to really grow your blog. Sponsors/advertisers and customers will take you more seriously if you own your own site. Think about it. When’s the last time you saw a successful blog on a wordpress.com or blogspot.com site?

First, you need to purchase your domain name, which costs around $10 per year depending on where you register the name, and whether you want a .com name or a different extension, like .net, .org, or .me.

Then, you need hosting, which costs as little as $3 per month, depending on the size of your site, the company providing the hosting, and whether you purchase by the month or pay several months in advance. As a blogger, you really shouldn’t have to pay more than $10 per month.

So, in total, you’re looking at $75 – $150 per year (or $6 to $13 per month) to own your own site. You can spend even less money if you look for a sale. If you spend no other money on your blog, spend money on this.

Premium Themes and Plugins

Next, for many bloggers, it makes sense to invest in a premium theme and some premium plugins. Yes, there are a ton of free options out there, but the features you get with premium themes and plugins can help you grow.

As far as themes go, you can choose options such as Thesis, Headway, or Genesis, or you can choose to subscribe to a membership site where you pay one fee to have access to lots of themes. Woo Themes is an example of this kind of membership site and while you will be paying month instead of a flat fee, these membership options are typically a good choice if you have several blogs or change your theme often.

Premium themes can cost as little as $5 and as much as several hundreds of dollars. Most of the time, you get what you pay for.

Now let’s talk about premium plugins. There are thousands of choices out there. Pay for the plugins that make the most sense for your blog and your goals. You can also find “freemium” plugins, which means you have access to the plugin for free, but you have to pay if you want additional features and support.

Some Premium plugins that I really like are:

  • CommentLuv: Freemium – I purchased the upgrade and LOVE it! Not only does it give you Look for a sale and you can upgrade for a very reasonable price. When I purchased, I think I paid $30-40 for unlimited use, which is normally $97.
  • Gravity Forms: $39 for one site and support for a year
  • Visual Composer: $25 for one site, and well worth the money if you build complex pages
  • A/B Theme Testing: $10 for one site, and great if you want to test different themes to see what performs better
  • Backup Buddy: $80 for two sites or $100 for ten sites (with options for more at higher price points)

Of course, this doesn’t scratch the surface of the premium plugins available for bloggers, so I recommend doing your research to find those that are going to really enhance your blog, based on your goals. (And if you have a favorite premium plugin, leave a comment below to tell us about it!)

Education

I might be biased, but I believe that one of the best investments you can make as a blogger is in education. I work for NMX not just for the paycheck, but because I really believe in what this company is doing to help teach content creators to be better at what they do. I always walk away having learned something! If you’re not already signed up for our next show, I highly recommend it (you can learn more here).

Conferences aren’t your only option. If you want more education, here are some other options:

  • Online conferences, courses and programs, such as our virtual ticket
  • Single webinars/videos (often these are free, but sometimes there are premium options)
  • Ebooks (again, often these are free, but sometimes there are awesome premium ebooks you should consider)
  • Print books from experts in the topics that interest you

Of course, you should also be reading other blogs, which is completely free. It always boggles my mind when bloggers say they “don’t have time to read other blogs,” which really means they don’t make time to read other blogs. Education blogs (like this one and others like it) are invaluable for learning more about blogging.

Virtual Assistants and Contractors

How much is your time worth?

Let’s say that you have a few hours every day to work on your blog. In those hours you can be doing any number of tasks; as most bloggers know, you could fill a hundred hours a week with blogging work!

A virtual assistant or a contractor can help you with low-level tasks so you can work on other tasks that are going to help you make more money. For example, you can have a virtual assistant help with emails so you have time to write more blog posts. Or you could have a contractor write some posts for you so you have time to work with sponsors.

With virtual assistants and contractors, you don’t always get a more trusted, skilled person if you spend more money. I’ve worked with VAs who charged $5 per hour and were excellent. I’ve also worked with VAs who charged $20 per hour and did a horrible job. You really have to do your research to find the person who is a right fit for you.

As a sidebar, one of our speakers, Chris Ducker, runs a company that specializes in helping people find VAs. We love Chris, and if you’re looking for virtual help, definitely check out his services at Virtual Staff Finder.

Mailing List Services

Lastly, I highly recommend that you invest in your mailing list. There are free services to get started, like MailChimp, but I like the premium services offered by other companies a little better. My personal favorite is Aweber (for bloggers), and if you need a more robust CRM and marketing tool, not just a way to send emails, there are more expensive services out there, such as HubSpot, Marketo, and Infusionsoft. With mailing list services, you’ll pay by the size of your list.

Feedblitz is also an option. This service combines RSS and email so you can reach readers with the content they really want.

When someone visits your site, you have no way of reaching them again if you don’t have a mailing list. Even if they follow you on Twitter of Facebook, there’s no guarantee that they’ll see your updates, since the Twitter stream moves so quickly and Facebook status updates aren’t seen by everyone.

With a mailing list, you can reach the reader where they live the most…in their inbox.  You can send them newsletters to help build trust, links to your blog to help boost your traffic, and product recommendations to help you make more money. You can also survey your readers using your mailing list, allowing you to find out what kind of content they most want.

So there you have it: my top five recommendations for spending money on your blog. Do you invest in your blog? If so, how do you spend your money? Leave a comment letting us know!

Full disclosure: some of the companies mentioned are past or current NMX/BlogWorld exhibitors and sponsors or are owned by past or current NMX/BlogWorld speakers. It’s hard to keep track since we’ve had so many people working with us over the years! I never recommend a product I don’t believe in, though. If you have any questions about NMX’s relationship with a specific company, let me know!

The #1 Way to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Blog

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targeted web traffic When I first started blogging, the idea that people I didn’t know were reading my posts freaked me out. It was hard to believe that anyone other than my mom could care about what I had to say!

But today, like most bloggers, I care a great deal about traffic numbers and what I can do to increase them.

All traffic is good traffic, but some traffic is better traffic. I will never turn readers away, but the the techniques I use to get new readers need to fall in line with my specific niche and blog goals, simply because there are only so many hours in each day. One of the most common mistakes I see new bloggers making is going for the easy traffic instead of going for targeted traffic.

In other words, getting 100 new readers from Facebook who actually subscribe to your mailing list is better than getting 1000 new readers from StumbleUpon who hit the back button after 5 seconds on your blog.

The best way to get targeted traffic? You may not like it, but here’s the answer: pay for it.

Paid Targeted Traffic: Wait…You Need to Read This Before You Say “No Way!”

When I tell people that paying for traffic is the best way to get more targeted readers to your blog, most people don’t want to hear anything else I have to say. But let me break it down for you and tell you why you should embrace paid traffic!

For our example, let’s measure by number of subscribers to your mailing list. And, for the sake of the example, let’s also say that you’ve figured out that each of your subscribers is worth $3 over the course of six months.

If you go for organic traffic, most of the people who land on your site aren’t going to be interested enough to sign up for your mailing list. That’s just the nature of traffic from search, social, bookmarking sites, etc. In our example, let’s assume that you get 10,000 visitors to your blog over the course of a week and hat 10% of them are engaged enough to sign up for your mailing list. That means your week was worth $3,000. Not bad.

But instead, let’s say you spend $1,000 on getting the same amount of targeted traffic with Adwords, Facebook, and other means of getting traffic from people who are extremely interested in your blog, based on researched demographics and search behavior. Instead of 10% of the traffic signing up for your list, you double that rate and 20% sign up. That means your week was worth $6,000 instead. Once you subtract the $1,000 you spend on traffic, you’re still operating at a gain, having made a profit of $5,000 instead of just $3,000.

Paid targeted traffic isn’t looking so bad anymore, right?

Paid Targeted Traffic is About Testing and the Long Game

Of course, in my examples, my numbers of arbitrary. You might spend $1,000 and see only a 1% difference in sign-up traffic, which means that your overall profit would be $2,300–not nearly as good as your results with organic traffic.

It’s all about testing. What ads should you buy? How can you optimize them not only to get the top number of clicks, but the top number of highly targeted clicks? Who exactly is your target audience, not just for your free blog content, but for whatever you’re selling?

Testing never truly ends. There’s always something you could be doing better, and an ad that performs well today might not perform well a month from now. Until you get some base testing done, however, you might not see much profit…or any profit. What’s important is this:

Before you start paying for traffic, come up with a plan and budget for testing and optimizing your campaigns.

Paid traffic rarely works if you simply run a burst of ads for a week. You need to be able to afford to test ads over the course of time, knowing that you won’t see a return on investment at first. If you can’t afford to do that, paid traffic isn’t your best option right now.

Yes, Free Targeted Traffic is an Option

If you don’t have the budget to pay for ads at the moment, you can still get targeted traffic to your blog. Like with paid traffic, it’s all about testing. You want to spend your time on the promotion activities that give you the best returns.

Bounce rate alone doesn’t tell the whole story, but this is a start. Look for traffic sources that have a low bounce rate. This will change based on your niche and your specific content. For some bloggers, Pinterest performs well, well other bloggers have more luck with SEO and still others see the best results with Twitter. Test, test, test!

Look beyond bounce rate. Use Google Analytics to set up a goal and track conversions. This allows you to see which traffic sources get you the most new subscribers. Sometimes, your bounce rate might be extremely low (which is a good thing), but the subscriber rate is also very low (which is a bad thing).

Want more ad clicks? You need more traffic. Want to sell sponsored posts for more money? You need more traffic. Want to sell more affiliate products? You need more traffic. Do you see a trend here? Better traffic is your first step to making more money, whether you do that with a mailing list or another form of monetization. Adding paid traffic to your strategy is ideal, but at the very least, start thinking more about how to spend your time promoting your blog to your target market, not just to anyone who will click your link.

Do you pay for targeted traffic? What have your experiences been with this kind of traffic versus non-paid (organic) traffic?

Young Entrepreneurs Who Made Millions Online [Infographic]

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Online, you can be successful no matter what your age – and we have the proof! Check out this infographic showing some of the top young entrepreneurs who’ve become millionaires through their work online:

Entrepreneurs_CP4

Editor’s note: These online entrepreneurs make me motivated to work harder. I love a good success story! But your role models don’t have to be millionaires. Whose online success story motivates you? Leave a comment with the name of the online entrepreneur who inspires you!

024 The Podcast Report – Tips On Improving Your Elevator Pitch

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

PodcastReport-150 Erik Fisher and I are back with another episode of The Podcast Report, the podcast devoted to the Podcasting Track of New Media Expo.

In this episode, Erik and I discuss several tips on helping you improve your approach to elevator pitches. The resource that we used to pull a majority of our tips was this post on the Microsoft Business website.

Tips we discussed:
1. Make sure to pull in what is unique about you.
2. Make it exciting.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Write it Down.
5. Practice it many times.
6. Make it about them, not about you.
7. Use a story

 
 
New Media Expo Promo
If you have an interest in promoting NMX to your audience, we have created a professionally produced promo that you can play on your podcast. This is a great way to encourage your community to come meet you, face to face, at this event.

Click Here To Download The Promo

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Listen to NMX CEO Rick Calvert on The Big Biz Show

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This week, NMX CEO Rick Calvert was a guest on The Big Biz Show to talk about why he started NMX and what you can expect at our 2014 show in Las Vegas. If you didn’t listen to his interview live, check out the video now!

[youtube width=”480″ height=”360″]http://youtu.be/p4BYw3IsaCo[/youtube]

As Rick mentions in this interview, the early bird registration deadline is TODAY. If you haven’t registered yet, now’s the time to get your ticket to the show. Use the code BLOG20 for 20% off your ticket.

Remember, you have to register TODAY to get the early bird ticket price. Head to the NMX event site now to secure your seat at the event.

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