One of the most popular blog posts I’ve ever written was THE Blogger’s Guide to Facebook. It has been viewed over 20,000 times and the videos within that post have accumulated over 120,000 views.
Unfortunately, those videos are now outdated. Facebook, as many of you know, loves to update and change things around – so my walkthroughs for creating a Facebook page and creating a Facebook landing page are a bit off.
Several people have requested that I reshoot these videos and publish updated versions.
I just finished, and here they are! Click to continue…
If you know a little bit about search engine optimization (SEO) or have seen my free keyword research webinar replay, you’ll know that there are two important factors that determine the viability of a keyword:
- The amount of search traffic a particular keyword receives; and
- The competition for that particular keyword.
Both of these factors are what we investigate when performing keyword research because a keyword that isn’t being searched for isn’t worth our time (generally speaking), and also one that has a lot of competition may be too difficult to rank for.
On the competition side of things, there are a lot of factors to consider:
- The total amount of other websites that mention the particular keyword.
- The total amount of other websites that mention the particular keyword specifically in the title.
- The off-page SEO factors of existing websites that are already ranking highly for the particular keyword, including domain age, page rank and quantity & quality of backlinks.
- The on-page SEO factors of existing websites that are already ranking highly for the particular keyword, including having the keyword in the title, url, description and header of those sites.
Luckily, Market Samurai (free trial) has made finding all of this information extremely easy. And yesterday, there was an update to the software that added an additional factor to help us understand the competition surrounding different keywords: the URL Competition. Click to continue…
I not only produce podcasts, but I listen to them too.
In fact, when I still had my 9 to 5 job I listened to the Internet Business Mastery Podcast every single weekday for a year, sometimes repeating certain episodes 5 or 6 times in a row. I never had any intention of doing business on my own at the time, but it was just something that really intrigued me and I enjoyed it. And of course, for those of you who know my story, I was eventually laid off and it was the year of listening to IBM that gave me the inspiration and drive to do business for myself online.
Now that I work from home and have a baby in the mix, I don’t have quite as much time to listen to podcasts as I did before, however I do try to make time for it and I’m more selective of the particular episodes that I listen to, based on their description.
Below you’ll find a list of some of my favorite podcasts that I’m currently subscribed to. There’s a lot of great content and inspiration in each of their shows. Click to continue…
As a blogger who does both video and podcasts, I’ve invested in a number of gizmos and gadgets to help me run my businesses. Below, you’ll get an over the shoulder look at exactly what I’m working with. Also, please note that some of the links below are affiliate links to Amazon.
The Desktop Computer
Currently, I’m running a 24″ iMac Computer. This piece of hardware was my very first Apple purchase made back in October of 2006 and I’m extremely satisfied with it. It’s really handy for all of the graphic design and other multimedia stuff that I do on a daily basis. Plus, because I have an iPhone app business, the Apple computer is quite necessary.
For those of you who want the specifics, it’s a 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, and her name is Betsy.
I’m back with another Niche Site Duel update!
The experimental niche site I created from scratch live here on SPI (see the Niche Site Duel Hub for more details) has undergone quite a few tests and experiments since my last post about it.
The security guard training site is still ranking #1 in Google for its primary keyword and I’ve had the opportunity to attempt to make money from methods other than just Google Adsense, which is what I’m going to share with you today (and my current income report too, of course).
Below is everything that I experimented with since my last update: Click to continue…
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In this session of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, I bring back a topic of a recent post I wrote, Is Giving Away Free Information Bad, and respond to some of the 200+ comments with the help of a special guest, Cliff from PodcastAnswerMan.com, who was a guest in session 5 of the SPI podcast.
To be honest, there really is no right or wrong answer here, but Cliff and I share exactly what free information (and the extend to which we provide free information) has done for our own businesses, and what it could do for yours too.
Thank you for all of you who posted comments on that post. All of them were extremely thought-provoking and I read and respond to a number of them during the recording, with credit to the commenter, of course.
During this episode, we cover:
- How I respond to “giving away free information is bad!“
- How an email list of less than 200 can be extremely profitable.
- How to get people to want to pay you for the information you already provide.
- Cliff’s idea to make even more money by giving away his premium content for free.
- The “mindset” of free to the consumer.
- What we think about just giving away a “little bit” of free information.
- The importance of making it easy to let people give back to you.
- Plus a whole lot more…
I hope you enjoy this session! Be sure to check out what my voice sounds like when I’m sick.
Cheers!
Right click here to download the MP3
Items Mentioned in this Session:
Transcript: not available for this podcast, sorry!
It’s amazing what a little challenge can do to help people accomplish something great.
A pillar article (for those of you who don’t know) is a particular type of blog post that can also be described as epic, monumental and comprehensive. Usually a longer tutorial-style post, a pillar article goes above and beyond to provide the best and most detailed information about how to accomplish something. This kind of post is a deadly piece of ammunition in a blogger’s arsenal because it can drive massive traffic, easily become viral and drastically raise the value and authority of the blog and its owner.
I’ve recently written about how my own pillar articles have helped my brand, and in that post I had offered the SPI readers a challenge: to publish your own brand new pillar article. I also asked you to send me the link to your pillar article so that I can list it here with all of the other submissions so we can all see what kind of killer, useful and helpful content we all come up with. Click to continue…
After posting My 2nd Annual Passive Income Report the other day, I received so many wonderful comments and emails from many of you. Thank you for that – it really lifted my tired spirits after hardly getting any sleep while writing that post.
Today, I thought it would be fun just to quickly answer a number of questions that I’ve been getting lately. Most of these questions have been asked by several people so maybe I’ll shed some light on some things that you were curious about.
Enjoy your weekend! Click to continue…
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that all of this is real.
I wake up and play with my son for a few hours every single morning. I go to several places with my wife during the day and am proud to be one of the only husbands there. I work from home on my own schedule, on my own projects and answer to no one. I have automated businesses setup that can literally make money while I sleep, and somehow I’ve become a leader – an authoritative figure in this make money online and blogging niche.
And most importantly, I’m happy.
Some of you are probably disgusted (which is understandable) because it seems like all of this just sort of fell right into my lap. That I’m just a random guy who got lucky when the stars aligned in my favor and success was handed to me on a plate.
Over the past year, along with a lot of deep thinking about where I am in my life and how I got to this point, I realized that luck has very little to do with it. The only lucky part about my journey was getting laid off in 2008, which opened up a whole new world opportunities for me.
As I said last year in my first annual passive income report, “…my lay off was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. For some reason, my 9 to 5 job was masking the fork in the road that has been there the whole time. It just took an eye-opening experience like a layoff to really see what was available for me and my future.”
Success was not handed to me. Opportunity was. Click to continue…
Welcome to 2011! To start it off I’ll be going over my monthly income report for December of 2010.
Each month I write a detailed report about my online income, sharing not only how much I’ve made but also where it comes from and the kinds of things I’ve been doing that may have had an effect on it. My income reports, however, are not about the money – they are about motivation, inspiration and staying focused.
Writing these reports force me to outdo myself and it’s a great way to hold myself accountable for what I want to accomplish in the future too. More importantly (going back to my entire purpose here on this blog), I’m here to show you that it is possible to make a decent living online, to work less and make more, and to do it in a way where everybody comes out a winner.
A lot of exciting things happened in December, so lets get right to it.
Enjoy! Click to continue…
One of the most popular blog posts I’ve ever written was THE Blogger’s Guide to Facebook. It has been viewed over 20,000 times and the videos within that post have accumulated over 120,000 views.
No, I'm not a millionaire, but I am living off of passive income made online. I'm here to show 
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