Re-starting with a New Business Model

My business partner and I recently re-started a web project that was originally launched in 2005. At the time, we had a business model that relied on free upfront service with a large potential payout on the tail-end. We has some success; however, there was one problem with the model: we were continually babysitting service providers, clients and sponsors.

Jump forward three years and things are starting to go very differently. We have increased the overall potential for the site and have made a fundamental change to the business model. Rather than a free service, we have increased our offering, charge an up-front fee for service and have moved the client responsibilities to the appropriate place.

Guess what? We make the same amount of money with less than 20% of the work! Do I hear the Pareto Principle calling?

Take a look at your own online businesses. Is there a way that you can modify your business model to reduce your workload yet make the same amount (or even more) money? I didn’t think so until I got so tired of the old model that it was either ditch the whole idea or change! I am still very happy that I read the 4-Hour Work Week for more great ideas about automation.

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Around the Blogs and Back Again 2

I’ve been busy again this week both off and online. Through all my hours of reading and commenting on the web, here are some items that I found very interesting:

• Real Estate Editorial gives a good article on city buildings and residences going “Green” by implementing green roof technology.
• The Laidback Buddhist has a great self analysis by using “7 P’s” as an analytical tool. My own is coming up since being challenged by dcrblogs.com earlier this week.
• Googlesightseeing.com is a very cool site that shows some of the more interesting things that are found on Google Maps. Here is one that shows an inter-dimensional portal located somewhere in the Netherlands.
• Online Cash Flow posted about the benefits and hassles of being a blogger. This is the link to the benefits and here is the link to the hassles.
• The Edmonton Real Estate Blog posted an article promoting a distant annex of the Lewis Empire. Sara’s posting is about an area of the city called Lewis Estates. My domain expands…
• SEO Optimization wrote a great article on optimizing your title. If you haven’t been doing it already, here are some things you need to know. Also, see my article about title optimization.
• Four-Pillars.ca wrote about his long-term plan for retirement. I made a comment about his goals and he got back to me right away. My estimations are based on a minimum 8% return, his were from a conservative 4%. I think he’ll be rolling in money when the real rate comes out much higher than his budget. Won’t that be a nice retirement day?!

That’s a quick summary. I’ll see you back again tomorrow!

Can anyone else believe that it’ already the 16th of September?

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Automate Your Multiple Streams Of Income

I got caught up in the same ideas that every other internet marketer, developer or entrepreneurial addict does: create a big business, build it up and sell it for millions.

While I still hold this idea in my head. I’ve come to realize that they true secret to wealth (not to be confused with The Secret) is not necessarily in striking it rich in one go. The secret to wealth is in Multiple Streams of Income.

I’ve had this concept in my mind for a long time. Even since I was still in University - without the financial education I have now - I wondered why someone would try to gain a lot of money from one job, rather than to have small pieces of income from different sources. Looking back, I had the right idea. The problem was that I didn’t understand how it coulld be applied.

Multiple Streams of Automation
After a lot of research and having creating a couple of online businesses myself, I have come to conclusion that there is one key ingredient in creating long-lasting wealth. The secret is in complete Automation of your processes.

I’m not going to pretend that I invented the idea. In fact, I probably heared it from the guy who heared it from the guy who invented it. The important part is that I’ve discovered the importance and have begun to apply it.

In the past, I’ve made the mistake of building myself into the process of a web business in the past. For my current projects (blogging aside!) I am doing the exact opposite. I have designed the entire process to work, take payment, send email notification, maintain contact and create content without me being present.

In my Real Estate venture, the only work that I need to do is to check the AdSense account once or twice a week and I was required to create a network of real estate agents across the country. Once this was created, I did not need to perform any additional duties.

In the begining, my business partner and I put in a huge number of hours into the project to get it off the ground. Now, we’re in maintenance mode and are always either upgrading or looking for new projects to work on.

Make It Up In Volume
Think of Automation of your income streams like this: if you can create online businesses that run themselves with little or no input from you, then it won’t be too long before you’re well into your early retirement.

These are a couple of great quotes that always makes me think about how much money is available in the world:

You’re one in a million…that means that there are only 6,000 other people just like you.

I’m not greedy, I just want $1.00 from every person on the planet.

Successful multiple streams of income is about numbers! You don’t neet to create a huge business with hundreds of employees. Find a niche that has some interest in the market. Out of 6,000,000,000 people, even a small niche may have one to ten million people in it. Figure out what they are looking for and make the offer. Next, automate that income stream and move on to the next project.

Can it really be this easy?

Create your process. Duplicate your success. Retire rich.

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John Chow No Longer a Dot Com Mogul?

I read a posting by John Chow earlier this month called Requirements To Be a Dot Com Mogul. He details a list of 7 items that must be met in order to be a Dot Com Mogul (as you may have guessed from the title).

On this list is a very interesting item:

A Google search of your name must be at the #1 spot

On a recent search of the term John Chow I found that the closest entry for the original John Chow is at #19 (page 2) with his MyBlogLog profile.

I’ve read on the site (and on many others) that John was punished by Google for using a linking strategy they didn’t appreciate. I would accept this as an excuse; however, a Dot Com Mogul should know better!

Learn from John
This article he wrote makes me think about all the rules and lists that people write on their blogs everyday. While it’s one thing to create information for people, it’s very different to practice what you preach. If you’re going to use definitive statements like “I will never…” or lists like John’s, you could end up having to backtrack and explain yourself or even lose readers as a result.

John’s Next Step
I think this may just be a case of being a little sure-of-one’s-self. In John’s case, he does have the history and the income/businesses to back up the claim, but I still think you should follow your own rules. I’m going to simply ask that John quietly remove the Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul tag, until he receives forgiveness from on-high (Google) and gets his name back up top where it should be. Maybe the tag could be replaced with Evil Ramblings of an Online Money Making Star or something like that.

All this being said, for a company who has been the leader in creative business practice, maybe Google should cut a guy a break when he comes up with a great way to spread the news about his site!

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Tags: dot com mogul, john chow, blogging, blog

Breaking The Web Stat Addiction

I read a great post on bluejar.com called Top 7 Signs You Are an Obsessed Web Stats Whore.

Since I am affected by three of the seven problem areas, I thought I would try to justify my behavior and mend my evil ways.

1. You check your stats at least once each hour. Even worse, you reload your stats just after viewing them to see if any new visitors show up.

Having a full time job makes this very difficult; however, I do manage to sneak in a look in the morning, during lunch and a few times in the evening.

Am I addicted? Absolutely.

I justify this because I want to know:

• What time of day attracts the most readers
• When Alexa and Google update their analytics
• Who has been visiting (MyBlogLog)
• What the daily AdSense income is at
• Did Kontera do anything yet?

As I mentioned in a previous post, A 4-Hour Dose Of Realization, I have been known to be trapped in an analysis-paralysis mode. I think stat checking falls directly into this category.

I’m going to fix this by making a commitment:
For the next week, I will only check my stats once per day AND only for up to 15 minutes in total.

Next one:

4. You have multiple stats checkers for the exact same stats.

I am guilty of this one too. I will admit that I sometimes use the total impressions in my AdSense account to get a good idea of the number of visitors that have been to my site. Lame, lame, lame.

It’s easy to justify this one. I am Actually checking my AdSense income but get the Added Benefit of seeing my traffic numbers. Also, since I use Google Accounts, I can simply click the ‘Open in New Window’ button and Analytics magically appears.

Solution:
See my commitment from part 1 and I’ll think about writing Google to change their entire AdSense setup.

Finally:

7. You see other websites stats and you secretly try to compete with them for better stats.

OK, who doesn’t do this one? Of course your going to check other stats That’s Why Alexa Has The Compare Button!

I justify this because I want to see all my fellow bloggers succeed (that’s what we all say out loud isn’t it?)

Solution:
No solution other than world domination.

Based on these results, I’d say I’m addicted. As I commented, it seems that I left my Blackberry addiction for a blogging one. I guess that beats coffee!

PS. I thought about contacting Google but it’s getting pretty late and I’m tired from soccer. Maybe I’ll email them tomorrow.

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A 4-Hour Dose of Realization

I just started to read the book, The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss and I am already impressed with how the ideas have affected me. While I haven’t made it to the nuts and bolts of the book, just reading the first 25 pages has started to change the way I think about my business, my blog and my life.

Within the first few pages, Ferriss adds some great humor about his youth as well as some excellent advice on your wealth mentality. There are two important pieces of information that I have used in the past but have quit thinking about recently. These two ideas triggered that section of the brain that makes you feel stupid for forgetting but happy that you’ve remembered and can now start to use again!

The first jolt was on page 11 in the description of Automation. Ferriss writes:

…Automation puts cash flow on autopilot using geographic arbitrage, outsourcing, and rules of nondecision…the second ingredient of luxury lifestyle design: income.

A business partner and I have formed two successful online businesses over the past four years. While each one took a lot of time to start, they now both run on auto-pilot with little or no ongoing effort from either of us.

One problem that each of us faced after completion was in maintaining our motivation level to continue to grow the businesses into larger success. As I read this first section of the book, it slammed me in the face with realization: we lost our motivation because we lost our focus on the original goals.

Before we started the sites, we discussed our future hopes, dreams, motivations and eventual goals. During the project, we got bogged down in the details of database design, look, feel and function. Once finished, we never went back to reignite our original passion and direction.

We also forgot about the importance of having the continuous cash flow from the business grow to outpace your expenses. Since my definition of retirement is to have your monthly passive income larger than your monthly expenses I shouldn’t have forgotten! It’s that easy, short and clear – yet we both forgot how important it was! If you can put cash flow creation on autopilot, then you’ll make money for years with little or no additional effort

The second one that sent a jolt to my brain was in the comparison of the dreamer’s definition and the new rich mentality:

Definition: To be the boss instead of the employee; to be in charge
New Rich: To be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner.

Once again I realized how much I had lost my focus.

Two years ago, I was heavy into real estate, real estate investing and analyzing investment property. The problem was that I had listened to so many nothing-down, zero down, etc. etc. audio books and read dozens of real estate investing manuals that I got trapped in the analysis-paralysis mode. I kept thinking to myself that I needed to know everything and be in charge when it came time close the deal.

After reading this one line I realize that I could have been so much more successful! It wasn’t important for me to be in charge, use my own money and managing the property. The important thing was in being the owner and letting other people run the day-to-day aspects of the business. While the analysis is important, making the right deal and then moving on to the next one is far more important. Looking back, this one line could have made me much, much more money.

What Should You Expect?
It seems like this book is going to help me greatly. Since this first post is so early, I promise that I will not be writing an update or new post every 25 pages. What I will be doing is reading this book, hoping that the remaining 268 pages are as motivational as the first 25 and writing a thorough book review when I’m done.

The Top 7 Ways To Supercharge Your Titles

Writing a blog is a great way to express your opinions and share your stories with friends and family. If this is your goal, please continue to use whatever titles you want in your blog. If you have chosen to monetize your blog then you can’t treat it like a hobby - you need great articles and they need great titles!

The title should aim to catch the reader’s attention and also describe what they are going to read. Remember, there are almost 100,000 blogs being started each day so your titles need to have that little extra to be noticed. Stand out and get creative.

The Top [Insert Number Here] List
One of the best ways to catch a reader’s attention is to turn your article into a Top something List. I’ve read that the best numbers are 7 and 12 but I think that 10 is still in the running. One of my most visited articles is called Top Ten Comments That Work In Any Situation. It had a lot of successful visits from DIGG and that’s mainly due to the title. Why does it work? Let me ask you another question: why do student prefer to read Cliff Notes? It’s the easy way to get the information into your brain without dedicating a whole lot of time to reading. Maybe you can even understand the entire article from just reading the points…even better!

Ask A Question
Using a question is a powerful way to attract the attention of a reader because it makes them wonder what the answer is and almost forces them to visit the site. In my article, How Often Should A Blog Stay On Topic?, I used the question-type title to bait the reader in. Which title do you think is better; the previous question or A Blogger Should Stay On Topic 75% Of The Time. Does the question title work? I think so. If I asked you: What the one thing that a blogger can do to totally destroy their traffic? Wouldn’t you visit to make sure you never did it?

Make A Bold Statement
This method creates an interesting motivator for a reader to visit. I was reading some articles online one day and I came upon on about buying real estate vs investing in the stock market. It was a well written, yet totally false article. I could have created a title that said, Why I disagree with the Motley Fool website, but I chose to go with a little more energy. I created a response called Thanks For The Bad Advice Fools. Much better, don’t you think?

Be Controversial
Nothing drives people to action more than a strong statement that either agrees or disagrees with their opinion. While you don’t need to have a politically motivated blog or try to intentionally rile someone up, a good title that builds a little controversial suspense will work wonders for your visitors. I wrote an article called, The End Of Google AdSense? where I addressed some recent high profile AdSense publishers who dropped their Google Ads. Although the article itself did not take an extreme position on the subject, the title obviously sets the tone for the story.

Helpful or Instructional
This title works a little better in SEO than in something like DIGG. When someone is looking for an interesting piece of news or industry happening to read, they will rarely read an instructional piece. That being said, it you’re going to be successful over the long run, you need to attract a steady stream of new readers. Call it niche marketing if you want but creating a title like my, Using Articles To Drive Free Traffic To Your Blog post will attract a reader who is interested in a number of topics.

Vague with Power
If you want to post about something but it doesn’t fit with any of the other techniques, you can ad strength with a vague yet powerful title. There are hundreds of power words that you can use to add a little oomph to the title. In my post on increasing your brand awareness, I used the title Ignite Your Brand With A Favicon to not only advertise a way to Power your brand but also an instructional post about using a favicon on your site. This post also had a lot of visitors from a few of the social bookmark sites. As you can see in this title, it doesn’t take much to make a fairly routine how-to-guide into a much more interesting article.

Humor with Flare
People like to laugh. For that reason, these types of articles will give you some great traffic. I wrote about an early blogging blunder I made in What Not To Do On A Tuesday Night. This article earned me a fair amount of traffic (as a new blogger I was very excited) because people were interested in what funny event happened to me. The title is almost a question in that it creates the suspense, but it’s obvious from the matter-of-fact way I mention it that it’s humorous. I think it’s a great title but it was a lousy Tuesday!

If you can utilize one or more of these techniques in each of your articles, you will not only have more success in places like DIGG and del.icio.us but you will increase your chances of having people read your article from your RSS feed. The best titles will integrate two or more of the techniques to create more power and stand out from the crowd!

Remember, it’s your content that keeps the readers visiting but it’s the titles that get them there in the first place!

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Blogging Is Not Passive Income

There is a lot of talk on the web about how easy it is to make money online and numerous guides that help you to that end. One thing I find interesting is that people brag about putting very little work and effort into the day-to-day business of their site.

When I choose to read a blog I want to know that the author is dedicated to their readers and will maintain a consistent quality in their work. I myself can spend up to two hours writing a single post so I get the right information, sources and internal references. I find it hard to imagine being able to write valueable articles by spending only a few hours a week.

Here is a quick sample of things I do almost every day as a new blog:
Internal

• Write a post
• Read other blogs/sites for ideas, stories and ways to optimize my site
• Maintain my Blog Strategy and Marketing plan
• Tweak my WordPress Plugins
• Install any new and optimized Plugins

External

• Read up to 20 other blogs for ideas, stories and ways to optimize my site
• Make comments on stories that catch my attention
• Check my rankings (broke the Top 100,000 in Alexa - now floating at 80,000 to 120,000!)
• Check AdSense, Analytics, Technorati, Kontera, etc.

Continue To Grow
I see LewisEmpire.com as a way to continually grow my own knowledge of SEO, online marketing and making money online. I also see it as a great place to record the lessons I have learned through my reflection on the daily events that I experience. Those are some of the internal benefits. The external benefits are from the value that readers offer through comments and creating a community around my work.

As a business, I think writing a blog is an excellent way to make money. Once you get your traffic high enough, there are limitless opportunities to add wealth and generate cash flow. The problem with running a successful blog is that blogging is not a passive stream of income. A passive stream of income brings in money regardless of whether you’re present or not over the long run. One might argue that a good blogger could write a bunch of great posts then time-delay their appearance. That’s true; however, at some point you must come back and keep writing or your blog will fizzle and die.

Treat Your Blog As a Business
Even if you’re only spending 4 hours a week working on your blog, it’s better if your readers believe that you’re putting in a solid effort every day. The best businesses in the world don’t grow by telling their clients that they only need to work a few hours a week. They work hard to maintain an ‘always open’ mentality. If you are taking a holiday or something, that’s a different story but make sure your time-delay posts are still valuable!

As I mention in the title, Blogging is not passive income. The real money comes when you’ve created a large and active community of readers. If you start to post too many articles that look rushed or poorly planned, those readers (and the income they bring) will find other places to spend their time.

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Tags: 4 hour work week, value, passive income, blogging, blogging challenge, business success, always open

7 WordPress Plugins That Work

Here’s a quick update of the plugins that I have installed on LewisEmpire.com and those that I think really work. Some save you time, some make you money and some even bring in visitors!

I have included the direct link for each of these plugins to the linked website. If you’re more comfortable, you can find each of these using the WordPress Plugin directory to search for these tools.

AdSense Deluxe
This great plugin allows you to manage your Google AdSense or Yahoo Search Marketing display ads without any work or worry. Since Google limits their ads to three per page you need to be really careful that you don’t break their terms. This plugin will manage that for you and allow you to focus on creating content. You can find it at AdSense Deluxe plugin for WordPress.
My Ranking:
Save You Time: 4/5
Make You Money: 5/5
Bring In Visitors: -1/5 (some visitors hate advertising all together!)

All In One SEO Pack
Using this tool changes your posts from looking like this:
Lewis Empire >> Blog Archives >> Take The Challenge And Create Success
to
Take The Challenge And Create Success | Lewis Empire
It may not really matter to you yet, but just wait until that first person runs a Google search for your key terms. Which one are they more likely to choose? Now you see why the 2 minutes it takes to download and install is worth it! Get it at All In One SEO Pack plugin for WordPress
My Ranking:
All around: 5/5

Brian’s Threaded Comments
The most important part of a blogger’s world is to create a sense of community around your site. Let people know that you are a real person with real experience behind you. That’s what the comments do. Now, take it one step further and create a forum-like atmosphere where your readers can interact and respond to specific comments by other readers. Also, you can directly respond to each person on your blog. That’s what this plugin does for you. Remember to do a backup of your original comments file prior to upload! Grab this plugin at Brian’s Threaded Comments plugin for WordPress.
My Ranking:
Save You Time: 0/5
Make You Money: 0/5
Bring In Visitors: 4/5

del.icio.us - Bookmark this!
This plugin is truly tasty (sorry for the bad humor.) It allows you to show a range of social network and bookmark items (including del.icio.us) for each of your posts. If you want people to be able to remember your posts (and I hope you do) then this one is great. Get is at del.icio.us plugin for WordPress
My Ranking:
Save You Time: 3/5
Make You Money: 0/5
Bring In Visitors: 4/5

FeedBurner FeedSmith
Do you want to feel really popular? This is where you feel the love! If you’ve got a large RSS membership, you probably have a great site and opportunities really open up for you. This is another easy upload with some minor modifications to your RSS feed. Get it at FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin for WordPress.
My Ranking:
Save You Time: 1/5
Make You Money: 3/5
Bring In Visitors: 5/5

Show Top Commentators
This is a great tool to help create a sense of community and reward those people who participate in your site. This plugin shows the people who have made the most comments on your site in the past X days. I would suggest that for a new blog you should start with a yearly renewal. As you get more people visiting, try changing the time to monthly and then on to 7 days. this one will keep people coming back and making comments on your site. For more on comment strategy read my post Using Comments To Get Linkbacks. Get this plugin at Show Top Commentators plugin for WordPress.
My Ranking:
Save You Time: 0/5
Make You Money: 0/5
Bring In Visitors: 4/5 (More participation equals more return visitors)

MyAvatar
This one was a bit of a challenge to upload but I think it’s worth it. This plugin shows the Avatar images (as seen to the sidebar under Recent Readers) for everyone who makes a comment on your site. This plugin does very little except add a little color and let you show a face (or an image) to a comment. Get it at MyAvatar plugin for WordPress.
My Ranking:
Save You Time: 0/5
Make You Money: 0/5
Bring In Visitors: 1/5

I hope these help you create a successful blog. Obviously it doesn’t take much to run a great series of posts but adding a little extra with the plugins does make a difference. If anyone has another great one I’m missing, please add it in the comments and where to find it!

Please remember: you should always at least backup your files whenever you install new software on your site. I accept no responsibility for the use of these plugins.

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Tags: wordpress plugin, google adsense, pay per click ads, feedburner, blog, SEO pack, make money online, multiple streams of income

Double Your Income - Remove Pay Per Click Ads

The Loses Are Mounting
It looks like Google AdSense is losing another money maker as a client. A few days ago I wrote an article called The End of Google AdSense? discussing the decision by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net to drop AdSense and sell private ads. In that article I mentioned John Chow’s site and how he loses of a huge chunk of prime ad space for only 5.3% of his monthly income.
Now I read that John Chow has decided to drop AdSense as well (Google 300×250 Ad Sport For Sale).

All Work And No Pay?
Did he read my article? I like to think I got his make money online juices going and pushed him over the edge. That being said, I still think he should look a little closer at what’s being offered. Rather than make between $1,300 (pre-summer) and $661 (summer) with PPC ads, he’s fixing that spot at $1,000 per month or 8.06% of his monthly income (although he said that he may raise the rates in the fall). To get this extra few percentage he now needs to actually do some work!

I’m interested to see if John will remove AdSense altogether or simply move it into another part of the page. I’m thinking he could still pull down about $200 to $300 a month with AdSense in the sidebar.

How To Double Your Income
My suggestion to John (so he can make more money) is that he view my last video on creative real estate investing and apply similar tactics to his blog. Rather than sell off the high-value spot for $1,000 a month, why not do a “stock split” and sell individual weeks for an affordable $325 each. If he’s going to do the private sale work anyways, rather than average $12,000 per year on the spot, he would make $18,200 ($350×52 weeks). With this plan, he’s averaging $1,517 a month - higher than the pre-summer gross of $1,300 and almost 12.2% of his total income!

Just in case anyone is interested, I’m willing to take offers for my AdSense space (weekly of course). Feel free to leave a comment or visit my contact page if you’re interested!

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Tags: real estate, creative investing, pay per click ads, Google AdSense, blog, double your income, make money online, multiple streams of income