Have you been using the professional social network LinkedIn and feel as if you’re not getting very much out of it? I’ve only recently started expanding my network, after a long period of dormancy, and finding I’m turning to it more often, especially after joining several discussion groups in a few areas of interest. If you’re looking for “personal brand”-building tips for using LinkedIn, Dan Schwabel shares some valuable at Mashable. The salient steps are:

1. Brand your profile.
2. Develop your network.
3. Position yourself as a leader.
4. Leverage LinkedIn as part of your unified brand strategy.

Each step in the article also offers how-to info.

[via Mashable]

Of course it’s that time of year again when people make resolutions to improve themselves and/or their career/ business. Myself, I have a campaign to improve my business and finances because of some of the (positive) personal changes in my life. In fact, it’s a necessity that I get back on track.

Experience has shown me that if you work for yourself, never settle on just one income source. Build as many income sources as you can, especially if they’re passive or semi-passive. Passive means you have to do little work beyond an initial effort. Semi-passive means you might have to make a “maintenance” effort. This will become clearer in the examples below.

My 2009 Life, Business and Career Resolutions

Flickr: shutter.chick – CC license.

My overall goal? Having my cake and eating it too. The following is a list of some resolutions as well as a list of most of my current services. Maybe the list will give you some ideas for your own life, business and career resolutions, which you can feel free to share in the comments.

1. Work smarter, travel, and enjoy life more (again). I’ve already been working long hours most of my career, but used to also take time to enjoy life. The bulk of my work in the past four calendar years has been freelance writing and blogging. That used to mean long hours of writing. I’ve since developed some powerfully productive workflow by using Mind Mapping for all my work – gains which I write about occasionally at FreelanceSwitch, Geekpreneur, here and elsewhere.

My aim is to be a Digital Nomad, working and traveling extensively – a topic I’ll be writing a great deal about starting in 2009.

2. Share more of my knowledge. I’ve been in the workforce for over 20 years and been fortunate enough to learn numerous skills, gain a fair bit of knowledge about many topics. It was always my intent to share that knowledge when I started blogging, but that hasn’t always been the case. So my 2009 goals include writing and giving away at least a half-dozen ebooks on various topics, as well expand my discussions of the following topics:

1. cloud computing,
2. crowd sourcing,
3. digital nomads,
4. freelancing + entrepreneurship + career planning,
5. learning,
6. mind mapping + problem solving,
7. mobile web + mobile platform,
8. personal finance, prosperity and investing,
9. social media + networking,
10. travel (especially in the context of digital nomads and anthropology),
11. web 3.0 + semantic web,
12. writing + blogging.

3. Build multiple streams of income. Freelancing can be a tough game, unless you work smart and build multiple streams of income. Hopefully my sharing of knowledge skills will create useful content (articles, ebooks, podcasts, screencasts, diagrams) that translate into more income starting in 2009. It’s not enough to rely on website ad revenue – most bloggers just don’t make enough to live on. Leverage all of your skills. Here’s how I’m leveraging mine in 2009 and beyond. (Over time, I’ll expand on how you, too, can build revenue streams with some of these methods.)

1. Ad revenue. You can sign up for dozens of ad networks for your websites, but that does not mean they’ll earn you anything. Be selective.
2. Affiliate marketing. The more my colleagues tell me of their successes, the more I realize that this is an important and honest income stream.
3. Coding. Programming/ coding, along with technical writing, was my bread and butter for many years, and it’s time I got back into it. Got some Perl, PHP/ WordPress coding you need to get done? If I can’t do it, I usually know people who can.
4. Consulting. I love “New Media” and have ignored this as an income stream. Want to know more about how web video, podcasting, screencasting and other forms of New Media can benefit your online presence? Talk to me.
5. Ebooks. Writing (and storytelling) was one of my first loves, and remains something I enjoy. Need a book or an ebook written? I’m a published print author, and have a few ebooks in the works. Contact me.
6. Freelance writing/ blogging. This somehow replaced coding and tech writing as my bread and butter, but it really isn’t easy to write dozens of articles weekly – at least not with consistent quality, on deadline, and to a word count. I love writing, though, so freelance writing will stay as one of my core services. Email me (rdash001 at yahoo dot ca) if you have some writing that needs doing.
7. Link building and SEO. This is a service that I offer in tandem with several partners who have powerful social media presences (though I tend to not have time to build mine). Ask me about this can help your online presence.
8. Producing. Web video and film producing is a path I’m already headed down. If you need web video or film production (or even film financing), feel free to contact me, as I have a small stable of close friends who have experience in this business who I can put you in touch with.
9. Screencasts. You can see the bulk of my screencast work at Tubetorial, where I was the Editor for a period of time in 2007. Other screencasts appear at a number of websites. Screencasts are a great way to promote software or teach people how to use desktop or web applications.
10. Stock photography. I’m what you might call a “professional amateur” photographer, and have been for decades. As I’m planning to work and travel extensively in the future, I’m getting back into photography. If you need images, let me know, as I have a number of photographer colleagues.
11. Technical writing and training. This another mainstay of my career, and a service I’m continuing to offer.
12. WordPress installs + customization. Have you come to realize how important a website is to your online presence? Maybe you want a blog? WordPress is a free web publishing platform, and it’s not just for blogging.

So what are some of your resolutions? How are you planning to build out your income streams in 2009?

Chris Garret of ChrisG.com set up a site called AuthorityBlogger last year. Now he’s launching his Authority Blogger strategy program [aff. link] for businesses and professionals, in pre-order mode. The prices will increase when the doors open, so if you’re serious about establishing yourself online, check it out. Chris is an Authority (with a capital ‘A’) on blogging and building an online presence.

By the way, he has yet another free ebook, this one about “authority alliances” and how it’s beneficial to work with others online. It’s only available to the end of Sep 2008, so get it fast. I just read it this morning, and it’s 14 pages packed with some very useful information about partnerships.

Addendum 1: Chris has just announced the pre-launch of the Authority Blogger course.

Addendum 2: What do you get in the Authority Blogger program? Here are some of the highlights:

1. Building your feed subscriber base.
2. A dozen Authority Modules in the form of ebooks, audio and video.
3. Subscription to a members-only club where you can discuss and share.
4. Expertise from specialists and guest authorities.
5. Three 30-minute one-on-one calls [Accelerator customers only!!]

There’s more than that of course; that’s just a sample of what Chris is offering.

Add GeekCast epi#1 to your page

]]> http://www.rajdash.com/free-promotion-by-twitter-e-book-from-geekpreneur/feed/ 0 http://www.rajdash.com/are-google-and-matt-cutts-evil/ http://www.rajdash.com/are-google-and-matt-cutts-evil/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2007 22:45:07 +0000 Raj Dash http://www.rajdash.com/are-google-and-matt-cutts-evil/ That’s probably the question on many bloggers’ minds since Google’s SEO Matt Cutts announced Google’s “snitch on your fellow bloggers just for making a living” project (not really, but that’s my name for it). The idea is that if you see a site selling/ buying links, please snitch on them by filling out some form somewhere on Google’s site. This and the big (but unknown) changes in their pagerank algorithm resulted in over 200,000 websites penalized with a lower pagerank.

Am I pissed? Hell, yeah. None of the links in the nav bar of this site are paid links. So wtf? Why did this site’s rank go down instead of up, considering how many high-PR sites I had links from (all of which got penalized, and almost all of which criticized Google). I did have paid links on some other sites, and Google has impacted my ability to earn some ad revenue – considering it’s taken me over two years to crack $100/month in AdSense, with some of that having to be split with partners. Because I’ve spent so much time freelancing in the past two years, to pay my bills, my sites are neglected and I’m kind of stuck in a loop.

Now, I know my neglect of my sites is my own doing, regardless of my situation. Google and all other search engines for the past 12+ years have been all about page relevance. I was the webmaster for one of the earliest search engines, and my employer sold “relevance” for a while by allowing people to buy positions for various search terms. This predated Google and their AdWords, and the more cynical amongst us probably feel Google is selling “visibility” if not relevance.

But is Google evil? Do they think humanity is evil? It makes me wonder why any company in the world would ever adopt the motto “Don’t be evil” for their employees. That implicitly suggests that they think humanity is evil unless reminded not to be. But why bother? While they’re swallowing up companies, they’re ensuring that most of humanity will never have any influence on the company’s direction. Their share price is at US$700 and has never been split. What average citizen can afford that? Why haven’t they split their share prices at least four or five times, like Microsoft did in the 1990s and no doubt IBM did in the 1980s? All three companies have been criticized for their acquisition trails in consecutive decades. However, when Google buys a company, they don’t hide the application somewhere in a more expensive software package like Microsoft did repeatedly. Instead, Google rebrands and then improves. You have to give them that.

Add to all this the “snitch on colleagues” campaign, and the fact that one of their representatives, SEO Matt Cutts, introduced it so casually on his blog and only answered the questions having easy answers – not the tough questions. Over at Performancing, my friend Ryan Caldwell asked the question: Is Matt Cutts the link nazi?

I think that’s a bit harsh because Matt’s only doing his job, albeit dictated by higher-ups at Google. But considering that most of my blogging colleagues give the same lament about not being able to communicate with Google, not getting a human answer to questions, being kept in the dark about so much of how Google does their business, etc., it makes me wonder if any other company could get away with all this.

Now, the net result of the pagerank and search rank changes this year is that my crappy, mostly image-only sites have shot up in daily pageviews and my more valuable sites are suffering. I hardly think that’s an improvement in terms of search relevance. What do you think?

For a while now, the thought of a team effort for building blogs has crossed my mind multiple times. A good Blogger or three, one Editor in Chief (EIC) for planning and vision, a Designer for the graphic branding work, and an SEO/ SEM/ SMM for optimization, analysis and promotion.

Makes sense, right? Magazines, for example, are produced every month by a team. But a website or blog is not a magazine. Can this team approach work for websites? Can they work for blogs? I believe they can, though this does not mean I’m advocating that each person has an equal say in every issue that arises. That is, don’t let the SEO make suggestions about design – unless they actually have design experience. And vice versa for the Designer.

So what is Seth Godin saying about creating a great website? He gives 10 tips for building websites, and the first one says don’t work by committee. (Also check out his article How to create a good enough website.)

Structured Roles

I’d have to agree with him on this, but I won’t get into details. His suggestions do not clash with what I’m saying. I’m talking about a team-based approach with distinct roles and no micro-management.

The ideal EIC is someone who has blogging experience – a Blogger in Chief. The ideal bloggers for a team are those with a bit of experience and loads of passion, whose work can be improved by the EIC/BIC.

The Designer would likely have a lesser role, as would an SEO. If however, you were launching a blog network, you then end up with a traditional hierarchy:

1. The Designer and SEO/SMM can now probably be employed full-time or half-time.
2. Each channel (cluster of related sites) would have a Channel Editor, which is more a guide/ editor than EIC/BIC.
3. Each blog would have however many writers are necessary.
4. The entire network would be overseen by a single visionary, though it might have more than one partner who has some say.

So each role is neatly compartmentalized, just like for a magazine. But everyone works as a team, not as a committee. However, you might have virtual Bullpen sessions where you brainstorm, using collaborative tools (Mercury Grove, Basecamp, Campfire, Comapping).

Will it Work?

This is in fact very similar to the way a number of blog projects are being run that I’ve been asked to be involved in. I can’t claim to know how some of the exiting networks are run, so for me, it’ll be interesting to see whether this model can work.

What’s possibly further unique is that everyone that is involved long-term will eventually get a share, though it’ll be done in a tiered fashion. Writers will get a flat monthly rate plus X% of net monthly revenue. The channel editor or editor (as the case may be) will get a flat rate and Y% of what’s left each month, after their own flat rate and payments to writers. Finally whomever is at the top of tiers will similarly be compensated.

This is unlike anything I’ve enountered in the offline world, but it does build upon profit-sharing models that some businesses have been following for years.

Randa Clay Design

Randa is offering 2 prizes: a free custom blog logo and header, and a free blog review. The rules state how you can enter. It’s pretty easy – either add Randa Clay Design to your blogroll or subscribe to the site’s feed. There is no restriction about type of blog. While you’re there, read Randa’s article 4 reasons your blog needs a blog logo.

Logo Design Works

To apply for the Logo Design Works free blog logo campaign, your blog has to meet certain criteria, including being at least six months old and being about any of these topics: design, small business, marketing, SEO, blogging, freelancing, productivity and related topics. If you are accepted, you will get to work with a designer via email. All LDW is asking in return is either a blogroll link (after you are accepted) or a brief review with a link. Links are to their home page.

Over at Bootstrapper, I have the first of several online business case studies: Bootstrapping an online information business. In that post, I detail how you can set up a video how-to site with little capital – but more from a business perspective, not so much a technical perspective. However, I do list numerous tools you’ll probably need – many of which are free, and others you can purchase when revenue starts to come in. There’s also a reference to Evan Margolin, a dance teacher in San Francisco whose SalsaBootCamp video site membership went up from $9 to $37/month and still pulls in $20,000/m for him. Not bad. Now, if you’re looking for a comfortable living, you need to find something you can present in how-to video and/or article format and then find the right buyers. And you can do it without spending a lot upfront, slowly increasing your toolset as funds allow.

The Potential

In the case of Margolin, he has just over 500 subscribers. Let’s look at some other examples. A number of marketing studies sites offer membership that ranges from $37 and up per month. One, I think, is about $500/yr. Imagine, if you could find just 100 members, that’s $50,000 per year. Several SEO sites offer premium content memberships, one of which is about $39/month. A couple of SEO sites offer access to either private forums or to tools/ scripts at $100/m. Just 50 members generates $5,000/month. However, some of these sites have 100-300 members.

Now, maybe those are out of your skill range, so let’s look at more examples. I’ve come across a few sites that for $97/mth offer access to hundreds of limited-edition, original articles that you can use in any fashion you want. Each release allows only, say, 200 members. If they’re actually selling out membership to the point where they’re offering new phases, then they’re making at least $97 x 200 = $19,400/m. If they’re then selling another round of 200 memberships, well, do the math.

So if you are a skilled writer that can cover a number of topics well, with proper research, and you work fast, you could presumably set up a similar service. You could partner up with other writers, to cover a range of topics. But maybe you want to keep the effort down to keep the quality up, limit the number of memberships and charge $49/month. If your articles are good and cover the topical demands out there, then you can probably find buyers.

However, this still doesn’t address the average person who wants to earn a living online. That brings us back to the how-to. If you can explain how to do something, either in text or video format – preferably the latter, with a bit of text – you can probably find buyers. And if there is enough interest and you can keep producing text and/or video content, you might even gain a few subscribers. If you only want to produce one-time content, then you might consider a single e-book or video set.

Revenue Streams

Or you could mix up your revenue streams:

1. Blog for yourself – earn advertising and affiliate revenue.
2. Blog for others – earn either a flat per post rate or a percentage of their monthly revenues.
3. Write reviews – earn a flat fee per review.
4. Build and flip sites (websites or weblogs).
5. Buy an income-earning site.
6. Buy/ register, hold, and flip domains.
7. Offer free teaser reports as an enticement to visitors to purchase an ebook.
8. Offer free teaser videos for your how-to series.
9. Offer access to tools, reports or reusable content on a monthly subscriber basis.
10. Offer services on a project or monthly retainer basis.

The beauty of working online, besides the obvious, is that you can use tools like PayPal or Google Checkout to handle the payment processing. The integration is relatively easy and allows you to focus on the content or services.

Got a skill or service that can be offered online but not sure how to do that? Feel free to drop me a comment here or use the contact form. With your permission, I’ll try to do a no-cost case study on these pages. If not, then my reponse time increases. I may not always have answers, but I will respond to you as promptly as time permits.

A while back, I persuaded him to take up an interest in blogging about health. Except that I  haven’t had time to develop his blog for him, and he hasn’t had time to learn about promotion, etc. I’ve started and scrapped his blog a few times now. And maybe it’s my own poor health, but i seem to have an aversion to working on his blog. (Yes, I have loads of guilt about this.)

The net result, after almost two years of him waiting for me is that he went to a local seminar a few days ago, run by some snakeoil hucksters. They must have taken down his phone number, because the next day, my father emailed me and said they gave him “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Instead of asking for US$4200, they offered him their online business package for $3500. He bought it.

Except that their online business package consists of some articles and a dozen or so screencast videos. No website, no content nothing. No assistance. Just how to build your site (use “meta tags”!!!), how to find drop shippers, and how to get traffic to your site. They left out the most important aspect: how hard it can be to have a successful commerce site.

Needless to say, I was peeved when I heard this (I’m on the verge of being a website/ domain broker for various people, and he knew this but didn’t consult me because he thought I was busy). Actually, I was more peeved at myself for not helping my father with his blog and blame myself for his spending that money. Half of the information in that info pack is probably wrong (meta tags? – give me a break), and all of it is free online, somewhere. Okay, if you don’t have the time to spend (took me two years) to learn everything, you may think it’s worth it. My father even told me in late 2005 to create my own info pack to sell to newbies. I considered it, but not for a $4,200 price tag.

Thing that really bugs me, though, is that my father is a busy man, despite being retired. He may think he saved $700 by spending $3500. But I could have taken that $3500 and bought my father income earning websites, or a few nice domain names on speculation, and he would have made money far sooner than he ever will with that bullcrap package of info.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you have $3600. You could buy a website income with a site earning $300/m that is selling at a 12-month multiple. Hold it for 6 months and you’ve earned $1800. Sell it for $4000, and you’ve earned an extra $400, for a total of $2200. That’s a pretty good return, provided that that income comes with very little effort on your part. If it takes time away from other income-earning activities, then you have to rethink your strategy. Maybe you’re better off being a domain mogul, which requires trend smarts and great analytical and speculative skills, but takes far less effort than trying to make a living with a new website.

So to those of you planning to make a full or partial income online, please don’t spend ~$4K on an info pack. Drop me a comment, tell me what you would really like to do, what topics you really know a lot about or enjoy enough to learn. Then I’ll give you some suggestions on what you might try. And it won’t cost you anything.

Well if that’s you, and you have plans to build a business, especially one online, please tune in to Bootstrapper, the blog of a client that I’m editor for. At present, I’m the only contributor, but I will open up for contributions in late June or early July. The blog is about bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, financing, cash flow, productivity, critical thinking, software tools, management and leadership methods, and anything else appropriate to building up a new business from scratch.

So I hope you’ll check the Bootstrapper blog out and maybe even participate in the discussion, or contribute at some point in the near future.