Blogging and Marketing Resources for the Average Blogger and Business
Archive for June, 2009
Quality Web Hosting as the Foundation
Jun 28th
BlueHost Hosting is my Choice!
One of the basics I covered early in my blogging journey was whether to use a free blogging platform like Blogger, or to invest in your own hosted space. There are of course pros and cons to each.
In Free Blogging, or Pay to Play?, I touched on some of the decisions individual bloggers need to make about why they are blogging and what they hope to get out of it. I have been clear from the beginning that a hosted domain for the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit (and future projects) was my strategic decision. Now that I have had some time under my belt with a hosting provider, I feel comfortable sharing my views about BlueHost.
Speaking of transparency, regular readers of the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit know that I try to play it straight with you. When promoting something, I’ve tried to be clear as to when I have skin in the game and when I don’t. This time, I do. If you click through any of my ads shown on my blog – and you sign up – I get a commission. But I’ve held off making any assessments until I have had some time to evaluate. After six months, I now feel confident endorsing their services.
In any support role, if it looks easy, it means a lot of work goes into it. That is truly the case with BlueHost. I have been very pleased with the quiet, behind the scenes support the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit has received. There was only one brief outage and when I used their live chat, the agent already knew about the problem and it was corrected in minutes. No song and dance, no excuses, just fixed.
Part of the reason for chosing BlueHost was of course not because they were the least expensive. There seem to me thousands of providers and many are less expensive. I’m taking the long view. My intention is to grow my blogging to a number of projects, and hope they grow quite large. I like the idea that I now have just one provider that can and will provide the support I need – for any number of projects – with any amount of traffic – for one reasonable monthly fee. Paid annually, this is the easiest, safest, most professional, and eventually, the most cost effective solution I could have.
About the endorsement and commission issue. The only area where BlueHost’s process could be smoother is in the affiliate signup process. After signing up for payouts on other advertising, BlueHost seems to be a bit heavy on the forms to fill out. In fact, my PayPal email address wasn’t accepted initially and had to choose “pay with check” to get the affiliate account established. I’ll work on that and the IRS W-9 form they require later.
Don’t let this small inconvenience sway you. Consider BlueHost. They’ve done a great job for me and I expect to be a long time customer.
Dave
Membership Sites as a Lucrative Business Model
Jun 14th
Yaro Starak's "Motivational" Video
As bloggers, many of us envision a time when we can actually make a few dollars from this hobby. Some of us are already there and looking to expand the success. Membership sites are one way to do that, although it could be a very different way to look at the world.
Yaro Starak is one of the “whales” of the industry and while I am not here to endorse or recommend anything he is selling as blogging resources, I had to share this video with you. Yaro Starak on Membership Sites
In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not an affiliate of, nor associated with Mr. Starak in any way. I just enjoy viewing his video as my own motivational tool.
Let’s think about changing your business model into one supporting a membership site. You’ve developed considerable and valuable base of content in your blog and believe people would pay a small monthly fee for exclusive access to it. You may publish “routine” material for everyone, but in-depth and very detailed descriptions of thing people need is held for the subscribers.
Sounds easy, huh? Potentially lucrative, yes. Easy? Not so much.
The hard work comes not only in developing a critical mass of valuable information to launch the membership site, but it comes again in the form of continuing to feed the monster. Without a consistent flow of quality material ADDED on a regular basis, your initial fans (paying members) will not believe they are getting the value.
Impossible? No. It just takes effort.
Remember, the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit is not about screaming hype about getting rich quick. It’s common sense discussions about growing your blogging success. With some planning and hard work, membership sites could be a part of your long term efforts.
Share your successes (or failures) with membership sites. Have you tried it; are you making it work; have you given up? We can all benefit from your thoughts.
Dave
PS: For more information, you can visit Yaro’s Membership Mastermind. (Again, not a pitch, just simply a resource.)
PPS: Here’s another link to Jeremy Shoemaker’s post on Shoemoney. His post includes a link to an MP3 of an interview with Yaro.
Enhanced Drop Lists
Jun 7th
Entrecard
The Ultimate Blogging Toolkit has been assembling an Entrecard “Above the Fold” drop list for some time now. It has been an excellent time saver for me and I hope for you as well. In using Entrecard, and more recently, Adgitize, I’ve found another drop list opportunity: sites with BOTH Entrecard AND Adgitize above the fold.
Adgitize
To accommodate two lists, you’ll see the top tab has been modified to nest them both. Link to the page you feel is most useful for you, submit additional sites you find, and help all fellow Entrecard and Adgitize members.
Enjoy!
Dave
Donate Life Northwest Raffle
Jun 9th
Posted by Dave in Uncategorized
5 comments
Donate Life Northwest
A good friend of mine is the Program Director for a small non-profit organization in Portland called Donate Life Northwest. They are responsible for the statewide public education about the importance of registering to be an organ donor.
Part of their fundraising efforts is an annual benefit raffle which is coming up in August. I am reaching out to all Ultimate Blogging Toolkit readers and fellow bloggers to buy a ticket or two. There are six great prizes and if by an unfortunate chance you don’t win, all of your charitable gift is tax deductible and 100% goes towards their wonderful programs.
You can buy tickets online at their secure website:
https://donatelifenw.ejoinme.org/MyPages/AnnualBenefitRaffle/tabid/131609/Default.aspx
And what great prizes!
For more details on the prizes and some pictures of the getaway cottages, you can check out their website.
I’m already signed up as an organ donor. If that appeals to you as a way to help another person, sign up or just buy a raffle ticket. Hey, you may get to pick up one of these prizes.
Donate Life Northwest
PO Box. 532
Portland, OR 97207
Office: 503-494-2257
Fax: 503-494-2290
Register today to be an organ, eye and tissue donor. Thanks for your support.
Dave