Michael Haislip: Professional Millionaire

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Well, let’s do the number, shall we?

Unique visitors: 1000

Page views: 4000

AdSense revenue: $0.83

Not a bad start for the old blog here. I’m averaging 30 uniques per day, and 120 page views per day. The revenue is disappointing, but I know why.

By far, the majority of my traffic came from StumbleUpon. While I appreciate the traffic, social bookmarking sites are notorious for their low conversion rates. Strangely, even though I had several incoming links, they generated so little traffic as to not even mention. When I finally get a PageRank at the next update, I expect to gain more organic search traffic from Google, which should help increase my revenue.

Goals for July 2007

• Increase daily uniques to 100
• Increase daily page views to 500
• Earn $10 from AdSense
• Gain 50 new backlinks
• Increase RSS subscribers to 25

Allright, see you guys in July.

Sometimes it pays to take your blog marketing offline. So, let’s try an experiment to generate some backlinks using good old direct mail and the much-maligned post card.

How it works

The idea is to generate interest in your blog by sending something most people never receive — a post card. The curiosity factor combined with an interesting message should at least gain you a visitor. If that visitor is looking for material to blog about, you may very well get a link from them.

What you need

Well, post cards, obviously. Pre-paid post cards are 28 cents at the Post Office. 25 of them are just $7. Consider it cheap marketing. I also like to use pre-printed return address labels. For the message, I think handwriting is more effective than type. It adds to the mystery. And, we’ll need some addresses of bloggers.

How to get addresses of bloggers

WHOIS is your friend here. It allows you to check the registration data of a domain name. Most of the major blogs will have private registrations, but don’t let that stop you. You can use my post about using Technorati to get backlinks to find plenty of blogs for this experiment. For example, if you WHOIS my domain, you get the following:

Registrant:
Michael Haislip
502 S Main St
Saint Joseph, Tennessee 38481
United States

See, that’s my address. Go ahead. Send me a postcard and I’ll link to you. Really.

What to write

Here’s what I plan on writing:

Hello. You are part of an experiment called The Postcard Project. It is meant to generate interest in my blog located at MichaelHaislip.com. If you think that this experiment was successful, please mention it on your blog.

If you have room, add a signature.

Results

I’ll post periodic updates on my results. If any of my readers participate, please let me know about your results here in the comments. Good luck!

Sure, all of us “make money online” bloggers talk about building audiences and developing networks and blah blah blah. But sometimes you just need a quick bit of cash to make the rent. Here’s a few ways to do it.
1. Online casino bonuses

In the business, this is called “bonus whoring,” which sounds dirtier than it really is. Basically, you exploit various poker and casino sites and their sign-up bonuses. A vigilant person can turn a $20 profit in a couple of hours just by signing up for a few sites (usually no playing involved). A Google search turns up numerous sites that catalog such bonuses, such as Bonus Whores.

2. Bank accounts

A lot of banks are now offering cash bonuses to open accounts. Usually there’s a waiting period before the money is credited (for example, 10 days at Chase to get $50), but, hey, it’s free cash. Many offer bonuses of $100. Open a couple of accounts here and there and you’ve made a nice piece of change. iBankDesign keeps a good list of current bank bonuses.
3. Credit card bonuses

If you have decent credit, and you’re willing to take a small hit on your FICO score, signing up for a couple of credit cards can net you a few bucks. Just recently, Chase was offering a $250 bonus (sort of) to sign up. Do a Google search for “credit card bonus” to find a plethora of offers.

Does anyone else have anything to add? Comments are open!

Oh, man, if you bloggers don’t stop repeating the same trite advice, I am going to eat your first born.

Myth 1: You have to be passionate about your subject

Sorry, no you don’t. A trained monkey can spew out 500 words about anything in a few minutes. It’s that word–passion–that bothers me. Passion is for the bedroom, not for a website. How about we rephrase the myth. Let’s say from now on, “Though it helps to be mildly interested in your topic of choice, it doesn’t really matter either way.”

Myth 2: Focus on creating good content and the readers will come

Ha ha, nope. When was the last time John Chow posted anything of value? BoingBoing? ShoeMoney? These sites got where they are now by marketing and networking. There are hundreds of blogs with amazing content that are just languishing out there on the barren wasteland of Blogistan:

• Steve Olsen’s blog
• Pro Libertate
• Uncommon Sense
• Once Upon a Time
• Empower Women Now

Myth 3: Commenting on lots of blogs will draw readers to your blog

Here’s a bitter lesson in life: no one cares about your opinion. No one reads your comments unless it involves them either being insulted or praised.

Yes, you could spend an hour or two everyday commenting on a dozen different blogs, but what kind of posts are those going to be? How could anyone possibly write quality, thought-out responses on multiple blogs without spending most of their time doing it? No, the responses trend toward meaningless one-liners, such as, “Wow, I totally agree.” Yeah, that’s certainly enticing to a potential reader. Way to go, Hemmingway.
The one case where it pays to comment is on a site with the NOFOLLOW tag removed. Gee, I think I made a list of sites like that.

Myth 4: You must stick to a regular posting schedule no matter what

Look, I’ve seen so many crappy filler posts on so many blogs that I just can’t stand it anymore. If you don’t have anything on-topic to say, then don’t. Don’t post pictures of your cat. Don’t post pictures of your kids. Don’t post about what restaurant you ate at last night (I’m looking at you, John Chow). Just don’t post until you have a decent idea. Please, for the sake of us all.

Myth 5: The most popular blogs have the best content

Not by a long shot. Most of the big blogs got there using a variety of methods: first mover advantage, huge budgets, advertising, etc. Some of you have heard of the “long tail” phenomenon. That’s actually the back end of something known as a Zipf distribution. Basically, the largest sites get a disproportionate amount of traffic and links, which raises their popularity even more, thus creating an ever-growing spiral of mediocrity that threatens to collapse into a singularity of homogeneous posts about the iPhone and Paris Hilton.

The NOFOLLOW attribute is a bit of code that gets attached to hyperlinks in blog comments. It is meant to prevent comment spam from influencing Google’s search results. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work all that well.

Now, many sites are removing the NOFOLLOW attribute to encourage comments and to show a little link love. Why does this matter? Because links in the comments of these DOFOLLOW sites count like any other link in determining PageRank. That’s a good thing for bloggers.

If you would like to remove NOFOLLOW from your blog, Andy Beard maintains a list of various plugins that will help.

Here’s a small list of blogs with the NOFOLLOW attribute removed:

• Andy Beard
• A bit of this and that
• My Affiliate Journey
• Only Network
• Ughs!! Grey Matter Honeypot
• Money Consciousness
• Cornwall SEO
• in.conspicuo.us
• Randa Clay
• eMoms at Home
• Creative Design
• Instigator Blog
• Dawud Miracle
• SuccessCREEations
• Essential Keystroke
• Chris Garrett
• David Paul Robinson
• Lars-Christian
• Casual Keystrokes
• Scribbit
• Empower Women Now
• Webomatica
• Middle Zone Musings
• mariosalexandrou.com
• Work at Home Revolution
• Today is That Day
• Home Ec 101
• Writing Thoughts
• JustThinkin
• MomGadget
• Alister Cameron
• Karen of The Pond
• SmartWealthyRich
• Life Is Risky
• Dummies Guide to Blogger
• ProBlogger World
• Elaine’s Place
• Foobr
• Julie Bonner
• BloggingForBills
• BobMeetsWorld
• The Fibromyalgia Experiment
• 2Perfect
• The A Team
• Holiday in the Sun
• Johnny Fuery
• Jo’s Web
• Big Oak SEO Blog
• Machua
• Fuzzy Future

• Keep the Faith
• jsonvlog
• Suncoast Scribe
• Blogging Kenneth
• My 2 Centavos Worth
• Manila Mom
• 3 Dogs, 3 Pigs and A Family
• Cafe Romanza
• Earn Global
• Credit Ability
• Macuha.com
• Flee the Cube
• Smart Wealthy Rich
• MomReviews.net
• Fellow Eskimo
• Pajama Mommy
• Amanita.net
• WebStyle
• Meredith’s Weight Loss Blog
• Pink Blog
• Tricia’s Musings
• Midlife Musings
• Utterly Geek
• Whatever I Feel Like
• My Dandelion Patch
• Surviving NJ
• GeekySpeaky
• Simple Kind Of Life
• 3DayMom
• BuyMeBlog
• The Hockey Dad

By the way, guys and gals, don’t just be a bum. Sign up for these guys RSS feeds.

I purchased a book at Goodwill several years back entitled The Secrets of Consulting, by Gerald M. Weinberg. While it focused mainly on the consulting business, it is full of useful axioms that any blogger can apply.

1. Whatever the client (your reader) is doing, advise something else

Everyone wants to be told that their current procedures are good and that nothing should change. And, yes, you could tell people exactly what they want to hear, but would you expect any change? Of course not. Sometimes it pays to be a contrarian in the blog world. Ruffle some feathers. Openly question the major players. Write inflammatory posts about other bloggers’ mothers (Cory Doctorow’s mother is a whore). You do not have to go along with the crowd.

2. Never let a single client (revenue source) have more than one-fourth of your business

Let’s say your entire revenue comes from AdSense. Then they cancel your account, or maybe they change the terms of service to something bad, or maybe the CPC of their ads collapses. You’re screwed.

This axiom also apples to traffic, although slightly adjusted. Never allow any one traffic source to generate more than one-half of your traffic. You’re taking a huge risk depending solely on Google for search traffic. What if they drastically change the search algorithm and push your site way down in the search results? What if you get banned from Google altogether? Screwed again, aren’t we?

3. Give away your best ideas

It was Aristotle who said, “It is not once, nor twice, but times without number, that the same idea makes an appearance in the world.” That mega-super-secret idea you had in the shower–you know, the one that will make you a millionaire– has already been thought of, likely by hundreds of other people standing in their showers. Hoarding ideas is worthless. Get them out in the open, and let the natural idea workshop of the Web turn it into something better.

Technorati is a gauge of blog popularity, albeit a flawed one because it uses backlinks to determine popularity. A person could conceivably create dozens of fake blogs with no content to improve their ranking on Technorati. Anyway, that’s enough black hat technique advice. Users can check out the Top 100 blogs at this moment, which is eminently useful.

1. Find a blog similar to yours in the top sites

Find a Top 100 blog in a similar genre as yours. For example, my genre is making money online. So, a quick scan reveals that ProBlogger is similar to my blog. Well, I can’t just fire off an e-mail and expect a link back here from a massive site such as ProBlogger, can I? So now what?

2. Check the people who have added that blog as a favorite

ProBlogger right now has been “favorited” 1500 times, which means there are 1500 people who likely have some interest in making money online via blogging. Rather than e-mail ProBlogger in a futile attempt to get a link, let’s e-mail some of these smaller sites that have favorited ProBlogger. Note: not every user will have a blog in your specific niche, but there should be plenty.

3. E-mail them: be polite, be concise, refer to a specific post on your blog

You always want to refer to a specific post on your blog rather than just the home page. Deep linking is good linking. It minimizes navigation for the reader, and shows that you care enough to pay attention to their interests. Let’s say I would like backlinks to my article “10 obscure online niches for you to exploit mercilessly.” Here’s the message I would use:

Howdy [name]:

My name is [your name here] and was reading your blog [blog name here]. I saw that you were interested in [subject of interest], and I just wanted to let you know that I have posted an article that you might be interested in. It’s called [title here], and I think it might hold some value for you and your readers. Thanks for your time on this matter.

Sincerely,

[your name]

[your blog]

If you directly reference something from their blog, make sure to point that out in the letter. Ego is a powerful motivator on the Web.

I’m calling the value of Digg–and all social bookmarking sites by proxy–into question here. I admit, none of my sites have ever been heavily Dugg (I hate that damn word), but then again I don’t write about the holy trinity of social bookmarking (useless gadgets, useless politicians, and Paris Hilton).

First let’s take a very biased sampling of opinion from around the Web:

“For me, Digg traffic is fairly worthless. Yes, I really did just write that. It’s always been an information source not a traffic source for me … I have never really seen a blog or sites with some ads make anything worth bragging over, cash/revenue wise from a Digg blast, and if it has happened, it’s definitely a rarity or just a plain lucky fluke.” — Super Affiliate Marketing Blog

“I had joined Digg last year, buying into the hype that this is something we must do in a Web 2.0 world. The belief is that the traffic that comes is great for your marketing efforts. I’ve already written about my dislike for Digg and how some Diggers gang up to get sites banned in industries they don’t like. I seem to be unable to unjoin it.” — CRE8PC

“I can get traffic from these guys, but they don’t get me any clicks. To me, this traffic is worthless.” — Digital Point thread

“Digg traffic does not equal advertising dollars. Many webmasters have advertising on their sites, like Google’s Adsense or Yahoo!’s YPN and mistakenly thing that getting dugg will equal money in their pockets. This is dead wrong. The people that use digg don’t click on ads, they’re the wrong crowd for contextual advertising, and the webmaster usually ends up paying for a ton of bandwidth and lowers his click-through rate, thereby causing himself to be smart-priced out of the higher-paying ads that might have been shown on his site.” — Drew McKinney

Digg traffic is the mainstream equivalent of TGP traffic in the adult webmaster world. For those not familiar, TGPs (thumbnail gallery posts) are responsible for the bulk of free pornography on the Web. Their goal is to get users to look at the free content and entice them to see more–at a price, of course. However, TGPs are terrible at converting. A novice adult webmaster is more likely to go broke from excess bandwidth charges than he is to make a sale.

I’m not sure if I want any of my pages to make the Digg front page. It’s basically a crap shoot whether the traffic converts. If it does, well, I make a few bucks. If not, then my click-through rate plummets, and I’m smart-priced out of higher paying ads.

That’s a gamble I don’t want to take.

Need an online niche to profit from, but just can’t think of one? Well, I’m here to help (or hinder, as the case may be).

1. BDSM (Bondage, Domination, Sadomasochism)

Sometimes love hurts. According to the SEO Book’s Keyword Tool, the term “bondage” or some combination thereof is searched for over 3 million times each month. And Google’s traffic estimator predicts the average AdWords CPC (cost-per-click) at about $0.40.

2. Feng Shui

This is all about arranging your environment to be in harmony with nature, such as adjusting your furniture to avoid windows or some such. It seems to be popular with new age types and corporate executives with too much time on their hands. Keyword Tool estimates 500,000 searches per month, and Google estimates $0.58 for average CPC.

3. Numerology

The esoteric tradition of finding connections between numerical patterns and reality. Has anyone ever told you what your life path number was? I’m a 6, which supposedly means I’m a giving, nurturing person. Obviously, this is all crap, but people will still pay money for it. Keyword Tool suggests 500,000 monthly searches, and Google estimates $0.47 average CPC.

4. Guitar and Bass Tabs

For the non-musically inclined readers, tabs are short for “tablatures,” an easier alternative to reading sheet music. After watching my brother print hundreds of pages of these things off the Web during the nineties, I know how popular they are. Keyword Tool says about 1.5 million searches per month, and Google estimates $0.42 average CPC.

5. DJ Equipment

Everybody wants to be a DJ nowadays. Well, let’s give them a helping hand while making a profit, shall we? Everyone thinks of turntables as the primary gear, but don’t forget the needle cartridges (some of which are $100 each), the vinyl, the headphones, the record carrying cases … it just goes on and on. Keyword Tool assumes 200,000 monthly searches alone for turntables, and Google estimates an average of $1.37 CPC.

6. Online Liquor Sales

True drunks always seek the path of least resistance between them and their drink. And what easier way to get a drink than to have it delivered to your door? Online liquor sales are getting huge, and there are plenty of affiliate programs out there for you to exploit. SEO Book’s Keyword Tool suggests over 1 million monthly searches for the term liquor, and Google estimates an average CPC of $0.84.

7. Celtic Culture

Leave it to us dirty Americans to shamelessly exploit a proud culture. Celtic music is huge. Celtic jewelry is huge. Even drunken sorority girls have those damn Celtic knot tattoos. The Celts have finally taken over the world. Keyword Tools says 100,000 monthly searches for the term “celtic,” not including the various combinations. Google estimates an average CPC of $0.65.

8. Survivalism

A survivalist is one who is determined to survive the collapse of civilization via preparation and training. They’re like Boy Scouts, only with a more apocalyptic bent. And the one’s with money buy a ton of supplies: MREs, freeze-dried food, water purifiers camping gear, books, guns, ammo, and so on. This niche has so many potential profit avenues that I can’t get accurate search stats.While I’m at it, let me mention the survivalist blog, Bison Survival Blog, and his post Six Months to Financial Freedom.

9. Genealogy

My Grandma alerted me to this one. People have an strong desire to know their origins, and this satisfies that craving. Keyword Tool says over 1 million searches for the term “genealogy” alone, and you could further break it down by attaching a surname to the search query (think a “Smith Family Genealogy” page might make some cash?). Google estimates an average CPC of $1.09.

10. Slow Cooking

Crock pots, slow roasting, etc., etc. It’s all becoming hugely popular again thanks to Food Network and multiple books about the subject. Keyword Tool shows “slow cooker” and it’s combinations to be at least a 400,000 per month term, and Google estimates an average CPC of $0.81.

Sometimes I feel like the lone voice in the woods, preaching against the sins of web design. Then I remember that somewhere out there, Jakob Nielsen is waging the war for web usability along with me.

For those who don’t know, Jakob Nielsen is the guru of web usability. His Alertbox column, since 1996, has proclaimed the holiness of proper web usability.

Let’s revisit some of his holy scripture, shall we:

1. Hyped web stories are irrelevant

Nielsen said in 2006, “it’s far better to emphasize simplicity and quality than to chase buzzwords.” I really could not agree more. Remember that damned Apple iPhone flood that dominated every news source on the Web? Yeah, that’s the sort of story he was talking about. And has anyone given any thought to it since then? No, because it was an irrelevant story. It was just another freaking phone. Way to do the work of Apple’s marketing department, Intarwebs.

Site that violates this rule: Digg, Slashdot, et al.

Site that follows this rule: Mine

2. Design flexible layouts that flow with screen size

I know, I know. The common myth is that everyone is using massive flat-screen monitors now, so why should screen size matter anymore, right? Unfortunately, no. I myself use an 800×600 CRT monitor. So does my Grandma. So does one of the computer labs at my local university.

We don’t all own the latest, greatest technology. My video card doesn’t even allow resolutions over 1024×780, and even then the text is unreadable.

And have you considered what your site will look like on a mobile device with a 3-inch screen?

Site that violates this rule:kloudiia.com

Site that follows this rule: Jane May Blogs

3. Screw crappy link anchor text / not using link titles
Really, this has been driving me insane for years. Not only do people still insist on making pointless words such as “click here” or “this” or god-knows-what-else into links, they still don’t use link titles. Link titles are one of the simplest improvements you can make. Hover over some of the links in this post. Go ahead. I’ll wait…

See, the little yellow tooltip box was the link title. It gives a fairly good description of what the user will find on the other end of that link, especially if the anchor text is nondescriptive. Here’s a brief tutorial on link titles.

The fact is, people will be more willing to click if they know where they are going.

Site that violates this rule: Take More Risks

Site that follows this rule: None that I could find; if you use link titles, let me know in the comments and I will link to you just to spite everyone else

4. Don’t use partial content in the RSS feed

In reality, opening a new browser window to view the rest of a blog entry only takes 0.00034 joules of energy (for you anal-retentive physicists, that was a joke). However, somewhere in the human mind, that microscopic bit of effort is mutated into a herculean task on par with digging the Panama Canal. “My God,” the readers cry, “how can this tyrant expect us to click something … ON THE INTERNET!” Then they all revolt and burn you in effigy. It isn’t pretty.

In short, use full feeds, please.

Site that violates this rule: Lew Rockwell Blog

Site that follows this rule: Mine. Sign up for my RSS feed.

5. Avoid inline videos

Yes, everyone loves to post YouTube videos in their blog posts nowadays. You know what? Stop it. You are losing search engine traffic and probably some regular readers. Let’s say I’m a lowly Google-using peon who stumbles onto your site. So, I’m sitting there waiting for your Paris Hilton Sex Tape page to load. And I’m still waiting. And waiting some more. Because there are 7 damn YouTube clips loading over my crappy DSL connection (or maybe my crappy dial-up connection, depending on where I’m connecting from). Yes, a lot of people still use dial-up. Also, did I mention that all that embedded Flash is using most of my crappy PC’s CPU and RAM?

Always give users the option to initiate multimedia on their own. If it’s such an awesome YouTube clip, just link to the YouTube page. Same thing, less pissed of surfers.

Site that violates this rule: Every damn blog on Earth

Conclusion

These tips are just simple ways to make the user experience on your site or blog much better. A pissed-off reader won’t be a reader for long.