Michael Haislip: Professional Millionaire

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When a post from another blog becomes popular, it pays to learn why.

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There are 3 things you, as an aspiring blogosphere overlord, should be thinking anytime you read a very popular post:

1. What are readers getting from this post?

• Are they getting useful information? If a blog’s most popular posts claim to be informative but consistently fail to deliver (John Chow … ahem), than we can assume the reader simply has loyalty to that site.

• Is the post simply reinforcing their beliefs? Political and religious posts always encourage flamewars and social bookmarking.

• Are they looking at naked people? I hear naked people are popular on this net thingy.

2. How did this post gain notoriety?

• Was it Dugg, Stumbled, et al? Then it’s likely this article format is very socially bookmark-able. Mimic it and submit it to the social sites.

• Did a popular site link to it, or has it had a more grassroots link building structure (e.g. many smaller sites linking to it rather than one behemoth site driving the traffic)? Mimic the good parts. Then check the trackbacks in the comments and let those people know about your work.

• Is organic search traffic naturally drawn to this post (e.g. the post is awesome search engine bait)? Get a piece of that action. Write a post using similar keyword structure and density.

3. What is the content’s style?

• Is it original content, e.g. a primary source, or is it a rehashing of other articles we’ve all seen 100 times? Sometimes it pays to be different.

• Is the content vague and open-ended? Does it present more questions than answers? This may be good for generating comments, but it sucks for people actually looking for hard answers.

• Is the content tight and refined, such as a short how-to list? How quickly did it deliver on its promise? Did it deliver at all?

• Is the content basically naked people doing naked things?

How to apply this analysis

A lot of blogs now list their most popular posts in the sidebar. Take a look at some of them and ask yourself the questions above. The key here is to break down the post into the hows and whys.

Using this type of analysis, plan your posts to achieve definite goals. Rather than just randomly spurting out words with no plan, try figuring out which demographic you want reading that post.

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Scanning your log files is a great way to get new blog post ideas.

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I mentioned previously that I currently rank number 1 on Google for various permutations of the phrase “make a quick buck online.” What value does this hold?

• My server logs say this is my top search keyword
• I now know that people are searching for the phrase
• I can now target more posts to that demographic

My site, as of July 20, 2007, is just under 2 months old, so my logs are fairly skimpy at the moment. However, if you have a site that’s been around for a while, take a moment to scan your server logs for ideas.

Pay particular attention to search engine query terms and your most popular pages. Is there a certain keyword that attracts a lot of search engine traffic? Write a post about that keyword. Is there a certain post that receives a lot of visits? Follow up on it with another post.

If you’ve got the time and energy to run multiple blogs, it may even give you ideas for a new niche. Inspiration is everywhere. Sometimes you just need to remember where to find it.

If this post inspired you, please link to it.

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Does a blogger’s personality determine his writing style and niche? Let’s find out.

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I recently e-mailed several bloggers and asked them to participate in a little unscientific experiment I was conducting. It involved the classic Jungian typology test (also know as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) that classifies your personality based upon four qualities:

• introversion vs. extroversion
• sensing vs. intuition
• thinking vs. feeling
• judging vs. perceiving

The results of the test are then given in 4-letter combinations, some of which I describe below. Note: any detailed descriptions of personality types come from this site or from Wikipedia.

The Teacher Type (ENFJ)

Both Laura from Writing Thoughts and Michael from Faisca’s Corner report that they are ENFJs. This result means:

ENFJs are the benevolent ‘pedagogues’ of humanity. They have tremendous charisma by which many are drawn into their nurturant tutelage and/or grand schemes. Many ENFJs have tremendous power to manipulate others with their phenomenal interpersonal skills and unique salesmanship. But it’s usually not meant as manipulation — ENFJs generally believe in their dreams, and see themselves as helpers and enablers, which they usually are.

Besides maintaining her site, Laura is a freelance writer, which involves some degree of salesmanship (if you’ve ever written a query letter, that Extroverted quality really helps). But now, she uses that knowledge to teach others, hence the “pedagogue” description.

Michael is a self-described polymath, and loves to share what he’s learned on his personal blog.

The Champion Type (ENFP)

Both Michelle from Bloggrrl and Ray at FreshBlogger report being an ENFP. ENFPs are described as:

ENFPs are both “idea”-people and “people”-people, who see everyone and everything as part of an often bizarre cosmic whole. They want to both help (at least, their own definition of “help”) and be liked and admired by other people, on both an individual and a humanitarian level. They are interested in new ideas on principle, but ultimately discard most of them for one reason or another. ENFPs have a great deal of zany charm, which can ingratiate them to the more stodgy types in spite of their unconventionality. They are outgoing, fun, and genuinely like people. ENFPs are pleasant, easygoing, and usually fun to work with. They come up with great ideas, and are a major asset in brainstorming sessions.

So, there you go, Michelle and Ray. You have both officially been described as “zany.” I think that term better fits the sarcastic tone of Michelle’s writing and the irreverence she displays so often. I think the “bizarre cosmic whole” outlook fits both, though, based upon their ability to post seemingly off-topic posts yet still remain on topic. Go figure.

The Providers (ESFJ)

Julie Anne Bonner of the eponymous JulieAnnBonner.com reports being an ESFJ, described as:

Providers are friendly, outgoing, and gregarious. They love to talk and they can become quite agitated when they are isolated from others. Providers are fascinated about news concerning their friends, neighbors, and local community. They will often strike up conversations with strangers and will talk about anything that comes to mind. If someone wants to know what has been going on in the community, providers are often happy to provide the details.

I think this fits Julie perfectly, as her blog seemed the most gregarious and chatty of the bunch. Clearly, the Extroversion quality fits this one perfectly.

The Counselor Type (INFJ)

Steve from SteveOlson.com and Lisa from Work at Home Mom Revolution report being an INFJ, which places them in a personality group called “Counselors,” described as:

Counselors are introspective, cooperative, directive, and attentive. Counselors find helping others to personally develop and reach their potential to be personally gratifying as they have a strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others. Counselors often communicate to others in a personalized manner and are positive and kind when dealing with others. Counselors are good listeners and are highly intuitive. They are often able to detect the emotions or intentions of another individual before the individual is aware of them.

If you’ve ever read Steve’s site, you’ll know this to be a fitting description. Most of his posts are about improving people’s lives.

Lisa, on the other hand, comes across as the motherly type who truly cares about others, which fits with the Counselor archetype.

The Inspectors (ISTJ)

Charlene from Essential Keystrokes reports being an ISTJ, described as:

ISTJs are often called inspectors. They have a keen sense of right and wrong, especially in their area of interest and/or responsibility. They are noted for devotion to duty. Punctuality is a watchword of the ISTJ. As do other Introverted Thinkers, ISTJs often give the initial impression of being aloof and perhaps somewhat cold. They seem to perform at highest efficiency when employing a step-by-step approach. Once a new procedure has proven itself, the ISTJ can be depended upon to carry it through, even at the expense of their own health.

Charlene manages 6 different blogs, a testament to punctuality and devotion. Each one seems to have an efficient, methodical writing style, again fitting the attributes. In fact, in her reply to my experiment request, she mentioned that ISTJ described her perfectly.

The Composers (ISFP)

ispf over at Grad Money Matters is an ISFP, described as:

ISFPs are peaceful, easygoing people who adopt a “live and let live” approach to life. They enjoy taking things at their own pace and tend to live in the moment. Although quiet, they are pleasant, considerate and caring, devoted to the people in their lives. Though not inclined to debate or necessarily even air their views, their values are important to them.

I think this might be the only personality type that can’t be determined from writing style, and I really can’t detect it at Grad Money Matters. How do you tell if someone has a “live and let live” attitude on a blog? However, if you read ispf’s personal history there, you’ll see that easygoing attitude so common with this type.

The Healers (INFP)

Jennifer at Broke-Ass Student is an INFP, described as:

Healers are introspective, cooperative, informative, and attentive. They are highly compassionate and empathetic to the needs of others. They want to heal the problems that trouble individuals and correct the conflicts that divide groups in order to bring health to themselves, their companions and to the society. Some INFPs have a gift for taking technical information and putting it into layman’s terms.

Since Jennifer’s primary focus is helping people with financial problems, I think this description fits.

The Masterminds (INTJ)

Aaron at The Mad Hat is an INTJ, described as:

INTJs are idea people. Anything is possible; everything is negotiable. Whatever the outer circumstances, INTJs are ever perceiving inner pattern-forms and using real-world materials to operationalize them. Others may see what is and wonder why; INTJs see what might be and say “Why not?!” Paradoxes, antinomies, and other contradictory phenomena aptly express these intuitors’ amusement at those whom they feel may be taking a particular view of reality too seriously. INTJs enjoy developing unique solutions to complex problems.

Aaron states on his biography that he has experimented with several areas of technology and the Web, presumably because that fits the classic INTJ curiosity factor. That comes through in his writings, which tend to span a variety of interests.

Conclusions

While this is a terribly unscientific test, the results do give us a bit of insight into our participants:

• The most frequent posters are predominately Extroverts
• The most sporadic posters are predominately Introverts
• Introverts, on average, spread the link love more
• Extroverts predominately focus on general observations and commentary (you’ll see more of their personal lives slipping into posts)
• Introverts predominately focus on specific solutions to specific problems (seems you’ll see more “how-to” from these people)

How is this helpful?

1. New bloggers can work out a lot of blog details based on their personality. For example, an INTP or INTJ would likely be excellent at technical, systematic topics, such as search engine optimization or arbitrage. More Extroverted personality types would likely be better at forming communities and teaching people how to network.

2. Current bloggers can revitalize a languishing blog by bringing it more inline with their true personality. Are you losing interest in your blog? Is your posting frequency plummeting? You’re likely putting on a facade that clashes with your personality.

3. Finally, this is just neat stuff. In fact, just reading through the material and writing this post has given me several potential new post ideas. Maybe it’s done the same for you.

Thanks to everyone who participated. Anyone else, feel free to post your test results in the comments. (By the way, if you’ve read this far, please link to this post. I’ve put many hours into this, and I could use some link love.)

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3 more ways to make a quick buck online when you are just plain broke.

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Since I am now the number one Google result for “make a quick buck online” thank to my previous “Make a quick buck online” post, I figure it’s time for another list of wildly unorthodox ways to make a quick buck online, because sometimes the difference between making rent and getting evicted is a few dollars.

1. Person-to-person lending

With this technique, you join one of the microlending sites, such as Prosper.com, and then post your sob story. If approved, they send the money. Of course, it’s a loan, so you’ll be expected to pay it back over time, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The good thing about Prosper is that many of their lenders will consider people with bad credit. Check it out.

2. Sell coupons on eBay

You wouldn’t think so, but people actually sell coupons on eBay. You know, the kind you get with the Sunday paper. So, grab a few Sunday papers and start clipping. Do a little research as to what actually sells. Then use the 3-day auction format, and you should have the money in your PayPal account within 3-5 days.

3. Sell out your blog

Though some of my fellow bloggers will no doubt hate me forever and curse my family lineage for even suggesting this, but PayPerPost is a good way to make that extra cash — if you have a blog. They pay you anywhere from $5 - $25 for writing posts about their advertising partners. Yeah, it’s selling out, but you do want to eat this month, right? Check out PayPerPost.

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Don’t get stuck in the “blogging = making money online” rut.

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Somehow, the meta-blogs (blogs about blogging) grew from a small number into some sort of Self-sustaining Mutant Creature that devoured thousands of bloggers and now threatens to destroy us all.Maybe I’m exaggerating a tiny bit, but I get a little sick of the almost dogmatic chant of “blogging = the only path to money.” And, before you go saying “There’s Michael, being a total dumbass again,” remember that I do think blogging is one of the easier ways to make money online. However, I think too many people are being conditioned into ignoring other opportunities.

John Chow makes $10,000 a month from his blog, while he makes a whole hell of a lot more from The Tech Zone, an old-fashioned affiliate site. Think he’s ever going to tell you how to do that on his blog? Yeah, right. Another of the big-name bloggers is Shoemoney. Though I don’t know what revenue his main blog generates, I know it pales in comparison to his other online e-commerce operations. Again, will Shoemoney ever tell you his real money-making secrets? Doubtful.

So, if you’re asking yourself what other opportunities are out there, or if you’ve just never thought about anything other than blogging, here’s a few ideas:

1. Good ol’ e-commerce

E-commerce was all the rage until the Self-sustaining Mutant Blog Creature devoured it. Back when I was still doing web development full time, every customer wanted to setup an e-commerce site.

“Can you build me a site with one of those shoppy carts and stuff like Amazon,” they’d ask.

“Sure, just write me a check for $5000,” I’d reply.

Now, all an entrepreneurial person needs is a few PayPal buttons and something to sell.

Need some more advice on this? Here’s a few good blogs on e-commerce:

• Practical E-commerce
• E-commerce Blog
• E-commerce Cache

Really, that’s about it for e-commerce blogs with any real advice. In fact, there’s another opportunity for you: e-commerce blogs. Now, get to work.

2. Static informational web sites

Not every website must have daily updates and an RSS feed. Didn’t you read my earlier post? I still have sites in my bookmarks that haven’t updated since 1998, but they still have value to many people. One of my current projects is a static website about health insurance. I plan on building it, writing several articles, and uploading it. I’ll buy some paid links to help the page rank, and then I’ll sit back and let the magic of the long tail earn me money. Really, it works. Not everything has to be a blog.

3. eBay

Good old eBay, she’s been kind to me over the years. I still generate a few hundred dollars in profit each month from my auctions.

Some decent eBay blogs:

• eBay Strategies
• Auctionorials
• Skip McGrath

Those are just a few ideas to kick start your imagination. Don’t get “blog blindness” and pass up potentially more lucrative opportunities.

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Going against the status quo gets you noticed more than blending in.

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Think back to your high school days. Try to remember everyone who was considered normal. Do you remember all their names, faces or any details about them? No, you probably remember just a few select people.

Now, think back again to high school, but try to remember the weird people, the outcasts, and the rebels. Try to remember the nicknames for the unpopular kids. Think about that one guy who always smelled funny (every school has one). I bet this was a little easier. It’s those people that break away from the homogeneous high school culture that everyone gossips about.

Let’s apply this concept to blogging. In this business, you want people to gossip about you. Gossip means they’re blogging about you. It means attention, backlinks, and traffic. One way to get that gossip is to go against the status quo.

It gets attention

Let’s say every other article on Digg is about the iPhone. What’s one more blog post going to add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said? It’s nearly futile to have your voice heard when everyone else is screaming the same thing.

But, let’s say you write a blog post about how the iPhone is evil and will destroy society and enslave your children (well, maybe not that extreme). People will pay attention to you because you are saying something different.

For the most part, the old saying that any publicity is good publicity holds true when it comes to blogging. So, don’t be afraid to be weird.

“I hate a Roman named Status Quo!” — Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

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Thanks to the long tail, people still make money online with static, unchanging sites.

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Back in January, I picked up a few 99 cent .info domains at GoDaddy on a whim. One of them was tndivorce.info. Admittedly, it’s a terrible domain name, but that’s not the point.

I had some time to kill, so after three hours of work and writing, I crapped out a junky little Tennessee divorce information site with minimal effort. It was meant to convert traffic to AdWords and nothing more.

Mission: accomplished. In fact, this junky little site with a PageRank of 0 and no incoming links has good click-through rates that are well above average. Considering time and the domain cost, I have broken even on a site that I made to kill time and that I never plan to update again.

Even with my terrible keyword focus (really, how many people need divorce information in Tennessee?), I’m still getting traffic. Think about the possibilities with a static site with high-paying, popular keywords. Put in a few hours work, never touch the site again, and the money still comes in. You certainly won’t have a dedicated readership, but why should you care as long as the traffic is converting. It may not make you rich, but it might generate enough revenue each month to pay your utility bill or to make a car payment.

That’s the power of the long tail — someone is eventually going to search for a term that matches your site. Every bit of traffic on TNDivorce.info is organic search traffic from people looking for very specific phrases, all of which just happen to match the keywords in the site.

If you’ve gotten trapped in the equation that “making money online = blogging,” then consider building a few static sites. At least it will break you out of the rut, and could very well put some extra cash in your pocket with minimal investment.

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Optimize your blog or web site for Yahoo search by following a few simple steps.

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Everyone seems to focus on optimizing for Google, which is good since it’s the most popular search engine at the moment. But I never see as much discussion about optimizing for Yahoo search, the second most popular search engine.For a while, Yahoo was using Google results for their search results. Recently, they switched back to in-house techniques for determining SERP (search engine results position). Yahoo still uses similar techniques as Google for ranking pages, but there are key differences:

1. Yahoo seems to place more emphasis on keyword density (how many times your keywords appear) than Google, especially in the title tag
2. Yahoo doesn’t place as much emphasis on anchor text as Google
3. Yahoo uses the “description” META tag, unlike Google

The best option I’ve found for optimizing for both Yahoo and Google simultaneously is the All-in-One SEO Pack. It’s a plug-in for Wordpress that generates optimized page titles and description meta tags for each page on your site.

For the description tag, it uses the first few words of the post. However, this means you need to be conscious of what those first few words are, so if you’re like me and write in a more conversational style, you might be out of luck. Here’s how to fix it.

For each post, include a brief summary of the post at the beginning (as I did with this post). The description META tag will then be generated from that rather than from whatever random text you choose to begin with. This way, you can still maintain your writing style while optimizing for Yahoo.

You may need to edit your older posts this way, but I think the payoff will be worth the trouble.

Sometimes we forget, among the flurry of monetizing and optimizing and back-linking, that there are always people who are saying, “Boy, I’d like to do this bloggy thingermajig, but I have no friggin’ clue what these people are talking about.”

Imagine your grandmother–sweet, old, bespectacled granny–and imagine how she would react if you started throwing out jargon such as “SEO” or “click-through rates.” Granny would be confused. Of course, she’d still serve you a nice piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream, but still, Granny would be feeling stupid.

Granny is the perfect example of the confused, overloaded beginner. Are you driving away the Grannies of the blogging world by ignoring their needs?
I’ve been wondering if it would be a good strategy to mentally classify my posts based upon experience level. For example, a post about how to set up a blog would be Beginner level, a post about monetizing would be Intermediate, and a post about gaming Technorati would be Advanced. Eventually, I could have an entire category just for beginners or a guide for advanced users.

The fact is, a person no longer needs to be technically advanced to setup a website. I remember in 1996, when I setup my first site, I had to log into my ISP’s Unix server and enter several complex commands just to activate the web account. Now, a user doesn’t need to know anything about the technical side of the web. Blogs can be created in 5 minutes.

I think it’s that beginner, entry-level demographic that we “make money online” people are missing out on.

There’s a feature on Technorati’s navigation bar called “WTF.” I’ve always ignored it because:

1. I hate stupid web abbreviations

2. I had no clue what it did (yet another reason for following good usability rules, folks; always use link titles)

After clicking on it the other day, I learned that “WTF” actually means “Where’s the Fire” instead of the other common abbreviation. It’s a Digg-style group blog, where users can write short, 2000-character blurbs about current subjects. Other users then vote for the blurb, moving it higher in the rankings.

The good things about using this feature:

1. You can basically discuss your own site as long as you aren’t flat-out spamming
2. It only takes a few votes to get to the top
3. Other bloggers looking for material will be exposed to your content and maybe link to it
4. It shows a list of people who voted for the blurb, which gives you a ready-made list of people to network with using my Technorati backlink method
5. It takes about 5 minutes to write a blurb.
6. The blurb shows up in Technorati’s search results

Anybody with an hour to spare can promote a few of their own posts with minimal effort. If anything, I’m all about minimal effort.