Well, after yesterday’s post about applying for a job how does one beat that? How about a How To Post?
No word, BTW from our friends at Ganz but getting the job wasn’t really the point anyway. As I wrote about yesterday, the goal was to just get the resume written in the first place, so if I did see a job listing that tickled my fancy I would have a resume in hand to send.
And for that goal, mission accomplished.
Now on the make money online front: I haven’t been doing so well. For new income, anyway. Thankfully, ramseeker‘s still humming away. If you recall, I went and coughed up $79 and bought a hundred domain names and was going to make a bunch of mini sites:
Well, I’ve kindof had three steps foward and four steps back with that little project, I’ve got four built so far, and have had ZERO traffic to date. I mean, not even a mistake somebody visiting. At least this little debt freedom site of mine gets a trickle of visitors (well under 100/day so far. I’m definitely not doing this for the money - at least yet. It’s still early days.
Anyway, what I’ve had good luck with is researching and reading, but enough paralysis by analysis. These mini sites take too long to set up, get the content written, make sure all the setting are up right and tweaked. The setup takes just as long as the content writing.
So. I’ve been thinking. I’ve had photodailynews.com for some time, and it’s already in the search engines and starting to see some traffic again after being dormant for so long. So here’s the latest plan: I can write 250 words or so pretty quickly on the main features of a digital cameras. So I think what I’ll do is make a list and write about each and every camera. Each article only takes me 15 minutes or so and I can concentrate on content not setup. Setup is kindof fun, if you’re doing one site – you get to pick the design, figure out the links, etc. But for more than that, it’s a headache.
So here’s my one month late new year’s resolution: I’m going to work on photodailynews.com for the month of Feb at full blast and just see what happens. worse case: It’s a month down the crapper. But I guarantee, I’ll be learning as I go. Action really is the best . It’s fun to read and dream and I’m real good at dreaming the dream but sometimes you have to work. Worse case, is a month from now I’ll be a walking encyclopedia on digital camera models. It’s a topic that interests me, so it’s easy to write about shutter speeds and flashes and ISO settings.
What I have learned is this: You can have the coolest design, the best content but if you’re not being found in the search engines, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not the amount of traffic that you get . You can have a celebrity site and not make a penny because it’s entertainment and what’s to sell? But if you solve a problem for people like, oh, I dunno – finding the best deal on ram, then you have targeted traffic from visitors interested in your site before they even get there. What matters in the online world is the number of links from different, but related sites that matters most. You still have to have compelling content but if nobody knows about you – nobody finds your site. I was searching google last night researching the competition, and I found a new site - a year old, tops. And it’s ranking in the search engines above and beyond more established sites. How? They had the most links that were relevant. Forget money.
Money pays the rent, but links are where it’s at online. Relevant links from other sites and great content = you’ll never have to worry about the money. If you do good work, the money (and the links) just happens.
Think about it: Let’s say it’s a snowstorm and you’re on the corner and your neighbour is stuck . You push him out. There’s a good chance they might offer you money as payment for your help. But the kicker is you weren’t expecting it – you just liked to shovel snow. Now depending on your neighbour, this may or may not happen but the moral of the story here is to create value. By pushing your neighbour out of the snow, you’ve created value. Not every guy that turns the corner and gets stuck and you help will pay you but I can bet that over time you’ll reap the rewards somehow. And, you probably enjoy the shoveling and pushin anyway, but you’ve created value with your efforts.
That’s really what the online world is like: You’re interested in I dunno, ram prices, or maybe cookbooks, or knitting or fast cars. Maybe you write about Mary’s wool store up the street. She has a website and all of sudden sees traffic from your site to hers. Mary emails you and wants to know if you’d let your visitors know about her sale? Sure you say. But this time you work out an arrangement where Mary pays you per click, or per sale, or for every lead that you send. You’ve just turned your value (targeted visitors) into cash for you (or barter).
Let’s take this little lesson further. You make a deal with Mary where she’ll sponsor a contest on your site for free wool or knitting needles or… You’ve now got a way to entice your readers to signup for your email list and Mary sponsors the contest. A month or two down the road you’ve got hundreds or even thousand of entries from giving away wool. You now have the email addresses of people that are interested in your site and what mary sells. Sure some will just enter for the chance for free stuff, but the some will actually want to return to your site again due to your content, due to the fact that you give away free stuff, due to the fact that you now have a relationship with your readers. You’ve built trust. You’re now the expert on knitting needles and wool. All because you created value. After a while, the value can turn into money.
The trick is to keep your eye on the real prize which is creating value, and not get distracted by the dough. The money will only get bigger and better if the value is created.
Do you change your hairstylist every time you need a haircut? I sure don’t. Once I find somebody that does what I like, they’ve cut my hair to my specifications they’ve created the value. Am I going to go back? Yup. Will I happily pay them a few dollars more, rather than go to the supercuts up the street where the hairstylist graduated on this past tuesday? You bet. There’s no value at supercuts. It might be cheap, but all I end up with is a crappy haircut.
I’m off to create value.
See you next week.
Jim
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