Blogging | Forum « Finished course just now, few blogging essential questions.

Finished course just now, few blogging essential questions. (4 posts)

Topic tags: aweber, earning money, monetizing, plugin, RSS, share

Andrea Lowenstein said
10 months ago:
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions, in addition to being overseas, I preferred to listen to the recorded sessions, so I can speed it up
Few questions
1) RSS vs Aweber/other – I am with you on the email being the holy grail, but did not notice any mention of feedburner or RSS. Frankly, RSS has always been foreign to me, so I prefer to just go the aweber way, but wondering if you are doing both? Or just one? and if not RSS, why?
2) I just activated a plugin that automatically mentions a new blog post on FB and Twitter, but understand that a screenshot, etc may get better results on FB. Are you a fan of doing it manually? Consider, that we have less staff, but if this is very crucial…
3) Along those lines – I use a unified share plugin – similar to digg digg, but mentioned across the top of each post, not on the side. You started talking about different plugins and wondering if you recommend a unified share or / also doing individual plugins for twitter, linked in, etc.
4) Perhaps too aggressive, but what are your real sources of income for your blog? I am sure this course brings in nice revenue, so is the ultimate goal to gain a larger amount of that 5% to become customers, or to create similar type of courses, related to our own niche… or is this course just icing on the cake. My clients goal is to get more brand recognition, and yes customers, but I would like to be as intelligent as possible in my dialogue with them about reality vs expectations. And also make sure I can deliver whatever extra is needed.
Thank you!
@andrea-lowenstein | # | Top
Kristi Hines said
10 months ago:
@andrea-lowenstein Hi Andrea. I’m sure Mike will have some different answers, but here are mine.
1) I use Feedburner to deliver just my latest posts to those who wish to receive them by email or use a RSS reader to subscribe. I also use a mailing service like Aweber to get mailing list subscribers who are more interested in custom newsletters, promotional mailings, etc. You can use Aweber to do both though – get people to sign up to receive your latest blog posts and customized mailings. I offer both options for the people who may not be interested in a newsletter but just posts – that way I’m not paying for subscribers that just want to read my blog posts but have not interest in the mailings that could result in income.
2) I’m a fan of manually posting updates to Facebook on Facebook itself because it’s proven that Facebook prefers updates done on their network which makes it more likely that those updates will show up to your fans. Plus, if you’re doing a special update that you might want to get out to even more of your fans, you’ll have the option to do promoted posts.
3) I have manually coded sharing buttons on my blog posts beneath the byline and at the end of the post, that way people can decide to share it before they start reading or after. Digg Digg travels with you along the side, but sometimes comes up strange on mobile devices depending on how wide your theme is vs. the devices resolution.
4) My main source of income is freelance writing clients that I gain thanks to my blog being an example of my writing skills. Next source is affiliate marketing for products and events that fits my audience including WordPress premium themes and events like BlogWorld. Next source is eBook sales – this usually tops my affiliate marketing income when I have a new eBook for a few months. It’s just a matter of having time to create a product.
Hope this helps!
@kristi-hines | # | Top
Andrea Lowenstein said
10 months ago:
Thank you Kristi for your thorough reply! I will definitely check our your site to see how you are incorporating the above.
I hope Michael answers as well
@andrea-lowenstein | # | Top
Michael Stelzner said
10 months ago:
@andrea-lowenstein
Hey Andrea,
Great questions. Here we go:
1. I did mention that RSS is one option for you. Blogs include RSS as a standard feature, however most of your readers do not likely use it. We have an RSS button at the top of our page. Google Reader seems to be the common RSS reader. Folks simply add our RSS feed to their system if they want to. I am NOT a big fan of Feedburner or other combination RSS/email services. The main advantage is counting the number of subscribers. However the # of RSS subscribers if frankly a worthless metric because it is impossible to know if those people added you to their feed a while back and never looked again. Email is a much more reliable delivery mechanism. Many of my peers who focused heavily on RSS know are totally focused on email growth.
2. Twitter would be the only one I am not too worried about when it comes to automation. I would manually update all the rest.
3. Did you catch the portion where I strongly recommended Digg Digg (what you called a unified plugin). I think it makes perfect sense to use that kind of plugin and Digg Digg does have an option to show itself vertically anywhere on your post (as we do on Social Media Examiner).
4. We make 90% of our revenue from events we host (summits, workshops, etc.). Thus having a fresh and growing audience is essential.
@mike-stelzner | # | Top