Pocono locales make the grade

Conditions are looking great for the Pocono Mountains during ski season, especially if you happen to rent your home out to tourists.Airbnb recently announced that Pennsylvania’s ski areas are expected to see 111,400 visitors during the 2019 season, and hosts are set to rake in about $12.7 million in supplemental income.The Pocono region made its mark as the place to be in the 2019 ski season, with [...]

Source Business - poconorecord.com http://bit.ly/2GnOaMS

The Best Blogging Platforms and Blog Sites of 2019

When it comes to creating your own blog, you have two options. There are pre-built platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc. These can be considered blogging platforms, and with them you can get started right away. There are obviously cons to these, but one pro is that these platforms come with built-in audiences. I’ll also refer to these as blog sites.

Then there is blog software, like WordPress.org. I’d also group website builders like Wix here as well. Again, there are pros and cons to these: you’ll need to do a little more work at the outset and you’ll build your own audience from scratch, but you’ll own and control your site completely. With a blog platform, you’ll be beholden to the platform’s choices, settings, changes, and algorithms. 

A quick summary of my recommendation: If you plan to make money from your blog, build your own site with WordPress.org. A good second option is Wix. If you’re not trying to make money from your site, then you should use a blogging platform (Medium, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook) and make content where your audience is already consuming that type of content.

In this guide, I’ll break down both ways to set up your blog in this post and help you pick which blog site, software, or platform is best for you. Let’s get to it.

Best Blogging Platform for Your Own Website

Best Overall — WordPress.org
I’d recommend going this route to anyone serious about building a blog that makes money. You’ll build and own your own site with complete control. (If you’re a beginner, this is still very doable for you.)

Website Builder — Wix
If you want to have to your own site, but don’t want to build it, then I’d recommend you go with a website builder. It’s a drag-and-drop editor that’ll get you up and running quickly, and you’ll still be building your blog on your own website, not on someone else’s platform.

Best Blog Sites (If You Don’t Want to Build a Website)

Traditional Blogging Platform — Medium
If you’re not creating your own site and your blog is a classic blog — long form posts about a topic that’s meaningful to you — I like Medium. It has a built-in audience that’s interested in reading and an interface that’s seamless.

Best Blog for Business — LinkedIn
Blogging about business or hoping to be a thought-leader in a certain industry? You could go with Medium, but a more rabid and useful audience might be waiting for you on LinkedIn. I know, it might not seem like a blogging platform, but LinkedIn users are really engaged and content hungry.

Best for a Creative Blog — Instagram
If you’re doing anything with images, art, creativity, or lifestyle, you’ll probably find your audience on Instagram. There are already so many people there and it’s easy for new followers to discover you through hashtags, comments, and the other people you and they are following.

Largest Audience — Facebook
Lastly, the biggest audience is on Facebook. There are millions of people there, and though organic reach on the platform isn’t what it once was, it’s still a massive platform. It’s also a great spot for building a community page element to your blog.

Which blogging platform or blog site should you choose?

The first question I have for you is:
Do you want to make money with your blog?

If your answer is yes, you want to build your own site. No question.

If you don’t want to make money, skip ahead to the blog sites — your choice will be based on the type of content you’ll write and the audience you’re after.

If you want to make money with your blog, go with WordPress.org.

There’s no better option than building your own blog on WordPress. You’ll own your blog and website and you’ll have true flexibility. There is no argument here. It’s the default content option and runs 30% of the internet for a reason.

You don’t have to be an expert — we have step-by-step guides on How to Start a Blog and How to Make Money Blogging. 

You can also build your blog using Wix. It’s an all-in-one drag-and-drop website builder. It’s an easy option if you’re looking to have your blog on your own site, rather than on a blog platform or service like Medium or another form of social media. The downside is you’ll be paying a subscription fee and you’ll be locked into Wix’s themes and tools. So, you’ll trade some convenience for some flexibility.

If you’re not trying to make money, then definitely consider the free blog sites.

They are great if you aren’t trying to create an income: They have built-in audiences and you won’t have to pay anything. My recommendation of which one to choose is based on the outcome that you’re trying to achieve — what is your blog like and who do you hope will read it?

Medium is the best all-around traditional blogging platform. It’s where the majority of readers who’re looking to read classic blog-style posts are right now. 

Deciding to blog on WordPress vs Medium isn’t an either-or choice. You can also publish your site and re-publish some posts on Medium to take advantage of its benefits, just like you would any syndication deal. You can thoughtfully approach this, but there are some technical how-tos we’ll get into below. You’ll need to import your posts to Medium properly and set the canonical tag, so you’re not penalized by Google (at worst) or simply out-ranked by the Medium version of the post (at best). Overall, though, I prefer to see each channel as a separate channel and create and publish unique content for that channel.

If you’re blogging about business, or something related, like management, then I’d say to build your blog on LinkedIn. There’s a pre-existing community of people there talking about those topics and ready to read your posts too. You’ll be able to build business followers, which is different than a “connection.”

The audience on LinkedIn is premium: 45% of LinkedIn article readers are in upper-level positions: managers, VPs, Directors, and C-level. If you’re building thought leadership, brand value, or community, rather than trying to make money, I recommend going to where your audience is rather than trying to woo them over to where you are. Build content for them where they already are and they’ll love you for it.

If you’re a creative — especially in a visual field, then your blog should really be an Instagram account. You can post images of your work and use the caption field for your written post. If you’re not used to this idea, it might seem kind of zany: That’s not a real blog. But it is. People read Instagram captions of the accounts they follow like they’d read a blog — and your visual work will be well highlighted in your feed and the general feed.

And, of course, Facebook is the juggernaut in the room. It has the largest audience of any of these platforms. Creating a Facebook page might be all you need to build a blog — post on Facebook like you would on your blog and build your audience right there on your page. The comments and interaction on Facebook are even better than a traditional blog. You can really focus on building true fans on Facebook.  

There’s another warning due here. If you build your blog on a single platform that you do not own, well, then you’ve built your blog on a single platform you do not own. That means you’re beholden to another person’s business and their algorithm for your business. What’s good for their business and algorithm may not be what’s good for yours. That’s why I say if you’re here to make money, you should own your site. You’ll have more control.

Best Blogging Platform For Your Own Website

Best Overall Platform for Blogging — WordPress.org

WordPress is the hands-down king of websites with content. It’s the default choice here. If you’re building a blog on your own site, that means you’re building with WordPress. (Quick Sprout is on WordPress.)

To build your own site, you’ll need to buy a domain name, get web hosting, and set up your WordPress account. It’s all pretty simple. There’s more information on our post The Best Web Hosting for Small Business and on The Best Web Hosting for WordPress, which is about selecting a managed host that’s designed for WordPress. It’s more expensive but also super premium. If you have the coin, go for it. If you’re budget minded, you can skip it.

You’ll pick a theme, apply it, and honestly you’ll be just about done. We have some recommendations on SEO WordPress plugins you’ll want to add. The backend of WordPress is pretty intuitive, and if you get lost there are so many tutorials out there to help.

Like I said before, the choice between WordPress and Medium isn’t either/or. You can build your own blog and then use Medium selectively as a syndication tool. It’s worth thinking about if you want to grow your audience, but ultimately build your own site.

Ready to build your own site with WordPress? We walk you through how in our posts How to Start a Blog and How to Make Money Blogging.

How to repost your blog on Medium

1. Make sure your content has a long enough life on your own blog so it is solidified as the primary source in Google’s eyes. Two weeks is enough time.
2. Use Medium’s Import tool to publish the content. It’s as simple as plugging in your original URL, updating any wonky formatting, and clicking publish. The import tool will automatically set the canonical URL to your original post on your website. It’s very important to have the canonical in there. This applies to any type of syndication: you want to have a canonical in place so Google knows where the original article is located. Otherwise, at worst, you could get penalized; at best, the bigger site will outrank you.

Pro Tips

• I wouldn’t auto-post all of your content to Medium. It’s weird. Why have a duplicate of your site living on their site? It doesn’t make sense for your readers, or you long term.
• You should thoughtfully approach each channel. Content on that channel is its own form. What someone wants to read on each platform depends a lot on the platform itself — What is the UX like? Why are they there? What types of interactions does the platform encourage?

Best Website Builder for Blogging — Wix

I like Wix for blogging because it’s one-and-done. If you want to go the easy route for owning your own blog, this is it. The templates are great looking and you can customize them with a drag-and-drop editor. The blog manager is simple and intuitive, and you’ll get analytics and SEO built right in. It’s simple to add the basic features you might want on your blog: social tools, likes, comments, hashtags, categories, and a subscriber forms. All of the SEO features you need are easy to access too: alt tags for your images, internal links, SEO titles and descriptions (that are different from you post title), and nofollow tags for external links. Wix blogs have an automatic email subscribe feature and a social media bar beneath each article for sharing on Facebook, Twitter, and more.

To build a blog on Wix, you’ll sign into your account and pick a template. There’s a Blog template category, which is a great place to start.

Once you have your template selected, I suggest updating the font, colors, and logo to personalize your template and help it stand out from the rest.

Writing a post is as simple as clicking Create a Post, writing and adding images. You can save drafts, or even give other contributors writing privileges for you site. This is all just as easy from a mobile device as from a desktop — no app required.

Make sure that you update your SEO settings for every post: this is what’s presented in the search results page and is critical for ranking in organic search.

The resulting post will have an automatic read-time count, like a Medium post right next to the author’s name, which I also like a lot. I also like the ability to live-chat with your readers in the Wix app. If you build a real community in your blog or are open to answering reader questions in real time — say about an online course you’re offering or a webinar that’s coming up — then it’s a cool feature.

Best Blog Sites (That’s Not Your Own Site)

Traditional Blogging Platform — Medium

It’s hard to pin down how many users Medium has — they focus on sharing how much time is spent on the platform reading instead. I dig it. The platform, was founded by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams as a response to the hyper-short limits of Twitter, hence the name Medium. At one point, there was some distinction between even longer blog platforms, but that’s dissipated by now.

In 2017, Medium had 60 million unique visitors. From personal experience, I know that when I read on Medium, I read with curiosity and intent. I’m ready to put in some time reading, and the read times on each article get me to commit to sticking it out for the whole thing.

Posting with Medium is super simple. There’s a clean, very white WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Basically, as you type, you see what the post will look like when it’s published. There are a lot of tips and tricks to format your post that are a little hidden in the simplicity of the interface.

Publishing on Medium is so effortless. Formatting content and uploading images takes basically zero time. It’s really the best web-based publishing experience I’ve had to date.

— Josh Pigford of Baremetrics

Don’t stop at this point though. Instead of just a profile, I recommend creating a Medium Publication. This gives you the option to add other writers and editors to your blog. More importantly, it gives you a lot more options for controlling what is essentially your blog homepage. Take a look at the difference between Patagonia’s basic profile and REI’s publication.

One is a simple chronological feed and the other is a designed page with useful menu options. When you create a publication like REI has you also unlock the ability to send a newsletter to all of your followers.

Pro Tips

• If you are syndicating your actual blog, use the Import feature. This is essential for SEO.
• To start a bulleted list, simply type an asterisk or a dash.
• There are two types of quotes. Use a block quote by clicking the quote icon once. Click it again for a pull quote.
• Drop caps add a little editorial weight. To make the first letter of your paragraph larger, and give it that designed look, highlight the letter. The option will appear.
• Use TK to leave yourself notes. This is an old journalism trick — there are no words with TK in them in the English language. If you’re writing something that needs a placeholder, use TK and Medium will alert you if you try to publish with one still in place.

Best Blog Site for Business — LinkedIn

There are 590 million LinkedIn users, 154 million of them in the US. And a lot of them are active: 44% are monthly active users. LinkedIn used to be basically a resume hosting platform. In a lot of ways it was like a job-hunting dating app: you’d go on if you were looking to hire or looking to get hired but not much else. In the last few years that has changed dramatically.

If you’re building a business blog, the audience on LinkedIn is premium: 45% of LinkedIn article readers are in upper-level positions (managers, VPs, Directors, C-level).

Hardcore LinkedIn users know that there’s a certain warm professionalism that underlies many exchanges on the platform. In short, LinkedIn offers a kind of stability, civility and real value that’s sorely needed on some social platforms.

— Ryan Holmes, “Is LinkedIn Poised To Be The Next Big Social Network … For Brands?” for Forbes.com

Publishing doesn’t make you a LinkedIn Influencer, unfortunately. That’s a hand-selected group of people that rotates throughout the year “to include only the most engaged, prolific, and thoughtful contributors and to ensure that their expertise matches our members’ interests,” according to LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a social network. Your influence grows in proportion to the size of your network. The more posts you publish, the more connection requests and followers you’ll attract. Writing consistently not only expands your network, it also reinforces the message about the depth and breadth of your knowledge of the subjects that you write about.

— Glenn Leibowitz, “10 Tips for Writing LinkedIn Blog Posts That Expand Your Influence” for Inc.

An article isn’t a post and vice versa. A post is a smaller update you’d share with your feed and connections. Think quick anecdote or pro tip. They’re limited to 1,300 characters, which is about 5 lines. Articles are longer and more in-depth. They’re something that the broader LinkedIn audience would be interested in reading. A person who reads your article can also follow you from there, so they’ll be alerted when you publish your next article. Any articles you publish will appear in the Articles section of your LinkedIn profile.

Want to improve? Check out LinkedIn’s own course on getting better at blogging on the platform, Writing to be Heard on LinkedIn. Because when they own the platform, what’s good for them is successful content that people want to read and engage with!

Pro Tips

• Be clear about who you are and what you’ll be talking about it. Stick to that topic and don’t stray. And post regularly. Even posting once or twice a month — consistently over time — will add up. Twice a month is 48 times a year. In five years, you’ll have nearly 250 posts. That’s huge.
• You can share a draft with a colleague or friend for feedback.
• Use the stats related to your posts as a tool: create more of what’s working, less of what’s not.

Best Site for Creative Bloggers — Instagram

Instagram is primarily visual — the feed is all the images or videos, and very little of the captions. You can use the caption field for your text, and users like a long caption. You’ll be capped at 2,200 characters or about 300 words.

Instagram is perfect if what you’re sharing is visual: a lifestyle, art, dance. Or if there’s some way to share it visually like in a how to mini-video.

In fact, in a lot of ways, Instagram has killed the entire genre of lifestyle blogging.

It’s become a lot harder for upstart “bloggers” in the crowded yet lucrative fashion, beauty, wellness, and lifestyle spaces to build a following centered around their own blog. At the same time, social media platforms have given influencers more and more tools—including e-commerce, groups, and direct messaging—to keep them (and their followers) from going elsewhere online.

— Rosie Spinks, “Instagram Has Killed the Art of Lifestyle Blogging” on Quartzy

Instagram is so good now that it’s hard to want to go anywhere else. The downside is definitely that you’re beholden to the algorithm and the feed, and the changes the platform makes. On the flip side, you also don’t have to be the product manager, hire a developer, or build an audience from scratch. You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons yourself!

You can also host vlogs on Instagram Live — simply tap the camera icon (top left of the screen, or by swiping right from the Feed) and tap Live at the bottom. When you’re ready to actually go live, it’s as simple as tapping Go Live. You’ll be able to see the number of viewers you have at the top of the screen and comments will pop in at the bottom. When you’re done, tap End. From here, I recommend tapping Save to save it to your camera roll, and tapping Share to add it to your story. It’ll live there for 24 hours to be replayed by anyone who wasn’t around when it was actually live.

You can only have one link in your profile, but with something like Linktree, you can add more links. I don’t think it’s a great idea to build a blog somewhere hoping to get your readers or followers to move from there to somewhere else on the regular. It’s feasible to get your Instagram followers to also subscribe to your newsletter, but it’s not really logical to hope they’ll leave Instagram after ever post and go read your blog. They’re scrolling through Instagram, not trying to read your website.

Think about your own behavior here — how much momentum does it take to get you to follow a link that leads away from the platform you’re in? For me, it takes a lot of work. There has to be something I really want to buy, or really, really want to read.

It’s more likely that I’ll follow someone on Instagram for a while and then one day I’ll buy something from that person, or follow them somewhere else. Instagram, and all blogging really, is about creating a relationship with the people who’re reading your posts. Once that relationship is strong enough, then people will be interested in going wherever you’re taking them. Until then, you’ll need to deliver on that relationship within the platform itself.

Pro Tips

• Pick a good name that’s catchy and easy to type — your name should make it clear what your whole feed is about.
• Stick to a niche.
• Have a visual point-of-view.
• Don’t stray. If you’re an artist, don’t post pictures of your salad for lunch. If you’re a food blogger, think twice before you post photos of your doodles.
• Post regularly! And engage.

Biggest Blog Audience — Facebook

I mean, what’s 1.49 billion daily active users to you? It’s a huge number, and one that’s worth noting. How many of those active users will make it to your page or your post, now that’s another question.

Organic reach on Facebook was once not such a wild aspiration, but in 2016 there was a huge decrease in organic reach. SocialFlow found that brands saw a 42% decline in organic reach over Q1 and Q2 2016.

The easiest way to build a blog on Facebook is to create a group or a page for your business or brand. From there, your posts will literally be Facebook posts.

To make it easier to post and handle all your interactions in one spot, I recommend using the Facebook Creator Studio. It’s an all-in-one dashboard for publishing and analyzing your content. If you’re new to Facebook and are really using it as a classic blog platform, you’ll want to create Notes. These are the closest things to blogs: a header image, a title, and text down the middle.

From here you can also go live, post videos, gifs, polls, recommendations — any type of Facebook post you’ve seen you can create from this dashboard. You can even save, schedule, and backdate posts. 

Recap of the Best Blog Sites and Blog Platforms for 2019

Do you plan to make money on the page?

If so, go with WordPress or Wix.

If not, then think about your niche:

• If you’re in business blog on LinkedIn.
• If you’re creative, start your “blog” on Instagram.
• The best classic blogging site is Medium, which can also serve as a syndication platform.
• The biggest audience, of course, still lives on Facebook.

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2MXG7YJ

How to Make Money Blogging in 2019

I have a major disclaimer before we begin.

A good part of my career has been working for some of the folks in this list.

In fact, I was personally responsible for setting annual revenue goals and hitting those goals while I was the Senior Director of Growth and Product at I Will Teach You To Be Rich. In that case specifically, I’m extremely familiar with revenue totals and what drove that revenue.

Not to mention the affiliate commissions that were paid out to some of the people on this list, numbers that were shared in confidence after a few too many drinks, and second-hand rumors that I picked up along the way.

Unfortunately, I’ve got sad news.

I’m not going to share any of that insider knowledge. Sorry.

Some folks don’t mind publishing their revenue numbers but others keep it extremely private. If I shared that kind of info on how their blogs make money, I’d shatter the trust they placed in me. I take that trust very seriously.

For this post, I’m only going to be sharing revenue numbers that have been shared publicly.

Now here’s what I can do for you.

With the background that I have in this space, there are some common rules of thumb for figuring out revenue. They’re not perfect rules but they do tend to get the right number of digits. And after a while, you get a general sense for people’s revenue based on the size of their audience.

For most folks on this list, I’ll give a guess based on their public audience size and any hints that they’ve released publicly about their revenue. I’ll clearly label at is as a guess and you should take it with a grain of salt.

Ramit Sethi – I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Revenue = I can’t tell you

If you poke around the site a bit, it’s pretty obvious that the blog makes most of its money from infoproducts.

Ramit is absolutely at the top of his game when it comes to infoproducts and I consider this site one of the best to learn from if you’re considering monetizing your own blog with infoproducts. Make sure to sign up for his email list — you’ll start getting the launch funnels and you’ll be able to see how it all works.

There are also a few products available for purchase from the products page. That’s a great source for inspiration to see what an amazing infoproduct sales page looks like.

Marie Forleo – marieforleo.com

Revenue = My guess is several million per year

Marie has been blogging for a while now. She also put in a lot of work into her YouTube channel.

He content has a great reputation and her copy is world class. I assume most of her revenue comes from infoproducts, particularly her flagship program B-School. It’s been a while since I followed Marie closely but for a period, she launched B-School once per year.

She’s an amazing person to study if you want to learn how to produce high-quality positive content. She’s also brilliant at balancing valuable content with going for the sale in an authentic way.

Steve Kamb – Nerd Fitness

Revenue = Over $1 million per year

According to this post, Steve’s doing over seven figures with his business. It’s a mix of infoproducts, coaching, and bootcamps. He also wrote a book called Level Up Your Life.

What I love most about Steve’s business is how he’s chosen a specific segment of the market and differentiated himself from other fitness blogs. The fitness space is crazy competitive but by branding his entire business around fitness for nerds, he clearly separates himself from that competition. Even in the most competitive categories, there are still opportunities to target a niche with your blog and make real money with it.

Amy Porterfield – amyporterfield.com

Revenue = At least $2–3 million per year, maybe more

Amy’s About page states that she’s built a multi-million dollar business, something that I absolutely believe based on her audience size.

I’m assuming that the vast majority of her revenue is from her infoproducts, but it looks like she does some affiliate promotion too. Her affiliate page is pretty classy and well done. It’s a great example of how to promote products in an authentic and non-pushy way.

Jon Morrow – Smart Blogger

Revenue = Over $1.2 million per year

In this post, Jon states that he’s doing over $100K per month in affiliate revenue which is pretty impressive.

He also has several of infoproducts available for purchase on his site. I bet these do about $30–50K per year on their own. I’m not sure what Jon’s email funnels look like but if he’s pushing launch funnels aggressively, he could easily have another few million in revenue from infoproducts on top of his affiliate revenue.

Darren Rowse – Problogger

Revenue = My guess is about $10 million per year

Problogger has been around since 2004. That’s an eternity in online marketing. It’s one of the original “how to blog” blogs. Darren also owns Digital Photography School which has 8X as much traffic and revenue as Problogger.

Darren did do a income report on the first half of 2016. At that time, 46% of his revenue from both sites came from affiliates, 31% came from infoproducts, and the rest from a smattering of different categories.

Seth Godin – seths.blog

Revenue = My guess is over $2 million per year

Seth Godin had plenty of success before his blog: he’s written 18 books, built and sold a company to Yahoo, and then was a VP at Yahoo. And his blog has cemented him as the leading marketing thought leader. If you were trying to come up with an ideal example of a thought leader, you’d have a hard time finding a better example than Seth Godin.

Seth’s blog is the original, longest running, and possibly highest value blog in marketing. He’s posted every day for like 20 years or something.

For a long time, he never montized it. Unless you consider featuring his books occasionally to count as monetization. Recently, he has done a few infoproducts including the altMBA and The Marketing Seminar. I went through The Marketing Seminar myself and quite a few people were in the community, so it sold well. Seth’s site says that over 5,000 people took the course in total. At $800 per sale, that’s about $4 million in total spread over several years. Plus all the revenue from altMBA.

Neil Patel – neilpatel.com

Revenue = I’m not even going to guess

I worked for Neil when he was a co-founder of KISSmetrics. He’s the one that originally hired me. Also worked with him on some other projects after that. I’m not going to even hazard a revenue guess here since I don’t want to reveal anything that Neil would prefer to keep private.

He has stated publicly that his main site, neilpatel.com, generates over 2.5 million visitors per month. I’ll let you figure out the revenue from there.

Selena Soo – selenasoo.com

Revenue = Over $1.6 million per year

In this article, Selena reported that she made $1.6 million in 2017. I assume the majority of her revenue comes from infoproducts that she launches to her email list periodically. Considering the stage of her business, she’s built out a pretty impressive infoproduct portfolio along with some higher ticket mastermind offers.

Sam Dogen – Financial Samurai

Revenue = My guess is about $1 million per year

Sam gives a few hints on what he makes with his site. First, he does give the revenue of his infoproduct ebook which is $36,000 per year.

Funny enough, he chooses not to include his Adsense revenue or affiliate revenue as “passive” income within any of his passive income reports. Most folks in the industry would consider these revenue sources to be passive.

Sam does break down some hypothetical revenue amounts of blogs of different sizes here. One example includes a personal finance blog that’s generating about one million visitors per month. I remember Sam stating somewhere along the line that he has about that much traffic. The traffic estimation tools like Ahrefs also put his site in the range. So, the example that he gives should be close to his actuals. Using his projections as a guide and knowing that he has plenty of affiliate links along with Adsense on his site, a $1 million per year estimate should be close.

Brian Dean – Backlinko

Revenue = Over $1 million per year

He launches infoproducts to his email list a couple of times per year. I believe he has a course on SEO and one on YouTube. With his traffic volume, each of these launches should be doing upper six figures, possibly $1 million per launch.

He has stated in a few interviews like this one that he’s doing seven figures per year.

This is a great example of a business that’s focused really heavily on generating traffic, turning that traffic into email subscribers, then monetizing via a few infoproduct launches per year. It can seem magical to have a business with ridiculous profit margins at this stage. Most of us would love to have a $1 million per year business with a super small team and a handful of moving pieces.

James Dahle – White Coat Investor

Revenue = Over $1 million per year

James used to publish his annual revenue in his annual state of the blog posts but stopped as his blog became more well known. Here’s his 2019 state of the blog. His last reported income was $187,862 in 2014. He does mention multiple times that he’s now running a seven-figure business, so his current revenue is at least $1 million per year.

He does have a book by the same name. Looking through his site, the majority of his revenue comes from affiliates, ads, and sponsorships.

His email list is extremely small for the size of his blog — it’s only 21,725 subscribers. And with a small email list, any infoproduct launch is going to be limited to five figures. He does have an infoproduct on creating your own financial plan for $499. If he focused on conversion to email and got good at infoproducts, he could add another $1–2 million in revenue to his business.

Tim Ferriss – tim.blog

Revenue = My guess is about $10 million per year

Tim has a massive blog that’s been around for a long time. He started it before he even launched his first book, The 4 Hour Workweek.

Currently, I assume that the majority of Tim’s income comes from his podcast sponsorships. I have seen ads on his blog in the past but it doesn’t look like there are any right now. I don’t think he’s ever done an infoproduct or pursued affiliate ads aggressively.

According to this form, his podcast sponsorships go for $36K per slot. At 4–5 slots per episode, that’s $144,000 per episode at least. Tim averages about six podcasts per month, which would produce $864,000 per month or $10,368,000 per year.

The reason I’m not going to even guess is that I don’t have any experience buying or selling podcast sponsorships which I assume are his main source of income right now. Also, sites with Tim’s reach tend to start breaking standard revenue rules. Having one of the largest and highest rated podcasts can give you a lot of leverage, allowing you to charge more than normal on each sponsorship slot.

Otherwise, Tim has used his blog to promote his books heavily over the years. They include The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans, and Tribe of Mentors.

Timothy Sykes – timothysykes.com

Revenue = Over $25 million per year

Timothy has been around for a while now, predominantly selling infoproducts on how to invest in penny stocks. According to this interview with Nathan Latka, Timothy was on track to do $25–27 million in revenue in 2016, $20 million of which came from infoproducts.

Timothy is a great person to follow if you want to see how an infoproduct business looks at scale.

Josh Axe – Dr. Axe

Revenue = Did $11 million per year in 2015, could be as high as $50–70 million per year now

Dr. Axe is a massive site with a huge audience. According to this press release, it has 17 million visitors per month, which is insane. They also push products pretty hard via their email list. It’s obvious that they know what their doing. Their revenue is a mix of infoproducts, affiliates, and supplements.

Supplements are a great category with nice margins. I only have a little experience in the health and fitness category but the advice I always get from the health and fitness experts is to go hard on supplements.

I did hear that they have a solid paid marketing engine going for their funnels. If that’s true, they could be doing easily $50–70 million per year by now.

I consider Dr. Axe to be a great example of what a health and fitness blog looks like when taken to its absolute height. If you’re considering a health and fitness blog, I’d study Dr. Axe closely

Peter Adeney – Mr. Money Mustache

Revenue = About $400,000 per year

According to this article from the New Yorker, Peter pulled in about $400,000 per year as of 2016. Ahrefs reports that Peter’s traffic has been static since the 2016 period. If that’s true, I would expect his current revenue to be around $400,000. Sounds like the majority of the revenue, possibly even all of it, comes from affiliates.

AJ Harbinger and Johnny Dzubak – Art of Charm

Revenue = My guess is $5–10 million per year

Jordan Harbinger didn’t reveal exact revenue but did say that it’s multiple seven figures per year. Based on the fact that the revenue is mostly infoproducts and the overall size of the audience, my guess is that Art of Charm does $5–10 million per year in revenue.

In 2018, Jordan Harbinger split from the Art of Charm and started his own podcast.

Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income

Revenue = $2,171,652 per year

Pat Flynn posts all his income reports here, going back all the way to 2008.

Not sure if Pat decided to stop but it doesn’t look like he’s posted any new income reports since 2017. Regardless, I highly recommend reading through the first few years of income reports from Pat. That’ll give you a strong sense for what it takes to start making money with a blog.

The majority of Pat’s revenue comes from affiliate offers and his own infoproducts, about 50/50 between the two. He also has a few books published, How to Be Better at Almost Everything and Will it Fly? Other than the months he received the advance from the publisher, I bet these books have a negligible direct impact on revenue.

John Lee Dumas – Entrepreneur on Fire

Revenue = $2,029,744 per year

No one really needs to guess at John Lee Dumas’ revenue, he posts monthly income reports directly to his site.

He also put together a nifty revenue breakdown by source:

Sponsorships are slightly larger than everything else. Otherwise a pretty even split between infoproducts, affiliates, and his journals (The Freedom Journal, The Mastery Journal, and The Podcast Journal).

To get a sense for how blogs really make money, I highly recommend you read through the monthly income reports from the last 12 months for Entrepreneur on Fire. You’ll get an excellent feel for what a seven-figure blog looks like. I also recommend you read through the income reports from 2012 and 2013, which will show you what revenue looks like at the beginning and how it changes over time on the path to $1 million per year.

Navid Moazzez – navidmoazzez.com

Revenue = My guess is $300–500K per year

Navid is in the online marketing space and offers infoproducts on virtual summits. According to his About page, he’s earned over a $1 million dollars in “a few years.” Safe to say he’s easily doing six figures off his blog. Hence my guess above.

Tim Urban – Wait But Why

Revenue = At least $100,000, possibly $1+ million per year

Tim Urban got crazy popular and his blog posts were being shared all over the place for a while.

This is probably an example of what most people dream of when they start a blog. They plan to write a bunch of stuff, a rabid fan base will appear out of nowhere, they’ll offer some t-shirts, posters, and a Patreon account to make tons of passive income. They’ll finish by riding into the sunset of eternal blogging glory.

For Tim Urban, that’s basically what happened. And he absolutely deserves it. His content is phenomenal. It’s so good that people have been angry because he hasn’t posted in a while. Very few of us can write content that good. I can promise you no one gets upset when I stop blogging. So for us mortals, we should look to some of the other examples on this list for how to monetize our blogs.

I know that I gave a really broad range on the revenue here. Blogs like this are really tough to guess. Tim clearly has a massive, adoring audience. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s swimming in gold. Although he might be. Blogs with massive audiences like this sometimes make a ton of money, and sometimes they make very little. It also looks like his main source of revenue is his ecommerce store. Unlike consulting, speaking, infoproducts, or affiliates, the margins on ecommerce products are much smaller. It’s entirely possible that he’s making a ton of top-line revenue but only enough profit to live a decent lifestyle.

That’s pretty common with ecommerce entrepreneurs. They claim that they’re making millions of dollars with their business but only take home $50–100K per year. Once you factor in costs of goods sold and overhead, there isn’t a ton left over. I have no idea if Tim Urban falls into this bucket. I simply don’t know.

Ready to build you own blog?

I know the list above is full of people making serious money.

Here’s the crazy part.

For every blogger making a million dollars, there are thousands that make enough money to quit their job and work on their blog full time.

The list is too long to keep track of — I wouldn’t be able to put it together.

It is absolutely reasonable to start a blog with the goal of quitting your job and being your own boss. So many people have already done it you’d be walking a well-traveled path at this point.

I also believe that there’s still a ton of opportunity to be made blogging. I see new up-and-coming bloggers every year. It’s still possible to start a blog today and have it support you. I put together a 12-step guide on how to start a blog here. It’ll walk you through the whole process.

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2HWq9Pv

How to Start a Blog That Makes Money in 12 Easy Steps — The Complete Beginner’s Guide

I started my first blog to avoid getting a job.

I’m completely serious.

I was coming to the end of my undergraduate degree in international affairs and the thought of getting a job at the state department or in journalism sounded like a horrible idea.

So I learned how to start a blog and built one on international affairs with the hopes of eventually monetizing it and supporting myself.

That didn’t really work out as planned. Hah.

But it did lead to a career in online marketing and now I do work on blogs to avoid having a real job.

Whether you’re trying to avoid a job entirely or trying to quit your current job, starting a blog is a reliable path to supporting yourself and your family. It takes a lot of work and some time but it is a well-traveled path at this point. It’s not nearly as crazy as it was when I started.

I’m going to walk you through the 12 steps to start a blog, which are particularly useful for beginners who have never done this before.

Before we begin, let’s cover how website technology works. There are a few things you’ll need to sign up for so it’s good to see how they all connect before starting.

First, there’s the domain. This is the URL of the website. Think of it as the address for your business. You’ll need to buy your domain.

Second, the domain registrar. This is the company that you’ll use to buy your domain and hold it for you. They don’t host your site or anything — they just store your domain and point web traffic to your site which will be on your web host.

Third, the web host. This is the company that hosts your site. Your site will be on its servers.

Fourth, the tool to build your site. Very few sites are built by hand using raw HTML and CSS these days. Almost all of them are built using a tool. The tool handles a lot of heavy lifting and makes building a site substantially easier, especially if you have no idea how to code. This is how you’ll configure your site and publish your blog posts. For blogging, these tools are called content management systems (CMS) and the only real option is WordPress. Once you’ve installed WordPress on your host, you’ll be able to start building your site.

To recap, you’ll buy a domain using a domain registrar, install WordPress on your host, then start building your site.

Now let’s dive into the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Pick a Category

The most important decision to make when starting a blog is which category you’re going to write about.

Why pick a category at all? Why not write about anything that interests you?

When it comes to building an audience, increasing traffic, and monetizing your blog, you’ll get a lot further a lot faster if you stick to a specific category.

Think of it like this: Let’s say you stumble on a blog of mine. You find an amazing post about how to turn email subscribers into fully passive income. You love it and subscribe to my email list. Then I send you an email about how to organize your closet. How would you react? Maybe you’d love it if you also really love organization. But most people would be turned off. They want more content about email lists and making passive income.

Jumping categories can be really jarring for any audience. Google also greatly prefers blogs that are focused on a single topic, which will help you with SEO a lot.

Whatever you do, pick a category and stick to it. If you want to try another category, start a new blog.

Here are a few popular categories that always do well:

• Personal finance
• Fitness
• Online business
• Investing
• Productivity
• Real estate
• Careers
• Test prep
• Freelancing

My recommendation is to pick one of the categories above and niche it down one more time. Personal finance for people making over $100,000 per year is a good example. Or fitness for people over 60 is another.

Categories get tough when they’re super consumer focused and have extremely large audiences. Celebrity blogs are a great example. There’s tons of competition in this space but also very limited money compared to other blogging categories. It’s a brutal combo. All the work without any of the payoff. Recipe blogs are another example of a brutal category. World-class competition and very few ways to monetize. Try to avoid categories like these.

One of my favorite category types is B2B. This includes categories like how to do marketing, build products, HR, customer service, manage a team, or improve your sales skills. The volume in these categories is always lower than the popular categories that I listed above. But the quality of traffic is always incredible. Businesses are always willing to spend more than consumers to solve their problems; they have access to a lot more cash. The downside is that you need to have experience and skills in these areas before being able to blog about them. They’re not nearly as easy to break into.

Hobbies can also do okay, but they’re typically more difficult to monetize. That said, I’ve come across entrepreneurs who have built six and even seven figure businesses in hobby spaces like horse riding or learning the guitar. It’s doable. It’s just more difficult because people aren’t willing to spend as much on their hobbies.

Step 2: Find a Domain

Find a domain that’s somewhat related to the category you picked and is also available for purchase.

I highly recommend you keep searching until you find a domain that’s available. While it is possible to buy a domain from someone who already has it, that’s an advanced option and can get expensive fast.

Low quality domains will usually go for a few thousand dollars. Highly quality domains that are two words can easily go for $10,000 to $50,000. I’ve even been in discussions to purchase domains for over $100,000 and the really hot ones can break seven figures. Not to mention all the hassle that comes from finding the person who owns the domain, negotiating with them, and transferring the domain if you can get an agreement.

Your best bet is to keep going until you find a domain that you like and can purchase directly from a domain registrar for about $10.

We go into lots of detail on which domain registrar to use here. The short answer, use Namecheap. It’s awesome, it’s the best, it’s what I personally use.

We’ve also got some more tips on buying a domain here.

Should you use your personal name as your domain?

If this is your first blog and you’re not completely sure what you want to blog about, I recommend that you use your personal name.

The reason is that changing your domain later will mean that you have to start over from scratch. There are a lot of mistakes in blogging that can be corrected later; having the wrong domain isn’t one of them.

Let’s say you pick a domain like fitnessfordoctors.com. Then after six months, you realize you’d rather be doing personal finance blogging for doctors. You’d need to get a new domain and start over from scratch.

Personal domains are much more flexible — it’s just a name after all. So if you jump categories after a few months, it’s not a big deal. Take down any old content that’s not relevant with your new direction, start posting new content, and you’re good to go.

That said, personal domains have two major downsides:

1. Scalability – It’s much more difficult to recruit other writers or grow your blog beyond your personal identity later on.
2. Sellability – Personal blogs, even if they’re generating serious cash, are much harder to sell. Prospective buyers want a site that isn’t dependent on a single person.

These are pretty advanced problems to have though. So if this is your first blog, the benefits of using your name as the domain greatly outweigh the costs that only show up down the road.

Step 3: Get a host for your blog

Every site needs a web host. This is the company that stores your site on its servers and makes it available for anyone who visits your site.

We went through all the main hosts for WordPress sites (by far the best tool for blogging) and put together our recommendations here.

While there are a few other choices it really comes down to two options:

Best WordPress Host for Beginners = SiteGround

For your first blog, you want a host that is popular, trusted, easy to use, reliable, and reasonably priced. No need for anything fancy.

SiteGround fits this need perfectly. The best part is that its plans start at $4/month. That’s a steal considering how many positive reviews it gets.

For the vast majority of folks starting blogs, SiteGround is going to be the best bet for hosting their blog.

Best WordPress Host for Advanced Bloggers = WP Engine

In my last few jobs, I managed blogs with hundreds of thousands or millions of visitors per month. They had thousands of posts on them. We always used WP Engine for sites of that size.

WP Engine comes with a lot of extra hosting features for security and scalability. For sites of that size, you end up having to do a lot more maintenance in order to keep the site healthy. WP Engine handles all that stuff for you. Their support team is also world-class. They do a great job.

But there’s a major downside: it’s more expensive. The lowest plans start at $35/month. This is 7X the price of other hosts.

If this is your first blog, I wouldn’t go with WP Engine.

Step 4: Point your domain to your host

Now you have a domain and a host for your site.

The next step is to point your domain to your host so that people end up at your site when they go to the URL of your domain.

Every host has slightly different settings you’ll need to configure at your domain registrar. They definitely have a support doc on with the details on what to do.

Here are the details for our recommended hosts:

• SiteGround
• WP Engine

If you have any trouble with this, contact the support team for your host and they’ll walk you through the exact steps.

Step 5: Install WordPress

You’ll need a content management system (CMS) to build your site and manage your blog posts.

There’s only one option for this: WordPress.

Seriously, it’s not even a decision. Use WordPress.

Years ago, there were a few competitors to WordPress like Joomla, Typepad, or Blogger.

No one uses those anymore.

This is going to sound kind of bad but whenever I hear of someone using one of those old WordPress competitors, I just laugh. It’s hard to take them seriously.

WordPress powers 30% of ALL websites. That’s how popular it is.

Use WordPress for your blog, end of story.

Because of how popular WordPress is, most web hosts offer a one-click install for WordPress. It’s super easy. Log into your web host, find the install WordPress opton, click it, then follow the instructions. This is what you’ll need to do if you signed up for SiteGround.

And if you’ve decided to go with WP Engine, it comes pre-installed since WP Engine is a hosting company for WordPress specifically.

Step 6: Pick a WordPress Theme

WordPress is the foundation of your site. There’s an easy way to change how WordPress looks without having to code anything yourself.

WordPress uses “themes,” little packages of code that can be swapped in and out. Whenever you change your theme, your site will also change. The best part is that your blog post content won’t change. This makes it very easy to evolve your site over time without having to rebuild your entire site from scratch.

For now, you’ll need to pick your first WordPress theme.

The number of themes out there make me dizzy. There are… a lot.

When picking a theme for any of my sites, I go straight to StudioPress. The themes are a bit more expensive at $130. (Most themes go for $20–50.) In my opinion, the higher price is well worth it. StudioPress was purchased by WP Engine and WP Engine now includes all the StudioPress themes as part of its hosting package. It’s a nice freebie if you are already planning on hosting your site with WP Engine.

If you want a wider selection of WordPress themes at standard prices, Themeforest is the most popular WordPress theme marketplace. You’ll find just about anything you want in its selection.

After you purchase your theme, log into your WordPress site, go to the Theme section which is under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. Then follow the instructions for adding the theme. You’ll have to upload the theme files to WordPress and activate the theme from within WordPress. You can find the upload option by going to Themes > Add New, a button towards the top. Then you’ll see this option to upload:

You’ll be able to manage any themes you’ve uploaded to your WordPress site from your Themes section:

Step 7: Install Your WordPress Plugins

Once of the best parts about WordPress is that it’s infinitely customizable. Since it’s open-source, you can change it to do whatever you want.

WordPress plugins are little batches of software you can install within WordPress to get extra functionality. This is how you’ll add a bunch of extra features to your site without having to code anything yourself.

Be careful here and try not to go overboard.

Some bloggers will install dozens or even hundreds of plugins on their site. That can cause a bunch of problems later on. Not only can plugins cause unexpected conflicts with each other, they become a security liability since it’s unlikely that every plugin owner will maintain the plugin over time. They also become a huge headache to manage. When you have that many plugins, you’re never sure which plugin is causing a particular problem.

I like to keep my plugins limited to 5–10 amazing plugins. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Akismet – Required for every blog, it automatically filters a ton of comment spam which is a problem for every blogger. This is one of the few plugins that I happily pay to upgrade.
• Yoast SEO – The most highly recommended SEO plugin, it handles a bunch of SEO tasks automatically for you and also makes on-page SEO tasks a lot easier.
• Contact Form 7 – The most popular contact form out there. Set up a contact page on your site and then use this plugin to create a contact form that will email you any time someone fills out the form. Super easy.
• TinyMCE Advanced – A bunch of improvements to the WordPress editor that makes writing in WordPress a lot easier. These days, I usually skip this one. I write all my posts in Google Docs and then format them in WordPress using its default HTML editor.
• WP Super Cache – A good plugin to speed up your site.
• MailChimp for WordPress – More on this below. It’s easiest way to connect your WordPress site to a MailChimp account, create an email sign up form, and start collecting email subscribers.
• WordPress Popular Posts – Easiest way to add a list of your most popular posts to your blog sidebar. The list will update automatically.

There is a plugin for just about anything you could want to do with your WordPress site. Use the plugin page within your WordPress site to search for anything that you need.

When you’ve found a plugin you want, install and activate it from within WordPress.

Step 8: Install Google Analytics

Google analytics is a free website analytics tool from Google. Even though it’s free, it’s still the best analytics tool out there.

Analytics is just a fancy word for website data.

Yes, analytics can get pretty complicated and overwhelming.

Which is why we’re going to ignore the majority of what’s in Google Analytics for now.

All you need to do is create a Google Analytics account and install it on your blog. There are two reasons for this.

First, Google Analytics stores your data over time. When you’re ready to dive in later, you’ll be thankful that you’ve been collecting data since the beginning.

Second, it’s exhilarating to watch people visit your site in the beginning. I remember the first time Google Analytics recorded a visitor on my first blog. I thought it was a mistake. “Someone visited my site? Really? Why would they do that? Who are they? Did they like it?”

Seeing those first visitors come in will give you a huge motivation boost. Even if you only check Google Analytics to see your total traffic, it’s well worth the time it takes to set up.

It’s also pretty easy to set up.

Go to Google Analytics and set up your account. Once your account is created, you’ll have a unique JavaScript tracking code for your site. When you copy and paste that snippet of code into your site, Google Analytics will start collecting data for you.

Step 9: Set up your email list

Sooner or later, you’ll hear a stat like this:

“Email marketing has 22X the ROI of any other marketing channel!”

Technically, this is true.

The response from email will always dominate any other channel that you try pushing a campaign to. But you have to acquire those emails in the first — they’ve already been filtered for the most receptive people. In other words, email by its nature is more responsive, so the comparison ROI stats are kind of dumb. They’re stating the obvious.

It’s kind of like going to a strawberry field, picking the best strawberries in the entire field, putting them in a gift basket, then declaring the the gift basket strawberries are 12 times as delicious as normal strawberries. Of course they’re more delicious — you picked the best ones already!

That’s how email lists work. They’re a gift basket of the best strawberries.

Every marketing engine I’ve built for companies has relied on emails at its core.

Think of your email list as a giant laser ray you can focus on any offer you want. Selling consulting? Pitch your list. Publishing a new blog post? Pitch your list. A podcast just interviewed you? Pitch your list.

Of all the marketing channels that have come and gone over the years, nothing compares to the power of a high quality email list.

Even if you’re not sure what to send your email subscribers, that’s okay!

Using MailChimp, you can start collecting emails on your blog so that the list is ready for you as soon as you need. It takes time to build a decent size list so your future self will be extremely grateful if you set it up now.

You only need two things:

• A MailChimp account
• An opt-in to sign up on your sidebar

MailChimp has a free account for up to 2,000 email subscribers, which will cover your blog for awhile.

There’s also a super easy WordPress plugin for MailChimp. Once you install it on your WordPress blog, it’ll connect to your MailChimp account and give you an easy way to add an email signup form to your blog sidebar.

Even a super basic opt-in in your blog sidebar like this is enough to get you started:

Don’t even worry about sending any emails yet unless you want to. The main thing is that you’re collecting email subscribers from the beginning. Email lists can be a gold mine once you have a few thousand subscribers, and the money really rolls in once you have 10,000 subscribers and above.

Step 10: Get into your posting groove

Writing blog posts isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. More like a multi-day backpacking trip.

The best bloggers settle into a consistent writing pace they can maintain for a few years. That’s right, years.

Here are a few posting frequency rules of thumb:

• At the bare minimum, find a way to post once per week. This needs to be a substantial post, too: 2,000 words at least. I recommend you start here.
• Serious bloggers will post 2–3 times per week.
• Larger sites quickly get to 5–7 posts per week. This requires multiple authors.
• The heavy hitters who push things to the limit will do 25–50 posts per week. No joke, this is for large businesses using content marketing as their primary customer acquisition channel. HubSpot is a classic example of this.

I know writing isn’t easy. After writing blog posts full-time for three months, I always want to throw my MacBook out the window. It’s a grind for all of us. This is why I recommend one post per week. That still gives you the majority of the week to focus on other aspects of your site while also giving you a break from writing blog posts all the time.

A really great post should take you two days to complete. The first day is for research and outlining, along with as much writing as you can complete. The second day is for finishing the writing, proofreading, and publishing the post in WordPress.

Also, push quality as hard as you can. The key to building a site and traffic over time is to write posts that are more valuable than what other people have already published in your category.

Step 11: Build an audience

There’s a super famous article in blogging circles: 1,000 True Fans.

Basically, getting 1,000 true fans means you can fully support yourself. You can quit your job, work from wherever you like, and be in complete control of your life. All from hitting a very reasonable goal of 1,000 true fans.

With blogging, you’ll build your audience of 1,000 true fans slowly and consistently.

As long as you keep it at, you will get there. Typically, it takes a few years.

Here’s what to focus on in order to get there faster:

• Always post at least once per week. Never skip a week.
• Start posting 2–3 times per week if you can.
• On every post, push on quality as hard as you can. Google the topic and see what other people have done, then ask yourself how you can write something even better.
• Write stuff that hasn’t been written to death already. Find a new take or perspective on your topics that other people haven’t already covered.
• Find your voice and be authentic so people can get to know you. This builds connections with your audience faster. A quick hack for this is to pretend that you’re writing your posts to a close friend.
• To push even harder, get active in other online communities. Post in Facebook groups, subreddits, on Twitter, do podcast interviews, get speaking engagements when you can — anything and everything. Be as helpful as you can be in these communities.
• For all of your content, constantly ask yourself, “How can I make this as valuable as possible?”

As your blog audience matures you will want to change your traffic strategies as you grow.

Step 12: Monetize your blog

There are really only two ways to monetize a serious blog.

Yup, only two.

Bloggers try a ton of different ideas, maybe about a dozen.

Out of those dozen, only two work at scale.

So what are they?

Affiliates and infoproducts.

Check out this list of of 21 bloggers making money.

Out of the entire list, all but three or four of them make the majority of their revenue from infoproducts, affiliates, or a combination of the two.

How Infoproducts Work

I could write a book on this. For now, we’ll keep it simple. Here’s the model:

1. Get people to visit your site.
2. On your site, give them a reason to subscribe to your email list.
3. Once they’re an email subscriber, run them through a launch funnel. These are email funnels specifically designed to sell infoproducts. Usually, these are courses that include a bunch of video lessons.
4. Depending on your volume and target market, you’ll convert about 0.5% to 1% of new email subscribers into a customer at a price of $500–$2,000 for your course. At volume, that adds up fast.

Now this sounds too good to be true. While there are a few catches, it’s mostly true. What are the catches?

First, you’ll need to get extremely good at direct-response copy.

Second, it helps to be in the right category. People want money, status, and relationships.

How Affiliates Work

It’s pretty simple: You go about creating as large of an audience as possible. Then, throughout the your content, you recommend products that are helpful to that audience. When your audience clicks through the link of that recommendation, they get a special tracking code. If they end up purchasing, you get a cut of the sale.

The main downside is that only a small percentage of people will ever click through and an even smaller percentage of people will purchase. So it really helps to have a massive amount of traffic in order to make enough money from your blog.

Monetizing a Blog for Beginners

Those are really only the two options? Is there anything else for beginners?

Yes, there is.

While infoproducts and affiliates are the main ways to make serious money, you also need serious traffic in order to make them work. At least if you want them to work well enough to make six figures per year…

And to get that much traffic, you’ll need a lot of time on your blog. As much as I love blogging, getting a new blog off the ground doesn’t rain dollar bills right away.

There is one way to make a lot of money fast. It also will change your life.

Instead of trying to turn your blog into a completely passive money-making machine, go the other direction. Ditch passive and get active.

Start freelancing and consulting.

To make money quickly, this is by far your best option. It’s also the easiest to do.

When I worked at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, our freelancing programs taught thousands of people how to get started freelancing. What always blew me away was how life-changing those first few freelancing gigs are.

I went through that exact change myself. Years ago, I started my personal blog larslofgren.com and got a few freelancing clients doing it. I’ll never forget that first $100 payment sent via PayPal. The amount sounds so small now, but the real impact was knowing that I personally produced that income myself.

Guess how much traffic that personal blog of mine has? Only a few thousand visitors per month, spread across about 20 blog posts.

Anyone can create a blog that size and use it for freelancing lead generation. It’s enough to build a client base that pays you $3,000 to $5,000 per month. That’s enough to quit your job. That’s life-changing.

And it’s a much easier goal to hit than a full-ramped affiliates or infoproducts marketing machine. You always have the option to build that stuff later anyway.

What about all those other monetization methods?

Most of them are a waste of time. The impact on revenue is marginal, it’s a complete distraction. A few are worth doing for marketing and branding. The rest should be ignored entirely. Here’s the list that bloggers always try at some point:

• Books – Great for marketing. Adds a ton of credibility to your brand. But you won’t feel the impact on revenue at all.
• Events – I loathe events with every fiber of my being. All the risk is front-loaded, all contracts get locked up ahead of time, they’re a pain to sell, and you don’t even know if you’ll make any money until right before the event. Even if you do make money, the margins are terrible. For me, these are complete distractions and a huge opportunity cost for the business.
• Banner ads (Google Ads, formally Adsense, for example) – The last time these made any decent money was around 2003. These days, I’m not even sure it’s possible to get banner ads to cover your hosting bill. I’m only partially joking.
• Speaking – Done the right way, occasional speaking can be a great brand builder. And while it sounds amazing to get paid $20,000 per speaking gig, it’s not nearly as amazing once you learn most speakers never get paid, it’s takes months worth of work to create a talk that commands that kind of fee, you really need a New York Times Bestseller in order to charge real fees, and you’ll get so sick of hotel rooms after the first year that you’ll never want to travel again. Do speaking gigs when good opportunities come up; don’t build a business on them.

Source Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2GoPDCF

How to Get a $10 Gift Card to Target This Week If You Live in California

Have you ever heard of getting paid to save energy?

Earning cash when you switch off the lights, unplug the TV and pause the laundry cycle for a few hours each week?

It sounds too good to true, but it’s possible with OhmConnect, an energy-saving program for Californians.

Still not convinced? We talked with John Hastie, a San Diego resident who has earned up to $487 a month through the platform. Then there’s Tanya Williams, a stay-at-home mom who earned an extra $1,700 in 2017. She turned saving energy into a game with her kids.

So now you’re wondering: How does OhmConnect work? Can I just turn off my lights right now and make some money? Not exactly, but it’s almost that simple.

Here’s how you’ll get started:

1. Sign up for a free OhmConnect account and sync it with your online utility account though Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Diego Gas & Electric or Southern California Edison.
2. Once or twice a week, you’ll receive a text message to participate in an #OhmHour, an hour of reduced energy consumption. Turn down unnecessary lights, hold off on doing the laundry or the dishes, and opt for a fan instead of the A/C. It’s the perfect time to go outside, play games on your phone, or go to the movies.
3. OhmConnect then pays you for reducing your electricity consumption during #OhmHours.

So… why is OhmConnect willing to pay you?

OhmHours typically occur during times of peak energy usage (think: weekday evenings when everyone’s getting home from work). Rather than tapping into expensive (and dirty!) peaker plants (basically back-up plants for high-demand hours), utility companies offer an incentive to customers who cut back on energy consumption.

The money the utility company saves by avoiding these peaker plants is passed back to you, the customer, who so diligently saved during that high-demand time.

Your earnings are based on how much power you save. The more you save, the higher your OhmConnect status, which helps you earn even more.

To date, OhmConnect has paid its users $9 million.

Oh, and here’s a little bonus to get you started: Right now, OhmConnect is handing out $10 Target e-gift cards after you connect the service with one of the previously mentioned utility accounts.

(OhmConnect estimates the process typically takes less than two days.)

Once you’re approved, you can start earning points, for your energy savings, which translate to cash. In about two days, you’ll receive your Target e-gift card via email.

Not only are you helping save the world, you’re also earning some money along the way!

Carson Kohler (carson@thepennyhoarder.com) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

source The Penny Hoarder http://bit.ly/2Sajy8O

Boat Insurance | Protection On and Off the Water

If the authorities pull you over on the water, they may ask to see your identification or your fishing license. They may want to count your complement of life jackets.

But they probably won’t ask about your boat insurance.

Very few states — only Hawaii, Arkansas, and Utah — require residents to insure boats the way they mandate auto coverage.

Still, you should consider boat coverage because insurance doesn’t exist to satisfy the water patrol. It exists to protect your investment.

Whether your boat’s in the marina, in tow, or beneath the shed behind your cabin, unexpected things can happen. If they do, your boat could lose value or you could lose the ability to use it, or both.

Boat Insurance Guide

1. What’s Covered
2. What Isn’t Covered
3. What Hull Coverage Pays
4. Which Boats Need Insurance
5. Other Options
6. Ways to Save
7. How to Buy Boat Insurance
8. Top Insurance Carriers

What Boat Insurance Covers

A boat insurance policy, also known as hull insurance, works a lot like auto coverage. It packages several kinds of coverage into one premium.

How much of each coverage you buy will help determine your policy’s cost:

• Collision coverage: Can pay to replace or repair your boat after a collision on the water. Most policies require you to pay a deductible to access your coverage.
• Comprehensive coverage: Covers damage to your boat not caused in a collision — damage from theft, vandalism, or hail, for example. A deductible usually applies here, too.
• Liability: Pays a third party on your behalf to compensate for damages you caused while using your boat. This coverage should pay the third party’s medical bills (bodily injury) and any property damage, assuming accident investigators determine the collision was your fault. This coverage should not require a deductible.
• Medical Payments (MedPay): Can pay your medical bills resulting from an accident you caused. If you have good health insurance you may not need much coverage in this category.
• Uninsured/Underinsured boater: If someone without boat insurance causes damage to your property, this coverage can compensate you for the damage.
• Personal belongings: This coverage can help you replace lost or stolen items that are not attached to your boat. Things like fishing equipment, small appliances, or electronics.

As you shop for a policy, decide how much of these primary coverages you need. Collision and comprehensive coverages protect your investment. Liability protects your overall financial picture if you cause damage to someone else. So I wouldn’t skimp there.

However, you may not need personal belongings protection if you don’t keep very many removable valuables on board. Only you can know your exact needs here.

We’ll go into some other optional coverages below. First, let’s be clear about what a policy will not cover.

What Boat Insurance Does Not Cover

Boat enthusiasts like to keep their watercraft shipshape, and when you’re paying an insurance premium you may expect your policy to cover any problem that threatens your investment.

Insurance will not cover all problems that arise, though. Insurance protects your boat’s financial value after a wreck, a crime, or a fire — something external that happens to your boat.

But it does not cover damage from normal wear and tear, so boat insurance won’t help when:

• Mold or mildew: build up in or beneath your boat.
• Insects or other creatures: harm electronics or upholstery.
• Defective equipment or leaks: damage other systems in your boat.
• The sun: fades your paint or cracks the dashboard.

A manufacturer’s warranty could address some of these issues.

Before buying an insurance policy, find out where your insurance company draws the line between external damage and normal wear and tear, especially if you’re getting personal belongings coverage.

Most policies will cover an outboard motor if it gets destroyed by an accidental fire at the marina but not if it wears out from normal use.

How Much Would Hull Coverage Pay?

Policyholders usually hope they’ll never have to file a claim. Best case scenario, you’d pay your premiums and feel safer knowing you have a plan in place if something goes wrong.

Unfortunately, not everyone can stay claims free. If you knew you’d never file a claim, you wouldn’t buy insurance in the first place.

When you file a claim because of property loss or extensive property damage, your insurance company could reimburse you according to your type of coverage:

• Actual Cash Value: This kind of coverage would replace the value of your boat at the time of the property loss. If you have a 10-year-old boat, your claim would cover the value of a 10-year-old boat and not the amount you paid to purchase the boat when it was new 10 years ago.  
• Agreed Value: With this kind of coverage you can claim an amount you determined when buying the coverage. So if you wanted be insured for the price of a new boat, you could buy a policy to cover such an amount.

Unless you specifically seek a policy with agreed value, your policy will most likely cover actual cash value.

A policy with agreed value can lead to higher premiums since the amount of coverage you have directly impacts the cost of your coverage.

Agreed value coverage works especially well for someone with a restored or vintage boat whose value includes the amount of time and hard work you invested in the project.

Liability-Only Coverage

Some companies also allow you to buy only liability coverage. This would help protect you from financial responsibility if you caused a wreck on the water, either by colliding with another boat, a swimmer, or property along the shore.

If such a tragedy happened and you were sued for damages, the court could seize your assets to settle the lawsuit. Liability insurance is a must whenever there’s a chance you could cause someone harm.

Liability-only coverage protects you from liability, but it would not protect your own investment. Only comprehensive and collision coverages, along with personal belongings and other add-ons, can protect your boat.

Which Boats Need Insurance

Why do so few states regulate boat insurance? One reason is the wide variety of boats. The word boat can describe a 75-foot yacht you keep at the marina or the kayak you keep in the garage.

When to Boat Without Coverage

Buying a dedicated insurance policy for a boat you could easily replace yourself doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you paddle your boat or haul it in the back of a pickup truck, insurance may not be the best investment.

This distinction may sound like common sense for a lot of people, but it’s still important to point out. You probably don’t need boat insurance for…

• A canoe or kayak: any boat you paddle or carry onto the water probably isn’t big enough to insure.
• A small boat with a motor: If your boat wouldn’t exceed 25 mph, you probably can get by without coverage, though this is more of a judgment call.

When to Protect Yourself and Your Boat

You will need insurance to protect yourself and your investment in your boat if you have…

• A faster boat with a motor: A motor capable exceeding 25 mph means you’re putting yourself and others at more risk. You’ll need the protection of an insurance policy.
• A personal watercraft: WaveRunners and other personal watercraft move quickly, and they’re expensive to replace. You’ll need insurance.
• Any larger boat: Naturally, a yacht, a pontoon, a large sailboat, a jet boat — anything you’ve invested significant money in — deserves to be protected by insurance.

Are There Other Ways to Insure Your Boat?

New boat owners who already have homeowners insurance, auto insurance, health and dental coverage, life insurance, and pet insurance understandably don’t want to add yet another premium to the monthly budget.

I get it. In this case it’s a natural tendency to look for alternative ways to protect your investment. But these ideas usually don’t pan out.

Homeowners Coverage

I’ve had this discussion with clients about RVs and small vacation cabins, too: “Doesn’t my homeowners policy already cover all my property,” they’ll say, “including my new boat?”

They’re referring, of course, to the personal property coverage within their homeowners policy. This coverage can reimburse you for lost, damaged, or stolen belongings even if they’re away from home — out on the lake, for example — when the damage happens.

Technically, this idea could work, but only if you have a boat with a value small enough to fit within your homeowners personal belongings coverage.

Homeowners policies calculate personal belongings coverage as a percentage of your actual home’s value, and they tend to cap annual payouts at levels beneath the value of a boat.

Even if you could somehow make this work, you wouldn’t be addressing liability or medical issues at all. And, when you filed a claim asking your homeowners insurance agent for help with your boat, the agent may increase your homeowners premiums.

Auto Coverage

Other people sometimes assume their auto policy will cover their boat. They think this because their auto agent does want to know they’re towing a boat.

This is important for your auto policy because it helps insure your car and your boat while they’re on the highway. But this coverage will not protect you from liability, nor will it protect your boat when it’s not attached to your insured automobile.

In most cases, a boat insurance policy offers the best protection for your boat and the best shield against liability on the water.

How to Save Money on Boat Coverage

Just because you need boat insurance doesn’t mean you need to pay too much for your coverage. By shopping around and knowing exactly what you need, you can save money on your premiums.

1. Get The Right Amount of Coverage

A lot of new boat owners buy more coverage than they’ll ever use. More coverage means higher premiums. Defining your coverage needs in advance can help you avoid paying too much.

• Comprehensive/collision: These coverages protect your investment. Actual cash value coverage can save on your premiums.  
• Liability: This is an important component. But by getting an umbrella policy, which can offer liability coverage across several different kinds of insurance policies, you may be able to save some on your boat-specific liability insurance.
• MedPay: If you’re confident about your health insurance situation, you can save money by lowering or eliminating this coverage; however, it’s best to keep this coverage if you have a high medical insurance deductible or a catastrophic medical plan.
• Uninsured/underinsured: This coverage protects you when someone without insurance (or with very little insurance) causes you property damage. It’s nice to have this coverage when you need it, and it’s relatively affordable. 
• Personal property: This one’s a judgment call depending on your boat and its valuables. You can spend thousands of dollars on navigation guides, fish finding gear, and other electronics. Protecting these investments makes sense. If you keep things simple on your boat, though, you may be able to save by lowering this coverage amount.

2. Make Sure a ‘Package’ Actually Fits

Many companies offer boat insurance coverage packages. These packages adjust the components of your policy in ways to serve the specific needs of fishing boats, house boats, personal watercraft, and so on.

While these packages may mesh nicely with your coverage needs, your situation may not always fit a package precisely.

For example, if you use your boat for fishing but don’t use a lot of expensive gear, the fishing package may have more personal belongings coverage than you need.

These packages do make shopping easier, but take a close look at how they’re built to make sure you can’t save more by custom building your own package.

3. Pay Attention to Your Deductibles

Deductibles directly impact premiums in most cases. Your deductible will determine the amount you’ll need to pay out of pocket before your insurance company starts paying.

With a low-deductible policy you’ll pay less out of pocket but more in premiums. A higher-deductible policy saves on your monthly premiums but requires more out of your pocket before you can file a claim.

I’m all for saving on premiums, but avoid deductibles so high you’d never be able to afford them. If you can’t pay the deductible, your insurance won’t be very helpful after an accident or theft.

4. Take a Boating Safety Course

Like just about any kind of insurance, boat insurance underwriters consider risk as a component of your premiums. Lowering the risk you present as a policyholder can lower your premiums.

Completing a boating safety course can help prove you’re a lower risk applicant.

To be sure your course will help you lower premiums, check with your agent or your insurance company’s customer service reps.

5. Ask About Premium Discounts

Many insurance companies give policyholders discounts, which helps keep you an active customer. Not all companies offer the same discounts, but here are some common discounts to ask about:

• Bundled policies: Your auto or home insurance company may offer boat insurance. If so, there’s a good chance you can save an all three policies through a bundled policies discount. Make sure all three policies meet your needs, though. If not, you’re better off breaking up the bundle and getting better coverage elsewhere.
• Diminishing deductibles: When you go years without filing a claim, you’re obviously saving your insurance company money. Many companies will lower your premiums in response. In some cases your premium may be lower each year you go without a claim.
• Layup periods: Just like with a motorcycle or an RV, you may not use your boat year-round. If not, ask about layup insurance. With these plans you can pay a lower premium to reflect the months in which you’re never on the water. Make sure you abide by the schedule, though. You’d be unprotected out there during a layup period.

6. Limit Insured Drivers

Just like with a car, the number of people who will drive your boat impacts premiums. If you have a teenage son, for example, you’ll save on premiums by keeping him off your policy.

Your driving record on the highway can also impact your insurance rates. Insurers assume your behavior on the road will mirror your tendencies on the water.

Generally speaking, someone with a good driving record who is older than 25 will get better boat insurance rates. You may not fit this description, and you’ll just have to live with that. But you can save money by keeping other drivers who present a higher risk from getting behind the wheel.

7. Raise Your Credit Score

People with lower credit scores also tend to pay higher insurance premiums because researchers have noticed a correlation: people with higher credit scores are less likely to file a claim.

Fair or not, this is a reality of 21st century underwriting, and it offers a way to help yourself by keeping a higher credit score.

8. Buy a Safer Boat

If you already have a boat this may not help, but if you’re currently shopping for a boat keep in mind boats with lower horsepower motors can usually qualify for lower premiums.

If you can do without that extra burst of power, you may save month to month on insurance.

The same goes for on-board safety equipment like fire extinguishers and Coast Guard-approved radio equipment to help you call for help. You can buy this aftermarket if you’ve already invested in a boat. Better equipment can lower your premiums.

When you upgrade equipment, tell your insurance agent or customer service reps.

9. Consider Extras Carefully

Along with the primary coverages we’ve been discussing, you can add all sorts of extra features to your boat insurance policy.

You can sign up for on-the-water assistance when you have a mechanical breakdown. You can also get towing packages if your craft is beyond repair.

Several boat insurers offer AAA-like memberships with discounts on equipment and extra layers of customer service.

These are great ideas and potentially very helpful, but they’ll also add to your premiums. Before buying memberships of adding special features, consider how often you’ll use them and how much they’ll add to your premiums.

How to Buy Boat Insurance

Most major national insurers offer boat coverage. The easiest approach may be to start with your auto or homeowners insurance company.

Ask an Independent Agent

If you really want to control the process, though, look for an independent agent in your area or online. Independent insurance agents have all sorts of knowledge about insurance products.

Independent agents can help you compare policies from dozens of carriers rather than just one or two carriers. This makes it easier to save money by finding just the right policy.

Check Ratings and Reviews

Whether you’re considering a regional or a national carrier, be sure to check the company’s rating with A.M. Best or Standard & Poor’s. These ratings agencies can tell you a lot about an insurance company’s overall financial health.

You can also read reviews on TrustPilot, Facebook, and the Better Business Bureau. Keep in mind customers tend to share their thoughts most often if they’re unhappy. A satisfied customer isn’t as likely to post a review.

Still, if you see the same issues popping up over and over, chances are you should pay attention.

Best Boat Insurance Providers

I won’t go into a full analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of boat insurance companies here, but I will share the five companies I’d be in touch with first about boat insurance:

• Progressive: This national carrier with name recognition offers some flexible options for personal watercraft and huge houseboats with values up to $350,000. They also give discounts for boating safety courses and the ability to customize your own coverage, as we discussed above.
• BoatUS: This specialty, membership-based carrier processes claims around the clock and offers some helpful add-ons like towing (with membership), diminishing deductibles, and angler-only policies for serious fishers. You can also get liability-only coverage.
• U.S. Power Squadrons: Another membership-based insurance program for serious boaters, U.S. Power Squadrons also processes claims 24/7 and offers a customer service experience designed specifically for boaters.
• Chubb: Yacht owners can find specialty policies with Chubb, which offers up to 120 percent replacement coverage in the case of a total loss. Chubb specializes in agreed-value coverage for boaters with specific coverage needs.
• Travelers: While not boat-specific, Travelers has a solid program for boats and yachts. The company’s liability coverage appeals to boaters who are on the water as a lifestyle. Travelers offers up to $10 million in liability with its umbrella policy, which can spread across several kinds of insurance.

Boat Insurance: Protection On and Off the Water

No, your state probably won’t require you to buy it, but boat insurance can save you a lot of trouble, and a lot of money, when something unexpected happens.

Vandalism, fires, theft, collisions — these things happen, sometimes when you least expect it, and sometimes when you’re miles away and busy doing something unrelated.

That’s why many marinas require boats to be insured before they’ll enter a storage agreement.

So shop around, get quotes, and customize your coverage to protect your boat while you’re in it and while it’s sitting empty waiting for your next outing.  

The post Boat Insurance | Protection On and Off the Water appeared first on Good Financial Cents®.

Source Good Financial Cents® http://bit.ly/2WFQowW