Can You Really Monetize Your Passion?

November 25, 2007

The purpose of this post is manifold. On one had I would like to announce a change of direction that my life is taking (which will be reflected on my online activity), on the other hand I would like to address something I was told and advised by many well respected leaders in the affiliate marketing. Finally if you find yourself in a predicament similar to mine, I hope this article will help you in some ways.

“Find What You Are Passionate About- And Monetize It”

With all due respect to every one who offers such advise, in my experience this is most ridiculous advise I have ever read. I think my problem lies in the manner in which I understand what passion is. Unfortunately what I am truly passionate about has nothing to do with widgets, products, games memorabilia and all other sorts of things. To me this advise just an empty saying.

Your Passion Can Be Greater…..

Lets presume for a second that you are passionate about something that truly can change the world. Not in a Kawasaki-Truemors manner, but in a way that would help thousands of men and women around the world. What if your passion is such that you do not feel right about monetizing it?

Can I Successfully Sell A Product/Service Without Being Passionate About It?

Absolutely! It all has to do with knowledge and numbers as simple as that. You can learn about the product, the potential customers, the best way to promote the products and numbers will help you to determine your success or failure. That is basically all you need in affiliate marketing. If you are intelligent enough to read understand (despite my terrible grammar) this post, you are intelligent enough to learn things in order to succeed online- keep that in mind next time you read the “monetize your passion” sorts of articles. If I made good money selling products through affiliate programs without being passionate about them, so can you.

Following My Passion…

There is a certain satisfaction that comes from following your passion. This satisfaction can not be brought about by money and success. It comes from realizing that there maybe at least one person who’s life you have touched. It comes from realizing that your life is not spent in wane.

We often think that we have plenty of time to follow our passion. The truth is can not be more contrary.

My adventure as an affiliate marketer is coming to an end. I probably will continue to earn some (passive income) from the websites I’ve built so far. I may even sell some in the future.

As my passion has nothing to do with affiliate marketing I see no point to link to my new blogs and websites. If you are my friend on any of the “social networking” communities, you will be noticing some changes in my profile.

Because of these changes, my blogging here is going to diminish and may completely stop in the future. Unless of course I decide to overhaul this website completely. I will however fulfill my “Thanksgiving Gift to Bloggers”.

Posted by Vlad in Other (Fom Old Blog)

Why I Subscribed to Collective Thoughts

November 24, 2007

I am sure that many of my blog’s readers are already familiar with Collective Thoughts. I originally intended to title this post “Top 10 reasons why I subscribed to Collective Thoughts. The truth is there are no top 10 reasons why I have subscribed to Collective Thoughts, but there are 9.5 outstanding co-authors- my #1 reason for subscribing to this new blog.

So here is my (plagiarized) introduction of Collective Thoughts:

Andy Beard - (as told by Dane Morgan): Andy is definitely the kind of guy I’d like to get to know better, and I do hope that over time we get to know each other more. We have a lot of similar interests, and I can tell he’s the kind of guy who needs to know both the how and the why of the way things work.
Unlike a lot of others who have that drive to know, Andy also has a drive to apply. He is right now working on a project that he simply won’t tell me a lot about yet, but the hints he’s droped, both in his blog and in an email or two, leave me with that 8 year old at Christmas kind of energetic, barely contained anxiousness. I can’t wait to see what he cooks up.

Brian Wallace - has been doing stuff on the web since 1994 and has been patiently waiting for social media to rise to power. He’s glad that the Internet Revolution is based on actual money this time instead of sock puppets. When not dreaming up posts on social psychology vs. social media at NowSourcing, he’s going at it here at Collective Thoughts.

You can usually find him out on Sphinn or Stumbleupon, too.

Glen Allsopp - Born in 1989, Glen is the youngest of the group but certainly doesn’t lack in experience. A long time blog author (ViperChill), forum user and submitter of content to social media sites; he has a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t. In an industry where age doesn’t matter, testing, getting involved and doing it for others gives you the knowledge you need. Glen likes to check things out for himself and emerse himself in things that are successful, never relying on just what he’s read which makes him a perfect candidate to join this awesome team here at Collective Thoughts.

Mark Laymon - loves to experiment on the A-list SEO and social media bloggers located on various blogs and social networks. Marks various ice breaking tools have included SuperPoke on Facebook and Mash Pets on Yahoo. Along with questionable methods of commenting, he has also been known for following these A-list bloggers and submitting their content to social news sites as soon as they post. His ultimate goal is to persuade them in to believing he is a top specialist in the United States, and that he is quickly gaining an international reputation. His blog, AListSEO.com, offers daily insights into the methods used by the top bloggers, exposing his methods of research along the way. In addition, when time permits, he uses techniques featuring sophisticated strategies that target search engines by driving highly qualified Internet traffic to his clients’ sites. Since founding his businesses in 1996, he has established a corporate following, using analytics, motivating titles, search engine optimization, and website monetization tactics.

Marty Weintraub - aimClearBlog is a publication of AimClear, a search engine optimization (SEO) Internet marketing firm in Duluth and Minneapolis, Minnesota. aimClear offers website promotion, organic optimization, social media, blog coaching, application development, advertising, PR, and paid placement (PPC) agency services to local and national clients.

Prior to founding aimClear, Marty held positions including A&R PolyGram International Publishing, CBS affiliate Creative Director, Interactive Director for a venerable regional advertising agency, and 9 years of solo SEM practice.

Having first come to international prominence as a recording artist, Marty Weintraub wrote and produced a total of 13 solo albums. Over the last 2 decades, his highly successful TerraAura, Northsound and NatureQuest releases, which include, “Dolphin Dreams, WolfQuest, Theater of Seasons, Loon Dance, Dolphin Serenade, and Autumn in New England”, have sold millions of aggregate units. Industrial video and music clients have included Northwest Airlines, CBS, Pizza Hut, General Mills, Dayton Hudson, Planters Peanuts, Sony Publishing, and many others.

Rose Sylvia - Rose’s talent is to take a complex subject and explain it in a manner that is easily understandable to someone new to that subject. She’s brilliant, and has shown it on Search Engine Forums as PPC Forum Moderator.

She was also a Customer Engineer for IBM for quite a while, too.

Shana Albert – Shana has been a Web Designer and a Webmaster since 2001. She owns and runs a very successful eCommerce Website ABCHomePreschool. Last year Shana started her first Blog and over this past year has added quite a few more to her arsenal. Over the past 6 months she has dove head first into everything Social Media and Web 2.0. Frankly, it has become her obsession. Her newest Blog, SocialDesire, is about her love for Social Media and she is very excited to be able to offer her views along side the brilliant team at Collective Thoughts.

Tadeusz Szewczyk - also known as onreact or Tad Chef the blogger of the SEO 2.0 blog is by now a veteran of web publishing. He started in 1997, adding web development in 1999, and started blogging in 2003 on a variety of projects. In 2004 he began his current career as an SEO consultant in Germany. He is a 33 year old Polish born Web 2.0 and social media enthusiast as well as power user living and working currently in Berlin, Germany. Tadeusz also sometimes writes journalistic articles for renowned publications online and in print.

Tim Nash - Tim is a Search engine optimisation and reputation management consultant who sneaks into universities to mess with computer science and Internet engineering students heads. When not corrupting the innocent he can be found blogging in an attempt to corrupt the rest of the world. His blogs cover social media, internet marketing and monetising as well as traditional search engine optimisation.

Brian’s Cat - Brian’s Cat is a *so called* imaginary cat. He occasionally posts to the blog to rebut Brian’s views on Twitter and keep the blog politically correct for the feline community. He is the self-dubbed mascot for Collective Thoughts, and sleeps 20 hours a day - more than the rest of the staff put together. You can typically catch him twittering.

Posted by Vlad in Other (Fom Old Blog)

A Thanksgiving Gift To New Bloggers

November 22, 2007

One of the best ways you can help your other fellow blogger is to link back to their blog. When your blog is new new incoming links are crucial to avoid “sand boxes” (if they exist) and to gain some traction.

So I have decided to offer to any one an opportunity to have their blog featured in one of my upcoming posts. To make sure your blog will be considered for such a post please leave a comment with a link back to your blog.

I will not accept any blogs that have no “about page” or other way to learn about you. I will close the comments by midnight, so if you like to see if your blog is qualified come back to morrow if your comment is not deleted your blog will be featured in one of my upcoming posts. No links to shady websites, please. Blogs related to the topics covered here are most welcomed, but I will not discriminate.

You never know, if I find your blog interesting I may subscribe- but you are guaranteed a link from my blog.

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving Again!

Posted by Vlad in Uncategorized

Vanity, vanity , vanity…..

November 22, 2007

Since most of the US bloggers and affiliates are taking easy today, enjoin their roasted turkeys and preparing for tomorrow’s and Monday’s sale marathons, I have decided to take it easy as well. So today I was doing some vanity search and to my amazement Google is listing me #5 for my name.

Before experimenting with Googlebot, I was occupying 12th position for the term. It is true that my article on how I am planing to beat the “other Vlad” have generated few important links, however I do not believe they were sufficient enough to jump my website to #5 position, especially competing against Wikipedia.

So what happened? I think my entire experiment has caused some what of a confusion on Google’s data centers. But it is only my guess.

I do not know how long this phenomena will last, but it appears that my experiment, although it is over, continues to affect my blog. Not only I have improved position for my name search, I have dramatically improved on some other very competitive keywords in my niche, and I am observing increase in Google’s traffic. The question is how long will this last?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Vlad in Other (Fom Old Blog)

Content Spooling Network Review: The 21 Day Trial

November 21, 2007

I imagine that every affiliate at some point of their career resort to “article marketing” as one of the methods of promoting their websites. About a year ago I have experienced some success with EzineArticles. The downside was the fact that it was somewhat painful job, only on rare occasions were my articles approved for publishing the first time. My main problem of course was poor grammar. Of course I have abandoned article marketing. But revently I was convinced by Mike Levin to give article marketing another chance via Content Spooling Network (CSN from now on). There is a trial period of 21 with CSN, of which I am trying to take full advantage.

I hope this review will give you a better understanding how CSN is working. My experience is very limited, I have joined only three days ago. But since the rial period is limited only to 21 days, 3 days is enough time to come to some conclusions.

The main reason CSN looked so attractive to me was th fact that they offer ghostwriter services, which potentially can save some one like myself tons of time and lots of trouble. This service is not included and you will have to pay extra in order to be able to use it. They do have subscription options for this purpose which potentially can save you a few dollars. However to have an original article written for you it will set you back $5.20- this article will become what CSN calls a “seed article”. You will need to further modify this “seed article” if you would like it to be submitted through their system to their network websites as well as to the external article publishing directories such as EzineArticles. To accomplish this let say with a 5 paragraph article you will simply need to paraphrase each paragraph- this also can be achieved if you decide to paraphrase each or every other sentence. Since writing an article is a struggle on its own I have decided to both outsource the writing of the article and paraphrasing it, which set me back about $12.

During this trial period I will spend only $25 which should cover just bout two “seed articles” and three “rewrites” for each. Since I have chosen to distribute only to 7 out of 15 external directories available (see the picture on the right), by the end of this trail I will submit 14 articles to different directories.

With CSN lowest subscription plan at $29.95 per month which technically allows you to submit 4(x15) articles with additional $50 for using their ghostwriter service it will cost you about $1.33 per article. (I hope my math is correct, if not maybe some one from CSN can correct me).

Now that have the math our of our way, time line is what really concerns me. There was little delay on my part because I wanted to get out of my trial period as much as I can. It took CSN’s ghostwriter one day to write the original article and another day to paraphrase it. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the final approval of the article is on its way and it will be submitted to the directories today. So I will have only 18 days left to see the results (if any). Is it enough time? I am not that certain. From my previous experience with EzineArticles it took over two months and 12+ articles to even notice any increase in traffic.

I still believe that CSN is offering a great deal, and I am planing to stick with them for at least next three to six months. However, it would be in their own interest to maybe extend the trail period to 30 or maybe 40 days. As I have mentioned I am spending at least $25 on ghostwriter service during the trail period.

If you are a good writer and feel no need for using their ghostwriter service trying their product will cost you absolutely nothing.

If you have ever considered to outsource your article marketing task CSN is probably best service I have seen so far. Even if I think that 21 days are not enough to measure your results.

Make sure to visit CSN blog as it is a good source of information about their services.

Posted by Vlad in Other (Fom Old Blog)

My Advise: Don’t Do It

November 20, 2007

Experimenting with Googlebot is indeed interesting. However my advise to anyone contemplating to restrict Googleot from your site via robots.txt is simple: DON’T DO IT! Besides the fact that in a short term you will loose some search traffic(no matter how little that traffic is) you may suffer some long term consequences.

Google commands authority whether we like it or not. Once your website is gone from Google index it may be interpreted that your website is not safe to be visited, what is worst many web masters may think that your website is not safe to link to. Mark’s article about his websites being hacked may not be a good example, I believe his websites were not removed from index. But let say your website is 2-3 years old and is not in Google’s index, other webmasters will look at it suspiciously and I do not blame them.

I was lucky enough to generate links from some very influential bloggers even after my website was gone from Google’s index- you may not be so lucky.

Am I letting the Googlebot back? Not yet. My experiment is not over. However, besides learning a few things my experiment is accomplishing nothing. I think engaging in a constructive criticism will bring much better results!

Posted by Vlad in Other (Fom Old Blog)

Article Marketing: Content Spooling Network Integrates Your Hittail Data

November 19, 2007

Hittail is one of my favorite analytical tools. Since the time I have joined Hittial, it was able to collect over 5000 keywords used to find my blog on various search engines. Top ten keywords are responsible only for 9.7% of all search traffic my blog received in the past. Of course this sort of statistics can be produced by other tools. What makes Hittail unique is its ability to identify keywords for which you have a good chance to improve your rankings on search engines. In the time wen I was still friendly with Google, Hittail has produced excellent results. Now I am hoping to employ it’s magic during my extreme experimentation.

I have to admit thought that placing Hittail code on your website or blog is only first tiny step for achieving better results. The magic comes to life when you begin acting on Hittial’s suggestions. Unfortunately I failed in that respect- I have currently 67 keywords sitting in my “To Do” list. Even if I write an article a day, I have two months of work to catch up. To be honest, being that English is not my first language, I always wanted to outsource “article marketing”. But I could not find a product good enough to do what I want it… until I was introduced to Content Spooling Network. The video below explains why

Posted by Vlad in Other (Fom Old Blog)