Ask Me Anything For the Next 24 Hours

There are two things you can do. Either accept the situation as it is or do something to change it now.

Only you decide your mood. It has nothing to do with the world outside. Learn to control your emotions. Meditation will help.

I have a motto which I always try to follow and that is “this too shall pass”.

I also wear a watch which has nothing but the word ‘now’ on it (no time) so it reminds me to live in the moment and don’t dwell on what is and just let it be.

If you are in a bad mood or feel like your day has sucked, don’t resist it. If you get angry because of how you feel, that will just make things worse.

I keep myself busy: read a book, watch a DVD, go for a walk, go to the gym (very good one), chat to friends. If you can take your mind off the problem, it will pass.

Thanks for your question, buddy!

Hey Patrick, thanks for your questions!

A couple of years ago I was offering reputation management services (and even wrote an eBook on the topic)and someone threatened to build a site called ‘glen allsopp sucks’ because they didn’t like seeing me do well.

As soon as I read that, I quickly registered glenallsoppsucks.com to prevent any backlash . There are a few people who have their name as domains such as chrisguillebeau and stevepavlina, but I think the idea of using a nickname would be better.

For example, Jeremy Schoemaker runs the blog at ‘Shoemoney.com’ and the name is easy to rememeber and he has built a brand around it.

As far as pages, I would add:
– Your portofolio (obviously)
– Contact form
– Your experiencies (working with an agency / freelance / what?)

And that should do it. Maybe add a blog around your topic as well as that could be a great way to get clients if you are going down the freelance route.

Making Money

I’m not a fan of PPC (maybe because I suck at it ), so would build a small minisite based around a product and try to get that to rank in Search Engines. The whole thing doesn’t have to take more than 10 hours before you’re making some good money. But it will require a lot of patience.

Hey Bojan, thanks for the question! Here are some of my suggestions:

Design

This can be improved massively. To be honest, if I came across the site, I don’t think I would go back. The left sidebar (especially tags) doesn’t offer much value for the reader and looks far too textual in my opinion.

I think things would look better with a 2-column design so that the posts are the first thing on the left of the screen. Also, I think you should add a logo and that should be shown on the top left of the site.

Branding

You have absolutely no identity right now so first of all, get a good logo. You can get a decent one for $20 over here in the Marketplace. Then use this logo on Twitter, email signatures, your gravaar on blog comments, your facebook fan page, your twitter background and so on.

Subscriptions

Unlike me and you, most UFC fans probably don’t know how to subscribe to blogs or why. I think you should make your options clearer and explain what subscribing actually does (give them free updates).

Make sure you add an email subscription box as well.

These things may not directly increase traffic, but they will turn that traffic into long-term visitors, which will increase it in the long run.

Never forget the basics.

- Glen

Hey Robin, great question!

I would say:

1. Guest Posts

I used to do a lot of these but haven’t done any for a while. They helped my blog get to where I am so I plan on doing a few more to help me get up to the 10,000 subscribers mark.

2. Videos

As I’m sure you know I’m going to Amsterdam soon and have lots of awesome video ideas. Some will be general like ‘Free Hugs’ which I have wanted to do for a while but others will be more unique.

For example, our first video on the first day there will be ‘heres how you make friends in a brand new city’ and we will do it on camera. Based on our (me and diggy) success with things like this in the past, I’m sure we’ll have great results and me a solid number of connections with people in a few hours.

This is just one idea (I don’t want to give too much away) but we’re hoping the videos will go viral and build us a totally new audience.

3. Carving my Niche

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and right now, I don’t really think I’ve chosen a real niche for the site yet. Personal development is a little too generic and open for me, but we’ll see. I’ve considered focusing more about making money and travelling the world, but then again, my most popular posts have been about other topics.

I still have to think about this, but I definitely feel like I need to pick an angle and go with it, rather than be so open like my blog is right now.

I hope that helps!

When I first started freelancing I had a part-time job in a clothes store. It’s important to have some kind of income (if you need it to survive) rather than relying solely on the internet.

If you don’t need money to survive (i.e. live with parents), but would like to make some, then I recommend you try the internet route while you can.

Apart from that, just hand your CV into as many places as possible and don’t burn any bridges. I know that LinkedIn.com is successfully helping thousands of people get jobs right now so you might want to check that out as well.

Just saw your comment and as a fellow Drupal user I thought I’d reply. Neither WP nor Drupal will get you more traffic per se, although each have themes that are more SEO friendly. The only benefit of Drupal is that it’s much more customisable than WordPress and will do many more things (beside blogging). The downside is it’s not nearly as intuitive to use as WP.

Changing is possible – you’ll see tutorials on importing your MYSQL database into a new WP installation.

But if you decide to stick to Drupal, I’m a bit of a self taught expert now and would be happy to help and advise you. So stop by my blog and say hello sometime.

I agree with Mike in that it doesn’t really matter what CMS you use. I prefer WordPress, but that’s just what I like to use. If it is on drupal now and everything is working fine, then just leave it as it is.

As far as traffic, find a keyphrase that is relevant to what your site is about and try to rank for it on Google. For example I rank on the first page for both ‘personality development’ and ‘personal development’ which send me thousands of visitors each month. Just from two keyphrases.

Check out the Google keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and go from there.

Where are they coming from?

Nope.

I had 129 feed subscribers in my first month coming from being an absolute nobody.

I set-up an account on StumbleUpon and started leaving lots of blog comments on tons of sites. Often I would stumble the site of certain authors and then tell them so in their comments. They appreciated it so came back to my site.

One thing that helped early on was doing a collaboration with lots of top bloggers. I asked them what message they would leave if they died and put it all together in a post. It received 20,000+ views from StumbleUpon and things took off from there.

There is one mentioned in Cloud Living Bel, but I don’t want to reveal the rest for competitive reasons. I’ve found some great niches and know that people would copy them if I mentioned them here.

I released a free eBook on blogging and mentioned how I am trying to rank for the keyphrase ‘personal development’. Within a week, half the blogs in this industry changed their title to have the words personal development in it.

The only benefit I can see people having from knowing my sites is to copy what I do, whereas they should be doing their own research on markets that interest them.

1. Yes, bum marketing works and I have done it, although it is ridiculously competitive for most niches. That being said, there are still thousands of untapped markets out there so there’s still lots of potential.

I don’t like to rely on search engines long-term, but it can be a viable business model.

2.

Smartpassiveincome.net
SEObook.com
quicksprout.com
skelliewag.org
**NEW ONES**
10e20.com
johnchow.com (purely for interest reasons)
blogstorm.co.uk
selfmademinds.com

I hope that helps

Yes, check out Maki from DoshDosh.com

Nobody knows who he really is and he has almost 30,000 feed subscribers.

Hi Jaky

I think a good way to promote an eBook is:

a) to write something amazing that people want to spread naturally. This happened well for Chris Guillebeau and really put him on the map.

b) Get others involved. Jonathan Mead (Illuminated Mind) recently wrote a free eBook which included tips from myself and other well known bloggers. Of course, because we were in it, we were all too happy to help him promote it.

c) Use your contacts. If you’ve made blogging connections, ask them if they would write aboutthe guide for you

d) I did this with BloggingBlueprint, where I offered a free backlink to anybody who wrote a review of the guide on their site. I had over 20 bloggers talking about me for doing this.

I hope that helps?

Glen

Hi Ivan, good question, I can feel this will be a long comment.

Get your site in order

Before you launch, have all aspects of your design in place. I mean clear links to rss, email subscription box, links to your other pages, an about page, a sitemap and so on.

Have a brandable logo and unique design in place so that people are going to remember you. I also recommend including plugins which will help. For example, I use a plugin called comment redirect (yoast.com) which redirects first time commenters to a new page recommending them to subscribe.

All of these things can really help when you start a new site

Focus on branding

Get a brand / logo, and stick with it. Use it as your comment gravatar, your comment link, your twitter logo, your stumbleupon image and so on.

Have posts ready

I wish I had done this, but make sure you have 5-10 quality posts ready to go out one after the other when you start. And I mean real quality. If people don’t like them, they won’t return. Make sure you put a piece of yourself in every article as well so people can relate to what you are saying.

Try some form of collaboration

As I mentioned somewhere above, when I first started, I contacted tons of top bloggers and asked them a simple question “What message would you leave when you die?”

I got tons of responses, most of them linked to the post, and I had an excellent article with motivating advice. Ask some top bloggers a question and see what happens.

That article received over 20,000 visitors. Not bad for my first month.

Sure , just send me an email if you’re serious.

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the kind words!

It seems right now you are very focused on promoting your e-course. I can only understand you doing this if you’ve tried to directly promote the product and it hasn’t worked.

As far as the site design, it looks better than most. Make sure you fix your title and put your actual keyphrase in there. When you do start getting traffic, I would split-test your results between using the grey boxes and not using them and see how that helps.

I predict that you will convert a lot better without them.

When your targeting a very specific audience, it can be difficult to use usual channels to land clients.

Something I think would work well for you is utilising LinkedIn. It is jam-packed with male workers who might want to move up the corporate ladder or spend so much time with work they want to find a partner.

I think that if you can build your brand on the site and create some connections, it could be an invaluable source for business.

I would have also recommended a Facebook ad due to targeting but I see you have covered that already.

Just out of curiosity, why do narrow yourself to North America when you are only doing phone consultations?

Hi Lynne,

This might not be the message you want to hear, but I’ll do my best to help.

From around ages 10-17 I was a very active runner and even ran for my county. My dad was a coach and while he didn’t push me into it, I still feel like running was something I kind of had to do.

Over the last 2 years, I really started to dislike it but didn’t want to let my family down so kept it up until college and work got so in the way that I just didn’t have time for it. Now I have no interest in running but go to the gym three times a week. Now that nobody is pushing me in any direction, I do what I love, and it’s good for me.

The best way to get someone to do something is to make them want to do it. It seems like your efforts haven’t worked so far, so maybe this is something your brother needs to eventually get round to on his own. If he doesn’t, then the consequences may be bad, but that is not your responsibility.

My uncle was very similar. He was overweight, ate lots, and never did any exercise. It wasn’t until he had a health scare that he started turning things around. These days he is so slim I can barely recognise him and he runs 3 miles almost every day. He even just finished his first marathon.

Despite people telling him what to do, it wasn’t until life gave him a reality shock that he wanted to change. People like to think these things are there own idea, so maybe give your brother some space.

Heya!
I’d say guest posting and commenting on similar blogs.

I’ve started doing this seriously about 6 weeks ago and gained 100 subscribers last month. I think this is sustainable.

Cheers!
Diggy

Because I have never made it big on Digg like some bloggers, what really worked well for me was guest posts and blog comments.

If you can do enough of these (and that is quality posts and comments) then you’ll see excellent results.

I wouldn’t leave multiple links in blog comments because then people would think I was just commenting for traffic (semi serious, semi joke).

In terms of PluginID, the boring and common answer is the one I will give: I wouldn’t change anything.

Hi Arty,

It’s only spammy if you use spammy methods or promote shady products.

Have you tried going down the SEO (getting traffic from search engines) route? It is without a doubt the most ethical route as you are giving people what they are directly looking for…

Never!

Hey Smarky, that’s a g reat question.

Generally I start most of my days the same:

– Protein Shake
– Emails
– Blog Comments
– Skype (if I need to chat with my project manager)

From there I just look at what needs doing. Doing my sites need links, should I write some articles or guest posts and that kind of thing. It’s common for me to take one day every week to look at all of my work and see what needs more of my time.

My inspiration for writing and the motiviation for it come at very random times, so I generally just go with the flow.

1. That would be me. I customised (very heavily) a free template that was available.

2. I don’t know much about them, but I certainly know of them. I take you are asking in terms of products, well I haven’t used any, but I do trust their work.

This is based on a recommendation from someone who’s products I have used and highly recommends them, Aaron Wall of SEO Book.

Sorry Jonathan, I’m not a Star Trek fan.

Recently, I would have to say a book called 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman. It is full of research on thousands of topics which I just find completely fascinating.

Maybe ‘life’ is trying to tell you something? If you’ve read my personal story, you know I was exactly the same.

In fact, I skipped so many classes in my first year of college to work on websites, that I had to do the whole thing again. I quit college after 2 years to focus on my websites and I don’t regret that decision at all.

If you really feel that you need to focus, try out the 48/12 rule. I’ve used it successful quite recently. The idea is that for every hour you set aside, you put 48 minutes into your real work and then 12 minutes on the things that interest you.

Even if you’re in a classroom you could use those 12 minutes to jot down article ideas or traffic ideas and nobody would know you’re not working. Then, put another solid 48 minutes in.

Five huh

1. Guest posts – I can’t rate this highly enough

2. StumbleUpon – This has sent me more traffic than any other websites. Some people don’t rate the quality of it, but I know posts that get a lot of Stumble traffic increase subscribers and get a lot more comments.

3. Choose a keyphrase – I’m amazed at the number of people who run a site and don’t use a keyphrase to build it on. I get thousands of visitors per month for the phrases ‘personal development’ and ‘personality development’. I researched these, optimised my site for them, and worked hard for the rankings.

4. Get all aspects of design in place – I would read my comment to Ivan above, but make sure your site looks good and you have a decent logo. While this won’t increase traffic, it will help you increase your return visitors rate.

5. Read number one again, and do it!

Hey Valerie,

Wow, I’m surprised it took so long for someone to ask that . I have one brother and one sister. I get on with my brother very well, but rarely even talk to my sister. Diggy told me he is the same with his sister, so maybe it is a ‘guys of our age thing’.

It all started in February 2008 when I met up with some guys in Cape Town at a club and had a crazy night. It’s hard to explain, but I didn’t drink any alcohol, and felt super drunk at the end. There were some ‘activities’ we did that day which force you to ‘lose your ego’ (not give a shit) and I had never felt anything like it.

That day was pretty big for me, and things spiraled out from there.

If you’re looking for more traffic to your blog, I recommend you read this article in full: http://www.pluginid.com/blog-traffic/

As far as publication in magazines go, look for industry specific publiciations which operate via mailing lists. For example, there’s one in the internet marketing industry called ‘Search Marketing Standard’. They have over a thousand paid subscriptions to my knowledge and it’s very possible for anyone even with a little bit of credibility in the niche to write for them.

If you know what it is you want to write about, get in touch with some smaller publications and see if they would feature your work. From there, you have a better chance of being featured in larger magazines.

Hey Jonas,

I know we spoke about this on live chat, so let me know if there was anything else

Hi Bill,

I used OpenOffice, which is a free download from OpenOffice.org

Hey Drusillah,

First of all, I recommend not feeling like you have to pick something. Generally, most of my goals in life have come to me. I didn’t decide on building this blog for a long time, I just had the idea one day, and I set it up.

I know it sounds boring to just go with the flow of line and see what happens, but this really worked for me. For now here’s what I suggest.

Follow a path or goal which looks the most appealing. It doesn’t have to be something you feel you will do forever. Just weigh up your options and follow that. From there, so many doors will open. If you’re losing interest in things easily, they don’t sound like the right thing for you.

No worries Paul, I value customers / connections.

The 4th result does not get 25% of results first of all, I would say more like 15%. There is a chart with more accurate numbers but I can’t find it right now.

Even so, I think the Youtube videos are probably getting massive clickthrough rates because they are more interactive then text which people would expect if they click your site.

It seems like you’ll have to outrank those videos (or even make one of your own which recommends your site) if you want to take command of those searches.

Hi Neil,

Whenever people have asked me for freebies, I’m far more likely to give them to people I have connected with. For example Ali Hale who I have spoke too regularly asked me for a copy of Cloud living for her competition recently, and I was happy to give her one.

However, I’ve had people who I’ve never spoke to before ask me for freebies, and I fail to see why I would give it to them.

Definitely try to create any connections you can…and make sure you ask. I know a friend who ran a gadget blog received lots of freebies from a company in return for a review, so maybe you could offer to give a review to companies in return for support the competition.

Quite simply: find out why I’m not doing things, and get rid of them.

Wasting time on Facebook? Twitter? IM? Partying with friends? Procrastinating?

You can’t eliminate what you aren’t aware of, so I recommend taking your average day and recording everything you do. It should give you a good idea of where your time is going.

All females have more fun when they are with me.

I won’t even put a wink, as I’m serious.

Dude, your theme looks great!
I hope to get my site looking as sleek as that too, sometime. Still struggling with all the coding aspects, though. I wish you all the best for your site!

Cheers,
Shane

Hi Dylan, I agree with Shane, the site looks great.

I recommend you take the CSS (better than Javascript in my opinion) from here and apply it to your own site: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/css/rollover-buttons.shtml

Hi John,

Your designs looks very basic (which may be the look you were going for) and not very compelling. I also have no idea what the second website is about, which will probably make it hard for you to gain a readership.

Have you considered changing the design? I’ve never been a fan of left sidebars and feel that they greatly distract from the content. I feel that is the case on your site.

As far as traffic goes, I recommend you read this article I have wrote here: http://www.pluginid.com/blog-traffic/

I learned CSS by downloading free templates online and dissecting them, so it may be beneficial for you to do the same. Look at how they work, tweak different aspects and see what changes. CSS is easier to learn through trial and error in my opinion although there are some great books out there for more advanced stuff.

As I mentioned in Cloud Living (http://www.pluginid.com/cloud-living/) I think affiliate sites are much better to make money in the short term. You can build a steady income within a month or two and start growing things from there.

If you don’t want to purchase the guide, which is fine, I recommend you do some research on ‘bum marketing’ (which is free).

Hey Brian,

I’ve tried that a few times, but they never beleive me

You’re welcome buddy, thanks for all of your support!

To be honest dude, I love your content, you just have to get out there more. You seem to be involved in a very small niche (although it does involve some ‘large’ bloggers) and I think you should expand that a bit.

The case of build and they will come does not apply online as you know, so get out there and make people come to you dude.

I know if you can do that, people will stick around.

From a follow Missouri guy at the moment. I wanted to say that I like the content too. Your a pretty good writer. I do want to add that the “tweet” link at the top is redirecting back to them and not you. Might help to change that so you get all the re-tweets and follows. If you ever wanna hook up or need yell, I’m in KC.

First of all, I don’t think you need to define anything as a block. That only gives it more power and makes you feel like you have something to overcome.

Really this ‘block’ is just a thought, rather than a mindset. And, as I’m sure you know, thoughts are easy to change.

I recommend to change things around that you just start taking action where necessary. Could you add more links to your affiliate site? Add more pages? Improve the design?

How about setting up a second in a different niche to see if it is easier to rank and thus result in quicker income?

Taking action is usually the best way to get out of a rut in my opinion.

Thanks Jeff, your support is appreciated.

I recommend you check out Bum Marketing and utilise a free blogpost or wordpress account. I would be surprised if you can’t get $9 (for a domain) from somewhere though as you can find free, basic hosting on the web.

It will save you trouble in the long run and you’ll be sure that you can keep all the work you have done, rather than rely on someone else to back it up and save it for you.

Hi Sarah,

I asked this question in a face off a while ago and received some great responses, so I thought I would paste them here:

Leo Babauta

Start small. Start with situations that aren’t too scary, such as a gathering of family or friends you mostly know already, and start to slowly push out your envelope of comfort, talking to people you only know a little. Take small steps, and with each one, celebrate victory, and use that success to boost your confidence and take another small step.

Peter Clemens

Shyness is rooted in fear. When it comes to speaking up in a group of people or approaching someone you wish to speak to, feel the fear and do it anyway. As you practice, your confidence will grow and your shyness will disappear.

Silly me! ‘URI’ stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. Doh!

Yes, that is what URI stands for. I should probably change that, as it came with the plugin I use.

As for Thesis, I use it on a site that I did use as a blog, but doesn’t really get updated anymore. I am very impressed by the offering and think it’s great for anyone who wants an easy to customise theme.

Recently I purchased a theme from themeforest.net and absolutely love it. The site looks amazing and the quality of designs there are second to none.

The risks of living off the internet is that I don’t have a constant set rate of income.

My hosting could crash and I could lose a few hundred dollars in a day. I could say something stupid on this blog and might lose a few hundred readers. I could also lose some of my Google rankings (which happened recently) and suffer a sharp income drop.

I do make more than I would ever make in a job though, and find the internet is a safer way of living for me.

I dropped school because the opportunity I had at the time (becoming a social media manager for Fortune 100 companies) was far more attractive then spending another year of college doing courses I hated.

I recommend it to people only if it feels right and you’re not just doing it because you’re lazy. Have something else in place before you do take the leap though, if you’re considering it.

Hi Nikki, the site looks great.

There’s a number of ways I think you could get the word out:

• Put up signs in backpackers across the city
• Find groups of South Africa travellers on Facebook and get in touch with them
• Go to a social media meet (there are tons in Cape Town so I assume there are some in Durban) and ask if anyone would be willing to help you get the word out
• Share your case with South African bloggers and tourist sites and see if they would be willing to feature your work

Any of these options could result in a great return.

Hi Gunjan,

Not really a silly question, but it is quite interesting

It would help if there was an example, but I’m going to be closing comments in a minute. I personally don’t like to be stuck into too much of a routine because life doesn’t always accomodate it.

Things break down (cars, laptops), plans change, familys visit from out of town, the weather takes a turn for the worse and so on. If your talking about a fitness routine or something like that (regularly going to the gym) and changing that then simply weigh the benefits vs the positives.

Would you benefit from the change or do the possible downsides outweigh it? Answering that should tell you what to do next.

I had a busy night last night, it should be answered now though.

Nope, I’ll be back to answering in the next 10 minutes

I’m a fan of the Sedona Method so tend to release on things like that and not worry about them.

This is quite a common issue though so I totally know what you mean. If the tension is there, I would definitely talk about the issue or it will never change. I ‘called out’ one of my friends recently for acting out of line in my opinion and feel we are much closer because of it.

If you can’t be out and open with your friends, who can you be open with?

Hey Natural,

A friend of mine from Cape Town recently moved to a new country and was in a similar situation. She had to work for three months in a job she didn’t really like (although loved it at times).

See if there’s anyway to incorporate what you love into it. For example, I love blogging and writing, so when learning something new I like to write about it to an audience which makes me feel more passionate about it. See if there is some aspect or some person that you can really click with and use that as your motivating force.

Or, simply focus on the reason you’re really doing it, as I hope it’s a good one

Hi Snehal

Ok first of all…

we both know we can’t be happy without each other

Deep down, you know as well as I that this is not true. If something were to happen to her and you could never see her again, what would you do? Just stop living?

Also, there must have been times when you were happy with this other woman or you would not have married her.

It may be the case that you have to let things pan out like she waited for them to do with you. Her own marriage may not turn out well either, but if there is no way of stopping it now, you’ll just have to wait and see.

You have a strong case of what is known as “oneitis” and I honestly just think you need to get out there and see other people for a while. You might find that nobody matches up to her, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I used to DJ Trance and House, and still love that kind of music. I listen to all sorts really. I like a lot of songs from N-Dubz, Lil Wayne and other hip hop artists, but also like indie bands such as the Kings of Leon and Razorlight as well

Thank you Renee, I appreciate that

Brian’s threaded comments

Hi Gabriel,

It can be hard from doing your own thing to have to consider going back into the real world and getting a job, but it seems like what you should do here.

I definitely don’t think you should pressure your wife. If you are not earning enough money yourself, you need to look at why. The internet (and services such as web design) can be unstable and if things aren’t working out, you may need other work for a while.

I suggest maybe trying to find a part-time job which will at least give you some income from survival, and then working to revive business and clients while you can.

Probably not the answer you want to hear, but sometimes we have to deal with reality.

Wordpress

Hi Dayne,

I don’t really have three to name, but I would highly recommend The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz!