5 Simple Ways to Find Your Passion and Take Your Blog from Zero to Hero

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Posted on 17th February 2010 by admin in blogging

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This is a guest post by Henri Junttila. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Blogging is hard work. It can easily take up to a year or two before your blog starts taking off, if it ever does. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, because there are a lot of people out there that believe they can jump in, start writing and the money will start pouring in.

But when you mix passion with blogging savvy, the results can be amazing. Before I started my blog, I decided to join a blogging course. I have always been big on finding a mentor, someone who has done what I want to do and then learning everything I can from them.

If you are passionate about what you’re doing and have the determination to work hard, the internet is full of excellent blogging courses that will help take your blog from zero to hero. With all that said, let’s look at how you can find your passion:

1. The Elimination Method

The elimination method is extremely simple. You start by writing down every topic you’re interested in, you then compare each topic to each other one by one and eliminate anything that you do not like.

Say you like cats, dogs and parrots, just to keep it simple. Let’s start with cats. Compare cats to dogs, do you think you’re more passionate about dogs? If yes, then you discard cats and compare dogs to the rest. We only have dogs and parrots left, so whichever one you’re more passionate about, wins.

2. The Money Question

What would you do if money didn’t exist? Would you write about dogs? If you never had to worry about food, clothing and a place to live, you would have no choice but to do things you enjoy, because there would be no reason to do anything else.

This is a simple, yet powerful question. Really think about what you would want to do if money didn’t exist on the planet. There are no 9-5 jobs. Everyone is doing what they love. What would you be doing in this scenario?

3. Your Feelings

Most of us have been taught to ignore our feelings from a very early age, but the truth is that feelings act as signposts for if you’re heading in the right direction. If you’re working a 9-5 job that you hate, you will feel bad and it will only get worse with time.

Whenever you’re doing something you love, you’ll feel happy, content and at peace. Time just seems to fly by. This is how feelings were meant to be used. It takes some practice. It is easy to misinterpret your feelings, which is why many people think they are passionate about making money, which is basically a feeling rooted in fear.

4. Taking Action

If you’re not quite sure what you’re passion is, the best way to find out is to just start somewhere. You can sit there and analyze what it might be, but you will never get anywhere. It’s okay if you start a blog and find out that it isn’t what you like.

Mistakes are there to teach you. If you want things to be perfect before you start, you will never start. Believe me, I’ve been there and when I started feeling okay about making mistakes, my life became so much easier.

5. Feedback

Once you’ve been blogging for a few months, you’ll start to find your voice and start getting some traffic (if you chose a good niche). You will have a bunch of data that will tell you if you’re heading in the right direction.

Comments, e-mails, bounce rates and the average time people spend on your website. All of these factors vary from blog to blog, which is why it can get difficult and why a mentor can be so helpful. The main point I want to get across in this article is that without your passion, you will not have the fuel to keep going for the months or even years when nothing seems to be happening.

Henri Junttila writes about following your passion and being successful at life on his blog WakeUpCloud.com, he also shows you how you can discover your passion in 5 days.


Original Post: 5 Simple Ways to Find Your Passion and Take Your Blog from Zero to Hero

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Book Review: Crush It!

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Posted on 10th February 2010 by admin in blogging

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crush-itI just finished reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s first book last week, so lets get on with its review. The title is Crush It!: Why NOW Is The Time To Cash In Your Passion.

1. The book: Crush It! is a book about finding your passion and profiting from it online. Gary V. did just that, and he wanted to share with other people how to follow on his steps. The book has 132 pages, which means you could read it within a week.

2. The content: The beginning of the book is about why you need to follow you passion, and how Gary did it with his wine business, taking the revenues from $4 to over $60 million annually. After that Gary talks about the important of personal branding, the online platforms you must use, and the strategies you should use to promote yourself and your business.

3. What I liked: I already have a good experience with online marketing, publishing platforms and other web tools, so that part of the ebook was pretty trivial to me. What I really liked, however, was the energy that Gary is able to transmit through the text. He does that in video, so it should be no surprise. In fact it was this book, and Gary’s approach to business in general, that motivated me to start hustling. You can grasp that from the quote I used below.

4. Who would benefit from this book: People who want to start using social media tools to promote his business and people who want to get motivated about succeeding with an online or offline business.

5. Favorite quote:

I’ve said over and over that if you live your passion and work the social networking tools to the max, opportunities to monetize will present themselves. I’ve also said that in order to crush it you have to be sure your content is the best in its category. You can still make plenty of good money if you’re fort best in category, or ninth best, but if you really want to dominate the competition and make big bucks, you’ve got to be the best. Do that, be that, and no one will be able to touch you.

With one exception. Someone with less passion and talent and poorer content can totally beat you if they’re willing to work longer and harder than you are. Hustle is it. Without it, you should just pack up your toys and go home.


Original Post: Book Review: Crush It!

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BecomeABlogger.com Re-Opens With a $1 Trial

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Posted on 7th February 2010 by admin in blogging

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become-a-blogger-1Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick are re-opening their Become A Blogger coaching program today. And the cool thing is that they are offering a $1 trial offer, so read on if you are interested.

Become A Blogger is step-by-step video coaching program that will teach you all you need to know to build a successful blog. Here are the 8 modules covered:

  1. Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE
  2. How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance
  3. How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail
  4. How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd
  5. How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio
  6. How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video
  7. How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog
  8. How To Make Money From Your Blog

If you already have a blog and is happy with the results you are getting, then this program is obviously not for you. If you are just getting started, however, this is probably the best coaching program you’ll find on the market. I have been working with Gideon and Yaro for a long time, and I always get surprised with the quality of the products they release.

But facts speak louder than words, right? You can try the program for yourself by spending just $1. Take a look around, see if you like the content, and then decide. Even if you decide to stay as a member you are covered by a 60-day money back guarantee.

The trial offer expires in 5 days, so head over to the sign-up page to check all the details.


Original Post: BecomeABlogger.com Re-Opens With a $1 Trial

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Get Rich Blogging: Fact or Fiction?

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Posted on 7th February 2010 by admin in blogging

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This is a guest post by Jonas Adamson. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

It’s harder than ever to spend even a few minutes online these days without bumping into some get-rich-quick story or advertisement, whether it’s news about Ponzi schemes netting crooked financiers billions of dollars or annoying Google sidebar paid ads promising you that you’ll make $7,287,964/hour working from home, stuffing envelopes. The siren’s call of easy money is a tempting one, indeed, and it’s even trickling down to the world of blogging, with more and more stories appearing on mainstream news sites and portals about “professional” bloggers earning six figure salaries. Is this really the golden age of bloggers, with anyone with a blog virtually printing money with a few flicks of their fingers?

Anyone with a blog is likely already chuckling to themselves and shaking their heads no, and for good reason. While it is true that more and more businesses and corporations are creating positions related to blogging and managing larger social media efforts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites, “blogger” still has a long way to go becoming an established profession (and miles further to go past that point to regularly command a salary that eclipses that of recent MBA graduates, attorneys, etc.). A handful of bloggers who make more than $100,000/year is undoubtedly impressive, but for each one there are thousands of top-notch bloggers who never make a single solitary penny for their efforts.

Like many issues that get twisted and mangled so that make “good” news, anyone looking to profit from blogging may encounter a much different situation when they start casting their blog posts out into the real world. Most uber-successful bloggers (viewing success strictly from a monetary perspective) that make the headlines are actually more marketer than blogger, with their blogging efforts tied directly to a product or service they sell. Interestingly enough, if you browse through assorted lists of the world’s best paid bloggers, the majority make their money by, you guessed it, selling ebooks, DVDs, and other products that teach other people how to make money online. Handsomely-paid bloggers who make their living from simply posting pithy, well-written posts about topics near and dear to their heart are a very, very, very rare breed.

With that depressing news out of the way (no, you won’t get rich blogging), there’s actually a happier silver lining lurking, which is that it’s much easier to make money from blogging today than it was in the past. While your blogging efforts may not ever pay for that Caribbean island you’ve had your eye on buying, there are definitely more and more ways for quality bloggers to profit from their skills. The days are gone when the only way to monetize your blog was by selling text links or slapping up some Google Adsense ads, as bloggers now have many more alternatives when it comes to profiting from their prose. With blogging increasingly being viewed as a legitimate business practice for marketing and advertising departments, there are also more and more part-time and freelance blogging jobs posted on job sites and freelance portals such as Elance. While it still may be very difficult to quit your day job to become a full-time blogger, it’s easier than ever to turn blogging into an enjoyable, profitable part-time job.

Jonas Adamson writes about a variety of affiliate marketing topics at AffiliateTips.com. Affiliatetips covers a wide range of topics and have recently also added a poker affiliate section to their site.


Original Post: Get Rich Blogging: Fact or Fiction?

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