Kate McCarthyToday I snuck into a blogging webinar held by the lovely blogging expert, Kate McCarthy.

Kate was running a free webinar that users have access to when they purchase Traffic Masters Academy. This course is probably the most up to date traffic course online today and  you get access to daily webinars held by experts in many traffic fields.

These webinars not only supplement training in the main modules of Traffic Masters Academy but also provide an avenue for attendees to get their most pressed questions answered.

So I tried to sneak in as I said but within the first minute Kate called me out.

Who said it’s easy to be anonymous online?

Traffic Masters Academy: Blogging for Fun and Profits

261x300xTraffic-Masters-Academy-261x300.jpg.pagespeed.ic.UneX4kDxK3Just like the webinar title said, Blogging can be done for fun and profits.

At it’s core a blog is simply a dynamic website, one that is updated on a regular basis. Whereas a website is usually more static like a fancy business card.

Google loves blogs because they are give people online relevant, updated and informative information online.

In fact you’ll see some cool stats about blogging below on this info graphic:

 

Why You Need A Blog

You need a blog for a variety of reasons.

  • It’s 100% controlled by you. And what I mean here is when you buy your own domain and blog, not a free blog that you can get at Weebly, Blogger or WordPress. I’m talking about your own online real estate (this analogy continues).
  • Blogs are a great source of quality traffic – when people eventually find you they will be going there for a reason
  • The ultimate relationship maintainer – you don’t have to be a guru but if you write content that gives value (just like this website) then people will appreciate it and come back
  • Easy to set up and run – You could get up and running in less than an hour. Once you have it down pat I’ve ste up blogs in less than 10 mins!
  • It’s your piece of the internet – Start building your empire today!

I see blogging as the central pillar of my Authority Hub.

Even though the stats say that most people don’t make any money from Blogging, I believe its because most peopel do it the wrong way or just don’t know how to monetise their passion.

This is why having access to blogging experts like Kate McCarthy is so important.

Even though I class myself as pretty proficient with blogging and websites there were still some things I learnt in her webinar. They were:

 The fundamentals

In general there are really only four absolute ‘must haves’ components to a blog:

  1. A domain – Think of a domain as like a street address. It tells people where to go. Http://samithpich.com is the domain of my website. To get a domain you simply purchase one from a domain registrar. Personally I use Name Cheap because not only are they cheap but they also have good customer service and they make the whole process very smooth and painless.
  2. Web Hosting – If a domain is your street address then web hosting is the plot of land that is your address. On this plot of land you can put any type of house or structure or gardens or pool! Personally I use a couple of hosting companies including Bluehost and Justhost. Both companies are great to deal with and very easy to set up with good customer service.
  3. Website – A website is your actual house and its the structure of your building. So you could build a home, or a little deli, or a supermarket or an office building! (I like these analogies). The most common platform for websites is WordPress. IT’s SEO friendly, extremely customizable and (after a brief learning curve) quite easy to use. If you can use Microsoft Word you can use WordPress
  4. Autoresponder – An autoresponder is simply a mailing service. But what it allows you to do is email 1000 people as easily as it is to email 2 people. Connecting with people via your autoresponder is integral as an online business. Personally I use Getresponse, but I also recommend Aweber.

 The most popular and scaleable platform

is WordPress.

In the webinar Kate was reviewing with us what the course on Blogging was all about and took a lot of time to answer our questions, including the curve balls I threw at her!

In Traffic Masters Academy course on Blogging John Chow, yes, legendary no.4 money blogger in the world, John Chow takes us through

  • how to install and set up a blog
  • how to work with Google to do keyword research for our posts
  • the correct way to write posts
  • how to monetise our Blog

The First Key to Monetising Your Blog (4 Steps to Freedom Formula)

Of all the steps (and one I’m finally learning, thanks John Chow!) the first and probably the most important is to Capture the Lead.

You can do this by:

  • Using an optin form on your side bar in or in your blog posts
  • Via RSS, Twitter, Facebook (secondary sources)
  • Give ‘ethic bribes’ to get leads by offering something of value free
  • The money is in the list. A decent list is worth $1 -$2 per subscriber. Want to be worth $10,000? get 5-10,000 subscribers!
  • Start the list from day one – something I wish I did!!

John Chow’s Blog Business Model Blueprint

comes down to 6 simple steps:

  1. Doing proper keyword research
  2. Write content based on keyword research – meaning write content that people are actually looking for!
  3. get content  indexed – meaning Google knows it’s there and starts to rank it in the search engine results
  4. Google sends the traffic
  5. capture the readers with an opt in
  6. 4 step freedom formula

Want to know the other 3 steps of John Chow’s 4 Step Freedom Formula? Go get the course!

With the latest Google updates, being connected to social media is more important than ever. The four that John Chow encourages us to focus on are:

  • Google+
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Twitter

The core recommendation is to deliver value.

John Chow’s final tips were:

  • Be consistent – your readers will come back if they know you’re consistent. In the first four years of John’s blog he posted 2.2 times a day every day 7 days a week! For four years! Now he posts daily, himself!
  • Always deliver value
  • Keep working on your brand
  • Don’t do it all yourself
  • Treat your blog like a real business – this was such an important point!
  • Don’t take things so seriously

“The amount of money you make online will be directly proportioned to the amount of value you deliver” – John Chow

So we learnt a lot more from Kate in that webinar but I will put that into a future blog. In the mean time if you haven’t purchased Traffic Masters Academy yet, go buy it now and get a FREE Traffic consult with myself on how to create a blog that earns you money on autopilot every month! (Valued at $197)

I trust that this blog post delivered some value and I encourage you to subscribe to my blog and post a comment below!