Thursday, October 19th, 2006...5:43 am by Leroy Brown
Time - The one thing we can’t control
There are a lot of factors that determine whether or not you will be a successful, or even a professional blogger. There’s the number of posts you make, the quality of posts, your blog’s design, whether or not you get Dugg or Fark’ed, your marketing efforts, your marketing budget, and your ability to garner inbound links. The one factor that remains completely, 100% out of our control, is time. Most bloggers do not spend 100% of their time online, working on their blogging efforts. Most of us have lives, complete with family and careers. The time that’s left for blogging after all that is sometimes very, very small.
Given enough time, any idiot can create a successful blog. He can create more posts, and spend the time to do research to ensure his posts are high quality. He can spend tons of time marketing his blog through directory submission, article submission, forum posting, and networking. If he’s willing to spend the money, PPC is an easy way to get instant traffic. If you don’t have or want to spend the money, no worries. Enough time fixes that problem handily - with enough high quality posts, and a very focused, intensive marketing effort, any blog can and will be successful.
So what’s the problem? Well, most of us can’t ignore our family and quit our jobs to blog full-time. Silly things like bills and buying food get in the way. We cannot dedicate the time needed to be truly successful - and time is the one thing we need. In light of that, understand that you should be using your time to the fullest. You don’t have much of it, so be sure that you’re using it efficiently and productively. Remember, if you aren’t, someone else is.
6 Comments
October 20th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Awesome post. So true. Recently have had very limited time.
Thanks for the great post.
October 22nd, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Very true… I am so aware of this too. I have so much work to do on my site it’s crazy! I feel that I have more time to work on my site than the average blogger with family, career, and responsibilities… I partly attribute that to lack of sleep… which I feel that the amount of sleep needed varies per person… fortunately, I can operate very well on 2 and 3 hours sleep per night. Is that good for me, probably not… but that’s my life and I enjoy spending the time on the computer where normally one would be sleeping.
I totally recognize this, and what we have is a catch 22. Because on my site, BTI, I encourage and search for people that will help co-own my site. I figure that if I find people that are willing to make one or a few posts per week on the site, that would help free up time on my end to do other things such as marketing, SEO, and socializing on other blog sites. I have had a few people contribute on a regular basis and it is so wonderful to have them on BTI. I am sure you can imagine how much it helps to have an assistant… and that is one of my goals with BTI. People who volunteer their time to create articles on the site, also know that it in return, helps them and their site, because I heavily advertise their articles, content, and links on my site.
Also, I have a full time position available for a full time assistant. BTI is to the point where it makes a little over $100/month. I have opened up a separate banking account for the site and have rolled over most of the expenses from my personal account over to the new business account. There is a good chunk of cash left over after it’s all said and done… and that covers payroll…. which, go ahead and laugh, I will if you don’t!… is $50.00/month to pay for someones salary.
So yeah… I have a full time position available on BTI, at the moment it pays only $50.00/month but as my site continues to grow and generate more money, this same position will cap at $2000/month.
When my site makes over $4000/month in revenue, I would have NO problems paying an assistant a good salary. That is part of the benefit from starting from the ground up at $50.00/month.
So anyway, I thought I would share some of my plans on BTI with you… these are my goals and I invest a lot of my free time towards achieving this.
I am not one to pass the buck, but I am one that delegates tasks and duties to other people… but under my umbrella of things, I compensate people very nicely when I have the ability to do so.
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:41 am
You know Garry, that’s really an interesting concept. I’ve mulled over the idea of having a co-blogger or 4 here, but haven’t really put it to the test yet. Your model seems to make a lot of sense - at first the compensation is low, but there - after all, most people don’t earn any money blogging, so $50 really isn’t all that bad. The potential for advancement is huge, if the co-blogger is willing to put in the work.
Anyone interesting in writing for this site? I may have a position opening soon
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:57 am
This is an interesting thought. I was personally trying to figure out a way to add more bloggers. My thoughts were:
1. Pay them around 5 dollars per post.
It might mean that I am actually losing money at first, but in the long run it should work.
2. Split the advertising profits.
3. Let them pitch their own affiliate programs from time to time.
4. Provide permanent blog roll links to their sites.
or some combination of the above. My biggest concern is the legal issues. I would want to draw up a decent contract first.
All the best,
George
December 18th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
I agree my wife and I now work part time. We make enough money to pay the bills. So we could work at home. To have more time to work on are business. If the both of us worked full time it would be so much harder running a business’s. we have to cut back on some things we like to do but, we hope we will be better off in the long run. Nice article
December 18th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
John,
Good luck to you and your wife. I have taken a glance at your site, and it looks great! One thing I would do on that site is establish a blog (such as wordpress) and embed your products into the site itself. Somewhat of an example could be my site. Again, I was there for a few minutes and didn’t see anything like that on your site… you might be doing something like this already, and I just didn’t see it.
The reason why I am suggesting this to you is basically to gain viewer interest and SEO. Honestly, there are thousands of sites like yours already out there… and keeping things real, there are thousands of sites like mine too! We are on the same boat together, so please don’t feel like I am talking down to you… I am not. But, more less… these are my thoughts that I want to share with you in attempt to help you and your wife be even more successful.
Incorporating a blog into your site will gain a ton of interest in people. Especially if you are consistent with what you publish. If you were to publish content that was related to the products you sold and somewhat (pre-sell) these products and then link viewers to the product page… you might find that this could be amazingly more effective than just having your site the way it is.
Again, this is just my brainstorming thoughts that came to mind after taking a few moments to check out your site. In the end, I hope you and your wire are truly successful. I am taking the time to write this comment because again, I feel we share a similar interest and just as much as I want to be personally successful, I want others to be as well.
Take care,
Garry Conn
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