Your “brand” is important.

OLD:

NEW:

Branding started out with a steel rod with your brand (or logo) that was then seared into a cow. That effectively meant that cow was yours. Everyone in town knew what your brand looked like and you knew their brand.

Today things haven’t changed too much except that now companies are branding us. They put their logos on our clothes, cars, computers, and just about everything else. Does that tell you how important branding is?

In order to set yourself apart from the sea of competition you need to establish your brand and make sure that brand is recognizable and reputable. Your brand doesn’t have to be your logo, it can be your name. Many internet superstars (not this kind, but this kind), are famous (internetely speaking, yes I just made that word up.) while others do indeed have a visual brand (Shoemoney).

So to brand yourself online you need to understand what people “see” about your brand. What they “see” is what they can find online. If you search for your name, do you find positive or negative stuff? It doesn’t matter if it’s about you, or about the other guy who has the same name. Protecting your brand is often called brand management or reputation management.

One of my recent clients had a bit of an online reputation problem. A newspaper insinuated that he did something he did not. He hired me to bury that story, which I did. His brand is still strong because what you see is only positive stuff about him.

When writing online, filling out sing up forms and commenting on blogs, consider this. Every time your use your name, it will be archived for ever. One day when you need that big client, and he goes digging, what is he going to find?

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Act weak when strong, act strong when weak. Know when to bluff.

Selling a website for top dollar is similar to bluffing in poker and here’s why. You want to sell your website for the most your buyer will pay, your buyer wants to buy your website for the lowest amount possible. Good old negotiation.

In order to sell your website for top dollar and get the most money out of your buyer, you need to really sell the features and benefits. In poker, when you’re bluffing, you want to do the same thing. You want the other people at the table to know everything about your cards, that is, you want them to think that you have something worth folding to.

So in order to win this melee and come out with the most money, you need to show the buyer why he should pay top dollar. This includes listing all of your stats, income, and generally unspoken benefits such as:

1. RSS subscribers
2. Newsletter members that are opt-in (or double opt-in)
3. Type in traffic
4. Organic search engine results
5. Current backlinks on popular sites
6. Unpublished content
7. Ideas for future development
8. Domain age
9. Popular content
10. Accounts (Twitter, Technorati, Blogspot, etc)
11. Multiple revenue streams
12. Relationships with others in the same industry
13. Affiliate company contacts

Explaining these benefits to your buyer is like going all in. You are telling your buyer that you have the nuts. If your site lacks value, by showing more quantity of features, you’re bluffing. Sometimes it works and sometimes you bust out!

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It’s okay to switch tables if you discover it’s too hard to win at your table.

We’ve all heard it said, never change horses while crossing a stream. In essence it means that when you’re in the middle of something, see it through. I couldn’t disagree more. I’m notorious for not seeing things through. A recent example is my free hosting website.

I designed a site, rented a full server, bought software, spent countless hours setting it up and then went live. I estimated that I would need 200 members in the first month, 600 after 2 months, and 2,000 after 3 months, in the 4th month I hoped to break even with 4-6,000 members. After 15 days, I had 60 members, and only 7 had actually taken the time to switch their domains to my free web host. So in reality, I was 193 members short, by the end of the month I had 14 domains switched and websites built and 7 subdomain websites created. So after 31 days I was 179 member websites short and couldn’t see how it was going to work. After the first month, I emailed the members that had created sites, and arranged a deal with another web host to get them set up somewhere else and closed 22Gigs.com.

I had thought about this idea consistently for about 3 months before diving in. I had done market research, had a plan, marketing lined up, sponsors, contests, etc. I realized pretty quickly that my horse wasn’t going to make it across the river. Should I stay on that horse and keep digging my financial hole, or should I get off the horse and find a stronger horse to cross the river?

So if you’re in a market that is beating you down and you can’t see an end in site, maybe it’s time to move on. Keep that site in the background and try something new for a while. You never know when you might want to give it another shot.

When the going gets tough, the smart find an easier way.

No related posts.

Table selection is the most important decision you can make.

When you first walk into a poker room, you’ll see tables, lots of tables usually. At these tables, you’ll find both fish and sharks. When you’re playing poker for money, you’ll want to find the tables with the most fish and the least amount of sharks. Unless you play every day at this poker room or casino, you won’t be able to tell just by looking at them.

The same is true when deciding on a niche. When you first start building websites and working on affiliate marketing, you don’t know how to evaluate competition. You don’t know which backlinks are strongest, and which SERP’s you can overthrow. The more experience you have, the better suited you are to choose a table or pick a niche.

Take this example, you see Paul, a guy you’ve played with before at a table. He knows you, you know him. At his table are a bunch of fish that you don’t know, that are consistently losing hands and folding to bluffs. At another table are a bunch of unknowns. Which table would you prefer?

Personally, I would rather play against known competition. I know that “Paul” is my only competition. When niche marketing it’s just as important to know your competition and know which markets you can stay alive in.

In my experience, technology related fields are like sitting down at a table with Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson and Gus Hansen. Would you sit at that table? Only for two hands to say you played with the big boys right?

Jumping into a niche like iPods, computer parts, or laptop batteries is just as bad. Those markets are flooded with superstars that, as good as you might be, you’ll always be fighting a seriously uphill battle with.

Don’t get me wrong, picking a popular niche isn’t a bad idea, you might be able to do really well in a niche like Acai Berry Supplements even though it’s flooded, but when there are so many tables full of fish, why take your chances with a shark?

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1. Poker and Making Money Online, a 34 Part Series

Zappos.com (Shoe store) CEO Tony Hsieh wrote a great post about how playing poker relates to business.  The problem with the post is that it didn’t go into any detail, just brushed the surface.  I will take his point and expand on them as they relate to making money online, affiliate marketing, niche websites and why I do what I do. You can read Hsieh’s original post here.

I realize, in all honesty, that I will most likely never finish all 34 parts of this series (I get bored and don’t finish many things), but as I finish a post, I’ll link it from this page, so bookmark this page!

Here are the posts I’ll be writing:

EVALUATING MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

* Table selection is the most important decision you can make.
* It’s okay to switch tables if you discover it’s too hard to win at your table.
* If there are too many competitors (some irrational or inexperienced), even if you’re the best it’s a lot harder to win.

MARKETING AND BRANDING

* Act weak when strong, act strong when weak. Know when to bluff.
* Your “brand” is important.
* Help shape the stories that people are telling about you.

FINANCIALS

* Always be prepared for the worst possible scenario.
* The guy who wins the most hands is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.
* The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.
* Go for positive expected value, not what’s least risky.
* Make sure your bankroll is large enough for the game you’re playing and the risks you’re taking.
* Play only with what you can afford to lose.
* Remember it’s a long term game. You will win or lose individual sessions, but it’s what happens in the long term that matters.

STRATEGY

* Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.
* Figure out the game when the stakes aren’t high.
* Don’t cheat. Cheaters never win in the long run.
* Stick to your principles.
* You need to adjust your style of play throughout the night as the dynamics of the game change. Be flexible.
* Be patient and think long term.
* The players with the most stamina and focus usually win.
* Differentiate yourself. Do the opposite of what the rest of the table is doing.
* Hope is not a good plan.
* Don’t let yourself go “on tilt”. It’s much more cost effective to take a break, walk around, or leave the game for the night.

CONTINUAL LEARNING

* Educate yourself. Read books and learn from others who have done it before.
* Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.
* Learn by surrounding yourself with talented players.
* Just because you win a hand doesn’t mean you’re good and you don’t have more learning to do. You might have just gotten lucky.
* Don’t be afraid to ask for advice.

CULTURE

* You’ve gotta love the game. To become really good, you need to live it and sleep it.
* Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.
* Be nice and make friends. It’s a small community.
* Share what you’ve learned with others.
* Look for opportunities beyond just the game you sat down to play. You never know who you’re going to meet, including new friends for life or new business contacts.
* Have fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you’re trying to do more than just make money.

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I’m launching a new service that most of you will appreciate, free web hosting.  You can host as many sites

as you would like.  You can use sub domains or your own domain.

This is great for building links, just like you do when you create wordpress.com and blogger accounts.  Currently I’m taking signups and the free web hosting site will launch November 1st, 2008.

If you’re interested in nearly unlimited free website hosting check out 22Gigs.com

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Sounds confusing, but you’re basically an eBay affiliate through Commission Junction. The part that entices me is that I know a few niches that aren’t horribly flooded with similar sites. Since I also own a few extra domains with crappy content, it could be a perfect match.  Build a Niche Store claims to be easy to install and if a newbie can do it, so can I.

The price is $97 which is irrelevant because the eBay affiliate program is pretty easy to make money with. If someone signs up for eBay through your link, you get $25. If someone clicks your link and buys ANY product on eBay in the next 7 days, you get 50% of the revenue (not total sale price). By just selling a few items and a few signups you’ve easily made your money back.

I’ve never actually used the Build a Niche Store software but am curious to hear from actual users.

What did you like? What don’t you like?

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GOAL – 2,000 unique visitors
ACTUAL – 33,038 unique visitors

GOAL – 150 Total posts
ACTUAL – 143 Total posts (Andrew did his part, I was off my 7 posts)

GOAL – $100 Income
ACTUAL – $104.39 (Adsense 50%, Affiliates 50%)

All in all it was a good month, we have a lot of great content that is bringing in a lot more organic traffic this month.

11/2007 Google Traffic: 1137 total
12/2007 Google Traffic: 1458 (through only 12 days)

Huge increase in organic traffic is also helping to sustain Adsense earnings. We’re beginning to focus more on specific call center terms such as call center software, call center outsourcing and giving tips that can help find a call center job. With more call center posts tailored towards jobs we hope to start ranking for a bigger term.

Last month we saw 60,922 page views come from StumbleUpon. So far this month we have 30,850 (through 12 days) so it looks to be another record breaking month for SU as well.

Another interesting stat was that we used 12.45 GB of bandwidth last month. That is a lot of bandwidth for a site not offering downloads and only a rare post with pictures. We did have this post about funny office signs so that probably took it up a few GB’s.

Our goals for this month are completely different. We’re going for twice as much income, 30-35 total posts (5 times less) and focusing our marketing efforts more on link building through guest posts, article writing and social means.

So there you have it, the project was a success in my opinion and our stats show that it was definitely a success since we exceeded the important goals.

Zero to Hero Project Closed!

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As of 10/24 we have a total of 23555 total uniques. Just to remind you, last month the site had 88 total uniques. Since our original goal was 2,000 uniques, we’ve WELL surpassed that goal. You can see that a vast majority of those uniques are from StumbleUpon. Unfortunately those visitors only come for our linkbait, and not for our content.

As for our second goal, 150 total posts, we’re close. To date we have averaged 4.2 posts per day. Our goal is 5 posts per day and in the next 6 days we need 49 posts. In the next 6 days we need 8.16 posts average. That is 4 posts per day. I’ve seen Andrew have 10-12 post days and I’ve done 10-15 posts per day so I know it can easily happen.

Our third goal was $100 net earnings. To date we’ve earned a couple bucks from a few different affiliate, less than $5 total. Adsense, our biggest earner is at $36.99. Average daily income is around $1.66 per day. We need that to go to $9.8 per day if we’re going to hit the goal. Unless we really pick up our organic search visitors I don’t think we’ll hit that goal.

Here are a few screenshots from the project:

Daily traffic.

Visitors from Search Engines (including StumbleUpon and Digg):

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We’ve had steady earnings with 1-3 adsense clicks per day. Total earnings are around $15 right now. We’re definitely gaining momentum in terms of earnings.  As for traffic, we’ve passed 3k uniques and are nearing 4k total.  Apparently we shot a little low on that goal.  Maybe our goal should have been 5k or even 10k unique visitors.

I wrote a post that I’m hoping will get popular on Digg and StumbleUpon. Check it out, “48 Practical Ways To Find and Land a Job“.

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