My 4 Hour Workweek

Another month is almost in the books (pun intended)!  With the weather getting colder (at least here in Chicago), I’m finding myself indoors a lot more, so hopefully that means I’ll have time to get through more books soon.  With that said, work is still busy, and unfortunately reading always takes a back seat to my work (both my “9 to 5″ work and my work that I discuss here on this blog).

Like September’s reading list, October’s is also fairly light.

Here are a couple books I hope to read this month:

1) Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan

2) The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up by Norm Brodsky

If you’ve read or are currently reading any of the books listed here, please share your comments.  I’d love to see what everyone else thinks about these books, especially before I read them.  If you have suggestions for next month’s reading list, please share those too!  As always, you can check out my past reading lists by clicking the Reading link on the top menu.

This is absolutely one of the most important considerations when launching a niche site.  If you can’t answer the question, “How will this site make me money?” you’re in trouble.  Having great content is one thing, but if it doesn’t translate into advertising revenue, commissions, or sales of your own product, you’re wasting your time.

There are a lot of ways to monetize a site, and not all of them are practical or even necessary.  There are sites that make money 20 different ways and earn less than sites that only have one way of monetizing traffic.  Based on your niche, it’s up to you to figure out which method is most effective.  Sometimes it’s obvious – other times, it requires a bit of trial and error, with constant tweaks until you find that perfect recipe for success.

I wasn’t originally planning on writing about my monetization strategy as my 2nd update for the niche site duel, however I realized (via the comments on my niche site duel introduction post) that I made a huge mistake regarding my plans to monetize my niche site.  I’ll discuss it more below.

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In case you didn’t see the first video, I decided I was going to periodically mix in a little bit of humor on this blog with a series of funny videos related to blogging, passive income, and affiliate marketing.  We spend most of our time working hard and taking all of this seriously (and we should), but sometimes it’s amusing to poke fun at it.

This video is pretty short (only about a minute long), so take a short break and check it out.  I doubt everyone will find this funny, but if it fits with your sense of humor, enjoy!

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I caved and decided to take on Pat Flynn’s niche site duel that he’s doing with Tyrone Shum and a handful of other bloggers (see the niche site duel page).  I’m excited.  Reading about some of the other niche sites in the duel, it seems like most people are taking on some low- to mild-level competition niches, which I think is great.  In all honesty, it’s probably the smart thing to do.

I could do that, but I have an idea for a niche site within a super competitive niche that I’d like to tackle.  I wouldn’t normally bother with such high competition, however, in the spirit of the duel, I want to push myself and make it public so that I’m held accountable for working hard at it.

Keep reading and I’ll reveal the niche, the site, and my initial thoughts about how I’m going to approach it.

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Let me preface this article by saying, I’m not here to bash John Chow.  He’s just doing a good job at being a “model subject” for the rant I’m about to write.  He’s one of the leaders in the internet marketing niche and has provided a lot of helpful and informational content over the past few years.  It’s gotten to the point now, however, where I’d almost say if you’re looking to make it online as a blogger, you need to look at what he does and do the opposite (or don’t do it at all). At least, keep it in mind when you’re starting out.

When it comes to blog posts and communicating with your e-mail list subscribers, you generally want to provide value and you want to pay attention to your readers.  They are the ones who made you successful, after all.  Granted, there are people who get really busy and become really popular, to the point where it’s almost impossible to reply to every comment and every e-mail (which is one of the reasons why Pat Flynn continues to amaze me – the man simply understands how to make a connection with an audience).  Even so, you should still respond to some comments and make some effort to remain connected.

Anyway, here’s what set me off today.

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Happy Saturday, everyone.  I just wanted to write a quick post about some site updates I made today:

1) Added the Motivation Vault. You’ll notice a new button for it off to the right side.

2) Updated the “Make Money Online” and “Resources” pages.

Please be sure to let me know if you have any great additions to the Motivation Vault.  It’s definitely still a work in progress (I’ve only added a handful of items to it).

Thanks!