How to become a blogger

Yaro Starak has released a free report today for his new blog mentoring program become a blogger. You may download the report from here: Roadmap to become a blogger. The report is 72 pages, therefore I wanted to highlight the most important parts for my busy readers.

The Roadmap To Become A Blogger

The report is based on this idea: If you want to be successful in blogging, you need to reach the 5 Major  Milestones listed below. The report also provides action plans for each milestone:

• Discover your passion: The report not only tells you the importance of discovering your own passion, but also provides you a list of questions you can answer to discover your own passion.
• Discover the need:You need to find the gaps, and uncovered areas to be successful. Find blogging related problems, and try to solve them. You are done!
• Test your market on’t put all your eggs into one basket, diversify your blogs. Have at least 3 different blogs, and test them regularly.
• Focus your efforts: Your main tasks are creating great unique content, building traffic, and build a good reader base. Focus on adding more value to your readers.
  
• Start making money:It is the last milestone. After you meet the first four milestones, you can start monetizing your blog.

Highlights from the Report:

• We are at the peak of the number of new blogs being created every day. 2 new blogs created every 3 seconds! 7.4 million blogs in the last 120 days! You may read State of the Blogosphere 2008 report by Technorati for more details.
• This means that there will be an army of new daily bloggers in almost every single niche. You need to stand out to make a difference.
• X-Factor is a strategic implementation of multimedia blogging to your existing blog content, and as a result, increased circulation and traffic thanks to social media distribution. A good example is GeekBrief.tv
• Using Ustream.tv can set you apart from many bloggers in the market. You can also build good relationship with your readers.
• Use Skype to hook up with people from all over the world.
• Use the group function in Facebook to find exploitable niche areas.
• Use Seesmic.com to get feedback on your blog topics.
• Record podcast interviews with experts in your niche.
• Use BlogTalk radio to get access to a worldwide audience.
• Create a professional looking online video for your blog.
• Create buzz with Twitter.
• Submit your videos to multiple sides with TubeMogul.
• Automatically charge people by the minute by just chatting on Skype (this one is really worth reading!)

All in all the report is worth reading if you can dedicate a few hours. The mentioned tasks in the free report are all 80/20 rule activities, where you should be regularly doing for your blogging success. Therefore even if you can not afford become a blogger premium membership, do above mentioned tasks regularly, and you will still benefit from the Roadmap to become a blogger.

Become A Problogger

I quit my job last July, and become a problogger. Many readers are still asking me how I managed to quit my full time marketing job after 10 years, while still paying a serious monthly mortgage debt. In this post I would like to share the key turning points in my blogging career.

• Joined Blog Mastermind: I joined Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind blog mentoring program in August 2008. It was a paid program, and I nearly paid $400 for 6 months. Now I see that it was a wise decision to enroll the program. I learned a lot from Yaro’s course. He gave me a very solid road map to blogging success.
• Applied 80/20 Rule: Thanks to Yaro again, I learned how to apply 80/20 rule for daily blogging. In a nutshell, 80/20 rule means that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs. In other words I learnt how to spend only 20 percent of my time to generate 80 percent of my income. While I was working at a full time job and blogging part-time, it was cruicial for me to master at this rule.
• Found my role in the blogosphere: As I mentioned in my old post How I Quadrupled My Blog’s Traffic In 3 Months, I found my role in the blogosphere, and defined my own principles.
• Found Blogging Buddies: I was very lucky to have so many smart and helpful bloggers with me throughout the journey. I easily learnt that it is a win-win game for both sides. You can not get something before giving.
• Mastered at Batch Processing: I swallowed the 4-Hour Workweek book by Timothy Ferris. In his book Timothy was mentioning about Batch Processing. It was very similar to 80/20 rule. He recognized that checking emails 10-15 times a day was killing most of his time. Thus he decided to batch process it, meaning dedicating an hour or so for checking your emails everyday. As a blogger I learned how to batch process things like checking emails, replying comments, checking blog stats, etc.
• Mental Preparation & Dedication: I was not so happy at my full time job. Since I realized that it was not my destiny to work in a full time job and wait for my retirement, I planned to escape 9-5 routine. It was a mental challenge after 10 years of financial security which my full time job brought me. I was well-prepared for the big challenge by Yaro.

How about you? Even if you have a full time job today, you can escape and live your dream life. Once you realize that your own fears are the main road block, things will get a lot easier. Do you want to spend only 20 percent of your week to generate 80 percent of your income, and do whatever you want for the rest of the week?

“Do you really make money with blogging?” will be the most common question you will be hearing throughout your blogging career unless you are Darren Rowse or Yaro Starak. Everytime people ask me such a question, I take a deep breath and start telling them everything I know about blogs, and making money with them. I noticed that many bloggers are also not making enough money to earn their living from blogging like I do today.

Do not expect making serious money from blogging without investing any money. You need to have a certain strategy to follow if you want to become a problogger in the end. You may start with reading Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint. You will find all ways of making money with blogging in this PDF document. After reading that, you may join Blog Mastermind blog mentoring program. You will learn everything related to blogging from A-Z, and start building your own blogging venture with Blog Mastermind.

I know it is not so easy to pay $97 a month over 6 months or $497 upfront for Blog Mastermind. Therefore I decided to offer prizes if you join the program through my Blog Mastermind affiliate link: Join Blog Mastermind and Earn Prizes from SearchForBlogging.com

WordPress has recently become blogger’s standard. You need to use WordPress perfectly well as a problogger. If you can afford you should also enroll Alex Sysoef’s Expert WordPress program. The good thing about the program is that a custom script does the full blog configuration and customization based on a few answers you provide on web page and you got a clear winner. But you really must see the video that shows you entire process to understand just how simple it is. Watch the video Expert WordPress to see how anyone can create a blog in less than 4 minutes from Start to Publish.

An email list is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can have on the Internet. Your blog and your email list are the perfect combination for a successful online business. You may use your email list to develop relationships, to deliver value added content and to communicate with your audience. Most internet marketing gurus tell that the majority of people need to be told about a product seven times before they buy it. So if you are telling your visitors about your product less than seven, no way out! You need an auto responder to remind people about your product.Aweber email autoresponder has recently become a standard for most of the Internet marketing gurus. You should use Aweber if you are going to make money through affiliate programs.

Yesterday I thought about the things I accomplished during my blog’s first year:

• 250 posts are delivered. If we assume 3 hours spent in average per post, it makes 750 hours for one year. In other words, 31 days spent only for writing posts and promoting them! What a dedication!
• I finished Blog Mastermind Blog Mentoring program by Yaro Starak
• I invented the term Bloghology.Similar to an anthology, Bloghology was a collection of bloggers, their profiles, photos, and links to their best posts. It was a PDF e-book which can be easily circulated throughout the blogosphere for personal branding and marketing of start-up bloggers. It was evolved and became a magazine when I met Vasilis Pasparas, the owner of IGM Interactive. Have you joined our contest by the way? Spread the Word Bloghology, Win an iPhone 3G!
• My blog’s Alexa hit 69,168. RSS readers are almost 300, and up!
• In average 400$ per month was generated through my blog which encouraged me to leave my full time job by the end of July 2008.
• I signed a contract with a media company in USA to let them use my RSS feeds for the magazine they are building for mobile phone users mainly in USA. I will tell you more about this as soon as I get the media kit from them.

All in all, it was a very fruitful year for me. Next year will be a lot better than this year. This new blog design will help me get more attention, thanks to Sahil Lavingia!

How do you find my new custom blog design? I am looking forward to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Blog Mastermind opens Tuesday 10 am EST USA Time. A lot of people are already registered. For those of you who has not decided to join, I have good news for you. I know it is not so easy to pay $97 a month over 6 months or $497 upfront for all the training. Therefore I decided to offer below prizes for you if you join the program through my Blog Mastermind affiliate link:

• 500 Entrecard credits (immediately after you sign up through my link!)
• The complete advertising package at SearchForBlogging.com worth $75 per month, including text link, banner ad, your blog’s review, and your interview at Peopleized.com.Valid for 6 months.
• Coaching worth $100 per month, including finding an effective domain name for your blog, help on WordPress themes, installation, and plugins. We will then evaluate your progress during weekly progress chats over Skype. I can provide this service for $100 a month even if you don’t want to sign up with Blog Mastermind.

Yaro has recently launched two more videos to show you how his blog makes money and how much money it makes. If you follow what Yaro teaches and does every single day, you will be making steady income from blogging within 6 months.
Now watch How Yaro’s Blog Makes Money – 2 Videos

If you accept my offer, please click below link and send a comment to this post so that I know you signed up through my link:

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/go.php?offer=merkal2005&pid=2

If you want to get the latest updates on my blog, please subscribe to my RSS feed, so you won’t miss any updates!

Quite often I receive congratulations messages from beginner level bloggers. It seems like an amazing achievement what I have done so far with my blog within 9 months from their point of view. Actually it was 5% luck, and 95% hardworking.

I was just another blogger from Dec 2006 till Sep 2007. I was using Blogger.com. Take a look at my blog at that time : Meeting-Continents. I used to write paid reviews from PayPerPost, Reviewme, Smorty etc. with that blog. I was making $20-30 per day with paid reviews. On the other hand I was writing about my lovely city Istanbul.

Even though I was making good money, I realized that writing paid reviews was taking so much time. I had no time left for social life. I was working for a full time job, and then at nights I was chasing for paid review opportunities to write. I started to think about smarter ways to make money online before it is too late.

I was so lucky that I somehow got an invitation from Yaro Starak for his Blog Mastermind blog mentoring program. At that time I knew little about Yaro. I started reading his blog before giving my final decision.

I found what Yaro wrote on his blog very valuable. His English was crystal clear, and his posts were very informative. I decided to write him an email to know him better.

He responded very quickly, and told me more about his program. I trusted him. I decided to sign up with Blog Mastermind in August 2007.

The lessons were coming to my email address on weekly basis. Yaro wanted his students to take some action in every week. It was not a one way communication. Yaro honestly told us that there is no easy way to make money online.

When I look back, I can clearly see that what Yaro was also trying to achieve a positive mind-shift with his program. He is indeed a very good motivator and teacher.

I finished Blog Mastermind in January 2008. The program totally changed my ideas about blogging. I learned  blogging concepts from A to Z, improved my blog writing and online marketing skills, developed very good relationships with other bloggers. In addition to them, I found my role in the Blogosphere.

As a Blog Mastermind graduate, now I know that it is not impossible to become a problogger if you follow a very well written road map. All you need is dedication, hardworking, and a mentor like Yaro to guide you.

Blog Mastermind – Season 2

Yaro Starak will be launching the new Blog Mastermind mentoring program for people who want to earn a full time income from blogging part time by mid-July 2008.

The program is less than $100 a month to become a member and you get direct access to your own blog mentor, plus all kinds of audios, videos and e-lessons to help you make money from your own blog.

You can read more about the program here: Blog Mastermind

Let me know If you decide to join. I will be more than happy to assist you when giving your final decision as a graduated member of the program.

Quite often I receive Congratulations messages from beginner level bloggers. It seems like an amazing achievement what I have done so far with my blog within 6 months from their point of view. Actually it was 5% luck, and 95% hardworking.

Yeah, I was just another blogger from Dec 2006 till Sep 2007. I was using Blogger.com. Look at my blog with the boring blogspot extension : Meeting-Continents. I used to write paid reviews from PayPerPost, Reviewme, Smorty etc with that blog. I was making $20-30 per day with paid reviews. On the other hand I was writing about my lovely city Istanbul.

Even though I was making good money, I realized that writing paid reviews was taking so much time. I had no time left for social life, because i was working for a full time job, and then at nights i was chasing for paid review opportunities to write. I started to think about smarter ways to make money online.

I was so lucky that i somehow got an invitation from Yaro Starak for his Blog Mastermind blog mentoring program. At that time i knew little about Yaro. I started reading his blog before giving the final decision.

I found what Yaro wrote on his blog very valuable and remarkable. His English was clear, and his posts was very instructive. I decided to write him an email to get familiar with him.

He responded very quickly, and told me more about his program via an email exchange. Well, i found him very honest and trusted him. I decided to sign up with Blog Mastermind in August 2007.

I finished Blog Mastermind in Jan 2008. It totally changed my point of view to blogging. I learned the blogging concepts from A to Z, improved my blog writing and online marketing skills, developed very good relationships with other bloggers. I found my role in the blogosphere.

As a Blog Mastermind graduate, now I know that it is not impossible to become a problogger if you follow a very well written road map. All you need is dedication, hardworking, and a mentor to guide you.

However, the mentoring programs in the blogosphere are not affordable by many bloggers. So what should we do to help you ?

I said we, because i talked with my partner Yagiz Nizipli on how to help a small blogger find his/her way to become a problogger. If you don’t remember Yagiz, please read this New Kid On the Search For Blogging

Finally, we agreed with Yagiz on providing problogging mentoring up to 5 bloggers per quarter. We name this coaching program as Problog Mentoring.

If you followed my blog since the beginning, you will easily remember that i did not put money on the first place since the beginning. I will provide Problog Mentoring completely for free.

The only requirement is buying the hosting service from us so that we earn $70 affiliate commission from Voda Host or $105 affiliate commission from GoDaddy per hosting package. Fair enough, isn’t it?

I use Voda Host for Search For Blogging since the beginning. Until today i am very satisfied with their service quality. For only $7,95 per month you get 600 Gb space and 6000 Gb Bandwidth. One free domain name is also included in their hosting package. So you don’t need to pay for your first registered domain name. They have 24/7 support service as well. For more details please check Voda Host

GoDaddy is the most popular hosting service provider, and i am sure you all know it very well.

We mainly target small/beginner bloggers who are willing to earn their living by blogging, yet do not know how to switch to WordPress, the most popular problogging platform in the blogosphere.

Here is what you will get in return for buying just an annual hosting package:

Problog Mentoring – Package 1

• Mentoring on deciding the right domain name for your targeted niche
• WordPress installation, help on importing your previous posts into your WordPress blog
• Mentoring on how to use your WordPress blog effectively
• Mentoring on finding the best WordPress theme for your blog
• Installation of necessary WordPress plugins for your blog
• Weekly tailor made blogging lessons for you
• Promotion of you and your blog in Bloghology
• Free Access to private membership sections(coming soon!) of Search For Blogging Forum
• Rewiew and promotion of your blog on Search For Blogging

Problog Mentoring – Package 2

In addition to the features in Package 1, we will provide below services as Package 2 for bloggers with low budget in return for an annual hosting package:

• Additional tables in your WordPress design including useful/popular posts, recent posts. etc only for $15.
• Discussion forum installation into your blog for $15.
• Custom WordPress theme design $50.

You are still free to ask for additional tables only and pay us $15. Or you may consult us to customize your WordPress theme and pay $50. You don’t need to buy an annual hosting package if you only need the services provided in Package 2 seperately. But we suggest you to take full advantage of Problog Mentoring.

If you are interested in Problog Mentoring, please sign up using the form below:

After signing up, please introduce yourself and your blog in Search For Blogging Forum

We want to work with passionate bloggers who are willing to work hard for their problogging dream to come true. We will pick the bloggers based on their introduction message in Search For Blogging Forum

Our seats are limited to 5 bloggers for the next 3 months. So please hurry up if you are interested in Problog Mentoring. We will launch problogmentoring.com soon!