Selling your digital products can be hard.

You work days, weeks, or even months to get your products built.

• You put it on a sales page.
• You configure payment processing.
• You send out a broadcast email to your list announcing the sale.

And you still get crickets…

What gives?

You’re probably not giving your audience enough of an enticing offer. What exactly do I mean by this?

How to increase the sale of your products

Do you know why companies run sales?

Sure – there are the times when they actually want to get rid of the entire inventory of “last year’s model” and they do so by offering discounts. But what about digital products or evergreen products (products that stand the test-of-time). These products seem to be sold on sale quite often, no?

Generally, online entrepreneurs and marketers want to offer sales of products because that’s the price they wanted to get all along.

Think about it…

You’ve had your eye on product “X” for quite some time now. It costs $100 (just for easy numbers). For you in this scenario, $100 is a lot of money.

What if it was offered for $50. There’s a strong possibility that you would buy it wouldn’t you?

Not necessarily…

You see, if the product was offered at $50 and left at that, it would barely increase the chances that you would actually buy it.

Why is that?

Because there is no urgency.

Add urgency to make more sales

If you actually want to make more sales, you need to create urgency with your products.

What is that?

Really – it’s just a timeframe that the $50 sale is happening. Think about the holidays“Get a new Mercedes-Benz for $5,000 off MSRP now through the end of December.”

The “…through the end of December.” is the most important part here. Not the discount.

How you can apply urgency marketing (and leave it on autopilot)

Seeing as you’re an exclusive member of the premium tribeloyal newsletter, you already have access to all of the courses within tribeloyal – University. Within the “How to Build a Money-Making Blog Course” you have access to a walkthrough that shows you exactly how to create an automated urgency marketing campaign using your Thrivethemes site builder.

What this allows you to do, is it allows for a site visitor to enter your site.

• After they enter, they are greeted with a call to action.
• When they take action on that call to action (that’s a weird sentence), they are sent into a funnel where a “tripwire” takes place.
• Think of a tripwire as a series of automations that take place that causes the urgency campaign to take hold.
• Now, after the tripwire is enacted, the potential buyer is set with a binary decision (can go one of two ways). They either take you up on the sale in front of them, or they lose out on the opportunity all together.

Now this works great for both you as well as the customer.

Why?

Because you know as well as anyone what you’re working on, building, and talking about.

You’re the expert – remember?

You know that what you have can change the lives of the people looking for it. You know this will help people solve their problems. You just have to give people the incentive to take action.

Plus – you’re providing this solution for a discount.

Again – everyone wins!

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“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.” -Steven Pressfield

Blogging and content writing is a hot industry right now.

With just a brain, a keyboard, and access to the internet one can take what is in his/her imagination and share it with the world.

He or she can take their passions and share it with the world.

This amazing opportunity is a double-edged sword.

• It is a positive because everyone feels so special that they want to share their voice with the world.
• It is a negative because if you are one of the people Pressfield is talking about above, it will be one of the scariest things you’ve ever undertook.

The irony is you have been given a platform where your wildest dreams are so easily accessible but find yourself terrified to pull the trigger.

I’ve been there. I’ve been writing for my entire life. Most of that life I kept my writing to myself. I thought I wasn’t putting out “good enough” work for the world to see so I kept it to myself.

About a year ago I changed that and started publishing my work online. Since doing so I have seen my work:

Go viral.

I have built a community of writers on my site.

I have built an income as a result.

I have had my work published on other sites.

I’d like to share the lessons that I’ve learned with my writing in order to produce better content.

1. Write until your hands hurt.

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” -Stephen King

Writing is a very difficult endeavor. Writing “good” content is even more a pursuit. Well how does one get better at content writing? The simple answer is practice. Write every fucking day. There really is no excuse. Most of your writing is going to be bad. It’s like Venture Capitalism: You invest in 10 companies knowing 9 will fail. The 1 company that does succeed will pay for the losses of the other 9.

2. Seek feedback.

“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” -Bill Gates

This is a very hard step in being a writer. We think everything we put out into the world is “solid gold.” The hard truth is that it’s not. Again, so much of your content is going to be bad, So seeks feedback from your audience (or your potential audience).

How do you do that?

Well, send your work to friends and family. Also, make sure to foster comments and a discussion with your work.

3. Understand that your opinion is different than the reader’s.

“The perception of beauty is a moral test.” -Henry David Thoreau

I’ve fallen into the trap of always thinking my work is crap (sometimes it is). I’ve seen so many times throughout my writing career that I will write an article, think it’s crap and get amazing feedback. People will respond and tell me, “wow, this is fantastic. I really like your writing.”

It surprises me often. On the other side, I can feel like I’ve just written my “Magnum Opus” and get negative feedback. Once the content is out in the world, it doesn’t belong to you anymore. That’s a beautiful thing.

4. Ask and seek help.

“A leader’s job is not to do the work for others, it’s to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible.” -Simon Sinek

You cannot get to where you want to go alone. You are going to need people who have been where you are looking to go. You are going to need people that can help catalyze your progression.

We live in such a beautiful time that we can access this help through many different means (cough, cough enter Quora for instance). You can find video modules, ebooks, Youtube, conventions, online coaches etc on top of meeting people in the flesh.

5. Read.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” -Stephen King

You cannot get better at writing unless you read a bunch of material that is being put out into the world. Human beings aren’t created in a vacuum. We are social creatures. We need to spread and absorb ideas. Look at the style of other writers, look at the vocabulary of other writers, look at their sentence structure. Read articles, read non-fiction, read fiction, read poetry. Get your hands on whatever you can and expand your own language set.

6. Have the belief in yourself that you can do it.

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” — Thomas Jefferson

This is a fundamental attribute for every facet of life. If you are going into a baseball game with your team and think for just a moment that you aren’t going to win, chances are you will lose. This is true as a content writer as well. If you always think your work is crap and that you are a “bad” writer, you probably will always and forever remain a terrible writer.

There is no “shortcut” one can take in order to become a better writer overnight. It is going to take time and practice.

Think about when you were a kid in perhaps second grade. Why did you take math class?

To get better at addition and subtraction.

It took me a long time to understand how this applies to the more subjective fields of writing and art- but it’s true!

You are going to need to practice and put your words out in the world. This is the best and more efficient way to become a better blogger and content writer.

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This game we play is full of its ebbs and flows.

When you’re just starting out, you are firing off articles at the speed of light. You are tapped into the cosmic writer-sphere (if that’s not a word…I’m creating it…) and your drive cannot be stopped.

Time passes, however…

And before you know it, you’re months into this scanning the confines of your idea-box for any scrap of something that resonates.

But nothing comes to fruition…

Crickets…

But what if you haven’t considered a practice that most Top Bloggers employ when the idea well begins to run dry — a practice that is just simply advantageous regardless?

Instead of going forward, what if you went backwards?

Republish Your Old Posts

Instead of struggling to come up with brand new ideas, look at the ones you’ve already had.

Are there posts buried in your archives that new readers would find helpful?

This is a great opportunity to update and republish your posts to get them in front of a fresh audience (or remind long-term readers they still exist).

I’m going to take you through the hows and whys of republishing old posts.

But before we get too far, you might be asking yourself this question:

“Will readers complain if I republish an old post?”

No. In fact, they may well thank you. New readers probably haven’t dug into your archives and found some of your best posts. And old readers may have forgotten them.

Even readers who keep returning a favorite post over and over again will be thrilled you’ve updated it (I even had a friend of mine, Joren van Schaik, recommend that I republish an old post of mine a few weeks ago):

So what do you think I did with this advice?

You better bet your ass that I republished the post and got a better reception for its publishing than I did the first time!How To Earn Your First Dollar (And More) BloggingStep By Step Walkthrough for Smart Bloggers…medium.com

So let’s get into this advantage of republishing…

How to Decide Which Posts to Update and Republish

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you might have dozens — even hundreds — of posts in your archives.

How do you figure out which ones are worth updating and republishing?

There’s no right answer to this question.

But a good place to start is with posts that brought the most positive response when you published them the first time, especially if they’re relatively old.

They could probably do with updating (so first-time readers get the best possible impression). And chances are they’re about popular topics, so republishing them will help your existing readers.

The updates could include making sure the content us up-to-date considering certain regulatory factors (if you write about marketing for instance — has the introduction of GDPR changed the article’s content at all?).

Any Top Blogger worth her salt knows that you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. There’s no use in banking on a post that didn’t get much reception in the past transform itself into an ultra-viral post with this republish…

Republish the content that showed signs of strength when it first went live.

How Much Should You Change When Republishing a Post?

Again, no steadfast rules here.

Do as Bruce Lee did and,

“Be like water…”

Be able to take what once was and make it fit for today.

When you’re preparing a post for republication, you should:

• Read it carefully. Did you miss any typos the first time round? Are there any factual errors? Do you need to tweak any clumsy or confusing sentences?
• Update the post to fit with what’s happening today (Like stated above — particularly if you write about software, social media, or any other area that changes rapidly). For instance, if you posted about setting up a Medium page, you might need to take new screenshots and make sure your step-by-step instructions are still accurate.
• Consider adding more detail. Are any areas of your original post a bit sparse? Flesh them out. This is your chance to take your first crack at something that was good and make it great.
• Check all links. Even if a link is working, you may need to point it to a more recent resource.
• Link to some of your (recent) posts. If you wrote your post two years ago, you’ve almost certainly written something since that relates to it. Add a link at an appropriate point.
• Spend the time to make it more attractive. One of the great things about republishing is you save a lot of writing time, which means you can put extra effort into sourcing images, laying out your post, and so on.

Case Study: How to Generate Viral Blog Traffic

I first created “How to Generate Viral Blog Traffic: 11 Step guidebook to generate viral traffic, build your email list and turn any site into a passive income business” back in 2017.

Although it wasn’t called that at first. My first crack at the ebook was “Zero to One Million In Three Months” and in my second attempt I mustered up a shoddy, “Take What’s Yours.”

Both of these titles were confusing and vague. They didn’t offer a glimpse into the value that was present with the actual content.

Even though the product was selling, I knew I could republish the product with increased value and content — which I did, 2 full times.

So much of the added value came from content that I had published in the past couple of years of writing articles!

Even if you don’t have a similar series to use, you might want to think about how you could recycle old posts into new formats. For instance:

• You could record yourself reading a blog post and use it as a podcast episode.
• You could take excerpts from a long blog post and use them in your newsletter.
• You could collate dozens of your best blog posts, add some extra supporting material, and turn them into an ebook or even an ecourse.

There really is no limit to what can be created when you republish your work…

So really dig deep into the archives of what you’ve created.

Don’t be scared that people might recognize that you’ve already published that piece — if you’ve taken notes from what I outlined, the republished work will already be valuable and should contain a bit of extra value.

Consistently pushing out valuable content will help put you in front of the eyes of the people looking for your work.

Republishing will help do it quicker…

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So many people are asking themselves — how exactly do I make money online?

The answer to this question can go off into many different directions. However, all the directions stem from practicing and perfecting one specific writing skill that many people overlook:

Copywriting

There’s a reason there are so many websites, posts, classes and videos preaching the skill — because it brings in the dollars.

Think about it: you’ve been able to influence a decent sized audience and you’ve leveraged this reoccurring audience into a viable email list; but you still haven’t seen any dollar-signs as a result of this painstaking word.

It’s probably because you expect the content do to the job of the copywriting…

(And no, a greater volume of content does not compensate for a lack of strategic persuasive copy.)

• If you don’t have enough sign-ups for your email list — the answer is copy.
• If you don’t have enough sales for your ebook or course — the answer is copy.
• If you don’t have enough downloads of your weekly podcast — the answer is copy.
• If you don’t have enough clients for your business — the answer is copy.
• And if you’ve been running ads but you still aren’t making money — yeah, you still have a copy problem.

Copy is the transformation catalyst for your audience

Copy is what takes your audience from State A (they don’t know who you are, they grazed over your content and might show some viable interest) and transforms them over to State B (they enrolled into your email list, purchased your product, shared your posts and become a passionate and loyal fan).

Sometimes I get pretty fed up with the internet (and perhaps you get fed up with me) who are talking about the latest and greatest strategies involved in getting people to take action.

I want to let you in on an epiphany I’ve come to realize: all of these strategies actually work!

The rub, however is if you are to enroll and practice all of these various marketing strategies without actually understanding the foundational aspects of copy, it’s like you’re outlining the next great space expedition without first understanding how to get your rocket out of the Earth’s atmosphere…

Instead of looking to first get intergalactic — take a few moments and learn to see the broader picture.

At the most basic level, there are three key facets to all pieces of content you are going to put out:

1. Know exactly who the ideal reader is,
2. Know what promise you’re making to them, and
3. Know your piece contains all the key information required to deliver on the promise.

If you aren’t clear on these parts yet, you might want to take a step back and reevaluate your content generation…

When you understand your audience — it’s time to persuade

Once you truly get an understanding of the people who have been sharing your posts, giving you upvotes and subscribing to your list you can start to think about transforming their State from A to B.

This is about creating transparent, ethical communication that illustrates to your followers how they are going to approach, and overcome the issues you are promising to help them overcome.

This is focused, clear, and respectful communication with a persuasive intent.

In Layman’s terms — Copywriting.

Surefire way to learn introductory Copywriting

In writing this piece I came to the point where I was having difficulty finding the way to illustrate how I honed my skill with copywriting.

SPOILER ALERT: I’m not trying to persuade you into buying something of mine or enrolling into a course.

I didn’t want this to turn into some meta article that illustrated and educated you on copy in order to get you to purchase something from me.

I don’t want to do that with this article.

So in lieu of looking for help in illustrating this education, I stumbled upon an article by the writer and blogger, Mike Kim.

I think he puts it succinctly how I learned to write copy (along with basic classes and copious research). As Kim puts it,

“Here’s what you do:

Grab a notebook

Grab a pen

Find a top-notch sales letter

Copy the entire letter by hand using the notebook and pen

Repeat step #4 five times. That’s right, five. 5x. Cinco.”

I reflected this on my own education.

For almost two years now, in conjunction with creating my own content and helping over 1,200 people learn how to leverage their content writing on their blog into a massive viewership and financial income — I have also signed up for and enrolled in my fair share of education programs.

Through joining those programs, my email inbox receives and constant flow of “pitching emails.”

These emails are coming from other bloggers, content creators, and businesses who are looking to pitch me and persuade me with the excellentcopy in their titles as well as the body of their emails.

I took note on the emails that I actually paused and clicked on.

I figured — shit… I’m a smart guy — if this person was able to convince me to click, surely they are doing their job as a copywriter.

I created a “swipe folder” within my email and collected all of the well written copy I was receiving.

I use this copy as a blueprint for my future articles and emails that I send to my followers.

This — I have found — is a fundamental and basic way of improving your skills as a copywriter.

From there, there are always courses and research you can further do to hone your skills and become a Master Persuader.

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And do you remember what type of reaction you had?

Many people balked at the idea of being a blogger. They thought it was a pipe dream with no foundation to actually build a career.

Many people had no idea what the word “blog” even meant (if you still don’t know, it’s the combining of the two words “web” and “log”).

Now, what emotions arise when you meet someone who is a full-time blogger by trade?

A lot of people feel jealousy — How did this person get out of the rigmarole of the 9–5, and what have I been doing wrong?

A lot of people feel impressed — this person took a bet on themselves and found entrepreneurialism in an era of strong economic opportunity.

A lot of people feel opportunity — it seems like that laughing I did was short-sighted; what can I do now to make this life of entrepreneurialism my own reality?

Full-time blogger now equates with entrepreneur.

That last emotion is the emotion that I want to tackle in this article. What are the steps one can take today and what are the strategies associated with going from hopeless 9–5er to liberated blogger?

Let’s take a look…

The Blogging Economy From a Bird’s Eye View

According to Statista, the number of bloggers in 2014 was 27.4 million. Furthermore, the number of bloggers is expected to grow to 31.7 million (a 14% growth over 6 years).

It’s an industry that has a positive forecast for growth.

Not convinced just yet that blogging is a gold rush opportunity in the coming years? Here are a few more important statistics that might help convince you otherwise:

• Blogs have been rated as the fifth most trusted source for accurate online information.
• Marketers who have prioritized blogging (this prioritization is related to the quality of content) are 13 times more likely to experience positive ROI.
• The blogging industry grew from 14 million blogs in 2005 to roughly 152 million in 2013.
• Small businesses with blogs associated with their brand experience a 126% increase in lead generation.
• The more an individual visits a specific blog (which very well could be yours), the more likely they are to take action or purchase.

It is to be noted that most blogs are started as a hobby. This should be seen as an opportunity, however. The act of starting a blog catalyzes and leverages the opportunity to turn that hobby into a business.

According to the IRS Statistics of Income Division, owning a business is the real way of attaining wealth in your life.

Ownership of an enterprise is how you can generate accelerated wealth that helps you find the freedom you’ve always been searching for — and the means to help support your family and give back to your community.

How to Go From Hobbyist to Entrepreneur

As stated above, most blogs are started out of a hobby.

This is due to the underlying need for all human being to find a creative outlet and share it with the people around them.

Many people will take a cynical approach to what is going follow here…

Many people are going to talk about their specific situations and how the results aren’t typical and that they won’t be able to find the time and yadda yadda yadda.

And you know what?

Those people are right!

The cynicism will always exist. There will always be an unfair rolling of the dice when it comes to certain areas of your life. Someone will always be smarter than you, someone will always be better looking, someone will always be more successful.

But what if you silenced that voice for a change?

“I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which is that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

— Jim Carrey

Often, we only take a look at the immediate results of our actions. We think:

“what’s in it for me, right now?”

Thinking in the short term can be paralyzing when it comes to building something into a fulfilling and self-sustaining vocation.

I’ve written before about what can come as a result of what putting aside just a few hours a week can bring you to turn a hobby-inspired work into an entrepreneurial side-hustle.

To put it succinctly, if you were to set aside just 16 hours a week (slightly more than 2 hours a day), you can accumulate over a month’s worth of time — 34 days — of meaningful and productive work towards building your business.

The point here is you don’t have to make this paradigm shift in your life from 9–5 over to entrepreneur overnight.

In fact, it’s inadvisable to do so nowadays.

The people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get busy doing the hard work are the people who are going to be able to reap the rewards of a quickly growing industry.

How to Build a Profitable Blog: The 3 Essential Steps

The case has been built that the possibility of building a profitable and vocational blog is real. But how do we actually do that? What tangible and actionable steps are needed in order to make the idea a reality?

Step 1: Choose a blogging niche you can write about (over the long haul)

I know — many of you are going to balk at this step. You clicked this article because you want the “juicy” details of how you’re going to cash in on your share of this pot of gold.

Hold onto your britches for just a moment…

This part of the equation is necessary for a few reasons.

1. Like noted earlier, this is a marathon, not a sprint.If you think that this transformation is going to happen overnight, you probably should have stopped reading by now and gone to a different article that will sell you some more of the generic lies we see every day.
2. An audience is looking for guidance.Through your guidance, while you may not know it, you are going to be building trust. When you build trust within your audience, that’s when you’ll be able to make an enterprise out of your blog. Trust isn’t built overnight.It takes showing up over and over again for an audience member to know you’re “for real” and someone you can trust.
3. The more you write about a specific niche, the more you are going to learn. This is very important because, in a day and age where things are constantly changing, you’re going to need to be able to educate and relay those changes to an audience. For example, think about the changes that have been made in health and food in the last three years.

Having the will and discipline to write over the long haul of your blog’s life is the cornerstone to the whole project. Without it, nothing will be built because the desire to wake up every morning and share your gifts is nonexistent.

Step 2: The niche you choose to write about needs to be something that people care about

I have to offer you a dose of reality here real quick…

Okay, here’s the pill.

And now the glass of water.

Throw it down the hatch.

Swallow, and now, are you ready?

Not as many people care about your personal life as you think.

I know that comes off as callous.

And if this whole endeavor of yours is to have a creative release from the rigmarole of being a human — then, by all means, have that release.

If, however, you are still reading this because you wish to blend something that you have a legitimate interest in with the strategies involved in making it enterprising, you’re going to have to focus more on what other people are interested in, rather than what you’re interested in.

People are constantly thinking to themselves, “what’s in it for me?”

I don’t think that’s selfish of people to think. I think it’s completely reasonable.

So write about what problems people are trying to solve rather than the thoughts you’re wrestling with.

When you solve someone’s problem, you can associate a cost with it. Think about all the things you buy. Why do you buy those things? It could be anything:

• You buy a bottle of water to quench your thirst
• You buy a cell phone to connect you to the world and the entirety of human information
• You buy a t-shirt for either protection from the elements or a feeling of status

Whether it be either large or small, our purchases are in order to solve a problem.

Think about this when formulating your plan to build your enterprising blog.

Step 3: Create products to sell to your audience

People are probably going to argue with me that there are more ways to make money with a blog than just building and selling your products.

“Uh, haven’t you ever heard of affiliate marketing?”

“Dude, sponsored posts can make you a killing!”

“Advertising revenue is where the real money is at”

Sure, you can make money through the three listed mediums, but the ceiling just isn’t as high.

Remember when we noted that the best way to generate great wealth is through entrepreneurial ownership?

Well, let’s dissect the three options above and see if they match the “Ownership Stress Test.”

• Affiliate marketing: The act of taking someone else’s product or service and selling it through distribution channels. No ownership of the product.
• Sponsored post: Being paid by a company to write a review about a product or service. No ownership of the product or service.
• Advertising revenue: An exchange of payment for placing another company’s advertisements on your blog. You can lose the advertiser and the associated revenue without any warning. No ownership of the ability to retain the advertisements.

All three don’t pass the test.

On the other hand, when you create your own product or service, you are in charge of the price, the means of distribution, how many can be sold, if it’s taken off the shelves, if it’s updated, etc.

The most efficient means of creation and sale of your own proprietary products is through e-learning.E-learning is an industry that is breaking down the walls that higher education used to keep an exclusive club.

Today, anyone who is an expert on a subject can take that information and package it into an actionable sequence of learning modules that cost tens of thousands of dollars less than what it would at a higher education institution.

Market research firm Global Industry Analysts projected e-learning would reach $107 Billion in 2015 and it did, in fact, it outpaced those projections. Currently, research indicates that the industry will triple in size compared to 2015 with an expected value of $325 billion by 2025.

What other industries can proudly state tripled growth in a 10-year span? Not that many to boot.

And so all of this beg the questions:

What are you going to build?

What niche are you passionate enough to write about over the long haul?

What expertise do you hold that can help the various communities of the world solve the problems that plague them on a daily basis?

Conclusion

There has never been a better time to start your journey to become a 21st-century entrepreneur.

The barriers to entry have never been lower to start a business.

What’s important is to understand that the idea of “entrepreneur” has taken on a different meaning in the past decade or so. We used to laugh and balk at full-time bloggers. We used to think they were nearsighted and that the model wasn’t sustainable over time.

Now, when we hear about a full-time blogger, we equate him or her with an entrepreneur and with the overall idea of freedom.

It all starts with a mind shift

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

— Stephen King

Becoming a full-time blogger and entrepreneur isn’t going to happen overnight. In fact, it might take a few years…

But what other choice do you have? You can stay in your situation and let cynicism rule your life.That’s always an option.

But what if you took a chance on yourself for once? Great things could come as a result.

The 3 essential steps of building a profitable blog

1. Make sure you can write about it over the long haul: This is going to be a long journey. Change isn’t going to happen overnight. You’re going to need to be able to wake up and work towards the goal every day — even on the days you don’t feel like it. So you better choose something you have a fond interest in.
2. Write about things other people care about: Building this business isn’t about you, it’s about the audience. So like any good performer — give the people what they want! People are looking to solve their problems and you are going to be the catalyst in doing so!
3. Take ownership and sell your problem-solving devices to the audience: When you show up every day and illustrate that you can help out your audience, you build trust. When you build trust, people will start to open up their wallets to you.There has never been a better time to sell proprietary information. This is your opportunity to build the products you know you can deliver to your audience and have that audience pay for it!

The only thing really that can hold you back from discovering your true entrepreneurial potential is you.

So stop getting in your own way!

The doors are open and new ones will keep opening.

Picture the next time the meeting of a full-time blogger happens in your life. Only this time, it will be you who is the full-time blogger — and the eyes of the person sitting across from you will light up!

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I’ve also had this insatiable belief that I was made for something better.

Ever since I was a kid I was either creating and drawing comic books or writing creative short stories in my first grade class. In college, the fellas I shared my dorm floor with and I would workshop skits that we’d perform — of course I’d take more the role of “writer” than “actor.”

Until recently have I started to explore the world of blogging formulating an income through it.

I remember over a year ago I bought my first domain name- wheresthefidelity.com (I just typed in the address in my search bar… #cringe)

I had thoughts in my head and believed I needed to write about them and share them with the world.

I didn’t have any strategy or plan. I just chose to write.

I told myself I was going to write everyday no matter what. I wrote about so many different things.

• I wrote about how I thought a “good” conversation was similar to the exchange of information similar to what a computer goes through processing 1’s and 0’s.
• I even wrote a review about a Normandy Cider that I bought and drank.

Again, it was pretty much an adjunct, shotgun approach to putting my voice into the airwaves.

Originally, I thought the way I was going to make money doing this was to put out all the thoughts that was in my head into the World Wide Web and produce such unique and creative stories that advertisers would be lining up to take my bidding of putting their product on my site.

Oh boy…

While you could generate an income off advertising on your site, you are probably going to be making pennies on the dollar for a long time (if anything at all) unless you are building or have a titan of a site already that generates millions of views on a monthly basis.

But then why would you be reading this article?

You probably aren’t there yet.

You are most likely a writer or a blogger that knows her way around her own site.

• Perhaps you promote your material on various social media platforms.
• Perhaps you publish your work on information exchange/publishing sites such as Medium and Quora.
• And perhaps you have generated millions of views to your name (if not — check this out).

Good on you.

But you still haven’t seen a single dollar from all the painstaking slapping of the keyboard. Hell, you’re going to need to make money to pay for the carpal-tunnel care you’re going to need in the near future if all this typing persists.

Over the past year I have spent countless hours and hundreds of dollars on building my platform in order to spread my word, full of its insightful value, and ultimately turn an income from all the hard work.

I have finally started to do just that.

Below I have a step by step guide of how I did this. I fully believe that if you adopt the practices I have laid out, you too can find a viable financial reward for yourself.

Step 1: Purchase your domain and hosting service.

This is crucial.

I know there are a lot of “blogging gurus” out there today that say hosting your own site is a thing of the past. They are probably saying all you need is a service to provide you with a landing page and from there, the sky’s the limit.

I disagree for a few reasons…

1. The landing page provider/CRM/Email marketing service is generally more expensive than purchasing a domain and hosting service on an annual basis. Take for instance Clickfunnels- probably the top dog of landing page providers in terms of their own sales revenue and also the promises they claim to convert more leads and sales. Their entry level subscription is priced out at $97/month. You’re looking at almost $1200 annually for this service and you are just starting out. Not sustainable in my opinion. I use WordPress. I bought my domain for $20 for the year and get hosting for under $3 month (if you’re looking for hosting — check out Bluehost. This is an affiliate link you will be supporting me). This, for me, is a more cost effective and sustainable option for bloggers starting out.
2. With the sites that provide a landing/squeeze page, you aren’t in ownership of the address- the provider is. I own my domain. I pay for it and carved it out of the the internet. If I were to go with another provider, again let’s use Clickfunnels, they are in full ownership of the domain they provide you. Perhaps in the short term if you are looking to grow a list over the course of 6 months and have the proper backing to use their software in order to do so, “vaya con dios.” However, if you’re like me and you are bootstrapping and looking to build something great over the long haul, this isn’t sustainable.

When you purchase your domain (sometimes can just be your full name) you are carving out your first piece at your stake of the treasure chest of the blogging market that’s ripe for the taking.

Step 2: Blog everyday — write compelling articles and master headlines.

The truth of the matter is, no one knows about you if you don’t give them an opportunity to know about you.

You have to get your voice out into the ocean of online content writing.

The Overnight Success is just a myth. Perhaps there are a few people that can achieve insane virality in just a few articles, however they are on the fringe of the bell curve here.

What your main focus should be in blogging is to flood the airwaves with your content.

Don’t be obnoxious, that can have adverse effects, but make sure you’re writing consistently.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

It’s cliche, I know, but it’s true. It’s especially true with your blogging.

So you’re writing consistently and still no one is noticing your work- even on Medium or Quora…

What do your headlines look like? Seriously, you need to consider this. I know you’re a writer or an artist. You want to be creative and cunning with your headlines so the other creatives will recognize your brilliance.

Okay, do that. Be a poor writer for the rest of your life.

The real writer is also and entrepreneur and marketer.

What content does your audience want?

Furthermore, how are you going to convince them that your article is worthwhile?

The answer is by writing compelling headlines. People do judge a book by its cover, or judge an article by its headline in this case.

Jon Morrow, world class blogger, has great resources on his website of where to start with crafting optimal headlines:

Step 3: Build your Call to Action and Squeeze Page

You’ve been gaining a bunch of traffic and getting views.

You’ve been consistently writing and publishing valuable content for your audience.

Your popularity and influence has been growing.

What do you do now to leverage all of that influence.

The Holy Grail of blogging is your email list. You email list is the Traffic You Own (according to Russell Brunson of Clickfunnels — see, I’m done picking on Clickfunnels). When you have an email list, you are able to direct this audience towards your content (and later your products or services) when and how you want.

In order to build your email list effectively you are going to need a provider. Again, in light of bootstrapping the best provider I have found starting out is Mailchimp. They are the best because of their free plan starting out. You have the ability to grow your list for free for your first 2000 email subscribers.

This is important for you aren’t going to grow your list to 10k overnight (Morrow’s golden number for a proper list).

Mailchimp allows you to grow your list and also provide landing page templates (if you aren’t going the route of purchasing your own domain).

You can also use plugins to add to any page of your WordPress site. Linking your Mailchimp to WordPress is incredibly simple.

When you have built an email list, you are done just hoping that your audience will organically see your content. You now have the power to guide them straight to it.

Let me define the two terms above for you briefly:

• Call To Action:What message you are conveying in order to get your audience to take a certain action. This is a pull to get your audience to do something. Here, it is to get or receive your FREE giveaway (ebook, guide, quiz, survey, report etc).
• Squeeze Page: Once you get your audience to take a specific action (click the link to the promised free product) they are sent to a landing page. Here there is only two choices for the person to take: they either exchange their email for the free product or they exit the page. It’s binary. No other choice.

(You can find an example from my squeeze page here)

Once you are able to convince a reader to exchange their email with your valuable content, you have the ability to enroll them into your sphere and take on the responsibility of crafting your future communication with them.

Step 3.5: Regular communication

Regular communication is key.

Just because you have the email doesn’t mean that you have “won” the relationship with your audience.

Far from it.

You have to nurture this prize you have been given with the email. The reader you gained was interested in your story.

So take them on your ride.

• What are you working on?
• What are you thinking of?
• Where are you going?
• What are you building?

If you develop trust, they hear you…

I have discovered that a once-a-week newsletter that promotes valuable information that I have found and shares the new articles that I have written works well. I also like to start conversations with my audience — what are they interested in right now? What content would be valuable for them in the future?

Here, you are continually building trust and value for your newly obtained fan.

This brings us to the next step.

Step 4: Selling your product or service

This is where it all comes together and all the hard work you put in prior to this step is rewarded.

You are selling your product or service that is consistent to what you’ve been blogging about and helps your audience solve a problem they have been dealing with.

For me, my first product is my HOW TO GENERATE VIRAL BLOG TRAFFIC: how I went viral with over 2 million views in just a matter of a few months.

There are many problems I solve for my audience in my product:

• How to reach millions of viewers organically without spending a single dollar
• How to leverage your new found visibility into a secure credibility as a writer/blogger/influencer
• How to craft an intriguing headline every reader will want to click.
• How to structure and format ‘The Perfect Post’
• How to use language to your advantage in your writing to trigger an emotional response from the reader (which encourages them to share it with someone else).
• The 1 habit every single content writer needs to master in order to become successful.
• How to transform your mindset into creating quality work that primed for viral sharing.
• How to identify and utilize my unfair advantage in find the right “pools” and areas to post your content thus giving you maximum exposure most people don’t know about.
• How to use utilize online publications and ditch your blog in order to create a massive audience & become a thought leader.

Now again, I do all of my sales through my WordPress site. You probably can open up an ecommerce store through Clickfunnels or another provider as such.

WordPress has great plugins that allow for commerce (I use the Stripe plugin — you can also use Paypal for business).

Now It’s Your Move…

This is a chance for you to consider what you are going to sell.

There are so many different industries within the blogging sphere that are ripe with an audience looking to solve a problem.

As a real-world example, I’m currently venturing into a different niche:

I am working now with my boxing trainer on creating his blog and thus his future income stream.

To give you an idea, we are work shopping giving away a free guide that is filled with intense ab workouts that can give you six pack abs without needing to commit too much time at all during workouts. He’s a training wizard. For the first time in my life, I have a six pack. I know this is possible. This is going to be on our CTA and Squeeze page with his articles.

We are then going to build a comprehensive 30 day video series — one work out a day, 4 days a week with 3 rest days that will help his audience get into the best shape of their life.

This is going to be his product.

Again, there are so many opportunities here. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands of people in the exercise blogging arena.

One might think there isn’t any more room for us.

That’s the wrong mindset to have.

There is abundance on the internet and people are looking for answers.

You are that answer.

It will take time.

It will take sacrifice.

There will be moments you feel you aren’t making any progress. There will be moments where you feel like you want to give up. You are your own bottleneck.

Just as there are hundreds if not thousands of people that purchase a domain and start blogging, there are just as many who bow out of the game.

If you’re not one of the people who bow out — you propel your chances of winning and creating the life you always knew you could have.

Now go forth and share your ideas with the world!

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