Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

That’s right you read it correctly. I’m looking to sell a few of my blogs. I’ve had some people interested in buying several of the blogs in my blog network and I figure I could definitely use the money to fund other ventures that I’m currently working on.

Just some quick notes. The following blogs all make between $40 and $100 a month, I write nothing for any of them (aka all passive income). All have great domain names, have been around for over a year, are all PR4 and all need a good home. I just don’t have time to create content for them anymore.

I’ll write more about them later but here are the ones I’m thinking of parting with.

RumorPatrol.com
FinancingWealth.com
BlogSilver.com
SprintRants.com

Comment or contact me via email evossman at gmail .com

One of the biggest things I’ve learned in building my blog network is that I should really listen to what I read. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve browsed a blog post that says “Follow these steps to sure fire win SEO,” or something like that. Even if these bloggers were just writing what they read somewhere else I should have listened.

Over the past three months I’ve begun to organize and focus my efforts of SEO and you might not be surprised but, it worked. Not only do I have time working on my side (older domains do better) but I am actually seeing results with the keywords that I’m targeting. Some of my blogs are the number 1 Google search result for those keywords. Even blogs where all I was doing was link building instead of content creation. Tops!

Then one day I happened across a manual being freely distributed over a Digital Point. This isn’t a new eBook (at least I don’t think) but it’s a very detailed look at several methods to SEO. It gives tons of information that I wish someone would have printed out back when I started building blogs online and smacked me over the head with it.

I’ve written a little blurb similar to this over at Blogging on Empty and instead of redirecting you there to read the post I’ll just give you the direct link.

SEO Made Easy PDF by Brad Callen.

If I had to make a list of things that I would suggest you do with your SEO plan it would be the following.

Then just hammer on this. The book talks about determining where the top sites in Google search results have their links to but I found this to be difficult at first. I focused on good sites with a high PR that have been around a little while and seemed to do just fine.

Give r’ a whirl.

OK, the actual design of Aloha Update wasn’t automatic, but the way it’s setup creates quite a few automatic adjustments to the blog.

Wordpress Static Front Page
First off, I’ve decided to use Wordpress’ built in static front page to create a more news like, content in your face. It was tough at first because the addition is rather new to Wordpress and there isn’t much documentation out there.

If you are trying to add a static front page with a working inner page that shows all posts you need to remember that the page you setup as the “all posts” page needs to be run off the index.php file. If you don’t do this, wordpress pagination, ie /page/2/, will not work. At least it didn’t work for me. The other page, the static front page, can be created from a template page. Check out Aloha Update and our All Posts Page.

Adding a Drop-Down Horizontal Menu to Show Categories
The next sweet thing I did was add a drop-down menu using some javascript and a css/.js method I found over a A List Apart.

The menu drops down and reveals the sites categories which are organized based on the different islands of Hawaii. The cool thing is, the drop down menu is smart. It is able to recoginze which category you are in, be a single post or a category, or a sub category, of one of the main categories. This way, you don’t have to setup separate headers and nav bars for each category.

It took me a while to get it right and I’ll surely write a little wordpress tutorial for you all soon as in my searching I found a lot of people wanting to have this happen.

Added Tabbed Interactive Boxes
Next I added some tabbed interactive boxes as you can see on the front page where I list the images as well as on the inner pages where I list top things about Aloha Update.

I found everything I needed over at BarelyFitz Designs. This was probably the easiest to implement out of everything. All you have to do is cut and paste and FTP some files over and you’re done.

UPDATE:
Automatic Picture Formating
The last thing I did which is probably the most automatic thing and took a while is utilize the “read more” tag in wordpress, along with The Excerpt Reloaded plugin.

Basically what I do is within a post I first put a thumbnail image, then I put the more tag, then the noteaser tag, then the large image, and finish it off by adding an excerpt. This allows me to control what image shows up where.

On the front page I have the latest image show up as a sized version of the large image using the php “the_content(’ ‘, ‘TRUE’)”. Next within each sub tab of that same area I show the thumbnail image as a link to the page, then the title (also a link) and finally the excerpt as I wrote it in the post.

Next, in the image category I have it show the thumbnail image, and then when you go to individual pages you will have the full image and that full image will be link to the large image.

I’ll try and do tutorials of all these because I know from searching around that there are others out there that would like this help as well.

As I said in my last article, I’d like to try my best to help others build their blog networks, and in doing so I’ve put together a little list of articles that I think might help some of you work your way towards a successful blog network.

1-5: Should you Start a Blog Network

Darren of Problogger.net wisdom writes about why you should join a blog network. Knowing why others would want to join a blog might give you more insight while recruiting bloggers.

Then Darren turns right around and tells us all why you shouldn’t join a blog network. Again, you can use this to counter anyone elses doubts about joining your network.

As if you didn’t need more to add to your doubt about starting a blog network, here’s a little begging the question are blog networks worth the money.

The recently controversial (due to their name) problogging.com network asks the question to network or not to network.

Should you start a spam blog network? Before you do, maybe you should read this great article over at plagiarismtoday.com about the birth of a spam blog network.

6-14: How-to Articles on Starting a Blog Network

Building focus in your Blog Network - I’m gonna start off with that first article I wrote, because I think it’s one of the most important things to think about when starting a blog network. In this new world of “everyone has a blog”, you need to use your time wisely to move to the top of the list. You need to focus on one niche, then build from there. Once you have income, you can create more time by paying others to write for you.

I’ve always liked this post by Mark Cuban about Blogs that just write about other blogs. There’s a lot of them out there, some of the most popular, where I get information, are of this type. Should you use this model in your network.

Why not listen to the President of B5 Media about blog networks. He may have something worth following.

10 Questions to Ask a Blog Network within this article by Jeremy Wright will give you a big advantage over the next guy or gal if you always keep this in mind while building your blog network.

Mac Slocam of the fodder network lists 5 mistakes he made in his first year in a blog network. These are always big gems when you can hear mistakes others makes.

Richard at ReadWriteWeb.com talks about sticking with niches. Which is always a good lesson.

Here’s a list of 10 things for your blog network to take it through the Web 2.0.

Here’s a top 5 list about how to make your blog network standout.

Although not a step-by-step guide, this how to create a blog network article can get you started in the right direction.

17-32: Making Money from Blogging and Blog Networks

Making money from blogs is tough, and if you want to start a blog network with many blogs, focused on different topics, that’s even tougher. Yaro Starak over at Entrepreneur’s Journey has put together a killer series on looking at blogging as a sustainable business model and what it takes to be a professional blogger. Whether you manage them or are one these articles will help.
I - Blogging as a Sustainable Business Model
II - Can you be a professional Blogger
III - Advantages Top Bloggers Have
IV - Key Resource For Sustainable Blogging
V - Are there more Business Blogging Models

Here’s a few interesting articles on the mother of all blog networks, Weblogs Inc. They’re from Blog Herald and deals with payments from weblogs inc and the other is and extension of the first and is about the state of pay rates in blog networks. Although it’s from 2005, it gives you a little more info and keeps you going on your blog network.

Performancing has an old article about payment models for blog networks and can help you out if you’re trying to figure out what to pay bloggers on your network.

Another Good article about payments for bloggers come from Blog Herald and looks into what’s the best payment model for a blog network owner. Abe Olandres looks at B5 media and Weblogs, Inc.

David Peralty of BloggingPro.com explains how payed blogging works. He lists several possible options like funding it from your own pockets, revenue sharing and using other projects as a fund source.

David also has a great article with actually blog payment numbers $$$. This is really what everyone wants to see anyway.

Jon over at the ArtofMoney.com recently posted about needing $130,000 to start his blog network. Which if you don’t want to spend all the time in the world blogging, promoting, link building, etc, etc, you may need a good chunk of change to really make an impact in the blogging world.

John Chow blogs about his blogs income for a few months which is always entertaining. He also helps you learn how to best monetize blogs with and without Google.

Here’s a good Wall Street Journal article discussing blogs and can they make sustainable money. The article features Weblogs Inc founder Jason Calacanis and JupiterMedia dude Alan Meckler. (Can you guess which one thinks they can and which one doesn’t?)

Rogers Cadenhead, of cadenhead.org, responds to a recent Toronto Star article in which they wrote a claim that only 100 of the 65 million blogs make money. Small articles, not as outlandish as you may think.

Here’s an old post about what to pay bloggers and how B5 Media caught heat during some fo there earlier rounds. Although there are enough blog networks out there and people realize you can probably make more joining a network (promoting, traffic, monetizing all takes lots of time), this article gives you more insight.

The blog-republic.com, a blog network itself, has some great articles about starting and maintaining a blog network. One, A Business model for small blog networks talks about how smaller networks might want to begin making money from their blogs.

33-41: The Bad and the Good about Blog Networks

The CEO of 9 Rules wrote recently over at his blog about Why Blog Networks Failed. It’s quite insightful and why not learn from what others fail at to help you succeed. This article also sparked quite a few other articles that I list here about blog networks failing. I included most of them cause you can learn a thing or two from each commentary on this wisdump post.

And here’s a rebuttal by VC’s. Tell us what you think about the VC money that’s now started to trickle into blog networks. Could it be that they actually do have a place in the business world.

Nate Ritter began a blog network related series about how to start a blog network that looks like it should have more in the series, (I but I couldn’t find them.) It’ll help you get those juices flowing.

The problogging dilemma, is there a dilemma? Do you blog your passion? If you’re starting a blog network you may want to start with blogging your passion because it’ll keep you going. But can you make money from starting a blog network about your passion?

How about one called why blog networks suck. Interesting points, good things to avoid? Warning though, sorry to send you to a site with a popup ad. (People still use these? that aren’t at sitepoint.com?)

A top 40 Blog Networks list to give you something to shoot for. There’s a lot of blog networks out there but making it to the top takes something special. Learn what these networks have that yours might not.

The popular SEOBook.com gave their opinion on why blog networks suck in that article. However, they did mention B5 Media as a prime example of “why we don’t need more networks” and that was before B5 raised $2 mil. None the less, once again, learn from the critics.

Although I don’t agree that “blog networks are fading,” having it pointed out once again that Weblogs Inc took 18-24 months to build some of their blogs readership can be relief when you hit road bumps.

Blog Networks in the limelight is an article that talks about money raised, networks that have failed, and networks that have succeeded. Good resource.

And there you have it. I hope these articles help you on your way to starting a blog network. I have followed a lot of the advice and need to learn more to help grow my blog network even more.

I’m thinking of undertaking a large shift in my blog network development and I’m finding the need for a Wordpress and Database Guru. I’ve thought about using a CMS like Joomla but I don’t think that it will be quite what I want and have too much extra junk that I don’t need.

So what I’m looking for is someone who knows the ins and outs of Wordpress really well, knows MySQL and also knows Java fairly well too. I know enough to get me by and I’m sure if I had about 40 more hours in the week to work on just programming I could find a way to develop what I want. But I don’t and I need to be efficient.

Therefor I’m asking my readership if they are or know anyone who is very keen at tinkering with wordpress, setting up and interacting with PHP and MySQL, and knows how to integrate all of that as well as throw in some JAVA. If you or they know how to and would like to do the design work as well that would be great!

I’m sure there’s a lot of small groups of people that run design “houses” but I just don’t know of them and would love it if any of you could point me in the right direction.

Thanks all, hope I get some good responses. I of course would offer money, possible profit sharing from the network, and maybe even some ownership of my to be formed corporation.

I recently sent out my monthly traffic report to the Blogtown Press bloggers and was able to report some great news! Ever since I launched the network with my link-baiting contest and hired bloggers I’ve been able to promote and create more incoming links, which I am happy to report has helped immensely.

Below is a quick recap over the past few months of the effects the contest, hiring writers, and focusing more on link building and site promotion has had on my network. The graph below displays only the 12 main blogs within the Blogtown Press Blog Network and doesn’t include this blog “Board Shorts and Business Suits”.

As you can see the increase, percentage wise is very large. My numbers are still relatively low compared to other Blog Networks, but the possibilities to grow are noticeable. From the Novemeber Blog Network Launch to the end of last month Blogtown Press has seen a 393% increase in pageviews and a 480% increase in uniques. (Sounds much better than 3.9 and 4.8 times more visitors don’t you think )

As for this blog, I’ve increased my unique visitors by 293% and my pageviews by 265% since November. I really feel like I can get my pageviews up with a few quick tweaks and more internal linking, but that’s another subject altogether.

I’m going to continue to push forward with the techniques I’m using right now as well as some new ones that I inevitably learn along the way.

OK, this is really nothing compared to the big boys and girls out there in the blogosphere but I had to share my excitement. I haven’t had many huge milestones in the blogging world, although I’ve made progress, so I have to take each one with a bit of joy when I hit them. 

This week was a good week as I’ve found a few new ways to promote my blog network and I’ve been able to align better where I want to take that network. I’ve also been working on this blog by focusing more of the effort on what I’m trying to accomplish. Become a true entrepreneur.

With that I’ve hit really two milestones this week. One, I’ve averaged over 200 Unique visitors a day for the past week, and two I’ve finally reached 100+ RSS subscribers. Although that subscriber number is always in flux, hitting it once is surely moving in the right direction.

One of the main reasons this site is getting more traffic (aside from the obvious stumble phenomenon) is because I’ve focused more on providing something useful for my readers, rather than solely reflecting on what I’ve done. My most recent 5 Part Series about Buying and Selling Domain Names has been picked up by several people, dugg, and has provided me with a lot of traffic. Sure I’ve let the cat out of the bag on a few things I do to make a great return, but I’ve provided something useful and that is what brings readers in and keeps them.

I’m really taking a liking and learning about SEO and site promotion and I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned as I go along so be sure to look for more helpful series.

As you know I’ve started Blogtown Press and have been looking to hire a few bloggers. I posted over on the network blog about the need and received one response from that and I also was able to talk to a friend of mine who I hired on as a blogger as well. We’re working on a one month trial basis, but so far so good.

The main reason for hiring bloggers is because I can’t blog on 12 different blogs, organize advertising for the blogs, promote the blogs, and launch other products and sites all at the same time. It’s just not possible for someone who also holds down a full-time job. So finally, I’ve been able to make enough money to tryout employing bloggers of my own. I’m making just enough money on my Internet endeavours to pay for a couple 2, 3 bloggers (yeah I’m from Wisconsin if you caught that).

Some people around me have asked, “Why hire bloggers if you’re only making enough money to pay them. Don’t you want to make money?”

I do, and that’s precisely why I’m hiring bloggers. See building blogs is a long term thing. You can get super lucky have a bunch of big name blogs think your the cats meow and you’re set. As long as you provide interesting content on an almost daily basis you won’t have any trouble. But if you’re trying to lay the foundation of a blog network, meaning multiple blogs, you need to put in a lot of time creating content, gaining readers, and moving up the search engine results pages.

By hiring bloggers, I can gain more pages, more content, more consistency, and do it faster.

I’m currently working on the payment terms which is why I say trial run. I’m not sure what how lucrative having full time bloggers on several of my blogs will be. My current plan is to increase the base pay that I pay bloggers over the next few months with the opportunity to make even more through percentage based payments. Of course, we’ll see how it goes.

The good thing about hiring bloggers now, is that I’ll always have the content they produce, so while I’m paying to see gains in the short term, there is also the possibility for long term gains by having the content always there.

And that’s why I’m hiring bloggers while Blogtown Press will make only a small amount.

The first winning coconut went out in the mail and here’s a sneak peak at the beauty. Straight from Hawaii to your doorstep, you could win it. All you gotta do is enter the contest! (PS all you have to do is write one post with a few links)

 Look at that, I’ve been blogging for almost a year and I’ve made it to my 200th post on this blog. Now overall I’m around 700 posts for all of the blogs in my network, but I think it’s and interesting milestone to hit, any century multiple on a blog is reason for announcement. Plus I thought I would update you all on my progress.

Blogging
For those of you that don’t know, I started blogging last November, November 12th to be exact with the hope of creating a blog, a site, or a network of sites that received over 500,000 visitors a month. Well, I can honestly say that I’m way, way off from that.

However, the process of trying to get there over the last year has allowed me to learn so much that if I didn’t have that goal of 500,000 visitors I probably wouldn’t have learned nearly as much. I more than likely would have become one of the millions of bloggers that try it out and then drift away after about three months. If you look through many bloggers blog rolls you’ll find these blogs, especially if a blogger hasn’t cleaned up his/her blog roll lately.

But I’ve stuck with it and I’ve actually expanded from just this one blog into a whole network of blogs called Blogtown Press Blog Network. The network launch is coming along, however I feel as though it would have been a little more successful had I practiced what I recently preached over at Blogging on Empty about building content before a launch, but I’m a “do then learn” type. I’m still working on promoting and hopefully my Blog Network Launch Contest and blog network gets picked up by a big time blog and helps spread the word. (Hint Hint)

Forum Building
I’m working on a much needed forum (I have one called the Rants Forum over at Sprint Rants). I want to wait on the launch of that forum but hope that it is not only successful but also helps a lot of people out. I’ll be looking for some “beta testers” soon so let me know if you’re interested.

I’m also busy on some super top secret stuff that I can’t mention at the moment.

Thanks to everyone who has kept me motivated and kept me going at this blogging thing. I never thought I would actually have started a blog let alone 13 of them and continued blogging for over a year.