AdesBlog.com

Author info: This guest post has been written by Alan Johnson, who has exposed the 100 most popular online myths over at TheRatingBlog.com.

You can hear more than a few people saying that you can earn passive income by working from home, but is that actually possible? Are you, as an online entrepreneur, capable of generating passive income, or is it just one big myth?

Can passive income be earned online? Yes and no, it depends on what you understand by passive. Yes, if you compare being a webmaster to having a regular job, it does seem like passive since, with a job, you
are only getting paid while you work or, in other words, you are selling your time.

As a webmaster, on the other hand, you can definitely earn money 24/7, even while you’re sleeping. Think about it: let’s assume that you are running a website and promoting products related to your niche as an affiliate. Whenever you make a sale or generate a lead through your affiliate link, you are getting paid. In other words, if one of your visitors decides to buy a certain product using your affiliate link while you are sleeping, for example, you get paid. If that’s what you understand by passive income, then yes, it is definitely achievable.

On the other hand, thinking that earning 100% passive income is possible as an online entrepreneur, or, in other words, thinking that you can earn money without working is just plain foolish on your part.
A website which is currently profitable can stop generating revenue at any point, depending on how well you do your job as a webmaster.

Sure, you may currently be receiving visitors form search engines but rest assured, things will definitely change if you neglect the process of SEO. The same way, a PPC campaign can and will no longer be
profitable if you don’t tweak it whenever necessary. No matter what others say, you have to invest time and efforts in order to make money and, while just relaxing and doing nothing while profits are rolling
in does seem like quite a tempting scenario, I’m afraid that things don’t exactly stand this way.

As a conclusion, depending on what kind of meaning the term has to you, earning passive income as an online entrepreneur may or may not be a myth. Are you interested in making money 24/7, even when you are not working on a certain project? Then yes, it is definitely possible if you do your job right. On the other hand, do you think that, after you launch a certain project and it becomes profitable, you can just sit back and relax, that your job is now done? Then, my friend, I am afraid that you still have a lot to learn and you basically have two options: you can either understand just how foolish such a way of thinking is and change your attitude or you can learn your lesson the hard way.

Depending on your answer, your experience as an online entrepreneur can be a dream come true or one large disappointment. What will it be?

Best wishes,
Alan Johnson

Author info: This guest post was written by Alan Johnson, who provides a cards-on-the-table guide to building a profitable website in 10 days over at TheRatingBlog.com

The thought of being a millionaire or why not, even a billionaire sounds great doesn’t it? You hear about people who have made it all the time, you see them on TV, read about their lifestyle and would like a piece of the action. But do you really have what it takes in order to be a successful online entrepreneur?

People often make the mistake of thinking that being successful is easy. The luxury, the lifestyle and just about everything else see on TV or read about, these are the rewards. But did you ever stop and think about how they got there in the first place? Rest assured, no entrepreneur will tell you that being successful is smooth sailing, the road is bound to get bumpy every once in a while.

So you want the perks, but do you actually have what it takes in order to get there? Everything in this world has a price and there are countless sacrifices behind every success story. If you want to make
it then you have to give it 110% right away.

Do you think that you can handle it? Alright then, let’s say you do and that you start working on your first project? You will invest time, money and efforts, you will do your best and guess what: you will fail miserably. There is simply no way to avoid failure. Even if things seem to be running smoothly, something will eventually go wrong and make all of your efforts seem in vain. Do you have what it takes
in order to keep giving it 110%, or are you nothing more than a quitter, a never-was and never-will-be?

The best lessons are learned the hard way, and every entrepreneur who has been around the block for a while will agree. Wouldn’t it be just great if everything were to happen exactly as you plan it?
Unfortunately, most things which seemed great on paper don’t perform that great in the real world.

Making mistakes is an important part of the learning process and, as long as you learn from them and don’t let treat them as a sign that you should give up, you are on the right track. If you have the proper
attitude, you will look back down the road, laugh at the foolish mistakes you have made and congratulate yourself for not being a quitter.

Everyone can launch a project, publish a website or a blog, there really isn’t much to it, but only a small fraction of those people will end up finishing what they’ve just started. The vast majority of them will simply not continue once things get rough, are you about to let that happen as well?

Wanting to be successful is great, setting goals for you and your projects is also great, but your ability to take things to the next level will make or break you as an online entrepreneur. Do you have what it takes?

Best wishes,
Alan Johnson

You all have heard about the “80/20 Rule” right? Which states that, for many events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes.

Example: 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients. Or 80% of the total profits come from the efforts of 20% of your employees in the firm. Or the majority of the earth’s species are located in 17 countries, out of total 240+ countries..

While it’s a general rule, it does apply successfully to many circumstances. We can also apply it to blogging. So, for example, according to 80/20 rule, we can say that 80% of the traffic comes from the 20% regular readers (see pie chart to the left).

We can also say that 80% of your blogging income comes from 20% of your advertisers (these are regular advertisers too, keyword is “regular”).

Finally, many of you can agree on this, that 80% of the comments on your blog are done by the 20% (regular) readers.

Thus, once you have clearly grasped the 80/20 rule and its affects on your blog, you will be able to work more efficiently. Because now you can concentrate on that “20%” more. That means paying more attention to your regular readers and worrying less about those accidental visitors, even if they make up 80% of your total unique visitors (per day/month/year). Because at the end of the day, this 20% are the one who is delivering you 80% of the total traffic your blog gets.

Similarly, you can strengthen your partnership with your 20% advertisers that bring you 80% of the total income that your blog generates.

Conclusion

I think in this “time-scarce” era, this rule is a golden rule that many of us can benefit from. It can make us more efficient, and our efforts more effective. Because by identifying our “important 20%”, we won’t be wasting our energies on things that bring no result.

However, here we should note that, we should not totally ignore the other 80% - we just have to allocate our time and energy according to its importance.

Have you been applying 80/20 rule to your life? How about to your blog?

I have changed my blog’s tagline from “Helping you become better blogger. Everyday, Continuously!” to… well, to the above (see below the logo. For RSS readers who can’t see the new tagline, it’s - “Blogging Tips, Entrepreneurship, Usability, Making Money Online”). It’s a generic tagline, not so unique like the previous one, but it gives an idea of what this blog is all about, especially to the new readers.

So why the change?

• First of all, I thought blogging tips niche was too narrow for me. I found, there were so many topics (articles) were left unblogged, which I wanted to blog but somehow due to my chosen niche couldn’t blog.

  Also, lately, due to my mba (exams, papers) I was not able to fulfill my promise of blogging everyday (continuously). And that’s the last thing I want to do - to NOT fulfill my promise.

• Secondly, I thought not all my readers have blogs. So they wouldn’t benefit if I keep writing about blogging only.
• Thirdly, I am quite positive that many of you want to read about Entrepreneurship, Usability, Making Money Online, Web Marketing, SEO and more.

How important is Tagline?

It’s very important. Here are some of the benefits of properly written taglines:

Usability factor: For your blog’s reader (especially to the new readers) it gives a snapshot of your blog’s content. New readers will be able to tell what topics you discuss in your blog, without going to your “about page”.

It turns new readers into regular readers: This happens when someone stumbles on a new blog that he/she has never seen before, usually it happens through Search Engines. Personally, often times I subscribed to certain blogs’ RSS this way. I would search for something in Google, find some results, find some good blog articles, look at their logo and read the tagline…. and that tagline would be the deciding factor for me to either bookmark the blog or press the small [x] button in Firefox tab.

If the tagline is something that interests me and that I can relate to, then I would subscribe to its RSS. On the other hand, if the tagline is something that is not in my interest or if it is totally missing, I wouldn’t bother to subscribe.

So, if you want to turn first-timers into regular readers, avoid “my personal ramblings” type of tagline for your blog. (Unless of course if your blog is not a niche blog).

It sets your blog a course: Your tagline is basically your mission statement, your promise to your blog readers and your niche that you have chosen to blog. Carefully crafted tagline will become your course that you will follow through. It will be your personal guideline on what to post and what not to post (deciding factor for staying on topic).

Disadvantages of a Tagline

I do not see any disadvantage of having a tagline, but I see how wrongly set (defined) tagline can have adverse affects on the blog or blogger. Like in my case, my previous tagline was not accommodating enough. So in that sense it was constraining me from blogging (growing) more.

Every blog has to decide to have a tagline at one time. SEOmoz didn’t think it needed a tagline until this post. And Problogger.net is still deciding, since 2005. How about you? Do you have a tagline?

Yesterday I was preparing for one of my MBA final exams, Strategic Management. (Yes that’s why I slowed down with my blogging, sorry about that). One of the topics covered was ethics. It said:

If you have a clear moral compass guiding your priorities and those you set for the company, you will be a more effective leader.

This observation is repeatedly one of the first thing effective leaders mention when they answer a question about what they think is most important in explaining their success as leaders and the success of leaders they admire. ~ McGraw Hill, Formulation, Implementation, and Control of Competitive Strategy.

While reading it, I couldn’t stop but relate it to blogging. How important ethics in blogging? I personally think it’s very important, especially in professional blogging. By professional blogging I refer to bloggers who blog in certain niche, have authority in that particular field, and have large number of regular readers (followers).

Why it’s important that these (popular) blogs be ethical? Well, there are several reasons for that. One of the main reasons is that, some people look up to them - they want to follow in their footsteps, they want to be just like them, and most importantly they are being fed by them on daily basis. So it’s only natural if these bloggers affect them positively. Instead of influencing negatively, and making all the unethical things look normal - as if it was okay to do those (unethical) things.

What constitutes to “Ethical”?

But definition and perception of ethics is very subjective. Behavior that is accepted by one person (or community) as ethical might not be the case with another person (or group of people).

Brittanica dictionary describes ethics as:

the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad, right and wrong. The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles. ~Brittanica

People are inherently capable of distinguishing major and distinctive behaviors that are right and that are wrong. (Eg. Cheating, stealing, killing…etc) But when it comes to small things that are not clear, there is always an argument, and you will find people on both sides of the argument. And this is where culture, religion, personal values and principles come to play major role in their decision to determine whether it’s right or wrong.

What constitutes to “non-ethical” in blogging?

Some bloggers like JohnChow have chosen “evil” as their marketing strategy, some bloggers do sponsored reviews for gambling and online casino related sites, some bloggers do not disclose their sponsored reviews and some bloggers go as far as cheating their readers, so that he/she can make few more bucks… all of them are done for the sake of earning more!

I guess for some people, money comes first and everything else second.

I didn’t list all the things that are considered unethical in blogging. That’s for a reason. Because, I want to ask you - readers, for the rest of the list. So, in your opinion, what is unethical in blogging? List the things that you personally think unethical in blogging. (It should not be limited to blog posts alone, it can be anything that is related to blogging, blog design, monetization methods…etc)

I hope readers who read this blog through RSS will take one minute of their time to answer this question too. Thanks in advance!

Don’t you just hate those posts that have too many unnecessary and not important bullet points inside? Writing pillar articles is one thing, but overdoing it is totally opposite.

Writing pillar articles in its true sense will bring you more traffic (Diggs, Stumbles, Reddits, linkbacks), more readers (your blog will be bookmarked more, RSS count will increase) and more advertisers (you will earn more), but overdoing it will have the totally opposite effect. When you overdo it, it sends a message to your readers that you are incompetent and don’t know what you are talking. But before we proceed…

What is Pillar Article?

Pillar articles are complete articles, that start with proper introduction and end with proper conclusion. Body part of the article will contain points, arguments, or sub topics. Usually they are bulleted, numbered, or simply put under separate sub-headings.

It is this part (body) that gets abused. Some bloggers just want to make their article longer, and thus enter all sorts of bullet points, even if the points are insignificant. It’s not the length of the article that counts, it’s the substance, the ingredients of your article that is important. Therefore, do not bother if your article falls short of its intended or desired length. Your article is complete before you add those additional points.

Characteristics of a Pillar Article

Pillar articles have one ore more of the following characteristics:

• They are complete articles - have introduction, body, (recommendation), and conclusion parts.
• They are usually longer articles - more than 600 words
• They offer value to the reader - reader actually benefits from the article
• They are original - shows author’s capability and expertise
• They are time resistant - not outdated easily, stays true for a longer period
• They take long hours to write - author usually spends long hours to research, analyze, deduce and write the article
• And most importantly, they are not overdone! ;)

How do you know if you are overdoing it?

Well, when you write an article you will always list the most important points first. This usually happens very fast. You jot them down quickly, then there will be a long pause… then you think… and then you write additional points. Just consider those additional points if they are really important. If you think they are, then include it, if you doubt their importance then you should most probably discard them.

Another way to know if your pillar article is getting out of order is, when you start to consider putting your posts under titles like “60 ways to do this” or “101 ways to do that”. These kind of articles get dug (digged) a lot but I find them pretty useless most of the time.

And finally, human beings are created with built in common sense judgment. That means you know it when you are doing something wrong (come on you know it), and this applies to overdoing your pillar articles as well.

Your say…

I have purposely avoided giving sample posts from other blogs that have overdone their pillar articles. But I think you got the idea what I wanted to say, right? What’s your thoughts on this? Does the length of the article is any importance to you vs the substance?

Have a great weekend!