Amassing a lot of people to write for you is a GENIUS way to make money and allow you to relax a little bit!

I’m thinking of doing the same thing, but I don’t think I have your skill to continue to ask folks to write for free The guest posts I have on my site were unsolicited. It’s hard for me to refuse, b/c my site has a certain style, and new styles just seem weird. That said, I’ve given it a shot.

BTW, how on earth did you get so many Twitter followers? Is the idea to follow that many to get that many? If so, there is NO WAY I could keep track. Donno how you do it.
Financial Samurai´s last blog ..How To Get Your Super Motivated Boyfriend to Marry You

Adsense is a lot harder than most people realise – you need a lot of traffic and you need to write in a specific way. If you are building an audience you are better off with highly relevant affiliate offers – Im not sure a blogging ebook fits with someone looking for lifestyle design (whatever that might be).

There are quicker ways to make money online than developing social blogs if that is what you really want to do – which is not to say give up this site – just diversify
Lis Sowerbutts´s last blog ..Passive Income Online: Best Posts of 2009

Good luck with everything. Trust me, concentrate on creating quality content that helps people’s lives. Try a post like ’10 ways you can design your lifestyle’, or something like that. Write it really well and include some incredibly useful information, and you’ll see how fast word spreads and traffic comes.

Rock on!
Everett
Everett Bogue’s last blog ..The Simple Reasons For Being Minimalist

In regard to the broken counter. You must have come onto the blog just as I was trying to install and set it up. I’m not very technical, so it took me a while to set it correctly. It’s working now. Sorry about that.

Through the whiny post I got some brilliant advice. In this case the ends justified the means. The post itself will be pushed down into the archives over time.

I will get onto writing a clear definition for what lifestyle design is. I agree, it may be unclear to those who are unfamiliar with lifestyle design.

I could add a featured posts category window slider on top.

I’ve struggled to find decent lifestyle design products. I may have to go back to using Amazon ads.

I think many successful bloggers do share their personal experiences, which give the blog a human side. People like to see weaknesses and how someone overcomes them such as Man vs. Debt. However, I agree, it’s really important that their needs to be decent advice for readers too which allows them to get value from this blog.

What traffic from Problogger are you talking about? I haven’t written any guest posts for him or haven’t gotten any mention on his blog that I’m aware of.

Anyway, I will look at improving this blog and adding more value to the readers. However, I’ve now come to the realization that this blog will not be a major income earner anytime soon. I’m going to concentrate on building a real business. This blog will stay here because I enjoy sharing what I know about lifestyle design and personal development with people. After much advice, I’ve removed the expectation of making money from this blog. It’s less pressure and more enjoyable now.

Your post on the crossroads was popular, but not for the right reasons –it was popular because a lot of people have this problem, and so they associate with it, but that won’t lead to lasting subscribers who consider your blog worth reading. You probably got a huge boost in traffic from Problogger, which is awesome. I want to make sure that you keep that going, so you can stay in the game and keep writing what you’re passionate about.

After reading deeper into your posts I can see that you’re a very interesting person who has some things to say, but it’s all getting a little buried which is why you’re having trouble getting regular subscribers, so I have a few suggestions.

I haven’t been blogging on my site nearly as long as you (only a little over a month,) but from what you described of you traffic, I’ve seen many times the traffic your blog has over the last six months and I have a lot more subscribers, my traffic is building rapidly and every day on my blog is around 10% better than the last.

When I first jumped into your blog, this is what I saw.
1, A post whining about not having as much success as you’d like, and not making enough money.
2, A broken counter saying that you hadn’t had a coke since tomorrow.
3, A photo of you next to words asking me if I needed lifestyle design?
I don’t know what lifestyle design is. I’m sure lifestyle design people are into it, and I imagine that my blog fits under that category, but it’s very non-specific. You need to explain to the reader, immediately, what lifestyle design is and why they need it. Also maybe mention what kind of lifestyle you’ve designed. Be specific.

1, Stop randomly adding people on Twitter. By doing this you’re artificially inflating your following ratio with people who don’t care about you. Every Twitter reader that you obtain should be from someone reading a story on your blog that really added value to their lives, not because you added them on Twitter. I’m only here because I thought maybe I could help you, you want that to be the other way around to build a base of fans. You’re here to help your readers, right?

2, Put your best material up front. You have great material, but it’s buried under posts that don’t necessarily add any value to your reader’s lives. Consider added a popular posts category, or a best of category in a prominent location on your blog so people know what you’re all about without having to dig.

3, I still have no idea what lifestyle design is, but your affiliate content doesn’t seem to match the subject. If your blog was about blogging then free books about blogging make sense, but you’re a lifestyle blog, try featuring affiliate content that’s about changing lives.

4, Every post you write from here on out needs to create incredible value for the reader. You can mention yourself, of course, because this is your blog and you’re writing it, but the only way you’re going to build a successful blog is by putting the reader first. Create valuable content that helps people live their lives better, then it’s only natural that you’ll start to get subscribers who care and will support your goal to make this blog into a professional blog.

I hope that helps, and I hope it didn’t come off as too harsh. This is just the reality that I’m seeing, and I hope my observations can help you achieve the results you desire from your blogging.

Thanks so much for listening,
-Everett
Everett Bogue’s last blog ..The Simple Reasons For Being Mininalist

You actually don’t need something to sell. I also have written an e-Book myself and offer it for free to sign up to my newsletter.

Throughout the ebook I refer back to previous blog posts and I focus on helping the user develop their blog. This allows people to learn something while returning to my page for more info.

You can certainly sell your adspace though!

I busted my butt trying to make my real estate investing blog a success for about 7 months and had just a few subscribers to show for it. Then I created an ebook, got JV partners to promote it, and with its launch grew my email list to 5500 in a month.

I wish all I had to do was write posts to make money online, but a blog is really just a way to provide value / get attention / build relationships with existing subscribers you get from some other traffic source. You can get SEO traffic to your blog, but only from a concentrated article/video marketing effort, etc.

My advice is to create a product as soon as you possibly can. Then, learn and implement as many traffic-generation sources as you can (PPC, SEO, tons of articles, videos, podcasts, affiliates, etc) to an opt-in page, after which they are offered your $27-47 product (ebook, video training series, etc), which pays for your traffic.

If you at least break even from the sales of your product as people opt-in (your goal) you can ramp up your marketing as much as possible and grow your readers by the thousands. Then, keep sending them back to your blog to stay in touch.

I think most of the stuff bloggers learn to get traffic (guest posts, blog comments, stumbleupon, etc) is a huge time drain. Learn as much as you can about online list-building and make you blog just part of that big picture.

Alan Brymer

Cheers!

I now have even greater respect for you as a blogger and a friend, for your boldness and courage to share your experience.
It’s a struggle everyone goes through but many of us wouldn’t take the step to ask for help or voice-out our pains.

We are here to help Gordie…
I believe you are in a good niche and your are a damn good writer and I still look up to you as one of the best.

Don’t feel discouraged by how saturated your niche may be or the rewards.
Rewards will come later, but instead, draw strength from the people you are bringing value to in your writings – trust me, it keeps you going.
I always feel encouraged by my readers comments and feedbacks – its all the motivation I need.

In terms of market saturation, I truly believe you can add a splash of your own personality – you have a story and a product in you – unleash it.
But before you do, to make maximum impact with your product you may wish to address the following:
What is unique about my blog?
What is my hook?
Identify them, reflect it in your product and watch the rewards come in.

Financial rewards from blogging requires time and hardwork…
Blogging alone without a product is EVEN harder.

In fact, I believe you have a great product out there.
Twitter12 is a fantastic community platform.

Keep your head up friend – You are never alone.
Johnluffa’s last blog ..eBook Survey Results

I do love the areas of personal development and lifestyle design. It’s just that I think I became too focused on earning money through my blog, when I should still be focusing on giving my readers more and more value.

Cheers, Brian.

People like that and you do a good job, so congratulate yourself on all (now) 64 comments!!
Erica Mueller’s last blog ..Weekly Five 鈥?Posts from Around the Blogsphere