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By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Lets Talk Traffic ............................................................................... 5
The Purpose Of This Guide ................................................................................. 6
New Readers Vs Repeat Readers ....................................................................... 6
The Conversion Process ..................................................................................... 7
You Are Going To Create Traffic Assets ........................................................... 8
Action Step: Measure Your Progress ...................................................................... 8
Chapter Two: Content Marketing ............................................................................ 9
Core Concept 1: Pillar Content (How You Create Value) ........................................ 9
How To Create A Pillar Article ............................................................................10
Core Concept 2: Nothing Matters More Than Your Headline ................................ 16
How To Write Award Winning Blog Headlines ....................................................17
Psychological Triggers For Better Headlines ......................................................20
Core Concept 3: Case Studies, Stories And Metaphors ....................................... 23
Action Step: Use The 3 Core Concepts In Your Content ....................................25
You Must Identify And Leverage Your Core Strength ........................................... 25
Chapter Three: Search Engine Optimization ....................................................... 29
How Google Changed The Search Engine Game ..............................................30
What Bloggers Need To Know About SEO Today ..............................................31
What Is The Long Tail And Why Is It So Vital To Bloggers ................................... 35
Chapter Four: How To Set Up Your Internal Blog Structure .............................. 38
Step 1: Get Your Site Listed In Google ...............................................................38
Step 2: Optimize Your Page Title For Every Blog Post You Publish ...................40
Step 3: Set Up Your Permalinks .........................................................................42
STOP: Take Action Catch-Up Checklist ................................................................ 44
Chapter Five: How To Market Your Blog .............................................................. 45
100 Blog Marketing Ideas You Can Apply Today.................................................. 47
Techniques That Leverage Your Writing Or Skill ................................................47
Research, News And Trends ..............................................................................53
By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
1. You cant publish the content in this book unless I grant permission.
2. Im not responsible for anything that happens to you as a result of
following the advice in this book.
I dont mind if you quote small sections, a paragraph or two, within your own writing,
and appreciate a link back as credit if you feel appropriate.
Here is the slightly more complicated way of saying the same thing.
Copyright Notice
Any unauthorized reproduction or transmission of any aspect of this book is
prohibited. You may not resale, repackage or give away any part of this book by any
means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the author, Yaro Starak.
This is NOT a free book and should not be freely distributed. You can only purchase
this book from the websites www.entrepreneurs-journey.com or www.ejinsider.com.
If you purchased or downloaded this book elsewhere please contact me immediately.
Legal Notice
This book is not intended as legal, financial or investment advice. The purchaser of
this book assumes all responsibility for their outcomes as a result of following the
advice and materials in this book. Yaro Starak and the Blog Mastermind Partnership
assume no responsibility or liability for the actions of any reader of this book.
By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
Without that initial platform of 1,000 readers, I would not have a business. Now its
your turn. Its time to build your platform
By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
Enroll in the next round of Blog Mastermind, my premier blog training program. Over
2,000 members have already participated since I began teaching it 2007, with many
graduates going on to make thousands of dollars from their blogs (and even a couple
of million dollar blogs!).
If you are a teacher, speaker, author, expert, consultant, or you want to build a blog
as an authority platform to sell your products and services, this is for you.
Find out when the next coaching round begins here
By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
Do This Now: If you have not done so already, go install Google Analytics on your
blog so you can begin tracking your progress from day one.
By Yaro Starak
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By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
What Is A Pillar?
A pillar is blog content, usually an article, which does some very important things:
It will bring in a rush of new readers and backlinks (other sites linking to your
blog).
It will continue to bring in more readers over time as you and other people
refer to it, even though it may be buried in the archives of your blog.
Eventually it will bring in traffic from search engines (this is largely because
other web pages have linked to it).
You can list it in a separate area (like a top articles or resources page) with
all your other pillars so your best content can easily be accessed and
appreciated.
Its not time sensitive, so in twelve months time it will still be relevant and
popular.
If you blog about dogs, write how to choose an appropriate dog name.
If you blog about how to write a first book, produce a how-to guide on
approaching publishers.
If you blog about food, write recipe guides on how to prepare popular dishes.
If you blog about your life, write how-to guides on self-development from the
life lessons you have learned (e.g. How you got a job, how you dealt with
breaking up with your boyfriend, etc).
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It should be reasonably obvious which how-to topics are popular and relevant to your
audience and which you feel capable of explaining well. Remember to tell stories
from your life or other peoples lives as case studies to make your how-to articles
more compelling and credible.
2. The Definition Article
There are certain key concepts that need explaining to anyone new to an industry. If
a concept is important or complicated, produce a pillar article that defines the
concept, clearly explaining what it means and how it can be implemented.
It may seem simple and obvious to you, but remember you are an expert in your
field, so explain it to the newbies in simple terms. If you can tell a story as an
example, then your article will be even more interesting and useful for the reader.
Here are some example concepts (topics) from the world of entrepreneurship: MVP
(minimum viable product), Pivot (to change strategic focus), Growth Hacking
(growing a business), explaining the different levels of investment (Angels, VCs,
Series A, etc) and Kaizen (incremental improvement).
A glossary style definition page makes a good pillar article. If there are a handful
of key concepts in your industry, write an article that lists the concepts and provides
a one-paragraph definition for each. A resource page like this is a good reference
and often referred (linked) back to by other bloggers and websites.
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Type the content into several blog posts and interlink them together. You
can also highlight them as a stand-alone series in your archives. As one
example, I did this with my Business Timeline history series, a collection of
articles that reviews my life story as an entrepreneur.
Create a PDF that your readers can download. The benefit of this method
is that the file can be shared easily (forwarded through email for example) and
you may benefit from viral marketing effects, especially if you produce a top
quality report.
Write the content as a series of email newsletters (an e-course) that you
also publish on your blog. This way you solve two problems create an
email sequence for your newsletter subscribers, and create pillar content for
your blog.
One of my top ways to use this technique is to come up with fairly lengthy solution to
a big problem my audience has that I have some experience with.
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You dont have to go as far as I did with this technique. Keep it simple to begin with
and just plan an article series for your blog. This might become your email newsletter
course, or a free report. Start with normal blog posts and see what you end up
writing.
The important thing with this concept is to create a complete all-in-one solution to a
common problem. Big guides genuinely help people attract a lot of traffic.
5. The Top List Article
You have no doubt seen many of this type of article all over the internet. The usual
titles are Top 7 Ways To or 10 Tips To Improve or Top 25 Celebrity etc.
These top list articles work well for a couple of reasons
1. Lists are easily digested by human beings. Its been tested and proven that
articles in the 300 to 700 word range with lots of clear dot-point bulleted lists
and a compelling headline are good traffic pullers. In this case its all about
ease of consumption for people with short attention spans i.e. most web
surfers.
2. Lists provide directly actionable lessons that people love to share.
Humans have a drive to be seen as the source of valuable information that
helps or entertains other people. This is why list articles are often heavily
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7. Embedded Multimedia
If you take every previous format listed above and mix in some embedded
multimedia, you increase your chances of it turning into a pillar article.
Different people prefer to consume content in different ways. Some like to scan and
read words, or listen to audio, watch a video or live stage presentation, or participate
in a group exercise.
You can focus on one medium and still do well, but understand that some people just
wont pay attention to your work.
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If you want to have maximum impact, use video, audio, text, graphics, spreadsheets,
slides and live streaming content like webinars, and include these in your written
articles.
Capacity is the main challenge here as its difficult to create quality work in one
format let alone duplicate it across multiple mediums. My advice is to have one main
format and then when possible, recreate or enhance your work in one other format.
In todays world of social distribution on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
and YouTube, hitting people on multiple platforms with multimedia gives you a better
chance of reaching a critical mass of people and creating a pillar outcome.
A good example from my blog is an article I wrote How To Set Up A Stand Up
Desk And Why It Could Save Your Life
This post features graphics I cut from an infographic someone else made, and a
special video I created on the same topic for YouTube. The article was widely shared
across social networks and became a pillar, ranking well for stand up desk related
search terms.
Dont forget you can also embed other peoples work if they allow sharing. YouTube
videos are a good example you can embed almost all of them in your blog posts.
Of course its better if a video is your work, rather than someone elses.
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As you will learn in the upcoming chapter about search engine optimization, the title
bar is the most important element when it comes to determining what search words
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your article will rank for in search engines. It also influences whether people will click
through to read your article at all.
How your article is presented everywhere else online, including the headline if
you share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS readers and other social
media sites.
When it comes to your email newsletter, what subject line you use is the
most important element, which is just like a mini-headline.
To be a good content marketer, you must learn how to be a good headline writer.
To develop this skill you need practice. Nothing helps more than writing articles and
newsletters and coming up with good headlines and subject lines. If you can also pay
attention to the titles of some of the more popular articles on the web youll get some
clues.
But you can speed up your learning process by studying headline templates that are
proven winners.
Here are some of the best headline formats I use on a regular basis
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Open Loops
The above are examples of a psychological technique called opening a loop. The
question opens a loop in the readers brain, and the brain has a strong desire to
close it by learning the answer.
Here are some more examples...
All of these headlines ask a question with the promise of providing the answer in the
article.
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I really like this style of headline because it allows you to use one or two or three
preceding words before a standard how or why or what or any type of headline.
The preceding words give context and grab attention.I like to use them to make
headlines more specific, talking about a person or event, followed by the headline
that explains what the article is actually about.
Heres another example
Scam Alert: Dont Buy Any Internet Marketing Products Until You Read This
The Scam Alert part of this headline makes it so much more compelling because of
the controversy, while the rest of the headline reveals more about what exactly the
article is about (and notice again the open loop?).
You can use this headline format to give more zing to bland headlines. You can also
use it to link articles on a broad topic together into a series.
Here are some more examples from my blog archives
Ego, Passion And Expertise: How To Find Balance And Win Clients
From Video Games To Netbooks: How Chris Guthrie Made $150,000 Online
After Losing His Job
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How Not To Be Boring (And Why Your Website Will Thank You)
Notice you can begin headlines with the number, or personalize the headline using a
personal pronoun like my or pair it with the ever-effective word steps if you are
teaching something.
If you like using steps and publish a lot of tutorial style articles, you can use - A
Step-By-Step Guide To. This works well in any niche.
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What Do Microsoft, Tim Ferriss, Donald Trump and Katy Perry Have In
Common?
Theres nothing in this headline that tells you what the article is about. The
publication the headline is used on gives it context (this headline was used on my
blog), but the elements in the headline are not related in an obvious way.
That of course is a curiosity hook and a good one but the other key point here is
leveraging famous names.
Headlines that use famous names of people or places or events can be very
effective. Sometimes they are time sensitive based on when something is
newsworthy, but some celebrities or places will always be well-known.
I wouldnt recommend you force famous names into your headlines just for the sake
of it. However if there is a person mentioned inside the article, its worth asking if you
can leverage their name in the title.
The Controversy Technique
Whats so powerful about this headline?
Is Email A Bigger Productivity Killer Than Marijuana? (UK Study Says Yes)
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It works.
When I see the word Writing I know it should be Write. However, you have to be
careful to spot the right words to make active, its not a rule to apply in every
instance.
Once you get a feel for this you will automatically see how best to switch words from
passive to active, often converting them to a popular format like a How To or a
Why headline. In this case the headline works much better as
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Many beginners make the mistake of trying to appear like a large company, using
phrases like We care about good customer service and Our business is a market
leader, even when its just them.
I encourage you to keep all communication with your audience as one-on-one as
possible, even when over the internet. Be personal and direct and they will feel like
you are talking only to them, even if you are writing to thousands. This is what I am
doing right now as I write this to you.
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You can focus on your own story if you have a relevant one to tell, or someone elses
if they represent the concept better.
Whenever you tell stories you avoid generic explanations. You make things specific
rather than abstract. The more specific and real world you can be with your case
studies, the more readers will respond to your writing and follow your work.
For example, if I was writing about using online advertising to get traffic to my tomato
growing blog, I might write something like this
I spent some money on adwords to get traffic to my newsletter.
Or I could turn this into a case study with specifics that people pay much more
attention to because I present tangible results and data, like this
In one week I spent $151 on Google Adwords to buy traffic using the
following list of keywords
The result of this was 3546 visitors over the week, delivering 543
opt-ins to my newsletter, which you can see at
www.growingtomatoesinwinter.com/newsletter/
The second explanation is a lot more specific and interesting to the reader.
People want to know details, it gives them direction and clarity and makes you a
much more valuable resource to them.
What stories can you tell?
If youre blogging to promote a business, this is a perfect chance to tell stories of how
your product or service is helping people.
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Do This Now: Write an outline for your next article including how it will make
use of the three core concepts. Choose a Pillar structure, write a powerful
headline and use a story or case study.
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Written
Audio
Video
I am best with the written word. I can do well with audio in the form of podcasts, and
video as well, but they are not my core strength. Ive practiced the craft of writing the
longest, I enjoy it the most and its the area where I experience the sensation of
flow.
Which brings me to the next criteria for finding your core strength
Where do you experience Flow State?
Flow is that place you go when you are completely lost in the task you are doing.
Time melts away, work becomes effortless, even joyful, you forget where you are,
and your output is of high quality.
Flow is an important experience to look
out for because it always points you in
the direction of a core strength.
Some people enter flow while dancing,
or performing or speaking on stage.
Often adrenalin sports force you into
flow, as does anything where your
physical senses take over your
conscious mind.
I see flow as a simple idea your body
and mind focusing together on
something you enjoy.
Put simply, this is what will make the hard work youre about to do, seem a whole lot
less like work. And thats a key advantage you need over all the people who start a
goal like this but fade away quickly.
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Subject Matter
This might seem obvious, but passion for a subject almost always leads to a
core strength. Most successful blogs are born from someone having passion
about a subject and the blog is simply a manifestation of that passion.
Goal Achievement
The successful attainment of a goal, or the ongoing quest towards a goal often
leads to the development of a core strength. You may not even like what you
are doing, but having a destination, an outcome you desire strongly enough
that you focus on every day, leads to the development of a core strength.
Practice
Malcolm Gladwell explained in his book Outliers, that people become
exceptionally good at something when they put a lot of time into it. He stated
that 10,000 hours of practice leads to mastery. You may not have put that
much time into something yet, but rest assured that whatever you practice a
lot will become a core strength for you.
Natural Talent
You obviously cant control this aspect - its determined by genetic lottery - but
if you happen to be born with a unique talent that can be leveraged somehow
through your blog, its a crime if you dont use it.
It might be a gift for writing, or natural charisma when presenting on video, or
perhaps artistic talent to use in an art or music related blog. Whatever talent
you have, its a gift that you should harness wholeheartedly.
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Thats great news because as a blogger you should feel a whole lot more
comfortable producing content rather than trying to figure out things like keywords.
I am not an SEO expert and you do not need to be either. However, I do consider it
helpful if you have a basic knowledge of how search engines work.
Lets begin with a brief history lesson...
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The relevancy (to your sites subject matter) of the pages linking to you.
The PageRank authority of pages that link to you (how many links they have).
Some of those factors you can control, others you can manipulate but not directly
control.
As you can tell, things quickly become quite confusing. Thankfully, assuming you
produce quality content and implement the marketing techniques I present to you
later in this guide, most of the above elements will take care of themselves.
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Where you attract links from counts, too many links from the wrong places
can actually hurt your search rankings
What keywords other sites use to link to your blog matter, so you need to
think about what kind of target audience you are going after
Spamming sites just to build links will not make you any friends
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Google is smart. They are good at determining what links are relevant and should be
considered a vote for your site, and which were artificially generated and thus carry
no benefit.
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As I mentioned earlier, you do not have to confuse yourself with keywords to rank
well in Google. Many of the top blogs never even look at keywords, they just write
amazing content for humans.
However, I do believe there is some value of at least being aware of how many
people search for certain things and what words they use to search with. This is
where a keyword tool can come in handy
Who knew that 1,600 people per month search for high heel tennis shoes!
As you can see in the picture above, Google will also tell you the competition for a
phrase.
Bear in mind that data is competition to buy ads through their system, not
competition to rank organically in Google for that phrase. There is a relationship
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between the two (people who buy ads for a phrase will possibly also build a website
to try and get the traffic for free), but its not absolutely relevant.
If you really want to see what you are up against to compete for a phrase, go to
Google.com and type it into the search box and see what sites show up in the first
page of results.
The good thing about this process is you can experiment and see how well your blog
ranks against the competition. Just do this 1. Find a keyword phrase you want to rank for.
2. Write an article on your blog and use the keyword phrase in the title.
3. Roughly 24 hours after you publish your article go to Google and type in the
phrase and see where your article shows up.
4. Attract new links and see if your rankings improve.
You can get a lot more advanced, but to start with this is the approach I recommend
you use.
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Source: http://www.longtail.com/about.html
Chris Anderson is the father of the Long Tail concept,
which he popularised in his seminal Wired magazine
article The Long Tail. If you want the longer story with
lots of data to back up the concept, Chris has a book
too, strangely enough titled The Long Tail.
But you can for -- boys size 12 Asics red tennis shoes.
This is harder to rank for -- gluten free cooking
This is easier -- how to cook gluten free pizza using a potato base
When you reach your goal of 1,000 daily visitors it will be because
each of your 100+ articles receive 5 to 50 visitors a day, not because
two articles you wrote get 500 a day.
Its important you adopt the Long Tail concept as your mantra, because you will see
each article as a small piece of the Long Tail traffic castle you are building.
Pillar content is your foundation. In todays hyper-competitive marketplace, the best
formula for building those pillars is to create content that taps into Long Tail traffic.
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PageRank
Link Building
Keywords
The Long Tail
In the next chapter we are going to set up your blogs internal structure. This process
naturally flows from what you just learned about SEO.
The next chapter is the final set-up chapter before we move on to the meat of this
guide the techniques you apply to bring in the traffic.
It is vital that before you put in all the content marketing effort, your blog is a welloiled machine, ready to perform.
Lets get to it
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Google finds new webpages by crawling the internet using little robot computer
programs called bots. The bots job is to index all the content on the internet, and it
does this by following links.
So the simple answer is Get a link to your blog from another site.
To get the Google bots to discover your blog, you need a link from a site that Google
does already know about.
There are three steps I recommend you begin with. Here they are
a) Setup A Sitemap
A sitemap is a listing of all the pages in your blog. You then take this map
and give it to Google (the next step) and also make it available on your site so
the little bots can find every page of your blog.
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To make this process easy, install the Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin, which
includes a Sitemap Generator. There are many other plugins and sites that
can create a sitemap, but with just this one plugin you can control all the SEO
elements we care about, which keeps things simple.
The Yoast website provides instructions, so seek them out if you get stuck
installing or configuring the plugin.
b) Submit Your Blog To Google Webmaster Tools
Add your blog to Googles Webmaster Tools, which provides plenty of helpful
information about the health of your website as Google sees it.
You will need a Google account (Gmail) to use Webmaster Tools, which is
free. Once you login, you can then submit your sitemap and verify
ownership of your blog. Google provides instructions on how to do this.
c) Get A Link To Your Blog
Once a link to your site appears on another site (ideally more than just one)
your site is destined to show up in Google and the other search engines
though it may take a few days.
The next chapter contains plenty of link building ideas. However, as a starting
step you can take right now, simply add your blog site address (domain name)
to your social media profiles.
For example, make sure you put your blog address in your Twitter account,
and link out to your blog posts in tweets. Do the same with your LinkedIn
profile, your YouTube and Pinterest profiles, your Google+ account, and any
other online profiles you maintain.
These are some of the easiest ways to get links to your blog. Your first links
may not be incredibly traffic-producing, but they are all you need for inclusion
in Google and other search engines.
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Step 2: Optimize Your Page Title For Every Blog Post You Publish
The title of each article is the most important factor determining how many people
will read it. Why?
Its the headline people see on your blog and click to read the article
The keywords you use in your titles are the number one factor that influence
which search terms your individual blog pages rank for
When people link to your blog articles, they will usually use the title as the
anchor text
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Once you install an SEO Plugin like the YOAST Plugin recommended earlier, you
have the ability to adjust your blog titles easily.
As you can see in the picture above, the YOAST plugin provides an area where you
can type a new title into the SEO Title field. Note that this will not change the
title/headline of the post itself, only the title that is displayed in Google results.
You have the headline writing guide I provided in the content marketing chapter.
Use the templates to create powerful titles for every blog post you write and use the
YOAST plugin to control exactly how your titles appear.
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Dont Forget: If you want to experiment with your search results in Google
as I mentioned in the previous chapter, make sure you use the keywords
you are going after in the title of the blog post.
In the picture above from my WordPress blog, you can see where I can change the
permalink so it only contains the most important keywords for this article.
Each blogging system has a default setting for how permalinks are controlled. The
most important rule for you to remember is to include only the keywords you want
that article to rank for in the permalink.
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Add Google Analytics to your blog so you can track your traffic growth
Create a sitemap using the YOAST plugin if you are using WordPress
Claim your blog and submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools
Review how your blog creates permalinks and make sure you are happy with
the keywords you have used on pages you have created for your blog so far
Check the title you have given your blog homepage and make sure that is the
phrase you want your blog to rank for
Create a list of definition pillar articles you can write so in future you can link
back to them in other articles
Create your first incoming link by setting up your social media profiles so
your blog is discovered by Google and appears in the search results
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Find bloggers who write about similar topics to your own. Make sure you pick
individuals who appear to be interactive and responsive they communicate with
their audience and share other peoples work.
When they write an article (or create a video or audio) and you are knowledgeable
about the topic, create a blog post for your blog directly in response. Try not to just
repeat what they wrote, add something, or even argue against their point of view.
Then take your article link and send it to them. You can do so via social media, send
them an email and leave a comment on their blog post.
Here is the key part: If they respond, communicate with them and see if you can
convince them to add a link to your blog post at the end of their article as a source of
further reading on the same topic. If they decline, ask if they will share it on social
media instead they should definitely say yes to that.
You can target more than one blogger with this technique using just the one blog
post. Write a blog post in response to several other bloggers work and then email
them all following the steps above.
Make sure you mention names, include a picture of each person listed, write
something about them and link to their blog (they will receive a notice about the link if
they are tracking incoming links).
Once you finish send it to every person you featured in the list. They will be dying to
know what you wrote about them and whom you decided to put in first place (hoping
that they are number one of course).
Use email and social media to let them know about your list and make sure you ask
them to share the post via social media. You can even give them a tweet ready to
copy and paste in the email to make it easier for them.
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This is exactly the same technique as above, but instead of targeting the same top
people who always get featured in lists, pick lesser-known bloggers.
People who are always featured in lists are less likely to be impressed and therefor
share your list. If you focus on up-and-comers who have not had the same level of
exposure, they will be more grateful to you for including them in your post.
This is a good tactic because it helps surface quality bloggers other people may not
have heard of. You dont want your list to look like every other persons list.
This is also a great way to build relationships with other bloggers in your industry
who are on the same journey as you, just starting out and looking to expand their
audience. You can grow together and your top list blog post might just be the starting
point for a relationship.
#6 - Email Other Bloggers And Say Thank You For Their Content
Everyone who creates a blog LOVES it when they receive positive feedback,
especially when the feedback is specific.
Specific means you point out a certain article you just read and how you benefited
from something in it. Perhaps say how you applied what you learned from them, and
what happened as a result.
Getting the attention of another blogger is the first step in getting exposure to their
audience. The simple act of acknowledging and appreciating their work will open the
door to opportunities.
Many of the techniques I give you work best when you have people who know you
and are willing to listen to your ideas. You can begin relationships simply by saying
thank you.
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You probably already know about the idea to guest blog on other websites as a way
to get traffic. This is a technique that gets your work exposed to new audiences on
other blogs.
The basic principle is that one blogger creates some content for publication on
another blog.
Googles rep Matt Cutts (inset) has publicly stated that guest blogging is no longer a
good link building technique for SEO purposes. Thats because spammers have
taken advantage of the practice by publishing a lot of low quality guest posts.
But guest posts are still a great
way to get direct traffic through
links, build your brand and reach
new people. Just dont rely on only
guest posts as a way to boost your
search engine rankings or you
might struggle.
Always produce your best quality
work whenever you do guest
writing. You have to impress the
new audience so much that they come through and check out your blog. This also
helps the person who hosts your guest post because they get amazing content for
their blog.
I have done quite a few guest posts over the years and am always happy with the
results.
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you can work your way up to them by targeting the smaller, less known content sites.
Find the relevant authority sites for your industry and see what the submission
criteria is, or if you cant find any, email an editor and ask.
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If you can break a story perhaps by being at the source of the news or through your
unique contacts in an industry you can do very well with the news blogging formula.
The great thing about being first is that other blogs and news sites will reference you
as the source. You can very rapidly build an audience because very large and
popular sites link to you.
The challenge is consistently breaking news. I personally wouldnt be able to
sustain this technique, but if its something you feel in a position to test, definitely
give it a go, you might just create the next big news blog in your industry.
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Social Media
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LinkedIn Groups
Facebook Groups
Groups are great because they are targeted. You can join groups related to subjects
you blog about, or groups containing the type of people you focus on.
Just like with a Forum, you cant just join the forum and place spammy links to your
blog. You have to participate in the discussion, contribute advice and help people.
Demonstrate your expertise whenever you can. That in turn will result in them taking
more interest in you and discovering your blog.
Reddit is the self proclaimed front page of the internet. Its a place where
people share interesting things about all kinds of topics. Your can submit your
blog content to reddit, just make sure you put it in the right category and that
your content is interesting enough to warrant sharing.
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You can manually add your blog articles to all these services. If you also use them to
share other peoples quality content your profile will rise in significance and thus you
will have more power on these platforms.
Making social sharing links easy to access on your blog posts is a great way to
encourage distribution of your content. It also makes it easier for you to share your
own content on social media since you can just click the links after you publish a new
article.
During the early days it might be upsetting to see zeros or ones on all your counters,
but trust me, as your blog audience grows your social sharing buttons will help you to
reach new audiences.
I use the WP Socializer plugin for WordPress to add social sharing buttons to my
blog posts, however there are many more options, so look around.
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#25 Add A Click To Tweet Quote To Every Blog Post You Publish
On my current blog post checklist for every new article, I have a requirement that I
include a click to tweet link to share a good quote from the post.
There are many options for creating a click to tweet link in your blog posts. I currently
use the Click To Tweet WordPress Plugin.
Obviously this is designed to encourage your readers to tweet out your blog post.
The great thing about it is you can see how well it works because you will be notified
of the tweets in your twitter feed.
#27 - Follow Trending Hashtags And Social Tag Your Related Articles
Credit goes to social media kingpin Gary Vaynerchuck for this concept. Gary
suggests rather than just blindly broadcasting to social media, instead follow the hot
trends using #hashtags, which you can then jump on board with by tagging your own
content.
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Instagram, Facebook and Twitter all use hashtags. If you search around you will find
various tools for discovering trending tags, including Twitters own search tool.
You can then share your content blog posts, pictures, videos, podcasts whatever
is relevant and use the appropriate hashtag. Your share will then show up in the tag
stream with all those eyeballs watching it.
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While you are busy growing your own online profile it helps to have connections with
other social media influencers.
In your industry there will be leaders on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms. You
should identify who they are and monitor what they do. Become familiar with their
goals and aspirations so you can figure out how best you can help them.
It might be something like helping them find a resource, researching a topic,
connecting them with someone else, helping them to set up a new platform,
volunteering at their event, editing a book, creating graphics, filming a video
whatever it is you are good at that is relevant to the leader you are attempting to
connect with.
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followers doesnt mean that those people actually care what that person shares on
social media.
You can use these two research tools to help you find social media influencers and
mavens, or even just find other people doing similar things to you who have some
kind of presence online.
I have several colleagues who rely only on YouTube as their core source of traffic.
They post regular videos and then drive traffic from those videos back to their own
blog or newsletter optin page.
I cant teach you everything you need to know about YouTube marketing here, but I
do know the most important advice I can give you is to be consistent. Maintain an
ACTIVE channel and you will be rewarded.
For more advice on YouTube marketing I suggest you study the work of my friend
Gideon Shalwick, who specializes in video marketing.
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A parody is when you make fun of something well known. Its great because you do
not have to personally be well known and can piggyback on the notoriety of
what/whom you are parodying.
You can apply this to any industry. Pick whatever is widely known, whether its a
person, or a technique, or an event or location and then come up with an idea to
make fun of it.
Make the video and share it with a few key people. Ideally share it with the person
you are making fun of and they will share it with their followers (assuming they are
good sports and you dont insult them too much!).
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#37 - Create A Squidoo Page And Hub Page About Your Area Of
Expertise
Years ago Squidoo and Hub pages were staple tools for SEO. Nowadays since the
links from these sites are NoFollow and Google doesnt rank the pages as highly,
people rarely consider them.
That being said, it doesnt hurt to have your content featured on these communities
for the potential direct traffic it can bring in. Since they can be set up within an hour
its a technique worth trying, especially if you have the content ready to go.
My advice is to pick the biggest problem your audience has and create a page
directly focused on solving that problem. Take some of your best content, ideally
content not published on your blog (repurpose audio or video into text, or extract
content from your newsletter or free reports) and create a page on each platform.
Of course you should link back to your blog on the pages for further information.
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Keep these sites in mind when you need to find other blogs similar to yours.
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If you run a product related blog, leaving reviews of the products you cover at these
sites and then linking back to your own blog review for more information is a brilliant
way to bring in very targeted traffic.
As always, you cant just leave links back to your site all over the place and expect to
get away with it. If you write quality reviews on Amazon and end them with a curiosity
link like Check out this blog post for a video review of the product thats a pretty
compelling lure.
Amazon is almost always going to rank in the top results for product related
searches. This is a great technique to piggy-back on that search traffic. You wont get
thousands of visitors, but you will get very targeted visitors.
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The really controversial auctions like someone selling space on their forehead to
place a tattoo as an advertisement go viral. If you are the first person to break
news of these kind of auctions, you have yourself a viral blog post.
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Repurposing Content
#48 Repurpose Your Articles Into Audios, Videos And Vice Versa
One of the great challenges of modern internet marketing is the idea that you have to
place your content on every platform out there to stand a chance. Looking back over
the traffic techniques I have already presented and its clear you have a lot of
options for where to publish your work.
One of the simplest methods for extracting more value from what you already do is to
repurpose your existing content into other media formats.
If you write blog posts, they can be turned into spoken word podcasts and
video slide presentations.
If you do a podcast, it can be transcribed into text and turned into a video
presentation and a slide show.
If you do videos, the audio can be extracted for a podcast and the words
transcribed into text for an article.
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For that sort of outcome to happen you need to interview people who are rarely
interviewed. It needs to be something special for them. If they are truly excited
about the interview you did with them, they will tell everyone about it.
Interviews can be text based, where you send the questions via email. You can
record an audio to create a podcast interview, or even do a video interview. I use
Skype with Call Recorder for Mac to record all my interviews.
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These publications are dying for fresh content and since its very unlikely that people
approach them directly, you stand a very good chance of receiving an affirmative
reply when you email asking to be featured, assuming your story is a good one.
For maximum results, get yourself interviewed on blogs, podcasts and magazines
and that may just be all you need to get your first 1,000 readers to your blog.
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If you decide to do this be sure to email the event organizers and let them know your
plans. You may be given special press access and, more importantly, your blog may
gain some extra links and coverage from the official site for the event, or any other
bloggers interested in the event.
Be sure to use the right #hashtags too when you share all your pictures and stories
on social media.
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Of course you might not be able to get into a top mastermind group, but you can form
one yourself and hand-pick some other quality bloggers of a similar size in your
industry to be in it.
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You then make your infographic available to anyone to embed on their blog or
website. When they embed it, your blog is linked back as the source.
All it takes is just one very popular infographic and you will have viral exposure for
your blog.
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The software might be a simple utility related to your market, something you have
wanted to create for yourself.
This technique works great when you really understand what your audience wants
and then give it to them in a software tool. Software is not something most bloggers
go to the trouble of creating, so by offering the tool you stand out and attract
incoming links.
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Every month there are thousands of people listening to my voice. Its a great way to
increase your exposure and since you host the podcasts from your blog you build
links each time you release a podcast.
If done right, your podcasts will syndicate across the web via podcasting directories
and services. ITunes is the most popular and can account for upwards of 90% of a
podcasters audience. Its important you get your podcast show into iTunes, here are
instructions from iTunes on how to do so.
I dont have the space to cover all of podcasting in just this one section, however as
an initial goal if you aim to produce one show a week and make sure you appear in
iTunes, that is a great start.
Dont forget that podcast interviews are a great way to meet important people in your
industry too. Theres nothing like having half an hour of personal time with a person
to create a relationship.
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Rich started by releasing a hugely popular report called The Internet Business
Manifesto, followed it up with a sequel report called The Missing Chapter and a
few months later came up with what he called The Final Chapter.
All the reports were released at and discussed from his blog, Strategic Profits.
Rich reported that he generated somewhere in the vicinity of 2,000 to 3,000 links
during the launch of his first manifesto. Although he did have the advantage of
partnerships with many prominent marketers to help promote the release of his first
report, you can see the potential for building links to a blog centered on the release
of special reports.
Rich Schefren did well because his reports were designed to zero in on the problems
of a specific group of people, a group he understood very well. He had a message
that directly addressed a major sticking point for his industry and he was the first
person to highlight it and then teach how to solve it.
Quality free reports will go viral, and act as a pillar source of traffic for years to
come (I still have people come to my blog every day for my report, more than seven
years on since I released it).
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You write ten lessons as blog posts, include a nice layout, pictures and multimedia,
link them all together and then add them to your email sequence for people to work
through.
This helps build your email list, sends you traffic as people share the lessons and
gives you your first potential bible resource something that people see as a
market leading course.
Bear in mind you cant just create a mini-course and expect people to find it if you
have no existing audience. You have to go out there and tell people about it. It is
easier to ask people to check out something you have done if it is of epic value.
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know you, work with you and are more willing to respond positively if you have the
halo effect that comes from presenting live.
You can start small with this technique. Run workshops in your hometown and see if
you can get 20 people to show up. That is only a few steps away from standing up in
front of thousands on stage.
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Over the years I have used Clickbank and 1shoppingcart to run my affiliate
programs. There are many other options, including e-junkie, idevaffiliate and
Infusionsoft, which like Ontraport is a full service option including an affiliate module.
When you run an affiliate program you give tools like banners, text links, articles,
videos, audios virtually anything you want to which your affiliates can use to send
traffic to you using their unique tracking link. If they make a sale, they earn a
commission (as high as 100% in some markets yes that means they make 100% of
the ticket price because the person who sells the product profits from backend
sales).
To start with just having a quality free report and some text links your affiliates can
use to send traffic works well.
If you need help convince people to become your affiliate, read this How To Gain
Access To Top Affiliates.
Give them a sequence of articles driving traffic to a special sales page, just for
their audience
Jump on a video together and co-present some content and an offer for your
product
Do a podcast interview and make a special offer just for their audience
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You can take this technique as far as you want to, and if it works, try it again with
another partner. Some of todays biggest success stories are based on one person
going from partner to partner, doing a special promotion for each one.
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While hiring itself is a challenging job, if you can find just one person who is talented
at one thing you are not say a video editor to turn your presentations into animated
videos, or a designer to turn your articles into an amazing iTunes magazine, you can
double your output.
Ive hired people to compile my blog posts and turn them into e-guides. Ive hired
people to write email sequences for me. Ive hired people to create an app version of
my blog.
The great thing about spending your money on this sort of work is you create assets
that bring in results for a long time. Its not like advertising that stops working once
you stop paying money. You pay once to create a resource that delivers ongoing
value.
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#91 OutBrain
You may never have heard of Outbrain. Its a relatively new format of advertising that
displays relevant links at the end of articles. Some of those links are from the same
website, some are links to interesting content on other websites that people are
paying to place there.
The great thing about Outbrain is you are buying advertisements at the end of
content to drive people back to your similar content. The medium and message
match, so the engagement level is higher.
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Taken from the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger, here are
the six secrets to contagious content:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Social Currency - How your peers feel about a particular idea, topic or brand
Triggers - Tying your idea or product to common occurrences in daily life
Emotion - Evoking deep emotional reactions
Public - Increasing the visibility and recognizability of an item
Practical Value - More useful information gets share more often
Storytelling - The broader narrative that surrounds this idea, topic or brand
I recommend you view this fantastic infographic that breaks down each of these
ideas and you will have a much stronger grasp of what causes content to go viral.
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#99 - Write One Blog Post Every Day For A Month (Then Do It Again)
Many of the best blogs were built off the back of what you might call content sprints.
Several of the successful bloggers I have interviewed over the years explain how
during their first year, since they had so much content inside their head to share, they
focused on a big content goal like writing one article every day for a month.
Every traffic technique you do will bring people to your blog and its helpful if your
blog is not empty when they arrive. You also receive more search traffic the more
content you have simply because you can rank for more terms.
I dont recommend a quantity goal like this long term, but its a great place to start if
you have a lot inside you that needs to get out. Theres nothing like thinking only
about writing your blog for the first month to create something you are proud to share
with the world.
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1. I would plan my first free report and come up with ten-to-twenty chapters.
2. Those chapters would be the first articles I would fill my blog with.
3. I would set up all my social media accounts, follow 50 key leaders in my
market and begin publishing my blog posts to the social platforms. I would
begin to interact casually with the key people so they become aware of who I
am.
4. Once the blog post chapters are done I would collect them together into a
document, add pictures, a table of contents and then make the report my
incentive for joining my email list.
5. Once my report is beautiful and full of value I would contact as many other
bloggers and social media influencers as I could find in my niche and send
them a copy (if you can include them in it, even better). These are the people
I had already begun communicating with, so I would not be a stranger. If they
replied saying they like it, I would ask them to share it by giving them a page
on my blog where they can send people to download it.
6. Id plan out a blog content schedule for a month, aiming to produce three
articles per week. Those articles would target specific bloggers by replying to
their posts, making list posts about people in my industry, and conduct some
interesting research to include in my articles.
7. As my blog became more established I would begin sharing my report with
certain key podcasters and ask if they would like to interview me about it.
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Of course before I do all of this I would make sure my blog setup was done
correctly, as per the instructions outlined in this guide (plugins, sitemaps, permalinks
and titles, etc).
From there I would continue to test various techniques. If something works, I do it
again. If it doesnt, I try something else.
The goal here is to leverage my main free report as the best first impression I could
ever make and the blog as the platform I use to continue an ongoing dialogue with
my ever-growing audience.
Once the platform is built and your following is growing, what you do next is up to you
- Product sales, coaching, consulting, services, affiliate marketing, advertising all of
these options are available.
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For most people on this planet who use the internet, checking email is a daily
activity. Thats why you need to have a way to get your content into their email
inbox.
An email newsletter is by far the best traffic source to focus on in the long term
because you control it. You decide when to send a message, what the content
contains, and which formats or media to use.
Dont forget email is a direct source of blog traffic because you can use it to send
people directly to your blog posts.
Best of all, no one can take a newsletter source of traffic away from you once you
build it. Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other tools constantly change and you
have no say in how or when they do. Thats a pretty fragile foundation to build a
business on.
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There is nothing wrong with aiming to build a super-large blog with millions of visitors
per month, as long as you are prepared for the challenge. Its a lot harder, takes a lot
more work, and very likely means you will require a large team around you and
even then your chances of success are slim.
Big blogs need lots of content, which means you either work a 12-hour day yourself,
pumping out article after article, or you hire a team to do it. Either way you are going
to be very busy, lead an unbalanced life and will struggle to be profitable for a long
time.
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Even though you have all the information now, it wont be easy. Everyone knows how
to keep fit and eat healthy right? But it very often doesnt happen despite our best
intentions. There are distractions, negative thoughts and doubts that make it difficult.
To keep you on the path forward, here are the big picture concepts that guide all
successful bloggers. If you keep these in mind while you work, you will progress
further.
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Its not fair in many ways because the bigger blogs get bigger because they have
such a large base of audience to leverage for more traffic. The rich do get richer.
This is why it will never be as difficult for you as it is right at the start when it comes
to growing a popular blog. When no one reads your work, your ability to reach new
people is entirely dependent on your own hustle. If you dont go out there and tell
people you exist, no one else will.
As you build an audience they will help you, if your work is good. The larger your
audience, the more leverage you have.
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The Flywheel
Jim Collins introduced the concept of the Flywheel in his article, Good To Great
(also the title of his book), which had a huge impact on management thinking at the
time.
To apply this concept to what we are striving for, look at your blog as a large
Flywheel that begins in a stationary position. Its your job to begin it spinning, which
at first takes a momentous effort just to make it move an inch.
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Any big resources you release, like a mini-course or free report, references
back to your blog posts
And so on.
By setting up your entire blog to encourage people to spend more time on your blog,
everything grows.
If your goal is to sell a video course, then all the materials on your blog are
designed to drive people into the process you use to sell your course. This is a
different goal to making money with advertising, and thus a different focus for your
Flywheel.
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results. All of these things must tie into your flywheel which delivers tangible
success and gives you access to more resources thanks to increased cash flow.
The 100 techniques I laid out in this guide are where you draw your daily habits.
You wont know which are the right habits to apply until you test them, but after
reading this guide you should feel pretty confident about where to start.
Now that youve reached the end of this guide you know a lot about blog traffic. But
its what you do that really matters.
Yaro Starak
EJInsider.com
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Learn how to think right and Yaros key productivity techniques in the Master Your
Mindset e-Guide.
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Dont leave it to chance, follow a traffic system that works, download Yaros Blog
Traffic For Beginners eGuide.
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Blog Mastermind
How To Make $10,000 A Month,
Blogging Only 2 Hours Per Day
The course that started it all!
Learn how to start and grow a successful blog, following the exact system Yaro used
to grow his blog from a hobby site with no readers, to a thriving site generating over
$100,000 a year in income.
If you want to learn how to make money from your own blog, Blog Mastermind is the
course for you.
Enroll In Blog Mastermind Here
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