Make Money Online With Snowboardjohn

What’s with all the people posting “Content is King” everywhere?

When I scroll through a lot of the comments I’ve gotten recently, I see this marching band of people repeating “Content is King” like some kind of droid army.

Let me ask you a question: if content is King… what IS content? Can you define it?

Content is a generalization word that really means STUFF ON A WEB PAGE. So when you’re writing “Content is King”… what you’re really saying is “Stuff is King”. Which is meaningless. It’s so general it could be anything.

So allow me to assign some values to “Stuff” so that we’ve got some kind of a map to work with when we produce content which brings traffic… or generates leads… or creates sales… or gets people talking back you on your blog to create community… or gets people to opt in… or gets people linking to you… or…

HANG ON - I JUST REALIZED THAT WE NEED TO HAVE A LIST OF OUTCOMES WE WANT TO ACHIEVE BEFORE WE CAN START CREATING CONTENT - actually, I didn’t just realize that, I just felt like shouting a little.

Anyway, let me list for you a few things “stuff on a web page” can achieve (in random order):

• Social Media bookmarks - both links and traffic.
• Getting feedback and social proof
• Creating community
• Getting real life word of mouth viral traffic - people talking about you between themselves.
• Creating a bond and trust between you and your reader.
• Getting people signed up for future contacts - through opt in forms, RSS feeds, giving you their phone number, or whatever.
• Generating one way links.
• Influencing someone enough to have them fork over some of their hard earned cash to you (or your business system).
• And much more…

The thing is though, you need to understand that each out come is not only different, it requires a different approach and a different communication toolkit.

For example: when I’m bonding with my readers, I like to write super obscure headlines. The total opposite of hype or controversy. My post The Cannibal Consumerism Polarity Dilemma is a good example of a bonding post. It’s also a good example of a peice of writing that creates a paradigm shift - which in turn increases people’s tendency to regard me as someone worth listening to, simply because of the communication skillz it takes to write paradigm shifts.

Whatever.

The point is: when I execute “Stuff on a Web Page”, I am doing it for a very tangible COMMUNICATION/OUTCOME reason - not simply because I think “Stuff on a Web Page” is the right thing to do.  I have a map in my mind of the outcome I’m shooting for - and whether I hit it or not - I’m consciously choosing tools from my toolkit to hit my target.

Notice I didn’t use the word “quality” once. I wonder why that is?

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If you’ve read through my acronyms list, you are no doubt aware of a psychological principle I touched on called “Cost Hence Commitment” (CHC).

So I want to expand on that a little more:

CHC is is one of the most insidious principles of life.

It is responsible for women staying in abusive relationships. People staying in go no where jobs. And even people throwing themselves out of windows when the stock market takes a downturn.

CHC is something we all must battle each and every day. Because it IS NOT a rational response to life - and - it effects our decision making process all the time… for the worse.

But to battle it - we first have to be aware of it. And it can take months… if not YEARS to fully be aware of how it has shaped our decision making.

But battle it we must, because being committed to something simply because we’ve spent a lot of time trying to acquire “IT” can drag us over cliffs we don’t need to be dragged off.

In poker, one of the hardest things you ever have to do is fold when the last card is dealt - and with a large amount of money in the middle of the table - give up your money to the other person because you KNOW you’re beat. It takes true discipline and willpower to not give into losing more money through curiosity, or, wanting to win so bad that you’ll lose everything because you’re already losing a lot.

But give up and move on we must.

It is very socially acceptable and common for people to use Rhetoric to excuse away their CHC problems:

“I’m an overly committed person - but that’s a good thing!”

“I have faith in the universe paying me my dues for the sacrifices I’ve made!”

“People get what’s coming to them in the end!”

The sad fact is, being commited to something doesn’t make you good at it - or even - make the pursuit worthwhile.

Unless you are consciously CHOOSING to do something, and can answer the tough questions about WHY you’re trying to achieve an outcome - you are probably running on a pain avoidance autopilot program. And lying to yourself about it.

This is not an easy thing to confront. It takes a lot of balls and a lot of self awareness. Because business skill and success happens intangibly, you must confront yourself daily about where “you are at” with your skills and your outcomes.

Of everything you think you want, you must ask yourself “WHY DO I STILL WANT THIS?” - if the answer is ever “because it cost me so much I can’t give up now”… you’re in trouble.

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Just to be completely contradictory, I’m going to follow my previous post on “Why You Should NEVER Offer Paid Reviews”… with… why I think BUYING paid reviews is a good idea.

I don’t know WTF I’m thinking at the moment. Perhaps it’s my head cold. But posting potentially inflammatory stuff just seems really fun right now. (That blowjob logo was particularly amusing to me.)

Anyway, there are some very important guidelines I would encourage you to follow if you’re going to buy a paid review:

1. Get on the phone with whoever you’re going to buy a paid review from and tell them what you want. Make a personal connection with the person, because you’re going to want that personal connection conveyed through the post. Blogs are personal things, and readers will feel the authenticity of a connected post; as opposed to a “wham bam thank you mam”.
2. When you tell the reviewer what you want, make sure you tell them that the biggest thing you want is HONESTY. Blogs are 100% PERMISSION BASED. This means readers have the power to vote “no” at any point, and disregard the paid for post, or (worse) stop reading the blog it was on.
3. Ask for the reviewer to explain what THEY see as your promotions biggest strengths/weakness’s. If you can’t trust them to make this call in their words and way, then you shouldn’t be paying them to review you in the first place.
4. Educate yourself on “no follow”. You may need to request the reviewer use the “no follow” attribute in any links they give you. Call me anal retentive, but with Google’s new “Rat on the paid link webmaster” strategy, you don’t want to make yourself vulnerable to a “bad tempered” competitors tendency to squeal on you.
5. Don’t expect or try to make sales from the review. For real. If I were to pay for a review from one the Bloggers I respect the most - Andy Beard (who is part of the 1% my previous post doesn’t apply to) - my only goal would be to get him talking about what he does and doesn’t like about my blog, and make his readers aware that I exist. Blog reviews aren’t email list promotions and it’s a mistake to think of them as such.
6. Focus on long term readership. Keep your eye on the prize: which is a large group of people who read your blog regularly. You can monetize “the heard” once you have it, but before you get it, keep your eye’s OFF OF your readers wallets, and on their SMILE or their FROWN.

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There’s no question in my mind that Blog Rush is a great service - which is going to succeed in a big way.

Having said that, those who use Blog Rush will not necessarily gain much value from it - because they don’t understand how Blog Rush fits into their Business Blogging Strategy.

So let me break down what Blog Rush does, and then, how to gain maximum benefit from it.

First of all, Blog Rush is clearly a part of a traffic generation strategy. Not to be confused with lead generation. Lead generation is what you do once you get the traffic - but you have to gain people’s attention FIRST.

To get someone’s attention with Blog Rush, the primary thing you need to do is write COMPELLING 7 WORD HEADLINES (or approximately no more than 40 characters including spaces). This guarantee’s your whole headline will be syndicated in Blog Rush’s widget without getting cutoff.

Several common mistakes I’ve seen already is people who are:

• Writing LONG headlines which get cutoff before you can understand the topic of the post.
• Crafting headlines which only make sense if you’ve read the post before you’ve read the headline.
• Not taking the time to create interesting headlines that people care about.

To write a good “I’VE GOTTA READ THAT” Blog Rush headline, you must follow these simple rules:

1. Keep it simple. Don’t use “slash” multi word variations of the same thing like “authority/expert”. This is not only confusing to read, but it also takes up valuable character space.
2. Appeal to everyone’s ADD. People are clicking on Blog Rush story links because they are goofing off and want to be distracted. So play to that and write things that sound juicy and entertaining.
3. Never forget that everyone cares about themselves. Try and make all your headlines relevant to the readers self interest. People who want to be distracted can then rationalize that they are REALLY learning something if they click on a link which is supposedly work related *wink* *wink*
4. Don’t lie in your Blog Rush headline. People will not only hit the “back” button faster then greased lightning if your story doesn’t deliver on what the headline promised, but they will be FAR LESS LIKELY to click on your future headlines.

Ok, so once you’ve gotten some traffic from Blog Rush, you want to turn that traffic into leads. That is, people who keep reading your blog and eventually buy something from you.

Sadly this is much harder than it sounds. As most people who are successful with social “stimulus” media will attest, many people who read your story are Social Media Stimulation Sluts who will be off to get their next hit before you can get the words “RSS Button” out of your mouth.

So, we must play to the readers stimulus seeking nature to keep them on our own blogs.

To do this, we need two things:

1. The “Related Posts” Plugin, and
2. Other Post “Crack” (like the drug “Crack”) stories.

If you follow the same formula I just gave you on how to write Blog Rush headlines, to write your Blog Headlines, you’ll be going in the write (hehe cheesy I know) direction. Some more places to get good headline idea’s is This Gary Halbert Newsletter.

Then, just keep going at it until you get traction.

Also, in closing here are some other mistake’s to avoid:

1. Don’t make your blog’s advertising look like The Strip on Vegas. It pisses people off and keeps them from liking you as they feel you are putting your revenue ahead of your usefulness.
2. Don’t offer paid blog reviews. Seriously I can’t understand why people do this. It makes you look like a prostituting beggar who is unable to monetize with something legitimate.
3. Don’t put the Blog Rush widget above your own site’s navigation. If you can’t understand why, you’re beyond my help.
4. Get rid of those RIDICULOUS social media links at the bottom of every post. The only people who have the power to get any of your posts ranking well in Social Media Networks don’t need the little buttons to do it. If they think you’re worthy, they’ll submit regardless. And those 2 Diggs you got could have been other actions which resulted in a MUCH BIGGER payoff. It’s a waste of blog real estate to have those buttons.

Hope you found that helpful

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These 5 headlines are the topics I just couldn’t help but click on:

1. Make $1 Million For Reading This Post? - Jack Humphrey

2. Greatest Prank Ever! - Marketing Hypster

3. How to Get Traffic and Links from Popular Blogs - DoshDosh

4. Arrested For Googlebombing - Cash Tactics

5. 35 Ways To Test Your Mobile Website - Mobile Marketing Watch

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Like a professional debater, I think all good sales people should be able to sell anything put in front of them.

And sell it convincingly.

So today, I’m going to sell you on two opposite belief sets, so you can juxtapose the pitches side by side, and see what type of tools I’ve used to manipulate perception.

Here we go:

WHY THERE’S NO LUCK PITCH

Dear Friend,

If anything has become clear in the last 3 years, it’s that you can make MILLIONS of dollars playing tournament poker.

An accountant called Moneymaker walked away with $3.25 Million in the 2003 World Championship of Poker. And since then, the opportunities for regular people like you and me have become BIGGER and BETTER (an amateur player won the 2006 world series and walked away with$12 million - more on that in a minute).

When Chris Moneymaker won that world championship bracelet (and the $3.25 million) he was virtually an unknown player. An amateur who was playing “just for fun”. Now he’s a Multi Millionaire. He quit his day job and has been a Poker Pro ever since.

Would you like to try your hand in this popular new game? - and perhaps - discover a new career, earning more money, being your own boss? If you would, keep reading because I’m going to explain to you the unusual secret these Amateur players used to beat hundreds of Poker Pro’s at their own game.

But first, I want to debunk a Myth that has followed Poker around since it was invented.

And that is: Poker is a game of LUCK. This myth has actually been perpetuated by the very people who stand to gain the most from normal people believing it… the Poker Pro’s. Poker Pro’s know that for them to keep winning, everyone they play against needs to keep thinking that it was just “bad luck” that means they keep losing their money.

The truth is, Pro’s use strategy and psychology to get an unfair advantage over everyone else. How else can you explain that the best Poker Pro’s have won 10 bracelets? Or that the SAME PEOPLE make the final table in nearly every Poker Tournament? It’s because there’s no luck, there’s only skill.

And there’s a particular skill that Chris Moneymaker discovered and used to win the 2003 World Championship of Poker…

WHY THERE’S ONLY LUCK PITCH

Dear Friend,

There’s a secret the best Poker Pro’s in the world don’t want you to know. Because if you knew it, you would stop paying them thousands of dollars for their Poker Books, their Expensive Coaching, and (worst of all for them) you would stop watching them on TV.

Did you know these hyped up pro’s now make more money from endorsements then they do playing poker?

Is it any wonder that they say things like “Poker is a game of skill, how else can you explain Phil Hellmuth winning his 11th bracelet?”

HERE’S WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU:

Phil Hellmuth plays in more poker tournaments per year than anyone else! And without him getting free entry into those tournaments on account of his fame, he would never be able to afford entering them all!

Many people don’t realize that Poker tournaments cost between $1,500 - $50,000 just to ENTER! With this kind of expense just to get a shot at winning, is it any wonder that guys like Phil Hellmuth keep winning? No one else can afford to enter those events - and - the only reason Phil can is because his bad behavior generates so much publicity, people will pay to have him in the events.

The “dirty secret” Poker Pro’s getting rich from endorsements don’t want you to know is: Poker is a game of Probability. A numbers game. A game of LUCK.

Sure the same people keep making the final tables, but no one ever reveals that those people are the one’s who aren’t PAYING TO BE IN THE TOURNAMENTS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Poker is luck. Poker is a numbers game. The secret of Pro’s (who to be honest are either: attractive women, loud obnoxious men, or the odd funny jokster) is that they don’t pay to play, and therefore, their odds of winning are FAR BETTER than anyone else’s.

And it gets even more shocking than that. I’ve actually got my hands on some recordings of these Pro’s talking when they thought no one was listening, and they expose just how much luck is really required to win a tournament…

LESSON OVER

Ok, did you read the two passages? Do you feel like you learned something?

I hope so.

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Did you know that 93% of copywriters, and graphic designers, DON’T know how to do correct advertising layouts?

(Btw, I just made that number up, I can’t remember the actual statistic, but it’s pretty much MOST professional copywriters and graphic designers).

So what I’ve done is take some before and after demonstration shots, from my favorite anonymous copywriting master (known only as Mr. Subtle - a frequent poster on the copywriters board).

Here’s what you’re going to see:

First, the terrible graphic (”Brand”) ad. It’s got almost no copy, and is virtually useless as a Marketing Creative.

As you can see, there is almost no written copy. And the copy that is there is almost impossible to read.

How stuff this terrible still gets created and used is beyond me.

Anyway, the next version you are about to see was done by Copywriter Tom Collins:

In this version you can see there is actually a HEADLINE which names the company (which is quite important), and a lot more copy.

This is all a great improvement over the first version, which is a meaningless picture no one will read.

However, it’s not perfect yet.

The headline lacks the hook of the subhead he uses (ironically), and the layout is confusing, and lacks impact.

Enter Mr. Subtle’s version (by far the best):

I think it’s pretty obvious how much more impact Mr. Subtle has created by using the picture’s, and colors he has chosen.

The most important thing he did (in his own opinion) though - was to make the sub head, the headline.

Would you like to know his secret?

Would you also like to be able to do layouts as impactful, and totally awesome as this?

If you would, then you need to get your hands on a copy of:

Ogilvy On Advertising - by David Ogilvy.

Ogilvy was an Advertising genius who developed the exact layout Mr. Subtle modeled for his remake of the DHL ad.

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Without you, the world would be a meaner, less beautiful place.

Your kind actions have added to the lives of many - including my own.

My Mother, girlfriend, sister, and countless other people (mostly women) strive each day, to make day to day life gentler for their fellow wo/man.

And I appreciate them, and you, for it.

Having said that, I am not one of those people.

I add to the world in my own way. A rougher, more calculated, less “hand holdy” kind of way.

My contributions are just as significant as yours are, but, they are not of the same type. I do not contribute hugs to the world.

I contribute knowledge, experience, skill. I stand by people who have been kicked in the teeth 5 times in a row, who are (figuratively) coughing up blood, and who are unsure that they want to go on. I kneel next to them, look them dead in the eye, and say: “Mate, I’ve been where you are, I know what you feel, but the only thing any of us can do is get back up again.”

I stand as the captain of my ship, in an ocean of ruthless business pirates, terrifying hurricanes, and uncertain promised lands.

And while I appreciate what you do, I do not write this blog for you.

I write it for the other captains.

You do not need to email me anymore or leave me comments, just feel appreciated, and quietly go to more appropriate places where you can discuss things that matter to you. Because while I acknowledge you, our ways of existing have nothing in common.

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