Income Blogging Guide: Do You REALLY Know How to Blog?

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The best way to cause an anxiety attack for some bloggers is to mention yet another internet marketing course.

And why?

It’s not because we are unwilling to learn, right?

It’s because we have no idea if this course will be a panacea from our business troubles, or we’ll have to buy yet another one to “fill in the blanks“.

You can buy a “set up a blog” course, but it doesn’t teach you “how to build your list”. You then buy another course about “building your list”.

But neither of these 2 courses covers “how to create your first product“.

So you buy another course.

Now you have 3 different courses by 3 different authors and none of them “link” together.

I get a lot of blogging newbies asking me to write more about how to set up a blog correctly, how to blah-blah the right way, and all the way to how to really make money online.

As you understand, this is a blog though and what you are looking for is a perfect blogging course that will take you by hand and teach you step by step how to get from blogging underdog to blogging wonderdog.

(Your best dog howl goes here…)

Before I go on, here’s something you need to know about - a disclaimer of sorts.

Since I knew that the demand for this type of education was so extremely high, I approached one of the Income Blogging Guide course creators, Andrew Rondeau, and begged him to give me access to his course - for free.

How could he say no to such a pretty face? Plus, I did ask very nicely.

Why did I do that?

I wanted to see if I could REALLY learn something from his course - considering I am already a successful blogger, if I may say so myself.

First Impression of the Income Blogging Guide

Overall, I was extremely impressed with the quality of information this course provided, but you already knew I’d say that, huh?

The way I’ll structure this internet marketing course review is by letting you know what I, a seasoned blogger, learned from it.

My thinking is that if I manage to learn this much from the Income Blogging Guide, then you, possibly a newbie or even someone who started a blog or two in the past, but never got anywhere with it, will DEFINITELY learn everything you need to know about successful blogging and then some.

In short,

With this course you end up with a blog making you an income

One thing that I found so incredibly useful (for lack of better word) was how the Income Blogging Guide was arranged.

It gives you one little baby step at a time (admit it, even the most seasoned pros still need to learn to eat an elephant one bite at a time), and then gives you time to take action.

TAKE ACTION and the real results will follow.

Take one lesson at a time and DO it.

Income Blogging Guide: Lessons 1 through 6

Tips for keeps:

1. Choose the right niche.

This is where so many bloggers go wrong.

The worst offenders don’t pick a niche at all - they just don’t know it.

For instance, one of the first things I do when doing blog audits is asking the blog owner what niche they are in.

You’d be surprised to know that many of them are clueless. They might say they are in “internet marketing” niche.

But so is everyone else and their uncles!

When you choose “internet marketing” as a niche, there are a million and one things you could write about, but the problem is you won’t be providing specific enough information, advice, or products for the majority of your visitors, since your niche is too vast.

Andrew and Joel definitely taught me a thing or two about how to narrow down MY niche and stay within it to bring in laser-targeted potential customers and subscribers.

2. Choose the right keywords.

This is one of the toughest things you’ll have to do for your business besides choosing the right niche.

Did you know that:

-90% of keyword phrases get no traffic;
-90% of keyword phrases have poor to no profit potential;
-90% of keyword phrases are too competitive for you to try?

Finding that 10% is crucial and the Income Blogging Guide will help you with that.

3. Permalink structure

This is the lesson that will show you how to correctly set up your permalink structure - from the beginning.

I am absolutely amazed at how many seasoned “‘ve been around the block once or twice” bloggers still don’t get this right.

Although you CAN change your permalink structure of an existing blog (I’ve done it in the past), it will be just as much of a pain in the neck as it sounds and you will loose some of your backlinks - the best redirection plugin won’t help you with that.

If you have no idea what permalink structure is or how to set it up correctly, just ask Andrew Rondeau - he’ll hook you up.

4. Meta Data

I am sure you hear (or will hear) all the time how important it is to set up the right title and description for you blog, and you are absolutely right about that. (That’s one of the reasons I wrote my free 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination workbook)

You’ll hear ME complaining about bloggers having no idea how to do this ALL the time.

You guessed it - set it up correctly to begin with, and you’ll make me happy and search engines will love you.

Sounds like a win-win to me.

5. Design, design, design…

How do you choose the right theme - for YOU and YOUR blog?

Paid or free?

How do you customize the theme?

What about the header?

I actually learned quite a bit by reading Lesson 4 - although I am not looking to redesign my blog right now, I get a lot of questions on how to do it. And now I know….

By the way, a little product placement here - I use Thesis theme on this blog and absolutely love it!

6. Content Creation

SOOO incredibly important!

How do you write content that pleases your readers and have them beg for more, yet is loved by the search engines as well?

My honest opinion: great content writing is a form of art and it takes time to perfect it.

However…

Many great painters started by learning to paint by numbers.

And many good bloggers, including me, started by learning to write by numbers.

Andrew gives a mini copywriting course within the Income Blogging Guide that definitely made me go “wow, I wish I knew this when I first started.”

By the way, I was saying that throughout the entire course, believe you me.

7. RSS Feed

Well, sure most of us know what it is by now… I think…

However, we still really have no idea how to customize it, style it, or simply use it to its full potential.

How come it never occurred to me to add a “Subscribe to my RSS feed” button to my Contact and About Me pages? Such a simple idea, yet I needed Andrew to point it out to me.

8. Blog Structure

I am sure you are getting tired of me saying “this is really very important“, and I am getting tired of saying it, trust me.

But….

This is REALLY important!

The way you set up your blog categories, that is.

Remember how Andrew walked you through picking the right keywords for your blog in one of the previous lessons?

Well, now is the time to take some of those keywords and make them into categories to further reinforce your blog niche as far as your readers, but more importantly, search engine spiders are concerned.

You do want free search engine traffic coming your way, don’t you? Well, definitely pay attention to this.

Income Blogging Guide: Lessons 6 through 12

Here are just SOME things I’ve learned from these lessons:

1. How to install security plugins

I’ve recently heard so many horror stories from many a blogger about their blogs being hacked, messed with, or even instances of “disappearing” blogs.

We all know that we need to secure our blogs = business = livelihood.

Yet it’s the very thing we leave on the side burner, don’t we?

Thanks to Andrew, my blog is much more secure now than it ever has been. I am armored up to my ears with plugins I had no idea existed!

2. Guest Posting

Yes, I am a broken record when it comes down to guest posting.

It’s because it’s THAT important and THAT good for your traffic generation and possibly search engine rankings.

How to choose the right blog to guest post on, what to write, how to approach the owner, how to follow up - all these questions can make or break how successful you’d be with guest posting.

In the past, I manage to guest post for blogs that I got just a handful visitors from (pathetic, to say the least), so now I know better.

And so should you.

3. The best online money maker. Period.

Yes, we are all here to make some money.

Very few of us manage to do so though.

Why?

Because most are missing the crucial piece of the money-making puzzle - YOUR OWN product.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

However, think about it this way: aren’t you already writing blog posts several times per week (hopefully)?

Well, creating your own product is not much different; it just takes a little more effort and time and results in a much better payoff.

This is where the rubber meets the road and you DEFINITELY want to get this right.

Andrew will walk you through setting up a perfectly effective sales funnel (not like the ones you read about in some cattle-call online marketing “systems”) that will actually and finally start bringing you income.

Don’t even have a freebie to give away? Have a freebie, but now what?

Questions asked, questions answered - that’s how the Income Blogging Guide works.

My favorite part about these money-making tips was on how to turn your existing content into ebooks that sell.

I definitely need to start doing that…

4. Ahh… List building

Something that’s near and dear to me, since it’s soooo hard to find any reliable and actionable knowledge on the topic.

Of course, Andrew had to cover that one from A to Z and cover it he did.

Everything from which autoresponder is right for you to how to organize your lists, set up follow-up messages, opt-in forms, how to leverage social media for your list building… Did I mention everything?

And, of course, onto the more important stuff: how to build relationship with your list and monetize it.

• What to write to your email subscribers?
• How to compose the best subject lines?
• How to make emails sound personal?
• Great tip on where to find ideas for subject lines.
• How often to email your list?

I’ve learned a lot from this section. But the best part for me was to go over Andrew’s hands-on email sequence analysis.

The Income Blogging Guide contains an example of email sequence and autoresponder messages that you can not only use, but analyze them and learn what makes them winners - and write your own in the future.

5. Traffic, traffic, traffic.

When it comes down to one of the most essential contributors to your blog success, TRAFFIC, you need to learn to do things right.

We don’t want ANY traffic.

We want TARGETED traffic that will bring income.

In order to get that kind of traffic, you need to monitor:

1. The number of visitors (actual traffic).
2. The number of backlinks.
3. Your search engine ranking for your primary keyword.
4. Your income.

Of course, you’ll learn all this, plus, VERY IMPORTANTLY, how to build links using various methods (I definitely learned a thing or two here).

Marketing Takeaway

I am out of breath.

Here are only 12 lessons out of 26 (actually, 33 with bonus lessons) and my to-do list is already mile-high. After lesson 12, it only gets more advanced and gets into even better stuff… like making money. I like that part…

But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? If you are not ready to put some tears, sweat and, yes, money into your internet marketing education, what kind of business will you be able to build? And, more importantly, how long will it take you?

By the way, some skepticism is natural, but if you missed my post on Friday If You Think Education Is Expensive, Try Ignorance, I highly recommend you read it.

To sum up:

Who is the course best for?

Beginner to intermediate bloggers.

Is it worth the price?

No question about it.

Actually, the price is more than fair, especially considering the amount of info covered; if it were my course, I would’ve gone higher - honestly.

Any bonuses?

Not that you would know to ask the question, but the answer is yes.

The best bonus, in my opinion, is the fact that the course creators, Andrew Rondeau and Joel Williams (sorry, Joel - I completely dropped your name out of my review - too much typing, ya know), are so incredibly accessible and ready to help.

They almost beg you (well, not really, but you get the point ) to ask questions, clarifications, etc.

And I did. Almost on a daily basis. Just to test Andrew and to see if I can get on his nerves. Failed at that, but did get all the answers and then some.

Who took the course?

Bloggers like Kristi Hines of Kikolani.com and Gail Gardner of Growmap.com, just to name some.

They thought it was outstanding, and so did I.

If you know that you and your business need the kind of knowledge this course provides, GET IT. You need a roadmap and the Income Blogging Guide will provide it to you.

And just in case you missed all the links above, here’s one more - click on it now and go check it out for yourself.

Plus, I like the splash of color at the end of the post…

Happy blogging (the right way)!

Truth or dare? Could you honestly benefit from a course like this?

Comment to show me that you’re alive!

This post brought to you by Ana Hoffman

Ana is the founder of Traffic Generation Cafe and wants you to know that her 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination free SEO report = SEO Made Simple. Don't forget to pick up your own copy today - just click on the link above!

Ana has written 253 great posts for Traffic Generation Cafe.