With a hard-hitting credit crunch beginning to take its toll on the masses, and rising fuel and food costs already causing distress, more and more people are turning to the web in order to cut costs and to make use of the valuable financial tools that exist online. We hope this list comes in handy, and let us know if you feel there are anymore that deserve a place below!
Budgeting & Money Management
There’s an always increasing number of tools and websites devoted to helping you manage your money. Each of these will be unique, but many have similar functions for budgeting and tracking expenses, and some will integrate with your bank accounts. The list includes both free and paid tools:
1. Quicken Online - Manage your personal finances and online banking accounts.
2. Mint - Free personal finance software to assist you.
3. Yodlee - The most comprehensive online banking solution on the market.
4. Expensr - A solid solution for a young adult’s simple finances.
5. Wesabe - Save Money, Spend Wisely and Reach Your Goals.
6. Walletproof - Search for money saving deals recommended by other Walletproof users.
7. SpendView - Analyze your spending in a simple, automated and efficient web based personal finance tool.
8. billQ - An easy way to keep track of your bills.
9. Buxfer - Free online personal finance software for budgeting and expense management.
10. Pear Budget - Start an easy budget for free.
11. Geezeo - Free online personal finance managment service.
12. Mvelopes - Lets you create a household or personal budget.
13. iOWEYOU - Expenses sharing calculator.
14. Billster - Helps people organise their personal and shared expenses.
15. BudgetTracker - An online finance manager.
16. Budget Pulse - An interactive, web-based budgeting utility.
17. Dimewise - Financial management you’ll actually use.
18. Spicy Digits - Managing your recurring expenses is a breeze.
Online Savings Accounts
Online savings accounts offer much higher interest rates than you can get from traditional bank savings accounts, and they can be pretty convenient too. Of course, these banks will not be available to all parts of the world. The list is separated by the US and UK.
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Most bloggers would love to get more traffic with social media, regardless of how much they’re getting now. Unfortunately, a relatively small percentage of bloggers ever see significant results. If you’re looking to get more out of social media it’s important to know what’s holding you back so that you can fix it.
1. Lack of a Network
When most bloggers start using social media they wind up submitting their own posts to Digg and maybe some other social media sites, and they get very few votes. At this point, it’s typical to wonder how others can get hundred or even thousands of votes while your submissions barely get any.
One of the keys to being noticed on social media sites is to build a network. Digg is notorious for favoring users that have a huge number of friends (although changes to the algorithm have improved this somewhat).
A strong network can help you with just about any aspect of blogging, and social media marketing is no different. There are a few specific ways that your network can help you to get some exposure through social media. First, members of your network are more likely than others to vote for your posts.
I’m a frequent user of social media, and I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my voting decisions are influenced by my relationships with other bloggers. I think it’s only human nature to want our friends to do well, so building a strong network will lead others to look for opportunities to vote for your posts.
Second, many social media sites include a feature for sharing a link with a friend. StumbleUpon’s share feature can be used directly from the toolbar, and Digg’s shout system is also used extensively by many Diggers. The more friends you have, and the better relationships you have with these friends, the more opportunities you will have to request a vote when you need it most. Also, many bloggers send requests to friends via email or IM.
Third, your network will impact the overall readership of your blog. Those who are very well-connected and active networkers tend to have large, responsive audiences. These audiences will be more likely to vote for your submissions without any prompting. On many blogs you’ll see buttons (such as the “Digg This” button) or links to make it easier for readers to vote.
If you’ve been struggling to gain any momentum with social media, take a look at your networking habits. Have you been actively getting to know other bloggers and social media users (this involves more than simply adding someone as a friend at Digg or StumbleUpon)?
2. Lack of a Plan
Social Media Marketing is like any other type of marketing, it requires strategy and execution. If your current plan only involves submitting your posts and hoping that they get a bunch of votes, that’s not much of a plan.
Your social media plan should be defined by what you want to accomplish. The most obvious benefit of social media marketing is traffic, but the traffic means very little if it doesn’t convert into something. Otherwise, you’ll be left with some impressive stats for a few days, but nothing of real value to show for it.
Do you want to use social media to gain subscribers (difficult, but possible)? Do you want to build links? Do you want to brand yourself or your blog through social media? Whatever your goals are, it’s important to understand what is most important to you so you can develop a plan to make it happen.
Your plan should also include the type of content that you’re going to promote through social media. Are you going to use informational posts, resource lists, controversy, humor, news? Find the type of content that will best help you to meet your goals.
The specific social media sites that you’ll be targeting should also be a part of your plan. There are hundreds or thousands of different social media sites, and it’s just not possible to effectively target more than a few. To have the best results you should be an active user at the sites that you’re targeting so you can get to know the users and what types of content work well. Then you can cater your content to that specific audience.
3. Lack of an Audience
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Sometimes, blogging software just isn’t enough and you have to transition to a full blown content management system, where you can easily run polls, guest books, photo albums, forums, and more, but the change can be difficult if you don’t have the technical knowledge on installing and configuring complex applications like Drupal.
Those that enjoyed the hosted environment of WordPress.com might enjoy a new hosted service called UcoZ. Ucoz provides its users with an almost Drupal or PHP-Nuke (if you can remember back to when that was popular) like content management system that supports a variety of features out of the box that go beyond just blogging.
There were two features that really excited me about UcoZ, the first was that UcoZ includes unlimited disk space, something that most hosted services do not provide, and usually when they do, they don’t allow the uploading of multimedia files. UcoZ has a section dedicated to uploading your podcasts (mp3’s) and videos, as well as easily embedding YouTube videos and whatnot. When you first sign up, you don’t really have unlimited space, but like Gmail does, it has a counter, which starts at 200MB and grows from there over time. It is based on some formula mixed in with your sites traffic. The more traffic you get, the faster your space grows.
The second feature that really drew me in was that UcoZ includes FTP access, something that no other hosted service like this has ever allowed from my experience. FTP access allows you to quickly, and easily upload huge blocks of content, images, videos, and the like to the service, making it easier to build out your content fast. Without this ability, most other hosted services are frustrating to use.
While signing up, UcoZ allows you to select either a subdomain or use your own domain to host your site. I would recommend using your own domain if you have one as there is only one dot com available in their list. The good thing though is that there also dot org, dot net, dot co.uk and other extensions for those not willing to purchase a domain.
The other great thing about all of these domains you can have a subdomain on is that they also support multiple languages, and so if you want to blog in German, Ukrainian, or Russian, you can easily switch the language of the site.
Once you’ve signed up, you need to chose the theme you want to use, and you’ll have many options ranging from themes relating to online games to business, to personal, and everything in between, and once you’ve selected your theme, you aren’t stuck using it as is because there is a full customization tool that allows you to change the header images, content blocks, colours, CSS, and even the template code. You have full control over what you show the world, and it is a very nice feeling, though maybe more complex and involved than most users will ever need.
For those of you always tweaking things, you’ll love the built-in backup tool which allows you to backup your current theme before making changes. This means you can come back to previous looks if, like me, you mess everything up. I love when companies are smart enough to save me from myself.
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Every blogging niche is different and each individual blogger has his or her own approach, but in the vast majority of cases there are a few factors that are absolutely critical to the long-term health of a blog. Some of these are obvious, but it can be a good starting point for new bloggers, or a refresher for those of us who have been blogging for a while. Getting back to basics and focusing on the critical success factors can lead to more productive use of our time and a more effective, streamlined approach to blogging.
1. High Quality, Unique Content
The no-brainer number one factor is the content itself. Blogs are all about content, and that’s what readers want more than anything. Regardless of what topic you cover or what angle you take, provide your readers with original, interesting content that they can’t get just anywhere, and you’ll be well ahead of most bloggers in your niche.
Without quality content you can only go so far. Even if you do an excellent job with all of the other critical success factors, your success will still be limited. Whatever you are doing to build and promote your blog, be sure that you’re always focused on providing the best content possible.
2. A Network
Relationships with other bloggers are invaluable. When I first started blogging I had no understanding of how personal it is, and how much your network will have a hand in your success. From the time you start blogging (if not before) you should make a strong effort to interact with other bloggers, especially those in your niche.
A network can help you in so many different ways, including link building, promotion, exposure with guest posts, social media, and more. Networking is so critical that I challenge you to find one truly successful blogger that does not have a strong network of contacts.
3. Consistent Effort
Simply having great content isn’t enough. For a blog to succeed long-term you need to produce it on a consistent basis. That doesn’t mean you need daily posts or you have to constantly be writing. However, you do need to show some consistency to readers and avoid long breaks with no posts.
I have seen a number of blogs over the past year that have put out some really nice content, but they have struggled with consistency. In most cases these bloggers lost interest and moved on to something else (which is fine). But if you want to be successful in the longrun, consistency is a must.
4. Conversion of Visitors into Subscribers
A lot of us bloggers (me included) tend to check our stats on a regular basis. Personally, I set goals for myself each month and I use stats as one of my measuring sticks. However, visitors really mean very little aside from maybe earning you some advertising revenue. Ultimately, you’ll need to find ways to convert those visitors into subscribers.
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It seems like forever ago that I wrote a post to this blog, let alone a post about Yaro’s blog coaching program - Blog Mastermind. However, it was around a year ago where I first mentioned the revolutionary new training course that would help you to boost traffic and income to your own blog, and I’m here again today briefly to give you an update on what Yaro has been doing.
Last year, Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs-Journey.com fame came into the spotlight after releasing a new e-course aimed at those looking to earn an eventual income from blogging. I was (and still am kind of) one of those people looking to expand my horizons online, and so quickly wanted to spread the word, having chatted to Yaro a few times via email and having read his blog for a very long time.
Whilst I never got to take a look at the course myself, Blog Mastermind soon became a hit for all those moguls attempting to take the blogosphere by storm, and Yaro I’m sure was enjoying the fruits of his hard work.
But 6 months ago, Mr Starak closed the doors to the program in order to give it a good ‘ole revamp, and to really make the course concrete and time-proof.
The Result?
Blog Mastermind has literally just re-opened its doors, and everyone now has a chance to grab the e-courses and the bundles of extras that come along with it. Here are some of the types of lessons you can hope to see:
- Module 1: How To Set-Up and Optimize Your Blog For Explosive Growth From Day One
- Module 2: How To Create Blog Content That Magnetically Attracts Devoted Readers
- Module 3: The Exact Traffic Techniques That Took My Blog From 0 to 5,000+ Daily Readers
Those are only 3 of many courses that will take you from beginner to blogging pro, and will hopefully put you on track to be earning 5 figures or more from blogging. Yaro himself earns anywhere between $10,000 and $35,000 per month just through his blogging empire - and this income is constantly growing and diversifying.
The Proof Is In The Pudding
All social marketers know that proof is the most important catalyst for a consumer decision. In this case, the Blog Mastermind sales page is no different. Whilst it is fairly long, I really think it gives you great detail into what you are purchasing, and an awesome combination of text, audio and video really helps you to get an insight into the mind of a blogging entrepreneur.
The screenshot above shows only a few days’ earnings via Yaro’s promotion of a product through a blog post and by emailing his list. In fact, Yaro shows you that building a list of targeted email subscribers can be golddust in terms of opening earnings opportunities. In fact, it’s something which I’ve got in mind for Blogtrepreneur!
Other Resources
Before Blog Mastermind went live, Yaro made sure to entice people with some great videos. Two of them you can check out are below, and they really help to capture the essence of what blogging for money is really about:
However, my most favourite piece which Yaro released a few days back, was an interview with Blog Mastermind student Alborz Fallah.
The interview (which you can get in audio or text form) depicts how Alborz has turned his blog within the course of about a year, into something worth $5 million today. His blog CarAdvice.com.au has been a hit within Australia, and the guy gets paid to review cars such as Lambourghini’s and other emerging cars - definitely a dream job!
The Final Lowdown
Yaro didn’t pay me to write this review. I wanted to make this crystal clear, and I also want to say that I myself havn’t seen the courses which make up Blog Mastermind for myself.
What I can do is vouch 100% for Yaro Starak and this relaunch, because to be frightfully honest, he has been one of my biggest inspirations in the blogosphere, and I’m not embarrassed to admit that.
In terms of payment, there are 2 options you can choose:
1. Pay $97 a month for 6 months in total to access all of the lessons. This will mean you can break the information into bitesize chunks for you to try out on your brand new or existing weblog.
2. Pay $497 upfront and save yourself $85, and you’ll be able to access all of the lessons right from the beginning, to take at your own pace.
I admit that this might be quite a hefty sum for a new blogger, so here’s what I will throw in:
1 Month FREE Text Link
Yup that’s right. If you order Blog Mastermind through my affiliate link, I will give you a free text link in the Featured section on Blogtrepreneur.com for 1 month.
This will actually help you to put the lessons that you learn into practice by getting free promotion and the links are DoFollow, meaning you will also get some good SEO benefits for your site.
Send me an email through my contact form once you have made the purchase, and I will get back to you and put your link live on the site!
There you have it. If you do try out Blog Mastermind then please leave a comment and tell me what you think about it. It’s been a long time since I posted here, so I thankyou for bearing with me for the past few months. Hopefully I can bring this site back up to scratch and continue on my domination of the blogosphere!
