I crossed the 1,000 RSS subscribers mark June 2nd which I accomplished in a little under 5 months time and based on my current growth rate I suspect I'll even surpass the 5,000 RSS subscriber mark faster than my previously shared year end goal.

How I did it and you can too:

I can assure you this growth rate hasn't come about by accident but instead because I learned from past mistakes, came up with a good plan and then executed that plan effectively. I hope that in reading this you can learn some lessons from me that you can apply towards your blog as well.

Importance of True Knowledge:

The biggest mistake I had when I first launched my blog about earning a living online on ChrisGuthrie.net back in 2007 was that at the time I wasn't already making a full time income online (not even close). So for almost 2 years I continued to write despite being too foolish stupid to recognize that my growth rate would always be stunted because of the fact that I wasn't even close to an expert in the niche where true knowledge mattered. What I failed to realize is that when it comes to making money, people don't want to learn from someone that hasn't figured it out yet because how can you tell that the advice they give is even worth listening to? So I decided that I needed to quit my blog and focus on other niches where I could become an expert or (better yet) where being an expert didn't really matter. So that's what I did and guess what? It worked! I started making substantially more money than I had been before and when I got fired from my job in October 2009 I decided to go full time because I was already making more money than my day job (see my full about story). I made the decision to relaunch my blog on how to make money on the internet now that I was actually (somewhat) successful at doing it.

Takeaway Point: If you're struggling with gaining new readers on your blog ask yourself honestly if you have the expertise required to cover the topic. If you don't have the expertise in a niche where it matters than it's time to sell your blog (or abandon it) and move into a new niche where you have expert knowledge, can develop it easily or where being an expert doesn't matter.

Have a Good Story To Tell and Be Unique:

When I relaunched my blog I had a good story to tell. I tried writing in this niche before, failed, started making a full time income from other websites and decided to come back to this niche after getting fired from my job in October 2009. This is unique among my peers, but having a good story to tell is only one component that helped me get to 1,000 subscribers. I decided early on that I needed to be different than the other bloggers in my niche. I decided to go against using tons of advertising in and around my blog to show visitors that there was something different about me and I'm not just trying to make $50 selling the Thesis theme. I also knew that most people in this niche frequently write based on emotional ideas and rarely based on facts or raw data. i.e. What good is a list of the top 10 ways to get people to follow you on Twitter if you haven't analyzed which ones are actually the most effective and which ones are just filler so that the author can use the number 10 instead of the number 6? So in most of the blog posts I write I always try to use data when applicable to prove the advice I'm sharing is worth listening to (i.e. Amazon Tips, Speed up WordPress etc.).

Takeaway Point: What is your story? What makes you different than the other blogs in your niche? If you don't have an answer to that question you need to rethink your strategy and find a way to be different than the others in your market.

Implement a Marketing Plan

Even though I believe my blog is good and everyone that is earning money online should read it wishing this would happen is not enough. So I spent considerable amount of time marketing the content that I was writing. People say that Content is King, but I'd argue that Content is Queen and Marketing is King. So I focused on both writing great content and more importantly promoting it in as many places as I could. There are still channels that I haven't explored, but so far I've had great success with forums, guest posting, befriending other leaders in my niche and blog commenting.

Takeaway Point: It takes too long for people to find great content. Help this process out by promoting your content as much as possible. As long as you're providing true value people will be happy you shared something with them. The goal is to get to the place where your content begins to spread itself but the tipping point for when that starts to happen is certainly not before you hit the 1,000 subscriber mark - so get to work!

Wrap Up: What is your blogging plan?

The important thing to remember is what worked for my blog may not work for yours because each niche can be different. I focused on promotional strategies that I know would be effective in this niche because I've seen other bloggers use them. However, I also have blogs that I don't promote via forums, guest posting or blog commenting and they still get good traffic and contribute to my income. The point is that you need to look at the other blogs in your niche, find out what you can do different while still delivering value and then make sure you can get traffic to your blog using the most effective traffic driving strategy for your specific niche.

What do you think of what I've shared above? Do you think I can surpass 5,000 subscribers faster than by the end of the year? In either case, I have a very fascinating post ready for later this month on guest posting. Before your groan with displeasure I can assure you that this will be unlike anything else you've ever read before. My goal is that it should be the only source of information you should turn to when it learning how to guest post effectively. Subscribe here so that you don't miss out.

You should also follow me on Twitter as well (my goal is 1,000 followers before the end of the month)

I've seen tremendous growth in both traffic and increasing reader numbers to my blog ever since I relaunched early this year. I attribute this to the fact that I don't make money online by talking about making money online, but instead by building income generating websites across a variety of niches and then discussing the best practices I've learned here. I have a few guest posts out on some major blogs right now so most people coming to the blog today are visiting for the first time and if the focus of my blog sounds good to you, subscribe here (I have a ton of VERY exciting ideas and money making strategies to share later this month that you won't want to miss out on).

Now because the growth to my blog has been very rapid in primarily the past few months I know most people have not had an opportunity to read some of my older content that I believe is worth checking out. So the list below is of my favorite posts and those that on average have received the most views and comments:

Top 7 tips I used to make $41,438.42 in 2009 with Amazon Associates
Top 5 Worst Ways to Make Money with Amazon Associates
The Amazon posts are what most readers are familiar with and what I use to make most of my income. At the risk of looking like a hypocrite, if I ever do release some type of product it will probably be about how to make the most money with Amazon.

My Top 7 Worst Websites Created
There's no better way to learn than from experience and in this post I share my worst websites ever created and the lessons I learned from each one.

How I made over $2,000 from one blog post
This was just one of my unique success stories and I have plenty of other experiences like this that are fun to share and packed with actionable lessons.

How to research and buy keyword domain names
This is the process I use to find and buy domain names for development. Although it's difficult to find keyword domain names at the very least I use this process as research before I approach the current owner with an offer.

How to speed up your blog (the non technical guide)
In this non technical guide I show how I dropped my blog's page load time from 7 seconds down to just 2.5 seconds. This is well worth checking out especially now that page load time is a ranking factor in Google.

How to use forums to drive traffic to your blog
Part of why I've had such strong growth in traffic and new readers to my blog is because of my focus on forums as a promotional tool. In this post I share the strategies I use to promote my blog in forums without looking bad or getting banned.

5 Advantages of in Person Networking
I believe networking in person can be huge for your business which is why I went down to CES this year to meet with some of the top consumer electronic companies in person. I'm doing this again later tonight by going to SMX Advanced in Seattle - hit me up in the comments below or email me if you want to meet me. I'll be at the event for all three days (June 7th, 8th and 9th).

GoDaddy Free Private Registration Loophole
I love being sneaky and saving money and in this blog post I showed how to do both. Last I checked this still works, but that was about six months ago and I wrote this post actually back in 2008!

Do you really want to make money online?
I used to be addicted to World of Warcraft and in this article I discuss how and why I quit this time sucking game.

My Goals for 2010
Lastly I still get people reading my goals for 2010. I believe it's very important to set specific and measurable goals so that you can set something to work towards. The primary financial goal I have is to earn $150,000 this year and is primarily why I am running income reports every month.

Upcoming Topics:

I have numerous exciting topics to discuss this month and as usual I will present them in a way you don't normally see other bloggers do so (with facts and figures based on real numbers). For the regular readers, I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog so far in 2010 I appreciate the support and comments that you've shared so far. For those of you that are new today don't forget to subscribe to my blog.

Outsource Force is a video series put on by John Reese and is the lead up to his product launch offering more information on how to outsource. I don't plan on buying his product because most of my money is tied up in various projects and to be honest I'm not sure if it's even worth it for me. Regardless, this hasn't stopping me from taking advantage of all the free information in his videos.

Here is what I learned about outsourcing from these videos:

1. Best way to build a business is with the help from employees: - Great example showing the difference between the Blue Man Group (they hire performers to do the shows for them) and Sigfried and Roy (they don't hire performers and their business relies on just them to earn money). This is an obvious lesson but one that's easy to overlook as a solo internet entrepreneur.
2. Hire workers full time: Freelancers earn money inconsistently due to the competition on sites like Elance and Odesk so it's better to simply outright hire them on full time. This gives them a stable income and you get full time help at a lower price.
3. Avoid outsourcing firms: John mentioned a few horror stories using outsourcing firms and from my research I've found that you do have to spend more money if you go this route. So in this case I can see how hiring directly is the best option.
4. Where to find people to hire full time: OnlineJobs.ph, manila.craigslist.com.ph, ask good workers for referrals, hire family members, (Always go direct to the worker)
5. Pay workers via Paypal Mass Payment Feature: Only costs $1 and the receiver is not charged a fee
6. Treat workers well: Should be obvious, but your outsourced workers are people too so treat them well both financially and by challenging them with difficult yet rewarding tasks
7. Provide rough draft samples of what you want done use the Livescribe pen to easily share this info.

You can see all of his videos here and I believe his product launches tomorrow so I'm sure he'll take down the videos after the program sells out so be sure to watch them for free while you still can. I found the second video "Instant Leverage" to provide the most value for me so if you have time to watch only one I think that video is the best.

I've decided to hire someone full time:

I've written about outsourcing in the past when it comes to content creation, but I've decided to take the leap and implement the free lessons I've learned to hire someone full time to help with my business. One of the things I've been working on is the niche five figure network which is my attempt to build a network of smaller websites that all together earn five figures a month. I've been covering this as a case study, but I've decided most of the niche sites I'm building aren't that hard to create and so I should be spending my time on opportunities with a larger income potential instead of working on mini websites. So I plan to open up a new HostGator account and hire on someone that literally does everything for me (just to be safe I decided a separate hosting account is worth it).

I really do think outsourcing is something I've waited way too long to get into and I hope my first hire works out well. I may hire someone just part time so in that case feel free to contact me if you're interested in splitting the cost on a full time worker.

What do you think about outsourcing? Are you doing it now? If so what challenges have you faced?

Update: Last video is live and the product goes on sale tomorrow May 11th at 1:00 PM PST for those that are interested. Be sure to watch the videos before then if you want to check out the free content.

Disclaimer: If you do decide to buy the OutSource Force product I will be compensated if you do so by clicking through the links above. With that said, I think you can get a ton of free info by simply watching the videos instead like I've done and applying the lessons learned to your business.

I've reduced the page load times on this blog via a few tactics that anyone using WordPress should implement and because I'm not a technical guy I've put together a guide for implementing these tactics that non technical people such as myself would better understand. (I'm shaking my fist at the geeks out there that have written guides too difficult for me to comprehend, but deep down I'm more saddened by my lack of tech savvy skills)

Why Page Load Times Matter:

First I'd like to get into why page load times matter. This should be obvious and you can skip on to the guide below, but I'll share why I started to care more about this topic first. Back in November I read an article from Web Pro News where Matt Cutts indicated that page load speed would become a ranking factor for websites starting in 2010 and recently this was officially announced although it currently affects only 1% of the search terms.

It's obvious that web visitors don't like slow loading pages (who does?) and slow page load can lead to higher bounce rate and lower page views on your site because people leave sooner. Combine these two factors along with the new ranking changes and there are plenty of reasons to consider reducing the page load time for your blog.

I've included my results from implementing some tactics on this blog later in this post, but please click to continue reading this guide I put together that gives some easy advice to speed up your blog.

How to reduce your blog's load time:

The obvious stuff is the server you're running on. I'm on a dedicated server from Softlayer and have used shared hosting in the past. It's ok, but a dedicated server will give a big performance boost. These other suggestions aren't dependent on your hosting situation so I'd like to spend more time covering them.

1. Install a Caching Plugin

I spent a lot of time researching page load time and found a wide variety of articles from people with advice that wasn't the greatest, but I ultimately found the W3 Total Cache Plugin for WordPress. I tried other caching plugins like Super Cache, but after comparing page load using this nifty Page Speed Firefox plugin in conjunction with Google Webmaster Tools I found W3 Total Cache performed the best of all.

What I recommend you do is to install the plugin and then use the Page Speed Firefox plugin to look at your blog and find areas that cause your page to load slowly. There are a wide variety of factors that may influence page load such as ReTweet button, Twitter Counter, Feedburner counter, etc. but there are other factors that affect page load on every single blog that can be easily addressed by a non technical person with a free caching plugin. These include: Page Caching, Minification, Database Caching and CDN implementation (we'll get to that later)

Because this is a non technical guide there really isn't any reason for me to tell you what these things mean. It's also a convenient way of saving me from potential embarrassment, but all you need to know is that the caching plugin can implement these abilities on your blog so that your blog will run faster.

In your W3 Total Cache settings you can simply enable these options via check boxes and then just pick the best option listed in the drop down menu and it's easy to do this on each sub link:

One thing you need to remember that I failed to realize is that you need to manually enter the Javascript files and CSS files that you want to Minify so that the files can be served as a single package instead of separately. So you'll need to manually input the files like this:

You can find this file list by running the Page Speed plugin (it will give you the suggestion to serve these all as a single resource. Simply copy paste those into your settings and you're good to go).

Note: You also should check the boxes as well like Comment Removal and Link break removal (these reduce the total size of the file by removing the comments or line breaks).

2. Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is basically a highly-optimized network of servers all around the world working together to distribute content (CSS and Javascript files, downloadable objects, etc) through hundreds of servers instead of a single host. This ensures visitors get their data from the city closest to them. (I took this description from my new CDN provider MaxCDN)

What's great is that caching plugin also has support for CDN and when asked about which provider I should use Frederick Townes (the author of the W3 Total Cache plugin) recommended MaxCDN. I checked them out via this CDN test and found MaxCDN to be among the fastest. Armed with the recommendations I signed up for the account for 1 Terabyte of data and I got to setting up an origin pull based solution (the best).

How to set up an Origin Pull Zone:

Log into your Max CDN account and navigate to > Manage Zones > Create Pull Zone > enter information like this (except replacing my URL for your own):

I suggest you chose a label like "Chris Guthrie is Awesome" or something to that effect as it's important to enter a statement of fact in this field.

Now simply take the Temporary URL that is generated and input that in your CDN settings tab in the host name field within the W3 Total Cache plugin settings and Bam! You're done.

Optional: You can use the custom URL i.e. netdna.yourdomain.com instead of the Temporary URL but you need to go into your hosting account and change some DNS settings - specifically the CNAME settings to do this and it can take a few days to propagate. In the interest of this being a non technical guide and it not mattering one way or the other I opted not to do this step.

My Results:

Update 2: Current average speed is just 2.5 seconds now according to Google Webmaster Tools

From the first time I installed WordPress and set up all the plugins etc. the load time was very high as you can see above. In fact, I have to assume that one of my WordPress plugin's was causing some issues in my page load which resulted in some of the spikes. But after implementing the changes with the caching plugin and my CDN the page load has flat lined and stayed constant.

Note: There are still numerous additional strategies I can still implement, but due to my general satisfaction with half assed projects I prefer to focus on the areas that provide the most bang for the buck and require the least amount of brain power to figure out. Besides, anything else is just bragging.

Wrap Up

If you are looking to reduce the page load times on your blog I suggest you install the W3 Total Cache Plugin and check for any issues suggested by the Page Speed Firefox add-on. If you want to really improve your speed I suggest you make use of a content delivery network to serve your static files as well. I suggest you check out MaxCDN as a provider. I spent a lot of time looking for a good option and have been very pleased with MaxCDN thus far and have added them to my resources page. I've also heard that WooThemes tend to be pretty light weight / fast WordPress themes - I'm using them on a couple other new sites now so I can report back later.

Related Reading:

WordPress Optimization by Kdavy
38 ways to optimize WordPress (pretty old)
Improving Page Load Time

What have you tried to reduce page load speed times?

Aweber has been my email provider of choice for over a year now. I have several thousand newsletter subscribers over the network of my websites and I think it's a great service. Building a newsletter list is very important because it allows you to stay in contact with your subscribers by providing them current information from your blog. This helps you build a relationship and earn trust which you can in turn use to sell relevant products. There are numerous additional reasons why building a newsletter list is important, but those are the most important in my mind. However, what I want to cover today is how to get more newsletter subscribers.

One way to get more newsletter subscribers is with a light box pop up. Yes, there are some people that run from websites that use pop ups so it's important to watch your bounce rate before and after implementing light boxes to determine if your causing more harm than good. In either case, they've still proven to be an effective way to get more newsletter subscribers.

How to Split Test Light Box Pop Ups

So if you've decided to try implementing a light box now all you need to do is create one web form and move on right? No of course not, you should never miss an opportunity to test the effectiveness of one page element over the other. You can do this using Aweber easily. From within Aweber simply navigate to your Web Forms tab > Create a Web Form > then after you have 2 or more web forms created scroll down to the Create Split Test section. Here you can set how often a form should be shown in the test (I suggest you set equal parts for each form).

My Split Test:

What I wanted to test was whether 15 seconds or 30 seconds was a better time for the LightBox to pop up. I also wanted to test out using an image or not, displaying text or not and different text types / colors. Here are a few examples of the pop ups I ran (click to enlarge):

Here are the results of my test:

What I learned:

From this test I learned that 30 seconds is more effective than 15 seconds (but not by much). The black text performed better than the red text. Using no image was better than using any image at all. However, even with these results it's important to remember that with such a small sample size it's difficult to take the results as the new standard by which I should design any future light box pop up with. Instead, I'll let what I learned influence the elements in the new test that I start to run and I'll use less variables so that I can complete the test in a shorter time (i.e. 4 different versions instead of 10).

You should be testing anything and everything on your websites because you'll find ways to generate more traffic, more newsletter sign ups and more money through testing. If you don't test everything you're missing out.

If you aren't running a newsletter on your blog now be sure to try out Aweber. They're inexpensive and offer numerous ways to test and track your emails.

Sign up for Aweber

Have you ever tried split testing light boxes before? If so, what did you learn?

I currently use GoDaddy as one of my primary domain name registrars and several months ago I heard about the GoDaddy VIP program which offers a few perks such as a dedicated account manager, lower domain name renewal costs and improved security etc. I thought these benefits would be worth the effort to go after a VIP account so I set out on my quest to gain VIP access. As you may have already guessed, I was successful in my quest and what follows is the tale of my journey:

How I got a GoDaddy VIP account:

Like many things in life, you never get what you don't ask for so all I did was simply call up GoDaddy and lead with, "I heard GoDaddy has a VIP program, can you get me in it?" I was transferred to another person to discuss it more at length and they said that I was a potential candidate based on my domain spend; however, I was a little bit lower than what they usually require to get in. So as soon as I heard her start to say I didn't spend enough to get in I pulled the trick I had up my sleeve by sharing my sob story:

Nearly 3 years ago I had a social engineering hacker gain access to my GoDaddy account. Long story short I was able to regain control of my domains before he was able to take them; however, it taught me some valuable lessons which I shared in a follow up post on 9 ways to protect your online assets.

So after I spent some more time persuading the rep to let me in, she said it shouldn't be a problem but that she would get back to me with an answer 48 hours later. Sure enough, 2 days later I was in and introduced to my GoDaddy VIP account manager.

Sadly the VIP access isn't as wonderful as I had hoped (no free drinks, no free privacy on domain name registrations etc.) but any time a domain is initiated to be transferred out of my account the account manager has to confirm it with me first which is a great last chance security step. Overall I like GoDaddy as a domain registrar even though every single time I purchase a domain name I have to navigate through a labyrinth of upsells just to buy the domain name alone and privacy (which is why more experienced internet marketers tend to hate them).

In either case, I spend about $5,000 a year or more on domain names at GoDaddy (if I include premium aftermarket names) and although I don't know the exact number GoDaddy requires customers to spend to gain access to their VIP program my assumption is that if you're above that $5,000 mark you should be able to get a VIP account. Just lay on your persuasion skills and a little charm and try it out. In this business you have to hustle for what you want. Like I said before:

You never get what you don't ask for.

In my next post I'll show you how I used this philosophy of hustling and making requests that most people never go through with to go on a test drive with a $120,000 Tesla Roadster Sport. Don't worry I'll get back on topic soon, but for those that look closely you can see how this attitude and philosophy is useful to employ when working with internet marketing.

Spoiler alert: The car was fast. 0 - 60 in 3.7 seconds fast... I'm still drooling.

I run a wide variety of websites ranging from product reviews to video game forums, but one commonality spreads across everything that I do - when dealing with people over email there is always a feeling of disconnect. With all the advances in technology it's become increasingly easier to communicate online and there is almost no real reason to meet up with people in person. These days I experience this feeling of isolation even more now that my morning commute is 20 steps away from my bedroom and the only people I talk with are online or over the phone. My desire to connect with people in person has been strong enough recently that I decided to go to Las Vegas for CES early this month. During my time I learned 5 advantages of in person networking as compared to doing it online or over the phone:

1. Legitimacy:

If you go to a conference to cover it on a blog or website you run it adds legitimacy to your blog. When I paid $6,494.03 to go to Elite Retreat I knew that it would help lend credibility to what I write about on this blog. After all, why would I spend over $6k to go to a conference if I wasn't making enough money to cover the expense? Likewise, I went to CES so that I could report live from the event and show the readers my operation is more legitimate than they may have thought before.

2. Strengthen Old Relationships:

Going into CES there were about twenty marketing reps that I knew I wanted to meet face to face. These are the people I had been communicating with over email for 6+ months (or more) and I knew that it would improve my relationship with them by meeting with them in person. This also builds on my previous statements of adding legitimacy. They may have had questions about the fact that I was a solo blogger in the past, but knowing that I spent about $1,000 to come down and see CES first hand should make them take me more serious for future requests (i.e. direct ad buys).

3. No Gatekeepers:

When you first call a company asking for demo equipment to review (or even worse - the person in charge of buying online advertising space) it's very tough to get to the right person in charge. The administrative assistants are trained to not pass through calls to many individuals unless they are given a compelling reason. But when you are at an event like CES you are speaking directly with the PR agents and marketing managers in charge of promoting their products, so it's in their best interests to listen to what I have to say and take my call in the future.

4. Forge new relationships:

Even though I have had the opportunity to work with many companies, I still haven't worked with everyone. By going to CES I was able to surpass many of the roadblocks that stood in my way as a solo operation and start to build relationships with new companies that I can turn to at a later date for clarification on a product they're releasing or for demo equipment. I knew going into the event there were about 10 primary companies I wanted to speak with and I not only spoke with them, I've already begun dialog about potentially doing direct ad buys (more on that in the future).

5. True relationships pay dividends:

Am I advocating that you try to be friends with people just because of what they can do for you in a business sense? No of course not. But if you look back at the past advantages I've listed off there are now over a hundred people that I can go to and ask questions that I would have felt uncomfortable asking in the past such as: "I know we've worked in the past before, but I was wondering if you could provide me some contact info for the person in charge of media buying" or "Hey, I had an idea for a joint promotion where (insert company name) could give me a few units of product to give away on my website" etc. These are the types of tough questions that it's very difficult for the person on the other end to say yes to if the only contact you've had in the past is over email and a couple phone calls.

Wrap up:

If you have an opportunity to go to a conference highly related to the websites you run I suggest you take it. As long as you know it may take some time for your initial investment to pay off you'll be more than happy you did it. In fact, I already have a lead on a company that may be willing to pay my way to the next CES and they're asking for very little in return.

What do you think? What have your experiences been like with conferences?

After offering my three custom WordPress Themes for sale for over a year now I've decided to give them away for free as my early birthday gift to you. My last birthday I offered the themes for half price and so this year I'm giving them away for free (perhaps next year I'll pay you to take them?). In any case, I hope you enjoy these unique WordPress themes. Simply enter your name and email to subscribe to my newsletter and you'll be sent the themes along with this eBook in your first email.

You'll receive the themes in your email after confirming your subscription to my newsletter. Please retweet this post and/or share it with friends. I think these themes are truly great and I hope they help you with starting a new blog or by offering new life on an old blog. You can demo them here: Red, Vibrant and Romantic

I'm going to be running several case study posts in the coming months on a wide variety of websites and projects I've started. I believe my findings and the journey I document will be some of the best posts on my blog yet so be sure to subscribe via RSS here.

Update: The WordPress plugin that allows me to demo these themes isn't working. I paid close to a thousand dollars to get the first one created and more money for each subsequent version, so I assure you that they're worth downloading.