The Project 24 Podcast

WordPress is an incredible business building tool. Despite the fact that I’ve built many websites from scratch, I wouldn’t even think about creating a website without WordPress now.

In this episode I take questions from listeners around the world who have questions or problems with their WordPress sites.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim Harmer

My favorite WordPress plugins

My favorite hosting companies

My favorite WordPress themes

John Lee Dumas has taken the podcasting world by storm over the last year and a half with his Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast and $100,000 per month earnings from his blog and podcast.  I asked John to come onto the podcast today and spend 45 minutes working with two listeners of the show.

In this episode you hear John’s advice to new podcasters who want to build an audience and grow an online business.

I hope you enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast

Podcaster’s Paradise

Seeds of Wellness (the business reviewed on this episode)

I love today’s episode because I get to talk directly with all of you–the listeners of the Income School Podcast.  Today’s questions are about how to monetize a blog, podcast, or youtube channel.

Today we talk about the uber-practical side of website monetization, from picking a good shopping cart to taking credit cards on your site, to selling an eBook on the Kindle, etc.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim Harmer

The business breakdown is a new feature on the Income School Podcast.  In my opinion, most business podcasts are too philosophical and don’t have enough actionable, practical tips.  The business breakdown solves that by taking ideas and theories and helps listeners to see how to build a business in a practical way.  I think you’ll love it.

John Zocco is in a unique position.  He works for rock bands with millions of followers as a guitar tech, and his concert photography gets him lots of exposure with those fans.

In this business breakdown, Jim walks John down some of the most important decisions he needs to make as he starts his business.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim Harmer

I have been writing back and forth with Melissa Morse for a few weeks.  She started reading Income School.com when it started and has already implemented a lot of the tips and techniques.  But she feels like she is flailing around without a clear direction of where to take her business.

So in this episode I sit down (virtually) with Melissa and we break down her blog, EmbraceCreative.ca and I coach her on how she can adapt it to meet her financial goals.

My goal with Income School is to make it the most practical place to get information on starting an internet business.  This episode is all about practical tips for those who are starting out.

I hope you enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim Harmer

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Optin Monster – It’s just a simple popup, but with a twist that makes it incredibly powerful.  It only shows the popup when someone is rapidly scrolling to the top of the page (as in when they are about to hit the back button and leave your site forever anyway).  When I get about 5 people per day to join the email list without a popup, and then I switched to Optin Monster and started getting over 100 people per day joining my email list.  The coolest part?  Those are 100 people who were leaving my site anyway, and they didn’t get bothered with the popup until they were done reading the post.  Pretty sweet.  Check it out here.

SEO: What most new internet marketers see as Charlie’s golden ticket to success.  The truth is that search engine traffic takes a long time to build, and building your site to attract Google rather than focusing on your users is a terrible pitfall.

Still, SEO certainly has value.  Building your website according to established norms and writing in a way that Google can find your content is extremely valuable.

In this episode, I take questions from listeners around the world who have questions on SEO.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim Harmer

In this episode I go into much greater detail of how exactly I run my blog to earn half a million dollars per year.  I delve into the products I offer, how I built an audience, taxes, etc.

I will confess that it is a bit awkward for me to share such personal financial information with the world, but I feel that it’s important to motivate you and to show you how to take your business to the next level.

Enjoy the show, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim Harmer

Helpful Resources

I have a blog post that explains this information in text form here.

I have never met any blogger who had good traffic going to their site, who isn’t making serious money.  Never.

Whenever I’m coaching someone through starting an internet business, they always want to have a definite monetization strategy in place before they start.  Even if they know they should wait to build the product until they have an audience, they still want to have that vision from the beginning.  That is okay, I suppose, but I want to reassure you that if you get the audience, the money WILL come.

In this episode I share some of the more popular monetization strategies for monetizing your website, and which ones you should work on first.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim

If I were to point to one factor that would make your blog more or less likely to succeed at providing an income for you, it would be this–whether or not the blog owner publishes daily for the first 4 to 6 months.

In the beginning of your blogging business, you need quick success and traffic to encourage you to keep going.  More motivating than creating a product is seeing traffic.

So in this episode I share with you how to develop a publishing routine with tips and techniques to make it simple for you to publish something on your site every day 5 or 6 days per week.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim

Helpful Resources

Long Tail Pro (LTP) – The program I use for keyword research to write my article hit list.

My Article Hit List – Feel free to adapt the headlines for your niche and to get an idea of how I write mine.  My hit list is a bit complicated looking because I pay a lot of people to write on my site, but yours will likely just be a list of headlines for you to write.

Online contacts are usually awkward.  You comment on a website not knowing whether to expect anyone to hear or respond to you.  You purchase a product not knowing whether or not you can expect the seller to help you if something goes wrong with your purchase.  You like a page on Facebook never knowing if they will treat you as if they like you.

One of the keys of developing a community is to manage customer expectations.  If you splash your email address all over your website, then you need to respond.  If you ask for comments, you better read and respond.  If you ask for sales, you better help your customers if they have trouble.

But the truth is that website owners often deal with millions of customers and potential customers.  In this episode, I show you how to manage relationships with your visitors in a reasonable way so that you can give them what they expect, without overpromising on the time you can give them.

Enjoy the episode, but more importantly, implement it.

Jim