How We Grew a Blog from Zero to $6 Million...

Most of the advice you’re getting about blogging is DEAD WRONG.

We know because we’re operating blogs in dozens of niches and we test EVERYTHING.

One of our most successful blogs, SurvivalLife.com, has grown to one million in sales.

That’s not annual sales.  We generate one million in sales every month — and growing.


Here’s my disclaimer:  I obviously can’t promise that you will get these results.  Your results will vary due to a multitude of factors.

Take a look at the traffic to Survival Life and see if you can put your finger on where we figured it out,

We started off ok with a high-dollar launch and a ton of guest posting… but we leveled off fast.

So we started experimenting with other methods.

In this article I’m going to reveal the model we used to build Survival Life to a multi-million dollar blog.

This is the same system that I teach in much greater depth in AuthorityROI. If you own a blog or authority site (or if you’d like to start one), you will definitely want to be a part of this training because you stand to benefit the most.

We tried making money blogging the way the so-called gurus told us to… it didn’t work.

So… we started breaking their rules.  We started testing.

In the end, we developed our own system.

Here are six ways we broke the rules and transformed our blog into a high-profit authority site,


1. We actually sold them stuff


To me, this is a business and I treat it like a business.

While advice like, “Just write about what you love and the universe will eventually reward you…” may sound good, it’s certainly not a business model and it probably won’t make you even one, thin dime.

And I’m not talking about getting rich selling advertising.  We’ll bust that myth later in this article.

I’m talking about selling real products and services.

At Survival Life we sell a mix of in-house offers, affiliate offers and premium subscriptions to our content.

Here’s one of our products…it’s a video training that teaches you how to survive in the woods:

Typically, we’re able to generate between $0.50 and $4.00 per subscriber, per month depending on the market.

Do the math.

Even a small subscriber list, if you nurture and manage it effectively can produce an income most ordinary bloggers could only dream about. And, as you’ll see in just a second, if you follow our model you’ll also be doing less work than most.

Let’s see…less work…more money?
(By the way, I talk more about calculating Earnings Per Subscribers in this video post about “How To Make Your First $1000 Blogging…“)

First, let’s talk about the mistake we made with our design and how we fixed it…




We Went "messy"

You’ve probably been told that a “clean” and “minimalistic” site design is the best way to go, right?


Well we heard the same thing, which is why this was the first design that we tested when we first launched SurvivalLife.com…

Pretty slick, right?

We all agreed that it made the survival gear we were talking about look WAY more engaging and professional-grade than any competing site in the survival niche…

Heck, we even based this design on a wildly popular gear site, Uncrate.com, that we knew was getting major traffic, in addition to accolades from the design community:

“How could it possibly fail?” we all said.

Famous last words…

For some reason, despite looking more professional than 99.9% of all other sites in the survival niche, this design just wasn’t cutting it.

And this wasn’t just opinion. We knew from some of our friends and partners in this space that we were well below average on the three big metrics that really matter:


Unique visitors
Total Pageviews
Average Time on Page

…despite the fact that our content was fantastic.

So we tried something new…


When it comes to testing, I’m a big believer in testing BIG!

n other words, if something isn’t working, don’t make a minor tweak…go to the opposite end of the spectrum and work back to the “middle” or you’ll wind up doing test after test with little or no change in result.

So that’s just what we did…

We swung the pendulum all the way from clean and minimalist to cluttered (and as some have told us) downright UGLY!!


More specifically, our new site design included a lot more content on the home page. There are multiple columns, tips, popular posts, and even banner ads.

Crazy as it sounds, this cluttered design beat the crap out of the slicker, cleaner version…it wasn’t even close! Almost immediately, we began to see our key metrics tick upward.

Time on page was up.
Pageviews were up.
Even our unique visitor numbers began to rise because the increase in pageviews led to an increase in social engagement, which actually brought us FREE TRAFFIC!!


After multiple test across multiple sites in many different markets, our research suggests that a slick, minimalist site layout – like the ones virtually all major ad firms recommend – can drive engagement down and cause your readers to devalue your content and site as a whole.

I know this isn’t what people want to hear, and I know I’ll get a huge backlash from the design community. But data doesn’t lie, and neither do bank accounts.

So I have a question for you…


"Would you rather have a high-traffic, high profit site or would you rather be 'cool' and win design awards?"


Choose your answer carefully, because you may not be able to have both…


This one was a biggie, but believe it or not this next change had an even bigger impact on our blog…


3. We didn't guest post... in fact we did the opposite

One day I walked into our office and proclaimed that “blogging” was now a fireable offense. That may sound a little extreme, but I’m not going to continue doing something if it obviously isn’t working.

I banned my writers from blogging because I realized it was having no measurable impact on our sites’ traffic or authority.


Don’t get me wrong, they were writing great content, but posting great content will only get you so far. Because the reality is…


The World Doesn't Need More Information...

I’ll say it again: The world does NOT need more information.

Instead, what the world needs (and values) is a trusted authority who will organize and aggregate all the GOOD information that’s actually worth reading into one place.


And this concept is nothing new. In fact, the largest, most successful authority sites on the web rarely feature content written by the person who has their name on it.

Think about it: The Huffington Post, The Drudge Report, Bloomberg, Forbes, Breitbart… these sites aren’t famous for the owner’s writing style. They’re famous for the content they present.

Do you see where I’m going here?

I sometimes like to jokingly call this “The Oprah Factor,” because Oprah built her ridiculously successful career by bringing the best experts, content, and entertainers onto her talk show.

Oprah understood something that most people don’t…

Experts do NOT equal Authority… authorities are people who aggregate and associate with multiple experts.

That’s why Oprah has associated with (and in some cases created) expert brands such as Rachel Ray, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.

This is the playbook that the most successful authority sites use. They host expert content, associate with the most reputable thought leaders in an industry, and they leverage those associations to build their authority…just like Oprah does (just on a slightly smaller level).

If you have a hard time imagining yourself as the “Oprah” of your industry, then here’s another way to look at it that’s slight more humble…

Don't Talk About Yourself, Talk About Who You Admire
The trick is to talk about other people who are worth talking about. If you follow this rule, talking about exclusively worthwhile content experts… you’re almost assured of saying something worthwhile. Right?

The sooner you realize that, the sooner your blog will start leapfrogging the competition and building rapid authority because most other bloggers will continue to operate using the old self-promotion model.

So as crazy as it sounds, the first step to becoming a respected authority in your market isn’t to publish something new and amazing…

…the first step is to identify and associate with the most trusted, authoritative experts in your niche and then seek to aggregate and promote THEIR CONTENT in one place (i.e. your site).

I talk more about how we do this in this video.

This “Expert Aggregator Model” is also something I cover extensively in my AuthorityROI training program. So if you’re at all interested in launching your own authority site (or if you want to transform a boring, low-profit blog into a high-traffic, high-profit authority site) you should definitely check it out.


You can get all the details about the AuthorityROI program and find out if it’s right for you here.

So that covers the first three steps, but the next one gets into how we transform traffic into revenue…


4. We focused on building an email list

Here’s another secret to building your site’s authority in a hurry: STOP sending your traffic to someone else’s site by selling banner ads!

Instead of letting another business siphon YOUR traffic via banner ads, use those banners to advertise your own products — and keep those users on your site.


My team has been testing and refining this strategy for a long time. And let me just say, the money you make by selling banner space is a small fraction of what you can make by building an email subscriber list and promoting internal assets.
Here’s an example of what we’ve been doing over at SurvivalLife.com…

At first glance, this looks like a typical banner ad, right? But it’s actually an advertisement for one of our own FREE reports…


And when you click on this banner, you’ll see that we’re using this free report to generate leads. Instead of monetizing clicks like most content sites, we leverage our banner space to build a list.

Once again, I’m telling you to do the exact opposite of what has become conventional wisdom in online marketing… but here’s why it works.


Selling clicks is incredibly shortsighted, especially if your goal is to build a booming authority site. You’re literally sending the traffic, which you worked so hard to get, away to someone else’s site.

And you’re giving up this valuable traffic for PENNIES!!!

Please don’t do that!

By using your banner space to build your own subscribers list, you’ll maximize the value of your traffic. Rather than just getting a few cents per-click once… we’re able to monetize our subscriber list time and time again via sponsored emails, affiliate promotions, and in-house product promotions.

When you think about it, it’s really a no-brainer. It’s basically a TINY amount of money right now… versus 10 or 20 times as much, every month.

Most high-traffic authority sites do this at some level. This strategy is even more important for smaller, growing sites with limited traffic…

Take a look at how Motley Fool uses banner ad space to make internal offers,


5. We did TONS of Facebook Advertising

It might shock you to hear this but…

There is NO SUCH THING as a traffic problem.


Bloggers that think they have a traffic problem actually have one of the following,

An offer problem – They either don’t have an offer, don’t have the right offer or don’t have their offer optimized.


A measurement problem – They don’t have the process in place to measure what traffic is worth.

Traffic is everywhere.  You just need to understand the economics of your blog.  You need to know how much you can pay to acquire traffic.


Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, just to name the obvious, have an unlimited supply of traffic.

Once you set up your blog properly, you simply turn on the traffic faucet.

At Survival Life, Facebook is our traffic channel of choice.  We grew our Facebook presence from nothing to over 300,000 Likes in 1 year.  We’re now tipping the scale at 500,000 Likes.

And that’s all fine and dandy, but we all know that Facebook Likes aren’t sales.  Only sales are sales.

We use Facebook to engage with our community but we also use it to make offers.

We make offers to our audience on our Facebook Wall,


And we make offers using Facebook ads,

But none of it would matter if we hadn’t done our homework on the market…


6. We chose an insanely rabid market

Maybe you’ve been told that you can build a profitable blog around any topic you are passionate about.

Wrong.

If there is not a sustainable market for your authority topic, then all the time you invest in building your site is a complete waste of your time… you’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, so to speak.

To confidently build a blog around a market you must determine whether,

The market is big enough
The market is monetizable
To determine if the market is large enough look for,

30,000 Google searches per month
Active blogs
Active Facebook Pages
Active Forums
Active Email Newsletters
Active associations

Survival Life is in the survival and preparedness niche.  This is a big market.
We saw plenty of signs of life in this market,


To determine if the market is monetizable look for,

Direct competition (They are doing exactly what you want to do.  This is a good thing.)
Indirect competition (They are selling to the same market, but don’t sell what you do)
Affiliate offers (Check Clickbank, Share-A-Sale and Commission Junction for related affiliate offers)
Advertisers (Where there are well-known advertisers, there is money)
Gurus (Look for very influential people associated with your market)
eCommerce Sites (Find sites that are selling products to this market)
Survival Life is a community of people interested in survival and preparedness.  And these folks are serious about it.
When we dug in to research the survival and preparedness niche we found a very hungry market.
We were happy to find plenty of affiliates in the prepper market,


Why Being An "Authority" Is So Much Better Than Being an Ordinary Blogger


Here’s why this model is vastly superior to the way most bloggers operate:

You don’t need a product, sales copy or even an idea… you just need to have a passion in a market where great content and fascinating experts already exist
You can become a respected authority in virtually any market… even if you’re a complete “no-name” today
You’ll be able to generate cash on demand… which is something most ordinary bloggers could only dream about
You don’t have to be a writer. It’s more profitable to be an authority… that aggregates content from influential people in your niche.
You become an “insider”… doors will begin to open for you and even the best-known experts in your space will start asking YOU for favors!

About Ryan Deiss

Ryan Deiss is the founder and CEO of Digital Marketer. Over the last 36 months Ryan and his team have: Invested over $15,000,000 on marketing tests Generated tens of millions of unique visitors Sent well over a BILLION emails, and Run approximately 3,000 split and multi-variant tests Ryan is also a highly sought after speaker and consultant whose work has impacted over 200,000 businesses in 68 different countries. Connect with Ryan on Twitter or Google+.

The Mistakes You Should Avoid In Your Mobile Marketing

Failing to target your customer

Devising the perfect message is only useful when you're sending that message to the right people. Many companies make the mistake with SMS marketing of treating it more like a mass market medium due to its wide reach and low cost than the highly targeted medium it is.

Text marketing campaigns allow you to use specific demographic and behavioral information in your database to target messages to specific consumer groups at specific times. Targeting makes your message highly relevant to consumers, and as a result is far more likely to be successful.

In a recent US example Delta Airlines targeted frequent travelers by inviting them to text in the name of a worldwide destination to a mobile short code to receive tips for insight into local business practices in the selected location. This enabled Delta to send relevant and engaging content as well as target those travelers with the right marketing messages, encouraging consumers to research and manage flight options on the Delta mobile internet site.

Ensure you use the power of mobile marketing to its full potential by creating highly targeted and relevant content for your consumers.

Using SMS as a push focused selling tool

Mobile marketing can be a great way to interact with consumers but if your communication with them is more like a push focused sales pitch you're unlikely to maintain an engaged audience. Many companies make the mistake of bombarding consumers with marketing messages that add no value to the consumer's life. These constant messages about irrelevant new products or pushing the old same services become a point of annoyance and distrust quickly and can erode not only your ability to use the SMS medium in the future but also your long term relationship with customers and your brand.

In a recent mobile marketing promotion 7-Eleven offered consumers a free drink in store by texting a keyword to a mobile short code. 7-Eleven added to its mobile marketing database inviting consumers to opt in to receive future messages and customers benefited by receiving a free product.

Using SMS marketing as a one way communication tool

Use mobile marketing campaigns to bring alive your interaction with customers in creative new ways. Make your messages action oriented by letting your customer in on relevant real time information about an event or product they're interested in or ask them to do something - whether it be interacting directly via text by asking them to text in ideas or competition answers or by directing them in store, to your website or some other relevant event. If your consumers are talking to you they're more likely to be engaged and receptive to your marketing messages.

Mobile marketing is a great two way communication tool, however many companies fail to realise the power of two way communication and instead use the channel as a dry one way communication channel akin to print advertising.

Using Mobile Marketing in isolation

There are multitudes of ways you can make mobile marketing an essential component of your integrated marketing plan. Use short codes in your call to action on TV or an outdoor billboard to add an element of interactivity to a mass market campaign, encourage consumers to opt in to receive SMS reminders via your website or promote new products in your online store to your subscriber list via SMS - the possibilities for integration are almost endless. It also helps to look for multi-channel marketing technology, like InvolveMobile, which can deliver an integrated database that can link mobile with email, online and other consumer touch points.
While mobile marketing campaignscan still be effective when used on their own, they're best used as part of a multi-channel approach which may include a wide range of other marketing mediums including online, email, television, print, radio, and outdoor. Many companies new to mobile marketing don't integrate mobile marketing effectively into their marketing plan and more importantly, how it integrates with their database. These companies fail to see the real benefits mobile marketing can bring when used collaboratively.

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Manuel Holder is CEO & Founder of Nu Money Marketing.

How To Make Money Using Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing offers a very personal kind of interactivity for relationship building with your prospects. It's not just about bombarding folk with text SMS marketing messages. Mobile friendly web sites and mobile applications mean marketers can reach a much greater target audience.

World wide there are 4 billion people with mobile phones. In fact, there are almost five times more cell phone owners than laptops and computer owners, especially home internet ready

Gartner, the IT research company, predicts that over the next three years over half current internet users will be accessing the web via mobiles and other handheld devices.

"There are clear opportunities for mobile transactions to grow as users, in this and previous surveys, indicate that they want to be able to use their mobiles to buy more goods, such as books, music, travel services, household utilities and electronic appliances," says BuzzCity CEO, KF Lai.

It's a very global trend. BuzzCity's recent survey questioned 1,798 mobile users across the Americas, Asia, Africa, Western Europe and the Middle East and showed that 90% had directly purchased products or services via their mobile.

The trend towards mobile marketing



It's no surprise really that the fastest growing marketing technologies and emerging channels are mobile, rich media and social media. You only have to do a search on some of the popular keywords for the internet marketing and online home business industry to see how these methods are all being adopted with enthusiasm by marketers.

Mobile marketing is increasing in significance with over 30% of marketers surveyed already using some form or other of mobile marketing and many sources of information (magazines, and services available to support them.

Anyone in business should always be looking for new ways to reach out and touch their customers and build attention from new prospects. And mobile marketing may just be the golden ticket.

Your mobile user is permanently switched-on, impulsive and ready to interact at the drop of a hat. Who wouldn't want to tap into mobile marketing? It's the ultimate direct response tool.


Mobile marketing, you could argue, is perhaps a rather more captive audience. When someone has their phone in their hand and downloads a page, they are much engaged than on a desktop based website. It's a much more powerful direct response tool than the internet.

Conversions from mobiles compared to web or email marketing are five times higher. And, obviously competition is much lower because nobody really knows about this yet.

So what changes do you need to make in your business to attract mobile clients?


Well, first you should make sure your website is mobile friendly, especially if you are sending text SMS messages with active web links to your mobile contacts. There's a tonne of reasons why this is important, but mostly because mobile is an instant and impulsive kind of medium, so you want the recipient to be able to follow the link and get to a useful page and quickly.

But also, as with the SMS, your mobile user should be able to click your call to action link in the email and bring up the page right there and then from their phone's web browser. The chances they will visit your website when they get back to their PC are far lower.

Getting your site indexed by Google on the mobile search engine?

Google have mobile site maps distinct from the usual site maps. Check out their webmaster tools for help on that. And get yourself listed in the Google local business listings. Google has a way you can build a mobile landing page within that tool. It works best for brick and mortar businesses, but it's all good web presence.

Google knows that people search differently on their mobiles than they do on their desktop. They actually have a specific mobile keyword research tool. Not a bad idea, then, to clue up the whole different algorithms search engines are using for mobile searching.
Another thing to remember to keep your mobile text ads short, mirroring the style of social networking conversations. Opera (one of the mobile browsers) statistics show that 41% of people accessing the mobile web are going to social network sites, so MySpace, Facebook, twitter. These are intertwined and meshed together as a tool, so these ads need to work together.

Automating the SMS text marketing process
You want to add a mobile phone field to your web page capture form if you currently capture your visitors' names and email addresses. With a list of numbers, you can unleash your mobile direct marketing power by sending automated, scheduled SMS or text messages to your subscribers.
Internet marketers have known for years the money is in the relationship with your email list. As mobile marketing gets unleashed, it's likely your phone list will become the gold standard.

SMS has an astounding 97% open rate - and usually within the first 5 minutes of receiving the message. That's powerful to marketers! If the "autotexter" replaces the autoresponder, do you have a business strategy for that dramatic change?

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Manuel Holder is CEO & Founder of Nu Money Marketing.