Although this feature won’t properly launch until the first students enroll in Blog Traffic School there is no reason why any blogger can’t join me immediately and start recording field reports in their very own blog traffic diary in the official Blog Traffic School Forums.

What Is A Field Report?

A blog traffic field report is a documentation of how a technique you implemented to grow your blog went. By creating a field report other bloggers can offer advice and feedback to improve your results and perhaps point out where you may have gone wrong if your results were not so great. If your results are fantastic a field report will help other bloggers to learn from you and to replicate the technique you implemented. This form of community feedback and collaboration is a great way to help all of us reach our blogging goals.

All students who take the Blog Traffic School Course are encouraged to complete an ongoing blog traffic diary full of regular field reports and details about their blog.

The field report space is ready to go in the forums, so there is no reason why you can’t start a diary immediately.

You can see the first field report I made in my diary for my blog here - Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak, Blog Traffic School Diary.

To begin your own report diary head over to the forums and read the instructions.

Competition

I’m going to watch the field reports carefully and I will reward the bloggers who maintain the best active diaries with free entry into Blog Traffic School.

I look forward to reading about your blog.

Click here to start writing your blog intro and first field report now…

Yaro Starak

Comments(6)

I figured it was about time to get some form of “coming soon” page on the BlogTrafficSchool.com index page.

You can take a look for yourself and yes, that is me in the graphics -

www.BlogTrafficSchool.com

The header will only be used for the sales pages and internally for members I am using the smaller Blog Traffic School logo because it doesn’t take as long to load. The footer is used throughout except on the blog that the course content is delivered through, which actually looks a lot like this blog you are reading now.

Let me know what you think!

Comments(4)

It’s time for an update on the Blog Traffic School course. In between traveling from Australia to Canada I have been working with a web developer to get the membership back-end system up. Originally I was going to deliver Blog Traffic School through the AMember membership management system, but a few months ago I changed my mind and opted to use the Butterfly Marketing system (aff) instead.

Butterfly Marketing has a lot of extra features I wanted and I felt I wasn’t too far in development with AMember that I couldn’t make the change. However I realized due to other commitments and lack of technical skills I needed help so I brought in a Butterfly Marketing specialist to help with the implementation. We have been working really quickly together and it’s basically ready to go, I just need to get busy writing some content like the sales page.

One of the main features of the new system that I really like is the ability to offer different levels of membership. This allows me to offer an introductory free membership, which is what all members of my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter will receive after signing up.

The main feature of the free membership will of course be the traffic tips email newsletter, which you can already join now by filling in the form at the top of this blog - there just isn’t a membership system behind it yet. I am also going to collect all the resources I have ever released about blogging, including podcasts and articles, and make them available to free members. Most of the content you can already get online elsewhere but it will be great to bring it all together under one blog specific membership system, so even free members will receive tremendous value. No doubt over time I will continue to add more to the free resources section.

The system allows members to upgrade from a free member to a full member at any time by paying the course tuition. Paying for the upgrade will grant access to the full set of course resources, including the Blog Traffic School course. Over time I can add additional courses, products and related tools and have different memberships for each. The Butterfly Marketing system makes it all very easy and best of all it’s a super clean interface. I get complete control over the design and I’m well aware that simplicity works best so look for basic text to be the main feature, with a basic navigation system too. Blog Traffic School is about strategies, so it’s the content that matters the most.

Look for more launch news soon!

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(2)

I’ve been receiving quite a few emails lately from people wondering if they will be able to recommend Blog Traffic School and earn commissions as an affiliate for any sales generated.

To answer the question - Yes, you definitely will.

One of the main reasons there has been a delay to get the course out to you is that I’ve wanted to make sure the affiliate system works seamlessly with the membership system. It’s taken a while but I have found the solution and it’s almost ready to go.

I will release more information about the affiliate program once I have been able to test it and make sure all the features I wanted are working. If all goes according to plan there will be some unique and powerful tools available to affiliates and members, which I suspect many of you have never made use of before (generally only top affiliate Internet marketers use them).

Comments(0)

Blog Traffic School is a course on building, promoting and marketing your blog and 99% of the lessons are related to doing just that, however I couldn’t finish the course without at least briefly teaching you about how to make money from your blog.

I leave the topic of monetizing a blog (earning money from your blog) until the last class, but I do go into some detail to teach you the techniques I have used to make money. Afterall, if you have followed the previous classes diligently, then you should have some good traffic coming and you just may want to generate a little income, perhaps even a lot of income, from that traffic. One of the techniques I cover is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing

As you will see in the course, my favorite method of earning from a blog is via affiliate programs. If you have never tried affiliate marketing it basically means to sell other people’s products and services in return for a commission percentage of the sale price. In the past I have earned from $4 all the way up to $800 from one sale of an affiliate product, so as you can see the potential is quite impressive. It’s by no means easy though and I definitely wouldn’t attempt affiliate marketing until you have created a solid and popular blog, which is why it is one of the last lessons.

To make money from affiliate marketing I believe there are three key ingredients, these are -

1. Targeted traffic
2. Credibility
3. Pre-selling

I discuss these concepts along with a general introduction to affiliate marketing, including how you can find products to sell from your blog, in Blog Traffic School. It’s by no means a comprehensive lesson because you could do a full course just on affiliate marketing, but I do cover enough to get you started earning from your blog. I also reveal quite a lot about how much I make from some of the different programs I use to make money from my blogs, so hopefully you will find those sort of details interesting and inspiring (I always do).

When Is The Course Going To Be Released?

I know everyone is dieing to know when the course will finally launch and no doubt posts like these just make you even more curious, and I wish I could give you a definite date, but I’m not quite ready to do that yet. The last thing I would want to do is provide a release date and then be late, or worse, release the course when it’s not ready just because of a deadline.

I can tell you that I am putting the final few lessons together now and then I have to go through and do a re-read of the entire course, which shouldn’t take too long. I expect I’ll have the BETA testers coming on board by August at the latest.

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(1)

When I think back over the things I did that brought in the most traffic to my blogs it’s almost always triggered by some form of publicity. The power of publicity is hard to beat in terms of raw numbers in a short period of time. While other techniques might bring in more traffic, perhaps a better quality of traffic, but over a longer period of time, it’s hard to find a technique that can garner so much attention in a short time frame as doing something newsworthy.

I wouldn’t necessarily label what I have done to generate publicity in the past for my blogs as “stunts”, but certainly it’s always because of an event or something I did, which was dramatic enough to compel others to write about me and link to my blog. While I am no public relations expert nor have I studied publicity, as someone who has been the beneficiary of publicity and also watched closely as other bloggers have been the target, I think I have a good grasp of the subject, at least when it comes to blog promotion.

There are two key ingredients -

1. You must do or say something unique, even outlandish, and definitely special
2. It really helps if you are a celebrity

Generally those two points are very interrelated. If you are basically a nobody and not many people know you or your blog, your publicity stunt has to be huge. If you are already somewhat well known your stunt doesn’t necessarily have to be as significant because people are already watching you and talking about your blog. For super-celebrities they barely have to do anything to be the subject of publicity.

As bloggers we are members of the blogosphere, which is a fantastic place for publicity to thrive. Bloggers love to talk about other bloggers, to weigh in with their opinion on a subject started by another blogger and be part of the conversation. Consequently once you establish yourself in the blogosphere, while you may not be a celebrity elsewhere, having some exposure as a blogger in your industry can be enough to ripe some significant rewards from publicity.

Blog Traffic School Lesson On Publicity

In Blog Traffic School I’ve put together a 5000 word lesson on publicity, including some case studies where publicity has had a huge impact, and also some practical steps you can take to generate traffic for your blog using publicity. I don’t discuss publicity until late in the course because it’s important to establish some status (fame, exposure) for your blog so you can maximize the results from whatever publicity actions you take.

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(0)

I’ve just spent the last two hours mapping out every class in Blog Traffic School. I’ve broken down the course into six classes designed to be done over six months. Each class includes theory to study and a list of activities to complete during the month. Each month builds up on the previous month’s theory and activities. As soon as I finalize the structure I’ll be sure to post it here.

After mapping out the course I’ve come up with a bunch of new content that I have yet to include in the first release of the course. Looking ahead I have a lot of topics to write to make sure you get my best techniques and theories.

You might say I released this pre-launch blog a bit too early since I’ve got at least two months worth of writing ahead of me before the course will go live. That’s a loooooong pre-launch. However I’m not too worried since I think you appreciate having some form of updates source so you know when the course will be available (rather then be left in the dark guessing) and I certainly like having a blog like this available to communicate with you about the course.

Why A Text Based Course?

This is the first time I’ve produced a course this big. People have told me that I shouldn’t devote so much time to this course by doing all the writing by myself. Why not pay someone else to write it or record audio or do a teleseminar, all these methods are less time consuming. My answer to these questions is that my style of teaching through text is unique and only through my own words can I convey exactly what I have learnt clearly to my students. It wouldn’t feel right to do it otherwise.

Your Unique Voice

One of the topics I cover in Blog Traffic School is titled “Your USP: Your Unique Voice”. I think it’s appropriate to give you a sample from that chapter now:

A USP is a term you will often hear in business circles. It stands for unique selling proposition. Basically it refers to what it is that makes you different from everyone else.

For your blog you also need a USP. If you are blogging for business chances are your USP is the same as your business USP so you will continue to work your business angle, but there is one other unique thing you need to make use of that no one else can ever replicate, which can be your USP – your unique voice and point of view.

One of the most powerful assets you have as a blogger is how you write and think. Don’t make the mistake of trying to copy another blogger. It’s definitely smart to analyze and determine what it is that other successful bloggers do well and absorb that into your blogging, but never try and be someone else.

Your unique writing style and how you view the world is interesting to other people when it comes from your heart. Be truthful in what you blog about and the way you blog and people will be magnetically attracted to you. Don’t worry if you are not a great writer – it’s more important to write honestly with passion than it is to make use of big words or poetic phrases. Ultimately it’s what you say – not how you say it – that counts.

Comments(13)

Here’s a question I’m sure you are dying to know the answer to. How much will you have to fork out to be one of the first Blog Traffic School students? I’m going to be completely upfront with you and give you my honest answer…

I don’t know.

Yes yes, what a cop out! I’m sorry if that frustrates you but I’m telling you the truth, I haven’t decided how much it will cost when Blog Traffic School finally launches. What I can tell you is the variables I am factoring in when pricing this course.

Why Blog Traffic School is not free

If you know me and my policies on blogging I generally prefer to give away all my content for free. That’s why if you visit my blog at www.Entrepreneurs-Journey.com you will find my best work at no cost. I don’t hold anything back and teach everything I know about the topics and industry I work in.

For Blog Traffic School I did consider making the course free because I want to help as many people as I can and someone actually asked me whether the course would be free so I had to think about. I very quickly decided that no it would not be free for several reasons -

• I wanted the course to be comprehensive, a real methodology on traffic building, not a handful of articles sewn together. From my point of view to be able to devote the time and energy into creating such a course meant I simply couldn’t afford to do it for free.
• I want the students who take the course to get tremendous results. This means the course has to be good, real good. Of equal importance is the calibre of student who pays to take this course. The best course has to have the best students. If you are willing to pay to take a course like this I expect you will be willing to put into action what the course teaches. I don’t want any get-rich-quick seekers or lazy students.
• It may sound wierd, but if I released this course for free less people would really benefit from it. I don’t deny that it would probably reach more people if it was free but that doesn’t mean more people would benefit from it. If it was free not as many people would take action and implement the activities I instruct you to do. Less people would read the course carefully, absorbing all the nuggets of information, preferring to skim read due to lack of patience. Sometimes you have to be exclusive in order to maximize performance.
• The course is a professional product and in order for it to be perceived as so it needs to cost money. You may not like it but humans tend to value things based on how much they cost, not necessarily how good they are. Two products of equal worth may have different perceived values based purely on price. Blog Traffic School is the real deal and I want it to be realized AND perceived as the leading course on blog traffic building.
• When you go to university to take a course you pay a lot of money per subject. Nowadays you can expect to pay $1000+ per subject and for your money you get a full six months worth of education, taught by a professional trainer with industry experience and a history of results from working in the industry.

  Blog Traffic School won’t cost as much as a university course but the standards will be just the same. I don’t possess a PhD in blog traffic (although if they existed I’d be first standing in line to get mine!). I’m one of the only people who can claim to be working with and studying blog traffic every day. I’m as close as you are going to get to a “professor of blog traffic”.

• Blog Traffic School is much more then just an e-book. You get to interact with other students through a private forum. You receive a very special invitation to the exclusive blog traffic student blogroll, which includes links from all my blogs as well as all the other students in Blog Traffic School (that’s sum powerful backlink action!). You get a direct line of communication with me to ask any blog traffic questions specifically about your blog and access to all future blog traffic materials that I produce (that includes audio podcasts on cutting-edge blog traffic trends).

  Yeah, okay, I’m excited, but as you can see it’s a comprehensive blog traffic package, this is not an e-book I sell to you and then run away and leave you by yourself to figure out.

Ultimately you will tell me how much blog traffic school costs. Since I plan to make myself available to the students of this course I can’t have thousands of people take it at once. I want a tight core group, a community of bloggers who know the value of paying for top education. The price will reflect demand and supply won’t be endless. I will only allow onto the course as many people as I can help and support and who are eager to work hard on their blogging.

Is that you?

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(6)

I’ve been working with another Aussie Internet business owner called Brent Turner who owns Ecover Frog, to have some virtual boxes and books created for Blog Traffic School. Images such as these help give an information product a tangible feel. I was very excited to start working on them for Blog Traffic School because it was the first time I’ve had my name on an Internet product and it meant I was getting closer to launching it.

Brent is a bit of a graphic artist and does the design work for many virtual boxes, folders, books, CDs, website templates and complete information product packages. He’s good at what he does and was patient with me to work back and forth over MSN chat to get an initial design done for Blog Traffic School.

I gave him some basic ideas, a color scheme and some images I wanted included (such as my photo and a the soon to be famous blog traffic light). After some playing around I liked the overall design but unfortunately the color scheme, while I thought it looked good, it was, well, see for yourself…

It just looked too much like a pizza box!

The Italian flavor was clear and strong. My intention was to use the colors of the traffic lights but it didn’t turn out quite right.

Brent and I have since made some changes and settled on a new color scheme that doesn’t look like a pizza box but retains most of the elements you see above. I’m happy with the new look and hopefully I can show it to you soon. It’s funny how a virtual box can make you excited

Comments(3)

In a previous career I worked for the University of Queensland in my hometown of Brisbane as a web developer. During that time I had extensive experience with the online course web system called WebCT. At that same university I worked as an IT helpdesk support officer for the main library, where some of the most common questions students had were problems using the WebCT online system. Consequently I experienced the system as a backend system admin, and as a support officer dealing directly with the users of the system.

My conclusion from this experience was that clearly WebCT wasn’t great. I never received good feedback about it and was well aware of it’s shortcomings coming from student feedback.

While managing one of my other businesses I had an opportunity to play with another online course system, which I considered better than WebCT but still not the easiest to navigate through. I’ve also been a paying customer of several online membership sites and I’ve yet to find a system that is simple and efficient - they all seem to try very hard to make it difficult to find things.

All that experience taught me one thing - delivering an online course should be simple (how surprising!).

Using A Blog To Teach About Blog Traffic

When it came time to consider how to deliver Blog Traffic School I put to good use my previous experiences. I definitely knew what to avoid - too many useless functions and horrible navigation.

Then I thought - “Why not use a blog to deliver the course?”

Blogs are great because they are simple. Content takes center stage in a blog. Having the function to leave comments is a bonus, which I believe will become an essential question and answer tool for students and myself (as teacher) to interact through.

A blog is clean, easy to navigate and I suspect as students of a blog traffic course you should find using a blog very familiar. It fits perfectly.

The Classroom

Blog Traffic School will deliver the majority of content through a private blog broken down into classes. Students can directly ask questions pertaining to each class by leaving a comment. There is a single navigation bar on the left giving direct access to each class in a clear and simple manner.

I can’t wait for you to see it

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(16)