br> br>
First things first, I want to thank all of the new forum members for stopping by and sharing their knowledge with others. It’s becoming a great place to share tips, tricks, strategies, and cool finds with other bloggers that happen to read SFU. That said, the forum is officially out of beta mode, and it has a fresh redesign. It’s clean, simple, and it above all else - FUNCTIONAL! Check out the Site Flipping Forum now!
Next item on the agenda is the contest winner. I apologize for not announcing it yet, as I’ve been super busy trying to work on my flipper blogs, get the forums running, post on a semi-regular basis here… and then there’s my life outside of the internet. Hectic! I’ll go over the statistics sometime this week, and we’ll announce a winner as soon as I find one. A couple of my sponsors have become unreachable, but we’ll figure out a way to make the winner happy, even if I have to pay for the stuff myself. The winner will get his/her prizes!
Finally, I want to talk a little bit about my last post, and my new idea about flipping blogs.
First, let me tell you my inspiration behind the idea, and then maybe through the genius that is SFU readers, you can help me to realize it. The idea is to start with one blog as an experiment. If successful, I had planned to break you up into small groups, while adding more people, and to keep building flipper blogs as a team. Since there are so many of you, it would limit your actual workload to almost non-existent (think 2 posts a week), and it would still bring you more cash than most of you are currently bringing in with your flagship blogs. The idea was to make you money, while I watch, help, and above all else… contribute. So depending on how many people we get to take part, we could have more than one blog to do, therefore, we wouldn’t all be stuck working on a topic that you didn’t enjoy.
The first thought that pops into my head, as far as blog topics, is blogging. I’ve become somewhat of an authority in the niche, which will help with credibility… and we can all bring different things to the table. When I say blogging, don’t immediately picture Make Money Online blogging. My vision is a bit deeper than that. I mean blogging as a whole. In this “superblog”, we can teach people things like –
- Copywriting
- Effective headlines
- Design (themes, designers, graphics, etc)
- Outsourcing (job board, freelancers, finding freelance work)
- Monetization
- SEO
- Niche Selection
- Video Blogging
- Podcasting
- Software
- Blogging 101 (installation, plug-ins, explanations)
- Etc.
Now, I know some of these categories fall into the MMO niche, but think of it as a blog that will help ALL bloggers, not just a simple MMO blog. We would cater to bloggers in general, and in ALL niches. The objective would be to become the best blogger you can be, and to build your readerbase accordingly. Think less Problogger, and more along the lines of a blogging encyclopedia.
The reason I chose this topic is because across the board, it’s something that MOST of us are pretty familiar with. If you aren’t interested in monetzation, I be you would certainly like to know how to become a better writer… right?
So the idea is that we choose categories based on who we have taking part. Each person gets to pick 3 categories, and I’ll draw (at random) a winner to take that category. That person essentially becomes the writer for the category they are selected for. That will be your ONLY source of focus when it comes to writing.
This blog is a logistical nightmare, but I’ve come up with a few ideas to help us out there too. One, I’ll make a “private” section of the forum, where I select who will be allowed entry. These people will be the one’s taking part in our project, and nothing will be visible to outsiders. Two, you’ll all have access to general accounts like Feedburner, and Google Analytics - so that you can check statistics at will. I will not be giving administrative access to the blog, or the server to anyone. The reason is, it only takes one mistake by one person to totally wipe out all of the work we’ve done, and I don’t think any of us want that. That said, you will be granted contributor access to the blog, so you’ll be able to write and submit your posts to me for editing.
The last bit of business is monetization, which is another logistical nightmare. Since I don’t expect anyone to trust me to distribute the money evenly, and I’m not giving everyone access to my accounts, the blog will go un-monetized. We should be able to sell it on traffic, subscribers, and statistics alone, and get a good amount.
As always, send me your suggestions in the comment fields. DON’T try to pick a topic yet. We’ll work that out later. I also need a definitive answer of who will be taking part, as to help with the rest of the planning.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Great news… the forum looks very cool.
OK onto the joint flip. Your vision sounds great but does rely on a lot of people doing the right thing so hopefully we can get a great team and not have any bad apples.
Monetization is a sad part. Maybe it would be allowed that we add a 300×250 adsense or affiliate banner to our own posts. Or the odd link here and there.
It may be an issue reporting out joint income but if people keep track it should be OK.
Apart from that it seems like an awesome idea.
I see it like this.
If a blog with 10 posts sells for $30
Then a blog with 20 posts could sell for $70
so theoretically it could make more money than individually working on our own flippers.
[Reply]
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Yep, you hit the nail directly on the head Forest. More posts = more organic traffic = more money.
The monetization idea sounds great, but the only downfall is that we couldn’t prove that with screenshots… there are a limited amount of spaces to post screenshots on the auction, and with several writers, reporting income could get a bit dizzying.
Maybe we’ll allow the writers to post their own Adsense on the posts, and just keep their own profit. We can take them down before the sale, and report the blog as un-monetized.
[Reply]
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 pm
First, let me say that i am in. Second let me say i dont fancy the idea of each writer, having only one category.
I think that for example on a blog about (blogging excellence) i would want to write about a few topics, not just one. It feels abit claustrophobic. That’s just me.
MONETIZATION: Well, hmmmn. Let’s see. How about if certain strategic spots were designated to certain writers, picked at random. Like AP would have the top bannner spot, PB the sidebar, and Missy bottom of post banner.
Then we (if wanted) could simply place our affiliate banners, then if and when something was sold, it would go automatically to said writer. Nothing to figure out or monitor by you (Bryan). It could be optional, meaning whoever doesnt want to do it, doesnt have to.
TOPIC: (Blogging) suits me fine, as we all have been doing it for awhile, and there is so much to cover within the topic. It’s not just about MMO, there is lots of ground to cover. (I’m thinking Performancing.com and BloggingTips.com)
SFU Forum : Haven’t checked out the new look yet, will do so now.
[Reply]
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Wow! We were all writing a comment at or near the same time. Sorry, i hope it doesnt come across like i ignored you guys.
Look at the time stamp on the comments.
[Reply]
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
The monetization strategy is a good thought Missy, but it’ll lead to chaos and bickering. If you don’t get the best spot, you’d fee slighted. Plus, it’ll look like a Vegas billboard with all of those ads. We don’t want that.
I think what we’ll do is have each blogger insert their own Adsense, or affiliate promotion into their own posts. We’ll remove all of this before selling, and then go with the “un-monetized” idea.
And your point about having one topic being claustrophobic, good point. We’ll just have to figure out a way to balance the categories, and make sure everyone isn’t writing the same articles… that was the thought behind it. We can work out a rotation though, where you do a topic one day, then someone else does it the next.
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 1:21 am
This is a great idea, and I like the topic (blogging) that you’ve proposed for this project. I’d like to participate.
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 3:15 am
Sounds good Bryan :), I just registered on the SFU forums. I second Missy about the multiple topics/blogger bit. A lot of times, sticking to 1 topic may make it seem a bit monotonous but when you cover copy the first day and designing the second (just an example, I can’t design for nuts :p ) it makes it a lot more versatile and interesting.
Also, once we have this thing figured out, creating 2-3 more projects and assigning teams to each project would be great with each team comprising people with various skillsets.
To be honest, I’d prefer the blog to remain unmonetized as AdSense on a blog turns a lot of readers away. No matter, how much we try to blend in the ad colours, AdSense is ugly.
Just my $0.02
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 4:32 am
I’m in, let’s do it!
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 7:59 am
I´m in if you´ll have me.
Quite happy with the 3 categories too. (as long as they are not video blogging, podcasting and design. I wouldn´t be able to give my best on those).
Monetization: personally I would prefer not to put adsense on a blog this new anyway. So agree with no monetization (at least at the start anyway).
But having said that… will no monetization details not affect the value of the blog at auction?
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 8:04 am
It will affect the auction, how much, I’m not quite sure. Let’s give this one a go un-monetized, and I promise you I’ll figure out some kind of system by the next one (if it works and we do a next one)!
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Sounds ok to me
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
We’d have to decide before hand at what $$$ amount we’d want to sell it at, based on how many contributors we have…….cuz trying to get everyone to agree later would be another logistical nightmare.
ALso, there’d have to be some sort of voting system for making decisions.
[Reply]
August 4th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Oh, and with one topic being claustrophobic… yes…. i totally agree…. my blog is about one topic, and it’s very very limiting….
[Reply]
August 5th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I disagree that we’d have to decide on a dollar amount before starting. Not only would that be incredibly tough, since we wouldn’t know exactly how well the statistics would do, but it’s incredibly limiting as well.
We could always run an auction and just not use a BIN. High bidder takes it.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Too late to get in on this?
[Reply]