Want to make money blogging? CEO of Digital Marketer Ryan Deiss tells you how he built Survival Life's blog from 0 to $6 Million. Use these blog tips to start making money from your blog today! Original Blog Post: http://bit.ly/1prEa7I

1. HOW WE GREW
a blog
FROM ZERO TO $6 MILLION

2. HERE’S THE THING…

3. MOST OF THE ADVICE
YOU’RE GETTING ABOUT
BLOGGING IS DEAD
WRONG.

4. WE KNOW BECAUSE WE’RE
OPERATING BLOGS IN
DOZENS OF NICHES…

5. AND WE TEST EVERYTHING.

6. One Of Our Most Successful
Blogs, SurvivalLife.com…

7. HAS GROWN TO ONE MILLION IN
SALES.

8. AND THAT’S NOT
ANNUAL SALES. WE
GENERATE ONE
MILLION IN SALES
EVERY MONTH. AND
GROWING.

9. I obviously can’t promise you that you will get
these results. Your results will vary due to a
multitude of factors.
But, in this presentation, I’m going to reveal
the SAME model we used to build Survival Life
to a multi-Ryan Deiss million dollar blog.
Founder/Managing Director,
DigitalMarketer

10. Take a look at the traffic to survival
life and see if you can put your finger
on where we figured it out…

11. Note: This was a new site in a market where I’m far from a
household name. In fact, my name wasn’t anywhere to be
found on this site, so if you think I was able to leverage my
“brand”, think again. I was starting off cold just like you.

12. WE STARTED OFF O.K. WITH
A HIGH DOLLAR LAUNCH
AND A TON OF GUEST
POSTING…
BUT WE LEVELED OFF FAST.

13. SO WE STARTED
EXPERIMENTING WITH
OTHER METHODS.

14. Ryan Deiss
Founder/Managing Director,
DigitalMarketer
Pssst…This is the same system 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. Click here to learn more!

15. WE TRIED MAKING MONEY THE WAY
THE SO-CALLED GURUS TOLD US TO…
…IT DIDN’T WORK

16. SO… WE STARTED BREAKING THE
RULES.

17. WE STARTED TESTING.

18. IN THE END WE DEVELOPED OUR
OWN SYSTEM…

19. 1. WE ACTUALLY
SOLD THEM STUFF

20. ADVICE LIKE…

21. “JUST WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU LOVE
AND THE UNIVERSE WILL EVENTUALLY
REWARD YOU…”

22. MAY SOUND GOOD.

23. BUT IT’S NOT A BUSINESS MODEL
AND IT PROBABLY WON’T MAKE
YOU MONEY.

24. To me, this is a business and I treat it like a
business. I’m not talking about getting rich selling
advertising. We’ll bust that myth later in this
presentation.
I’m talking about REAL products and services.

25. AT SURVIVAL LIFE ,WE SELL A MIX OF IN HOUSE OFFERS,
AFFILIATE OFFERS AND PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTIONS TO OUR
CONTENT.

26. Typically, we’re able to generate between
$.50 and $4.00 per subscriber, per month.

27. DO THE MATH.

28. 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.

29. LET’S SEE…LESS WORK… MORE
MONEY?

30. (By the way, I talk more about calculating Earnings
Per Subscribers in this video post about “How to
Make Your First $1000 Blogging…)

31. FIRST, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE
MISTAKE WE MADE WITH OUR
DESIGN AND HOW WE FIXED IT.

32. 2. WE WENT MESSY

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

34. WE HEARD THE SAME
THING. THIS WAS OUR
FIRST DESIGN.

35. PRETTY SLICK, RIGHT?

36. WE ALL AGREED THAT IT MADE
THE SURVIVAL GEAR WE WERE
TALKING ABOUT LOOK WAY
MORE ENGAGING THAN OUR
COMPETITORS…

37. WE EVEN BASED THIS
DESIGN ON A VERY
POPULAR GEAR SITE,
UNCRATE.COM

38. “How could it possibly fail?” Famous last words…

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

40. SO WE TRIED
SOMETHING
NEW…

41. WE WENT FROM CLEAN AND MINIMALIST TO CLUTTERED
(AND AS SOME HAVE TOLD US) DOWNRIGHT UGLY!!

42. MORE SPECIFICALLY, OUR NEW SITE
DESIGN INCLUDED A LOT MORE
CONTENT ON THE HOME PAGE…

43. MORE COLUMNS

44. TIPS

45. POPULAR POSTS

46. MORE BANNER ADS.

47. THIS CLUTTERED DESIGN BEAT
THE CRAP OUT OF THE
SLICKER, CLEANER VERSION.

48. TIME ON PAGE WENT UP

49. PAGEVIEWS WERE UP.

50. OUR UNIQUE VISITOR
NUMBERS BEGAN TO RISE
DUE TO AN INCREASE IN
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT…

51. WHICH ACTUALLY BROUGHT US
FREE TRAFFIC!

52. AFTER MULTIPLE TESTS
ACROSS MULTIPLE SITES IN
MANY DIFFERENT MARKETS…

53. Minimalist site layouts—like the ones major ad firms recommend—can
drive engagement down and cause readers to devalue your content and
site as a whole!

54. 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?”
This step was a biggie, but believe it or not this
next change had an even bigger impact on our
blog….

55. 3. WE DIDN’T GUEST POST… IN FACT
WE DID THE OPPOSITE

56. One day I walked into our office and proclaimed
“blogging” was now a fireable offense.

57. I BANNED MY WRITERS FROM BLOGGING
BECAUSE I REALIZED IT WAS HAVING NO
MEASURABLE IMPACT ON OUR SITES’
TRAFFIC OR AUTHORITY.

58. 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.

59. THE WORLD NEEDS AND VALUES
TRUSTED AUTHORITIES WHO WILL
ORGANIZE AND AGGREGATE ALL THE
GOOD INFORMATION THAT’S ACTUALLY
WORTH READING INTO ONE PLACE.

60. This concept isn’t 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.

61. 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.

62. …DO YOU SEE WHERE I’M
GOING HERE?

63. I sometimes call this “The Oprah Factor”

64. OPRAH UNDERSTOOD
SOMETHING THAT MOST PEOPLE
DON’T.
Experts do NOT equal Authority… authorities are
people who aggregate and associate with multiple
experts.

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

66. 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 slightly 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.

67. IF YOU FOLLOW THIS RULE, TALKING
ABOUT EXCLUSIVELY WORTHWHILE
CONTENT EXPERTS…YOU’LL SAY
SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. RIGHT?

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

69. This “Expert Aggregator Model” is also
something I cover extensively in my
AuthorityROI training program. If you’re
at all interested in launching your own
authority site, click the link here! at a

70. SO THAT COVERS THE FIRST 3 STEPS, BUT
THE NEXT ONE GETS INTO HOW WE
TRANSFORM TRAFFIC INTO REVENUE.

71. 4. WE FOCUSED ON BUILDING
AN EMAIL LIST

72. Stop sending your traffic to someone else’s site by
selling banner ads!

73. INSTEAD OF LETTING
ANOTHER BUSINESS
SIPHON YOUR TRAFFIC
VIA BANNER ADS…

74. USE THOSE BANNERS TO
ADVERTISE YOUR OWN
PRODUCTS—AND KEEP THOSE
USERS ON YOUR SITE.

75. THE MONEY YOU MAKE BY SELLING
BANNER SPACE IS A SMALL FRACTION
OF WHAT YOU CAN MAKE BY
BUILDING AN EMAIL SUBSCRIBER LIST
PROMOTING INTERNAL ASSETS.

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

77. INSTEAD OF MONETIZING
CLICKS WE LEVERAGE OUR
BANNER SPACE TO BUILD A
LIST

78. 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. If
you want to be an authority site, don’t
send the traffic you worked so hard to get
to someone else’s site.

79. Use your banner space to build your own
subscribers and you’ll maximize the value
of your traffic through sponsored emails,
affiliate promotions, and in-house product
promotions.

80. Take a look at how Motley Fool uses banner ad space
to make internal offers:

81. 5. WE DID TONS OF FACEBOOK
ADVERTISING

82. 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.

83. TRAFFIC IS EVERYWHERE…
YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW
HOW MUCH YOU CAN PAY TO
ACQUIRE TRAFFIC.

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

85. At Survival Life, Facebook
is our traffic channel of
choice. We grew our
Facebook presence
from 0 to over 300,000
Likes in 1 year.

86. Facebook Likes aren’t Sales, but we make Offers to our Audience
on our Wall AND use Facebook Ads.

87. BUT NONE OF IT WOULD
MATTER IF WE HADN’T DONE
OUR HOMEWORK ON THE
MARKET…

88. 6. WE CHOSE AN INSANELY RABID
MARKET

89. MAYBE YOU’VE BEEN TOLD THAT
YOU CAN BUILD A PROFITABLE
BLOG AROUND ANY TOPIC
YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT.

90. WRONG.

91. 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 time.
To confidently build a blog around a market you must
determine whether
• The market is big enough
• The market is monetizable

92. 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.

93. To determine if the market is monetizable, look for:
• Direct competition– They are doing exactly what you do. This is good.
• 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 influential people in your market
• eCommerce Sites– Find sites that are selling products to this market

94. WHY IS BEING AN
“AUTHORITY” IS SO MUCH
BETTER THAN BEING AN
ORDINARY BLOGGER??

95. 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 can become a respected authority in virtually any market
• You’ll be able to generate cash on demand
• You don’t have to be a writer. It’s more profitable to be an
authority.
• You become an “insider”

96. There are a lot of trainings out there showing you
how to blog. Authority ROI shows you how to
make money blogging.
Click here to get more information about Authority ROI.
Talk soon!