Everyone seems to reach the world of freelance blogging through a different path. My journey is a little different to most. In fact, if you had told me fifteen years ago that I would be making money through freelance blogging, I would have laughed at you.
My journey started in 2000. I was twenty years old and fresh out of University. Days dragged along slowly as I worked for a major UK pension company. As you can imagine, my mind started to wander whilst I was working those nine-to-five days.
One night, a friend and I looked at the possibility of making money buying and selling domain names. I cannot remember how we came across the idea, but we both registered domain names at the standard (read: high) price that UK domain registrars charged at the time.
We soon found out that the names we registered were not easy to sell. Rather than simply cut my losses, I built a website around one of the domains: a shopping directory. Having spoken to hundreds of other internet marketers over the years, I know that this was a strange choice for someone’s first website (most people at the time started fan websites).
The website was poorly designed using notepad and HTML, however I managed to generate a good commission within the first few weeks. That’s all it took. I was hooked!
Acquire Knowledge
During the first few months, I was returning home from work at 6.30pm every night and working until 1am or 2am in the morning. It didn’t feel like work. I was like a sponge, trying to improve my knowledge and figure everything out.
This was a time when that knowledge was not as easy to come by. I purchased several programming books, however I cannot remember there being many books showing you how to make money online. Nor do I recall there being many online courses.
So I turned to discussion forums. I was an active member on forums such as SitePoint and DNForum. It was an essential part of the learning process as I had many questions that needed answers. Looking back at my first posts is embarrassing, however it shows how quickly I gained knowledge by reading and asking the right questions. The support and help I got during that time was vital and helped me carve out a career working online.
Fast forward to 2014 and I’m still a big forum junkie. For me, it’s a more practical way of engaging with other people than Twitter or Facebook. The internet is always evolving and I love connecting with other people within my field. A discussion forum is the best place to do that.
Connect with Other Freelancers
Most people feel the same I did when they first start working online. They are excited, motivated and keen to improve.
Unfortunately, the landscape has changed a lot over the last fourteen years. The industry is full of junk eBooks and people who are willing to recommend any product if it means generating a commission for themselves.
Many online courses offer a support forum, though these are frequently quiet and unsupported. Perhaps this is why many people turn to discussion forums such as Warrior Forum โ a famous internet marketing forum that not only condones members ripping each other off, it actively supports it.
Despite there being a lot of cowboys out there trying to take advantage of beginners, there is a lot of great information online. A good book or course could save you months of research. It could also save you investing money in things that give little or no return.
Put simply, information is vital to your career as a freelance blogger. However, support is too.
Unfortunately whilst there are an abundance of courses and books online, there are few places where you can get good support. For example, a quick check over at the support forums of WordPress.org shows that most questions go unanswered. Likewise, most blogging-related forums are inactive.
It is easy to understand why this is. Support is very time-consuming. And to quote the old cliche, time is money. That is why most companies are moving towards a business model in which support is charged on a yearly basis.
I know from experience that providing good support for free is near impossible. My last two blogs BloggingTips.com and WPMods.com had support forums in which I helped out members free of charge. The problem was that I would spend hours every day helping people and I got nothing in return. It was unsustainable. It also held my career back a little as I was spending less time working on my own projects.
This is the reason why no top blogger or internet marketer offers support free. Their time is precious. Top bloggers charge hundreds of dollars per hour for consultation. They simply cannot afford to help their readers every day and get nothing in return.
A Premium Discussion Forum for Bloggers and Internet Marketers
Throughout this year, I supplemented my affiliate income and freelance blogging income by offering blog consultation through my blog. For $50 per hour, I helped bloggers and WordPress owners with their projects via Skype and email.
I really enjoyed helping people in this way, though I always knew it wasn’t the best way to support people. A discussion forum seemed more practical as it would allow other people to be brought into the discussion (there is only one me!!). It would also make sharing images, videos and ideas easier.
That is why I developed Rise Forums. Rise Forums is a new private discussion forum that was developed for bloggers and internet marketers. I wanted to create a community that offers the kind of service and personal relationship that you would expect from one-on-one consultation. A community where members do not have to worry about being pushed products and services on a daily basis.
We have a great bunch of members already including blog owners, freelance bloggers and internet marketers. It has been great for everyone to bounce ideas off each other and get feedback on our projects from like-minded people.
A membership for Rise Forums retails at only $97 per year. That works out at only $8.08 per month. But don’t get your wallet out just yet โ we’re giving three free memberships as prizes to Be a Freelance Blogger readers.
Win a Year in Rise Forums
For your chance to win one of the three free memberships, all you have to do is tweet the following message [click to tweet it now]:
“WIN a year’s free access to Rise Forums here: http://beafreelanceblogger.com/online-communities via @riseforums and @sophielizard #bafb”
We’ll choose the winners at the end of January 5th. Good luck to everyone who enters. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all better in the forums and helping you make more money online.
If you have any questions regarding Rise Forums or the competition, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them. ๐
Sorry, this contest is closed.
Sofie says
Tweeted!:-)
Lauren Tharp, BAFB Community Helper says
Good luck, Sofie! ๐
Craig Martin says
Hey Kevin –
I’ve picked up several tips from the Warrior Forum over the past few months. Good stuff and very informative.
I completely agree with the forum perspective, considering that I grew up with BBSes (dial-up — wo0t!) and when forums were really the only way to communicate online outside of e-mail.
Great post!
Lauren Tharp, BAFB Community Helper says
Hey, Craig!
Are you a War Room member? I haven’t been on Warrior Forum in a while now, but there used to be some good freebies floating around in there. ๐
And, man, I do NOT miss dial-up.
Kevin Muldoon says
Thanks Craig. Yeah I don’t miss the old days of dial up. I had to deal with poor connections a lot whilst travelling South America. Such a pain.
I’m not a big fan of Warrior Forum due to the way the admin and staff there allow spammers to sell junk products and then delete threads of any members who complain. It’s a shame, as there are great members there.
Kevin
Rohi Shetty says
Hi Kevin,
Tweeted! Thanks for the chance to win a free membership to Rise Forums.
I’m still trying to find the balance between creating content and learning all I need to know about blogging, writing, marketing, yada yada yada.
There’s so much to learn and it’s all so interesting that I tend to neglect content creation, unless I’m super-mindful.
So now I try to do my daily goal of content creation first.
Any advice about this?
Lauren Tharp, BAFB Community Helper says
Being “super mindful” is pretty much the key here.
Personally, I like to set alarms for myself. Try allotting a specific amount of time for each task you need to do and stick to it. For instance, you can say “I’m going to read about blogging for one hour.” Then, you set your alarm for an hour, read about blogging, and move onto the next task once your alarm goes off.
It takes a lot of self-discipline to be a successful freelance blogger (or any type of freelancer!). So just keep at it. Experiment and do what works best for you.
Raspal Seni says
Nice advice, Lauren. I’ve failed this at times. Setting alarms and then not stopping what I’m doing. Blog commenting, using Twitter/FB, undistracted writing for an hour, e-mail – all of these tasks are good to do assigning time and alrms. But, I haven’t been so disciplined last year. Need to put more effort on disciplining myself this year.
Rohi Shetty says
So right, Lauren!
I’m tracking my time better this year.
btw, I discovered and downloaded a great free online tracking tool called Toggl yesterday.
Raspal Seni says
Rohi,
I’m exactly in the same boat as you are. Surely need advice on this, but as Lauren said, setting off alarms for tasks will help if we abide to stop as soon as the alarms go off.
Kevin Muldoon says
@Rohi – This is a mistake I see most bloggers make. Perhaps mistake is the wrong term to use as when you first start out, you are like a sponge soaking up all information. However, I think it’s bad to spend more time leaving comments and tweeting than it is to actually sitting down, writing good articles and building a readership ๐
Say you have four hours to work on a Saturday afternoon. I’d recommend doing three hours of working and one hour of commenting, tweeting etc. Work would include research, writing, emailing potential partners etc.
Raspal Seni says
This is a response to Rohi’s comment above about blog commenting and keeping a balance.
It’s a good idea to have a list of blogs we follow, at hand. Then, comment 1-2 blogs a day. When I’ve tried for more, I’ve wasted too much time. 1-2 blogs is ideal per day, and then we should limit the time we give ourselves, as Littlezotz mentioned above. Same thing about social networking and e-mail. Writing content for our blog comes first. I just read an old post on Daily Blog Tips on this here.
I’m trying to pen down 500 words a day first thing in the morning and this is a nice habit to cultivate. Jeff Goins recently started this #my500words challenge this month.
Rohi Shetty says
Thanks, Kevin.
Great advice.
Bree says
Kevin, I recently re-discovered the joy of the “1990s-style” internet forums. I’m a member of a few freelance ones as well as one for Rooster Teeth fans (a new media production company).
The support and involvement in these groups is going strong, which surprised me because I assumed that social media would be the next big place to hang out. While it still is, forums really were the original social media, and I think a lot of us still get that and the value that offers!
Lauren Tharp, BAFB Community Helper says
Honestly, I was surprised by the continuing popularity of forums too! But, you’re right, depending on the crowd they can bring a lot of value to the table. ๐
Kevin Muldoon says
I’ve never really got into the whole social media thing as much as other people. It is impossible to make the same connection with others and get good support when you are limited to 140 characters.
Plus the very nature of social media means that everything gets lost. Even a dead forum has value as everything can be referenced easily.
Lauren Tharp, BAFB Community Helper says
Ahem… Just wanted to leave this link here for any interested parties: http://beafreelanceblogger.com/forum
If you haven’t already joined, be sure to check out BAFB’s very own forum! Filled with awesome bloggers (in all stages of their careers), job ads, advice, and all-around good times. Woo!
Raspal Seni says
Surely a great place at BAFB but very less no. of posts here. Maybe due to less popularity. I know it started recently only. A great initiative, though. We need to get more people to register and participate.
Williesha Morris says
I need to spend more time on the BAFB and Tom Ewer’s Leaving Work Behind forums! Great post. Shared.
Aisha Shehu says
Thanks for another inspiring post. I think if you want to get more post ideas to write on, forums can be a great place to check. You can also end up with life long friends : )
Chris Peden says
Tweeted!
One of my resolutions is to spend more time on the BAFB, Tom Ewer’s, and Carol Tice’s forums. I agree with Rohi’s comment: I know so much about the accounting and tax content I want to provide, but I need to work on presentation.
Raspal Seni says
I remember the hundreds of problems we used to have with dial-up too. I was active on a few forums back then, but since the last few years, have hardly used forums. I also didn’t use social media until I started blogging last year. I still find forums to be a better place.
I had heard bad things about the Warrior Forum, so never registered. Will give them a try.
Raspal Seni says
Thanks to Kevin for giving away three free memberships instead of the usual one.
Kevin Muldoon says
No problem Raspal.
I do believe, however, that donating prizes to other websites is a difficult thing to balance. Giving too many prizes away can devalue the product in the eyes of others and it can viewed as unfair to those who paid full price. In that respect, discounts are probably fairer.
Though long term, I would prefer to charge full price at all times. The goal is to give members such good support and value for their purchase that they will view the membership as a bargain.
Price is all relative in that regard. I paid $99 once for an Adsense course by a popular blogger as it promoted the fact that they had a support forum that helped out Adsense publishers. The content was very basic and did not tell you anything that isn’t published on Google’s support pages themselves.
Still, I initially felt the price was worthwhile for the forum alone. Sadly, I was mistaken. The forum was dead and unsupported and packed full of threads from customers asking for help, yet receiving none.
The same can be said about info products. They should be judged on quality and price…..though I’m going way off on a tangent here and leading onto different topics haha ๐
Raspal Seni says
No problem with the tangent, Kevin. I get your point perfectly and you’re right in that your product loses value if you give more of it for free, and those who bought it at full price, feel they lost something.
In that respect, the prize of one month free membership to the Kingdom of Paidalot seemed ideal to me. Whereas, if a full year’s membership is given for free, it may or may not even be used by the winner.
Kevin Muldoon says
That is more common than you think. Usually it’s the people who are enthusiastically pleading to win a competition are the ones who do not even use their membership.
Sophie Lizard says
And the winner is… Amanda Womac (@AmandaWomac on Twitter). Congratulations, Amanda – I’m emailing you now.
For everyone else, check out Rise Forums at http://www.riseforums.com/ and keep stopping by Be a Freelance Blogger for more chances to win!
Kevin Muldoon says
Congratulations Amanda. Looking forward to seeing you on Rise Forums ๐
Raspal Seni says
Sophie – I thought there were three free memberships for the Rise forums mentioned above. Who got the other two? Just wondering.
Sophie Lizard says
:-0
You’re right, Raspal, there should be *3* winners! Thanks for paying attention when I clearly wasn’t. OK, getting the random number generator up now…
Winner #2 is Penny Tristram (@LeArtCorner on Twitter)
And winner #3 is Brad Boyes (@BradBoyes)
Phew! Raspal saves the day. ๐ Winners, I’m tweeting you now in case you aren’t watching the comments any more.
Raspal Seni says
Thanks Sophie. Was just wondering if something was wrong. Congrats to all three winners to the Rise forums. I hope to join sometime soon too. And thanks to Kevin once again, for a triple chance in this contest.
Kevin Muldoon says
Congrats to all three winners. and a big thank you to Sophie for letting us host this competition ๐
Kevin