Don’t give up and keep going…your style is unique.

What surprised me about your comment is that you put real thought into it. You actually looked around this website, thought about how it can be improved, and wrote it all down. For what? – A few visitors?

I was bitter, but you have rounded the edges. Humanity stands a chance – people can be kind to strangers. People want to help people. There are people out there that want to make the world a better place. You spent at least 20 minutes thinking about me and how you can help. This makes me happy.

I could try to fiddle with it and make it work. But I am not that motivated. I try to avoid plugins. The reason is an arrogant and stubborn one: minimalism. Bells and whistles are an irritating noise that I try to avoid. I prefer this blog to be simply content. How, when, and why people come to it is their business.

The blogs I respect most are the simple ones with no comment section. These blog owners write and do not need to hear what people think about it. They write a post and expect no response – to me that is godlike.

I have dealt with a lot of bitter moments in my time online, but you’re right it’s all a great learning experience. Keep learning and you’ll keep improving.

That being said,since you brought up the subject of Zen, I’ll bring up the subject of psychology. If your focus is to make money, you can either quit any time or change what you are doing.

If your focus is to help others see what does and doesn’t work and why, then you currently have the wrong focus. If money is your goal, you’ll never be satisfied, if helping people is your goal, you’ll rarely be unsatisfied.

With all that stuff out of the way, back to business, how are you marketing your product? For making money, your focus needs to be driving traffic to your product, not your blog, and using the blog to add value.

Start with something simple, the button to your product wasn’t easy for me to see even though it’s in the top right corner. I actually clicked on your “Learn How” page looking for it since that seemed to be a logical place. On blogs people often just skim the sidebar, so your product button is in the proverbial “no man’s land”.

Personally I’d move your ad from the upper right to a banner across the top, right above the post titles.

At the end of your posts put something like “p.s. Get your own website that makes money “.

And put a blurb with a link about it in your “Learn How” page.

Those are simple ways to get people to notice, or remind people, that you have a product. Beyond that, you need to drive traffic. If you haven’t yet, I’d also put a link to your product in your signature files on any forums you visit.

Now on my blog I’m not selling my own product, so I’ve incorporated some of this stuff, but not all of this stuff. But if there was one product I was going to actively promote, those are the first things I’d do.

No, you don’t have to listen to me, no I’m not an expert, but I do know what’s working for those who are…and using some of those techniques I’ve made more money this year than you.

I think it’s great that you are not going to use your blog to make money, but if you’re going to make money, you need to get people to notice your product. And these are painless, subtle, yet effective ways to do it.

– Jeffery

Even with your elaboration on the restaurant analogy I am still left with the same problem. I do not know how long to keep something on the menu. How long till I can declare it a failure. True, I can try other things – but time is limited. I am the only cheif and so only have time to cook a limited amount of items.

A suggestion is to at least provide a subscribe form from Google feedburner so that people do get notified when you write down a new post. I am sure there are many readers like me who like your site but forgot to bookmark it and then its lost. Also I think you have many silent readers..make them speak out and connect with them. The only drawback i see with your website is that it does not seem to be that interactive! maybe you can add a follow me twitter plugin as well.

Even I am a starter in this field and made a blog for myself..actually I have two..one related to make money online and the other one is documenting my prep for United States Medical Licensing Examination (i am a doc from india). What I learned nurturing those blogs is that its much easier if you not in “money making niche” coz competition is so hard there..other niches(micro niches) like USMLE is much easier to get traffic and good ranking..Further its hard for me to keep posting on both the blogs!! so now i think if i made a mistake?? well..even I am not willing to give up

Cheers

I am not speaking about quitting, I am speaking about adjusting your business plan, evaluating what works and what doesn’t and to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. And yes, you are right, there are no quick rick schemes on the internet, only for the ones that sell them

I like your restaurant analogy, see it like this:
If you have a menu, you will evaluate which dishes sell and which not and take the ones that don’t sell from the menu, correct? Making money on the internet is a bit the same, our “menu” contains niche web sites, blogs, affiliate products etc etc. Not all guests / visitors to a site are the same and so we have to adjust our menu to their taste.

SY