“Make it Easy for Your Readers to Participate” plus 2 more

Make it Easy for Your Readers to Participate
Get Your 2nd Edition Copy of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Today (for 25% Off)
Why Similar Blogs Sell for Different Prices

Make it Easy for Your Readers to Participate

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:21 PM PST

At Blog World Expo this year, I was in a great session on using Facebook pages by Amy Porterfield. The session was very helpful on many levels, but one thing that Amy said that I immediately put into action—within a few seconds of her saying it, in fact—was to ask simple questions of readers to generate discussion.

Amy had been working with a client on their Facebook page and the client had suggested a discussion starter that was quite open ended and which required a long answer from readers. Amy switched the question into this format:

“What’s one word to describe…?”

This question lowered the barrier of entry for anyone considering responding to the question. Instead of having to write a few paragraphs in response, all that was required to participate was a single word. Amy reported a much higher than normal level of comments.

I immediately asked my own photography community a “one word to describe” question on my photography Facebook page.

367 comments later…

The same principle applies to generating comments on your blog … or any other attempt at reader engagement, for that matter. Make it simple to participate!

Another example of this was recently when a sponsor ran a competition on my photography blog. Initially, the sponsor wanted our readers to fulfill four requirements to enter the giveaway. They had to follow the sponsor and our site on Facebook, tweet something, and then leave a comment of 500 words explaining why they wanted to win the prize.

I pushed back—four hoops was more than I suspected most of our readers would jump through. The sponsor decided not to run the competition with us and I later saw them do it on another blog. The result? Three entries!

The same lesson again: make it simple for your readers to participate on your blog!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Make it Easy for Your Readers to Participate

Get Your 2nd Edition Copy of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Today (for 25% Off)

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 11:01 AM PST

Does your blog need a boost?
Are you looking for inspiration to kick start it again after some time off?
Do you need a little inspiration to help you get things rolling again?

If so – you’re not alone. Most bloggers go through periods where they either lack motivation, get distracted or suffer from blogger disillusionment.

This is why I created 31 Days to Build a Better Blog – and why today we’re launching the 2nd edition version of it – freshly updated and revised for 2012!

What is 31DBBB?

Since starting ProBlogger in 2004 this eBook is the most significant way I’ve seen ProBlogger readers improve their blogs.

Why is that?

The answer is simple – most teaching about blogging centres on theory. Theory is good but but by itself it is useless.

This eBook is designed to not only teach but propel you to DO.

31 Days to Build a Better blog is a 31 day challenge where you’re given a daily piece of teaching and an achievable activity to go away and implement – all of which is designed to rejuvenate your blog.

You can take the challenge at your own pace – some do it daily over a month, others tackle it in a more intense way over a week or others dip into it over a number of months – the key is to learn the key strategies for successful blogging and more importantly to DO something with what you learn.

By the end of the 31 steps you'll have:

published a variety of different types and styles of posts
learned techniques for coming up with new post ideas
promoted your blog in a variety of ways and found new readers
deepened reader engagement with current readers
reached out to and developed working relationships with other bloggers
developed an editorial calendar for your blog going forward
discovered ways to be more connected to your niche/topic
designed a plan for the next month of your blogging

… and much more.

Check out full details of what it includes here

Updated for 2012

Many thousands of ProBlogger readers have invested in edition 1 of 31DBBB but as it was written back in 2009 I felt it was time for an update. So much has changed since then both here on ProBlogger and in the blogosphere that I wanted to create something that built upon and enhanced version 1.

In this freshly designed and layed out 2nd edition you’ll get

all 31 tasks that were in the first edition – but they’ve all been updated and refreshed for 2012.
7 brand new days (so now you’re really getting 38 days – we’re including 7 in a new bonus week PDF)
Case studies of blogs, big and small, who are doing it right. Get insights into blogs you may not have heard of, and learn from their expertise
Every task includes links to further information, reading and intelligence on the topic
integration with social media – each day has its own hashtag so you can connect with others doing the challenge to learn from and support one another

This 140 page workbook is all about action – follow the daily tasks and we guarantee you’ll see your blog improve. Quite literally we’re happy to give your money back if you go through it and don’t notice the changes!

25% Launch Discount

For the next two weeks we’re offering 25% off the 2nd edition of this best selling eBook. Instead of the normal $29.99 USD you can secure your copy today for just $22.49. That’s around 73 cents per day for a month full of teaching and activities.

Learn more about 31 Days to Build a Better Blog here or purchase your copy by hitting the ‘download it now’ button below.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Get Your 2nd Edition Copy of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Today (for 25% Off)

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 06:06 AM PST

This guest post is by Jock Purtle of brokercorp.com.

If you are selling your blog, the first thing you will want to know is how much it is worth. You type into Google is something like "what is my website worth?" What you will get is a whole lot of free website valuation tools. If you use something like www.mywebsiteworth.com and type in “google.com” you get an arbitrary value of 1 billion dollars.

Now we all know these tools are can't be right. So we might then type into Google "what factors determine a website’s value?" and when we collate all the information. we are going to get a long list of different things to look for when valuing a website. Things like domain age, PageRank, Google rankings, and so on.

But what these articles fail to identify is the single most important factor in valuing a website, and that is the future maintainable earnings of the site.

What needs to be understood is that the assets of the business are only indicators of future maintainable earnings, and do not add any extra value to the site. Value is determined by whether the site will make money in the future, and what level of risk the potential buyer is willing to take.

Let's take the example of company A and company B. Each company has the same income and same net profit for the year. However, as we will find, their value differs completely.

How values can differ

	Company A	Company B
Business Type	Advertising	Advertising
Annual Sales	$200,000	$200,000
Annual Profit	$100,000	$100,000
Trends	Flat	Room for growth
High Margins	No	Yes
Recurring Clients	No	No
Largest Customer List	No	Yes
Traffic	Heavily reliant on SEO	Multiple Source
Income Source	1 Source	3 Sources
Complex To Operate	Yes	No
Low Barrier To Entry	Yes	No
Business Level	Mature	Growth Stage
Staff	High Turnover	Stable
Accounts	Messy	Neat
Owner Help after Sale	No	Yes
Owner Financing	No	Yes
Owner Non-compete	No	Yes
Brandable Domain	No	Yes
Old Site with unbroken Whois	No	Yes
Quality and diverse Links	No	Yes
Repeat & Direct Traffic	No	Yes
Solid Page Rank	No	Yes
High Levels of Traffic	No	Yes
Commercial Target Audience	No	Yes
Quality Content	No	Yes
Partnerships and JV's	No	Yes
Solid Sales Presentation	No	Yes
Directories (Yahoo and DMOZ)	No	Yes
Strong Alexa and Compete rank	No	Yes
Easily Transferable	No	Yes
Press Coverage	No	Yes
Affiliate Program	No	Yes
Synergistic Purchase	No	Yes
FINAL SALE PRICE:	$100,000	$400,0000

How value differs

The market has a strong opinion on what a site is worth. Buyers are looking for a good return on investment and the value is based on what they are willing to pay. That is why valuation is really only educated guess-work about what a site will sell for.

From the above example you may think that your blog meets all the criteria of company B, but that doesn't mean that you are going to sell it for that amount.

The reason company B is deemed more valuable is because, from the information available, the site looks like it will continue to increase in revenue every year and there is a lower risk that the site will fail. Thus there is less risk for a potential buyer, and they would be willing to pay more to acquire it.

The table represents a rule of thumb that you can apply to any website. The factors listed represent the variables that should be considered in any valuation. There may be some outlying factors that skew the data if either site were to be purchased and that is why true valuation is only represented by the final sale price and the money has been exchanged.

An explanation of valuation: How to determine risk

The risk a buyer is willing to take in purchasing a website will determine the multiple of earnings that they’re willing to pay.

The general rule you will find in valuation follows something like this:

Net Income x Some Multiplier = Your Website Value

Here is a breakdown of those two factors.

Net Income

Net income is represented by a company's total profit for the year and is calculated by taking revenues and adjusting for the cost of doing business, depreciation, interest, taxes and other expenses, or in accounting speak, EBITDA (earning before interest tax, depreciation, and amortization).

A web business normally doesn't have the usual expenses that an offline business has, like rent, office space, and so on, and this is reflected in the financials.

A multiplier

A simple multiplier will be based on an expected Rate of Return. This is used to calculate the final sale price and is reflective of the risk that the purchaser is willing to take.

Consider these multipliers:

12 times Monthly Multiple = 100% return (your money back in one year)
24 time Monthly Multiple = 50% return (your money back in two years)
36 times Monthly Multiple = 33% return (your money back in three years).

You are beginning to see why Internet businesses are a good investment. With low staff and expenses and less hassle than a traditional business, they can offer much better value than putting your money in the bank and getting 1-5% interest.

What doesn't count as value?

“But what about the value of my domain, and the rankings in Google, and the cost of the web development? Why isn't that included in the site?” you may be thinking.

Unfortunately, the market doesn't look at your site as a sum of all its parts. So even if you site cost you $15k to develop, and the domain cost $12k, if it only makes $10k per year, you are only likely to get $10k—$30k for the site, even though it cost you $27k to develop.

The assets of the business (content, rankings, domain, and so on) add no more value than what has already been calculated. The assets of the business simply form the structure for its revenue-generating capabilities.

It is important to understand this principle when valuing your site. Even though it might have cost you $27k to get the site up and running, your blog is no more valuable than the income a potential buyer can see the site making in the future.

Have you had your blog valued? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.

Jock Purtle is a Senior Broker at Brokercorp.com. They are a full-service website brokerage specializing in website sales and acquisitions. Jock is currently offering a free website valuation at http://brokercorp.com/sell/.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger