Blog Mastermind Exposed - Totally Uncensored and Uncut!
This is my honest review of a membership site called Blog Mastermind by Yaro Starak. Yaro is an Australian, or at least he lives in Australia because he doesn't speak with an Australian accent... ehem, like yours truly here. He is a professional blogger and has been making a decent income from his blogs. Today, by working for no more than 2 hours a day, he's making roughly USD$4000 to $6000 a month, just from blogging.
UPDATE: Yaro will be closing the Blogmastermind membership to new students starting this December 10. This will be your best opportunity to sign up and see what's in store before the membership is closed until he decides to reopen it again. In the meantime, you can check out for FREE one of the Weekly E-Lessons here.
Below are quick navigation links to find out what's here:
Claim Your Free Blog Profit Blueprint At No Cost
My First Impression of the Blog Mastermind Membership
Blog Mastermind's Weekly E-Lessons
Blog Mastermind's Results Are In
Blog Mastermind's Case Studies From Yaro
10 Blog Traffic Tips By Yaro Starak
Say "Hi' If You're A Blog Mastermind MemberHow To Drive Traffic To Your Blog
As mentioned above, after December 10, Yaro is no longer accepting new students to this membership. If you are on the fence, you should sign up before that date.
Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. Without traffic, you won't be making any money. Yaro is allowing people to see the quality of his weekly E-lessons by giving free access to one of the E-lessons that myself and other members are getting every single week.
This is not a sample but a full blown unedited content so that you'll see the quality of the stuff that he's sharing with the members.
This is only available until this December 10. So go check it out now. Consider this your Christmas present from Santa Yaro.
How to drive traffic to your blog.
Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. Without traffic, you won't be making any money. Yaro is allowing people to see the quality of his weekly E-lessons by giving free access to one of the E-lessons that myself and other members are getting every single week.
This is not a sample but a full blown unedited content so that you'll see the quality of the stuff that he's sharing with the members.
This is only available until this December 10. So go check it out now. Consider this your Christmas present from Santa Yaro.
How to drive traffic to your blog.
Claim Your Free Blog Profit Blueprint At No Cost
What Is Blog Mastermind?
Blog Mastermind is a week-by-week mentoring course in which you will be taught step-by-step on how to1. Set up and customise your Blog,
2. Build your readership
3. And make money.
Download the FREE Blog Profits Blueprint
A step-by-step, how-to guide to making money from a blog.
My First Impression of the Blog Mastermind Membership
When I first joined and logged in to the membership area I found the navigation was a little confusing. There were a lot of links to choose from and I didn't know which one I should click first to start learning. But that confusion went away after I watched the video of Yaro explaining how I should go about navigating the membership area. Silly me, I should've done that in the first place. But then again, I was so excited to dive in to the good stuff.The lessons or e-lessons as Yaro calls them come once a week by email. This is the step-by-step blogging system that is used by Yaro himself designed especially for those who have never created a blog before to having a proper blog that brings in quality traffic and making money at the same time. Now I know that most impatient people like me would not like that. I mean, why can't you give us all at the same time Yaro? After following my first e-lesson, I found out that it would take me one week to complete one e-lesson. Yes, I'm that slow. So I guess, weekly e-lesson suits me fine.
Before this December 10, you can get a free E-Lesson and judge for yourself the quality of the contents you can find in the Blogmastermind membership.
My conclusion for this is that if you are a beginner, then this would be a perfect system for you because you'll be getting this step-by-step approach. But if you are an advance blogger, then the first few e-lessons might bore you as you probably know most of the stuff, but why take that chance? Who knows you might find other gems for you to take your blogging knowledge further.
Find out how Yaro made $6549.52 in one month from his blog!
Blog Mastermind's Weekly E-Lessons
I'm at week 11 now. Though I've been pretty lazy lately and been sidetracked with other stuff, I still read his e-lesson every week when it's available. I can say that I know more about blogging than I used to before.
Remember that the process is not a race. Although he assigns you weekly tasks and continues to throw fresh content at you, there is no rule that you have to study and implement everything as it comes and adhere to a strict schedule.
Remember that the process is not a race. Although he assigns you weekly tasks and continues to throw fresh content at you, there is no rule that you have to study and implement everything as it comes and adhere to a strict schedule.
- Week 1 - Let's Get Blogging
Like I said before, if you're an experience blogger, you might not benefit much from the first week lesson, as it's more for beginners such as on how to get your blog set up. Finding the right hosting, get a Wordpress blog setup, read the Blog Profits Blueprint (which you can get for free) and so on. - Week 2 - Blog Foundations
He now starts to cover more on blog foundation materials, including what goes into good blog design, how you can get a good looking blog theme, some referrals for good blog designers, why blog design isn't really that important and some advice for everyone who is struggling to grow their traffic. - Week 3 - RSS, Social Proof & Plugins
Continuing with the blog foundation theme, Yaro will provide a couple of the plug-ins he currently uses and recommends you install immediately to improve your blog's appreance in the search engines. He also talks about pimping your blog with RSS so that you can get the most out of your visitors such as subscribing to your feeds and so on. Also on tagging and pinging, Technorati tags. - Week 4 - Finalizing Your Blog Structure
Why so long? Well, trust me, the above three e-lessons are enough to keep you occupied but it's worth the wait, trust me on this. Here he will discuss on your blog internal structure, content production, marketing for traffic, monetization and more advanced stuff such as sitemap, SEO internal structure, pagerank and so much more. - Week 5 - Set Up Key Content
On this week he will discuss on what most bloggers don't bother to do, hehehe, me included, but spending time doing this will really improve your blog. He will talk about content and monetization, such as generating pillar contents series and the monetization mindset. He will also discuss about building rapport and raising your very own cult readers. He stresses on the importance of 'About Me Page', Privacy and article page. Now don't you start to wonder why most people aren't making money with their blogs yet? - Week 6 - Content Focus and Structure
He will discuss on the importance of building your own list and how to set up an email opt-in form on your blog and the best position for optimum subscription. He explains how you can find out about your target audience and also on the common questions about your blog article structure. Should you use pictures, length of articles and so on. - Week 7 - Authentic Content
Here, you'll find out why authentic content is the way to go and how you can become a trusted source by becoming an authority in your niche. So, how do you write authentic content? He'll teach you how you can produce authentic contents. - Week 8 - Personal Branding and Sourcing Content
I love this week 8's e-lesson. Personally, I haven't read about this anywhere before. You might have, not me. He'll discuss on whether you should brand yourself or your blog. Trust me they are two different things. The advantages and disadvantages of one over another. He also talks about outsourcing your content. Probably not when you're just starting out, but these outsourcing tips will save you a lot of your time. But if you still want to outsource even when you're just starting out, he'll tell you how to get volunteer bloggers to write for you. I love it. - Week 9 - Hiring Bloggers
If you ever want to lead a lifestyle where you truly only work for two hours a day or even better, can take very long holidays or stop working altogether, without your blog falling apart and your income stream faltering, then you need to consider how you can attract other people to help you. That might mean having people as guest authors while you are away (more on this later in the lesson) or hiring full time writers to take over 100% of your blog content production. Priceless. - Week 10 - Copywriting For Blogs
Copywriting skills are not something most bloggers inherently possess but you'll appreciate the effectiveness of implementing just a few key copywriting techniques. By the end of the lesson you will too. If you have never studied copywriting before then prepare to be blown away by how much a difference just a few simple changes can make. - Week 11 - Marketing Through Conversation
Oh well, I waited 11 whole weeks for him to talk about marketing. If you can't wait that long, then you should not be a member. Again, trust me, it's worth the wait. Here, you'll discover how to drive visitors to your blog by ten fold such as leveraging on other bloggers and many more.
Get Week 11 E-Lesson for FREE here.
Blog Mastermind's Results Are In
Wanna know how well I'm doing with my blog?
Okay, I started my blog (which you can find by searching for it here in my Stomach Exercises lens) about 2 months and a half from today.Today is 4th November 2007.
My first post on the blog is on the 20th August 2007. As of today, age of blog is over 2 month old.
Last post 1st October 2007.
Haven't posted anything for about 1 month and 3 days. Now, that is very bad. Shame on me. Planning to get blogging soon. So, if you happen to check my blog after 4th November 2007, I might have posted new posts already. Feel free to check my blog out for these dates above.
I've been pretty busy lately to post new contents on my blog. I'm thinking of posting a new post sometime next week. The thing with blog is that, once you stop posting for a long time, you'll start to see a drop in traffic.
Now the real truth, I haven't been really following every single thing that Yaro taught in Blog Mastermind such as not optimizing RSS feed, not including optin form and many more. I also haven't been reviewing affiliate products. I might include one or two in there but not reviewing them resulted in not having any success with my affiliate sales. If Yaro were to review my blog, he would be mad at me for not really following his step-by-step plan.
So far I have some income from Adsense. Nothing much to brag about. After two months, it's enough to cover my domain name only. But I'm happy with it considering it's still a new site.
On October 18th, 2007, I installed Google analytics to track traffic to my blog. From that day you can see that Google sent traffic (refer to my Flickr pic 1 below) to my blog via 239 keywords (not all on first pages of Google), not to mention traffic sent from 25 other sources (refer my Flickr pic 2 below) like from my Squidoo lens, Hubpages, Ezine Articles and so on.
Here are some of the main keywords and their positions on Google, as of today 4th November 2007. Feel free to type these keywords on Google and find my site called Stomach Exercises Now for yourself there.
Stomach Exercise - Ranked no. 18 out of 2,010,000 (page 2) - See pic 3 below
Flat Stomach Exercise - Ranked no. 8 out of 1,570,000 (page 1) - See pic 4 below
Best Stomach Exercise - Ranked no. 8 out of 2,180,000 (page 1) - See pic 5 below
Easy Stomach Exercise - Ranked no. 6 out of 1,870,000 (page 1) and my Squidoo lens is here too at no. 9 - See pic 6 below
Best Exercise For Stomach - Ranked no. 8 out of 2,130,000 (page 1) - See pic 7 below
Stomach Workout - Ranked no. 7 out of 1,690,000 (page 1) - See pic 8 below
Now I know that some of you might not be impressed with my results. But I'm very happy with it. I will be following Yaro's step-by-step plan to the T soon. As of right now, I just have too many commitments to really concentrate on my blog.
So, according to my results above, I'm really happy with my membership and I really recommend that you try the Blog Mastermind membership if you're a beginner blogger and to bloggers who aren't making money with their blogs yet.
Blog Mastermind Rocks!
Snapshots of My Results
Please read my descriptions above in order for you to understand what the photos are all about. If can't see the photos below, click on your desired photo and you'll be taken to Flickr. At Flickr, use the zoom button for a larger image.
Pic. 1 - Traffic from Google
Pic 2 - Other traffic sources to my blog
Pic 3 - Page 2 Google, ranked at no. 18
Pic 4 - Page 1 Google, ranked at no. 8
Pic 5 - Page 1 Google, ranked at no. 8
Pic 6 - Page 1 Google, ranked at no. 6
Pic 7 - Page 1 Google, ranked at no. 8
Pic 8 - Page 1 Google, ranked at no. 7
Blog Mastermind's Case Studies From Yaro
As you now know from reading the Blog Mastermind salesletter, Yaro provides critics for those who requested him to. Mind you that he's a busy guy and he can't critic all members' blogs out there. But below are the blogs that he has reviewed so far. No, I can't show you the review videos as they are for members only.
Why do you want to look at the blogs he reviewed? Well, at first glance you might think that these blogs are well done. If you think so, then you're seeing from a beginner's point of view. But would you like to know how they can be improved? By being a member, you'll discover first hand from Yaro's point of view how these blogs could be further improved in terms of getting more subscribers to your list, more visitors to your blog, more money, where you should put your opt-in form, RSS feeds and so on. Some of them are mind blowing and some might make you wonder why didn't you think of that before.
I'm learning an incredible amount just by watching these review videos alone. Not to mention all the other articles, audios, interviews and forums.
Your access to the review videos
Why do you want to look at the blogs he reviewed? Well, at first glance you might think that these blogs are well done. If you think so, then you're seeing from a beginner's point of view. But would you like to know how they can be improved? By being a member, you'll discover first hand from Yaro's point of view how these blogs could be further improved in terms of getting more subscribers to your list, more visitors to your blog, more money, where you should put your opt-in form, RSS feeds and so on. Some of them are mind blowing and some might make you wonder why didn't you think of that before.
I'm learning an incredible amount just by watching these review videos alone. Not to mention all the other articles, audios, interviews and forums.
Your access to the review videos
- StarVA.com
- A blog about hiring a virtual assistant.
- In My Humble Opinion
- A blog dedicated to hot topics and current events.
- TechSavvyMarketer.com
- Probably the only blog in Yaro's review that follows true to his teaching, though the blogger might miss a few tweaks . Check this one out.
- LittleMummy.com
- A blog about parenting.
- Working With Pets
- A blog about pet care industry.
- The Camping Guy
- A camping blog.
- Osiris Anime
- A blog about anime for Japanese anime fans.
- Working On My Fitness
- A fitness blog.
- One Man's Goal
- I forgot about this one. This one also follows true to his teachings though there are more improvements can be done here.
- Mortgage Refinence Information
- A mortgage refinance blog.
- Aquarists Online
- Oh yeah, this one is also a good quality blog. It's on aquarium and stuff.
- Eye Prefer Paris
- A blog on Paris.
- The Inspired Solo
- A lawyer blog.
- Home Business Blog
- Yup, you guessed it, a home business blog. Also a good blog design.
- Deepest Health
- A blog that explores classical Chinese medicine. Professional looking.
- Life Goggles
- A blog about green living and lifestyle.
- Tea Party Girl
- A blog that teaches you the beautiful and simple afternoon tea.
- Foo Stuff
- A video blog on funny video clips, entertainment, jokes, humor and all the fun stuff.
Wordpress Themes I Like
Don't use the default Wordpress themes, choose one below
You should know that the professional your blog looks, the more it will attract visitors to your blog. So, you should choose your Wordpress theme well. I've listed a few below. I use some of them for my blogs. Check them out, they're FREE.
- Cutline Theme
- I like this theme a lot because it looks very clean. There are two and three column themes. Check out which one you like. Another thing I like about this theme is because the header changes everytime your visitor goes to a different page of your blog. Try it out yourself on my abandon blog which you can find it at Cooking Tips blog. Refresh it a few times to see what I mean.
- Copyblogger Theme
- You'll love this Copyblogger theme as it looks very professional. I just love the colors of the theme. I haven't used this theme yet but I'll use it the next time I create a new blog.
- xMark Theme
- Another profesional looking theme in which I haven't used yet. Hey, I also just started blogging remember.
- TypoXP 2.0 Theme
- I used this one for my wife's Webkinz website. Oh yeah, you can also find a lens that I did for her here: Webkinz Information
- Glossy Blue
- Another clean looking and professional Wordpress theme. Haven't used this theme yet.
10 Blog Traffic Tips By Yaro Starak
This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.To get more information click here: Blog Mastermind
In every blogger's life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else's blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that's about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.
Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.
It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.
Top 10 Tips
Blog Traffic Tip No. 10
Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn't news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better. Blog Traffic Tips No. 9
Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.You don't have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.
Blog Traffic Tip No. 8
Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that's the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you've done a good job!). Blog Traffic Tip No. 7
Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people's blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.
Blog Traffic Tip No. 6
Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger's article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it's sort of like your blog telling someone else's blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.
Blog Traffic Tip No. 5
Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going. Blog Traffic Tip No. 4
Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.
Blog Traffic Tip No. 3
Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it's so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it's worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps! Blog Traffic Tip No. 2
Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn't bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it's worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.
Blog Traffic Tip No. 1
Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I've listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won't stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers. Why Aren't You Blogging Yet?
If you can't see the power of blogging, then you are missing it big time. So, what's your excuse?
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Say "Hi' If You're A Blog Mastermind Member
What's Your Take?
Please let me know what you think regardless if you are a member or non-member yet OR whether you like the membership or not. Cheers!
IM-Mom wrote...
Very nice lens! I love blogging, and this info is quite helpful and very spot on. Thank you!
Posted August 07, 2008
anilg wrote...
Nice lens with lots of useful information. If you are willing to make money online, then please visit my lens
Posted June 19, 2008
RollinMao wrote...
Nice lense about traffic generating! Thanks!
Make Money Online, the Simple Way
Posted May 25, 2008
mudslinger wrote...
hmm, makes me think about my blog. informative lens by the way....
Posted December 04, 2007
by TommyL
Hi all, my name is Tommy Lehmann and I'm a part time blogger and internet marketer. Before Blog Mastermind, my blog is nowhere to be found in the sear...
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