How is the Power of a Brand Measured
February 28, 2007
I Have explained in previous posts how important is a brand for any business, also for blogs. There are companies spending a good part of their budgets to increase the value of their brand and to make it stronger, in a few words to make it powerful. But, how is the power of a brand measured? this is a question that only experts can answer. I found an article on BusinessWeek that explains how brand power is measured, it is a brief explanation on which elements Interbrand and BW consider at the moment they rank global brands. The process is not simple, there are a lot of things to consider to measure the real value of a brand, some of them are:
- A brand must derive about a third of its earnings outside its home country.
- Be recognizable outside of its base of customers.
- Have publicly available marketing and financial data.
Those are the just the element to be in the list. But let´s go to the main purpose of this post, the power of the name or of the brand is calculated. According to the article “The first step is figuring out what percentage of a company’s revenues can be credited to a brand.” and “Finally, The brand’s strength is assessed to determine the risk profile of those earnings forecasts. Considerations include market leadership, stability, and global reach—or the ability to cross both geographic and cultural borders” As you can see it takes a lot to be consider a global brand and much more to appear in the list of the most valuable. Here is a good article about how to measure brand performance.
Selling a Blog in Parts … is it a Good Deal?
February 27, 2007
What´s up bloggers. Today I wanted to write a post about selling blogs, it is a little bit related to the one I wrote a few days ago but it has a different perspective. This time I´m going to write about selling your blog in parts, not as a full blog, jut to see if it is a good idea or if it is better to sell it complete.
As you know blogs and all the Web 2.0 stuff are very popular (not all). When a blog reaches a certain age or a certain level of popularity and quality, then it is maybe the moment to sell it, but the real thing comes when you ask yourself, for how much am I going to sell it? or , who is actually going to buy it? well in this scenario, in case you want to sell it or in case you thought about it sometime, you have two options, to get rid of it in parts or as a full package, if you are going to sell it as a complete blog you have to determine its market value, here are some things you have to consider to determine how much is your blog worth:
- The age. How old is your blog.
- The rank. What position has in search engines or other sites, as Technorati.
- The number of posts. Content matters.
- The quality of your posts. same reason as the previous point.
- The number of links you have.
- The power of the brand. Determine if your blog has presence and relevancy.
- Traffic. Unique visits and page views per day.
- Subscribers. Your readership base is very important.
- Income. How much money your blog makes from advertising and affiliate programs.
Now, those are the main things you have to consider if you want to sell it as a whole. But the main purpose of this post is to see if the other option is a good idea, let me explain what I am talking about, your blog has all the elements I already mentioned, but, what if what you really want is to sell just the content to other bloggers? yes, your posts, how much money are they worth? here is one possible scenario, remember this is just an example to make my point clear.
Your blog has 100 high quality posts about money making ideas for small business and you decide now is the right moment to start doing something else (different from blogging) well you decide that you are going to sell your content, this is what you have to consider to sell a single post.
- Age. how old is your post.
- Relevancy. Maybe the topic is too old that no one cares about it.
- Number of words. But be careful what really matters is quality, not quantity.
- Number of comments. It is a reflect of the quality and relevancy of your post.
- Number of backlinks.It is almost the same reason as the previous point.
Considering this elements you can sell your posts lets say from $5 up to $100, and if you have 100 posts, just imagine, now you decide, is it a good deal? what do you think? and what would you do?.
The Importance of Setting Blogging Goals
February 26, 2007
How many bloggers set goals when they start they blogging experience? The answer is simple, not too many. Do you remember that post I wrote about some of the most common mistakes of new bloggers? Well, that day I wrote that it was very important to realize that a blog is like any other business, therefore you have to set some goals in order to be successful with your site. Glen Wolsey has a great post about htis, it is called “Set blogging goals and stick with them” here is a fragment of his article.
” Over the past year I’ve seen many start blogs, and give up after a couple of months, if not weeks, because of the lack of daily visitors and traffic streaming through the tubes […] Goals are important. Without goals you are just going with the flow, with goals, you have something to work towards, something lying up ahead in the future to aim at.”
He is absolutely right, I agree with him, your blogging goals are going to give you a direction, they are going to become the compass of your blog, here are the goals Glenn suggests:
Posts Made
RSS Readers
Daily Page Views
Technorati Rank
Blog Comments
New relationships made
I would add : “Contribute with others blogs” because I think that´s what this medium is all about. What do you think?.
What a Bla.st!
February 25, 2007
That’s right, a Bla.st! That´s actually the URL of a new site run by Tim Bromhead from New Zealand, Just for the record, the “.st” thing stands for São Tomé & Principe, a small island located in the Gulf of Guinea, if you want, you can register a creative .st domain here, just as Tim did. Anyway, the purpose of this post is to introduce you this clever idea called bla.st!, it is a free visual card directory, where you can add your own card to the site for free, or if you prefer a better position you can pay as little as $0.02 per day. One of the best things of this site is that your card can be online from 1 day up to 10 years!. As I said, payment is optional. Each time you click a card, it will take you to the website or blog that owns that card. Here is a screenshot to show you how it works.
You can add as many cards as you want but hurry up, who know for how long this offer will be available. go for it! and make it a Bla.st!
How Good was The YouTube Deal?
February 22, 2007
We all got surprised when Google announced the acquisition of YouTube for $1.65 billion. Without a doubt it was a great deal for the founders of the popular video exchange site and for the investors. When this happened, we knew that the founders would take to their pockets a great part of the money and that the other part would be for the investment firm, Sequoia Capital.
Google recently published in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the numbers of the deal with Youtube, which are quite enviable. Here is a summary of what Google delivered .
YouTube ´s CEO and Co founder Chad Hurley received : $345 million
Co Founder Steven Chen received : $326 million
Co Founder: Jawed Karim received : $64 million
While Sequoia Capital received of the deal: $442 million
Apparently the idea was quite profitable for the founders and for Sequoia; we´ll have to wait to see if the deal was good enough for Google too. If I was one of the founders I would have preferred to be be paid: half in cash and the other half in Google stocks which with a little bit of luck and if the company continues growing as it has, my money would increase in some years maybe to a billion or more. What would you do?
Sell Websites and Blogs!
February 22, 2007
Besides AdSense and Web Design there are other ways to make real money from the Internet. There are other options you may want to consider, you don´t have to spend a lot of money but you do have to spend time if you want to earn some bucks. In this post I want to show you that it is easy to build websites and blogs for sale, just build them and promote them a little bit until they´ve a descent traffic and build a strong brand for each one of them. This is a very good business opportunity, so let me show you how do it.
The sale of websites and blogs is a very good way to generate income on the Internet, there are people that create, and manage sites to sell them in a future for a very good amount of money, but how do they do it? Well here are the steps you have to follow.
First of all, do research. Find what topics are the best and what kind of websites and blogs are going to be more popular. Try this tools: Technorati and Google Trends. Avoid saturated marketplaces.
Buy a solid domain for your new site or blog, remember that a great name can make the difference between success and failure, simple and direct names are the best ones. If the name you want is not available as a .com, try a .net or a try to use “-“ between words.
Once you have the topic and the domain, start designing the new website or blog, if you don´t know about web design hire a freelance designer, you can find them here, here and here.
Start building your new site. Write and add high quality content. Articles or posts, for a new websites you can start with 100 high targeted articles and for a new blog 50 posts will make the trick. If you are not a good writer you can hire one in the sites I gave you before.
Start building links for your website or blog, remember that backlinks are valuable and can help you to increase your SE rank.
Now its time to monetize your site. Use AdSense, advertising or any other affiliate program.
After that , just start generating income from your new site or blog The more income you have the more valuable your site will be. Focus on traffic.
Now after some months, your site is generating a good stream of money , it is time to sell it. Remember that you can have to sell it for at least 5x income. You can add a post or an article offering your site , remember to include the prize and the contact information . post in other blogs and forums to offer your site, or you can try this website where you can sell your site or blog: Dealasite.com , WebSiteBroker.com and Time2Sell.com .
The 5 Main Ingredients of a Great Leader
February 21, 2007
In this post I want to give you the main ingredients or attributes a good leader must have. A great leader is someone who has made a difference in the lives of millions.
Whether it’s a leadership of millions, thousands, hundreds, or just a few dozen, there are certain attributes of a leader that shine through. Though some may assume that great leaders are born and not made, we all know that’s not true. With the right motives, training, hard work and persistence you too can be a great leader. It doesn’t matter if your desire is to be the leader of a large company or your own small business the attributes are the same. Here is what I´m talking about.
Desire – First and foremost is your desire to lead, your desire to succeed, to be great. Leadership takes a great deal of work. The prime motivator is usually passion, this is something that will take you higher in your life. Passion to be the best , the fastest, passion to be the biggest, do you get what I´m trying to say? Ask yourself, what is the most important thing for you or for your team. Then guide them to creating even more motivation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great is ever achieved without passion.”
Vision – “It takes a man of vision to write on water†that´s what Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown prince of Dubai says; and he´s right, with vision you can do achieve whatever you want. Know how you’ll get from Point A to Point B. You can’t make a plan without a detailed vision of what you hope to achieve.
Creativity – This is where your plan starts. You have the vision of what you want to achieve, now you set it out step by step. You know where you want to end up, but you need the road map to get there, the plan to get you and your workers, family or parishioners to the ultimate goal. This is where you ask your people the challenging questions and get them running with the ideas you’ve generated and inspire them to be creative as well.
Expertise – Naturally, the more expert you are concerning your company, or business, the better. Experience is not necessarily a lot of knowledge and information, you have to know what to do with that knowledge and how to do it. You must hone your information gathering abilities. Knowledge is power. It’s also essential that your people recognize and respect your expertise and trust your abilities to lead them. Let your group see you as the expert, and know they can trust you to guide them to success.
Respect – Not less important than the other attributes is the respect. Respect for others is essential in a great leader. You should compliment others when they show progress. Always praise in public and condemn in private. This shows respect for your workers, family and parishioners as fellow human beings. As the leader of any group, it’s your responsibility to help them sort out their conflicts. Remember, their problems are your problems. Acknowledge their strengths and their weaknesses. On the positive side, you should also help them celebrate their achievements and accomplishments. And you should listen to their ideas and suggestions.
Now you know what it takes to become a great leader, ask yourself if you have all these attributes, if you don´t, work hard until you achieve it.
Creative and Simple Advices for Your Money Making Adventure
February 21, 2007
Now, this is what I call creative thinking. In this post I want to show you some rules or advices, whatever you want to call them, that I found a long time ago (well not too long), in fact from my own point of view , these simple but effective rules are the base for any blogging empire. I´m talking about 9 simple rules, created for the 9rules Network of blogs run by Paul Scrivens, these guidelines are great for all those bloggers that want to have a successful blogging experience. Ok, here they are, the perfect rules for blogging (or for everything):
1. Love what you do
2. Never stop learning
3. Form works with function, not against it
4. Simple can be beautiful
5. Work hard, play hard
6. You get what you pay for
7. When others talk, listen
8. Always improve
9. Respect your inspiration
This network of blogs brings together some of the best blogs of the Web. With content from all around the world. you can find information about anything you want in their blogs. Some things I really like about this network or about their blogs is the design and the quality of the content.
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February 21, 2007
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10 Famous Quotes About Success
February 19, 2007
It is time to write about something we are all looking for. Many people pass their lives looking for it but very few can achieve it, why is that? Because it is one of the greatest goods in the world, it cannot be bought, it is necessary to always look for it, and to fight to obtain it. I´m talking about success. To be successful in life not only means to have a lot of money, being successful is being happy. To succeed is to achieve all our dreams, therefore bloggers, no matter what, never stop dreaming and always look for success in everything you do, because success is waiting for those who want it the most. Let´s take a look to our list of famous quotes about success.
1. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.†– Og Mandino
2. “A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.” – David Brink
3. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.†– Abraham Lincoln
4. “The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.†– Bruce Feirstein
5. “Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed.†– Corita Kent
6. “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.†– Demosthenes
7. “I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.†– Frank Lloyd Wright
8. “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.†– Franklin D. Roosevelt
9. “It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.†– Havelock Ellisn
10. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.†– Robert F. Kennedy