Mobile lifestyle

TO NAME OR NOT TO NAME
I wanted to name this article as "take-away life" at first but after some thought... it made me feel like I was endorsing serial murdering lifestyle. Wouldn't it be difficult to build long-term success with such a concept? Yes, I think so too, therefore back to the drawing board, and BEHOLD! I jotted down two words - MOBILE and LIFESTYLE. MOBILE as in mobile phones, which are easy to transport and always available. LIFESTYLE as in life that we are leading with style. Now here is a term I am happy with... take-away life, really what was I...

TWO PLACES AT THE SAME TIME?
One of the corner stones (currently this site is so NEW that actually we are making new corner stones on the fly, but don't tell anyone) of this website is the idea of leading ones life so that you are not place fixed. As a couple, we come from different cultures and different countries. Both countries have something we love deeply and would we'd like to live in both countries. Obviously it is impossible to be at two places simultaneously, but it would be possible to be in Finland for half a year and the other half in Taiwan.

Alas, our jobs won't allow us moving repeatedly back and fort between these two countries. Until now we have solved this issue by having these few years of stints in other country and then the other, but still it cuts into your resume like a dull saw. So, the first thing to solve this problem is to find or create a job (honestly I think it must be created, since even there are some good companies, none are THAT good), which moves when we move.

INTERNET - THE DREAM SOLUTION
We have created few relatively successful websites from hobby point of view. My dear wife has even supported herself as full-time author and writer. Our topics happen to belong into niches with little monetization potential, but we have noticed the general income generating potential that web has. Therefore we have slid ourselves into water and we now have clear strategy for our online business. We have to widen the reach of our current websites to create stronger foundation for generating income. Furthermore we have to create other supporting niches with in-built monetization possibilities.

CREATING WEB PRESENCE
All that site development, huge task! Can't be done without proper planning. That's why we made general plans well into the future, but started the execution as quickly as possible. It is easier to modify plans when there are some concrete results to work with. Always stay away from that paralysis by analysis condition, which produces nothing but ever-changing plans and unrealized dreams. Article by article we will all get there. Then we can go where we want and business will follow.

Friends

This is our link page. In order to be included here you have to be our internet friend or you must have done something so wonderful that we totally adore you.

Experience Designer - Dave Cohen.
Dave made this list first by commenting first on this blog. But he is much more than our first comment, although first contacts have always shaken societies. Dave is making this world a better place, one person at a time.

You

Most websites are all about themselves. So is this, but with a little twist, we have turned standard About-page into a You-page. Like We-page, for now this is up to get our link structure working correctly. More elaborate description of benefits will follow.

We

This is the page about us. Me, fun to the bone and she can tell more about herself. We will have pictures coming up shortly, but for now this is here mostly to get that link working right... up there on the right, but you probably already clicked it.

Weak dollar and blogging

Taking time to create a blog is a good, although time consuming way to create some reader capital. Readers can be traded into money by unleashing hordes of advertisers upon them. Poor readers can be sold cheap by introducing sleuth of digital content products for them. And no, it doesn't stop there, personal career will take off as employer notices talent of attracting fervent followers. All that joy and lot's of other happiness. But this is not what I mean by blogging investment. Wait, it is almost what I mean.

EURO VS USD EXCHANGE RATE
If you live in the USA you must have noticed the steep price increase of Louis Vuitton bags and other European-made products. Likewise Europeans are now happily shopping and dining in NY, wishing the morning would never come.

Daily tasks remain pretty much unchanged but we might buy slightly different products (used to be Ben & Jerry but is now Simac gc6000 ice-cream machine). Not counting housing and financial markets turmoil, really little has changed (unless you were one of those who remortgaged their home) among ordinary people. This is totally opposite for companies, to which successful blog can be compared.

FLEXIBLE COMPANIES ARE WINNING
Unlike people (not including attorneys), companies have countless enemies, which they mistakenly call competitors. These competitors are always looking for new ways to overpower others. Currently companies, which manufacture based on USD and sell based on EUR are making bundles of money, likewise if they buy in USD and sell in EUR.

Manufacturing companies have hard time if they work in euro zone. No matter how drastic changes exchange currencies experience it doesn't make any sense at all to pack bags and set up the operation somewhere else. Realistic way is to tighten one's belt and put some good old elbow grease into work.

Trading companies find that times like these have multitude of opportunities. Operations can be turned upside down and new sourcing or retailing channels set up. Downturn is a blessing for hungry companies, which are not afraid of trying new or old ideas. Established companies have the fault of trusting their old methods, which might not work in new market situation. Bloggers are in luck, because blogging is one of these agile new dogs in the internet field. Bloggers can really benefit from weak dollar and strong euro.

HOW BLOGGERS BENEFIT FROM WEAK DOLLAR?
Let's map down the overall process first. We must set up an operation with dollar costs and euro revenues. Now, big chunk of career bloggers reside in the States. Your costs are already in USD, no problems there, it is just a matter of coming up a way to get more revenues in euros. Some ways to achieve this dream in the following:

1. Focus your content to brands that do well in Europe, this way European advertisers will get into bid fights to be on your blog and they won't fight fair, they use their boosted buying power in the form of strong euro.
2. Localize your product. I guarantee that a beautiful French lady rather reads French Vogue than USA Vogue. It has all to do with ease of things, not possibility or ability.
3. Localize your pricing. Just like previous tip, make it easy for the buyer to understand the price. Ebook that costs 97 USD can be sold with 97 EUR on most European markets. This means more money for you.
4. In case of being in euro cost area, move out and blog from Pattaya or any other location that fits your taste.
5. Keep your AdSense income on account and move it only after USD has rebounded again. Unfortunately that is about 2-4 year wait.

Hopefully you have your blog ready, because you'll be needing it.

FOCUS

UNPRODUCTIVE MULTITASKING
I have not been focused on developing this site. I told myself that I am working hard on it - BUT - it wasn't productive when I pushed on in the jungle of dofollow blogs, never leaving a comment. It wasn't productive when I shuffled through various forums, trying to find suitable ones to participate. It wasn't productive when I tracked down possible benchmark blogs and competitors also unproductive was all the reading about SEO and marketing. I went on headlong and got information and ideas, but productive that was not. It wasn't productive, because you have nothing new to read about.

PLANNING TO PLAN
Gotta have a plan, because having a plan makes it all better. Good plans are not too tight, but leave room for occasional broken leg or missed train. It is a wonderful feeling when long planned project gets going and in the end finally gets accomplished.

However, plans tend to change constantly, and then we need more planning and some more and finally someone stole your idea or was it that they just made it slowly. Then again, maybe it was all because I was just planning to start planning. Huh, can't keep up with this reasoning. One thing I know is that if you focus on your plan, you can finish it.

DO THE WORK
Taking small and repetitive steps is a more productive and better way to reach your goal than detailed and complex plan. Actual work, which has been done (really done and not just - yeah, well that's just about done) no matter in how small parts remains very concrete.

The beauty of this approach is that after every accomplished step comes a possibility to change the direction. You need to know only one thing - where are you going. If you don't know your destination, you are in great danger to start going in circles, just exhausting yourself and never making the road. What worked earlier, will work again - focus. Focus on the goal and then focus on every single action you do to get there. You WILL get there.

FOCUS
It doesn't matter where you lay your focus on, you will find a way, which works for you, just make sure that you are focusing on one thing. Focusing on many things is cheating yourself, it's not focusing, it's cheating. Seth said it well in this article.

RESOURCES
This post is part of Improving Life carnival

Is passion a key to a successful blog?

What is the single most important element to create a successful blog?

If you search through the Net, you will find that most people come with a similar answer: PASSION.

You should blog on something you really LOVE, blog on something you really have PASSION about, because it is that LOVE and PASSION which will carry you through all the dull and dumb moments in your life when you do blogging.

That's what they say. For a long time I can't agree more.

However, is it true?

Recently I came to realise: Yes and No.
It depends on what you mean by a SUCCESSFUL BLOG, how you use PASSION in blogging, and whether you have a good STRATEGY.

Passion is absolutely important, however, only when you know what a SUCCESSFUL BLOG means to you, knowing what you WANT from your blog, and making a good STRATEGY to achieve it, you will be able to channel your passion to the right direction and drive your blog to success.

Define a successful blog

What does a successful blog means to you?

A blog that drives traffic?
A blog for networking with like-minded folks?
A blog that becomes a showcase of your expertise?
A blog that brings more visibility to your business?
Or a blog that IS itself a business, which directly generates money for you, even generates enough income to support your dream lifestyle? (just like our dream plan, to live by traveling and blogging...)

You need to ask yourself this crucial question, otherwise soon you will be confused about why you are spending all the energy and time to do what you are doing now.

Also to be aware: your definition of a successful blog might be changing from time to time, depending on the development of your blog, your career, your business, and the course of your life, your dream, and your ways of thinking.

So, refresh your thoughts on this regularly.

For example, I used to think that a successful blog is a blog that gains reputation, loved by regular readers, enables good interactions, generates traffics, showcases the know-how of the owner. In other words, as a good marketing channels for my business, which is writing.

No doubt, what behind my successful blog is my passion for writing. I love writing, so I created a lot of "Pillar articles", which keep driving traffics to my blog. Gradually my blog become one of the top Chinese blogs in its own niche, has a group of raving fans (or to put it modestly, which suits me better: a group of loyal readers).

Through my blog many people got to know me. They invited me for writing columns, writing books. In a way my passion has met my blogging purpose. In every aspect I could consider my blog as a successful blog. However, I start to realise that while passion can be a good head start to create solid contents and drive traffic, it is definitely not enough to maintain a growing successful blog.

I say so for two reasons.
First, my blog starts to take money out of my pocket.
Second, no matter how much passions I have, it can still run out from time to time.

Passion v.s Strategy

While my blog keep being more and more popular, getting more and more traffic and subscribers, it also literally starts to lose money . I haven't been able to generate enough advertisement income from my free writing on the blog, therefore I ended up paying more and more to maintain the visibilities of my free content.

For many month in a row my bandwidth was exceeded by the growing traffic, which made me write literally the same email in the end of EVERY month to my web host: "more bandwidth needed, please."

Besides, I have lost the passions of writings for quite sometime due to my personal life changes and busy working days. My current traffic are mostly driven by those old solid articles and growing numbers of readers through referrers.

I started to realise, passion is not enough to maintain my successful blog. I need solid strategy, a strategy that keeps me going and a monetary plan that maintains the financial healthiness of my blog. It is no longer a question of whether I want to get rich by blogging, but a question of whether I want to get poorer and poorer for the sake of having a successful blog that drives lots of traffic.

I do have Google Adsense activated in my blog, however it doesn't do well in the conversion rates, which is due to my lack of monetizing strategy. So far it still can generate enough income to cover my web host fees, however if my blog continues to grow popularity in the current speed, soon it won't be able to maintain itself in monetary terms.

Let's look at another case: my husband -Jarkko's blogs.

Jarkko is the other co-writer in this Plan Dream blog. He has been telling you his funny blogging experiments. He obviously has given most updated news to his imagined readers than to his wife -me. As I only learned that he was CAUGHT BY GOOGLE from his previous blog entry, even though he practically sat next to me all day long. ;-)

Well, back to the topic.

Jarkko has been blogging from 2004 just like me. While I have been so dedicated to my passion for writing as a blogger, he has a totally different strategy.

He created several blogs in different topics, ranging from stripe comics, astrology advice, travel tips in Taiwan, to mobile phone industry review and his real passion: Log Home Cabins.

Is he interested in all the topics? More or less I guess, otherwise he wouldn't have been creating them. However, what made him different from me is that he has a clear strategy, he has a plan, he doesn't just write for the sake of writing. He doesn't have the passion for writing but he has the passions for blogging and smart enough to make strategic choice.

Although during the past 1-2 years he hasn't been updating those blogs very often due to his busy day jobs, his Google Adsense conversion rates is 10 times higher than mine (a recent shock to me).

In other words, we both do blogging with passions, only I work more to lose money and he work less to gain money.

See the difference? it is not PASSION, it is STRATEGY. I use passion for just writing, he uses passion for creating strategy in his blogging.

After comparing our experience it is clear that although passion is one of the most important elements to keep you going, it is NOT enough for growing a successful blog. No matter what you mean by successful blog, eventually you will realise that you need clear plan, strategy, even monetary strategy to grow, develop and maintain your successful blog.

A successful blog needs passion AND plan, a goal for the future, a strategy to make it happen and make sure that you don't lose more and more money just for you passion, to show the direction for you to maintain and motivate your passions even when you are at low moments without much passions in your mind.

Having all these said and acknowledged, now it's time to get back to my successful "poor" blog, to congratulate myself the high traffic and to dedicates my thoughts to find solutions of "low profit". Only in this way, my successful blog can continue to grow my business, even being a business itself.

Yes that's what I am going to do now.

How about you?

Until the next time.

May 4 Updates:
This article is chosen as one of the entries of Carnival of Business and Entrepreneurship #19 along with other 20 posts. I am content. :)