Most Super Affiliate Handbook readers and Rosalind Gardner’s Academy members will be familiar with a personal blog of mine that was used as an example of an affiliate site until about a year ago.

The blog was called Roamsters and I had a lot of fun building and working on it.

It was the only one of my blogs where I could write about whatever I wanted… whenever I wanted. I posted mostly about my adventures near and afar, but the blog didn’t really have a defined niche.

As a professional blogger / Super Affiliate, that removal of pressure to post regularly about a specific topic is a welcome change of pace.

It also introduced me to a whole new audience of people who shared my personal interests in travel, cool gadgets and shoes.

So, why did I kill it? Here are my reasons:

1. Roamsters began life in 2006 as a joint project with my friend, Ed, who had recently retired and wanted to supplement his retirement income. Ed, however, never really ‘took’ to blogging, so I soon found myself as the only contributor.
2. Using the site as an an affiliate site example required that I maintain and upgrade the core and theme components when necessary. Not a big deal, but around the same time, StudioPress moved to the new Genesis Framework, so changing over to that and a new theme involved a bit of a learning curve.
3. I also had to regularly check to make sure that the affiliate links were still valid and working. On a non-niched site where you are dealing with many different merchants and product types, checking and changing affiliate links and products can get time consuming.
4. Attracting free search engine traffic to a blog without a specific topic is much more difficult than if all your posts are within the same niche. And because it was a hobby blog, I wasn’t keen to use pay per click advertising to generate traffic.
5. Another reason I didn’t want to use PPC was because it got to the point where I didn’t care if the site made money or not. Hmmmm… can you see a decided lack of motivation?

I already RosalindGardner.com, which at the time was being used as a business card site. Redirecting visitors from Roamsters would not only boost traffic, rankings and sales; but personal brand awareness as well.

That realization alone cinched the deal to kill the blog.

Combining the blogs would save time (time is money) and make more money — which is exactly what I did. I moved all relevant posts over to RosalindGardner.com.

Nowadays, if you try to visit Roamsters.com, it redirects to RosalindGardner.com.

The lesson?

Don’t work on sites that don’t serve a real purpose or for which monetization is difficult. Kill it or combine it. Just do whatever is necessary to keep your blogging business and brand growing.

In the 10 Resolutions for Better Online Business in 2011 article, the very first tip was to “ask for help”.

In this article, you will learn how to get the help you need – when you need it – by asking better questions.

Here are 2 examples of how NOT to write questions.

how do i get started with cpa? is affiliate marketing hard? when can i start earning some income? can 250k my first year? can i earn millions? do you work alot?

Could you point me to an article that explains step by step how to get started with blogging from beginning to end? I need every detail of the process. Thanks for sharing your experiences and advice for success.

Yes, those were real questions that were posted to the NPT blog and guess what? You won’t see those questions posted anywhere, because my eyes were rolled too far back into my head that I couldn’t see to answer them.

To avoid frustrating your expert to the point of blindness, here are 8 tips for asking better questions.

1. Do your homework. Between topic and product research, writing blog posts, tending to social media marketing and responding to comments on their blogs; most professional bloggers are very busy people.

   Respect their time.

   Before asking “what is affiliate marketing?” or “what is a blog?“, try Googling your query or look for a Glossary or a FAQ on your expert’s blog.

2. Ask the right expert. As much as I’d like to help everyone all the time, there’s not much point in asking me how to improve your golf swing or get rid of belly fat.

   Those clearly aren’t my areas of expertise.

3. Be concise. Although I really enjoy learning about my readers’ lives and interests, I don’t have time to read through a book’s worth of anecdotes while trying to field and answer 10 questions.

   Share personal stories in private member forums where such information is encouraged, welcomed and enjoyed.

4. Ask precise questions. “I don’t know how” and “I can’t” are the basis for statements, not questions.

   Well-formed questions make the “I don’t know’s” obvious.

   Preface questions with “what, who, when, where, how or why”, eg. “How do I change my H1 font colors?”

5. Ask just one question. Peppering a comment form with several unrelated questions is just poor form.

   Look for posts relavent to each question and post them separately.

   This approach is much more helpful to other readers of the blog and will serve you better in SEO terms as well — providing more backlinks to your site.

6. Be literate. Native English speakers could (and should) use what they learned about punctuation and grammar in Grade 2 if they want their questions taken seriously — especially those posed by aspiring bloggers!

   Using ALL CAPS is only slightly more annoying than using none.

   Missing commas can completely change the meaning of a sentence, causing confusion and wasted time during clarification. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is an excellent resource for the comma-challenged.

7. Be patient. Unlike my tech guy who apparently gets a wakeup call everytime a tech support request arrives by email, I cherish my sleep. I also value my time off and the ability to go to lunch with a friend at the drop of a hat without communication devices at hand. Those are some of the biggest benefits to having an online business.

   So, if you don’t get a reply to your question within 2 minutes of posting it, consider the many reasons your expert may not immediately respond. They may live halfway around the world, be offline (on an airplane or hiking in Alaska) or attending their godson’s birthday party.

   Be patient. Allow 24 – 72 hours for a response. If after 72 hours you still haven’t heard anything, revisit the question to determine whether it follows the recommondations above.

   Most of all, don’t badger for a response. Sending 5 followup emails is a sure way to get ignored and your address blocked.

8. Be courteous. Courtesy might not help get your question answered, but it certainly won’t hurt. “Please”, “Thank you” and acknowledging effort go a long way to cultivating goodwill.

In a nutshell, all of the recommendations above boil down to a single element – Respect others’ time to gain respect (and help) in return.

Any questions?

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

You’ve probably heard of the old housewives’ system for managing housework and other chores.

It went like this:

Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.

That routine helped those women stay organized and focused on their chores so that they could get everything done — and they had a LOT to do!

As bloggers, we too have many different things to accomplish, and although I typically hate the thought of following a schedule, I do find it helpful to have some sort of plan to help me stay focused and on task.

Take blog post writing for example.

I prefer to write two or more blog posts in a sitting to queue up for later delivery. The day of the week and time of day I write depends primarily on the time of year. In the winter, I write first thing in the morning; while in the summer I like to write in mid-afternoon when it’s too hot to be outside. I also like to group article topics by season and will start working on my Christmas season posts as early as July.

Granted, that doesn’t look much like a daily writing schedule, but it works for me.

Create your own schedule.

Consider what works for you and your current schedule. Here are some points to ponder as you create your own blogging routine.

• At what time of day do you feel most alert and motivated? That’s probably the best time to write articles.
• On which day of the week do you have the most time to write?
• Does your job allow you time during the day to write? This can be a great escape from the drudgery of work too!
• Do you work nights? I used to write my best University essays while on midnight shifts.
• Can your partner take the kids to a weekly class to free up time for you to write?

Figure out what schedule suits you best and set that day and time to write.

You should also consider that the day you publish your articles will be busier than others with reader responses to your post, so make sure you can set some time aside for comment moderation on those days. The days you publish are also good days to comment on other blogs with links to your new post.

Provided you don’t work in the online business opportunites market which is rife with weekly product launches and ‘extra’ writing, you should schedule a separate session for product research and review writing. You can do this bi-weekly or even monthly when you have sufficient products to promote on your site.

Avoid distractions.

I tend to be easily distracted, so I’ve set things up to make sure that I’m not (usually) interrupted when I write.

I go into my office prepared to write, so I bring a beverage  and clean my desk of paperwork that might change my focus. I refrain from checking my email, Google Reader and other sites by keeping programs and browser windows closed. I prefer a quiet room for writing, so I’ll shut my office door and/or the windows depending on the noise levels inside and out.

My affiliate managers know that I prefer to be contacted by email – not phone. If the phone does ring while I’m writing, I just don’t answer it.

Make your schedule and your environment as distraction-free as possible to minimize work interruptions.

Now commit to your blogging schedule.

You won’t need to work your schedule for too long before you notice that your workload becomes both easier and more fluid.

The key to getting to the point where it is easy is committing to your plan.

For example, when you know that you’re going to sit down between 9AM and 11AM every Tuesday to write a few blog posts, you’ll start thinking about your topic ideas and article flow well in advance. Maybe you’ll jot down a few ideas  on paper or create a rough draft on your blog when you have a few spare minutes during the previous week. In that way, you’re already prepared to write and you can get the job done faster.

Once the writing gets easier and faster, you might also be inclined to write more posts which always makes the search engines happier and more productive on your behalf.

Try working a blogging schedule for even just a month and see how good you feel about what you’ve accomplished in terms of content creation and increased revenues!

Don’t feel that you have the self-discipline to set a schedule?

Then check out Brian Tracy’s “No Excuses! The Power of Self-Discipline”.

Learn how to apply Self-Discipline to: Goal Setting; Time Management; Health Habits; Relationships; Sales; Business Operations; Physical Fitness; Personal Development; Negotiating; Communications; Character Development; and many other areas.

With Brian’s training, you’ll accomplish more in a month than most people accomplish in a year and take complete control of your life.

So, do you have a blogging schedule or a strategy that you to stay motivated as a blogger? Please share your tips and ideas with us in a comment below.