Treat Your Blog Like A Real Business
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This presentation is from Affiliate Summit East 2018 (July 29 - July 31, 2018 in New York). Session description: You started blogging and then began to make some money from it. But in order to get to the next level, it’s time you stop treating your blog like a hobby and start treating it like a business.
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Treat Your Blog Like A Real Business
- 1. Treat Your Blog Like A Real Business Eric Nagel eric@rustbuilt.com
- 2. instagram.com/foundr Tweet this by going to typea.cc/ase18business
- 3. What we’re going to talk about: 1. Your Blog (hosting, etc) 2. Finance & Accounting 3. Legal 4. HR 5. Conferences 6. Exiting ● 18 minutes of content ● Questions ● I’ll be around after ○ Or eric@rustbuilt.com ● But DO leave feedback. #ad I’m an affiliate and will use affiliate links where possible, but only on products / services I use and recommend.
- 4. Your Blog: ● Hosting ● Plugins ● Themes
- 5. Hosting ● $2.95 / month shared hosting was OK when you were getting started ● Your blog IS your business ● If your blog goes down, your business is shut down ● Find Managed WordPress hosting ○ WP Engine ○ Liquid Web ● Monitor your site’s ○ Uptime ○ Plugin updates ○ Theme updates ○ Vulnerabilities & ○ Malware ● Daily Backups - #ad 20% off at typea.cc/wpease18
- 6. Plugins ● There are plenty of really great, free plugins ● Sometimes the paid version is worth it ● Everyone’s using the free version - stand above them ● Only download free plugins from WordPress.org ● CodeCanyon.net for paid plugins ● Or Google search ● Keep them updated!
- 7. Themes ● You can find good, free themes ● There are many more BAD free themes ○ May include malware ○ Published just for backlink ○ Bad coding ○ No support ○ No maintenance ● ThemeForest.net ○ $40 - $60 ● Keep it updated! ● (Remove the ones you’re not using: 2015, 2016, 2017, etc)
- 8. Paid Themes & Plugins ● What to look for: ○ Sales ○ Comments ○ Rating ○ Reviews ○ Date Created ○ Last Updated
- 9. Finance & Accounting* * I’m not an accountant
- 10. Banking ● Get a separate bank account ● Get a business credit card ● Watch video at typeaparent.com/business-of-blogging/webinar-bookkeeping-bloggers/ (or just search for “Webinar Bookkeeping For Bloggers”)
- 11. Accounting ● Know your P&L ○ Profit & Loss ○ How much money you earned and how much you spent over a given time ● Quickbooks Online is simple enough for most ● Mazuma will handle your accounting and taxes (both personal and business) for $75 - $125 / month
- 12. Legal* * I’m not a lawyer
- 13. Legal ● Get your business structure set up right ○ DBA, Partnership, LLC, S-Corp - all that stuff ● LegalZoom ○ Inexpensive ○ Lots of upsells ○ Maybe not best advice ● Hashtag Legal ○ More expensive ○ Knows the industry
- 14. Legal Agreements ● Should be in place for all sponsored work ● $250 from Businessese.com ○ Buy once, modify for all of your client work
- 15. HR
- 16. HR / Hiring ● Don’t hire family. ● Please, don’t hire family. ● Seriously, don’t hire family. ● Full job description ○ Tasks ○ Responsibilities ○ Accountabilities ● Contractors ○ Upwork.com ● Employees ○ Hire on character ○ Be sure core values align ○ Train for talent
- 17. HR / Payroll & Benefits ● Payroll ○ Gusto ● Benefits ○ Health Insurance ○ 401(k) ○ PTO
- 18. Contractor or Employee? ● Projects ● You tell them what to do ● You tell them when it needs to be done by ● The project has an end ● Jobs ● You tell them how to do it ● You tell them when they need to work ● Open-ended Contractors Employees
- 19. Conferences
- 20. Conferences ● This isn’t a vacation ● This is a professional environment ● What happens at conferences doesn’t stay at conferences ● What are your goals while at the conference? ● What’s your plan of attack? ● List 4 things which will pay for the conference 1. 2. 3. 4.
- 21. Exiting
- 22. Exiting ● Slow, painful death ● Easy: don’t do anything ● Sell ● Everything we talked about needs to be in line ● businessese.com/ episode44/