Get 2 Weeks Access to ‘Become a Blogger’ for $1 [Exclusive to ProBlogger Readers]

Wow, Darren! That’s a great deal. Thanks for getting it set up for your 31 Days readers.

I’m already a member of Become a Blogger Premium, so I can tell anyone considering it that they will learn a lot from the program.

Darren,

You’re kidding. Seriously.

Yaro Stark is not someone most legit, even just starting out, bloggers trust.

I don’t know him from cheese but when I have visited his site (previous to this post) whether he is or not, ’cause maybe he’s on the up and up – he comes across as a “get-rich” type who got rich by getting others to pay him to get rich.

Your whole blogging course was absolutely invaluable.

In many respects you repeated stuff from your book however the discipline of coming back again and again to your blog, reread things and learn new tricks (or actually put the tricks into practice), well no price tag can really be put on that.

Seriously, have seen 71% rise in stats.

Make a group out of us, (have thoughts, will write in the forum properly) and you be there for us or really choose someone serious who has something to teach (not just the basics by medicinemen) and pay that person & we’ll pay more than $1.

Karenne

From Darren: Karenne – I’m really sorry but when someone says ‘I don’t know him from cheese’ and yet then says he’s not ‘legit’ I find it very difficult to take your comment seriously.

As I said previously to another commenter – if you don’t want to do the course because it doesn’t suit your needs or because it doesn’t seem to be your style then that’s all good and well but why the personal attack?

I think you say some good things in your comments – the ‘get rich quick’ impression that you get is understandable – Yaro is using his story of success fairly heavily in promoting his products – however because he uses it doesn’t mean he’s not legit.

Yaro has had real success with his sites and makes a very good living from them – as a result people want to know more about how he does it. I’m happy for you to critique Yaro’s ideas but please don’t resort to calling him not legit simply because of his sales page. This offer actually gives you the perfect way to check out whether he is worthwhile or not – for a dollar you can see what he’s made of.

I think this is really good offer for people to try Yaro’s course. You have a chance to decide if you should invest $77/month or not. I am sure 2 weeks would be enough to see what the course is about.

I almostly started to make money through the bloggs and blogging.but not yet gain.your writing olso helps to my attempts

wow, this seems like an excellent deal, I would not mind putting my blog on steriods, hehe, I’m signing up, my blog is relatively new but so far I aready have 83 RSS reader, 74 Twitters followers, almost 8000 page views, and a total of 2842 visitors, these numbers are representative of 1 month. So, I’m not sure if this is good or not but if someone can chime in it would be great.

Darren,

Enjoyed your 31DBBB 2009 series. It also made me create a spreadsheet where i/you/anyone can project (with some % of variation) the income as a blogger from his/her blog. I just wanted to share.

http://www.goldseo.com/news/input-return-money-project-blogger/

Thanks

I must say, I loathe the style of the sign up page. It reeks of “get rich quick!!!” and is the sort of thing that would make me run the other way Very Fast if it wasn’t something Darren was recommending.

Not sure if I’ll sign up yet, there’s no indication anywhere which modules one would have access to in the first 2 weeks but it seems to imply it’s only the first module which is not something I’m interested in, topic-wise.

The deal seems quite worth it. I am pretty impressed with the price so thinking of joining.

$77 per month on how to “become a blogger” ? Wow…

Funny how Sammy is so full of praise for this kind of course, and calls anyone who dares to suggest it might not be worth the monetary investment “jokes”, yet doesn’t even want to leave a link to his/her own blog? Very strange.

Hello Darren,
I think this is really good to make people try Yaro’s course. and its really a good idea.

Sounds great I like the part on How to Optimize Your Blog for Maximum Search Engine Performance, I’ve been doing a lot of that lately.

But I’m sorry to say I’m going to pass, I’m just not ready to make a financial investment in blogging yet but do think it’s the natural escalation of the process. I’ve been blogging now for 3 months and while I do believe that some day I will join a program such as this I just haven’t explored all the free resources yet.

Great site and thanks for the offer.

I’ve been document my finding of the how to make money scams and your program sound legit I’ll make note of it for when I do decide to go up a level.

Hi to all you lovely commenters here.

This is Yaro.

I’m not going to defend myself from all the people who left comments accusing me of scamming, because I know that’s not what I do.

I suggest everyone makes up their own mind. Try the program and see what we do.

We’ve spent almost six months straight developing over 50 quality videos in the program, and there’s still more to come.

If you like the course, stay with us, if not, don’t.

You know the world will be a better place when people judge others based on real experience with them, not just what they choose to perceive on the surface. Share the love people, not the fear.

I loved Yaro comment up there

“You know the world will be a better place when people judge others based on real experience with them, not just what they choose to perceive on the surface. Share the love people, not the fear.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Thanks Yaro

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Yaro and I appreciate it lots to hear from all of you.

There seems to be a couple of people who doubt our sincerity though, and even though I know their claims are not true, it still kinda hurts, especially when those people have not actually tried out our course yet or got in touch with me with any questions.

We now have over 1,000 very happy members inside the course and I still get daily emails and comments from people saying how much they love the Become A Blogger course.

The course has now been running for almost it’s complete 6 months, and the *vast* majority of people loved it so much that they decided to stay on for the whole course.

If you have specific questions about the course, or you would like me to clear up any issue, you can email me and I will *personally* respond to you. Just use the following address:

gideon[at]becomeablogger.com (replace [at] with @)

Thanks again for all your feedback. We listen to our audience and take immediate action whenever it makes sense to do so. We can’t run a successful business without your valuable input :)

Talk soon!

Gideon Shalwick
Co-Founder of Become A Blogger

Hi Darren,
I learnt a lot about blogging during the 31 days, although I missed several days. I will catch up them through following the posts.

Darren, I’m a tech-challenged guy and my efforts to get a professional blog has been a mirage so far, despite my sincere efforts. I want to know if anyone can design a blog and website at a very reasonable price.

I would like to join this program 2 weeks for $1
I’m not sure if I can continue to do so, as I want to invest in my blog design.

Thanks for the generous help, in advance!
Solomon

5 years plus, I don’t think so. I’ve been doing it for three months and I’m seeing traffic for all the keywords I hit.

But then again I’m a web developer and may be ahead of some people as far as the learning curve. Still 5 years seams way too long, maybe if you’re not doing it every day but a lot of blogging sites recommend blogging every day that’s what I try to do and it seams to work.

6 moths to a year that’s my guess but that’s only because of the learning curve. Once you have a better idea of what you’re doing it will come naturally.

The key is in good keyword research before writing anything. Find keywords you can get search results for and then write your posts. Just remember to write for people not just search engines this was my first mess when blogging. I wrote for search engines not people. Visitors would read what they needed and move on, I’ve since resolved this using analytics and doing keyword analysis. Now my click thought rate has gone up.

Go http://www.scamresearchcenter.com/post/Whats-Jeffs-Scam-Niche-Marketing.aspx if you’re curious about how to find and work on niche websites

from Darren: I think the length of time differs a lot for different people – however as I mentioned above in one of the comments – for me it was at least 12 months before I saw my blogs hit a tipping point that took them from a few hundred visitors a day into something more significant and able to produce me an income that I could come close to living off. In fact it was probably closer to 2 years on my first blog and on my more recent ones about 18 months. I suspect it depends a lot on the topic, how much competitions there is, a little bit of luck, what experience you have previously, what your profile is like before you start etc.

Hi, quite interesting thing. Mabye i’m giving it a try.

Darren, I gotta say, when people want to get into blogging and ask me about it, Problogger is the first place I send them to.

So it is with great disappointment that I see this post show up here, the place where I am sending friends for good, useful, high quality info.

Which brings me to my question…

How did this work exactly? Did Yaro pay you (and shoemoney, and john chow, etc. etc.) up front to “mention” this nonsense of his on your blog, or did he come to you with a special affiliate offer? It’s the same end result, really. You get paid to help Yaro get paid. I get it, but I’m just curious.

Why the curiosity?

Because I actually sat through all 5 pages of Yaro’s own bio when this guy was first brought to my attention a while back, and he appears to have failed (or just not succeeded significantly) at every single thing he’s ever done online.

Except one, of course.

Going around acting like an internet guru and getting people to buy (literally and figuratively) into his crap. Based on what I’m seeing, this appears to be the only thing he’s successfully done online. Congrats on that, by the way. And Yaro, if I’m mistaken here, please correct me.

So Darren, how does something like this end up on the blog I’m recommending to friends as a trusted source of quality info?

Just curious.

From Darren: cmp – first, thanks for sending people to ProBlogger, I am thankful for and honored by that.

Secondly – why the disappointment? I’ve linked here to a resource that I genuinely think could help people who have just finished a month long process of improving their blogs. I think this would be a good follow on learning experience. It’s relevant to my topic, of a good quality, developed by someone I respect, has been well reviewed by many of my readers….. not sure what else to say. In my mind it’s not ‘nonsense’ at all.

In terms of the ‘deal’ here. As you’ll know if you’ve read this blog for a while, this is a blog about making money from blogging. I talk about and use affiliate programs on my blog. Become a Blogger has an affiliate program associated with it which I participate in.

In terms of Yaro’s success – I beg to differ with your assessment. He’s built successful membership sites but also a successful blog. While his blog may not be as successful as A-list blogs – I’d argue that he’s built up a big enough readership that has enabled him to then launch his membership sites. The blog came first and then the membership sites.

Yaro talks in his videos about how the membership sites were the key to his success and the reason he really started making money – I agree with this BUT would argue that without his blog he’d not have had the success he did. I for one would never have heard about him unless he’d had his blog and I’m sure the same could be said for many others.

You see the real power of what I see that Yaro’s done is use his blog to launch his next thing. Many bloggers launch blogs simply to be the income earner themselves…. but I think their real potential is in how you leverage them to launch other things.

Yaro is one of the few bloggers that I know that has done this brilliantly. He’s taken a blog that has had some success and launched other things that have had even more.

Hope that that makes sense?

I want to address this one to Terry…

When I was making the promo video for Membership Site Mastermind I did have concerns that I would express the message the way you have interpreted it – as if I never made real money from blogging and it was membership sites that made the big difference.

That’s definitely true, but you can’t look at this in simple terms.

My membership site could not have existed if it wasn’t for my blog. There’s a strong dependency there and while the membership site might *make* the money, the blog creates the conditions for it to do so. It’s symbiotic.

In terms of raw income just from blogging, I’ve made at least $2000 a month from banner sponsorship for a good 2-3 years and my affiliate income has steadily increased from about $500 a month up to $20,000 a month now.

That being said, my blog couldn’t do these numbers without my email list. The list grows because of the blog AND because of the membership site launches I do.

This whole process is very much interconnected.

One thing I can say, if I was *just* blogging and only using the techniques I teach in Blog Mastermind, I’d be doing at least $10,000 a month combining ad sales and affiliate sales, so what I present in the sales pages for both programs is true, I have no intention of misleading people.

The real secret of course is the combination of strategies I use, and if you combine Become A Blogger Premium and Blog Mastermind and then move on to Membership Site Mastermind you pretty much have the entire formula for my half a million in revenue over the passed 12 months.

Or, just read through the last four years of blog entries I’ve done and extrapolate the concepts there.

Yaro

Thanks for the reply, Darren. And I do hear what you are saying. I just have some issues. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s hard for me to see a point for you to recommend something that you have ALREADY done, and done better.

Problogger is the only resource about blogging any of your readers will ever need in their entire blogging lives. Sending them to this Yaro guy for the same info you’ve already covered (and covered better, and are more qualified to cover, etc. etc. etc.) just seems silly and completely pointless for your readers.

Now if you combine this with the fact that you are making money by doing this, and it makes it look, to me at least, that’s it’s just you trying to make a buck. And I guess I can’t really fault you for that, it’s what you (and I) do. We make money online. I just don’t like seeing it done in the way I’m seeing it here. And I equally don’t like getting emails from a couple of the people I’ve sent your way asking me if they should indeed spend their money on this crap (my opinion, I know).

I mean, do you honestly think there is one reader of your blog that actually needs to be sent to Yaro to learn how to install wordpress? Or register a domain name? Or learn what “RSS” means? Or any of the other basic info you yourself have already covered and made available for free on this very blog?

And yeah, my preexisting dislike of Yaro and the seemingly infinite number of people like him is definitely playing a role here too. But this probably isn’t the place to fully explain that.

From Darren: cmp – thanks for your compliment – I appreciate your vote of confidence in ProBlogger.

However I don’t have a problem with recommending someone else even though I’ve covered a lot of the same ground here on ProBlogger. A couple of the main reasons being:

1. Yaro’s course is up to date and organized logically – Yep we’ve covered a lot of the same stuff here at ProBlogger but here at ProBlogger I have written 5000 or so posts over years. As a result it can be hard to find the best and most relevant stuff. Also some of the content from 3-4 years ago is dated.

Yaro’s courses are presented more in an order that builds upon one another, it’s condensed and it’s all up to date.

2. Yaro brings a different perspective, set of experiences and voice – this blog is largely about my experience of blogging and as a result is just one person’s view on the topic. Yaro comes from a different perspective and as someone with more experience in internet marketing brings a unique perspective. I actually think that somewhere between what he teaches and what I teach there’s some pretty good perspectives and a well balanced approach.

Lastly – yes I do make a buck from promoting Yaro’s courses. I don’t have a problem with that and don’t hide the fact by cloaking links or pretending that I’m not anywhere. However I don’t have a problem with that as I feel I’m recommending something:

1. relevant
2. of a high quality
3. something that is useful for my readers
4. something that I’ve had a lot of positive feedback on

In the end if it meets those criteria I don’t have a problem with recommending it.

By no means will it meet everyone’s needs and I don’t hype it up to say that it does. Incidentially I particularly like the offer above because it has a trial period at very low cost. It also has a money back offer if people sign up and are not satisfied. I’ve seen Yaro honor this a couple of times.

In the end if you don’t like it – don’t buy it. If you’re not sure – give it a go for a couple of weeks and see if it is ‘crap’ (your word) or not. At least then you’ll be better informed to critique Yaro.

Lastly – is there anyone who neds to learn how to install WP or other basic information. Abosolutely. I get questions on those basic things every day. The information is available online for free but some people like a little hand holding and the personal support of others – and are willing to pay for that.

I’m curious CMP – why do you have a pre-existing dislike of me? What did I do to create this condition in you?

Yaro

Hi Yaro. It’s hard to exactly pinpoint what it is that I dislike about you, but I will do my very best.

You’re a guy who takes pictures of himself next to his car and uses it to sell a product that is, for all intents and purposes, HoW To GeT RiCh OnLiNe!!!! You do a lot of stuff like this that really just reeks of everything that is scummy about the whole “make money online” niche.

You appear to have lacked any real world experience with actually being significantly successful online UNTIL you decided to start a blog about how to become significantly successful online. To me, this is a fat guy selling a weight loss product who then uses the money made to go get weight loss surgery.

You appear to me to have learned what you currently know through resources such as Problogger. So, to sell a product containing virtually identical info makes it look like you are just taking free information (which was written by someone more qualified than you) and selling it in your own reproduced way. You’ll then make money off this, use it to further build your brand as an internet guru/expert/whatever, which will then allow this cycle of stuff that annoys me (and others, I’m sure) to continue over and over again.

You say stuff like this: “As all good entrepreneurs know, you have to fail to succeed.”

I’m an entrepreneur. I never had to fail to succeed. I know it happens, but to say it HAS to happen when I myself am first hand proof that it doesn’t… you’re just stating nonsense as fact, and it’s pretty hard to not dislike that.

I can keep going, if you’d like.

Message to Yaro…
Thank you for addressing my comments here on Darren’s blog.
But you could have done it on your own blog…where I made pretty much the same point.

Instead you canned my comments.
Thats cool.
Editorial control and all that.
But you would have gained more respect in the eyes of many if you allowed all reasonable comments on your blog, not just the ones which tell you how great ‘Become a Blogger’,’Become a Blogger Premium’, ‘Blogger Mastermind’, ‘Membership site Mastermind’ is.
Message to Gideon…
Thanks for responding to my email.
Terry

CMP –

I know exactly what you mean about the “making money only by teaching how to make money”. There’s definitely an element of that in my blog given the nature of the topic.

I like to think that I’ve only been able to teach this subject because I made money in other fields before teaching it, but if that’s the box you want to put me in, fair enough.

Most people who attempt to make money teaching how to make money never do. The ones who do actually know something from practical experience. I fit into that mold.

I can see you’ve decided to selectively view parts of my work and lump me as this person with characteristics you don’t like.

I’ve avoided enough flame wars to know when someone doesn’t like you their field of perception is too closed off to what the other person is saying to change. They’ve made their choice, they see the evidence how they want to see it, and case closed.

Unfortunately that’s why there is so much hate and fear in the world. I don’t want to contribute more to it so I’ll accept that you feel this way about it and leave it be.

Good luck with your projects!

Yaro

Hey CMP

I recently went to a meet up with Melbourne bloggers. Yaro came up quite a bit in the conversation. While some of us disliked the sales tactics, we all agreed that his information was quality and that he was someone worth knowing. This was quite surprising considering the diffeerence in blogger demographics.

There are many reasons why I trust him and like him:

– He was successful in other aspects of internet marketing prior to starting his blog. This shows that he knows how to run a business, not just a site.

– He covers many topics not talked about on problogger. I love this as there are so many aspects of online business that apply to bloggers, but don’t really fit in here.

– His paid content is AWESOME. I was blown away with the content in Blog Mastermind. I had to stop after 4 months due to budget issues, but I would love to get the final lessons. Despite the price tag, its chock full of quality.

I understand how you can hate tactics, but that doesn’t mean you should dislike the person.

I’ve read/experienced a lot of paid products and programs. In most cases, just making that first connection leads to extra income, referrals and leads.

Yaro – keep it up :) I may not buy anything from you for a short while, but thats because of personal circumstances. I would definitely be in your other product, membership site mastermind, if I could. xxx

– Jade