Don’t get too comfortable with who you are at any given time – you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be. - Jon Bon Jovi

Most of you know that I really like working from home despite the occasional cat-based distraction.

It is challenging, rewarding and sometimes a lot of fun.

But there are a lot of other serious reasons as to why a person might want to consider starting an online business and work from home.

In this post I’m talking about why I think more people should consider going down this path – even though it might be really scary at first.

Let’s jump in!

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“Should I sell Blog Tyrant for $500,000?” I asked my fiance, completely hypothetically, while going for a walk last week.

After thinking about it for a few seconds she settled on “Yes” – it seemed like a lot of money for a two year old blog so I should probably sell up.

She’s right, half a million dollars does seem like a lot of money when you have the whole lot in your bank account at one time (minus the sales taxes, etc.). But when you look at it from a longer perspective it might actually be a really bad idea.

The conversation got me thinking about how much my blog was really worth. It also got me thinking about how much I’d actually sell it for (if anything).

In this article I want to go over:

• How much your blog is worth to a potential buyer
• How much your blog is worth to you and your business
• Why you should think twice (or thrice) about selling your blog
• What you need to do if you decide to sell

As you know, I’ve sold blogs before and have a little bit of experience in the area. I’ve also got a few regrets that I’ll tell you about.

I also really want to know whether you’d sell your blog for $100,000.

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How do I make money blogging? Can I go from hobby writer to professional blogger? Why isn’t it happening as fast as I’d like?

These are questions that almost every blogger will ask themselves at some point in their career. From the moment we get the itch and purchase our first WordPress blog host we are dying to make it big – or at least make some pocket money.

Well, one of the best ways to avoid pitfalls on the path is to study the history of those that came before you. And, funnily enough, it’s also a really good way to come up with new and profitable ideas. Remember the motto no ideas original?

In this post I want to show you some of the most controversial, interesting and inspirational events that have happened to people making money with blogs.

By looking back at these provocative histories I’m hoping we can avoid mistakes and come up with ideas that will help us in our time, with our journey.

Let’s dive in!

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When you’ve been blogging for as long as I have you’ll start to see a few common trends, questions and concerns that continually pop up.

And one of the most common questions of all is how to find the most profitable niche to blog about.

People rack their brains trying to find the hallowed niche that is untapped, flowing with traffic and, of course, oozing with money.

They use amazing tools like Market Samurai (aff) to research their competitors backlinks (yes, you can do that!) and see if there is any way that they can do it better or mimic their success.

And while these methods do have merit there is something missing. Something not quite right about it all.

So, in this post I want to talk about the most profitable niche in blogging.

I really hope everyone reads this because it might save you a lot of time, money and heartache over the years.

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One of the best ways to make money online is to buy established websites and blogs and improve, optimize and tweak them to perform better.

In fact, you can get better returns from websites and blogs than almost any investment in the world. Its a very low input, high output situation.

I thought we’d do something a bit different this weekend (instead of nothing) and try a little exercise with a neat little prize.

Leave a comment answering these two questions:

• What blog or website would you buy assuming money was no option?
• How would you improve on it?

This type of thing is an extremely good way to learn about the valuation of websites. And if you are trying to grow a blog to make a living or an eventual sale you will need to become an expert at this.

What are the rules?

• You cannot choose Google or Facebook
• You cannot choose an adult or gambling website
• You have to improve the website within a year
• Your improvements cannot cost more than 5% of your chosen website’s (guessed) income (ie you cannot just spend a million dollars on advertising)

What is the prize?

I’ll have a look at the answers and see which one I think has the most merits. The author of the entry that I like most will get a free Blog Consult by me valued at $299. I’ll take a look at your blog and send you suggestions on how you can improve, tweak and change it to grow a bigger audience and make more money.

photo credit: notsogoodphotography

photo credit: .Cest.

We all want a huge mailing list. I’m guilty of it. Take a look around the archives of Blog Tyrant and you’ll see all the references I make to building a huge list.

But, if I’m honest, a huge list is totally irrelevant unless the subscribers are engaged.

So what’s more important? Building huge relationships.

In this post I want to take a look at why you need to get your list engaged and addicted to your content and give you some tips on how to do it.

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photo credit: mugley

The world is in a debt crisis. Governments are bailing out the banks. But, there is no one to bail us out. So we have to cut our debts. And as I found out this week, it is possible to cut many of your blogging, office and home bills by up to 55% with as much as a phone call.

I even got a new iPhone!

In this post I am going to show you what I did this week to cut many of my home [office] bills with just a few hours work.

After that, I’d like to see as many comments as you can muster with all your debt and expense reduction tips and tactics.

They all have to be legitimate and totally legal.

If you know someone in a tricky financial situation please forward this post to them. I’d like to accumulate as much expense-reduction knowledge as possible for anyone out there who is struggling.

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photo credit: ktylerconk

How do you know when you are done? How many hours, days, weeks and months do you put in to something before you realize that it’s just not going to work for you?

This is a question I have been asking myself a lot these days.

In this post I’d like to ask a few questions, and come up with almost no answers.

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photo credit: Caveman Chuck Coker

Have you ever seen one of those “buy me a beer” buttons that allow you to donate to the blogger? They used to be everywhere.

In fact, I know a few bloggers who would rake in four figures a year just from their donate button. Pretty amazing right?

So where did these buttons go? Why aren’t we all using them? And why is the donate button almost dead?

How did the donate button work

The donate button was a pretty simple invention. Using Paypal’s donate feature you could add a snippet of code to the sidebar of your blog and take money from generous people.

Most of the time the blogger would add the catchy “Buy Me a Beer” phrase to the top of the button to make it seem more casual and friendly.

Other times people would have a little bit of text explaining how the money would be used; server costs, time writing more posts, etc.

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photo credit: Randy Son Of Robert

Did you know that many Asian billionaires consult Feng Shui experts before moving office or buying a property? In fact, there are stories about hotels and companies on the brink of collapse that reworked their Feng Shui and now make a fortune. Malarkey? Possibly. But when you work for yourself from a home office you will try anything.

In this post I am going to talk to you about how to Feng Shui your office to increase your wealth. I did it in my office and it seems to be helping.

What is Feng Shui and why do I care?

Let me preface this post by warning you that I have a little bit of an Eastern obsession. I practiced Kung Fu for ten years, travel to the Indian Himalayas fairly regularly, am fascinated by Buddhist philosophy and prefer to read about Chinese emperors and dynasties than wizards and sexy Vampires.

Feng Shui was a natural progression for me.

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