4 Things…

by

It’s been a month since I got home from Europe.  A lot has happened in both my personal and professional life.  I’ve just moved into an apartment right by the ocean.  I’m really excited about this new place, but I’m also dreading unpacking because I have to organize a lot of things.

In addition, many things are happening with this blog now that I’m back to working full-time.  In this post, I’d like to quickly run down four things that are going on right now:

#1- My Blog Redesign

As you probably noticed the site looks a little different.  To be honest, this was a complete accident.  The other day, I went to update my old WP Theme (Patagonia) and I didn’t notice the text saying the update would remove all customizations.  So with a single press of a button, I completely jacked up the design of this blog.

Wooooops!

Fortunately, I managed to fix things a little.  Way back in January, I had the team at Blog Success design my blog and add a bunch of tools.  Part of this package was a free copy of the Thesis Theme.  All I had to do is spend five minutes changing a few things and now I’m back to having a plain ole’ boring looking blog.

Anyway, in the next few weeks I’ll be doing a serious blog redesign.  Right now it seems like a lot plugins and other thing are acting up.  So please have a little patience as I work to make things a little more streamlined.

#2- The Apprentice Is…

Last week I announced a competition for an apprentice.  The idea here is I’ll take one person and help this individual get a lot of web traffic to his or her blog.

I’m not lying when I say it was really hard to pick the winner.  Frankly, I felt pretty honored that some of the submissions were from top quality sites.  In fact, a few blogs weren’t picked because I knew they didn’t need my help.  They’re already crushing it!

Ultimately my decision came down to somebody who had a great mix of passion and potential.  My selection is…

Ryan Renfrew: http://ryanrenfrew.com/

I liked Ryan’s obvious enthusiasm for the topic of lifestyle design and I feel like we can work together to help expand his reach.  Furthermore, I’m starting to branch out a little from the concept of lifestyle design, so I have a number of blog post ideas that might be useful to him.

Again -A BIG thanks to everyone who entered! I’m sorry I couldn’t pick more than one person.  The upshot is I’m going to create a case study of Ryan’s site.  So even if you weren’t picked you’ll definitely learn a lot about what we’ll be doing.

#3- Update on My “3 Types of Internet Income” Report

I’m starting to feel like Axl Rose working on the Chinese Democracy album.  Two months back I promised a free report that detailed 3 models for earning an Internet income.

To be honest, I’m still working on this eBook.  It’s about 25,000 words in length and provides a realistic picture of what it’s like to make money online.

Unfortunately I ran into a slight hiccup which has delayed things a bit.  The first income model discusses how to earn short term income from Helium (Something my brother has been successfully doing.)  The problem is Helium has changed their payment structure.

Sooooo… I have to wait a few days to see what’s going to be different.  THEN I have to rewrite one whole section.

It sucks.  But that’s life!

#4- New Focus of Steve Scott Site

Another thing you might have noticed is I’m starting to blog mostly about Internet marketing and creating online income.  I’ve come to realize that I’m all over the place with the topics on this site.  Instead of trying to being everything to everybody, I’ve decided to tightly focus on one theme:

“How to create a perfect lifestyle by earning an Internet income.”

Right now, this is a tagline in progress.  I’ll come up with something catchier during site redesign.  My point is this.  Moving forward I’m going to concentrate on creating content on the actual techniques that allowed me to travel through Europe for seven months.  Basically – How to create your own Internet Lifestyle.

I think this is different from a lot of blogs because many only talk about making money.  Others concentrate just on traveling/lifestyle design.  I’m hoping to combine the two and carve out a pretty distinct little niche.  What do you think?

Pardon the Mess…

As you can see, a lot is happening around here.  Once in awhile something might not be working on this site.  All that I ask of you is to have a little patience because I’m literally juggling fifteen balls in the air at the present moment.

Thanks for your continued support!

Take Action. Get Results.



33 thoughts on “4 Things…”

  1. Steve, you are doing great, even though you are busy. I hate moving, since packing and unpacking is such a pain in the rear. One of my resolutions for the new year is to get better organized. It is time to let lots of things go. I have way too much stuff, and I don’t need it.

    Keep on doing what you are, since you are doing FANTASTIC!!! I am glad to hear that yo was able to fix your UH OH moment. don’t we all have those, though. ha/ha

  2. Shane,

    Very true “oopsies” happen to the best of us. Moving is a pain in the butt. I have everything IN the new apartment now, but organizing ans frankly MINIMALIZING a lot of the stuff in the apartment is the big next step, along with setting up cable, internet, phone etc. Then I will be onto buying a new car so I can stop paying crazy amounts for a monthly rental.

    It seems the issues never stop.

    Like I said before “letting a lot of stuff go” or minimalizing is a great tool. I found on my trip it is easy to live for months with minimal amount of stuff. I like that I can now toss a t-shirt on the floor, but I also think I have “way to much junk”

    Keeping crap organized is a huge factor on productivity.

    Thanks for the kinds words of encouragement in your comment! 🙂

  3. Looks like you made a good choice with ryanrenfew.com. I’m looking forward to see how the case study progresses!

    And I like your tagline in progress. Seems like a good and solid focus.

    Nice Chinese Democracy reference! That sucks that you have to rewrite a section! Lame!

    Good luck with all of your stuff, Steve! Keep up the great work, buddy!

    • Thanks Tristan,

      You were definitely a case of being too advanced. You are already doing everything I would recommend 😉

      I am trying to figure out the things now that I need to do to go onto the “next stage” for a blog. Hopefully I will get there someday!

      Thanks for the Comment!

  4. Hi Steve:

    Nice post here that sorts out your plans and makes you move ahead. I am happy for your selection of Ryan based on your reasons and up coming future results. Good for me that you will be focusing on Internet marketing, that I need to keep reading . I think , you do need to make more designing changes to your blog, so it may look, more like it’s owner.
    As a marketer you are full of knowledge have business insight, and enriched knowledge on personal development and your blog right now is looking like a simple page with non of these expressions. As First impression is the most lasting impression for new readers. Never for me because I have experienced insight.

    Make it great for yourself

    fran A

    • Thanks Fran,

      I am definitely going to be going forward with some more design changes in the near future. It will be something I will get on top of in the next few weeks. Hopefully It should end up looking pretty sharp, and a lot more professional.

  5. I like the layout and content of this site – I am also using a free wordpress theme and there is an update that has been released – im afraid that IF i update the theme everything will be gone – which would not make me happy…

    I am going to do the same thing as you and update my blog to a thesis theme -it is very clean and attracts attention.

    Good luck on your ebook – it does take a lot of time but the end results will be extremely rewarding!

    • Chris,

      Ya it kinda sucks to lose everything. really my fault, I am not an expert when it comes to setting up a site, visually. It is something I never invested much time is. Someone who has SOME knowledge are often the most dangerous, throw in not paying attention and it is a bad thing.

      Just read every message carefully and I am sure you will be fine.

      Thanks for dropping by and commenting!

  7. Congrats on the selection of Ryan and the decision to shift directions a bit. Sorry about that customization deal, could not have been fun. But on the other hand, since you are restructuring so to speak anyway, why not get a fresh look.

    I feel you on the ebook. I ditched the one I was writing when I shifted topics not so long ago, so my new one is a work in progress. Hope to have it up soon. But writing these things, then having to go back and do a little mop up is not the most fun thing.

    Anyhow, I’m looking forward to the evolution of the Steve Scott Site (may have given you another ebook title there) and will be here to both support the effort and learn more about some techniques for creating more moolah.

    Hang tough, guy.

  8. Congratulations, Ryan! I think you made a good choice there, Steve. I first visited Ryan’s site only about a week ago, but I could tell right away that this was a guy full of energy and enthusiasm. I have no doubt at all that with a little direction he’s going to totally crush it!

    Well done, Ryan, and you better pay attention in class, mate, because we’re all watching! LOL

    Site redesign: Oh, good, I was hoping this was just an interim thing. I already miss the old design. 🙂

    ebook/reports: Looking forward to this, and I don’t mind having to wait a bit longer, I know it’ll be worth it. In the meantime I’m going to check out this “helium” thing (I’ve not heard of these guys before)

    New focus: One word, mate… Brilliant!

    Thanks, Steve! For everything!
    Kind regards,
    Steve

  9. Welcome home Steve. Sounds like you’ve come back with a bump to some crazy times. All the best with the site redesign. You sound very upbeat and philosophical about it all. I’d have been gutted and wasted at least a day mentally whinging 😉

    Looking forward to seeing where you go with this slightly new direction and congratulations to Ryan. I’m sure you two will have a blast working together. 🙂

    • I can’t say I was not UBER-frustrated when I realized I had issues. I was. It got under my skin quite a bit. Can’t dwell on it though.

      Thanks for the well wishes EL. It is good to be back. Even though (for now) I seem to have busier days than ever and I am falling behind on my goals.

      I do have a lot of personal and to be honest some social business to take care of…but that is just excuses. 😉

      Anyhow nice to hear your cheery words again 🙂

      Thanks for dropping by!

    • Hmmm

      I am not that well versed in WP setup (and I know you are).

      I like the response style of wp-thread-comment. It helps me keep track of conversations better.

      Is it a particular resource hog or is there just a way to set thesis to do comment threading for you without it

      • Steve,

        Thesis has threaded comment theme features, i know some theme don’t.

        Set it in discussion settings to threaded comments, and it will apply automatically to Thesis.

        You have seen it in my blog, my comments is threaded and i don’t use the plugin.

        • Hmmm.

          I must be doing something wrong. Still not working right. I am sure I have some other setting jacked. I will look into it later. Thanks though, I do want to thin down my add ons as much as I can.

  12. I love the shift in focus Steve – instead of just lifestyle design – it’s true techniques. I enjoy reading articles about the idea of lifestyle design but if it’s all just theory than it doesn’t help unless you take immediate action – with tutorials you’re able to do it more easily and you get to learn a lot of amazing things instead of being completely out there on your own – I’m diggin it man.

    • Thanks Murray.

      I did like the wider variety my old “catch all” blog focus afforded me. But to get more professional it certainly needs to be narrowed. Perhaps even more in the future.
      Hopefully I can come up with a good tagline that says it all in a better way than my rough idea, but I do like the point of focusing on more actionable articles. That is what I like to read, so it should be what I lean towards.

  13. Hi Steve,

    Glad to know you’ve found a base of operations next to the ocean. It is ideal for amphibious assaults in the future if you so desire haha!

    Ah I too have had the same problem where the click of a button removed all the customizations for my blog a few times. Damn that was frustrating. Nowadays I manually load any new updates so that I don’t lose my previous customizations. Looking forward to your new blog redesign. It’s always nice to see something new.

    No worries about your internet income report. Good things come to those who wait and I am sure we can be patient about it.

    Hmm it is good to specialize and focus on making money and lifestyle design. I would miss your quirky posts though haha! But I suppose if you used your Sunday Selections for those, it would add some variety and spice.

    Irving aka the Vizier

    • Yeah, Sundays posts will still be about, “whatever” and hopefully stay fresh and interesting.

      They are not always homeruns but I sometimes have a lot of fun with them.

  14. I am glad that you have switched to Thesis and I really wondered when you will announce this to us — but, there you go, saying that already in this post.

    When did you have the apprentice competition? I subscribed to your blog and read it quite often but I did not see any. Oh, my eyes must miss one! I feel so sorry about that.

    By the way, I did not understand much about the life style thing, but I will wait for your upcoming posts to clarify this question in my head haha

    • I think the apprentice thing post came out about a week ago or so. Sorry you missed it! Anyhow I should be posting a fair bit of the info I give Ryan here too. the majority of it will be in my blog traffic blueprint post + I will likely mention anything extra in a post sooner or later. It is nice to help someone energetic who is really just starting out and see how fast his rankings and traffic can skyrocket.

      TBH the EXACT concept is still a work in progress. In general I should be steering more toward “how to do” things and less emotional “get your head straight” stuff. That is a major simplification, but it gves an idea of what I am thinking

  15. As Murray says, I love what you’re doing with the direction of the blog. I think we’re all curious to see how you’ve done traveling across the world and making money! Hence, reminds me of Yaro Starak on the upcoming. Go Steve!

    Furthermore, you’re within reach and not a bit problogger where we can’t communicate with you. It’s great to be in good company around such excellent performance. Looking forward to what’s happening soon!

    Cheers!
    Thu

    PS – It is a bummer with Helium’s payment plan, I was making more and now it’s a big flop! Well, time to target those articles to get traffic clicks to them. 😛

    • Thanks Thu,

      I am glad you like it!. I am excited by the prospects going forward myself. Thanks for the comment even peripherally likening me to Yaro and Darren. that is certainly some good company.

      I must admit I am starting to see why they might not respond to many comments. I am spending a significantly increasing amount of my day commenting. Of course part of that is my own fault because I do not like to have a simple, “thanks” for comments replies. As the blog grows I may have to be a little sparser and dish out less “epic” comments just to have SOME hours free… lol.

      As for Helium, I do get a lot of my info from my brother, who has been using that too, and his reviews are not entirely negative. (maybe slightly, but not entirely)

      It is a little soon to jump on “good” or “bad” bandwagons yet, but the per article $ possibility may have increased, just the freedom of article “choice” is bottomed out.

      Sounds like a “slight” negative, but possibly not a “huge” one. We shall see, waiting on a few article, “test” results under the new system.

  16. That you really did change your tagline is one heck of a progress. Recently I was beginning to ask myself “why would steve say on his blog he’s into lifestyle design when he talks so much about traffic, affiliate marketing anf all other internet business stuff?” I had made up my mind to ask you off the comments page personally and I am glad you did see it as a distraction for your readers and visitors and have thus changed it. Whatever tagline you pick is yours to keep, it must be something that resonates within you and something you do truly have a concern and passion for. These are the fuel that will keep you out there when the going gets tough, about the unique of your tagline. Your delivery and commitment will tell in no short distance. So, roll up your sleeves Steve, I think you’ve got a whole lot of work ahead of you!

    Will definitely be around, to cheer you on. 🙂

  17. Steve,

    I notice your “home” page have an odd overlapping posts? between 4 things and 6 Laws Every Blogger Should Know About Affiliate Marketing posts..

    Oh i have some tips, you can actually copy your live exact blog to your local pc and install wordpress locally..

    Before i apply Thesis on my blog, i copy everything exactly similar blog to my pc. I have two tutorials on this, (you can delete it if you want LOL; i dont want to spam 🙂 )
    1. http://www.blog.web6.org/copy-live-wordpress-blog-to-computer/
    2. http://www.blog.web6.org/install-wordpress-locally-mac/

    regards,
    Kimi.

  18. Steve,

    I was thinking that the change of blog design was all planned. I see that you’ve been having a tough time there, but I like the positive spirit in which you are taking it.

    Congratulations to you on being able to zero in on what I see would have been a tough decision – selecting one amongst the many people who opted to be the apprentice. I think you made a good choice in Ryan Renfrew.

    Also congratulations on taking a step forward towards narrowing down on your niche. Wishing you good luck.

    Cheers,
    Mark

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