An easy way to publish and syndicate your best news articles on some of the big news and media websites
Web content is more plentiful that grains of sand on the beach. However, really good and newsworthy web content is much more scarce. The cyberspace audience is discerning, but it takes time to attract them, and you need sustained quality to hold their attention and to bring them back. Quality content is the obvious secret to long term success on the web.
Almost nobody pays for content. For a humorous take on this, see the recent Prickly City comics about Winslow, the coyote blogger. Winslow supposedly blogs for no compensation in the “Blog Gulag” on the huffingtonpost.com. Poor Winslow.
With blogging, you only get paid indirectly and usually the pay is paltry. You pick up revenue through advertising. Oddly enough, you get paid by those readers who want to click on ads and go away from you. However, most readers would not have shown up in the first place, if you had not developed a reputation for having something interesting to say.
A customer comment from the sidebar: "VeriPlan is a big help. I'm in my mid 50's and have been a diligent saver and passable investor for many years. I am going through a work transition from salaried corporate employee to independent consultant, and my aging parents are needing financial help. Financial planning is particularly important to me and my family now. Thanks for making your product available. I've recommended it to a number of folks and will continue to do so." J.H. in Portland, OR
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "VeriPlan has been a very flexible home financial planning tool. It took me a few hours on a weekend to understand what VeriPlan could do and to enter our financial data. Our family financial affairs were scattered all over, and we lacked a comprehensive picture of what the future might hold for us. I wanted a clear understanding of our projected lifetime and retirement income, expenses, taxes, debts, real estate, financial assets, college investments, retirement investments, and everything else all together." S. L. in Altadena, CA
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "You have done a great job of including the necessary instructions in VeriPlan, located close to where the modeling is happening. The thing I like about the VeriPlan User Guide is that it adds substantial additional commentary that I personally find very valuable. I was hunting for a capable and reasonably priced financial planning package, and VeriPlan is an awesome tool. The more I play around with it, the more valuable I find it. Your free user guide was what made me decide to get VeriPlan." C. A. in North Royalton, OH
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "One of the stories that VeriPlan tells me is how much of my money could be lost to excessive investment costs. I just switched to some lower cost funds in my 401k. I loved updating VeriPlan with the new cost values just to see the red bar on the Total Assets chart get significantly thinner - quite a shocking difference." M. W. in Tulsa, OK
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I am extremely impressed with the depth of information that VeriPlan asks for and provides. VeriPlan seems much more detailed than one would expect for the very reasonable price. Although I am not a financial professional, I consider myself more financially educated than the most people of my age (62). I find that VeriPlan's depth to be just what we need for our retirement planning. I am glad I purchased it. Thanks." J. W. in Gainsville, FL
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I have been very happy with this software. I will put VeriPlan to work to help optimize our IRA to Roth conversions, while avoiding the IRMAA penalties if we can. We are in an opportunistic window for the next several years. I have been appalled by the lack of professional knowledge available with respect to the tax burden that will fall upon us when RMDs take effect. Most of the information I have found suggests that it isn't a problem. Luckily, this software will be of great benefit to chart our course." J. S. in Louisville, KY
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I am a recently retired engineer, and I created a cash flow Excel spreadsheet for 25 years of retirement. So, I fully appreciate the data and potential variances that must be accounted for. Yet, mine is so very simple compared to VeriPlan. I love VeriPlan's concept of total control over inputs and parameters. Veriplan's objectives are very much like mine, but it has many, many more input and control options, and the price is spot on." L. G. in Southbridge, VA
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I've been using VeriPlan for a few weeks now, and it is everything I was looking for plus a whole lot more of what I didn't even know I needed. By simply switching VeriPlan to a state that does not have a state income tax, I can see how much I could save on traditional IRA distributions in retirement by moving to a state without income taxes. It is a real education in personal finance, and I think just about everyone would benefit from using this tool." T. H. in Silicon Valley CA
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Sadly, there really is no direct money in blogging content – however good the quality of your content might be. Blogging barriers to entry are nonexistent, and good writers are a penny a dozen.
(Apparently, no direct compensation is also the attitude of the major media conglomerates toward their professional writers from the Writers Guild of American. Please, media moguls, give the professional writers a fair shake on you republishing their work in new media. Put the real Jon Stewart and Dave Letterman back on the air! We’re dyin’ out here with reruns!)
Traditional news media and media center publications are moving to the web and they want quality editorial content.
Traditional news media have moved to the web with mixed results. If you look at the top 100 print newspapers, their web efforts get to looking pretty sad, before you get half-way down the list.
On-line newspaper editors want quality, but they figure that they already have local or syndicated columnists for most of their content and commentary. As a blogger, trying to talk your way onto a newspaper website as a matter subject expert is similar to getting yourself picked up as syndicated columnist. That path is time consuming and expensive to try, and current newspaper and magazine columnists have a very strong upper hand in the competition.
A customer comment from the sidebar: "VeriPlan's financial projection graphics simply lay out what the future might hold for my family. Also, VeriPlan is a very fast and automated financial investment calculator that allows me to change anything and to test alternate investment decisions rapidly. Its integrated documentation explains clearly how it works, and it also includes a wealth of well-researched personal finance and investment information that has been very helpful." T. F. in Muncie, IN
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I do most of my own financial modeling, and I like the way VeriPlan generates “what if” scenarios that I like to compare, such as possibly buying a rental property, selling my house and renting, moving social security retirement age payment timing, and pulling out IRA money after taxes. Plus, I like VeriPlan for its automated projection of detailed investment costs. Thanks for making a great product." K. W. in Naperville, IL
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I am 10 years out from retirement, and I needed to start thinking more seriously about having enough to retire on. I'm following the suggestions of you and others in opting for more hands-on retirement planning. I am also using lower cost index investing. There are too many wealth management companies out there, all ready to charge an arm and leg for what should be straightforward financial planning work." G. B. in Smith Mountain Lake, VA
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "Larry, Hello again! I've continued to work with VeriPlan, and the more I work with it the more I'm amazed at how much it does. It's an incredible decision support tool for my financial planning. Since I have already built a model of my lifetime finances, it is easy to test new ideas as they come to me. Thanks again." M. W. R. in Austin, TX
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I first learned about the zero federal taxes on long term capital gains when under the 25% marginal income tax rate from working with VeriPlan a number of years ago. I’m no longer working but not yet receiving RMD’s or social security so my ordinary income is relatively low. So I’ve been taking full advantage of zero federal capital gains taxes by selling off my high expense ratio mutual funds which have a lot of capital gains built in since I’ve held them a long time and then I reinvest them in index mutual funds which don’t generate as much capital gains distributions. So the education that you and VeriPlan provide has saved me thousands in taxes, not to mention the expenses on high cost mutual funds. Thanks again." M. D. in El Paso, TX
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There are other ways for bloggers to get published on media and newspaper websites.
Newspapers are picking up web content through content consolidation companies that are blending the blogosphere with the web efforts of traditional media and newspapers. My blog articles get republished regularly through one such effort, BlogBurst.com BlogBurst screens established bloggers, and then they place bloggers’ real-time blog content onto multiple traditional media websites.
For example, when I publish good quality financial articles on my blog, these blog posts get picked up automatically via RSS by BlogBurst. Through an agreement, BlogBurst pushes my blog articles out to Reuters and to other newspaper and television websites.
Like Winslow, BlogBurst.com bloggers do not get paid, but they do get the benefit of broader awareness and traffic building. When your blog posts contain links back to your blog and/or your website, then you can get some real time traffic, if readers think that your content is interesting enough to come and find you. Through this method, I regularly get a very significant amount of back traffic.
A customer comment from the sidebar: "I am a recently retired engineer, and I created a cash flow Excel spreadsheet for 25 years of retirement. So, I fully appreciate the data and potential variances that must be accounted for. Yet, mine is so very simple compared to VeriPlan. I love VeriPlan's concept of total control over inputs and parameters. Veriplan's objectives are very much like mine, but it has many, many more input and control options, and the price is spot on." L. G. in Southbridge, VA
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "Thanks for developing a great product. I have looked at Money Tree, Money Guide Pro, and some other FP software, and I have used Right Capital (a good product also, but still $100 per month). Yours is just as robust for a much more affordable price. I also extensively use Quicken for my finances, but the planning tool in it is kind of basic, so VeriPlan will complement Quicken very well." E. Z. in San Mateo, CA
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I spent parts of the past several days entering data into the VeriPlan workbook while digesting as much of the methodology as possible. My takeaway is that VeriPlan is an extraordinary tool, especially in its ability to generate projections based on detailed alternate scenarios. During the learning process, I also found it to be a wonderful financial education in its own right." S. N. in Sammamish, WA
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "Previously I used some consumer retirement planners like New Retirement. What they offer is a projection of your financial situation that is wildly generalized. A generalized projection is probably better than having no projection at all and could very well be used for rough, long-term planning. However, for fine grained planning, such a system is wholly inadequate. VeriPlan is vastly superior in comprehensiveness and flexibility." T. D. in Edison, NJ
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A customer comment from the sidebar: "I purchased VeriPlan for the Roth conversion features. I enjoy VeriPlan and appreciate the thoroughness of the design and excellent commentary. I now work for (financial company name redacted) since retiring from (computer company name redacted) in a Retirement and Workplace Planning role. The accuracy, conciseness, and utility of the information presented by VeriPlan is great." M. S. in White Plains, NY
Family Financial Planning Software for Home Use
A customer comment from the sidebar: "I've been using VeriPlan for a few weeks now, and it is everything I was looking for plus a whole lot more of what I didn't even know I needed. By simply switching VeriPlan to a state that does not have a state income tax, I can see how much I could save on traditional IRA distributions in retirement by moving to a state without income taxes. It is a real education in personal finance, and I think just about everyone would benefit from using this tool. I am going to tell everyone I know about VeriPlan. Thank you very much for creating it. Your web sites are great, too." T. H. in Silicon Valley CA
Financial Planning and Retirement Software for Home Use
A customer comment from the sidebar: "I thought I would let you know that VeriPlan was the primary decision support tool in my decision to retire early, which was about 4 years ago now. And it has worked out really well. Since then I got married, and we have traveled to 10 countries -- some on mission trips. I had used the lifetime planners in Microsoft Money and Quicken but they were not robust enough to make a major decision with. In retrospect they are toys compared to VeriPlan. So VeriPlan has been a very big help to me. Also, I recently read your Lowest Cost Mutual Funds book, which was great. It brought a few things to my attention that I need to work on." Email update from T. H. in Silicon Valley
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Recently, for example, I published this article on my personal finance blog: “Why only one Warren Buffett? The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance.” In this article, I included four links back to my website and blog including a link to a related article: “Where’s Waldo? – The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance.” Because of the link traffic that I received back, I estimate that many hundreds of people probably read my “Why only one Warren Buffett?” article on various newspaper and TV websites. Only a minority of readers tend to follow links within articles. In this case, many dozens of readers clicked the embedded article links and showed up at The Skilled Investor website and blog.
So, if you have good quality and original content on your blog, and you have deep, high quality content to link back to, then I recommend that you sign up with BlogBurst. Certainly, not every blogger will pass the BlogBurst admissions test. However, if you regularly publish good quality information and news and you get accepted by BlogBurst, then BlogBurst will syndicate your work on traditional media center and newspaper websites at no further cost or effort on your part. With embedded syndicated article links, you can get back a substantial amount of regular traffic.
In closing, note one more thing. BlogBurst traffic does not provide you with any permanent links back to your website/blog. This is not a method to improve your Google Pagerank with permanent links from highly ranked newspapers. Instead, this is a method to build your interested readership over time. The newspaper and magazine business was also founded on an advertising revenue business model. Newspapers and magazines built their advertising revenue by building their readership. With good quality content and BlogBurst, you can too, and ad revenue will follow. It works for me.
The Skilled Investor
P.S. It is sad to have to say this, however, with ethical standards on the web being a bit low… There are no business compensation arrangements of any kind between The Skilled Investor and BlogBurst.com. The Skilled Investor has signed up with BlogBurst.com, and BlogBurst republishes The Skilled Investor’s articles without compensation under their standard contract. No money has changed hands. BlogBurst.com has had no participation in writing this article and was not informed of its publication. The idea for this article grew out of a request on a Stanford Business School alumni email list that I responded to. Someone wanted to know how to help a client, who had lots of high quality web content, get published on newspaper websites. I responded with the substance of this article. Next, I rewrote and expanded my email response to become this article. …just another Winslow with something to say in the cyberspace blogger gulag.
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