Money Blue Book

Review Of How To Start Earning A Full Time Income With Just A Blog

Previously, I shared a little background overview of how I got started as an aspiring full time blogger and pursued my dream of working from home and making money with a blog. For many years, I worked a traditional day job as an attorney, whether it was with the federal government or whether it was in the private sector. A few years ago and rather unexpectedly out of the blue, I stumbled upon the idea of starting up a blog to make some money on the side. The idea was not to replace my seemingly stable and indispensable full time day job as a lawyer, but to supplement my salary with an alternative income stream. Little did I know and much to my subsequent surprise years later, my small network of profitable online weblogs would one day start reaping monthly incomes that greatly exceeded what I could earn as an ambulance chasing attorney. While I continue to balance my part time legal practice profession with my mixture of online businesses and other side ventures to this day, my blogging operations have finally grown to the point where they are now capable of providing me a stable and nearly free source of revenue – offering me a boost in a quality of life I never dreamed possible before.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that persistent adaptation, continuous self education, a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and the uncanny ability to function with little sleep – are traits that can truly be turned into financial success. Becoming a semi-full time blogger and giving up the tedious commute and traditional desk job – to work from home and earn a stable living is a reachable goal for many. The process is not easy and most of those who attempt to walk down this deceptively daunting and challenging path will undoubtedly fail miserably, but the fiercely determined and highly self motivated few will succeed – I’m living proof of that.

As entire books and trilogies can be easily written on the subject, the following is more of a quick summary for beginners who are interested in getting started with running their own profitable blogs than a comprehensive guide. Here are some of the key pointers that I’ve learned over time as a blogger who now earns in excess of six figures a year. I’m by no means an expert – just a guy who’s witnessed and endured first hand both his personal share of lucky successes and misguided failures when it comes to the subject of blogging online to earn a living.

If You Want To Make Money As A Blogger, Blog About A Subject Other Than Merely How To Make Money Online

This is not a blog about blogging, nor is it a blog about how to make money online per se. While I do occasionally dwell into ways how ordinary consumers can take advantage of arbitrage opportunities such as advantageous 0% balance transfer offers, reward credit card bonuses, and paid online survey offers that compensate participants looking to make some extra cash on the side – the primary focus of this blog has always been first and foremost focused on personal finance and long term financial planning and investing. The emphasis has always been on the nitty gritty elements of saving money, debt reduction, and planning for one’s financial future. One of the most recent endeavors of mine was to start sharing my personal net worth reports and income progressions over time. On this blog, I track and provide my own net worth tables for all to see, not to boast or demonstrate some ego-boosting bravado, but to show readers that I am just a regular guy, trying to work hard and turn my life’s fruits and efforts into a future retirement nest egg. I have had a tremendous number of failures in my life, whether they be personal, relational, or professional – but I have continued to strive for my dreams. That’s one of the essences of blogging – the sharing of personal viewpoints and the trials and tribulations of personal experience.

Those of you who want to quit your full time day jobs and end the seemingly endless cycle of trading hours for dollars, and start blogging online will do well for yourselves by picking a real world topic instead of dwelling in the saturated “make money online” tar pit. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with writing about your passion for blogging and generating income via your efforts on the web if that is your interest and true calling, but the fact of the matter is – it’s not a topical niche that deserves the type of massive attention and copycat imitation that it receives. Like the overrated careers that populate the professional landscape, the “make money online” niche is vastly over saturated, with supply outstripping the demand, and conversion rates (the ability to convert blog traffic into income producing sales) from its natural audience of extraordinarily tech savvy readers – too aggravatingly low. It’s not impossible, but I think you are better off choosing a less tapped into subject matter that’s not so exceedingly rife with scams and get rich quick junk products. Frankly, the same negative sentiment can be said for the technology niche as well, although fortunately for that area of tech based information, the content matter is more broad, more varied, and perhaps sufficiently diverse to accommodate new blogging entrants.

When choosing a subject to blog about – make sure you pursue a subject that is sufficiently broad and dynamic enough where you would be able to sit down and write out 100+ new blog titles on the spot if you had to. The world is currently filled to the brim with a tremendous number of subject matters and questions that still await to be responded to with updated information. Do you enjoy clothing and fashion trends? What about cooking, parenting advice, personal fitness, or outdoor activities like camping or fishing? How about coupons, shopping deals, lifestyle do-it-yourself tips, interior decorating, real estate news, home improvement, or celebrity gossip? Those are all interesting subject matters worth blogging about with plenty of advertisers to tap into for the passionate blogger.

How To Find Advertisers For Your Blog As A Beginner Blogger

Whenever I’m at a family gathering, with friends I haven’t seen for some time, or at some church function, one of the most common questions I get whenever I talk to someone about my online business (once I’ve overcome the blank stares after I tell them my self employment job title), is how I find relevant advertisers for my blog and how I actually get paid for my blogging efforts. Frankly, advertisers are everywhere and you just have to know where to find them. When your blog ultimately hits the big time and starts generating massive traffic, prospective advertisers and curious companies (and even advertising spammers) will naturally start tracking your contact information down. But until then, your best bet is to seek out and partner with the middle man companies out there – the affiliate marketing networks that consolidate and aggregate the various affiliate and lead generation offers out there on the Internet.

Through these affiliate marketing networks, you will be able to locate advertisers from a very wide variety of categories – all willing and able to pay you whenever you refer targeted sales or business to them through your blog or website. Many will allow you to access their affiliate product inventories and compensate you for a variety of sales referrals including – pay per click ads (PPC) which pay a tiny sum of money per text or banner ad click, pay per sign up or action type ads (CPA ads) which pay you a much larger referral cut in the way of commission percentages whenever you refer a prospective customer to them, and pay per impression ads (CPM) which pay a sum for a set number of website viewing impressions. For example, if I wanted to promote Monavie or any number of acai berry juice brands/scams for example (I don’t – but just giving this product as an example), there are plenty of companies out there willing to pay me a set referral commission (hypothetically, say 5-10% or $10.00 per lead) for every new customer I refer. Picking the right mixture of advertisers depends on your blog’s subject matter and your target audience.

Check out the following below recommended and popular affiliate marketing networks and companies for advertisers. Bear in mind, there are also quite a great number of specific advertisers and companies out there who also run affiliate programs, but are only obtainable if you contact them directly, and many frequently won’t deal with you until your blog reaches a certain traffic minimum (on average at least 5,000 unique visitors per month).

List Of The Best Affiliate Marketing Network Companies (Pay Per Click and Pay Per Referral):

Remember to negotiate for the best commission rates and learn to leverage your ever steadily increasing blog traffic to your advantage. Your negotiation clout will slowly increase as your blog traffic increases with time – be patient. Compare affiliate payout rates and offers and go with the best rate provider. All of the following affiliate networks below provide similar banners, ads, and website scripts you’ll need to get started, but each differs in the exclusive offers each carries in its inventory cache of advertisers. Many of the individual offers overlap between multiple affiliate network providers, but each of the following networks offers uniques. Be forewarned, it will likely take many, many, many months of very hard (but frequently fun and interesting) trial and error work before you’ll figure out how to maximize your ad revenue, but if you are persistent and are constantly learning, you’ll figure it out in time. Trying signing up and tinkering with each affiliate provider to get started:

1. Google Adsense: The most well known and best pay per click advertising network is run by Big-G. Google’s highly targeted contextual advertising program is a must have if you are a beginner to blogging. Just run the Adsense script on your blog and ads relevant to your content will automatically be displayed. Pay per click income is great for beginners but its usefulness tapers off in income potential after your site gets bigger.
2. Amazon Associates: With this popular and versatile program, simply link to Amazon.com related products for affiliate income earning potential. Very useful and scalable for even mature sites.
3. Ebay Partner Network: With the eBay affiliate publisher program, you can link to any specific eBay auction or link to an eBay ad based on keywords to get a commission cut of the sales generated.
4. Linkshare: Lots of very nice ad exclusives but less customer support and attention then I’d like. But in general, the exclusive affiliate offers are worth signing up for as you can’t get them anywhere else.
5. Commission Junction: The 800 pound gorilla of pay per action ads. Like them or not, they are the biggest of the advertising networks.
6. Flex Offers: Run by the same guys who run CardOffers.com. A personal favorite of mine as my longtime rep has consistently offered me the best affiliate payout rates. Lots of great exclusive affiliate offers for a diverse selection of categories.
7. CardOffers: A very popular choice for credit card sales and affiliate referrals if you are into the financial niche. The best credit card payout offers have all but dried up recently however. The economy is to blame.
8. NCS Reporting: Owned by Bankrate.com, it’s one of the biggest credit card referrals company. However, payout doesn’t seem as consistently high as CardOffers and account security was a problem for a while (major breach of my account by cunning online thieves).
9. Acclaim Network: Allowed me to run Citibank credit card links as a new start up blog when the other card affiliate companies wouldn’t permit it. Payouts are pretty low though.
10. Commission Soup: Invitation only affiliate company that offers great service and good payouts on most of their affiliate offers.
11. Market Leverage: Great referral program and an up and coming affiliate network company. Market Leverage is big among big name bloggers.
12. PepperJam Network: Another up and coming ad company that’s popular among established bloggers and affiliate promoters.
13. ShareASale: Provides a variety of affiliate companies to pick from.
14. Chitika: Touts quite a number of search targeted ads similar to Google Adsense
15. Google Affiliate Network: Seems like a blatant conflict of interest to me, but Google does offer a few exclusive deals. Not a well developed affiliate network as of yet however.
16. Text Link Ads: Used heavily during its heyday, but has grown somewhat taboo these days as a means to build up page rank based search engine authority, but some sites still use them. I personally don’t, but that’s because my site’s been around for a while now and I don’t need to use such services, which are better suited for beginners perhaps.
17. Azoogle Ads: Affiliate network that allows publishers to buy and sell text links and various ad space.
18. Clickbank: Offers primarily text links, random ads, and e-books of all sorts (big chunk of those offers are targeted at the make money online MMO niche).

How To Start Blogging For Money and Generating Blog Traffic

As there is simply no way I can write down every single advanced blogging technique and trade secret strategy I have about how to make money online and generate money with a blog (there is just too many), I’ll share just the basics as this is a post primarily to serve as a call to action for beginners. Here is how you can get going if you want to start getting serious about blogging as a way to replace your existing full time job and for you to start working for yourself. As entire blogs and books can be devoted to the subject, the following is just a basic primer to help newbies get started on the road to blogging for income. Please don’t fall for those stupid and utterly useless Shortcut To Internet Millions and related eBay type scams that promise lots of money with no effort and no computer know-how. Don’t be misled – you will need to work very hard, for months or years, but making money online with a blog is possible.  The following are the entry level steps I took to get started blogging:

1) Register A Domain Name and Purchase A Monthly Web Hosting Service: I recommend starting out with a free Blogspot.com or Wordpress.com account as a way to get your feet wet into the wonderful world of blogging. However, for long term brand name and website setup purposes, if you plan on making this whole blogging deal into a serious venture, I very strongly recommend registering for a formal domain name and choosing a paid web hosting service sooner than later. After all, doesn’t MoneyBlueBook.com seem much more professional than say – moneybluebook.blogspot.com?

• Get A Domain Name: Go with GoDaddy.com for your domain registration needs if you want to go with the service that most people are using at the moment. GoDaddy is a very popular registrar choice for bloggers just starting out. I personally use Dreamhost.com for my domain name registrations – but that’s only because they’re the company I started out with and I want to stay consistent. Good luck finding a short domain name however – it seems like all of the juicy domain names are all taken, especially the coveted “dot com” ones.
• Get A Reliable Web Hosting Provider: MoneyBlueBook.com is currently hosted on a dedicated LiquidWeb.com server. I pay about $150 a month for excellent and very reliable hosting, but that’s because this blog generates pretty decent traffic. Liquidweb is more expensive than other companies, but I’ve found their service to be extremely reliable with an excellent uptime track record. Most start up blogs can probably run sufficiently on a cheap shared server at least for some time with a hosting company like BlueHost, GoDaddy, or DreamHost for about $10-20 a month. But ultimately though, you get what you pay for. Cheap hosting equals unreliable up time. It’s not a big deal when you’re just starting out, but it’ll kill your business when your sites start generating serious traffic.

2) Install and Learn To Use Wordpress: Wordpress is the best and most reliable blogging platform to date. Some popular blogs out there are still operating off of other blogging programs like Blogger, but most are steadily migrating to Wordpress. Most professional web host providers can help you install this very powerful and versatile free blogging tool for you. It will take time for you to truly master the ins and outs of Wordpress blogging and learn how to fully utilize all of the Wordpress plugins and widgets available, but once you get the hang of the versatile blogging tools at your disposal, you’ll find the free Wordpress software to be quite indispensable.

3) Start Blogging On A Daily Basis and Pace Yourself As A Writer: The key to surviving as a blogger and building a sustainable future as a blogger capable of making a living online through blogging – is to stay consistent and not get overly burned out too soon. At the start, there is a natural euphoria of excitement as you start witnessing the blogging traffic fruits of your efforts, but don’t let the initial excitement force you to over exert yourself. Similarly, during your blogging journey, at some time or another, you are likely going to get stricken with an affliction of what’s popularly known as blogger’s block (aka, writer’s block). But fear not – even seasoned bloggers experience this feeling of laziness and lack of motivation on frequent occasion. Cut back on your blogging activities if you have to but don’t give up.

When you first start out, your readership will be pitifully few, but that’s absolutely normal. Don’t stop writing quality content as that is the only way you will generate readership in the very long run. This feeling of blogging loneliness and frustration caused by lack of traffic may persist for many months, but if you are to succeed, you must give it time. It takes a lot of time to get accepted into the good graces of the search engines and for strangers to organically discover your blog through the series of tubes of cyberspace. From the time I personally started blogging with the intention of ultimately making money online, it took 12 months or so before I finally started to generate a substantial income from my blogging activities. Blogging is easy to get started but difficult to truly master.

4) Learn To Monetize Your Blog Readership and Increase Your Blog Traffic: Blogging should always be a work in progress. You should always be adapting and finding ways to do existing things better. Even after you’ve started to generate traffic and establish a cadre of readers, you should be constantly trying to figure out ways to increase that traffic and tweak the effectiveness of your advertising pitches. Strategic Google Adsense placement, targeted blog titles, and improved search engine optimization updates are ways to boost your income and traffic.

Getting listed in search engine submissions, blog directory listings, exchanging blog rolls, swapping reciprocal text links, participating in blog carnivals via blogcarnival.com, guest posting on other blogs, writing comments in popular online forums, participating in popular and related blogs, article marketing, as well as engaging in social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, mySpace, and Twitter – are all valid ways to get traffic but you’ll need to experiment with each one to find out what truly works in terms of improved monetization and what methods are just ways to generate exciting blog traffic numbers, but that don’t actually convert into tangible sales. Tip: Social media marketing is vastly overrated for monetization purposes as social media readers are not looking to buy or have their specific questions answered – thus targeted, organic search engine traffic is key. If you want to make money blogging, you had better be praying to the great temple of Google and figuring out what the Google gods want in the way of blog content and optimization.

5) Never Stop Learning, Experimenting, and Examining Your Competitors: You should never be trying to re-invent the wheel. One of the best ways to improve your own blog and blogging approach is to learn from the techniques of others. Take a peek at your competitor’s blog or visit your favorite blogs to see how they monetize and how they structure their blog content for clues as to their success. Don’t worry about feeling like a spy – after all, more likely than not, they are peeking right back at your website as well. That’s what smart businesses do – they examine their surroundings, learn from the best, and constantly improve. After all, if you owned a struggling ice cream shop, wouldn’t you secretly visit competing ice cream stores that are more successful than yours to figure out why and how those shops are able to generate more ice cream sales than yours?

My Dream Of Becoming An Internet Entrepreneur and Working For Myself

I am a part time (almost full time now) blogger who spends a great number of hours working on the Internet from home every night. For more than a year now, I’ve been quietly earning a sizable and consistent amount of money through blogging and my internet marketing efforts. As a multi-year veteran now to the world of making money online with a blog, I’ve joined a rather unique and eclectic group of young and emerging internet entrepreneurs – individuals who have not only successfully harnessed the power of the Internet to generate real money, but who have managed to turn seemingly unassuming websites into rather lucrative income producing automatons. While the phenomenon of blogging for money on a part time basis is certainly not new, the idea that one can actually become a full time professional blogger (a problogger of sorts) and generate not only a stable, but a sustainable income at a high velocity through mere blogging alone is quite a surprise to many (particularly among my friends and family).

I’m sure many of you are already well aware of a number of fairly successful bloggers and established Internet entrepreneurs like John Chow, ShoeMoney, and Darren Rowse of Problogger fame – online personalities that dominate the so-called “make money online” niche. Most of these semi famous Internet tycoons have been in the news for some time and have had many years to perfect the art of both online and mainstream personality-based sales pitches. Much of their mystique, self perpetuating hype, and authoritative attention stems from the sheer amounts of money they have raked in through their blogging and online entrepreneurial activities, and the continuous reminders of their financial success to their readers in the way of monthly income reports and screen shots of high dollar amount affiliate income checks. However, the ones you usually don’t hear about are those of us like myself who also run pretty successful operations of our own, but who have generally chosen to remain contently semi-anonymous and out of the lime light. While I’ve enjoyed a pretty lucrative career thus far in terms of the income streams that I’ve been able to pull through my collection of websites and online businesses, I made the conscientious decision early on to remain in the online shadows and out of the way in terms of real world publicity and attention. Not vying for the social media spotlight for ego-stroking purposes has allowed me to quietly generate a pretty prolific online business without the complicated hassles of unnecessary attention or even the critical scrutiny that the well known online bloggers at center stage face. Have you heard of the term “Millionaire Next Door” ? Well I’d like to think of myself as the “Blogger Next Door” – one of a growing number of unassuming and self made entrepreneurs who enjoy their relative anonymity and are content to blend in with everyone else in cyberspace while they quietly build their online fortunes.

Working From Home As A Full Time Blogger Is A Difficult, But Emotionally and Financially Rewarding Profession

My goal today is to simply break out of my usual personal finance subject matter for a moment and perhaps share some tidbits to encourage and inspire fledgling writers and aspiring entrepreneurs who have been quietly sitting on the sidelines – individuals who want to believe, but are afraid to take the first baby steps towards the world of self employment and Internet-based incomes. Admittedly, the journey from entry level writer and semi techie egghead, to nearly full time super affiliate power blogger is a very difficult and time consuming process, particularly in the early stages. Despite its rather ephemeral and unestablished nature, the seemingly unrealistic fantasy of being able to work from home and generate a full time income from just blogging alone is very real. While I have yet to make the final leap to full time blogger (I’m still a part time attorney), I am living proof that working from home and working for yourself is entirely and ultimately possible.

I stumbled upon blogging and the whole online business model a few years ago in 2006 quite by accident. One day I was tinkering with my free personal Xanga blogging account (this was back in the old days when Xanga.com was still popular) and I suddenly noticed the banner ads and affiliate links in the website margins for the first time. Examining the html source code, I finally realized and discovered that there was a whole marketing and income producing mechanism underneath it all that was quietly profiting from all of the user generated content that Xanga consumers were creating. From then on I decided to investigate further and figure out how the blog content and advertisement scripts were integrated into a workable business model – and the rest is history. A blog, or a weblog as it is officially called, is nothing more than an online diary of sorts sorted in reverse chronological order according to article post dates. Blogs are uniquely advantageous for monetization purposes because of the regularly updated and archived nature of their content. Simply put, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all of the other search engines love blogs for both the fresh and timelessly relevant content they churn out, and generally prefer to rank them very highly for organic search engine traffic – which when translated into practical terms, equals dollars and cents for savvy entrepreneurs.

Now that I’ve worked for myself and have finally tasted financial success and professional freedom, no longer will I ever go back to working for someone else. No longer will I ever want to go back to the emotional and professional constraints of working the traditional full time desk job and devoting my efforts towards benefiting someone else’s company or firm.

I attended law school and graduated to eventually work as an attorney (law school is overrated in my opinion). But anyway, in one of the lawyer jobs I held before I pursued my dream of becoming self employed, I used to work for an overbearing and very unprofessional alpha-female attorney. Despite my best professional efforts at the job, I felt absolutely miserable working as an associate attorney at her small solo practitioner law firm – and never felt so unfairly scrutinized, treated so condescendingly, and persistently set up to fail. But because it was her law firm and because she was my boss, and also because I wanted to keep my precious full time job, I humored her belligerency and endured her belittlement and unreasonable demands for weeks and months. Despite my seething frustration, the fact remained that it was her personal law firm and I was merely a replaceable cog in a bigger machine – and thus I swallowed my pride and did as I was told. But eventually I had enough of the disrespect and quit the firm, literally storming out at the end of one working day without looking back – going from having a full time job that paid the bills to immediate unemployment.

Now that I am a semi full time blogger who runs a variety of part time real life business ventures and operates his own part time legal practice on the side, I use tragic memories of my working past to motivate myself. Whether you no longer want to work for anyone else or whether you were forced out of your previous or current job due to the economic recession or as a consequence of layoffs, it’s time to consider chasing the dream of becoming self employed and finally throwing off the shackles and emotional constraints of the traditional “trading hours for dollars” working life. It may be a scary first step to take, but the potential rewards and financial upside are worth it.

How Much Money Do Bloggers Make From Their Blogs? Answer: Depends On Blog Niche, Your Tech Savviness, and Effort That You Put Forth

When I talk about bloggers, I’m not referring to full time freelance bloggers and online newspaper writers who crank out articles for others. Those types of freelance writers who produce text based content for blogs that are owned by other people only generate a few dollars or perhaps just a measly $1.00 to $5.00 per blog post that they write. In this article, when I’m talking about bloggers and webmasters who are able to generate a very good part time income supplement or even a full time living from their blogs, I’m talking about those who own their own blogs and websites – entrepreneurs who serve as both website owner and chief content producer.

So how much income exactly do average bloggers earn from their blogs assuming a reasonable measure of built up success? That’s not an easy question to answer. Because the amount of money that bloggers make from their blogs varies so greatly depending on the type of advertisers that a website can attract, that statistic is highly dependent on the subject matter of the blog. As a general rule of thumb, the most lucrative and financially rewarding websites and blogs tend to be those in the financial niche where credit card issuers, online banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders are better equipped in terms of financial capacity to pay a lucratively high price to affiliate publishers for customer and new sales referrals. While not as financially lucrative, other blog content niches such as entertainment, gossip, fashion, clothing apparel, legal services, health care, weight loss, shopping, computers, electronics, and dating are certainly financially worthwhile in their own rights and can be immensely profitable as well. However, successful online entrepreneurs who are able to multi task and pour in significant amounts of time and effort on a consistent basis may be able to target different content niches with a diverse portfolio of actively updated websites. Obviously the greater the content diversity from a variety of different websites with appropriate targeted traffic to match, the greater the pool of prospective advertisers to generate income from. The key is to also truly enjoy what you write about. The blog traffic, blog comments, and relevant advertisers will naturally flow thereafter.

Making a decent full time income online by working as a blogger is very much possible but it does require an enormous amount of time investment and educational self training, especially upfront during the initial stages when the financial rewards are still miniscule or non-existent. Whatever you do, absolutely do not quit your full time day job until your part time blogging efforts start paying off. I started blogging part time while I still had a full time day job – spending my off hours teaching myself the intricacies of blogging, website design, and Wordpress blog optimization tricks. It also took a great deal of time to learn the fundamentals of Adobe Photoshop graphic manipulation and the intricacies of basic Wordpress PHP programming for blog theme tweaking purposes. While the barriers to entry are extremely low for blogging as a profession and almost anyone and his/her grandma can get started at any time without paying a dime, there is no guarantee that the process will be easy (and I can almost assure you that the journey will be difficult and sleep depriving). A five figure income per month is possible if you pick the right niche and work extremely and exceedingly hard, but it’s not the norm. Most of you (more than 95%) will probably fail due to blogger’s block, frustration, and lost of interest – but the ones who can persist will succeed in time. Nothing in life is guaranteed but if you put your mind towards blogging and don’t burn yourself out – $100 a month, $1,000 a month, and perhaps even $10,000 a month of passive income is reasonable with the correct mix of content, the right blog niche, and a lot of search engine traffic generation luck.

Much of the information needed to get you started as a professional blogger can be obtained online for free and there is no real need for you to purchase or spend money on E-books or on the make money online books being sold at bookstores. But if you really want a good primer to get you started, I’d recommend something like Darren Rowse’s book – ProBlogger: Six Figure Income Blogging. Anyone who is a wannabe blogger knows about the original pro blogger himself – and ranked by experience rather than age, he’s the granddaddy of us all. Alternatively you can always just visit your local public library and borrow the books for free. But my advice is to just follow your favorite bloggers online and read through their past blogging post archives to get the information you need. You’ll get more real world practical advice on blog writing techniques, search engine optimization tricks, and website business maintenance pointers from these updated daily blogs than you’ll ever glean from mere stale books alone. The world of blogging for income and the fickle nature of search engine traffic generation techniques are constantly evolving so it’s best to stay updated on the latest news by reading from actively updated blogs and websites than from constantly reviewing some ancient textbook on the subject.

If you want to know exactly how much money I currently generate from my online businesses and from this personal finance blog in particular, unfortunately, I won’t be able to share that information in great detail at this time. If you must know a little bit, I will put this forth – this personal finance blog generates in excess of $100,000 in organic net profits per year, most of it without substantial effort on my part. I do not pay any money for advertising, I absolutely do not sell text links, I don’t do paid reviews, and I don’t engage in any pay per click Google Adword advertising – it’s all organic search engine based. Regarding the specifics of my income breakdown, I wish to stay silent on that for now. Perhaps in the near future I will share more about my online income sources and real life business ventures in greater detail with readers. For the time being, I don’t plan to share any pictures of fancy checks or reveal the specifics of my income sources from my blogging operations – you’ll just have to take my word for it. But it’s perfectly okay if you don’t believe me. Like I mentioned early on, I’m not interested in capturing attention or attracting a loyal zombie following – just hoping to inspire a few people and motivate some of you to a call to action.

Never Stop Learning And Chasing Your Entrepreneurial Dreams

To get the blogging and website business know-how you’ll need to run a successful blog, you’ll need to strive towards constantly educating yourself on all aspects of blogging. The facets are broad as blogging encompasses everything from the fundamentals of writing to grammar, basic web programming, graphic design, salesmanship, multi tasking, negotiation skills, and efficient time management. It will take months, even years before you will become a fully self trained expert on the blogging business. I started the early research and tinkering process in 2006, but didn’t start running my first few successful online blogs and start seriously generating a stable income sufficiently large enough to replace my day job wages until 2008. From the time I truly started writing and promoting this particular financial blog you are reading, I didn’t generate a sustainable full time income until 12 months thereafter. There will be times when you first start out that you will feel like no one is reading your work and that you are writing for yourself, but that’s okay. We’ve all been there before and that’s perfectly normal in the beginning. It’s a lonely process at the start but with time, your efforts will pay off. Meanwhile, to this very day, I still spend hours and hours every day reading blogs about blogging and scouring the web for any new morsels I can uncover about website optimization, how to generate more search engine traffic, and how to capture blogger traffic. As far as I’m concerned I will forever be a work in progress. There is so much to learn and my self driven educational enrichment will never cease so long as I continue to blog for a living and make money online (view my beginner’s primer on how to get started).

Updated List Of The Best Advanta Credit Card Offers and Applications For Small Businesses Below

Compared to its bigger financial rivals like Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, or even Discover, Advanta Bank has been a relative unknown in the credit card and banking industry. However, over the years, Advanta has gradually and quietly built itself up to become a major niche market issuer of business credit cards. What started out humbly as a small financial operation from Pennsylvania that provided personal loans to teachers has transformed into a major (albeit not particularly well known) player of the small business credit card industry. Currently, Advanta Bank focuses on the small business market, and the company primarily gears its efforts towards creating credit card and banking products that fit the needs and appeal of small business start ups, aspiring entrepreneurs, and growing companies. Along with being one of the largest, if not the largest provider of small business credit cards, Advanta also offers a diversified variety of bank deposit products that include FDIC insured savings accounts, money market accounts, and certificate of deposits.

Advanta Is One Of A Very Few Number Of Major Credit Card Issuers That Exclusively Service The Business Credit Card Market

Advanta’s exclusive focus on the small business market seems to differentiate it well from the other major card issuers that have a tendency to over saturate the market with too many confusing financial products that are heavily advertised and promoted, but don’t always fulfill the appropriate small business need. The best targeted strengths of Advanta issued credit cards are their low fixed interest rates, long term balance transfer deals (15 months or more), and generous cash back credit card reward and rebate programs that feature no reward earning caps. Currently, all Advanta credit cards offer at a bare minimum, the ability to earn at least 1 reward point per dollar spent on business purchases, redeemable for rebate rewards like cash, free travel, gift cards, merchandise and more.

Small business owners, corporate start ups, or sole proprietorships looking to organize their business expenditures onto a single credit card program may want to evaluate and review Advanta for themselves as a possible business credit contender. Having a dedicated business credit card offers unique and tailored benefits not offered by regular consumer cards, including substantially higher credit limits and much more attractive purchase reward incentives. Typical free and time saving business card benefits such as itemized employee expense tracking, and online tools for credit card accounting and bookkeeping are also included. Additional free business benefits include the function to add additional employee credit cards to the account, order personalized checks, create customized expense reports, view and pay Advanta bills online, and perform promotional balance transfers.

In its efforts to introduce small business credit card products that fit the needs of business owners as well as fulfill other potentially worthy public interest objectives, Advanta has recently launched the Kiva Business 4 Business Project, fashioning credit card offers that not only allow cardholders to earn cash back credit card rewards, but at the same time promote charitable card reward donation for aspiring entrepreneurs and fledgling businesses in the developing world in the form of matching Advanta-Kiva loan grants.

For Regular Consumers Interested In Advanta Offers, Keep In Mind That Even Non-Business Owners Can Apply For A Business Credit Card

Business credit cards offer noticeably better benefits compared to regular consumer cards, including much higher spending limits and much more lucrative credit card reward programs. However, while many ordinary consumers may be attracted to the benefits of business cards, some may be reluctant to pursue or apply due to their lack of ownership in an actual business. Dispelling the myth, one of the most common misconceptions about business credit cards is that only actual small business owners or those who have applied and received an Employer Identification Number (EIN) can qualify for a business credit card – that presumption is false. In actuality, anyone can legitimately qualify for a business card, as non business owners can apply for business credit cards without automatic disqualification. All the card applicant has to do is apply for the business credit card utilizing his or her Social Security Number (SSN) as the application form-requested business identification number. When individuals apply for business cards using their SSN without having a EIN, they are simply applying as a sole proprietorship, which is simply any business operation with just a single member, regardless of actual income or profits. There is no legal prerequisite to call yourself a sole proprietorship and no paper work is involved. Simply using your personal name as the name of the business will suffice for business credit card application purposes.

Reviews Of The Top Advanta Business Credit Cards With Rewards and Balance Transfer Offers:

1) Advanta Platinum Unlimited Rewards BusinessCard – With the Advanta Platinum Unlimited Rewards card, not only do you get an introductory 15 month, 0% APR offer for balance transfers, you also earn 1% reward rebates on all card purchases that are redeemable for cash, airline travel, and merchandise. Along with the usual business credit card benefits, the Unlimited Rewards card is customizable with your company’s name on the top of the card. There is also no annual fee.

2) Advanta Customizable Platinum Business Card With Unlimited Rewards – The customizable Advanta Platinum Unlimited Reward card is the same as the regular version in the way of terms and conditions except you have additional customizable options at your disposal, such as the ability to personalize the card with your company’s name, trademark logo, or colors. As with most Advanta business cards, you also get a 15 month, 0% balance transfer introductory offer, along with the ability to earn unlimited 1% purchase rebates. There is no annual fee.

3) Advanta Business World Master Card – This particular business card offer from Advanta is first and foremost very purchase reward centered, allowing you to earn 1% reward rebate on all purchases with an additional bonus of 50% worth of extra reward points every year. In regards to reward point redemption, there is no cap on the cumulative rewards that can be earned and accrued, and there are no airline travel restrictions or blackout dates for reward flight redemption. There is also no preset spending limit or annual fee with this card.

4) Advanta Net 90 Platinum Business Card – Always creating new products for small business customers, Advanta presents the 90 day grace period business card that allows consumers and small business owners the ability to enjoy continuous and recurring 90 days worth of 0% interest free purchases. This is not an introductory limited time offer, but a permanent no interest feature that allows you to pay 0% APR for 3 months automatically after all credit card purchases made on your account. This business reward credit card also earns 1% back with a generous credit limit and no annual fee.

5) Advanta Kiva Business Card – With the Advanta-Kiva Business credit card, you’ll not only earn purchase rewards for yourself, but all earned rewards that you contribute as a charitable donation to the Kiva charity will be matched by Advanta, and sent out to help small growing businesses in developing countries. The public interest minded Kiva organization provides micro loan grants to help fund entrepreneurs and small business start ups in less developed areas of the world. Cardholders also get to earn a 5% bonus statement credit on the first $1,200 each year spent on Kiva grants, charitable donations, and other eligible purchases. The Kiva card also provides an attractive 0% balance transfer offer for an industry leading 15 months, with no annual fee.

6) Advanta Kiva Credit Card For Business Professionals – This particular Kiva credit card offer from Advanta Bank is designed for non business owning professionals who want to earn credit card rewards for their purchases but at the same time do some public good by helping entrepreneurs and small businesses in less fortunate countries through the Kiva charity via micro loan grants. As a charitable incentive, Advanta will match the micro loan charitable contributions offered up and donated by the cardholder accrued from his or her Advanta credit card purchase rewards. The card also offers Advanta’s popular 15 month, 0% APR balance transfer offer with a low fixed interest rate thereafter. This Advanta Kiva credit card also allows cardholders to earn .25% cash back rebate on purchases up to a full 1% back, with no annual fee to worry about.

Update: Check Out The New Visa Black Card For The Uber-Rich

What’s the deal with status symbols these days? While I’d like to think that I’m perfectly immune from the need to walk around and carry lofty symbols of wealth, power, and status on my shoulders, sheepishly, I must admit that I’m not. I don’t occasionally wear designer clothes or don expensive apparel brands solely for the quality threads, or dream of buying a BMW or Mercedes sports sedan for crash test safety reasons alone. After all, there’s something about rarity, uniqueness, and exclusiveness that beckons each of us at some point in our lives. Whether it’s the elite acknowledgment that one gets from being an alumni of a top tier Ivy League university, or whether it’s membership into an ultra exclusive golf club usually reserved only for top celebrities and the rich and famous, I’m sure many of us secretly envy at times, those who are in this special inner circle.

Actually, the notion itself is quite silly really – the idea that simply because you possess something unique that very few other people have, or have VIP membership into some special organization, that you are somehow better off than others or worthy of admiration. But it’s simply human nature I suppose. We all innately appreciate the attention and envy of others, whether we truly want to admit it or not. Don’t believe it? All you have to do is observe the rise and popularity of television shows like MTV’s Super Sweet 16 to see how the desire to be envied and praised is very much part of our society’s psyche and celebrity culture. If it were not for our humanistic lust for all things that glitter and our natural attraction to the glitz and glamor of all that surrounds the rich and powerful, we wouldn’t have such things as paparazzis and celebrity magazines. It’s because we as a society desperately seek to emulate the rich and beautiful that there are such things as status symbol cars and multi-million dollar mega mansions.

Thus there should be little surprise that there are even such things as one-of-a-kind credit cards that only a select few have the luxury of possessing. Whether it makes any real sense for anyone to go gaga over something as mundane as a limited edition credit card is up for debate, but it’s something that’s been glorified in the rising hip-hop culture and permeating our English vernacular, calling attention to itself.

What Is the Black Centurion Card From American Express?

The American Express Black Centurion Card (simply referred to as the Black Card by some) sprung out of an urban rumor in the early 1990’s about a super secret black credit card available only to a select group of rich and powerful celebrities. While the reality was that no such card existed, American Express ultimately played off the whispers and capitalized on the rumors, quietly creating the Amex Black Card. Its exclusivity compounded the rumors over time, leading to more and more outlandish claims about the benefits and perks offered to the holder. Perhaps you’ve seen the almost mythical Black Card touted in hip hop music videos or heard it referenced in other facets of pop culture, but you rarely see it out in the open. The card is definitely not widely available and unless you hang around or work with celebrities, famous people, or wealthy individuals, it’s unlikely you will ever see one in your lifetime.

The Black Centurion credit card from American Express is definitely a rarity in the marketplace and in some circles, is considered an impact statement. First of all, the card is almost entirely black, which instantly gives it a look that’s different from all the credit cards out there, and secondly, it’s not even made of ordinary plastic like most credit cards, but rather of a special aluminum, titanium mix, giving it a different feel altogether. There have been suggestions that the titanium composition of the Black Centurion Card even triggers metal detectors at airports, but obviously this hassle is easily circumvented by transporting the card or wallet via its own plastic container through the X-ray conveyor belt scanner.

While the card imposes a hefty annual fee, for those who can easily afford it, the Black Card offers a juicy wealth of exclusive card benefits, like special concierge services, exclusive travel benefits and perks, enhanced credit card rewards, frequent flier airline miles, cashback credit card bonuses, and the ability to harness almost unlimited spending power. Perhaps I’m blowing the card a bit out of proportion and making the card bigger than what it really is, but the card is definitely not for your ordinary credit card spender – it’s meant for whales and high rollers who spend a lot – in the tune of more than $250,000 a year. But one thing to keep in mind is that due to the status implications the card seems to convey, mere possession and use of the Black Card may cause the cardholder to unnecessarily stand out awkwardly in ordinary situations. Using the Black Card from American Express in an inappropriate situation may be like showing up at a family reunion in your flashy, gas-guzzling red Lamborghini sports car while your relatives and family members quietly chug into the parking lot with their fuel efficient Honda Civics. Of course, not everyone will recognize the Black Card and many may see it as no big deal – just one of many random credit card choices out there.

How Can I Apply For The American Express Black Centurion Credit Card?

If you are wondering to yourself, how does one actually go about requesting official information or submitting an application for the ultra exclusive Black Centurion card, you’re likely going to be out of luck. Membership into the Black Card club is by exclusive invitation only, based on either your celebrity reputation or your proven ability to be a big credit card spender. However, there are affirmative steps you can take to satisfy the qualification requirements to trigger a personal credit card invite. To qualify for such an invitation based on proven financial ability, you’ll not only have to prove yourself to be a high credit card spender, but you’ll also need to have an exceptional FICO credit score and credit report history, along with a hefty personal balance sheet of verifiable monetary assets. Here are the basic requirements to get an American Express Black Centurion Card application invite based on your potential purchasing power:

1) You Must Be An Existing American Express Credit Card Holder – The American Express Black Centurion Card is currently only available to select holders of American Express credit cards. Although it does not matter which Amex card type you have (whether Blue, Blue Cash, Blue Sky, Green, Gold, or Platinum), because of the high spending requirements to qualify, you will want a card with a very high credit limit. As such, those who qualify for the Black Centurion Card tend to be former holders of Amex Platinum cards, which offer the highest credit limits of all Amex card types. If you are not already an existing American Express credit card holder, you will need to apply for one of the following high credit limit cards and start racking up significant purchases in a short period of time:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card – You get 10,000 instant points after your first purchase. Earn rewards with no preset limit.
• American Express Preferred Rewards Green Card – Get 5,000 instant bonus points and earn shopping and travel rewards with every purchase, with no preset limit.
• American Express Platinum Credit Card – Earn 25,000 bonus points after spending at least $1,000 within 3 months. Get access to American Express’ personal concierge service and earn reward points with no pre-set spending limit.
• Business Gold Card From American Express Open – This is probably an ideal way to get a Centurion Black card special invite as you can put all of your business related expenditures and purchases on this one card.
• Business Green Rewards Card From Amex Open – Earn 5,000 instant bonus points with your first purchase. Earn rewards with every purchase with no preset spending limit.

2) You Will Need To Spend At Least $250,000 A Year On Your American Express Credit Card – If this amount is too much for you, you probably shouldn’t even think about trying to obtain a Black Card to begin with. With the hefty start up and annual maintenance fees, this card will only truly benefit those individuals who spend a significant amount of money on entertainment, on airline travel expenses, and on expensive hotel stays. This may seem like an impossible amount, but for those of you who run your own small business or frequently have large amounts of reimbursable business expenses to pay for, the high expenditure requirement is quite do-able. For those who have employees, paying a payroll management company via credit card and having them in turn pay the employees via check is another great way to charge everything onto your American Express card. Especially for those people like myself who use credit card rewards for Google ads and spend significant sums of money on online advertising through Google Adsense and other internet marketing programs, the $250,000 a year spending requirement is not out of the realm of possibility.

A major problem that many wannabe Black Centurion Card seekers have in reaching the $250,000 annual spending limit requirement on their existing Amex cards is that their current monthly credit card limit simply isn’t high enough to allow them to spend that much. To reach $250,000 a year, a cardholder would need to have a credit spending limit of approximately $21,000 a month give or take a few hundred dollars ($250,000 divided by 12 months). The solution to the insufficient credit limit hurdle is quite simple. Simply submit a check or online prepayment amount at the start of each month to American Express to cover your credit card expenditures for the month. For example, even if your actual credit card limit is only $10,000 or less, simply by submitting card payment of something like $11,000 in excess of the limit up to the magical $21,000 requirement will allow you to reach your desired $250,000 for the year. Of course, the assumption is that you will actually spend at least $21,000 minimum per month.

Once you have successfully spent over $250,000 a year on your American Express credit card, you may wish to contact American Express directly if they haven’t already contacted you with a Black Centurion card invitation. While there is a common misconception that you can’t actually solicit Amex for such an invite, truth be told, if you satisfy their financial spending requirements, the company will probably be more than happy to welcome you into their exclusive credit card club.

3) You Must Be Able To Afford The Black Card’s High Annual Credit Card Fees – Once you are approved for the American Express Black Centurion card, you will need to pay the setup charges and subsequent annual maintenance fees. While earlier charter members enjoy substantially lower fees, currently for new members, there is a one time $5,000 initiation fee for the primary card holder and an upfront annual fee of $2,500, for a total of $7,500 due at the end of the first billing cycle. Clearly, the Black Centurion card isn’t for ordinary middle class working folks who don’t have thousands of disposable income dollars to throw around like Monopoly play money.

What Are the Best Features and Benefits of The Amex Black Centurion Card, and Are They Worth The Significant Annual Maintenance Fees?

The American Express Black Card is available in both personal and business form, but the vast majority of holders will likely find its benefits and credit card perks to be highly business-oriented, particularly in the area of business client entertainment as well as airline and hotel travel. For those who wish to apply for the business credit card version as an individual, keep in mind that it is perfectly legitimate and acceptable for individuals operating as a sole proprietorship business unto themselves to apply for a business card using their own names as the name of their business. As a small business owner, it’s what I personally do when I apply for business credit cards.

While the detailed specifics and the terms and conditions of your program will vary somewhat depending on whether you carry the personal or business version of the Black Centurion Card, the features and benefits of the Black Card are essentially the same. The Black Centurion offers the card holder exclusive and automatic upgrades with a wide selection of airline carriers, hotel resorts, and cruise ship travel programs. But the greatest and most touted benefit is the Black Centurion Card’s concierge service and personal shopper program, which helps cardholders find anything they desire in the area of fine dining, personal and business shopping, and travel related bookings for things like airline tickets, hotel reservations, and rental car arrangements.

1) Personal Concierge Services – Those who can afford the financial rigors and high expenditure requirements of the Amex Black Card are likely accustomed to personalized service and attention, and the Black Card program is happy to oblige with its personal concierge service for cardholders. Via the services of an outsourced concierge provider called Circles, American Express provides personalized VIP attention for both its Platinum and Centurion Black credit card customers. However, compared to regular Platinum card carriers, Black Centurion members receive more dedicated and prompt attention, and are understandably given access to a more highly trained and qualified staff of concierge representatives.

Having a dedicated and attentive personal concierge allows cardholders to outsource the time and effort of purchasing airline tickets, making hotel arrangements, booking rental cars, planning vacation trips, making dinner reservations, haggling for concert tickets, and researching prices. The actual success rate that the personal concierge agent has in securing exactly what you are looking for is somewhat debatable, but presumably due to the prestige and financial clout of the Black Centurion credit card program, it stands to reason that the company likely has greater access to exclusive deals and arrangements with the top restaurants, concert shows, and sporting venues than ordinary individuals.

The personal concierge service is probably the most commonly used and most invaluable Black Centurion Card benefit for many. While some people point out that the concierge agents are not always the best at locating what the cardholder is seeking, there’s no denying that this is still a very convenient luxury to have at one’s disposal. Not only does the cardholder have access to the personal concierge service, but the cardholder’s family members, personal assistants, and secretaries have access to this card perk as well.

2) Airline Travel Upgrades – If you are a frequent personal or business traveler, you will definitely appreciate the automatic airline upgrades offered by the Black Centurion card. What this means is that if you purchase a regular economy class ticket on one of participating airlines, you are automatically upgraded to elite status – usually this means getting bumped up to business or first class based on seat availability. With business and first class seats usually being triple or quadruple the cost of ordinary coach class seats, it’s not hard to see why this is such a potentially invaluable card benefit. With automatic upgrades into the following elite airline and hotel travel programs, cardholders enjoy such perks as dedicated check-ins, priority boardings, extra airline mileage earning opportunities, and bonus hotel stay earnings:

• Continental OnePass Gold Elite
• Delta Air Lines SkyMiles Gold Medallion
• US Airways Dividend Miles Platinum Preferred
• Virgin Atlantic Airways Flying Club Gold
• Priority Pass Membership
• Hilton HHonors Gold

Black Centurion cardholders also get access to Continental Airline’s President’s Lounge, Delta’s Crown Room Club, and Northwest Airline’s World Club as well as exclusive and complimentary access to Priority Pass’ over 500 VIP airport lounges. Automatic elite car rental upgrades with popular car rental companies like Hertz and Avis are also complimentary and available to cardholders.

The American Express Black Card also provides members with a companion airfare program that offers cardholders free guest airline tickets when the Black Card is used to purchase tickets. Currently, you can request up to 4 complimentary companion airline tickets a year. Of course, there may be a few airfare restrictions and blackout dates.

3) Hotel and Resort Lodging Upgrades – Along with automatic airline travel upgrades to elite status, the Black Card also offers automatic hotel lodging upgrades at all participating hotels and luxury resorts. Through partnerships with over 500 worldwide luxury hotels and resorts, chances are you will likely enjoy elite upgraded status at most premium hotels and resorts like the Starwood Group (Le Meridien, Four Points, Westin, Aloft, Sheraton, Element, St. Regis, and W Hotels), Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, Hilton, Leading Hotels of the World, Amanresorts, and Centurion Villas.

Unfortunately, a few of the greatest and most coveted Black Centurion Card perks of past years have since been eliminated from the program. Until a few years ago, Hyatt’s Diamond Elite Status and Starwood’s Preferred Guest Platinum status were automatically offered to cardholders. However, Hyatt Hotel has since left the program and the Starwood Platinum status privilege is no longer offered to card members – a great disappointment and upset to many cardholders as the Starwood frequent guest suite upgrade program was indeed one of the best around. Now, cardholders will no longer qualify for automatic free Starwood Preferred Platinum status, but will receive Starwood Preferred Gold status instead, which offers substantially less upgrade opportunities for members.

4) Retail Shopping and Entertainment Benefits – More likely than not, American Express Black Centurion Card members are likely prolific shoppers, whether for personal reasons, or for business purposes. Coupled with the dedicated and personalized concierge service, card members can solicit the services of personal shoppers and price researchers to help them locate any product or custom merchandise they desire. For those who enjoy frequenting luxury boutiques and high end retailers like Bulgari, Escada, Gucci, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, personal shoppers are available at such retailers for VIP attention. In some circumstances, entire stores may be reserved for your personal shopping pleasure so you can bypass lines and avoid crowds. For those who desire reservations at exclusive restaurants, tickets for hard to find entertainment shows and sporting events like the Super Bowl, your Black Card concierge is there to help you secure such coveted tickets. American Express has deals and exclusive arrangements with hundreds and thousands of restaurants to reserve tables for card members. With the Black Card, you will have greater access to so-called Gold Card events and premium luxury seating at concerts and events not ordinarily available to the general public.

Members also get automatic subscriptions to “Black Ink” magazine, an ultra exclusive publication that caters to the materialistic fancies of like minded wealthy clientele discussing such indulgences like luxury performance vehicles and exclusive dream vacation destinations. On occasion, as yet another complimentary benefit for coveted Black Card holders, American Express sends out free gift cards worth in excess of $500-$1000 to a variety of exclusive high end retailers. Amex has also been known to send out to Black Card customers, such gifts like expensive digital cameras and high end women’s jewelry.

Is The American Express Black Centurion Credit Card Worth The Hefty $7,500 Initiation Fee (One Time $5,000 Plus The $2,500 Annual Fee)?

First of all, if you are even asking yourself if the Black Card is worth the cost, this card’s likely not for you. Remember, to even qualify for an exclusive invite or to even satisfy the financial requirements to request membership, existing American Express card members need to spend at least $250,000 a year worth of credit card purchases. If your business or personal situation allows this type of high spending, chances are, a comparatively small $7,500 fee is unlikely to even register as a blip on your financial radar. Keep in mind, the American Express Black Centurion card is all about exclusivity and rarity. It’s a coveted financial item and the ultimate status symbol because it is only held by a limited number of wealthy individuals. The card should be regarded as a personal branding tool for those who can indeed afford the cost of carrying it. The automatic travel upgrades and complimentary perks and credit card rewards are certainly appreciated by card carriers, but it’s probably the exclusivity and status symbol of the Black Card that cardholders who can afford it covet the most. For ordinary consumers who do not have thousands and millions of dollars to throw around, the Black Centurion Card is a symbol of great excess waste and unnecessary decadence, but for the higher income types, it’s akin to driving around an expensive luxury sports car – it’s an attention getter for many.

But speaking from a cost benefit analysis perspective, are the benefits of the Black Centurion Card worth the one time $5,000 initial setup fee and the subsequent $2,500 fee year after year? After speaking to a few actual Black Card carriers and picking their brains a bit about what they find so useful and indispensable about the card, I have to conclude that the card is indeed worth the hefty annual fee, but only if you are a heavy business traveler or one who frequently engages in airline travel and hotel stays. The Amex Black Card is primarily business oriented and most of the airline and travel perks are geared towards upgrading existing travel accommodations into more comfortable elite offerings. For busy business types, the airline and hotel upgrades over the course of a year may very well cover the cost of the annual fee alone.

For those who primarily use the personal concierge services of the card for shopping research and entertainment reservation purposes, the cost benefit of the annual fee is more debatable as the cost is a bit harder to quantify. While American Express tends to provide better customer service for its cardholders than that of other credit card issuers, I think the concierge services is likely only useful in certain circumstances. For example, purchasing airline tickets is a breeze online and I find I can probably do a better job myself with a few keystrokes online than any concierge representative who isn’t as skilled at bargain hunting and deal finding. But for busy business types who have little time for mundane things like shopping research and price comparison, having a personal concierge at one’s beck and call certainly may be worth the cost of card membership.