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Showing posts with label daily blog tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label daily blog tips. Show all posts

Monday, October 3, 2011

What Aspiring Actors Can Teach You About Blogging

If you were an aspiring actor, and you spotted a famous movie star on the street, would you run up to them and ask them for help? You might, but I’m willing to bet that 99 times out of 100, you would get nowhere. In fact, those odds are probably very generous.


I am willing to bet that those odds would improve if you were to approach them, briefly introduce yourself, compliment them on their work, and ask if it would be okay to write to their agent with a few questions that they might consider answering if they get time.


When you’re dealing with people above your station, the hard sell is almost always a failure. If you were to deal with your fellow bloggers in the spirit of the more polite and unobtrusive aspiring actor, you would establish some highly valuable relationships.


As Darren explained, it’s wise to embrace the competition. It doesn’t matter what niche you are in—there are almost always going to be more authoritative blogs already in existence. And that is a good thing, for two key reasons:

It demonstrates that there is a market for your niche.It provides you with an opportunity tap into an established audience.

Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of a resource of already warm, highly targeted leads?


So how can you tap into the audiences of your contemporaries? Not in the way that many people try to, that’s for sure. Do not emulate the method of the rude and desperate aspiring actor. There is few things more irritating to a blogger than being contacted by another who simply asks for a link to, or mention of, their site.


Assuming that you are the proverbial minnow, you only need to concern yourself with one thing when reaching out to your peers—providing value. Whilst simply asking for help may occasionally reap short term rewards, it is far more valuable to establish long term relationships based upon giving.


The desire to reciprocate is human instinct. For the most part, if you offer value to your peers, they will eventually be inclined to return the favor.


So what should you do? Here are a few things you can do to get started:

Drop them a line and compliment their work.Share their posts.Add useful and insightful comments to their posts.Link to posts of theirs that you find valuable.Review their products.

Please don’t let your imagination be stifled by my suggestions—more inventive ways of reaching out to your peers can offer higher rewards! For instance, you might choose to post a video on your blog entitled “Five Reasons You Should Be Following (insert name here)”. That might grab their attention!


Always make sure that your complimentary nature does not turn into overt fawning, and don’t go out of your way to tell the person in question that you are doing all of these lovely things—it will look disingenuous.


The key is to do all of the above (and more) with absolutely no expectation of a reward. I would like to think that I have already established some really positive relationships with bloggers in a short period of time, and for the most part, my generosity has not been reciprocated. How does this make me feel? I’m totally okay with it. Reciprocity is not an obligation, and what you consider due reward for your generosity may not be realistic.


When I get in touch with a fellow blogger, it is not in the vain hope that I can get something out of it. It is because I think they offer quality content, and I want to get to know them better. If something comes out of a burgeoning relationship that positively affects my blog, that is a wonderful bonus.


Once you have started befriending bloggers, you’ll have to play it by ear. Your new friendships will probably bring about unexpected benefits without you having to do anything. But if you think that there is some way in which your friend can help you, and it is not asking too much, then once you are on good terms, you may consider asking for a favor.


If you do decide to, then make sure that you are not asking too much. Put yourself in the shoes of your compatriot—would what you are asking for make them uncomfortable? Always err on the side of conservatism if you feel compelled to ask for something. I personally am far more inclined to never suggest anything that does not offer some kind of benefit in return. Simply saying “can you please link to my site?” is not something I would recommend, because if you already have a great rapport with someone, they would have done so already if they wanted to.


You probably know of many bloggers in your niche. You have probably contacted some of them before. You may not have gone about it in what I consider the right way.


Now is the time to make amends. Start engaging with people—start helping them. You are entering into a long term process, but one which is bound to offer fantastic rewards, given enough time and the right attitude.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Science of Blogging

The word “science” comes from the Latin root “scientia,” which means knowledge. This is the reason why the word science is attached to many “non scientific” terms like “the science of theology.”


A blog is defined as follows:



A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent “post” (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.—Darren Rowse, What is a Blog?


Most websites are intended to acquire or spread knowledge, hence science and blogs have a lot to do with each other.


The following scientists’ quotes do not refer specifically to blogging, but I think they can teach us a lot about it.



I am sure that I am not smarter than other scientists. Psychologists have said that my IQ is about 160, I recognize that there are one hundred thousand or more people in the United States that have IQs higher than that.—Linus Pauling; Nobel Laureate of Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962), in an interview to the site Academy of Achievement, Nov 11, 1990.


An authority on blogging, Darren Rowse said in Blogging Takes Super Human Effort vs Blogging is Easy [Misconceptions New Bloggers Have #1]:

“Before I started blogging I had had 20 jobs in ten years, none of which were in anything to do with the online space and most of which were fairly manual/physical jobs.“My only qualifications were half a degree in Marketing (which I failed half of the subjects in) and a Bachelor of Theology.“I’d received a ‘C’ in English in my final year of high school.“I was incapable of making text bold on my first blog for several weeks—I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to anything technical!”

Some people think that only people with exceptionally brilliant minds can become good bloggers (or good in anything). This is nonsense. Just work hard with devotion. You will make it. There are no magic people.



If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.—Sir Isaac Newton; English physicist and mathematician, in a letter to Robert Hooke, 5 Feb. 1675 or 1676


There are always good resources available on any niche you choose, and there are always some people who are “giants” (authorities) in that field. By “resources” I don’t only mean blogs. There will always be excellent books, magazines, videos, and so on in your niche. Utilize them.  I don’t mean copy their content. I mean learn from them, put your own voice in it, and produce fresh content. If you can do your own research and take the current material a step ahead, even better.



Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.—Albert Einstein; Nobel Laureate of Physics (1921)


To make a blog successful you must keep working on it regularly.


Despite the fact that there are thousands of articles on ProBlogger, I keep returning to this site to read the new ones. Though sometimes I read some old articles, mainly I concentrate on the latest material. I think most readers do the same, as the latest post’s comments are the most frequented.


If you make a blog and update it once in two months, it will collapse. Readers usually want new content on the latest happenings in your niche. Also, readers want regular replies from you. If they are taking the trouble of sparing some time and commenting on your blog, they want the favor to be reciprocated.



You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.—Albert Einstein; Nobel Laureate of Physics (1921)


To be a good blogger, you need to know a good deal about blogging. For example you need to know which is a good blogging platform, the methods of monetization, how to set up an email newsletter, how to use sites like Facebook and Twitter to your maximum advantage, and more.


The rest is mind game and hard work. Keep blogging diligently. You’ll learn many things practically that you will not learn by referring to blogging resources. Use this information to create better blogs than your competitors.



I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.—Galileo Galilei; Italian physicist


Do you think visiting “bad” blogs is a waste of time? Not at all! By visiting them you can learn why that blog didn’t do well. What mistakes did the blogger make? Pay attention to those mistakes so that you may not make them.



The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to.—Richard Feynman; Nobel Laureate of Physics (1965) in a letter to Koichi Mano, February 3, 1966


Though there are thousands of problems that humanity is facing today, you should select a niche of which you have a good knowledge. Then, write posts that can really help people live better lives by solving their problems. If you can solve their problems, they will visit your blog.



The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.—Michael Faraday; English physicist, as quoted in A Random Walk in Science (1973) by Robert L. Weber, p. 76


Give your readers the true impression that you really care for them and you have put up a lot of energy and hard work into your blog. Don’t try to fake yourself.  You must really make all attempts to please your audience.  If you yourself won’t take your blog seriously, don’t expect your readers to take it seriously.


Do you know quotes from other scientists that reflect and fit with blogging? Share yours in the comments!

Friday, September 30, 2011

4 Tips For Writing A Great Blog Post

Contributed by a comprehensive education system today, it’s not a strange sight to see young kids able to churn out Shakespeare worthy poems on an everyday basis. However even so, their eloquence doesn’t always automatically translate to an article that is able to leave an impression on people from all walks of life. In this case, the essence of a great blog post is often related to the personality imparted on it and thus as elaborated below.


1. Use catchy yet short titles
In the effort to create an enjoyable read, the blog post title is more often than not underestimated as simply a title. Borrowing from the phrase “Never judge a book for its cover”, it is precisely the anti-thesis of the phrase that stimulates the initial desirability of choosing the blog post to read. The ideal format of a title should always be short yet catchy and of course include a couple of keywords. This is because like how most products are chosen based on branding, the same can be applied in the deciding factor for a blog post. Therefore in regards naming a post’s title, always keep in mind that titles are doors that serve as precursors to the blog post and not the opposite.


2. Concise and easily understandable content
Another tip in ensuring your blog post deserving more than just a quick glance from visitors, blog writers are always reminded of a natural law that not every visitor to their respective blog is a living dictionary. Despite providing the feel of a professional outlook, bombastic verbs are generally frowned upon in the community as it serves merely to reflect the writers need to flaunt his language prowess instead of sharing their thoughts.


Hence, writers should practice applying simple English to allow the intention of the post to be relayed with ease across the board. Using short paragraphs wouldn’t go amiss as well as it encourages readers to continue reading as opposed to long elaborative paragraphs.


3. Aesthetically pleasing blog layouts
As compared to traditional word essays, the distinctive difference that sets it apart from blog post is the ability to use visual appeal to improve the reading experience. This is because by employing visual elements such as photographs, readers are not digesting thoughts & facts but also relieved of the effort to create a visual reading experience in their imagination. This in short as according to a saying of how a photo is worth a thousand words, it allows the writer to more effectively convey their personal emotions & thoughts across the web.


4. Infuse some humor to create an engaging piece of reading!
When we are writing, it is mentioned previously that we are not only imparting our thoughts but also our distinctive persona into a blog post. Whether in real life scenarios or in vast cyberspace, a sense of humor would go a long way in ensuring an enjoyable experience.


Though one might argue that tone of humor often at times doesn’t reflect the nature of a serious content post but the fact remains that, majority of online blog readers are recreational readers. The readers does not expect bloggers to possess a sense of humor of a stand-up comedian, however they are more entertained when the blogger discards conventional writing style in favor of a more personal and care free approach.


All in all, to create a great blog post from scratch doesn’t require an extensive collection of PhD’s & master degree. The art of creating an enjoyable experience when reading a blog post is simply the art of being truthful and simple when conveying personal thoughts and experience. As it would seem, writing a great blog post should always be considered to an equivalent experience of sharing a conversation with a long lost friend.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

How to increase your PageRank Fast

As of the recent development of PageRank on 2 August, my blog has been around 79 days. Previously, I had been a PR0, but due to this update, my blog has become a PR2. I would like to say that I am right, and that you can copy my success. As we know, the key to building a decent PR quickly in a short period of time lies in content top notch and a lot of backlinks. Here are some tips that I would like to share with you.


The content of higher quality ranks very, very well in the SERPs and appeals also to readers.


In the drafting of content, bloggers are concerned mainly two things. (1) Uses my content for my loyal readers? (2) My content will receive much search engine traffic? I have developed a formula really decent to write tons of content that readers love, still receive thousands of references to search engines per month.
What is the site most visited on Earth for content? Current Wikipedia! Encyclopedia entries are the most sought after for things in the world. I decided to write some encyclopedic entries of my own. My blog is to invest, so I wrote a few positions such as 'Buy and Hold' and ' support and resistance: technical analysis. It comes to encyclopedic terms for the investment world. If I do some serious backlinking on these articles, they rank you high for keywords that get tens of thousands of research per month!


But the writing encyclopedic entries on respect in the niche of your blog is not very attractive to your loyal readers. After all, they can simply look for keywords like "buy and hold" on Wikipedia. So, I devised a way to combat this problem. At the end of each encyclopedic article, I add my own opinion. For example, for my "Buy and Hold" post, I added a section called "Why buy and hold does not work." Now, it is an opinion that my readers could not obtain elsewhere, so that they absolutely loved the position for giving such an insightful explanation more an honest opinion on purchase and maintain.


You need to do: do not write too many encyclopedic type positions. Write too, and your readers will get bored. In view of the fact that encyclopedic as key words need to many high rank in the SERPs backlinking, you rank very high if you have too many keywords to rank for and not enough time to build enough backlinks. I suggest that you perhaps write 1 or 2 encyclopedic-like positions each month, add your own opinion on these 1-2 positions and spend the rest of the building backlinks to these positions 1-2 months.


Now comes the really good part. A the backlink building strategy.


A problem I once had with building backlinks is that I quickly forget backlinks how I had built to certain positions! So, I designed a table to resolve this issue.


It is a list of all the keywords of traffic that I want to classify and encyclopedic keywords. As you can see, this table allows keep me track of my backlink building campaign. The column "# of top quality Backlinks" refers one PR3 or above links, I have to my position. As you can see, this table is sufficiently detailed to say many things, such as searches how many a month there are for my desired keyword, but not too detailed so that it will take to always up-to-date. Feel free to copy this table to your own needs.


I not stress this enough, but guest blogging is the only true way to get quality backlinks and significantly improve your Serp and PR. Simple than that.


Then, how do you get write guest posts really improve your search engine rankings? Once, I wrote a post entitled "problems in America." Then I went on a really large finance PR8 site and wrote a post entitled "finance problems in America." Then I created a backlink from this post to my position as "problems in America". An element key to how Google values your backlink is your post invited relevant how is your Web site position. Note that my post and asked that I wrote are very similar in nature. It is composed of a good backlink. A backlink that my "problems in America" post grade 12 for the keyword "problems in America".


To summarize, the guest writing positions of things that are highly relevant to the position you are backlinking to. And we should know this, but a link from a high PR site is more valuable than a link from a low PR site.


Bonus!
Since I'm a big fan of the DBT community, I decided to include a little further in this position. There is a simple way that has reported me an extra 200 visitors unique daily dainew. It has called…… comments.


Many people have heard that comment on other blogs is the way to generate lots of traffic to his own blog. So they go out and try it, fail and are beginning to think that his comments do not work. The truth is it doesn't work because they do poorly.


Instead of commenting on a ton of blogs and sites, you need to focus its comments on a high traffic site. For example, I would only on a really, really popular business news site and these comments generally net me an extra 200-300 unique visitors each day. For obvious reasons, I prefer not to reveal the name of this news site. Anyways, I scour around on this site for news articles which appear to be interesting. Next, I will at the bottom of an article, and I have really engaged with the other commentators. I write decent comments on this post, and the bottom of each comment, include a very relevant link to one of my blog posts. For example, there was this post entitled "the American politicians need to get their heads on Straight.". I really involved in the discussions on this position, and at the bottom of each of my comments, I've included a link to my post of "problems in America". Some of you might think that I was link send spam, but in fact, I was not. Other commentators all like my link, and the news site has never blocked me or dismissed me to include a link to my very relevant post.


You can do the same.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Take each new reader - create a Page of quick start

There is a category on this blog called "Attention sensors". This is to grasp the attention of a new player when they land on your blog for the first time.


It can be applied to existing readers, but once a player decides to keep returning to your blog, simply writing great new content should be good enough for most. It is more difficult to get a new drive.


There are several ways to do so, but one of the most powerful is to build a rapid start page for your blog. It is not as simple as saying hello, "here is my blog, this is XYZ and here is my latest posts. To do this, and you could not disturb. Ideally, your Quick start page should provide a powerful snapshot in your best content and insight into authoritative niche of your blog.


Take a look at what I did Blog Tips with the quick start of blogging Guide.


I've heard them called a "sneeze page" by some blogs, but it looks like something, you may be allergic to the - thus a rapid start page seems more reasonable!


1. State its purpose, with a strong message that helps readers to find out if they are in the right place. Do not try and mislead potential readers - you are looking for people who are interested in your content. In addition, keep your message short and catchy. Did people.


2. Break it into sections. Even with a very specific focus, the best way to organize your page is for her break. For the Quick Start Guide Blogging, I could he break into several shorter pages, but each page would be quite empty. Instead, I chose to include several key sections with links in them.


3. Allow links to speak. This is the reason why you should be writing killer post titles. Each job title should speak for itself and you draw in. Also, do not add a description of each link. For example, if the job title is "Show readers your next Blog Posts", not to add a description that says "this post speaks showing your upcoming blog readers". It is not necessary to do so when your titles are good.


4. Keep the page updated. If you created the page quite early in life after a year of display or your blog, you can write blog posts in the future which could go on the page. It's really good edit the page from time to time - not just he conditioned and forget.


5 Say when the page has been updated. This is important with a page because you'll be editing after the date of the original publication with new information. The date clearly indicates the freshness of the content and it will also serve as a reminder of the time limit, that you have used in the compilation of links. If you refreshed the page 6 weeks ago, you can start from that date when adding new posts to the page.


6. Don't be afraid to seek redress. I do not claim that you need to beg for money, but something as simple that persons requesting a link to your page is they seem to like it, or by using a coupon code to show their support, as a command if your page is really good.


1. In your navigation bar. You will see that I've linked to Blogging Quick Start Guide to the top of the page (and, to this position, in fact). This should get a few people clicking.


2. In your Twitter profile. Although the home page of your blog should be a very strong overview of your latest content, there is only so much you can on the home page. Connect to your quick start to your Twitter profile page may be much better that connect to your home page. Regular readers can always go to your home page if they want to see your latest posts.


3. On your Facebook page. Display useful content on your Facebook page, it is a good way to keep readers interested. Linking to your page of quick start to here is a really good way to spread the word.


4. Under your messages. You have a bio of the author on your workstations? If so, you can include a link to your Quick Start page, too.


5. In your newsletter. You have a list of E-mail? I have not yet - but I would say that it would be a great place to share a link to your quick start page. In fact, why not share a small section of it with your newsletter subscribers?


Do you have extracted from Blogging QuickStart Guide yet? You have a page of quick start? What is the best Quick Start page, you've seen?

What is your Blog Worth? How value Web properties

I sold a site of e-commerce for $250,000 and several other niche sites for a five-digit price tag. I would like to share with you a method of assessment that you can use to put a price on your web property today.


If a website owner or a blogger starts with the initial objective of their sale in one day site, it is my belief that every successful blog owner has thought at one point on the potential of their web property sale. At least they will be asked how much their web property is a value - especially when it starts to generate a decent sum.

In fact, I think that hardly anyone think a sale as an exit strategy when they start at the very first. It is generally a passion, hobby or something else that a potential sale, which motivates a person to begin to make money online - unless of course they are a business online as an e-commerce site, on the first day.

When a Web site becomes profitable, it has the potential to become marketable. You can deliberately contemplate selling either because of boredom, because you have found a better alternative use of your time, because of a potential use of the financial product or any of several other reasons.


If so, you know what is your Web site?


When a web property begins to generate profits, it becomes a productive asset income, as a rental property or a small business. Just as the property and business are assessed and sold on the open market, a website or blog may be too. Therefore, develop a web property is not very different to promote any other income-producing assets.


The quantitative aspect of the evaluation is not rocket science, in my opinion.  You take current site and spending, understand profits that are the flow of net cash and then project a value based on a multiplier of gains.


Net income, or cash flows, is commonly known as EBITDA in the business world. This means: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.  The multiplier is applied to this next number with a value, or price for the property.


Income and expenditure are what they are: they are not subjective any way. But where that you get a multiplier of gains of? Evaluate recent sales of websites which is similar to yours to get an idea of what kind of multiplier was paid for each of them. This number will be greater in a stronger and smaller economic period in weak economic times such as those which we are now in.


There is no standard multiplier, however. Similar to real estate, if the numbers are available based on recent sales of blog, great. But otherwise, the value of your Web site is only as much as someone else is willing to bid for it. Of course, you have the option not to sell for that you might feel is a low ball offer.


Another thing to consider is if the site is also monetized as it can be today. Is it possible to add more private sidebar ads and generate more profits on a residual basis, for example?  A buyer would be definitively assess this potential monetization and this factor in their purchase decision.


Here is where the subjectivity evaluation of blog comes in.  Actively a company sold to a multiplier of two gains are not comparable with a passive business of the same size as a passive business requires much less effort to manage and maintain. Take into account how much the cost and effort of the owner of the web property will have to invest in the passive company to generate a dollar in profit. Then ask how this compares with an active business.


Factors such as the effort, operation of price structure, sustainability, relevance and long-term perspectives that all play an important role in determining what reasonable web special property value should be. At the end of the day, none of this is an exact science, but it's a way to arrive at a rational or justifiable price.


For example, nobody was scalability long-term Google or LinkedIn. In fact, we know today.  The market had a certain (multiplier) estimate set at each company became public and has a different one today. It will probably be another at the time that you have finished reading and comment on this post. Wait the multiplier to evolve, especially in a dynamic and changing industry such as this.


When I've been originally requested by an Ebay power seller potentially sell my e-commerce business, the company was generating approximately $60,000 per year in profits. After weeks of discussion back and forth, we settled on a sale price of a little less than $250 000, or about four times the annual salary of $60,000.


The quantitative part of the deal was simple. The qualitative part is that dragged out of the negotiation.  The seller of power had already purchased a business of commerce similar to multiple pay three.  They had paid $90,000 for a company that generated some $30,000 in annual profits.  However, I was not prepared to accept a price of $180,000, which was three times the annual salary of my site.  In addition, my company has shown a growing trend in terms of web traffic, acquisition of customers, sales and profits.  These qualitative measures needed to be "cooked" in the contract to make it viable for me.  I managed to persuade that the buyer, and we have sealed the deal at four times the annual salary.


Lesson key here is that while as acquisitions based strictly on bills multiple good gains in theory, they rarely work out in practice, if my level or the level of the Fortune 500.  Our repeated attempts to clarify the nature of the agreement to a pure science have never worked, and probably Won't in the future.  Assessments, although mainly by the financials underlying, rely heavily on the qualitative aspects that are unique to each buyer and seller and subjective.


What do you think of this method of assessment? You have alternatives to share? Is this a fair way to determine the value of your web property? I would like to hear your thoughts in the comments.


If you want to be brave and bold and open your kimono for me and other readers: what do you your web property value is today on the open market, if you use this method of valuation?

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Six proven success Blogging Secrets

I write a wedding blog. Before you start running for the hills, now that you know I focus only on girly things, know that I also happen to have a smarty pants husband who is joining me here to spread some of his crazy blogging wisdom. I started Style Me Pretty about four years ago, after I sold a wedding invitation business that I developed. My husband and I were living in Palo Alto and he had just finished up his Master's program at Stanford in Computer Science. He was busy with his new start-up gig and I was simply bored, so I decided to take a seminar on blogging, something the rest of the creative community seemed to already know so much about.


While I don't remember much from that seminar, one thing the lecturer said stayed with me. It changed my life. "you will most likely never make money writing a blog." While he was right that most people don't end up making a killing writing a blog, I took his words as a personal challenge and made the decision to prove him wrong.


Fast forward four years and here we are with Style Me Pretty. We get about 10 million pageviews a month, 680,000 unique visitors and about 35,000 RSS subscribers. We have 45,000 fans on Facebook and 35,000 on Twitter. And recently, we were featured in a CBS Sunday Morning segment about bloggers and their influence on the media and publishing industries.


We're proud to be living proof that you can make a living blogging about what you love. And although we've made plenty of mistakes along the way, we're hoping that we can share some of our blogging know-how and help you avoid those same pitfalls.


Below are some of the blogging best practices we've honed over the years. They may seem simple but take them to heart. Follow these practices and you'll have a much better chance of becoming a successful blogger.


This is really a two-part tip about branding and technology. Your brand and your blogging platform are hard to change later on, so get them right the first time.


First, give careful consideration to your blog name and domain. You don 't want to get two years into a blog, and then decided that the name doesn't' t reflect what you do or the domain is hard to spell and should be changed. Launch your blog on a domain you own, not a subdomain of WordPress or Blogger.


Second, choose a common blogging platform. This is one decision where it's okay to copy your friends. You want a platform that has a significant mindshare and therefore lots of plugins, themes, and competent developers that can help you. Whatever platform you start with, you'll most likely be stuck with for a while.


Style Me Pretty was initially hosted on Typepad and moved to WordPress. While both of these platforms are popular, we felt that WordPress was easier to host ourselves, easier to customize and had more freely available plugins, so we switched. And it was painful. Migrating images, coming up with a new theme and making sure links did not break was not as straightforward as we had hoped.


Timing and topic are everything in the world of blogging. You need to see either a space for a new voice or you need to be better than the voices already out there.


When we started SMP, there wasn't a good online source for edited, magazine-style content wedding. There were informative sites focused on the practical elements of planning a wedding, but these sites lacked inspiring wedding photography and creative event design. We saw an opportunity to do something different from our established competitors.


If your posts take hours and hours to write, edit, re-write and re-edit, you've got yourself a bit of a blogging problem. The faster you can get good content up, the better. Our advice? Post three hundred words of text at minimum, offer beautiful imagery if appropriate, and provide great links for readers to discover.


The majority of Style Me Pretty posts follow the same format: an edited intro, tons of gorgeous photographs, with a link to view more and a write-up from the bride. The wedding vendors provide the images. Often the bride develops those 300 words of text that we want, which saves us time on doing all the writing. By approaching content in this speedy, streamlined manner, we are able to push more out the door each day and open up new streams of content as we grow.


And know them well. Understand that as your blog evolves, so do your readers. Often times, we reach out to those readers who are totally committed, asking them for advice, for tips on how to improve, for thoughts on what their experience with SMP is, and even for initial reactions to new ideas. Even if their feedback stings, it's a critical component to understanding how our blog is being consumed and how we can better improve.


We've used Facebook discussions as a means to solicit feedback, and we also recommend hosting surveys on Google Docs or Survey Monkey to help gain these valuable insights.


When we look at blogs nowadays, we very rarely see comprehensive blogrolls. And yet the blogroll was one of the blogosphere's features that drove our early growth.


When Style Me Pretty was just a few months old, we'd contact other bloggers, introduce ourselves and ask if we could be included on their blogroll. It generally worked and we were introduced to new crops of readers rapidement. However, we don't suggest sending out automated emails asking for a link. This lacks a personal touch and can make a blogger distrustful of you and your site.


Email a select list of bloggers with similar sites and ask to get added to their blogroll. Blogrolls are perused by people looking for something "more" to read about. These are the very people who you want stopping by your site.


The best part about writing a blog, rather than writing a column in a magazine, is that your readers become part of your journey. They get their hands dirty with you and thus they become far more invested in your growth.


In our early days, we crafted inspiration boards for specific reader dilemmas, held Wedding DIY project competitions, and did periodic Q & As. These opportunities for involvement turned casual readers into loyal followers as they saw their work being incorporated into the content of our site. These readers also felt more comfortable leaving comments on posts and participating in the SMP conversation. All this contributed to making Style Me Pretty is thriving, yet intimate, online community.


What blogging success tips can you add from your own experience? We'd love to hear them!

Friday, September 2, 2011

How to start a free Blog

Blog learning is fun and easy, and it is even not a penny of the cost. This position, I will show you how to start a blog for free (maybe you do not have this info, but I am sure that you know someone who is).


One of the great things about blogs is that anyone can do so and that the barrier to entry is nil, zero, zip, zilch, assuming that you have or have access to a computer with an internet connection. I don't know many people without a computer with no internet connection. Blogging is easy to play with the Lego.


I have always been the creative type. When I was young I used to love playing with my Lego, I was totally incredible to her and could build models on the back of the boxes without any instruction. Similarly, I built a Lego together since the early Earth, it was huge.


When I grew up and obtained my own PC, I discovered web design. When I was first on the net blogs and blogs has never exist if I would build my web sites from scratch. My first website was horrible. Then came to blogging, it took off like a rocket and soon the net was soon strewn blogs. It didn't take long before blogs have become an important alternative source of information outside of magazines, newspapers and other media.


It is easy enough of what I have learned over the years is that building a blog. It is unnecessary to be a designer or to know how the code (although this is useful if you can design and code) because the construction of a blog is like a Lego model building.


How building a blog such as the construction of a model of Lego? LEGO models consist of lots of Lego pieces just fit together to make a model, you can even purchase individual bricks and elements of build your own model. A blog is as a Lego model except that the topics, posts, photos, plug-ins and widgets etc are the building blocks. Although you have always to know how to assemble these blocks and combine elements to build a good blog. And blogs are free, Lego is really expensive these days!


Any that can play with Lego and build things without any knowledge, but this does not mean that they can or that it will build something really cool. Blogging is the same, you can take a theme and build a blog, but that does not mean it is going to be any good. I have given many good themes totally murdered by unnecessary choices of bad design, cheese plugins, affected the color combinations that make my eyes bleed.


When you first install WordPress you get a fairly clear default theme, themes are like a Lego base plate that you build things on top of. Plugins, widgets and posts are the building blocks for your chosen theme.


As Lego blogs, plugins, themes, & widgets come with instructions but instructions do hear you on the construction of a great blog that they only tell you how to use the theme, plugin, widget or is it that is. You have to teach you how to build a good blog. There are a lot of resources of blogging over there to read and learn the. Read-only will not make you a good blogger, you will have to dirty their hands.


Your first blog probably will be the best and you will make mistakes but that do not let you stop because you learn without errors or bad construction of blogs. Errors are good, but only if you learn of them. Unless you learn from your mistakes and then you are doomed to repeat your mistakes as ground hog day until what you learn from them.


I have built many websites and blogs, I also made many mistakes and bad design choices, but I learned from my mistakes and become a better designer. I still have a lot of web sites, the backups of old blogs and mockups of websites was never built sitting on my hard disk. If I look at some of them, now I would be herisser, one thing that I see is that my designs and websites is progressively better.


If you have decided you want to blog, and that you have selected the large choice of WordPress! You have two options. You drop some species on a domain name (so you can have with www.yourblogname.com) and a host of web so that you can have complete control over your blog? Or you're going with WordPress.com is free, but you stuck with www.yourblogname.wordpress.com and very little control on your blog?


The choice is basically WordPress.com vs WordPress.org, a silver charge the other is not, offer complete control over your blog other offers no control.


None of these options sound attractive? No money? No problem. There is a third option if you want complete control over your blog, but no money to fall on a domain and web hosting. There are many hosting free there plans. Just Google "free web hosting" and you will find them. Although there are a few things to know.

The host must support PHP version 5.2.4 or above and MySQL version 5.0 or higher. What you get is generally listed under "Features", "What you get", "Spesifications" were just a poke around any decent free web host will be list what they offer, if you choose to find your own free hosting let be aware that some free hosters will require that you put ads on your site, there are some free hosts that do not require to do you advertising so carefully check before signing.There is a trade off the coast, because you use free hosting with you will be stuck what URL that they choose to let you have, usually it is just a sub as www.yourblogname.zymichost.com or www.yourblogname.freeaspwebhosting.org domain. Although it is an acceptable trade off the coast to have complete control over your blog.

If you start a blog for the first time, want a personal blog and Don't care if the URL looks professional or just wants to learn before you drop any money hard earned on a domain name and hosting is a great way to start. If you start blog get lucky and it becomes popular, you can always buy a domain some best web hosting and move your blog to your new host.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

10 Tips for selling ads to BuySellAds (BSA)

Lately many bloggers colleagues asked me questions on getting the banners sold to buy sell ads. Rather than respond to each question personally, I decided to write a blog on this point, covering the important points that will help you sell more banners to buy sell ads.


Ads to buy sell ads for sale does not require any special training. Banners to buy sell ads for sale is similar to sell ads on any other network or sell advertising spot manually. Buy sell ads, your traffic data, the number of readers, etc. is presented accurately and in an easy to read manner. It is the only difference in buy sell ads. Apart from this, advertisers also get seen traffic to your blog in a detailed format.


As I was asked the question "How to get more advertisers to buy sell ads?" by many bloggers, I decided to conduct research on several blogs and here's what I found really works to buy sell ads.


You must have a decent RSS count. Many advertisers give subscribers are more valuable than the other ranks.


Your blog must have decent traffic. Your blog should not get millions of visitors per month, but thousands of quality visitors are sufficient.


Advertisers can as of advertising on your blog, if you the majority of visitors to your blog helps your blog commenting your blog contests or vote in polls to your blog.


Have a good number of people like Facebook, this is an additional benefit.


Advertisers also focus on the number of Twitter followers you have. And Yes, advertisers are smart enough to find out if your followers are authentic.


If you have a good social presence i.e. If you interact on social networks with your visitors and readers, participate actively in forums or social bookmarking sites, you have a point more.


I don't know why, but I found that many internet marketing specialists had their inventory of full blog that is all their ads were sold.


Advertisers pay much attention to the niche of blog. For example, advertisers such as niche specific blogs. An advertiser BuySellAds will prefer a blog to make money online as a technology blog covering a variety of topics.


Do not ask advertisers lots of money for ads. Stay ahead of your competitors by offering a low price.


Advertisers Don "t like blogs which exaggerate their traffic to blog or to use exaggerated phrases as" "the best blogging advice blog", "Leading online Marketing", etc.. ". Do not call yourself an expert or treat your blog as the best. Of course, you can do that if you're really famous for you and if your blog is really leads in your niche.


If you have any help secret weapon that you get the ads in your blog by advertising to sell buy? Revealing you are interested in? Let us know your views on this post and do not hesitate to share tips on this subject.

How write 'Off Topic posts' without losing Focus on your Blog

Being a blogger warned, you understand the importance of having a targeted blog. You ensure that what you write is relevant and specific to your target market. You do post content that can dilute the focus of your site.


Yet, you still like writing on other subjects, including subjects that are linked to your global market, but are not specific to your niche.


Then, how can you continue to write on these subjects without losing focus on your blog?


This was my dilemma. I love writing about the psychology of the consumer and wanted to keep my blog, age of marketing.com, the behaviour of the buyer. But I also enjoyed writing on other topics such as blogging tips, entrepreneurship and personal success.
What was I to do?


The response has been to think outside the box, or in this case, outside of my blog.


The response


Just because the entrepreneurial spirit was not the subject of my blog does not mean that it was not the subject of another blog, such as Business Insider. Just because blogging advice were not the focus of my blog does not mean that they were not perfect for ProBlogger or daily Blog Tips.


Turned out to be not only I could continue writing on other subjects, I could transform into a strategy of generation of powerful traffic to my blog.


Here is how I benefited to write off-topic messages and their publication on other blogs:

Kept my concentrated blog: I could always keep my blog focused on psychology and behaviour of consumers buyer. Expanded the number of subjects I could write about: it is easier to find ideas for post when you have subjects choose. Mocked blogging: they say a change is as good as a holiday. While I loved writing about the psychology of the consumer, it was fun to write about other topics as well. Built traffic and back links: traffic of guest posting is the highest converting traffic (in terms of opt-ins blog) I never have on my blog.

What this is and is not to say


Now, this is not your ticket to the drafting and presentation generic, invited to half-arsed posts other bloggers. Is not an excuse to stop writing for your own blog.
This means simply that the next time you see an idea brilliant post which is not directly related to your niche, then go ahead and write it. Or if you start to feel flawed and need a break, take the time out of your blog and write for another blog. Build you traffic, back-links and recharge your batteries at the same time.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Subscribe via RSS and use an RSS reader?

About three years obtaining RSS subscribers was one of the main objectives for any site based on the content, including blogs. The reason? Web more visitors (mostly tech sufficient ones at least) would use RSS readers to update with the latest news and decide which sites they visit.


Over time, however, some people stopped using RSS readers and by subscribing to the site via RSS, to the point that media proclaimed the death of RSS.


I wouldn't go as far as saying that RSS is dead or dying, because I think that many people still it uses, and even if RSS readers are not only popular more RSS can be used for many other cool things.


That said, I do think that less and less people use RSS and RSS readers loses some of its important for based on the content of the sites. I wanted to get some numbers to back this, though, so I decided to run a survey.


The question is: you still subscribe to the sites via RSS and use an RSS reader to update your favorite sites and news sources? Your vote and leave a comment if you want to expand your thoughts.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Write your messages on a Sunday

Blogging takes time. Writing new posts, promote your messages, replying to comments, reading other blogs, comment on other blogs, respond to emails, social assistance nongovernmental on that list gets longer.


I found that it is much easier to deal with all these tasks if I try and write my posts in advance, ideally a Sunday. Quick Tips for Blog, I publish currently 5 posts each week and Sunday is the most beautiful day of writing me these posts. Sunday is good because I do not usually have many other going on.


Can I set my posts out through the week. This means that I can use the night of the week to do my networking and promotion. While writing is one thing, I can just sit and do, networking is something that I prefer to take in small bursts of activity.


An additional benefit is that if I write not complete displays every day, I think that ideas for new posts much more frequently.


How many messages you publish each week? When you write your messages?

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Why a Group Blog, this is better than the Guest display

Blogging can be a lonely experience. But when you write for a group blog, you are part of a team.


You are contributing to the blog, instead of just building your own blogs. Keep much more chance of success when you work with other bloggers.


Each author brings their own audience to the table. You do not have to be a blogger known to have some hardcore supporters. I do not have hundreds of people who read what I write, but I have a good number of readers and commentators who benefit generally hear what I have to say. Multiply this by the number of writers, and suddenly a group blog became much more popular that a solo blogger blog could.


With a group blog, there is a wider range of topics and writing styles. So, I take the time to read the content on a group blog - I could not make the effort and playback of many separate blogs.


Guest posting is not the same thing as writing a blog entry by group. Guest posting is a bit like a player making a cameo. Although it is welcomed, the public is not ready for you to become a recurring guest star. With a guest post, you can have a single blow.


However, a group blog, readers are familiar with to see several different writers every day. That remembered why I think that the editors at ReadWriteWeb team or the Huffington Post will probably attract many more after that you would if you made a couple of guest jobs ProBlogger. Not that either of these sites is better than the rest.


I think that readers prefer the familiarity of regular observations of the same writers - rather than a different poster guests each week.


And as someone who runs a group blog, I find it pleasant organize the calendar, decide what position goes back to the day of the week.


Run a group blog, or do you write for? Do you think that there is more opportunity for a group blogger for a poster invitation?

Monday, August 22, 2011

There is no easy button

You can stop looking for her. It does not exist. There are things to facilitate life and your business, but the fact is, there is no button easy to do with.


I had a bit of tangent on the easy button on my personal blog. I cover that here, but you can read this post if you wish.


What I did step enter in, it was how some seasoned traders or "gurus" do you think it is easy to create a successful business online. You've seen the hype, "Make $100 K at the time of the year next with this system really easy plug and play". "Read how Billy Bob rose from homelessness to millionaire in six months."


Perhaps it did, but he put in much work to do. He did not build a Web site to push button. Maybe he gets rich shit for sale to other traders. Lasting success? It is doubtful, but there is always someone new coming as well as to buy into it. Those who have been looking for the easy button and realized that there is no stop purchasing in the hype and begin to build a real business. Beginners will continue to buy the Junk until they have this Epiphany.


Are you still seeking this nugget of gold? The easy button that does not exist? How much money have you wasted purchase of a product after another for a response? How many of these products was actually is worth the price?


Stop chasing chimeras and stop following gurus "supposedly". They do the answers, just want you to buy their next big product.


Find people who work, even if they claim to or refuse the guru status and get your butt to build your business.


That you follow? Follow the real people who do this job. Follow the people you can actually follow the those who blog and share their lives, those who have social networking pages, people who speak of their children and dogs. If you go to my Web site, you can see that I am about an open book. I am a real person. I am not a guru, so please do pop in expecting to find a. I am a writer who is trying to find my way in the world of marketing. I am also the wife of the musician, a MOM for children great and a chronically happy person. I am real. If you Google my name, you can find out real-time how I am.


My point is, everything you do online, it will take work. I get angry with gurus that make it simple and easy, it is not healthy. I get tired to be bombarded with promotions of products that promise me that I will make large sums of money. I am sure that you are too. I am tired to hear about gurus and their promises to see that you do not find a real piece of information on them. Is no pictures, except for the two that they use for marketing purposes. No updates or personal updates to families. It is almost as if they do not exist.


There are real people making a good living online. they have good products. They promise you the Moon and then give you a famous full of garbage ebook. You just have to find them. Do so you by following real persons.


If you are a blogger, writer, or a Distributor, show the real you. Allow people to see that you have a life away from your business. If everything you post is business related stuff, it is likely people will stop after you or block your messages. Do not take this risk, be a little more human.


And if you happen to find the easy button, let know us. During this time, we would like to hear your ideas, comments and suggestions.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

FeedBurner vs. Aweber: do you really need an automatic reply for your Blog?

When it comes to turn casual visitors into regular readers there are two main options - Aweber and FeedBurner.


FeedBurner uses a technology focused on the feed (RSS and Atom) to send updates to the subscribers of your blog. Owned by Google (Google bought in 2007 for $ 100 million), FeedBurner is one of the largest feed flashes on the Internet.


It works like this: a site visitor subscribes to your diet and whenever you add a new position, a message is sent to alerting them of the addition. The Subscriber is in need of special software (feed reader) to access food.


For more information about the feeds, see post by Darren, what is RSS feeds?


AWeber is a technology focused on the email that allows you to send your subscribers automated e-mail messages. It works similarly to food but requires special feed reading software, not only an e-mail address for you to subscribe to a blog.


AWeber is the most popular auto response on Internet software system. Other popular brands include Infusionsoft, MailChimp and GetResponse.

FeedBurner is free, Aweber pay: The main advantage of the use of FeedBurner instead of Aweber (or other stakeholders-auto) on your blog is that FeedBurner is not cost anything. AWeber, on the other hand, can cost from $ 20 to $ 100 per month depending on the number of subscribers you have.FeedBurner take less effort: Blogging platforms more popular (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad etc) publish feeds automatically. There is more to do on top of publish a post anything. With auto-intervenants, you need to manually setup messages and their sequence (However, you can now define a blog broadcast in Aweber, which creates an automatic E-mail newsletter).Supports FeedBurner feed them to the readers and subscribers by email: The main advantage of the auto-intervenants such as Aweber once that you did not need special software to subscribe, just an e-mail address. As of the millions of people still do not feed readers or prefer email, this meant that you needed yet an aut-machine to capture these drives. But FeedBurner has changed all this by allowing people to subscribe to a stream by using an e-mail address. This means that, even if an automatic reply only support email, FeedBurner supports both feed readers and email.

Given that FeedBurner is free, easy to install, easy to use and supports both feed readers and email, why would you want to pay for an automatic answering machine?


The key you thing cannot do with a power supply is sequence messages: you cannot create a series of messages to send to your subscribers. This means that your subscribers only receive alerts for items that are added after that that they subscribe.


For example, say you post four articles over a period of four weeks, and a visitor subscribes to your blog after the third week. This means that they will only get alerted on the fourth position and will not receive positions one to three, as shown in the image below.

In FeedBurner, you cannot send alerts to older posts

Now, if you post sensitive information (news or developments) on your blog, this regardless. But if you publish content to Evergreen, or if you want to take your readers of blog with a specific set of messages, the ability of sequence is critical.


Automatic allow you to do exactly this. You can create a sequence of messages, how long the wait is between each message value, and the auto response will run that you for each Subscriber, regardless of when they join, as shown below.

AWeber allows you to create a sequence of messages

Then there are other benefits of auto-intervenants such as Aweber - split-test of multiple forms of capture of lead customizing the appearance of email, customization ("Hi John"), controlling the waiting period between messages, strong delivery rates and so on.


A third factor in determining which system to use is your audience. If you have tech-fuels public, a system of email such as Aweber is probably better for you.


Tech-savvy public, on the other hand, FeedBurner may be better. Technically people are more likely to use and prefer to get their updates from the blog through stream. Food for animals also have the advantage of allowing another blogger include your food on their blog, creation of traffic for your blog and free exhibit.


The best way to find out what your audience wants is to have two options on your site for a month and see what your readers prefer. You may find that it is useful to have both.


If you have a small budget, publish the time-sensitive information, and are aimed at an audience of tech-savvy, FeedBurner will be sufficient for your blog.


If, on the other hand, you want to take your customers with a sequence of messages and control delays between messages, then it is best suited to your Aweber blog.


What you use: Aweber, FeedBurner... or something else? Tell us how do so you in the comments.

Monday, August 15, 2011

How to get diverted work for you as a blogger

If you are ever stuck for ideas to write on your blog, here's a little discipline that I had myself over the years that helps me a lot.


It is to capture these moments when you get sidetracked while writing blog articles.


I doubt that I am the only one who gets sidetracked by writing.


Sometimes for me with almost every post I write. I began to write on a topic and at a time by the position, I find that I went broadband on some tangent. Tangent begins relative to the main topic that I am writing, but that I must quickly away from what the position really is.


When the blades of realization on me that I'm going on a tangent there are a few choices that can be made:

Leave the tangent in: sometimes. really works get a little sidetracked in a post. It can add a bit of interest, serve as an example, and improve your post.Delete the tangent: that is what I used to do most often. I sigh to myself on my hike, highlight the paragraphs offending and hit Delete.Use the tangent as the basis for a new position: a day that I was about to delete a paragraph tangential, it struck me that while he belong to the post had been written, value it still contained and could probably be used elsewhere. Instead of deleting, I copied and pasted it in a new text document, which I returned later to transform itself into a new position.

These days, I do it all the time (in fact this post begins as a tangent to another). I've now expanded the idea, and almost every time I finish writing a post I take a moment or two to re-read the post and find the places where I could have gone off the coast on a tangent.


Look for the parties to the position where you could say more, where ideas were not completely finished or where you think that the reader could be left asking questions and who want to learn more about something you said. It is these parts with which you could start your next post.


The beauty of the construction of this discipline - manufacture of tangents and to obtain labour lost for you - is that propose you not only new things to write about, you also give a boost to your blog. A post takes you to another, and you are able to take your readers on a journey with you by connecting positions.

How my family and my friends help me better Blog

Many bloggers working alone. I started out the same way. I talked about not really what I was doing and never was in the details with the people closest to me.


Today, however, I believe that this approach may limit the success of your blog and you need to tend to those closest to you to help you build your blog to its full potential.

The of people around you can help in various ways: give you ideas for the creation of content, providing usability tips, design ideas and General constructive criticism. You can use this to make your blog more attractive, interesting and popular.

In the two years when I wrote my health and fitness blog, I have received huge support from the people in my life. I would like to share some of these things with you to give you some ideas on how the people around you can help you become a blogger more successful.


I must confess that I love my blog. I put much work into it and find it me difficult to make changes.


Fortunately for me, my wife, Karen, is not as sentimental and kept pushing me invest in better design for the site. She did not like the ordinary aspect of the free theme I used while I didn't touch.


Finally, as is usually the case in our marriage, I capitulated and purchased a premium theme, alterations is a bit just watch, had a designer to create a logo for the blog and set up a regular style magazine rather than a blog format home page.


The result is a decrease in the rate of rebound general approval of readers, and I am even more in love with my blog today that I used in the past. I guess I am just a shallow guy and looks important to me.


The point is that doing this kind of change would have taken me much more time if nobody was there for me to grow.


There are a number of people in my life who have helped me create better content.


The first is my wife, who is a physiotherapist. I often consult him on the proper exercise techniques and how to design an effective workout for my readers.


The second is my friend, Dorothy, who has struggled with his weight for years. It represents the average visitor to my site - a person who wishes to lose weight in a healthy manner and without gadget.


Just speaking with her methods she attempts and the process that it reminds me to create content with problems of my readers in mind.


I live in Europe, it is more difficult for me to follow the trends in the United States and the Canada, where most of my readers are. Fortunately for me, one of my childhood friends lives in New York, and I can ask if a certain fitness or diet plan gets much attention and media coverage of the United States.


In this way, I can create content where people are more interested at this time.


For example, my review of the Shake weight could never have written if I didn't know how big that the product was late 2009. To date, this blog post received almost 300 comments.


My sister-in-law, Sharon, is a graphic designer, so I he consulted on colors and the design of the blog and the logo. Whenever I want to make design changes I know I can count on his professional opinion to guide me in the right direction.


First, you must be open about what you do and what are your objectives. If you are blogging on any subject shaded and you cannot even speak with your friends, you have to do things on your own.


Second, accept criticism. If people are afraid to tell you what they really think about your blog, you will miss next crucial advice can do much better. Therefore, any criticism should be seen as constructive.


Third, your blog is written for people. Unless you write on internet marketing, you should consult the opinion of the people who are not specialists of marketing. To obtain the views of people who are similar to your readers.


Finally, not ignore the opinion of anyone. Don't be not quick to reject the proposals. You do not accept or implement any suggestion that you get, but you must take the time to consider it.


If you have other stories on how those closest to you have you helped to become a better blogger, or tips to add, please share in comments below.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Exercises of 5 pre-Writing using bloggers generate fresh content

Even the most eloquent and well-known each period writers have experienced the CAP all too familiar and very feared so-called idea-route "writer popular block." But just because it is not out of the standard does mean that some bloggers simple exercises not can do to keep the creativity flowing at any time - after all, fresh and frequent blog is what attracts new readers and retain those you already have. That said, here are some exercises of pre-writing and resources, you can enable for you whenever the well runs dry to generate a plethora of blog post topics.


Perhaps the oldest and the most basic exercises pre-writing, brainstorming is still a very effective way to reach a solid list of blog topics post. To help you in the process of brainstorming however, consider using the following 3 resources:

Google News: research of popular titles that are currently floating in cyberspace can easily help you find original themes or spun to your blog. Everything you need to do is simply type in a key word (s) in the search bar shuffle through the results page to see the latest news (including the controversial studies and stats) related to your niche.Social media: Facebook and Twitter are also excellent sources for you to come up with topics possible blog. Attention to the status of your friend and take note of all trends. Using Twitter specifically, ensure you use the hashtag feature in the search bar and follow important people associated with your upcoming blog with possible ideas niche.Read the Archives: Return to some of the more popular posts on your blog and see if you can develop their - perhaps you can create a kind of series.  Attention to the comments of your drive. If there is a particular debate between two drives or drive allows a good argument on a subject, perhaps, you can create a post on that.

Another exercise easy to get your noggin work putting ideas to paper is simply write - anything. Regardless of the back of your mind, your most recent dream, or on your daily routine - just write whatever you want. And not worry about grammatical errors or to focus on the formulation of complete sentences (bullet point lists, and even sketches may work too). The idea of free writing is simply you used to write every day and learn how to unlock your mind. Probably you will end up to write a bunch of useless gibberish, but you can hit a gold mine, come with some great blog topics.  * Additional Council, always bring your journal with you (anywhere you go). You never know when a great idea will pop in your head and you have to write. And don't be surprised; more mundane things may file inspiration.


Another excellent pre-writing exercise is to remove your old zone of memory and see if you can source of inspiration for a subject of post from the blog of elements that can have a sentimental value for you, as the old photos and videos. It is also useful to collect and save unique images, pictures, postcards, or quotations that you find interesting and get ahead with an invitation to the challenge / topic blog with these elements.


If you a difficulty coming up with fresh content may also be a good idea to turn to the pros, you know the fellow bloggers and writers whose work you admire and want to emulate. Reading of articles in journals, not necessarily related to your niche can be a source of inspiration as well. For example, if the Teen Vogue published an article entitled How to dress like Victoria Beckham, and you have a blog designed for small business owners, you can easily write an article on how to dress correctly the when meeting investors. When your favorite writers reading material, look at the subject they are written but also attentive to the voice and style.  When you look at the blogs, sure to bookmark your favourite articles so that you can easily return to them when you are looking for inspiration and ideas of subject. Look at the comments of the reader as well and see if there is a way make you a complete article to answer a question or an argument.


Also considered one of the more traditional techniques of pre-writing, make sure to do a quick overview before that you write. This technique of pre-writing can help keep your organized thoughts and allow you to write more consistently. This is because an outline can help you group submitted together and visually more easy for you to see the similarities or the differences in your points. It should also provide you a better idea of how to apply the points to your readers. Because the outline, you can also come to the realization that one of your points is so strong that it can be a good piece on its own.

How to Blog effectively even if you're not a writer?

Do you edit anything on the internet because you consider you as a writer? This can lead to countless hours of frustration and waste of time. Do you think that you can't write, don't know what write about and perhaps also that you do not have time to write? These three barriers will keep you reap greater search engine visibility and prevent you to engage with your existing and new clients.


The truth is, you do not have to be a professional writer to be a successful blogger.


What you want to take advantage of your blogging efforts? You hope to top the search results, or to build your product brand, educate people about what you or increase your customer base?


Write your goals clearly and create your strategy of content accordingly.

Ask your ideas and create potential blog titles. Titles will help you to develop other ideas on how to structure the rest of your article.Write a set of bullet for each position; most of your content is captured here. Subsequently you can chase your paragraphs key messages part entire.Write your own voice, as if you were speaking the words. Do not feel intimidated by looking at the big blogs written by any of great writers. When you write in your own personal voice, you will actually develop trust with your audience, increasing the chances of success of your blog.If you think try ideas just for example product review Hostgator, TRX or eReleases. These positions can be written easily that you get most of the required information readymade.Ignore the language of fantasy, heavy vocabulary and grammar of high level. Write your blog personally, as if you are developing an email to a dear friend. Focus on a bullet point at a time and pass in the following paragraph only when you are finished with the first.

Once you have written your blog note, it is time to put you in the skin of your drive and to test out.

Read your messages aloud. Hear your own words out load will give you a different perspective and help you realize if you like it or not.Out check your position; It is extremely important. You do not have a classy writer, but there is no excuse for bad spellings.Use speech recognition software to talk about your thoughts. The software captures your verbally dictated article together and everything you need to do is change here and there and then publish.If you are still unable to write, use images. A picture is worth a thousand words; Take pictures and download them to your blog, directly or through a site like FLICKR. Your site will be ranked high by Google images.Download videos. Today, the blog content is available as videos and they are very popular with people who do not really read much text. Offer tutorials, talk about your experiences and connect with your audience using videos. Remember, people have low attention spans; Keep your short videos.Use speech recognition software to talk about your thoughts. The software captures your verbally dictated article together and everything you need to do is change here and there and then publish.If you are still unable to write, use images. A picture is worth a thousand words; Take pictures and download them to your blog, directly or through a site like FLICKR. Your site will be ranked high by Google images.Download videos. Today, the blog content is available as videos and they are very popular with people who do not really read much text. Offer tutorials, talk about your experiences and connect with your audience using videos. Remember, people have low attention spans; Keep your short videos.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

15 Indirect Affiliate Marketing tips that work

If you have ever bought something online, with no doubt, there have also been times when you rejected buying a certain product. And if you won’t buy it, the seller loses money.


What about when you do buy something? As usual, you check out the item, all excited, and make sure it ships to your place as soon as possible.


But, behind the scenes, there are tricks that naturally go unnoticed that were used to magnetically entice you to purchase. Those are what I’ll be teaching you today.


This is what turns off a particular group of Internet users who are potential customers but don’t purchase. And it’s due to one little issue: the font size. If the font is too small, customers will definitely hate reading from the monitor. Turn it up—use at least 14-point font. It’s the new regular font size.


Now, I’m not just talking about blog posts, squeeze pages, or sales pages. These changes will have to be made where ever your customers are reading—even emails are not an exception.


Whenever you’re trying to capture your customers’ email addresses, you need to use a squeeze page—a page where you offer a freebie and capture the lead, so you can promote products to him or her in the future. Optimize Press is an essential tool here.


“Above the fold” is a term referring to the top area of the website, which you don’t have to scroll down to see. People these days have short attention spans; you must make sure what you say in this section of the page is attractive and enticing enough to actually get a person to read every single word.


You’ve got to get your visitors reading what you have to say word after word. But of course, give him some space, don’t jam a full paragraph in there! A successful technique is by crafting attractive headlines that drive the reader insane wanting to know what you have to say in the words that follow.


Repeatedly tease your customers and finally capture their emails with a freebie. This is exactly what you need to do—make them go crazy—but in short paragraphs so your communication can stay on readers’ short-attention-span radars.


Most of the times, bloggers offer a free ebook. This isn’t always the case, but if you’re an affiliate for an ebook, it is recommended that you write a short book review or jot down some of the valuable information you can find inside the actual book, and give it to your readers free. (This is when you get them to join your mailing list.)


When you offer a particular freebie in exchange for your customer’s name and email address, leave out the name field and just offer the email address field. You may be shocked to see your conversions move up by over 20%. This is due to the nature of laziness, and the idea that “less is more.”


In case you didn’t know, it is possible to change what the sign-up button says and how it looks. If you have a dull and boring sign-up button that said “Join” or even “Sign Up” then, trust me, you’re leaving plenty of potential revenue on the table.


It’s a fact that changing the submit button to something attractive can yield higher conversions. Ideas: “Instant Access,” “Instant Digital Download,” or “Free Entry”. The ideas are countless. Test each one out and see which performs the best for you.


This concept applies every time you try to get someone to perform an action. Consider squeeze pages. If your visitors see a Captcha box, an “I agree to the terms and conditions” box, or a zip code box, then obviously the customer is going to panic and wander away. Rather than displaying all those boxes that are not importantly necessary, take them off the page. The fewer options you provide, the more actions you’ll receive.


There are two types of customers: those that know about link cloaking and those that don’t. If you cloak your links, over 70% of the visitors who know about it will definitely not click on your affiliate links. My suggestion is don’t cloak links. Let everyone know they’re affiliate links, explaining it with reverse psychology if you like!


Here are some interesting poll results. The question was, “Do you disclose affiliate links?” Check out the results.


This is in fact a law of selling goods: you as the salesman have got to introduce yourself to the customers, so they know and trust who they are buying from. No one wants to buy from a random stranger they found on the Web. A great thing you could do is upload a picture of yourself in a positive mood to your About page, or your site’s sidebar.


This step is not entirely necessary but is recommended if you want to increase your conversions. If you review a product that you have not personally tried yourself, then it’s technically not a review and if your customers know about this, it becomes an instant turn-off to some of them. Make sure you test out something before you recommend it to others.


This plays an important role in sales, as it creates social proof. If a customer doesn’t see anyone else buying the product, she might wander off and buy from other well-known sources. On the other hand, don’t display too many testimonials—that’s a mistake I see a lot of times. All you need is quality, not quantity. If you have been featured on CNN news or something like that make sure you let your customers know about that, too.


One more thing: on each separate testimonial, include a picture of the person who wrote the testimonial. It would be even better if you could get them to hold the product in the picture if possible. Another word of advice: at the end of the testimonials, write a short message that says something like, “Once you’ve tried this product, I can feature your testimonial here!”


Please, talk in a personal manner—as if you were talking casually to your friends. This is the key to winning your readers’ hearts, and getting them naturally coming back. Whether it’s on sales pages or in emails, talk like you were chatting to your friends. Not only does this help enhance your relationship with potential customers, it also increase trustworthiness and brand awareness.


We’ve all heard of the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. That idea also applies to places where you promote affiliate products. You need to let your customers feel comfortable on your site. So your blog design in particular, as well as images you use to decorate your product, are important. Consider using premium photos—Fotolia might have what you want.


If you are providing an ebook as a freebie, then you will definitely need to use a 3D cover maker. I recommend MyEcoverMaker. Give their free templates a try, and see for yourself.


Whatever you do, make decisions for the readers first, and lastly for your own good. Whilst making any promotions or launching any products, a good rule of thumb is to list out the benefits and advantages to the customer. That’s it—nothing else. Remember, people are only reading your blog because they believe you have the solutions they need. And you will always have to hand out free “samples” of the product you’re promoting before you actually promote it.


In other words, don’t rush for the money-making bit. Wait for it, and be patient.


I’ve said a lot. Now it’s time for you to either take actions or remember the advice for your future needs.

Use a bigger font size for your content.Always use a squeeze page for capturing leads.Optimize your “above the fold” to counter people with short attention spans.Write with wise words that attract readers to read everything you have to say.Always offer freebies as a “bribe” for capturing leads.Remove the Name field from your signup box for higher conversions.Change the Submit button to something more appealing.Apply the “less is more” concept to your work.Don’t cloak links and use reverse psychology to get the most sales.Introduce yourself to the customers, with a photo.Tell your personal experience with the product you’re promoting.Display quality testimonials and invite new customer testimonials too.Talk in a friendly and casual manner, and don’t use difficult academic words.Blend your content with images and decorative designs.Get straight to the fact and let your readers know what you are on about, then sell.

Got any extra words of advice you would like to add to this list? Feel free to add them in the comments.

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