Saturday, August 21, 2010

Blogosphere Trends + A Challenge

This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts) – Darren

Hi-dee-hoo, fellow bloggers! Thanks for joining me for another edition of the weekly blogosphere trends, provided byRegator.com. (Click any trend to see posts about it.) Darren’s post “The Key to Successful Blogging: Do Something!” from earlier this week resonated with a lot of you (and with me), so it seemed like the perfect week to look back at some of the important topics we’ve discussed in this column and issue a challenge: Kick procrastination in the butt by putting at least two of these techniques to work THIS week on your own blog. Then share a link to your post in the comments.

If you truly want to take it to the next level, download Darren’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, which has enough tasks to last you an entire month and is an incredible resource for any blogger…particularly those who are ready to stop talking about what they’ll do someday and start doing today. Let’s take a look at this week’s most popular stories…and your challenges:

1. Ground Zero Mosque
Your challenge: If you normally write posts from a neutral standpoint, take a strong stance on at least one important and/or controversial issue this week.
Read more about: The importance of being opinionated
Example: VetVoice’s “Muslims Already Have a Place of Worship at the Site of 9/11 Attacks” backs opinion up with carefully thought-out reasoning.

2. Star Wars
Your challenge: If you normally steer clear of list posts, write one this week.
Read more about: Writing list posts
Example: Asylum’s “Our 5 Favorite Moments From Star Wars Celebration V” does a countdown with clear subheads and photo accompaniment.

3. Facebook Places
Your challenge: If you don’t make regular use of videos, give it a try this week in at least two posts.
Read more about: Effectively using videos
Example: Mashable’s “How Foursquare Feels About Facebook Places” allows readers/viewers to get a better sense of the Foursquare VP’s reaction than mere text would’ve.

4. Eat Pray Love
Your challenge: If you rarely or never do interview posts, do one this week. It can be any format (Q&A, video, podcast, etc.) but it must be an interview you’ve conducted yourself rather than one found elsewhere and reused.
Read more about: Effective interviewing
Example: MovieWeb’s “EXCLUSIVE: Director Ryan Murphy Discusses Eat, Pray, Love!” is an exclusive Q&A.

5. Pakistan
Your challenge: This week, use an image from a source you’ve never tried before. Make sure the licensing allows you to use it.
Read more about: Great places to find quality images
Example: The Big Picture’s “21 Faces of The Pakistan Flood” uses photos to tell a powerful story.

6. Dr. Laura
Your challenge: Make use of quotes in at least two different posts this week.
Read more about: Making the most of quotes
Example: Mediaite’s “Dr. Laura Caller Speaks Out: ‘I Didn’t Want To Turn This Into A Racial Thing’” has a quote in the headline that piques curiosity.

7. Iraq
Your challenge: Brainstorm at least five headlines for a post you’ve just finished rather than choosing the first that comes to mind. Consider each then choose the best one before publishing.
Read more about: What makes a great headline
Example: AmericaBlog’s “Are Iraq combat operations really over?” asks a question to create curiosity then delivers by answering it in full.

8. Social Security
Your challenge: Set a goal to inspire or encourage your readers to take some sort of action this week.
Read more about: Setting goals
Example: Elder Abuse’s “‘Don’t Steal My Social Security’” encourages readers to sign a petition.

9. Scott Pilgrim
Your challenge: Cover a story in a creative or unconventional way.
Read more about: How to dig deeper to create unique content
Example: ScreenRant’s “Why Do Critics Care If Audiences Hate The Movies They Like?” identifies a wider trend tied to a popular story.

10. Justin Bieber
Your challenge: If you don’t normally write how-to posts, write one this week.
Read more about: Creating how-to posts that work
Example: Lifehacker’s “

Search for Current Trends on NowRelevant

When it comes to search engines, you have no shortage of options. Even so, most people that I know turn to Google to find just about anything on the Internet. However, even Google is flawed, depending on what exactly you want to find.

As an alternative or supplemental search engine, you might want to consider giving NowRelevant a try. This is an off-shoot from the Internet Time Machine project that you may have already read about. Well, the NowRelevant search engine is now open to public beta.

What Is NowRelevant?

When you use a conventional search engine like Bing or Google, you get fairly universal results for your search term across the entirety of the world wide web. With NowRelevant, you are searching for relevant content within the last two weeks.

That’s easily the most critical difference that separates NowRelevant from just about every other search engine. It doesn’t concern itself with postings from a year ago; it only looks at what’s being said about your subject in the last fourteen days.

For people researching news and trending topics, these kinds of search results are much more useful. Further still, the types of results that come up with NowRelevant can be remarkably different from Google in another way.

Skip the Corporate Hoopla?

You can watch the demo video for some real world examples, but the crux of it is that Google search results can be very formulaic. You get hit by sponsored ads in the top and side, official corporate sites and Wikipedia in the first few slots, high-profile news sites like CNN and NYT, and then the “SEO bloodbath” to capture your sales lead.

With NowRelevant, according to the developers, you can skip all of that and get straight to the news and happenings that are most relevant to your subject. You can also adjust the slider between one and fourteen days to define how far back you want to go.

Even in searching for my own name, the first result in Google is my website. That makes sense, but what if you want to know what I’ve been doing lately? NowRelevant brings up a recent Dot Com Pho gathering and something about the Rihanna concert that I attended. That’s more current.

An Affiliate Program Too?

There is some advertising on NowRelevant and you can read more about the PPC campaigns on the appropriate page. Related to this is the affiliate program.

That’s the good news. The other good news is that they are quick to provide you with all sorts of banners and text ads that you can use to promote NowRelevant. The bad news is that there isn’t much information about the affiliate program laid out in a clear manner.

What is the revenue share? Is it ongoing? What is the payment schedule? What is the minimum payment threshold? What payment methods are available? It would have really helped if NowRelevant set up a simple FAQ page to address these kinds of questions.

Aside from that, NowRelevant looks like it could be a useful research tool, particularly for SEO and PPC experts, who want to know what is “now relevant” in their current areas of interest. It won’t replace Google, I don’t think, but it’s a good supplementary tool.

Link: NowRelevant

Friday, August 20, 2010

Join Sonia and Brian at BlogWorld 2010 (And Save With This Discount Code)

Sonia and I will be speaking again this year at BlogWorld in Las Vegas, October 14 – 16. This time we’ll be doing a keynote presentation along with our friend Darren Rowse of Problogger.

We’re excited to be presenting together, and if we pull it off like we plan, it’ll be educational and entertaining. Of course, the show is much bigger than the three of us, which is the real reason you should attend.

BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the only trade show and conference created for the industry of blogging and new media. It gives participants the strategies, tools, and technologies they need to stake their claim in the blogosphere.

Specifically, BlogWorld is all about creating content, getting it noticed, and achieving your goals – whether that be money, influence, or both. The even bigger draw is the networking, deal making, and good ol’ fashioned camaraderie that happens in between the sessions.

Not to mention what goes on at the parties.

I’ve watched BlogWorld grow from its inception in 2007, and it keeps getting bigger and better. This year should be no different, and I’m especially stoked that the show will be held at Mandalay Bay this year instead of the convention center.

And besides… everyone’s gonna be there.

Save 20% With This Promo Code

Okay, here’s what you’re really looking for. Save 20% off the price of admission when you use this code:

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Note: We are marketing and media partners with BlogWorld — it’s a good match. If you’d like to promote BlogWorld as an affiliate, check out the program here.

8 Google Products I use Daily

As privacy is becoming an even bigger concern, the centralization of our information is an issue almost no one can afford to ignore. As such, there is a lot of talk and debate about whether we are giving up too much of our information to Google and, if so, can we trust them with that information.

This spurred a conversation with a friend of mine some time ago on the topic and we both began to think about the Google services we use on a daily basis. We put aside all of the services we use without any action on your part, such as viewing Adsense ads or YouTube clips, or even the services that we use almost every day, such as Google Docs, and focused in stead on services we know we will use at least once every working day.

After I got done with my calculation, I was stunned. I use eight Google services every day and many others very regularly. This put into perspective how much information Google probably has about me and has made me start to wonder if I have put in too much faith in the “Big G”, despite its privacy policy.

So what are the services? Here they are in no particular order.

Search

This one is fairly obvious, it is Google’s core service and still their most popular. Like the majority of the Web Google remains my default search engine and I use it at least a few times daily. Experiments with other search engines have left me less than satisfied. Google simply seems to do this best though the competition is finally getting a bit stronger.

Gmail

Another obvious one. I use Gmail (technically Google Apps) to manage my email and handle almost all correspondence. Though I don’t use Google Talk, nearly every piece of correspondence, including Twitter and Facebook messages, pass through my Gmail account at some point.

Google Reader

Google’s RSS reader, Google Reader, is still the best tool of its kind for what I do with RSS. Though I’ve experimented with other feed readers and use them for certain functions, such as Fever, Google is still my primary RSS reader and one of the first things I open up each morning. Though the volume of RSS reading I do through it isn’t very high, it’s very crucial to my work.

Google Calendar

I use Google Calendar to keep track of my appointments, deadlines and other important dates. The fact that it is free, integrates with other services, such as Toodledo, and syncs with both my desktop and my iPhone has made it an invaluable part of my daily life.

Google Analytics

I may not log into Google’s Web traffic tool every day, but I get the information emailed to me (in my Gmail account no less) as it is paired with my data from PostRank for my morning reports. I also do log in on at least a weekly basis for additional analysis.

Of the services on this list, this is probably the one I am least committed to. I use Clicky primarily but I have a great deal of archived data in Google Analytics and, since it is free, I continue to use it alongside with Postrank.

Google Chrome

At the risk of starting a browser war, I use Google Chrome as my primary browser at home on my Windows comp and switch between it and Firefox at work on my Mac. By in large it has proved to be the fastest and most stable browser for my day-to-day needs though I keep other browsers around for Web development.

Google Voice

Very recently, I started using Google Voice both as my voicemail on my personal phone but also my business line. All calls to my business are routed through the service and I make all outgoing calls through it as well. This way, I can receive important calls no matter where I am, get transcriptions of voicemails and generally offer a better experience to clients.

FeedBurner

On this list, FeedBurner is the only Google product I started using while it was part of another company. Google bought out FeedBurner and has integrated it (somewhat) into their other offerings. FeedBurner is a service I don’t actively recommend anymore, though I still remain committed to it, largely due to the fact the benefits of leaving do not outweigh the problems I would likely incur.

As with Google Analytics, it may not be a service I log into every day, but I have integrated it in with other services and get daily FeedBurner reports, which, sadly, are often useless.

Bottom Line

When I put all of this together, it is a pretty massive amount of information Google has about me and that should has given reason to pause. I’ve gone through and looked at Google’s privacy policy for all of the above products and haven’t found anything outrageous, but with so much information centralized in one company, concern is understandable.

So what do you think? Do we give Google too much of our information and, if so, what alternate service should we be looking at?

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this so leave a comment below.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Reinventing Yourself and Your Blog

Hi Everyone,

I’m sorry I haven’t written for Blogging Tips in the past two weeks. We’ve recently moved to a new location and been getting settled in. We just got our Internet connection hooked up in the past week, now I’m trying to play catch up.

I know a lot of people use their mobile phone for staying in contact and keeping up on the web, and it’s great for that, but for me to write, I have to be sitting at my computer. I simply can’t write an article with my phone’s keyboard.

In my last post I mentioned feeling overwhelmed with blogging. Well, with more than a week away from my blog and the Internet in general, I can’t say I feel overwhelmed but I do feel a bit lost trying to remember where I was exactly.

I’ve had a lot of amazing things happen lately and there comes a time, in fact many times in life, when you should reinvent yourself. Maybe you feel stale and stagnant in the information you’ve been presenting or projects you’ve been working on. If so, it may be time to reinvent yourself and give your blog a fresh new perspective.

Many people fear change, but change is actually good for you (and your readers) and it’s healthy too. Spice up your blog if you can. Do you have a boring subject that only techies find interesting? Try adding something different to your posts; add some humor or change your style of writing up a bit.

If you’ve been alive for very long you know that major corporations do this all the time. They change their logo; give their advertising a fresh new design, add a splash of color to their existing color combo. They do things that are more eye catching and appeals to other potential customers to draw them in. You can do the same thing with your blog. Just like homes need some spring cleaning and a fresh coat of paint once in awhile, a blog can benefit from a new makeover too. But don’t stop there, add some fun stuff to your posts and get the readers more involved.

Have you freshened up your blog recently? Added something exciting that you’d like to share? We’d love to hear your tips on blog makeovers and how you’ve added something new, unique and different for your readers.

10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization & Profit

With more online marketers making the move to blogging to build their brand and product base, it’s important to make sure you are staying above the curve with your blog and making the most of it. Besides the obvious importance of having a memorable domain name and a unique blog design, it’s also important to make sure visitors can quickly navigate through your site while hitting they key spots and returning for future visits.

Today I will be focusing on ten (5 today, 5 tomorrow) ways for the new, average or advanced blogger to better monetize their blog for profit. How many of these methods are you currently practicing?

Direct Ad Sales

Yes, we hear it all the time…”I hate banner ads and never click on them!“… sure, as marketers we can see banner ads a mile away and if we click on them, it’s because we clearly want to. From within the affiliate marketing industry, ad networks and product launches love banners, and they are proven to work very well. However, selling direct banner advertising may not be as successful in other blogging niches, such as a sports related site or cooking. You have to test your audience and find relevant advertising and what they are looking for.

Selling direct advertising on your site can be frustrating at first as you will need to establish your site and grow your traffic before placing ads on your site. During my first 9 months of this blog, I focused on my content, growth and readership and had no banner advertising… now ad spots are in demand month after month.

I go into how I setup my direct advertising and my preferred sites for outsourcing advertising, in my free Six Figure Affiliate Blogging guide.

Referral Marketing

The affiliate marketing industry is very unique in how it operates. Not only is “ok” to talk about how much we as individuals/affiliates make, but we like to talk about how and who (what networks) we are using. With so much talk about new campaigns and what ad networks have the best performing offers, it’s only fitting that our readers and other affiliates would follow our advice and join these networks. Fortunately, someone thought of the genius idea to create residual referral program within these ad networks. If you refer a new affiliate to an ad network using your referral url, you will earn 2-5% bonus commission on that referrals earnings.

Having a very tight niche blog on affiliate marketing and how to make money online, it’s not hard to send a decent amount of referrals to a network. Though compared to years past, we are seeing a much lower success rate for new affiliate applications being accepted at networks. Many networks have also lowered their referral program percentages, limited “lifetime earnings” to just a few months, or have even removed their referral program all together.

Build That List!

The success of a blog is all about growth and bringing your readera back on a daily/weekly basis. As important as quality content is, it just isn’t enough. How many of your visitors will simply forget the name of your site, or just to busy to ever return. Building a list is one of the best ways to keep your readers coming back for more.

At some point you probably visit this blog for the first time and you may have remembered some type of popup to grab your email. I’ve used both a lightbox method through Aweber, and my new solution through Popup Domination. Both of these solutions will display a popup like window in your browser after visiting a blog. I set my subscribe form to fade in and display after a user is on the site for 3 seconds. I also limited the subscribe form to display once every two weeks per visitor, so it doesn’t get annoying.

The bottom line here is that lightbox type forms dominate and convert your potential one time traffic to long term subscribers. Many bloggers have seen increases of 100-300% from just adding either a lightbox through Aweber or using Popup Domination.

Create a Free eBook / Bonus

Once someone starts a blog, it’s almost inevitable that they will create their own product or at least a free ebook or guide for their readers. Creating a free ebook is very effective and if you already have an established blog with a lot of content, you can easily go through and collect your best posts, rewrite and update the content, then pull everything together for a free ebook to offer your readers.

Being able to offer a free quality product ties back into having a lightbox subscribe form for your site. What’s the incentive if you visit a site and they just have a form that says “Join our mailing list!”?… almost no one will. Instead, come up with a value for your ebook (or product), then offer it for free to your readers as an incentive to subscribe. You will drastically see your blog numbers climb, while providing a valuable product to your readers.

Guest Posting & Time Management

For anyone that is already running a blog, we all can relate to the dilemma of not having anything to write about. As much as you may want to write a post everyday, it’s better to post nothing then to post crap. One way to relieve the stress of having to come up with a new post every day (or how ever often you post), is to bring in a weekly or monthly guest post. Not only will you provide your readers with an article for the day, but it may come as a new and refreshing source as it won’t be your own.

Guest posting can work in many different ways. I personally receive emails all the time for guest posts, but am selective on which I will post. If you would like to have your guest posts published on another blog, be sure to send the full post in an email, and not just ask if you can write a future post. Many well known bloggers receive hundreds of emails daily and your requests can easily get lost among the madness. If you are looking to spread awareness for your own blog, or bring in new content, guest posting is a win-win situation.

This was Part 1 of my 10 Quick Tips for Better Blog Monetization. Come back tomorrow when I will follow up with six through ten.

For more tips on blogging and how you can make money with your own blog, download my free guide at SixFigureAffiliateBlogging.com.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Speaking at Industry Events

Today I spoke at Affiliate Summit East 2010. As you are blogging one way to attract new readers and a larger audience is to speak at events. At events you have the ability to share your knowledge in a face to face way with people. There you can truly interact and get such real time feedback on your ideas. While at Affiliate Summit I spoke on a panel with Murray Newlands, Tim Jones, Eric Schechter and Kris Jones. Out topic: Increasing Engagement / Connecting with your Audience.

One nice thing for me, in writing these posts here on Blogging Tips is that I can interact with a whole different audience who if I write something well may be inclined to learn more about me and my personal blog. However, even if I don’t attract anyone to go read my blog it is still valuable to go and write somewhere else to hone those skills. But that aside, I’d love it if you checked out my blog. Another great thing about writing for this blog is that I can explore ideas that are not explored on my personal blog and by interacting with the comments on each post I learn as much if not more than I put out there for you to read. Blogging Tips has some really savvy and intelligent readers.

Our prior to our panel we sat down and discussed a few questions that we would ask in the session. These are just some of the questions that we talked about. I would love to hear your take on how you would Increase Engagement/Connect with Your Audience as you answer these questions below in the comments. I think we will find some fantastic ideas from the readers of Blogging Tips.

Advertisers seek bloggers that have a large and ENGAGED audience…

Q #1 – What are some tips for improving engagement and connecting with your blog readers?

Q #2 – How important is it to come off as personable and accessible with your readers? What are some tips for getting more personal with your readers?

Q #3 – What are some proven strategies for increasing the # of comments on any given post?

Q #4 – Should the audience focus exclusively on Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic and engagement to their blog…..or utilize other less popular social networks like Flickr, Ning, etc.

Q #5 – Can’t an overreliance on social networks be a bad thing for attracting advertisers since most of the engagement is taking place on the social networks and NOT your blog?

The Blogosphere is Alive with the Sound of Marketers

While Twitter and Facebook are all the rage with your average internet user, blogs are still going strong in the corporate world.

According to a study by eMarketer, 34% of all US companies have a public blog and they project 45% by 2012. That’s up tremendously from 2007 which lands at only 16%.

“Studies have shown that marketers perceive blogs to have the highest value of any social media in driving site traffic, brand awareness, lead generation and sales—as well as improving customer service.”

The study suggests that there is a larger number of blogs devoted to smaller companies, where larger companies may be lagging due to legal and logistical issues. It’s a lot easier for George to upload an off-the-cuff blog post when he’s the CEO of a two man company than it is for a VP at Procter and Gamble to make his thoughts known.

One of the biggest benefits of blogging over micro-blogging is the evergreen nature. A blog post is searchable and indexable as long as blog site shall live. That means consumers can easily revisit the information a month from now or a year from now. Try doing that with a Facebook post or a Twitter message that’s more than a month old.

Ideally, a combination of social media messaging is the way to go. A Twitter tweet leads readers to the blog post which leads them on to the Facebook via a “like” button at the top of the post. Of course, for all of this to work as it should, you have to have something interesting to say and that’s the hardest part of blogging.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

How I Make Money Blogging: Income Split for July 2010

Over the last few months I’ve been sharing a monthly breakdown of where my income comes from in the hope of illustrating some of the methods bloggers might like to look at when making money from blogging (see previous months linked to below).
The month of July was the second month in a row where eBooks were the biggest money maker for me. Here’s a pie chart showing the percentage breakdowns.

Before I say much more let me show you how the different income streams have tracked over the last 4 months (note I’ve expanded ’speaking’ to be ’speaking and events’ to include the ProBlogger Training Day (which wasn’t a massive earner as we kept the price down – but because it’s something I’d like to try again). I have also added a ‘total’ line to this chart to track total income.

A few comments:

Obviously there was a big eBook spike in June as we launched a photography eBook that month. July was down on the launch month but still very healthy – partly because of a few specials that I ran in July (I did a ‘Christmas in July’ special as well as offering a few communities a discount on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook).
AdSense was also pretty good last month – there’s no real explanation for this as traffic was steady. I can only guess that some advertisers were involved in a bit of a bidding war on Digital Photography School which drove prices up a little.
Affiliate programs were quite down – that can be explained simply by me not doing as many promotions in July – mainly because there were not too many product launches in my niches (for some reason they always seem to come out at once).
Direct Ad Sales are on the rise and you’ll see this continue to grow next month as I’ve been working with a direct ad sales rep who is now selling ads for my sites which has already led to some new clients.
Over all it was a good month. While not as spectacular as July it was up on the previous two months significantly.

August is shaping up to be an interesting month. Later this week I’ll be launching a product here on ProBlogger (at a fairly inexpensive price point) which will be interesting to track. I’ve also participated in a couple of affiliate launches and have seen some interesting direct ad sales. I’m not quite sure whether it’ll be as good as July but am working toward it.
How was July for you?

Convert WordPress to Classifieds with ClassiPress

WordPress is a very versatile content management system and that is why the platform can used for so much more than “just” blogging. People use WordPress for resource sites, company profiles, and so much more. With the right theme, you can do just about anything with this free CMS.

For instance, you could use ClassiPress by AppThemes to turn your WordPress blog “into a professional classified ads web site.” You don’t need to invest in expensive classifieds software; WordPress can handle it just fine.

How Does ClassiPress Work?

It is largely in your best interest to implement ClassiPress on a fresh WordPress installation on a fresh domain. This is because it will drastically alter the way that WordPress operates, away from being a “blogging platform” and into a full-fledged “classifieds site.”

You can put it on an existing domain with an existing WordPress blog, but you may run into some issues with formatting and the like. If you didn’t know any better, it can be really tough to tell that a ClassiPress-powered site is actually using WordPress as its backend software.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can allow people to post classified ads in your various defined categories. Should you choose to do so, you can also charge people to post these ads on your site. Check out the main theme page to read about the other features that this theme has to offer, including multiple pricing models and multi-language support.

Looking at an Individual Classified Ad

Each posting published on your ClassiPress-based classified ads website comes with a number of features that you may not find with many other classified ads software.

For instance, instead of just showing a text address, the ad can integrate with Google Maps to show a map of the seller’s location. This can be very handy for buyers. As the site owner, you can define other fields for the sellers to use too, like expiry date, images, description, and city.

Each ad (here is an example from the demo site) also includes the ability to add post tags, printer-friendly versions, quick email links and social networking sharing links.

One other feature that I find interesting is the two ways that potential buyers can contact sellers. There is a contact form integrated into the ad (click on the tab above the map), as well as a blog commenting area toward the bottom. The former is private, of course, while the latter is public.

Customization and Usability

On the back end, after you install ClassiPress on your blog, you will find an additional ClassiPress section in the WordPress dashboard.

This further breaks down into the ClassiPress dashboard, settings, pricing, ad packs, gateways, form layouts, custom fields, transactions, and system info sub-sections. This makes it relatively easy to customize ClassiPress to suit your needs and preferences.

If you are comfortable dealing with the various settings and preferences pages within other areas of the WordPress dashboard, you should no trouble navigating through the ClassiPress dashboard as well.

How Much Does It Cost?

ClassiPress is available in four different packages. Choose from the $69 Personal Edition, $99 Small Business Edition, $159 Professional Edition, and $199 Ultimate Edition. They all come with lifetime updates.

Link: ClassiPress

* This was a Paid Review. If you are interested in having your site reviewed on Blogging Tips, please check out our Advertising Information Page.

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Key to Successful Blogging: Do Something!

Over the last month several hundred bloggers in the SitsGirls and TheBlogFrog communities have come together to tackle 31 Days to Build a Better Blog together. The 31 days are coming to an end this week and I’ve been so excited to see how working through the workbook as a large group has helped so many bloggers.

Almost every day since the challenge started I’ve had participants tell me that their blogs have been growing as a result of participating.

I’ve chatted to a number of participants in the last few days to get their feedback on the workbook and to try to get to the bottom of why it has helped them (or how it could be better) and there has been one consistent piece of feedback that I think is so valuable that I just need to share it.

Image by sevenphonecalls

Here’s the thing:

Almost every person I’ve talked to has said most of the teaching and exercises in the workbook are things that they already knew that they should be doing. The problem was that while they knew it – they were not doing it.

For example – Day 5:

Day 5 of the challenge is to email one of your readers. The idea is to give someone a little unexpected personal attention, to get to know them and to help them in some way beyond what they might expect.

The principle is simple and the concept wouldn’t be foreign to any blogger. It’s something most of us know that would be a worthwhile experience but yet its something that so many bloggers would write off as not important enough to really do.

The reality is that if you did this once a day over a year that you’d have 365 readers (each with their own network) who you’ll have made an impression on.

The impact could be significant, particularly for a new blog, yet for some reason many bloggers are content just to have the knowledge that looking after readers and giving them some personal attention could help their blog – but never take action on it.

Example #2

This same theme came up as a result of the ProBlogger Training Day here in Melbourne two weeks back. Much of what we covered on the day was not particularly new or revolutionary (although for some it was). However this week I’ve had 3 emails from attendees saying talking about how they’ve already grown their blogging business (two doubled their readership and one told me that they’ve just started experimenting with affiliate marketing and are making over $150 a day!).

In each case I asked the blogger what it was that helped them and in every case they told me that they started doing something that they’d always said that they’d start doing.

This post is not a pseudo sales page for my workbook or training days (although sometimes when you pay for something you feel more accountable to take action) – the principle applies whether you use one of my products, read the free posts on ProBlogger or work on your blog alone. The key is to not be satisfied to KNOW how to improve your blog but to move beyond theory and do something.

What should you DO?

There are many things that help to grow a successful blog. In the 31 Days workbook I covered 31 of them but the list is almost endless.

One exercise that you might like to do today is to grab a notebook and pen and jot down as many things that you already know to do to improve a blog. Don’t go looking for ideas or reading more theory today – but make a list of things that you already know that could improve your blog and identify some that you will implement today.

For you it might be increasing your content creation (for those of you who’ve let your posting levels slip), for others it might be paying some more attention to current readers, for others it could be reaching out to other bloggers in your niche, for some it might be about developing that eBook that you’ve been saying you’ll do one day…. the key is to move beyond the theory and do something.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Some Good Blogging Rules

One of the most effective ways to get people to notice your blog is to write well. More and more people are expressing their opinions with blogs on the Internet and that means more people are writing today, so there’s a need to revisit some good writing rules that make sure you can express yourself clearly in your blog.

Be Specific

A good writer will always be specific and that means they need to use the right details. Good writers are always asking themselves how something looks, sounds, feels, tastes and smells.

Here’s a good example of specific writing that gives off a great mental image:

Her long bony fingers with the bright red nail polish did not tremble as she picked up her glass.

It’s also a good idea to put the most interesting details in any story near the top. You’ll also want to choose words that illuminate. So you should write:

The accused kissed and hugged each other rather than, The accused were overjoyed.

In case anyone’s wondering, I’m not making any of these rules up as I go along. These are all some of the things that I’ve learned and been taught before. More than likely many of you will know about them already, but if you’re like me it’s good to hear them again so they stay fresh.

It’s also a good idea for you to be clear when you’re writing. That means it’s important to organize a blog before you start it. And once you decide what the very beginning of the blog will be about, the rest of it should flow naturally from that. The beginning of any blog is like the beginning of a news story. The reader should be able to understand from that first sentence or two what the subject matter is all about.

Remember that it’s always important to use the simple words. It’s important that you prefer to use a plain word but you still need to make sure it’s the right word. For example it’s always better to write wicked rather than nefarious and call it an elephant rather than a pachyderm.

It’s always a good idea to keep sentence is short and sweet. In general you should avoid putting more than one thought in a sentence. Sometimes the content rather than the length make a sentence hard to understand.

You also need to be sure to write concisely. Any professionals that you speak to on the matter will tell you that clutter chokes meaning and you should always be on the lookout to simplify what you’re writing about.

So, it’s enough and not sufficient, and try instead of attempt.

Finally you should always try and be imaginative no matter what you’re writing. When you’re planning out your blog, you should always be looking for details that are worth mentioning that add life to it.

Remember to avoid overused phrases when you’re writing a blog as well. People will be more likely to read and enjoy the whole thing when they don’t see a bunch of clichés like breathing easy used.

Repeat Visitors vs New Visitors – Which is Worth More to Your AdSense Earnings?

A few days back I shared a little analysis of my AdSense earnings as it related to sources of traffic and looked at how – for me – traffic from newsletters was actually the most valuable traffic that I get on my photography site.

This dispelled the myth that loyal readers to your site become blind to ads and are not likely to click them – but I wanted to dig down a little deeper to look at the difference between first time visitors and repeat visitors and how they interact with ads. Here’s what I found when I looked at the last 3 months.

On my photography site it is the case the new visitors click ads and earn more per 1000 visitors than repeat visitors.

In addition to those coming from newsletters repeat visitors on my site would include RSS readers, visitors from social media (facebook and Twitter).

This makes sense – those there for the first time are probably clicking around more, exploring and looking for things to click on. They’re also seeing ad units for the first time and are likely to click them.

However repeat visitors are not far behind. I’m not allowed to share the exact figures but the difference in CTR was tiny and the eCPM difference while noticeable was not huge. Repeat readers are still valuable – particularly as many of them are coming back on a daily basis so on a per visit basis they’re not earning as much but over a year they’re earning considerably more than a one time visitor.

Blogger Insight - blogging world

Saturday, August 21, 2010

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Monday, August 16, 2010

For example – Day 5:

Example #2

What should you DO?

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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Be Specific

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