10 David Ogilvy Quotes that Could Revolutionize Your Blogging

This week, I’ve been reading The King of Madison Avenue—an interesting biography of ad man David Ogilvy (aff). I’ve always been fascinated with Ogilvy and see a lot in what he’s done as relevant to bloggers. So here’s some of his more famous quotes, with a few thoughts on how they relate to our medium. 1. “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.” How appropriate—both for internet marketers (who are often known for tactics that treat those...

8 Tips To Launch Successful Challenges at Your Blog

This guest post is by Celestine Chua of The Personal Excellence Blog. Earlier this year, I launched a challenge called 30 Days To Live a Better Life (30DLBL) on my blog. This is a 30-day challenge where participants complete one task a day, for 30 days in the month, that will help them live a better life. When I created 30DLBL, it was breath of fresh air—I’d not seen any such personal development challenges around at the time, and it was fun to do something different rather than just write articles...

Monthly Trends + Resolutions for a Better Blog

Happy 2011! How are the ole resolutions holding up so far? Have you stopped biting your nails, started a daily exercise regimen, and organized your closets yet? Me neither. Still, ’tis the season for new starts, and while you’re thinking about improving your health, your home, or your life balance, don’t forget about your blog. Make a resolution today to take your blog to the next level in 2011. It’s the beginning of the month as well as the year, so, as always, Regator has provided blogosphere...

Setting the Hook: Fishing for New Readers with Social Media Lures

This guest post is by Ben Harack of the Vision of Earth project. Regarding readers as fish, and bloggers as fisherman, might seem strange. Bear with me as I show you part of why I like the idea of blogging as being similar to fishing. Those of you who are familiar with fishing know that getting the fish to bite the lure is only the first step of the process. A good yank from your end is often advisable in order to “set the hook”, ensuring that the fish will be less likely to escape. A new reader...

Your Readers Buy Products! Do You Offer Them?

Recently I gave a presentation on monetizing blogs. I talked about how developing your own products to sell to readers can be an effective way to build a blogging income. During a question-and-answer segment of the presentation, one blogger stood up and said: “My readers don’t want to buy products! How else can I make money?” It was a question that I’ve heard many bloggers ask over the last year—and one I used to ask myself. I once was afraid...

5 Ways to Monetize Your Blog Without Selling Out

Last week at Blog World Expo, I had conversations with literally hundreds of bloggers about their blogging. It was interesting to see some of the themes that emerged as bloggers shared their challenges, problems and fears. One of the recurring conversations that I had revolved around bloggers’ fear of being seen as sell-outs by readers when they started to monetize their blogs. On numerous occasions this past week I’ve chatted with bloggers who’ve been so scared of the potential reader reaction...

Blogosphere Trends + Encouraging Comments

This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren You may have heard the stat that for every 100 people who read your post, only one, on average, will leave a comment. The fact is, most of us are lurkers by nature. I know I am; I read dozens of blogs every day but very rarely comment. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the content, just that I didn’t feel the need—or have the time—to join the conversation. So the next...

4 Ways to Use Social Proof (Before Anyone Knows Who You Are)

Have you read the classic post from the Copyblogger archives explaining why you need to leverage social proof on your blog? If so, then I don’t need to convince you how important social proof is for online success. Social proof is pretty simple. It’s just the human instinct that if someone else is doing something (buying a product, reading a blog, jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge) then it’s probably a good thing to do. It’s not right and it’s...