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 “

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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

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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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Sign up for BlogWorld here, and we’ll see you in Vegas!

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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