10 Things Bloggers Should NOT Do

Every now and then I will see a list of things bloggers should do, but I notice people are not that inclined to do what they are asked to do, while they pay more attention to things they should NOT do. That is why I decided to create the list below. Here we go:

1. You Must Not Expect Results Overnight: This is happening everywhere and that is the major reason why a large percentage of bloggers fail. Many bloggers come online unprepared and with the wrong set of expectations. They think blogging is a bed of roses and they only need to write one or two posts and begin to make money right away. Wrong!

2. You Must Not Ignore Your Readers: Some bloggers start gaining traction fast, and after a while they start to make their blogs gravitate around themselves. That is, they start talking exclusively about themselves, about the things they like, about how cool they are and so on. Big mistake. Your blog is about your readers, not about you.

3. You Must Not Scrape Another Bloggers Content: This is funny but nowadays you will see many new bloggers who don’t even know the basics, and yet they start to scrape another bloggers content. Often times these people won’t even credit the source. You can’t get far with this attitude.

4. You Must Not Expect Success Without Promoting: Many people think blogging is like setting up a shop at the road side and that all they need to do is wait for people to start finding them. Build and they will come, as the saying goes. This unfortunately is not true. Even if you have great content you’ll need to work your butt off getting people to visit your blog and read it.

5. You Must Not Be Another Blogger: This is so common among many bloggers nowadays. They no longer want to be themselves, they now want to be one popular blogger they know. It is like using the “fake it till you make it” strategy. Will it work over the long term? No. So keep it real.

6. You Must Not Fail To Update Your Blog Regularly: You will see some bloggers telling you they want to be a problogger, only to leave their blog without updates for weeks. If you can’t commit to updating your blog regularly, why would you expect people to commit to reading it regularly?

7. You Must Not Ignore SEO: Nowadays, you will see many bloggers not optimizing their blogs for search engines, if you ask them why, they will say they don’t know SEO. The real answer, however, is “Because I am lazy.” Don’t be lazy and learn what you must if you want to make your blog popular.

8. You Must Not Ignore Networking: You should never underestimate the power of networking. As people say, it is about who you know and now about what you know in the long run.

9. You Must Not Have An Unreadable/Unnavigable Site: Many people think blogging is all about your content. No! Blogging is far more than your content. You should work on making sure your site is easily navigable and that readers can easily get what they want without looking twice. Usability is a big factor on the web.

10. You Must Not Throw Mud Around: Some new bloggers that if they attack other people or bloggers, they might create a buzz and increase their traffic levels. This might be true in the short run, but over the long term such attitude will create many enemies and burn yourself.

About the author: Onibalusi Bamidele is a young entrepreneur living the Internet lifestyle, subscribe to his blog for more great posts. He sometimes write at technshare.com as well.

Related Articles

• 20 Free WordPress Themes from 2010
• Blogosphere Trends + Choosing and Using Images
• Register Now for Social Media Marketing 2010
• Wibiya Toolbar [First Impression Review]
• How to Sell More From Your Blog (Blog Critique: Steven Aitchison)

Hustle like ‘Shanky’

I’m not a sports guy and I hardly ever go to sporting events. However, I did have the chance to go to a special event with my Dad and Grandfather to see the hometown team play an away game. That was a once in a lifetime trip for me because I had never gone on a trip with just my Dad and Grandfather before. We went a baseball game and what was most entertaining for me wasn’t the action on the field but the hustle in the stands.

Because of all this social media and blogging stuff that I am involved in I’m always looking for ways to relate real world marketing to the virtual world. I learned so many lessons just by watching one of the vendors in the stands. His name was “Shanky”.

When I first saw Shanky I thought to myself, who is this guy? He was loud, personable and quickly established rapport with the crowd. He came down the stairs carrying a container of Bud and Bud Light aluminum bottles. He announced that he had ice cold Bud and Bud Light. The people in front of us flagged him down, he put down his container and asked the “party people” what they would like and how many. He got them the beers quickly and when they were done he asked how much change they wanted back.

Shanky came in and out of our section over and over and always sold at least 20 beers. I watched him hit a bunch more sections in the time it took other vendors to get through one. Each time he came through he was excited, personable and loud. As the night went on he went back to his usual fans and sold them Red and Blue (colors of the aluminum bottles). He made sure to let us know that he’d be back for the 7th inning stretch and last call. Other vendors came with Bud and Bud Light but no one bought from them. People in the crowd took their photos with Shanky. It was a sight to see. And I learned a few things, too.

Say What You Do

There was no mistaking what Shanky did. He told every customer that it was his job to keep them in Ice Cold Bud & Bud Light and it was their jobs to have a good time.

Be Personable

We knew the guys name was Shanky because he told us. I can’t tell you any other vendors name because they did not hustle, and were not personable. They didn’t connect with the crowd int eh way that Shanky did. He made it a point to make an impression on each person in our section and all the other sections as well. He also remembered his customers and made sure that when they were done their beers he was there to get them a refill.

Make it Easy

Shanky broke it down to the easiest transaction possible. The beers were $7.25 each, he was selling Bud and Bud Light. He broke that down to asking whether people wanted “Red” or “Blue”. Everyone knew what he was talking about and it made the transaction quicker, made the decision making quicker too.

You Gotta Ask

As for the money my Dad pointed this out to me. For each person that bought a beer Shanky made either $0.75 to $1.75 on the sale. Why? He asked what the customer wanted back for change. Did they want $1.00 or $2.00 or rather 1 or 2? By doing it increased his tips so much. First of all he didn’t ever fumble with coins so he could get change back to people fast and get on to the next customer. By offering the choice of 1 or 2 he essentially made it a simple decision about the tip for each customer. Also by doing this the customer was going to give him a tip or be uncomfortable not giving one. No one opted for the uncomfortable route.

I didn’t get to see every vendor in the park but I am sure that Shanky was one of the top sellers because he hustled, was personable and asked for the sale. Did I mention that it was near 90 degrees that night and we were sweating in the stands just watching the game? That made it all the more impressive to me.

So, how can you apply these tips and tricks from Shanky to your blogs to start making more profit?

Split Testing Your Landing Pages

It doesn’t matter if you are promoting your own product, an affiliate offer or event a contest… the bottom line is, you need a killer landing page! You can send the best and most targeted traffic in the world to your site, but if it’s not designed properly, how much business are you losing? That is why you MUST split test your landing pages.

I’m currently using a service called Conversion Doubler for split testing tracking on my Six Figure Affiliate Blogging opt in pages. I’m going to start setting up a few ad campaigns on the major search engines and through social networking, so it’s important to have a good idea what’s working and what’s not. Here are the three landing pages I will be split testing with.

(Landing Page 1)                                     (Landing Page 2)                                    (Landing Page 3)

I haven’t done any split testing yet on these landing pages, so I’m anxious to see how they compare. I have a good idea which will convert best, but I will also let you decide. Leave a comment on which landing page you think will convert best and I will follow up with actual split test results.

How to Setup Your Own Split Testing

In this series of split testing, I’m going to be using Conversion Doubler, which is an amazing took for split testing A/B Multivariate solutions. Since my Six Figure Affiliate Blogging landing pages are more image based than text, I’m truly not putting the full power of Conversion Doubler to use, so I will show you want I mean.

Instead of dealing with the hassle of running an ad campaign, sending traffic to your landing page, then repeating the process after changing an area to see if it helps your conversions, Conversion Doubler let’s you start your campaigns while testing different text and changes in the beginning. In short, let’s pretend I want to split test ZacJohnson.com’s blog and how I can increase conversions to the newsletter subscribe on the right side of the page. When I log in to Conversion Double, I would setup a new experiment and after listing my site, it will show the actual landing page and you can hover and click on any area you would like to split test. You can see in the preview below how the ad copy in the newsletter section is highlighted with a blue dotted line, you can hover and select any area of your site to split test within the Conversion Doubler admin.

This probably sounds complicating to some of you, and that’s understandable… it’s much easier to learn from a visual standpoint. Fortunately Conversion Doubler took the time to create a short video on the step by step process for split testing your landing pages.

This is a really amazing split testing service Conversion Doubler has to offer, and definitely one of the best I’ve seen. They actually make it so easy to split test, that I will write up a few landing page split testing case studies over the next couple of weeks. I will also be following up next week with the results of the Six Figure Affiliate Blogging landing page split test. Be sure to leave your guess at which landing page will convert best.

Setup a free account at Conversion Doubler and see how you can double your conversions.

Related Articles

• How Cornerstone Content Gets You Traffic and Subscribers
• Looking For Some Tattoo Bloggers (And How to Apply for a Blogging Job)
• Why I Switched to the Headway Premium Theme for WordPress
• How to Sell More From Your Blog (Blog Critique: Steven Aitchison)
• Truths about Making Money Online

Just Maybe… He Who Blogs Less Blogs Best

A guest post by Larry Brooks, of Storyfix.com

Or she. 

Regarding the title… it’s just a saying, no penis required.  It’s not your father’s media anymore.  Hard to cull the gender-based colloquialisms out of the language sometimes.

She who blogs less blogs best is every bit as gender-biased… but let’s move on.

When we begin our blogging journey, we are overwhelmed with advice. 

Most of it terrific, some of it downright confusing. 

Like ash from a nearby fire, it all settles on the emerging structure of our blogging dream, and what remains after the first stiff wind tends to infuse itself into the content-driven infrastructure upon which we are building.

A little purple, I’ll grant you.  Let’s just say we need to filter what we read and make our own way.  This is why blogging is always a lesson in life 

One of the best pieces of conventional wisdom for newbies is to saturate your site with quality content as quickly as you can. 

If you can begin your branding with a muscular archive in place, credibility ensues.  And because that can’t really happen, what does happen is that you find yourself putting up a new post each and every day.  Sometimes for months.

It works at first.  And then, after a few months a dark day arrives, usually completely unannounced, when you stare at a blank screen and realize you have nothing.

The well is dry.  You’ve said it all. 

It’ll be temporary, followed by a guilty flurry of contrived and slightly redundant takes (you’ll call it spin) on previous stuff.  Or someone else’s stuff.  Or completely irrelevant stuff.

Much of which will suck.  Thus deepening your emerging sense of depression.

But even then – especially then – the blank screen will return, inevitable as your forthcoming middle age double chin.

I’ve been there, suffered through that. 

And got the chin lipo to show for it.

Then suddenly – also in alliance with prevailing blogging wisdom – after 15 months online, I rounded an equally inevitable corner into Phase Two of the blogging journey.

I cut back.  Stopped posting daily.  Stopped demanding too much of myself. 

I no longer felt I had to sweat silver bullets to make the team.  My spot on the roster was secure, at least if I continued to show up and Play Big.

So I reduced my output to a twice-weekly pace, and obligated myself to doing so by announcing it in my News Post beneath my banner.

Nothing says commitment quite like something shown in bold red ink.

Great fear accompanies this transition from insecure, ambitious newbie to confidently cruising-forward niche guru.  But with great fear, mixed with the requisite desire, comes a sort of courage you never knew you had.

And courage, tempered by the right kind of confidence, almost always rewards you.

Here’s what happened.

My subscriptions had gone flat.  Same with my daily visits. 

Flat as the Neilson ratings for American Idol.  Flat as Heidi Montag’s forthcoming breast reduction.  Flat as Whitney Houston’s latest televised version of I Will Always Love You.

Soon after my Great Awakening, the numbers quickly, if not markedly, reversed.  Subscriptions and visits began to grow.  Pingbacks began to ping.  Guest post proposals began arriving from both directions.

All for one reason that had everything to do with the scaling back of my output.

Somebody once said that less is more.  In fact, many wives declare this the day they hit menopause.

Other than making money, this advice is golden in any context.  Ironic, because sometimes that’s precisely what it takes.

It was quality trumping quantity.

The transition had nothing to do with my enthusiasm, commitment or ability to deliver value.  It had everything to do with allowing what is perhaps the most potent essence of value to work its magic – I allowed time to enter the equation.

Fewer posts can mean better posts.

Such a strategy – functional only if your site does indeed offer a hefty backlog of archived content – rarely fails.  And you’ll know it’s time when your ability to conquer that blank screen makes you want to go do something else.  Like exercise.

After a day or two of power walking the mall, you’ll be itching to get back to it.

It’s like sex in middle age.  Less really can be more.  Nature steps in to jack up the stakes.  Anticipation is the sweet torture of impending passion. 

With or without a penis, you can take this advice to the blogging bank. 

Write less.  You just might find yourself writing better.

Larry Brooks writes about storytelling on Storyfix.com.  His book, “Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing” comes out from Writers Digest Books in February.  As you can see here, he’d really rather be writing about sex.

Related Articles

• How to Make Your Blog Pay the Bills [Bootcamp for Bloggers Starts Soon]
• 5 Things John Chow’s Cluttered Blog Taught Me
• You Need to Make Sacrifices to Make it as a Blogger
• Oracle’s Larry Ellison Weighs In On CEO Blogging
• Blogging for Money just Got Easier with Socretes Theme

Earn Cash on Auto-Pilot With WP-Answers

How many times have you asked a search engine like Yahoo or Google a question, then you find yourself at a site like Answers.Yahoo.com where someone is asking that same exact question? It happens quite often, and it’s actually been extremely profitable for companies like Yahoo to run these types of sites. Not only are they actual content generating sites from their users, but they also provide a huge value to anyone searching for a topic, then ends up on their site.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a type of Yahoo Answers site of your own? Now you can with a new wordpress plugin called WP Answers. I first received an email from Oliver, the creator of WP Answers last month. Oliver wanted to show me his new wordpress plugin, how it worked and the amount of traffic and revenue this plugin can actually generate. I loved the idea of the plugin and how powerful it could be in tiny niche markets, or even used to build out a large questions and answers type of site.

You can see a live working version of the theme at the WP Answers Demo. While at first the theme may look very clean and basic, the plugin does allow for a lot of customization and features, includes 6 premium themes, which are loaded with widgets that allow you to play around with logo, header and ad spot customization.

The real meat and power of running a questions/answers site with WP Answers, is it’s ability to grow over time, increase user activity and index very well in the search engines. Build up your own database of users and site loyalty by having visitors register and ask questions. The person who created the question can then award points to the person with the best answer.

GROWING YOUR SITE ON AUTO-PILOT

If you don’t have the time to build up your own site and rely on site visitors for Q&A submissions, you can also pull questions straight from Yahoo Answers using their API. All questions and answers are posted on your site, so it can look like you have a full content and busy site. There is no limit to the amount of search terms you can target, and when posting through Yahoo Answers, your content can be updated hourly, daily or whenever you like.

MONETIZATION AND TRAFFIC

Whether you are going to focus on generating your own traffic and Q&A submissions, you are eventually going to want to make a profit with your site. Outside of selling your 125×125 ad spots on the site, you can also place Google Adsense strategically through out the site. Since your site content is all about detailed questions and topic, all of your ads should be relevant to your visiting traffic.

Building a site around questions and answers is also great for search engine traffic. Every day millions of people are flocking to search engines to answer their every day questions about pretty much anything. How many of these questions could be syncing up with your own Q&A site? The bottom line is, WP Answers will drastically help send traffic to your site. You can see a stats chart from one of Dale’s site’s which is doing extremely well using WP Answers, and his growth from search engine traffic.

Another method for generating revenue, is through the WP Answers affiliate program, where you earn 35% of all sales, which can be up to $87 per sale.

20% DISCOUNT COUPON CODE

WP Answers is a quality product and I look forward to playing around with it more on a few sites of mine. Oliver was also kind enough to offer ZacJohnson.com readers an exclusive coupon to save 20% off your purchase. The current price for WP Answers ranges from $80 to $249 depending on your license purchase, so a 20% discount will definitely help. Use coupon code “ZACJOHNSON567” at the time of check out.

WP Answers

Related Articles

• 5 Most Popular Myths About Making Money Online
• Comic Books Can Teach Us About Blogging and Content Marketing
• Six Figure Affiliate Blogging
• Truths about Making Money Online
• Register Now for Social Media Marketing 2010

How Determined Are You to Reach Your Goals?

Do you give up easily? When you fail to get what you want in a short period of time, do you quickly throw up your hands and move on to something else?

The roadblocks you experience on the road to success either lead to ultimate failure or serve as a stepping-stone to your victory. And, the choice is yours. Refuse to give up, and you’ll experience victory.

Setbacks are a natural part of life. They can derail your train to success if you let them, but their purpose is to build you up. They test your resolve so you can see what you’re made of. They show you how bad you want the goal you’re after. They show you where a course correction is necessary. And, they help you to appreciate the sweet victory at the end.

When you learn from your mistakes, you see the value in them. The more mistakes you make, the quicker you’ll reach your goal. Mistakes are simply corrections to your course that keep you on the correct path to your destiny. So hold onto your dreams and keep the momentum building!

How to Keep Yourself Motivated

Motivation is the fuel that keeps your engine running toward your dreams.

Here are some great ways to keep motivated:

• Keep a diary or journal of your accomplishments and how you overcame setbacks.
• Remind yourself of where you started and how far you’ve come since then.
• Spend time with happy, motivated people who encourage you and build you up.
• Keep moving forward, even if you falter or become frightened.
• Hang on to the dreams that you have, and know that you can achieve them.

Choose What Matters in Your Life

Staying motivated is mostly a matter of choice. If you’re focused on doing well and staying on course, you’ll have a much better chance of achieving what you desire. Reminding yourself of your goals and what you’ve managed to do so far is a great way of keeping yourself interested in where you’re going. That makes you want to continue instead of giving up or getting discouraged.

No matter what you want to do, you can achieve it. No matter what obstacles you face, you can power through them or find ways around them. Your attitude and determination matter more than your skill. When you set your mind to accomplish something important and pursue it with all of your heart, you can achieve anything your heart desires.

When your attitude is positive and focused, you’ll be destined for success. Success is the only option when you have the proper attitude. Setbacks are only failures if you give up. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and visualize the success you’re working to attain.

The success you crave is within your grasp. Obstacles along the way only serve to show you how strong your desire is to achieve victory. When you find a way around, over or through your obstacle, you’ll discover a renewed confidence and determination that will fuel your journey to the realization of your destiny.

Related Articles

• Business Plan, Business Planning and Goal Setting
• How do You “Subscribe” to a Site?
• How to Make Sure You’re Functioning At Your Creative Best
• Knowing Your Target Market for Effective Blogging For Business
• How to Sell More From Your Blog (Blog Critique: Steven Aitchison)