Weekly Trends + Using Polls

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

Last week, along with the list of the ten most-blogged-about topics of the week, we talked about how to get more comments on your blog. But the truth is, some readers aren’t going to comment, no matter what you do. If you want them to interact, you need to give them another option. Polls are quicker and easier than comments and many readers who won’t take the time to form a fully thought-out comment are more than happy to hit quick button to share their opinion via poll. When used for the right reasons, polls can increase interaction and participation.

Every week, we look at the ten most blogged-about stories of the previous seven days (trends provided, as always, by Regator) and today, in addition to those, we’ll see how some bloggers made use of polls in their posts…

1.  MTV Video Music Awards/VMAs
Example: Gold Derby’s “Poll: Will Chelsea Handler flourish or flop as MTV VMAs host?”
Lesson: Be sure your polls work with your blog’s topic matter. Occasionally, I’ll run across a blog that is hosting a poll on a question unrelated to its subject matter in the sidebar. I assume that questions about political affiliation or age on a parenting blog, for example, are done for either the sake of marketing research or the blogger’s own curiosity, but they are useless because they aren’t fulfilling a need for your reader. In this example, the blog is about awards shows and the poll is on how a particular celebrity will fare as an awards show host. It’s a great fit.

2.  September 11/9-11
Example: Gallup’s “Nine Years After 9/11, Few See Terrorism as Top U.S. Problem”
Lesson: While not a blog, I have included this example from Gallup because the site can be a good resource for poll results and statistics. You need not run your own poll to make use of a poll on your blog. Seek out results from places such as Gallup, which allows you to search for polls on a variety of topics, then deliver commentary or start a discussion around the results.

3.  Tea Party
Example: Poll Watch’s “Beyond the Primaries: How Much Impact Will the Tea Party Have Now?”
Lesson: People love stats. People love stats twice as much when you present them in some sort of infographic, pie chart, or line graph. I can’t really explain why, but you know it’s true. Present your findings (or the findings of the poll you’re referencing) in a visual way for maximum impact, even if it’s just a very simple pie chart like the one seen in this example.

4.  Lady Gaga
Example: Ministry of Gossip’s “Lady Gaga wears a meat dress — need we say more?”
Lesson: Give voters enough options to accurately portray their feelings on the subject. When you’re selecting the options for your poll, think beyond a simple “yes” and “no” system. In this case, the blogger could’ve asked, “Did you like Lady Gaga’s meat dress?” and provided two simple options. Instead, she broadened the choices to: “A cutting-edge political statement,” “A cutting edge-fashion statement,” “Tasty,” and “Pathetic.” Do note, though, that three of the four available options are positive. Try to provide balanced choices so as not to subconsciously guide voters.

5.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell/DADT
Example: Joe.My.God’s “CBS Poll: 75% Support Gays In Military”
Lesson: Hosting polls can give readers an alternate means of interacting with your site, but posting results from polls—either your own or another source’s—can be a way of starting a discussion in the comments. This example provides results with minimal commentary, but it prompts a conversation in the comments.

6.  Google Instant
Example: Lifehacker’s “Do You Like Instant Search?”
Lesson: When you display results, take caution not to look like a ghost town if your blog is still working on building its readership to a good level. In this example, Lifehacker displays not only percentages, but the actual number of votes cast for each option. Their total is 7,857 votes—pretty darned respectable. If you run a poll for several days with only eleven votes cast, you run the risk of showcasing your lack of traffic. Use percentages instead.

7. Mexico
Example: Immigration Chronicles’ “Illegal Immigrants or ‘Illegal Aliens’”
Lesson: Use polls to find ways to improve your blog. In this example, a blog focusing on immigration issues is polling its readers to learn about the specific terminology their readers prefer. If you’re not sure what your readers would like to see more (or less) of, how they feel about a particular issue you cover regularly, or if they’re tired of a certain feature, what better way to find out than to ask?

8.  Pope Benedict XVI
Example: Politics Daily’s “Pope Benedict’s Visit to the U.K. May Be a Flop”
Lesson: We’ve all heard the “lies, damned lies, and statistics” warning…and for good reason. You can find numbers to support nearly any hypothesis. You can increase your credibility by citing several sources and, most importantly, clearly indicating where your data came from. This example compares results from a British Social Attitudes poll with a Guardian/ICM poll.

9.  Toronto International Film Festival
Example: IndieWIRE’s

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Interview: Justin Goff

Justin Goff runs 31DayFatLossCure.com, which is a fitness/fat loss product that helps people to lose belly fat (here’s affiliate info). He’s also one of the highest paid copywriters when it comes to sales letters & video scripts for the fitness & internet marketing niches...

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I grew up in a very small town in Ohio - after graduating from high school I went to Ohio State, where I majored in Sport & Leisure studies (real tough major . I actually got started with affiliate marketing in college to pay off some gambling debts that I got myself into. I'm currently 26, and this has been my career ever since...

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
I’ve busted my ass for the last year to become a good copywriter and that’s really paid off lately. I’ve written copy for some of the biggest internet marketing product launches, and also copy for the sales video for our own product which I’ve actually gotten some kudos from the big A-list copywriters for....

I’ve spent tons and tons of hours learning how to write copy and I feel like it’s all coming together for me now...

How did you come to learn about this industry? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I used to be a big sports bettor in college, and I was really good at it. I wouldn’t bet much, but I would win like $5k for a college football season, and that would be enough money to keep me from having to get a real job in college.

One of the seasons though, I got in over my head, went on a little bender and ended up owing some shady people over $3,000. At the time, I didn’t have the money. I ended up getting a job as a valet to pay it back - and then I also made a website where I decided to sell my football picks. The site was ugly as HELL, but I made like $1,000 that first year and I was absolutely hooked.

From there, I went on to dabble as a poker/gambling affiliate. I did that for a few years and learned a ton about SEO. Since then I’ve sold most of that stuff off, and now I focus solely on the 31 Day Fat Loss Cure site....

What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
1. The right mindset
2. The willingness to see failure as a learning experience
3. The willingness to find a mentor
4. A deep understanding of what influences people
5. Discipline

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
I had a lot of bad “mental blocks” when it came to making money when I first started.

Growing up in a small town in a middle class family I always thought that $50k was a ton of money to make in a year...

That kind of thinking really held me back in a lot of ways. I would make a bunch of money with something but when it came to leveraging that and making even more money, I would always put my foot on the brake and sabotage myself.

I read Dan Kennedy’s Wealth Attraction For Entrepreneur’s book and within about 2 months my income went wayyyy up. Dan’s been one of the biggest influences on my business and this book really helped me get over a lot of mental blocks that I had that were preventing me from making money (I highly recommend this book to all entrepreneurs)

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
Honestly one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with are going through a break up. I’m sure I’ll catch shit for saying that in the comments, but it’s true. When you work from your house and you don’t interact with co workers throughout the day, going through something tough like a break up, or a death in your family is 2x as hard.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs are constantly thinking about their business so we mostly live “in our heads”. And when you live like this, you don’t have the same outlets that most people have with a typical office setting...

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
Honestly I hate writing copy. I’m really damn good at it, and I get paid a boatload of money to do it for clients, but I just don’t really like to do it. Just the thought of writing for 5 straight days makes me tense up.

That’s why I'm pretty picky about who I take on as a client. I probably get 3-4 proposals a week from people who want me to write a sales letter/video for them but I only take on the projects I really want to do...

I really like to play around more with the testing side of things once the copy is done. That’s when it gets fun for me...

If it’s possible for you to share, are there any particular niches that you currently favor? Or that you aren’t necessarily in right now but that you would recommend?
All I do is the fitness/fat loss niche right now. I’m pretty much just focused on promoting our product and helping our affiliates to promote our product so that I can build a real, sustainable business.

But being in this niche, I do know there are a lot of opportunities...

Here’s one that I think is going to blow up...

- Gluten free diets

If you’re not familiar with it, gluten is a protein found in foods like wheat, barley, oats etc...

A lot of people are intolerant to it, and millions more are intolerant to it and they don’t even know about it. It’s catching on with a lot of people, and the Hollywood crowd is beginning to notice it as well. It’s probably a smaller niche now, but easily something that you could build a product and make 6 figures a year with.

As we get more and more health conscious, more people will start to learn about it and it’s going to be the next big “diet craze” in this country...

What niche has worked best for you?
I used to be in the poker/gambling niche and did really well in that. A lot of my friends are still in that niche and they’re all raking in the dough.

Anyways, poker/gambling and then fat loss are the only 2 I've ever really done any serious work with...

Which methods of promotion do you favor?
I used to be a big SEO & blogging guy, but I've fallen in love with paid traffic. I'm just getting my bearings with paid traffic since I could never use it back when I did poker stuff. But I’m doing a lot with Facebook, POF and some smaller media buys...

If anyone wants to coach me with media buys I’d be forever grateful to you

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
Mostly recruiting affiliates for our product, and then working on dialing in our upsells so that we can make more money off each sale. We’ve seen a big increase in the value of our customers from testing our upsell process.

What are your greatest strengths?
I understand what influences people and I truly understand the fat loss market. I’m pretty relentless when it comes to learning new things, so you’ll always catch me reading 1-2 books on advertising, and then I’m always learning new things from the guys in my mastermind group as well.

If you want to be successful you have to keep learning from other people...

What are your greatest weaknesses?
Getting complacent. I always have to remind myself to not settle when stuff starts going well. This was a big problem for me back when I had a lot of the mental blocks about money. I would let off the gas before things got really good and just try and stay in my comfort zone. I've learned to recognize that now, and I understand that I need to keep pushing when I get to that point...

What motivates you?
Hitting my goals. I’m nowhere near where I want to be financially, but I make sure I remind myself everyday about what my goals are and what I need to do today to get closer to them.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
The day I realized that I was solely responsible for everything (good or bad) that happened in my life was a big day and a big shift in my mindset for me.

I used to have a victim mentality when it came to a lot of things - so once I got over that and figured out that I was solely responsible for all of my success, I really started to see a big difference in how I looked at everything.

As human beings, whenever we don’t reach a goal or we aren’t satisfied with where we are in life, we always rationalize it to ourselves and put the blame on something outside of ourselves. Sometimes we even say it’s our own fault, but deep down there’s a rationalization that we let ourselves use.

It’s this kind of thinking that allows us to rationalize our existence when we’re not living up to our potential.

Understanding that was probably the biggest change in my life...

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
Dan Kennedy and Shoemoney - I've read almost all of Dan’s books, and I get so much out of every book & seminar I listen to of his. You can pick them up on Amazon for like $12 each, and they are just filled with useful business knowledge.

And then Shoemoney has been a massive help ever since I met him 2 years ago at Elite Retreat. He’s one of the most helpful people I know, and he’ll do anything for people that he actually knows and cares about... Just getting to know him and helping him out has opened a lot of doors for me...

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I'm a terrible employee. I really am. If you were to ask any of my former bosses back when I had a job in high school, they would probably all tell you I wasn't cut out for being an employee, haha...

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
Honestly, I love what I do. I wake up on Saturdays and Sundays and have to force myself to not get on the computer and work. Even if I had 50 million in the bank, I would still be doing stuff like this...

How do you like to spend your free time? What does work-life balance mean to you?
Working out, boxing, being on the lake. I'm a pretty simple guy. Anything to do with sports or the outdoors is where I like to be...

I also spend a lot of time with my dogs... I usually take them to the park or for a long walk everyday. They hang out in my office with me so making sure they are worn out is always a priority when I have work to do...

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
Start with building my business sooner - and also stick with 1 business until it was successful. I fell into the trap of jumping from niche to niche for a while before I really settled on the fitness niche.

Once you have a plan, just stick with it until it works. Most people don’t need more information or the “newest thing” to get started. All of that is useful as you have a business is growing, but just get started with 1 or 2 things and make those successful.

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
facebook.com/justingoff is my personal one. I have a Twitter, but don't use it anymore...

Ending
I personally work with our affiliates for the 31 Day Fat Loss Cure - if you’re interested in promoting a legit product with high conversions, and no shady rebills then get a hold of me. You can check out the affiliate page on our site here....
- Justin Goff

Build Your Platform and Leap

The chap in the photograph is called “Chambers”, despite the freezing cold water and the 15c temperature of the dock he enjoyed repeatedly diving and the adulation it bought him.

I think there are a lot of folks just like the Chambers dude.

We can say he did some things very well. He was getting attention, inflating his ego, and he worked his audience. While he was clearly enjoying the thrill, it was just as clear as he grandstanded for the onlookers that he wasn’t doing it just for the adrenalin rush.

The audience, for their part, were egging him on and gettting entertainment.

A couple of kids tried to emulate him, but out of fear they chose lower heights to leap from, with less impressive results. Chambers did not pay them any mind. Nor did he rise to the jeering from the critic gallery who were hoping and praying that he would crack his skull on one of the many hazards around the water.

He chose his course of action, built his platform, attracted attention, and executed his plan.

What Next?

Then, just like with a lot of blogs that you see, the moment passed and everyone started to drift away. This left Mr Chambers shivering in his wet clothes, and with a withering entourage.

The problem is, often what looks like decisive action is just one step towards a goal.

Activity is not necessarily productivity.

We didn’t witness what came next, we had places to be, but I like to imagine that he at least got a Fish and Chips supper for his troubles. Some kind of reward for his stupid spectacle.

Lessons?

So many people only focus on the reward part. Had this guy turned up and gone around the folks in the bay with the offer of “Stunts for Chips” he would likely have received either a brush off at best or maybe a bruise or two. Many people on the other hand go too far the other way, they build an audience but then do not take a next step, they don’t take that audience anywhere. You need a platform and a reward (even if that reward is getting a message out, enjoying the process, or simply making new friends).

1. You need to build your platform first. Attract a core audience, then get some momentum, and it is far easier to then build that platform even further.
2. Discover what your audience wants, investigate and drill down to find the challenges, goals, wants and needs of the people you are attracting.
3. Serve that audience with valuable contributions and make offers that are relevant to their interests and needs.

Bottom line: Before all this, know your end goal. Otherwise after the thrill is over you might end up on the sidelines, cold and alone.

If you want to learn how to launch a product or program that people actually want,
check out the Mojo Marketing Action Plan

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How to Blog Like Bond. James Bond.

When it comes to being a badass, few can hold a candle to good old 007.

Calm, cool, and collected under pressure, Bond is known as much for his seductive personality as he is for his incredible ability to get himself out of any situation in one piece.

What he isn’t known for is writing a successful blog.

But everyone’s favorite fictional, womanizing secret agent has more to do with writing killer copy and running a great site than you might think.

Here a few things you can learn about great blogging from everyone’s favorite snappy dresser/sex addict/paid assassin.

Know exactly who you are

From the specific type of drink he orders (martini, shaken not stirred) to the unique presence he commands when walking into a room, James Bond always knows exactly who he is (yes, I realize I sound like an American Idol judge, but it remains true).

When you’re dealing with James Bond, you know what you’re going to get. If you’re a psychopathic villain bent on world domination, you don’t want to find out that Bond is on your case because you’re most likely going to end up dead.

Readers should know exactly who you are within minutes of coming to your site.

• When you visit Copyblogger, you know you’re going to learn how to write great content that builds both your business and your reputation.
• When you visit The Art of Nonconformity, you expect a point of view that challenges the status quo. You also learn very quickly that author Chris Guillebeau has made it his mission to visit every country in the world.
• When you visit Man Vs Debt.com, you know you’re getting a guy trying to destroy his debt.
• Spend three minutes on any of Gary Vaynerchuk’s sites and you feel like you’ve known the guy for years.

Your reader should know not only who you are but also what you’re providing within just a few lines.

It took me nine months of writing every day before I finally found the right “voice” and felt confident enough to use it. Once I finally embraced my personality and injected it into each post, my site really caught on with new readers and became much more enjoyable for me to write.

Recognize the importance of style

Other than his killer instinct and love of women, James Bond is probably known for one key attribute:

Style.

Bond always looks fantastic, no matter how recently he’s escaped the clutches of an evil villain. He knows how to dress, he knows how to drink, he knows the right watch to wear and the right car to drive. He presents impeccable manners at a dinner table and in conversation. He makes a calculated show of his best possible side in every situation.

Can you offer that kind of consistence in your presentation? Does your site’s color scheme and visual style match the tone of the content? Is your site loaded up with misplaced ads that distract rather than enhance your site? Does your About page accurately and quickly tell the reader what they’re getting?

Most importantly, does it all work together?

I hate to be superficial, and I would much rather tell you that it’s what’s on the inside that matters most. But in today’s instant-gratification, StumbleUpon, YouTube culture, you often have less than five seconds to make your first impression. Make the most of those five seconds.

Hook them with good looks, and then keep them with great content.

It’s okay to be witty

James Bond has a dry one-liner for every situation.

Bond: That looks like a woman’s gun.
Largo: Do you know a lot about guns, Mr. Bond?
Bond: No, but I know a little about women.

Domino: What sharp little eyes you’ve got.
Bond: …Wait ’til you get to my teeth.

A witty comment can help you make a point more clear, keep readers engaged, get them thinking, or provide some necessary comic relief in an otherwise somber situation. Life’s too short to be serious all the time. There’s no crime — and a lot of style — in making your readers laugh.

Stay cool under pressure

When Bond jumps between two high-rise buildings, he knows he can make the jump. He simply doesn’t allow any room for doubt.

If he goes to a gunfight with six terrorists, he knows he’s going to win. There’s always a villain trying to kill him; there are always members of his own government who question his motives and tactics.

Bond moves forward with confidence, and he gets the job done.

As your blog increases in traffic, it’s easy to start doubting yourself and your abilities. Sure, you felt comfortable when it was just your mom and friends reading. But as your readership starts to grow, you might start to question yourself.

Here’s the thing. You got where you are thanks to your talents and abilities.

You will hit roadblocks, and you will have villains of your own. Don’t let them take you down.

I’ll never forget my first negative comment left by a random stranger, on an article of which I was extremely proud. I spent the next four hours freaking out, researching his claims, and crafting a response that I agonized over before finally posting.

The commenter eventually emailed me the next day and said, “Oh, I didn’t think of it that way, I was just in a bad mood.”

It takes time to develop some perspective about the negativity. If you are confident in your abilities, if you know what you’re doing is right for you and your readers, you will learn to take constructive criticism from the right people and ignore the villains.

Shoot to kill

James Bond knows that a single bullet can kill or incapacitate an enemy. To use any more firepower than necessary could be the difference between life and death in the next shoot-out.

When he sees a room full of enemies, 007 thinks to himself: “Six bad guys, six bullets. Perfect.”

Words are like bullets — don’t waste them. If you can say it in 500 words, why spend 1000?

Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits writes an article and then continually refines it until the message is clear, quick, and concise. After writing something, go back through it, line by line, and decide what’s necessary and what’s superfluous. Embrace the art of brevity.

Aim for the kill by picking words and sentences that drive your point home immediately.

A little modesty can go a long way

Think back to any action scene from a Bond flick. He wipes out an entire army, drives a car off a cliff, saves a woman, and then brushes off his tux and moves onto the next task.

You don’t see him pulling a Ron Burgundy, claiming to be “kind of a big deal.” You’ll rarely hear Bond discuss his accomplishments or accolades — he doesn’t have to. His actions already speak louder than his words ever could. Restating the obvious would just tarnish the cool.

In today’s online world, bloggers are constantly trying to one-up each other, promising the BEST CONTENT EVER or announcing they’re the WORLD’S GREATEST AUTHORITY ON LIFESTYLE DESIGN. Hyperbole, exaggeration, and gratuitous self-promotion have unfortunately become commonplace.

Let’s imagine for a second that 007 ran his own blog.

After catching your eye with terrific design and blowing you away with incredible content, Bond’s blog would get the attention it deserved without him having to shout from the rooftops how great he is.

If you are sharing content that is worth reading, you don’t need to be your own biggest cheerleader. Leave that to the people you just wowed: your fans.

Your Mission

Take what you’ve learned from this secret agent and apply it to your own Web site. Build your style, be confident in your abilities, shoot to kill — and then tell them it’s all in a day’s work.

Good luck.

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The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

It’s easy to write about certain topics, like celebrities, or technology, or even social media. Everybody wants a piece of it.

But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics, or cognitive psychology?

How do you get noticed with a compelling story when your subject is … well … boring?

In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read.

Even my hero Malcolm Gladwell said, “Prepare to be dazzled.”

Since I really can’t stand economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home.

From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers and self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers. Why drug dealers still live with their moms and how the KKK is like a real estate agent.

Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more.

I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring blog posts into sexy must-read masterpieces.

Check it out:

People love “dot connectors”

Our world is getting more complicated by the second. Every day your readers are trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday, what’s happening now, and what will happen tomorrow. If you connect the dots for them, you can get popular in a hurry.

Freakonomics is built around connecting dots in an interesting way. For example, it’s long been an economic principle that almost every choice we make is connected to incentives. Pretty boring stuff — until author Steven Levitt used a story about daycare centers to show how some incentives backfire.

Since parents were showing up late frequently, the daycare center started a policy of a $3 fine to incentivize parents to show up on time. Unfortunately, the fine wound up incentivizing parents to pay $3 for an hour of babysitting and not feel guilty for showing up late!

Giving your reader’s these “aha” moments is a great way to keep them reading a so-called boring topic and have them asking for more.

Headlines still matter

Even with all of our shiny social media tools, good ol’ standby skills like writing a great headline still matter.

You can be a masterful storyteller and write killer posts, but you still lose if no one reads them.

Titles are the closest thing us writers have to a “silver bullet.” Don’t waste ‘em. Do you think that Freakonomics would have been a New York Times Bestseller with the title Aberrational Behavior and the Causal Effect of Incentives?

The quickest way to give your boring blog a facelift is to put some eye-hijacking power into your headlines. In fact, write your headline first, before you even start the rest of the post. It’s that important.

Numbers are a blogger’s best friend

One common complaint of blogs is that they can’t be taken seriously. We are accused of playing fast and loose with the facts and being weak on proof. It’s easy to avoid hard numbers and focus on writing the soft stuff, but Freakonomics shows that this is a mistake.

Many bloggers are afraid that statistics, equations, and hard facts will scare away our readers, but that’s not giving our readers enough credit. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s that we stick numbers out there without a story.

Freakonomics uses numbers to reveal a hidden story. Levitt looked up the numbers on standardized tests for Chicago students. On the face of it, this was pretty boring data. This district got such-and-such a score, this district got such-and-such a score. Yawn.

Until those numbers revealed that teachers were cheating.

In some districts, teachers received salary boosts when their students performed better on standardized tests — motivating them to fill in a few additional correct answers for their students.

The story makes the numbers interesting. The numbers make the story credible. Give it a try.

Everyone loves a mystery

Why would a successful sumo wrestler throw a match? The obvious answer would be that he’s getting paid to do so, but Levitt quickly discovered there was a much more mysterious motivation that drove who won and who lost in Japan’s sumo contests.

The answer is buried in psychology, probability, and incentives, but the only thing that I care about is that there’s a mystery. Any mystery begs for gumshoe detective work. We can’t leave well enough alone and we want to know why — especially if someone else is going to do the legwork of figuring out the answer for us. That’s why the CSI series has spun off more offspring than a jackrabbit.

You can use this quirk of human nature to make your topic enticing. Look closely at your topic and uncover some old-fashioned mysteries. Now write a post that presents the mystery and leads your reader through the investigation to its incredibly satisfying conclusion.

Provide a better way to solve common problems

Freakonomics uses a powerful set of tools to explain the way the world works. By the end of the book, you can’t help but think that every problem imaginable can be solved with the right incentive, data analysis, or storytelling. When you’re finished you feel that there is a better way to tackle your problems.

This is what “added value” means. Simply restating a problem is boring. Offering new tools and perspectives to solve problems helps your reader get closer to their goals — and that makes you someone whose content they’ll want to read every time you come out with something new.

Freakonomics: The Movie is coming out soon, and I’ll be first in line — because reading the book was so valuable to me I can’t wait to see what else the authors have to offer. To get devoted fans who’ll anticipate your every output with the same enthusiasm, give them some solutions.

Time to get freaky

Have you ever used any of these techniques to make your content sexier? Can you see how to apply some of them to your own blog?

And if you read Freakonomics yourself, tell us in the comments about any other blog-enhancing tips you picked up!

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Sell Ad Space with AdSella Marketplace

Go with traditional ad networks and you can expect them to take a 50% cut. Go with affiliate marketing and you have to work hard to increase your conversion rate. Take out private advertising and you have to deal with all the administration of the ad placements. There has to be a better way to monetize your blog.

Designed to make both the ad buying and ad selling experience easier for everyone involved, AdSella has just launched into its beta testing and you can sign up right now. Is this the right deal for your website?

Buy and Sell Website Advertising

The vast majority of beginning bloggers will turn to networks like Google AdSense when they first get started. The barrier of entry is low and they can start making money right away. However, they quickly learn that private advertising can be much more lucrative.

Handling private ad sales can be very time-consuming, however, and that’s where AdSella can come into play. In short, AdSella is an online ad space marketplace where site owners can list their available ad placements and advertisers can buy these spots.

A variety of different ad types and banner sizes can be used and AdSella takes care of all the administration. Publishers are paid once a week and they really do just “set it and forget it.”

How Does It Work?

From the blogger’s perspective, the ad marketplace from AdSella is very easy to understand.

Site owners create a listing on AdSella for every block of ad space that they’d like to offer for sale, setting whatever price that they’d like, whatever duration they’d like, and whatever size they’d like. A simple line of text is then inserted into the space on the site where they would like the ad to appear.

A placeholder ad block appears immediately on the site. Ad buyers can then click directly on the “buy this ad” banner, proceed through the checkout process, upload their banners, and have the ad go live almost immediately. From the blogger’s end, no additional code needs to be added or altered; it’s automatic.

When the purchased ad time expires, the ad block once again becomes available through the AdSella marketplace for new advertisers to purchase. Once again, the blogger doesn’t have to do anything. There’s no management of expiry dates and advertiser banners; the AdSella engine takes care of all that.

Sifting Through the Marketplace

Each time that a blogger sets up a new available ad slot, it shows up in the marketplace for buyers to browse. Basic information is displayed in the main listing, including site name, URL, PageRank, run (duration), status, and price.

Clicking through to an individual listing, the buyer can then get a little more information about the advertising opportunity, ad location, acceptable formats, ad run time, website category, and other related details.

However, the purchase process cannot happen from this page. The ad buyer has to go directly to the seller’s website, find the available AdSella ad spot, click on the blue banner, and proceed through the checkout process that way. This ensures that the advertiser knows exactly where the ad will be placed.

After uploading the ad creative, the advertiser can log into his or her AdSella account to make changes. Once again, the site owner doesn’t need to do anything. The same code stays on the website.

What’s the Catch?

The good news is that it costs nothing for site owners to list their available ad placements through the AdSella Marketplace. Naturally, though, AdSella has to take a cut when a sale is completed.

The commission rate is 20%, meaning that the site owner receives 80% of the total ad price. If a one-month ad placement is $50, then the ad seller receives $40 of that and this is sent out every Sunday via PayPal.

That 20% is certainly worth avoiding all the extra administration required to sell ad space privately, not to mention the extra exposure the site owner receives through listing in the AdSella Marketplace.

Link: AdSella Marketplace

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5 Ways Your Blog is Undermining Your Business

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners start a blog to support their business. A blog, they figure, will allow them to illustrate their knowledge to clients, build a reputation and brand, get people to check out their work, and take the place of that pesky enewsletter they started a year ago but never seem to have time to write these days.

But in many cases, the errors or glitches that these bloggers can make end up undermining their owners’ businesses in subtle ways. Ultimately, their blogs actually serve to lessen the blogger’s reputation among clients and prospects. Here are the most common errors I’ve seen.

1. Technical errors.

Technical errors include everything from typos to broken links and missing images. To my mind, they also include the my-13-year-old-cousin-was-the-designer blog skins. Given the usable nature of most blogging platforms today, these kinds of errors shouldn’t exist — and the vast majority of web users know this. If your blog contains technical errors, it reflects very poorly on you and, ergo, your business.

Apart from using all the tools at your disposal to ensure that the content you publish contains no technical inaccuracies, bloggers may need to periodically review old content to ensure that, for example, the links still work.

After a given period — say, a year — few users will expect to be able to rely on the links in your content, but if they’ve arrived at that content directly, through a search engine, they may not realise that the content’s old, so a broken link may still undermine your credibility. If linked content is crucial to a given post, you might need to consider building a regular review of those links into your content management plan to ensure that the post remains usable.

2. Factual errors.

Factual errors are a separate issue from technical errors. If technical errors are a baseline of business competency, factual errors mark the baseline for industry or discipline competency. The first might make you look slap-dash, but when users spot factual errors in your work, your professional reputation slides downhill very quickly.

The only way to avoid factual errors is research. Don’t trust any single source — research to find at least two unrelated sources for the same information every time, and cite or link to them in each case. This will obviously impact the time it takes you to produce a blog post, so you may need to alter your writing and research approach accordingly.

Factual errors are problematic, but they’re even more of an issue when the blogger uses them as the basis for opinion pieces.

3. Ill-informed opinion.

When you use erroneous information as the basis for an opinion piece, you do yourself a serious disservice. It’s one thing to report information that, while you’ve seen it presented elsewhere, is inaccurate. But to build that information into your world view suggests to astute readers that you’re gullible, or ignorant, or both. Now the problem isn’t just a matter of misinformation; it’s a matter of personalities.

Opinion pieces should therefore be carefully researched and planned, and their possible implications considered at length. To me, planning an opinion piece is a bit like playing chess: you need to think ahead as many moves as possible to ensure that, whatever happens as a result of the piece, I’ll have a strategy that lets me respond with grace and intelligence. The problem is, if your opinion piece is based on poor information, readers may simply disregard it — and your blog — as garbage without bothering to comment.

4. Poor comment responses.

If it’s your blog, you need to manage it — and its readership. Failing to respond to comments is poor form; responding off the cuff to negative or controversial feedback can be extremely damaging.

Blog comments represent a huge exercise in PR: this is a very visible forum in which you’re responding to your business’s public. So it pays to think like a PR consultant and plan careful responses to negative feedback that show your professionalism, honesty, and genuine interest in what your readers have to say. After all, your clients and prospects are reading this thing — perhaps they’re even the people commenting. Your responses aren’t just a question of good manners; they may have real financial implications.

5. Poor content planning.

Poor content planning shows on business blogs, and can make the blogger seem flaky. If your blog is unreliable, it’s all too easy for readers to extrapolate that to mean that you’re unreliable. And no one wants to do business with someone who’s unreliable. Readers don’t just need to know what types of content or information themes to expect: they also need to know when to expect updates. As we all know, there’s nothing that’s more disappointing than going to a much-loved blogger’s site to find that they haven’t updated it since you were last there.

Of course, the other question of content planning relates directly to your goals for your business-supporting blog. Do you want to use it to direct clients and prospects to freshly-released projects or your updated folio each time you have something to show? Will your clients have any issues with your discussing their projects publicly? What kinds of content and posts will you use to communicate directly — and productively — with prospects? These questions all come down to your blog strategy. If you haven’t got these kinds of issues straightened out, your readers may find it difficult to work out whether your blog is intended for them.

There are, of course, other content questions you’ll need to consider. Do you want to cross-promote special offers on your blog through your Facebook page? Will you tweet every blog update, or provide a blog RSS feed, so that readers know when to visit? If so, you’ll likely need to consider how your blog updates will fit with the other content your feed through these media. Obviously, having a decent content plan will help support your blog’s — and your — professional appearance.

These are the five most common pitfalls I see on business-supporting blogs. Have you fallen into these traps? What other problems — or pet peeves — do you encounter as you rad business blogs?

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