Online Marketing … Without the Arrogance

This post was written by the Web Marketing Ninja—a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Curious? So are we!

There are many less-respectable professions than internet marketing, but even today I get a glare—“so you’re one of those guys”—when I’m introduced to someone for the first time.

For many, the word “marketing” conjures images of people whose sole job is to convince others to spend money they don’t have on products they don’t need, using every tactic possible—no matter how sneaky. The business owners I speak to all the time consciously ignore all forms of marketing because of this.

But I’m here to tell you that you can be a marketer without being a die-hard, arrogant salesman, and the secret is simple: you just need to know where the lines are.

Silence or the megaphone?

You or your product may be the very best, most valuable product in the marketplace, but if you sit in the corner in silence, no-one will ever know your name. On the flip side, if you stand in that corner on a box, and scream how awesome you are into a megaphone, everyone will remember you—but as that irritable person who just wouldn’t shut up!

The secret here is engagement. Be ready to start or join a conversation, and be prepared to listen as much as you contribute. Engagement is a two-way street, and it requires you to get out of your cave not just for face-to-face conversations, but in all your forms of marketing communication. Your customers have a voice. Seek it out, listen, and show you care.

The moral: engage, engage, engage!

Over-deliverer or over-promiser?

Do you write, “This product is going to make you a billionaire!” or “I’m going to share with you all my secrets to becoming a six-figure blogger”? These are two very different approaches to tag lines that I’m sure you’ve seen, and it’s not hard to guess which is more credible in most peoples’ eyes.

When it comes to taglines and copy, it’s very easy to overstep the mark. You’re told time and time again to focus on benefits, not features, and it’s so attractive to launch into the most outrageous, fantastical benefit you can—without thinking about whether it has any credibility, or your product can deliver on the promise.

Keep your messaging benefit-focused, but don’t claim to be able to better the human plight forever—unless you’re convinced your product actually does this. Focus on the benefit for the specific problem your product solves, and you’ll be set.

The moral: promise something great—and deliver.

Humble or egoistical?

A company that I believe has walked very close to the line when it comes to being confident in their product, but not egotistical, is Apple. They were brave with their Mac vs. PC campaign, and initially they focused on what the Mac could do that the PC couldn’t—and it was a great success. Over time, as it became harder to find new points of difference, their approach did devolve into an all-out attack on the PC, but they backed off that tactic pretty quickly.

When looking at the brand you project, as well as your products, if you can instill confidence, it can give you credibility. Arrogance will only project insecurities. Darren and Brian Clarke http://www.copyblogger.com/ are two people who are perfect examples of this philosophy in action.

The moral: be confident, but not arrogant.

Marketer or con artist?

In my mind, the difference between a marketer and a con artist is honesty. If you’re being told that the key to marketing success is to lie to your customers or leads, then you’ve crossed a line—it’s as simple as that. There are also laws designed to protect consumers against exactly that kind of behavior.

The moral: honesty is the best policy.

Friends or profit resources?

If you believe that your customers are your friends, you’ll look at what you do as a gift to the world, nothing more. And if that’s truly what you want to do, then no one will question you. The other extreme is to see people purely as resources from which to extract as much cash as you can; you judge their value by how deep their pockets are.

If you want to run a business, you need to be somewhere in the middle of this continuum. Again, it comes down to solving a problem for someone, and more importantly, solving a problem they’re willing to pay for.

There’s nothing wrong with asking people for something you value—money—in exchange for something they value—your product. It’s been happening for a while, and we’re doing okay so far.

The moral: ot’s okay to ask for money, but not to bleed them dry.

Does it feel wrong?

I have a very close network of people who act as my arrogant-web-marketing-o-meter. I seek them out when something I’m planning feels a little wrong. Just the fact that I feel I need a second opinion is usually warning enough, and in most cases, my suspicions are confirmed by a group of people I trust. Because the reality is, if it feels wrong, it probably is.

The moral: go with your gut feel for what’s appropriate.

Don’t cross the line

In my history I’ve done things that pushed the envelope on every single one of these points. Some I regret, some I don’t, but by doing this I’ve been able to more effectively understand the balancing act that exists between being a marketer and being nothing more than an arrogant salesman.

It’s something that you’ll only really understand over time as you conduct marketing yourself, but all I ask is that you don’t let the worst cast scenario prevent you from using online marketing to help your blog or your business grow.

Stay tuned from most posts by the secretive Web Marketing Ninja—a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger.

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My 5 Biggest Blogging Blunders

Recently I posed an article about the 5 mistakes every blogger will make at some point.

For the most part, they were all fairly minor mistakes, in part because they are so common, but they are all also mistakes that one’s handling of could prove far more damaging than the error itself.

Still, I wouldn’t call any of them fatal or even blog-changing errors, just trials that every blogger has to go through at some point. But that raises the question, what are some of the bigger mistakes one can make?

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I’ve made my share and some were quite costly. So, in an effort to help warn others, especially new bloggers, of the pitfalls that loom, here are my top five blogging blunders since I started about six years ago.

5. Not Focusing on Titles

When I first started blogging, I didn’t focus very heavily on the titles of my post and often wrote them as an afterthought. That unfortunately came back to haunt me as I learned quickly that not only are titles the most commonly read part of a post, but the only part many people read.

My very first social media exposure was a very hostile Slashdot based not upon what was in the post, but what was said in the title, which was much more divisive (albeit accidentally).

After a day of having my site shuttered by an angry mob and dozens of letters accusing me of things I did not say or mean, I realized I needed to spend more time with titles and give them considerably more attention.

4. Hosting is Important Too

Speaking of that incident, it also showed me that hosting is incredibly important for a site, not only affecting your site’s speed but also it’s ability to take a hit from a traffic spike.

Though cheap shared hosting accounts might be fine for some sites, if you want it to grow you need to invest in your hosting and get a VPS or a dedicated server as soon as you are ready.

Otherwise, you will likely find yourself as I did, with a ton of social media traffic coming to your site and nothing there to greet them, the biggest waste of marketing effort imaginable.

3. Poor Business Model Choice

Early in my site’s history, I explored a variety of advertising schemes to try and earn at leaset a little bit of money from the site. However, even when the traffic was there, the CTR was low and the keywords were terrible, making it so that I was earning only pennies per (rare) click.

The experiments, as limited as they were, didn’t go over well with my audience either and never generated more than a few dollars per month in revenue. I eventually abandoned them and realized that the most valuable thing I could offer is my expertise. Slowly, I began dipping my toe into consulting, the approach I still take today.

It’s important to be realistic about what’s valuable on your site and how you can best earn money from that, I lost at least a year of good revenue generation with the site because I kept trying plans that were never going to work.

2. Not Listening to Reader Suggestions

In the early days of Plagiarism Today, i had a very specific picture of what I wanted the site to be like and the topics I wanted to cover. As I began to build readers, they requested I talk about different issues or add features to the site, such as a stock letters section. I ignored them initially because of a combination of bad advice and the fact it didn’t mesh with my vision of the site.

However, eventually I realized I was being too limiting and decided to see if I could make it work. After branching out a little bit, following my reader’s suggestions, I found that the site began to grow very rapidly, exceeding my expectations.

Still, I wonder how much larger it would be today if I had started out with the right mindset and listened to at least some of the better ideas my readers had, even if they were against my personal vision.

1. Picking a Bad Domain

I admit it openly, “Plagiarism Today” is a bad domain. Hard to spell, hard to say, too long and too specific (see above). It was a terrible choice for the site and one I regret. However, after over five years, it’s the one I’m stuck with too. That’s the reason I put it at the top (or bottom) of my list.

Changing it now would probably be more work and more drawback than its worth, but it was a lesson learned nonetheless. I jumped on “Copybyte” for my consulting firm and have been much more careful about domains since then.

In the meantime though, I get to spell the domain for everyone I give it to, even those who know how to spell “plagiarism” don’t trust themselves to do so when writing it down.

Bottom Line

Obviously, I’ve made a lot more mistakes than this but these are some of the errors I consider to be the most damaging and the ones others would be best served to avoid.

Fortunately, all of the above errors can be easily dodged if one is looking out for them, which is exactly why I post this list.

After all, the goal of this post isn’t just self abuse, but rather, to help others not fall into the same traps I did and maybe not waste some of the time I did in my early years.

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7 Self-doubts New Bloggers Can Beat

This guest post is by Scott McIntyre of Vivid Ways.

You’ve just launched a shiny new blog and you’re buzzing with excitement about sharing content and building an audience. At first, it requires a lot of time and effort to get things off the ground, but your confidence is sky-high that this blogging thing will take off and push you straight up to the A List.

Image by R'eyes

Then, slowly but surely, you begin to doubt what you’re doing. Success doesn’t come quite as quickly as you’d hoped, despite your hard work. Disappointment sets in. You lose motivation. After a while, this lack of self-belief causes you to ask yourself if it’s even worth publishing another post.

Did you ever feel this way?

Perhaps you’re a more experienced blogger who still remembers when you questioned what on Earth you were doing and whether you were any good. Or, maybe you’re facing this crisis of confidence right now.

If that’s the case, you need to tackle these self-doubts before they sabotage your blogging dreams!

Self-doubt and the New Blogger

I recently started my first blog, and one of my initial articles looked at how to conquer self-doubt in general. This got me thinking about the specific doubts new bloggers come up against, and the ways in which a lack of self-belief can negatively affect our blogging activities.

Feelings of self-doubt have little to do with how good a blogger you really are—they’re about how not-so-good you perceive yourself to be. There’s a crucial difference.

So, there’s no shame or weakness in admitting that you experience self-doubt (I’m sure even top bloggers suffer from the occasional wobble in confidence). In fact, the opposite is true: you have to be willing to recognize and shine a light on your doubts so you can deal with them head-on.

Here are seven of the biggest self-doubts you can face as a new blogger, and useful tips on how to beat them before they crack your confidence.

1. Have I chosen the best topic to blog about?

At some stage early on, you nervously wonder if you’ve chosen the right topic to blog about. Of course, you’ve done your research and opted for a subject that’s a good match for your knowledge, experience, and passion. But, until you start seeing results, how can you be sure it’s the best niche for you?

The fact that you decided upon a topic based on your interests is a reasonable indication that you’re on the right track. As you’ll be producing content for a long time (hopefully), you need to maintain an enthusiasm for the subject matter from the outset. That way, you’ll want to learn more so that you can pass on new insights to your readers in the future.

If, however, after only a few months of blogging you find yourself struggling to come up with ideas for posts, or you haven’t the heart to publish regularly, this is usually an early warning sign that you have to rethink your first choice of blog topic. Do a reassessment of your current interests against a range of different niches.

Don’t panic too much if you decide to change to another topic. Your blog is still in its infancy, and it’s better to alter your course sooner rather than later.

2. What if no one wants to read what I’ve got to say?

When you start off blogging, you could very well find that there’s a readership of only one: yourself! It’s all too easy to become disheartened when you see your carefully crafted content languishing with no comments and very few visitors.

Don’t be tempted to throw in the towel quite yet. Rather than it being the case that no one is interested in what you’re publishing, it’s more likely that you’ve yet to reach your target audience. It’s your job to get out there and help those ideal readers come across your blog.

People always want to discover fresh, useful, and thought-provoking content online and that’s a huge opportunity for you to tap into. No one, however, says that attracting readers is easy—it’s not.

There are, fortunately, many tips and techniques you can use to help increase your readership. Experiment with these proven methods, or be brave and go do something unique that draws in your special crowd. It’s far too early to give up until you’ve done everything you possibly can to entice those ideal readers back to your blog.

3. Am I just saying the same old stuff in the same old way?

You’re concerned that when you follow the trail of links to other blogs within your niche, everyone seems to be talking about exactly the same things you are. With so many blogs creating so much content, it can be very difficult to come up with original ideas that haven’t been explored a million times before.

The blogosphere loves original thinkers with fresh perspectives. Any blogger can gain popularity when they stand out from the crowd by both a) what they say and b) how they say it. When you deal with a subject, remember that it’s never been addressed from your viewpoint before. That’s why telling your own personal story and sharing your opinions breathes energetic life into what could simply be run-of-the-mill content we’ve all seen before.

There’s always going to be a unique angle on whatever topic you look at, because the knowledge and experience you bring are different to those of the next blogger. With practice, you’ll learn how to build your blog’s voice in a way that sets it apart from all the other sites out there.

4. Is my writing all right or all wrong?

You’re eager to get your thoughts out there, but you’re afraid that people will criticize the amateur writing style and rip apart the spelling and grammar.

It’s reassuring that writing content for blogs is very different from anything you’ve ever written before. Every new blogger can learn how to adapt these tried-and-tested techniques for themselves.

Sure, some folk will point out your mistakes—there will always be critics lining up to take a shot. Correct spelling shows you care about attention to detail, while good grammar helps the reader more easily grasp the points you want to get across. Bear in mind, though, that what you write is just as important as the way it is written.

Put it this way: wrongly spelled words and awkward grammar can hinder the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of your post, so try your best to get it right. But don’t allow this concern to stifle your creativity or limit what it is you desperately want to say. The more you write, the more confident you’ll become in expressing yourself through the medium of a blog post.

5. Am I getting too personal?

Sharing your experiences in life is a critical part of connecting with an audience on a deeper level. Readers respond well to a blogger who can show first-hand that he or she understands the challenges they face. Yet, how can you be certain that you don’t reveal  “too much information?”

Personal story telling works best when it brings home a learning point that the reader needs to know. The lesson has to be relevant and appropriate to help someone solve a specific problem or deal with a particular issue. In other words, the personal information you share has to be of benefit to the reader in some way. Otherwise, it could be seen as irrelevant and self-indulgent.

Ultimately, it’s down to your individual judgment: you choose exactly what you tell your readers about your life in a blog post. Before hitting the Publish button, ask yourself this: “Do I really want the whole world (literally) overhearing that fact about me, or my family and friends?” The old saying holds true: If in doubt, leave it out.

6. I’m nervous about networking

You realize that it’s essential to build relationships with other bloggers to get ahead in blogging nowadays. However, this is easier said than done: you feel awkward about getting in touch with them. What could a newbie like you possibly have to offer a big-name blogger?

Well, if you feel like this, instead of contacting A-list bloggers straight away, reach out to others who are at the same stage of their blogging journey as you. You’re bound to have a lot in common, giving plenty of opportunities to assist each other as you grow your blogs together.

The main priority of a blogging-based relationship is to provide mutual value and benefit to each of you. That’s why linking up with bloggers in a similar position can work so well—each can appreciate the other’s situation and provide the same kind of support.

Forming strong bonds with other bloggers online is basically no different to the way you’d get to know someone in the real world. Courtesy, genuine interest in what they’re doing, and offers of help go a long way! Don’t be shy to make the first move, as it could very well be the start of a very productive partnership.

7. Will I ever be a success?

This is probably the biggest single doubt that keeps popping into your head as you try hard to kick-start your blog. After all, it’s the reason you’re doing all this work, isn’t it? Constant worrying over whether you’re ever going to make it gradually eats away at your self-confidence. How you define “success,” and how long you’re prepared to wait for it, will help you cope with this doubt—one that’s felt by nearly every new blogger.

What success means to you will be different from the criteria set by another blogger. Getting subscribers, attracting thoughtful comments, reaching a target of earnings, and establishing a reputation as an industry expert are only a few examples of possible performance benchmarks that you might use. Pinpoint your own measures of blogging success. This exercise provides concrete facts on which to assess how well you’re doing, rather than having to rely on your own opinion and impatience.

Successful blogging also requires a considerable investment of your time. While we’d all love quick wins, overnight success is rare. It’s much more realistic to assess your blogging activities over a period of at least six to 18 months, rather than a few weeks. Adopting a longer-term view relieves the pressure on you to meet an overambitious deadline, and lessens the likelihood that you’ll become depressed when you fail to meet it.

Beating self-doubt as a new blogger

We’re most vulnerable to self-doubt at the beginning of our blogging journey. When you feel a lack of belief in yourself, take time to identify the knowledge and skills you need, as well as the practical steps you can take to overcome that doubt. Have a browse through the archives here on ProBlogger to get ideas and encouragement.

Your loyal readers of tomorrow will appreciate that you stuck around and persevered…

Have you faced any self doubts as a new blogger? How did you beat those doubts to keep on blogging? Please share your experiences in the comments section. Let’s encourage each other!

Scott McIntyre aims to encourage ordinary people to do great things every day. You can learn how to live a colorful life—right now—at Vivid Ways. You can also add color in your life by following Scott on Twitter.

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15 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Blogging

I built my first blog back in 2005, and today a large part of my online income is generated from my blogs. Over these years I made many mistakes and figured some things out. Below you’ll find 15 of them.

1. The domain name matters

When I started blogging I didn’t pay much attention to the domains of my blogs. As a result I ended up with some long and boring domains (e.g., FutureTechWeb.com, which was my first tech blog). This is a big mistake because the domain is one of the few factors you won’t be able to change.

The rule of thumb I use these days is to look for domains with two words, branding potential and a .com extension. If I wanted to start a soccer blog, for instance, I would consider domains such as SoccerHub.com, SuperSoccer.com and so on. Most of the times I am also willing to spend some money on the domain (e.g., $200-$500), because finding available ones that fit the above requirements is tough.

2. Quality is more important than quantity

As you can guess by the name of this blog, I have always been a big fan of quantity when it comes to content creation. Over the years, however, my opinion has changed a bit.

I still believe that you need to update your blog regularly if you want it to be come popular, but quality should be your first priority. If you only have two hours to spend writing content every week, for example, I would recommend you to spend all the time writing a single, high quality post, instead of writing four small posts to be published on different days.

3. It is about the readers, and not about yourself

If you are blogging as a hobby, then writing about whatever you feel like is fine. If you are trying to build a popular blog and to eventually make money with it, however, you need to be more conscious about the type of content you’ll publish.

More specifically you need to understand that your content should be appealing and interesting to your readers above all, and not to yourself. It’s about them, and not about you.

4. Social media can be a waste of time, too

Social media certainly became a buzz word over the past years, and people seem to think that they need to have a presence and be active on every single social media site out there. I joined the bandwagon for a while, but then realized I was just wasting my time.

I am not saying social media is useless, but that you need to have the right approach to it, else you’ll just waste your time. For instance, instead of joining every single social network out there join one or two at most, where you think your target readers/customers hang out, and where you think you’ll be able to add value and build real relationships.

5. The Pareto principle applies to anything, blogging included

I have a degree in Economics, so I learned about the Pareto principle years ago. It basically states that for many events and things in life, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. For example, 80% of the land in the world is owned by 20% of the people, and 80% of the revenues on most companies come from 20% of the customers.

After some years I realized that the Pareto principle also applies to blogging. This means that 80% of your results (e.g., traffic or revenue gains) will come from 20% of your blogging activities. What are these activities? Writing quality content and promoting that content. If you focus on these, the rest will come naturally.

6. You need a community around your blog

Apart from writing quality content and promoting that content, there is one more activity that is very important for your blog, and that is community building. It’s important because without a community your blog will not be a blog, but rather a website with some articles.

Your community will enrich your content (through comments and email feedback), keep you motivated, help to promote your blog by spreading the word and so on.

Practically speaking this means that you should engage your readers with your content (e.g., by using polls, surveys, asking questions and so on), and that you should interact with them as often as possible (e.g., via comments, email, Twitter and so on).

7. Having an email list is essential

When I started, around 5 years ago, I didn’t know what email marketing was. After two years or so I started joining the email list of other marketers, but until then I had not considered building my own.

It was a big mistake.

A responsive email list is one of the most valuable assets you can have. And mind you that you won’t be using it to spam people, but rather to deliver quality content that will solidify your relationship with your subscribers.

8. Giving away free stuff works like a charm

Over the years I have tried many types of promotions, from interviews to viral videos and linkbaits. One technique always seemed to work, though, and it was giving away free stuff.

I have given away WordPress themes, ebooks, plugins, and more recently my entire Internet marketing training program, and the results I got always exceeded my expectations. If I knew this back in the day I would have used it more often.

9. You need to think about the business model

If you want to make money with your blog, you need to start thinking about your business model right away. That is, you need to have an idea or a plan regarding how you’ll produce value, and how you are going to get paid for that.

Having this clear in your mind will help you craft your content, target the right readers, design your blog around your goals and so on.

10. Selling ads is not the best business model

When people start blogging they believe that the best, if not the only way to make money with it is by selling ads. This is not true.

Selling ads might be the easiest way to make money with a blog, but it’s definitely not the most profitable one.

On most niches selling your own product will be the most profitable model you can have, followed by selling other people’s products (i.e., affiliate marketing), so make sure to consider these at least.

11. Shared hosting sucks

When I started my first blogs I obviously went with a shared hosting plan, and since I couldn’t compare it with anything else I thought it was a decent option.

A couple of years later I moved to a dedicated server, and only then I realized how bad shared hosting plans are. The slow loading speeds, the downtimes, the security holes created by other users on your server….

I know we all must start on shared hosting, but as soon as your blog start making some money (e.g., $300 per month or so), consider investing half of that into a dedicated server.

12. Checking your stats daily is pointless

When you build your first website or blog you start checking your stats at least daily (some people go further and check them hourly….). Every new visitor is a joy, and a sign that you are doing something right.

The problem with this is that you are wasting time. Every minute you spending checking your stats is one fewer minute you have to work on actually get more visitors. On top of that daily fluctuations might give you the wrong idea of what is going on.

My advice would be to check your stats monthly.

13. It takes persistence

Everything happens really fast on the Internet, and when you start building your first websites you figure that they will sky rocket (both in terms of traffic and revenues) within a couple of months.

The reality is quite the opposite. While it’s possible, very few websites become popular or profitable before one or two years. If you want to play the game, therefore, come with the right expectations, else you’ll get frustrated and quit too soon.

14. Choosing the right niche is important

Choosing the right niche is critical if you want your blog to become popular and profitable. Sure, you should follow your passion (as you probably heard around…), but you should also make sure your niche is big enough to generate the kind of revenues you are aiming for.

Also remember that some niches will always be more profitable than others, regardless of their sizes. That is because people inside those niches actually buy stuff, so money circulates more freely.

15. Learning the technical part helps a lot

The Internet technology has advanced so much that today anyone can build a blog or website in 5 minutes, with no technical knowledge whatsoever. As long as you know how to read, you are good to go.

This is certainly a positive thing, as it democratizes the access to information and to publishing.

If you want to make a living online, however, it would be a good idea to spend some time learning the technical part. Start with HTML/CSS, and if you have time try learning JavaScript, PHP and MySQL.

Over to the Readers

What about you? What do you wish you knew when you started blogging?

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Speaking The Language of Money

How to make cash on the multilingual web.

The internet offers a myriad of money-making opportunities for those with the guile and grit to make things happen. But in an increasingly competitive market, with literally billions of web-pages flooding the so-called cyber-highway, how can budding businesses and entrepreneurs get one-up and put themselves at a competitive advantage?

English and the Global Web

Well, the Web – by its very definition – is global. And that means anyone from Alabama to Albania can tap in and follow your every word online – but only if they can understand what you’re saying.

Language is one of the last remaining barriers in creating a truly global web. Many people may be deterred from looking beyond an English-speaking audience, by the simple fact that they don’t speak another tongue.

But even if you genuinely only want to target English-speaking audiences, there are measures you can put in place to ensure your website is as accessible as possible to English-speakers across the world.

For example, an internet user in London may not understand many colloquialisms and culture-specific references of a website in Louisiana. The point is, to ensure your website appeals to as broad a global demographic as possible, there are simple steps you can take to ensure the millions of internet users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are all engaged by your online offering.

Simply put, you need to write with the world in mind.

And English, of course, is also one of the many official languages of India, spoken by a large proportion of the population.

With internet penetration in India at less than 10% of the population, it may seem foolish to even begin thinking about Indian audiences on the Web. But there is more than a billion people living in India, so even 8% amounts to about a hundred million people – roughly the same as Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands collectively.

Money talks...many languages!

But English will only get you so far on the Web. Only a quarter of the Earth’s population speak English…the vast majority of whom do so as a second language – Asia alone accounts for 40% of the world’s internet users. So by tapping into international markets online, you open yourself to over a billion more people.

How machines can help

If you happen to speak Spanish because your grandmother used to babysit you when you were a kid, then you should be in a pretty good position to offer bilingual versions of your blog/website. However, do you really have the time to translate all your text into another language? It can be time-consuming enough to write it in English in the first instance, without having to write it again.

Free translation tools such as Google Translate can actually be quite good for ‘general gist’ translations, and if you’re not too bothered about offering 100% grammatically correct text across multiple languages, this isn’t all that bad an option.

For this, you have two options. You can either pre-machine translate your text so that the text is good to go for anyone who happens upon your website from outside the English-speaking world; you can even set your site up so that it automatically detects the country of origin of the user, so your site defaults to the language of that country.

Or, you can install a widget on your site which enables users to translate the text with the click of a button – this gives added flexibility, given that many international visitors may speak English perfectly well and they may prefer to read your text in its original form.

To improve the likelihood of hitting a good machine translation, you need to think about how you write the English text. Machine translation tools such as Google Translate aren’t smart enough to understand jargon or colloquialisms – so you may want to avoid having a ‘swell’ time and perhaps consider having a ‘good’ time instead.

Also, English has a tendency to use many different words to depict the same notion. For example, ‘hound’, ‘mutt’ and ‘dog’ all mean the same thing, so you’re best sticking with the most obvious option if you want to hit a good machine translation. And verbs can often be used as nouns…even in the same sentence: “I’m going to race in a race”

You can construct your English text in such a way that it’s less likely to hit a bad machine translation: so a ‘one word, one meaning’ approach can definitely help you on your way to a new found wealth on the web, whilst avoiding slang will help too.

However, with machine translations, there is still likely to be some errors creeping in and it may not give you the creative flexibility you crave on your site. So you may want to consider pre-machine translating your text and then use a native translator to simply check/proofread it for accuracy and style. Or, if you happen to speak the target language, you can even do it yourself.

This helps maintain the creativity dexterity of your English-language blog, whilst also ensuring any colloquialisms are suitably localized for your target audience.

Multilingual SEO

Of course, the key to succeeding online lies in being visible. There’s no point having the world’s most attractive website in umpteen different languages, if nobody can find your site.

Multilingual SEO deserves an article to itself, so I’ll keep this brief. The one golden rule when optimizing your site for international markets is NEVER translate your keywords into other languages.

So, if you happen to rank highly for ‘Affiliate Marketing’ on Google.com, you’ll need to research the keywords from scratch to ensure you rank highly on Google.fr or Google.de for the equivalent term. A correct, dictionary translation may not be what people use to search online with locally, they may use synonyms, abbreviations, colloquialisms…any number of variations on what even a professional translator would consider to be an accurate adaption.

Good luck…now go forth and prosper!

About the Guest Author
Christian Arno is founder of international localization company Lingo24. With 130 full-time employees spanning three continents, and clients in over sixty countries, Lingo24 is on course for a turnover of $6m USD in 2010.

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Nielsen Numbers Glitch Results in Low Traffic Numbers

When it comes to online marketing, traffic is everything. It determines what marketers pay per click, which web sites get which ads, and if traffic is low enough, it may keep a site from getting ad dollars at all.

That’s why the latest faux pas from The Nielsen Company may be bigger than it seems. On Thursday, the company sent out a note to all of its clients saying they had been undercounting traffic for the past three months.

The problem was one of long URL’s. One’s with more than 2,000 characters as a matter of fact. They found that their system wasn’t recognizing these URL’s all the time resulting in an estimated 22% decline over the prior year.

Long URL’s have become increasingly popular – just look at a Facebook URL after you’ve been moving around the site awhile. And URL’s from email and RSS feed clickthroughs can be enormous.

Nielsen says the problem will be corrected by December in time for the first reports delivered in January 2011.

A headache for everyone involved, for sure, but I’m not here to point fingers. Nielsen believes this issue happened because the Internet is changing at a pace that’s hard to keep up with. Here’s a quote from the letter:

“The extraordinary changes and complexity of how the Internet is used warrants our increased attention to help the entire industry mature with a trusted source of data.”

What everyone needs to take away here is that it’s easy to get complacent. We have systems that work so we sit back and assume they’re still working a year later. But the reality is, that through no fault of any human being, systems break because the way we move around the Internet has changed.

So take a few minutes tomorrow and look at your analytic software, compare what you’re seeing to other measuring tools to see if you can spot any glitches. Look at the clickthrough and sales reports that come in on your ad placements. Make sure your Adsense accounts are still functioning.

Don’t just assume the numbers are right. Make an appointment every few months to make sure they’re right so you can correct issues before they turn into big problems.

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Highlight Your Blog Content and Increase Comments

One of the biggest factors for the success of a blog, is how many comments you can average per post. It's not all about what you have to say, but how other interact and leave their feedback as well. A new wordpress plugin called "Highligher", allows you to highlight any content and on a blog and leave a comment on it.

You can see the plugin in action on the screenshot below from the Highlighter.com web site. Also, congrats to the UBD team for securing such an awesome domain name... wonder what they paid for it!

The "Highlighter" wordpress plugin is free to download. In addition to leaving comments, you can also share via Facebook, Twitter and through Email. I currently have this plugin enabled on the blog for a few days for everyone to test out and see how it works. Simply highlight any text on this page and the plugin will show what options you have, which are to leave a comment or share with others. It's a pretty cool concept, but I think it would take a lot of training and awareness to get blog readers to catch on to the concept.

Once you download the Highlighter plugin, you have a lot of customization and settings which can easily be accessed through Wordpress. There is also some features for adding to your mailing lists through Aweber and other providers, managing comments and ways to change the highlight colors, look and feel. Unique Blog Designs is also running a promotion where you can win a free Apple iPad if you just blog about their latest plugin.

Download Highlighter Plugin.

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