Wednesday, February 9, 2011

5 Steps a Newbie Blogger Never Misses

Blogging is an exciting thing. Even more exciting is being a newbie blogger. Every matured living being passes few stages before becoming so. For instance, there is a single cell stage, an embryo, new born, child, teen and so on. Similarly every blogger is a newbie before becoming a matured blogger. And there are certain stages every newbie blogger passes through. Here I discuss 5 stages every newbie blogger comes across.

1. Excited blogger

This is the very first step of every newbie blogger. He/She cannot miss the initial excitement when starting to blog. It won’t be inappropriate to call it over-excitement. In this over-excited state, a newbie blogger can go as crazy as he/she can.

For instance some or all of the following things can happen: Purchasing bunches and bunches of cheap domain names, starting blogs at every profitable niche prevalent in the world, posting three or four times a day, downloading all plugins and installing them (and getting screwed), downloading all free ebooks (or literally anything available in pdf format) that talks about blogging and so on. The list is not exhaustive. Even more crazy things can happen.

At this stage, the blogger is either excited about his/her own blog or even sometimes excited about an A-lister blog.

2. The stat checker

The first thing every blogger does after launching a blog, even before publishing a single post, is to check stats. That is purely human nature to be curious about who is visiting the blog. But this curiosity takes over everything else at the earlier stages of blogging.

Checking stats becomes the blogger’s irresistible thing. Even without concentrating on writing blog posts, even without worrying about the design and the misaligned pages of the blog, even without taking into account that it has been just one week after the blog has been launched, the blogger couldn’t resist himself/herself checking the stats every hour.

When there is one new visitor since the last check that is a great motivation. But if there are no visitors to the blog, which is what is to be expected at this stage, the blogger becomes disappointed and frustrated. This is a big factor that greatly affects the development of the blog, especially at its initial stage when extra care and effort are needed to build the blog without worrying about the stats.

3. The monetization phobic

The blogger at this stage does Google searches (hundreds of them) to learn about all types of monetization techniques for a blog. PPC, CPC, CPM, PPM, ABC or XYZ… whatever! The blogger ruthlessly reads about all sorts of advertising.

He/She struggles hard to get an Adsense account approved. If this step doesn’t turn out to be successful, then the blogger Googles for “Adsense alternates”. As always there are a bunch of them available. So the blogger starts accounts in all of those advertising websites, puts all those banners on the blog and BOOM! One gets a beautiful site that has misaligned banners which blink, change colours, flash kisses at you and sell you stuff.

That is not all. There are places where one can do direct selling of ad banners. There are also in-text ads, strip ads, interstial ads, you name it. The blogger sincerely tries them all out and gets frustrated to see that the earning for the past three months is $0.50.

4. Endless learner

This is when the excitement in down a little bit. The blogger’s focus is now not on writing for their own blog(s) but to know what others are writing about. That is good, but it is actually over done or done endlessly.

The blogger starts reading a killer article about “how to blog successfully” from a A-lister blog; the article ends and there are a bunch of related posts. Oh there is that interesting post about “how to earn $1000 dollars from your blog in less than a month” and that article gets a click. This goes on and on- reading comments, related posts, about the products the A-lister is offering and so on.

And, now the blogger looks at his/her clock when it is almost mid-night. He/she feels so tired and hence goes to bed. Great!

5. Stat-free minded blogger

This is the stage when the newbie blogger becomes a matured blogger. I call him/her matured blogger not because his/her blog is now getting 10000 page views per day but the blogger is very well aware of what blogging is really about.

The blogger exactly knows what it takes to develop a good blog, what it is about to write quality content, what are the factors that are to be taken care of at this stage of blogging, and what are the things that are not to be taken care of.

The blogger now knows that blogging is not about building it, forgetting it and earning while snoring. It is about developing a good quality blog which has useful and valuable content, developing trust and good relationship with the readers, maintaining the motivation at a consistent level and sticking to it without worrying about anything else.

How about you when you were or are a newbie?

About the author: Jane Sheeba is the one behind FindAllAnswers.com where you can find helpful articles on Self Improvement, Relationships and Blogging tips. She writes articles passionately since 2007.

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How to Troubleshoot WordPress

This guest post was written by Neil Matthews, a WordPress consultant at WPDude.

Over the years, I’ve developed a troubleshooting methodology while working with my WordPress technical support clients.  My methodology helps  to solve the majority of WordPress crashed sites I’ve come across, and I wanted to share it with you, the good readers of ProBlogger.

I cannot claim that I invented the process, but I have brought together a number of useful tips from the WP community and combined them to create a repeatable and verifiable way to isolate and troubleshoot WordPress problems.

The process

This methodology isolates the various layers of a WordPress site one at a time, tests a layer by removing its component parts, and then, if the problem still exists, moves down to test the next layer.

Once you have isolated the problematic component, you can remove it from your site and troubleshoot the problem itself.

I recommend doing this in a slow and ordered manner, incrementally testing each layer as you go. Look at a layer, disable all of the components, and slowly restart them to find out where the problem lies.

The layers

I like to divide WordPress into four layers:

  • plugins
  • theme
  • WordPress core
  • database.

This methodology looks at the first three layers only.

What can this process fix?

This methodology can be used to fix a variety of WordPress issues including, bit not limited to:

  • the dreaded “white screen of death” where all you can see is a white screen and nothing else
  • “Header Already Sent” errors
  • “Fatal Plugin” errors
  • “Out of Memory” errors
  • …many other WordPress problems, too.

Back up first

Even if your site has crashed, it’s important to stop, take a moment, and back up your site as it is now.  You are about to embark on a journey which will make a lot of changes to your site.  Taking a backup of the site as it stands means you can fall back to your starting position if you need to, without making the situation any worse.

Troubleshooting plugins

I always start at the plugin layer when I’m troubleshooting a WordPress problem. In my experience, about 80-90% of system crashes are caused by plugin issues. This is because there are so many plugins (sometimes of questionable coding quality) available to WordPress site owners.  Combining these plugins with other plugins, themes, and WordPress itself creates an untested mix that can very easily crash your site.

This is how I troubleshoot plugins:

  1. Disable all plugins.
  2. Has the problem gone? If it has, you have an issue at the plugin layer, if not, move down to next layer the theme.
  3. Re-activate plugins one at a time.
  4. Test your site after each reactivation. Has the problem returned? If so, you have now found the suspect plugin: go to point 5. If not, rinse and repeat from point 3.
  5. Disable that plugin.
  6. Re-activate the other plugins to ensure you don’t have multiple plugin problems.
  7. If the problem is still cleared, you have isolated and remove the problem. Go to the Getting Support section below.

Sometimes plugins cause such a problem that when you try to log into the dashboard to disable them, all you get is the same error message. If you cannot log into the dashboard, all is not lost: I have a work-around for you.

What you need to do is connect to your site via FTP and navigate to the wp-content folder.  If you rename the plugins directory, to plugins_temp for example, WordPress no longer knows where the plugin files are, and stops running them.  Now if you try to log in to the site, you’ll find that the issue has probably gone.

If you then proceed to the Plugins section in your Dashboard, you will see an error message that the plugin files cannot be found and have been disabled. Rename plugins_temp and you plugin files will be available again. Now, incrementally start from point 2 above to see which one caused the problem.

Troubleshooting themes

Once you have tested the plugins to rule them out, you need to move down a layer to the theme. This is how I troubleshoot themes:

  1. Disable the current theme.
  2. Activate a default theme such as Twenty ten.
  3. Test. If the problem has gone, you know the theme is causing issues. If not, move down to the WordPress core layer.
  4. Re-activate all of the plugins individually to make sure there is not a composite problem. If the problem doesn’t recur, you’ve isolated the theme as the problem area.

Next, I’d try to rule out any changes I’d made to the theme by removing any code I had recently added. If I have updated the theme, I’d roll back to a previous version. If I have just added a new widget, I’d try to back this out.  As you can see, the process is all about back-tracking methodically so you can repair the issue.

Again, if you cannot log into the dashboard there is a work-around. Connect to your site via FTP, and navigate to the wp-content/themes directory. If you now rename your currently live theme directory to themdir_temp for example, WordPress won’t know where the theme files are. All you’ll see at the front end is a white screen, but the dashboard will be available. Go to point 2 above and activate a default theme.  Remember to change the name of themedir_temp back to themedir to help troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting WordPress Core Files

The last layer to check are your WordPress core files.  This is the last layer because it is the least problematic, but I have seen incidents where files have become corrupt, stopping WordPress from working correctly.  The easiest way to troubleshoot WordPress core files is to re-install a clean copy.

This is my process for troubleshooting WordPress core files:

  1. Download a clean version of WordPress from http://wordpress.org/download/.
  2. Connect to your site via FTP.
  3. Rename wp-admin and wp-includes to ensure you are uploading clean copies of these directories.
  4. Back up wp-config.php just in case. This files holds your database connection details (amongst other things).
  5. Upload your clean version of WordPress.
  6. Test. Is your issue fixed? If so, you have isolated the problem at WordPress core. If not, it’s time to call in the experts.
  7. Re-activate your theme and test it.
  8. Re-activate your plugins and test them.

Fixing the component

At this point, you have hopefully isolated the component of your site that was causing issues.  So what do you do now?  Here are your options:

  • Visit the plugin or theme developers’ site and check to see if they have a support forum to search or request support from. Any developer worth his or her salt will be only too happy to provide support, and premium plugins and themes should provide top-class support as part of your fee. Remember to be nice to them if it’s a free theme or plugin and they don’t reply in five minutes.
  • Find a replacement for the plugin or theme. There is usually more than one implementation of a plugin, so if you can, swap out the problematic plugin with another one.
  • Request some support from http://wordpress.org/support/. This is excellent for core WordPress problems, and you will often find forums for individual plugins there, too.
  • Set the social media monster to work on your problem. Sometimes it’s as easy as sending out a tweet to your network to find a solution to the problem.
  • Get the pros in—hire a WordPress technical support team or consultant to solve your problem.

Wrap up

I use this methodology on a daily basis—it’s proven in the field on crashed sites.  The key is to methodically work through the layers, eliminating as you go, until you find the root cause. Then, fix that issue.  Remember to constantly test, though, because sometimes there are composite problems with multiple plugins, or the theme and a plugin.

Do you have any WordPress bug horror stories you can share? Who solves your site’s bugs and problems—is it you?

Neil provides WordPress technical support services at WPDude.com. He has also created a mini video course on this methodology over at wptroubleshooting.com.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A Question of Money-back Guarantees and Marketing Your Online Products

_wp-content_uploads_34_gold_guarantee.jpgOver the last 12 months, I’ve continued to shift some of my own online business activities to producing products to sell on my blogs (I wrote about some the process here).

This has been a profitable move for me, but has also been one that has meant making a fairly significant mind shift in the way that I operate. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to describe it as a series of smaller mind shifts.

I’m not alone—in talking to many bloggers who are making a similar transition, I’m seeing a number of questions come up again and again that indicate to me that we’re all having to jump over the same hurdles.

One of those hurdles is money-back guarantees.

I spoke with a blogger just yesterday about this—they shot me an email asking whether they should offer a guarantee on their ebook’s sales page. Their concern was that in offering a virtual product which could not be physically returned people would take advantage of the guarantee: they’d pay for the product, download it, and then ask for a refund to get what would end up being a free ebook.

I remember wondering the same thing when when I created my own sales pages for the first time. Is offering a money-back guarantee on a virtual product simply setting yourself up to be ripped off?

Answering the question of money-back guarantees

Lets start out by saying that you will certainly find that a very small percentage of people will probably take advantage of this refund to get a free product. I’ve been selling ebooks for a couple of years now and in the times I’ve been asked for refunds I’ve certainly suspected a handful of people doing this—but it’s a very very small minority.

Here’s what I’ve seen when it comes to refunds on my own ebooks. In the last two and a half years, I’ve sold around 40,000 ebooks here on ProBlogger and on Digital Photography School. I don’t have an exact figure on how many refunds have been requested and given (we refund 100% with no questions asked), but I would estimate that the number is less than 100—at the most it’d be 150.

The majority of those refunds have been requested for genuine reasons:

  • from readers who thought they were buying a real book, not a downloadable file
  • from readers who felt that the ebooks were too advanced or too easy for them
  • from readers with download problems (e.g. those on dialup)
  • from readers who accidentally brought two books.

You can tell that many of the requests are genuine from the way that the customers approach the refund; you can see for yourself that others are genuine (in that, for example, they didn’t attempt to download the product). Either way, refunded sales make up around a quarter of 1% of my total sales. They’re not very significant.

Also keep in mind that even if someone does request a refund with the intent of getting a free ebook, it doesn’t actually cost you anything more than a moment for you to process a refund. That’s a sale you’d never have had anyway, and if the person actually does read the ebook, they may just become a fan if what you’ve written is worthwhile.

On the flip-side I think offering a money-back guarantee comes with some pluses.

1. A money-back guarantee removes a barrier to purchase

I know for a fact that at least a proportion of my readers buy my ebooks because they know that if they don’t like them, they can get their money back. I regularly receive emails, see tweets, and get comments on posts from readers explicitly saying that they liked the idea of being able to taste and see before being committed to the purchase.

2. A money-back guarantee can help build trust

The web is a place where people are rightly suspicious. Having a money-back guarantee doesn’t automatically make people trust you, but it can help to build trust. Your guarantee is an indication to people that you’re not just after their money, but are interested in providing them with value.

Also, by issuing money back guarantees quickly and without any strings attached, you’re building a relationship with those who do seek them. Of the 100 or so refunds that I’ve given over the last couple of years, I often get emails back from people who are impressed with how easy it was, showing relief that I’m trustworthy, and at times indicating that they’re going to buy another product of mine that’s more appropriate to their needs.

I’ve also had quite angry and unsatisfied customers who emailed with dissatisfaction turned around when I offered to refund their money. I often communicate to readers who complain that I’d rather them be satisfied and happy with my company and not have their money, than have them unhappy and have their $20. I’ve also seen people publicly tweet or leave comments about how my sites are trustworthy because we issued refunds.

Refunds are an opportunity to build trust and goodwill with customers and readers.

3. Money-back guarantees differentiate you from the competition

Not everyone offers a guarantee (at least, not everyone promotes that they do). This provides an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself from the competition.

This was illustrated by an email that I received from a reader of dPS recently who told me that they’d bought our new ebook instead of a real, hard-cover book from Amazon because they saw our refund policy and didn’t feel that they’d be able to return a real book to Amazon.

If a person has the choice of two products (virtual or real) and one will give the buyer a refund if they’re not satisfied, it could just be that guarantee that gets that customer over the line.

4. Money-back guarantees drive you to produce value

One of the side-effects of offering a money-back guarantee is that it keeps you accountable to your readers and customers. I remember having this conversation with an author who was in the process of writing an ebook several months ago…

Author: I’m worried about offering a money back guarantee. Won’t that lead to lost sales?

Me: It could, but most people only ask for it if they’re genuinely unhappy with the product.

Author: I guess that means I better make it good!

While I’m sure the author would have done a good job one way or another, he expressed to me six months later, after the ebook was launched, that our short exchange had motivated him to put extra effort into developing his ebook. The threat of lost sales made him more accountable to his potential customers.

Why guarantees are worth it

Summing up, I offer money back guarantees of my info products because:

  • they don’t cost me anything
  • they do lead to higher sales
  • they do help me build trust and relationships with readers
  • I think it’s a good business and ethical way to be
  • they keep me accountable to deliver value to those who buy them.

Ultimately, I want those I interact with online to get value and I’d rather not have their money if they don’t feel that value is delivered.

P.S. There’s another factor to consider: if you’re using PayPal, you’re pretty much forced into giving refunds at times. Buyers can issue a dispute with PayPal within 60 days of a purchase and, in most cases, a refund is granted. I spoke with one ebook seller recently (who’s a lot bigger than me) who said that they couldn’t remember a time when PayPal had sided with them in disputes, and refunds were almost always forced on them by PayPal.

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Monday, February 7, 2011

Say Hello to the New ZacJohnson.com Genesis Blog Theme

Since going live with the blog nearly four years ago, I’ve also prided myself to have one of the best themes around. This not only means having a great theme, but also changing it up year after year, and hopefully for the better. The latest theme change is my favorite yet, which a much cleaner, faster and user friendly design. The new ZacJohnson.com theme is run off the Genesis Framework theme from StudioPress and was put together by one of their designers. Rafal.

You can see a comparison of past ZacJohnson.com blog themes below.

genesis framework

As you can see from the screen shots above, the design just kept progressing over time. The first theme was created mainly for content and was the launching theme for the site. The next release was the first test for monetizing the site, and the introduction of banner ads displayed on the site. The last version above was an amazing update, which leads us to the blog theme you see on ZacJohnson.com today. The first theme was created by a designer I used a while back, the previous two themes were created by Unique Blog Designs, and the new theme is from Genesis Framework.

I am proudly promoting Genesis Framework to all of my visitors, as it’s an amazing theme and the customization and design features are just amazing. If you are thinking about redesigning your web site, I would definitely approve of the Genesis Framework, and any other themes available through StudioPress. At the bottom of every post, before the comments, you will see the following:

ZacJohnson.com runs on the Genesis Framework

Genesis Theme Framework

The Genesis Framework empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress. Genesis provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.

Check out the incredible features and the selection of designs. It’s that simple – start using Genesis now!

Genesis Framework is more of a foundation for a blog, then a complete theme. You can buy Genesis Framework, then buy other themes at a much discounted rate to which work with Genesis. For more information on how Genesis Framework works, head over to StudioPress and they have a ton of examples and themes to work with. The StudioPress team were also amazing to work with, and I would recommend their services to anyone.

In addition to the new theme going live, I will be working on some new additions on the blog, including some new guides, wordpress themes area, tools references and more. Let me know what you think about the new blog theme. I love it!

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Is Your Low Social IQ Dooming Your Blog?

image of a switchboard

What’s wrong with my blog?

That’s a very frustrating question that many bloggers ask.

You’re passionate about your topic and you provide great advice to solve reader’s problems. You wrap up your posts with interesting questions, inviting readers to share their opinions in the comments. You offer clear calls to action

Unfortunately, no one seems to be listening. 

Post after post reveals no more than a handful of comments (and half of those are your own replies). Your subscriber numbers have flatlined. And forget fan mail, that showing up seems as likely as finding a tall glass of water in the desert. 

I hate to be the one to tell you, but the problem might not be your blog. The problem might be you.

Why bloggers need good people skills

Considering you don’t share the same room, or perhaps even the same continent with your readers, the vital need for interpersonal skills on your blog may be a bit puzzling. 

But as Jon Morrow points out, “Those traffic figures in your analytics account aren’t just numbers, they’re people.”

And people with high social intelligence are magnetic.

Have you ever noticed how popular bloggers have a knack for writing about their readers’ hopes and frustrations? Popular blogs sound like they were written just for you. The comments are filled with statements like, “This is just what I needed to hear,” or “Wow, I could have written those same words.”

Successful bloggers build the confidence of their readers, not just themselves. They create rapport by making readers feel valued, one person at a time. 

Good writing alone won’t drive people to subscribe, leave thoughtful comments, or share your material. Social intelligence is the currency of the blogosphere. In fact, it’s the key to good business too.

And the best part? It can be learned.

Sizing up your social IQ

In his book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success, Karl Albrecht highlights the five dimensions of social intelligence. The trick is understanding how to translate those often nonverbal dynamics into the text-based world of blogging. 

1. Situational Awareness Having situational awareness means you understand the social context of situations and respond appropriately. People missing this skill take phone calls in the middle of meetings or blast their car stereo while returning home late at night. They’re not purposely rude, just oblivious to the wants (and reactions) of others. In the online world, this is the equivalent of committing the blogging sin of boorishness.

Need help developing better situational awareness? Check out LaVonne Ellis and David Crandall’s Customer Love e-book.

2. Presence Presence is the ability to project confidence and self-respect, and as a blogger, it derives primarily from your voice. If you’re used to writing term papers or corporate vision statements, finding your writing voice can be tricky. When you get it right, it’s an extremely powerful way to build connections with readers.

3. Authenticity The blogosphere likes to talk about the importance of authenticity, but what is it really?  Albrecht calls it the “opposite of being phony.” Seth Godin describes authenticity as ”doing what you promise, not being who you are.” Many associate authenticity with revealing the person behind the ideas, like Corbett Barr’s blog post “33 Things I Never Told You.” For bloggers, authenticity is probably somewhere in between ideology and action. The point is to be genuine: express opinions you believe in, endorse products you use, and network with people you actually like.

4. Clarity How well you present ideas and influence others comes, in part, from your clarity. It’s a balance between knowing enough to be specific and having enough distance to speak directly. The classic advice is to explain a topic like you were speaking to your grandmother. This is particularly relevant for bloggers, who often assume their audience is social media savvy instead of the “average Grandma Minnie.”

5. Empathy Empathy involves understanding the experiences and motivations of another person. Looking for a topic that has viral potential? Want to invoke an emotional reaction to your post? Empathy is the cornerstone of social intelligence.

Creating the complete social intelligence package

The best way to improve your social IQ is to spend some quality time alone. After all, if you don’t understand your own motivations, how can you hope to predict the fears and desires of your readers? 

You’ll be surprised how hard this is.

I recently left a 20-year career in science. As I was evaluating new career options, I wrote down all the jobs I’d considered as a kid, before (I thought) society had imposed its expectations on me.

I’d always dreamed of becoming an actor. But the more I thought about it, I realized my interest in acting was more an interest in fame. I wasn’t actually very interested in joining a local theater company.

Many writers use journaling as an effective way to explore the undercurrent of their emotions. 

What’s the first thing you worry about when you wake up in the morning? If the doctor gave you three months to live, what would you do with the time? Why aren’t you doing that now? What makes you cry tears of joy? Why aren’t you doing that? 

This isn’t just advice for those woo-woo, self-help bloggers either.

Social media junkies are scared they’ll sell their soul to get 5,000 friends on Facebook and still won’t have anyone to call when they have a bad accident on the interstate. New tech users worry they’ll drop their iPhone on the subway platform and will never, ever re-create their contacts list.

That little voice whispering insecurities in your ear all day long? He’s a blogger’s best friend.

Listen to your insecurities carefully, then find a way around them. This will likely bring up more insecurities. Find a way around those too. 

Write about the solutions you find, with all the social intelligence you can muster.

You’ll not only be a better blogger, you’ll be a better person.

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6 Ways to Sell a Website, and 4 Ways Not to Sell One

This guest post is by 0Mathew Carpenter of Sofa Moolah.

It’s gotten harder and harder to generate a stable income as an affiliate over the past two years. From Facebook’s decidedly anti-affiliate mindset, to the lengthy list of regulations that search engines such as Google have released, generating stable, consistent, and stress-free paid traffic isn’t as simple as it once was. For thousands of affiliates, it’s been a major frustration and a potential business killer.

But alongside the “Google slaps” advertisement disapprovals and the massive flock to second-tier ad networks is a change in the mindset of many affiliates. Instead of focusing on the hustle of direct-response advertising, many successful affiliates and product owners alike are looking to search or socially-powered websites as a source of traffic, a source of sales, and as a source of income.

I’ve been following this same formula—alongside some other online business models—for the past few years, and while it’s far from the cash cow that a giant advertising campaign can be, it’s a form of income that’s significantly more reliable and steady. Advertising and sales checks from blogs and search-powered websites tend to be quite constant—at least more so than the average ad campaign.

Six steps to a successful site sale

These six rules—and four anti-rules—can help you develop and sell your own web properties, to generate a strong and reliable sideline income in addition to your main online venture. Despite the comfort of steady and recurring passive income, it’s often the case that you need short-term cash to fund other websites or advertising projects. In that case, be sure to put these six tips for selling your website into action.

1. Understand your website’s long-term value in advance

The average sales price of a successful website tends to range from six to ten times its profit on a monthly basis. While this can sound fairly hefty—particularly for a website that generates several thousand dollars monthly—it’s really a fraction of the type of value assigned to offline businesses.

Think about Facebook’s current valuation—the ludicrously high $50 billion. Does this reflect the website’s current earnings? No. While the website is profitable by all accounts, it’s far from those levels of profitability. The valuation reflects the website’s long-term value—something that can be applied to your own websites too.

So instead of thinking in terms of short-term revenue for your website and monthly profit, think in terms of your website’s potential for revenue growth over time. If you’re trying to sell a site that’s a real social media hit, for example, or a website with a growing search presence, use this potential as an indicator of its value and price it accordingly.

2. Know your audience, and know how to sell them

The biggest mistake I see being applied to website sales is one that’s repeated in almost all aspects of online marketing: using the same tactics for very different audiences. Just as you’d use different sales tactics to sell a car than you would to sell a bag of candy, you need to use different tactics to sell different types of websites.

Know your audience, and understand how they’re going to respond to your website auction. On one of the bigger marketplaces like Flippa, it’s important to remember that people value revenue data or profit information above anything else. For an independent website investor, information about your website’s potential for growth may be more important.

3. Research successful website sales before listing your own

When asked about how he acquires new skills quickly, productivity guru (and now fitness author) Tim Ferriss explained that it’s best to look at people who have achieved massive success in a short amount of time. It’s a philosophy that can be applied to everything from online marketing to selling your own websites, and it always produces good results.

Instead of going with your gut when deciding on how to present your website for sale, look at other websites that have achieved high sales prices in the past. What information do they disclose? Which sales tactics and pitches do they use to frame the auction? By reverse-engineering sales information from successful website auctions, you can vastly improve the results of your own.

4. Take steps to optimize profits before making a listing.

There’s nothing worse than seeing a website for sale that’s barely been optimized. From blogs that lack even the most basic advertising to affiliate websites that reek of poor conversion testing, if an online property hasn’t been optimized, it’s never going to reach its true value at sale. If your site is on the market without any profit optimization, you’re making a huge (and potentially costly) error.

Test different advertising networks, different ad creatives, and different affiliate offers on your site before you put it up for auction. Test different ad placement, different monetization methods, and a lengthy list of different lead capture strategies. Unoptimized (or poorly optimized) websites can be great deals for buyers, but they’re never a good option for you as the seller.

I’ve optimized many of the websites I’ve sold to increase profits by as much as 415% before making a sale. Small changes, particularly to the wording surrounding your call-to-action text or ad placement, can make a huge difference in the amount of income that your website generates.

5. Use a popular outlet that attracts the right audience

There are hundreds of auction sites out there that allow you to list your website, but only a select few are worth your time. The most popular is Flippa, which, despite its reputation for occasional shady websites, is actually the best option out there. I’ve sold two websites on Flippa for mid four-figure sums recently, one of which achieved an ROI of over four hundred percent.

Don’t, however, confuse a large audience with a good audience. If you own a website in a specific niche, for example, it’s almost always better to appeal to others in your niche directly instead of an all-purpose outlet like Flippa. As I said in step two, it’s important to know the type of people you’re marketing to, not just the amount of potential buyers that you have access to.

6. Minimize “fluff” statistics, and focus on the substance

“Fluff” statistics are, to me, information that’s impressive when explained in an auction, yet utterly meaningless when it comes to your website’s ability to generate income or influence change. The types of statistics I’m talking about are total pageview information—generally information that has no tie to real profitability—or data about how much traffic your website generates in total.

Instead of offering this type of information to potential bidders, highlight your website’s strengths and offer real data to buyers. Talk about how many unique visitors your website gets, your biggest traffic sources, and the value of a visitor to your website. “Fluff” statistics are only worth mentioning in one situation: your website is overvalued and you’re desperate to complete the sale quickly.

How not to sell your website

I’ve mentioned what you should do when selling your website. Now, it’s time to cover some of the most common errors that are made by those auctioning websites. While some of these tactics can help you, particularly if your website isn’t valuable, most will push away the types of buyers you want to attract. Ignore them at your own peril, as they’re definitely techniques to be avoided.

1. Load your auction with worthless data and needless hype.

Nobody cares about your blog’s unique design, its flashy navigation system, and the level of praise it has received from others in your niche. They do care about its potential for generating revenue or, in rare circumstances, its level of influence in its niche. In most cases, it’s best to leave subjective data such as critical praise or “best blog in ___” type feedback off your website’s auction page.

On the same note, don’t load your auction page with fifty-point red headers and sales copy. Look at rule two again—you’re marketing your website to other marketers. Instead of pulling out every last direct response trick in the book, offer information that’s of value to people. It’s very hard to sell to marketers, and it only gets worse when you employ the same tactics that they use on a daily basis.

2. Capitalize on temporary fads, short-term events, and crazes

I see this type of mistake all the time on Flippa. Marketers—typically newbies—buy a domain that is loosely related to the latest celebrity death, put up a generic two-page WordPress site, and think it could be the next big thing. These auctions tend to be loaded with potential-driven sales copy and an overwhelming contempt for their potential customers, all in an effort to make a quick buck.

Here’s what they all have in common: they rarely, if ever, make a decent profit. While the owners of these websites may make a few dollars on the sale, it’s rarely enough to even consider. The best type of website for onward sales is one that’s loaded with long-term potential, not some hyped-up spur-of-the-moment domain name.

3. List your website but make little or no effort to monetize it

The only thing worse than overselling a website, as above, is underselling it by failing to spend any time on monetization. This mistake is constantly be made on Flippa, although unlike many of these errors, which are made by newbies, it’s the professionals that tend to make this one. Always short on time and challenged by other projects, they list websites without even trying to monetize them.

Any signs of profitability—even a Google Adsense block atop your page—are a good thing for lifting your sales price. While websites occasionally sell based on their unrealized potential alone, it’s not at all a common occurrence. Take the time to test your website’s profitability level, and even when it’s not a winner, let people know that it’s at least capable of generating income.

4. Defining your website’s potential without thinking long-term

Browse any auction website and you’ll see descriptions where the merchant has been, shall we say, a little too optimistic about their website’s future. No, it probably won’t become the next Facebook, and no, it probably won’t triple its revenue in two months. While these examples take long-term prediction to its extreme, they’re a good indicator of how a little long-term thinking can help with your sales.

Website aren’t bought to immediately be flipped—at least, not in most cases. For the most part, they are bought as a fairly long-term investment (by online standards). Be upfront and clear about how your website is performing now, but don’t forget to include a description—even quite a salesy description—of how it could perform in the future.

Have you successfully sold a website before? If so, how did it go? Did you break even, lose money, or make a profit on the sale?

Leave your own experiences in the comments and let me know if you’ve got any suggestions on how to sell websites more effectively. I’ve seen plenty of very different techniques do well in this field, and it’s always an interesting to experience how well people are doing with less orthodox tactics.

Mathew Carpenter is an 18-year-old-business owner and entrepreneur from Sydney, Australia. Mathew is currently working on Sofa Moolah, a website that teaches you how to make money online. Follow Mathew on Twitter: @matcarpenter. Follow Sofa Moolah on Twitter: @sofamoolah.

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Sunday, February 6, 2011

A Second Look: 6 Types of Twitter Tools That Come in Handy

We go over so many tools here are Blogging Tips that many of them are often forgotten as they’re buried deeper into the archives.

Twitter ToolBox image via Mastermind Blogger.

I thought it would be nice to go over a few Twitter tools that are useful and definitely worth a second look. If you’re an avid Twitter user, it’s a good idea to use a tool from each of these categories to help with productivity, build your brand and get the most out of Twitter. Since this list only includes past posts from Blogging Tips, it will not address any new tools (which I’m sure there are many of) that may exist in each category; so feel free to add those additional tools in the comments!

Schedule Your Tweets

If you don’t have much time to spend on Twitter yet still want to appear active, 3 of the tools listed on 5 Ways to Schedule Your Tweets (2 are no longer available) can help you schedule future tweets. Scheduling tweets is also great for promoting a product or service. You can schedule 1-2 tweets per day for a certain amount of time, but just be sure to change up the wording as much as possible for each tweets. Twitvance is also a great tool for scheduling unlimited tweets.

Clean Out Your Followers

If you are following over 200 or even 100 people on Twitter, it’s just impossible to manually clean out your followers (ie. inactive users, spammers, etc). You’d have to go to the page of each user and then look at their tweets to see when the last one was posted and then check out what type of content their posting. No one has time for that! Luckily, there are lots of tools out there to help you clean out your followers. None of the tools listed on 4 Twitter Account Cleaners are still around, but the tools listed on Four More Twitter Account Cleaners along with Refollow are sure to come in handy.

Sift Through The Junk

Let’s face it, the amount of spam and shameless promotion on Twitter is getting out of hand. There is so much that it is often hard to find anything useful in your Twitter stream. After using one of the Twitter cleaners above it shouldn’t be so much of a problem, but just in case here are a few tools to help you filter through the junk and find the tweets that matter: Cascaad, TidyTweet and Filttr.

Shorten Your URLs

Most Twitter tools come with an integrated URL shortener, but surprisingly Twitter.com does not have that feature (yet). So if you are in need of a short URL or want to tool to help you condense URLs while browsing check out 9 Short URL Services and 8 URL Shorteners for Quickly Sharing Links.

Keep Up via Alerts

If you’re an extremely busy person, keeping up with Twitter can be impossible and hiring help is just out of the question for most. Having to login each day and look through thousands of tweets can be a pain and many users just give up from frustration. If you’re looking for a more convenient way to keep up with Twitter, then opting to receive alerts is a good idea. With TwitterAlerts you can receive notifications by SMS, email or IM for an unlimited number of keywords. If you want to keep up with specific users instead, I find that IFTTT handles that job quite well.

Backup Your Tweets

Lastly, you want to be sure that you are backing up your tweets on a regular basis. There is nothing worse than building up a Twitter account for a year or two and then losing it all (trust me, I know). Plus, there’s always something weird going on at Twitter and users often complain about missing tweets. You can save yourself the hassle by using one of these 10 Twitter Backup Tools for Preserving Tweets (plus 8 bonus options at the end). You know what they say, it’s better to be safe than sorry; make sure you’re safe!

(image source)

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