Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Free Top Ranking Keywords Report from SEO Link Wheelers

seo link wheelersOver the past few months I’ve been getting back into the game I love, and that’s focusing on building web sites and killer content. As much as I love building web sites, it’s never fun to work on the backlinks and social bookmarks it takes to truly get a web site indexed and getting the search engines to love you. With that said, I’ve been looking at a lot of different solutions for link building and bookmarking management.

I remember when I first paid a few hundred dollars for a company to help with building links and getting my site ranked in the search engines. It was complete crap… I rarely ever hear from them and I don’t recall seeing any results. This was around seven years ago, but it’s just a reminder of how horrible the link building industry can be if you don’t know where to go. With so many to choose from, how are you supposed to know where to go? One of the most trusted solutions around is SEO Link Wheelers, and they are actually heavily promoted and used by ShoeMoney as well.

How SEO Link Wheelers does Link Building

There are many different methods for link building, such as article marketing, social bookmarks, backlinks, using anchor text and forum posting. Trading links with other web sites may seem like a good idea, but one way backlinks is where the link juice really flows. Everyone has a different concept on what works best, but SEO Link Wheelers takes a bit of everything and builds actual “link wheels” to increase backlinks to their customers web sites. In addition to backlinks being spread across article directories, blogs, and web 2.0 directories, SEO Link Builders also creates original content and YouTube videos to build quality backlinks.

SEO Link Wheelers gives you a 100% guarantee that any links they build for your web sites will be Dofollow, all content will be relevant, unique, and created 100% by hand. The video below was created by SEO Link Wheelers to give a better understanding on how their service works, and why it’s important to cover all link methods when building the right link wheel for your web site.

What are Your Target Keywords?

Before even jumping into the SEO and backlinking game, you need to take a look at what your web site is ranking for and how you can improve your results. Head over to SEO Link Wheelers and submit your url into the box on their main page. You will quickly see a report with three of your top ranking searching terms. If you want the full list, just click the “Full Report” link and confirm your email, then you will have free access to a report like the one below.

seo link wheelers

This report is an excellent summary of how your web site is listed and ranking in the search engines. You will see up to 100 keywords and rankings, along with the average CPC, traffic volume and the url of your site that is ranked for that search term. This report is completely free to access. You then have the option to choose a link wheel package to improve your rankings.

Building Your Backlinks and Putting It All Together

Taking everything we’ve covered, SEO Link Wheelers will build a link wheel and campaign just for your web site and the keywords you are looking to rank for. With three different packages available, you can choose from 37 links ($379), 74 links ($479) or 119 links ($664). When you first look at these prices, they may seem high to you, but that is because SEO Link Wheelers is actually building a link wheel with original content just for your web site and backlinks… these aren’t just links thrown around on Twitter, Facebook and dead forums. The value in these links is that they are spread across high content sites with pagerank and original YouTube video is also created. You can see a breakdown of what links are included in each package below.

seo link wheelers

At the very least, I highly recommend you head over to SEO Link Wheelers and grab your free report on what search terms are sending you traffic. If you decide to signup for a backlinks package, be sure to use coupon code “ZACJOHNSON” for 12% off your first order with SEO Link Wheelers.

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your Blog Logo

This guest post is by Liane of the Blog Design Team.

After almost three years of blogging, and about the same time spent discovering my addiction to graphic design, I’ve come to realize that both of my passion go hand in hand. Blogging and design is a match made in heaven. And my favorite project to work on? Logos, of course.

Sure, I’ve made designs for both online and offline business, but when a blogger knocks at my mail box, I give them special priority. That’s because, in truth, designing a blog logo is one of the trickiest things to do. Of course there would always be clients who’re easy to deal with and just give me free reign in creating the design (not recommended!), but more often than not, bloggers are particularly nitpicky (as you should be) at every step in the process. And I don’t blame them. I’ve been there, done that—I actually used my previous blog as a guinea pig for countless logo experiments.

In this post, I want to cover all the bases with regards to designing a blog logo—from its importance to a blog, to the process of creating your own. Even if you’re already happy with the logo you have right now, who knows? Within the next few months or years, you might revamp your blog or create a new blog altogether—and then, this guide ought to be useful.

What’s the big deal with a blog logo?

I know a lot of non-believers out there. These bloggers do away with logos and rely on other branding techniques such as their name as a brand (e.g. the blogs of Seth Godin and Matt Cutts). These cases are exceptions to the rule. If you are Matt Cutts or Seth Godin, would you even need a logo to begin with? In reality, the blogosphere is split on this issue. While some bloggers consider their own logo a requirement for branding, for others, it doesn’t really add any value.

At the end of the day, I think it’s a matter of personal choice whether or not you think a logo is something you want on your blog. But eventually, most bloggers realize they need to have one to help build their blogs and their reputations, for a number of reasons:

Branding

Among the sea of blogs out there, being noticed can be a challenge—especially for new blogs. And it won’t make it any easier if you just leave your blog’s name in plain text as your header. A logo is also useful once you start developing products and services, as using a logo in your ebook or videos, for example, looks much more credible than just using your domain name.

Recognition

Blogs gain popularity the moment they’re recognized and remembered by an audience. This is where logos play an important role—they represent you, and make it easier for readers to connect to your blog.

Authority

Okay, maybe logo isn’t much of a factor to your authority. Though that doesn’t mean it should be completely set aside. In terms of authority, I think a good logo should act as an important symbol of your authority and credibility.

The makings of a great blog logo

There’s no concrete formula for creating a great blog logo.

Most of the time, it’s just the blogger’s and/or the designer’s discretion that comes into play. Being both a blogger and a designer gave me a good perspective on this issue, and based on the clients I’ve handled, these criteria have proven to be standard for every blog logo design.

A color scheme that works

Don’t just randomly use any color you believe is nice. Aside from the aesthetic value, remember that your logo has to be coordinated with your blog theme. Make sure you use not only the right color, but the right shade as well. Otherwise, it may seem a bit out of place or, as I said, uncoordinated.

There are some bloggers who do it the other way around: they start with a logo, then build their blog. I guess that makes you freer to conceptualize the logo. But of course, if this is the case, you have to consider the theme you plan on using for the blog anyway.

By the way, if you’re not good at making color schemes, try Adobe Kuler.

Good typography

Blog logos usually follow the symbol-and-text design style, since they’re also used as the header image. This is why you’ll need one good, stand-out, typographical font. Of course, the type of font that’ll be suitable will vary with your blog niche (personal blogs tend to have more artsy fonts, while professional blogs tend to go for bolder, simpler typefaces) and your personal preferences. I suggest that you steer away from complicated fonts like grunge or macabre options unless that’s really the image you want to portray.

An original concept

This might sound obvious, but you have no idea how often bloggers want to replicate a logo of an A-list blogger. Some of the bloggers who want to emulate a popular blog’s logo seem to think that, as a prerequisite to being great, you have to look like someone who’s already great. But really, when did someone ever achieve greatness through imitation?

Good resolution

Always ask for your logo to be created at high resolution. That you if you want to make it smaller, you can just resize the original logo. The trouble arises when the resolution is poor, the logo’s too small, and it gets pixelized every time you make it bigger. Not a good thing!

Conveys your blog’s or your personality

It’s easy to get carried away by designing for the sake of an awesome design. But never forget that your logo is not a painting: it’s there to serve a purpose, and that is to be a symbol of your blog.

On creating your blog logo

Okay, so now that we’re done with the reasons and essentials of logo-making, it’s now time to get into the meat of the story—making the logo itself. You have two ways to make this happen. You can either do it yourself and take full control over what happens to your logo, or hire a designer to do it for you.

Whichever way you choose, I have prepared a set of guidelines that’ll make the process a bit easier—or at the very least, familiar—so you’ll know what to do and what not to.

The do-it-yourself (DIY) logo guide

A cold, hard truth first: you’ll need, at the very least, basic design and editing skills to do this. In my experience, bloggers who goes this route either have no spare funds to pay for the design service, or they’re confident that they can create the logo without professional help.

If you have only the most basic design skills, don’t worry. Who says logos should be complicated, or loaded with effects? they don’t! Simplicity is your best asset. If you have average-to-above average design skills, lucky you! However, if you don’t have any knowledge at all in the field of design, don’t lose hope yet. There are many fool-proof design software products out there: just search for a few basic tutorials, and you’ll get the hang of it.

Here are the steps you’ll need to follow to design your own logo:

Step 1. Get hold of a Photoshop or a similar product

If you don’t have one, be resourceful and look for free online alternatives. Just Google for “free online alternatives for Photoshop” and you’ll soon find a ton of them.

Step 2. Conceptualize

What do you want your logo to look and feel like? If you’re stuck for ideas (like most clients I’ve met), it helps to check out competitor sites. Not that you should copy them, but this can help to get your creative juices flowing. Consider the elements of your design, the font you want to use, the colors you want to use, and even the logo’s dimensions—especially if you’ll use it as your header.

Step 3. Check for originality

This is the step even designers often forget. While this step is a no-brainer, it’s very important. You wouldn’t want to be accused of being a copy-cat, would you?

Step 4. Execute the design

This could be the hardest part, especially if you have no or little knowledge of design. Here’s a little tip though: create the logo one section at a time. Execute your symbol first, before you start thinking about the text, or vice versa. Make sure you use a good font. If you desire certain effects or elements, you can always Google for tutorials (it never fails to amaze me how people frustrate themselves with software when they could so easily just Google for a tutorial!).

Be sure to save the file every now and then. There’s nothing more frustrating about creating a design than losing unsaved changes, or worse: losing the whole file. Back-ups help too. Once you’re done, convert the logo to .png or .gif image files. These are the files that are best for use on the Web.

In creating your own design, you are obviously in full control of everything. The down-side is that your blog logo design is limited to your own designing ability (or lack thereof). Back when I ran a blogging tips blog, I never paid a cent to designers. I did everything on my own, and that’s how I acquired the skills of logo design. Who knows, you might end up on the same path too!

The hire-a-designer logo guide

If you don’t trust yourself with anything that has to do with art and design, I guess it’s best to leave these things in the hands of good designers. Of course, you’ll need to have some funds to take this route.

It’s a common misconception that hiring a designer means that you need to shell out hundreds of bucks. In reality, the competition in the design industry makes the pricing competitive. In fact, you can have your own professional logo designed for under $100. So really, if you believe a great logo is a great investment (which is true), then justifying the fee isn’t really an issue.

If you plan on hiring a designer, or using the services of a design company, here are a few pointers that you should consider:

Always check the designer’s portfolio samples

Designers often use a set of styles that can be seen in action through their portfolio. It’s best if you check their previous work to ensure that you can trust them to make your logo to a standard that you’ll be happy with.

Ask to see client testimonials

From a designer’s perspective, I’d say trust the portfolio more than the testimonial. We all know stories on how testimonials can sometimes be manipulated, though there are of course designers that have genuinely good feedback for their excellent service. Nevertheless, it’s at least a good thing to make sure that clients speak highly of the designer. If you can, see if you can find any familiar names (or research them) to make sure that the testimonials are authentic.

Read the design policy, and terms and conditions

How will the designer create your design? How fast will they design it? What are the packages or offerings involved? What are the terms for revisions? Before you order, make sure that you know how the designer operates and how much the finished product will cost you (watch out for hidden fees!). If it’s a good design service then you don’t need to dig around their pages to figure out how the process will work. It should be transparent.

When you order, be specific about details and/or instructions

There are still a number of clients out there who provide one or two sentences of “instructions” and then expect the designer to come up with a design that’ll blow their minds. Let’s face it: designers are not psychics! They only do what they’re told to do (because it’s all about what the client wants) and would hesitate to venture beyond those instructions. Of course, you can always say to your designer, “I’ll let you do whatever you want,” but that’s the most frustrating instruction ever! It’s always better if you have a clear vision for your logo. It makes our job easier, it speeds up the process, and it so much lessens the need for revisions.

If you can’t tell the designer what to do, at the very least tell them what not to do

Okay, so maybe you’re really out of ideas. There’s one thing a designer will at least be grateful for—if you remind him or her of the things you don’t want to see in your logo. Then at least they’ll be aware of the major no-no’s of the design and can avoid obvious mistakes.

For revisions, make up your mind, and be nitpicky

It’s stressful if a client keeps on changing his or her mind about the design. First, it’s counter-productive. But you’ll also be very lucky if the design service offers unlimited revisions—if not, ongoing revisions will likely cost you extra. Be detail-specific if you ask for revisions. Trust me: your designer will want to get the job done to your satsifaction as soon as possible.

Happy with your design?

Thank your designer, and give them a testimonial. Not happy with your design? Perhaps you’ve chosen a design service that offer a second concept re-design, or a 100% refund policy. Again, this explains why it’s better to pick design services that are credible, reachable, and accountable.

Put your logo first

Whether you design it yourself or hire someone to help, a good blog logo can deliver a lot of benefits in the long run. It doesn’t really have to be expensive—all that matters is that you get to build a symbol of what your blog is all about.

Last but not least, remember that logos do not posses any magical abilities, so don’t expect that having one will immediately catapult you to success. You need to work hard for your logo and brand to become known, not the other way around.

If you have any logo-making stories, insights, of nightmares, I’d love to here about them in the comments.

Liane (blogger of 3 years) is now the Founder and Team Head of the Blog Design Team, the design service behind every blog and blog businesses. And btw, she’s just 18 :) Follow her in Twitter @HeyLiane.

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5 Sales Email Myths that are Costing You Money

Recently, I worked with Darren on some sales content—including launch emails—for the release of a new product at DPS. That launch email was tested against another version written by a professional marketer in a split test before the launch. In (what was to me) a shock result, the email I’d written achieved:

  • 7.3% more opens (39.5% to 32.2%)
  • 4.8% more click-throughs (7% to 2.2%)

As we’ll see, this experiment busted five key sales email myths:

  1. Use call-to-action sales links in sales emails.
  2. We need to “sell” the customer on the product before they’ll click a link.
  3. A sales email should focus on a discount or offer.
  4. A sales email should overtly drive readers to action.
  5. Scannability is about bold font, bullet lists and subheadings.

First up, let’s look at the email.

—-

Subject: Wish you could take Gorgeous Photos, Every Single Time? Now You Can

Body:

Wish you could take gorgeous photos, every single time? Now you can.

Photo Nuts and Shots is your comprehensive guide to creative photography. And for a limited time, you can get 25% off the cover price!

If you know your way around your camera, and you’re ready to harness practical techniques to take stunning, evocative images, this 100+ page ebook is for you.

Over 9 down-to-earth chapters, professional photographer Neil Creek will show you how to:

  • harness light to convey emotion
  • know the rules of composition … and when to break them
  • take the sharpest possible photo every time
  • adapt the camera’s exposure to produce the shot you want
  • master the concepts of shot perception, planning, and execution — in any setting
  • tap into your unique creativity to take evocative photographs that reach out to viewers
  • be the best photographer you can be.

For full details, visit our Photo Nuts and Shots page.

This lush, inspiring, practical guide normally retails for $19.99 but for a limited time, you can secure a copy for just $14.99.

That’s 25% off!

Of course, you’re protected by a 60-day money-back guarantee, so if you don’t feel this detailed ebook has helped you become a better photographer, you can get a full refund.

For more information, and to order your copy today, visit Photo Nuts and Shots info page.

Darren Rowse

PS: Order Photo Nuts and Shots in the next week and you’ll also go into the draw to win a brand new Canon EOS T2i SLR camera and lens.  But hurry, time is limited.

One thing you’ll notice is the aspirational nature of the selling point here. This was an aspirational product, being sold to people who had an ambition. Also, the DPS audience members aren’t new to the Web—they’re comfortable with technology and this medium.

The other email we tested used an offer-based subject line that promoted the launch discount. While discounts certainly appeal to customers, this example shows that a discount doesn’t always have the pulling power we think it will. What works best always depends on your audience.

This email contains a number of audience-specific techniques that I’m happy to discuss in the comments if you like, but in this post, I really wanted to focus on the broader techniques that I think helped give this email—and could give any sales email—a solid head-start in the response rate stakes.

1. Tie the opening to the subject line

The first sentence of this email is identical to the subject line. I don’t think that’s necessarily ideal, but I do think your email has an immediate hook if your subject line identifies your key selling point, and your opening answers that point.

As I’ll explain in a moment, this email does achieve that “answer” in its opening. But what do I mean by “answer”?

In this context, an answer isn’t necessarily an answer—to a question, for example—although it can be. An answer is a secondary piece of information that actively and substantially supports the proposition contained in your subject line. Look at a book’s chapters and you’ll see that their opening paragraphs directly relate to, explain, and/or support their titles. You’re aiming to achieve the same thing, but in a sentence.

So, for example, it would be much stronger to follow this email’s subject line with an aspirational opening sentence than an offer-focused opening sentence. Why? Because the selling point in this version of the email is aspiration. The opening sentence needs to reinforce that positioning whole-heartedly.

2. Make the first word count

The first word in this email is “wish”. It’s a present-tense verb, it directly reflects the selling point (aspiration), and it’s sweet and non-spammy. Wish? Who doesn’t have a wish?

I could have started with “Do you wish” or “Have you ever wished”, but those sentences just push that crucial word—wish—further and further away. We have micro-seconds to catch potential customers’ attention. We need to cut to the heart of the matter.

That first word is valuable in itself from a positioning point of view, but as we’re about to see, it has much greater value than this alone.

3. Link to the sales page

The first link to the sales page appears on the second line of the email. It’s an informational link containing the name of the product.

The other email we tested included its first link to the sales page in the fifth paragraph, and the link text was a call to action: “Order your copy here.” In fact, that email had two links, and used the same call to action in both. As you can see, the email above does not use call-to-action link text.

I think this points to a couple of common misconceptions about writing sales copy:

  1. The first is that a call to action is the appropriate form of link text in sales copy.
  2. The second is that a reader needs to be told things—that you need to “sell” them on your concept—before they’ll be sufficiently convinced to click on a link. I think most web users are more sophisticated than this. They trust their own opinions far more than yours or mine, and they know that clicking on a link is not a commitment to buy.

If you look glance at the opening of this email, you see two things: “Wish you…” and a link to Photo Nuts and Shots. I may be alone, but to me, that says “Problem? Solution.”

4. Make it scannable

You knew this was coming, right? And yes, we included a list (every point starting with a carefully chosen verb, to exemplify a benefit), a bolded discount offer, and an eye-catching post-script with a competition to generate immediate action.

But the other email we tested had all these “scannable” elements too. So what’s the difference?

I think scannability has evolved from the early days of subheads-and-bullet-list advice. As we just saw, at first glance, the opening contains a problem and a solution—even if the reader isn’t reading. This may sound extreme, but I’ll say it: the reader doesn’t really have to move their eyes to get that information.

If, as we know from research, readers’ eyes stray down the left of the display, then we should provide them with as much information as we can on the far left of the page. I am an extremely lazy online reader, so I know from personal experience that this makes a big difference to comprehension.

I think scannability comes right down to language choice and sentence structure. On the left-hand side of this email we see—even if we don’t consciously read them—the following words:

  • Wish you could
  • Photo Nuts and Shots
  • Over 9 down-to-earth
  • For full details
  • This lush, inspiring
  • That’s 25% off
  • Of course, you’re protected
  • For more information
  • Darren Rowse

This information combines to deliver:

  • acknowledgement of a problem
  • the name of the solution
  • a link
  • value: the book length (9 chapters; I used the number because it stands out more clearly in body copy than would the word “nine”) coupled with the size of the discount (also a number)
  • reassurance

The one thing to remember with this left-hand-side technique is that words in subsequent lines of the same paragraph may not display against the left-hand margin in the user’s email client. You really need to focus on first words of paragraphs with this technique.

5. Beginnings and endings

There’s another little scanning-related technique that I wanted to mention. Let’s look again at the list of benefits, which is probably one of the parts of any sales email that gets the most attention.

  • harness light to convey emotion
  • know the rules of composition … and when to break them
  • take the sharpest possible photo every time
  • adapt the camera’s exposure to produce the shot you want
  • master the concepts of shot perception, planning, and execution — in any setting
  • tap into your unique creativity to take evocative photographs that reach out to viewers
  • be the best photographer you can be.

I have this idea that we pay attention to the beginnings and ends of pieces of text. Take the middle sections out of these bullet points, and here’s the message you end up getting:

  • harness light …  emotion
  • know the rules … break them
  • take the sharpest … every time
  • adapt the camera’s … shot you want
  • master the … in any setting
  • tap into your …. reach out to viewers
  • be the best … you can be.

This applies to other pieces of text, too. Like the first two paragraphs:

Photo Nuts and Shots … 25% off the cover price!

If you know …  100+ page ebook is for you.

And the refund paragraph:

Of course … get a full refund.

So don’t just pay attention to the left-hand side of your content. Also pay close attention to the endings of each piece of text in your email.

Warning: oversell

This email did achieve a good response rate. However, the complaint rate on this email was higher than the other version we tested by 0.04%.

That’s a small percentage, and you’d probably say it was worth it, given the higher open and click-through rates.

Interestingly, Darren told me that the ebook’s author, Neil Creek, also voiced concern at the strength of the message in this email. When the email was mailed to the whole of the DPS userbase, the words “every single time” were removed from the subject line.

I have to admit that I was extremely impressed by the product itself, and that obviously came across loud and clear in my writing. But it makes an important point about word choice and expression. The bottom line seems to be, don’t go overboard, however enthusiastic you may feel about the product.

Rewriting the myths

After this experiment, here’s my take on the sales email myths I outlined at the start:

  1. Use call-to-action sales links in sales emails.
    Write your copy for the audience, and use what feels like natural link text. If it’s a call to action, fine. But it needn’t be.
  2. We need to “sell” the customer on the product before they’ll click a link.
    Some readers may need convincing, but many just want to look at what you’re selling for themselves. Don’t make them hunt for the link.
  3. A sales email should focus on a discount or offer.
    The focus of your email should be dictated by the audience’s needs.
  4. A sales email should overtly drive readers to action.
    You don’t need to use in-your-face techniques like call-to-action link text, repetition, and screamy sales lines (“Don’t miss out! Order now! Limited stock available!”) to get results.
  5. Scannability is about bold font, bullet lists and subheadings.
    Scannability is about paragraphs, sentences, and words as much as it is these presentation mechanisms.

How do you feel about these ideas? Do you think they’d work with your readers? What other suggestions can you add? Also, if you try some of these techniques and can share your results with us in the comments, we’d love to hear them.

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The 10 Commandments to Successful Blogging

I’ll start off by saying that blogging is absolutely fantastic to do if you are passionate about a certain topic.

If you can write dozens or hundreds of articles related to the same topic without seeing it as a chore, then a blog is a great medium to build up an audience and establish yourself as an authority in a certain niche.

If you want to blog to make a full-time income, I can tell you that it’s possible but it’s not easy and it won’t happen overnight.

Let me share with you what I’ve learned since starting my blog

It’s been just over 2 years since I bought my blog domain. When I started Upgrade Reality, I had zero knowledge about websites, blogging or WordPress.

It took me an entire year of having a horrible theme, spending hours playing with code and tweaking my blog, and writing dozens of (in retrospect) terrible articles before I had a decent understanding of what a respectable blog should look like and what content it should have.

Looking back at some of my older screenshots and articles, it was so bad I can’t imagine how anyone ever read that I had to say.

I truly wish that I had spent money on a mentor or found a blog post like this one, because it would have saved me months of discovering things by trial and error. I can tell you that there is no point in re-inventing the wheel. There are proven methods and tactics that work, and until you know better…copy.

Here are 10 ‘Commandments’ you need to follow if you want to have a successful blog and dominate your industry.

1-Invest In Your Blog

With millions of blogs and websites to compete with, you need to set yourself apart from the rest in order to gain a big audience.

The first thing that a new visitor sees when he lands on your blog is the design.

I’m a big fan of a simple and clean, yet gorgeous design and pretty logo. Your blog should be easy to navigate and it should be 100% clear what you want the visitor to do (I.e. subscribe or click on your latest article).

Unless you have web-designing experience, don’t try to design your own blog layout. Find a web designer who will create a custom theme for your WordPress blog, and be prepared to spend $250-$500 on that. It may seem like a lot of money if you are just starting, but it’s the best investment you can make. Trust me!

2-Have A Specific Direction

Your blog needs to have a clear purpose.

What do you write about? (e.g. Self Improvement)
What are you trying to achieve? (e.g. Helping people gain confidence and get the life they want)

This direction that you have with your blog needs to be overly evident to anyone landing on your page. Every article you write should be related to the purpose of your blog (trying to help people) and it should be clear to anyone who lands on your blog for the first time (i.e. your logo or slogan should state what your blog is about).

3-Learn To Format Your Articles

One thing that took me a long time to realize is that articles on a blog are formatted in a completely different way to a book you buy in the store or an essay that you write in the office.

Articles on blogs are broken down into lots of small paragraphs, many sub-headings, list points and they often contain images.

The reason for this is that people don’t read massive chunks of text on their computer screens. In fact, the majority of people scan through an article, reading only the subheadings or bullet-points, and they will read the entire article properly if you managed to get their attention when they scanned the article.

For an excellent resource about writing and text-formatting, head over to Copyblogger.com.

4-Study The Writing of Successful Bloggers

There’s no better way to learn than by studying and copying successful people.

Take time to read and study the articles and writing styles of some of the top bloggers in the world like: Leo Babauta, Darren Rowse, Steve Pavlina and Jay White.

5-Start Building A List From Day 1

This is probably the biggest mistake I made with my blog and it is one that I regret.

If you do not have an email list, start today. The money is in the list. Not only will you be able to make much more money when you have an email list, you will be able to build a much better relationship with your readers and help a lot more people than when you only write articles on your blog.

I don’t mean a Feedburner email list, I mean using a professional mailing-list system like Aweber or Mailchimp.

6-Have a Free Report

Have a free report, a video or an ebook that you can offer to new visitors. People love free stuff, especially if the free stuff contains awesome content and information.

Offer your freebie as an incentive for people to sign up to your mailing list. It will increase the number of people who sign up to your updates dramatically!

7-Guest Post

Do you want more exposure and more readers to your blog?

Then you need to get your name out there. The easiest way to do this is to write great quality, useful articles as guest posts for other blogs in your niche.

Take a month or two and write 30-50 awesome articles that you are going to send to related blogs in your niche. You will see a massive increase in readers from a guest-posting campaign like that.

For a great resource about guest posting, check out this article on Viperchill.com

8-Network

It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.

This is such an old but such a true statement. Knowing the right people could result in massive growth and awareness of your blog.

Go out and find the top 10 blogs in your niche. Then go out and find another 20 medium-sized blogs in your niche. Then go out and find 10 smaller blogs than your own blog.

Leave a few comments on their posts and send the owner of each of those blogs an email. Follow them on Twitter.

Note: Don’t network for the sake of personal gain. This is very important. Be genuine, make real connections and make friends with these people without asking anything of them. Over time they will happily help you out if you have shown that you are trustworthy and shown them that you help them out too.

9-Create Your Own Products

Creating and selling your own products is by far the most profitable business model.

You can make some money with advertising space on your blog, and you can make decent money by promoting products and using affiliate links.

However, the most profitable is if you create your own products (ebooks, guides, videos, membership sites etc.) and you sell them to your readers.

Creating a product is hard work, but you don’t have to do everything yourself. You can outsource many parts, like the design, the sales page and even the content. If you know the problem you want to create a product (solution) for, you can give guidelines or a skeleton to an experienced writer and pay him to create the ebook for you.

Start with a small product, but start with it. Create your own products and keep creating them. Henri does it, hundreds of other bloggers do it, I do it and now you need to do it too!

10-Provide Value

This is the most important thing that I can tell you about blogging. You need to always provide value.

Whether you are making someone laugh, or helping them live a healthy lifestyle, or giving them information how to blog like a pro…make sure that your content is always useful.

If you are providing value, visitors will become loyal readers. They will return, and a percentage of them will turn into regular buyers of the products you create and recommend to them.

Parting Words

Before I end this article off I want to leave you with some final blogging advice.

If you are blogging to build up an online income, then you need to treat your blog as a business. A blog does not make money, a business does.

The blog is just the medium that you use to connect with the hundreds or thousands of people that could become buying customers. If you do not have the mindset that your blog is an actual business, I can tell you that you are doomed to make little money until you change that mindset.

Work your way through all the points in this list and you should notice a big difference in your blog’s traffic, readers and in the amount of money you make from it. (But it will not happen overnight).

About the Author: Diggy blogs about Self Improvement at UpgradeReality.com. He has also created a foolproof guide to help you overcome your personal obstacles and inspire your personal growth, so check his site out.

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Twitter Backgrounds are Branding Machines

I don’t use Twitter as much as I probably should, and I actually use it for more of a blog feed than anything else. No matter how you use Twitter, it’s important to get your name and brand across. With that being said, think about your Twitter account and how many people are visiting your profile page ever day, weekly or even yearly. Even if YOU aren’t actively posting on Twitter, it doesn’t mean that people aren’t visiting your page, so it’s important to leave a lasting impression.

Twitter Backgrounds Leave an Immediate Impression

What’s the first thing you see when you visit someones Twitter page? Most likely it’s their background image. Not only do the backgrounds give us a creative insight on what the person is about, but it’s also a cool way to get your message or web site across. Who are you, what’s your business and how can I learn more about you? These are all different topics that you can use in your background.

Since going live with a new blog design, I thought it would be a good idea to change things up and go with a new Twitter background as well. You can see the new background below, which was designed by DesignPax.com.

twitter backgroundsMy New Favorite Twitter Background – View Full Profile

My first Twitter background had some basic information on myself and where you could visit my blog and social pages. This time around, I just wanted to go for a big branded effort and get “ZacJohnson.com” across to the user.

Excellent Twitter Backgrounds and Resources

What are some of you favorite and most memorable Twitter backgrounds that you’ve come across while scouring around Twitter? Instead of running to Twitter and having to visit all of your followers pages individual, many design blogs have done the work for us. I love looking through galleries of Twitter backgrounds and seeing the creative ideas and designs that people come up with. Below are a few sites that feature some of the best designs we’ve all come across.

twitter backgroundsEffective Twitter Backgrounds: Examples and Current Practices
100+ Incredible Twitter Backgrounds
42 Twitter Backgrounds
40 Cool Twitter Backgrounds
25 of the Best Designed Twitter Homepages

If you don’t have your own unique Twitter background, you should! It’s free branding that may be getting seen by hundreds, if not thousands of people daily. Get creative and design your own Twitter background, or find someone that specializes in design work, like I did with DesignPax.com.

What’s the inspiration for your Twitter background, or some of the favorite designs you’ve come across?

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Introducing the Social Eyes Theme for WordPress

image of the Social Eyes theme

The importance of owning your own online real estate is becoming more obvious every day. Why make others rich off the sweat of your labor and your passions?

So if you’re in love with all the traffic and reach that social networking sites provide, you’ll want to take a long look at one of the latest creations from Copyblogger Media’s StudioPress division — the Social Eyes Theme.

By all means, stay engaged with your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn communities. But do it smartly, by bringing them back to a socially-optimized place of your own.

Here’s a quick look at what you’ll get “out of the box” with the brand-new Social Eyes theme:

  • Quick-change between two different color schemes without touching a line of code
  • A beautiful social networking feel for your website design
  • Evolve with your site’s growth using six different page layout options
  • Show off your latest content using the featured article function
  • Logical navigation & category layout that lets your readers get to what they want, fast
  • All the SEO, security, and design benefits of the Genesis Framework
  • Unlimited updates, domains you can use the theme on, and support (you’re not on your own)

Click here to dig deeper into the Social Eyes theme.

Or, click here to get more details on the Genesis Framework and find out why it’s the smartest way to build any WordPress site.

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How to Harness Your Email List to Help Pay Your Rent

This guest post is by the Blog Tyrant.

Wouldn’t it be nice to send out an email or two and pull in $10,000+ to pay your rent or mortgage payments for the year? It is actually possible using your own products or those of selected affiliates. And while some of you will be thinking that word “affiliates” sounds dirty and underhanded, I’m here to tell you that affiliate marketing is actually one of the most honest ways to make money on the Web.

In this post I am going to show you how you can make $10,000+ a year using your email list and a product or affiliate program. I’ll even do a bit of math to prove it.

eMail
Creative Commons License photo credit: Esparta

How it works

Let me start by giving you a little overview of how this all works, in case you’re totally new to the idea. I’ll go in to more detail later on.

  1. Use your blog to grow an email list
    If you’ve read any of my other guest posts on Problogger you will notice that I have a pretty (un)healthy obsession with email lists. I’m constantly telling my readers to focus on growing a list of active, engaged, and interested email subscribers. It should be the main focus of almost every blog.
  2. Provide value
    The most important thing to remember with this process is that you need to provide value. You need to enrich the lives of your subscribers. You need to solve their problems. Without this step you will find that your list grows largely unresponsive.
  3. Create a product or find affiliate programs
    The next steps is to create a product of your own (ebook, ecourse, etc.) or find a product of someone else’s that you can promote and sell to your email list. It needs to be highly relevant, valuable, and helpful.
  4. Promote it to your email list
    This stage is actually rather complex and can involve a pre-launch and launch, as well as automated messages and so on. The net result is that you make a lump sum of money during a launch period, or an ongoing stream of income from automated sales that happen over time.

The whole thing can be a very exciting process and, if it’s done correctly, it is an extremely ethical way to make good money while enriching the lives of your subscriber list.

Doing the math

Now, let’s do a little math to see if $10,000 per year is really possible. In fact, if you really catch a hold of this concept you’ll find that $10,000 is actually rather conservative. The possibilities with this type of marketing are endless.

Let’s take a look:

  1. Capture four email subscribers per day
    Let’s assume you are able to capture four email subscribers per day. It is a very small amount that any one can do with ideas like this and this.4 x 365 = 1460 subscribers per year.
  2. Sell a $37 ebook to 20% of your list
    If your followers are loyal and engaged you should be able to sell to around 15% to 20% of them.1460 subscribers x 0.2 = 292 sales @ $37 = $10,804

Now, for those whose lists are significantly larger than this, the estimates are conservative. For those who have smaller lists, this can serve as inspiration to keep going with your blogging work. Remember, an ebook is just one example of the multitude of things you can promote to your list.

How to make $10k+ per year with email subscribers

George is Keeping an Eye On You!
Creative Commons License photo credit: peasap

The wonderful thing about this process is that it can be expanded upon to incredible levels. For some bloggers, $10,000 is a tiny sum of money. My hope is that this post serves as a catalyst for you to learn more about the field and really take your blog to its full potential.

1. Grow the email list

The email list is the backbone of all good blogging income sources. If you can capture a large number of email addresses of readers who love what you write, trust your advice, and look to you for help and new information, then you are setting yourself up to be in a very profitable situation.

I know what you’re thinking: “But isn’t it rude/annoying/spammy to sell stuff to my followers?” This is a very common question. I encounter so many people who don’t want to sell anything to their subscribers but, to be honest, the logic doesn’t make sense to me. Why? Because, like everyone else, you also have bills to pay, you aren’t trying to rip anyone off, and with the right products, you can help your subscribers to better their situations.

Don’t get me wrong: some people abuse their lists. I don’t condone this at all. But guys like Darren, who only sell high-quality ebooks or training courses that can help you grow a bigger and better blog, are helping their subscribers. Why shouldn’t Darren make some money selling a product that has taken him years and years to acquire the knowledge to create—and helps you in a big way?

How can you grow your list quickly?

  • Focus on value and quality information
    Your blog needs to publish high-quality content that adds value to the lives of your readers. Every time someone sees a post on your blog, they should leave feeling like a problem is solved. This is important.
  • Have an angle
    There are hundreds of millions of blogs out there. You need an angle. Why should people read your stuff over someone else’s? Without an attached story or angle, you give a person no reason to subscribe to your blog.
  • Use Aweber to add subscription boxes and send a free ebook
    I recently wrote a post about why I switched to Aweber and the reasons are simple: you can add a subscription box to your blog in about five minutes, you can send out a series of automatic follow-up emails and, best of all, you can send out a free ebook automatically. This is a tried and tested method for capturing a lot of email subscribers: write a highly valuable ebook that appeals to your niche, and give it away in exchange for their subscription.
  • Write guest posts related to your niche
    Once your free ebook offering is up and running, get out there and start guest posting on as many of the top blogs as possible. Darren has a thorough post on how to do this, so the only thing that I’ll add is that you should make your posts as good as possible, and in some way relate them to your free ebook. This ensures that all the visitors that trickle through to your site are interested in your stuff.
  • Engage people in email, Twitter, comment threads, etc.
    If you want your email subscribers to be loyal and engaged, you want to make sure you engage them in as many places as possible. As a general rule, I reply to every comment on my blog, and Twitter and Facebook accounts. I work from home so it’s easy for me to do this, but even if you work in an office, you should make an effort to reply to contacts and commenters each evening when you get home.

As a general rule of thumb, the number of email signups you attract is a good indicator of how successful your blog is. You might be getting all the traffic in the world, but unless you can convert it somehow, you probably aren’t making much progress. Capturing as many email subscribers as possible is the first and most important step in affiliate marketing.

2. Create a product and/or find an affiliate product to promote

This section is broken up in to two parts—your two different options. The first option is to create your own product and sell that to your list. I prefer this option because you can tailor it to suit your readers’ needs and wants. The second option is find someone else’s product to promote to your list for a commission (i.e. an affiliate program). Let’s take a look at both.

Creating your own product

The wonderful thing about the Internet is that it allows you to create your own product without much in the way of difficulty or start-up costs. In a recent article on how stay-at-home moms can make money, I said that a product launched off the back of an expert blog is one of the easiest and most rewarding ways to make an honest living online. This is true.

Your product could take one of many forms:

  • an ebook
    Creating an ebook is one of the simplest ways to make money from your blog. All you do is brainstorm a concept, write it out in Word or Open Office, tizzy it up with graphics and pictures, and then convert it into a PDF. Instant product. The problem? There are a lot of them out there. People have become a bit blind to them. If you are going to sell an ebook, you have to make sure it is of an outstanding level of quality and addresses a problem that’s massively relevant to your blogging audience. Ideally, it will cover a topic that hasn’t already been heavily written about.
  • an ecourse
    Another popular option is to develop an ecourse that teaches your readers how to do something. It could take the form of a series of emails sent out every week, or it could be an ebook mixed with video and delivered in module form. This is sometimes a better option because, the course content can be created or amended on the go, to respond to the feedback you get from users.
  • a membership site
    This is new black: it seems like everyone is creating membership sites nowadays. A membership site is basically a password-protected area of your blog that people can only access by paying. It could contain tools or courses or a forum of experts, for example. Some of the more successful membership sites are SEOBook and SEOmoz.
  • a physical product
    If you are one of these talented people who have an actual real-world skill like painting or designing clothes, you might want to make your product a physical one. This can work extremely well if you have a big list of people who admire your work.

Whatever you decide to create, you have to make sure it appeals to your readers and continues to add value as you’ve done on your blog. People simply will not pay for something unless they know that it will add to their lives in a meaningful way.

Promoting someone else’s product

If you don’t have the time, energy, or ideas to create your own product, you can start out by promoting other people’s—by becoming an affiliate. For example, if I created an amazing Blog Tyrant ecourse, I would offer people the opportunity to sell that ecourse on my behalf and earn a commission (usually 40% to 80%) on every sale. If you believed in that product (trust me, it’d be awesome!) then you could sell it to your list. Money for jam.

There are a few prerequisites to generating an income through affiliate sales:

  • The product must be relevant.
    If you run a dog-training blog there is almost no chance that my amazing Blog Tyrant product would sell to your list. You need to find affiliate products that are highly relevant to your blog.
  • You must believe in it/use it yourself.
    Personally, I never promote an affiliate product unless I use it myself. My site is all about helping people dominate their niche and grow an online business that allows them to work from home. Why would I risk my reputation (and in some cases friendships) promoting a product that I’ve never used?
  • It must be reputable and safe.
    Some affiliate programs out there really do not offer good protection for their customers. It’s getting rarer and rarer, but every now and then you come across a program that gets people involved with spam, or makes it difficult to get a refund. If you are going to promote something to your list, you want to make sure it comes from a reputable source that you know and trust. Shoemoney says that he never promotes an affiliate unless he has met the owner in person. This is a good rule.

Please do not think that affiliate programs are all dirty. They aren’t. There are some really solid brand names out there who are promoting very valuable tools and information. Darren’s one of them. With a little bit of research and planning, you will be able to find something great for your crew.

Finding affiliate products to promote
There are so many different places to find affiliates out there—some good, some bad. What you often find is that it is best to locate the product you want to promote first, then figure out what company that product creator is using to sign up affiliates. Some of the main ones you might want to look at include:

A lot of the larger companies run their own affiliate programs. In this case you want to visit the sites of the sellers themselves, scroll down to the very bottom and look for the Affiliates link that will direct you to the signup page.

3. Sell the product to your email list

The final part of this post is all about selling your product, or your chosen affiliate product, to your email list. This topic could be studied for a lifetime, but here, let’s look at a rough game-plan.

Pre-launch

The first step is to generate some interest among your subscribers around the product launch. You want to prepare your readers for the big sale day. There are lots of different ways to do this, and many different schools of thought as to what works and what doesn’t. Some ideas include:

  • a free give away
    Having a free give away that is related to your product launch can be a good idea because people circulate the free part to their friends and on their blogs. It can also help you capture more email addresses to use for the actual promotion.
  • a time-sensitive signup area
    Something else that can work is to have a time-sensitive signup area. For example, if you are releasing a membership site you might only want to release it to 100 members. Having an earlybird signup area on the blog a week in advance can get people motivated to join, rather than risk missing out.
  • create an affiliate program
    Around this time, if you’re selling a product you’ve created yourself, you also want to set yourself up as affiliate seller so that other bloggers can sell your products. Email your list of high-profile blogging contacts, letting them know about the product launch and the affiliate program, and ask them to help you out.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure it really does generate some buzz. The idea is to get as many people talking about the product, and sharing news about it, as possible.

Launch

The launch stage is where you actually send out the email to your list promoting your new product. You should also do a post on your blog to ensure your RSS readers hear about what’s going on. Make sure your launch email:

  • has a strong call to action
  • details all the specs of the product
  • uses social proof
  • focuses on benefits, not features.

As I said, this is only supposed to be a rough game-plan. There are some amazing articles out there that give you specific details on this process. I’d recommend starting with Copyblogger’s landing pages tutorials, Darren’s video on product launches, and Yaro’s article on creating an ebook.

Automate follow-ups for affiliate products

One thing to remember is that if you’re promoting someone else’s product you don’t have to do all this launch stuff. You can actually just set it to be entirely automatic. How? Well remember we talked about Aweber’s automatic messages earlier? What you can do is create a series of follow-up emails that go to every subscriber that you get on a sequence of set days.

For example, let’s say you subscribe to my Dog Training blog. On day one I might send you an automatic email thanking you for subscribing. Then on day three, you get an email with a highly useful dog training tip or tutorial. A week later, you get another training tip and then, maybe a day after that, I send you an email with an affiliate product that relates to the tips and tutorials, and really helps you solve the problem. It’s all automatic, and it works extremely well.

Remember, don’t flood your subscribers with emails, and don’t send anything out unless it’s highly valuable and useful to your subscribers. Don’t risk compromising your relationship.

Have you done it? Will you try it?

I’d really like to open up the comments now and ask you guys for any advice from your own email campaigns. Have you tried these kinds of approaches before? Did they work well? I’d also really like to know whether you will give this a try on your own blogs. Do leave a comment and let me know.

The Blog Tyrant is a 25 year old guy who makes a full time living from blogs and online businesses. He has sold several blogs for $20,000 plus and answers every comment he gets on his blog. Subscribe by email or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or

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