Internet Marketing Advice

ProBlogger Blog Tips - Space â¦ Silence â¦ Solitude â¦ [What I Need More of as a Blogg

2011-10-04T14:45:00.001-07:00

Space … Silence … Solitude … [What I Need More of as a Blogger]

As I reflect upon the times when I’ve felt most “effective” as a blogger (and perhaps as a human), I think it’s times when I’ve built these three things into life.

Space

Perhaps it’s just me and my personality, but I find that if I don’t create space…

to reflect on life
to consider how I’m feeling
to analyze what I’ve experienced
to ponder priorities.

then I tend to allow the busyness of my life determine what I do, rather than letting what is important determine my actions.

I find that if I don’t create space, blogging either doesn’t happen, or it happens in a very ad hoc way without me really thinking clearly about the journey I want to take readers on.

Silence

Image copyright Tyler Olson - Fotolia.com

If I don’t create silence, I don’t notice the gold in the clutter of life.

I need to turn off what distracts me sometimes—Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, the Media, the iPhone—to truly hear what I need to hear.

I spend too much time broadcasting, and I need to learn to listen more. When I do listen, I find what I say is more useful to others.

Solitude

I spend a lot of time alone physically, but emotionally, in the work that I do online, I’m realizing that I’m not switching off from those around me.

This point is connected perhaps to the silence I mention above, but the realization that I’m having is that I need to build times of solitude into my life.

I need to learn how to disengage—if only for short periods of time—from the conversations, the requests, and the demands of readers, friends, and followers.

I need to do this not because these people are unimportant, but because if I don’t experience solitude, I’m not really in a position to be able to help anyone.

Originally at: Blog Tips at...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 20 Ways to Make More Money from Your Blog

2011-10-04T07:26:00.001-07:00

20 Ways to Make More Money from Your Blog

This guest post is by James Penn of AcceleratedNicheProfits.com.

A few weeks ago, on the ProBlogger Community Boards, I started a new forum topic titled, “Help Me Monetize 1,000 Visitors Per Day.”

My natural health blog had experienced some rapid traffic growth, and had grown from 80 visitors per day to over 1,000 visitors per day using these seven strategies.

Yet my income was pitiful.

Image copyright Monkey Business - Fotolia.com

My only monetization strategy was linking to relevant Amazon products, and I was generating just over $100 per month. I worked out that if I carried on like this, simply promoting Amazon products, I'd need to be clocking 50,000 visitors per dayto make a comfortable, full-time income with this blog.

That wasn't going to happen anytime soon, so I sought advice from fellow ProBlogger forum members, undertook my own research, and carried out my own experiments in a quest to discover alternative ways to increase the revenue I generated from my blog.

In this post, I share twenty strategies you can use to increase your blog income. Many I’m already using, many I plan to use, but some I don't think would work on my particular blog, though they may work on yours!

1. Google Adsense

I'd always been against adding Google Adsense to my webpages for fear of it taking away from the user experience.

I needn't have worried as I've been able to add one ad unit in a fairly prominent position and one in a more secluded area of the blog without disrupting my readers.

I've only had these ads up a few weeks but initial results suggest they will earn me more this month than I earned with my entire blog last month.

2. Sidebar linking

Your sidebar appears on every single one of your blog pages. You need to be making the most of it.
Something I've experimented with is adding a new link category with a title...

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Copyblogger - How to Become a Better Marketer on Twitter

2011-10-04T07:04:00.001-07:00

How to Become a Better Marketer on Twitter

The danger of giving good advice is, of course, that it is not often used.

The listener nods politely, saying, “Yes, yes, thank you. That is precisely what I ought to do.”

Then the listener goes right ahead and does precisely the opposite.

“Don’t ever give anybody your best advice, because they’re not going to follow it.” ~ Jack Nicholson

Jack may be right. Nonetheless, below you’ll find the best advice Copyblogger has to offer on using and applying Twitter to your marketing goals.

If you’ve got 140 characters to fill, here’s a few good ideas and strategies on how to do it to great effect …

The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Marketing
Start here. 100 curated articles covering 21 different topics. It’ll take a couple days, so get going now. #awesome #icantpossiblyclickallthoselinksman

The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
A Copyblogger classic. Brian saw early on that Twitter upped the headline game quite a few very brutal notches. Think your tweets are getting read in that firehose of information? Think again. Here’s how to do it. #iftheydontreadyourheadlinetheydontreadyou

How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Business
This one might make you think twice about sharing [only] the mundane aspects of your life on Twitter. Yes, it can open up connections to power players you never thought possible. Yes, it can generate traffic and super-qualified leads. Yes, the plan is laid out for you right in this post. #123 #abc

5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter
Is it still possible to blow up on Twitter? If it is, these 5 steps (backed up by data) can show you how. #thisvirusdoesnotsuck

Here's Hard Data for Headlines that Spread on Twitter
We talked about the art of it...

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Copyblogger - The Johnny Depp Guide to Mesmerizing Marketing

2011-10-03T09:21:00.001-07:00

The Johnny Depp Guide to Mesmerizing Marketing

On Stranger Tides is just one more in the long line of big budget Hollywood movies. Or is it?

Actually, it happens to be just another movie that Johnny Depp refused to appear in for anything short of $42,000,000.

He charges that amount because the movie can’t exist with out him.

Johnny’s the star of the show. Pirates of the Caribbean without Captain Jack Sparrow is like an ice cream sundae with no ice cream.

But if Johnny Depp didn’t act in movies — if he were a regular job-holding guy from Kentucky — nobody would care about him. Nobody would pay him.

That could easily have happened, you know.

John Christopher Depp is a high-school dropout from Lexington, Kentucky. He once made a (sort of) living as a ballpoint pen salesman. My cousin swears she once spotted him years ago in a local WalMart.

He was unshaved. His clothes were old and torn. He looked like a hippie. Reclusive. Possibly homeless.

That doesn’t match his public image, does it?

We’re used to seeing Johnny Depp behind four millimeters of stage makeup, in hand-tailored black tie, and signing $42 million Hollywood film contracts.

How does he do it?

How does a normal guy become an A-list star — attracting a raving following and getting paid to do what he loves?

The answer is simpler than you might think.

Johnny Depp knows his audience

On Stranger Tides isn’t about entertaining Johnny.

It’s about entertaining his audience. Johnny isn’t messing around trying to collect his thoughts or share breaking news in pirate technology.

No, he’s giving his audience the content they’re looking for. He’s connecting and delivering.

Here’s what Johnny Depp means to your blog

You’re actually in the entertainment business.

Every byte of data you...

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Copyblogger - Are You Weird Enough to Succeed at Online Marketing?

2011-09-30T07:40:00.001-07:00

Are You Weird Enough to Succeed at Online Marketing?

There will never be another Nirvana.

Or Coca Cola. Or Stephen King.

Apart from a very few anomalies, no band, brand, or author will ever achieve the level of cultural penetration that Generation X was the last to witness happen in real time.

Our culture has broken apart into millions of little tribal pieces.

It’s not because kids these days aren’t heading down to the crossroads with their guitars and web dev tools to do a deal with the devil.

It’s something much weirder than that.

Marketers, get ready.

In this episode Brian, Sonia and I talk about:

Why “mass marketers” are screwed
The new bond that forms audiences
Why Seth Godin thinks weird is your only hope
What does success mean in this brave, weird world?
The “craft beer strategy” of marketing
Why the small business can survive and thrive
Has world-wide digital distribution replaced marketing?
How to market to the weird

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

Click here to download the mp3 | 43.1 MB | 29.52
Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

Internet Marketing for Smart People 20-Part Course (free)
Seth Godin’s We Are All Weird
Differentiate Your Blog or Die
How to Dominate Your Niche
3 Ways to Make Your Competitors Irrelevant
We left the building with Girl Talk

About the Author: Robert Bruce is an American writer and amateur recluse.

...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Why Your Brand Is Everything

2011-09-30T07:10:00.001-07:00

Why Your Brand Is Everything

This guest post is by Matthew Kepnes of Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

Let's begin with some word association:

Disney World
Nike
Apple
McDonald’s
BP
Goldman Sachs.

What did you think about when I mentioned these brands? What words came to mind? Thoughts? Feelings? Images?

Image copyright Andy Dean - Fotolia.com

Whatever it is that came to your mind is the brand image you associate with that company. When I think of those companies, I think of (respectively):

family fun
serious athletes
youthful and innovative
cheap
careless
heartless.

These words may be simple but they represent a whole array of feelings and emotions that the company names express to me. And it is those thoughts and emotions that shape my interactions with them, just as it is your thoughts and feelings that shape your interactions with them and how you relate to them. It is those feelings that either turn is into loyal customers or loyal "people who always shop elsewhere."

You are an idea

What are you? What about me? What do we represent?

This is not some existential question about life. These are questions about what your website or company is about and how people identify with it. Whether we know it or like it, our websites create an image in people's minds, and we need to be conscious of that image because if we aren't, our expectations and goals for our business won't match the real perception of our business.

When we think about "brands" we think of marketing, business techniques, and icky sales terms. We think of slick ad men and women who are putting together ad campaigns to pull the wool over our eyes.

But this article isn't an article on how to manipulate your brand image, it's about how to understand and use it. The idea of a brand is a...

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notify.me closing Oct 4

2011-09-29T11:47:00.001-07:00

bloggerim,

We are shutting down notify.me on Oct 4th. You can read our blog for more details and possible alternatives http://blog.notify.me/post/10800212423/notify-me-closing-shop-oct-4th

Its been a fun couple years. Thank you for your support,

Jason Wieland

@mp3tricord

ProBlogger Blog Tips - Principles of Effective Blog Design

2011-09-29T07:18:00.001-07:00

Principles of Effective Blog Design

This is a guest post by Peep Laja, CEO of Traindom.

People judge books by the cover, and other people by their looks.

Take a look at these two men:

Now answer these questions (you can’t choose “neither”):

Which one would you rather ask investment advice from?
Which one would you rather have babysit your children?
Which one would you rather have cook your dinner?

… and so on. You don’t know anything about these men. Yet you make assumptions and can even take decisions based on their looks.

What does that have to do with your blog? Everything!

"As aesthetically orientated humans, we're psychologically hardwired to trust beautiful people, and the same goes for websites. Our offline behaviour and inclinations translate to our online existence."—Dr. Brent Coker

Dr. Brent Coker studied the impact of attractive websites on human behavior. Websites that are more attractive and include more trimmings create a greater feeling of trustworthiness and professionalism in consumers.

People judge your blog based on the design

If somebody knows you well, they don’t care about your looks that much. If they see you for the first time, looks matter a lot.

The content of your blog is always more important than the design, but you need to woo people with your design first. You draw them in with design, and keep with content.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”—Steve Jobs

The following advice will help you design a better blog and this in turn will help you sell more (whether you’re selling free sign-ups, coaching sessions, products, or whatever).

Make it easy to find stuff

Who is your site for? What are they looking for? Value function over aesthetics: 76% of people want it to be easy...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Iâm Going to Blog World Expo LA [PLUS: Who #BWELA is Good Fo

2011-09-28T17:01:00.001-07:00

I'm Going to Blog World Expo LA [PLUS: Who #BWELA is Good For]

In just over a month Blog World Expo will be happening in Los Angeles from 3-5 November – and I will be there – speaking at one of the Track Keynotes (topic TBA).

I didn’t think I would get there this year with a new baby in the house but the little guy is doing really well and so I’m coming.

If you’ve already booked your tickets to come I can’t wait to see you – and if you’re still not sure if BWELA is for you I’d encourage you to seriously consider it – particularly in the next couple of days because their 30% off Early Bird Discount ends on 30th September – PLUS if you use the coupon code of PROBLOGVIP you’ll get an additional 20% off (that’s around $500 off the full pass).

This is the 1 conference that I’m willing to commute for 15 hours (each way) to get to every year.

Who is #BWELA For?

Usually when I tell people I’m going to Blog World people ask me what type of blogger it is for? It’s a tricky one to answer because attendees come from around the world who blog in many many niches and who are at many levels – from beginner to advance.

So perhaps rather than trying to define a type of blogger – let me explore some of the ‘needs’ bloggers have that I think BWE helps* with.

Need Inspiration?

The thing I love about BWE is that almost every night after I get back to my hotel (and then again on the plane as I fly home) I find myself writing page after page of ideas and things that I want to try out for myself. I find it so inspiring to spend 3 days hearing the stories of other bloggers and always return home feeling very motivated to take my blogging to the next level.

Need Advice?

BWE is 3 days packed with so much teaching from amazing speakers that you just can’t take it all in. Some of the names listed on the speaker page you’ll have heard of and...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 7 Ways Interviews Can Skyrocket Blog Growth

2011-09-28T13:26:00.001-07:00

7 Ways Interviews Can Skyrocket Blog Growth

This guest post is by Srinivas Rao of The Skool of Life.

The idea of interviewing people might give you the jitters. It might make you feel like you're standing naked in front of your elementary classroom with nothing intelligent to ask or say. But the only way you're ever going to find out is if you put yourself out there.

I took a gamble and started interviewing people as part of a weekly series on my blog. That eventually became my calling card in the blogosphere. David Siteman Garland built his show The Rise to the Top through interviews and went on to publish a book. And Andrew Warner at Mixergy has interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world and built his own brand in the process.

Interviewing experts in your field is a gold mine waiting to be cashed in on, and it offers many benefits to the blogger.

1. Create killer content

Interviewing other people, especially those who are experts in their field, is a great way to create killer content for your blog.

When you interview an expert you end up creating highly educational, valuable content that your audience can learn from. It brings a different perspective to your audience, and gives them ideas they may not have considered before. The key to turning your interview into killer content is to put the spotlight on your interviewee.

2. Build lasting relationships

The greatest benefit I've received from interviewing people is the relationships that I've formed with them. The people I've interviewed have become some of my biggest supporters and greatest friends.

When you interview somebody you have an opportunity to have a conversation that goes beyond what you might have via email, Twitter, or blog comments. As a result you have an opportunity to form a stronger connection with that person.

The benefits of interviewing people have extended far beyond blog traffic for me. When one of the bloggers I interviewed...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - A Practical Strategy to Increase the Value of Your Blog

2011-09-28T07:16:00.001-07:00

A Practical Strategy to Increase the Value of Your Blog

Not long ago I wrote about determining the value of your website or blog here on problogger.net. Now that you know how a web property is or can be valued in the free market, in this article I want to discuss a practical strategy you can apply to increase the valuation of your web property.

The value of a website or blog, or any other business for that matter, is derived from its earnings or free cash flows before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—a term referred to as EBITDA in the professional sector.

Therefore a web property's value is predicated on its earnings, multiplied by a factor X called an earnings multiplier that is derived from similar transactions in the recent past.

For example, if a similar blog sold for four times its earnings couple months ago, there is a good chance you can count on a similar multiple when putting a value on your web property.

What do I know about website valuations? For starters, I sold an ecommerce website in 2007 for $250,000 to one of the top power sellers on Ebay at the time. Since then I have sold several niche websites for five figure cash out deals.

The best way to boost value

If valuations are based on earnings, it is obvious that earnings must increase if the value of your web property is to increase. Many online entrepreneurs take their time growing their web property organically, often on their own due to funding restrictions.

However, once the web property starts generating a little bit of money, one of the best investments you can make to increase its value is by reinvesting those earnings right back into the business.

For example, let's assume you have a niche website that has 30 pages, each of which brings in $1 a day, roughly on average, from Google Adsense. If you took your earnings and invested in 30 freelance articles, you can hypothetically double the earnings from your...

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Copyblogger - How to Master the One Trait That Makes You Unstoppable

2011-09-28T07:07:00.001-07:00

How to Master the One Trait That Makes You Unstoppable

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote about the black swan — the impossible-to-predict event that changes everything. The terrorist attack, the earthquake, the worldwide economic meltdown.

But in the world we live in now, it's the white swan — the ordinary, predictable event — that's becoming rare.

Black swans show up every day. Storms and disasters … and positive black swans, too, like world-changing technology.

Unpredictability is the new predictability, and the only thing we can be sure of is that the world will look almost unrecognizably different — even just a few years from today.

You can let that scare you into inaction. That's a recipe for getting crushed by chaos and change.

But there’s another option. You can let yourself get excited about the possibilities.

Think about some of the things we've seen evolve — radically — in just the past few years.

Have you changed how you share photos with your mom?
How you watch TV or movies?
How you decide where to go for dinner, how you find your way there, how you ask friends to join you?

Here’s the thing — you don’t thrive in times of intense evolution by being the strongest, the meanest, or even the smartest.

You survive (and thrive) by being the most adaptable.

The evolution of affiliate marketing

Ten years ago, you could stumble into affiliate marketing and make some real money. Find an affiliate program with a good payout, create some not-great content that would rank for the keywords you wanted, and put lots and lots of ads up.

Serious affiliate marketing today looks very different.

Savvy marketers like Rae Hoffman-Dolan are creating brands that stand alone, not just junk sites with domains like BuyBlueWidgets.com. Hoffman focuses on creating points of differentiation — and her...

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Copyblogger - The Art of Irresistible Copywriting

2011-09-27T07:58:00.001-07:00

The Art of Irresistible Copywriting

I’m going to tell you a secret.

It’s a copywriting secret that the immortals — from Aristotle to Ogilvy to Draper — have known, but few have stated as directly as I’m about to.

By now, you know the standards of effective copywriting …

Know your audience. Know your product cold. Research. Nail the headline. Write plainly, in the language of your audience. Research more. Write fascinating bullets. Craft a great offer. Include a strong call to action. And so forth.

These elements are the standard for good reason. They’re how you get the job done.

This little truth I’m about to tell you is the foundation that makes all the rest of it work.

Ready for it?

Every sentence you write must make your reader want to read the next sentence you write.

Yes, this entire business of copywriting, persuasion, and sales can be boiled down to that simple statement.

The headline only exists to get the first sentence read.

The first sentence only exists to get the second sentence read. And so forth, pulling the reader right through your content or your piece of persuasive copy.

It’s that simple. And it’s that tricky. The secret is in the line.

The headline of this post makes use of the word “Art.” I didn’t choose that word arbitrarily. Copywriting is art as much as it is science.

A great headline is followed by a single compelling sentence engages the reader’s interest. And then another, followed by another, and another.

Don’t worry, you won’t be able to pull it off all the time. Hell, you won’t even pull it off most of the time. Even the copywriting greats didn’t write perfect sales pages.

But they got as close to it as they could.

If you keep the raw horsepower of The Single Line in your mind...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 6 Tips to Help You Survive Your First 3 Months of Pro Bloggi

2011-09-27T07:26:00.001-07:00

6 Tips to Help You Survive Your First 3 Months of Pro Blogging

This guest post is by Glee of Creative Fashion.

I was a high-school Maths teacher for eight years and for all those years, my life evolved in writing lesson plans, producing teaching materials and worksheets, dealing with parents, teaching some well-behaved and some rude students, and pleasing demanding bosses. When an opportunity came for me to finally be a full-time blogger, which allows me to be my own boss and set my own schedule and calendar, it was a dream come true.

Yet, as it turn out, building a website and establishing myself as an authority isn´t all fairy tales.

I was a part-time blogger for two years, juggling my full-time day job, after-school tutorials, and blogging until late midnight every day. My first blogs were built through a free blog platform, on which I learned HTML, SEO techniques, and a little online marketing. I had enough experience and I was quite ready to do blogging full-time before I decided to quit my job.

I built my professional blogs and now I’m working toward my dream of making them big: I’m officially a full-time blogger. But there are stumbling blocks that I had to deal with more than once in those first few months of pro blogging; here are the techniques I used to beat them.

1. Balance your freedom with a solid schedule

The good thing about full-time blogging is you don’t have a boss. And the bad thing about full-time blogging is you don’t have a boss.

The freedom that full-time blogging offers is what makes people want to become full-time bloggers. However, it’s the same freedom that sends them to failure fast if they aren’t careful.

I’m a stay-at-home wife and a self-confessed online entrepreneur (a fancy name for a blogger), and when my husband kisses me good-bye in the morning, I’m still in bed … and so tempted to go back to sleep....

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - What Aspiring Actors Can Teach You About Blogging

2011-09-26T14:35:00.001-07:00

What Aspiring Actors Can Teach You About Blogging

This guest post is by Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind.

If you were an aspiring actor, and you spotted a famous movie star on the street, would you run up to them and ask them for help? You might, but I'm willing to bet that 99 times out of 100, you would get nowhere. In fact, those odds are probably very generous.

I am willing to bet that those odds would improve if you were to approach them, briefly introduce yourself, compliment them on their work, and ask if it would be okay to write to their agent with a few questions that they might consider answering if they get time.

When you're dealing with people above your station, the hard sell is almost always a failure. If you were to deal with your fellow bloggers in the spirit of the more polite and unobtrusive aspiring actor, you would establish some highly valuable relationships.

Embrace your “competition”

As Darren explained, it’s wise to embrace the competition. It doesn't matter what niche you are in—there are almost always going to be more authoritative blogs already in existence. And that is a good thing, for two key reasons:

It demonstrates that there is a market for your niche.
It provides you with an opportunity tap into an established audience.

Who wouldn't want to take advantage of a resource of already warm, highly targeted leads?

Nothing is free

So how can you tap into the audiences of your contemporaries? Not in the way that many people try to, that's for sure. Do not emulate the method of the rude and desperate aspiring actor. There is few things more irritating to a blogger than being contacted by another who simply asks for a link to, or mention of, their site.

Assuming that you are the proverbial minnow, you only need to concern yourself with one thing when reaching out to your peers—providing value. Whilst simply asking for help may occasionally reap short term rewards, it...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How to Increase Conversions With Google Website Optimizer

2011-09-26T14:34:00.001-07:00

How to Increase Conversions With Google Website Optimizer

This guest post is by Joe Burnett of Who’s Your Blogger?

"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."—Blog Tyrant

You can capture emails with only one ethical plan: the visitor will have to give you his or her email by typing it in.

How do you get your readers to type in their email addresses? Will you use a pop-up lightbox, a sidebar subscribe form, or a subscribe form below your posts? Maybe you'll give your readers a small, ethical
“bribe.”

What do I use? All of them! Each and every one of my past and present blogs went through a quick elimination process to find which tactic captured the most emails.

Never ask someone which email capturing tactic works best for them. The answer depends on the style of your readers, and the niche your blog is in. Is the readers’ attention span short, do they get annoyed, and do they take time to look at their surroundings?

But on your own blog, there is a reliable way to find out which tactic works best.

Testing your email capturing tactics

Google Website Optimizer is a great tool you can use to increase email opt in conversions. It's surprisingly easy to use and produces great feedback, graphs, charts, and results.

How do you get started? First, you obviously need to login, or create a Google account. Click the Get Started button, agree to their terms and get ready to capture so many emails other bloggers think you're stealing them.

Getting started

Currently you should be at your dashboard looking something like this…

Google Website Optimizer dashboard

Once you're at the dashboard, click Create a new experiment.

You have two option here, and one is a lot easier to use than the other. The first option is called the A/B...

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Copyblogger - What Bestselling Fiction Can Teach You About Writing Better

2011-09-26T07:55:00.001-07:00

What Bestselling Fiction Can Teach You About Writing Better Landing Pages

Imagine you’re having a discussion with a talkative, hyperactive teenager.

The conversation goes something like this …

We went to the mall, and like, there was this fire in the mall. And we went from there to the movies, but we didn’t have any money and anyway the popcorn machine was broken, and so we didn’t really want to go to the movies without popcorn. But right after that we went to have some pizza and there was this creepy guy outside the store. But listen to this — because that’s not the best part. The best part is that Sylvie dumped Josh, and like, they ran into each other in the street …

Annoying right? Then why do we so often write our web copy just like that teenager talks?

Is there a better way to write a landing page?

When we write copy for our website, we sound a lot like that teenager

We tend to move all over the place with our copy.

First, we’ll try to stuff five different concepts into the headline.

Then we’ll try and fill in too many sub-heads that we want to drive home.

And then our first paragraph attempts to cover all the possible points.

And — like that teenager above — we have the entire story in our heads, but nothing quite gets across to the client.

We’re trying to cover way too many points, way too quickly.

And, as you’ve worked out for yourself, this bouncing and jumping around is exhausting for your reader.

How this mistake unfolds in an actual piece of copy

Let’s take a look at our “teenage talk” problem using a real-life example:

Headline:

Are You Fed Up With Unprofessional Contractors?

Body text:

Contractors that don’t call you back or even show up?
Are you done with contractors that lack the ability to...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 7 Powerful Reasons Why Companies Will Pay for You to Blog

2011-09-26T07:38:00.001-07:00

7 Powerful Reasons Why Companies Will Pay for You to Blog

This guest post is by Lina Nguyen of Words That Influence.

Influential bloggers are being paid top dollar to write sponsored posts (thousands of dollars per post is not unheard of). They're gifted with luxury items, cars and overseas trips, and invited to events previously exclusive to A-List celebrities and long-established journalists.

Bloggers worldwide are proving to be fierce competition for mainstream media, as companies decide how to get the best return on investment for their marketing buck.

If you have the following seven things, then your blog and social media networks will be highly valuable digital assets, sought after by major companies.

Even if you don't quite have the same reach and clout as some of these bloggers, you can still apply these principles to negotiate your own deals with smaller businesses in your niche.

ProBlogger Training Day event speakers Craig Makepeace and Caz Makepeace are travel bloggers who landed a corporate sponsorship deal with a major airline, to cover a high profile international sporting event. At the end of this post, we’ll see these seven points in action, as we take a look at their success in attracting sponsorship from a major brand.

1. Your audience is a profitable niche market

The people in a profitable niche for major companies tend to be decision makers, consumers or influencers in the buying process, for either highly priced items (like cars, technology, travel or finance), or highly consumed items (like food, health products, household goods).

How do you know if your niche is profitable? Just take a look around in mainstream media. If companies are already paying big bucks to advertise to your audience on TV, radio, magazines and newspapers, then you're in a profitable niche.

2. You've built a community

If you've created a group of people who gather on your blog and social media networks, then what you've created has the...

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Copyblogger - Grab Our 20-Part Online Marketing Course (Itâs Free!)

2011-09-25T13:39:00.001-07:00

Grab Our 20-Part Online Marketing Course (It's Free!)

Want to discover the smartest ways to mix social media, content marketing, and SEO for lead generation and developing new business?

We’ve got you covered with Internet Marketing for Smart People. And there’s absolutely no charge.

This 20-part course and email newsletter delivers the techniques and strategies you need to know when marketing online.

Find out more and sign up for free here.

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How the Power of One Can Take Your Blog to Many

2011-09-25T13:18:00.001-07:00

How the Power of One Can Take Your Blog to Many

This guest post is by Barb Sawyers of Sticky Communication.

Changing the world, one person at a time. I first heard this expression back in the eighties as the tagline for Apple Computers. Since then, it's been borrowed my thousands of causes and brands. It's that good.

But still, people are appealing to market segments, stakeholders and other big-box groups. Bloggers are often advised to know their niches. Though smaller, a niche is still an impersonal group.

Flip your model

If you're not getting the results you deserve, try flipping your relationship model from many to one. After all, that's how you make friends.

This individual should be the person you most want to connect with. Not your happy fans, customers or followers, nor the people whose minds are firmly shut to you. Pick the people who are sitting on the fence, just waiting for a gentle push to your side.

Just one

Actually, I should say person, not people, because I want you to think about one person who represents those fence sitters. Maybe this person resembles someone you know fairly well, from personal experience, market research or whatever. Probably you to have to use some imagination to fill in the gaps.

Now ask yourself: What gets this person up in the morning? What keeps him awake at night? Answer those two questions and you can tap into these deep passions and fears that nudge the fence sitter to your side.

For example

Let me use a cause blogger as an example. You blog because you are passionate about helping starving children. That gets you up in the morning. But you wake up in the middle of the night worried that you aren't conveying the passion or knowledge that will persuade people to donate.

Normally you write for your niche, well-educated, well-off people in urban centres and a list of other stakeholders. Today talk to one person who you have invented, based partly on the woman you...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How to Get More Eyeballs on Your Affiliate Links

2011-09-25T07:15:00.001-07:00

How to Get More Eyeballs on Your Affiliate Links

This guest post is by Peter Lawlor.

The more articles I publish on my niche websites, the more knowledgeable I become about keywords, and more importantly, the search habits of my target audience.

During the early days of my affiliate marketing business, I would write a post promoting a particular product or service as an affiliate and move on. That was a big mistake, but one that is easily solved.

My “Aha” moment as an affiliate marketer

As I dug deeper into my niches, I realized that people use different search phrases and terms when looking for the same solution.

This was a major eye-opener to me and presented a profitable “aha” moment. I discovered in one instant how to leverage my existing content and get far more eyeballs on my affiliate links. The result was a more revenue from my blogs.

Affiliate marketing is a numbers game. The more people who see your affiliate links, the more clicks you’ll garner and the more commissions you’ll earn. Granted, your pre-selling must be up to snuff as well.

One simple technique to increase the number of eyeballs on your affiliate links is to write a series of posts segmenting your target audience.

Segmenting your target audience

No matter how narrow or broad your niche, your audience can be further broken down into groups.

It’s a no-brainer that exhausting the keywords in your niche is a good idea. However, there may be more keywords when you segment your audience. If you get creative, you’ll be able to expand the profitable keywords you can target with audience segmenting.

How do you segment your target audience?

You can segment your target audience by:

solution sought
price
best of…

1. Solution sought

Segmenting by solution sought means thinking about the different uses...

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Copyblogger - Copyblogger Weekly Wrap

2011-09-24T07:42:00.001-07:00

Copyblogger Weekly Wrap

I think there comes a time in every person’s life when he has to ask himself, “Am I most effectively doing what Copyblogger tells me to do, to the point of abdicating my free will and possibly granting its editors power of attorney?” So this week, I took inventory and decided that I wasn’t spreading my words widely enough.

To remedy the situation, I finally put some stuff up on Kindle as several people keep telling me I should do — my 2008 humor collection, two manifesto-weight posts to disseminate amongst the Kindle users of the world, and a short story from over a decade ago that I was shocked to discover I still really liked.

So when the Copy Police come around, make sure you tell them that I’m toeing the line, okay?

Here’s what happened this week on Copyblogger:

Monday:

Are You Losing Business When You Hunt for Customers?

When I first saw this post’s title, I thought the concept was ridiculous. “If we aren’t supposed to hunt and eat customers,” I thought, “then why are they made out of meat?” But then I read more and began to understand the new metaphor: Gardening instead of hunting. Nurturing instead of killing. (Read on; this post even contains slugs.)

Read the full post here.

Tuesday:

Sickly Sales Page? Try These 3 Copywriting Remedies

I’d never really considered approaching writing a sales page in the same way a doctor approaches treating an illness, but it makes total sense. Check this one out to see how a little bit of diagnostic methodology could spice up your sales. Side note: If ever someone offers you a home remedy for an ailment, make sure you ask first what it is and that you don’t accept if it’s a kick in the face, because I’ve decided that one is really ineffective.

Read the full post...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Action! Can Our Hollywood Experiment Help You Make Money Blo

2011-09-24T07:14:00.001-07:00

Action! Can Our Hollywood Experiment Help You Make Money Blogging?

This is a guest post by Joke and Biagio of JokeAndBiagio.com

Setting: a busy production office in Hollywood, California. Joke stares at her husband Biagio in disbelief.

Joke: You bought another book from Darren Rowse?

Biagio: Well, uh, no…this one’s actually by the Web Marketing Ninja…

Her face goes blank.

Joke: Did you just say…Ninja?

Blogging for business: benefits not always obvious

ProBlogger, Joke and Biagio

That kind of back-and-forth’s been typical ever since we tip-toed into blogging in 2009.

Sure, it’s always fun to think about monetizing the blog or read about ways to get big traffic.

But realistically, our blog for filmmakers who want to break into Hollywood has been more of a fun distraction than a tool to make us money.

Maybe you’ve felt the same about your own blog? Wondered if banging away on your laptop at 2am would have any (positive) effect on your business? Questioned if the “standard” ways to make money blogging were right for you?

We’ve had those doubts over the past few years.

Then the blogging money muse came along…

An idea struck. A new approach to cashing in on our blog that seemed obvious and frightening all at once.

In fact, just saying it out loud freaked out our friends and colleagues.

But we really believe this idea is a win-win scenario for both our readers and our company. It’s a concept that just might work for you, too.

More on that in a minute. First, some background…

We make film and TV

As working producers and directors in Los Angeles, blogging was not high on our “to do” checklist for Hollywood success. But we had a personal reason for writing: to create the film and TV blog we wished existed when we were...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - The Science of Blogging

2011-09-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

The Science of Blogging

This guest post is by Syed Farhan of www.purephysics.net.

The word "science" comes from the Latin root "scientia," which means knowledge. This is the reason why the word science is attached to many "non scientific" terms like "the science of theology."

A blog is defined as follows:

A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent “post” (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.—Darren Rowse, What is a Blog?

Most websites are intended to acquire or spread knowledge, hence science and blogs have a lot to do with each other.

The following scientists’ quotes do not refer specifically to blogging, but I think they can teach us a lot about it.

I am sure that I am not smarter than other scientists. Psychologists have said that my IQ is about 160, I recognize that there are one hundred thousand or more people in the United States that have IQs higher than that.—Linus Pauling; Nobel Laureate of Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962), in an interview to the site Academy of Achievement, Nov 11, 1990.

An authority on blogging, Darren Rowse said in Blogging Takes Super Human Effort vs Blogging is Easy [Misconceptions New Bloggers Have #1]:

“Before I started blogging I had had 20 jobs in ten years, none of which were in anything to do with the online space and most of which were fairly manual/physical jobs.
“My only qualifications were half a degree in Marketing (which I failed half of the subjects in) and a Bachelor of Theology.
“I'd received a 'C' in English in my final year of high school.
“I was incapable of making text bold on my first blog for several weeks—I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to anything technical!”

Some people think that only people with exceptionally...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Seth Godin on Blogging and Productivity

2011-09-23T07:18:00.001-07:00

Seth Godin on Blogging and Productivity

With the launch this week of Seth Godin's latest book, We Are All Weird, we wanted to share this interview we recently conducted with Seth on productivity and blogging.

Seth's among the world's most prolific bloggers, but he's also a profuse book author and serial entrepreneur.

How does he fit it all in?

Seth (image copyright Brian Bloom Photography)

One of his secrets might surprise you: "I'm America's worst attender of meetings," Seth reveals. “I don't do any of that.”

"A meeting is a very special thing: it's three or more people talking to each other about a decision that's going to be made, and probably trying to get someone else to make it," he explains. "And so I don't have those. If I need information I have a conversation with one person. That's not a meeting, that's a conversation."

He refers to Al Pittampalli's book Read This Before Our Next Meeting, which was released in August through Seth's publishing venture, The Domino Project, and which suggests more productive approaches to the traditional concept of the "meeting."

Of course, that's not the only way Seth manages to keep on top of things. As the interview reveals, his philosophy rests on a very clear vision of what's important to him. It's that vision that motivates him, helps him choose where to direct his energies, and enables him to make the everyday decisions that keep his media empire growing.

Our favorite piece of advice from the interview?

In a world where there's not a lot of scarcity of ideas, and where digital stuff isn't going to be able to be priced based on scarcity, ubiquity is a better strategy. If you can help change the conversation, if you can say stuff that's worth saying, the money takes care of itself.
—Seth Godin

Start listening!

Or read the interview transcript in full:

Today I'm talking to Seth...

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Copyblogger - What Works With SEO Right Now and Why No One Does What You W

2011-09-23T07:04:00.001-07:00

What Works With SEO Right Now and Why No One Does What You Want

I deleted a bunch of crap on my laptop yesterday.

It was all stuff I’d been thinking might be useful someday. Apps, folders, documents, etc.

Call it minimalism, call it OCD, whatever. I like to work simply, and only with the tools that actually work for me.

SEO, content marketing, email marketing, these can all seem to be very complicated responsibilities of the modern online publisher. But, with a few good tools — and one “killer app” in particular — you’ll be on your way.

This stuff isn’t easy, but getting down to what actually works is fairly simple.

So let’s do just that …

Also, Brian writes a big check, and Sonia turns down the Executive title “Creedence Clearwater Officer.”

In this episode Brian, Sonia and I discuss:

Why good SEO is like getting the hot girl in high school
The super-secret, embarrassingly simple, copywriting tip that converts
Is your product your best marketing? It had better be …
Why SEO is way more than good keyword math
Why most ad agencies can’t sell their way out of a paper bag
The 2 words that get you 4 times more Retweets

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

Click here to download the mp3 | 28.7 MB | 24:58
Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

Slip into the “Little Black Dress” of Internet Marketing (free)
SEO Lessons From Apple’s Steve Jobs
A Food Pyramid for Content Marketing
How to Be a Copywriting Genius: The Brilliantly Sneaky Trick You Must Learn
Does Telling Someone to...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 7-point Checklist For Bloggers Who Want to Create a Profitab

2011-09-22T14:52:00.001-07:00

7-point Checklist For Bloggers Who Want to Create a Profitable Blog

This guest post is by Peter G. James Sinclair of Motivational Memo.

Before I aggressively started to build my Motivational Memo blog at the beginning of this year I had already owned a web design company for over seven years.

During that time I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in web design, and now that I have entered the blogging industry I continue to see the same mistakes being made by many bloggers.

So use this quick checklist to analyze your own blog.

1. How well is your blog structured?

Have you clearly identified your audience?
What's in it for the client when they come to your blog?
Do you have a call to action?
Is your blog outstanding? What do you do differently from others?
Do you sell the right things—most profitable and easiest to deliver?
What are the best things you are doing in your niche?
Have you a clear purpose for each web page?
What action do you want your visitors to take?
Do you provide quality information?
Are you building a list?
Are you selling a product or service?
Are you gathering referrals?
Are you building a relationship with your readers?
Have you built credibility and authority in your niche?
Have you promoted your success through a Press, Awards, or Featured-in page?
Do you realize that you are building an asset that you can sell?
Do you know that you need more than one website if you want to make money from blogging?

2. How good is your written copy?

Do you write headlines that are benefit driven?
Does your writing stand out amongst the crowd?
Do you provide proof either through testimonials, comments, featured articles, endorsements, and statistics—in text, audio, and video format?
Is your call to action clear?
Does your offer provide great value?
Does...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 50% Discount Ends in 36 Hours on the Bloggerâs Guide to Onli

2011-09-22T10:36:00.001-07:00

50% Discount Ends in 36 Hours on the Blogger's Guide to Online Marketing Kit

A few weeks ago here on ProBlogger we launched a product I’m really proud of—the Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing Kit written by the Web Marketing Ninja (the guy who has helped me shape my own blogging business model over the last few years).

The kit is essentially based around three things:

a comprehensive ebook
a library of 21 templates, documents and examples to help you develop your own blogging business model
a 70-minute bonus recording of a Q&A webinar that the Ninja, Chris Garrett, and myself did last week for buyers of the kit.

The kit is really about helping bloggers who want to get serious about turning their blog into a business to do just that. You can read the full details of what’s included and who it’s for here.

We launched the Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing Kit with a limited-time 50% discount (down from $99.99 to $49.99).

The kit has had some really positive reviews and feedback so we’ve left the discount open a little longer than we’d anticipated, but that discount ends in around 36 hours time (this Friday, US time).

So if you’re looking for some teaching from an experienced online marketer on how to make your blog profitable, grab your copy of the kit today.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

50% Discount Ends in 36 Hours on the Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing Kit

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Copyblogger - 49 Drop-Dead Gorgeous Reasons You Should Run Your Website on

2011-09-22T07:45:00.001-07:00

49 Drop-Dead Gorgeous Reasons You Should Run Your Website on WordPress

Yeah, you can pick up a theme to bolt onto your WordPress website just about anywhere these days.

But why would you go just about anywhere to find something that’s so vital to your work? This is 2011 after all.

Your website should be stunningly designed.

It should make performing the basics of good SEO very simple.

You shouldn’t have to worry about things like state-of-the-art security, hassles with manual updates, or wondering if the underlying code of the theme you’re using is silently undermining all your work.

Oh, and it’d be cool if all of the above was found in one place. In 49 unique variations to choose from. Right?

Well, check this out …

Our StudioPress team has done the heavy lifting for you when it comes to website design, search optimization, and security.

Between our in-house StudioPress themes and our newly-built, StudioPress-approved, Theme Marketplace, we've got 49 stunning WordPress themes for you to lay on top of our rock-solid Genesis Framework for WordPress.

And, as always, there’s more going on over there than I can keep up with.

I’ll write more later about all the powerful plugins, the free (and growing) graphics library, etc.

For now, check out these two hand-made theme designs from the StudioPress.com workbench:

Scribble down a little note, or much more

Sometimes it’s personal.

Sometimes it’s business.

Either way, you need a place that’s yours to get it down.

Click here to straighten out your website with the Scribble theme.

Every company is a media company

Small business or large, you’re in the game.

Suburban, exurban, urban, or rural, you’ve got the opportunity to speak to the world.

We talk a lot around here about content and...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Behind the Scenes: How a ProBlogger Product Sales Page is Ma

2011-09-22T07:40:00.001-07:00

Behind the Scenes: How a ProBlogger Product Sales Page is Made

This post was written by the Web Marketing Ninja—author of The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing, and a professional online marketer who's sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Curious? So are we!

I tweeted a couple of days ago how wonderfully evolutionary sales page copy can be as it passes between the different people who are working on it. At the time, I likened it to Chinese whispers with a happy ending.

It's a tweet that culminated from the copywriting process for Darren's brand new book on DPS, Click! How to take Gorgeous Photos of your Kids. The book's sales page presented some interesting challenges for me and reminded me of some important lessons that I thought would be good to share with you all.

The process

This is how the sales page for Click! came into being.

1. Thinking before writing

All of Darren's sales page start with a semi-workshop, usually with Darren, Jasmin, and myself. We're not at this stage thinking about the specific words we'll use—we're thinking about the core message we're hoping to convey and how we'll present it. We weigh up the core benefits of the product and pick which one we're going to lead with. It normally starts with a bit of a brain dump and ends with us exploring more specific personas—the ones for which we created the product in the first place.

With Click!, we started with a simple audience definition: "those who wanted to take photos of kids," but soon realized that it needed to run a little deeper than that. We came up with four target personas: moms, dads, grandparents, and pro photographers. Whilst the book is perfect for all of them, the key benefits of buying the book were distinctly different for each group. We discussed options to create a page that conveyed a message to all, but settled for focusing on moms. We felt they were more likely to respond emotionally to the sales page.

2. Engaging the...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - There Are 3 Thingâs Wrong With This Head Line

2011-09-21T13:51:00.001-07:00

There Are 3 Thing's Wrong With This Head Line

This guest post is by Greg McFarlane of Control Your Cash

As a blogger, you expect your readers to give you their valuable time that they could be spending elsewhere. If you're going to ask that much of them, don't they deserve your best effort in return?

When your posts are loaded with spelling and grammar mistakes, you're telling your readers one or both of two things:

I can't be bothered to learn the language I've chosen to communicate in.
My content is so vital and compelling that its form is unimportant.

Democratization has its advantages, and alas, its drawbacks. 572 years ago, Johann Gutenberg was the only person on Earth who could have his words disseminated en masse. (And even he was but the messenger, merely spreading others' divinely inspired works.) Today, anyone with a Return key and an opinion can search for an audience. Does that mean that you deserve one?

Look at the most popular blogs, the ones with critical acclaim, and/or a large readership. Technorati lists The Huffington Post, Hot Air, several members of the Gawker family, Mashable and TechCrunch among its top 20. Even the inane TMZ is on the list. Regardless of how you feel about left-wing politics, right-wing politics, general snarkiness, social media news, technology or the lives of celebrities, all the blogs on the list have something in common that also-ran blogs don't.

Proper, comprehensible English, delivered in sentences that you don't have to reread to make sense of. In 2011, with so much of the world's knowledge available to any of us, it's astounding that there exist bloggers who've advanced past adolescence yet still don't know that plurals don't take apostrophes.

When I decry this (I'm the kind of person who thinks that Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson deserve their own Nobel Prize category), I'm often met with the standard responses. These fall into three categories:

I...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Make an App to Engage Your Blogâs Readers

2011-09-21T07:12:00.001-07:00

Make an App to Engage Your Blog's Readers

This guest post is by Leah Goodman of AppsGeyser.

A few months ago, when I started working for AppsGeyser, a friend asked me if I could turn her blog into an app, to which I responded, “Yes.” Then she asked me the more important question: why would she want to do that?

There are loads of reasons. Here are just a few ways you can use an app to bring new readers to your blog and give more value to your current readers.

Raise the level of engagement

Mobile users can read your blog on a mobile RSS reader, but reading a blog through an app means that they’re coming to your blog specifically. It’s a different level of engagement. They’re looking for this blog’s icon. They’re looking to interact with this blog each time. It’s not just one of a bunch of publications.

Be found where mobile users are looking

Regular readers will have your blog in their RSS feeds on their mobile devices, but new mobile readers are much more likely to find your blog by searching for apps than by searching the Web. Having an app gives bloggers a whole additional avenue for discovery.

Form a “secret society”

Once people have downloaded the app, you can engage them in some really great ways, too. Provide unique content for app users, creating the sense that they’ve joined a “secret society,” just by downloading the app. Utilize the fact that it’s not just an RSS feed, and have them vote, fill out forms, and leave comments without having to use a different interface.

Push your message

Last, but definitely not least, is the idea of push messaging. With an app, it’s easy to send messages to people who’ve downloaded your app—even if they’re not checked in.

Push messages are just like text messages to everyone who has the app installed. For a craft...

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Copyblogger - How to Make Your Writing Real

2011-09-21T06:45:00.001-07:00

How to Make Your Writing Real

In this day and age, substance matters.

What you say must be meaningful to the people you're trying to attract.

Your content must solve real problems and satisfy real desires.

So why should it matter how you say it?

The reality is, how you say it has always mattered, and it matters even more today.

For content marketing, it's basically the difference between success and failure.

You're in a battle for attention. A headline that doesn't specifically convey a compelling promise results in content that is too often simply ignored.

Beyond that, your copy has to hold that precious attention, sentence by sentence, until the conclusion.

Even the appearance of your content on the page matters when trying to make a substantive point.

Finally, the way you convey information, no matter how independently valuable, affects everything from clarity to engagement to retention at a psychological level. Your ideas and advice must stick in people's heads for you to succeed.

In short, how you say it is what you say.

Here's an example:

If someone asks you what's for dinner, you can stick with the substance:

Tonight we're having pasta for dinner.

Or you can add a bit of craft and style to make it more tangible:

Tonight we'll enjoy a dinner of tender linguini, topped with a homemade marinara sauce featuring vine-ripened tomatoes, fragrant basil, and fresh oregano straight from our garden, accented with just a hint of garlic and red wine flavoring.

Same basic information — we indeed will be having pasta for dinner.

Is one more enticing and memorable than the other?

Let's look at another example.

Popcorn is bad for you

The book Made to Stick gives us the case of Art Silverman, a guy with a vendetta against popcorn. Silverman wanted...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Bushido for Bloggers: What Samurais and Bloggers Have in Com

2011-09-20T13:29:00.001-07:00

Bushido for Bloggers: What Samurais and Bloggers Have in Common

This guest post is by Aman Basanti of ageofmarketing.com.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure is the most famous text on bushido, the warrior code of the samuari. Written in an era when Japan was obsessed with warfare and martial prowess, the book offers instruction on how a samurai should live and die.

The most famous and misunderstood line in Japanese history

The most famous line in Hagakure is, "I have found that bushido means to die. It means that when one has to choose between life and death, one quickly chooses the side of death."

Modern scholars find such a statement horrifying. The author's obsession with death is disturbing. Even the Edo Confucians of the time condemned Tsunetomo's morbid teaching.

Beyond first impressions

But if you look past the shock and absurdity of the statement, there is logic and sensibility behind Tsunetomo's advice. In fact, once you understand what the statement is really saying, you realize that Tsunetomo is not preaching obsession of death; he is preaching freedom from its obsession.

What Tsunetomo is saying is that being afraid of death attracts it. Fear of death paralyses the warrior in battle stopping him from thinking clearly and acting correctly. When you accept death, however, you neutralise its paralysing effects. You become apt at dealing with the stress of combat. You become better at mobilising your martial skill, therefore increasing your chance of survival.

It is a great paradox that by accepting death you increase your chances of surviving in battle.

Samurais, bloggers and the fear of failure

But you are not a samurai. Why do Tsunetomo's words matter to you?

Whether it is dying in battle or failing as a blogger, fear of failure paralyses people. Like samurais in combat, would-be bloggers get so consumed by the fear of getting it wrong...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Why Bloggers Should Pay Attention to the New Affiliate Tax L

2011-09-20T07:21:00.001-07:00

Why Bloggers Should Pay Attention to the New Affiliate Tax Laws

This guest post is by Yasmine Mustafa of 123LinkIt.com.

The Business Insider recently reported that ten thousand affiliates were recently dropped from Amazon's Affiliate Program with little warning.

How much income would you lose if you were no longer permitted to use the program?

This is an issue that bloggers in California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are currently facing. They were instantly cut from Amazon's affiliate program due to a new affiliate tax law.

How did it happen? What can you do to avoid this law from passing in your state?

All about the affiliate tax law

Online retailers such as Amazon that do not have a physical presence are not required to collect sales tax like brick-and-mortar businesses. Big companies like Wal-Mart who are taxed see this as an unfair advantage and are paying lobbyists to push what is now called the "Amazon tax" or the "affiliate nexus tax."

In short, this affiliate tax states that online merchants can in fact be taxed if they have a "nexus" or connection within the state. Affiliate marketers are one of the groups of people viewed as a connection. As a result, state governors in the above-mentioned states are signing a law that taxes Amazon and other online vendors through its affiliates. They are now being treated as having a physical presence and are subject to pay taxes.

Amazon has reacted immediately. Wanting to avoid being subject to costly tax inquiries from the government, they are cutting connections to every state that passes the affiliate tax by terminating agreements with all affiliate marketers, leaving many bloggers with decreased incomes and some with no incomes from their blog. As long as there are states that do not tax its sales, Amazon has stated that it will continue to avoid affiliate marketing in the states that do. As of June 30, 2011, California, Colorado,...

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Copyblogger - Weak, Anemic Sales Pages? Try These 3 Copywriting Remedies

2011-09-20T07:16:00.001-07:00

Weak, Anemic Sales Pages? Try These 3 Copywriting Remedies

Say you've been feeling under the weather for a few days, and you decide to go to the doctor.

The moment you open the door to your doctor’s office, she takes one quick look at you, thrusts a prescription into your hands, and slams the door in your face.

No check-up, no conversation, just a bottle of pills and her bill in the mail.

Are you confident she’s given you the solution — the correct medicine — you need to make you feel better?

Um, no.

How could she possibly know what the right prescription would be without carefully considering and analyzing your symptoms?

Even if you were suffering from something simple, you’d still want your 10 minutes of poking, prodding, “umming,” “ahhing,” and answering all the questions specific to your situation.

That’s what gives you the confidence that the doctor can fix your problem.

Your prospects need the same thing

Assessing and explaining the reasons behind your customer's "symptoms" is just as essential when writing sales copy.

If you try to jump straight into selling your product before identifying the problem, you make it harder to convince your customer logically, emotionally, and with proof that you have something they desperately need.

So, here’s a simple three-step guide to using your prospects’ symptoms to make your offer more compelling and convincing.

Step 1: Outline your prospect’s symptoms

When you go to the doctor she doesn't ask if you feel "unwell." She asks you if your throat is sore, if you have a cough, if you have a headache in the morning, and so on.

She needs to identify your precise symptoms before she can solve the root problem.

In copywriting, your customer's "symptoms" are specific situations he can relate to that are caused by the problem you solve.

For example,...

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Copyblogger - Copyblogger Weekly Wrap

2011-09-19T10:55:00.001-07:00

Copyblogger Weekly Wrap

Here’s an actual conversation I had with Brian, which I may have paraphrased and/or written while getting a massage from a clown:

Brian: “So, do you want to start writing the Wrap again?”

Me: “Sure, sounds like fun. Are people missing it and wondering when it’ll come back?”

Brian: “No, not really. We got all kinds of mail asking when the radio show was going to return, but nobody’s asked about the Wrap.”

Me: “Has anyone specifically said that they’ll complain or cancel their subscription if the Wrap does return?”

Brian: “No. Nobody has said that either.”

Me: “Okay, then.”

So, back by popular demand — you didn’t explicitly protest it, so you get it — announcing the return of the Copyblogger Weekly Wrap!

Here’s what happened this week on Copyblogger:

Monday:

Would You Trade Your Boredom for Stress to Have Your Own Business?

My wife wrestles with this decision all the time. On one hand, she would never trade the boredom of a job for the hair-pulling stress of entrepreneurship as Sonia describes it, but on the other hand she has no choice because she’s shackled to me. It’s as if I’ve taken her hostage. And I think that’s real question this post asks: When’s the last time you took someone hostage? Or it might have something to do with an entrepreneur’s mindset, but I’m not good with symbolism.

Read the full post here.

Tuesday:

What a Navy SEAL Can Teach You About Becoming a Fearless Writer

Brian’s too nice to come right out and say it (or, more likely, he wants to appear to be too nice to come right out and say...

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Copyblogger - Are You Losing Business When You Hunt for Customers?

2011-09-19T07:37:00.001-07:00

Are You Losing Business When You Hunt for Customers?

To listen to some people, you’d think marketing were a battle or bloodsport.

Think about all the military metaphors we use — identifying a target market, launching a campaign, and using strategy and tactics to crush competitors and win that desired customer.

Even such apparently innocuous business terms as staff, officer, headquarters, division, and operations are rooted in military terminology.

And of course, no self-respecting business leader’s library is complete without a dog-eared copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

Hunting metaphors also tend to appeal to salespeople out to “land” a big deal (as if it were a whale) and in “shotgun vs. rifle” theories of direct marketing.

You may have even heard salespeople say (hopefully not while they’re selling to you) that “if they don’t kill, they don’t eat.”

Now, I won’t deny that these metaphors have their uses. And let’s be honest, they can make the whole process feel a little more heroic and exciting, especially on a wet Monday morning.

But do we really want to think about our customers as “targets” — to be attacked, overpowered, and killed?

And even that appeals to us — do our customers want to feel like prey or military conquests?

Even when it comes to other businesses who provide similar products or services, is it really the smartest approach to think of them simply as competitors — to be outflanked and defeated?

Because that’s what we’re doing, subconsciously, every time we talk about our business in the language of war or hunting.

You don’t have to be “kumbaya”

Now maybe you’re not a kumbaya marketer, and you’re more interested in turning a profit than the...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 3 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates and Increase Conversions

2011-09-19T07:34:00.001-07:00

3 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates and Increase Conversions

This guest post is by Gregory Ciotti of sparringmind.com.

One of the many tough obstacles that newer bloggers have to deal with is the fact that many of their visitors, which they work very hard to get, will often “bounce” away from their pages—they’ll immediately leave the blog after landing on the homepage.

This “bounce rate” can have a drastic effect on your blog’s success at any stage, but especially in the beginning. It’s very important to be able to keep the interest of your earliest visitors in order to build the loyal following that’s the essential foundation of any great blog.

So, what can you do to keep people around your blog long enough to explore its great content?

1. Set up a navigation bar with “super pages”

As a blogger, you’re probably very familiar with (and even have) a navigation bar on your blog, and you likely recognize its importance in helping readers get to your content.

However, many people do not take full advantage of this above-the-fold navigation bar, which inevitably draws a lot of clicks. After all, your nav bar really stands out on your site, and people are very familiar with how these menus work.

You can get more out of your navigation bar by having it link to pages that are much more than just a sequential list of posts in separate categories (as most bloggers do). I’d like to show you how by teaching you about a tactic that I call “super pages” that will direct readers to your best content.

Instead of just listing those categories up on your navigation bar, you can create separate blog pages that accomplish many useful goals, including pages that turn into SEO powerhouses and are incredibly shareable (linkbait), pages that convert new visitors, and pages that help you establish trust with people coming across your blog for the...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How Tumblr Helped Put My Site on Top

2011-09-18T13:10:00.001-07:00

How Tumblr Helped Put My Site on Top

This guest post is by Ryan Shell of Fashables.

I won't even begin to act like I'm some sort of SEO ninja, because I'm not. What I do know is that a particular post on one of my sites has ranked in the top three spots on Google, with a majority of that time spent at number one and outranking a major clothing brand.

Tumblr played a huge part in making that happen, and I'd like to share my almost accidental findings.

The backstory

Break dancing (Image courtesy PhotosbyRy.com)

I'm a marketer by day, but one of my many side projects is running a men's and women's fashion blog called Fashables. I attended a Dockers event on April 7 for the launch of one of a new line of pants, the Alpha Khakis.

After the event, I went home, wrote a new post and scheduled it to be published the following day. The post was well optimized for the phrase "Dockers Alpha Khakis" and search engines have since sent my site a good amount of traffic for those keywords.

One of the reasons why I've received the traffic is because of keyword optimization, but another huge part of the SEO puzzle is what happened with Tumblr, and that's the real story here.

The accident

This could get confusing, so keep I mind that Dockers Alpha Khakis is the primary post in question.

A recurring feature on the site is a street style fashion post that is published twice a week. One of the photos previously published is the one you see to the right—it's of a young girl taking part in a break-dancing circle at Union Square in New York City.

One of Fashables readers evidently liked the photo enough to share it on Tumblr. Now, this is where the accident happened.

When they shared the photo on Tumblr they, for a reason unknown to me, linked the photo to the Dockers Alpha Khakis post on Fashables.

Once the photo hit Tumblr, it got reblogged and reblogged—maybe 40 or so times in total. Each reblog...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How I Started Making $3,000 a Month Blogging About Travel

2011-09-18T13:09:00.001-07:00

How I Started Making $3,000 a Month Blogging About Travel

This guest post is by Marcello Arrambide of wanderingtrader.com.

It has been about one full year since I started blogging about travel, and I have started to generate $3,000 or more a month via my travel blogs.

My very first post was published on May, 4th, 2010, and it was nothing but grammar mistakes and partaking in an activity that I really don’t enjoy: writing. I’m telling you this because even though I am a horrible writer, English os not my first language, and I need other people to proofread my work, I’m proof that you really don’t have to be the best at something in order to do make money via your blog. I have started to make at least $3,000 a month via my main travel blog, wanderingtrader.com.

Initially, I started my blog to capture traffic for a day trading business that I was running. I wanted to get more people interested in day trading and, well, get more sales. What it turned into was my own personal travel blog about my passion for travel, and tips about day trading and travel. My whole blogging strategy is based on exposure; you might have read my post about focusing on quantity of traffic instead of quality when you first start out.

There are a million posts on ProBlogger about making money blogging online and frankly almost everyone online makes money the same way. It seems there aren’t very many new ways that bloggers can make money from blogs. Darren wrote a great post on how bloggers make money from blogs if you are interested in learning your different options.

Instead of talking about ways to make money blogging I’m going to share how I managed to start making $3,000 a month via my travel blog in less than a year. I consider it ten months, really, since I took two months off when I got extremely frustrated by a small change in my blog design that crippled the traffic to my main blog. The list below is what I started focusing on, in order of...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - A Dash of Analytics Takes the Guess Work Out of Guest Postin

2011-09-17T07:16:00.001-07:00

A Dash of Analytics Takes the Guess Work Out of Guest Posting

This guest post is by Joe of the New Customer Workshop.

Guest posting is a great way to market your brand. When you guest post you are able to demonstrate you expertise to a new audience. The short term benefits are a bump in traffic to your website. Longer term benefits are sees through quality backlinks which will help with search engine optimization.

One of the questions that comes up when guest posting is "Where should I post?" For me, the answer is often "Whoever will take me!"

As you begin to build a reputation you may become more selective on where you guest post. Part of your process might include research to find sites that are aligned with your brand.

Let's say you've done the research and authored some guest posts. Now what? Well, like any good marketer, you must measure the results of your campaign. If you have Google Analytics installed, this is a snap.

Google Analytics

All of you should be running some analytics software on your website. If you're not, stop reading and go install Google Analytics.

If you aren't running Google Analytics, the fundamentals of what I'm explaining are the same even if the mechanics are different.

The secret sauce: campaign variables

When you insert the link back to your website you are going to add some extra information tags on the end of the link. This data will help you classify the traffic. Google calls these tags campaign variables.

Using campaign variables you can add extra information to your posts which will help you to answer questions like:

Which guest posts drove the most traffic to my site?
Which websites with guest posts drove the most traffic to to my site?
Which posts resulted in opt-ins to my email list?
Which websites gave me more opt-ins to my email list?
Which source of traffic is better for me? Facebook, guest posting or search engines?

This is really...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - If You Donât Stop Doing This One Thing, Your Blogging Busine

2011-09-16T11:51:00.001-07:00

If You Don't Stop Doing This One Thing, Your Blogging Business Will Never Go Anywhere

This guest post is by Tommy Walker, Online Marketing Strategist and owner of Tommy.ismy.name.

Why are you reading this article?

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but isn’t there something else you could be doing?

What are you putting off?

I’m going to be straight with you. You are your own worst enemy.

And you are killing your business.

The curse of the boring business

Photo by Stephen Brace on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

If you’re blogging regularly, at some point you’ll delude yourself into believing that reading every “5 tips to do this thing with your blog” article, and bantering back and forth with industry folks on Twitter, is “work.”

This delusion usually starts at the point where you hit a plateau, and your feedback starts to stagnate or wither.

So you hunt through other people’s work in search of the magic bullet.

Maybe if you read more, you’ll learn the secrets.

Maybe if you talk more, someone else in the industry will take notice and launch you into blogging superstardom.

If you just share more, create more, or interact more, eventually, somehow, you’ll make it.

Take this a step further, and you start buying information products, thinking that might somehow fix the problem. It doesn’t.

Meanwhile, your understanding of your audience hasn’t deepened, your writing hasn’t actually improved, your traffic hasn’t increased, and you still haven’t made a cent directly from your blogging efforts.

And you don’t understand why.

Relationships matter, but focus on your customer

I know this, because I am you.

My blog has been live for a while, and granted there has been some steady growth. But when you’ve seen others rise up from nowhere in literally...

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Copyblogger - Are You Flushing Your Marketing Down the Social Media Toilet

2011-09-16T11:13:00.001-07:00

Are You Flushing Your Marketing Down the Social Media Toilet?

Building your Facebook following?

Smart.

Depositing all your content capital in The National Bank of Twitter?

Dumb. Let me rephrase: compounded dumb.

We’ve talked a lot about the dangers of digital sharecropping. So now let’s talk today about a specific news item that could affect your business — at any time.

And, in the tip of the week, we cover writing great headlines in light of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album.

Also, Brian names names.

In this episode Brian, Sonia and I discuss:

The real danger (and stupidity) of hinging all your marketing on Facebook or Twitter
How to inoculate your business against Facebook Fan Page deletion
What is obscurity marketing and can it work for you?
Why some writers can get away with “bad” headlines and why you probably can’t
How much should you promote your social presence?
A simple way to write effective headlines — at the grocery store

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

Click here to download the mp3 | 34.9 MB | 29:05
Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

Get the “Little Black Dress” of Internet Marketing … FREE
Facebook Deletes Hacked Pages, Destroying Years of Work
The Marketing Genius of “Led Zeppelin IV”
How to Write Magnetic Headlines
Magazines.com
Thanks to Girl Talk, baby.

About the Author: Robert Bruce is an American writer and amateur recluse.

...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Blogosphere Trends + Using Infographics

2011-09-15T20:51:00.001-07:00

Blogosphere Trends + Using Infographics

Information graphics, or infographics as they are more often called, are a great way to convey complex information clearly and concisely. Infographics can be anything from annotated maps, timelines, flowcharts, graphs, Venn diagrams, size comparisons, charts, or data presented with snazzy typography to a gorgeous amalgamation of several of these techniques. They add visual interest to your blog and are passed around more often than ordinary images or text.

If you have a design background or are fortunate enough to have some artistic skill, you can create your own infographics from scratch. If you're like most of us, you'll need a bit of assistance; fortunately, there are plenty of helpful resources online. Here are a few:

Visual.ly is like a search engine for infographics, so if you're looking to use a graphic created by someone else (with permission or by Creative Commons and with attribution, of course), you may well find what you need here among the thousands of beautiful options that have already been created. They're also working on a tool that will allow bloggers and others to create their own infographics using a plug-and-play system.
IBM's Many Eyes gives you access to libraries of data and the ability to upload your own. It's straightforward and yields professional looking results.
Google Public Data allows you to use publicly available data to create attractive infographics in a variety of forms.
Wordle makes it extremely easy to turn text into eye-catching word clouds with customizable fonts, colors, and designs.
Stat Planet lets you create interactive maps and data visualizations using simple browser-based tools and built-in data from sources such as the World Health Organization, CIA World Factbook, Wikipedia, and more.
If it's simple, elegant, easy-to-customize charts you're looking for, Hohli might be your answer.
Creately is a good option if you're working with flow charts...

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Copyblogger - Get More Great Content from Copyblogger on Twitter

2011-09-15T18:10:00.001-07:00

Get More Great Content from Copyblogger on Twitter

We deliver a lot of daily advice here on Copyblogger. And yet, in the fast-moving world of online marketing, web publishing, and social media, there’s a lot to know.

We share additional content related to copywriting, content, social media, SEO, and online marketing from many sources across the web @copyblogger on Twitter.

Why not join us on Twitter today?

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Copyblogger - Want to Be a Better Marketer? Start by Becoming a Better Tea

2011-09-15T15:49:00.001-07:00

Want to Be a Better Marketer? Start by Becoming a Better Teacher

Some of the world’s most masterful marketers are, first and foremost, master teachers.

You’re a teacher when you write a blog post that helps solve a tricky problem your audience is facing.

You’re a teacher when you lead a webinar.

You’re a teacher when you overcome objections on a landing page. When you troubleshoot with a client on the phone. When you craft a product, make a video, give a speech.

Understanding yourself as a teacher, no matter what your business, makes your business more profitable and more fulfilling.

As an entrepreneur, you know the importance of finding a need and filling it, of knowing your market, of writing compelling copy.

Yet it’s tempting to overlook an equally important part of the recipe: how you actually teach.

How you develop your content and deliver it.
How you connect with your students.
How you adapt to different learning styles.
How you take care of yourself so you can teach without burning out.

All these are as vital as what you teach and how you get the message out.

But because many of us don't see ourselves as teachers, we skip learning how to teach. And then we wonder why our businesses falter or our energy drains away.

Some people are natural teachers … I’m not one of them

The Woman’s Comfort Book became a bestseller when I was 29 years old.

I was instantly thrust into a teaching role. I did workshops and keynotes because I was invited to and I wanted to sell books. I had zero idea what I was doing. I flailed about. I would waste days over-preparing, then collapse when my teaching didn’t go the way I’d imagined.

And if the students didn’t rave? I was crushed. I felt so ashamed and alone in my failures.

Then I started to befriend other “famous”...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Start a Magazine that Complements Your Blog â¦ in 5 Steps

2011-09-15T14:23:00.001-07:00

Start a Magazine that Complements Your Blog … in 5 Steps

This guest post is by Deidra Wilson of deidrawilson.com.

They say that print is dead. That the Internet laid waste to the magazine rack at the airport. But that line of thinking has the good old boy driving the diesel pickup today behind the wheel of an electric car tomorrow.

Print is, and always will be, alive and well. You blog, eBay, search for Thai food recommendations and interact online, but you will always read magazines.

Have you ever considered adding a print arm to your digital empire?

If you have ever entertained the idea of publishing your own magazine, it is not as difficult as most suggest, and can be done for a small initial investment. Maybe you want to start a magazine that compliments your online business. For example, if you run a wedding website/portal/blog, look into self-publishing a local/regional wedding publication (and you already have the best advertising and self-promotions spots saved for yourself).

The potential of print

Let's talk about how a print arm of your blog can benefit your brand and your bottom line. Whether you will admit it or not, you on occasion take a peak at your closest competitor's Twitter follower count and compare it to yours. If their count far outweighs yours, you assume that a large part of the public would consider your more followed competitor's brand more legit than yours and to an intelligent extent you would be right.

What does adding an offline component to your blog's brand achieve?

Perceived credibility

Similar to that monster Twitter follower count, the general public believes what it sees. It is rational to place a value on the increase in credibility your blog will gain from self-publishing your own print magazine. If you structure your whole effort properly by always pointing your magazine readers to your blog and other online efforts, you now trump the most common online “noise” your competition is...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Not Every Ebook is a Success, But itâs Always a Lesson

2011-09-15T00:23:00.001-07:00

Not Every Ebook is a Success, But it's Always a Lesson

This guest post is by Chris The Traffic Blogger.

Ebooks have played a vital part in my business for all three of the years I have been operating. From free offers to successful products, these handy publications enabled me to earn quite a bit of money in three years, as well as grow an audience of over 11,700 members.

What I'd like to do for you today is go through a history of the ebooks I've written, and explain what I've learned along the way. My hope is that you will learn from my mistakes and failures as well as enjoy the experience of sharing in my story.

Ebook case study 1: $2030 in one day

My first ebook was written about World of Warcraft gold (the in-game currency for players) and how to make as much of it as possible, as quickly as possible. The ebook benefited from being sold to a highly receptive audience that I'd spent months building a relationship with.

Having only 500 subscribers made me nervous, but I went forward with writing the book and publishing it anyway. To my pleasant surprise, the ebook made over two thousand dollars in the first twenty four hours. I was absolutely ecstatic.

Why was it so successful? I didn't know it at the time, but I had done quite a lot of things right throughout the process of creating, selling, and advertising my new ebook.

I used media that was perfect for gamers within my product, namely diagrams, audio casts and videos. This ensured that readers would absolutely love the product once they purchased it. I always find it interesting how people assume ebooks have to be … well … books! The "ebook" wasn't just a .pdf file, it was actually a series of web pages that you needed to have paid for in order to visit. Being unconventional was one of the primary reasons for the success of the ebook.

The content itself was straightforward, easy to use and incredibly useful. I had worried that maybe I wasn’t writing enough, but as the sales poured in I...

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Copyblogger - How to Become an Unforgettable Writer

2011-09-14T07:44:00.001-07:00

How to Become an Unforgettable Writer

Style is the answer to everything
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous
thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable
to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style, is what
I call art

Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art
Opening a can of sardines can be an art

Not many have style
Not many can keep style
I have seen dogs with more style than men
Although not many dogs have style
Cats have it with abundance

When Hemingway put his brains
to the wall with a shotgun, that was style
For sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca

I have met men in jail with style
I have met more men in jail with style
than men out of jail
Style is a difference, a way of doing,
a way of being done

Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me

“Style” by Charles Bukowski

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The truth? His message is gold. His oration is unbearable. by Derek

ProBlogger Blog Tips - Use Showcase Sites to Boost Your Blogâs Loyal Readership

2011-09-14T07:11:00.001-07:00

Use Showcase Sites to Boost Your Blog's Loyal Readership

This guest post is by Issy Eyre of Fennel & Fern.

I’ll let you into a secret. One of the key ways I grew my traffic for my gardening blog Fennel & Fern wasn’t through clever SEO campaigns. It wasn’t through endless tweeting, or sucking up to other bloggers (although I’ve been guilty of all of those things—and more).

Instead, I used showcase websites to show off my content to a targeted group of users who I knew would love it. The lifestyle blogging community is lucky enough to have plenty of sites that showcase and link directly to quality blog posts, and these sites bring in a wealth of quality readers.

When one of my posts gets a StumbleUpon, I can get a thousand readers on my site within a couple of hours. But the average time spent on the site falls dramatically, from an everyday 3.5 minutes to just ten seconds, and naturally the bounce rate soars. These readers aren’t going to be digging into my site, or clicking on my advertisements, or subscribing to my emails.

But when one of my posts appears on the front page of TasteSpotting, 300 readers turn up, and the average time spent on site actually goes up to just over four minutes. The number of actions per visit is up as well, and I always see a little spike in email subscriptions. This is because showcase sites are targeted perfectly. I know that everyone who looks at my post on sundried tomatoes is a massive foodie, and so they’ll love my blog. They will read the whole recipe.

I’m such a big fan of the traffic-growing magic of showcase sites that I set up my own for the gardening blogging community, called GardenGrab. This also makes me quite popular with other garden bloggers, as I promote their content for them.

The best showcase sites

For food, try TasteSpotting, FoodGawker, Bkfst, and Refrigerator Soup.

For homes, craft and...

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Copyblogger - What a Navy SEAL Can Teach You About Becoming a Fearless Wri

2011-09-13T07:37:00.001-07:00

What a Navy SEAL Can Teach You About Becoming a Fearless Writer

On the evening of May 1, 2011, two Black Hawk helicopters loaded with 23 Navy SEALs, a translator, and a dog named Cairo approached a residential compound outside Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Minutes later, one of the helicopters landed outside the target property. The other spiraled into the ground in a barely-controlled crash landing.

Not exactly according to plan.

And yet, a few minutes later, the 12 SEALs in the downed Black Hawk calmly radioed the other group, and they proceeded with the mission.

Eighteen minutes later, Osama bin Laden was dead. The 23 SEALs, the translator, and the dog all made it home safely.

Given the circumstances, surely this mission constitutes a miracle, right?

No, not really.

Over the past nine years, this team of SEALs had successfully completed so many similar operations that nothing shook them. Not even a crashed 'copter while going after the most wanted man on the planet.

A senior Defense Department official put it this way:

"This was one of almost two thousand missions that have been conducted over the last couple of years, night after night." He likened the routine of evening raids to "mowing the lawn."

Let’s make one thing clear …

I’m in no way comparing what a Navy SEAL deals with to what you deal with as a writer. Writing can be tough, and even scary, but it’s a walk in the park compared to the job performed by any member of the armed services.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find inspiration in the dedication, perseverance, and sacrifice demonstrated by the SEALs. So here's what this means for you as a writer:

Want to tackle the most ambitious content projects without fear?
Want to crank out magnificent copy each and every time?
Want to write brilliantly as a simple matter of routine?

Quit whining, and keep writing. ...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Do You Spend Enough Time Looking at Your Stats?

2011-09-13T07:26:00.001-07:00

Do You Spend Enough Time Looking at Your Stats?

This guest post is by Deb of Science@home.

Do you spend enough time looking at your stats?

What a statement to start with, given that the mantra seems to be to check once a week and don't waste too much time on your stats. And I agree with what seems to be the reasoning—if you are spending all that time looking at your stats, what else could you be doing that's more productive? There also seems to be an underlying feeling that for us little guys the stats might be just too darn depressing, so staying away might be good for your mental health and motivation.

Readers are people (image is author's own)

But I'm going to fight back for the little guys and stats junkies and say that if you use them right, stats are an extremely useful tool for building your community. Because for most of us, most of our community doesn't talk to us. The number of comments, Facebook likes and Twitter replies is miniscule compared with the daily number of hits on our blogs, and when no one's answering your questions you need another way to learn what makes them tick.

Your stats are the key to finding out what is important to all those people who have found you and like you but aren't saying anything. I know it's traditional to try to talk to those people and get them talking to you, but to get those comments in the first place you need to learn about the silent majority. The more you find out about them, the more likely you are to hit on what's important to them.

Here are four ways your stats can help you learn about your community.

Nationality

It's obvious, but can be important. Do you need to be aware of the seasons, holidays, and traditions of your readers? Even though I'm Australian, many of my readers come from the US and a large number are from Europe. This makes me consider how to balance my stories of running around in the bush and make sure I offer indoor activities too when my readers are snowed...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - The Mottos that Landed Me a Post on Problogger.net

2011-09-12T14:24:00.001-07:00

The Mottos that Landed Me a Post on Problogger.net

This guest post is by Magz Parmenter of Tangerine Turtle.

Close your eyes for a minute and think about the biggest goal you have right now. Is it becoming a full-time blogger? Would you like to speak at a conference? Maybe you want to sell advertising on your blog. Whatever it is that you're trying to achieve, you need to take the advice in this post. It's how I succeeded with one of my biggest goals this year: to write for problogger.net…

I was going about my business, writing a post for my blog when I got a little pop-up message in the corner of my screen. It was Darren Rowse, you know, the Darren Rowse, from Problogger. Here’s how the conversation went:

Darren: "Hi Magz, I read your blog and liked what I saw. How about doing a guest post on problogger.net?"
Magz: "Wow! I'm flattered, Darren! Of course, I'd love to!"
Darren: "Okay, that's great. Send me something and I'll make sure to send it through to Georgina (the Content Manager at problogger.net)."

Okay, I'll confess. None of the above actually happened. But wouldn't it be awesome if it did?

The truth is, if you want to guest post for anyone, particularly an A-list blogger, you have to submit your ideas to them. Let's be honest, they get thousands of emails asking them to please, please, please consider their amazing post. Particularly if you're a new blogger, or even if you're not (I've been blogging since 2005), getting to grips with pitching the big guns with your ideas can be daunting.

I'll be the first to admit, it took me a good six months of reading and researching, interacting with Darren on Twitter and learning as much as I possibly could from heavy-hitters like Brian Clark, Jon Morrow, Pat Flynn, and the Blog Tyrant before I got the courage to pitch my ideas to the guys at problogger.net.

I. Was. Terrified.

To make matters worse, I sent my...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - My Secret Formula for Creating Super-engaging Blog Content

2011-09-12T08:39:00.001-07:00

My Secret Formula for Creating Super-engaging Blog Content

This guest post is by Kiesha of WeBlogBetter.

Many of my readers have asked how in the world I come up with such creative ideas for my blog content.

If you’ve read:

“The Walmart Guide to Increasing Time spent on your Site,”
“Can your blog Pass the Salad Test?”
“Attract Readers to your blog like Mosquitos
“What the Sims Taught me About Social Media”
“How to Solve the Blogging Puzzle” (a post that compares blogging to a jigsaw puzzle)

…then you’ve probably figured out by now that there are no limits to the subjects I’ll squeeze a blog post out of.

I often challenge myself to find the most unlikely subject and see what blogging lessons I can squeeze out of it. While some things are a complete stretch and really won’t work, there are some surprising lessons you can pull from just about anything, if you’re creative enough.

I’m going to be honest: I’m using the phrase “creative enough,” but really what I mean is this. If you have a brain that has the capacity to think deeply enough to write a coherent paragraph or two, then you’ve got “enough creativity” to pull this off.

I’ll tell you how, but first let me tell you about a book that I read that really informs how I write today. It’s called The Medici Effect. This book talks about how it’s not completely new ideas, but the intersection of two seemingly unrelated ideas, that make a real difference in innovation.

I’m really simplifying the complexity, so you’re going to have to check this one out yourself to really get this and fully grasp the secret to creating meaningful and engaging content.

Here’s my secret formula for creating those zany analogies and surprising comparisons that I write about.

1. Pay attention to the...

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Copyblogger - Would You Trade Your Boredom for Stress?

2011-09-12T07:52:00.001-07:00

Would You Trade Your Boredom for Stress?

I don't have a cool life-or-death story.

I didn't almost die from a snowboarding accident.

I wasn't diagnosed as a toddler with an illness that was supposed to kill me.

I was a working mom with a good job. The money was good, the benefits were great, and the people were smart and nice.

I had a cute little private office and the company was doing interesting work. I had created my own department, and everything we did was based on something I had built. (For a control freak like me, this is a very pleasant.)

And I was about ready to shoot myself from boredom.

A normal person would doubtless have been able to navigate this. There are a lot of things in the world that are worse than boredom.

But I am not a normal person

For me, being bored is like being slowly boiled alive. It seems tolerable at first, but every day it gets more and more painful.

The obvious answer would have been to change jobs, but I had a strong sense that working for someone new wasn't going to cut it.

First because we were sailing into the worst recession in decades, and companies weren't lining up to hire anyone. The few who were hiring seemed to like specialists with neat, sensible resumes, not Janes-of-All-Trades like I was.

(It turns out I was a classic Linchpin, but Seth hadn't written that book yet so I didn't have a word for it.)

The second, more important reason was that I knew it would be more of the same.

In the best-case scenario, I'd work lots of hours away from my family (my beautiful little boy was just two) to build something cool, get it to work, tweak it until I thought it was just right, and then … start to die inside again every time I pulled into the downtown garage and made my way to another office.

Maybe I could try for the executive suite? That would have brought interesting new challenges.

Sadly, I lack the right instincts to climb...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - The Warren Buffett Method for Building a Successful Blog

2011-09-11T13:37:00.001-07:00

The Warren Buffett Method for Building a Successful Blog

This guest post is by Aman Basanti of ageofmarketing.com.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's method of deciding which companies to buy and invest in is not only instructive for share investors, but also for bloggers. His strategy can be used in the blogging world to create a successful blog—especially instructive for bloggers who are short on time and need to make every post count.

Buffet's “Durable Competitive Advantage” concept

When Buffett analyses a company for potential, he looks for what he calls a “durable competitive advantage.” A durable competitive advantage is a unique product that has a strong competitive advantage in the market and does not have to change over time. In other words, he looks for a product that he can profit from over a long period of without changing it much.

Coke, for example, has a durable competitive advantage because it does not change over time. The same can be said for Budweiser, DeBeers Diamonds and OPEC. A car manufacturer, on the other hand, does not have a durable competitive advantage because cars change in design every few years.

Companies with a durable competitive advantage like Coke enjoy the following advantages over other companies:

They spend fewer dollars on research and design.
They do not need to retool their production line to cater for new models.
They have a long life span in the marketplace.

This means that more money is available for profits and re-investment, allowing more to be achieved with less.

Applying Buffett's principle to blog strategy

Buffett's strategy is a great strategy for time-deprived bloggers. Simply put, it states that rather than buying companies that have time-sensitive products—or writing posts that are time sensitive—buy companies who products are evergreen—or write posts that are evergreen.

Rather than building a news site, which is what many bloggers do,...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How to Use Conversion Optimization to Grow Your Blog

2011-09-11T08:36:00.001-07:00

How to Use Conversion Optimization to Grow Your Blog

This guest post was written by Alex of ToMakeALiving.

It's pretty well established that to grow your blog you need to write well, and you certainly wouldn't struggle to find a dozen or so posts which offer suggestions that mostly boil down to "learn to write good content." Well, duh…

But assuming you can write, there is plenty of other stuff you can do to improve your blog.

So rather than launch into yet another checklist about how to make a nice looking, effective blog post, I am going to share with you a more scientific method: conversion optimization.

What is conversion optimization?

Quite simply, conversion optimization is the process of using measurable behaviour data and testing small or large changes to see what effect they have on the page or site.

Basically, you can change absolutely anything on your site and actually test it to see what works best. So rather than spending hours umming and ahhing over exactly what shade of grey to use for your text, you can test a number of shades and get a precise result.

Why is it so awesome?

Well, as I hinted at above—and I'm sure you've all done this once or twice—most bloggers design their sites based on how they like them; this is totally missing the point, though. Assuming you want to grow your blog, it is your users that matter, not your own personal tastes.

Your personal preference on how to lay out your navigation might turn out to be less desirable than a layout that you would have rejected. Small things really can make a big difference, and I don't know about you, but I would rather pick the setup that gets and keeps the most readers.

How to get started

Like I said, we are going to do this scientifically, no guess work involved. So we are going to start by finding the right application. Google have a free Website Optimizer, which works just fine if you are on a budget.

If you can afford it though, I...

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Copyblogger - 9 / 11 / 11

2011-09-11T07:37:00.001-07:00

9 / 11 / 11

Image courtesy of Brian Nieman and adopted by the Library of Congress for their 9/11/01 exhibition.

Comments

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #13: Bundle Your Posts as an Ebook

2011-09-10T13:13:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #13: Bundle Your Posts as an Ebook

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip—the final in this series—is:

13. Bundle your best posts as an ebook

This is a variation on the first post in this series, about creating a product, but for those of you feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a new product from scratch it can be a good first product.

In fact my own two first ebooks (both of which are still my best selling ebooks—31 Days to Build a Better Blog and The Essential Guide to Portrait Photography) are largely built from content that was previously published on my blogs.

In both cases, I added new content to the previously written content, and updated the existing materials. And in both cases my readers overwhelmed me with thanks for compiling previously scattered content into complete ebooks.

These 13 methods are just the beginning. I’m certain that there are a lot more ways to boost your blog.

Take a little time today to create lasting and significant improvement on your blog’s business model. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to add them below.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #13: Bundle Your Posts as an Ebook

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 3 Reasons Iâm Proud to Be an Amateur Blogger

2011-09-10T11:41:00.001-07:00

3 Reasons I'm Proud to Be an Amateur Blogger

This guest post is by Dan Meyers of Your Life, Their Life.

You push the Submit button to introduce your next great thought to the world. Finally, this might be the one that pulls in some real traffic. Up until this point, the majority of your visits have come from you and your parents.

Amateur golfer (image is author's own)

Your bubble bursts when you check your web traffic and realize this wasn’t the one. If you could only get your Facebook friends to like your blog page, then you’d have some legit numbers! However, you’ve asked time and time again and most of them don’t come through. Your subscriber count remains the same.

Life as an amateur blogger isn’t fun, but it reminds me of my experience as an amateur golfer. I say aloud that my sub-par abilities (pun intended) aren’t worthy of my anger. But that doesn’t prevent me from getting ticked off with every ball that bounces belligerently into the brush. Check out the picture: I’m that bad!

I’ve only blogged on my current site for a few months. Of course I shouldn’t expect great traffic or a large subscriber base. However, that doesn’t numb the pain of a harsh reality!

Are you embarrassed to admit that you’re an amateur at something? Admitting so can make you feel worthless. Our culture teaches us it’s better to lie than admit you’re not good at something.

My name is Dan, and I’m an amateur blogger.

I started blogging in 2007, but it was one of those one month blogs. You know the kind: you get all fired up, pay for a website or sign up for a blog account, write three blog posts, and quickly become discouraged when you don’t get any visits. That’s what mine was, but I appreciate my parents, brother, and friend Ryan for clicking on it!

I’m back at it again and now I’m not afraid to...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How Carlton Football Club Use Social Media to Engage Fans

2011-09-10T09:02:00.001-07:00

How Carlton Football Club Use Social Media to Engage Fans

Today was an exciting day for me – I was one of a small group of bloggers invited to cover a training session of the Carlton Football Club (the ‘Blues’) – the football team I support.

Marc Murphy (@marcmurphy3 on Twitter)

For those of you outside of Australia – the Carlton Football Club (CFC) is an Australian Rules Football team based in Melbourne Australia. Aussie Rules Football (or AFL or ‘footy’ as we call it) is an amazing game – the biggest professional football code in Australia. It’s difficult to describe but it is a fast paced and spectacular game that people in Melbourne and many other parts of Australia follow religiously – particularly at this time of year as we’ve just started our final series – our Grand Final (think Aussie Superbowl) is in just a few weeks time.

Learn more about AFL on the official AFL site, Wikipedia, or check out this video to get some visuals of the game being played and this one of a video of one of the most spectacular marks of the year.

Today was the last training session for the Blues before our finals appearance tomorrow so it was a big event for Blues Supporters and the club were keen to bring in a group of bloggers to cover the day. I’ve included a few pics of training in this post.

Light Team Run

One of the cool things about the Carlton Football Club in the last 12-18 months is the way that they’ve been reaching out to their supporters via social media – this blogger outreach day is just one example of it.

I first noticed their increased focus upon social media 18 months ago when they started ramping up their use of Facebook, Twitter and when I was invited to a small gathering of Blues supporters who were active on Social Media. At that gathering the club listened to supporters about how they’d like to see the club engaging online. Since...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #12: Create a âBest Sellerâ List

2011-09-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #12: Create a "Best Seller" List

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

12. Create a “Best Seller” list based on Amazon Affiliate reports

If you promote products on the Amazon Affiliate program, why not dig into the reports, look at what your readers are buying, and create a “Best Seller” list?

I created one of these on my photography blog, and I update it every six months or so (see it at Popular Digital Cameras and Gear).

I link to it from the front page of my site, and it drives significant income each month in commissions. Read more about Best Seller lists here.

Do you have a Best Seller list on your blog?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #12: Create a “Best Seller” List

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Copyblogger - Seth Godin on Blogging, Business Books, and Creating Content

2011-09-09T18:59:00.001-07:00

Seth Godin on Blogging, Business Books, and Creating Content that Matters

The man.

The myth.

The legend.

All hyperbole aside, season two of the Internet Marketing for Smart People radio show kicks off with author, entrepreneur, and prolific blogger Seth Godin.

A lot has changed since Seth pioneered effective email marketing in the mid 90s. And he set the standard for many of us when he switched to blogging over a decade ago.

But perhaps the most striking changes have rolled over the book publishing industry — an inevitability Seth foresaw even as he cranked out one best seller after another.

Today, you’ll hear about all of that, and much more.

In this episode Seth Godin and I discuss:

How Seth writes (kinda, well, you’ll see…)
Why Seth’s blogging style is totally irrelevant to your blogging success
Is the traditional business book still relevant?
Are rich, interactive eBooks better than text-only eBooks?
Why The Domino Project is only publishing short manifestos
Seth’s simple advice for writers struggling to ship
Why now is the time to do something that matters

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

Click here to download the mp3 | 30.8 MB | 25:38
Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

This eBook isn’t Free
Seth Godin’s Blog
The Domino Project
Squidoo
Tom Peters
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Our Choice by Al Gore
How to Play Bass
And a big thanks to Girl Talk…

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Use External Links to Boost Your Credibility

2011-09-09T18:06:00.001-07:00

Use External Links to Boost Your Credibility

Bloggers are always happy to link to a resource we think is good, or a product or service with which we’re affiliated.

But there are other kinds of external links that too few bloggers use:

links to sources of information we’ve found
links to creators of content we’re citing
links to more detailed information on a topic we’re mentioning, but not covering in depth in a post.

Citing sources is a basic element of professional writing. As well as reflecting your professionalism, it:

helps build your authority on a topic
helps you to gain profile and respect by association with quality sources
actively helps readers to benefit from your content.

Above all, citing external sources of information boosts your credibility. By linking to a quality, reliable external source, you show that you proudly stand behind the information you give your readers. And what blogger doesn’t want to do that?

When should a blogger include a link as a sort of citation? Whenever you’re relating information that you’ve learned elsewhere. Let’s look at the most common types of statements that require external links to their original sources.

Referencing quotes

If you quote someone else, you should link to the place where they said the words you’ve included in your quote.

After the legal implications of quoting someone without citing the source of that quote, the main reason for referencing quotes is really a logical one.

If you’re quoting a person, it’s logical that your readers may be inspired or intrigued by that quote, so you’ll want to help them out by providing them with easy access to the complete story. Right? Right!

Referencing ideas or concepts

If you make mention of an idea or a concept that someone else has come up with, include a link to the relevant...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 3 Tactics I Used to Develop a PageRank 5 Blog in 5 Months

2011-09-08T21:29:00.001-07:00

3 Tactics I Used to Develop a PageRank 5 Blog in 5 Months

This guest post is by John Saddington of TentBlogger.

We all know that having a blog can enhance your freelancing business and serve as an effective marketing tool for your products and services—that's given. And although it's easy to get a blog started (and to start a freelancing business) it's much harder to make a dent in search engine rankings so you can win those viewers (and new customers and clients).

And sure, we all know that every blogger starts on day number one, but it seems that some bloggers have a lot more going for them than others, right? There are some bloggers (and freelancers) who seem to hit it out of the park, achieving some phenomenal traffic and financial return very early on.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to grow as fast and as effective as “those” bloggers until I tried it myself—and boy, did it work.

Within a few months, between Google's PR update in January and the most recent on in June of this year, I was able to achieve a PageRank 5 (from a PR 0) blog that sees 20-35% organic traffic on any given month, and is just inches from clearing 100,000 pageviews per month. It’s not a boring blog, either, with an average of 45 comments per post!

You think I’d killed someone or bought a “sleeping giant” blog with mega keywords, but that’s not the case at all—in fact, I’ve been able to boil down the last few months’ successes into a number of systems and strategies that I’d love to share with you.

I honestly don’t think it’s too hard to achieve a highly trafficked, highly profitable, and attractive freelance blog for marketing. Sure, it’ll take some hard work and serious dedication, but with the right strategies in place, it can be done. Here’s what I did.

1. Have a serious content focus

TentBlogger wasn’t the first blog that I’ve created and it won’t certainly...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #11: Link to Hosts and Theme Providers with

2011-09-08T15:57:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #11: Link to Hosts and Theme Providers with Affiliate Links

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

11. Link to your hosting or blog theme provider with an affiliate link

I spoke with one craft blogger recently who has a medium-sized blog and told me that her third-strongest income stream came from two links in her sidebar that simply pointed people to her blog hose, and to the WordPress theme she uses. Each was an affiliate link.

Around the links she displays a short blurb on why she uses the services, along with a no-pressure call to action for other bloggers in her niche who are looking for such services. She also includes a note saying that the links are affiliate links, and that sales helped her run her site.

She saw weekly sales from each link and, over a year, they added up to a five-figure income (particularly as the hosting commissions were recurring).

Do you link to your blog’s host or theme provider with affiliate links?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #11: Link to Hosts and Theme Providers with Affiliate Links

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Copyblogger - How to Rule the Whole Freaking World

2011-09-08T12:50:00.001-07:00

How to Rule the Whole Freaking World

Have you ever noticed how obsessed we are at Copyblogger with wanting to help you get more?

Every week we write about how find more readers, convert more sales, make more revenue.

Get more traffic to your site. Build more buyers for your business. Be a smarter, more confident businessperson. Get more out of your time.

More, more, more.

So let's just cut to the chase. What you really want is to feel rich and powerful enough to rule the world, right?

You can do that in the next two minutes. And it's only gonna cost you $20.

The secret to wealth and success

The superstar secret to success is to realize how very fabulously wealthy you already are.

You have access to millions of people via global technology that makes Dr. Evil look like a sad little amateur.

Countless people work 14-hour days in sweatshops just to make the barest of ends meet. You, by contrast, have the incredible freedom of access to a computer and the time to read this blog.

You may even have the free time to write your own blog. You may be doing that on your own computer.

You have instant access to clean running water. You don’t worry about dying of measles or a bug bite.

Your weekly coffee budget is what a lot of people make in a month. And a lot of those people are considered very prosperous in their communities.

You are already stinking rich.

The secret is knowing it

Because we live in so much prosperity, our magnificent wealth becomes invisible to us.

We think we'll feel rich when we get the right car, or the right handbag, or can shop at Whole Foods without wincing at the total. (I do not think I will ever manage that last one.)

Talk to the people who have the car or the handbag. They don't feel rich. That kind of progress is like chasing the horizon. You won't get there no matter how fast you run.

But...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 13 Ways for Bloggers to Make Money with Advertising

2011-09-08T12:37:00.001-07:00

13 Ways for Bloggers to Make Money with Advertising

Recently, I posted my “How bloggers make money MindMap” on Google+. I’ve had a few people ask for clarification around the Advertising section, and what all the options there mean. Here’s a summary:

1. Ad networks

These are services like AdSense and Chitika but also smaller or more local ones like NuffNang (which operates out of Australia and Asia). They can probably fit in some of the other categories as well, as they use different models to deliver their ads.

2. Cost Per Impression (CMP)

This is where you sell space for an ad and get paid based upon how many times it loads. Usually you get paid per 1000 impressions of the ad. The rate varies a lot, depending upon topic. There are lots of very low, “remnant” ad networks out there that pay you a pittance per impression, but if you have a higher value niche you can get better money. I’ve been paid up to $40 per 1000 impressions.

3. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

These ads pay out only when someone takes some kind of action after clicking the ad. The action might be a sale but could also be them signing up for a service, leaving an email address, etc.

4. Cost Per Click (CPC)

This is what AdSense used to be: every time someone clicked your ad, you’d get a certain amount. Now AdSense do a combination of CPC and CPM ads—they mix them in.

5. Sponsorships

This is what I do on ProBlogger. I sell ad spots on a month-by-month basis to sponsors for a fixed amount per month.

6. Text links

When you sell a text link on your site, the person buying the link is usually doing it for search engine ranking purposes. As a result, Google frowns on these and you could be risking your own search rankings by doing it. I don’t do this, as I see it as a little too risky, but some bloggers still do. Proceed with caution.

7. Pay per post

Also known as sponsored posts...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - The Humble Telephone is Making a Comeback â¦ for Bloggers

2011-09-07T20:11:00.001-07:00

The Humble Telephone is Making a Comeback … for Bloggers

This guest post is by David Edwards of www.asittingduck.com.

I’m not sure why, but when you start blogging, you forget all about how businesses run.

It’s true that there are bloggers out there who wake up to full PayPal accounts and affiliate cheques flying through their doors. But if you’re in the early days of blogging, this may not be the case for you. What could you use that’s sitting on your desk every day, and could help you make serious cash?

A telephone!

What I have done, which has set me up for a very profitable year, is built a sales funnel to increase the amount of revenue in my business.

I have guest posts and viral videos published, which get me some traffic. Then, I have an email subscription list that lets me build those relationships further—to the point where a phone call from me to a subscriber would not be intrusive at all. In fact potential clients, even if they didn’t buy from me, love to receive a call. Some have said it was great to talk to someone that has a good perspective on how to make money online.

This technique may not be for everyone—I know cold calling can be daunting. It really doesn’t feel like cold calling to you or your subscriber, though! Imagine Darren Rowse phoning to ask if he could help you at all with your blog. What would you say? “Not interested, Darren!”? Probably not!

Do it right, and you’ll enjoy a positive reaction for your call. You may think that because you only have a few subscribers, you’re not worth as much to your fans as a big player. But you have the advantage, because a big player doesn’t have time to call his subscribers.

Here are my tips for making successful sales calls:

Work on giving a free gift to subscribers that will whet their appetites for future products. I use a very short PDF on traffic generation.
Send out an email once a week or once a...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #10: Create a Hire Me Page

2011-09-07T16:33:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #10: Create a Hire Me Page

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

10. Create a Hire Me page

This won’t relate to all bloggers but if you have a skill or service that you can offer your readers, don’t just assume that they’ll come knocking. Sometimes they need to see that you offer a service and hear about what it would entail.

A page linked prominently on your blog that shows the needs you’re able to help with, and outlines how the service might work (the costs and logistics) could be something that drives you significant income over the long term. Hat tip to Chris Garrett for this suggestion.

Does your blog have a Hire Me page? If not, should it?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #10: Create a Hire Me Page

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Copyblogger - The Single Word that is Stealing Your Future

2011-09-07T12:39:00.001-07:00

The Single Word that is Stealing Your Future

You can talk all you want about what you’ll write Tomorrow, next week, and next year.

It matters very little.

Tomorrow and next week and next year are not yours to spend.

You can talk all you want about what you’ll build Tomorrow, next week, and next year.

You’d be an arrogant liar.

Tomorrow and next week and next year are not yours to plan.

You do not see your life as the vapor that it is — how your hours curl up and away from that hot, black coffee on the table, dissipating faster than they appeared.

If you intend to write something, write it.

If you intend to build something, build it.

Each time you file that blank page away — to finish it Tomorrow — Tomorrow reaches deep into your wallet and takes exactly what it wants.

Tomorrow is a master thief, patiently waiting for you to lay down the pen. To walk away from the page.

Today is not always sexy.

Today does not always feel comfortable.

Today has many demands, but …

Today is all you’ve been given. And you can build everything you want and need with it.

So what are you going to do today? (Let us know in the comments.)

About the Author: Robert Bruce is an American writer and amateur recluse.

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - The 7 Cs of Business Communication: Make Your Posts Sharewor

2011-09-07T12:17:00.001-07:00

The 7 Cs of Business Communication: Make Your Posts Shareworthy Every Time

This guest post is by Marya of Writing Happiness.

When I finished my MBA degree about a decade ago, I undertook a course which taught me how to write great content for my blog.

Sceptical? I know what you are thinking: blogging wasn’t even around then! I know. Allow me to explain.

Doing MBA, I did many subjects like Marketing and Management which are great for anyone who is a webpreneur or looking to become one. That being said, Business Communication was, by far, the most enjoyable subject of the whole course. And I knew it would come in handy one day.

I just didn’t know that blogging would be the area that would benefit the most from it.

Time to dig through the dusty old boxes, locate the Business Communication textbook and revisit the well thumbed pages once again!

Blog writing is effective communication

We all agree that at the heart of great content lies effective communication. If you don't, you are almost guaranteed to fail at whatever you are trying to accomplish with your posts.

To compose effective written or oral messages, there are certain principles that we need to apply. These also provide guidelines for your choice of content and style of presentation, be it a post or a video on your blog.

These are 7 Cs of communication:

Completeness

Your post is only complete when it contains all the info that your reader requires in order to have a reaction you want them to have.

Remember when you are writing a post, only you are aware of what's happening inside your head—the readers don’t. They don’t have access to all the voices in your head. For them to interpret the message as you intend, make sure you provide them with all the necessary information.

That could be a back-story to your post; it could be the questions you were contemplating while that thought popped into your head to do your post. Readers need to know what...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Online Success Need Not Be Measured in Enemies

2011-09-06T15:42:00.001-07:00

Online Success Need Not Be Measured in Enemies

This guest post is by Margie Clayman of margieclayman.com.

One of my favorite Elvis Costello choruses goes like this:

"What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?"

I have always liked that song, but I never really thought I would live in a time where that question would resonate. I always thought, "Well, that was written when peace and love seemed hokey, perhaps, or maybe impossible. It was more than a rhetorical question when Elvis first sang it."

And yet, as I sit here in the year 2011, I have to ask the same question. What is so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding? It sure seems like all three concepts are running into a PR crisis in the online world.

“You're nice. That's so boring.”

I have gotten picked on a bit over my year in the world of social media. Why? Because I'm nice. I'm lovey dovey. People have told me that it's really boring listening to someone like me because I never ruffle any feathers.

To put it kindly, I think that's a totally ridiculous sentiment.

Sure, you get a powerful response if you call someone out, bash someone, hurl insults, or say that someone is really stupid. There's no question that ruffling feathers tends to be great for attention-grabbing and traffic spikes. So what?

If you want to entice people to read your blog posts, what about the concept of writing really good content? Really thought-provoking content? What about writing about something people aren't writing a lot about? Like, I don't know … like being nice, maybe? Why does excitement in the online world, or interest, have to be synonymous with cruelty or malicious intent? I'd rather be boring and nice than enjoy a modicum of success at the expense of others.

"If you don't have haters, you're doing something wrong."

This is another phrase I've seen a lot in the online world over my year navigating the wild Internet waters, and I also think it's...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #9: Create a Resources Page

2011-09-06T12:52:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #9: Create a Resources Page

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

9. Create a Resources page

One page on ProBlogger that has worked well for me is a Blogging Resources page (it is actually a page I need to update further).

The page serves as a starting point for bloggers when creating blogs, and includes a mix of free and paid resources (some of which are affiliate links to paid options). This page is linked to from numerous places on my blog. I’ve been thanked for it by readers, and it’s a page that has made me money over the years, too.

Hat tip to Dr Mani for the suggestion.

Do you have a Resources page on your blog? Can you build one today?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #9: Create a Resources Page

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Copyblogger - How to Get Your Blog the Traffic it Deserves (Check out the

2011-09-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

How to Get Your Blog the Traffic it Deserves (Check out the Sweet Trailer)

Well, it was bound to happen one day.

After three wonderful years of writing almost exclusively for Copyblogger, I’m finally branching off and launching my own blog.

But not for the reasons you might think.

It's not because Brian Clark has finally put his foot down and refused to meet my extravagant demands.

It’s not because Sonia Simone is a pink-haired tyrant who rules Copyblogger with an iron fist.

No, the truth is, I see a problem:

Let’s say you’re not Copyblogger or Problogger or the Huffington Post.

You don’t already have a huge audience … but you do care about the readers you have, and you do care about creating really good content.

You write a great post — the kind of exceptional content that builds a relationship with your customers. You publish it to your blog. You wait for the visitors to come stampeding in, and …

Nothing happens.

No comments. No tweets. No pats on the back, telling you you’re doing a good job.

In the great cacophony we call the blogosphere, you go unnoticed, unappreciated, and unloved. Not because your ideas are unworthy, but because it’s just too damn crowded.

Your little voice gets swallowed up, almost like you never said anything at all.

And it’s starting to piss me off

The web is overflowing with spammers and trolls pumping the blogosphere full of junk and getting rewarded for it. While here you are, an intelligent, articulate person, publishing ideas that could actually help people, and nobody knows who the hell you are.

It’s wrong.

And after years of watching from the sidelines, I’ve finally decided to do something about it:

I want to teach you everything I know about building a popular blog.

Yep. Everything.

I started BoostBlogTraffic.com to teach you...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Whatâs Your Blog Worth? How to Value Web Properties

2011-09-06T09:14:00.001-07:00

What's Your Blog Worth? How to Value Web Properties

This guest post is by Sunil of Extra Money Blog.

I have sold an ecommerce website for $250,000 and several other niche websites for a five-figure price tag. I want to share with you one valuation method you can use to put a price on your web property today.

Whether a website owner or a blogger starts with the initial goal of selling their site one day, it is my belief that every successful blog owner has at some point thought about the potential of selling their web property. At least they will have wondered how much their web property is worth—especially when it begins to generate a decent amount of money.

In fact, I think almost no one thinks about a sale as an exit strategy when they first start. It’s usually a passion, hobby, or something other than a potential sale that motivates a person to get started making money online—unless of course they run an online business, such as an ecommerce website, from day one.

When a website becomes profitable, it has the potential to become saleable. You may deliberately be contemplating selling either because of boredom, because you’ve found a better alternative use of your time, because of a potential use of the financial proceeds, or any of several other reasons.

If so, do you know what your website is worth?

When a web property starts to generate profits, it becomes an income-producing asset, much like a rental property or a small business. Just like property and businesses are valued and sold in the open market, a website or blog can be too. Therefore, valuing a web property is not much different from valuing any other income-producing asset.

The quantitative aspect of web property valuation

The quantitative aspect of valuation is not rocket science, in my opinion. You take a site's current earnings and expenses, figure out what the net cash flows are, and then project a...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - How Guest Posting is Like a Personal Loan

2011-09-05T14:22:00.001-07:00

How Guest Posting is Like a Personal Loan

This guest post is by Frank Angelone of SocialTechZone.com.

Have you ever lent a friend money? If so, was this someone you thought you could trust? If you answered in the affirmative, as they say in The Social Network, than you will want to keep reading.

The thought may already have crossed your mind, “how does lending money to a friend relate to blogging?” Well, I’m glad you asked because when it comes to guest blogging, the blog owner is lending you their blog just like when you lent money to your friend.

Let’s start off with a story and we’ll bring this all together later on.

The perils of lending property

Let’s dive right into this personal story of mine and I’ll show you the best practices to take when using my experience in your guest blogging ventures.

A friend of mine, who I once considered my “best friend” had been in multiple financial jams when it came to paying rent, bills, or (let’s be blunt!) anything with a due date.

So, like any friend would, I decided to lend him the money to help pay his half of the rent and any other bills.

Little did I know that this pattern would continue down a path of destruction. What started out as me helping out a “brother” turned into me supporting him.

There are two things to point out: I shouldn’t have been so oblivious that he was taking advantage of me, and I’m not the only culprit on his list of lenders.

My friend swindled me out of about $1,000. It became so bad that it was starting to affect my financial situation and the best thing that happened to me was finding a way out of that terrible situation by returning home.

When a friend takes advantage of multiple people who lend their resources, they’re obviously not a friend, but someone who gets by through manipulation. The bottom line, as the saying goes, is...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #8: Incentivize Your Email Opt-in

2011-09-05T11:32:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #8: Incentivize Your Email Opt-in

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

8. Add an incentive to your email opt-in

Chris Garrett suggested this one on Google+ when I raised the topic of this post, and he’s a guy who has seen real benefit from doing it.

Chris offers a couple of ebooks when you subscribe to his list, and from what I can tell it significantly increase the opt-in rates to his lists. Of course, increased opt-ins can lead to many benefits over the life of your blog.

Have you incentivized your list subscription? Can you do it today?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #8: Incentivize Your Email Opt-in

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - 7 Steps to Setting Blogging Goals that Stick

2011-09-05T09:00:00.001-07:00

7 Steps to Setting Blogging Goals that Stick

This guest post is by Tim Brownson of A Daring Adventure.

I suspect that all the technical information you could ever need to be a successful blogger is out there in the public domain. If that is the case, why do the vast majority of blogs fail when it comes to providing the owner an income they can live comfortably on?

Firstly, I think many bloggers grossly underestimate the psychological side of blogging and what is needed to get their heads right in the first place.

Secondly, few bloggers that I speak to start off with any real plan or goal to keep them on track if and when things don't go according to expectations. They simply dive into the process with no real idea of where it will take them.

Today I want to show you a seven-step process for goal setting that will exponentially improve your chances of succeeding with your blog.

You may well be familiar with the SMART method of goal setting because it's been around for decades. Bear with me though as I expand on that process and make it way cooler and more useful for you—and far more likely to help you succeed.

Just in case you aren't familiar with SMART, let me give it a quick run through.

Specific

Is your goal specific enough that somebody else could read it and know exactly what you mean? A goal of having a popular blog misses this aspect because it's too vague and subjective.

I have a popular blog, but if I gave my readers to Darren and took his in return he'd be pretty unhappy with the deal—he has about 40 times more than I do.

“Owning a blog with at least 5,000 subscribers that earns $500 per month from AdSense” is the kind of goal that nails this element.

Measurable

Using the last example, you can see at any point in time where you are in your plan. If you have 2,500 subscribers, you are half-way there. If you are earning $400 per month,...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Why the Road to Blog Success is Bumpy (and What to Do About

2011-09-04T15:29:00.001-07:00

Why the Road to Blog Success is Bumpy (and What to Do About It)

This guest post is by Jane of Find All Answers.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why does it always happen to me?”

I am sure you have. It always happens. Whenever you have a shiny goal for your business project, or whenever you want to start a new business, you face them—challenges.

They are everywhere just waiting to welcome you. You don’t like them and you wonder why it always happens that you need to take the hard, bumpy road to success.

But wait. It’s not just you. Whoever travels the path to success for the first time faces this. The road is never smooth and it is never as expected.

Why is the road bumpy?

There are so many reasons. But the fact that it is bumpy doesn’t mean that it is bad. And it is also true that you will learn a lot of lessons by traveling down a bumpy road.

Let me discuss some of the causes of a bumpy road.

You are at it for the first time

Usually when it is your first time, it is rough. If you are in a project for a first time, if you are trying a new business idea, taking a new blogging initiative, and so on, you cannot expect a smooth road.

Your expertise, your ability to handle the outcomes, your capability to anticipate and develop alternate plans under pressure—all these factors depend on how well you know the ground. If you are in business for more than two years, you already know what to expect. You already have a Plan B for Issue X.

But if you’re starting a totally new business, say blogging for instance, you neither know Issue X nor Plan B. And there can be so many Xs in the whole process! All these make the road bumpy. You end up running like a headless chicken if you are not prepared for it.

But the road may not be bumpy just because you’re taking it for the first time. There may be another important reason…

You don’t have a plan

You can avoid a bumpy...

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Copyblogger - Grab Our 20-Part Online Marketing Course (Itâs Free!)

2011-09-04T12:21:00.019-07:00

Grab Our 20-Part Online Marketing Course (It's Free!)

Want to discover the smartest ways to mix social media, content marketing, and SEO for lead generation and developing new business?

We’ve got you covered with Internet Marketing for Smart People. And there’s absolutely no charge.

This 20-part course and email newsletter delivers the techniques and strategies you need to know when marketing online.

Find out more and sign up for free here.

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Copyblogger - The Return of Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio â¦

2011-09-04T12:21:00.017-07:00

The Return of Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio …

Yeah, summer’s gone, but all is not lost.

Grab your iPod and that bottle of tanning spray, Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio is back.

Though we’re switching up the format for season two (stay tuned), we’ll still be offering up marketing advice that works — every week.

And there’ll be the occasional interview.

In fact, we brought in a heavy-hitter for the season opener next Friday …

There’s a certain bald, relentless marketing mastermind and writer living in New York these days.

He’s been busy — for about 30 years.

He writes books.

He publishes books.

Oh, and he’s got a little blog that some people seem to like reading now and then.

And he’s here on Friday September 9th. Get your links and feeds and hard drives in order folks, season two is on the way …

Click here to subscribe via iTunes
Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
Click here for the show archive
While you’re at it, click here to grab our free 20 part marketing course

About the Author: Robert Bruce is an American writer and amateur recluse.

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Copyblogger - Why All Great Marketing Contains the Power of the Placebo Ef

2011-09-04T12:21:00.015-07:00

Why All Great Marketing Contains the Power of the Placebo Effect

Back in the 1950s, a bedridden man faced certain death from cancer of the lymph nodes.

Tumors the size of oranges had invaded the man's neck, groin, chest, and abdomen. The patient's only hope was a new experimental cancer drug called Krebiozen.

Three days after initial treatment, the man was out of bed and joking with nurses. As treatment continued, his tumors shrunk in half.

Ten more days later, he was discharged from the hospital … the cancer was gone.

Strangely enough, none of the other cancer patients treated with Krebiozen showed any improvement.

Stranger still, a few years later it was conclusively determined that Krebiozen had no therapeutic value whatsoever.

Welcome to the power of the placebo effect.

The placebo effect and the power of belief and experience

A placebo is, by definition, a substance that doesn't actually provide the promised benefit. In other words, it's not real.

The placebo effect, however, is very real.

Research spanning decades demonstrates time and again that placebos (sham treatments) have resulted in true beneficial results. According to Scientific American, "placebos have helped alleviate pain, depression, anxiety, Parkinson's disease, inflammatory disorders and even cancer."

The placebo effect works in very real ways because people consciously believe the treatment will work. Not only that, but the experience of being treated, even with a "fake" medication, creates subconscious associations that lead to recovery.

Belief and experience are two vital ingredients of effective marketing as well. In other words, the things we buy fulfill our expectations if belief and experience remain consistent, regardless of “reality.”

Can a glass make wine taste better?

Consider the case of Riedel wine glasses, a highly successful line of glass-blown wine receptacle...

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Copyblogger - A 7-Step Guide to Mind Control: How to Quit Begging and Make

2011-09-04T12:21:00.013-07:00

A 7-Step Guide to Mind Control: How to Quit Begging and Make People Want to Help You

Well, why not?

They are the problem, right?

Here you are with a blog or a product or a charity you believe will change the world, and yet no matter how excited you are about the possibilities, no matter how much faith you have in yourself, you can’t help being worried:

If you ask a popular blogger for a link, will you get a reply?
If you ask a partner to email a product offer to their list, will they agree?
If you ask a friend for a donation, will they write you a check?

You don’t know. You can’t know. And it bothers you.

Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just close your eyes, pop over into their mind, and seize control?

Yeah. Too bad it’s not possible …

Or is it?

A Brief Introduction to Mind Control

As it happens, mind control is possible. Sort of.

No, you can’t turn your customers, partners, and in-laws into mindless zombies, but you can influence them.

In fact, there’s a science to it.

Back in the 1980s, a researcher by the name of Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. He outlined different principles scientifically proven to influence people, as well as suggestions for how to do it.

Since then, it’s become maybe the most important book in the field of marketing. If you haven’t read it, you should, as well as the sequel.

Here’s the bad news:

Mind control isn’t about magic powers, arcane arts, or even shaving your head and gallivanting around in a wheelchair (although, I’ve been tempted). The truth is it’s about something that makes a lot of people squeamish: marketing.

The Truth about Marketing

The core of marketing isn’t customer profiling or market segmentation or any of the other complicated nonsense taught...

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Copyblogger - 6 Design Tips That Will Have Your Audience Licking Their Scr

2011-09-04T12:21:00.011-07:00

6 Design Tips That Will Have Your Audience Licking Their Screens

We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.
~ Steve Jobs

You’re creating great content to attract an audience. A loyal audience that comes to know, like and trust you.

But what if you never get the attention of that audience in the first place?

What if your blog visitors take one look at your well-written words and move right along because your page looks bland, boring, and amateurish?

You lose them at hello. Your words never had a chance to take root.

That's where design can help.

Design creates a welcoming first impression.

It engages your site visitors and draws them in so they'll actually spend time with your information.

It's the difference between throwing some fast food on the table in front of your guests, and presenting a meal that's carefully prepared, beautifully plated, and smells delicious.

Want to build up an appetite for your content?

Today's post shares 6 tips to make your blog so luscious looking, you'll need to warn people not to lick their screens.

1. Think about your guests

Delicious design starts with an understanding of who you're cooking it up for.

Knowing your target market and what they'll respond to is crucial if you want to pick typefaces, colors and images that will resonate with them.

What do you need to know about them?

Ideally, you have a grasp of their age group, predominant gender and education level.

Bonus points if you are aware of psychographic details like what motivates them, what their beliefs are, and what other companies they're attracted to and buying from.

And just like you'd want to know about food allergies before you prepared a meal, it's important to be aware of what your target market finds unpleasant or repulsive so you can avoid it on your pages.

2. Speak their language with typography

Custom...

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Copyblogger - How to Turn Yourself Into a Damn Fine Writer

2011-09-04T12:21:00.009-07:00

How to Turn Yourself Into a Damn Fine Writer

If you're a regular Copyblogger reader, you know that content marketing is the most effective way to promote your business.

Great content can find new customers, help prospects understand why you're the best choice for them, and can even make your existing customers feel brilliant for choosing you.

It's the most cost-effective marketing you can do, and can truly transform your business.

So that's all good — but how do you get all this great content?

You have two choices when it comes to creating content for your business:

Pay someone to write it for you
Write it yourself

Now if you're partial to the first option, feel free to get in touch with me. I'll write you words that nearly sell themselves.

If you're in the second group, though, and have to write your own content to support your business, then I have some words of advice for you:

Never underestimate the power of writing well.

By writing well, I don't mean perfect grammar or snazzy spelling ability. Most people can avoid the mistakes that make them look dumb, but that's just the start.

Writing well means writing in an effective way that gets results

The problem is that most business owners who write their own content have no idea how to write well. They may be able to get the words to sound all right, but they lack crucial knowledge on how to get those words to produce results.

That's another story entirely.

People's first attempts and trying to write for results often look something like this:

The writing is boring and lacks personality, and it reads like a textbook
The content is all about the company and how great it is … which comes off as boasting
The copy isn't emotionally compelling to someone who'd be a perfect customer

Everything just falls flat and the business...

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Copyblogger - The 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing

2011-09-04T12:21:00.007-07:00

The 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing

So in the past few weeks, we’ve told you it’s a bad idea to be a digital sharecropper, building your business entirely on someone else’s land (like Facebook, Tumblr, or any other third party you don’t control).

We also poked a pin in the sacred cow of social media authenticity, telling you that your audience and customers don’t want an unedited version of the “real” you.

So you may be asking yourself — OK, what should I be doing with social media marketing?

How are savvy businesses using social media effectively to find more customers, boost their reputations, and make more sales?

Here are the seven essentials that will turn your social media marketing from an annoying time-waster to an effective bottom-line booster.

1. Get your home base together

Your home base is your blog or web site. It’s on a domain you own. You control the user experience — from the content to the site design to the user interface.

This is where you show that you know your stuff. That means building a nice cornerstone of high quality content that demonstrates your expertise in a likable, accessible way.

First impressions matter, so make sure the design is clean, professional, and smart. It can still be stylish or funky, if that’s your thing, but it shouldn’t look amateurish or confusing.

Your home base is where you post content to answer your readers’ questions, give them interesting tips, and help solve their annoying problems. When someone wants to know more about you, this is where you send them.

Your home base is a marketing tool, which means you need to be communicating primarily with customers, not with other experts in your topic. Don’t just pontificate to show what you know — tie your news and opinions back to how those things affect your customers.

2. Who’s the face of your...

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Copyblogger - You Already Know How to Write an Ebook â¦ So Whatâs Stopping

2011-09-04T12:21:00.005-07:00

You Already Know How to Write an Ebook … So What's Stopping You?

There are plenty of great reasons to write an ebook.

A short, free ebook could be precisely the cookie you need in order for your email list to grow beyond a handful of members.

A big, paid-for ebook could be an important part of your revenue stream — and the first product in your sales funnel.

Being able to say, “I’m an author.” could give your credibility a massive boost.

So what’s stopping you? I think I know …

Maybe you think you don't know how. Sure, you’re comfortable with writing blog posts, but an ebook is a totally different animal.

Or is it?

Everything you know about blogging applies to ebooks too

Think of your ebook as a series of blog posts.

Content-rich, in-depth posts that readers can’t wait to read and share.

When you look at it that way, your ebook suddenly seems less … daunting.

You already know how to write an ebook. Everything you've learned from blogging still applies. Just think of your ebook as a series, and each post as a chapter within that series.

That way:

Your ebook won’t become a bloated, “everything I’ve ever learned” guide to your whole field. It won’t sell — and you won’t have any room for your second ebook. Pick one topic, just as you would for a post series
Your writing style can stay friendly, informal and engaging. You don’t have to come across all stilted and academic just because it’s an ebook. Your readers will want to hear your voice, just like they do on your blog
Your chapters can be concise and information-packed — just like your blog posts. You don’t need to waffle on and on to fill the pages. After all, what would your readers prefer: straight-up information or a ton of padding?
Your content-creation routine doesn’t have to change...

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Copyblogger - How to Build a First-Class Email List in 30 Days â from Scra

2011-09-04T12:21:00.003-07:00

How to Build a First-Class Email List in 30 Days — from Scratch

If you want to quickly build a responsive email list in the next 30 days — especially if you're just starting online and don't have a lot of money — the following strategy can get the job done.

Here’s the story:

Several years ago, I was struggling to build my email list and nothing seemed to work.

I wrote hundreds of ezine articles. I tried setting up joint ventures with other list owners. I even added loads of fresh content to my site hoping to attract search engine traffic and leads.

All of these things were helpful, but they didn’t deliver the big "hit" I wanted.

Then one day, I decided to try something completely different. Something entirely obvious …

Hardly anyone was doing what I was going to attempt (must less teaching it).

The simple 30-day email list strategy

What I did was “trade” writing a half dozen press releases to a marketer I knew (who had a big email list) in exchange for plugging my site a set number of times to his list over the course of a month.

Did it work? Oh yeah!

In fact, it only took a few hours to write the press releases, and every time he plugged my site a new batch of leads came in like clockwork. Before long my list was up and running with dozens of fresh, new responsive subscribers.

The total cost? A few hours of my time doing something I enjoyed.

And guess what?

You can do the exact same thing.

You probably have a skill other email list owners in your industry want.

It could be writing … web design … programming … SEO … editing audio/video … building websites … or just about anything a list owner in your industry can use.

If you simply find these email list owners, you can leverage your time and skills to build your list by trading that skill for endorsing your website.

Of course, the "devil" is...

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Copyblogger - 23 Reasons Your Blog Isnât Making Any Money (And What To Do

2011-09-04T12:21:00.001-07:00

23 Reasons Your Blog Isn't Making Any Money (And What To Do About It!)

Sure, you want comments.

And subscribers, and shares, and likes.

But you don't really care about any of these things. You want what they will eventually lead to …

Money.

Yes, traffic is good, and so is reader engagement. But if you're reading this, chances are you’re running a blog with the intention of marketing a business and making some money.

Now, that could be a bit distressing, because most bloggers are broke.

Some bloggers don't have traffic or reader engagement, and some bloggers have lots of both. But most bloggers aren't making any money.

Here's why …

The chain of conversion is everything

We tend to think of conversion as a single event, but it's really more like a chain of events.

If you market a business online, several conversions need to take place:

A stranger has to convert into a lead by being exposed to your message for the first time (in the online world, we call this traffic)
A lead has to convert into a prospect by liking what you have to say (this is often done by opting in to your email subscriber list)
A prospect has to convert into a customer by buying something from you
A customer has to convert into a repeat customer by turning a single purchase into an ongoing buying relationship

This entire process is called the chain of conversion.

Does that sound like a tall order?

It should, because it is — for your blog to make money, you need not one, but many people to smoothly move through this entire process.

And if your blog is like most, then that probably isn't happening.

Let's explore all the reasons why that might be, and what you can do to fix it.

Problem #1: You're a billboard in the desert

The most common problem that...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #7: Interlink Your Posts

2011-09-04T10:42:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #7: Interlink Your Posts

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

7. Interlink your posts

Another task that I try to do on a regular basis (not as regularly as I should!) is going back through old posts in my archives and looking for opportunities to interlink them.

Many times bloggers write multiple posts on their blog on related topics, and each one is an opportunity to interlink relevant content. This benefits your readers, as you give them further reading on the topic, and helps with your search rankings (internal links help your SEO a little).

Pay particular attention to opportunities to link to your own products in older posts—this can be a money spinner.

Do you regularly go back and interlink old posts?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #7: Interlink Your Posts

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Your Blog Is Not Seen by Over 2 Million Federal Workers!

2011-09-04T07:50:00.001-07:00

Your Blog Is Not Seen by Over 2 Million Federal Workers!

This guest post is by Rick of www.morebettersmarts.com.

Filtering software may be blocking your blog from being accessed on government computers.

When I first put my blog online, I discovered that my friends on the local military base were prevented from viewing it by the government's filtering service, Blue Coat.

As none of my posts contained any questionable content, I was interested to find out why my blog was blocked. More importantly, as there are literally millions of federal workers worldwide, I wanted to ensure blog was seen by this audience.

While this information pertains specifically to the Blue Coat filtering service, it no doubt applies to other filtering agencies. Blue Coat just seems to be one of the more popular services used by the Department of Defence (DoD) and other government agencies.

Also note the information provided isn't a way to circumvent the filtering service. The method used is perfectly legal, and I worked through Blue Coat to get it resolved.

The problem

When my friends on the military base attempted to access my blog, a very official-looking page popped up with the heading, "ACCESS DENIED." Further down the page explained that my site was blocked as its “Webfilter Category” was classified as “Blogs/Personal Pages.”

The page also included specific information about contacting the Blue Coat Webpage Review Site if there were any problems. That link is: http://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp

Clicking the link took me to a simple form that allowed me to enter my URL to see how my blog was categorized. I entered my site name, and clicked Check Rating. Sure enough, my site was classified as Blogs/Personal Pages, and was thus blocked by the DoD computers.

The fix

In addition to seeing your site's category, the review page also provides a form that you can use to...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #6: Optimize Menus and Sidebars

2011-09-03T10:30:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #6: Optimize Menus and Sidebars

Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

6. Optimize your menus, navigation, and sidebars

One task that I think many of us could benefit from on a periodic basis is a critical review of menus and navigation areas on our blogs.

I include myself in this—recently it hit me that on my photography blog I wasn’t promoting my ebooks in my menus. I just had one menu item pointing to a very dated page that was no longer relevant. I swapped the photography ebook sales page link in and again saw an increase of traffic to that landing page.

Ultimately, it’s about working out what actions you want readers to take when they visit your blog and then making sure that you’re calling your readers to those actions in prominent places on your blog.

Are you doing this? Can you optimize your menus and sidebars further?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #6: Optimize Menus and Sidebars

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Stand Up to Live Before You Sit Down to Blog

2011-09-03T07:17:00.001-07:00

Stand Up to Live Before You Sit Down to Blog

This guest post is by Peter G. James Sinclair of MotivationalMemo.com.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”—Henry David Thoreau

I often reflect on the lifetime of experiences that I've tasted since landing on planet Earth to find myself in the arms of my mother.

Those experiences have in fact been the fuel that has ignited the written word that flows from my pen to the page, and from there, through the agency of my Motivational Memo blog into the hearts of men and women from 155 nations to date.

For unless I have lived it, there is no way that I have any authority to write it.

My response, whenever facing a particular challenge in my life has always been, “Well, at least it's given me another story that I can write about.”

To be an expert, not an ex-spurt

When I write I never want to be the guy who is an “ex”' or a “has-been” who is going to usher forth a “spurt.” Not an endearing picture is it?

If I'm going to write anything, or in fact do anything in my life, I want to position and prepare myself to become a guru, a leader, or an expert in that chosen field.

How does this come about?

I first sit at the feet of the experts who have gone before me and become their student. I become whom I associate with.

At first I may be as raw as the next guy, but in time, through continued study and practice I will find my voice and then begin to be recognized as an authority in my own right.

And if I have anything to “spurt” I trust that it brings life and refreshment to those who choose to partake of what I've learned.

To live, to write

We all have a story to tell and the blog medium is a wonderful place to express this. So go live first, and then return, even the same day if you wish, and recount what you have...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #5: Check for Hot Posts

2011-09-02T11:41:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #5: Check for Hot Posts

Continuing our discussion of things you could be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

5. Check your metrics for “hot posts”

One of the tasks that I build into my own blogging on a monthly(ish) basis is to dig into Google Analytics. I do a number of things while digging in but one simple task that can have significant impact is to look for “hot posts”—posts that attract a higher rate of traffic than normal posts.

Most blogs have a few hot posts in their archives, and they’re not always the ones you’d expect. These posts are real opportunities—there are people viewing them and chances are that once they do, they then disappear never to return.

Once you’ve identified your hot posts, think about how you can optimize them. You might put a bit more time into optimizing them for SEO, you might want to think about how to hook visitors of that page into subscribing, or you might want to even think about promoting a product (yours or someone else’s) from that post. Really what you do will depend upon your goals.

Does your blog have hot posts? And have you optimized them?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #5: Check for Hot Posts

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Make Business Blogging Fun: Write About Holidays, Anniversar

2011-09-01T15:22:00.001-07:00

Make Business Blogging Fun: Write About Holidays, Anniversaries, and Other Milestones

This guest post is by Lindsey McCaffrey of Absolutely Write.

Business bloggers: do you consider every day Labour Day?

Take a breather: finding things to blog about doesn't have to be hard work.

In light of the upcoming Labour Day weekend, I'm going to share a little tip I like to tell clients who blog: consider holidays, anniversaries and other observances.

By relating your blog post to an occasion, you can come up with some creative, timely and fun pieces.

Blog about holidays

Here's one example of giving your writing a holiday spin: leading up to last year's Christmas season, I compiled my PR pet peeves into an article, Dear Santa—a PR expert's Christmas wish list.

Tip: Don't just think about the holidays you celebrate: consider those of other cultures and countries. You just may find an interesting rite or ritual to write about.

Blog about milestone anniversaries and events

Mark a milestone anniversary or event such as:

a birthday, birthday year, or death day/year of someone famous, infamous, or otherwise (it doesn't have to be someone your readers would know, provided there is relevance to the article)
the anniversary (day or annual) of a particular historical event
the year of the release of a book, album, movie or otherwise—something that perhaps you have learned a lot from, or that resonates strongly with you.

Tip: For more impact, it's best to mark a "milestone year" (think 5, 10, 15, 20…you get the picture) rather than something like the 53^rd anniversary of X, Y or Z.

Blog about weird and wacky observances

There are also less-serious, not-at-all officially recognized days, months, and milestones observed worldwide. For example, in the United States:

September 28 is Ask A Stupid Question Day
February 27 is No Brainer Day
July 28 is Talk In An Elevator...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Boost Your Blog #4: Optimize Other Key Pages

2011-09-01T12:52:00.001-07:00

Boost Your Blog #4: Optimize Other Key Pages

Continuing our discussion of things you could be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:

4. Optimize other key pages

Yesterday, we talked about pages on your blog, and it might also be worthwhile looking over some of the other key pages on your blog. For example, the About page is one that, on many blogs, is read a lot by new visitors. It’s also a page that many bloggers forget to keep up to date with new developments.

I recently looked over my own About page and realised that while I linked to my first ebook, I had made no mention of subsequent ones. As it’s such a highly trafficked page, I was potentially missing out on sales as a result.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Boost Your Blog #4: Optimize Other Key Pages

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - The Fail-Proof System to Score National Magazine Publicity f

2011-09-01T10:02:00.001-07:00

The Fail-Proof System to Score National Magazine Publicity for Your Blog

This guest post is by Melissa Cassera of www.casseracommunications.com.

You write a blog post. You post it. You tweet, Facebook, Digg, Stumble, and perform every other type of online promotion to supersize your presence.

What are you missing?

Promoting "offline" using a major influencer like a national magazine can bring a blizzard of traffic to your blog. Not only is it great for exposure to have your name inked on the glossy pages of a national magazine, it lends the credibility and endorsement of a national magazine claiming you have the best blog on the block.

Read on to learn how you can get national magazines to sing your praises from the rooftop.

Why should I use national magazines to promote my blog?

Image used with permission

Magazines have millions of readers. Literally millions.

National magazines are also nationally-recognized brands. They've cultivated a reputation of excellence and wield a substantial amount of power for those that are fortunate enough to grace their pages.

Bloggers have leveraged national magazine publicity into six and seven-figure book deals, scored high-paying speaking engagements, attracted fancy corporate sponsors, and commanded top-dollar for coaching and consulting services.

Magazine publicity is like winning an Emmy, Tony, Grammy, or Academy Award. It provides instant credibility and high profile status.

How do national magazines feature blogs?

Some magazines highlight bloggers individually. Other magazines will interview bloggers as expert sources for their story. (Example: Melissa Cassera from Casseracommunications.com said that national magazine publicity brings droves of new readers to your blog).

For example: Glamour Magazine's August 2011 issue featured seven fashion bloggers in their article "Dress Like a Do Every Day." INC Magazine's July/August 2011 issue also...

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Copyblogger - You Already Know How to Write an Ebook â¦ So Whatâs Stopping

2011-09-01T07:06:00.001-07:00

You Already Know How to Write an Ebook … So What's Stopping You?

There are plenty of great reasons to write an ebook.

A short, free ebook could be precisely the cookie you need in order for your email list to grow beyond a handful of members.

A big, paid-for ebook could be an important part of your revenue stream — and the first product in your sales funnel.

Being able to say, “I’m an author.” could give your credibility a massive boost.

So what’s stopping you? I think I know …

Maybe you think you don't know how. Sure, you’re comfortable with writing blog posts, but an ebook is a totally different animal.

Or is it?

Everything you know about blogging applies to ebooks too

Think of your ebook as a series of blog posts.

Content-rich, in-depth posts that readers can’t wait to read and share.

When you look at it that way, your ebook suddenly seems less … daunting.

You already know how to write an ebook. Everything you've learned from blogging still applies. Just think of your ebook as a series, and each post as a chapter within that series.

That way:

Your ebook won’t become a bloated, “everything I’ve ever learned” guide to your whole field. It won’t sell — and you won’t have any room for your second ebook. Pick one topic, just as you would for a post series
Your writing style can stay friendly, informal and engaging. You don’t have to come across all stilted and academic just because it’s an ebook. Your readers will want to hear your voice, just like they do on your blog
Your chapters can be concise and information-packed — just like your blog posts. You don’t need to waffle on and on to fill the pages. After all, what would your readers prefer: straight-up information or a ton of padding?
Your content-creation routine doesn’t have to change...

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ProBlogger Blog Tips - Space â¦ Silence â¦ Solitude â¦ [What I Need More of as a Blogg

Space

Silence

Solitude

ProBlogger Blog Tips - 20 Ways to Make More Money from Your Blog

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Make it easy to find stuff

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Embrace your “competition”

Nothing is free

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Testing your email capturing tactics

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1. Your audience is a profitable niche market

2. You've built a community

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Further Reading

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Flip your model

Just one

For example

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Tuesday:

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Scribble down a little note, or much more

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