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Written on 3/10/2012 at 12:05 am by

5 Things to Email Your Subscribers About Today

Filed Under: Blog Promotion

I’m a big advocate for building a list around your blog, then making the most of it. A current list of email subscribers is an advantage to any blogger who wants to build their presence, whether you’re monetizing your blog or not.

Often, new bloggers tell me they want to find readers, and more experienced bloggers are always wanting to continue growing their blogs, rather than see readership plateau over time. Your email list can help you meet both these challenges.

Today I wanted to share some ideas for five different one-off emails you can send to the email list that you’ve established around your blog. No matter what stage of the blogging lifecycle you’re at, or how many subscribers you have, or how long it may have been since you emailed them last, hopefully these ideas will give you some food for thought—and maybe some action items for your To Do list.

1. Give them something

Rewarding your subscribers with a free giveaway is a good thing to do, no matter how long they’ve been subscribed. While many bloggers may give away a whitepaper or special download to encourage visitors to join the list in the first place, that’s no reason not to offer periodic giveaways to your subscribed members, too.

Beginning bloggers could create a special piece of content to give away—perhaps it’s a free PDF guide to some detailed aspect of your topic, or a link to a video in which you share some special secret that you think readers will want to know.

More experienced bloggers can give away samples of products—anything from a free chapter from your upcoming ebook, to a complimentary fifteen-minute personal consultation with your business.

Tip: Be generous with your giveaway, and be sure to point out that it’s a subscriber exclusive, so that your subscribers feel that you value them particularly.

2. Ask them something

When was the last time you surveyed your readers? When we think of surveys, most of us imagine questionnaires, but a “survey” doesn’t have to comprise multiple-choice questions—or even multiple questions.

For instance, you could send a more personal email to your subscriber list to get their feedback on a change you’ve made, or you’re thinking of making, to your bog:

  • a design change or update
  • a new product or service idea
  • a post that was particularly well-received, that you’re thinking of building into something bigger.

Don’t overlook other questions, though: you could ask for recommendations for service providers, for example, if you’re not sure who can help with some aspect of your blog or business.

Asking your subscribers for their opinions and assistance is a very powerful way to gain engagement. It can help you to deepen the bonds your subscribers feel with you, as it shows you respect their opinions, and need their support. It also shows that your email list isn’t just a marketing exercise.

3. Tell them something

This idea can easily be tied in with some of the others we’ve already looked at. Using your list to tell subscribers something important is an excellent way to underline the benefit to them not just of being on the list, but of actually taking the time to open and read your emails, too.

What can you tell them?

  • your plans for the blog, your offering, or a conference or event related to your niche
  • your thoughts or advice on a development within your niche (which you may also have addressed in a less-detailed blog post)
  • extra tips or information relating to a post that was particularly popular on your site, or about which readers had many questions.

    • You can probably come up with plenty of ideas for your own blog, depending on your niche.

    4. Alert them to something

    If there’s been news in your niche—a product launch, perhaps, or an announcement of some sort—why not email your subscribers with some kind of inside scoop you’ve put together especially for them? Alternatively, you could share with them a special insight that you’ve gained through your everyday research for your blog.

    Again, the information you send could be summarized in a blog post on your site, but make sure your subscribers get the full-length, in-depth version, or a special offer or different perspective. Be sure to make the value of being a subscriber clear through the quality of the information your send.

    Tip: Take care if you’re announcing a special offer or the launch of a product for which you’re an affiliate. If your subscribers weren’t expecting to receive sales material as part of their subscription to your site, they could well be taken aback. Treading softly as you start out is probably the best way to go. Over time, though, you’ll get an idea of what interests your readers, which will make it easier for you to target offers to them.

    5. Invite them to something

    A direct invitation is a great thing to extend to your subscribers. I’ve found that a personal invitation to my subscribers can do a lot to boost engagement and build rapport. It’s also a very clear way to provide value to your tribe.

    You could invite your subscribers to:

    • comment on a post that’s been something of an experiment or a break from the routine for you
    • get in touch with you via email or social media (especially handy if you have a particular question you’re asking, or you’ve just launched a presence on a new social media network)
    • take up places in a new service program you’re beta testing
    • take up a special offer that you’re making available only to them.

    Make sure your invitation is sincere and the event or offer that you’re inviting subscribers to be part of is something you, personally, stand behind. These people are the most loyal of your readers, and the goal here is to reinforce and deepen that loyalty, not undermine it.

    What about your subscribers?

    These ideas should help to get your creative juices flowing. I’m interested to hear how established your blog is, and what you’re doing to engage with your email list subscribers. Let me know in the comments.

Written on 3/9/2012 at 12:01 am by

The 5 Keys to Blog Usability

Filed Under: Blog Design

This guest post is by Neil Patel of Quick Sprout.

The user is king. That’s what a lot of pundits are saying these days, from usability experts to SEO gurus and content marketing pros.

Actually, it’s always been true, and it’s why the mantra “content is king” has always been so important. Content is exactly what users wanted. Naturally, you should give them what they want.

But content isn’t enough today. Total user experience must be baked into blog content if you want to make it bigger and better so that you stand out and dominate in your space. These five elements of user experience are essential to doing just that.

1. Navigation

When it comes to a site heavy with content like a blog, navigation is essential. The primary job of navigation is to lead the user around the site. When it comes to a blog, this is especially important. The goals are as follows:

  • New content should be available and obvious to users. They shouldn’t miss out on anything.
  • New users should be able to understand in a short period of time what content is exactly available.
  • Users should know how to find the content they want. They are looking for answers, and it’s your job to get them to the relevant content.
  • Older content should be available to users who liked newer, related content.

In the end, it comes down to putting the content where your users can find it. And the number one navigation strategy rule is this: the navigation should never change even though new content is being added.

Let’s deal with a couple of typical navigation problems: finding old content and keeping users reading.

A blog that is just a few months old will not run into navigation problems. There just simply isn’t enough content. As that blog grows, however, and new content is added, you will begin to run into navigation problems, namely older posts are getting lost and forgotten.

That’s not good.

The common way to handle this is by adding a Monthly Archives widget to the blog. That is probably the worst possible way you can handle this problem.

 

Instead, put your content in proper categories and use a workable search system.

The Popular Posts sidebar widget is a great place to start. And instead of allowing the plugin algorithm to decide which content should go there, you make the choice. It’s better to choose based upon your experience and what your analytics are telling you, than to let the machine guess.

The same is true for adding older posts as related material at the end of posts. This is how Smashing Magazine does it:

Internal links are also another great way to improve the navigation of older posts. This way you can give them related material that’s immediately relevant to what you are writing about … and may even expand on a point.

There are two ways of doing this correctly. One is to make the links organic to context, so that they flow, like I did in my 8 Things Blog Readers Want More Than Just Content:

Or you can highlight the post by suggestion it as additional reading, like James Aultucher does in his 10 Things to Do When They Don’t Call post:

 

One way you don’t want to link to older posts is like they sometimes do at Freakonomics:

 

That is neither helpful for SEO purposes, or to users. It’s bad user experience. You are not giving users any indication of what is behind the link, and that slows users progress.

The goal is to keep them reading. Once someone lands on your site, you want them to stay. Otherwise you have high bounce rates. That’s why a Popular Posts or Recommended Reading plugins are essential.

Categories are useful for navigation when done right, but I don’t use categories because my tests have proven they aren’t useful. But perhaps they make more sense for your blog. If that is the case, you always need to keep three rules of thumb in mind when creating them:

  • Keep the number of categories to a bare minimum: Remove categories that have fewer than five posts until you can fulfill your category authority plan and create more content in those silos.
  • Use keywords that explain what the site/blog is about: A user should be able to look at your list of categories and understand immediately what the site is all about. Here are some categories I would use: Advanced SEO Techniques, Web Analytics, Digital Marketing, and Entrepreneurs. In fact, your category labels should come from your SEO keyword research.
  • Use categories only when you can justify them as being useful to help users find content: They should be intuitive and easy to understand. A confusing category list can sow distrust in your user.

Here’s a poor example of category use by Dumb Little Man:

Copyblogger demonstrates a clean, unique, and simple way of using categories:

While categories can prove useful, you should always test to see if they are helping or hurting you.

2. Speed

In a 2009 Google study, it was reported that a 0.5 second delay in page-load time caused a 20% drop in traffic. Amazon experienced a similar drop in traffic and revenue due to a fraction-of-a-second load delay.

More recently, Google has reported that slowing down search results by as little as 400 milliseconds will actually increase dropped searches from 0.2% to 0.6%.

That’s a huge drop in traffic for 400 milliseconds, so it pays to minimize the page speed. This is usability 101. It forces you to always ask if that new feature you want to embed on your page is worth the drop in load times and traffic.

You might like the flashy features, but they can dramatically slow down site performance. And don’t get fooled by the fact that internet connection is speeding the web up. How much site load speeds impact user experience will always be important. Just look at how it impacted Google.

I’ve covered the topic of speed extensively in How Design Your Blog for Awesome SEO, as have authors here at ProBlogger.

3. Focus

When it comes to creating a user experience that will make your blog better, the focus of your blog is equally as important as any of the onscreen, tangible things we have been talking about.

For example, page load speed and conversion are both actions that can be measured. Focus is less tangible, but highly important.

Let me share some common mistakes people make to show you what I mean:

  • Trying to please everyone: A blog that thinks everyone is its target user is going to be a miserable failure.  But you can’t simply pick an industry and then think you are narrow enough in your focus. For example, saying that your target audience is people who love food is still too broad, especially if you want to dominate that space. You have to pick a unique, narrow segment of that broad space. People who love hospital food may be a little too narrow, but you understand what I’m saying.
  • Confusing your content with your context: Sometimes you can attract the wrong audience by giving them the wrong content. If you run a social media blog, for example, but write content about postcards, or something totally from left-field, like home-made beer, you might get your user to come to your site, but he or she won’t stay.
  • Hiding behind everyone else: Another focus mistake occurs when you copy someone else’s success and provide nothing new or unique to the conversation. Say you love what Seth Godin is doing, and think you have some worthy things to share. Your blog will flounder if you don’t define some way to make you different than Godin. You just simply can’t compete.

A good, focussed blog strategy has the following elements:

  • Narrow definition of what you are trying to accomplish: As I mentioned above, your blog should be focused on delivering content that fits into your definition of cornerstone content.
  • Narrow definition of your target user: Your defined cornerstone content should fit perfectly with your defined target user. These should really mirror each other.
  • Unique selling proposition: Next, your focus should be on something that your competitors don’t provide. And this should be a focus that you regularly highlight. The harder you can make the focus uncopiable by your competitors, the longer you will be able to dominate the space.
  • Cornerstone content creep: A narrow focus will also help keep you from straying too far off topic when it comes to creating content. A warning sign that you may be experiencing cornerstone content creep is that your category list keeps growing.

Creating a focused strategy begins with user research and analysis of your competitors. And as you do your research, you’ll come up with a lot of ideas. It’s key that you rank these ideas in order of importance. Keeping just the top two will help you keep your focus narrow.

4. Display

You may not think about display too much, but whatever stage you are going through in your design process, you will need to think about how most visitors will see your layout depending on what screen resolution they use. Remember that you want to give users what they want.

This means that you have to take into consideration height and width and line length. But that’s not so easy. High-resolution monitors have a high screen resolution, which means users get in a habit of browsing in small windows in which the browser window resolution is much smaller.

In other words, we want to know the size of people’s browsers’ content windows.

So your first step is to figure out who your average user is.

Look at your Google Analytics and see the average screen resolution of your visitors. This data will also tell you about their preferences and behaviors. Then see which user is staying on your site longer, and start to design user display size toward that average profile.

In an older study in which over 18 million screenshots above the fold on browsers, most users will be able to see content that is located within a 500px by 800px space. Over 80% will see the content in a display that is 1000px wide, while the remained browse in a display that is 1250px wide.

The moral of the story is that you need to design displays for your average user. For most, that means the layout will be less than 1000px wide. To give you an idea of what you can do with that, check out The Big Picture Blog by the Boston Globe.

5. Readability

Readability is all about what your user reads on the screen. And the golden rule to good readability is this: the easier your content is to read, the better.

If you want to see how your blog ranks when it comes to readability, run it through the readability test. In the meantime, here are the basics behind good readability:

  • Contrast font color with background color: This is critical, because it’s easier to read font text when its color contrasts with the background on which it appears. Black text on white background is the most basic and easiest to read:

     

    Just so you can see how awful a bad contrast can be, check out this pink on blue page:

     

    Also, check your site with Vischeck to see what colorblind people see when they visit.

  • Break your copy into chunks. Large blocks of text will discourage people from reading.
  • Use bullets. 
  • Keep your paragraphs short. 
  • Keep your columns narrow so the eye doesn’t have to travel across the page too far: The best line length is between 60-80 characters. This metric should remain constant across different browsers and screen resolutions.
  • Avoid backgrounds that are busy: Think of MySpace and how awful those pages were to read. Talk about distracting!

     

    •  

  • Keep it simple: From your home page to an article page to your contact page, a user should know quickly what the site is about and what the main goal is of that page, wherever they are.

  • Keep the font style clean: A sans-serif font is the easiest to read on the web. Serifs are the little hooks at the end of letters in fonts like Times New Roman and Courier New. Helvetica and Calibri are good sans-serif fonts.
  • Avoid tiny fonts: That will certainly cause eye strain and frustrate your user. Font size 12 or larger is optimal.

Blog usability means content usability

It used to be that content was king. It still is from the perspective of the user. You need to deliver that. But it’s not enough these days. Your readers want a good experience, too.

In 2012 and beyond the user is king, and so you need to design your blog with these usability elements in mind: navigation, speed, focus, display, and readability. It’s essential to get these right if you want to attract and keep more visitors and create a link-worthy blog.

So, what other elements of usability do you feel are important for creating a killer blog? Share your perspective in the comments.

Neil Patel is an online marketing consultant and the co-founder of KISSmetrics. He also blogs at Quick Sprout.

Written on 3/8/2012 at 12:00 am by

Beyond Blogging: Facing Up to Your Long-term Future

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This is a guest post by Tyler Tervooren of Advanced Riskology.

What happened to all the railroads? Have you ever pondered that question?

In the 1800s, the railroad industry in the U.S. was booming. New businesses were sprouting up every year, and inventors were creating newer and more efficient locomotives. First it was steam, then it was petrol, then it was diesel. Times were good, and America had a bright, rail-based future.

So what happened? Why isn’t the country blanketed in rail routes and why doesn’t everyone hop on the metro-line in front of their house each day to go to work? Today, the railroad companies are a shell of what they once were. Why? Because the automobile came along and ran them into the ground.

But did this have to happen?

No. There were things railroad companies could have done to cater to the people who made their businesses possible, but instead they dug in their heels and said, “We’re in the railroad business,” and they stayed the course.

You’re not in the blogging business

Compare this story to Apple, today’s holy grail of technology companies. They started 30 years ago as a personal computer company, but today you could hardly pigeonhole them with a title like that.

Truth is, Apple’s computer line never gained traction like the PC did, but what they’ve done better than any other tech company is pay attention to the trends of what consumers want, and they’ve never been afraid to experiment with other products.

Thanks to that, Apple is responsible for the world’s most popular personal music device, smart phone, and tablet computer.

The rail empires of days past said, “We’re in the railroad business!” when they should have been saying, “We’re in the transportation business.”

Apple got this right by saying, “We’re not a personal computer company, we’re a technology company.”

When it comes to blogging and setting yourself up for long-term success, it’s probably a good idea to heed these stories and ask yourself what the real purpose of your work is.

Are you in the blogging business, or are you in the information business? Are you a writer, or are you an idea spreader that just happens to be writing right now?

The way you answer these questions can have a profound effect on your future, so they’re worth thinking about.

This is especially important if you make a living from your blog. If you’ve ever tried to earn money blogging, you know very well that—despite what anyone tells you—there is no blogging business model that “just works.”

You have to put in a lot of effort to find a model that works for you, and every so often, you have to change it to make sure it keeps working. No business in any industry sets up shop one day and says, “Okay, we’ve figured it all out. We’re done now.” And any blogger who thinks so usually enjoys a short burst of tremendous success and then disappears.

Be your own research and development team

If you’re the type of blogger who likes the idea of having a long-term impact, then you also have to play a long-term game. You have to constantly look for ways to stay relevant and find new ways to evolve the work you’re doing because what works today is in no way guaranteed to work tomorrow.

Essentially, you need to invest in your own research and development.

As a full-time writer myself, here are four ways I try to stay a step ahead of the pack and improve my own game on a regular basis:

1. Pay attention and listen to reader preference

The reason someone decides to read your blog is because they think what you have to say is interesting or useful. After that, the only reason is because that’s the only way you present information. Just because you choose to write doesn’t mean that your readers prefer to read—they may prefer audio, video, or something else entirely, like small group lectures.

The way people consume information is constantly changing. To make it in the long haul, your job is to regularly ask yourself if the way you’re presenting it is the best solution.

  • Read between the lines when people leave comments.
  • Look at the way they interact with different kinds of posts.
  • Pay attention to how other people in completely different industries deliver information.

How can you update or change the way you operate to better cater to the people who are giving you their attention?

2. Devote a portion of your time each day to new outlets

When you’re just starting out in the blogosphere, you want nothing more than to build your audience, find a formula that works, and get to a comfortable place. This is a nice place to get to, but once you’re there, realize that it’s a very dangerous place to stay.

As soon as you find a formula that works for you, be sure to devote some time every single day to exploring and testing out new ones.

When Google Plus launched in 2011, the first thing I thought to myself was, “Great, another social network that’s going to fail. Why waste my time on this?”

But since I’d promised myself to spend time every day testing new platforms and ways of working, I signed up anyway. And I’m glad I did! Google Plus isn’t going away any time soon, and by being one of the early adopters, I was able to establish myself there relatively easily.

Don’t be afraid of a new technology that looks like a time suck. Instead, devote an hour every day to playing with something that may never work out, and don’t feel bad if it never does.

3.  Always think bigger than blogging

The success of your work over the long-term, I believe, depends much more on how you see yourself and the work that you produce than the format you put it in.

The cold hard truth that we’ve learned over centuries but conveniently ignore in our own lives is that entire industries can disappear quickly and violently. What never goes away, though, is the idea and intention behind the industry. Look no further than the recording industry and the movie business to see this happening right in front of our faces.

Someday, the “blog” will cease to have any importance in the daily lives of people, but the good ideas that they used to spread will never die.

If you see yourself only as a writer or a blogger, your work will eventually die and become irrelevant. But if you see yourself as something more, as a creator and distributor of ideas and information, then you’ll be naturally inclined to evolve as necessary to keep creating and distributing those ideas.

4. Build relationships outside your niche

Have you ever noticed how you have the simple answers to all your friends’ problems, but you have a hard time finding solutions to your own? It’s because you can see other people’s problems from an outside perspective, but not your own.

The same is true in blogging. It’s important to build relationships within your niche—that’s a great way to build an audience—but it’s just as important to build relationships outside of your niche.

If all of your friends are in the same position as you, you’ll have a hard time finding creative solutions to any of the problems you face.

But when you surround yourself with people who are doing things much differently, you begin to see new and interesting ways to apply the lessons they’ve learned to your own blog.

This is not the end of the world…

My point here is not to scare you into believing the entire blogosphere is about to crash and burn, and everything you ever worked for is about to be flushed down the toilet.

What I really want is to encourage you to think about your blog, the reason it exists, and the long-term game you’re going to play to make sure the important work you’re doing is still relevant a year from now, a decade from now, a century from now.

I want you to ask yourself:

  • What am I building?
  • Why am I building it?
  • Am I only a blogger, or is blogging just the outlet I’m working on right now?
  • How will my message survive if blogging becomes irrelevant?

Get out a piece of paper (another industry slowly on its way out…) and write this down, it’ll help a lot!

The sky isn’t falling, your blog isn’t in danger, and there’s nothing threatening your existence at the moment. And that’s what makes right now the best time to think about these questions.

Tyler Tervooren spreads scary and unpopular ideas about life, business, and adventure at his blog, Advanced Riskology. Follow his updates from around the world on Google+.

Written on 3/6/2012 at 9:06 am by

You Know you’ve Been Blogging too Long When… #BloggingTooLong

Filed Under: Reader Questions

I posted this on my Google+ account and on Twitter earlier today:

You know you’ve been blogging too long when a family member asks for parenting advice and you write a 10 Point Answer, start brainstorming catchy titles and considering adding images and further reading.

The responses I got were pretty funny from others who had had similar experiences, so I thought it might be a fun one to open up here on the blog.

What have you found yourself doing that makes you think that perhaps you’ve been blogging a little too long?

Here’s a few more from my own experience:

You Know You’ve been blogging too long when… you have to pause a conversation with a friend to take notes for a blog post idea.

You Know You’ve been blogging too long when… you wake up your wife at 3am to tell her that you worked out a way to double your AdSense income.

You Know You’ve been blogging too long when… you are overheard sleep talking about Brian Clark and Chris Brogan.

Over to you… when did you know you’ve been blogging too long?

Written on 3/6/2012 at 6:04 am by

A Scientific Approach to Writing Page Titles

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

This guest post is by Alex of Think Traffic.

We all know how important page titles are for SEO and just the general success of our blogs and websites, don’t we? Well we are told often enough, so we certainly should… But how many people actually give page titles the amount of attention they actually deserve?

Most clever bloggers spend a little thought on each page title—they think carefully about how to word it in such a way as to get both the search engines and the potential readers to pay attention. But let’s face it, if this is your method, all you are really doing is typing something that “sounds good.”

Today I am proposing a slightly more scientific approach to page titles.

Step 1: Keywords

Any diligent blogger will already have some vague keywords in mind for their post—if you want to get some nice natural organic traffic, you will need to rank. So decide on your phrase and obviously make sure it is getting some searches.

I would recommend just one phrase per post. By the very nature of blogging you will be writing more posts soon, so there really isn’t any need to cram in more than one key phrase. Also, the extra flexibility will allow you to write a better title.

Also, make sure your phrase makes sense for a blog. Don’t bother optimizing your post for “electric showers” because if someone searches for that phrase, they are almost certainly looking for a retailer and not a blog post (try it: search for “electric showers” and see how many of the results are blog posts)> People searching on this phrase want to buy a shower, not read about it. A better phrase might be “how to buy an electric shower”—that’s a much better fit for a blog.

Step 2: Look at competitors’ titles

The great thing about Google is that they will show you what works best before you even start. So the next thing to do is Google the phrase you want to rank for. In 0.003 seconds Google will conjure up a page full of sites which it has found to be relevant for that phrase.

It stands to reason that not only does Google consider these pages to have relevant titles, but these titles have proven to perform well in terms of clickthrough rates (since Google has recently admitted to using user behaviour as part of the ranking algorithm).

Look for words which are bolded and for any obvious phrases which come up more than once—the words in the phrase you searched for will be bolded of course, but so will any other words which Google thinks are closely related. Make a list of the phrases Google likes most and consider using these in your title.

So, going back to our example, if I Google “how to buy an electric shower,” I see keywords like “buying showers, buying a shower, mixer showers.” I also notice the title:

Electric showers: the basics – How to buy an electric shower – Bathroom & personal care – Which? Home & garden

This looks like a reasonable title, but it is way too long. This might be a good basic format to work from though.

Step 3: Look at competitors’ posts

Hopefully at least a few of the results will be blog posts. If you find that all of the results for your phrase are other types of sites you might want to reconsider your target phrase. Is this a sign that Google doesn’t think a blog is the right sort of site for this phrase? Maybe, maybe not. Think carefully.

In this case, I notice that for “how to buy an electric shower” the top two results are how-to style posts and so is one of the lower results, but all of the others are commercial sites. This makes me think that Google wants more blog style posts, but perhaps there aren’t enough good ones—definitely a gap to fill!

Assuming you find some blog posts, read them. Firstly, they will give you some ideas that could make your post even better. Secondly, you are looking to check that these posts are similar to yours (but hopefully not as good).

This stage is all about understanding what Google thinks is relevant for the target phrase; if your article is a lot different than the prevailing content, then consider which of the following is true:

  • Your post offers a new insight or angle that hasn’t been covered before (great, keep up the good work).
  • Your post isn’t really about the same thing as these posts (again, consider whether you are targeting the right phrase).

After a snoop around the top results I find that the number one post is actually just an intro which leads to a four-part post about buying a shower (the second result is one of these parts, too). There is a lot of good info here, but you could certainly improve upon it.

Additionally though, I suspect by splitting the post into four parts, the author is dividing their link juice. So if I can create one, long definitive post, it could do well here.

I also note that the other three parts of the post are: FAQ, features, and installation tips. These terms might also be helpful for building the title.

Step 4: Build a cracking page title

Okay, so you’re 100% confident that you have picked a highly relevant target phrase for your post, and you have a list of words that Google has told you it thinks are relevant to the chosen phrase…

Start by slotting your words together in the usual, obvious ways—ideally your target phrase should be the first word(s) in the page title, then follow up with some related words which add to the title.

Your page title doesn’t necessarily need to be written in full sentences because that isn’t what search engine users expect—make it concisem but not gibberish. The key is to catch users’ attention and convince them to click.

So let’s see what we get. I will start of course with our key phrase, and throw in a few extra words:

How To Buy An Electric Shower: The Basics, Features & Shower Installation Tips

I have included a few hooks that I liked from other titles and other posts, added the word “shower” for extra relevance, and of course my target phrase is the start of the title. I actually really like this, but unfortunately it is 78 characters long, so now comes the dilemma of which bit to trim. Remember, Google will only show 70 characters.

How To Buy An Electric Shower: Basics, Features & Shower Installation

69 characters! Okay, it’s not as good a title, but I am still pretty happy with that, and I now have some great ideas to go make my actual post even better. You may notice I have left out the word “mixer showers”—that’s because that is actually a different type of shower. However, I will probably at least mention them in the post and perhaps make my next post about them.

Step 5: Learn and improve

Writing a good title is more art than science. It is a skill. Hopefully the tips above will stop you from making blunders and point you in the right direction, but to be a real pro, you need to learn from past successes.

Once you have published a few posts and got some rankings, you can start to monitor your traffic. Set up your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools if you haven’t already, and each time you publish a new post go and check out your data.

In particular, look for posts which are ranking well and have good click through rates (Google gives you all the data if you make the effort to look). This will give you a great insight into which posts have a) ranked well and b) do a good job of catching users’ attention.

So hypothetically with my bathroom related blog I might have five posts which I know are popular, about baths, showers, tiling, and so on. I would look in my analytics (traffic sources, search engine optimization, and landing pages) and filter results so I just see blog posts (or just ignore the data from other pages).

Here is a hypothetical screenshot:

If this were my blog, I would notice for instance that posts 1 and 5 are both ranking position 5 on average, yet post 5 is getting 50% more clicks per 100 impressions. Post 4 is ranked second and only getting 6% CTR, which suggests the title needs some work, whereas post 3 is in position 9 and getting 5%—that’s not bad, so this post probably has a good title.

By regularly studying this data you can pick out your most successful page titles. You will soon start to get a feel for what is a good CTR and you will notice which posts and titles do best. You can then try to emulate past successes and improve upon poor performers. You will soon be an expert!

This article was written by Alex and the Gang from Think Traffic. The SEO agency who care about ROI and not just rankings for the sake of rankings.

Written on 3/6/2012 at 12:03 am by

The Keys to Creating Unmissable Content

Filed Under: Writing Content

This guest post is by Jonathan Mead of Trailblazer.

Over 1.6 million blog posts are published each day. That’s an average is 18.6 posts per second.

That’s a staggering number. And with so much content being published, how do you make sure that yours gets seen? And not just seen, but commented on and shared?

Many people focus on the tactics of getting content spread. They put up the appropriate buttons, ask for sharing directly in their posts, solicit their network, and do lots of things to push their message. This method used to work very well.

Not anymore.

Cultivating a culture of sharing is important—by enlisting and asking for the help of your tribe—but it’s not enough. You have to create content that is based on pull.

In other words, when you create content that your audience is demanding, you start playing a different game.

The spectrum of unmissable content looks something like this:

  1. Unmissable: Everything you create must be given attention. There’s no other choice.
  2. Important: Relevant and important, but can be set aside to be looked at later (and potentially forgotten).
  3. Relevant: Your content is useful, and relevant, but it’s not important enough to take priority.
  4. Mildly interesting” Seems interesting, but there’s too much incoming to pay any attention.
  5. Noise: Considered spam or is completely irrelevant. Might as well be invisible.

So if nothing but unmissable content is acceptable, how do we get there? How do we make all of our content bookmarked, dogeared, and highlighted?

The first step is simple: stop

Stop creating content for the sake of creating content. That’s a narrow path with one destination: mediocrity.

Instead, create because you can’t hold your message back. If you’re feeling uninspired, don’t put out content simply to maintain a schedule. Write, and show up to hone your skills, but don’t publish something you don’t completely love.

Step two: keep your ear to the ground

What are your audience’s biggest questions? What patterns do you notice in terms of their biggest challenges? What are they thinking about when they lay their head down on their pillow?

In other words, What’s keeping them up at night?

Write about that.

And pay attention to what’s underneath their desire. Sometimes they won’t admit it. Sometimes you have to probe deeper, and use your intuition. However, it’s also important to…

Create feedback loops

When someone signs up to your email list, do you ask them what their biggest goal is related to your topic? Do you ask them what their biggest challenge or frustration is?

If not, you should do that right now. You’re missing out on some very valuable information.

You can also ask new Twitter followers and Facebook fans the same question. You can put a question form in your sidebar or on your contact page on your blog. There are lots of opportunities for setting up these types of feedback loops.

The key is to aggregate the data and review it. Once a week is a good rhythm. Pay attention to the insights you find and use them as a basis for your content.

Be a pattern interrupt

Listening isn’t enough. Creating from a place of inspiration is good, but it’s merely a requirement to not fail.

If you want to create content that is unmissable, you need to be a pattern interrupt. Your content needs to make people stop, and pay attention.

There are two ways to do that:

  1. Do what no one else is willing to do: This might include creating a definitive guide, going above and beyond to create a comprehensive resource kit, or by over-delivering on value in a very big way.
  2. Do what hasn’t been done: Every marketing technique that used to be extremely effective eventually becomes commonplace. If you want to stand out you must be on the leading edge, not simply riding the next wave. Doing this involves risk, but it also is an uncharted territory ripe with opportunity. (The leading edge is a scarcely populated place, after all.)

For example, last month we hired a video producer and director of photography to write and film a trailer for our upcoming product. This was a full-scale, movie-style trailer. No one had done this before with a product like ours.

Making the investment involved a considerable amount of risk. However, it paid off in a big way. We attracted more affiliates than ever, and sent a very big message to our audience: this is something worth paying attention to.

We didn’t know before hand if it would succeed or blow up in our faces. But we took a risk and did it anyway.

If you want to create content that is truly unmissable, you must dare to do what hasn’t been done.

Create because you can’t not create. Keep your ear to the ground. Walk the leading edge.

What do you think is the biggest key to creating unmissable content?

Editor’s note: Want to get even more attention for your unmissable content? Don’t forget SEO. Later today we’ll show you a scientific approach to creating page titles that’ll help you make the most of Jonathan’s advice.

Jonathan Mead helps people quit their jobs, and get paid to be who they are. He’s the founder of Trailblazer, the number one training on quitting your job to follow your passion.

Written on 3/5/2012 at 6:05 am by

Why You Should Celebrate Every Win

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

When I read Rick’s post on the thrills new bloggers get to experience this morning, of course I laughed (I’m not really a margarita kind of guy). Rick’s post is great—I love it as an example of the way we can use humor to get a message across in a blog post.

And that message is loud and clear: celebrate every win.

Every advance you make as a blogger—whether you’re just beginning your blogging journey, or you’re a bit further along the path—is important.

It’s true that as you practice something and develop your skills in it, your expectations change about what you can achieve—or should be achieving. But this is a constantly growing and changing field, so I think somehow, we’re always learning—somewhere in our blogging, each of us is still a beginner. So I think it’s important to acknowledge each challenge we attain.

As an example, over the last few months I’ve been looking to change the email service I use. That has meant that I’ve had to research providers, ask for recommendations from others, and take baby steps to test different services.

Each time we try something new, we take a risk. As bloggers, we work hard to build our blogs and audiences, and we don’t want to upset the fine balances we’re working to maintain and build upon. When that risk turns out to be worth it, we should definitely celebrate it.

There are plenty of ways to do this:

  • share your success on social media
  • tell your blogging buddy (or buddies!) about it
  • if it’s appropriate for your blog and audience, blog about it
  • tell family or friends about it.

There’s another way to note your blogging wins—perhaps the ones you don’t feel comfortable sharing with others—and that’s simply to stop for a moment and give yourself a pat on the back. Whether you just pause to think consciously about what you’ve achieved, or you treat yourself to a coffee or an afternoon stroll (or whatever you do to relax), it’s important to recognize your achievements somehow.

We learn from our successes as well as the things that don’t go so well. The difference is that the experience is usually much more pleasurable. We should enjoy it!

I’m interested to hear about any thrills—big and small—you’ve experienced recently in your blogging. Let’s share them in the comments, either here, or on Rick’s post.

Written on 3/5/2012 at 12:06 am by

10 Thrills We Newbies Experience That the Top Earners Have Forgotten

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

This guest post is by Rick of www.morebettersmarts.com.

I know we all want to be like Darren, sipping Margaritas on the beaches of Australia and occasionally opening his laptop to see how much money his guest bloggers made for him today, while beautiful women clean his glasses with $100 bills.

But do the big guys truly remember the thrills we newbies are currently experiencing as we grow our sites from poor, to inferior, and someday, God willing, mediocre?

Some milestones, in no particular order, that top my list are below. How about the rest of you?

1. The first ‘Like,’ first ‘+1,’ first ‘Share,’ etc.

And suddenly we’re channeling Sally Fields with tears streaming down our face shouting, “You like me, you really like me!”

2. Breaking the 2M Alexa rank

As God is my witness, Alexa will someday acknowledge my site exists.

3. Seeing the bounce rate drop from 100% to 80%

Cool, someone actually stayed long enough to read a second article?!?

4. The day the blog finally paid for itself

Sweet, the wife says I can keep blogging for another six months.

5. Looking at all of those green areas light up around the world on Google Analytics

I didn’t even know Tuvalu existed, and they’re reading my article on their telecommute! Wait … who telecommutes in a nine-square-mile country?

6. The day we made more than one stinking cent from Adsense

Woo-hoo, someone clicked an ad!!! Wow, 41 cents … early retirement is now in sight.

7. Learning how to put an ad above the header

It only took an entire weekend and most of my sanity, nobody’s clicking on it, but man it looks great!

8. The first comment from a stranger

Of course then I smothered him with thank you notes, a link to my email updates, and an invite to guest post. Funny, I never heard from him again…

9. Seeing the first major spike from Stumbleupon

Sure, now I know it’s not that big a deal, but wow that was exciting going from three to 300 hits … then back down to five.

10. Problogger accepted my article

I have truly arrived … a press release is in the works.

Where are you getting your thrills?

Of course, the tongue was firmly in cheek when talking about ProBlogger. I give Darren’s site credit for at least half the stuff listed above, as well as helping me maintain my perspective.

Keep enjoying yourself, and add your own milestones below!

Rick is the owner/author of ‘More Better Smarts,’ supplying practical wisdom to help improve your life at work, home, and play. Visit Rick at www.morebettersmarts.com.

Written on 3/4/2012 at 6:09 am by

WordPress.com or WordPress.org? Which One’s Right for You?

Filed Under: Blog Networks

This guest post is by Matt Hooper.

When you first start looking at building your own blog, you are going to be inundated by the different options that are out there. After considering all your options, hopefully you’ll come to your senses and realize that WordPress is your best option.

As a reward for all this deliberating you are now presented with one more decision. Do you choose .org or .com? And we’re not talking about your domain name. You, along with many others, might be surprised to find out that there are actually two different kinds of WordPress.

WordPress.com is a version of WordPress that is hosted by Automattic, the development team behind WordPress. WordPress.org is often referred to the self-hosted version of WordPress. The two are very similar but there are a few differences that you need to be aware of before you finally get down to work on your blog.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the safest way to go, as there are a lot of mechanisms in place to make sure that you don’t accidentally break it or prevent it from working the way it was intended to.

This means that it is nearly impossible for a beginner to render their site unusable. It also means that you are unable to really make use of some of the more advanced, and fun, features of WordPress. I’ll get to those below, but let’s take a closer look at what WordPress.com has to offer first.

The biggest selling feature of WordPress.com is the fact that everything is free and easy to use. You can head over there right now, sign up for a free account, and be blogging before you know it. You won’t even need to invest in a domain name if you don’t want to. Without any expense, you are able to have a website of your own at a domain like yourname.wordpress.com.

That’s right: you don’t even have to purchase a domain name to get started. However, going from a yourname.wordpress.com domain to yourname.com in the future is going to hurt your search engine rankings. This is something that you might want to consider before going the totally free route.

In the event that you are even remotely serious about creating a blog, you’re best to start off with your own domain. You can have your own domain name at WordPress.com for an extra $12 per year plus the cost of the domain itself.

On November 29, 2011 WordPress announced WordAds. Only WordPress.com hosted sites with custom domains and “moderate to high traffic and appropriate content” are eligible to apply for the WordAds program. WordAds appears to be a viable monetizing option for WordPress hosted sites that have established audiences. This does not appear to be an option for new WordPress.com sites.

The barrier to entry is extremely low here so it can be very appealing to the less technically inclined. For hobbyists or people interested in just kicking the tires, WordPress.com is a good starting point. However, if you are at all serious about moving forward with your blog, you’re going to quickly run into the limitations of WordPress.com.

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is the version of WordPress that you have to host yourself. This means that if you use wordpress.org, you have to go out and find a web hosting company to host your blog. This may result in you having to paying for services before you even hit Publish on your fist post.

The good thing is that some hosting companies may give you a short grace period to try out their service before you get your first bill. Then, after you get going, you’ll be looking at a cost of anywhere from a $5 to $10 per month for a shared host.

You’ll also have to buy your own domain to use with your blog—you won’t even have the option not to. Again, some hosts will give you one domain for free when you signup. This also means that you can add additional domains for just the cost of the domain, since you already have the host.

After you have decided on a shared host of your choice, you are going to have to install WordPress in your hosting account. Don’t fret: most shared hosts worth using will have a “one-click install” for WordPress, so it’s not too complicated to get WordPress installed. In the event that you do have any problems, most good shared hosts will help you out.

Once this has been completed, you will have free rein to do whatever you wish with your shiny new WordPress installation. This also means that you get access to two of the best features of WordPress that I alluded to above: plugins and custom themes.

Themes are what control the look and feel of your blog, colours, layouts, fonts, etc. Yes, it’s true that you are able to pick a theme while using WordPress.com but there is a limited selection and you are not able to do much customization to the theme itself. If you know your way around CSS, you can pay an additional $30 per year to have the ability to modify the CSS.

Even if you get to the CSS of your WordPress.com site, you still have a limited selection of themes to choose from. At least with WordPress.org, you have the choice of using the same out-of-the-box free themes as on WordPress.com or to pay a bit extra for a premium or custom theme.

But the killer feature of WordPress.org has got to be the ability to add plugins, which are not available with WordPress.com. Plugins are add-ons that expand the core functionality of WordPress. As an example, if you want to be able to scan your entire site to make sure there are no broken links, there is a plugin for that. There are countless other plugins for WordPress that will:

  • compress images
  • enhance SEO
  • create contact forms
  • lightbox images
  • and much, much more!

Initially, having FTP access to your blog might not matter to you, but as you grow into your blog, you might want to have the ability to modify and move files around on your web host’s server. This is something that you get with a self-hosted site running WordPress, that you can’t ever get with a WordPress.com blog.

Probably the most important feature of using WordPress.org is you get to make money with your blog. You’re free to use anything from Adsense to affiliate promotions. You’ll even have the option of creating and selling your own products through your site. And if the need arises, you can turn a WordPress.org site into a full-blown ecommerce solution.

That said, it’s not all roses with a self-hosted blog. There are two major things missing with WordPress.org that you get with WordPress.com: backups and protection from extreme traffic spikes.

There aren’t many safety nets with a self-hosted site, so make sure you back it up often. WordPress.com takes care of this for you. A good web host usually performs regular backups, but most will tell you that they don’t guarantee anything. So whatever you do, make sure that you perform your own WordPress backups frequently.

In the event that your blog does get popular overnight, it could buckle under the added traffic. Don’t worry: the stability of your site can be beefed up through the use of a good caching plugin, like W3 total cache. Also, it isn’t too difficult to upgrade your hosting at some point in the future when your site starts getting massive traffic. This would be a good problem to have!

Wrapping it up

I have to admit that after being so accustomed to the flexibility of WordPress.org, I would have a hard time being happy with a WordPress.com blog. If you have any aspirations of taking your blog past the hobby stage, you should just start out with a self-hosted site.

It is possible to move a WordPress.com hosted site to a self-hosted site later on. However, presuming that you might consider starting with a WordPress.com site and moving to a self-hosted site later on, you’re best to just start out with a self-hosted site.

That said, if you are comfortable living within the limitations of WordPress.com, and you want to never have to deal with the technical details of a blog, then a WordPress.com hosted blog might be all that you need.

WordPress.com is great if you are looking to keep an online journal or for small clubs and the like. Due to the fact that you are reading this site, I expect you’re interested in making a business out of your blog. On that note, at some point in the future you will end up with a WordPress.org website. Save yourself the fuss and the hassle of trying to transition your site later on. You’ll be happy you did.

The initially-free option of WordPress.com could actually result in higher costs down the road. After you start piling on extra fees for a custom domain, ad removal, extra storage space (you only get 3GBs to start), plus the ability to use custom CSS in your blog design, you really aren’t saving much, if any, money on WordPress.com, and you have to deal with its limitations.

Finally, and this is a big “finally”, you don’t own a WordPress.com website. After you’ve spent all that time to build a blog and an audience, do you really want to wake up one morning and find out that WordPress.com didn’t like your site so they deleted it? There isn’t a strong chance of this happening, but you should be aware that it could.

Have you been trying to decide between WordPress.com and WordPress.org? What challenges are you facing?

Matthew Hooper helps individuals, small businesses and organizations build an internet presence. You can get his free guide on building an internet presence or check out his online WordPress course full of step-by-step videos so that you can learn WordPress in a single weekend.