Jon does all of his blogging via speech recognition so he seemed like the logical guy to ask to cover the topic – in the video (I’m glad he agreed). In the video Jon makes recommendations of software, hardware (the hardware is key) and even demonstrates how he uses them in his everyday blogging.

The video itself is also a great illustration of using video to communicate.

Speech Recognition for Bloggers — The Ultimate Guide from Jon Morrow on Vimeo.

Recommended in the video by Jon are a number of technologies including:

• Dragon Naturally Speaking (PC) – currently $69.99 at Amazon
• Mac Speech Dictate (Mac) – currently $159.99 at Amazon
• VXI TalkPro Xpress Headset
• VXI Full Duplex USB Sound Pod

Bookmark this video today as it’ll be something you want to come back to again.

Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Speech Recognition for Bloggers – The Ultimate Guide

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By Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Do you want to create posts that sparkle, dance, enthral, touch the heart, and inform? Do you want your blog to stand out, and subscribers to scramble in at the door? Then I suggest you check out what the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the World Wildlife Fund, the blog of Tim Ferris, and Goodlife ZEN all have got in common: they use Apture.

Apture is a plugin that transforms an ordinary blog posts into an extraordinary media experience.

Here’s what Jim Brady, the Executive Editor of the Washington Post says about Apture:

Apture adds a new dimension – a web of information – inside washingtonpost.com stories, and continues our mission of bringing readers the most comprehensive and in-depth news coverage.

The most important feature of this award-winning plugin is that readers can access additional information – without having to leave your page. Whether it’s a Wikipedia article, a related blog post, or a video – all can be integrated seamlessly into a post. And Apture is free for blogs with less than 5 million visitors per month.

So are bloggers thronging to use Apture?

No – not yet. Typical responses I get are “It seems like advertising and it makes a site look too busy.” I don’t agree. I think Apture rocks!

10 reasons why I love Apture:

1. It’s free.
2. It saves time.
3. It keeps my readers onsite for longer.
4. I can create a multimedia experience for my readers.
5. I can offer a greater depth of content through layers of information.
6. I can shape and control the ambience of my blog.
7. I can use high resolution images and videos without bandwidth headaches.
8. I can draw readers deep into my blog through using attractive links to related posts.
9. Apture is stylish.
10. It’s creative, and it’s fun.

I think there are two reasons why bloggers are slow to embrace Apture. Firstly, bloggers don’t know how to use Apture. Which is hardly surprising, seeing that Apture lacks a user guide and tutorials. Not only does Apture lack information on how to use it, the team manages to hide some of the best features – which is an interesting kind of reverse-marketing. Secondly, Apture works with popups, and popups are seen as spammy advertising gadgets.

Are all pop-ups spammy?

A criticism frequently leveled at Apture is that it ‘looks like ads’. That’s because we associate pop-ups with nasty advertising. ‘In-text advertising’ or ‘contextual advertising’ means that links in the text lead to adverts, and not to further information. Some of the worst offenders are Vibrant Media, and Kontera. Personally, I hate contextual ads. They seem to me a betrayal of our readers. After all, readers come to a blog for information or entertainment – and not because they want to be shopped by the blogger.

Contextual advertising has created enhanced hyperlinks, called ‘blooms’. This means that a link can ‘bloom up’ into an image, a video, an article, a flash advert, and so on. There are other products on the market that are easily confused with Apture, for example Snap – which also ‘blooms up’ contextual links. Snap is primarily an advertising tool and gives bloggers and readers little or no control over their online experience. Snap uses pesky auto links, i.e., it automatically creates links in a post.

In contrast, Apture places control firmly in the hands of the blogger and the reader. A blogger can choose what she or he would like to link to, and the reader can determine how they want to use Apture. And they can even disable it. A new player on the market is Zemanta. You can read a review of Apture vs. Zemanta.

I’m sure you can see why Apture is treated with suspicion by many bloggers. I mean, who wants a spammy gadget on their blog!

But forget about ads for a moment. You see, the Apture guys had a brilliant idea: they decided to use the latest in-text advertising technology in order to create layers of information, so that the reader can understand the wider context of a particular topic, or drill down into more detail.

Apture is the art of adding layers of information to your blog posts, and wrapping multimedia around your readers.

You can see why the big newspapers have rushed to embrace Apture for their online resources. After all, their mission is to drive more and better information to the readers. Bloggers have yet to discover how Apture can transform their work. In this post you can learn how to use Apture, and get a taste of what it can do.

First up are step by step instructions on how to use Apture (including links to 5 training videos), followed by a section on Apture for minimalists. Next, I confront the Apture team with some challenging questions. And finally, you can find out how to wow your readers with Apture. In this section I discuss a post by blogger Arvind Devalia whose inspired use of Apture demonstrates that this plugin can transform a good post into a brilliant one. (If you’re short on time, head directly to Arvind’s 6 Key Lessons in Life From a 140 Year Old Man in order to get a sense of what Apture can accomplish. Make sure you click on all the links to get the full juice. There are some surprises…)

1. How to download Apture

Apture is configured for a variety of different blogging platforms, such as WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, Ning, Tumblr, and Drupal. You can can download Apture here. (If you use Blogger, Typepad, of Tumblr, you’ll need the Apture Firefox plugin.) In this post with its accompanying training videos, the focus is on using Apture in WordPress. If you’re not familiar with how to upload a WP plugin, watch Episode 1 of my screencast series Apture Made Easy.

2. How to install Apture

Installing a plugin is normally an easy process, but Apture is a little different, because there is an additional activation process. You can watch Episode 2 of my Apture Made Easy series.

Here is a short summary of action for more experienced bloggers: Once you’ve uploaded the plugin, activate it like any other plugin. When you then write a new post for the first time, a popup offers to install a short piece of code automatically into your site. You will also need to register with Apture at this point. If the code hasn’t installed, copy it and paste it before the last body tag in the footer code.

Apture has two widgets, the Link Widget and the Embed Widget. Together they make up the Media Hub. The Link Widget creates an in-text link – whether it’s an internal link which opens directly on your page, or an external link which transports the reader to another website. The Embed Widget takes objects, such as images, videos, etc, and embeds then into the post.

3. How to use the Apture Link Widget.

Apture links work just like plain links. For example the blog you link to gets ‘link juice’ – even through your readers dodn’t need to leave your page in order to follow the link. Watch Apture Made Easy Episode 3 for detailed information on how to use the Link Widget.

In brief, when you highlight words and click on the Link Widget ( the one of the right-hand side), a window opens that allows you to choose what to link to.Here is what you can do with the Link Widget:

• Link to Wikipedia or other information sources. Scroll bars in the popups allow the readers to read a complete Wikipedia article. You can also choose Wikipedia articles different languages. You can also link to a particular section in Wikipedia.
• Link to other websites. The links function like plain links,i.e. the blog you link to with Apture gets link juice – without the reader having to leave your site. You can also find links you previously made with Apture.
• Internal links Apture links are a great way to entice readers deep into your blog. I use the Embed Widget in order to link to previous posts. Each Apture popups contain a post image and a snippet of text and looks very attractive. Here’s how to link to a previous post: click on the Embed Widget, and then choose ‘Enter a Specific URL’ . The Preview will show you what the link will look like. If you have more than one image in your post, you can select which one – if any – should appear with your post.
• External links: You can choose to use Apture for plain external links that open in a separate window.
• Customizing your sources: you add additional sources from Apture to pull from.
• How to add links: check out the short article from the Apture team that explains how to add multiple links.
• Twitter links: The Apture team has come up with some great options for embedding Twitter. You can link to a single Tweet, or show Twitter search trends. You can even embed your Friendfeed in your blog. Check out a YouTube video that shows some of the cool Apture tricks for Twitter. I think that Twitter fans will be all aflutter over these options.

4. How to use the Apture Embed Widget

Sourcing and embedding media is a snap with Apture. You can find step-by-step intructions in Episode 4 of my Apture Made Easy video series. Here is what you can do with the Embed Widget:

• Embed images: Using Apture saves me a lot of time. For example when I use an image from Flickr, the shortest time it takes me to source, resize, embed, and credit an image is 06:48 minutes. The same process with Apture takes me just 44 seconds. Check out how to use Creative Commons images in Apture. If you use stock images, you can upload the images from your computer quickly resize them with Apture, using the ‘Upload File’ function. Check out how to resize images.
• Embed audio: Apture embeds an elegant audio player. At present, music can only be sourced from Imeem and NPR. It would be good to see greater range audio sources, including radio stations outside of the US, such as BBC, etc. In order to upload audio podcasts, I suggest you upload the audio to Amazon S3, and then link to the file using the Apture Embed Widget.
• Embed video: At present Apture supports videos by YouTube, Reuters, Truveo, Dailymotion, Imeem Video. If you want to embed your own flash videos, you may run into problems. Apture works with a fixed size of 320px wide and 250px high. In other words, Apture only supports videos that have the Standard Definition aspect ratio of 4:3 , and not ones with the High Definition aspect ratio of 10:9. (I have been assured by the Apture team that this flaw will be fixed very soon.)
• Embed YouTube. With Apture you can control start and stop times of YouTube videos. This means that you can choose a clip from a YouTube video to support your post.
• Use captions: You can use captions on all your embeds.
• Add Additional content: You can add up to 6 pieces of additional content to your main link. The additional content is visible in thumbnails beneath the main embedded item. Watch this excellent video by the Apture team on the effect of adding additional content to one link: Why Include 1 Piece of Content When You Can Include 7

5. How to update a published post with one click

Let’s say you’ve published a post and some new information has come to light. Maybe a commenter has suggested a link, or you’ve found a new image that you want to include in your post. The old way of updating your post is laborious: you need to go into your WP dashboard, bring up the post, make changes, and save them.

With Apture, all you need is to go to your published post and bring up your Apture Dashboard by clicking ‘e’. (This is a widget that hovers on top of your published post. Then you can make changes to the published post by highlighting text and adding new links or images. Watch Episode 5 of my series Apture Made Easy for step by step instructions on how to use the Apture Dashboard.

6. Reader control

The reader is in control of her or his reading experience. A small question-mark in the bottom right-hand corner of each Apture ‘bloom’ leads to a popup where readers can customize their Apture experience. They can disable Apture completely, or choose whether Apture links open through a hover, or through a click.

7. Apture for minimalists

Hard-core minimalists may think that Apture look too busy on a page. I think it depends very much on how you use it. I recently ran a Virtual Zen Retreat and used Apture in order to create the daily retreat posts. I used images that supported the calm retreat ambience. I also embedded a couple of videos in order to sharpen the focus of particular posts. My aim was to create a calm retreat ambience that allows participants to deepen their experience. The feedback showed that it worked: most participants mentioned how much they loved the calming images and inspiring videos.

My suggestion to minimalists is to use Apture in a – well – minimal way. For example minimalists could use Apture just for fast selection of images, or for attractive internal links.

8. Apture secrets revealed

Apture hides many of its top features. (Note to the Apture team: how about installing a search function on your site?). Here are some features even die-hard users may not know about:

• Apture uses Amazon S3 to store all media it provides links for, without passing the storage cost on to users.
• Google Street View is supported by Apture. Watch this fascinating demo on what this could do for your blog.
• Apture provides support for Linkedin profiles
• Bing web and image search is integrated into Apture.
• Apture supports super-search engine Lijit.
• Apture integrates into URL shortener Kiw.is.
• Apture supports Wikinvest. You can insert stock charts within their apturized embeds and links.
• Apture has partnered with SlideShare, a community for sharing presentations where individuals or organizations can upload and share PowerPoint, PDF, or OpenOffice presentations. Check out how Apture integrates with Slideshare.

9. How to monetize your blog with Apture

As you can imagine, Apture has great potential for monetization, especially for blogs selling products. I use Amazon Affiliate links on Goodlife Zen and I’ve notice that since using Apture, my Amazon affiliate income has increased by 28%.

I am sure that there are many ways to monetize your blog with Apture. Here are two tips: if your blog is focused on Real Estate, read how Apture can help the Real Estate community make more sales.If you write about the Stock Marked try embedding real-time stock charts on their site.

10. Confronting the Apture team: questions and answers

Transparency is important. If we as bloggers want to engage with Apture and learn to use it, we need to be able to trust the company and know that it isn’t going to change the rules on us. So I asked Andrew Machado

When we invest our energy into learning how to use a major plugin, such as Apture, it’s important to be sure that we’re not going to encounter problems further down the track. So I asked Andrew Machado from the Apture team some searching questions (Andrew is the Community Manager at Apture and runs the Apture Blog.)

Question #1 Is Apture safe?
Answer: Apture was vetted by the technical and security diligence of the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, and Reuters tech teams. We’ve also tested to make sure Apture is compatible with other WordPress plugins.

Question: If I decided to deactivate the plugin, would I lose all the images, videos and links created with Apture?
Answer: All baked Apture links will turn into regular hyperlinks pointing to their primary destination (Reference, Maps, Videos, Images, ….). All embedded images will remain while Videos turn into screenshots of the video which link to the video when clicked. Documents and Reference Viewers will turn into an image representing document or reference content that links to the document in question.

Question: When a new version of WordPress appears, how fast can you update the plugin? Will there be down times until you’ve adapted the plugin to a new WP version?
Answer: The plugin code responsible for inserting our JavaScript (which enables the viewing experience) is extremely small (10-20 lines) and interacts with a part of WordPress that is extremely stable over time. Very major changes to WordPress might cause problems with the editing aspect of Apture. Because of this (and for general compatibility) we test with pre-release versions of WordPress so the update is always ready in time for new WordPress releases.

Question: Can you confirm that for bloggers (below 5 mill visitors a month) Apture will remain free?
Answer: Yes, we will not be charging for the (current) basic version of Apture.

Question: What’s the long-term viability of the Apture project?
Answer: We raised our Series A round about a year ago and are very happy with our current financial situation and are very actively hiring and growing the team. We are absolutely in it for the long haul and all believe in the vision behind the company. The company was incorporated in July of 2007, we received our Angel financing at the same time, launched a beta in April of 2008, launched fully in July of 2008, and raised our Series A in the fourth quarter of 2008. We have, however, been working on Apture in some form since January of 2006.

11. How to wow your readers with Apture

So far we’ve looked at Apture as a tool for adding levels of information. But for bloggers, the secret of creating outstanding posts is to turn turn a read into an experience. I asked one of the new breed of up-and-thriving bloggers -Avind Devalia of Make it Happen – to test Apture. He was reluctant and wrote: “I’ve previously tried Snap on my blog but found it distracting and irritating as the boxes seemed to open up all too frequently by just hovering over a linked phrase.”

Finally Arvind decided to rework one of his popular posts with the help of Apture! The post is about Gandhi’s enduring legacy. Against this serious background, Arvind created a counterpoint with Apture links that are playful, emotional, rousing, fascinating, and surprising. Arvind’s post leaves the reader inspired, smiling, and with a tear or two. Check out 6 Lessons in Life from a 140 year Old Man. (Make sure you click on all the links to get the full experience!)

I think Arvind’s inspired use of Apture has turned what was a good post – into a brilliant one.

12. Conclusion

I think blogging is at at crossroads between old-style blogging, and new-style blogging. Old-style blogging replicates print media. In other words, the reader’s experience is focused on a page of text, which may contain images. In this scenario, the reader follows outward-bound links in order to access more information. New-style blogging creates a multimedia experience for the reader. Bloggers are waking up to the fact that Broadband allows us to deliver not only text, but simultaneously images, videos, music, and other media to our readers. Apture is a perfect tool for new-style blogging because we can add depth and focus to a post, as well as enhance mood and message – all by using easy one-click actions.

Quite simply – if you’re not using Apture yet, you’re missing out on the hottest tool for bloggers.

You can read more by Mary Jaksch on her blog GoodlifeZen or on Write to Done where she is the Editor. Join Mary on Twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Apture

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Over in the ProBlogger.com forum there’s been a lot of talk about different tools, applications, platforms and plugins that helps to improve blogs. I’m loving the different opinions and experiences and thought it’d be a good question to open up to the wider community – what are your favourite 10 blogging tools?

I suspect most of us will probably include our blogging platform (Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad etc) in the list somewhere but other than that anything goes. Perhaps it’s a comments tool, perhaps a desktop editor, perhaps a plugin or widget – anything goes!

But limit it to 10!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What are Your Favorite 10 Blogging Tools?

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Here’s a quick review of a book that I’ve been reading – The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web – through over the past few weeks by Tamar Weinberg.

It’s a great read!

Apologies to Tamar for mispronouncing her name – should have been more like ‘Tuh-MAR’!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web [Video Review]

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Following is the slide deck from the presentation. It might not make a lot of sense without the commentary (the presentation went for an hour and a half and the slides are not that detailed) but I had quite a few people asking to see it and wanted to share what I’d put together.

Over the coming weeks I’ll take each of the lessons and put them into a series of posts fleshing them out – but in the mean time – I hope you find the slide deck to give a little inspiration.

Here are the posts exploring these topics so far:

• A Post explaining the Homebases and Outposts slides
• Listening
• Trust
• Usefulness
• Community
• Being Personal
• Telling Stories (plus telling stories part 2).

A quick explanation – slides 1-22 go with the telling of my story of blogging and slides 23-51 each go with the ‘lessons’.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Confessions of a ProBlogger – Principles of Successful Blogging

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These tools all claim to be able to help you create content for your blog without you having to do anything except set it up, choose a keyword/s for your blog to be about.

The tools sales pages usually make claims like:

• “create targeted blog posts on any topic without writing anything!”
• “start hundreds of blogs on any topic and never have to lift a finger to keep them pumping out as much content as you like!”
• “generate traffic, money and blog posts while you sleep!”
• “Achieve Higher Search Engine Rankings And Massive Affiliate Revenue With Self Updating Blogs”

You get the picture – the list of the hyped up claims that the developers of automated blogging tools make goes on and on!

The fact that these people are asking me to promote these kinds of tools scares me a little as I’ve been pretty anti them in the past and don’t want to be associated with the in any way.

However it also makes me wonder how many bloggers are innocently signing up for them without knowing the dangers of doing so. After-all the sales copy on many of these tools sounds too good to be true – blogging made easy, lots of money, no work….

As a result I thought I’d put together a list of reasons why I would avoid ‘auto blogging’ tools at all costs.

Reasons to avoid Automated blogging Tools and Services:

1. Non Unique Content – at the heart of every successful and profitable blog that I’ve come across is unique content. Auto blogging tools all take content from other places on the web and automatically pull them together on your blog. They replicate what others are doing. They create duplicates of other people’s work. It’s not unique, it’s not original and it creates clutter.

Many of the automated blog tools sales pages say you can add to the content that these auto blogging tools use to add uniqueness to your blog but I’d argue that if you’re creating hundreds of blogs it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll be adding unique posts to many of them.

Blogs that are not unique, that don’t have a personal voice, that contain no original thought don’t tend to get links from other blogs, don’t tend to attract subscribers, readers or comments and don’t generally rank well in Google or other search engines.

2. Useless Content – the other main factor in successful blogs is that they create ‘useful’ content – the type of content that solves people’s problems, helps them solve a problem and makes their lives better in some way.

While some might argue that automated blogging tools can help people by finding this type of information my observation of most of them in action is that they are very hit and miss. Most rely upon you identifying keywords that you want your blog to be about and they then go searching for all kinds of content on those keywords.

As a result you can be publishing who knows what on your blog. Some of it may be useful but some of it might be completely irrelevant and even potentially harmful to readers. Many automated blogs that I come across are a step up from being ‘gibberish’.

3. Personal Satisfaction – early in my own blogging I created a number of blogs that I called ‘link blogs’. They looked at what others were writing online and manually (no tools) collated some of it onto one site. I added some of my own thoughts and it did provide usefulness to readers because it was high quality and all in the one place for readers – but the process almost killed my passion for blogging. It was an empty process for me with no real sense of satisfaction. I stopped doing these kinds of blogs (even though they did make me money and readers complained that it was useful to them).

At it’s best – blogging is an exciting, interactive and fun experience that can give you inspiration, ideas and energy. This kind of blogging (ie using these automated tools) is about none of that.

4. Risk – all of the sales pages on these tools talk about how you can use these tools with all kinds of content legally by using content from sites with APIs, open source content or creative commons content. However almost every time I’ve come across a blog using automated blogging tools they have been scraping content from other blogs without permission from their RSS feeds.

Some blogs allow you to use their content but most do not. There’s real risk in using content from other sites in this way on a number of levels:

• Breaking Copyright – use the wrong persons content without your permission and you could end up on the end of legal proceedings.
• DMCAs and Risk to Your Hosting and Ad Partner Relationships – when I catch someone scraping my content I generally give them a warning but follow that up by issuing DMCAs to them, their site’s host and sometimes their advertisers (like AdSense). This can lead to you losing your hosting and being banned from ad networks (for example AdSense don’t allow you to put your ads on pages where you don’t own the copyright of the content). I know a lot of bloggers who issue DMCAs without warning and push a lot harder on these issues than I do – it can be a nightmare to have to work through these kinds of things.
• Damage to Your Brand – many bloggers skip the DMCA process and go with a ‘name and shame’ approach and publically call out those who steal their content. This can have a lasting impact upon your brand and personal name. There’s nothing worse than doing a Google search for your name and seeing the #1 result being a post an angry blogger wrote about you stealing their content.
• Google Penalties – ever heard of ‘duplicate content’? It’s what Google calls content that appears in more than one place on the web. I don’t know exactly how they treat this content but do know that they try to weed it out of their search results. They don’t get it all but they do get a lot of it and I suspect that a site that is largely classified as ‘duplicate’ will never be seen as an authoritative site on Google.

5. Create Something Worthwhile – my take home advice for bloggers is to create something online that is worthwhile, something that matters, something that inspires, informs and educates. Do this over the long haul and you’ll create something that not only means something but that has every chance of having lasting success.

I’ve heard from a few bloggers that they’ve had some success with automated blogging tools (although most of these were a couple of years back) but in every case they tell me that it’s usually temporary. They start blogs, see a bit of Google traffic before being banned from Google.

Their blogs never really amount to anything, they never build their own profile or become known as authorities in their niches, they never create useful sites that become niche leaders and to make money they have to keep starting new blogs over and over again.

To me this seems like an empty existence.

Me – I’d rather create something worthwhile that will not only survive but that will grow in momentum, build my brand and mean something to people.

What are you experiences of automated blogging tools?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Why Automated Blogging Tools Should Be Avoided

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It’s cheaper than ever before

If you’re a new blogger wondering how to get your blog started and moving towards reaching it’s potential – it can be a daunting prospect.

Become a Blogger is a step-by-step video based guide to walk you through the process in plain and easy to understand language.

The Guys Behind Become a Blogger

The two guys behind Become a Blogger are two people I have a lot of time for – Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. Both live here in Australia and I regularly interact with both. They both have a gift in being able to explain complicated things clearly, they both know what they’re doing (you can get a taste for that in this free report that they’ve released) and have been successful in their own fields and they are both genuinely nice guys who I have real respect for.

I have no hesitation in recommending them to you as trainers and mentors in your blogging.

The resource is broken down into 8 Modules over 6 months – with a number of other bonuses. Here’s what is covered:

Module 1: Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE

Module 2: How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance

Module 3: How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail

Module 4: How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd

Module 5: How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio

Module 6: How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video

Module 7: How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog

Module 8: How To Make Money From Your Blog

PLUS (Spread Throughout The Course): How To Use The “X-Factor” Strategies To Put Your Blog Into Super Drive!

PLUS: a range of other bonuses including a 10 part audio series on ‘master the mindset’ – access to the Become a Blogger Forums and special members only Teleconferences.

Previously Become a Blogger was $77 a month. It sold out at that rate and they closed the doors so as to deliver value to those who signed up.

Cheaper for a Limited Time Only

This time it’s $47 a month but you only have 5 days to become a part of it.

You can either sign up on a month by month basis or invest in it up front for the 6 months get a discount.

Of course as usual with these guys – there’s a money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied you can simply ask for your money back – I trust these guys to honor that commitment.

Signup for Become a Blogger here.

Update: I’ve just been chatting with Gideon and he tells me that they’re adding another bonus – a free call next week for new members of Become a Blogger – the call will cover the topic of niche/topic selection for bloggers – a topic many bloggers struggle with.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Become a Blogger Reopens for 5 Days Only – Now Cheaper Than Ever

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A few mont Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress. The promotion was so popular and I’ve had so much positive feedback from readers about the plugin that I asked MaxBlogPress if we could run it again.

This time they’ve set it up so ProBloger readers can get the $30 discount (around 30% off) until 3rd July.

The best way to learn about what the plugin does is to visit the sales page and view the videos there which outline its features.

Effectively it’s a tool that manages all of the affiliate links on your blog from one central location. Here’s a list of features:

• Easy Affiliate Link Management – You can easily give each affiliate link an easy-to-remember name.
• Flexible Link Management – Accepts every affiliate link format out there, so you don’t have to waste time with various affiliate marketing tools..
• Create Professional Redirect Links – Use professional looking redirect links that let your prospects know you’re a pro marketer..
• Manage Links by Groups – Too many affiliate links? Ninja Affiliate allows you to easily create different groups to manage your links..
• Prevent “Affiliate Theft” – Cloak your affiliate links to prevent link theft and affiliate sabotage. No one will ever steal your hard-earned commissions again..
• Insert Affiliate Links Directly – Add your affiliate links directly for your Wordpress blog editor – you’ll never have to hunt for links again..
• Transform Keywords to Links – Automatically turn keywords in your blog to affiliate links. You can set a limit too, so your posts don’t look like a spam blog!
• Advanced Display Options – Ninja Affiliate allows you to display any text you want in your web browser’s status bar..
• Use “No-Follow” Links – Control your link juice and escape punishment from Big Daddy Google with ninja precision. In fact, you can control your links any way you want to.

All in all – if you’re doing affiliate marketing on your blog this is a plugin you’ll want to consider investing into.

This has been a ProBloggerDeal – for notification on Twitter of other deals, discounts and competitions for bloggers follow @ProBloggerDeals.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Get 30% off the Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress – Limited Time Offer

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The report has been downloaded by over 20,000 bloggers and has helped many get their head around some of the basics of getting a blog up and running and moving towards the success that we all dream of as bloggers.

Gideon and Yaro are stand up guys with a heap of experience – if you’re just starting out I recommend you grab their report and learn from their wisdom.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Get Your Free Roadmap to Become a Blogger

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The results were clear with 43% of ProBlogger readers using WordPress.org, 29% using Blogger and 13% using WordPress.com.

This isn’t the first time I’ve run this survey. The first time I ran it was in January of 2006 – since then I ran it again in November 2007. Here are those results:

The top two platforms still remain #1 and #2 although WordPress.org has taken pushed out their lead but from there on in there’s been a shift with MovableType taking a step back and WordPress.come surging. Also interesting to me is the ‘Other’ category. When we ran this survey in 2006 there were many more platforms mentioned.

Keep in mind that this is just a survey of ProBlogger readers. While we have some diversity in our community we’re just a subset of the wider blogosphere and I’m not sure that these stats are representative of all bloggers.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What Blogging Platforms Do We Use? [POLL RESULTS]

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If you’re a blogger, you’ll be using a variety of applications that aid you in your daily chores. Most of them will be web based, but I bet you’ll find the following desktop apps indispensable once you install and start using them. Darren has already covered essential Mac applications previously, so I’ll cover only Windows applications in this post.

1. Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is, by a majority, the best desktop blogging client to date. Although initial releases were buggy, the latest edition of Windows Live Writer is much more stable and packs few features that might be really useful for all kinds of bloggers.

Besides letting you crop images, add watermarks and other effects, Windows Live Writer also allows you to add and upload videos to YouTube directly. The power of Windows Live Writer lies in its plugins that can be used to add extra functions to the app – for instance, there’s a plugin called Twitter Notify that can be used to post your blog post links to Twitter once they’ve been published via Live Writer.

All-in-all, Windows Live Writer is a must have application for any blogger using Windows. The reason: it makes everything easier that blogging just appears like double clicking on an icon, writing and hitting the publish button. No messing with anything else.

2. Evernote

Blogging is about pushing content frequently and consistently to your readers. Writing down ideas as you get them is very important for any blogger. Evernote is a cross platform application that lets you take notes. The best part of Evernote is that your notes are accessible from virtually everywhere – your PC, your Mac, your iPhone, your Windows Mobile and even from the web.

You can clip web pages to your notes and save them for later reference. You can take screen captures and put them in your notes. You can even scan your blogger buddies’ business cards and put them up on Evernote. All of them will be searchable.

The free version gives you a space of 40 MB/month where as upgrading to a premium account for $45/year or $5/month will give you 500 MB monthly upload allowance for your notes. Try it, and you won’t regret using it.

3. FeedDemon RSS Reader

Although a lot of people use Google Reader these days, FeedDemon is a very feature-rich RSS reader that deserves to be written about here. Once your really start using its most powerful features, you’ll never want to be without it. When everything’s cloud these days, why use it you ask?

FeedDemon is powerful: Because it can show you the most popular posts from the feeds you’ve just subscribed (like a mini techmeme); you can create ‘watches’ to monitor keywords – for instance, you can create a watch for ‘iPhone Apps’ and see all blog posts that mention it separately; desktop alerts for unread items; integration with aforementioned Windows Live Writer and a plethora of other features.

The upcoming release of FeedDemon will sync with Google Reader, meaning that you can use both of them simultaneously. An item that you opened in Google Reader will also be marked as read in FeedDemon. So you get the best of both worlds, why not switch?

4. Q10

I’ve mentioned Windows Live Writer above, but why this, you ask? Well, being on the internet means getting carried around site by site. You realise you’ve wasted all your time only when none’s left.

Q10 aims at making your writing tasks distraction free and it does that. What you get is a barebones writer like Windows Notepad that operates in full screen mode. It offers no big features, but can just count the number of words you write and spell check. Besides that, it’s portable.

It overlaps everything else on your screen – just type all that you have to and quit. Then start playing all that you wanted to on your computer. Some people have told me that it has really improved their productivity – they write 2-3 extra articles than they usually do in a stipulated time period.

5. FileZilla

An FTP client is indispensable tool for bloggers. Be it tinkering with your blogging platform or troubleshooting hosting woes, you’ll have to use an FTP client sometime or the other during your blogging endeavours. There are a number of good FTP clients available in the market, and FileZilla is just one of them. It’s my pick.

I suggest FileZilla because it’s free and open source. There’s a site manager to store all your connection details, so that you need not have to enter them everytime you use FileZilla. You can of course give raw FTP commands. There’s not just the GUI in it.

There’s a portable version as well and you can carry it in your USB Stick. It’s a must-have app for any blogger with a self-hosted blog.

6. FastStone Capture

A screen capture tool is essential for bloggers, especially tech bloggers. FastStone Capture does the task for you. Just hit the Print Screen key after you install the program and then you can save your image in the desired format in a folder of your choice, or copy it to the clipboard. Just what you’d expect from a normal screen capture program.

Of course, you can either perform full screen captures or only a specific window and save it in any of the six specified formats. Overall, it’s a nice and little app that just does what it says.

I’ll also recommend FastStone Capture for its good image editing capabilities but you have to shell out around thirty bucks after the trial period is over. SnagIt is another software, but it’s a bit costlier.

If you already use Evernote, you can easily capture your screen by hitting the PrintScreen key – it already has a minimal screen capture tool built-in.

7. TweetDeck

Twitter is the craze these days and everyone’s on it. As a blogger, it’s important that you start using twitter to leverage your online connections. Lots of people Twitter to help people, join the conversation with their readers, get feedback and do a lot more.

A Twitter client that lets you manage conversations and people on Twitter is a necessity and you won’t find a better one than TweetDeck for that purpose. In TweetDeck, you can create what are called ‘groups’ and track messages from a particular group of people. For instance, I can create a group named ‘most loyal readers’ and give their tweets some special attention.

There’s multicolumn view on TweetDeck, which you can customize to your needs. TweetDeck also supports Facebook and you can view updates from your friends on Facebook as well. If you’re a minimalist, you can try twhirl that comes without the big bells and whistles.

What other desktop apps do you think are a must-have for bloggers using Windows? You can share what you know in the comments.

Guest Blogger Shankar Ganesh writes on Killer Tech Tips. Check out his blog to read tech tips ranging from essential windows utilities to how to fix iTunes.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Seven Essential Applications For Bloggers Using Windows

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The idea is simple – Aweber lets you make up as many signup forms for your email list as you like.

In launching the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge I have so far set up 5 lists. Let me explain each one in the order that I set them up:

1. Twitter list – I set this one up when I first started to promote the project on Twitter (before I promoted it here with a post on ProBlogger). When I promoted it on Twitter I set up a ‘page’ here on ProBlogger (behind the scenes) that was just for the Twitter promotion. It had a message just for my Twitter followers.
2. In Post (ProBlogger) – this one is the the email form in my announcement post here on ProBlogger.
3. Linked In – on linked in I experimented with the Q and A feature which I sent out to 200 of my contacts in that network asking them to share their Blog Tips so that I could use some of their quotes in the 31 Day project. Again I pointed people to a ‘page’ here on ProBlogger with a web form just to track LinkedIn subscribers.
4. Previous Newsletter – I have an old newsletter list here on ProBlogger which I rarely use any more but sent a broadcast out a few days back to let them know of the challenge. Again, it directed people to a ‘page’ with a personalized message and this web form.
5. Refer a Friend – When I emailed the list of subscribers to the challenge to let them know about the delay in the start date I suggested that one good way to get more out of the challenge would be to do it with a friend. While this might sound like a selfish suggestion I believe it’ll also help people be more accountable and effective with the project if they do it with someone else. This email only just went out so I’m yet to really see how it will work.

You can see from the above that all but one of the options directed people to a ‘page’ (as opposed to a ‘post’) here on ProBlogger. Each page had it’s own web form (you can set them up in a minute or two) which enabled me to track the results of each one.

The beauty of this is that at a glance you can see where your subscribers are arriving from. Here’s the stats as they currently stand (click to enlarge):

You can see that some forms were viewed more than others and as a result better results – but the line I’m most interested in is the S/D and S/UD lines. S/D is the percentage of ‘displays’ of the form that sign up and the S/UD is the percentage of unique displays that signed up.

You can see that while the ‘in post’ form drew the most subscribers that because it was viewed so many times that the ‘previous newsletter’ and the ‘twitter’ forms actually were more successful at converting a higher percentage of signups.

This type of information is amazingly powerful to know when it comes time to run other promotions!

Using unique web forms is useful on numerous fronts. Not only does it enable you to track different promotions (as I’ve done above) but it is also useful at tracking a variety of other factors including:

• Page Position of Forms – want to test how positioning of a form impacts signup rates? Simply make each form a unique one and you’ll quickly see what position works best.
• Types of Forms – Want to test having a form appear in a popup compares to having one in your sidebar? Want to see how a Pop-Up compares to a Po-Under or a Lightbox display? Again – just make each one a unique form and you’ll see what converts better.
• Design of Forms – Does adding a picture or different headings or copy into your forms alter signup rates? Test it with different web forms.
• Signup Pages vs Sidebar Forms – Got a sign up area in your sidebar and another in a page dedicated to converting readers into subscribers? Unique forms will show you what works best.
• Testing Landing Pages – Want to see how the copy and design of a landing page impacts signup rates? Test two (ore more) pages with unique forms.

The options are endless and as Aweber gives you unlimited forms you can really test, tweak and improve your signup rates considerably over time.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Using Aweber Web Forms to Track Conversions for Email Newsletters

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On a single day last week I had 8987 emails – it was a fairly ‘normal’ day.

How does one manage this volume of ‘communication’ (I use the word loosely)?

Luckily the vast majority of those emails are things I never need to read. Some are emails notifying me of new subscribers to newsletters, updates or invitations from social media sites etc. I’ve previously talked about how I use Gmail Labels and Filters to filter many of these. Filtering like this gets the emails in my inbox down to several hundred a day.

Many of the emails that do make it into my inbox are from readers asking for help. Their requests are varied and include:

• questions about the topics I’m writing about
• requests to do consulting work
• ‘pitches’ asking me to feature products or link to posts
• enquiries from advertisers
• submissions by potential guest posters
• questions about how to use features on the site
• reports of ‘issues’ or ‘problems’ that readers are having with some aspect of the site
• complaints about something that has been written
• emails of thanks and encouragement from readers who appreciate the sites
• emails from other bloggers wanting to work together

I’d estimate that these kinds of emails number anywhere from 50-200 per day.

A number of months ago I realized that I spent much of time each day answering virtually the same questions over and over again. Email was taking me hours each day.

I began to use a Mac tool called Text Expander which allowed me to compose responses to my most Frequently Asked Questions and insert it into any document or text input field with a keystroke. When I got an email that I had a response for I then would simply insert it into Gmail, personalize it a little and then send it to the person asking the question.

Gmail’s Canned Responses: More recently Gmail added a feature called ‘Canned Responses’ into their Labs section. Other email clients have had this type of thing for years so it was an overdue feature (and it still needs some work in my humble opinion) but I’m sure glad that they added it.

In short – Canned Responses lets you compose an email, save it as a canned response and then select that response when replying to someone.

For virtually each one of the above types of questions that I get I now have a ‘canned responses’ in Gmail that I’m able to quickly reply with. In most cases I do take a few seconds to add something to one of the canned responses (usually the person’s name and comments where the canned response doesn’t quite fit with their question) but in many cases the pre-written answer fits the question pretty well and provides an answer to the person that answers their question. I’d say that I’m sending 30-40 of these a day. If each one saves me writing a 2-3 minute email it is saving me 1-2 hours a day.

Isn’t it Impersonal?

One of the hesitations that I had in starting to use this type of response with readers is that it felt a little impersonal. In some ways it is – but in other ways I think it has actually allowed me to be more helpful to readers.

For example - previously when I got 10 emails a day from people asking the same question the temptation was to answer in quite a blunt and brief way. It’s not that I didn’t care about their question – just that it’s not easy responding to the same thing over and over. With a Canned Response however you can write a comprehensive, polite, helpful response that has a bigger chance of actually helping the person.

Another thing that I’ve noticed about Canned Responses is that I’m actually responding to more emails these days.

For example – I get a lot of emails from readers that simply say ‘thanks for writing your blog’ (10+ a day). While these emails are great they don’t really ‘need’ a response. I did try to respond with a ‘thanks for the feedback’ type email but to be honest on days where I was extra busy I didn’t even manage that.

Using ‘Canned Responses’ I now have a way to not only thank the person for their email but to make an impression upon them with an extended response. The email that I send thanks the person for their feedback, tells them that I appreciate their involvement in my site and suggests 1-2 ways that they can become more involved (including encouraging them to tell a friend about the site).

Over a year if I send 10 of these a day I’ve had the opportunity to deepen relationships with 3650 readers and potentially have them tell a friend about the site. It might not seem like a big deal but these are the small things that can make a difference to a blog.

Automating Canned Responses

At this point my use of Canned Responses is manual. I still am reading each email to work out which (if any) canned response I use however Gmail allows you to use ‘Canned Responses’ in a more automated way by using their filters to look for keywords or the email address that emails are coming from and then send a response to those emails that fit a certain criteria.

This could be very useful and cut down on further work. I wouldn’t want to do it for each and every email that was sent to me – but I can certainly see how it’d be useful for some types of emails. I suspect a contact form that allowed those using it to select a certain category for their question could be useful in triggering these types of canned responses.

How I’d Improve Canned Responses

I mentioned above that I thought Canned Responses could be improved. There are a few improvements that I’d like to see:

1. Managing Canned Responses – I currently have about 13 Canned Responses set up in my Gmail account. The way that these responses are ‘managed’ is via a drop down menu on the page where you compose emails. The problem I am having is that when I open this drop down menu on my laptop (15 inch screen) the menu now extends down further than my screen allows meaning that I can now only delete the first three of my Canned Responses.

Another ‘management’ problem is that because all actions (selecting a response, saving a response and deleting a response) all happen from the one drop down menu – it’s not hard to select the wrong response when quickly using the menu. On a number of occasions I’ve hit ’save’ instead of ‘insert’ and then saved a blank message as a response (meaning I have to rewrite it and save it again).

2. Replying to Messages – When you’re in the reply window and want to use a canned response to reply to someone there is no way to include that persons email to you in the canned response – at present inserting the canned response replaces the whole email rather than inserting it at the cursor point in your reply.

I like to include the original emails as it gives context to your response (it also helps you later if the person responds to your canned response). The only way to include the previous email from the person is to copy the persons email to you, then select the canned response, then scroll to the end of the response and then paste the person’s original email to you. Only a couple of extra clicks but annoying none the less.

3. Shortcuts to trigger Canned Responses – I’d love to see the option to eliminate the option to have to go through the drop down menu at all and to use shortcuts to trigger the insertion of canned responses. Better still – it’d be great to even be able to send a canned response without opening the email but to be able to select it from your inbox window and send a response to all selected items quickly.

4. Subject Lines – In some of my canned responses I’d love the option of being able to insert the same subject line over and over again rather than having to manually change it.

All in all it’s a useful feature but now that I’ve got more than a handful of Canned Responses I’m hoping that Gmail makes some improvements soon as managing them all is getting more difficult.

Do you use Canned Response (or some other type of process that is similar?).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Using ‘Canned Responses’ to Save Time While Helping Readers (and how I’d improve Canned Responses)

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I’ve also been given 500 invites to the closed alpha for ProBlogger readers (be fast, I just gave away 100 on Twitter and they went within 15 minutes).

Skip the rest of this post and Give me the Invite Code – here it is.

Likaholix is a little hard to describe and is best experienced – but in short:

It is a way to share and discuss your likes and discover new ones with people you know. You can ‘like’ anything from a great blog you like reading to your favorite food to some art work that you love.

ie: it is a place to share what you like and to discover the things that others in your network like. There’s integration with Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook also. In a sense it is Digg meets facebook as there are elements of both social bookmarking and networking.

You can read more about the service here.

Want to see what it is like for yourself? The first 500 people to sign up with this link will get access to likaholix. Otherwise it is a closed alpha at this point.

Review it Here

OK – so lets do a group review – what do you think of likaholix?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Likaholix – Get a Free Invite to the Alpha Here

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I’m a cloud computing fanatic. Web 2.0 may just be a buzz word, but the growing number of ways we can connect over the digital airways is increasing by the day. Intertwined and interconnected, our blogs, social media, news sites, and so on, all breathe the same air and share the same massive cluster of server space. As a blogger in this opportunistic information age we must harness the right tools to communicate with fellow cloud cadets and utilize every opportunity allowed. The telephone used to be the standard, then came email. Now we have available to us a vast number of tools to tap on the shoulders of our fellow bloggers.

Over the months I have used many of these tools for both general communication as well as in depth collaboration. Out of all these tools I have found NONE to match the flexibility and all around effectiveness of Google Chat. Being the little brother of Google Talk, Google Chat (or Gchat for short) has really grown up over the last couple years and now offers a mature range of communication capabilities.

The difference between Google Talk and Google Chat:

Google Talk is Google’s standalone IM software that can be downloaded and installed on your computer. Very similar to AIM or Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk can sit in a nice, neat little window in a LCD location of your choosing. Google Chat, however, is the integrated chat feature in Gmail. Though they share many of the same feature and uses, Google Talk is more ‘well endowed’ when it comes to capability. But, as you’ll see in a minute, Gchat is ever expanding and much the capable little ‘chat box’.

7 Google Chat Features You Might Not Know About

1: Transcript. One very simple, yet amazingly useful feature of Gchat is the fact that each conversation is saved in a transcript form email. This means you not only have access to all the words shared, but you can treat them like those in an email. They can be searched for, forwarded, labeled, etc… And they all reside in the ‘Chats’ section, just two links down from your Inbox.

I didn’t think much of this feature until I started using Gchat on a regular basis. One day I had a great conversation with a fellow blogger and had discussed ideas for future blogging projects. Weeks later I wanted to reference a few sentences that had passed back and forth. So I just typed in a few key words in the Gmail search field and BINGO! There was the entire conversation, ready for reference.

2: Go off the record. If, for any reason, you don’t want your conversation recorded, there’s a nifty feature of Gchat that handles this beautifully. Just click on the ‘Video & more’ button on the bottom right of your Gchat window and then click ‘Go off the record’. It’s as easy as that! Just keep in mind that, if not changed back, your future ‘conversations’ with that particular Gmail user will always be ‘off the record’.

3: Pop-out. In that same menu from the ‘Video & more’ button you can click ‘Pop-out’. This will un-integrate or unstick the Gchat window from your gmail page and allow you to move it where ever you prefer. This is great for so many reasons! You may want to keep ‘talking’, but move away from your Gmail page to a different location on your computer or in your browser. I love to pop my Gchat window over to my second monitor and fully enjoy the freedom of ‘chatting’ and working/surfing at the same time. It’s Googleiscious! :-)

4: You can have multiple ‘conversations’ at the same time. A few weeks ago I was having a ‘back and forth’ with a friend when I received a Gchat message from a fellow blogger who I’d been waiting to hear from. My knee jerk reaction was to say goodbye to the friend so I could talk to the blogger. But I decided to see what a double conversation felt like in the land of Gmail. Within a few seconds I realized that it was not only possible to talk to two ‘chatters’ at the same time, but actually quite efficient!

If you IM much you know there’s that little bit of downtime between ‘pings’. With two people to talk to you can get into a natural rhythm which fills all those time voids and allows for maximum use of conversation time.

5: Group chat. Once again, located in the pop-up menu of ‘Video & more’, you can select ‘Group chat’ to connect with more than one ‘chatter’ and create a three-way conversation (or more). You just initiate the chat with one of the users and then click on ‘Group chat’ to start bringing others into the conversation. I’ve found this to be an amazing way to collaborate and just chat away with groups of friends, bloggers and colleagues.

6: You can chat with AIM and iChat users. For a while I didn’t realize that a blogging friend of mine whom I chat with regularly, was using his iChat to connect with me on Gchat. It all felt the same on my end as the connection was seamless. And if you have an AIM account you can log directly into it and chat with other AIMers, all through your Gmail account.

7: Video/Audio Gchat. Back in November Google added an exciting feature to Gchat. Now you can see and hear those you are in conversation with, which can be a wonderful change from the tedious typing when your conversations become more involved.

A few months ago Leo of zenhabits and I were ‘chatting’ about a blogging project. Very quickly I realized that this ‘typing conversation’ wasn’t going to be very efficient while trying to answer some of the questions we were presenting each other. So I asked if we could go to video. Little did I know that all this could be done while in Gmail. So, being an uneducated Gchatter, I closed Firefox and opened iChat to prepare for the new conversation. But Leo, knowing more than I about these nifty new features, sent me a link to the necessary plugin to enable this feature. (You can find it HERE.) After I downloaded and installed it and then restarted my browser, we were able to dive right back into our discussion, but now with the convenience of full audio and video.

A few more tidbits on this new feature:

You have the choice to go with just audio or both audio and video. This is nice because there are certainly times when you’d rather have a phone-esque conversation as apposed to having to see and be seen. Sometimes I even find the video part to be distracting when I’m discussing ‘thinking’ matters such as business collaboration. Also, depending on your Internet speeds, the audio may be ‘cleaner’ when not coupled with the video.

And don’t forget that you don’t have to stick to the tiny screen on the bottom right. You can either click ‘Pop-out’ (as mentioned in #3 above) and not only become mobile, but grow in size by about 50%. Then, if you REALLY need to see every hair on their head, you can go FULL SCREEN. The main downside to this is that it becomes a little grainy, but only noticeable if you are right up to the screen.

Finally, I wanted to point out the quality of Gchat Audio/Video. I’ve spent a lot of time on iChat video with Sean Platt of Writer Dad, while working on some blogging projects and we both agree that the Gchat offering is noticeably ‘cleaner’. On iChat I often heard an echo of my voice while speaking to Sean, but since we’ve been using Gchat it has been crystal clear.

Final thoughts on Google Chat:

Just like any other form of communication, becoming proficient with this amazing tool is the key to getting the most out of it. When we seek connection with fellow bloggers we want the topic, not the form of communication, to maintain most of our focus. The more Gchat becomes and extension of our tongue, the greater the efficiency and effectiveness of our words. So if you haven’t already, be sure to dig into all that Google has to offer when it comes to moving information. You may have tapped on the face of Gchat before, but until each feature is under your belt you will only benefit by the smallest degree.

Eric Hamm is a blogger and Wordpress designer/consultant. You can find him at his 2 main blogs, Motivate Thyself and Blogopolis Blueprint or utilize his affordable web design services at FrugalSiteDesign.com.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Google Chat: A Bloggers Best Friend

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Today Jade Craven from the Prolific Writer reviews an ebook by the name of The Unlimited Freelancer which is designed to help freelancers grow their businesses.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve probably heard of James Chartrand. He’s one of the killer writers behind Men With Pens. He started out by producing great content and networking prolifically. He now writes for Copyblogger and has created a business that brings in over $200,000 in revenue every year.

James has joined Mason Hipp – editor of Freelance Folder – to create a resource that promises to “take your freelancing to the next level and turn it into a full-fledged, thriving business you can enjoy for years to come.”

In this review, I will examine how you can apply to principles from The Unlimited Freelancer to grow your blog to the next level.

The e-book covers three main topics.

1. Systems, Software, and Automation
2. Building a Freelance Team
3. Revenue-Generating Assets

Lets look at each in turn.

Systems, Software, and Automation

The Unlimited Freelancer cover processes for:

• Managing Projects Using Systems
• Automating Your Accounting
• Systematizing Your Communications
• Marketing Automation and Systems

There are the specific topics I felt would be of most use to bloggers – they do cover many more. They detail:

• Programs to use for project management. Bloggers could use this to plan a blog launch or when developing a specific aspect of their site
• Ideas to automate the accounting: You can learn ideas to use should you need to pay affiliates or content writers.
• How to systemize communications and marketing. Outside of the blogosphere, you may need to communicate with customers, potential customers, businesses and vendors. This section gives you a framework so you can focus your attention on building your business.

Building a Freelance Team

This chapter details how freelancers can leverage their time to get more results. The idea is to outsource simpler tasks to other members of your team so you can devote more billable hours to your clients.

This includes:

• Outsourcing tasks to other members of your team, who get paid less per hour due to handle some of the easier, routine tasks
• Partnering with those who have skills that compliment your own, so you have a larger share of the market.
• Cross sourcing with other freelancers when you have a heavy workload.

Both their sites are examples of expanding their team. The Men With Pens team have expanded to include two additional freelancers. Mason Hipp regular hires other contributors who bring their unique knowledge and experience with over 10’000 RSS readers.

This chapter also applies to the new bloggers. If you don’t have the money for outsourcing, you can partner with another blogger and exchange your writing skills. As your blog grows, you will need to focus on the work that brings you the highest return on investment

Revenue-Generating Assets

Much of this chapter would be quite familiar to seasoned Problogger readers. Fortunately, instead of examining each asset in minute detail, they concentrate on how freelancers can adopt a business-like approach to creating a product. They discuss:

• How to find the right asset for your business.
• How to build an asset
• Resources for creating and selling your products

This is relevant to bloggers because we often create the free content first, before creating a paid product. As this chapter demonstrates, it is often worth developing a revenue generating asset at the start so you can focus more of your time on unpaid projects.

Combine Strategies for Unlimited Potential

The final chapter details how you can put the core information together to create a self-sustaining business

As a freelance blogger, this chapter was my favourite. It really unified the previous chapters and gave me an insight into the minds of successful freelancers. It really demonstrated that if you want real success, you should treat your freelancing – or blog – as a business rather than another form of self employment.

Would I recommend it?

I would highly recommend this ebook to anyone who create a business based around their blog. Bloggers are exchanging their time for money but unlike freelancers, they are exchanging their time for anticipated income. Its value packed offering 200 pages of information for $29. I’ve paid a lot more for products that offer much less value. However, I wouldn’t recommend it for everybody.

This book isn’t for:

• Those who are expecting extensive blogging advice. The book focuses on business advice for writers, and those looking to hire writers.
• Those who want their hand held. The authors do their best to provide a solid framework but there is only so much you can say in 200 pages. They give the comprehensive advice needed to make individual business decisions.
• Those who are just hoping for success, rather than planning for it.

If you aim to monetize via services, or have plans to expand your blog, then you should read The Unlimited Freelancer. If you can’t justify the expense you can check out the great content at Freelance Folder and Men With Pens.

Over to you

I offered to review this e-book because i felt that the Problogger audience could gain a lot from the authors experience. I know however that people can be reluctant to buy a product based on just one review.

Have you read the Unlimed Freelancer? Did it help you change your blogging or freelancing goals? Let us know in the comments.

Learn more about this resource at The Unlimited Freelancer.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Unlimited Freelancer [Ebook Review]

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Quite a few ProBlogger readers have signed up for the 30% discount on the Ninja Affiliate WordPress Plugin this week (see our previous announcement post).

The plugin allows you to manage affiliate links on your blog in a way that I’ve not seen done in any other tool in the back end of your WP blog.

If you’ve been meaning to check it out – you’ve got around 24 hours to do so (as of the time this post goes live).

Get full details and get it for yourself here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

24 Hours Left in Affiliate Ninja Discount

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It is a WordPress plugin called Ninja Affiliate and you can have it for a third off the normal price.

I know some of you use this one already but I’ve only had the opportunity to check it out more recently and I have been quite impressed by it. In short it is a management tool that allows you to manage all of the affiliate links on your blog.

This product has a lot of features built in including:

• Easy Affiliate Link Management – You can easily give each affiliate link an easy-to-remember name.
• Flexible Link Management – Accepts every affiliate link format out there, so you don’t have to waste time with various affiliate marketing tools..
• Create Professional Redirect Links – Use professional looking redirect links that let your prospects know you’re a pro marketer..
• Manage Links by Groups – Too many affiliate links? Ninja Affiliate allows you to easily create different groups to manage your links..
• Prevent “Affiliate Theft” – Cloak your affiliate links to prevent link theft and affiliate sabotage. No one will ever steal your hard-earned commissions again..
• Insert Affiliate Links Directly – Add your affiliate links directly for your Wordpress blog editor – you’ll never have to hunt for links again..
• Transform Keywords to Links – Automatically turn keywords in your blog to affiliate links. You can set a limit too, so your posts don’t look like a spam blog!
• Advanced Display Options – Ninja Affiliate allows you to display any text you want in your web browser’s status bar..
• Use “No-Follow” Links – Control your link juice and escape punishment from Big Daddy Google with ninja precision. In fact, you can control your links any way you want to.

There is a lot more information on the sales page (the videos will show you how to use it and give you a good feel for whether it is for you) for the product and I’m not going to rehash it all here – except to say that I wish I’d had something like this when I started promoting affiliate products.

The special offer for ProBlogger readers…

is this – $30 off the plugin. It’s normally $97 and until midnight on 28th February it’s $67 – a third off. You can install it on as many WP blogs as you own.

You have 8 weeks to test it and see if it is right for you and then they offer a money back guarantee.

To get the discount you need to buy it from this special page that they’ve set up for ProBlogger readers.

PS: While I’m gone on my break….

ProBlogger will continue to have some great content. I have a few guest posts from some great bloggers already scheduled as well as a 10 part series of posts that I wrote over the last few weeks on ‘how to take your blog to the next level‘ – a series especially for bloggers who have moved past their launch phase and are wanting to step it up.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress – Special Price for ProBlogger Readers

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Dave Navarros prelaunch of his latest ebook was so successful that he had to delay the official launch. Why? He was too busy earning thousands by coaching others on how to launch the **** out of their ebook.

This review examines the five modules of this workshop and gives you the foundations of how you too can conduct a killer product launch.

Module 1: Analyzing the market for your ebook

Most internet marketers know the basics of researching a niche and ascertaining competition. Fortunately, the authors were aware of this and kept it short.

Put simply – the one purpose of this chapter is to give you the tools to ascertain whether there is a market willing to pay for your product. This point seems obvious, but is one that is often ignored. People get swept up in the excitement of product creation and don’t bother questioning if there is even a demand for it.

Its unlikely established bloggers will discover new methods, but it did allow me to view the research in a different context.

Module 2: Finding and Wooing buyers.

This module contains two steps that would be second nature to many Problogger readers:

• Make Your Blog Attract Your Target Audience
• Drive New, Targeted Readers To Your Existing Blog

The emphasis is on creating relationships with your prospects “far in advance of your product going on sale.”

The tips included:

1. Using twitter and social media
2. Prolifically commenting on other blogs within the niche
3. Guest posting on other blogs
4. Using forums.

I was disappointed in that they didn’t provide any guidance in how these methods compliment each other. While it is beyond the scope of the ebook to provide comprehensive networking advice, I have found that repeated exposure to an audience – via all the methods listed above – is what converts the best.

If you find the information too basic, Dave and Naomi also included a section on how to leverage your existing blog.

Module 3: Setting Up Your Mailing List

This module alone was worth the $97. It showed me how to set up an email list that feels ethical. It is explained how to segment your list and create a positive audience that likes being sold to. Dave also gives the foundations of setting up the list so as to continue to woo the reader.

It was during this chapter that I really started getting excited about the possibilities available during aproduct launch.

Module 4: Writing Your Ebook

I’ve tried writing an ebook before. I gave up immediately because I had no plan, and no focus. This module made me realize the many ways I went wrong and gave a solid blueprint for successful product creation. I learned how to:

• Create an killer ebook outline
• Develop a work schedule you can stick to
• Get others to help you out with the editing.

Naomi and Dave provided their own perspective when it came to creating a product. Some of it is conflicting, but it helped to show you that you have to develop your own style during the planning and writing stage.

Module 5: Launching Your Ebook

It’s in this module that everything in the previous chapters comes together. Dave provides a complete framework for the entire launch process. He discusses:

• How to make your first batch of money during the presale
• How to build up the buzz around your product and increase your mailing list
• How to organize the content for your mailing list
• Ongoing ways of earning money after your launch.

The information is rock solid and much of it is also relevant to someone who is trying to launch a successful blog.

For instance, in the section on getting big names to review your book, he suggested that you “find out who their online friends are and focus some attention on building them up.”

I have personal experience of this working. Recently, Darren hopped on twitter, asking his followers what they were blogging about. I replied instantly, raving about this awesome product I was about to review. It’s that review your reading now. I turned from an impressed consumer to product evangelist just by the full attention Dave gave me in a couple of tweets.

Would I recommend it?

I was that impressed by this product that I immediately brought another of Dave’s products – and have the intention of buying more from both him and Naomi.

I would recommend this book to anyone who plans to release an information product. New bloggers can learn how to optimize their blogs to woo potential customers. Established bloggers can discover a launch method that resonates with market savvy audiences

If your unsure, you can check out his information for free at his new blog, The Launch Coach. The information is top notch and is a clear example of how to effectively launch a new product.

In conclusion.

I tweeted Dave immediately after purchasing this product, thanking him for changing my perception of an entire industry. He replied by saying that he “wants to make ebooks fun again.”

He did. You can do the same by reading the ebook.

Read more reviews and posts from Jade at her blog The Prolific Writer.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Learn how to Launch the **** out of your E-Book

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If you’re a Thesis user (like me) you may have had some issues recently when upgrading to version 1.4. The issues affected a minority of Thesis users, and required reverting to an old version of Thesis for the sites to function while Chris Pearson troubleshot the issue – on his customer’s servers, free of charge. Chris was very responsive and issued a patch the same day (1.4.1), followed by another patch over the weekend (1.4.2). My hat’s off to Chris for providing what can only be called unparalleled customer support in a difficult situation.

This experience brings me to the larger issue – how do you ensure everything on your blog still works after an upgrade? This isn’t the first time I’ve had an issue upgrading – and I’m certainly not the first Wordpress user to experience hiccups during the upgrade process either. We all occasionally have issues when we upgrade plugins, install a new plugin or upgrade Wordpress itself.

Perhaps the most sinister are those issues where everything looks like it’s working fine. Sometimes after an upgrade I won’t even notice an issue until days later, and I’ll have to go back through my plugins one at a time to see what originally caused the problem.

Until recently, I checked for problems after an upgrade with the old blogger favorite “randomly click around and see if anything looks broken” strategy. The weakness of this strategy is the propensity to miss errors. I decided I needed a way to be more certain that everything went smoothly, and borrowed a couple concepts from my background in software engineering to help: Unit Tests and Regression Testing.

Unit Tests and Regression Testing

Units tests are simple, single function tests done to ensure every part of the software does what it is supposed to. If the test fails, you know exactly where the problem is and can fix it. Likewise, for my blog, each unit test checks for a specific piece of blog functionality.

In software development, a test might work at the time I first run it – but down the road I may change something that causes the test to fail. Repeating the tests whenever any change is made is called regression testing. In my years of software development, I’ve learned that a new change can cause software to react in ways we may not expect. Upgrading a plugin may cause another plugin to fail, or perhaps cause errors in your RSS subscriptions (which happened to me). For this reason, whenever I upgrade or install anything new to my blog, it is important I retest everything, every time – even if the change appears unrelated.

Blog Unit Tests

With that background, here is a handy checklist to review every time you install new plugins or themes, or upgrade any part of your blog. Some tests are especially relevant when installing a new theme, while some should be reviewed carefully in cases of plugin installs and upgrades. Since you won’t know exactly what is affected by each change, it’s important to go through the entire list every time. This list gives you specific checks you can run through in 15-30 minutes and know that your installation is successful. I use Wordpress – but this list should apply regardless of your blog or CMS platform.

Note: When running these tests, be sure to force a refresh and clear your browser cache before beginning so you are seeing the current version of your site. If this sounds like Greek to you, here’s a brief explanation of forcing refreshes.

1. Index page
   1. Title of the page. Is it what you want it to be? Are site name and tag line in the order you desire?
   2. Site name. Is it present? Is it clickable (if you want it to be)?
   3. Description/tag line. Is it present? Is it clickable (if you want it to be)?
   4. Header image. Does clicking on it return you to the home page? Do you want it to?
   5. Favicon. Is your favicon still present? This is a sinister one, as browsers sometimes cache these even if you are forcing a refresh.
   6. Excerpts, Thumbnails and Full Posts. Is the index showing excerpts or full posts the way you want it to? If applicable, are thumbnails and featured posts where they should be?
   7. Post Titles/Permalinks. Does clicking on a post title take you to the blog post?
   8. Comment links. Are the correct comment counts displayed? Does clicking the link take you to the appropriate comment form?
   9. Categories/Tags. Are category and tag links displayed? Do you want them to be?
   10. Meta description. View your page source. Look for <meta name=”description” content=”[...]” />. Is the value in the [...] what you expect it to be? See SEO Tips for Blogs for a detailed discussion of why this is important. You may, optionally, want to repeat this test on single post pages.
2. Index sidebar (s), navigation links and footer
   1. Widget enabled theme. Are all the widgets present?
   2. Widget order. Are the widgets in the order they should be?
   3. Links in widgets the sidebar. Does clicking a link take you where you expect it to? Appropriate pages, external sites, etc? Do the links open in a new window, or the current window?
   4. Site wide navigation (if applicable). Are all the links present? Are they in the order desired? Click a couple. Do the links work? Do the links open in a new window, or the current window?
3. Archive pages – tags, categories, sitemap, and date based
   
   1. Index page tests. Repeat all the same tests as the index page. Spot check one category, one tag and one month archive as applicable. If you have a sitemap, check that as well.
4. Single Post pages
   1. Title bar. Is the post title and site name in the order desired? Does it show everything you want? Post Title, Category, Site Name, Tag Line?
   2. Post Title. Is the post title present? Is it clickable (or not) depending on what you want?
   3. Comment links. Do you want a link to the comment form displayed near the post title? Are the correct comment counts displayed? Does clicking that link take you to the appropriate comment form?
   4. Next/Previous post links. Are they displayed? Before, after, or both? Are they nofollowed or dofollow based on your preference?
   5. Page layout. Are sidebars, navigation links and footer present? Repeat the checks described under #2 above, Index sidebar (s), navigation links and footer .
   6. Categories and tags. Are categories displayed (or hidden) as desired? How about tags? Are they clickable? Are they nofollow or follow based on your preference?
   7. Breadcrumbs. If you have breadcrumbs, are they present and appropriate for the navigation you desire?
   8. Comment and Trackbacks: run through the list below.
5. Comment and Trackbacks
   1. Comment form. Is your comment form present?
   2. Comments. Are comments displayed? Are the comment counts accurate? Do the gravatars work, if desired?
   3. Trackbacks. Is the trackback link present? Do you want it to be? Are your trackbacks listed?
   4. Test comment. Submit a test comment. Does your comment submit? Is it held in a moderation queue?
   5. Comment subscriptions. Subscribe to comments option
      1. Comment feed. Subscribe to a comment feed – do you see all the comments? When you submit/approve a new comment, does it update?
      2. Subscribe by email. If applicable, try subscribing by email and then submitting another comment – are you notified via email?
6. Regular pages
   1. Comments on pages. Do you have comments enabled? Do you want them to be? Trackbacks?
   2. Sidebars. Are sidebars present? Do you want them to be?
   3. Page hierarchy. Is the hierarchy displayed the way you want it to be? How about your permalink?
   4. Repeat all the tests for the single post pages.
7. Images and image links
   1. Images. Navigate to a page or blog post with images hosted on your blog. Do your images load? Check the alt text and title text on the images – are they what you want them to be?
   2. Larger image. Does clicking the image bring up the large version (if applicable)? Is the link nofollow or follow based on your preference?
8. RSS feed
   1. New post. Publish a test post – does it appear in your feed? (You are subscribed to your own feed, right?)
   2. RSS Link. Double check the RSS link – is it pointing to your feed?
9. Errors and Redirects
   1. 404 page. Type in an address that does not exist. Review the 404 page. Is it the way you want it to be?
   2. Redirects. Have you redirected posts or pages in the past? Spot check a few. A couple internal posts, a couple internal pages, and a couple external links.
10. Contact form (if applicable)
    1. Send a test email. Send yourself a test email to ensure your contact form still works. Do you receive the email? Are all the fields present?
    2. Confirmation. Do you see an appropriate confirmation shown to the user on the site after submission? If applicable, is a confirmation email sent to the submitter?

This is only a partial list – but it’s a great starting point. If you have specific plugins installed such as CommentLuv, or various search plugins, be sure to check all of them individually as well. If you have a plugin that generates your sitemap, and you upgrade it – that’s a good time to go and double check that your sitemap page still loads appropriately.

What do you think? What tips do you have for ensuring upgrades go smoothly?

This is a guest post from Sid Savara, who writes about personal development and personal productivity at SidSavara.com. If you’re struggling to get through everything in your RSS reader and inbox, you should definitely click through to learn How to Effectively Read 12,853 Articles, Forum Topics & Blog Posts a Week.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How To Sleep Better After an Upgrade – Blog Unit Testing

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