Image by Stuart Richards

“You’re wrong…”

“How can you say that? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I couldn’t disagree more…”

“This is the last time I read this blog!”

These are just some of the criticisms bloggers regularly face—I’ve received versions of all of these many times over the years, and if you’ve been blogging for any length of time, they’re probably fairly familiar to you, too.

Criticism can be deeply painful. As I explained here, the difficulty in dealing with criticism caused Elizabeth Taylor to ignore everything the press said about her. The discomfort of being criticised has led more than one blogger to shut down their blog, so it’s an issue that bloggers really do need to think about.

How can we manage criticism, not get dragged down by it, and maybe even benefit from it?

Embrace criticism?!

That probably sounds a little odd, but the first thing you need to do is accept—even embrace—the fact that your blog has attracted criticism.

I know that can be difficult to do, but think of it this way: you’re a blogger, and you’re tackling the tough job of putting yourself, your work, and your opinions on the line every week.

Not everyone will agree with you all of the time, but negative feedback is a sign that you’re making people think. After all, that’s one of the most common reasons why many start blogging in the first place.

Certainly, few bloggers are ever going to gleefully greet negative emails and comments the way we do positive feedback, but the first step in using that information positively is to accept it as a natural part of blogging.

Don’t take it personally—everyone gets criticisms—from the longest-standing A-list bloggers to the newest blogger on the block. It’s not pretty, but it’s part of the job.

Consider the criticism

Some criticisms are better than others. Some negative commenters just want you to know that they feel this post’s no good, or they don’t like your logo. Others are more considerate—they’ll give you reasons for their negative feedback.

There are trolls out there—people who are just negative for the sake of it—but if you cultivate the right culture of comments on your site, you’ll likely receive more valuable criticisms than trolling. If your site is the victim of trolls, you might find this post, which explains a Buddhist monk’s philosophy of dealing with “haters”, helpful.

Be careful, too, not to discount a brief criticism that lacks detail as “just trolling.” Sometimes what appears to be a thoughtless negative comment from a troll can turn out to reflect an undercurrent that’s taken up later by more constructive commenters—and that can be extremely valuable to you and your blog.

Making use of criticism

I find it’s best, wherever possible, to take the emotion out of the criticism. So if you have more than one negative comment on a post, look first for those that are written reasonably and respectfully. These kinds of readers are advancing ideas for you to consider so you can better meet their needs. Have a read, but don’t take the feedback personally, or even on board, just yet.

Now look at the remaining criticism—the angry or otherwise emotional feedback. Think as objectively as possible about how that supports the other feedback. If you could boil down the feedback to one thing, what would it be? What was it that readers didn’t like about this post or product?

Criticism often falls into one of a few categories:

• a difference of opinion
• a lack of perceived value
• a sense of frustration linked to an underlying problem the reader is struggling with.

If you can work out which of these problems is at the root of the criticism you’ve received, you can do something about it.

A difference of opinion may cause you to re-check your facts, do a little research, and respond to the criticism with evidence that supports your case—perhaps in a follow-up post.

A lack of perceived value may encourage you to tweak the way you present value through your blog. It might also prompt you to post on different topics or try different approaches to the topic in question. This may even open up your blog to a broader audience over time.

A sense of frustration among readers can give you real insight into deep audience needs, and what you can do to meet them.

Take it on board

Now’s the time to take the criticism on board—but not emotionally so much as practically.

Now you know what the real issue is, you can undoubtedly think of a few ways to try to tweak your work to try to cater to the needs your readers have flagged.

“Tweak” is usually the right word here. If you take the criticism personally, you’ll be more likely to make drastic changes that can end up undermining your blog and possibly disappointing the majority of readers who like what you do and how you do it. So act with caution—but do act.

On the other hand, if the negative feedback is overwhelming, you might do well to respond (not react!) with corresponding passion, showing your audience that you’re listening, and that their feedback is important to you.

After all, they took the time to tell you what they didn’t like, which means they do care about you and your blog. A criticism says, “I want your blog to be what I want.” It’s up to us as bloggers to decide if, and how, we want our blogs to be what those readers want.

How do you handle criticism on your blog? Share your tips with us in the comments—we could all use some help handling negative feedback.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Handle Criticism: a Practical Guide

Some bloggers don’t start a blog to make money. They start blogging, because they have a message that the world needs to hear. In other words:

Some bloggers blog to get published.

Recently, I signed a contract with a book publisher. I had always hoped to one day publish a book, but I never thought it would happen in a few months.

What made this possible? In a word: blogging.

Image copyright Lasse Kristensen - Fotolia.com

Why you should publish a book

With the rising popularity of ebooks and self-publishing, why should you go with a traditional publisher?

Why even write a book at all? Doesn’t a blog suffice?

Well, no. Not always. In some cases, self-publishing (especially your first book) may not be a good idea.

Reasons to work with a publisher

Although self-publishing can work just fine, there are still some legitimate reasons to go traditional:

• Marketing: A publisher will offer its resources and knowledge to help you not only promote your book, but consider the marketability of it before it’s published.
• Editing: A publisher will help you with the actual writing, as well as proofreading and copyediting. Normally, you would have to pay someone to do this or do it yourself.
• Authority: There is still a great deal of social clout when it comes to having a published book from a reputable publisher. Publishing a book will make you more of an authority in your niche.

Of course, some authors make good money off ebooks without ever going through a publisher. So this may not be for everyone. But it’s at least worth considering. (Even Darren and Chris G. released their Problogger book through Wiley. It’s not about money as much as it’s about influence.)

If you’re interested in becoming a published author, there are the three steps you’ll need in your path to publishing.

Step 1: Build a platform

All publishers want to know the same thing: Do you have a platform?

In other words, are you “legit”? Do you have the audience and authority to speak on a particular topic? Money is so tight in publishing that if authors don’t bring their own marketing chops, they have little hope of succeeding.

A platform can range from a podcast to a television program; however, in our case, we’re going to assume it’s a blog.

Why a blog is a great platform

Blogs are great for authors, because of the following reasons:

• A blog allows you to practice writing.
• A blog allows you to capture email addresses (with a service like Feedburner or Aweber).
• A blog allows you to communicate a core message over time.

My blog has been instrumental in helping me find my voice as an author, as well as providing some content that I’m actually re-purposing for my upcoming book.

Step 2: Release a manifesto

Once you’ve built a blog and starting building a decent audience, you can now work on something that articulates your core beliefs: a manifesto.

A manifesto is a short, actionable ebook that you give away for free. The point of it is to spread idea and help you connect with your tribe (i.e. people who share your beliefs).

This can also be a great way to capture attention, by exchanging the ebook for people’s email addresses. I grew my email list from 75 to 1000 subscribers in a week, thanks to a manifesto. And it also caught the attention of my publisher. It works.

If writing a manifesto sounds hard or overwhelming to you, don’t worry. It’s not.

The DIY way to publish a manifesto

• Find the content. Dig up an old blog post or series of posts that resonated with your readers.
• Develop it. Build upon your original idea and edit out what’s irrelevant.
• Finish writing. Shoot for 1000-10,000 words long. It needs to clearly communicate one, important idea. The shorter you can make it, the better.
• Create it. You can do this through a program like Word or Pages (for Mac), or you can use a slide presentation program like PowerPoint or Keynote and export as a PDF. Michael Hyatt also has a great seven-step tutorial for how to do this. (Note: This may create a huge file, depending on the length of your e-book. If you get something that’s over 10 MB, you can use the program PDFshrink to make it smaller.)

Alternatives

If you’re looking to spread an idea quickly, you can even publish the manifesto through a site like ChangeThis.com. Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, and Guy Kawasaki have all done this. Only the best ones make it, though, so this doesn’t guarantee you’ll get an ebook published through them. (See mine here.)

You can also hire someone to do it for you, if you have the budget.

Step 3: Connect with people through social media

Social media is a great way to find fans and create advocates that will spread your work for you.

The great thing about social media is that it’s social (obviously), which means it can lead to other meaningful interactions, including real-life relationships.

From follower to friend

I’ve connected with more people through Twitter than any other way. This has led to grabbing coffee with other writers, picking up freelance gigs, and even getting to meet some of my heroes. It’s the best networking resource I’ve found.

Starting a Facebook page for my blog has also been a great way to share content and connect with my audience.

The people you connect with through social media may begin as followers, but they can quickly become friends and even patrons of your work. If you do it right—by adding value to your readers and followers—these people can become life-long supporters of you.

What better asset to have before publishing your first book than an already large and growing fan base? The publishers will be fighting over you.

Step 4: Establish your brand by adding value

Every author needs a brand—an established voice that makes his or her content unique.

Blogging can help you do this, because it allows you to practice in public. It also attracts an audience, which can help you in defining (and building) your personal brand as a writer.

Serve your way into influence

The best way to earn trust and establish a brand is to serve people.

Do the grunt work. Hustle to help people, and you will get noticed. In a world full of self-promoting sleaze bags, if you add value to people’s lives, you will never have a marketing. People will come find you.

This is a great way to brand yourself as an author, too. Someone who serves others doesn’t have a hard time selling books. People know you’re going to help them, so they’re eager to pay money to hear what you have to say.

And if you can demonstrate that, a publisher will be honored to work with you.

Interview experts

Another way to do this is by interviewing experts. You can seek out other authors and bloggers in your niche and ask to interview them. Do this over time and you’ll not only deliver value to your readers, you’ll also build relationships with influential people.

Pretty soon, people will come to think of you as the expert—which is exactly what publishers are looking for.

All of these relationships (if founded on serving others) will come back to help you. It’s true what they say: what goes around comes around.

You’ll be publishing a book in no time.

Jeff Goins is a soon-to-be-published author, blogger, and nonprofit marketer. You can connect with him on Twitter @jeffgoins and Facebook and get his free, weekly newsletter. You can also find out more about his path from blogging to book contract by getting his eBook Every Writer’s Dream: How to Never Pitch Your Writing Again, which is free for a limited time.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

From Blogger to Book Author: The 4-Step Guide

These are 20 people who stood out to me this year. There is no ranking, nor is there a competition. If you are after more variety, I’ve included links to other round-ups at the end of this post.

Do you know of someone that has really stood out in 2011? Let us know in the comments, or create and link to your own list post. Enjoy!

Maria Popova

Maria Popova describes herself as “interestingness curator and semi-secret geek obsessed with design, science, storytelling and combinatorial creativity”. She is the editor of the much-loved Brain Pickings, which she described as a “a destination for indiscriminate curiosity.”

I love Maria’s work because talented curators are needed in this cluttered blogosphere. Maria goes beyond the collection of links and ideas, and provides a narrative that just enchants you. In the aforementioned interview, Maria said that “curation is all about pattern-recognition, seeing how various and diverse pieces of content fit together under the same taste umbrella or along the same narrative path, so the guiding principle has to be the sole storyteller with a strong point of view.”

I think Maria will be an influence on curators for years to come.

Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, online marketing consultant, and social media enthusiast that blogs at Kikolani. She has  become famous for her weekly resource posts, Fetching Friday, and is a prolific guest poster on many high-profile sites. Her work is highly regarded in the social media community and she was recommended multiple times in the comments section on last year’s list.

Her book, Blog Post Promotion, is extraordinarily in-depth for a book at its price point, and is something I’d strongly recommend to those who need help getting more attention for their posts. You guys may also enjoy her post about making money online through blogging and writing.

Corbett Barr

Corbett Barr is someone I’ve been watching for a few years. He had a popular blog, Free Pursuits, but focused on creating a legacy rather then just being a blogger. He started Think Traffic in 2010, and quickly built a solid reputation for building quality content. In 2011 he created the Million Dollar Blog Project and launched his case study blog, Expert Enough.

I like Corbett because he’s one of the people who evolved with the challenges that blogging presented, rather than giving up. Some of the best discussions of 2010 came from his blog and I believe that the Million Dollar Blog Project will result in a few more bloggers to watch.

Marcus Sheridan

Marcus started a swimming pool company in 2001. Thanks to his blog, and inbound marketing, it grew to be one of the biggest companies of its kind in the world. Marcus had amassed a large amount of knowledge about content marketing and created The Sales Lion to teach others about the power of community.

I love his blog. He isn’t a pseudo-guru testing his theories—he only teaches about stuff he’s personally experienced. He also has a talent for community engagement. Many of his posts contribute to the conversation surrounding many facets of our industry, which encourages related companies to adjust their model to serve bloggers better.

Hands down, Marcus is one of the coolest guys online. He helps so many of us when he already has a successful business and doesn’t need the social validation. I hope we’ll see a lot more of him in the coming year.

Alexis Grant

Alexis Grant is a publishing powerhouse. She describes herself as a “journalist, blog & social media strategist and a budding entrepreneur.” She has been experimenting with digital products and micropublishing, such as her popular eguide on building a Part-Time Social Media Business. She’s also the managing editor of the Brazen Careerist blog.

I’ve had the pleasure of being friends with her for past few months, and it’s been fascinating watching her grow. She has a unique work history, starting out in traditional journalism and evolving until she landed a job editing a popular blog. I think we will learn a lot from her experiments in digital publishing, especially during the latter part of 2012.

Colin Wright

Colin Wright intrigues me. He runs a popular blog, but I wouldn’t called him a blogger. I don’t think anyone really knows what to call him. Every four months, his readers vote on the next country he’ll move to. He has an everlasting ebook called Exiles, runs a T-shirt shop called I Have No Shirt, and has published six ebooks.

I like Colin because of his constant experimentation with micropublishing and entrepreneurship. He closed eBookling because he’d achieved what he had set out to do, despite having a profitable model. He was one of the first in my community to experiment with Kindle publishing. He’s a genuinely cool guy with a thirst for knowledge, and a desire to improve on existing creations. I think that’s an attitude we all can benefit from.

Torre De Roche

Torre De Roche is the Fearful Adventurer. While overseas, she “fell for a 31-year old Argentinean man who had a humble sailboat and a dream to set off exploring the world.” She accompanied him on his trip across the South Pacific which led to her blog and later, a book about her journey. Within two months of self-publishing her book, she landed a big publishing deal. Her book, Swept, will be out in 2013.

I think that Torre will be one of the writers that will really stand out over the coming years. She has such a natural talent, yet is still a bit of an unknown in the blogosphere. I’m confident that will change over the next year and I think that we are in a fortunate position to watch her evolve.

Deb Ng

Deb is an accomplished blogger. Previously she was the founder and owner of the Freelance Writing Jobs network of blogs, as well as the community manager for Blog Talk Radio. Now, she is employed as the conference director of Blog World Expo and has released her first book, Online Community Management for Dummies.

In 2012, she’ll be just as busy. She’s authoring her second book for the Dummies brand and planning is already well underway for Blogworld in New York.

I love her work, and her contribution to the industry. I especially enjoy her blog, Kommein,  where readers are fortunate enough to get an insight into the work of someone whose career spans multiple areas of the blog industry.

Jen Bishop

Jen is mostly known as the publisher and editor of Dynamic Business magazine in Australia. Part of what makes the magazine so successful is its prominent web presence, which feature a wide range of bloggers. But I’m not including her because of that.  I’m watching her based on her work at her new blog, Interiors Addict.

Interiors Addict is a blog that curates a lot of the best information her passion, interior design. She’s leveraged her skills as a journalist to get access to industry news and interviews, and has turned her hobby blog into a very prominent force.

One of my favorite trends this year is how journalists are dabbling in creating their own digital presences. I believe they enjoy a lot more success, and learn more, when their blog is based on an obsession rather then just their personal brand. I’m also enjoying how Tumblr is aiding bloggers that focus heavily on curation.

Derek Halpern

Derek runs Social Triggers, a site that “breaks down psychological research and business case studies into simple, actionable steps that can help you improve your online business.” His content isn’t the reason I’m watching him, although it is high-calibre and he only publishes his best work. No, the reason he’s gotten my attention is because of how he got noticed.

Early in 2011, he did blog reviews of popular sites such as Chris Brogan, Think Traffic, Smart Passive Income, and David Risley. He showed both the blogger and those who watched the videos how they could increase conversions, which resulted in massive word of mouth from both the readers and his peers.

2011 was the year he spent working hard, and getting attention. I’m curious to see how he leverages his brand in 2012.

Jenny Blake

Jenny Blake is an author, blogger, life coach, and sought-after speaker who helps others “Wake up, live big! and love the journey.”  Jenny recently took her own great leap by leaving Google after five and a half years to pursue her passions full-time.

I’ve enjoyed watching Jenny evolve as she released her first book, Life After College, and expanded her digital offerings. She is fast approaching the end of her first year of self employment, and I think she’ll really start to shine during the latter half of 2012.

Yasmine Surovec

Yasmine is the creator of the popular web comic Cat Versus Human. She documents the everyday realities of living in a multi-cat household via a series of hilarious drawings. In late 2011, she released her first book, Cat vs. Human.

I read a lot of web comics, and I enjoy the fact that they don’t do many of the things that bloggers typically recommend. She has a cat’s bottom in her sidebar, a self-deprecating about page and a contact page that had me hunting for tin-foil. I think that we can all learn from her example and poke more fun at our work, while maintaining a growing brand.

Molly Mahar

Molly Mahar is the founder of Stratejoy, a positive corner of the Internet that provides thousands of women the tools, strategies, and camaraderie to lead authentically joyful lives. There are many career blogs targeted at people in their twenties, but hers is focused on helping people through their “quarter-life crisis.”

I think her blog is fantastic. She invites a number of people to blog for her for a “season,” so that readers can follow their journeys over a five-month period. It’s a great way to build community, encourage new voices and make sure her content is always interesting to that demographic. I’ve heard so many good things about her blog, and how it’s helped people.

Kristin Glenn and Shannon Whitehead

Kristin and Shannon started {r}evolution apparel, a sustainable fashion company based in America. They came up with the idea for their fashion line but knew they had a lot of work before it could reach the market, so they decided to blog about their journey. Thanks to their blogging and networking efforts, they’ve had massive success with their fundraising to launch their first product. At the time of writing, they have reached double their target for their kickstarter campaign and still have a week to go.

They focused on building their community while building their business. As a result, they had a lot of people willing to help them when they asked for support. Their story shows that you don’t need to wait until your product is ready to get your message out there.

Young House Love

Young House Love chronicles the story of two DIY dorks who are turning their house into a home, and sharing every detail as they learn. The content is great, but what I really loved was how they delved into their personal lives and shared the personality behind the bloggers. Their stories are compelling and somewhat harrowing, such as the details of their daughter’s traumatic birth.

I love how they’ve transformed a personal blog into an amazing resource. Look at how they changed the sidebars for the mood board section. They are incredibly savvy. Their work highlights the potential to build your brand beyond a blog, and shows how you can leverage your archives.

I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to discover Young House Love. I plan to spend many hours delving into the archives after finishing this post.

Lingerie Addict

Treacle is the founder of The Lingerie Addict. She started her site in 2008 because she couldn’t find any resources for people like herself—women on a budget who wanted honest, objective lingerie advice, reviews, and suggestions. She has since turned it into the #1 resource in her niche, attracting over 100,000 readers a month. In October, she quit her job to offer her consulting services.

I think Treacle has done an amazing job empowering women to embrace their body shape and buy underwear that makes them feel gorgeous.

Nerd Fitness

Steve Kamb is the founder of Nerd Fitness: a community for nerds, desk jockeys, and weekend warriors looking to level up their lives. He built up a strong following and has since expanded with Nerd Fitness Message Boards, a clothing range, and several useful products. He is a natural leader—just look at how he doesn’t pressure people to join his rebellion.

I enjoy his work because he is incredibly savvy, yet has a very friendly/casual tone on his blog. He makes new visitors feel very comfortable in a niche that can feel rather alienating.

Sarah Peck

Sarah describes herself as a storyteller who communicates ideas through words, pictures, and other visual media. Her blog, It Starts With, started as a column about making the transition to the professional world and finding out what’s important for you and your career. It has evolved into a blog on business, generating ideas, entrepreneurship, management, and design. She also leverages blogging for her professional work, and is the founder and editor of Landscape Urbanism.

Sarah emerged in the blogosphere early in 2011 and is shaping up to the one of most unique and inspiring voices online.  Her content is always thought-provoking and will force you to confront the challenge of executing your best ideas. She studies where great ideas come from and help individuals and businesses do great work. Every blogger has a tipping point and her post on 28 in 52 Notes made Sarah a blogger to keep an eye on 2012.

Tara Gentile

Tara Gentile is the editor of Scoutie Girl, a daily zine with the aim of getting you thinking about your creative life and the changing world around you, and the owner of a boutique web design business. She quickly built a reputation as a DIY lifestyle design expert. She has transitioned to consulting and writes about the philosophy of the new economy, creativity, social media, value and meaning, and wealth.

I really resonate with Tara. She has empowered a huge segment of the creative community to take pride in the marketing of their work. Her work has affected an entire industry. I can’t wait to see what she does in 2012.

Joel Runyon

A year ago, Joel was just a guy with an inspiring blog. He wasn’t satisfied with that. He expanded his original blog to create Impossible HQ, a hub that incorporates a separate motivational community, a T-Shirt line, and a manifesto. He also created a separate site, NerveRush, to cater to the adrenalin-seeking segment of his audience.

I think Joel is just getting started with what he has to offer. He is always adding new ways for his community to engage with his site and, as a result, is creating an increasingly passionate readership. I’m really excited to see where he takes the ‘Impossible’ brand in 2012.

More bloggers to watch

Want more? Take a look at these blogging round-ups:

•  A-List Bloggers Are Boring – 5 People Whose Blogs You Should Be Reading
• 20 Brazen Young Professionals to Watch in 2012
• 10 Global Women with Gusto

And don’t forget to give us your suggestions in the comments!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012

We all have pet peeves. Things that annoy us. Products that we would never spend money on. And things that we swear we’ll never do ourselves.

But sometimes, fate turns the tables on us. That’s what happened to me, and that’s why I ended up writing the kind of book that I usually hate.

Image copyright moshimochi - Fotolia.com

Building an engaged audience, from scratch

I’ve dabbled in the online world for a few years now, but my current blog is less than a year old.

Just like everyone else, we started with nothing—no traffic, no subscribers, and no followers. We had no post history, no comments, and no search traffic.

We had to build an engaged audience, from scratch.

But we didn’t know how, so we tried things. We ran PPC ads, but it was too expensive, and the traffic didn’t stick. We tried SEO, but that was taking too long to get results. We started tweeting, but nobody was really listening.

We were basically trying to learn by trial and error, and while that can lead to some really great and robust learning, it also takes waaaaay too much time for you to be able to build a business around it.

Then I realized something: I could outsource the trial and error!

Outsourcing to the world’s top audience-builders

When I say the word “outsourcing”, you usually think of people working for very low wages in developing countries.

You think about tasks that require a lot of repetition and systematization, like data entry, backlink building, and other dull and tedious tasks that we don’t want to do ourselves.

That isn’t the outsourcing that I’m talking about.

No, what I had in mind was a lot bigger.

I was going to outsource to the very best audience-builders in the world. They’ve already done the trial and error, right? I just needed to find out what they had learned.

I made a list of the top blogs that I read, and the top audience builders that I follow. Some were huge, established names, like Guy Kawasaki and Brian Clark, and others were much earlier in their audience-building, but were clearly bringing something special and unique to the table; people like Jk Allen and Stuart Mills.

I read what they wrote, and I watched what they did. I listened to their podcasts, attended their webinars, and took careful notes along the way.

Pretty soon, some patterns began to emerge…

Patterns of audience-building

The patterns that I started noticing were pretty simple. Here’s what most successful audience builders do:

1. Have a clearly defined objective.
2. Write great content.
3. Put it on sites that people are actually looking at.
4. Stay focused.
5. Gather and share information that your audience wants.
6. Build relationships.
7. Express gratitude.

Simple enough, right?

Well, I wrote all those posts (which were all published here at problogger.net) while putting the same best practices to work for our blog, and the results were spectacular.

In less than a year, our traffic and subscriber counts have grown by several orders of magnitude, and today I’m recognized in much of the blogosphere as the Freddy Krueger of Blogging.

Something was still bothering me, though…

What about the other ways?

While observing what the audience-building superstars were doing, I didn’t just notice the patterns—I also noticed what seemed to be exceptions to the patterns.

There were lots of very successful audience-builders who did things very, very differently, and it worked for them.

So … was I doing things wrong? No. I was getting great results, so of course I wasn’t doing things wrong.

Then … were *they* doing things wrong? No, they’re getting great results, too.

So what was going on?

No one right way to build an audience

That’s when I really understood what I had already been told so many different times:

There is no one right way of building an audience.

There are lots of ways, and mileage will vary depending on your circumstances, experience, background, and personality. What worked for one audience-builder won’t work for another, and what worked for me might not work for you.

So, how do you know what to do? I mean, if you’re reading this, then you’re probably trying to build your own audience, and you want to know how to go about doing it. Am I saying that I can’t tell you, because even if it did, it wouldn’t help?

No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.

The patterns that are right for you

When I was watching all of those audience builders, I didn’t just notice the patterns of what was working—I noticed the patterns of what would work for me.

You could watch the same people do the same things, and notice different patterns—the patterns that will be right for you.

Why?

Because that’s what our brains are wired to do—notice the things that are relevant to us, and filter out the rest. But in order to do all that, first you need to see enough people doing enough things to actually notice the patterns.

That’s when I realized that I was going to write a book. And not just any book. This was going to be the kind of book that I hate.

The kind of book I hate

We all have books that like more, and like less. Some people like reading about philosophical discourse, some people like popular science, and some people like post-apocalyptic serialized fiction.

Personally, I like the kind of popular science or business book that delves deep into something and draws insightful conclusions. Some of the authors on my list of favorites include Malcolm Gladwell, Chip and Dan Heath, Steven Pinker, Clay Shirky, Marcus Buckingham, Dan Ariely, and others.

Their books are fascinating, and they all run hundreds of dense pages of thorough analysis and conceptual exploration.

None of them write books that are collections of articles or perspectives by various authors. I usually hate that kind of book; I find that they don’t get into any real depth, and you end up with a couple dozen articles all telling you more or less the same thing.

But I wanted to write a book that would give people the road map that they need to build their own engaged audiences. And to create this road map, I knew that I would need a lot of guides to point the way.

So I reached out to all the audience-building superstars that I had followed, and I asked them one simple question:

“If you had to build an engaged audience from scratch, how would you do it?”

It took a bit of time, but then the answers started rolling in. They were rich, and thorough, and many of them surprised me. They were even more diverse than I thought they would be, and every single one of their perspectives was useful and valuable.

The ironic thing is that I usually can’t stand this kind of book, but in this case, I think it’s the best book I could give to anyone who is looking to build an audience. The coolest part is that it isn’t even all that self-congratulatory of me to say so, because even though I “wrote” it, only about 10% of the 239 pages of great ideas were written by me!

But enough about the book. What’s the lesson here for you? Actually, there are two of them.

Lesson #1: One peak, many paths

The first lesson is the lesson that I learned when I set out to write the book, which is that there are many paths up the mountain, and many ways of reaching the peak.

This lesson comes with good news, and bad news.

The good news is that just because someone built their audience in a certain way doesn’t that you have to do the same; there are lots of other ways up the mountain, which means that you never run out of options. As long as you’re committed, and keep on exploring, you’ll find a way.

The bad news is that there isn’t any step-by-step plan that you can follow verbatim to get really great results; the bad ones just won’t work, and the good ones will have to be modified to fit your skills and situation.

The only way to find your own path is to study the paths that so many others have taken, and then chart your own course.

Lesson #2: Sometimes what we hate isn’t so bad

The second lesson is that you shouldn’t make blanket statements about not liking something, because every situation is different.

I don’t like reality TV, unless it happens to be about martial arts. My wife doesn’t like eggplant, unless it is pureed and cooked. And I don’t like books that are collections of articles, unless it’s the best way to share all this information about how to build an audience.

So don’t get too rigid about what you like and what you don’t—instead, think about what will work best to help you achieve your goals. And then go do it!

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, expert marketer, and the Freddy Krueger of Blogging. Together with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark and Mitch Joel, he wrote the book on how to build an engaged audience from scratch.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why I Wrote the Kind of Book I Hate

• Does your blog need a boost?
• Are you looking for inspiration to kick start it again after some time off?
• Do you need a little inspiration to help you get things rolling again?

If so – you’re not alone. Most bloggers go through periods where they either lack motivation, get distracted or suffer from blogger disillusionment.

This is why I created 31 Days to Build a Better Blog – and why today we’re launching the 2nd edition version of it – freshly updated and revised for 2012!

What is 31DBBB?

Since starting ProBlogger in 2004 this eBook is the most significant way I’ve seen ProBlogger readers improve their blogs.

Why is that?

The answer is simple – most teaching about blogging centres on theory. Theory is good but but by itself it is useless.

This eBook is designed to not only teach but propel you to DO.

31 Days to Build a Better blog is a 31 day challenge where you’re given a daily piece of teaching and an achievable activity to go away and implement – all of which is designed to rejuvenate your blog.

You can take the challenge at your own pace – some do it daily over a month, others tackle it in a more intense way over a week or others dip into it over a number of months – the key is to learn the key strategies for successful blogging and more importantly to DO something with what you learn.

By the end of the 31 steps you’ll have:

• published a variety of different types and styles of posts
• learned techniques for coming up with new post ideas
• promoted your blog in a variety of ways and found new readers
• deepened reader engagement with current readers
• reached out to and developed working relationships with other bloggers
• developed an editorial calendar for your blog going forward
• discovered ways to be more connected to your niche/topic
• designed a plan for the next month of your blogging

… and much more.

Check out full details of what it includes here

Updated for 2012

Many thousands of ProBlogger readers have invested in edition 1 of 31DBBB but as it was written back in 2009 I felt it was time for an update. So much has changed since then both here on ProBlogger and in the blogosphere that I wanted to create something that built upon and enhanced version 1.

In this freshly designed and layed out 2nd edition you’ll get

• all 31 tasks that were in the first edition – but they’ve all been updated and refreshed for 2012.
• 7 brand new days (so now you’re really getting 38 days – we’re including 7 in a new bonus week PDF)
• Case studies of blogs, big and small, who are doing it right. Get insights into blogs you may not have heard of, and learn from their expertise
• Every task includes links to further information, reading and intelligence on the topic
• integration with social media – each day has its own hashtag so you can connect with others doing the challenge to learn from and support one another

This 140 page workbook is all about action – follow the daily tasks and we guarantee you’ll see your blog improve. Quite literally we’re happy to give your money back if you go through it and don’t notice the changes!

25% Launch Discount

For the next two weeks we’re offering 25% off the 2nd edition of this best selling eBook. Instead of the normal $29.99 USD you can secure your copy today for just $22.49. That’s around 73 cents per day for a month full of teaching and activities.

Learn more about 31 Days to Build a Better Blog here or purchase your copy by hitting the ‘download it now’ button below.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Get Your 2nd Edition Copy of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Today (for 25% Off)

You know that feeling you have when you’re onto something big?

Your heart is thump, thump, thumping, your mind races down the roads of future possibilities, and you drift through the day with strange grin plastered on your face, like someone shot you up with happy juice, and you’ve yet to come down. It’s a wonderful place to be, and if you’d come looking for me on October 7, 2011, it’s exactly where you would’ve found me.

Seven days into the launch for my new blog, I already had 1,740 email subscribers. I’d picked up over 1,000 new twitter followers, hundreds of whom were enthusiastically gabbing about me to all their friends. I also had 673 likes and dozens of comments on a new Facebook fan page.

Oh, and did I mention I didn’t write a single blog post?

It’s true. My blog consisted of two pages, a video, and over 200 comments from readers who were so excited they could barely sit still.

What’s more, a half-dozen A-list bloggers sent me the direct messages on Twitter, telling me how impressed they were. One of them even said he was jealous. I was shocked. My baby blog was only seven days old, and already people were envious.

Sounds impossible, right?

Normally, it is. For many bloggers, getting traffic and respect is an incremental process, built one blog post at a time over a period of months or years.

It takes patience. It takes perseverance. It takes lots and lots of hard work.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way?

What if you go from a nobody to the center of attention in your industry in a matter of weeks?

What if you could become an authority without writing a single word?

What if you could get hundreds or even thousands of people talking about you, generating a massive tidal wave of traffic that carries you for years to come?

In our world, it’s unheard of. Blogs just aren’t built that way.

So, to learn how, I had to visit another world, a world inhabited by the brilliant and the beautiful, a world where billions of dollars are won or lost based solely on the strength of an idea, a world where nobodies transforming into superstars isn’t just normal but routine.

What is this strange place?

Chances are, you’ve probably heard of it.

It’s called Hollywood.

The Hollywood guide to blog promotion

Copyright itestro - Fotolia.com

Yes, they spend gazillions of dollars on advertising. Yes,
they have an opening night where the cast turns out in all their glitz and glamour for a showing of their film to the Who’s Who of the movie biz. Yes, they have an army of crackerjack marketers creating special promotions, building strategic alliances, and merchandising everything imaginable.

But it all starts with a trailer. Editors chop two or three hours of film into a 30-150 second spot designed to leave you spellbound and begging for more.

And the stakes are high.

A good trailer gets millions of people excited about seeing the film, where a bad one confuses, or worse, bores viewers into believing the film will suck. A good trailer captures the attention of the media and creates a blitz of free publicity, where a bad one is ignored or even made fun of. A good trailer is the starting gun for a blockbuster movie that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars, where a bad one is a bullet to the brain of a project doomed from the start.

Good or bad though, every movie has one, and that’s because people need them. Nobody wants to go into a movie having no idea what it’s about. They need you to condense it down for them. They need to make it easy to decide. And so they give you 30-150 seconds to do it.

In the movie business, it’s accepted, but I couldn’t help thinking…

What if it’s true for other media too?

If you’ve ever looked at the percentage of new visitors who subscribe to your blog, you’ve probably been shocked by how abysmal it is.

The average blogger only gets 1-2% of new users to subscribe, and even the rock stars who do everything perfectly only get about 5%.  To improve the percentage, there are several things you can do, like creating landing pages, offering incentives, or installing pop-up reminders to subscribe, but there’s only so far you can go.

Here’s why:

You’re making it too difficult to decide.

Visitors have to figure out what your blog is about, they have to read your content, and they have to decide whether or not it’s interesting to them. The whole process takes ten minutes or more, and that’s too long. The truth is, Hollywood has figured it out: you only have 30-150 seconds, and after that, they’re gone.

So how can you make the whole process shorter?

Well, you can’t. The problem is, you’re asking people to watch the movie before they see the trailer, and most of them decide it’s not worth the trouble.

To make it work, you really need to reengineer the process from the ground up. And that’s exactly what I decided to do.

How I got 1,740 subscribers in seven days

When I launched Boost Blog Traffic, I built my whole strategy on an insane idea:

In the beginning, the best way to get subscribers is to publish nothing.

No blog posts. No podcasts. No content at all.

Instead, I would offer a short video trailer, very similar to what Hollywood releases for movies. I would give visitors the bare minimum they need to subscribe. I would spend several months promoting the trailer before writing a single blog post.
Pretty much the same way Hollywood does it.

If you look at the trailer, you’ll see Hollywood’s fingerprints there too. It has dramatic music. It has slick animation. It has shamelessly over-the-top quotes from social media big shots.

And then it asks for a decision:

Will you subscribe, or will you leave?

A lot of people resist asking that question, because the answer is scary. What if they decide to leave? What if you end up with nothing? What if everybody thinks you’re an idiot?

I wish I had some comforting truism to offer in response, but the truth is, it happens. You could fail. But what’s worse: finding out your idea sucks after only a couple of weeks or waiting three years before you finally face the facts?

Personally, I’d rather do it fast. Rip off the Band-Aid, have a good cry, and then get back to business.

If it works, it’s worth it. If it doesn’t, it’s still worth it, because you learned some valuable lessons without paying too high a price.

But this whole idea of starting slow and waiting for things to snowball?

It’s silly. You’ll wait months or even years to find out if your idea is going to work.

A far better approach is to put up a simple website, release a snazzy trailer, promote the hell out of it for a few weeks, and see if you can talk anyone into signing up. If you can, you’ve got a winner, and if you can’t, cut your losses as quick as you can.

Here’s why:

You either go big or go home

Some people are going to get pissed at me for saying this, but I believe the blogosphere is changing.

Gone are the days where anybody can build a successful blog. Gone are the days where you can start writing and expect anyone to pay attention. Gone are the days where you can tinker around with it on your lunch hour and expect it to become a full-time career.

The new rule is, “Go big, or go home.”

To be successful, you need big talent. To be successful, you need big connections. To be successful, you need a big launch event that makes everyone sit up and pay attention.

You can be releasing a movie, a blog, a book, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Regardless of the media, the rules are the same.

If you want to be big, start big.

Launching your blog with a trailer is one way to do that. It creates buzz, excitement, maybe even a little jealousy, because let’s face it, putting together a Hollywood-style trailer is hard.

If you’re wondering about the technicalities of how to do it, I’ll tell you everything you need to know next week. In the meantime, go watch the trailer, study how the subscription process works, and then copy it.

Nobody gets bonus points for originality. Success is about doing what works, period, full stop.

And by getting 1,740 subscribers in seven days, I’d say it works pretty well. So give it a shot.

We’ll talk more next week.

Jon Morrow is also on a mission to help good writers get traffic they deserve. If you’re one of them, check out his upcoming blog about (surprise!) blogging.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Generate Massive Traffic, Excitement, and Even Jealousy with a Hollywood-Style Launch Trailer

Today I want to suggest a number of practical strategies for actually using autoresponders alongside your blog.

Some of these I’ve used with success myself, and some are based upon the experience of other blogging friends. It should also be said that you could combine some of the following ideas into a single autoresponder sequence (more on this below).

1. Free mini-course

Set up a sequence of emails that walks readers through the teaching around some aspect of your niche. This is what I did when developing an early version of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Back then 31DBBB wasn’t an ebook—it was a series of 31 emails that readers signed up for. Each day, readers received an email with some teaching and a task to do. This later evolved into the ebook with extra content.

2. Paid course or product

Numerous bloggers have set up autoresponders as central parts of paid products or courses. One of the best examples of this is Chris Guillebeau’s 365-part autoresponder, which forms part of a product. Chris’s product took a mammoth amount of work, but was hugely successful with those who bought it, and as a result, it would have been a very profitable endeavor.

3. Introduce readers to your archives

One of the challenges that many bloggers face is that new readers to your blog don’t ever see your old posts sitting in your archives. So why not showcase the best of your older posts by putting them together into an autoresponder sequence? Perhaps you could send one “classic” post per week. In doing so, you’ll be constantly driving readers to your archives for as long as new people keep signing up.

Another alternative is to do a compilation email on a particular theme. For example, on our photography blog autoresponder, one email that goes out in our sequence lists ten posts from our archives all on the theme of composition. It shoots readers deep into the site, and we often get emails from readers thanking us for it.

4. Affiliate promotions

Is there a product in your niche that you highly recommend your readers buy, and which has an affiliate program attached to it? You can easily add an affiliate promotion into your auto responder sequence. I recently put such a promotion into my photography blog’s autoresponder, and it has already driven thousands of dollars in sales (and will continue to do so). You can read about this concept more here.

5. Relaunch your own product every day

For those of you who have an ebook or some other kind of product that you’ve previously launched, building a mini-promotion of that product into an autoresponder sequence is a must. In our photography email list, we give new subscribers a discount on our portrait photography ebook 7 days after they join the list. That offer drives sales every single day.

6. Upselling

This is another one for those with your own products to sell. The idea is that when someone buys one of your products, you then follow up the purchase with an offer for a second product.The second product could be another of yours, or it could be an affiliate promotion.

For example, when people buy our travel photography ebook, they get an email a couple of weeks later with a discount offer on another travel photography ebook by the same author. The ebooks make good companions, the author is now familiar to readers, and as a result, these emails convert pretty well.

7. Showcase what you do

If you have an offline business that you’re promoting, use your an autoresponder sequence to showcase what you do. I know of one photographer who has a sequence of emails that goes to all clients (and potential clients that he meets to give quotes to). This sequence simply sends out an email every month with a couple of photos from another client shoot, and the story behind it. In sending these emails, he’s showing off the photography he does and positioning himself as a known photographer for them time when those who receive the emails are next looking to hire someone.

8. Tips

Another offline business that I heard of recently who uses an auto responder sequence is a butcher who collects email addresses from customers with the promise of sending them recipes for the meat that they’re buying. He gets their permission to email them and at the end of every day he sends each person that he sold meat to a recipe for the meat that they bought (he has a range of recipes for the different meats and tailors this first email to customers’ purchases).

Once the first email is sent the customer gets weekly emails (via an auto responder) for other recipes and tips for cooking with meat.

The butcher reported a sharp upswing in repeat business from the strategy—again, he was putting his name out there in front of people through his emails, building his brand, deepening personal relationships, and giving those subscribed a reason to keep coming back to him.

Multiple autoresponders, or one with mixed objectives?

The above array of uses for autoresponders is certainly not an exhaustive list. I’d love to hear how else you use them below.

It is also worth mentioning that some bloggers have multiple autoresponders running at once, while some mix a number of the points I mentioned above into the same autoresponder sequence. Personally, I do a bit of both.

At Digital Photography School I have a number of single-purpose autoresponders running in category #6 (upselling), where if someone buys an ebook they get a followup email/s with further recommendations.

However, my main autoresponder sequence on dPS is a real mix of the above, plus it also mixes in weekly newsletters, which are sent manually each week in addition to the automated emails. The sequence looks like this:

I’ve written more on how I combine a mix of weekly newsletters and autoresponders here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

8 Ways to Use Autoresponders to Drive Traffic and Increase Your Blogging Income

1. Ad networks

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

2. Cost Per Impression (CMP)

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

3. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

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

4. Cost Per Click (CPC)

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

5. Sponsorships

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

6. Text links

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

7. Pay per post

Also known as sponsored posts (advertorials), this is where you’re paid to review a product or to promote it in a post. Bloggers have varied ethical stances on this. Generally these days you are required to disclose that you’re being paid for the post.

8. Job board/classifieds

If you operate in a niche where people are buying and selling products or there are jobs that people want to advertise this can be a nice source of income. You need to be able to attract both advertisers and those they want to see the ads to make it work, though—so you need traffic and profile.

9. Newsletter advertising

This is a growing area for me. Some advertisers love to have their brand included in emails that you send to readers. We find bundling some onsite sponsorship banner ads with inclusions in our newsletter is a good way to sell space to advertisers.

Tickets have just been released in the last hour for the event, and they’re selling fast (as I write this over a third of them have sold).

The day will build upon the momentum created by the last event back in 2009, where 150 bloggers gathered for a great day of inspiration and networking.

This time around, we’re flying in Chris Garrett (co-author of the ProBlogger book) and Sonia Simone (from CopyBlogger), and will feature a number of Aussie bloggers including Nicole Avery (Planning with Kids) and Phoebe Montague (LadyMelbourne). We’re locking in a range of other speakers in the coming week and will also have the team behind ProBlogger sharing too.

Get full details on the ProBlogger Events site or book your tickets directly on Eventbrite.

Update: we sold out 150 tickets to this in about 30 hours. I’ve just added 50 more tickets so if you’re thinking of coming – make sure you act quickly to avoid disappointment.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Melbourne ProBlogger Training Event – Tickets On Sale Now

Whereas I previously slapped some code from a couple of ad networks into my blogs’ templates and relied upon people clicking those ads to generate income, I’ve increasingly focused my energy upon creating my own products (largely ebooks) to sell.

The change in approach has been gradual and it has been a lot of work, but the results have made it worth doing. Last week the total of ebooks that we’ve sold moved past 62,000 units, with a combined revenue of around $1.1 million (note: that’s not all profit).

The cornerstone of my new approach

Numerous factors have contributed to these results, but one that I’ve recently been focusing on more and more is that of “landing pages.”

A landing page is a page on your site to which you direct traffic with the goal of converting those who land on it to take a specific action. This action can be many things, but might include:

• convince your reader to buy your ebook (or other product)
• get your reader to opt in to your email newsletter list
• convince advertisers to advertise on your blog
• convince your reader to buy an affiliate product that you’re promoting
• welcome anyone arriving from a social media account, and convince them to follow you
• introduce your blog and give new readers a tour of content that’s especially relevant for them
• thank people for subscribing, and encourage them to confirm their opt in to your list.

The list could go on and on, but the common thing is that these are pages to which you drive traffic, and on which you call readers to take a specific action.

Landing pages have been key in my own approach. I’ve used them in all of these ways, however, using them as sales pages has been the most effective tactic in selling ebooks.

Specifically designed landing pages work better

One of the key progressions in my own use of landing pages was to transition from using the default layout in my WordPress theme, to using specifically designed landing pages.

Previously, I used the default page that came with the theme that my blog used. As a result, landing pages looked pretty much the same as any other page on my blog. The result was good, but not great.

The problem I faced was that readers not only had a call to action to buy my ebook, but also numerous distractions in my sidebars and navigation areas (calls to subscribe, advertising, calls to visit other parts of the site, etc).

Readers were distracted from the main call to action on the page—to buy my ebook. A change of approach was needed, so we designed a landing page that had one single focus, and one call to action only.

You can see an example of this page on our latest product page at Digital Photography School—Going Pro (an ebook for helping photography enthusiasts to make money from their photography).

While the page is consistent in design with our normal dPS theme (in terms of color and branding), it doesn’t have any of the distracting elements of a normal page on the site.

There’s none of the normal navigation to other parts of the site in the header area, and there’s no sidebar. All people can do when they arrive is to read about the product—there are no other options to click or read.

When we switched from using default pages to a specifically designed landing page for the sale of our ebooks, we saw a significant leap in conversions. I don’t have the specific figures but it was in the order of a 30-40% increase—which in time has lead us to many thousands of dollars in extra revenue.

These landing pages were something I knew I should institute for a long time before I actually did it. The reason why it took me so long was simply that, as a technologically-challenged blogger, I consistently put it in the “too-hard basket”. In the end I only did it when we redesigned the blogs and I had my designer create a template specifically for the job. That was a couple of years ago, and about a year after I should have done it.

As a result of that inertia, I lost considerable sales, and I still kick myself about that regularly. That was two years ago—today it would have been a lot less difficult.

Landing pages made easy with Premise

Earlier this year, the team at Copyblogger released software for WordPress that’s all about creating landing pages that convert—it’s called Premise.

I can safely say that if I’d had this plugin when I first started selling my ebooks, my sales numbers would have been a lot higher. It takes the “too hard” part of landing pages, and completely eliminates it.

The idea with Premise is that instead of having to have a designer create a template specifically for each type of landing page for your blog (or having to learn to do it yourself), this plugin helps you create those landing pages yourself.

Premise focuses on three areas:

1. Creating pages: they let you choose from seven types of landing page styles, and then add graphics and copy to them to create clutter-free and beautifully designed pages.
2. Creating compelling copy: the design of your page is one thing, but the real magic happens in the copy that you create for the page to convince readers to take the action you’re suggesting. Premise gives advice on how to craft the type of landing page you’re creating, right in the WordPress interface. You also get access to some great copywriting seminars (keep in mind that this is from Copyblogger—the masters of creating compelling content and copy).
3. Optimization: improve your conversion rate and search rankings with more tools and guidance, including easy split testing and SEO features.

One of the most amazing features of Premise is the graphics library. You could easily pay more than Premise costs just for a set of graphics like this, and it ensures that every landing page you create is unique.

Check out Premise for yourself. Just like I learned, the extra income you earn from quality landing pages will make Premise pay for itself many times over.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Turn Your Blog Traffic into Money

1. We had a baby!
2. Google announced its new baby, Google+ (G+, Google+). If you have a Google account, you can now sign into it here.

Okay, so #1 took the cake in terms of exciting news in our place, but there’s been a lot of buzz about Google+ this week in social media circles.

Luckily, because if point #1 above, I’ve had a bit of time to “play” with Google+ this week (mainly in the wee hours of the morning during settling times.

I’m not going to get into definitions or even explain Google+ features in this post. Rather, I’d like to share a few first impression thoughts on how I see it as being useful for bloggers.

Firstly, though, you can see how I’ve been using Google+ here (I’d love to connect with you so do please add me if that appeals).

It’s not going to replace my blogs

Let me start by saying that as good as Google+ is, its never going to replace my blogs. I say this because I’ve already seen a number of people say that they’re considering giving up their blogs to concentrate their efforts on Google+.

The same thing happened back a few years ago when Twitter hit. I can think of at least a couple of people who gave up blogging to go more heavily into Twitter.

While Google+ is in some ways more like a blog than Twitter (comments, longer form content, etc.) I would still advise caution here for a number of reasons that I’ve previously written about in my post Homebases and Outposts – my approach to Social Media. Ultimately a lot of it comes down to:

• Google controlling my destiny: Investing all your efforts into G+ is risky because they ultimately control your account. Go against their terms of service, and you can be switched off, so putting all your eggs in the G+ basket could mean everything you invest into it can be taken away.
• Branding: G+ is great for building your brand (I’ll touch on this later) but an essential part of my own brand is having my own home base. A home base is a place where I have control but also where I build my brand.

I don’t see Google+ as “replacing” my blogs, but I sure do see the potential for them to add to and enhance my blogging in some of the following ways.

Update: check out Marshall’s thoughts on why he’ll never give up his blog to go to Google+.

Community plus

The most exciting part to me about Google+ is that it opens all kinds of opportunities for reader engagement—both with me and one another. In many ways this is why I’ve been putting an increasing effort into Facebook over the last year.

While Twitter is great for getting thoughts out there, and getting responses from individuals, its weakness for me as a publisher has always been that it is limited in how it lets those who follow you interact with one another.

Facebook and now Google+ solve this by letting those who follow you not only see what you think, but also what those who reply to you think. Having the stream of replies all in one place is gold for me.

For example, last night (1.07am … yep, it was a rough night) I asked those following me on Google+ for their thoughts about ebooks. 100+ people commented and it was shared by some with their own circles of friends. The comments where not only people responding to me, but also to each other, which expanded the conversation even further.

As an added bonus, the way Google+ works, comments pop up in real time. It’s almost like a chat room at times, and that can make it even more interactive.

Research plus

One of the things that has attracted me to most social networks has been the ability to gain insight from readers about what they’re thinking and what their needs and problems are, and that informs the content (blog posts, ebooks, courses) that I produce.

Research and testing ideas to see if they have potential is something I love with both Twitter and Facebook—and Google+ is no different. In fact, it’s even better than the other networks because I can now test and research my ideas with targeted groups of people—all from one account.

As a blogger who blogs in multiple niches, I’ve always had to have multiple social media accounts to interact in a relevant way with different groups. As a result, I have a ProBlogger Twitter account and a Digital Photography one. Google+ gives users the ability to set up “circles” to segment different groups of people. This allows you to not only delve into specific topics to see what others are updating about, but also to share with those circles.

As a result, if I want to test some ideas with my photography friends, I can simply put out an update asking a question specifically to my photography circle. I can see all kinds of applications for this. Being able to set up even more specific circles to test ideas in a more targeted way will be great.

Hangouts = potential

I’m yet to do much with the Hangouts feature of Google+, but I see some potential here to also build community and also be used in reasearch.

At the moment, you’re limited to having ten people in a hangout, so it’s very much a small group activity, but I’ll watch with interest to see how Google evolves the feature. Could we be seeing the beginning of a tool that could be one day used for Webinar type interactions?

Driving traffic plus

As bloggers, we all want traffic to our blogs and, as with other social networks, there is opportunity to drive traffic here. I’ve resisted sharing too many of my own links so far on Google+, but it could be a powerful source of traffic if the user numbers of Google+ continue to climb beyond social media enthusiast circles.

The reason for this is that Google+ has built in the sharing of links right from day one. Sharing links as status updates are easy, and more importantly, those in your network can pass on the link if they enjoy it with a single click on the Share button. The potential for viral sharing is massive here.

Brand plus

Social media is as much for me about branding as anything else. It’s an opportunity for you to “bump into” potential readers in the places that they hang out and where you have the opportunity to create an impression and deepen engagement (and even build a relationship).

I’ve seen the power of this with other social networks a,nd see even more potential with Google+ because Google seem so committed to integrating this into everything else that they do (Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, etc.). Google’s potential reach is on the scale of Facebook, so there’s big potential here in terms of user numbers—too big to ignore in my mind.

Build your network before you need it

One last thought before I open this up for some discussion: build your network before you need it. I’m not sure anyone really knows what Google+ will end up achieving yet. It’s already evolving as people use it and as the Google+ team respond to that.

The key in my mind is to start experimenting and engaging, and watch to see what happens. Many people jump on social networking when they need it to achieve something for them, however those who seem to benefit from it most are those who invest time and energy into building a network and genuinely engaging in it before they actually need something from it.

What other bloggers are saying about Google+

Let’s finish this post off with some thoughts of those who I’ve connected with on Google+. As I was writing this post, I asked others how they saw it improving their blogging. You can read everyone’s responses here (and add your own) but I thought I’d highlight a few:

• Pet Mugi wrote: “Google+ helped me in two ways: (1) finding blogging ideas; and (2) bringing visitors to my blog. Just observe what people are talking about, I got plenty of topics to write about in my tech blog. And the appearance in Google+ helps me to get more subscribers.”
• Justin Brooke wrote: “I think the hangouts make a great mastermind tool for bloggers that form a small group dedicated to helping each other succeed. I also think recording interviews over Google+ hangouts can be great info products or blog posts.”
• Shane Raynard wrote: “I’ve had more readers and interaction on G+ this past week than I’ve had on my blog the past year.“
• Amber Naslund wrote: “I think the substantive discussions I’m having here so far (between the animated GIFs) are making me think harder and consider more nuanced and complex topics, which is GREAT writing fodder. My Evernote folder for post ideas is full to bursting.“
• Chris Garrett wrote: “For me Google+ is the best way to have sticky discussions with my network. Facebook is becoming a friends and family only thing, Twitter is like an ephemeral chat and news tool, Google+ is more like Usenet discussions of old.”
• Allison Boyer wrote: “So far, for me, G+ seems more conversational. People aren’t talking about their stats like on Facebook or shouting out every single link like on Twitter. They’re sharing ideas and really interested in what others have to say. It feels more like a live conference, where you move from group to group, talking to people about things you’re working on or ideas you’ve seen and getting feedback. As a blogger, it’s been great to help me hash out ideas and get inspired. It’s still promotional, but in a much more organic way.”

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why Bloggers Should Consider Engaging on Google+

The idea for this resource came from regular emails that I receive from business owners and employees within businesses who want to start blogs to assist them in achieving their business goals.

Their problem, though, is that they don’t know where to begin.

Business owners don’t have the time to take the trial-and-error approach, and often need help from someone who’s done it all before and can show them how to build a successful blog for your business, right from the start.

As a result, I got in touch with Mark Hayward—a blogger who I’ve known for a few years now. Mark not only coaches businesses in blogging strategy: he’s a bricks-and-mortar business owner who’s used blogging and social media to build his business.

Mark has put together an A-Z of blogging for your business. His ebook is going to help a lot of people move from being convinced that a blog is a good idea, to actually have one up and running with a great strategy moving forward.

Step-by-Step advice to save hours of time and endless frustration

By the time you’re finished this ebook, it will have helped you:

• Set up a WordPress blog… without any technical know-how.
• Conduct targeted keyword research… even if you’ve never done it before.
• Understand your online competition… whether they’re next door, or on the next continent.
• Build a strong social media footprint… even if you don’t know the first thing about finding “followers.”
• Set a successful business blogging strategy… no matter what your product or market.

This ebook is over 140 pages in length and full of practical advice with exercises to complete at the end of each of its 12 chapters. So you’ll not only learn the theory—you’ll immediately have opportunity to put it into action and move towards building a fully functioning blog for your business.

For more information on what’s covered in this great new ebook, check out the ProBlogger’s Guide to Blogging for Your Business information page. Or order your own copy for just $49.99 USD by clicking the “Download it Now” button.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

ProBlogger’s Guide to Blogging for Your Business

You might remember back in November we launched FeelGooder and I outlined some of the backstory here on ProBlogger. The blog was a slightly new approach to me for a number of reasons—partly because of the wide niche (it covers everything from health, to relationships, to finance, to social good), but also because I decided to launch without any kind of advertising, and with the intent of monetization without ads.

It was an ambitious task and something of an experiment, but I was excited by the prospect.

Over the last six months, the focus on FeelGooder has really been to build up an archive of content (and a team of authors), and to build up a core readership. We’ve done both, although the going has been a little slower than I’d hoped, mainly because of the juggling I and my team are now doing across multiple websites.

However today we’re moving into a new phase and are launching an ebook: 7 Ways to FeelBetter.

You can read more about it on its sales page, but in short, it’s a week-long challenge for readers to work through. We think it will lift their spirits, help them to feel better about their lives, and hopefully help them to develop some life-changing habits.

I’m very excited about the reaction we’ve been receiving from those who have already reviewed it, and love the way it looks (we’re getting a lot of positive feedback on its design).

A new approach (for me) to launching products

One of the things I’m excited about in this particular ebook launch is that we’re experimenting with a slightly different launch process. Here’s how it looks:

1. We’re giving the first 500 copies away for free.
2. We’re then offering the next 500 copies at 50% off ($4.99).
3. Then we’ll be selling it at its normal price of $9.99.

UPDATE: due to limitations with e-junkie allowing only 100 free copies to be given away per day I’ve had to put the price up to 1 cent for the first 500 buyers.

This is a bit of a departure from my normal launch process, and is one I’m excited to see the results of. You can check out how it’s going over at FeelGooder today, because as this post goes live, we’re starting the giveaway part of the launch.

One of the main reasons I’m taking this approach is that, with a smaller audience on FeelGooder than here on ProBlogger or dPS, I suspect it’ll be a little harder to get momentum going with a new product.

The aim with this giveaway is to get what we think is a great product in front of as many people as possible. My hope then is that with it “out there,” we’ll have some opportunities to grow the momentum as people begin to use it.

One of the ways that we’ll do this is through a push via social media—particularly Twitter. We’re encouraging those who participate in the challenge to use a common hashtag to document what they’re doing with the challenge.

Time will tell how it goes, but I wanted to keep ProBlogger readers up to date as to what we’re experimenting with on FeelGooder.

P.S. Want to give some copies away on your blog?

If your niche relates to that of FeelGooder (life tips, health, relationships, fitness, finance, social good, etc.), any tweets, blog posts or linkups to this great little ebook would be greatly appreciated.

We’re also open to doing a handful of giveaways on related blogs—feel free to contact me via the contact form here on ProBlogger if you think your readership might be interested. Do include a link to your blog and any details of your audience (size, demographics, etc.) with your email.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Behind the Scenes of Our New Ebook Launch at FeelGooder

After all, that’s the dream, right?

Forget the mansions and limousines and other trappings of Hollywood-style wealth. Sure, it would be nice, but for the most part, we bloggers are simpler souls with much kinder dreams.

We want to quit our jobs, spend more time with our families, and finally have time to write. We want the freedom to work when we want, where we want. We want our writing to help people, to inspire them, to change them from the inside out.

It’s a modest dream, a dream that deserves to come true, and yet a part of you might be wondering…

Will it?

Do you really have what it takes to be a professional blogger, or are you just being dumb? Is it realistic to make enough money from this to quit your job, or is that just silly? Can you really expect people to fall in love with what you write, or is that just wishful thinking?

Sure, it’s fun to dream about your blog taking off and changing your life, but sometimes you wonder if it’s just that: a dream. This is the real world, and in the real world, dreams don’t really come true.

Right?

Well, let me tell you a little story…

How I quit my job

My van

In April of 2006, I was hit by a car going 85 miles an hour.

I didn’t see him coming, and I don’t remember much about the accident, but I do remember being pulled out of my minivan with my shirt on fire. The front end of the van was torn off, gasoline was everywhere, and my legs were broken in 14 places.

For the next three months, I had nothing to do but endure the pain and think about my life. I thought about my childhood. I thought about my dreams. I thought about my career.

And overall, I decided I didn’t like the way things were going.

So I quit.

I sold everything I owned. I stopped paying most of my bills. I turned in my letter of resignation, worked my two weeks, and then disappeared without saying goodbye.

Hearing about my insanity, a friend called and asked me, “Well, what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “Maybe start a blog.”

And so that’s what I did.

For the next three months, I didn’t just tinker around with blogging. I dedicated myself to it. I started work at 8 AM in the morning, and I kept going until 11 PM at night. I didn’t watch television. I didn’t see my friends. From morning till night, I was writing, reading, and connecting with other bloggers. Nothing else.

Within a month, I had On Moneymaking off the ground, and within two months, it was getting 2,000 visitors a day and Performancing nominated it for the best business/money blog of the year. A couple of months after that, Brian Clark asked me to become the Associate Editor of Copyblogger, and so I sold On Moneymaking for five figures and went to work at one of the most popular blogs at the world.

And amazingly, that’s just the beginning of the story.

How I moved to paradise

Have you ever woken up one day and realized you secretly despise everything about where you live?

The weather is horrible. Your neighbors are jerks. You don’t like inviting anyone to your home, because it’s always a wreck, and you’re ashamed of how it looks.

Well, that’s exactly what happened to me in January of 2009. I was sitting in my pathetic apartment, wrapped up in blankets to keep warm, trying to get some work done on the computer, when it struck me how monumentally stupid it was.

I was a full-time blogger, for God’s sakes. I could do my work from anywhere in the world. Why on Earth was I living in this hellhole?

The only problem was I had no idea where I wanted to go, but a couple of weeks later, the telephone rang, and it was an old friend who had retired to Mazatlan, Mexico. As usual, he was calling to gloat about the weather and the food and the general superiority of the Mexican lifestyle, but instead of just suffering through it this time, I stopped him and said, “No, don’t tell me any more. I’m moving there.”

My office

“What? When?” he stammered.

“I don’t know exactly when,” I told him, “but I’m starting right now.”

Two months later, I took a one-week trip to scout it out and look for places to live. When I got back, I started selling all of my stuff, packing the rest of it into storage, and saying goodbye to friends. Almost one year to the day after our phone call, I hopped in the car and drove just shy of 3,000 miles to my new beachfront condo in the finest resort in Mazatlan.

As I write this, I’m sitting on my balcony with my laptop, watching (no kidding) dolphins jumping out in the Pacific. It’s a sunny day, there’s a nice breeze, and I’m thinking about ordering a piña colada from the restaurant downstairs.

Lucky me, right?

Well, what might surprise you is I left out a piece of the story. It’s the part where I have a fatal disease, I can’t move from the neck down, and yet I essentially get paid to help people. Let’s talk about that part next.

How I get paid to change the world

You know what’s funny?

Yours truly

The worst part about having a disease like SMA isn’t how everyone treats you like a charity case. It’s not the frustration, anger, or depression. It’s not even the inability to reach over and pinch a cute girl’s butt when you want to (although that’s pretty bad).

No, the worst part is the freakin’ bills.  The doctors. The medication. The nurses.

I added it all up, and the total cost of keeping me alive in the US was $127,000 a year. That’s not rent. That’s not food. That’s just medical expenses.

Granted, I didn’t actually have to pay all that. I had private insurance, Medicaid, other government aid programs, but all that support comes at a price: they control you. The government allotted me only $700 a month to live on, and I had to spend every single cent above that on medical expenses, or they would cut me off.

So for years, that’s what I did. If I made $5,000 one month, I set aside $700 for living expenses, and I spent the other $4,300 on medical bills. Nothing was left. Ever.

And eventually, I got sick of it.

I wanted to make money without having to worry about losing my healthcare. I wanted to take care of my family, instead of them always having to take care of me. I wanted to actually live somewhere nice, not some ratty little apartment built for folks below the poverty line.

The only problem was, it just wasn’t possible for me in US. No matter how I played with the numbers, I couldn’t make it work. So, I did something crazy:

I quit Medicaid. I moved to Mexico. I stopped worrying about myself at all and started a business based on one simple idea:

Helping people.

I found up-and-coming writers who wanted a mentor, and I trained them. I found businesses who wanted to cash in on social media, and I developed their strategy. I found bloggers who wanted more traffic, and I created a course on how to get it.

In exchange, they paid me what they could. Some folks gave me $50 an hour and others $300 an hour, but I treated them all the same, and I dedicated myself to making their dreams a reality.

The results?

Within two months, I was making so much money so fast PayPal shut down my account under suspicions of fraudulent activity. Today, not only am I making more than enough to take care of myself, but a couple of months ago, I got uppity and bought my father a car.

Do you understand how precious that is? For a guy who can’t move from the neck down to buy his father a car?

And the best part is, I’m not making money doing mindless drudgery. I’m changing people’s lives.

Every day, I get emails from readers who say my posts have changed their thinking. Every day, I get emails from students who say my advice has changed their writing. Every day, I get emails from clients who say my strategies have changed the way they do business.

I can’t really believe it. Normally, a guy like me would be wasting away in a nursing home somewhere, watching television and waiting to die, but here I am speaking into a microphone and essentially getting paid to change the world. If my fingers worked, I’d pinch myself.

And here’s the thing:

I don’t want it for just me. I want it for you too.

The reason I told you this whole story wasn’t just to brag but also to convince you of one incontrovertible point:

YOU CAN DO THIS!

You want to quit your job and become a professional blogger?

You can.

You want to travel around the world, living life to its fullest?

You can.

You want to dedicate your every hour to helping people and making the world a better place?

You can.

Because listen … I know it’s horribly cliché, but if I can quit my job, risk the government carting me off to a nursing home because I can’t afford my own healthcare, convince my poor mother to abandon her career and drive my crippled butt 3,000 miles to a foreign country, and then make enough money to support myself, my mother, my father, and an entire nursing staff using nothing but my voice, then what can you accomplish if you really set your mind to it?

My guess: pretty much anything.

No, it won’t be easy. At some point, I guarantee you’ll want to quit. I guarantee people will treat you like you’re insane. I guarantee you’ll cry yourself to sleep, wondering if you made a horrible mistake.

But never stop believing in yourself. The world is full of naysayers, all of them eager to shout you down at the slightest indication you might transcend mediocrity, but the greatest sin you can commit is to yourself become one of them. Our job isn’t to join that group, but to silence it, to accomplish things so great and unimaginable that its members are too awed to speak.

You can do it.

I believe in you.

So get started.

Right freaking now.

Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger. If you’d like to learn more about what it really takes to become a popular blogger, check out his free videos on guest blogging.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World

• Who’s going to read this?
• How will they find it?
• What will their reaction be?
• What do I do now?

In the hours that followed hitting Publish, I quickly realized that writing my first post was only a small part of what I really needed to do if I wanted my blog to be successful—but knowing that left me feeling quite confused.

Over the coming weeks and months I gradually worked out some of what to do, stumbling upon ways of growing my audience, developing content ideas, and thinking more strategically about growing my blog.

Since that time I’ve launched around 30 blogs, and each time I’ve faced that “What do I do now?” question with a little more confidence as I’ve learned more and more strategies for starting a blog.

ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging

Today I’m pleased to announce a brand new resource for those starting a blog. A resource that’s designed to guide you through a variety of activities to kick-start your new blog. It’s an ebook called ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging.

You can read more about the ebook here and learn about our launch week special and bonus. But, in short, it’s written for bloggers who are either starting their first-ever blog, or bloggers wanting to start their second, third, or even fourth blogs with a solid foundation.

Broken down into seven chapters (one for each day—but you can do it over a few weeks if you want to space it out more), it provides daily activities that will help you to:

• Learn foundational brainstorming techniques.
• Create a content plan—and content, of course!
• Build a social media presence.
• Create practical quality assurance tools.
• Set up a publishing process.
• Master the components of a blog post.
• Develop your blog’s ongoing strategy.

Not Just Theory but a Practical Guide with Simple Steps to Take

The book has 7 chapters/days but is further broken down into 32 achievable activities to DO to get your blog started on the right foot. This eBook is high on practical suggestions – it’s all really about taking action which is the number 1 thing you’ll need to do to get your blog moving forward.

Each day has its own focus, but by the end, you’ll have not only written some great posts (and come up with ideas for many more), you’ll have also begun to promote your blog and think about its long term strategy.

Launch Week Special (and the Chance to Win $850 Worth of WordPress Themes)

To celebrate the launch of this brand new ebook, we’re releasing it this week at the special discount price of just $9.99 USD. It’ll normally sell for $19.99 USD, but I wanted to make sure it was as accessible as possible at launch. I don’t intend to repeat this price.

I’ve also approached the team at Studio Press, who make some amazing WordPress blog themes (like the one I use here at ProBlogger), and they’ve agreed to give us two of their Pro Plus Packages to give away to two people who buy this ebook.

That package gives you access to every single WordPress theme that StudioPress has developed (all 37 of them), free of charge. The package of themes sells for $249 but by themselves the themes are worth over $850. To be in the running to win one of these packages, you simply need to pick up this ebook before 17 May, when we’ll draw a winner.

So if you’re thinking of starting your first blog, or you’re planning to start another one, grab your copy of ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging today, here or check out more information on what’s included here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging [50% Off This Week]

The bulk of our time was spent on Bintan Island (Indonesia) where we stayed at Club Med Bintan (note: the pics in this post are all iPhone shots I took at the resort over the week) – a resort which had been recommended by a couple of friends.

I’ve never been to a resort quite like this one before. We usually try to get a self contained apartment in the locations we visit which we can do day trips from – but with ‘V’ (my wife) pregnant and with two active little boys we thought we’d go for an all included option like Club Med which also had a kids club and plenty of activities on site so that we didn’t have to travel once there.

While I was at the resort to relax and do anything but blog – my mind (as usual) did stray a little from the task at hand and I began to think about what I could learn from the experience on Bintan Island that I could apply to my blogging.

A couple of things stood out – one of which I want to explore today:

A Culture of Welcome

As we were bused down the front drive of the resort the first thing we saw was 10 Club Med Staff in front of the lobby clothed in bright T-shirts waving at us. They knew we were coming and a welcome party was out to great us (and our fellow guests).

As we were helped off the bus (while the resort’s theme song played and staff clapped) we were then ushered into the lobby where we were given cold towels and a cup of tea to drink while the manager of the resort welcomed us and told us what to expect over the coming week. Her welcome speech was interrupted only by the staff around her breaking into applause and cheering at numerous points.

OK – so it was slightly cheesy and over the top – but right from the very first moment it was clear that we’d been noticed and were being valued and integrated into the resort.

This continued for the coming 7 days that we were guests. It started with a personal tour of the resort and continued every time we walked past one of the many staff in the resort – on every single occasion they greeted us with a ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’ or ‘good evening’ and on many occasions they engaged us (particularly our children) in conversation.

Staff joined us for meals, they went out of their way to learn our kids names and integrate them into the children’s programs and at the end of the week a ‘farewell’ party again gathered to make sure we and our luggage found our way onto the bus and were thanked for staying (and our kids were given personal certificates for graduating kids club).

Our last view of the resort was 10 or so brightly clothed staff standing in front of the lobby waving until our Bus turned a corner off the driveway.

I’ll be honest and say at first I found the personal attention a little over the top (I’m an introvert and went expecting some ‘cave time’) but what I noticed over the week was that the intentional welcomes and attention that staff gave seemed to ‘infect’ those who were staying there. I’ve never been to a hotel or resort where guests interacted as much or where the ‘vibe’ of the place was so positive.

The experience was in stark contrast to our last hotel in Singapore (one which we paid more per night than the resort in Bintan) where there was a real absence of any kind of personal attention, where check in took half an hour and where we spent half our time on the phone to reception trying to rectify mistakes with our booking.

As bloggers – what can we learn from this culture of welcome?

People don’t go online simply get information any more – they want to belong. I discovered this early in my own blogging (in fact it’s part of what attracted me to the medium) so the more you can do to welcome and integrate people into the community of your blog and into relationship with you the better.

While it’s not possible to greet every single new reader at the door in a bright T-shirt with a wave – there are ways to make sure people feel noticed and welcomed when they arrive.

• Writing in a personal tone about real problems and issues that your readers face
• Inviting comments in your posts
• Using ‘Gravatars’ in your comments so people have the opportunity to see their own face on your blog when they do interact
• Responding to comment
• Inviting readers to contribute with guest posts
• Interacting with readers in a personal way on Twitter, Facebook, Ustream or other social media

The list could go on.

This is all particularly important in the early days of a blog. When YOU yourself take the lead in this community building/welcoming what then happens is that your readers begin to pick up on it and interact on the same way.

YOU have the opportunity to ‘infect’ your blog’s readers with a culture of inclusiveness and welcome. What happens when you do this is that you start to see readers taking initiative in welcoming other readers and creating community on your blog.

How do You Create a Culture of Welcome on Your Blog

By no means do I feel like I’m the best at creating this culture of welcome on my blogs. I try but if there’s an area that I constantly feel I could do more in it’s this.

The challenge with growing a blog past the early stages is to find ways to give that personal attention to larger numbers of people.

So I’d love to hear how others do it? How do YOU build a culture of welcome on your blogs (big and small)? I’m keen to learn from you!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What I Learned from an Indonesian Resort about Blogging

These statements—and others like them—are pretty typical sentiments that I hear from many new bloggers whose main barrier to blogging comes down to self-doubt, shyness or … Blogger Fright.

I remember having similar feelings myself. The thought of writing something and having complete strangers read and comment upon it was something that took me a little time to come to grips with, particularly as a relatively shy and private person.

So how do you “get over it”?

Let me start by saying that I’m not sure you ever completely get over these feelings—and perhaps that’s a good thing.

I still get a little freaked out from time to time that people are reading what I have to say. It strikes me most when I meet in real life a person who has been reading my blogs. The sense that they “know” me (or feel like they do), despite me not knowing who they are, is a feeling I doubt I’ll ever completely get used to.

I don’t think that there’s any problem with having these feelings. In some ways, it’s probably good.

I suspect that if I didn’t have the feelings there’d be a danger: I’d be blogging without boundaries or consideration of personal safety/privacy. I also find that these feelings drive me to ask myself whether what I’m writing is going to be useful to others.

Having said that, I do come across some bloggers (and by no means is it the majority) who become a little paralyzed by their own shyness and self doubt. Perhaps there’s a middle ground that we should be aiming for as bloggers.

How to become more comfortable as a shy blogger

1. Take your time

Most bloggers become more comfortable with the public nature of blogging over time. It takes time to work out boundaries and to get used to interacting with complete strangers online. It also takes time for your readers to get to know you and become comfortable with you.

This is similar to a real-life relationship in some ways—you generally wouldn’t walk up to a compete stranger and tell them about your love life, or that nasty rash, or your financial situation. You start off on a lighter level and, in time, as you develop trust and build the relationship, you might move on to deeper things.

2. Start small

If you do wish to get a little more personal on your blog, but you don’t quite know how, start small. Perhaps one way to do this is to tell a story of an experience you’ve had. It might not be a tale of a major personal turning point, but revealing something about an interest you have or a non-threatening experience that you’ve had might be a good starting point.

It might be an in-passing comment about something you did over the weekend, a reference to a conversation you’ve had, or a mention of a job you once held.

In time, as you get comfortable sharing a little about these smaller things, you might find yourself becoming comfortable with revealing a little more.

The same is true for using your own image or even posting a video of yourself. You don’t need to do these things on day one of your blog—in fact, you may never need to.

For example: I know one blogger who started blogging anonymously (with a nickname). Then a few weeks later, she started using her first name and published a small picture of herself which just showed her eye. In time, she became more comfortable—she now blogs under her full name and regularly posts videos of herself. The blogger let things develop as she grew more comfortable, but it was a series of small steps.

3. Identify boundaries

It’s good in the early days of your blog to identify some boundaries around what you will and won’t share. You might draw the line at people knowing your name (or your full name). You might decide that you’ll let people know your name but never share your photo. Or perhaps the line is around talking about the city you live in, or some level of revealing details about your family.

Knowing ahead of time where your boundaries are on some of these issues is good, because it’ll stop you getting carried away in the heat of the moment. Of course you’ll probably also want to discuss your boundaries with family and friends to make sure that they’re comfortable with them, too (where they apply to them).

4. Write for people you do know

Some bloggers I come across tell me that it’s the ‘stranger’ factor that makes it hard for them to write in a personal way. Writing for an unknown number of faceless and nameless people makes it hard for them to get in the groove of writing.

One technique that I’ve found helpful in this area is to write posts with people I do know in mind. Actually visualizing a friend when you’re writing, and producing a post for them rather than a crowd of strangers, can help you to get going and write in a more personal tone.

5. Find a blog buddy

If you know you’re a person who gets Blogger Fright and it’s holding you back, find someone who you trust to help you move forward in this area. A blogging buddy need not be another blogger (although that could be useful)—really they should just be someone who believes in you, who is encouraging, and who will help you to move forward.

In the early days of my own blogging, I had another blogger friend who I would regularly send posts to, to bounce them off him—particularly posts that I felt a little uncomfortable with or had doubts about. On 95% of the occasions I sent him those posts, he simply replied with, “this is great. You need to publish it.” Occasionally he’d reply with suggestions. And on one occasion he told me it might not be a good thing to post, and to listen to my own internal hesitation.

In time, I found myself sending fewer posts to him as I gained confidence, and found my voice and style of blogging.

You do have something important to say!

I guess the last thing I’d want to say to encourage those suffering Blogger Fright is that I believe we all have something worthwhile and important to share. Don’t completely ignore the fears or nervousness you might have—but don’t let them paralyze you either.

Most people who feel this way find it improves in time, so the best thing you can do is to start blogging in a way that you’re comfortable with, and to let yourself become more comfortable with it over time.

Lastly, remember that in the early days of most blogs that, while your content is out there for anyone to read, it takes time to build an audience. You’re unlike to have a vast crowd reading from Day 1—your audience will grow bigger as you grow as a blogger.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Overcoming Blogger Fright

I was going to stop at ten, but 11 has a much nicer ring to it, don’t you think? Plus point number 11 brings them all together nicely.

This post was inspired by a variety of comments, tweets, and blog posts of late that suggested I or other well-known blogging “experts” teach “rules” or “systems” of blogging.

The reality is that there are no rules. While ProBlogger obviously contains a lot of teaching about blogging, I’d never want to suggest that all blogs need to subscribe to a single philosophy of blogging. Rather, this blog is a place where I hope to share what I do, as well as sharing what has and hasn’t work for me (and similarly, to let guest bloggers share their own experiences).

The reason I take this approach is that of the numerous blogs that I’ve been involved with over the last nine years, no two blogs have been identical in terms of what has and hasn’t worked. There are some principles that have worked for me, but transfer those ideas to other blogs, and there are no guarantees of success.

There are also a few strategies that I personally avoid in blogging that I’ve had little or no success with; however, they’ve worked for others.

If anything, the only “rule” of blogging that I’d be brave enough to preach is: find your own way.

Most of the successful blogs that I’ve come across have something unique about them. It might be the personality or voice of the blogger, the topic, the design, the fact that they were first, that they’re funny, that they’re comprehensive and thoughtful, that they post 100 times a day, or that they post once a month… But each of them is unique somehow.

Successful bloggers tend to forge their own path. Many of them are aware of what works for others and learn by observing, but they also take what they learn, experiment with it for themselves, and let it evolve in a way that fits with them and their audience.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The 11 Definitive Rules of Blogging

She just saw the figures from the last few months of blogging and, as I mentioned back in my December earnings update, we’ve had some very good months lately.

December was my biggest month ever, but January and February are shaping up to be great, too.

There are two main reasons for the improvement in revenue:

1. Christmas Promotion: In December, I ran a 12 Days of Christmas promotion on my photography blog. This rolling series of promotions saw a massive spike in affiliate sales, but also a big increase in ebook sales over that two week period.
2. Ebook Launches: Towards the end of January and into February I launched a new ebook on my photography blog. It was our biggest launch yet and the new ebook sold faster on launch than I’ve seen before. In fact, ebook sales for the last three months have totaled just under 13,000 units.

Today, when my accountant rang to check whether the reports I’d sent were real, I tried to explain what had happened. She understood the above two reasons, but dug a little deeper and wanted to know why.

Her reflection was that about 18-24 months ago something changed in my business that seemed to tip earnings up a notch. Understandably, she wanted to explore the cause of that change.

I struggled to answer her at first, but in the end I put it down to two things:

1. I made a mind shift

A couple of years back, I switched my business focus away from relying purely upon advertising and affiliate revenue and decided to get serious about creating some products of my own.

2. Invested in Learning

Two years ago was also the point at which I decided to get serious about learning how to market and launch these products that I’d begun to develop. I knew that simply deciding to have my own products wasn’t enough—I needed to invest in my knowledge of marketing them.

It was at this time that I started to do two things:

1. I began to seek out others who had experience in online marketing. I began to be more intentional in developing relationships with, and collaborating with, smart marketers. These people have taught me a lot!
2. I purchased a variety of online training programs to learn some good principles for marketing products online. I enrolled in the programs, the most helpful of which I’ll tell you about below.

Overnight success?

I wish I could say that this switch in thinking and gaining of knowledge flicked a switch and helped me gain overnight success—but of course it didn’t.

The increase in revenue didn’t happen straight away after making the mind shift or getting the training, although there have been some great spikes in revenue over the last two years. But that marked the beginning of something that seems to be snowballing for me now, some two years later.

Make the mind shift and get the training for yourself

Over the next couple of weeks, you’re going to hear a lot about Jeff Walker and his Product Launch Formula.

Can I suggest you take some notice of what Jeff’s got to say?

I know some will be put off by some of the hype surrounding this launch—sometimes the affiliates promoting these launches build them up into a frenzy. But Jeff’s one of the guys who has helped me make the mind shift I mention above. His course was the main one that worked for me, and is something I’ve come back to numerous times.

Some of the principles he teaches in PLF have really connected for me, and have been instrumental in skyrocketing my own product launches. I’ve also applied some of them in promoting other people’s products—the Christmas launch I mentioned above used the classic launch strategy that Jeff teaches, and led to my biggest month so far.

Jeff is currently releasing a series of videos in the lead up to re-opening the doors of PLF. While some people’s pre-launch strategy is simply to build buzz before a launch, the great thing about Jeff’s strategy is to provide value in the launch process. Whether you buy PLF in the end or not, his videos will help you make the transition I talk about above.

They’re both inspiring and educational. If you do buy PLF, you’ll get some great teaching, but do yourself a favor and at the least watch the videos over the coming days by getting on the list. You can register for the first video here; the second is here. Update: you can also download his full blueprint for launches here (it’s got amazing teaching).

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why My Accountant Thinks I Robbed a Bank

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

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

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

First up, let’s look at the email.

—-

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

Body:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s 25% off!

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

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

Darren Rowse

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

—

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

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

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

1. Tie the opening to the subject line

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

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

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

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

2. Make the first word count

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

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

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

3. Link to the sales page

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

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

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

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

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

4. Make it scannable

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

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

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

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

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

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

This information combines to deliver:

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

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

5. Beginnings and endings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the refund paragraph:

Of course … get a full refund.

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

Warning: oversell

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

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

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

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

Rewriting the myths

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

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

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

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

5 Sales Email Myths that are Costing You Money