Miscellaneous Blog Tips : @ProBlogger

Written on 12/31/2011 at 12:01 am by Jade Craven

20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012

This year, I tried to go outside of the social media echo-chamber and focus on people who are expanding beyond their blogs. As Michael Stelzner said at Blogworld, “You’re not a blogger, you’re a publisher!”

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:

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

Written on 12/28/2011 at 12:00 am by Guest Blogger

Why You Should Wear The 6 Thinking Hats On Your Blog

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 46 Comments

This guest post is by Nischala Murthy Kaushik.

Wearing the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog helps in generating valuable, interesting and diverse content.

What are the 6 Thinking Hats?

Dr. Edward de Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. And once they’re learned, the tools can be applied immediately!

Image copyright Lisa F. Young - Fotolia.com

The premise of this concept is that the human brain thinks in a number of distinct ways which can be identified, deliberately accessed and hence used in a structured way to develop strategies for thinking about particular issues.

De Bono identifies six distinct states in which the brain can be “sensitized”. In each of these states, the brain will identify and bring into conscious thought certain aspects of issues being considered.

His 6 Thinking Hats are:

the White Hat, which calls for information that’s known or needed: “The facts, just the facts.”
the Yellow Hat, which symbolizes brightness and optimism; under this hat you explore the positives and probe for value and benefit
the Black Hat, which is judgment—the devil’s advocate that spots the difficulties and dangers, and where things might go wrong; this is probably the most powerful and useful of the Hats but a problem if overused
the Red Hat, which signifies feelings, hunches and intuition; when using this hat, you can express emotions and feelings and share fears, likes, dislikes, loves, and hates
the Green Hat, which focuses on creativity, the possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas; it’s an opportunity to express new concepts and new perceptions
the Blue Hat, which is used to manage the thinking process; it’s the control mechanism that ensures the Six Thinking Hats guidelines are observed.

How to wear the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog

Blogging is a testimonial of an individual’s thoughts, creativity, and literary expressions. And the quality of the content you create on your blogs is directly linked to the quality of your thoughts. Given that de Bono’s principles focus on mindful thinking, the Thinking Hats concept is highly relevant to blogging.

In my journey as a blogger for more than two years, I have published 1000+ blogs and have been featured in several forums, communities, and reputable sites. And when I look at the body of work that I have created, I realize today that I have consciously and unconsciously worn these many hats in my blogging.

The Six Thinking Hats can help you create diverse content on your blog, keep it vibrant, enjoy blogging, and create a meaningful relationship with your readers. Here’s how.

The White Hat

Ensure that some content in your blogs are based on hard data and facts. This can be information that you personally know, or links to articles, research, and literature available in published sources.

This is important because:

You tend to read and learn about key data and facts before you can blog about them
Sometimes the data itself can alter your and others views, comprehension, opinions, judgments, perceptions, and conclusions on a subject
you have logged this data for your future reference, and also the reference of your readers
you build credibility when you support your views and opinions with hard facts and data
readers place more value on the content you generate, since your blog is not purely based on your thoughts and feelings
the chance that you’ll be quoted or referenced in other places is significantly higher than if you never wore the White Hat.

The Yellow Hat

Ensure that some content in your blogs gives a positive, bright and optimistic view. This is important because:

when you write positive stuff, you tend to think and feel positively
when anyone reads your blog, they take-away a positive thought, message or emotion
readers are more likely to share a positive post in their sphere of influence—the positivity just spreads and magnifies along the way! And it all started with your blog!

The Black Hat

Ensure that some content in your blogs highlights the difficulties, challenges, risks, dangers, and negatives of your topic. This is important because:

this is the reality of life and it needs to be reflected in your blogs; otherwise, you may appear to be in your own dream world, far from reality
having all positive, data-driven content does not give the real holistic picture for any topic, hence it is imperative to wear this hat.

The Red Hat

Ensure that some content in your blogs articulates your feelings, hunches, and intuitions. This is important because:

it makes you think, introspect, and feel
it also gets your readers to think, introspect, and feel
it makes you connect within—to draw from your creative imagination
it makes you acknowledge, recognize, and appreciate the power of your sixth sense.

The Green Hat

Ensure that some content in your blog is creative, innovative, novel, and radical. This could present your own views or thoughts or something you’ve read and would like to share with your readers. It’s important because:

when you read and hear such things, they transport you to a different plane—a different world in which you are able to view the world through a very different lens; this usually gives you a radically different perspective on any topic, and on life itself
when you immerse yourself in creative, innovative, novel and radical readings, thoughts and ideas, you tend to dream and visualize beyond the realm of the known.

The Blue Hat

Ensure that some content in your blogs is about processes. This is important because:

it makes you clear in your own mind about processes that should be followed
it gives you an opportunity to showcase your knowledge and understanding on subjects which you are aware of and strengthens your own personal brand.

Do you wear the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog?

You can wear the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog for many purposes:

to choose a topic that you will blog about
to write the title of your post
to create the actual blog content itself

You can wear one or many hats in a single blog post. But ensure that over a period of time—a month, for example—you wear at least four of the hats in your blog. We all wear the different thinking hats at some point, so the more you wear, the more likely you’ll be to meet the varying needs of your readers.

Do you wear all six thinking hats in your blog? Tell us in the comments.

Nischala Murthy Kaushik currently works at Wipro. She blogs at VERVE: The Quintessence of my Life, Nischala’s Space, Thoughts & Expressions, 12Most.com, PaulWriter, Wipro & Mindblogs. She has completed her MBA from IIMB, one of the premier Business schools in India. She takes pride in being a mother, philosopher, writer, scholar and guru of life for life. You can follow her on Twitter @ nimu9.

Written on 12/26/2011 at 12:04 am by Guest Blogger

4 Key Criteria to Build Your Dream Blog

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 69 Comments

This guest post is by Matthew Setter of The Dreamers Manifesto.

Have you wanted to start a blog, a website or an online business, but you’re not sure where to begin? Are you already putting in the hard yards to build one or the other or both, but you’re not sure if it’s going where you want it to go?

Image copyright FotolEdhar - Fotolia.com

Building blogs and online businesses is very exciting, but it’s a very challenging endeavor as well. Whilst the excitement helps, some days it’s never enough to prepare you for just what it takes to be successful, as always there’s so much to do.

Here’s a common list:

the epic content that you have to write, both for your blog and for the guest posts for other peoples blogs
the work to build a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, StumbleUpon, and Reddit—amongst others
the SEO research that you have to perform, from keyword research and analysis to implementing SEO in your post titles, excerpts, links, images, headers, and meta data
reviewing your site statistics and analytics on a regular basis, so that you know how you’re going
establishing and building a growing mailing list of people who want to be more actively involved with your community
the time you need to take reaching out to fellow bloggers and networking with people so they even know you exist
searching for and getting in touch with affiliates and partners (i.e., checking email).

Even reading this list can leave you feeling a bit exhausted. Whatever happened to “build it and they will come”? Well, I’m sorry to say it, but as exciting as it is to do all this—you have to work to build your dreams and make them come true.

But I’m not going to dissuade you—heck no! Today, I’m going to share four key pointers that will help you build your dream blog sooner than you’d anticipated with less time and effort wasted.

1. Have a dream

The first and most fundamental thing you need is to have a dream. This is something dear to my heart, it’s something very important. You need to know what you’re setting out to achieve. Whether that’s a legacy, an achievement, a journey, to continue a tradition, to gain satisfaction, to leave your job, or whatever. No matter what you do, you need to know why.

Without the why, you may soon find yourself questioning your motivation and your resolve as you have to write yet another post, make a tweak or design change to your blog, search for affiliates, comment in forums, and do solid keyword research.

When you have a clear dream, a clear why, then you are better prepared to handle these times of question and doubt. Without it, you may end up like the majority of blogs with a handful (or less) of posts that eventually get left to wither and die on the scrapheap of the internet super-highway.

2. Have clear goals

After you have your dream firmly formed in your mind, you need to step beyond that and set SMART goals. I stress SMART goals as there’s no time to be general or vague about this. You need to know how you’re going to achieve your dream—your fantastically high-traffic, super-dooper blog using these characteristics:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-based

Through these criteria, you set clear goals so that you know what you’re aiming to achieve, you’ll have a clear action plan and targets to strive for. With clear goals, you’ll know why you want to achieve your dream, what you’ll feel like, think like, act like, and so on as and when you get there.

What’s more, you’ll be able to tell that you’re getting there, you’ll know if you’re getting closer, getting further away or just plain stagnating. And lastly, you can enrol people to help you, to keep you honest and accountable to achieve your stated aims.

3. Focus your time and effort

After you’ve established your dream and your vision, and you’ve set a series of targeted, specific, and measurable goals to guide you to building your dream, you need to get to work to do the day-to-day, week-to-week, activities.

But oh my, there’s so many things to do. What’s that, it’s 6pm and it seems like you’ve gotten nothing done today? But how could that be?! You sat down to work at 8am and you’ve been in a flurry of activity ever since.

How is it that day after day, despite finishing days that stretch between ten and 12 hours, you seem to just end up tired and the traffic’s not growing much? For all that activity, where are the results?

Well, I can’t give you a silver bullet solution to ensure that the action you take will manifest itself in the results you desire? But what I can tell you is that just because you’re taking action and are “busy” all day, that doesn’t mean you’re being effective. That’s right, there’s no clear correlation between busyness and productivity.

Don’t kid yourself that just because you’re doing things, you’re achieving.

Look at the key tasks that you need to do, then work out a regular pattern that you can keep to to achieve them. For example, for me, the key tasks that I need to do are:

Keyword Research (Google Analytics, Twitter research)
Content Research and Creation (Writing, writing, writing)
Content Promotion (Social Media, Blog and Post commenting, telling friends and family)
Blog Management (Is the design right, is the content linked and described properly)
Manage email and correspondence

Now, it’s easy to get lost in the latest gadget, service, technology, product, podcast, screencast, and so on. It’s easy to think you have to check your voicemail and emails every 20 minutes—or worse, respond to them the second that they alert you that they’ve arrived.

It’s easy to think that it’s important to be on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter multiple times every day. After all, everyone seems to say they’re the places to be. But stop attempting to multi-task. You may believe that you’re a computer, that you’re so good that you can do multiple things on the go, but I disagree.

So does Douglas Merrill the former Chief Information Officer at Google. In a 2010 post, entitled Getting organised the Google way, Mr. Merrill said,
“…trying to juggle or multi-task is a complete waste of time, not a display of organisational prowess.”

I am probably not unlike a lot of people with two computers on my desk, a tape machine with an interview I am listening to, two landlines, my mobile phone, a TV in the background, and a radio on low. Then there are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn beeping in every time a status update drops. And depending on what time of day or night it is, I have my four-year-old and partner vying for attention.

“Multi-tasking is a waste of time and effort. It just doesn’t work,” says Mr. Merrill.

“When you multi-task, you’re interfering with your brain’s efforts to put information into short-term memory—a process that is fragile enough to begin with. And if the information doesn’t make it into short-term memory, you won’t be able to recall it later.”

When you cut between so many tasks, frequently, you break your concentration, you break your attention and make it harder to do a few or even one thing well. So I suggest, as does Darren in his book 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, to get an action calendar.

Determine a pattern for how and when you’re going to do the essential tasks. For example, I:

check email twice a day; once in the morning, once in the evening
review Google Analytics once a week in my regular Monday morning house-keeping session
have a plan for post production
have regular times each week that I check in on and participate in social media
and so on…

4. Take a break

We’re almost there, so it’s only right that the last point is the least intense. You can only work for so many hours—productively—every day. Yes, you can eat super-foods, do meditation, and take power naps; but you’re only really productive for a limited time each day.

What’s more, your blog, whilst being very important to you, is not all of you. Don’t neglect your health, friends, family, relationships, and balance in your life, no matter how much importance you place on your work.

Your brain is similar to your muscles,so perhaps it’s best to sum up it up as my old gym instructor did:

“It’s not when you’re working out that you’re growing, that’s just preparing you for growth. It’s when you’re resting (in this case—sleeping) that your body has the opportunity to act on the investment you’ve made and build up your body’s muscle content.”

So it is with your mind in so many ways. You can sit there and do a lot of work, do research, talk with people, and email, but often, it’s only when you’re away from it all, from all the noise, attention and distractions, that you get your best inspirations, ideas and thoughts.

So remember, take time out, disconnect from it all, and recharge.

Winding up

I hope that this helps you tighten up your approach to successfully building a great blog, whilst maintaining your creativity and perspective. I wish you all the very best in the pursuit of your dream blog. Set goals, be focused and go create your beautiful blog. I hope you’ll tell me about it soon.

Matthew Setter is a passionate goal-setter, writer, educator and solopreneur. He’s also the founder of The Dreamers Manifesto, dedicated to helping you learn how to define and achieve your goals in a fun, engaging and informative way.You can connect with him anytime on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ anytime.

Written on 12/23/2011 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

What Process Do You Want to Lead Repeat Readers Through?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 26 Comments

Yesterday we looked at the strategic question of, “What do you want new visitors of your blog to do?” It’s a question that’s very powerful in helping you to achieve your goals as a blogger.

Today I want to take the question and apply it to repeat readers—an exercise that I think is really important. It can help take those first-time visitors and make them loyal and engaged readers who not only buy your products, but spread the word about you.

What do you want repeat readers to do?

One of the main goals that I suspect many people yesterday wanted to achieve with new visitors to a blog is to get them to sign up for your newsletter. But what do you want those visitors, who are now subscribers, to do next?

The beauty of having someone sign up to an email list is that you now have an opportunity to take them through a series of emails in an auto-responder sequence that leads them through a series of interactions with you.

Doing some thinking about the journey you want to take people on can be very fruitful.

A hypothetical example

For example, here’s a sequence of actions that you might want your readers to take (this is one I brainstormed quickly, so yours will, of course, differ from this).

Subscribe: This particular process starts with a visit and the initial goal of getting someone to subscribe (to an email list).
Follow: The next goal in this process is to get people to make a secondary connection by following a Twitter or Facebook account. This might be achieved via an immediate email in the autoresponder thanking people for subscribing and drawing the subscriber’s attention to your social media accounts.
Comment: The next action we’re looking for in this sequence is to try to get people to interact with us by commenting on a post. The goal here is to train readers to be interactive and participate. To do this, the next email in the autoresponder sequence might simply be an email that lists ten of the hottest posts on your blog—posts that you’ve chosen particularly because they have a proven track record of getting comments. You’d also include a strong call to action for subscribers to comment, perhaps even pointing them to a post where you ask readers to introduce themselves.
Join: The next goal in this sequence is to “join.” This might not be relevant to everyone, but perhaps you have a forum attached to your blog (or a ning community or some other communal area). There would again be an email sent to highlight this opportunity and list the benefits of joining.
Buy: The next goal is to buy. You might, at this point, add an email to the autoresponder sequence that offers subscribers a discount, or simply highlights a product that you have, and calls them to buy.
Spread the word: Lastly in this sequence, the goal is to get your subscribers to tell others about your blog, and to spread the word. Perhaps your email might be a competition to incentivize this, or just an email that offers some links that will tweet a message to the reader’s followers automatically when they click the link.

Note: Again, what I’ve put together here is a quickly brainstormed series of actions—you’ll probably want to come up with your own and I would strongly suggest you also think about how you’re providing real value to subscribers through the emails you send. Between each of these calls to action, you might send other emails that are purely about serving readers, rather than just sending a series of emails that are about getting them to do something for you!

The key is to do some thinking about what you want your readers to do over time and then to design a process that will lead them through those actions.

Written on 12/22/2011 at 12:01 am by Darren Rowse

What Do You Want Your First-time Reader to Do?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 45 Comments

Here’s a little strategic exercise that I think is well worth doing as we approach the beginning of a new year. Ask this question:

What do you want your readers to do?

There are numerous levels you can ask this question on. Let’s explore one now (I’ll do another tomorrow).

What do you want new visitors to do?

What’s the number one thing you want a new visitor on your site to do?

The answer to this question will vary depending upon how you define success for your blog, what your goals are, and depending even upon your business model.

In most cases, I tend to advise bloggers to focus attention for this first visit upon hooking the user into your site in some way (subscribing, joining, following, friending, etc).

The thinking behind this is simple: if you don’t hook a new reader in, they’ll be gone and unlikely to return after they’ve read the post that they landed on.

The key with hooking readers is to find out what technologies and media those you’re attempting to reach are familiar with. Then, call them strongly to connect with you using those methods.

But there are, of course, other valid conversion goals for new visitors.

If your blog is less about getting repeat visitors, you might actually be more interested in getting people to buy a product, click an ad, donate, retweet a post … or achieve some other goal.

For example, on my first photography site (a camera review site which is no longer active), I wasn’t as interested in getting people to keep coming back as they were their with the intent of researching cameras (and once they’d bought one, they weren’t likely to return even if they had subscribed, as their need was met). So I was much more focused upon trying to monetize their first visit by getting them to click an ad or buy a product via my affiliate links.

As a result, there weren’t too many strong calls to subscribe. Instead, ads were prominent and calls to buy cameras in reviews via affiliate links were also strong.

There is no wrong or right answer to this question. However, knowing what you’re attempting to get first time visitors to your blog to do is important. Otherwise, they’re likely to blow in and blow out again.

The answer to this question should inform your blog’s design, and what calls to action you place in key hot spots on your blog (the places people look).

What do you want your first-time reader to do?

Stay tuned tomorrow! Tomorrow we’ll explore this same question on a deeper and more powerful level, as we ask what you want repeat readers to do after they’ve subscribed.

Written on 12/18/2011 at 12:02 am by Guest Blogger

How I Bumped My RSS Conversion Rate from 16% To 25%

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 11 Comments

This guest post is by Gab Goldenberg, of The Beginner’s Guide To Usability Testing.

Want to find out how to boost RSS subscriber conversion? I did, but I hardly found any information about it online!

Besides having an obvious call to action above the fold and getting to [social news site]‘s front page, the blogosphere doesn’t much discuss how to convert more readers to subscribers.

I’d been meaning to test my RSS subscription page for a while, and finally got around to it. Here’s what the old page looked like:

The newsletter top

The newsletter bottom

The RSS subscription page was way too busy!

Notice the loads of links on the page? There’s the sidebar navigation, the breadcrumbs, the main navigation…

Additionally, the benefits copy is above the calls to action, which pushes them below the fold.

The conversion rate theory and the execution

My hypothesis was that by eliminating the distractions I would increase conversions. In other words, I’d eliminate the links on the page and move the benefits below the calls-to-action.

The reasoning for moving the benefits copy was that if someone clicked to view the subscriptions page, they were probably already pretty convinced and should be shown the conversion form and button immediately.

People who were still hesitant once they got to the page would be able to scroll down and read the benefits copy. That’s also why I moved the reassurance text (“You can unsubscribe with a single click, anytime”) below the form.

Finally, I did one more thing, which wasn’t originally in the plan, but which my limited HTML/CSS/Photoshop skills forced: I added testimonials into the left-hand sidebar. I’d initially planned to get rid of the sidebar, but that broke the page’s alignment and looked bad.

(Since my site is powered by WordPress, I used this Google Website Optimizer-Wordpress workaround to be able to use GWO. That’s because I never had a successful experience using GWO with WordPress, partly because GWO isn’t designed for sites that use a content management system, because I have a custom theme, and because many of the plugins are bad quality.)

Here’s what the page looked like after I edited it:

The new signup page

And here are the results:

That’s right, the variation outperformed the original by 56.3%—I added nine points of conversion to my overall conversion rate!

Methodology

I want to mention how conversions were measured. The limits of Google Website Optimizer (GWO) forced me to only measure one goal, so I chose the email subscription instead of a click on the orange button.

What that means is that I don’t know the difference these changes made on conversions for people clicking on the RSS button. Or should I say, this test didn’t reveal the difference these changes made…

Initially, my goal was to measure results comprehensively. After a fair bit of struggling, I followed the instructions on GWO’s help site and altered their code and mine so that both email subscriptions and RSS button clicks would be counted.

I launched the test and was happy until I discovered that something was causing the pages to load very slowly. I’m talking about 30 seconds for a page with the main functionality and 60+ seconds for full load.

Despite that, it seems some people did wait (or didn’t have this problem?) and early results of the test looked like this:

Notice the 11/11 conversion rate for the variation? That’s right, a 100% conversion rate for the variation! And why not? If visitors clicked my sidebar link to go to the subscriptions page (i.e. this was highly motivated traffic), and they saw a simple page without distractions, and with a very easy conversion process, doesn’t it make sense that they’d then convert?

Sure, it’s probably just a lucky streak and with more traffic we would have likely seen the conversion rate drop to 90% or such, but the point is that the no-distractions page still kicks butt—and takes names.

Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t solve the load time problem, though. So I started a new test, only measuring a single goal: email subs. And that’s where the data above comes from.

Another very interesting finding is that, contrary to the common situation of email subs being more numerous than RSS subs, it seems my techie audience prefers RSS. If about 30% are converting by email, and the no-distractions page gets say 90-100% conversion rate, then potentially 60-70% of my visitors prefer RSS subscriptions.

Of course, I’ll need to test some more to find out!

Want to help other bloggers and email marketers increase RSS conversions? Share your own experiences with RSS conversions below!

This guest post is by Gab Goldenberg, author of the advanced SEO book and The Beginner’s Guide To Usability Testing.
If you liked this post, get Gab’s posts by email or RSS -free- plus enjoy the subscriber only downloads!

Written on 12/16/2011 at 6:09 am by Darren Rowse

When Should You Launch Your New Blog? [Complete or On the Go?]

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 41 Comments

I’m regularly asked this question by PreBloggers: “How much work should I do on my blog before I launch it?”

How many posts should it already have live?
How many posts should I have in reserve and ready to go?
Should I have a customized or premium theme, or just start with a default one?
Should I invest in a logo before I launch?

The list of questions goes on, but they all boil down to the same thing: how complete should a blog be before it’s launched?

Image copyright Byron Moore - Fotolia.com

There’s no real right or wrong answer to this question. I asked my followers on Google+ about how they launched their blogs recently and the array of responses was huge.

Some spent considerable time (and money) in preparing for their launch, while others launch very much “on the fly,” and made improvements as they went.

Do what I say … not as I do

I remember writing a post on this at some point in the past, and creating a list of important things to do before launching a blog. However the reality is that with the blog I launched after writing that post, I managed to do almost the exact opposite—I launched it almost completely on the fly.

I guess there’s an “ideal” launch scenario, and then there’s the reality. The ideal is to give your next blog launch careful consideration and plan out a great strategy. The reality is that when you’re launching a new blog, you’re often really excited about it and want to get it out quick while you have momentum and energy.

The other element of this is that sometimes the strategy and planning can almost kill the idea. As Shareef Jackson called it on Google+, “analysis paralysis” can kick in.

Here’s what I’d aim for (the “ideal” blog launch)

So with the admission that I don’t always put a heap of planning and strategy into the launch of a new blog, here’s what I “ideally” would aim for when launching a new blog. I’ll attempt to note the importance of each point.

Brainstorm post topics

I think this one is really important—essential, even. I would generally do a brainstorming exercise before I even commit to the idea of starting a blog to see if the topic is a viable one. If I can’t come up with a list of 20 or so post topics in a five- or ten-minute brainstorm, that indicates to me that it’s just not a blog topic that will be sustainable.

Having a list of brainstormed post topics is also so helpful after you’ve launched because finding a topic to write about is often the big stumbling block for many bloggers, and leads to the dreaded “bloggers block.”

Write ten blog posts (three published and seven drafts)

I really like to have at least a few posts already published before I launch.

Some bloggers like to have more than three (when I was working with b5media we used to have ten already published), while others think that one published post is enough. My theory is that if you at least have a few published posts, you’re showcasing the type of content that you’ll be publishing in future to those first readers who come to check you out.

These posts should be typical of the types of posts you’re going to be writing in the future in terms of topic and style. Evergreen content is good too, as it’s this content that will be useful to people today but also in months and years to come (some call this “cornerstone” content).

Also I think it’s important to at least have a few posts written up as drafts that you’ll be able to roll out in the first week or so of your blog. Having some in reserve to draw on in this way is good because it gives you a little more time in that important first week or so to do other activities like promote your blog, write guest posts on other sites, and so on.

Have a unique(ish) design

There’s a variety of approaches that you can take with design.

At one end of the spectrum, you can go with the free, default template that comes with your blogging platform.

At the other end is a custom design, where you get a designer to come up with something completely unique for you (though of course this can be expensive).

In the middle is the use of a premium theme: you pay a smaller amount for a design that is professionally designed, and customizable but not completely unique.

I have tried all three approaches with my own blogs over the years.

Ideally, I would love to advise a custom design for your new blog, but the reality is that most of us don’t have the budget for this for a brand new blog—particularly when you’re sometimes not even sure if the blog will be something that works out in the long term.

As a result, I tend to advise people to look at the premium theme option, but to customize it where they can by tweaking the colors, layout, and even adding a unique logo.

As someone who is “design-challenged” myself, I know that this can be a little daunting. You might like to have a go at it yourself, or perhaps engage the services of someone to help you get set up.

Don’t worry if the design isn’t perfect when you start—while your design does create an impression, you can always put more time and resources into improving it later. All of my blogs have evolved in their designs over time, and most started with what I considered to be temporary designs.

Set up an email newsletter

Today my biggest source of traffic and income generation on my photography blog is the emails that we send to our community. Fortunately, on that blog I began gathering email addresses of readers from day one. However on other blogs, I’ve not set newsletters up until much later. In doing so, I feel like those blogs could have been much bigger if I’d taken that step earlier.

I’ve written extensively on the why and how I use email newsletters here, so won’t rehash it all except to say that setting this up would be on my list of new blog essentials.

Set up social outposts

High on my list of priorities for a new blog would also be setting up social media outposts.

My approach to social media as it relates to my blogs is that my blog is my home base, and around it I try to set up outposts, which are places where I have a presence as a way of supporting my home base. I’ve written more on home bases and outposts here.

The outposts will vary from blog to blog, depending upon who I am trying to reach and what social media networks they use, but in many cases this would be about setting up a Twitter account, Facebook page, LinkedIn Group, Youtube Page, and so on.

I may not be highly active from day one on these accounts, but at least reserving an account and promoting it a little when I am active can pay off if I do it early on.

What would you add?

What do you like to have done before you launch a new blog? I’d love to hear your own suggestions and stories below.

Written on 12/14/2011 at 6:06 am by Guest Blogger

What to Do When Your Niche Blog Isn’t Making Money

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 40 Comments

This guest post is by Blog Lady.

There comes a time in your career as a blogger or website owner that you find yourself with a niche blog or site that isn’t meeting your expectations money-wise. That’s nothing to feel bad about. It happens to everybody, and if some say it’s never happened to them, they must be insanely lucky or they just haven’t been in the business long enough.

But what do you do when it finally happens to you?

Give it more time

It could be that the only thing your niche blog needs is more time to “prove” itself. All sites take time to build authority and gain steady traffic. If you’ve been running your site for a month or two and you get only a dozen or so visits a day, don’t be surprised if your earnings are, or are very close to, nil.

If anything, you shouldn’t worry about making money from such a young site. Instead, focus on producing quality content and establishing good relationships with your readers and fellow bloggers/webmasters. I’ve found that it’s best to give a niche blog eight to 12 months before I start to make conclusions about it.

I almost gave up on one of my niche blogs several months ago. It was doing quite poorly in comparison to my other sites. But then it suddenly took off, for reasons unknown. Today it is my biggest money earner. So don’t give up too quickly on what seems like a failed project.

Examine your target keywords

Niches aren’t equally profitable, and even keywords within the same niche do not have the same earning potential. You want to optimize your blog for keywords that can generate the most income. If you’ve been targeting and ranking for low-value keywords, the payoff may be small even with a high conversion rate.

On the other hand, if you target high-value keywords but convert rarely, you may be targeting an audience that has a low click-through/conversion rate. (In other words, the type of visitor that isn’t motivated to click ads or buy a product.)

Find keywords that have the best combination of ad value, traffic volume, advertiser competition, and conversion rate.

To give an example, one of my oldest sites targets a small niche in the New Age market. I knew what kind of information that competitor sites weren’t providing, and was sure I could deliver it. And I did. Yet what I didn’t think of was the low commercial value of the specific keywords I’d chosen. I got the traffic, all right, but not the dough. So I researched my niche for higher-value keywords with better conversion rates, and applied them to several new and existing posts. Sure enough, these keywords bumped up my AdSense and Amazon affiliate income.

As for which keyword tools to use, I’m happy with the free Google AdWords Keyword Tool. You might try commercial tools such as Market Samurai, if you can afford them.

(Note: this is no reason to delete low-earning articles by the way. If your readers enjoy them, keep them and make some more—it serves your visitors well, earns you their trust and hopefully, backlinks.)

Explore different ad placement and ad types

Sometimes, the issue might not be your choice of keywords at all, but what you sell, how you sell it, and where you sell it. Check the advertisements that show up your blog. Look over the affiliate products you sell. Are they appropriate? Are people likely to click or buy them?

If you get few clicks, try moving your ads to different places on your blog. Experiment with affiliate widgets, buttons, and text links to see which get the most attention.

When you change your ads this way, wait several days to a week before you change them again. Personally, I’d wait for as long as it takes for me to get 500-1,000 impressions. (That’s less than 24 hours for a high-traffic blog, but the average site would need more time.) Monitor your conversion rates via your advertiser’s or affiliate partner’s account.

Now don’t go to desperate means to get clicks on your ads. That means, don’t try to “mask” your ads and don’t put them where they will disturb visitors’ experience of your blog. The few extra dollars you make this way aren’t worth the contempt and loss of trust it would incur.

Modify your strategy

Are you wholly dependent on a specific type of traffic, such as search traffic? If so, you need to modify your strategy to be less reliant on that traffic source. If you rely on Google for the majority of your traffic, you’d be seriously hurt if an algorithm update were to drop your site’s ranking.

Learn to diversify. Besides search traffic, look to social traffic, word of mouth, advertising and other means. We all need to do this, whether or not our sites make money, if we are to survive in the post-Panda era.

Know when to let go

I said earlier that you should give your niche site a chance. However there is such a thing as trying too hard. If you’ve tried all ethical means to boost your site’s income and still nothing happens, face the music. Leave it alone and try something else.

To invest all your time and resources in a lost cause is foolish. And don’t feel bad doing this. You’re learning. Every niche blog you make teaches you a lesson. With every success and failure, you discover what works and what doesn’t, what your viewers want and what you are capable of delivering. So even a failed site—if it is that—is not a complete waste of time. Learn from your mistakes, vow to do better and move on.

Blog Lady. A former freelance website content writer and now full-time niche blogger. Visit my blog for more articles on niche marketing, blogging and social media. Website: Blog Lady RSS Feed: Blog Lady RSS Feed.

Written on 12/14/2011 at 12:05 am by Guest Blogger

Easy Goal Setting for Your New Blog

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips 41 Comments

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

Ask any success guru out there and they will tell you that the most important part of becoming a successful blogger is to set clear goals.

And that is good advice for people who know how they want to tackle problogging. It is good advice for bloggers who know how they want to create content, generate traffic and monetize their blog.

But for the rest of us, who are on a journey where we start somewhere, try things and then respond to the result of our actions, slowly tweaking our strategy and tactics, it is not useful. How do we set clear goals? How do we define exactly where want to be in 12 months when we don’t have clarity on what we want to achieve?

Goal setting for new bloggers

The answer comes down to shifting your focus from end-state goal setting to activity-based goal setting.

On my consumer psychology blog, for example, I don’t know how I want to monetize it. Am I going to make money from ads? Am I going to make money by selling affiliate products? Am I going to make money from consulting? Do I even want to monetize it? I do not know. It all depends on what I discover about my market.

What I do know, however, is that no matter what I want to achieve in the end, I am still going to have to create content and promote my blog. So rather than setting goals around what I want to achieve in the end, I set goals around what I want to do weekly/monthly/yearly.

Accordingly, here are my top three goals:

Write two blog posts every week.
Submit one guest post every week.
Read one non-fiction book a month.

This way if I have a bad week, as I do from time to time, I can make up for it in another week.

Goal setting for new or confused bloggers

So if you are a new blogger or an old timer who does not know what they really want out of their blog yet, but still wants to maximize their chances of success, set activity based goals. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Posting goals

I will write _____ post(s) a week equaling _____ posts a year.

I will read _____ book(s) a month equaling ______ books a year.

Blog promotion goals

I will submit _____ guests a month equaling _____ guest posts a year.

I will comment on ______ blogs posts a week equaling ______ comments a year.

I will network with ______ people on Facebook/Twitter/StumbleUpon a month.

This is a far easier way to set goals when you are new to the world of problogging.

Aman Basanti writes about the psychology of buying and teaches you how you can use the principles of consumer psychology to boost your sales. Visit www.Ageofmarketing.com/free-ebook to get his new e-book – Marketing to the Pre-Historic Mind: How the Hot New Science of Behavioural Economics Can Help You Boost Your Sales – for FREE.