Most bloggers that I know have at least one – whether it be compulsively checking blog stats, constantly tweaking template designs, obsessing over plugins and widgets, spending hour after hour ‘networking’ on Twitter, becoming preoccupied with SEO and… even allowing ourselves to become consumed by learning about blogging…. and not doing much of it.

The reality is that as bloggers there are many tasks that compete for our attention. Many of them are important and can bring a lot of life to our blogs but most of them can also become distractions and counter productive to our blogging if we allow them.

This video asks you ‘what is your blogging vice?’ and challenges us all (and I need to hear it) to focus upon one of the most important aspects of blogging – creating content.

Don’t get me wrong – the tasks mentioned above can all be important and as bloggers we need to approach our blogging in a holistic kind of way – but this week while looking at 50 blogs while judging a blogging competition it struck me how much most of them could be improved with more spent on the creation of quality content.

My challenge to us all today is to refocus our energies upon creating compelling and useful content.

If that means no more reading about how to blog here at ProBlogger for a bit while you go and DO IT – so be it. After all, it’s what it all boils down to if you’re looking to improve your blog.

Get the full sized video at Youtube.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Warning: Watching This Video May Lead to Work! [But It'll Also Improve Your Blog]

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Over the last few days I’ve been digging into a great little book called Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.

I’m only halfway through it but of the 25 or so chapters that I’ve read so far I have jotted down 50 or so ideas for my own blogs – both ideas for content, ideas for next time I try a promotion and just general ideas. You see being persuasive is something bloggers of all kinds could do well to be whether it is

• persuading people to subscribe to your blog
• persuading readers to take action on a post you’ve written
• persuading readers to buy a product you have
• persuading readers to buy an affiliate product you’re promoting
• persuading another blog to link up to you
• persuading a reader to pass on your content to their own network

Not everything in the book will apply to every blogger but there’s plenty in this book to draw on as you develop your blog.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Yes! A Great Book for Bloggers

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See the full sized version of this video at YouTube – Expand Your Blog By Adding a Book.

A couple of weeks back I introduced a brainstorming exercise that gets bloggers to think about how to expand their blog. I followed that post up with an exploration of adding a forum to a blog as one good way to expand your blog.

Today In this video I continue this exploration of how to expand a blog by looking at adding a book to a blog. In it we look at the example of PostSecret and their new book PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God.

By ‘book’ I’m talking about ‘real’ or ‘hard cover’ books rather than ‘e-books’ (which I’ll cover later in the series).

As I mention in the video publishing a book is not going to be something most bloggers starting out can realistically achieve (although I’ve chatted to one quite new blogger recently who tells me that he’s just landed a publishing deal just a few months in) – however I do think it is something to keep in the back of your mind as you develop your blog.

Also mentioned in the video were the books by Photojojo and Lifehacker.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Books – How to Expand your Blog #2

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In this video I extend the idea a little and talk about the importance of not only develping a presence on social media sites but also making connections with and developing a presence on other people’s home bases. You can see the full sized version of this video at How I Use Social Media to Promote My Blogs.

Here are the screen grabs from slides I’m sharing on this today at the MarketingNow conference in Melbourne.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Promote a Blog with Social Media

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Stuck for ideas to write about? Here’s a quick and easy to use tool from Google to help you identify topics within most niches.

View this video at full size to get all the visual details in the video here on Facebook.

PS: a number of people have been asking about how I made this video and what microphone I am using. The mic is a Rode Podcaster USB microphone which I only recently have received. It’s not a small microphone but the quality it has produced is excellent.

The software I used to record the video and screen capture is a Mac tool called ScreenFlow. This is the first time I’ve used it and I there’s a lot more I could have done with it – I’m still learning to use its features.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Google’s Wonder Wheel to Find Topics to Write about

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Got a messy sidebar on your blog? It’s time to clean it up (like I cleaned up my sock drawer today).

Note: You’re more than welcome to share this video and embed it on your blog/site.

Check out the full sized version of this on YouTube, MySpace, Blip.tv and Viddler.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Don’t Let your Blog Become Like My Sock Drawer

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“What is the best way to utilize ads on a blog and maximise their potential profit?” – Question from @RyanBarr on Twitter.

This video post looks at 5 factors that help to make an ad be more profitable on your blog – it’s based on an older post here on ProBlogger where I presented an equation for AdSense success.

The five factors are:

1. Traffic
2. Ad Positioning
3. Ad Design
4. Relevancy (between reader intent, the content and the ads)
5. How much are ads paying

While I originally came up with this equation with regards to AdSense it relates to all kinds of advertising on blogs as well as affiliate programs to some degree. The principles are introductory but a good place to start for those just starting with making money from blogs.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Optimize Ads on a Blog for Higher Profit [VIDEO]

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More and more people are looking to add a second income stream to their lives by landing a blogging job. In this video I share 5 tips for increasing the chances of finding a blogging job.

This video was sponsored by eHow.com – a place for writers to make money, promote their blog, and share their knowledge.

See the full sized video at YouTube.

If you’re looking for a blog job don’t forget to check out the ProBlogger Job Boards mentioned in the video.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

5 Tips to Help You Get a Blogging Job

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Finding RSS Subscribers is something that many bloggers spend a lot of time thinking about – so in this video I thought I’d put together a few thoughts on how to grow your subscriber numbers.

See the full sized version of this video here at YouTube.

PS: in the post I mentioned some links that might help you to expand upon some of the ideas touched upon in this video. Here they are:

• 11 Ways to Find New RSS Subscribers for Your Blog
• A Secret to Finding New Subscribers for Your Blog
• How to Create a Sense of Anticipation on Your Blog
• More on how to Create Anticipation on Your Blog

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

9 Tips to Help You Find More RSS Subscribers for Your Blog

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This video has been around for over a year now (I made it just after ProBlogger was last redesigned) but I think it’s particularly relevant for this time of year when many bloggers are looking at refreshing the look and feel of their blog.

First impressions matter both in real life face to face interactions with new people that you meet AND the first interactions you have with new readers. In this video I examine 5 ways you can improve the impression that you leave on first time readers and give three questions to ask when thinking about how to leave good impressions on readers.

Of course overarching all of what I mention is that your content needs to be of the highest quality to create a good first impression. Your design, titles, tag lines etc can all be amazing but unless you’ve got something useful and unique to say – the first impression will not be as good as it could be.

Further Reading:

• Run a First Time Reader Audit on Your Blog – mentioned in the video.
• How to Craft a Blog Post – a series that covers how to create content that makes good first impressions and that particularly focuses upon crafting titles and opening lines as mentioned in this video.
• 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky – once you’ve made a good first impression it then comes down to ‘hooking’ new readers and making them loyal to your blog. This post shows you how to do it.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Create Great First Impressions on New Readers and Convert Them Into Loyal Readers

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Here’s the final part in a series of tips that I’ve been showing over the last couple of months from Blog World Expo where a number of bloggers share some quick blog tips.

This video features Lee LeFever (Common Craft), Josh, Matt and Nate (UniqueBlogDesigns), Tim Flight (Shopzilla) and Rick Calvert (BlogWorldExpo).

The Video was shot on a Flip Mino.

See this video at full size at Revver, Blip.tv, Viddler and YouTube.

Get more Blog tips from our Blog Tips for Beginners series.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

More Blog Tips from Blog World Expo – Part 3

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Here’s another compilation of blog tips from three prominent bloggers – Jeremy from Shoemoney, Steve Pavlina and Andy Wibbels.

The video was shot at Blog World Expo 08 on a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder.

See this video at full size on YouTube, Blip.tv and Viddler. See the last video in this series with another 4 bloggers here.

Get more Blog tips from our Blog Tips for Beginners series.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

3 Successful Bloggers Share their Blog Tips [VIDEO]

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Last week at Blog World Expo I had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of bloggers of all topics, backgrounds and levels of experience. One of the things that quickly became evident as I spoke with these bloggers was that collectively the bloggers who had gathered together in Vegas for those few days had a vast amount of knowledge.

I decided to do my best to capture some of this on video and used my new Flip Mino Series Camcorder to interview 15 or so of them. Here are the first 3 interviews – Chris Brogan, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman and David Peralty.

Thanks to Business Week Exchange for sponsoring this video.

For a larger version of this video see it on YouTube, MySpace, Revver, Blip.tv, Facebook and Viddler.

Get more tips on blogging in our Blog Tips for Beginners series of post.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blog Tips from Blog World Expo [VIDEO]

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In this video post I reflect upon the one of the downsides of changing your blog’s brand and/or design.

While updating blog design, logos and avatars in social media sites can bring a lot of life to a blog and present you with an up to date and fresh web presence – one of the negatives is that you can actually stop the momentum that you might have already created with your previous branding.

This is a lesson that applies when thinking about blog design but also even the simple avatars you choose for your Twitter and other social media profiles.

I’m interested to hear your experiences of both how changing your online ‘branding’ has led to confusion but also how you would suggest bloggers do it in a way that builds upon previous branding.

This post was brought to you by Business Week Exchange.

PS: sorry for the audio quality on this video. I recorded it in a public space and there was a little too much background noise.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Present a Consistent Brand in Your Blogging

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View the full sized version of this video at Blip, YouTube or Viddler (you’ll probably want to to see the text of what I’m talking about).

Yesterday I wrote about how to choose a topic to write about for blog posts and today in this video post I want to follow up this topic with a video demonstration of how I use a great service called AideRSS to analyze previous posts on my blog and observe trends in both the topics and styles of writing that can help to decide upon future topics to cover.

You won’t simply want to repeat past topics that have done well but will probably do better to extend upon them.

AideRSS can be used in lots of ways to track other blogs and help find great content on other blogs but for me this analysis of my own posts has become a valuable tool. I hope you enjoy this screen cast.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Using AideRSS to Help Identify Hot Topics to Cover On Your Blog

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It has been a while since my last video and in this one I’ll show you the reason why – my son Henri who arrived just a few weeks ago has been taking a lot of my attention of late.

In this video I want to talk about adding a personal touch to your blog and want to introduce you to some of the ideas that I cover in my previous series – Adding a Personal Touch to Your Blog.

I’m not talking about starting a personal blog where you share lots of personal information – what I’m focusing on here is building a blog that connects with people in a more personal way around your niche topic.

Over the last few years of blogging I’ve found that readers really respond well to when you approach your blogging in a more personal way.

Some of the ways you can add a personal touch to your blog include writing in the first person, blogging with emotion, sharing stories using humor, talking about real life activities, using bylines, featuring video and images, being honest about your mistakes and failings, taking personal notice of readers and blogging with a conversational voice.

When you do these types of things over the long haul readers get to a stage where they feel that they ‘know’ you and a blog becomes more than just a place where you dispense information and it becomes a place where people begin to connect.

I’d love to hear how you add a personal touch to your blog in comments below.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Make Your Blog More Personal

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You’ve probably heard the age old ‘how to find readers for your blog’ advice that goes:

“Leave Comments on Other Blogs”

It was one of the first tips that I was given on how to find new readers for my blog five years ago and it’s one of the first pieces of advice that I hear most people giving still today. It’s so common in fact that I think that many of us gloss over it looking for a ’sexier’ way to drive readers to our blogs.

But today as I analyzed the post featured in this video I saw something that drummed home to me the power of leaving relevant comments on blogs as a way of driving traffic.

The tool I’m using in this screencast video is CrazyEgg – a click tracking tool that creates a heatmap of where readers click when on your blog.

I do want to emphasize again – that the strategy of building traffic to your blog by leaving comments on other blogs only works when your comments ad value and are relevant to the post. If you don’t adhere to this you’ll just end up hurting your reputation.

See the Full Sized Video at YouTube, MySpace, Blip.tv and Viddler.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Power of Commenting On Other Blogs [VIDEO]

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As mentioned in my last post – today saw Karen, Neerav and myself featured in an Aussie national news story on channel TEN.

Many international readers have asked to see the story so Neerav has posted it on Google Video for you. If you’d like to see the full sized version of the story you can do so here.

If you’re new to ProBlogger and have arrived after seeing the story please check out my last post – a welcome to you which has some introductory information for you on where to start with blogging.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger on the News

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In last week’s video I examined 5 Emerging Trends in blogging. A few readers emailed to say that while they agreed with the trends I had identified that they felt a little overwhelmed by them and not equipped to embrace the trends on their own blogs. They were concerned that they were too far behind the big blogs and said that they felt like giving up.

The emails reminded me of some of my own feelings when I started blogging. While I started out five years ago – at the time I remember feeling like I was too late to the medium. Other bloggers seemed like they were so much more advanced and in my lower moments I wondered if there was any point in blogging on.

In this video I want to balance the 5 emerging trends in blogging with 2 things that haven’t really changed in blogging – things that I don’t seem going away any time soon. While the trends are worth keeping an eye on don’t lose sight of the basics – the things that don’t change!

See the full sized video on YouTube, MySpace, Revver, Blip.tv and Viddler

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

2 Things that Are NOT Changing about the Web and How People Are Using It [VIDEO]

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Over in the question widget on my sidebar I was asked to comment on the future of blogging and where I see it heading.

In this video post I explore 5 trends that have been emerging (and that I think we’ll see continue to grow) including:

• Multiple Author Blogs
• Multi-Topic Blogs
• Blogs Converging with Other Types of Sites
• Portal-Like Design
• Indirect Monetization

I should say though that I’m NOT saying that a blog can’t work when a blog doesn’t have these things. Blogs of all shapes and sizes will continue to have success.

You can watch a full size version of this video here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

5 Emerging Trends in Blogging

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