It would be great if the only purpose of your copywriting was to sell your products. Unfortunately your copy often has to serve two purposes: attracting visitors to your site, and then selling to them.

Attracting traffic using copy requires using search engine optimizing techniques, and adding keywords. Using the topic of baby food, in this post we will look at a few ways to include keywords in your copy.

Keep it natural

The key to successful keyword optimizing in your copy is to keep it natural. As Greg McFarlane points out in his post Why Bieber SEO Copywriting Sex Doesn’t iPad Work Minecraft, people often make the mistake of overloading the text with keywords, and replacing every generic key term with the keyword or phrase. This will not give you high-quality persuasive copy, as you can see in the following example.

Keyword = baby foods

As new mothers we all want our babies to have the best baby foods; we spend a lot of time researching good baby foods recipes and making sure we buy high-quality baby foods. Giving your child a good start in life with healthy baby foods ad not giving them baby foods that they are not ready for, is one of the major concerns of new parents.

The above example is not only annoying to read, parts of it have been made grammatically incorrect in an attempt to use the keyword as often as possible. While you might get a lot of traffic to your website from parents searching for the keyword “baby foods,” they will quickly move onto another site when they start reading.

Make sure you select your keywords carefully so that they fit in easily with the subject of your copywriting. This will improve the flow of your copy, increasing your sales conversions.

Here are three ways to include keywords naturally.

1. Break up keywords phrases

It can be hard to fit a long keyword phrase into your copywriting. I was once asked to use the key phrase “baby food recipes 6 months.” This is an awkward phrase to use altogether, but it works well when split up by punctuation. Search engines read straight punctuation marks such as full stops, commas and colons so think how you can use these to split your keyword phrase.

Keyword phrase = baby food recipes 6 months

Look no further for tasty and healthy baby food recipes. 6 months is the perfect time to start introducing your bay to new tastes and textures.

The above example keeps the keyword phrase intact so it will be recognized by the search engines, but does not seem out of place or awkward.

2. Lengthen the keyword phrase

Some phrases are difficult to include because they are singular when you would usually use a plural or vice versa. Adding words to the end of the phrase can help you overcome this problem as well as giving you inspiration for your writing.

Keyword = food for baby

• Food for bay weaning
• Food for baby meals
• Food for baby taste buds

Adding a word or two to the end of this phrase makes it less grammatically awkward and helps you to fit it into your copy writing sounding repetitive.

3. Use a keyword phrase that describes what your product is not

Take the example of the keyword “cheap baby food.” When a parent enters this search term they are looking for good value, high-quality baby food that they do not have to pay very much for.

However, if you describe your product as cheap baby food, it will give the impression that it is poor quality, and therefore not great for their precious child. Avoid this by using the keyword to describe what your product is not.

Keyword = cheap baby food

Try out one of our healthy, easy-to-make recipes as an alternative cheap baby food. Once you’ve tasted one of these nutritious homemade meals, you’ll never want to feed your little one cheap baby food again.

Using the above techniques will ensure your copywriting remains natural and that you don’t have to sacrifice quality to keyword density.

A final tip: write your copy first and then go back with your keywords in mind and place them where appropriate. This will make your copy flow more naturally, and will appeal both to your readers and the search engines.

Visit the blog at SeoArticleWriteService.com to learn how Bill Achola can write high conventional marketing content for bloggers and affiliate marketers.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Build Keyword Density the Right Way

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

As 2011 comes to a close, now is a better time than ever to evaluate your blog, its performance, and most importantly, what you can do to improve your blog in 2012!

A point I always like to drive home is that you will never find blogging success by turning into an “eternal student”, one who always consumes information but never creates or takes action.

Image copyright mipan - Fotolia.com

So check this list out, bookmark it for later (or tweet it out to your fellow bloggers), and make sure you go through and see what quick actions you can take to improve your blog!

1. Optimize (or start) your email list

Had you email list become stagnant, with a slow trickle of subscribers rather than a huge flow of new signups? Have you not even started building a list yet?

Now is the time to take action, because your mailing list is the most important aspect of your blog’s long term success. So if you haven’t already, create one now.

If you have a list, let’s think of a few ways to optimize it…

1. Make sure sign-up forms are in the best locations (sidebar, feature box, at the end of posts).
2. Create a “toolbox” of freebies that only subscribers get access to (think of it like the free ebook strategy, only kicked up a notch).
3. Create newsletter only content just for subscribers (makes the newsletter more worthwhile for them).

Last but not least, make sure there is an option to subscribe on the pages of your site with the most traffic. I’m talking about your intro/about page, your resource pages, and any other pages that visitors often visit from your homepage.

Start building your list now the right way. You won’t regret it in 2012!

2. Make a list of every blogger (who writes quality content) in your niche

You might be wondering why bother to do this. Certainly if you at the intermediate stage of blogging, you already know about the power of guest blogging and the kind of traffic and subscribers it can bring you.

The thing you have to realize though is that as powerful as guest blogging is, it is only one part of being good at networking in your chosen niche.

In order to truly succeed as a blogger, you are going to need important people who are truly rooting for you. The best way to do that? Network.

Most bloggers are afraid to start, so by creating a list like this, you are already on your way, and it takes far less time than you might think. Simply use sites like AllTop and Technorati, along with the blogs that you regularly read, and create a comprehensive list of the best ones in your niche.

Plan on emailing each one, maybe breaking the ice with a completed (and awesome) guest post. From there, stay in touch, actively support the other bloggers in your niche, and in time, you’ll find yourself getting links naturally, it won’t take a guest post for your fellow bloggers to mention you…

They’ll be doing it because they support you. And that is an essential ingredient to growing a popular blog.

3. Re-evaluate your blog’s unique offering to readers

What about your blog makes it distinct? What are readers getting there that they simply cannot get on the hundreds to thousands of other blogs in the same niche?

For 2012, you should take a look at your blog, and really evaluate what you are adding to the web that nobody out there is doing exactly the same.

The key word there is “exactly”, because your blog doesn’t have to be a totally unique experience that is doesn’t compare to anything else, it just has to be a twist on existing topics.

For instance, there are a lot of blogs for people who love blogging, but how about people who love Tumblr? Heck, your twist can just be what medium you use to create content.

For instance, there are a lot of personal fitness blogs that use video, that makes sense. But what about a finance blog that uses a lot of video? What about craft blog that uses a lot of video? How about a marketing blog that focuses on podcasts? How about a personal development blog that utilizes SlideShare?

The point is: it’s not too hard for you to put a “twist” on your niche, making it something that adds value and that also helps you stand out from the sea of others.

4. Try new content types to keep your blog fresh

Speaking of different content media, a lot of bloggers get so overwhelmed with different traffic methods and writing techniques that they fail to realize that they could be putting their efforts to a medium they might be better (or more comfortable) at.

Maybe writing posts really is the thing you feel most comfortable at, but I’d definitely suggest giving a few other mediums a try. They can bring extra traffic from being hosted on the parent site (like YouTube videos) and can give your blog a appeal by creating content in an unusual form.

Here are some great content types you can try:

1. video (on YouTube or Vimeo)
2. audio on SoundCloud (or by starting a podcast)
3. ebooks
4. slideshows on SlideShare
5. workbooks
6. infographics
7. webinars.

See if some of these suit you better from time to time, and you’ll likely be one of few blogs in your industry doing them!

There’s also another great post idea I want to discuss…

5. Interview someone influential in your niche

Interviews are a blog kickstart technique that seriously work for any niche—at least, I’ve yet to encounter one in which they don’t work well!

Interviews are great for a few reasons:

• The person you are interviewing will notify their following of the interview, bringing you traffic.
• People will respect you more for getting the thoughts from an influential person, and be more inclined to check out your self-made content.
• Interviews add instant social proof to what you are saying, and if you can even add small parts of an interview to back up your own claims, readers will appreciate it.

Scared to ask someone for an interview? Don’t be! Research has shown that people are more likely to help you out than you think.

They key: keep your emails short and your requests reasonable. Also, never send the questions in the first email, ask for permission first!

I’ve used interviews with people like Brian Gardner (owner of StudioPress) and popular musicians on my electronic music blog to get, literally, thousands of new visitors in days, not weeks or months.

And this is on entirely new blogs!

Trust me, finding a good person to interview (an interesting or unusual expert is always good) and creating great questions for the interview will likely be a huge benefit for your blog. It’s a must-try technique in 2012.

6. Clean up your sidebar: show what matters

If there is one part of a blog that typically turns into a complete mess, it’s the sidebar in the typical content/sidebar blog layout.

Bloggers (especially newer bloggers) are tend to add way too many widgets and sections on their sidebar, and instead of making their site better, they end up making it far worse!

How? The first thing is site speed. I’ve written about how to speed up WordPress before, and the conclusions you can draw from other website owners and SEO experts is this:

1. People won’t wait for slow loading sites, general wait time is as little as a few seconds (that’s single digits).
2. Site speed has an impact on SEO, affecting your rankings.
3. A fast-loading site is apart of a great user experience, and users appreciate fast page loads far more than you realize.

Those are some pretty important reasons to be concerned about your site speed… But there are even bigger concerns that you should be worried about!

In addition to slowing your site down, the results from this research study have shown that too many choices can actually decrease conversions!

What that means is that a cluttered sidebar is likely to decrease your conversion rates on new subscribers! This is bad, bad news for your blogs potential success.

Fortunately, this can be fixed quickly, by scrapping all of the junk in your sidebar and including only the essentials, which are:

• sidebar opt-in (must be at the top!)
• list of popular posts (shows readers your best content, right away!)
• resource sections (these sections showcase a lot of info on a single topic, or including things like what blogging tools you are partial to using)
• …nothing else!

Honestly, having only these three items in this list might make you think I’m crazy, but hear me out: those really are the only essentials!

Of course, if you blog offers a product, service, or advertising, these need to be included, but for most people, the three I mentioned will increase your conversion rates after you get rid of the junk.

Unless your blog as 1000+ posts, you don’t need a search bar, categories—none of that stuff. What you do need is a fast loading site that converts well, so make it happen.

7. Improve your knowledge of SEO and SEO copywriting

If you are running a WordPress blog, understanding the fundamentals of WordPress SEO is essential to succeeding as a blogger (I’d highly recommend starting with SEOMoz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO, it’s a great read that’s highly detailed and includes great visuals).

More importantly though (and non-platform-specific), you need to learn more about SEO copywriting if you don’t know about it already.

The process of effective SEO copywriting is far less confusing than you think. In fact, even if you just learn the basics of good interlinking habits (linking to old posts of yours in new posts, naturally) you’ll already be more skilled than most bloggers in your niche.

It is essential to understand good SEO copywriting as a blogger because it allows your site to do better in search rankings, offers a better user experience for readers by involving your old content in a natural way, and adds a new skillset to your blogging knowledge—one of great importance.

8. Add social proof where it matters

Bloggers sometimes get too caught up in social networking proof, rather than what social proof really means (and when it’s actually useful).

Social proof can be as simple as quote from one of your readers/fans on what a great blog you are running, how you helped them, or how your content has benefited them in some way. This type of social proof is often as powerful as a big Facebook following, and it’s much easier to get legitimately!

Here are a few easy ways to get a powerful statement for your blog:

1. Ask! Ask one of your readers if they’d mind giving you a quote to use on your blog as social proof. Most people will be glad to provide one!
2. Use a comment. Take a comment from a reader on your site that states something positive, and use it as social proof.
3. Quote someone else. Has anybody else mentioned your blog or writing before? Quote them, whether it’s from Twitter or their own site, people will usually have no problem with you quoting them for social proof.

Okay, so we have some ways to get social proof that’s outside of a big social networking following…

Where should we put it? Here are the two best spots to put social proof:

1. anywhere there is an “opt-in” form
2. anywhere you ask users to purchase something.

Simple, clear use of social proof boils down to this: any time you need someone to trust you (to opt-in to your list or to buy something from you), social proof is king, and those are the locations in which you should use it.

9. Start a “post ideas” journal

I’ve discussed the importance of using journals (or some storage device) in order to break through writer’s block, as they can serve as a growing list of ideas (that may come at any moment) you can access when you need to write a new post.

Writing down great posts ideas as they come in your head will not only benefit your own blog, it will help with writing all of those guest posts to get your name out there!

The thing is, great posts ideas could come to you at any moment. The problem? You are not always in a position to expand on those ideas or to see if they’d really make for a great post. The solution? Write any decent ideas down, and save them for another time.

This way you can keep any ideas that you might have lost if you relied on your memory, and you also get to work on great ideas later that might turn into dynamite posts.

10. Guest blog using the “funnel” technique

If you are going to utilize guest blogging to build your blog (and you definitely should be), you should start approaching your guest posts with an actual strategy, rather than relying on blind writing.

The best (and easiest!) strategy to try is the “funnel” technique of guest posting. The funnel method involves writing a guest post that has to do with one of three big aspects of your blog:

1. your blog’s unique offering (discussed above)
2. a free ebook/guide you’re giving away
3. an opt-in webinar or course you’re offering.

How and why does this work so well? Simple: you are priming readers with a post about a specific topic. Then, you offer them additional content (via your email list) by offering one of the three options listed above.

In case you still don’t get it, think of it like this: I’m a personal fitness style blogger, but I only focus on writing about high-intensity interval training (HIIT for those familiar with the acronym).

So, it would make sense for me to post on fitness blogs, but to focus on writing an article like “5 Reasons Why HIIT is the Best Form of Cardio.” The reason this makes sense is that anybody interested in Fitness and HIIT would go to check out my blog, where they would be greeted with more content on the subject. This would make them more likely to subscribe.

This also works with the other two methods: offering a freebie such as an ebook or Webinar on the topic that my guest post was about. Try this and I guarantee your blog will see maximized conversions for all of your blog posts in 2012!

11. Evaluate your social media buttons

What do I mean “evaluate” your social media buttons? Simply put, you need to take a step back from your blog and look at the buttons that you are using on your site.

Many bloggers just plaster up whichever buttons they can without really evaluating what’s been working in their niche. The key point here is that you most likely don’t need all of those buttons! It’s been proven time and time that too many options can decrease conversions, and this applies to social sharing too.

The reason bloggers get misled is because they see big sites like Mashable using every button under the sun, but what they don’t seem to get is that Mashable is about social media, so a majority of their traffic and “subscribers” are social media users.

It makes sense for them to have tons of social media buttons, but for a blog like yours, which is most likely concerned with growing a stable and profitable email list, you need to evaluate which buttons work best for your audience.

For instance over on my electronic music blog, I immediately removed the LinkedIn and Google+ buttons when I found out that they weren’t being used. It made sense, but I wanted to test things out first.

The thing was, my audience was younger, and not interested in tech or business aspects as much as most LinkedIn and Google+ users are. Generally, they stuck to Facebook, and used Twitter slightly less.

So I updated the social sharing buttons to include only those two, and guess what? My traffic didn’t drop by a single visitor. In fact it increased, all while I was speeding my site up!

Make sure your social buttons are actually being used by your readers.

12. Utilize the most powerful social network of all

When most people think about networking these days, they tend to think about social networks.

While social networks (especially those like Twitter) are indeed extremely useful for establishing connections, in reality they better serve as icebreakers for real planning on the most powerful social network of all…

Email.

That’s right. All of your guest post submissions, all of your interview requests, collaborations, joint ventures, product launches, everything will be happening behind the scenes through email (or at least the important stuff!).

What else will you be doing to revitalize your blog in 2012? Share your plans in the comments.

If you are a blogger who wants to tap into the psychology of successful content marketing, you need to check out Sparring Mind, where Greg prefers to write about what works (backed with research and data) and avoids the fluff. Find out more here and start marketing your blog the right way.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

12 Essential Tips for Revitalising Your Blog in 2012

1. Live streaming video sessions

If I find myself with a spare half hour to fill in, one of the activities that I’ll sometimes engage in is a live video streaming session on Ustream.

I log into my Ustream account, start a broadcast, and then announce it on Twitter that I’m on and happy to answer questions. The sessions are fun and also deepen reader engagement for those who join in. But I’m also constantly taking note of what I’m being asked and will often turn those questions and answers into posts.

Answering questions at the ProBlogger Training Day

2. Being interviewed

From time to time I’m asked by another blogger, journalist, or author to do some kind of interview with them. Some are live webinars or on radio, others are email-based interviews, others are on the phone.

Being interviewed in this way is great for bringing new readers into your blog, but I’m also usually asked at least one question during the interview which is the stimulus for a post.

3. Interviewing someone else

On the flip side of things, I also love to interview other people.

Many times as I’m preparing for an interview and researching the subject to work out what questions to ask I’m stimulated to write a post. Other times it is the answer that they give that gets me writing something new.

4. Public speaking

I’m fortunate enough to be asked to speak at conferences both here in Australia and around the world. While I love this type of presenting, I always get a little nervous in the lead up to doing it, and tend to put in quite a bit of time for preparation.

This often unearths post ideas. In fact, last time I spoke at a conference, I turned my slides into a series of blog posts. The Q&A times at the end of presentations and speaking one-on-one to attendees afterwards also gives me great ideas for posts.

5. Answering reader emails and comments

Not a day goes by when I don’t either get an email from a reader asking a question or see at least one question in blog comments.

While I try to respond to as many as I can, I also quite often turn those email or comment answers into blog posts in and of themselves. When one person has a question, it’s likely that others are thinking the same thing—so I turn that one on one answer into something others can benefit from, too.

How do you kill two birds with one stone and use other actives to generate blog post ideas?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

5 Ways I Kill Two Birds With One Stone and Generate Ideas for Blog Posts

If you’ve been blogging for any amount of time, you’ve heard that content is king. You’ve been told that everything else—design, SEO, in and outbound links—those things are a bonus, but the real thing you need to focus on is your content.

And it’s true, content is king, because even an SEO-optimized blog with a beautiful, user-friendly design and a parade of in and outbound links will fail without great content.

But although content is important, there’s something more—something that only you can bring to the table, something that only you have to offer that will really make your blog shine. A secret ingredient that will make your blog unforgettable.

You.

Your voice matters

The fact is, if you’re looking to build your blog on completely unique content, you’re going to run out of ideas very quickly. Chances are anything you want to talk about has already been covered by at least a dozen other bloggers, and it’s not because you’re unoriginal or a terribly unimaginative person—it’s just because there are only so many things to talk about.

The question you need to ask yourself is: what keeps readers coming back to your blog, when they could go elsewhere for the same information?

Can you guess what the answer is? I’m talking about that secret ingredient again. Your voice, your take, your worldview—those are the things that make you memorable. Those are the things that make you stand out in an ocean of blogs.

You have a gift

You have something priceless, a gift that you were born with, a gift often taken for granted: no one can think or speak or write the way you do. The way you put words on the page, how you interpret the world—those are treasures that can’t be taken away from you, treasures you should cherish.

Maybe you’re like me and you write about writing. Guess what?—there are hundreds of writing blogs out there. But there’s only one you.

Maybe you blog about technology, or education, or sports—it doesn’t matter what niche you’re in or what you’re writing about, what matters is you.

Take a look at the last few blog posts you wrote and read them aloud. Do they sound and feel like you, or could anyone have written them? If the answer is the latter, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity—you’re forgetting to be you.

Yes, content is king. Without something interesting to talk about, your readers won’t come—but without inserting yourself in your content, without weaving in your thoughts, your opinions, your voice into your blog, your readers won’t remember you. They’ll go to another blog with the same content and a better voice.

Don’t be just another blogger. You have something incredible and special and entirely unique because you are the secret ingredient. Isn’t it time your readers see it, too?

Ava Jae is a writer, artist and X-men geek. You can find her weekly musings on her blog Writability, follow her on Twitter, or check out her Facebook page.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The Secret Ingredient to a Successful Blog

What would you do if you knew you were going to get paid a large chunk of cash—up front, without any pre-conditions—to do something?

What would you do? How would you act? If it was something totally in the realm of your capabilities you’d get to work on it right away, right? You’d put in your best effort showcasing your greatest skills knowing that you were fluent in the information being asked for and sure that you would deliver a top notch product.

In other words, you would act like a pro.

So, what’s stopping you?

What’s stopping you, right now, from acting like an expert in your field? Everyone has something they can talk about naturally and authoritatively. Your gifts that only you possess is your uniqueness. Since you’re not like any other and no one else can be you; you have singular talents that you can share with the world that other people can benefit from.

If you’re an authority in an area you can start acting like one now. Your knowledge is desired by your community—or your tribe—even if you haven’t been acknowledged or paid for it yet.

I’m not talking of going around acting all cocky like a know-it-all. I’m telling you to hone in on what it is about you that, for instance, makes your friends be your friends. What keeps them coming back? What is it about you that makes you stand out?

That is your mojo—your gift that is golden. Tap into that, work it, develop it, and it can be your lifeblood, your golden ticket. That’s your genius spot, not like any one else’s, and you’re crazily selfish not to use it to your advantage to help yourself and, in turn, to help others.

Because I guarantee you, there are people out there that would kill for your particular gift. They’re waiting to hear from you. Oh, and they will also pay you for it.

So, let’s re-cap:

1. Act like a pro now.
2. Ask your friends what it is about you that brings them back for more.
3. Develop that and market that in yourself.
4. Help yourself.
5. And by helping yourself, help others as well.
6. Become a PAID expert in your field.

So … what is your unique gift that you’ve been hiding under a bushel basket? Have you dug deep to find it out? Ask your friends. They may have a surprising answer for you. And, leave me a comment below to tell me what it is!

Jean Compton is a writer and blogger who specializes in articles on meditation, de-stressing and changing your life. She has appeared on Problogger and Feelgooder, among other sites. You can find more of her inspiring posts on her blog at the above link.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Act Like a Pro

The pitches go like this: turn your archived content into an ebook that will rake in bucks while you sleep. Invest a weekend, maybe a few weeks, and you’ll have a book that will establish you as a thought leader and open the flood gates to new revenue streams.

But as my 85-year-old Dad asked when I told him I was writing an ebook: “Why would you write a book, now that everyone with a computer can?”

You’ve got to admit, that’s a good point from my 85-year-old Dad, who still makes money on his investments but sometimes can’t find his slippers.

Because everyone can now publish a book, lots more will. So your book has to be great. Make that spectacular. And don’t forget that you’re not only the source of the expertise and probably the writing. You will also be responsible for editing, page formatting, cover design, sales and much more.

Depending on your skill set and budget, you can pay for help from Createspace and other self-publishers, people you stumble across on the Internet or a marble-lobby public relations firm.

But for more of the work and most of the decisions, you are on your own.

Don’t get me wrong. I am tickled pink that more people can share their wisdom or art through ebooks and on-demand print. I’m simply advising you to go in with your eyes wide open, avoid the sleazier pitches, and think about some of these questions my Dad would ask.

• Are your goals achievable? If you want a book that makes money, it has to be good enough to compete with traditional publishers and the coming flood of self-published ebooks. If you are only interested in raising your prestige among a smaller group of people, you may set the bar a little, but not much, lower.
• Are you an expert? Ideally, you’ve been accumulating knowledge for years and updating your wisdom daily. If you’re not already passionate about a specific topic, don’t charge in.
• Do you have a unique approach? Like a product, your book has to offer something people can’t get anywhere else. In a world of countless niches, that might be relatively easy for you.
• Are you willing to invest time? If you are smart enough to have the expertise that makes a book worthwhile, likely you are not going to fall for the get-rich-quick charlatans.
• Can you write well? If you want to sharpen your skills, you can learn from many blogs, courses and books, including mine, Write Like You Talk—Only Better. If you’re a blogger, figure at least 30 to 50 quality posts on your theme that will then need to be edited, packaged, and sold.
• If your writing doesn’t measure up, are you prepared to spend the money and time on someone whose does? Most successful nonfiction authors who don’t eat, sleep, and breath writing pay big bucks to professional ghost writers, not a stranger whose site trumpets their rock-bottom prices. You get what you pay for, as my Dad would say. Unless you can find a 24/7 psychic ghost writer, you’ll also spend lots of time thinking about the theme and feeding your ghost writer your knowledge and revisions.
• Can you design the pages, cover and marketing collateral? Again, be prepared to pay for the kind of quality that will compete or at least spend the time to find the right online sources. Yes, templates are available, but much of what I viewed were woodlands or other looks that do not work for my cover. Right again, Dad. People do judge a book by its cover.
• Do you have a content marketing machine? You’ll need to spend lots more time feeding and building your social networks, courting legacy media and pursuing other strategies for marketing your book. Competition is stiff and getting stiffer. You have to do a lot more than sneeze in an elevator to go viral.

If there’s an ebook in your soul, go for it. I’m thrilled that the doors have opened. Just be prepared to pour in years of learning, months of prep time and days of fretting.

It has to be your best, not something you knocked off over a rainy weekend.

That’s how real money is made. Just ask my Dad.

Barb Sawyers, who blogs at Sticky Communication, is almost ready to publish in print and for ereaders the second edition of Write Like You Talk—Only Better. Preview it here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Questions My Dad Would Ask Before You Started that Ebook

I’ve published seven books in the past seven years, five with traditional publishers (Wiley, Penguin, HarperCollins), and the last two I’ve self-published.

In this post I give the specific details of all of my sales numbers and advances with the traditional publishers.

Although the jury is still out on my self-published books, How to be the Luckiest Man Alive and I Was Blind But Now I See (the latter was just published last month and is #2 for Motivation on Amazon’s Kindle store as I write this), I can tell you these two have already sold more than my five books published with traditional publishers, combined.

Image copyright photogl - Fotolia.com

1. Why self-publish, rather than use a traditional publisher?
2. Why bloggers should self-publish.
3. How to go about self-publishing.

Why self-publish?

• Advances are going to zero: Book publishers are getting more and more squeezed by declining booksellers so they, in turn, have to squeeze the writers. Because there’s so much free content on the Internet, the value per unit of content is going to zero unless you are already an established name-brand author.
• Lag time: When you self-publish, you can have your book up and running on Amazon, paperback, and Kindle within days. When you publish with a traditional publisher, it’s a grueling process—book proposal, agents, lawyers, meetings, edits, packaging, catalogs—that ensures that your book doesn’t actually get published until a year later. Literally, as I write this, a friend of mine IMed me the details of his book deal he just got with a mainstream publisher. Publication date: 2014.
• Marketing: Publishers claim they do a lot of marketing for you. That’s laughable. I’ll give you a very specific example. After I published with Penguin, they met with a friend of mine whose book they wanted to publish. They didn’t realize she was my friend. She asked them, “what marketing did you do for James Altucher’s book?” They said, “Well, we got him a review in The Financial Times and we got a segment about his book on CNBC and an excerpt in thestreet.com.” Here’s what’s so funny. I had a weekly column in The Financial Times. I wrote my own review. As a joke. I also had a weekly segment on CNBC. So naturally I spoke about my book during my regular segment. And I had just sold my last company to thestreet.com. So instead of doing my usual article for them, I did an excerpt from the book. In other words, I felt the publisher did nothing, but took credit for eveything. Ultimately, authors (unless you are, for example, Stephen King) have to do their own marketing for books. The first question publishers ask, even before they look at your proposal, is, “How big is your platform?” They want to know how you can market the book and if they can make money on just your own marketing efforts.
• Better royalties: When I self-publish I make about a 70% royalty instead of the 15% royalty I made with a traditional publisher. I also own 100% of the foreign rights, instead of 50%. I hired someone to sell the foreign rights to my work, and they get 20% (and no upfront fee).
• More control over content and design: Look at this cover, designed by a traditional publisher for me (this was my third book). It’s hideous. Now look at the cover for my last book. You may or may not like it, but it’s exactly what I wanted. Publishers even include in the contract that they have final say over the cover, and this is one detail they will not negotiate. Also, when you self-publish, you don’t have any teenage interns sending back editorial comments that you completely disagree with. You control your own content.

Why should bloggers self-publish?

• You have content: I have enough material in my blog right now (including my “Drafts” folder, which has 47 unpublished posts in it) to publish five more books over the next year. And I’m sure that number will increase over the next year as I write more posts.
• You have more to say. If you just take the posts (mentioned in the point above) and publish them, people will say, “he’s just publishing a collection of posts”. A couple of comments on that.
  1. So what? It’s okay if you are curating what you feel your best posts are. And for a small price, people can get that curation and read it in a different format. There’s value there.
  2. Don’t just take a collection of your posts. A blog post is typically 500-2000 words, but usually closer to 500. Do a bit more research for each post. Do intros and outros for each post. Make the chapters 3000-4000 words long. Make a bigger arc to the book by using original material to explain why this book, with these chapters, presented in this manner is a different read than the blog. Have a chapter specifically explaining how the book is different from the blog. With my last book, I had original material in each chapter, and several chapters that were completely original. Instead of it being a collection of posts, the overall book was about how we have been brainwashed in society, and how uncovering the brainwashing and using the techniques I describe can bring happiness. This was covered in a much more detailed fashion than the blog ever could, even though the material was inspired by several of my posts.
• Amazon is an extra platform for you to market your blog: Or vice versa. You won’t make a million dollars on your book (well, maybe you will—never say never) but just being able to say, “I’m a published author” extends your credibility as a writer when you go out there now to syndicate your blog elsewhere, or to get speaking engagements. And when you do a speaking engagement, you can now hand something out—your book! So Amazon and publishing become a powerful marketing platform for your overall writing/speaking/consulting career.
• Nobody cares: Some people want the credibility of saying “Penguin published me”. I can tell you from experience—nobody ever asked me who was my publisher.
• How will I get in bookstores? I don’t know. How will you? Traditional publishers can’t get you there either. Often bookstores will look at what’s hot on Amazon and then order the books wholesale from the publishers. In many cases, traditional publishers will take their most-known writers (so if you are in that category, congrats!) and pay to have them featured at a bookstore. As for my experience, my traditional publishers would get a few copies of my books in the bookstores of major cities (i.e. NYC and that’s it), but nothing more.

Okay, I’m convinced. How do I self-publish?

There’s lots of ways to do it, but I’ll tell you my experience.

First, write the book

For my last two self-published books, as I mentioned above, I took some blog posts, rewrote parts of them, added original material, added new chapters, and provided an overall arc as to what the book was about, as opposed to it just being a random collection of posts.

But, that said, you probably already have the basic material already.

Use Createspace.com

I used Createspace because it’s owned by Amazon and has excellent customer service. The team at Creatspace let you pick the size of your book and then have Microsoft Word templates that you download to format your book within.

For my first book I did this by myself. For my second book, for a small fee, I hired Alexanderbecker.net to format the book, create the book design, and create the final PDF that I uploaded. He also checked grammar, made proactive suggestions on fonts (sans serif instead of serif), and was extremely helpful.

Upload the PDF

Createspace approves it, picks an ISBN number, sends you a proof, and then you approve the proof.

Within days your book is available on Amazon

All of the above (from Createspace) was free. If I didn’t hire Alex to make the cover I could’ve used one of Createspace’s possible covers (I did that for my first book) and the entire publishing in paperback would be free.

Go to Kindle

With Kindle, Createspace charges $70—and they take care of everything until it’s uploaded to the Kindle store. Now your book is available in paperback and Kindle versions!

Marketing

• Readers of my blog who asked for it got the first 20 copies or so for free from me. Many of them then posted good reviews on Amazon to get the ball rolling.
• I’ve been handing out the books at speaking engagements. Altogether, I’ll do around ten speaking engagements, handing my latest book out.
• I write a blog post about how the bo0k is different from the blog and why I chose to go this route.
• Writing guests posts for blogs like ProBlogger helps, too, and I’m very grateful.
• Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+ are also very helpful.

Promotions

You’re in charge of your own promotions (as opposed to having a book publisher handling them for you). For instance, n a recent blog post I discussed the differences between my latest book and my blog, and I also offered a promotion that lets readers get my next self-published book (Bad Behavior, expected in Q1 2012) free.

Over the next year, I have five different books planned, all on different topics. I’m super-excited about them because I’m allowed to push the barrier in every area I’m interested in, and there’s nobody to stop me.

You can do this also. And you should do it. There are no more excuses in this environment. Do you have questions about self-publishing? Let us know in the comments!

James Altucher has written 7 books, has started and sold 3 businesses, and has blogged successfully this past year at jamesaltucher.com. He also writes for the WSJ and other media outlets. He exposes himself way too much on his blog.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Why Bloggers Should Self-Publish

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/11/18/why-bloggers-should-self-publish/feed/ 47 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/27/six-very-official-ways-to-improve-your-writing/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/27/six-very-official-ways-to-improve-your-writing/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:03:14 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/27/six-very-official-ways-to-improve-your-writing/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Six Very Official Ways to Improve Your Writing

]]> Looking to improve your blog writing? Today Shannon Paul ( @shannonpaul) from Very Official Blog gives her very official tips on the topic.

I love blogs. Before I started blogging seriously, I read a lot of other blogs and was very engaged as a reader. I commented a lot and began honing my ability to craft a statement quickly in response the ideas presented in the post. I’m still very engaged with other blogs in this way. However, if I’m being totally honest, most blogs I encounter are downright unreadable.

Now, I’m not going to run down the usual list of rules and grammar, but rather a list of things I think make me a decent writer.

1. Stop Trying to Sound Intelligent

You already are smart so stop trying to sound smart. So many people craft elaborate sentences with bigger words than they would ever use in conversation. If you have to use a lot of flower language, jargon or adjectives, you’re trying too hard. Choose your big words wisely. Blogs are not publications, they are conversations. Good writing is simple, but it’s hardly simple to write simply. Unlike speech and other forms of non-verbal communication, writing is a wholly unnatural activity unnecessary to human development or evolution. Give yourself a break and know that good writing is a process that must be practiced to be mastered.

2. Give yourself permission to write garbage

Do what you need to do to get your thoughts out — lead with some insipid quote from Albert Einstein, use a definition or some other tired cliche to get the words flowing and then take great pleasure in hitting delete or crossing it out when the time is right. Learn to let go…

3. Be a Ruthless Editor

Even the best ideas don’t always serve the overarching goal of the piece — get it out of there and save it for later if it’s really that good. Nine times out of ten, words like that and which can be crossed out without altering the meaning of the sentence one bit. By hacking away the extra, you’re making it much easier on the reader. Stop thinking of writing as putting words down on a page… writing is editing.

4. Use MIGHTY verbs


My journalism teacher would scream and writhe in agony in the classroom when we used what he called, “plankton verbs”, also known as “bottom-of-the-food-chain verbs”. Plankton verbs include: is, was, are and were. He would go so far as to restrict us from ever using these in an article and I don’t recommend you take such drastic measures when you’re writing, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind. Writing that lacks strong verbs gets boring fast.

5. Read aloud before posting

Another easy trick is to read what you write out loud. Things may seem self-explanatory in our head, but these are your words. If you find yourself stumbling over the words you just wrote, chances are you’re demanding too much work from your readers. Pare your sentences down.

6. Do what works for you

Everyone has his or her own process. I know a lot has been written about writing killer headlines and choosing keywords, but good content is at the soul of any great blog. Killer headlines may get the click, but good content will get people to stay awhile and maybe even choose to come back without the assistance of future keyword shenanigans.

Your Turn

By sharing these tips I thought I could clarify some of my own writing process and help others along the way. Since writing remains at the core of generating content, how do you hone your skills in a way that helps you clarify your voice for an online audience?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Six Very Official Ways to Improve Your Writing

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/27/six-very-official-ways-to-improve-your-writing/feed/ 145 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/16/whats-your-bread-and-butter/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/16/whats-your-bread-and-butter/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:41:59 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/16/whats-your-bread-and-butter/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


What’s Your Bread and Butter?

]]>

this guest post is by Dot Com Dud




In business, the phrase “Bread & Butter” is used to describe something that is core to the success of a business. A good example is a lawyer for whom divorce cases bring in the majority of their income, those cases are their Bread & Butter. Without these cases they would be struggling to fill their workload and bring in an income.

When it comes to posting quality content for your blog you should be careful not to forget your Bread & Butter either. In the case of blogs posts your Bread & Butter are usually posts which are regular features that tie-in to the core topic of the blog. By identifying these posts you can make your work as a blogger a lot easier as well as making your blog’s appeal to readers much more consistent.

Why are Bread & Butter posts important?

Bread & Butter posts help identify what your blog is about, they are the kind of posts that your regular readers will come to expect from your blog. These posts can become your blog’s trademark because readers will associate them with your blog and they will in turn become a part of your brand.

Another advantage of Bread & Butter posts is that you usually wont need a flash of inspiration to write a Bread & Butter post. You’ll know when they need to be posted and what they need to be about, so the hard part is done for you. Not only do they give your blog structure but they will help shape your work flow and the other posts around them.

Examples of Bread & Butter?

A well known example of Bread & Butter posts are income reports on Make Money Online blogs. These work because they appeal to the targeted audience of the MMO niche and they can be relied upon to get the attention of readers.

Some other examples of common Bread & Butter posts on blogs of different topics include;

Progress Updates – These don’t have to be on Make Money blogs only, there are a lot of personal development blogs that would be ideal for regular progress updates.

Regular Reviews – Movies, weekly TV shows, sporting matches etc. Anything that occurs often or on a regular schedule is ideal for posts like this and can be easily used as a basis for an entire blog.

Reoccurring Prizes – If you give away prizes on a regular basis, you can utilise these to create Bread & Butter posts. For each competition you can include an announcement posts, a sponsor “shout out”, a prize update (planned from the start) and naturally the prize drawing. Contests can also feed into progress update posts if they are long running or have specif criteria for the entrants to be informed of (such as a points scoreboard).

Weekly Roundups – Not everyone agrees with the value of having regular posts consisting solely of link lists to your week’s best posts or news from around your niche but they are common enough and usually become a staple for the blog that use them.

Whats your Bread & Butter?

The answer to this question will be different for almost every blog out there, what is important is knowing how to identify the kinds of posts that make up your core blog content.

Once you’ve done this you can start planning your content around them and focus on what makes them successful, so that you can adapt this into new potential Bread & Butter posts.

Ask Yourself:

• Which posts are the most popular? Follow your readers!
• Look at your categories and see which have the most content, these posts already make up your core content
• Are you repeatedly posting about the same topic, why not make them a permanent feature?

You can also run a survey with your readers to find out their favorite posts and what they’d like to see more of. It’s important to remember that a potential post must have longevity if it’s going to become reoccurring content.

In closing, I have only written about the Bread & Butter concept in regards to blog posts but there are plenty of other areas that this idea can be applied to. There are Bread & Butter advertisers, traffic sources, affiliate programs and more but the goal is the same; find out what works, what is reliable and repeatable, then use it to your advantage!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


What’s Your Bread and Butter?

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/16/whats-your-bread-and-butter/feed/ 46 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/11/the-unlimited-freelancer-ebook-review/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/11/the-unlimited-freelancer-ebook-review/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:01:16 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/11/the-unlimited-freelancer-ebook-review/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


The Unlimited Freelancer [Ebook Review]

]]> I recently asked my followers on Twitter how many of them were currently looking for more work. The response was overwhelming with many expressing that they were looking at different types of freelance work.

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

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

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

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

The e-book covers three main topics.

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

Lets look at each in turn.

Systems, Software, and Automation

The Unlimited Freelancer cover processes for:

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

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

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

Building a Freelance Team

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

This includes:

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

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

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

Revenue-Generating Assets

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

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

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

Combine Strategies for Unlimited Potential

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

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

Would I recommend it?

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

This book isn’t for:

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

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

Over to you

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

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

Learn more about this resource at The Unlimited Freelancer.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


The Unlimited Freelancer [Ebook Review]

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/11/the-unlimited-freelancer-ebook-review/feed/ 24 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/09/a-freelance-writer-is-always-full-of-ideas/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/09/a-freelance-writer-is-always-full-of-ideas/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:01:06 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/09/a-freelance-writer-is-always-full-of-ideas/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


A Freelance Writer is Always Full of Ideas

]]> Running out of ideas to write about? If so – Sean Platt from Writer Dad and Ghost Writer Dad has some words of encouragement and advice for you.

The demands of running an online business or blog can be daunting. The writing requirements are easy enough at first, as our passion is inflamed and mental stamina untested. Soon enough our spirits are tested and we hit that invisible retaining wall that every blogger eventually finds themselves colliding against.

What on earth will I write about today? Our dashboard grows suddenly daunting and we wonder if we will ever pull another original thought from inside us. There isn’t any need to worry, for that is a well that has no bottom.

There are no limits to our thoughts, they are as endless as the breath we draw from the air that constantly swirls around us. In the past year, I’ve written the rough draft of a novel, a couple dozen children’s books, a manuscript for a young adult book, a few e-books, more than three hundred articles and archives of emails I could probably only count with a calculator.

At first, these articles were either written for my main site, Writer Dad, or guest posts related in some way. Once I entered the world of freelance, I was game to tap the keys over just about anything. In the last few months I’ve authored articles on everything from Alzheimer’s to zoology.

Do I ever run out of things to say?

No, of course not, but sometimes I find it difficult to stare down the blank page. That first slap of black smeared across the empty is always most difficult. Once I let my mind start to wander, it doesn’t matter if I’m talking green grass or gas grills, I can always settle on a perspective that is truly my own.

No blogger should ever fret for lack of fresh ideas. Running thought to vapor is inherently impossible. Once you hold the basic mechanics of writing, only your ideas need mining. Believe me, like running water you need only turn on the faucet.

When you find yourself deep in an inevitable dearth of good ideas, kick down the temporary wall in front of you. Head outside your blog and breathe the fresh atmosphere of a varied environment. Hop on the phone with a buddy, take a walk around the block; read a book or listen to some tunes. If you feel like staying in, fine, spend fifteen minutes in a favorite forum or tweeting on twitter, but feed your brain as best you can.

Our mind is easily inspired, but we cannot starve it and then expect it to feel fat.

Don’t worry about saying what someone else has said before. Your thoughts will mutate the message into something unique to you. Similar stories have been spread for thousands of years, but it is the voice inside each that makes them worth retelling.

Don’t worry about repeating yourself. We all do it. I’m doing it right now. Deja Vu doesn’t matter, so long as you’re spreading your message in a slightly different way (hopefully better then the last time) to a slightly different audience. Make sure you’re honest, passionate and fully articulate to the best of your ability.

I admit, the only times I find it difficult to fly is when I have next to zero interest in work beyond the paycheck. Even then the solution is simple. When I find myself faced with a subject that does little to light my imagination, I slip in through the back door. A quick Google search will yield a wealth of stories on any given subject. I find one that leaves me inspired, read it, then hit the keys renewed.

Writing is my profession. Like any job, it isn’t always fun. Sometimes it’s necessary to bend my beak to the page and peck away until finished. Even at my most tired, when fear and doubt and worry come to crawl between my ears and worm inside my mind, at least I know a lack of ideas will never suspend my momentum.

Being a writer means my thoughts are always bouncing about with barely any boundaries. Doing it for a living means I need to make sure I grab hold of every one worth writing about.

Sean Platt is a dad and freelance writer. You can grab his feed here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


A Freelance Writer is Always Full of Ideas

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/09/a-freelance-writer-is-always-full-of-ideas/feed/ 50 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/01/how-to-develop-a-niche-blog-content-plan/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/01/how-to-develop-a-niche-blog-content-plan/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:37:33 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/01/how-to-develop-a-niche-blog-content-plan/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


How to Develop a Niche Blog Content Plan

]]> Jonathan Thomas is a blogger and social media marketer that runs several successful niche blogs such as: Anglotopia - The world’s largest Anglophile blog. You can connect with him on Twitter: @jonathanwthomas

The best way to build traffic for a new niche blog is to have lots of content and to post it regularly. Many new bloggers don’t realize this and are often disappointed with their traffic when they start out. They write a post or two a week and the traffic just isn’t increasing. It’s demotivating and makes you question whether or not you should waste your time niche blogging.

To help generate steady traffic and attract loyal readers, you need to have a content schedule. This could mean blogging five or seven days a week or it could mean just posting on the same two days of the week. Your readers want to know when to expect new stuff from you. So, why is it good for your niche blog to have a content plan and how should you develop it?

Why do you need a Content Plan?

Having a content schedule helps build loyal readership. If you write about specific things on specific days, readers will know when to come back. Readers will also take you more seriously if you have a methodical plan behind the blog, that is they know it’s not just the aimless ramblings of a procrastinator. It will help foster community and turn your blog into a favorite amongst your audience. A content plan keeps people coming back for more, especially with Niche Blogs.

Time Management

A content plan also helps you manage your time. When starting a blog, you’re often awash with tons of ideas for posts. So many, that you quickly get burnt out as the drudgery or writing about the same things sets in. If you organize your blog into content categories, you can spend your time focusing on several targeted ideas a week, as opposed to hundreds. This will fill your blog with relevant content to your niche, increasing the likelihood that people will find you via the search engines.

Good Habits

A content plan also helps to create good blogging habits. To maintain a successful niche blog community, you need to regularly update your blog (and not just with blog posts), respond to comments and overall monitor the site. You’ll create a production state of mind – meaning that you’ll get in the habit of writing a post a day, or even writing them all in one day and scheduling them to post. This will make the creation process much easier to begin and end.

Establishes Niche Authority

If you’re regularly writing about particular subjects, the sheer amount of content that this creates will establish your authority in your niche subject. Who are you going to trust more? The blog with a few sparse posts written at odd times, with very little information? Or the blog that is filled with relevant content to the subject your interested in that ‘s updated in a methodical fashion?

Helps with Ideas for posts

Often, as you write in a more regimented, methodical fashion, you’ll come up with even more ideas for relevant posts. Then, you’ll find yourself altering your own content plan to fit in new and interesting ideas.

How to Develop Your Content Plan

The first step in developing your niche blog content plan is to sit and think long and hard about what you want your blog to be. Do you want to be a rockstar in your niche? Or do you want to be part of the scenery? Or do you just want a creative outlet?

If you want your niche blog to take over the world, then you need to post every day (and maybe more than once a day).

If you want to a part of a larger niche community, post 2 to 3 times a week.

If you just want a creative outlet, then post once or twice a week, depending on how the mood moves you but be sure to make sure it’s the same days.

What are Others Doing?

Research is so important when building your blog. Hopefully, you found people blogging about the same things as you. What are they doing? Do they have a schedule? What do they regularly write about? What are they doing wrong? And then ask the most important question a niche blogger faces:

How can you do it better?

Think About your Niche

Think long and hard about what interests you so much about your niche subject. What would you like to read about? Compare to your competition. Find some way to differentiate yourself while still focusing on the subjects that interest you the most. If you lack passion for any of your posts, it will show in your writing and will turn off readers.

Then think about how you can express your interest the most effective way. Think about the types of posts you’d like to write. That can be lists, interviews, reviews, features, videos, etc. Keep those in mind when it comes time to layout your content schedule.

Features and Small Posts

There are two types of posts that are relevant to niche blogs, features and small posts. Features are long posts (like this one) that focus on a subject and develop it fully (essay like, lists, interviews, etc). A small post is much shorter and focused on something that can be digested quickly (a video, photo slideshow, 2-3 paragraph post, etc).

You need to ask yourself what your feature to small post ratio will be. You will probably get burnt out if you post a long feature every day. Similarly, you niche blog may get stale if you only write quick short posts and don’t give your readers something MORE. Features are also more likely to gain attention on social media sites than a short post.

So, how many feature posts can you write for a week? How many short posts? It’s been my experience that one or two features is plenty for the week while 3 to 4 small posts will keep things interesting.

Always be Ahead

The most important aspect of developing a content schedule is to always be ahead of yourself. If your posts aren’t time sensitive, then schedule them out a week or two in advance. This will ensure that if anything comes up, you have a post going out no matter what.

Have a Backup

It’s not a bad idea to have a well full of articles that haven’t been published in your back pocket to use when you have nothing else to write about. It could be a longer feature you’re waiting for the right time to post or an idea your still wrapping your head around. Having these types of posts will help you when you’ve hit Blogging Burnout and can’t bear writing for a couple days.

Choose the days of the week you want to post

When planning your content schedule, keep in mind that there are blogging cycles during the week. There are days when your traffic will be down, such as Monday or Friday. People are getting back into the week on Mondays and people are exiting the week on Fridays. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best days of the week to have big, content rich posts go out.

On some of my blogs, I use Friday as a link roundup day. I write about cool links that I found that don’t warrant their own post, but are worth sharing. On Monday, I usually put out a video or quick tip. Something light. Save the meat for the middle of the week when more people are paying attention.

Choose themed days

Some people might think it’s lame to picked themed days, but it’s a very effective way for people to remember your niche blog. For example, on Niche Blogger Today I have Theme Tuesday, WordPress Wednesday, Technical Thursday, SEO Sunday, etc. It immediately lets people know what the column is about and gets them interested. I also recommend creating separate categories for each of these themed days, that way someone can find your themed posts all in one place when they are browsing your site. It’s not a bad idea to create category links for your themed days in your blog sidebar.

When should you schedule posts to post?

I’ve already talked about choosing the right days to post but what time of the day is it best to post? A general rule of thumb is to set your scheduled posts to go out mid-morning. People often are looking for something to read after they’ve settled at their desks with their cups of coffee. Also, by posting in the morning you’re more likely to get somewhere on social media sites because your content will be in front of people’s eyeballs for most of the day.

Always Double Check

Many bloggers don’t think of it, but they should be subscribed to their own blog feed. That way they will know if their scheduled post has gone up at the right time as well as making sure it’s formatted correctly. It’s also a great way to spot errors that can be fixed before your post hits critical mass. Also visit your own blog. Make sure the posts display correctly, respond to comments and interact with your readers. Engagement will keep them coming back.

Tweak

If something in your content schedule isn’t working, then by all means don’t be afraid to change your plan. If your regular posts on the mating habits of feral cats are not bringing in the traffic you expected, shift the topic into another category. Your niche blog should be an ever changing, ever growing organism that can change as quickly as it needs to in order to stay relevant.

What Strategies have Worked for You in Developing a Content Plan?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


How to Develop a Niche Blog Content Plan

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/03/01/how-to-develop-a-niche-blog-content-plan/feed/ 67 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/26/7-ways-to-keep-fresh-content-flowing-on-your-blog/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/26/7-ways-to-keep-fresh-content-flowing-on-your-blog/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:03:33 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/26/7-ways-to-keep-fresh-content-flowing-on-your-blog/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


7 Ways to Keep Fresh Content Flowing On Your Blog

]]> This is the third post in a series on taking your blog to the next level.

Image by …rachel…

“How do I keep posts flowing on my blog?”

This is a question that most bloggers face at one point or another – particularly bloggers who have been blogging for 6-12 months.

The reality is that there comes a point where most bloggers feel either uninspired, unmotivated, that they’ve got ‘bloggers block’ or that they’ve said everything that there is to say on their chosen topic. This is something that we’ve all felt at one time or another – so what does a blogger do about it?

The first thing that I want to encourage you with is that all is not lost. Every blogger has this challenge at one point or another (in fact most of us face it regularly) and it is possible to break through it. They key is to persist through the tough times – something that many bloggers do not do.

At this point it is important to sit down and work out how you will generate content going forward. There are a number of strategies that come to mind for doing so – all of these I’ve used at different points and I hope that some will give you inspiration and a way forward:

1. Mind Mapping

My favorite technique for coming up with new topics is using mind maps. I outline my mind mapping technique here but in short the technique is that you take one post idea (one from your archives perhaps) and then brainstorm ways that that topic can be expanded upon into numerous new topics. You then take some of those new ideas and think about ways that they too can be expanded upon into new posts. This technique can literally help you identify hundreds of new topics to write about.

Whether you use Mind mapping or some other kind of brainstorming technique the key is to set time aside to do it. I try to do this at the start of each week and find that if I do that the writing task for the week ahead is a lot smoother – sometimes just coming up with the ideas is as hard as the writing of posts.

2. Involve Readers

One of the resources that a blog who has an established readership has (remember we’re writing this series for these types of blogs) is that it has a knowledge based within it’s readership that can be drawn upon in a variety of creative ways to help create content for your blog. There are a lot of ways to do this – but here are a few:

• Guest Posts – in every 100 or so readers there is bound to be 1 that has the knowledge, expertise, motivation and skill to contribute posts to your blog. The key is to identify them and give them the confidence to contribute a post to your blog. Pay particular attention to those leaving comments on your blog. You’ll find that some comments just go the extra mile and contain wisdom and depth that are not far off being the standard of actual blog posts. Also don’t be afraid to invite contributions by writing post asking for guest posts or having a page linked in your navigation inviting contributions.
• Reader Questions - stuck for a topic to write about? Ask your readers to ask questions. A post inviting reader questions can draw out some great ideas to write about.
• Community Written Posts – one of the things that I’m loving about Digital Photography School at the moment is that some of our best posts are actually ones that our readers provide the majority of the content and teaching for. My role is not to ‘write’ the content for these posts – but to ask a question and set some boundaries for a discussion – and then open it up for readers to add their suggestions. Examples: How do I take band promotional photos?, How Would You Photograph a Funeral? and How to Photograph Grandma?

3. Explore new ‘Voices’

One way to break out of a rut as a blogger is to experiment with new types and styles of posts. Sometimes doing so can unleash creativity and new ideas. So if the majority of your posts are ‘tips’ posts – try an opinion piece. If you always write ‘news’ type posts – why not try something with a bit of humor or controversy.

Further Reading: I’ve outlined 20 types of blog posts for bloggers battling bloggers block here to give you a little inspiration.

4. Update Previous Posts and Topics

Even after a few months of blogging you can hit a point where you feel like you’ve covered most topics in your niche. Many bloggers get to this point and simply give up the blog – however I’ve found that most posts that I’ve written in the past can be expanded upon, updated, improved or rewritten with fresh insight.

Also keep in mind that many of your old posts will only have been read by long term readers and your new readers will not have seen these posts.

Further Reading: The Why and How of Updating old Blog Posts.

5. Guest Posts

The decision to allow guest posters onto your blog has both good arguments for and against it – but it is certainly one way to keep the flow of content going on a blog when you’re a little low on inspiration or don’t have enough time on your hands to be writing content (see also Why Guest Bloggers are Great for a Blog).

Getting people to submit guest posts on a blog is not always achievable when a blog is very young and the blog has little profile – but once you gather a readership and build your reputation as a growing community it becomes easier to attract contributions from other bloggers and freelance writers looking to grow their own profile.

If you’re new to the idea of finding guest posters for a blog – start with your own readers (as described above – look in the comments section of your blog) and then also look at other blogs in your niche or even forums that are on a similar topic to your blog. I’ve also had some real success lately with finding guest posts for Digital Photography School from non bloggers, particularly pro photographers who are looking for a little extra exposure to their business sites.

Further Reading: How to Find a Guest Blogger for Your Blog

6. Hiring Writers

Another way to approach bringing others onto your blog as writers is to look at hiring a blogger (or team of bloggers) to help you create content for your blog. This has some cost associated with it – but can (if you do it right) increase the quality and frequency of posts as well as decreasing some of the admin of relying upon guest posts.

I’ve hired a small team of writers for DPS who I pay on a per post basis (as well as giving them exposure in the posts that they write) and have found this experience to be well worthwhile. For a start it has attracted a good caliber of writer to the blog, increased the knowledge base and expertise of the writing, added to the variety of topics we can cover and increased the frequency with which we can post.

When it comes to hiring writers – I’d advise starting with your current reader base – you might find that some of your regular readers would take on a regular writing job for a little financial reward. Another approach is to look at other bloggers on your topic or to even advertise on a job board like the ProBlogger Job board. I advertised for my team of writers almost 18 months ago and had so many great applicants that I couldn’t use them all and most of them still write weekly posts for me today.

Another quick tip on hiring writers – you can also hire them for short periods. As long as you’re up front about the length of the period that you’re hiring for I’ve found that bringing on a staff writer for a couple of months when you know you’re going to be away or have your attention on another project can be well worthwhile doing.

Further Reading: How to Advertise for a Blogger

7. Develop an editorial calendar

One technique that can help a blog grow beyond its infancy is to begin to think longer term about the content that you produce. I personally find that when I only think a day ahead about the content for my blog that it can be difficult to build momentum in the content that I’m writing. It’s also difficult to keep coming up with topics.

A way to help overcome this is to set aside time either on a weekly or even a monthly basis to map out the direction for your content in the period ahead.

This enables you to do some brainstorming/mindmapping (see point #1 above) and set the course for your blog. Doing this takes some discipline and can feel like a chore when you sit down to do it but the result is that it gives you a lot of freedom and can take the burden of having to come up with topics from your shoulders.

I find that the months I set out a plan for the content on my blogs are much better than the months that I do not. I usually find on these months that I end up writing a series of posts and that readers really respond well to the momentum that I build.

Another spin on the idea of an editorial calendar that I know some bloggers have a lot of success with is to set different ‘styles’ of posts for each day of the week. For example:

• Monday might be ‘tips’ day where you write a ‘how to’ or ‘tip’ related post
• Tuesday might be ‘review’ day where you review a product related to your topic
• Wednesday might be ‘news’ day where you summarize the latest news in your niche
• Thursday might be ‘link’ day where you link up to another blog in your niche
• Friday might be ‘opinion’ day where you express your opinion on a topic
• Saturday might be ‘reader discussion’ day where you post a question or poll for readers to interact with
• Sunday might be ‘from our archives’ day where you highlight an old post on your blog

The sky is the limit in terms of the types of posts that you write (look at the 20 types of blog posts list that I mention above for other types to consider) – the key is to find types of posts that are relevant to your topic and that readers respond well to. This might feel a little contrived or structured for some bloggers, but I find that many bloggers find it to be a freeing experience, particularly to get them through a tough period.

What Would You Add?

I have literally scratched the surface with this post on how to keep fresh content flowing on your blog. I’m certain that among the readership of ProBlogger that there are a lot more ideas – if you’ve got one, please add it to the comments below. Together we can break though this ‘bloggers block’!

Further Reading: Battling Bloggers Block – a compilation of a series of 25 strategies that are designed to help you get through bloggers block.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


7 Ways to Keep Fresh Content Flowing On Your Blog

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/26/7-ways-to-keep-fresh-content-flowing-on-your-blog/feed/ 145 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/24/build-upon-your-strengths-as-a-blogger/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/24/build-upon-your-strengths-as-a-blogger/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:08:18 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/24/build-upon-your-strengths-as-a-blogger/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Build Upon Your Strengths as a Blogger

]]> This post belongs to the ‘taking your blog to the next level‘ series which looks at tips for bloggers whose blogs have got a start but want to take it up a notch. Read the intro here.



Analyze why Readers Come to your Blog….. and then Build on It

The first thing that I’d highly recommend medium sized bloggers do when I speak with them is to set aside some time to analyze the current performance of their blog and particularly to focus upon the successes and strengths that the blog has.

While there’s a lot to be said for identifying a blogs weaknesses in order to improve I think many bloggers spend so much time working on improving the negatives (patching holes and fixing problems) that they fail to build upon their successes.

Here’s a ‘secret’ of success that I’ve observed in quite a few successful bloggers…

They don’t do everything well, but what they do do well they keep doing it over and over again.

3 Examples of Blogs that Build Upon their Successes

Many successful blogs illustrate this principle. Let’s take a quick look at three:



• I Can Has Cheezburger – these guys are geniuses, I don’t know when they discovered that putting captions on pictures of cats would draw hundreds of thousands of readers to a blog – but when they did they focused upon that. Their blog design might not be the sexiest and they rarely write a post with more than a handful of words – but they worked out what their readers wanted and kept giving it to them. In fact they’ve taken the LOLcat formula and have rolled it out for Dogs, Celebrities, News and Politics etc.



• Post Secret - in some ways this is a similar story to I can has Cheezburger – Frank discovered that the idea of posting people’s ‘secrets’ on postcards captured people’s imagination. Again – I’m not sure where the idea came from but Frank latched onto it and has continued to keep his blog focused upon what works. In fact he’s expanded the idea into books and traveling exhibitions – all focusing upon the same thing – postcard secrets.



• Smashing Magazine – this blog has seen incredible growth in the last year or two and a lot of it is by building upon what works. If you analyze their posts you see certain types of posts that are repeated again and again. Check out their post 35 examples of animals photography for example – a post filled with great images on a theme. They do these weekly and they always generate lots of interest on social media sites. In fact this ‘list’ type post isn’t just photographic – they do lists of tips, resources etc. They’ve worked out what types of posts work with their readers and they continue to apply it again and again.

I could go on with most successful blogs. They identify something that works and repeat it over and over again. This doesn’t mean that they simply repeat the same content – the key to their success is to find new ways to apply the same formulae.

So what has worked on your blog? How can you do it again and even improve upon it?

Let’s Get to Work and Do Some Analysis

Here are some questions to ponder to help you to identify these points of energy on your blog that could be worth expanding upon:

Questions about Content

• What posts have had the most traffic to them?
• What posts have had the most comments?
• What posts got the most links from other blogs?
• What posts did better than others on social media sites?

When you’ve compiled a list of these posts that did better than others – do some analysis of WHY they did well.

• Was it the topic?
• Was it the style of post?
• Was it the title that you used?
• Was it the use of an image?
• Was it the posts length?
• Was it the use of humor?

There could be any number of factors that contributed to a post’s success – but there’s usually one or two that stand out. Do this analysis on a number of successful posts and you might just discover that the same things come into play in each case. Identify what these factors are and you’re in a great position to develop more of this type of content.

Questions about Traffic

Another type of analysis to do is asking questions around the ‘source’ of current traffic to your blog.

• What are the top sources of traffic to your blog?
• What other blogs or sites are linking to your content?
• What social media sites seem to be liking your content?
• What search engines send you traffic?
• What keywords are people arriving on your site as a result of searching for

Looking at the source of traffic coming to your blog is a powerful technique to help you grow your blog further.

I’ve found that when you see a significant source of traffic to a blog that there are almost always ways to build that traffic further. For example:

• When you notice a lot of traffic coming to certain posts from Google it can be helpful to optimize those pages for the keywords people are searching for to increase the traffic (looking at keyword density, linking to the page from other parts of your blog with good anchor text, tweaking titles etc).
• When you notice another blog linking up to yours there’s an opportunity to build a relationship with that blog. Get to know the blogger, thank them for the link, submit other posts that they might find useful, link up to them etc
• When you notice a social media site has been sending traffic it is a signal for you to get involved in that site. You might want to do some analysis on the type of content that does well on that site, you could educate your current readers on how to use the site, it might be worth adding a ‘voting’ button from that site to encourage readers to vote for you etc.
• When you get a lot of traffic for certain keywords from search engines it can be a hint to write more content on that topic. Pay particular attention to ‘questions’ that people are typing into search engines as these can be ready made post titles and topics to write about.

Identify Your Blogs Successes and Strengths

In this post I’ve only unpacked two types of strengths and successes that a blog might build upon (ie traffic sources and types of posts) – but there are of course a lot more. The same principles apply – once you identify something that you’re good at or something that people are responding to on your blog – keep doing it. It doesn’t mean that you can’t explore other things or improve upon weaknesses – but spend as much time building upon your success as you do in fixing weaknesses and I think you’re probably onto a good thing.

Tomorrow we’ll continue this series of posts on taking your blog to the next level by looking at converting first time readers into loyal ones.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Build Upon Your Strengths as a Blogger

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/24/build-upon-your-strengths-as-a-blogger/feed/ 57 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/21/seven-expert-tips-for-outstanding-web-writing/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/21/seven-expert-tips-for-outstanding-web-writing/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:17:13 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/21/seven-expert-tips-for-outstanding-web-writing/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Seven Expert Tips For Outstanding Web Writing

]]> Today Ali from Ali Adventures (and other blogs) shares some tips on writing for the web.

You’re an experienced blogger. You know all the basics: you’ve read all about writing useful and unique content, and all your posts use subheadings, thoughtfully bolded text and bullet-pointed lists to be as reader-friendly as possible.

But could you be doing more? I spent two years working in an IT company, with overall charge of documentation, and these are some of my top tips for outstanding articles that deliver a brilliant experience for your readers.

In a world of Stumbles, Digging and Tweets, the few seconds after a reader arrives on your blog are vital, and the first post they see must provide a great reading experience.

1. Set Line Spacing to At Least 130% (1.3em, 16pt)

One of the most irritating mistakes on a blog – and one of the easiest to fix – is having lines of text that are too cramped up. Small clear text is fine, but scrunched-together lines make your posts look heavy and uninviting.

Check your blog’s stylesheet and look for a section (probably in “post” or “entry”) which specifies the default line-height in posts on your blog. It should look something like this:

.entry { font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.65em; }

If your lines are too cramped, change the “line-height” to a higher value. It’ll be an em (like mine), a percentage or a pt value (like font size). You can find out more on the W3Schools line-height page, or convert between em, percentages, pixels (px) and points (pt) at http://pxtoem.com/www.pxtoem.com.

2. Offer a Printer Friendly Version of Posts

With longer posts, or a series of post, it’s nice to provide a printer-friendly or downloadable version. One simple way to do this is to compile the post(s) into a pdf, and offer a downloadable link. (You can use software such as pdf995 to create pdfs for free.)

Think about which posts readers might want to print: perhaps detailed instructions, or posts which require a lot of concentration when reading.

Another ways of doing this is to install a plugin such as WP-Print that automatically generates a printer friendly version. A lot of big sites (such as newspapers’ websites) offer a “print this page” button, so it could make your blog seem more “pro” to a reader.

3. Mix Lists and Paragraphs

Bullet-pointed lists are great for getting your message across quickly and clearly. But if your whole article consists of lists, readers are likely to feel as though you’ve just written an outline and presented it as a complete post.

A lot of lists can also make the text look “choppy” on the page, as the reader’s eyes will skip from one to the next.

Try having a few short lists, then a couple of full paragraphs. The variety both in the writing style and in the visual look on the screen will help keep the reader’s attention – increasing the chances that they’ll read right to the end of your posts.

4. Use On-Page Anchors

If you’ve written a long post with several subsections, it’s worth putting links at the top so the reader can navigate around the post easily. These are called “anchors”, and you can find out full details here.

To use an anchor in your post, switch to the HTML view, and put the following near the top of the post, where you want the list of links (the “myanchor” text can be anything you want, but it should be preceded by a hash symbol):

<a href=”#myanchor”>Jump straight to an anchor</a>

Then, wrap these tags around the heading of the relevant section. (Note that this time, “myanchor” does not have a hash symbol.)

<a name=”myanchor”>Section heading</a>

Using anchors is particularly important if some of your post might not be relevant to everyone reading; for example, if you’ve written a list of “Online resources for designers, writers and programmers”, it would make sense to save your readers from wearing out their scroll wheel. You could give links at the top like this:

• Resources for designers
• Resources for writers
• Resources for programmers

5. Use Links Generously

As well as using links in places where they’re considered “necessary” (linking back to previous posts of yours on the topic, acknowledging the source of images, linking to blogs you’re quoting from), try thinking of links as gifts to your readers. One of my blogging friends, Sid Savara, wrote recently in an email to me:

I try to link not just as a source, but for sort of “Easter Eggs.” That is, each link in my article can lead someone down a whole new rabbit hole.

This is exactly the right attitude. Readers who feel delighted by the richness of your posts, and who have found extra resources through your links, are likely to come back to your blog for more.

6. Use the Title Tag for Links

If you put a title tag in your link, readers can get extra information about the link when they hover over it. This is especially useful if you’re linking words in the middle of a sentence to a different blog post, as the post often won’t have the same title as the linking word.

You can set the title to anything you want. It’s often useful to give the title of the post or page you’re linking to, along with the name of the blog it’s on (if it’s not your own one). If you’ve set the link to open in a new window, it’s helpful to mention this in the title tag too.

To add the title to a link using a visual editor, click to edit the link, and look for an option called “Title”.

To add a title in HTML code, add it like this:

<a href=”http://www.problogger.net” title=”ProBlogger site”>

7. Create a Style Guide

The IT company I worked for had a “style guy” that covered everything from how titles were capitalised to how “alt” tags should be used on images (for accessibility purposes). Your writing will look more polished and professional if you’re consistent: for example, do you use single or double quotes? Do you capitalise words like “Government” and “Senate”? Do you write “website” or “web site”?

It’s worth creating a simple style guide for your own blog. This doesn’t need to be a huge task – you can just add to it as you go along.

If you have guest posters, or if you employ writers to work for you, you could give them your style guide and ask them to keep to your house style – to make sure that posts are consistent.

Do you have a tip for writing outstanding content that wows readers by being easy-to-read and looking professional? Share it in the comments!

About the Author: Ali is a freelance blogger and writes for a number of popular blogs (see her current list here). If you’d like to hire her, drop her an email at ali@aliventures.com.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


Seven Expert Tips For Outstanding Web Writing

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/21/seven-expert-tips-for-outstanding-web-writing/feed/ 58 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/20/a-secret-to-writing-posts-that-go-viral-on-twitter/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/20/a-secret-to-writing-posts-that-go-viral-on-twitter/#comments Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:18:44 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/20/a-secret-to-writing-posts-that-go-viral-on-twitter/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter

]]> There are many reasons that a blog post might get spread widely through ‘ReTweets’ (when one person passes on the tweet of another) but one fairly obvious, yet often overlooked one, has to do with the length of your blog post title.

Yesterday on TwiTip I published a post with a formula for getting ReTweeted on twitter. You can read the full thing for yourself but the author of the post (@louisedoherty) proposed that to increase the chances of one of your tweets being ReTweeted that you need to keep your own tweet shorter than the 140 characters allowed by Twitter so that the person can include other information (your username, the @ symbol and the letters RT).

I’ve seen the wisdom of theory of Louise many times in my own use of Twitter. If I tweet something that is the maximum of 140 characters it make it more tricky for followers to retweet – they either have to change my tweet or don’t do it.

OK – so this applies to bloggers how?

Twitter can send you a lot of traffic if a link to one of your posts gets spread around via ReTweeting. Just look at the Top 100 Retweeted Links on Twitter at the moment – as I write this the top one has been passed on 331 times which means it is a link that could have been viewed on Twitter by many thousands of people.

To help the ReTweet thing along a little keep your titles short. They don’t need to be 3 words long – but keep in mind that when someone is going to tweet a link to your post that they will usually include:

1. The title of your post

2. A URL (often shortened using tinyurl or some other shortening service which means it’ll be anything from 20 to 26 characters)

They may also want to include a comment about your link.

That’s not all you want to think about – you then should consider that for the link to be ReTweeted it will include all of the above information plus:

1. The username of the person being retweeted with the @ symbol (usually 5-12 characters)

2. The letters RT and sometimes a : as well as a space after it (3-4 characters)

You can see that the number of characters is starting to add up so shorter Titles can definitely help.

Lets workshop it:

• The title of this post is ‘A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter ‘ – that’s 52 characters (with space at end)
• Lets say that the URL is shortened with Twurl – that’s 22 characters
• Lets say that the person tweeting it adds the words ‘Reading: ‘ at the start of the tweet (9 characters with space) and ‘ – cool post’ at the end (12 characters with spaces).

So far the original tweet is 95 characters long.

And would look like: ‘Reading: A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter http://twurl.nl/qejpzq – Cool Post’

Lets just say it was @chrisbrogan who made the above tweet. As Chris has a lot of great followers at least one of them is bound to retweet it.

At the very least their retweet would read:

‘RT: @chrisbrogan Reading: A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter http://twurl.nl/qejpzq – Cool Post’

We’re still under the limit of 140 and with 29 characters to spare could have added a few words to our title.

This is not something that I would spend a lot of time on and I would not compromise my titles too much to get them down in character length – however as someone who has seen significant traffic from Twitter over the last 6 months it is definitely a factor that I keep in the back of my mind as I blog.

PS: another reason to keep titles down in length is that Google has a cut off of 70 characters when it displays page titles in search results. A title over 70 characters gets chopped off mid title which could decrease the chances of someone clicking it. I’m told that other search engines cut off titles at as little as 65 characters so perhaps that is a better cut off point.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


A Secret to Writing Posts that Go Viral on Twitter

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/20/a-secret-to-writing-posts-that-go-viral-on-twitter/feed/ 57 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/13/5-universal-writing-rules/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/13/5-universal-writing-rules/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:25:20 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/13/5-universal-writing-rules/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


5 Universal Writing Rules

]]> In this post Isaac Sweeney shares some rules of writing that I think many of us as bloggers will benefit from. Isaac teaches at the School of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication at James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA) and is a published author. He blogs at Ways With Words.

Whether it’s blogging, a novel, a newspaper article, a screenplay, or a poem, some writing rules are universal.

1. Revise

Nothing written is perfect the first time around. In fact, many writers don’t care at all about first drafts; they say the real writing is done when revising.

Revising and proofreading are different. Proofreading means going back and finding mistakes, from grammar to spelling. Revision isn’t about finding what’s wrong, but about finding what could make a piece better.

Some basic questions to ask when revising are: Am I being concise or could I say this same thing with fewer words? Will my reader understand my idea? Do I need to explain more? Would an example help? How can this be more impactful?

All of the steps that follow are also things to think about when revising.

2. Proofreading: It’s “Definitely,” Not “Defiantly”

Proofreading and revising are different (see number 1). Proofreading isn’t simple, but it’s simpler than revising. It requires a check for mistakes — grammar, spelling, word choice, correct site names, etc.

Unfortunately, when it comes to fast-paced writing outlets, like blogging, first drafts that contain mistakes get published again and again. In the process, these writers (and subsequently, their blogs) lose credibility. This can translate into less traffic. As you know, traffic is the lifeblood of any website.

3. Structure Matters: Beginning, Middle, End

Rants and stream-of-conscious pieces are fun and therapeutic. But real writers think about structure before publishing. They move things around and/or plan them out. While the writing process is often chaotic, the writer needs to think about structure before showing a piece to any reader.

Structure is a fun thing to experiment with, but every piece should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. This beginning, middle, and end may take different forms — that’s the fun part — but they must be there.

Some basic structural questions to ask are: Does my beginning keep the reader reading? Does my middle convey important information while keeping my reader’s attention? Does my end leave a lasting impression?

4. Don’t Be Afraid of Change

As I said, the writing process is often chaotic. Word meanings change. Readers’ vocabularies differ. Maybe your planned research is impossible because of the massive natural disaster in City X.

Whatever the case, all good writers face adversity and adapt. Maybe a natural disaster is extreme, but closing without saving happens to the best of them. So the writer may purchase some sort of anti-virus protection for the computer — this is change.

It could be as frustrating as an idea that goes nowhere, and the writer is forced to throw hours of work into the digital recycle bin. Sometimes change is as basic as adapting a writer’s process. There may not be time for the brief outline the writer usually makes before beginning; instead, the writer delves right into a draft, still leaving time to revise.

A writer’s willingness to change is necessary.

5. Revise: I’m Repeating it on Purpose

I cannot stress enough the importance of revising. Revise as much as possible. A written piece is never perfect, but the writer should always strive for perfection.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


5 Universal Writing Rules

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/13/5-universal-writing-rules/feed/ 75 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/10/how-to-effectively-educate-your-blog-readers/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/10/how-to-effectively-educate-your-blog-readers/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:08:20 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/10/how-to-effectively-educate-your-blog-readers/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


How to Effectively Educate Your Blog Readers

]]> In this post John from Ace Online Schools shares some tips for writing educational blog content.

When the titans of blogging write about building a successful blog, they always emphasize the importance of insanely useful content. One of the best ways to be useful is to educate your readers. If you can give your readers knowledge that helps them achieve their goals, people will hang on your every word and happily link to your content.

Teach What You Know

The first requirement of effective teaching is having a depth of knowledge to share. If you haven’t mastered a topic yourself, you have no chance of teaching it to others. It amazes me how many people try to do this, particularly in the make money online niche. If you want to start a blog to educate yourself that’s fine, but don’t expect to have much success until you know your topic inside and out.

Once you have a base of knowledge to impart, the second step is effective communication.

Mix General Concepts with Specific Examples

Darren recently posted about this idea. What he realized is that many readers like to be told what to do. Learning is about understanding important ideas; both as concepts and as they relate to reality. Understanding general concepts is important because it empowers readers to make decisions for themselves based on their unique circumstances. Examples are indispensable because they make an abstract idea concrete. There is no excuse not to weave specific examples into your posts because it requires only a simple reference link.

Use Illustrative Images and Diagrams

One of the most underutilized educational techniques in blogging is the use of diagrams. By this I don’t mean random images from Flickr that you to toss in at the last minute. I mean handcrafted diagrams that illustrate the key ideas from your article. A great example of this is the SEO Success Pyramid by Small Business SEM. Diagrams help educate your readers where words alone fall short. They’re also link magnets. There’s a bit of a learning curve if you aren’t good at creating images, but the results are worth the effort.

Learn to Write for the Web

You need to understand how people read on the web and learn to write for them effectively. Go to Jakob Nielsen’s web site and read this paper. It will do more to improve your blogging than any other article. If you look at the top blogs, you’ll find they follow Nielsen’s style guidelines remarkably well.

Don’t Be a Link Snob

Insecure blogs are scared of linking out. They’re afraid of losing traffic and giving link juice to sites that compete with them. This is absolute rubbish! If you share valuable information with readers, you’ll be rewarded with trust. Readers will value your site more and be more likely to return. Some of the most popular sites on the web are almost entirely short summaries and links to outside content. Clearly it hasn’t hurt their traffic. Help your readers educate themselves by pointing them in the right direction.

John blogs at Ace Online Schools about the world of online education. Visit our site for the latest educational news, online learning resources, and advances in educational technology. Bloggers might enjoy his article about How to Launch Your Writing Career Online.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


How to Effectively Educate Your Blog Readers

]]> http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/10/how-to-effectively-educate-your-blog-readers/feed/ 46 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/03/7-ways-to-turn-a-blog-post-upside-down-and-get-more-comments/ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/03/7-ways-to-turn-a-blog-post-upside-down-and-get-more-comments/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:06:51 +0000 Darren Rowse http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/02/03/7-ways-to-turn-a-blog-post-upside-down-and-get-more-comments/ Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


7 Ways to Turn a Blog Post Upside Down and Get More Comments

]]> In the early days of a new blog it can be frustrating to put a lot of time and energy into the writing of posts only to find that it seems as though no one is listening. While you feel you’ve said something worthy of some discussion the comments section of your post resembles a ghost town with tumbleweed blowing around.

I’ve previously written a post with 10 techniques to get more comments on your blog (one of the most commented upon posts I’ve ever written) so I won’t go over all of that again – however I wanted to share one simple technique that I’ve always found to be effective at getting readers interacting. It is obvious and very basic – but so many bloggers don’t do it.

The technique is simply to turn a post upside down and make the comments the primary focus of the post rather than what you have to say.

Here are a number of ways of doing this with some links to examples of where I’ve done it:

• Start a Debate – pick a more controversial topic or one that you think people will have strong opinions about – state the case for two sides of the arguement and let your readers go at it. Eg: Video on a DSLR – Would You Use It? and Full or Partial RSS Feeds?
• Ask for Advice – state a problem that you or a reader has and ask for help, solutions and advice. I do these regularly on DPS and call them ‘community workshops. The latest was ‘How Would You Photograph a Funeral?‘ and How to Photograph Grandma – a DPS Community Workshop.
• Ask for Tips – choose a topic that your readers might know something about and ask them for practical tips. You might then compile the tips (or the best of them) into another post. Eg: How to Photograph Kids – Leave Your Tips Here.
• Ask for Examples – give readers an invitation to submit links to examples of a topic you’re writing about. Example: What Was Your Most Popular Post in 2007.
• Ask for Experiences – ask a question about what your readers have ‘done’ or ‘experienced’. Eg: MicroStock Photography – Share Your Experience
• Give Opportunity for Self Promotion – give readers an opportunity to show themselves (or their blog, or their work) off. I did this on DPS over the weekend in a post ‘What is Your Favorite Landscape Location’ which asked readers to tell where they liked to shoot landscapes and invited them to submit links to their work.
• Run a Poll – many bloggers just put polls in their sidebars and don’t post about them. If you announce a new poll and ask readers to expand upon their vote in comments you can often generate some great discussion. It will also increase the number of responses to the poll. For example – see my recent post – ‘Have you Ever Guest Posted on Someone Else’s Blog?‘

Do feel free to add to the list in comments!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger


7 Ways to Turn a Blog Post Upside Down and Get More Comments

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