Written on July 4th, 2009 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
MyAds: Promote Your Blog, Product or Service on MySpace
At the bottom of this post is a coupon code to give you a $50 credit at MyAds - this is not an affiliate promotion, just a take it or leave it offer from MyAds.
Over the last week or so I’ve had the opportunity to see inside the MyAds from MySpace.
MyAds have been an advertiser here on ProBlogger for a month or two now (consider that a disclaimer) so I wanted to see for myself how it worked. What I found was a very easy to use and pretty affordable way to advertise a product, service or even your blog.
In short - MyAds is a pay per click banner advertising system where you can advertise on MySpace and get your message in front of potentially millions upon millions of MySpace users.
You can use it with an advertising budget of as little as $5 a day and have a pretty good looking ad set up to run within just a few minutes using their ad building tool (or you can upload your own using an uploader).
Worth noting before we go any further is that to run a campaign you need a US address and credit card. As someone without either of these I could only go as far as designing an ad and testing out the targeting features. I did however talk to a number of MyAds advertisers to get their feedback (see below).
Setting up an ad is easy. Even me as a design challenged guy got one set up in a few minutes. I put a mock ad together for my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook. Here’s a screenshot of the page where you set up the ads (click to enlarge):
As you’ll see there are three ad size options and it’s as simple as typing in your ad copy, adding an image, choosing a background color and adding in a destination URL.
You can then preview your and move on to working out who you want to see it as well as setting a budget.
On the following screenshot you’ll see the section to choose your target audience:
As you make your choices about who you want to see the ad the grey area the bottom of the screen changes. It shows you how many users on MySpace will potentially see your ad as well as giving you a suggested bid price for how much the ad might cost per click to run.
The targeting options look pretty good - not only can you target by demographics (gender, age, education, relationships, parental status and location within the US) but you can also choose categories of interests and occupations of the type of person you want to reach with your ad. I tried a number of options and got the target number of people to reach quite focused and the suggested cost per click quite a bit lower than what you see in the above screenshot.
This enables you to increase the chances of conversion with your ad quite considerably.
All in all from where I stand MyAds seems like something that I’d like to use if I were running an ad campaign for a product, service or even to launch a new blog. I’ve previously used similar ad systems on other social networks with some success and the easy of use of MyAds plus what looks like great targeting make it an attractive option.
How Does it Perform? Testimony from a Heavy User of MyAds
As I was unable to go much further in the process (as a non US resident) I approached a number of people to get their feedback on the ads. One of those I talked with was Joe Frevola from Globalizer who uses MyAds quite extensively. I asked Joe a number of questions to get his insight on the why and how of MyAds:
How have you used MyAds and How has it performed?
Globalizer uses Myspace MyAds to buy media for our GlobalizerNetwork advertisers. We have had tremendous success with several campaigns on MySpace and have been impressed with its powerful targeting tools, which we have utilized to target the demographics and interests of our audience.
In comparison with Facebook, it’s hard to pick a clear cut winner and both should be a part of your media buy in most cases. Each has advantages and disadvantages and the best choice of the two will vary based on the type of campaign you are running.
While MySpace’s targeting tool is more organized and allows you to select keywords sorted by categories and sub categories, Facebook’s keyword search tool allows you to access a more robust database of target interest. MySpace does have useful demographic targeting that you can’t get with Facebook, such as the ability to specifically target mothers or recently married individuals.
Both MySpace and Facebook have solid targeting tools that should allow you to push positive ROI. While the Facebook ad platform is global, you can only target US users on MySpace currently, however word is MySpace is adding new countries later in the year. I would highly recommend the use of both ad networks to just about any advertiser.
Do you have any tips for using MyAds to share with ProBlogger readers?
There are some tricks to getting the most out of MySpace MyAds. Globalizer runs a lot of lead generation campaigns that drive a very high response, but don’t pay high bounties per conversion and therefore don’t allow us to pay very high CPC’s.
Often, when you start a campaign with a very low CPC, the ads delivers very little or no volume at all. We find that in order to kick start this sort of campaign, we overpay on CPC in the beginning and fully expect to take a short term loss as MySpace’s optimization system values the quality of our offers.
In the end, the system just wants to back into the highest eCPM, so the fact that our ads are driving very high click through rates more than compensates for the lower CPC. Once the campaign starts getting significant delivery, we are able to adjust our rate down to a profitable number and continue to experience a great a volume of traffic.
Also, when you first start running a new campaign on MySpace, definitely go with your gut and select targets that you feel will have the best chance of success with your offer. However, don’t neglect to test various demographics that you might not think would typically perform with your ads. You will often be surprised at the demos that respond to your offers.
Get $50 Credit with This Code
If you’d like to test MyAds for yourself (IF you’re in the US) they’ve given me a coupon code for ProBlogger readers to try it out and get $50 credit to use in doing so. You need to be new to MyAds to redeem it (ie if you’ve already used MyAds it’s not redeemable).
To use it - just design an ad and at the end of the process use the coupon code of Pro50. Of course this is only for those who are residents of the US and have US address and credit card details.
Written on July 3rd, 2009 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Feedburner Add Customizable Subject Lines to Email Subscriptions
One month ago I wrote an open letter to Google/Feedburner suggesting that it might be time to add some more features to Feedburner - particularly the ability to customize subject lines of those subscribing to a feed via RSS.
It seems that they’ve been hard at work on that very feature.
Today I logged into my Feedburner account and noticed this in the ‘Email Branding’ area.
Yep - it’s the feature we’ve been waiting for! All you need to do now is add the tag ${latestItemTitle} into the subject line and it looks like you’re set to have new subject lines on each email sent.
There’s no official word on this new feature yet from Feedburner.
Ironically it was only a few hours ago that I emailed a few questions to Feedburner who have agreed to an interview here on ProBlogger. Expect to hear more from Feedburner in the coming few days - hopefully this is a sign of things to come as they take Feedburner to the next level!
Thanks for listening Feedburner.
A hat tip to Carrie who emailed me about this new feature - nice pick up!
Written on July 2nd, 2009 at 04:07 am by Darren Rowse
Win an Omni Bean Bag Worth $149 in the Next 48 Hours at @ProBloggerDeals
Update: Congratulations to @GemmaWent who has won this competition. Thanks to SumoLounge again for sponsoring this - check out their bean bag chairs here.
Today’s ProBlogger Deal is simply - follow @ProBloggerDeals on Twitter and you’ll automatically go into the running to win the ultimate blogger’s chair - the Omni Bean Bag Chair from SumoLounge.
You’ve got 48 hours to enter!
Valued at $149 USD the Omni Bean Bag Chair comes in a range of 10 great colors, measures 4.5’ X 5.5, is made from rip-proof and easy to clean nylon and is filled with high quality beads which will stay fluffy for ages!
Can’t you just picture yourself lazing around with your laptop on your knee in this baby?
To win the Omni chair - simply head to our @ProBloggerDeals twitter page and hit ‘follow’. On that account we promote discounts for bloggers, competitions and special offers exclusive to ProBlogger Deals followers (there are already a few up in the last few tweets on the account).
I’ll draw the winner of the Omni chair 48 hours after I first announce this on Twitter and will update this page and @ProBloggerDeals with the winner’s Twitter handle once I do.
PS: check out the reviews of SumoLounge products. They’ve certainly impressed some pretty cool bloggers over the last year or two!
Written on July 2nd, 2009 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
8 First Step SEO Tips for Bloggers
“What are the first steps to optimizing my blog for searches?” - question submitted by @monedays using the #pbquestions hashtag on Twitter.
Much has been written on the topic of search engine optimization for bloggers - but let me give you a few basic first steps:
1. Content is King
The quality of the posts you write is the single most important factor when it comes to Search Optimization on a Blog. I suspect others will argue differently but as I look at my own blogs success in the search engines I’d say that this has been the number one factor.
Quality content that helps people will quite often draw a reader to want to share what they’ve written - of course they do this by passing on the link to your post and often they’ll do it in a way that helps your search rankings (on their own blog for example).
2. Anticipate What People Will be Searching For
Every time you write a post you should be automatically be considering what words people might be putting into search engines to find that type of information. Once you know what kinds of words they’re using you’re in a great position to position yourself for that search.
3. Titles Titles Titles
There are a number of things to keep in mind when it comes to titles. Google pays particular attention to titles - so make sure you get them right:
- first make sure that the way you set your blog up puts the title of your post in the ‘title tags’ on the back end of your blog. This is really important.
- if you’re just looking from an SEO perspective don’t include your blog name in the title tags of single posts. This dilutes your keywords. Of course if you’re looking more at branding including your blog’s name in the title tags might be worth doing.
- next - include the keywords that you identified in point #2 in your post title
- also, keep in mind that the words you use at the start of a title tend to carry more weight than words you use later in your title
4. Keywords in other parts of your post
Use the keywords you identified in point #2 within your post also. If you want Google to rank you for a term or phrase you need to use that term or phrase. Use it in sub headings in your post (use h tags where you can), use it in the content itself, use the words in the alt tags of images etc. Don’t go over the topic but do use the words where you can naturally in the post.
5. Link to Your Own Posts
Don’t over do this one but while links from other sites are a great way to increase your blog’s rankings so are links from your blog. Interlink your posts to share where readers can find more information on your topic (where relevant) but also consider linking to key posts on your blog from other places on the blog (sidebar, front page etc).
6. Links from Outside Your Blog
Links from other sites to yours are key in SEO but they can be hard to get. Start to linking to your blog from other sites that you have or are active on. Some (like on Twitter) won’t count for anything much as they have no-follow tags but they are all potential ways for people to access your site and some will help with SEO.
Don’t become obsessed with getting links - rather become obsessed about writing great content and the links will generally come in time. However if you’ve written a great post that you think will be relevant to another blog don’t be afraid to let that blogger or website owner know about it - they could just link up.
Also - take note of the type of posts that you write that do well at getting other sites to link to you. You can learn a lot about generating linkable content by doing so and might just develop a technique that will work again and again.
7. Plugins
I don’t tend to do much to the back end of my blog to alter things like meta tags - but there are some good plugins around if you’re using WordPress that can help with some of this and that may give you a small edge. Check out 9 SEO plugins that every WordPress Blog Should have for some suggestions on this.
8. Readers Begat Readers
This isn’t an SEO technique as such but it plays a part. The more readers you have the more likely your blog is to be found by other readers. There’s a certain ’snowballing’ thing that happens on a site over time - as you get readers quite often momentum grows as those readers pass on your site to others in their network. They link to you, they bookmark you, they tweet about you, they email friends about you, they blog about you, they suggest your site in recommendation engines….
Not all of this counts with SEO but some does and the accumulation of it over time all certainly helps to grow both organic and search traffic. I guess what I’m saying is to get readers any way you can - don’t just focus upon ‘SEO’ as such. It all counts.
My Hunch with SEO
Before I share my hunch…. let me say that I’m not an SEO and this could be completely wrong…. but it’s a hunch that I’ve had for a while now.
I’ve been doing this blogging thing for almost 7 years now and from what I can see the tweaks that many bloggers do on their blogs to optimize it seem to be having less and less impact on the rankings of blogs. Don’t get me wrong - I stand by the above tips completely and would do them as a common sense bare minimum - but from where I sit Google seem to be in the business of finding the best information that they can for their users. They don’t always get it right but I think they do a pretty good job.
As a blogger your job should be to provide the best information that you can.
It strikes me that Google have an ever increasing way of working out if your information is good. It’s not just about what keywords you have or how many links that you get - but these days they own Feedburner (know how many people subscribe to your blog and what links people are clicking on), they own Google Reader (again giving them all kinds of great data), they own Gmail, Google Analytics, YouTube etc…..
Now they may or may not use all the data in their ranking of sites but they certainly could know a lot about your blog and the posts you write. There’s also been increasing talk over the last 6 months or so about how easy it’d be for search engines to start generating data on what content is being shared in social networks and bookmarking sites.
My hunch is that many traditional SEO methods are less important (NOT irrelevant though) and that other factors are increasingly going to come into play. I’m sure that some will work out ways to manipulate this (SEO 2.0?) but increasingly the way to get ranked high in Google will be that you just need to keep producing great content and making sure that it’s sneezed out to your network.
Help this process along by giving your readers way to share your content (and seed it to social networks) as well as to become subscribers.
Written on July 1st, 2009 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Should I Quit Blogging?
Image by -nathan
“Should I quit my blog and start Lifestreaming, Videocasting, Social Messaging/Networking etc?”
There’s been another round of ‘blogging is dead’ posts doing the rounds of late and as a result I’ve had a number of emails hitting my inbox over the last week from bloggers asking if they should stop blogging.
Here’s some of the advice I’ve been sharing:
- Blogging is not dead - it’s evolving.
- You should be evolving too (read Blogs are Out of Beta, But Bloggers Should always be in Beta)
- Keep being useful, keep solving problems and keep meeting needs - whatever the medium this is key.
- Keep producing content - people continue to search the web for content in huge numbers. It’s not all about networking and bookmarking - whether it be text, video or audio - keep producing content.
- Experiment with different mediums - to the best of your ability keep abreast of the ‘new’ mediums that are emerging.
- Build a ‘Home Base’ - many people flit from one medium to another and end up with nothing of their own (read more on the Home Bases and Outposts that I use).
- Build a Brand - the mediums are tools. They’ll come and go in time - the key is to build something that lasts beyond them.
- Don’t be Precious about your ‘Blog’ and be open to change - there’s no one ‘right’ way to blog. Blogs can have comments or not have comments, have full RSS feeds or partial ones, look like a traditional blog or act and look more like a lifestream or portal. The key is to know what you want to achieve and let that shape what you do with your blog.
- Don’t abandon your blog too quickly - your primary efforts may move into a different medium but blogs can be an important part of the mix of what you do online. Don’t abandon your blog - build upon it, let it evolve, leverage what you’ve already built and use it where appropriate in the mix of what you do.
My last piece of advice is particularly for those with limited time or capacity to fully engage with all of the mediums and tools that are currently at our fingertips.
I get the sense from a lot of bloggers that they feel that they’re being left behind - that all this new stuff that is emerging is beyond them - that it’s hopeless to keep on blogging. My message to you if you’re feeling this way is to keep at it. Even as a full time blogger/web entrepreneur I don’t have time to fully engage with all of the new technologies that are currently emerging. I too feel some of those ‘overwhelming’ feelings.
I think the key is to engage with the new technologies to the point that you’re able but to know when to stop and focus upon what you already have in front of you.
The problem as I see it is that whether it be a blog, a Twitter presence, a podcast or some other kind of website or presence - it takes time to build these things up to successful levels. If you only give a medium a short time before moving to the next one you’ll just end up with a trail of abandoned accounts and sites behind you.
I see a lot of people running from one thing to the next and not really achieving anything. They live in a constant state of distraction and experimentation. There’s nothing wrong with new things and testing them out - but unless you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of spare time or an amazing capacity not to sleep there comes a time where you need to choose a handful of things to do (or even just one) and to do it to the best of your ability.
For me - this means focusing mainly upon building blogs. My blogs are evolving and looking less and less like blogs as I experiment with different ways of presenting the information on them and play with different technologies on them - but I try to keep my focus steady upon the long term goals that I have. As a result I’ve managed to build them into profitable properties.
Yes I’ll continue to experiment with other technologies but for me they are only about adding value to my primary web properties.
What do you think? How are you approaching what you do in this ever changing web?
Written on June 30th, 2009 at 07:06 am by Darren Rowse
How to Manage a School/Blog Balance
This post was written by Aditya Mahesh, founder of AMBeat.com, a complete resource for entrepreneurs complete with advice articles, start-up profiles, interviews, news analysis, and more.
Common wisdom suggests that academics are always chief in importance. Students, at least those here in the United States, are told time and time again that extra-curricular activities, whether it is a sports team or clubs, always come after academics. Student entrepreneurs and bloggers have a tendency not to follow this rule of thought.
Throughout my high school and college experiences, I have always been more dedicated to and more passionate about my business and my blogs than I have my schoolwork. I was recently going through my Algebra notebook from 11th grade and noticed that for every page of Math notes were three pages of business ideas, future blog posts, marketing strategies, etc. Still, while I always placed more emphasis on my business, I was always able to balance my work with my academics, allowing me to excel in both.
For those of you who are not students, the information in this post is still applicable for balancing a blog/work balance of you blog part-time and work at another job or a blog/life balance if you are a full time blogger.
The key to managing my business work and my school work is time management and planning ahead. It is absolutely vital that you do not procrastinate, because all procrastination does is lead to a great increase in personal stress and a great decrease in work output quality.
Throughout the course of my high school education and now in college, I maintain two separate calendars, one for school work and one for business. In my school work calendar I plot out all assignments that have been assigned and when they are due. Typically, I have as much as three weeks lead time for major papers and projects and know of testing dates at the beginning of the semester. Once I have established my calendar, I plan out my time so that I have a final product completed, whether it is an edited version of my essay or completely developed and analyzed study guide for a midterm, one week in advance. This way, I can ensure that all assignments will be completed in time and that I will not be scrambling at the last minute to get everything done. There are no surprises. It also leaves me a week to take my paper to my professor for additional editing or time to review for a test instead of cramming, allowing me to ensure that I excel in my academic work.
Sticking to this schedule is by no means easy. It requires hard work and dedication amidst all the distractions there are in the life of a student, especially in college dorm life. Yet sticking to this schedule is definitely possible and you will find that it frees up more of your time for recreation. Instead of sleeping in until noon or wasting time pointlessly surfing the web, take control of your time and get some work done. This way, you miss out on nothing, have your work completed, and can still relax or go out at night and during the weekends.
Once you have an academic calendar finalized, it comes to creating a work/blogging calendar and matching it with your academic calendar. You will tend to notice that despite even a rigorous course load, there is still plenty of time for business if you manage your time efficiently. I do the same thing for my business calendar that I do for my academic calendar; make a list of what all I need to get done and when. For example, as a blogger I need to write posts and market my blog so I create an editorial calendar to plan out which pieces I’m going to post when and a marketing plan to schedule when I am going to execute certain elements of my marketing strategy.
I schedule this work into time I have not dedicated as “academic time”. You will see that you begin to develop a routine as with blogging and school the same tasks have to be completed over and over again, whether it be writing posts or studying for weekly quizzes. Over time and with practice it becomes easier.
However, you must take into consideration the fact that there are certain times when you need to spend more time focusing on school and more time focused on business and you need to plan ahead for these times. For example, during finals week I need to be 100% focused to studying for my exams, yet I can’t just let my blog or business sit idle. In these cases, get help from the outside, getting guest posters, paid writers, or pre-scheduling posts. Remember, planning is very important.
While a blog/school balance is definitely doable, you have to be careful how many things you are involved in. There are only 24 hours in the day and you need to rest and take time to enjoy life, so make sure to not overextend yourself getting involved in too many different activities at one time. I have gone both routes, doing a little bit of everything and a doing lot of fewer things and have found that when I focus on fewer activities, I can fully dedicate myself to them and actually accomplish something meaningful. Prioritization is also very important. You have to do some research and soul searching to find what is MOST important to you. Personally, I recommend focusing on academics until your business or blog begins to take off and earn revenues. Even once you find professional success, I strongly recommend staying focused academically and achieving to the best of your ability because I am finding that academic effort and success and constantly opening new doors for me in my personal and professional lives.
Written on June 29th, 2009 at 10:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Become a Blogger Reopens for 5 Days Only - Now Cheaper Than Ever
One of the most popular resources for new bloggers - Become a Blogger - is reopening its doors to new participants - for 5 days only. Update: There’s only around 24 hours left to go on this offer - it ends Friday at Midnight EST (US time).
It’s cheaper than ever before
If you’re a new blogger wondering how to get your blog started and moving towards reaching it’s potential - it can be a daunting prospect.
Become a Blogger is a step-by-step video based guide to walk you through the process in plain and easy to understand language.
The Guys Behind Become a Blogger
The two guys behind Become a Blogger are two people I have a lot of time for - Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. Both live here in Australia and I regularly interact with both. They both have a gift in being able to explain complicated things clearly, they both know what they’re doing (you can get a taste for that in this free report that they’ve released) and have been successful in their own fields and they are both genuinely nice guys who I have real respect for.
I have no hesitation in recommending them to you as trainers and mentors in your blogging.
The resource is broken down into 8 Modules over 6 months - with a number of other bonuses. Here’s what is covered:
Module 1: Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE
Module 2: How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance
Module 3: How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail
Module 4: How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd
Module 5: How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio
Module 6: How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video
Module 7: How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog
Module 8: How To Make Money From Your Blog
PLUS (Spread Throughout The Course): How To Use The “X-Factor” Strategies To Put Your Blog Into Super Drive!
PLUS: a range of other bonuses including a 10 part audio series on ‘master the mindset’ - access to the Become a Blogger Forums and special members only Teleconferences.
Previously Become a Blogger was $77 a month. It sold out at that rate and they closed the doors so as to deliver value to those who signed up.
Cheaper for a Limited Time Only
This time it’s $47 a month but you only have 5 days to become a part of it.
You can either sign up on a month by month basis or invest in it up front for the 6 months get a discount.
Of course as usual with these guys - there’s a money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied you can simply ask for your money back - I trust these guys to honor that commitment.
Signup for Become a Blogger here.
Update: I’ve just been chatting with Gideon and he tells me that they’re adding another bonus - a free call next week for new members of Become a Blogger - the call will cover the topic of niche/topic selection for bloggers - a topic many bloggers struggle with.
Written on June 29th, 2009 at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse
Better Questions Than “Do I Need a Mentor?” and “How do I get one?”
A Guest post by Josh Hanagarne – World’s Strongest Librarian
In my Problogger post about how to land big interviews when your blog is small, I mentioned that I had a mentor. A lot of commenters asked me about that process and if I could write more about it. Send your thanks to Darren if you enjoy the post.
How to find a mentor is the easy part. First we need to talk about why.
Ask yourself this question:
Do I need a mentor?
The answer is yes—ta da!
Sorry, wrong question. If you didn’t think you needed a mentor, you wouldn’t be reading Problogger. No offense to Darren, but Problogger is a how-to, nuts and bolts blog—written by a mentor and businessman.
If you’re here for pleasure reading or entertainment, you’re really not here to be mentored and could probably use some other outlets.
Here are some useful questions behind the question:
- Do I already know everything?
- Am I teachable?
- What teaching methods do I respond to best?
- What are my goals?
- Can a mentor realistically help me reach these goals?
- How quickly do I want (or need) to reach my goals?
- Am I just lonely? (This happens more than you might think)
- Am I looking for a coach, or am I just hoping that this will be less work for me?
Take some time to answer these questions. Don’t waste anyone’s time by approaching him or her before you’ve done some thinking.
Two types of mentors: which would you prefer?
Kill Bill
There’s what I think of as the Kill Bill style mentor: the master martial artist who strokes his beard and laughs while beating you into submission. A drill sergeant who teaches through “tough love” and cruel tutelage and says things like, “Before me, your strength is that of the earthworm compared to the eagle, yes?”
There’s nothing wrong with this approach: but be honest—is that what you will respond to? Are you a person who wants to learn with a foot on your neck and a militant “Or else” teaching style?
Problogger Style
How often does Darren Rowse step on your neck or make you scream in pain? It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m safe in the United States. Darren encourages, coaches, and gently pulls us along, but you may choose to fail if you wish.
He answers questions, presents information, and how we use it is on us. The vast majority of Darren’s writing is backed up by empirical evidence, case studies, et cetera…in other words, it makes sense to do what he says, but he doesn’t have the time or the kung fu grip to force us. (I think).
Know your own skills
Here are some things I could mentor you on
- Exercising with kettlebells
- Getting 150 RSS subscribers in 3 weeks
- Writing a novel and getting rejected by publishers until the end of days
- Writing guest posts for Problogger
- Shopping for pants when you’re 6’8”: hint, move somewhere warm and buy more shorts
- Fingerstyle guitar
- Coping with an extreme case of Tourette’s Syndrome
Here’s the point: now that you know my skills, you can ask yourself the right question—it’s not “Do I need a mentor?” The answer is yes.
Rather, ask yourself: do I need this person as a mentor? Are my goals more achievable with this person than on my own?
Some qualities to look for in your mentor:
- Humility: they admit mistakes
- Imperfection: they’ve made mistakes so you don’t have to
- Knowledge: they must know things that you want to know and may not be able to learn on your own
- Patience: they have to be willing to answer questions. Lots of them. If someone enters into a formal mentoring relationship with you, don’t hang around for too long if it turns out they don’t have the time or temperament to spend time teaching you.
Some qualities you must have as the mentored:
- Humility: you don’t know everything. Ask questions, but don’t second guess until you must.
- Direction: don’t ask someone to help you reach a destination that you can’t describe. No, “I’ll recognize success when I see it, just help me get there.” Have a plan. If it’s the wrong plan for what you want, a good mentor will tell you.
- Work ethic: don’t ask for help, receive direction, and discard the advice. Be patient and try what they say.
- Realism: mentors aren’t miracle workers. Don’t expect perfection. Mentors are usually people who have gone through enough failures to recognize a losing hand quickly enough to fold.
But why would a mentor agree to help me?
I currently have two official mentors. One (no name—he’d be embarrassed to know I was calling him an official “mentor”) is my blogging compadre who helps me build traffic, polish my content, and market myself.
The other is a professional strongman, “Unbreakable” Adam T. Glass. He’s helping me get stronger. That’s it, because those are my goals right now: blogging and strength.
But when I asked them what they get out of our relationship, both said honestly, “Part of it is because it’s fun to help others. And part of it is hoping that when you get famous that our names will always be linked.” In other words, we may each be more successful later than either of us may be alone.
That’s the beauty of the Internet. Reciprocity is king. It’s easy to do favors. It’s simple to give someone a boost. Show someone who’s already successful what you can do for them. Chances are, they won’t say, “Oh, I’m already successful enough. Pass.”
And if they pass, so what? Life goes on. Find someone else.
How to find a mentor
And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: how to find a mentor:
Find someone who has done what you want to do and ask them if they will mentor you. That’s all.
As Darth Vader said to young Luke Skywalker when he threw open the paternity test curtain, “Search your feelings…you know it to be true.”
It is that simple: ask. Dumb luck may play a part, but mostly it’s just asking being willing to ask. Same thing with landing interviews. Same thing with asking for that date.
Same thing about being happy—fulfillment of dreams comes from action. Nobody owes us a favor and nobody is going to show up in tears begging to help us with our goals.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t willing. It just means they don’t know what we want.
But where do you find people like that? If you’ve read any of Darren’s writing, you know where: Problogger, Technorati, trade shows, magazines, social networking groups, Twitter…good grief, there are even more ways than I thought there were.
Make a list of choices and go find someone. Tell them how you can help each other. Do it today. The sun will set either way. You can wake up tomorrow with a mentor lined up, or regretting that another day went by without action.
It won’t make any difference to the person who hasn’t heard of you yet.
Josh Hanagarne writes World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog to help you get stronger, get smarter, and live better…every day. For bonus articles, videos, and original music, please subscribe to the Stronger, Smarter, Better Newsletter. If you know someone with Tourette’s Syndrome, please let them know about the blog. They need to know that someone out there “gets it.”
Written on June 28th, 2009 at 06:06 am by Darren Rowse
Get 30% off the Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress - Limited Time Offer
The following is a ProBloggerDeal - exclusively for readers of this blog. For notification on Twitter of other deals, discounts and competitions for bloggers follow @ProBloggerDeals.
A few mont Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress. The promotion was so popular and I’ve had so much positive feedback from readers about the plugin that I asked MaxBlogPress if we could run it again.
This time they’ve set it up so ProBloger readers can get the $30 discount (around 30% off) until 3rd July.
The best way to learn about what the plugin does is to visit the sales page and view the videos there which outline its features.
Effectively it’s a tool that manages all of the affiliate links on your blog from one central location. Here’s a list of features:
- Easy Affiliate Link Management - You can easily give each affiliate link an easy-to-remember name.
- Flexible Link Management - Accepts every affiliate link format out there, so you don’t have to waste time with various affiliate marketing tools..
- Create Professional Redirect Links - Use professional looking redirect links that let your prospects know you’re a pro marketer..
- Manage Links by Groups - Too many affiliate links? Ninja Affiliate allows you to easily create different groups to manage your links..
- Prevent “Affiliate Theft” - Cloak your affiliate links to prevent link theft and affiliate sabotage. No one will ever steal your hard-earned commissions again..
- Insert Affiliate Links Directly - Add your affiliate links directly for your Wordpress blog editor - you’ll never have to hunt for links again..
- Transform Keywords to Links - Automatically turn keywords in your blog to affiliate links. You can set a limit too, so your posts don’t look like a spam blog!
- Advanced Display Options - Ninja Affiliate allows you to display any text you want in your web browser’s status bar..
- Use “No-Follow” Links - Control your link juice and escape punishment from Big Daddy Google with ninja precision. In fact, you can control your links any way you want to.
All in all - if you’re doing affiliate marketing on your blog this is a plugin you’ll want to consider investing into.
This has been a ProBloggerDeal - for notification on Twitter of other deals, discounts and competitions for bloggers follow @ProBloggerDeals.
Written on June 28th, 2009 at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse
Perseverance Will Save Your Blog
Robby G is a blogger from ShiteILike.com and explains the benefits of pushing your blog through good and through bad.
I was doing some research recently, wondering if my blog would ever take off and what it really depended on. I was a little bit discouraged about writing lots of content for two months on my blog, but having a significant amount of less traffic than on my friend’s blog which is only two months older than mine.
To see if my blog would ever receive any readers that would get interested, and hopefully raise my hopes, I went on ProBlogger. I looked through his much older posts and went through the comment list. I clicked on a bunch of commentators’ names that took me back to their blogs and recorded how many of them were still blogging today. Their comments were from 2006 and I noticed that most of the bloggers had either just abandoned their blog or quit paying for hosting completely.
Now the interesting stuff I learnt from my research was that the ones that actually held on to their blogs and kept posting through good and through bad on topics that they found dear to them, they in fact had a pretty decent following with many RSS Subscribers and were receiving quite a few comments on each post. I also ran their blogs through a Link Checker and saw that the older the blog, the more backlinks they had.
The great thing about perseverance when it comes to blogging is that the longer you push your blog, the more you get out of it. It doesn’t matter what topic you write about, because there are a lot of people out there that have the same interests as you no matter what they are.
Perseverance gives your blog backlinks, it gives your blog a higher rating on search engines, and it gives people time to learn more about you and spread your blog’s name through word of mouth. If you read this blog and a bunch of other “making money online” blogs, it opens your mind out to how to market your blog properly, and if you connect perseverance to marketing, there is no stopping you. All that’s left is time to allow someone big and famous to come along and mention your blog in a review or just mention a little bit about your post to really help you explode onto the Super Blogger level.
So all in all, in my opinion, there are really just two things every blogger should keep in mind when either starting a new blog or whenever they’re discouraged about their own blog:
- Make sure you’re blogging about a topic you really love (I know this one has been said before by almost everyone, but it’s true. Shite I Like is my second blog for a reason.)
- Whatever you do, don’t give up. Keep blogging and blogging, and reading, and blogging. The more time you put into it will really come back to help you 100 times more in the long-run. And you just might never know when your blog will turn huge.
Also, if you’ve got the time to blog on a topic on an almost daily basis, you more than likely have the time to do research of your own on how to market and make your blog popular without having to really spend much money on it.
Many people’s biggest flaw in life is entering into something thinking that easy money will just flow their way, and once the going gets even a little bit difficult, they abandon ship. For example, when I was going to University and Real Estate College at the same time, I thought I’d become a Real Estate Salesperson in no time and start selling houses in the summer time while everybody from University would be working some landscaping summer job. Becoming a Real Estate person was harder than I thought and took much more time than initially planned. At many points I thought about quitting that and just focusing on Univ, but perseverance got me through College to get into the field of Real Estate as a part-time job while still continuing with my Univ studies. I’m happy I pushed myself, because now I see that if I could keep a weekend job while going to University and College all at the same time, while also learning about blogging, then I can push myself to blog on a regular basis.
Keep those 2 points I outlined above in mind and make sure to always keep pushing yourself, because without perseverance you’ll never see any glory. I hope this post really gave you a motivation to keep blogging and reading and most importantly believing that all you need to reach your goal with blogging is constant determination, time, and a little bit of luck.
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