Written on July 7th, 2008 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Should You Incorporate
This guest post is part of a two part series written by Kelly Phillips Erb, a tax attorney who blogs for b5media at taxgirl.com. You can find out more about Kelly here. For more information about tax and blogging, check out her handy list of prior articles on the subject including Problogger articles!
“Should I incorporate to save taxes?”
I get this question a lot over at taxgirl.com – and most of the time, it comes from bloggers and freelancers. It’s understandable. We hear all of the time how corporate tax rates are ridiculously low and individual taxpayers pay at higher rates – this tends to be true in most countries. And, in the US, the self-employed are also hit with a self-employed tax of about 15% on top of income tax. Add in penalties for not making estimated payments and tax time can be quite painful for the self-employed.
It would follow, then, that incorporating just to save on taxes makes sense, right?
Unfortunately, no. What often gets left out of these discussions is that the corporate tax is a tax on corporate profits – but that doesn’t replace an individual tax. Money that you take out of the corporation in the form of dividends and/or salary will be taxed on your personal income tax return. Translation? You’re likely not saving money in most cases.
That doesn’t mean that there are no advantages to incorporating as a freelancer – there are. It just means that the tax advantages, with few exceptions, tend to be rather insignificant for folks who are self-employed.
You don’t want the “tax tail to wag the dog” when making this important decision. Put the tax consequences aside for a moment and consider exactly what you hope to accomplish and what your individual needs are. What is it that you want to get out of incorporation? We’ve already established that, with respect to blogging and freelancing as an individual, incorporation may not save you tax dollars. Is there something else that you’re looking for?
Here are some quick reasons to consider incorporation:
1. Credibility - Yeah, it sounds weird but it’s true. Some corporations will take you more seriously when you’re “Crazy Dog Productions, LLC” than when you are “Kelly Phillips Erb, tax blogger.” This may not be the case for networks – like my own b5media – since networks tend to hire a writer, not a company. But it can be true when working with affiliate programs and other companies. One big ISP that I know of, for example, will not, as a policy, issue a 1099 to an individual; they only hire incorporated entities.
2. Health Insurance - Here’s a fact that many people don’t know: for most insurance companies, individual rates are more expensive than corporate rates. Additionally, corporate groups are not generally subject to individual physicals for the purpose of determining coverage. As a bona fide corporation (you will have to produce documentation), you may be entitled to receive a corporate rate so long as you have a “group” – with most insurance companies, two or more employees constitute a group. This is why writing co-ops are so popular.
3. Liability Protection - The idea of protecting personal assets from liability is an increasingly important issue for bloggers. Don’t be fooled: incorporating doesn’t mean that you can do, promore or write anything that you want and escape liability. But incorporation – again, as a bona fide corporation – can protect your personal assets from attachment from some kinds of judgments. The amount of protection afforded and the level of protection vary from state to state according to the type of entity. As a general rule, however, most corporations allow for some protection from liability so long as you follow corporate formalities.
4. Because it looks good - Oh come on, you were thinking that, right? Having your own company kind of announces to the world that you’ve arrived. It says that you’re serious, that writing is not your hobby, but your career. You are your business. And it looks good on a business card… There’s nothing wrong with that!
There are other reasons that incorporation might make sense - savings on self-employment taxes comes to mind and are referenced in part two of this series. However, some of those reasons require a level of scrutiny into your finances, your current tax situation and your plans for the future that can’t be had on a blog post. I would highly encourage you to have this conversation with your legal or tax professional to get the best advice for your personal situation.
But keep things in perspective. Evaluate the reasons why you might want to incorporate your business – and make sure that you’re ready to treat it as a business. Arm yourself with the facts and consult with the right folks. While it’s easy enough to incorporate, most corporate entities fold within the first two years of business – don’t become one of those statistics.
Check back tomorrow for part two of the series to find out more about popular forms of business entities.
Like any good lawyer, I need to add a disclaimer: Unfortunately, it is impossible to give comprehensive tax advice over the internet, no matter how well researched or written. Before relying on any information given on this site, contact a tax professional to discuss your particular situation. If you have a question, ask the taxgirl.
Written on July 6th, 2008 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Taking your Blog to a Community
Today Community Strategist Connie Bensen shares some tips on taking your blog to a community.
Every blogger wants more readers. I’ve always appreciated how Problogger regularly features ideas for improving your blog & writing techniques. As people happen upon your blog they may decide to join your community of readers. But what if you could take your blog to a community?
Choose the new Community
Let’s step back & take a few minutes & think about your niche(s) & focus area. At this point there are two directions. Do you want to bring in more readers in your subject area? Or do you want to reach out to a related niche? The latter will require some creative thinking and be a bigger challenge, but don’t be afraid to go beyond the obvious! Decide on your keywords & spend some time with Google & search engines & find out where your new communities are at. Do this quarterly or so because new sites are always springing up.
When I was a librarian we called it outreach. I would go out & speak to groups & my challenge was highlight resources of interest to that group (whether it was a community service group or quilting club).
Two ways to Extend Yourself
There are a number of ways to do this online. Some are automated & others will require action on your part. Building community takes a bit of effort (although you’ve maybe noticed this just in blogging). But this will be fun. (It has to be otherwise it won’t work!)
Automate your Outreach
Where can you put rss feeds for your blog so that it automatically streams at other places?
- Social networking sites such as Facebook (use notes), LinkedIn
- Aggregators such as Friendfeed, Tumblr, etc
- Forums when it’s appropriate - it’s a bit hard to tell but ask the admin
- Related Communities - ex: scroll down on the left to see an example of my blog streaming
- Sites that aggregate RSS feeds:
- You feed your rss in & editors choose which to publish -ex: 1067 views on my post on Twitter that Social Media Today picked up
- Make it easy for your readers to ‘forward to a friend’ on your blog
- Join social voting sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Sphinn, Mixx, etc
- Be generous in helping your friends. They will help back. Most have groups by topic areas.
- Comment on other’s blog posts & add links to your relevant blog posts & free resources
- Join forums and get involved in the conversations (make sure that linking is allowed)
- If you’re shy about this, I have some suggestions.
- tip - use a tool like Trailfire to keep track of the forums, social bookmarking sites work also
- Write for a group blog - there’s no pay on this but it’s a different niche than my blog & there’s a community with it that many new people I’ve never met (yet!)
- Join group projects - this book project that I’m participating in has 275 authors (meaning lots of back links as we all blog about it! LiveWriter allowed me to copy/paste them as a whole) - I see traffic coming from many new readers as they browse the list posted at the 275 authors’ blogs
- Can’t find a project like this? Why not start one then?
- Memes are powerful & you never know how far ranging they’ll be - this one went on & on (and people started making lists of the people who had replied & evaluating that = more links!)
- participate when your friends call you out
- If you see something meme-like, just do it! Ex: Top 10 Social Media Tools/Platforms
- Start one - they’re fun! Usually it’s a list
- Invite them to guest write for you.
- Offer to do guest posts for them.
Set up google alerts & Tweetscan for your new keywords. For example I have an ongoing search for ‘community manager’. My goal is to connect with Community Managers on Twitter & keep up to date on the latest news. It makes growing my connections effortless.
Send out a regular newsletter with links to your blog. Less than 10% use blog readers, so they may prefer getting a compilation of your links & news in their inbox on a regular basis. (Make sure that people opt-in for the newsletter & can unsubscribe).
Engage with the new Community
The next steps require more effort but once you get started you’ll enjoy getting off your blog. The purpose is to meet new people and introduce them to you and in turn your blog. It’s not like flipping a switch & it will take some time. Please don’t go out & spam blogs or forums with links as that won’t be appreciated! You really need to be sincere. And remember this is fun. Do some Googling or set up Google alerts for keywords describing the new community that you’d like to embrace.
Join Communities & Participate
Provide something free that represents your niche (whitepaper, ebook, podcast, etc) & link others to it
Don’t forget about groups at social networking sites such as Facebook & LinkedIn
Include links to the new community in your blog posts
As you spend time in the new community you’ll start to identify the influencers
Signs that you’re making progress
Watch where your traffic is coming from & what searches are hitting your blog/site
*use Feedburner or Google Analytics
An increased network - if you’re doing the second part then it will grow
If you found this intriguing then you will enjoy my list of Resources on community building.
I’m sure that you have ideas that I haven’t thought of… What are your suggestions for taking your blog to a community? What has worked for you?
Written on July 5th, 2008 at 06:07 am by Darren Rowse
How to Monitor the Quality of StumbleUpon Advertising Campaigns
In a guest post Neil Matthews of ClickQualityConsultant.com writes about how we can monitor the quality of paid visits from a StumbleUpon advertising campaigns.
Darren advocates using paid advertising from StumbleUpon in his post Run a StumbleUpon Advertising campaign for your blog, as a way to build your blog’s audience. In this post I would like to expand on this and talk about how to monitor the click quality of your paid Stumbles to see if this type advertising is the correct fit for your blog.
What do I mean by click quality? I mean that the clicks are bringing a return on the advertising investment you make. This will vary from blog to blog. You may be after an increase in subscribers, for people to click more often on ASsense ads or that they contact you for consulting services. If you are spending money on StumbleUpon clicks you need to know how the campaign is performing and if this type of advertising works for your blog.
Firstly a quick recap on StumbleUpon (SU). I like to think of SU as TV channel surfing for the net. The Stumbler installs a toolbar into their browser, sets the type of site they are interested in and begins to stumble. SU selects a site at random from their database which matches your likes and sends it to your browser for your surfing pleasure. If the site is of interest you, you may engage and begin reading more deeply, you can then grant a thumbs up or down to the site to show if you approve of the content of not. The other option is just to skip past the site surfing for a new channel.
Running a paid SU advertising campaign, you pay 5 cents per display to have your site presented to the Stumblers in the demographic group you select. Your daily cost is set by the number of displays you want per day. For example 500 displays per day will cost 25 USD.
Stumblers are notoriously fickle, and if you are paying for clicks, it is important to check if the campaign is producing quality clicks, or are people just clicking away from your site. SU has its own quality check, it shows how many people have given you the thumbs up or down, this is reliant on the visitor, we need more quantifiable analytics to see if this form of advertising is bringing you any return on your investment.
The first thing to do is to highlight which referrals from SU are paid and which are organic. To do this, I amend the landing page of my campaign by adding a parameter to the end of the landing page URL for example:
Note that I use su rather than stumbleupon. Using the term stubleupon in paid ads is against their editorial policy and your ad will be rejected.
Next I analyse that traffic with an analytics package. For the purpose of this post I am using Google Analytics, it is free and very simple to use. Installing GA is relatively simple. To collect metrics you will need to create an account and then install a piece of JavaScript code onto every page you want to monitor. I have the code installed into the footer of my wordpress theme so that every page is monitored. Please refer to the Analytics site for details on installation.
Once my SU ad is running and I have collected a decent enough number of clicks for statistical analysis (a couple of hundred should suffice) I move onto the process of identifying the quality of those clicks.
From the analytics package I can get an overview of the landing pages on my site, as we can see from the screen dump I received 179 clicks from StumbleUpon
Drilling down into this metrics I am presented with the behaviour of the visitors from the stumble upon source
This give me good and bad news, only 12.35% of the visitors are bouncing away from my site immediately, there is a certain level of stickiness about the page and people on average are spending 41 seconds on my landing page. I am getting the engagement I was looking for, the disappointing side of this campaign is that nearly 90% of the visitors are reading one page and then leaving, there is no depth to their visit. That is the area I would focus on improving.
I think my problem is that I am sending Stumblers to my home page rather than to a specific landing post which can draw readers in more deeply.
Do I think I was getting good quality clicks from SU? Not really, the action I want is for visitors to move from the content into my consulting page. I would probably be better served sending traffic directly to that page rather than the home page.
Using this information I could the split test another landing page with a different source parameter and see how the two stack up against one another.
How do you decide if SU works for you? I would say the following metrics need to be analysed for your campaign:
- Bounce rate – are visitors staying or moving on straight away. A sub 50% bounce rate is good
- Length of visit – How long are people engaging on your sit, if it is only a second or two, less than the time it takes to read you posts, this is a bad sign?
- Depth of visit – Are people reading more than one posts, have you caught the readers attention?
- Goals – Google analytics has the option which allows you to set goals, in this example the goal was to move from the landing page to my consulting page. My research suggests that a 1% conversion rate of visits to goals is the minimum you should look for.
I have used this method across a number of different platforms including Facebook social ads, and when I buy advertising banner space. Monitoring and testing the quality of your paid advertising is the key to a good return on investment. If you don’t get the quality you need from that advertising source, drop the campaign and spend your money on quality clicks. If SU is poor consider Adwords, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace or one of the many other paid internet marketing programmes.
Can I add a caveat to close this post? You may be tempted to use this method to reconcile the number of clicks paid for to the number of clicks received, but I would say that Google Analytics data can be wrong due to people running their browser with JavaScript disabled. If the code on you page is not activated, then no visit data will be captured. Click fraud investigations require log file analysis tools to ensure the validity of your claims.
Test your quality, make incremental changes and test again. This is the way to get the best bang for your buck.
Written on July 5th, 2008 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Amazon Video Widgets - Earn Money From the Amazon Affiliate Program and Video
Amazon have launched a new handy Video Widget that will interest many bloggers wanting to combine the use of video and the Amazon Affiliate program.
The widget allows you to make a video and then upload it to Amazon to be hosted where you can add little pop-up product links and pictures that appear throughout the video.
You can choose which products appear and then time the product appearances to the moment in the video that you mention the product you’re talking about.
This video widget will be most effective when you’re reviewing products and I think could convert well.
Here’s a quick video that I just made - excuse the quality of the video (it’s jumpy and out of sync). It’s not Amazon’s hosting but is my fault as my laptop was doing too many things at once as I recorded it.
The video was shot in 1 minute and it only took me 3 minutes to upload and a further 2 to add the products. Not bad for 6 minutes work.
Written on July 4th, 2008 at 06:07 am by Darren Rowse
I’m on BlogTalkRadio Today
At 5pm Pacific time today (10am Melbourne time) I’m being interviewed by Wayne Hurlbert (his blog) on Blog Talk Radio.
If you’re around and have the time it should be a fun interview. I’m told there will be downloadable recording of it in the coming days also and I’ll post the link to it as I get it.
PS: Wayne has been kind enough to do a review of the ProBlogger book.
Written on July 4th, 2008 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Why I Use Aweber To Deliver My Newsletters
Yesterday I announced the re-launch of the ProBlogger Newsletter (there have been 500+ new subscribers added to the list from last time bringing it to a total of around 16,000 - the first newsletter will come out next week) and since doing so I’ve had a number of questions about why I use newsletters, ‘how’ I deliver newsletter (AWeber), why I’ve chosen the tool that I have and why I have chosen a service that isn’t free.
Rather that responding to each person individually I thought it’d make a useful post for others considering adding a newsletter to their blog.
Why Do I Use Newsletters?
This is a common question and one that understandably puzzles some bloggers. Afterall - we’re all told that RSS is the best technology and email is dying…. or is it?
Back in 2005 I wrote a post titled Why Email Newsletters Can Improve Your Blog - I don’t tend to link back to posts that are three years old but my reasons for starting to use newsletters are still valid today:
- Increased Readership
- Promotion of Posts
- Build Community
- Improve Your Blog
- Drive Sales
- Email is familiar and Easy to Use
All I’ll really add to the list is that on the days that I send out my photography newsletters my blog comes alive with extra visitors, many more comments than normal, participation in polls, ad performance, affiliate sales and more.
If I happen to miss sending an email one week (or I’m late) the activity is not there and I get emails from readers asking where it is.
Which Tool Do I Use?
Let me start with the easy question - which tool do I use?
I’ve been using AWeber to deliver my photography newsletters since last year.
Why AWeber?
Regular readers know my painful story of having to switch from a free newsletter service to AWeber so I won’t rehash it all here (you can read the full version here) - but the long and short of it is that I invested a lot of time and energy into building my newsletter list up over years with a free service only to find that it became unreliable and ended up suspending it’s service - leaving me with no way to get my newsletters out. At this time I began to investigate other services and after the recommendation of many friends and readers decided to switch to a paid service.
In addition to being convinced by the recommendation of others it was the feature list that attracted me to AWeber. Since signing up they’ve upgraded their service and feature list a couple of times - it’s always a good sign to see a company improving and developing.
Some of the features that I enjoy:
Unlimited lists in the one account - some providers charge per list. So I have a photography list (two actually) and a problogger list.
Unlimited emails - some services charge per email that you send. I can send as many as I want each month to as many lists as I want.
Autoresponders - put together a sequence of emails that you want to send readers so that when they sign up for a mini course they get them sent out in an order and timing that you choose. For example on my photography site I’m going to put together a 10 part free mini-course on the basics of photography that will get sent out to readers once a week over 10 weeks. It’s a great way to connect people into your course and add value for readers.
Deliverability - this was a big one for me. Using my last free service I was getting very high numbers of bounced emails and emails being labeled as spam. It wasn’t unusual to see 20-30% of my emails not even getting delivered. My last 5 emails with AWeber had between 0.1 and 2.6% of emails undelivered. This means literally thousands of readers are getting emails that previously didn’t.
Text and HTML Emails - I like to send HTML emails to my photography readers as they are a very visual bunch. AWeber just added 27 new templates to the ones they already had. As someone who is not very design capable these save me a lot of time and I’ve had a lot of great feedback from readers. For those readers who can’t get HTML emails there is the option to send a text version too.
Analytics - AWeber has more ways to track the activity of your subscribers use of your newsletter than I’d ever experienced before. Not only can you track which links in your newsletter get clicked (very very handy) it allows you to
- split test different versions of your newsletter to see which works best
- to see how different web forms on your blog perform
- to track what time of day readers open emails and click links
- to send emails only to certain subscribers (based upon what they’ve clicked previously)
- to track where on your website readers are going after they click on a link
The list goes on…. and on….
In fact there are so many ways of tracking readers and testing how your emails convert that it takes time to apply them all.
Blog Newsletters - I’ve actually not used this feature yet but it is handy to know that it is there. It allows you to turn your RSS feed into a newsletter. While you can do this with Feedburner (the service I currently use) AWeber gives a lot more control - it allows you to send these updates not only daily but weekly, monthly etc and to have more control over how they look.
Customer Service - Even before I switched to AWeber I was impressed with the support that they offered. They helped me transfer my previous lists across (it was a bit of a process and they do have to have some safeguards in place to stop Spammers using their system - but we got there) and have answered every question I’ve had of them - usually within hours. They have a live customer support instant messaging service which operates most hours which is very helpful.
Free Trial - There are a lot more features that I’ve not mentioned (and to be honest have not even discovered or tested yet) - but you can test them all for yourself. AWeber offers a free month long trial so you can play with them all to your heart’s content. This is how I got a feel for AWeber before signing up.
Why a Paid Service?
I asked this question of my friends who used AWeber and other paid newsletter services for a long time. There are so many free tools out there available to bloggers that I totally understand why we’re wired to ask it - however for me it came down to this:
- Newsletters are a Core part of my business as a blogger. They’ve become so valuable that I cannot afford not to have them.
- I cannot afford to have a service that disappears at some point or becomes unreliable in it’s uptime.
- I cannot afford to have a service that doesn’t deliver a high rate of email.
- I wanted a service that I could email and say ‘I’m paying for this - so fix it’.
- I wanted a service that had high standards and that didn’t get taken over my spammers (one of the reasons my last service became unreliable).
For me this meant I went with AWeber. I can understand why others choose not to pay for a service or go with other options - but for me the arguments and my previous experience said it all.
As mentioned above - Aweber’s model is not to charge per email or per list that you have - but it’s based more upon subscriber numbers. For me this made sense. I wanted the flexibility to send as many emails as I want to my multiple lists. I have also found that as my subscribers grow in number that the list becomes more profitable for me - so I can justify the extra expense when I jump up a price bracket.
Have Your Say?
AWeber will not be for everyone. Some have had good experiences of free services, others have chosen different ones and for others a newsletter is not something that they choose to use. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the topic of newsletters as an extra feature on your blog.
Do you do them? What service do you use?
Written on July 3rd, 2008 at 11:07 am by Darren Rowse
Want $10? Sign Up for the Pepperjam Affiliate Network Today
One of the innovative new affiliate networks to hit the market in the last 6 months is Pepperjam Network - and today they are offering you $10 as a signup bonus for becoming one of their publishers.
If you want to earn money by recommending products from companies like eBay, Cartoon Network, StarTrek.com, Jelly Belly, Sesame Street, Net Shops, SEOMoz, igourmet and many more (they seem to add new ones every day or two) then PepperJam is a network that you’ll want to test run whether you get the signup bonus or not because they are one of the fastest growing online marketing networks going around (according to MarketingSherpa).
To get the $10 signup bonus you just need to
- sign up for the program
- be approved as a new publisher to their network.
Not bad - PLUS you’ll then have access to a wonderful new range of affiliate programs to promote to help you make more.
Written on July 3rd, 2008 at 04:07 am by Darren Rowse
How Many Posts Should You Show On Your Blog’s Front Page?
@tcdzomba (on Twitter) asked me - “Do u have a post up about how many blog posts to keep on the front page of the blog?”
It’s not a topic that I’ve written about specifically before so let me write on that topic now for you and open it up for some discussion (looking forward to seeing what others think).
I’ve never put a lot of thought into the number of posts on a blog’s front page before and think that it probably varies a little from blog to blog.
There are two main factors that I like to achieve on a blog’s front page:
1. Highlighting a variety of posts - my personal preference is to have more than one or two posts on the front page so that when new readers come to it they are more likely to find something that interests them to read.
While blogs with just one post on the front page are definitely ‘cleaner’ and can be quite visually pleasing I worry a little that they miss out on connecting with readers who come and don’t find that one post to connect with them.
2. Not too much clutter and length - I find this hard to achieve and it’s a balancing act with point #1 - but I don’t like to have my front page as being too long or too overwhelming.
As a result I try to use ‘excerpts’ on my front page - giving readers the title and a taste (a paragraph or two) of each article and the option to click a link to read more.
While I know some bloggers don’t like these excerpts/extended entries (some believe blogger do it to increase page views) I do it simply so I can highlight more posts on the front page and shorten the length of the overall page.
Another option is to use larger segments of your posts in ‘feature posts’ and to show shorter excerpts from other posts (or even just titles).
It’s a Balancing Act
As with many aspects of blogging - it’s something that you need to balance. Some blogs lend themselves more to featuring full posts on front pages, others can get away with excerpts more. Some blogs have 20-30 posts on the front page while others just have one.
I guess it’s partly personal preference and partly working out what works with your topic and readership.
What’s Your Preference?
How many posts do you have on the front page of your blog?
Do you use excerpts or full posts on the front page?
Why have you made the decision as you have?
Written on July 2nd, 2008 at 04:07 pm by Darren Rowse
The ProBlogger Newsletter is Back - Sign Up Today for a Free Bonus
Today I’m pleased to announce that the ProBlogger Newsletter is Back! You can sign up today and get a 1 hour podcast with me for free here:
Add Your Email Address Here to Subscribe
Early on in the life of ProBlogger I produced a weekly newsletter that ran parallel to this blog.
I did this as a way for readers to keep in touch with the latest information about the blog, get a little exclusive inside information on what I’d been doing, to promote new products and services available to bloggers and to make advance announcements about ProBlogger. The newsletter was well received by readers in the main, I could tell this from the emails I’d receive on those weeks that I didn’t get one out on time as people often emailed to ask where it was (always a good sign).
The service that I was previously using to provide these newsletters became quite unreliable and I also became quite busy and so six or so months ago I brought them to a halt. I regularly get emails from subscribers asking if I plan on bringing the newsletter back so have decided that now is the time to do so. I’ve moved the list of subscribers onto my new newsletter service provider (Aweber) and the first newsletter will go out later this week.
Those of you who were on the newsletter previously will be automatically subscribed. If you no longer wish to get them - simply unsubscribe when you get the first email.
For those of you who were not previously subscribed (or if you can’t remember) you can subscribe using the following form:
Add Your Email Address Here to Subscribe
If you’re not sure if you’re subscribed - subscribe again and it will weed out duplicate emails.
What is this newsletter about?
Frequency: I will aim to produce this newsletter on a weekly basis but reserve the right to scale it back to twice a month.
Content: There will be a similar mix of content to last time and it will include:
- Recaps on the hot threads of conversation on ProBlogger from the last week
- Inside information on techniques that I’m trying in my blogging
- Pointing out tools and services that you might find useful
- Pre-announcements of new ProBlogger site news (there are a few things coming soon that I’ll let newsletter subscribers test before anyone else)
- Exclusive newsletter only tips from time to time that won’t go up on the blog (or at least won’t appear on the blog for a few weeks)
Free Bonus
As a small thank you bonus for subscribing - in my first newsletter I will be including a link to a one hour podcast interview that I did last week with Denise and Patsi from The Blog Squad. In it they interview me about my journey as a blogger and I share a lot of tips on how to improve your blog.
This is not available anywhere else on the web for free so the only way to get access to it is via the newsletter. Enter your email and you’ll have immediate access to the podcast.
If you just want the podcast simply add your email to the field above and once you’ve verified your subscription you’ll get access to the podcast.
If at any point you wish to stop receiving the ProBlogger newsletter simply click the unsubscribe link in every email we send. Your emails will always be kept private and unsubscriptions will always be honored.
Looking forward to connecting with you via the newsletter in the weeks and months ahead.
Written on July 2nd, 2008 at 06:07 am by Darren Rowse
Achieving “The Package Deal”
Today Chrissy Scivicque from OfficeArrow continues her two part series of posts on Blogging Your Way to a New Career.
Previously, I shared my story with you. I told you all about how my blog was purchased by a start-up website called OfficeArrow. I explained “The Package Deal”, which miraculously changed the direction of my life and career almost overnight. Today, I’m going to share with you a few of the strategies I employed that helped me achieve this. Even if you’re not looking to do this for yourself, these strategies will help build your business. And YES, your blog is a business! If you want to take advantage of any of the opportunities blogging presents, start embracing that concept now.
Pick a Niche
Your blog should appeal to a very specific segment of the population. It’s not enough to simply focus on “people who want to be productive”. Get detailed! Know what you’re typical user looks like. Understand what motivates them to read your blog. Research their purchasing habits. Don’t be afraid to really narrow your focus.
For me, I chose Executive Assistants. Sure, much of the content included information that anyone interested in personal or professional development (including EAs) could use. But I also had a lot of laser-focused content just for EAs. I referred to my job often and truly sought to have a tightly focused audience. This hugely increased the value of my audience to the purchaser. Any company or person who buys your blog is, essentially, buying your audience. The more targeted you are, the more valuable you are.
Of course, you need to choose a niche that you’re familiar with and have respect for. The cardinal rule when creating content is that the audience can sniff out insincerity and inaccuracies from a mile away. You’ll lose your audience quickly if you don’t understand their needs and have a desire to help them.
Lastly, select a niche target market that is not saturated already. I started my site for Executive Assistants because there were simply no other sites out there that met my needs as an EA. Any successful business fills a void in the market. Research your competition. If you find that your niche is overwhelmingly saturated, tweak it a bit.
Build a Brand
From the day your website goes live, you’re building a brand – for yourself and the blog. Think carefully about what you want the brand to say about you and your business. You don’t have to spend a ton of time and money creating a logo. You can build a strong brand through your quality of content and the overall look and feel of your site. Keep your brand consistent all over and carry that brand with you in all of your activities around the internet. Create a slogan and add it to the footer of forum posts. Create a persona for yourself. Look at Perez Hilton. He is the definition of his brand! My point is this: you need to be original. Using a standard issue free template doesn’t help build your brand. Minor tweaks (that require minimal technical know-how) will make all the difference in the world.
Develop Your Community
As a blogger, you are nothing without your audience. Don’t take them for granted. Ask them what they want, what they like and don’t like. Utilize polls and other research tools to help engage your readers and get to know more about them. Let them contribute freely by allowing guest posts and encouraging comments. If you have the technical ability, add a forum to facilitate conversation. Give your audience a platform to share their thoughts and build a community. You may be the creator, but you are not always the leader. Let the community lead you.
Create Relationships
Just like in any other business, it’s all about who you know. Nothing helps build recognition like a loyal fan, who happens to be a blogger as well. The very first post I wrote on my blog impressed a man named Jay (of Dumb Little Man) and, thanks to him, I was motivated to continue moving forward with my silly little idea. Throughout my blogging “career”, Jay has been an enormous inspiration and an incredible supporter.
Of course, you shouldn’t wait to be approached by others. Stick your neck out and say hello to your favorite bloggers. Ask for nothing – simply introduce yourself, share a few sincere compliments, and start a dialogue. These are your colleagues. If they’re willing to share advice, listen to them. When they post articles you think you’re readers would enjoy, share them. Reciprocal relationships are one of the most valuable tools in building your business. But they don’t happen overnight.
Create Original Products
A hugely helpful tool for increasing the value and visibility of your blog is the use of original products. Create an e-book, special report or podcast. Sell it or give it away free for people who subscribe. Whatever you do with it, the product helps firmly establish your brand and it proves the interest level of the audience. When I was negotiating my deal, I was able to point to the sale of my e-book and say, “Look. My audience is not afraid to purchase helpful tools. They are actively seeking resources that aren’t available elsewhere.” I was able to show income reports and the value of my blog increased significantly because of that.
My final and most critical piece of advice is to simply remember this: you are not building a blog, you’re building a business. Be thoughtful in your approach. Study and track your numbers consistently – everything from subscribers to pageviews to revenue. If you’re going to pursue any of the options mentioned above, this advice will serve you well.
Chrissy Scivicque is the Senior Content Manager at OfficeArrow.com – the world’s first online community created for office professionals, by office professionals. She writes a wide variety of articles to help people do their jobs more effectively and with less frustration. You can follow her journey by joining the OfficeArrow Community today - membership is free!
-
Problogger Sponsors
-
-
Sponsors
Team Blogs
Blogs from b5media management and staff members.-
