Social media is not going away. And if you are a small business you wouldn’t want it to.

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube… the list is huge (and possibly overwhelming) but the potential for growing your business, expanding your customer base and making more money is just as vast.

Some small businesses are now using social media to grow profits. Others are struggling to navigate the jungle and are making mistakes along the way.

In this post I’m going to talk a little bit about what you need to be doing if you want to get in on the action.

I’ll answer all the questions you’ll need to know including:

• What is social media?
• What social media sites should your small business be using?
• How do you get started on the most important sites?
• How do you use social media to grow profits?
• What strategies and tools will help you grow faster?
• What have the best social media users been doing? (Case studies)
• What are the dangers of social media?

Let’s jump right in! You’ve got over 3,500 words to get through.

The basics of social media for small businesses

Let’s start with a real basic tour of the wonderful and complicated world of social media.

What is social media?
Social media is any website or mobile phone function that allows you to share content and ideas with other people. Just think of it as a variety of methods for getting in touch with like minded people from all over the world.

What are the main social media sites?
The main (this is by no means a complete list) social media sites that you want to know about and possibly be active on include:

• Your blog
  Let me be really frank about this. Your blog is still your most important social media site. Some “experts” might disagree with this but it is your blog that forms the basis of all your other social media activities. More about this later.
• Facebook – 845 million users
  Facebook is not just personal profiles for sharing photos of your dinner with your uninterested friends. It is actually a hugely important way to get thousands of people interacting with your business online and offline. People can use GPS to “check in” at your business, share your Page with their friends and much more.
• Twitter – 300 million users
  If Facebook is for contacting friends, Twitter is for following people you wish you knew. It is a wonderful way to stay up to date with real-time news straight from the fingers of news reporters, celebrities, corporations and regular people. It is also extremely good for contacting other people in your industry.
• Linkedin – 135 million users
  This one is pretty much like an online resume. Not so important for small businesses unless you are scouting for some other work. It is, however, a huge force for people looking to network with others in a professional sense. Lawyers meeting lawyers, for example.
• Youtube – 3 billion views per day
  Yep, Youtube is social media. Its all about videos and providing quality content to people who are trying to learn more about what you do.

  A great way to create viral buzz or increase customer loyalty.

• Google+ – 62 million users
  This is Google’s reply to fears that Facebook is taking over. Its all about integrating your online social media life with your search engine. You can add people to your circle of friends and then your search results change based on what those people recommend. You can now also have a business page.
• All the rest
  And then there are all the hundreds of others like Foursquare (location based check ins), Pinterest (collages and images), Flickr (photos), etc.

Now the good news is that you do not need to be active on all of these. In fact, some social media platforms work really poorly for certain industries.

A recent photo that has been circulating on, ironically, the social media sites explaining how they all work. Bit of a laugh but also pretty helpful. If anyone knows the original source please let me know.

Update: Thanks to Jennifer for finding the original source at Three Ships Media.

So which ones should I use?
This is a tricky question and totally depends on your business. Let’s start by saying that everyone should have a Facebook Page and a website with a blog regardless of what you do. That is the basis for all social media activity. Once you become somewhat experienced at blogging and using Facebook you can decide what other social media platforms you want to use.

If you really want to get started you can book a consulting session with me and I will guide you through the minefield on Skype or via email.

What are the main benefits of social media?
The main benefit is that you can now contact thousands of people that you never could before. You can also have your customers do your marketing for you as Facebook fans and Twitter followers share their experiences with you and your business. Social media lets you reveal more of your business and what you can offer the people who are listening.

Where do I start for my business’ social media activities?

As I said before, you don’t have to be on all of these platforms. Thank heavens. Social media is my job and I still don’t use everything that is out there.

Here are a few steps you can follow if you want to get started in a simple and affordable way.

1. Make sure you have website and a blog
Your website and blog is your most important online asset. Period.

All your social media activities should in some way be about growing your blog and website and email database and you can only do that with amazing content.

If you don’t have a blog I have written a pretty comprehensive guide to setting one up. Just follow the steps and see how you go.

As with most things online, if you find it too hard you can just hire someone to do it for you. I’m more than happy to get you on the right track in that respect.

2. Set up a Facebook Page
Every business should have a Facebook Page as far as I am concerned. And as they are quite simple to set up and run you can practice on Facebook before expanding out to other social media sites.

Here are the steps you can follow:

• Research the best Facebook Pages
  I think the best thing you can do in the beginning is research some of the best Facebook Pages out there. These are individuals and companies who are getting it right. Some of them include Pat Flynn, Problogger, Neil Patel, Porsche, Battlefield, etc.

  Have a look at those guys and take note of not just how they look, but how they interact with their customers.

• Set up a Page
  You need to get a Facebook Page, not a profile. If you have a profile you need to change as Facebook regularly takes these down.
• Add your information
  Make sure you add a really detailed set of information like your business address, services, opening hours and what it is that you do. Make it as comprehensive as possible.
• Add some photos
  Click the “Photo” link up the top and then “Create an album” and go ahead and add some photos of your shopfront. Then create another album for your various product lines. People can now share these with their friends. Make sure you give them all meaningful captions.
• Add a profile photo
  You’ll need a profile photo. This is the little photo on the left hand side. It needs to include your logo as well as a high definition image that really conveys what it is that you do. It should be at least 180 pixels wide.
• Invite your friends
  If you are already active on Facebook as a personal user it is a good idea to invite all your friends and get them to spread the word. This can give you a really important initial boost.
• Start interacting
  Now you can begin interacting with current and potential customers. You can share photos, ideas, tips – anything that will compliment your brand and make people loyal to yourself. Not sure what to do? Check out down below.

Once you have mucked around with Facebook for a while you will start to develop enough confidence to move in to other areas.

3. Decide where else you need to be
The next step is to decide after a couple of months what other social media sites work for a small business like yours. Sign up for a few test accounts on Twitter, Google+ and Youtube and see what the “vibe” is like for your niche. If something looks promising then give it a go.

So, what do I do on social media? What’s the point?

Photo credit: _bianconero

One of the biggest questions my clients ask me is simply what the heck do I do on these social media sites?

Let’s take a look.

1. Increase loyalty by showing the real you
People become loyal to other people, not brands. If you run a pizza shop you can spend time on Twitter talking about your passion for pizzas and your history with the pizza making art. You can talk about your quest for finding the right ingredients and interact with other people who have similar passions.

Social media is a fantastic way to break down the barriers of facelessness. By showing your potential customers the people behind the business you are giving yourself a chance to be different from all the other competition. They will become loyal to you.

Showing people the real you means:

• Using your own voice
  Don’t try and come up with some corporate character. Just talk as if you were talking to your mates at lunch or a long term client in your store.
• Being honest
  Honesty is really important as people can sense whether you are stretching things. Remember, it is about connections.

The more chances you give people to see the real you the more loyal they will become.

2. Get badly needed feedback
Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook provide you with a really good way of getting feedback. Its almost like its an online survey. Want to know how people felt about their dining experience in your cafe? Go on Facebook and ask them.

This takes some bravery because you have to be prepared for negative feedback. But negative feedback is so important because it helps you improve your services. And that leads me to the next one.

Case Study:
I once sent a Tweet out complaining about my mobile phone service. Within an hour they had rung me up and given me a new phone for free to apologize as well as switching me to a better reception provider. This would never happen before social media because companies weren’t afraid of our networking influence. Now they are.

3. Answer and address complaints quickly
Big companies like QANTAS, Vodafone, Australia Post, etc. are now all using Twitter to handle complaints. Part of this is damage control, part of it is an improvement on customer relations. What do I mean by this?

Well, the thing you have to realize is that social media is here to stay. If you do something bad to a client they are going to talk about it on Twitter. So you can either ignore it and let the reputation grow or you can jump on and help people move on. Give them freebies, apologize sincerely and invite them back.

It is very important to be seen to be addressing complaints on social media sites.

4. Create amazing incentives
One of the best ways small businesses can use social media is by offering incentives to get people in the door.

Let me tell you an example of how it works. Let’s say you are a pizza joint and you want to get more people in the door. What you can do is put up a sign in your shop telling people that if they check in on Facebook they will get 5% off their bill.

The result?

For a few dollars you have just got a review to several hundred people. All of that customer’s friends will see that they are at your pizza joint and the chances are they will add a comment like “great pizza”. The next time those friends are thinking about pizza they might just remember that little reference.

Incentives can be really simple or they can be complex and more rewarding. But don’t be afraid of giving away free stuff to people because it will come back to you in droves.

I’m going to be doing a whole post on incentives for social media marketing so make sure you are subscribed to the blog so you don’t miss it.

5. Capitalize on and boost your word of mouth marketing
The previous point ties in very closely with this one – social media can help you massively grow your word of mouth marketing.

In its most basic form, if you don’t have a website or Facebook page or Twitter account then how are the millions of people on those platforms going to make reference to you? They can’t.

If you do nothing else at all, at least have a website and a Facebook page set up so people can point to something when they are talking about you to their friends.

6. Share photos to increase location and product awareness
If you have a business with a physical location then uploading a gallery of photos on Facebook can be an excellent way to introduce people to your location.

If you have a physical product you can do the same – upload photos and show people what they are getting or how it is made.

As you are probably realizing, social media for small business is all about making meaningful connections with people. By sharing photos you are breaking down “web barriers” and reminding people that you are around and your product is really really good.

7. Grow your mailing list
Internet marketers say that a mailing list of 10,000 subscribers is worth at least $100,000 a year to your business. With that in mind, you need to use social media to start capturing as many loyal and engaged email subscribers as possible. Here are some reasons why:

• You can promote new products
  Imagine selling a widget to a young lady for $50. You get her email address and then the next time you have a widget sale you email her and all the other widget lovers. You instantly boosted your sales for free.
• You can promote events
  Got an event or a lunch coming up? Email your list.
• You can get help
  Need help from your loyal customers promoting a new product or perhaps a new store location? Just ask.

If you can direct your social media activities so that you capture email subscribers you will be setting your business up for a lot of success in the future.

8. Hold contests to increase your following
Facebook contests are really big nowadays. It basically consists of giving away some really cool prize in order to attract more Facebook followers and get the word out about your business.

You have to be careful though as some contests are against the terms of service and can get your page banned. Research is important.

When holding a contest you should make sure that you have a really nice prize (worth at least hundreds of dollars) and an entry method that is exciting and simple.

Case Study:
Here is an example of a Facebook location-based contest run by Coca Cola in Israel. As the video shows, the outcome was pretty amazing.

Of course, your campaigns don’t have to be this epic. But it does give you some ideas. For example, you might want to give anyone who checks in to your cafe a free coffee. That word will start to spread.

9. Study, study, study
There are so many clever people out there doing incredible things with social media. It is important to study them.

If you are a small business is can be tempting to think that you are all alone trying to learn yet another skill. So make it easy on yourself. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Go out and study some of the businesses that are getting things really right.

I’ve included some resources here in this post but one of the simplest things you can do is go to Google.com and type in “social media campaign [your niche]“. For example, a hotel might write “social media campaign hotel” and research the different results that come up.

Some of my favorite social media for small business posts from around the web are:

• 10 Tips for Building a Strong Online Community Around Your Start Up – Mashable
• Twitter Comedy: How to be Funny in 140 Characters – Mashable
• 5 Fitness Brands Kicking Butt on Social Media – Mashable
• The Highest Converting Facebook Page I’ve Ever Seen – ViperChill
• Why I Switched to Aweber for My Blog’s Email List and Why You Should Too – Blog Tyrant
• 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue – Copyblogger
• How to Create a Facebook Landing Page – Smart Passive Income
• The Trap of Social Media Noise – Seth Godin
• Why Research is Key and How to Create a Research Station for Your Social Media Strategy – Danny Brown
• 10 Ways to Get More Traffic, Attention and Higher Rankings Through Social Sharing – Neil Patel

It is important to study this stuff but it is also important not to get distracted. You are trying to grow your business remember, not your social media accounts.

The dangers of social media for small businesses

I don’t want to scare you but there are a few dangers that small businesses need to be aware of when getting involved in the social media labyrinth.

1. People are critical of bad products
Well, lets be honest. People are always critical of bad products its just that now they can talk about them on Twitter.

If you provide a bad service or product you can be you will be flamed (chastised) on Twitter. Be ready for it.

The thing to realize here is that those people are already talking about you. It is therefore extremely important to get on and start talking to them, helping them and addressing their concerns.

2. Bad timing and poor planing can be deadly
A few months ago QANTAS, Australia’s national airline, grounded all its flights around the world due to ongoing industrial action. It left thousands of people stranded across the globe and a media storm unlike I have ever seen in Australia lasted for weeks.

Many people were angry at the CEO’s decision to ground the fleet, while others thought he had no other option and did the right thing.

Shortly after this massive event (and a lot of negative PR) QANTAS launched a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #QantasLuxury saying:

“To enter tell us ‘What is your dream luxury inflight experience? (Be creative!) Answer must include #QantasLuxury.”

Bad idea.

A few of the resulting Tweets from QANTAS’ Twitter competition.

Now, in case you don’t know, a Twitter hashtag is something you use when you want everyone involved to be reading the same thing. For example, you’ll often see hashtags about sporting events like the Super Bowl because the promoters want to get people talking in the same place.

And thanks to a website called Storify we can see a record of all thee nasty, mean and hilarious replies that QANTAS got as entries into this competition.

This is an extreme example of what can happen with bad timing and a poorly thought out campaign. This Twitter competition might have worked wonders if goodwill towards the company was not at such a temporary low (QANTAS is normally a much-loved Australian brand).

3. You can break the law
A lot of people forget that you can still break the law on the internet. And this can lead to you and your staff ending up in serious hot water.

Let’s take defamation as an example. If you go on Twitter and say something untrue about someone which results in their reputation being damaged you can be sued in court under libel laws.

Similarly, if you make untrue claims about your product you can come under fire for false advertising. This can lead to crippling fines.

Its important that you keep everything truthful and clean when on social media sites just like you would on a print or TV advert.

Social Media Tip:
You can avoid a lot of these problems by coming up with a social media policy for your business. Outline what can be talked about, which of your staff can talk on behalf of the business, whether personal social media accounts are allowed, who has access to passwords, etc. It might seem strict but it can save a lot of future dramas.

4. Privacy is an issue
Privacy concerns really need to be thought about before signing up to all of these sites and putting your name, age, location, etc. on the public record. Some people are paranoid about this stuff, others don’t seem to care. Have a think about how much you want people to know and set the boundaries early.

Conclusion

This is just the tip of the social media iceberg. But don’t fret, you don’t need to know everything at once. Start with a website, blog and Facebook Page and go from there. And if you want to talk to someone who has done it all before (for many companies) you can hire me to help you.

To all my regular readers: What other tips would you give to a small business looking to get involved with social media? Have you learned any lessons doing social media for your own business? Please leave one of your usual amazing comments.

Photo credit: CarbonNYC

Blogging is quite an introspective art.

Sure, we write for other people (sometimes thousands of them) but we also spend time looking inwards and asking ourselves important questions about who we are and what we are doing.

And as your blogging career progresses there are a few really big questions that you will need to ask yourself.

This post is a bit of a depart from my usual 2,000+ word essays. I’m just going to show you seven questions that I have asked myself over the last 5 to 10 years.

Hopefully you can jump ahead and learn the lessons now – some bigger than others.

What questions do you think are important to ask?

The questions to ask yourself

As always, jump in on the comments and let me know if you disagree or, more importantly, if you have asked any tough questions yourself.

7. What is my point of difference?

How is your blog different from the billion other blogs out there?

What are you doing differently and how will that impact on people?

A lot of new bloggers start up a blog because they have a passion to write or make some extra money, but not everyone thinks about what their point of difference is going to be. This is extremely important if you want to have long term success.

All brands need to be different.

6. Is my blog secure and backed up?

If you rely on your blog as an income asset you need to make sure that you have it secure and backed up. A hack can cause you a lot of problems and distress.

Check out this post on preventing Facebook and email hackers and learn about how to keep your WordPress blog safe.

This is the kind of thing you think will never happen to you, but hacking is getting more and more common. Try to take some steps now to prevent it or minimize the damage if it happens.

5. Is my writing style improving?

A blog is primarily a written medium. Sure, we have videos and podcasts but for the most part it is about words.

And you need to be good at putting words together.

You need to get people interested even when you have been writing on the same topic for years on end.

The best way to improve your writing style is to read a lot and write a lot. Practice makes perfect. If you want to give this pro blogging thing a real shot you need to make sure you are practicing every day. And improving.

4. Do I have a long term product or income stream plan?

Something that really amazes me is how many bloggers go into “business” without knowing what they are going to sell.

You see, a blog is all about converting people into an outcome. And if you want to make money that outcome needs to be an affiliate product or some kind of product that you have made yourself. I am in favor of a mixture of both.

You need to make sure you have some long term goals. How is this blog going to make money in 5, 10 or 15 years? Figure it out now before you are up the creek without a paddle.

3. Is my reader engagement improving?

There are many types of blogging but the style that I am really interested in is the one where you grow an engaged community. And if you have been blogging for a long time and still aren’t getting that reader engagement then there are a few questions that you need to ask yourself.

Some of the ways you can measure this engagement include:

• email open rates
• the number of comments you get on articles
• the level of discussion on Facebook and Twitter
• etc.

Make sure these measurements are increasing steadily. Grow that community if you want to have a long term and sustainable business.

2. Am I happy?

A lot of us get in to pro blogging because we want to get out of the rat races. That was my goal. But somewhere along the way you might find that you aren’t really that happy. The “work from home” lifestyle might even become a little bit depressing.

It is really important to ask yourself whether you are happy. All the freedom and money in the world is useless if you aren’t looking after yourself and those around you.

What do you think happiness is? Can you get it from work alone?

1. Am I helping people?

The most important thing to ask yourself, in my opinion, is whether or not you are helping people.

You see, I really believe that at the end of life you want to have no regrets. And I think the biggest source of regrets will be when you look back and realize that you didn’t really make a difference to anyone.

The wonderful thing about a blog is that you have a great opportunity to help people with whatever it is that you write about. Make sure every article that you write is motivated with the wish to help your readers and you will make your life and the lives of those around you more meaningful.

Photo credit: rolands.lakis

The sidebar is an often misunderstood part of a blog or website.

99% of the time you will see it clogged up with social media icons, affiliate ads, email subscription boxes… the list is endless.

But is your sidebar really working for you? Is it working as smart as it could be?

In this post I am going to show you five ways to make your blog’s sidebar work a lot smarter.

NOTE: You might want to take a look at a post I did on Problogger a few months ago about the web’s best sidebars. It might give you some ideas.

1. Change your sidebar regularly for SEO

It is really important that you regularly change your sidebar so that Google’s spiders find new content on pages that otherwise might not be refreshed ever again.

I first learnt this tip from Neil Patel who suggests adding a Top Commenters plugin or some automatic feature that shows new content.

As you can see I like to have random posts cycling through in my sidebar. This keeps the area fresh for blogging SEO purposes but it also relates strongly to the next point.

2. Re-work the layout to prevent blindness

Have you heard of ad blindness before? Its where people see an advert or a style of advert so much that they just stop noticing it.

Google Adsense suffers from that phenomena because it is seen on hundreds of thousands of websites and blogs every single day (Here’s a video I did on increasing Adsense CTR).

I spent a lot of my career working out how to get more ad clicks in order to sell my blog, but I never really (til recently) thought about tweaking the elements in my sidebar to prevent people from going blind. Some of the things you might try include:

• Re-designing your opt in form
  You should be constantly tweaking and designing your opt in form for better conversions. Try new graphics, colors or no graphics and colors. Measure the results with Aweber.
• Rotating the structure
  If you have had everything in the same position for years you might want to change things around and see if people start to notice it more.
• Split test
  Set up split tests so that sometimes people see one thing, other times they see another. This is also a really good way to measure your results.

Don’t fall into the trap of doing this stuff at the expense of writing good content. But try it when you can.

3. Promote your content over other people’s

One of the worst things you can do in your sidebar is promote your in less important positions than your own.

The biggest offender here is affiliate ads. We all know that little 125×125 squares that promote various affiliate products. Nowadays bloggers will prioritize them over their own stuff.

An ad filled sidebar

Here’s why this is a bad idea: the more weight you give to sending people away from your site, the less chance you will have to convert them in to a long term reader. Sure, you might make $50 on an affiliate commission but that could represent hundreds of lost dollars if that person was to become a loyal reader who bought your own products down the track.

Make sure your content goes above the fold and features more prominently than other stuff.

4. Remove as much as possible

If you’ve been reading Blog Tyrant for a while you will know that I used to have a lot in my sidebar – links Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, iTunes. Popular posts and top commenters. Email subscription areas and more.

Now I have only two things: my email opt in form and some popular posts for people to read.

I know I am not really following the conventional wisdom that says you should promote your social media accounts, etc. But here’s the thing – my Facebook Page is getting just as many likes, my Twitter account is getting just as many follows and I am getting more subscribers to my email list.

I am still really unsure as to whether people actually interact with those things in the sidebar. I think it comes from other places.

Try removing everything from your sidebar except for the essentials. See what results you get and them come back here and let me know in the comments. Thanks!

5. Research your niche

Something that a lot of new bloggers don’t realize is that all niches behave differently. Sometimes something that works in the fitness niche won’t get results in the marketing niche.

Let me give you an example.

I once ran a successful blog that was aimed at older women’s issues. This blog had the exact same layout as another of my sites that was aimed at younger people (men and women). Both ran the same sidebar Adsense ads with the same colors and placement.

The result?

The site aimed at older women had a much higher click through rate. They just weren’t as experienced and web-savvy as the younger crowd and as such didn’t know that they were clicking ads.

The lesson here is that a lot of niches behave differently and you need to find out what works for yours. Visit the big blogs and websites in your topic and find out what they are doing in their sidebar. See if there are any takeaways that you can learn.

Want to get your sidebar fixed?

I’d like to hear from you if you have changed something in your sidebar and got really interesting results. I’d REALLY like to hear from you if there is something in your sidebar that is not getting any results at all. Maybe the amazing Blog Tyrant community can help turn things around?

Photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography

Have you met my cat? He’s really into my work chair.

His name is Cino (as in cappuccino) and the other day we were sent a reminder that it is time for him to visit the vet.

A cool postcard (below) arrived with an awesome picture and a crafty little message encouraging us to make an appointment.

And this got me thinking: when was the last time I sent a reminder to my customers?

In this post I’m going to show you a few things about getting back in touch with your clients, blog readers and contacts. Its a great way to develop the relationship and eventually make more money.

The reminder card from our vet

The card was basically postcard that had been designed as a vet reminder. Here is a picture of the front and back.

There are a few things that I really like about this particular reminder.

• It is funny
  The use of humor is really important because taking your pet to the vet is both horrible and expensive. Making it seem fun goes a long way to actually getting people back.
• It uses the cat’s voice
  The card is written as if it is to Cino and not the owners. This reinforces the fact that he is a part of the family and makes it a lot harder to ignore it, if you were planning on doing that.
• It has a call to action
  The card tells you to make an appointment right away.
• It uses fear
  Fear is one of the best motivators around. This particular card tells me that my beautiful little cat needs to be protected against cat cancer… holy hell… I better make an appointment!

As far as printed reminders go, this one is pretty good. A lot of the principles you see here can be applied to the online world and almost any web business.

What can you send reminders?

A reminder needs to come at the right time and for the right reason. Some of the reminder you might want to send out include:

• An invoice warning
  If you have some sort of fees or invoice about to be sent out why not send them a warning if you anticipate they might have some problems with it?
• A big anniversary thank you
  A beautiful photo on a nicely designed card would be well received at the one year anniversary of the start of your business relationship to say thanks.
• We miss you
  If you haven’t seen a client or potential customer in a while, why not let them know that you miss them?
• Need help?
  Haven’t done a transaction in a while? Try sending out a reminder that tells clients about all the other things your business does and ask if they need any help.

This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination but I do like to push the idea of just sending a straight out “reminder”. You can be creative.

I bet you all have some ideas… comments!

Sending reminders to your customers, readers and contacts

Depending on what you are reminding people about and who you are reminding you will need to tailor your message and delivery slightly differently. However, here are a few thoughts I hope you will find useful.

1. Cross the web divide
If you are an offline business you can have really good results by sending an email. If you are an online business you can have really good results by sending something in print. The effect here is that you are showing your clients that you are a very well rounded business.

2. Pick a single cause
You need to have a reason to contact your customers. Don’t spam them with constant updates. If you have a Christmas special on website designs then contact them about that and leave them alone for the rest of the year.

3. Tailor the message to the client
Don’t send out mass reminders, it just looks bad. You need to tailor the message to the client. Think about how you know them and what their relationship to you is like. Base the message on their interactions with you in the past.

4. Learn how to write
You need to know how to write a contact letter. I’m not talking about something formal and traditional here but you should study some tips on how to get people’s attention on the medium that you are using. Here is an example of a post I did on how to write emails to A-List bloggers.

5. Spend money
Please don’t cheap out on these reminders. The idea here is to show people that you are a successful business looking to do more business with whoever you are contacting. Nice stationary, good envelopes, etc.

Some resources for your reminders

Here are a few things I thought you might find useful the next time you send out a reminder or two.

• Aweber
  Aweber will let you segment your list so you can set dates and times for when you need to send certain reminders.
• Mail Chimp
  Similar to Aweber except it is a monkey and is better at telling jokes.
• A postcard making tutorial
  Here is a good tutorial on how to make your own postcard.
• Send a gift
  It might not be a postcard or a letter or an email. There are sites out there that let you send personalized corporate gifts as well. How about a USB with a note on it?

Have you ever sent out a successful reminder for something? Do you have any other ideas for people reading this? Please drop a comment.

Recently Kelci asked me over on my Facebook Page about SEO for idiots. I decided to do a full post on it (isn’t she lucky?) because it is such a cool and expansive topic.

So what exactly was her question? Here it is:

Found your blog the other day and have learned MUCH more than the previous 100 blogs I had found combined. I see that you have an article about SEO secrets below but I was wondering if you can direct me to like an “SEO for idiots” type of thing… I really need to understand the basics.

So here you go Kelci. Here are the 10 basics of blogging search engine optimization.

Oh, and this isn’t really for idiots. None of my readers are idiots. And if you are learning about SEO so you can grow your blog you are a long way from being idiotic.

A crude illustration of how SEO works

Let me start by giving you a crude example of how Google SEO works.

Google has developed automatic algorithms that rank your site. They send out what are called “spiders” to “crawl” your site and check it for over 100 indicators that determine whether your site is valuable or useless. These indicators include things like backlinks, domain age, traffic, fresh content, etc.

SEO is the art of making sure those spiders are happy with that they find. It is an extremely complex field that is constantly changing but in all that chaos there are a few constants that have remained true since the beginning. I’ll talk about those here.

The 10 basics of blogging SEO

As always guys and gals, if you have any other tips please leave me a comment and add to the fun. I absolutely love reading the huge comment-essays that you all tend to write.

1. You need your own domain and hosting

The first thing that beginners need to know is that you need your own domain and hosting. Those blogspot and wordpress ones just don’t do well on Google’s rankings.

Why is that?

Well many people speculate that if you were really serious about your website you would get your own name and host it yourself. And Google only wants to point to websites that are considered serious and trustworthy.

• The best host
  The best host for new bloggers is Blue Host. They have super cheap rates and amazing 24/7 support. Oh, and you can install your blog with one click.
• The best domain name registrar
  I have used Namecheap.com for a number of years because they are cheap and the support is always fantastic. I also find their interface really easy to navigate unlike some of the more common ones.
• How to do it all
  Check out my post on building a blog worth $50,000 as it shows you some general steps for installing your own blog.

The sooner you can get on to your own domain name and hosting the better. Start building up your own asset instead of some other blogging company’s.

2. Solve problems with original content

You have to remember that Google’s whole purpose is to provide their customers with relevant and useful search results. Everything they do is built around the premise.

And, to be realistic, the most important thing you can do for your SEO is create massively useful content that solves people’s problems. If you are solving problems that people are searching for then it is likely that you are going to get shared on social media and ranked in Google.

The phrase “original content” means so much more than just blog posts nowadays. You should start expanding into:

• Photography
  Get on Flickr or Photobucket and use original images on your blog.
• Videos
  Make tutorials or do video posts with your webcam. This builds links and traffic from Youtube and does well on mobile devices.
• Podcasts
  iTunes is growing fast as people get better smart phones and spend more time plugged in.
• Tools and plugins
  If you can develop an original tool and install it on your website you can be assured of top Google rankings for a long time. Google absolutely loves tools and helpful plugins that people can use in their lives.

The idea is to build a relationship with your readers by helping them out. This will mean more sharing and faster results on the SERPS (search engine rankings positions).

3. Build relevant backlinks in a natural way

If you are just getting started with SEO you might know a little about backlinks. A backlink is when another website links back to your site from their site.

Not all backlinks are created equal though. Some things to know:

• Never buy them
  I once heard about a guy who was the head SEO guy for an investment company. He bought some cheap backlinks on a domain name with millions of dollars and got the thing banned from Google. Never buy backlinks. Google is on to them.
• The source matters
  The blog that is giving you the backlinks makes a huge difference. If it is an old domain name with excellent rankings itself then the backlink counts for more. One good link from an authority domain name (.edu and .gov ones are amazing) and your rankings change more than hundreds of little ones.
• The anchor text matters
  The anchor text is the words that are used as the link. For example, just then I used “anchor text” as the anchor text. You want this to be relevant to your targeted keywords.

As mentioned, the best way to build quality backlinks is to write amazing quality content and then guest post on the best blogs in your niche.

Remember, backlinks to your OWN content is also really important. See how many links I have to my own articles in this blog post? Those count too!

4. Make sure your theme is SEO optimized

This is the topic of a whole series of posts so I’ll keep it brief.

Think of SEO as having two components: the off-site stuff like social media and backlinks and the on-site stuff like optimizing your theme.

Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site. It also helps Google find your content. Some of the things you can do include:

• Cleanly coded
  Make sure your theme is coded with the latest and greatest techniques so that it is easy to get around.
• Fast loading
  A fast loading site is good for user experience and thus good for Google. Make sure your theme is pulling its weight and loading quickly. You can check out its speed here. You can use cache plugins to help speed things up.
• Original
  Some people disagree but I still reckon that my original themes do better than themes that thousands of other people are using. A newly developed and original site also comes with dozens of other benefits.
• No broken bits
  Make sure you clean up any broken links and make sure your navigation all works smoothly.

The best paid themes for SEO at the moment are those made over at Studiopress. Yep, Brian Clark again.

Having a well designed theme is also important for your brand. Separating yourself from the competition is a very important thing to do.

5. Fix your permalink structure

Permalinks are how people locate your blog and its internal posts and pages. They are made up of a root and an extension.

For example, on this post we have:

ROOT: blogtyrant.com/
EXTENSION: beginnger-blogging-seo/

Now, it is very important to have a good permalink structure. You can change this in WordPress by going SETTINGS > PERMALINKS and tweaking the options. The best option to have in there, in my opinion, is just the post name. So you should select CUSTOM STRUCTURE and then add /%postname%/

However, even better than that is to research what keywords you are trying to rank for and then shorten your URL to match those keywords. Take a look at this post and have a guess what key words I was trying to rank for.

Be warned! You don’t want to change the old permalinks because then any backlinks you have will be broken. Just new ones.

6. Install a sitemap

One of the easiest things you can do is install a Google Sitemap plugin that gives a full map of all your posts, pages and archives. The most common one that people use is this one and it seems to work quite well.

This automatically generates the sitemap for you at regular intervals and then submits it to Google, Bing, etc. on your behalf. Its literally giving them a map of your site so they can index it better.

7. Comment on other blogs

For a long time my SEO strategy consisted of just commenting on other authority blogs. Not only does it get you more traffic, exposure and new relationships, it also counts as a backlink.

Now, some blogs you can leave target anchor text because they aren’t real worried about user names. But on most blogs you need to use your real name. That’s fine.

Try and use Market Samurai to see where your competitors are getting their backlinks from. You might just find a bunch of them come from comments on well ranked blog posts.

8. Build your social media profiles big time

As I mentioned in my post on SEO secrets you want to now have a big focus on social media for SEO purposes as well as traffic building purposes.

Why?

Well because Google is now looking to social media as a signal of an article’s authority and relevance.

If thousands of people are tweeting about it then chances are you have written something pretty good. And the best way to get tweets is to build a loyal following and write killer content that they just love to promote for you.

Some things you need to start doing:

• Tweeting big players
  Get to know the big players in your niche by casually building a rapport with them on Twitter. Down the track you can hit them up for re-tweets.
• Add separate value
  Tweet and Facebook information and facts that don’t appear on your blog. Think of it as a separate resource for people to tap in to.
• Share others
  The more content you share from other bloggers the more likely they are to share your stuff. Give and then get later.

Neil Patel (one of my blogging heros) has just written a really cool list about how to use Twitter like a boss. That is a good place to start if you want to really amp up your social activities.

9. Use SEO plugins

There are lots of WordPress plugins out there that you can install to get some help with your SEO. One of the best ones to start with is the All in One SEO Pack which does so many of the nasty little things for you.

There are a lot of other good SEO plugins out there so I thought I would open this one up to the audience and see what everyone else is using. Please leave a comment and let me know.

10. Read, study and use SEOmoz

As far as I am concerned the absolute best resource for SEO related material in the world is over at SEOmoz.

And their tools are even more amazing.

Now, the content on their blog might be a little over your head to begin with but you will slowly start to absorb ideas about trends, tactics and best practices over time. Even if you only check in every couple of weeks and read one or two articles you will find that your SEO knowledge just grows and blossoms.

Rand does a Friday Whiteboard session which, perhaps, is the most valuable video series I have ever watched. And he is a super cool guy.

What have I missed?

Okay guys. Hit me with it. What beginner SEO tips have I missed? Please leave everything and anything that you can think of in the comments section. I’m hoping we can come up with a nice sized list to help out all the newcomers.

photo credit: kennymatic

If you want people to read your blog you need to give them valuable, useful content.

If you want people to become loyal to your blog you need to give them an authority statement.

In this post I want to talk about what exactly an authority statement is and how it can have a dramatic impact on your blogging career.

I’ll also show you a few examples of people who have done it extremely well.

What is an authority statement?

First things first.

An authority statement is basically a truthful way of communicating to your audience that you have some authority or expertise in your field. Its basically something that gives people a reason to trust what you are saying.

It can be something overt or something more subtle and gentle.

You might not have thought about it but we see these statements all around us:

• A police badge/hat/horse
  A police badge, hat or horse communicates authority because you associate those things with power, safety and so on. They are used to differentiate the police from regular citizens.
• A luxury watch
  A luxury watch can communicate an income level or status to the people around you. This seems trivial to us but can mean a lot to a manager or person involved with other high powered business people.
• A college degree
  Ever walked into an office and seen the framed college degrees on the wall? Those are there to make the person feel more authoritative.

Authority statements are extremely important for blogs. In fact, most of the time when I do blogging consults for people who are struggling to grow an audience I find that they really lack a communicated position of authority. In other words, there is no reason to read their writing.

Examples of authority statements in the blogging world

I thought the best way to help you understand this concept would be to show you a few people who have done it extremely well.

1. Shoemoney’s Adsense check

Perhaps the best authority statement in the blogging world is Jeremy Schoemaker’s Adsense check for over $100,000.

I remember when he posted this years and years ago and how quickly it skyrocketed his blogging career. With one single photo he communicated to the blogosphere that he knew about SEO, blogging, Adsense and a whole lot more.

This is a very simple and overt way to make an authority statement. And it is quite similar to the next one.

2. Pat Flynn’s income reports

Pat from Smart Passive Income does monthly income reports where he details how much he is making and from what sources.

Now, I don’t think Pat was the first blogger to do this (it might have been Darren Rowse) but I do think he does them extremely well. And the reason for that is because he talks about the ins and outs of the business. Its not just a breakdown of income sources, its a complete look at his strategy, plans and, yes, even failures.

This is an extremely good way to show your readership that you know what you are doing. And, as with most things Pat does, its done in a gentle and very unassuming way such that you feel like you are getting to know him better instead of feeling more competitive.

Are income reports a good idea?

I have to confess that I don’t think I will ever do income reports for this site. I feel uneasy talking about money (perhaps I’m superstitious) but I also don’t like the idea of people knowing that much about my business. If I start earning huge multi-million dollar amounts I’d be worried about criminals and readers getting jealous, and if my income levels dropped I’d be worried about feeling like I had to keep up appearances.

That being said, it works really well for Pat and a bunch of other bloggers who I know do it regularly.

3. Tim Ferriss’ experiments

Everyone knows Tim Ferriss – he wrote two hugely popular books about doing a lot of stuff in a small amount of time (The Four Hour Work Week and The Four Hour Body).

Now, this one is a little different because his authority statement is his whole blog. Its his photo galleries, posts and products. His whole angle is that he will try out all these insane things and then show us how to do them quickly.

Sure, Tim uses a whole lot of amazing references on his biography page to build authority, but the main bulk of the trust comes from the fact that he does all these self-science experiments and then shares them with the world.

Developing your own authority statement

The important thing now is to go away and develop your own authority statement.

But you have to be very careful that it matches your style, niche and bodes well with your readership. Here are a few ideas:

• Be gentle
  I really don’t like overt statements about how fantastic you and your blog are. Try to keep it quite gentle. This could be an Australian thing but talking yourself up really turns me off.
• Use other authorities
  One of the best ways to build authority is to reference other authorities who are talking about you. For example, have a look at how Greg from Sparring Mind referenced me in his About Page in order to elevate his own authority. Works very well.

  If you’ve been mentioned in newspapers and big websites feel free to mention them or add their logos to your blog.

• Remember your initial reasons for starting
  Sometimes if you hark back to your reasons for starting your blog you will find some kind of authority. For example, if you run a fitness blog because you lost 15kg and wanted to share your methods with others you will find authority in the weight loss.
• Use photos
  Photos are an excellent way of communicating a point.
• Be relevant
  Make sure your statement is relevant to not only your blog but also the authority you are trying to build. For example, telling people that you lost 10kg is a good statement for a fitness blog but only if you want to focus on weight loss.

Do you have an authority statement on your blog?

Have you ever seen a blog or website that does one really well?

If you need some help developing your own please drop a comment and I’ll do my best to make some suggestions. I’m sure the troops will as well!

Photo credit: Ed Callow [ torquespeak ]

Want to grow a successful blog? You need to teach your readers a few things.

As my blogs grow (this one in particular) I realize that there are a few key lessons that I need to teach my audience if I want to succeed.

In this post I’ll talk about what those lessons are and why they are important.

The balance between teaching and traveling

I have always thought that the best voice for a blog is one of a fellow traveler.

That might seem ironic given my site’s name, but I still really try to stay open to new ideas. In every single blog post I will ask a question or request help from my wonderful community.

And so before launching in to the lessons I wanted to touch on the subject of voice and say that we are not ordering our readers or lecturing them like a father. We need to be skillful in the way we approach these issues.

Some finesse and creativity is required.

5 things to teach your readers

As always, if I have missed out anything I would love to hear from you in the comments.

1. Teach them how to use your site

One thing that you need to remember is that a large segment of your readers are newbies. Only a very small part of even the most successful site’s readership is returning readers.

That means you really need to educate your new visitors on how to actually use your site.

This might seem a bit silly; surely everyone knows how to navigate a blog right? Well, no.

Pat from Smart Passive Income does this extremely well with his “Start here” section that you can see at the top of his home page. Not only does this introduce his new readers to how the site works, it also acts as a trust builder as people get to meet him right away.

He also mentioned that this particular page gets him a lot of new subscribers.

Teachings your readers to use your site is so important for stickiness. You want your readers to stay as long as possible so why not give them a tour or an introduction?

2. Teach your readers how to share content

One of the big learning curves for me is that not everyone knows/wants/could be bothered sharing your content on Twitter and Facebook. You need to show them how.

Some people aren’t on Twitter so you need to educate them on the benefits.

Others don’t like retweeting content and so you need to teach them that it is an excellent way to make new and important alliances.

I’m not just talking about a 101 lesson on how to click a Share button here; I’m talking about creating a community where people want to thank you for your work by sharing your stuff. This has a lot to do with writing amazing content but it also has a lot to do with showing your readers that you are thankful for their sharing.

Some things you can do include:

• Saying thank you
  Try and thank every single person who Tweets your content. They’ll be more likely to do it.
• Share their stuff first
  Create some good karma and teach by example.
• Ask
  Don’t be afraid to drop a few hints in your articles. I do this all the time. On of the best places to do this is right after the sign up to your mailing list. Just let them know that you appreciate any shares.

Don’t assume that everyone knows how to do these things. Help educate.

3. Teach them about backlinking

In my recent post on blogging SEO I talked about how important it was to link to other sites.

The result?

The next day I got more backlinks from reader sites than almost any other time. I was quite amazed at how well this subtle indication had worked.

Now, you have to be creative about doing this. Especially so if you aren’t in a blogging niche. For example, a fitness blog can’t exactly do a post on the benefits of backlinking.

What you can do, however, is run things like contests that encourage people to link back to your site without appearing spammy. My friend James Chartrand is doing that right now with her Damn Fine Words contest.

Does this count as an entry, James?

4. Teach them about value

One of the most important lessons you can pass on to your readers is the idea that value is key.

This lesson has two parts: teaching them how to recognize value and teaching them how to provide value.

Why is it so important?

Because when your readers become more successful, you become more successful.

When your readers make more money, you make more money.

When your readers recognize value they will possibly pay for it.

Now you might think that this just applies to the blogging about blogging niche but it doesn’t. By providing great value on any blog in any niche and educating your readers about what value is you will be more likely to sell a product at launch time or grow your reputation over the years.

Let’s take a fitness site as another example. You provide a lot of value and then some of your readers get inspired and decide to lose some weight. They succeed and then start a blog about their journey and reference your blog as a source of inspiration. The value effect has flowed through.

Some ways to teach people about value include:

• Less small update posts
  I abandoned small little update posts a long time ago. Save your blog posts for amazing, detailed and highly valuable content. It will teach people that everything that you write is worthwhile and rare.
• Be altruistic
  Make sure you do everything with the motivation to help people. When readers see that you are about helping them get results instead of just getting their wallets out they will associate you with value.
• Solve problems
  Value is all about solving problems. If you can solve a problem with every post, paragraph and comment you will be well on your way.

Help your readers to not only provide value on their own sites, but recognize value on your own. When they see how well it works for them they will love you even more.

5. Teach them about the people above you

The last lesson I wanted to talk about is the fact that you really need to start educating your readers about the influencers in your niche.

The more often you can refer to the big players in your niche the more likely you are to get on their radar. This is especially true if you can mobilize your “army” and get them talking about and sharing those guys’ content. They will be grateful to you.

This is a wonderful way to build relationships and trust as well as developing new deals, getting guest posts, etc.

Don’t just reserve your Facebook posts and Tweets for your own content. Be generous and share a lot of stuff from your idols, mentors and even competitors. They will, in turn, share your content and thereby help to grow your brand and business.

It also brings the other points in to play by teaching your readers about good value, how to Tweet and Share and how to backlink.

What have I missed?

What other lessons do you think we need to teach our readers? Do you have any good methods for teaching via a blog so that it is more effective and less pushy? Leave a comment.

photo credit: MichaelTyler

Architecture aims at Eternity. – Christopher Wren

My definition of a successful blog post is one that brings you traffic and subscribers for a decade.

Sure, one that gets tweeted and shared is fun but its not the ultimate.

Imagine being able to craft timeless blog posts that not only have the initial bursts of success but then go on to benefit your business for years to come.

In this article I’m going to show you the perfect architecture for crafting a blog post that is not only successful but timeless.

Why architecture and not formula or method?

I have to confess, I spent a long time thinking about the third word in the title of this post.

Formula and method are probably more catchy and vibrant. They are buzz words in the blogosphere.

But they didn’t quite capture the meaning behind this post. And that’s because the act of creating a timeless blog post is not a formula because it won’t always be correct.

Architecture, to me, is more flexible. A great architect will always get a building up and make sure it is safe but they won’t always produce something that everyone loves.

That is a bit what blogging is like. There is no real formula that gets it right every time. But there is some sort of architecture that you can work on, develop and occasionally build something that lasts for a thousand years.

If I had a formula that worked every time I would give it to you. What I do have is an architecture – building blocks, materials and know-how – that you can use to produce something with all the right parts and hope that the critics write nice things.

The architecture of a timeless blog post

Consider these as pillars that will hold your content up to the world.

1. Include a personal back story

All of my most successful posts have had a personal story injected into the subject matter.

There are a few reasons why this works well:

• People become loyal
  The first reason is that people become loyal to the author without realizing. A personal story opens it up to the realm of emotions.
• It is engaging
  Stories have been told by humans since the beginning of time. We respond to them and we are sucked in by them.
• It begs to be shared
  Stories are the kinds of things people will share with their friends. As already mentioned, we’ve been doing this forever.

Inject a personal back story into all of your posts no matter what the subject matter. Even if it is just a few lines about what you went through when deciding on a word in a title people will be more responsive.

The more honest, open and detailed the story is the more you will find people want to read and share and bookmark your piece.

An example of a story:
One of the all time greatest posts in blogging history by my friend James Chartrand – a woman.

2. Write with consistent and stylized paragraphs, dot points and images

What I’m about to tell you is no joke. When I write a blog post I have the preview open in another tab and every few lines I refresh it and make sure the post “looks right”.

Seems anal I know but I have found it to be super important.

People are lazy. They like to scan.

People are also in desperate need of security and predictability. They like to know what is coming next and how to prepare themselves.

All of my blog posts look pretty similar. It doesn’t matter whether it is on Blog Tyrant, Problogger or Copyblogger. I try to keep them consistently formatted.

Now, this holds true of your look and feel as a blog and the look and feel of each individual post. Some things to consider:

• Make your spacing beautiful
  Make sure your letter spacing is generous enough. You want a lot of white space to frame your words. Brian Gardener talks about this perfectly.
• Use bold to start each list point
  Notice how my list points aren’t just regular text? I use bold first to really show you the point quickly and then expand underneath.
• Choose the right images and space them well
  Images should be used to enhance content and generate emotions about points you are making. This is especially true of blog images. Put them underneath main headers only and use them to draw the eye down.
• Make sure your theme isn’t letting you down
  I’ve talked about this before on my post on increasing conversions but sometimes your theme and style can impact your trust. Make sure your colors in particular are sending the right messages.

Make your content readable. How obvious does that sound?

And over time you should also try to develop your own style of writing. Make spaces and paragraphs and lists looks the same in whatever you do. Your readers will appreciate it.

An example of consistent styling:
Glen from Viper Chill always writes the same way; deliriously long content with the same formatting.

3. Link generously and in bulk

A lot of bloggers are afraid to add links to their post thinking that they will lose readers.

You won’t.

And you especially won’t if you add a target=”blank” code to your link code so that the link opens in a new window.

I have said it before but linking out to other blogs associates you with those blogs. People will remember that they first heard about such and such from your site. It builds your brand without costing you anything but a few clicks. Make sure you link a lot when relevant.

The second part to this is to link in bulk and that means having a resources section at the end of some posts. This is great for your blog’s SEO as well as making you appear like you have put in a lot of work to craft a super amazing post chock full of resources and help.

Remember, a real leader gains power by giving power to others. Link out and watch yourself appear and actually become more influential.

Example of good linking:
One of my old favorite blogs (no longer active) called Skelliewag had a hugely popular post called 25 Paths to an Insanely Popular Blog which is the perfect amount of big backlinking and generous writing.

4. Solve a problem or make problems known

It is uncanny to see how many of the most timeless blog posts solve a problem that is both universal and painful.

Every niche has problems. And quite often you will find that the people blogging and working in that niche aren’t aware of what problem is out there.

Your blog posts should always aim to help enrich some one else’s life. If it wasn’t for Darren Rowse’s 2004 series on making money with Adsense I would never have become a blogger. I wouldn’t be working from home and you wouldn’t be reading my drivel.

Thanks Darren!

But in all seriousness, this series was all about helping people make a few extra bucks from Google ads. Darren always used to make his big posts about helping people in some way.

Example of making a problem known:
Brian Clark’s post called Is Commenting on Blogs a Smart Traffic Strategy? which totally freaked out a lot of bloggers who were, at the time, mindlessly commenting.

5. Develop titles that get attention and hold attention

Without a good title the rest is useless. Many of you will disagree with me but I think it is the title that gets attention initially but then also holds attention throughout the post.

Have you ever read through an ordinary article because the title seemed so promising? I know I have.

All of the great posts that were successful and timeless had amazing titles that drew you in and pushed you down until you found something else in the article that was useful, touching or fascinating.

• Titles should be Google ads
  Remember that Google only allows 70 characters in the search result listings. Think of your titles as ads for future searchers and keep them under this amount. Use a plugin to help you.
• Pose questions
  Some of the best titles are in question format. Its gets people curious and often helps you to get more comments.
• They should cause fear or sensed value
  Humans respond to fear a lot more than they do anything else. For example, we’ll respond to a title about the threat of missing out on something more than we will about the promise of gaining something. That being said, a post title that promises something new and valuable (like 140…) will do extremely well if the list matches the promise.
• They should be super specific
  Some of my best posts have had super specific titles: How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months (beats How to Sell a Blog), How I got 11,908 Visitors in My Blog’s Third Week (beats How to Get More Traffic), etc.

Sometimes I will revise a title 10 or 15 times before I publish a blog post. And I still don’t get them right.

That being said, I truly believe that if you can write amazing blog post titles you are more than 50% of the way to becoming a successful blogger.

Example of good titles:
I almost didn’t want to give this to you because it is so darn good. But I’m a giver. Here is John Morrow’s free report called Headline Hacks. This PDF is a permanent feature on my desktop now.

What else is there?

Of course this list is not extensive. There are lots of other strategies and pillars out there that can help you write successful and timeless content.

These five do, however, work really well for me when combined all into one post. Hopefully they will do the same for you.

I’d really like to hear your comments about any other absolute pillars of a timeless post’s architecture. Is there anything that you do every single time that you just don’t think could be omitted?

photo credit: archer10 (Dennis) OFF

One of the best ways to make money online is to buy established websites and blogs and improve, optimize and tweak them to perform better.

In fact, you can get better returns from websites and blogs than almost any investment in the world. Its a very low input, high output situation.

I thought we’d do something a bit different this weekend (instead of nothing) and try a little exercise with a neat little prize.

Leave a comment answering these two questions:

• What blog or website would you buy assuming money was no option?
• How would you improve on it?

This type of thing is an extremely good way to learn about the valuation of websites. And if you are trying to grow a blog to make a living or an eventual sale you will need to become an expert at this.

What are the rules?

• You cannot choose Google or Facebook
• You cannot choose an adult or gambling website
• You have to improve the website within a year
• Your improvements cannot cost more than 5% of your chosen website’s (guessed) income (ie you cannot just spend a million dollars on advertising)

What is the prize?

I’ll have a look at the answers and see which one I think has the most merits. The author of the entry that I like most will get a free Blog Consult by me valued at $299. I’ll take a look at your blog and send you suggestions on how you can improve, tweak and change it to grow a bigger audience and make more money.

photo credit: notsogoodphotography

Getting your blog posts to rank on Google is harder than ever before.

There’s more competition and Google’s algorithms get trickier every update.

But let me start with a few definitions:

• PWN: A deliberate misspelling of the word “own“. Commonly used in gaming circles as a verb to describe beating or succeeding at something. For example, the Blog Tyrant pwned that zombie.
• Today’s Google: We’re talking everything after the Panda update.
• Panda update: Read below. You’re so needy.

In this post I’m going to show you a few SEO secrets that every bloggers needs to know to survive and succeed on modern-day Google search results.

The absolute necessity of the top spot on Google

One of the things that a lot of bloggers don’t realize is that the first place on Google means a lot more than anywhere else.

Image: Search Engine Watch

Take a look at the graph above and you will see that the top spot gets almost 40% of clicks while second place is around 12%. And this is, in my opinion, a very conservative estimate.

To get that coveted top spot you need to do a lot of things right. You just don’t get there by accident anymore.

Years ago when I first sold a blog for $20,000 it was so much easier than it is now – write a few posts, do a few blog carnivals… what the heck is Twitter?

Now we actually have to pay attention and understand what Google is looking for with their changing algorithms.

Google’s changing algorithms

Every few months good old Google makes a change to how it indexes results in its search engine. Sometimes these are minor tweaks and sometimes they are major overhauls.

A modern Google search result

A few years ago Google results were just a list links to relevant articles. Nowadays any given Google search will show you:

• Videos
• Moving Twitter results of current events
• Previews of the website you’re about to visit
• Location-based results
• Personalized results
• Etc.

Its a totally different place.

But what has all this got to do with the changing algorithms?

Well, each time they revamp the way Google users see and use the search engine they change the way articles and blog posts and videos are indexed. The whole goal of Google is to return relevant and up-to-date results while combating spam and removing those who “game” the system.

So what was that Panda update about?

The Panda update was the most recent update that totally changed the way Google works. I’ve heard it was labelled “Panda” because now all websites are endangered but in actual fact its named after a Google engineer called Navneet Panda who re-wrote the way Google do some important things.

There are lots of stories of people who have had their entire financial world turned upside down by this update. A friend of mine had a fitness site that went from 2,000+ visitors a day to 200 a day overnight after this update.

The whole point of this update is to remove poor-quality sites from the top of Google’s search results.

Remember, you used to be able to build small niche sites with a little bit of content and a few great back links and rank at the top. That is going to be less and less likely although I still know a few guys having a lot of success like this.

Here is the announcement from super nice Matt Cutts (@mattcutts), head of Google Spam:

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low quality sites — sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

The problem here is that a lot of “mom and dad” operations were killed in favor of big, rich sites like Expert Village that have thousands of people working for them.

The second problem is that often these sites aren’t the best source of quality information.

A lot of good quality bloggers were hit by this update. Another good reason to not rely on Google.

6 SEO secrets every blogger needs to PWN today’s Google

photo credit: pasukaru76

The idea here is to give you a few little tips that can help you boost your SEO potential as well as protect it from a Panda-type hit.

This is a huge topic and there are entire expert firms devoted to helping other big firms navigate this new science. With that in mind, you should consider this post a very small starting point for you own research.

1. Social is the new backlinks

If you’ve been around the SEO game for a while you’ll know that it was all about backlinks. Google saw these as an excellent way to determine a site’s authority: the more people linking to your site the more trustworthy you were likely to be.

And when it was discovered that you could manipulate your rankings with backlinks it all went mental.

People were buying them, stealing them, selling them, sneaking them into free WordPress themes (a good reason to check this out) and a few honest souls (like me!) were earning them legitimately through killer content and useful comments.

But now it seems like a new major indicator of trust is social media and in particular Twitter and Facebook.

Think about it.

If a new blog post gets zero Tweets and zero Shares there is a chance it is of low value. A post that gets 10,000 Tweets, on the other hand, is likely to be very useful for readers.

The social media shares are almost like a focus group for Google rankings.

If it gets shared, it will get indexed.

So what can you do?

• Build your social profiles
  Make sure you continue to build your Facebook and Twitter profiles alongside your blog.
• Coach your readers
  Its a good idea to occasionally mention to your readers that it would really help you out if they Tweeted or Shared your stuff. Hint hint.
• Tweet other bloggers’ stuff
  Make sure you are tweeting other articles that you like from bloggers in your niche. They will return the favor. A tweet from Brian Clark can work miracles.

Start thinking about social media as a way to help your SEO, not just your referral traffic. This is important.

A WARNING: The obvious question then becomes, won’t people just “game” the social media scene? Yep. They already are. And Google is already filtering them out. If your tweets and shares aren’t legitimate you can expect a penalty real soon.

2. (Some) Backlinks still matter

The next thing that I have to mention is that backlinks still matter. A lot.

As I mentioned, I know a few guys who are doing really well from small sites with a really strong backlink profile. It just proves that Google still really believes that a link from a trustworthy blog is one of the best ways to judge the quality of a site.

So what’s the post panda lesson?

Don’t buy backlinks or build them from poor quality blogs. We’ve known for a long time that buying backlinks is against Google’s rules and a stupid idea but the real news now is that poor quality backlinks just aren’t going to be worth as much.

Here’s the thing. If you can figure out a way to “game” Google with backlinks you can bet that Google is on to the method. If you are trying to build a long term, sustainable income you want to avoid any method that could come undone with a future update.

Make sure your get your backlinks from quality blogs and websites. The absolute best way to do this is to create tools, resources and content that people link to. Boring I know.

3. Bounce Rate now a big indicator

Your Bounce Rate is a statistic that shows how many people leave your blog without visiting any other pages.

For example, if I had one visitor and they arrived on a page and then closed the window without looking at any other pages I would have a Bounce Rate of 100%.

You want to get that rate down as low as possible.

So what is low? Well it depends on a lot of things.

If you have a lot of traffic coming from Google search you will usually have a high Bounce Rate because the people who arrive are really only looking for one thing. Referrals from related sites typically have much lower BR.

Recent week’s BR. Problogger referrals lower than Twitter and Facebook.

If you can get a blog’s bounce rate down below 60% you are doing well. Anything below 50% is excellent.

This has always been an important factor for Google but a lot of people now think it is even more crucial. If people aren’t staying on your site long its likely it isn’t very valuable.

So how do you lower your Bounce Rate?

• Get a good design
  Design is a really important factor. You want to be able to win people’s trust. I’m launching some pretty sexy themes soon or you can check out Studio Press if you want something that Google is in love with.
• Have related posts
  Make sure you use the Related Posts plugin to add some “further reading” to the bottom of your posts or sidebar.
• Recommend posts
  Have a Popular Posts section at the top of your blog (people love to click it) or make sure you recommend posts to people in other articles.
• Go back and tweak old articles
  Every once in a while you should go back and tweak old articles to give people and idea about a related topic. Have a look what I did in the opening paragraph here.
• Tweak above the fold
  Above the fold is all the stuff you see before you scroll. It should be as efficient as possible.

It is really important to be relevant. Make sure people who arrive at your post are getting exactly what they are looking for. That is, after all, what Google is trying to achieve.

4. Duplicate content is being redefined

Something I learned recently is that duplicate content does not just refer to copying other people’s work. It also refers to sections within your site that have the same content.

For example, some blogs, like this one, have tags and categories where people can go through and find old posts. They might also be able to do this with a Pagination style system like I’ve got at the bottom.

Well, as it turns out, all of those different navigation paths represent duplicate content. That is, if you show full posts on each one.

Try to use the MORE tag to limit posts to excerpts, use post titles only on category pages or re-structure how your site’s navigation works. I’m 100% sure about it yet but I think Google might want us to start using either tags or categories and not both.

One little secret I’ve noticed is that my tag results are now getting indexed in Google faster than even some posts.

5. Returning readers indicate safety

Just like the lesson on Bounce Rate, we are now seeing that the metric of Returning Readers is becoming more important than ever.

Again, this is all about Google seeing some indication of your site being a safe and useful place for them to send their clients.

This is a no brainer. If you want to get people to come back to your site you need to:

• Produce amazing content
  I’d really start to tone down on the small “update” posts and just release big beautiful articles with lots of useful information.
• Focus on email subscribers
  Keep growing that email list. Not only does this safe-guard your blog against a Google penalty, it also gives you a way to contact readers and get them back to your blog whenever you want.
• Try a series
  One way to get people back is to produce a series of posts on the same topic. Darren Rowse did one that went for a whole month. The retention must have been amazing.
• Interact with people everywhere
  I’m often surprised at how little some smaller/beginner bloggers interact with their readers. They don’t reply to comments, Tweets or Facebook messages. My policy is to try and reply to all of them and it has worked really well for me over the years. Make friends with your readers and they will come back.

The trend you might be noticing by now is that if you do all of these SEO secrets there is a good chance you will be building a really amazing blog. That is the crux of the issue.

5. Build a multi-platform, multimedia brand

Something that I have been saying for a long time now is that you really need to start paying attention to two things; mobile and cross-media content.

When Google bought Youtube they signaled to a lot of people that they were going to move away from just articles in their search results. And they did.

They have also done a lot to make sure they are appearing on smart phones (think Android).

The point here is that Google knows that the future of the internet is tablets and phones. People are going to be moving away from personal computer and towards a more mobile environment. You have to make sure your blog moves with this trend.

So what do you need to do to ensure you continue to PWN Google?

• Make an App
  Pat made an iPhone App for his blog. Good idea.
• Make videos
  You just GOT to start making videos. They are going to be as big as written content one day very soon. Did I mention I’m on Youtube?
• Podcast
  A podcast is a really cool way to talk to your audience as well as show the robots that you are serious about your content. Here’s how to make a podcast.

Start thinking of your blog as a brand. Its more than just ordered posts on a website. You are offering a service and you need to maintain and grow that brand across a variety of different platforms and mediums if you want to stay strong on Google.

6. The future of SEO is about user psychology

This might sound a little bit ridiculous to some but the future of SEO is going to be less about building backlinks and more about understanding how users interact with a website.

I’ve hinted at this already when talking about having a clean design, low bounce rate, lots of users who share your content, etc. You really need to start learning how people behave when they visit a website. What are they looking for? What makes them stay longer? What makes them share content?

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz is one of my favorite internet personalities and a leading expert on SEO. He recently said in a video:

So, Panda kind of means something new and different for SEO. As SEOs, for a long time you’ve been doing the same kind of classic things. You’ve been building good content, making it accessible to search engines, doing good keyword research, putting those keywords in there, and then trying to get some links to it. But you have not, as SEOs, we never really had to think as much or as broadly about, “What is the experience of this website? Is it creating a brand that people are going to love and share and reward and trust?” Now we kind of have to think about that.

The funny thing is that the smart (and successful) guys like Darren Rowse and Brian Clark have been saying this for years.

Don’t build a blog, build a whole website with valuable content. And understand how people behave.

• Communities matter to humans
  Human beings need to feel part of a community. Its literally built into our DNA. Study ways to make your blog feel like a group.
• Make sure people trust you
  If you want people to subscribe to your list you need them to trust you. So what signals are your sending to your readers?
• Understand color and images
  Understand the role that color and imagery plays in the subtle decisions that people make. For example, in our culture red symbolizes stop, spam and danger.
• Offer exclusivity
  Exclusive content is one way to make people come back and be loyal. Humans love to feel like they are part of something special.
• Solve financial and emotional problems
  When you write a blog post you are not just solving a practical problem. You are solving a financial or emotional one. Make sure your content is changing people’s lives, not just their days.

I really recommend that all my readers start to get interested in psychology and the psychology that is involved in marketing. It is something we spent a lot of time on at college but not a lot of bloggers seem to emphasize it all that much.

Do you have an SEO story?

So how have you gone in a post-panda world? Do you spend a lot of time working on SEO or is it something totally above your head? I’d really love to hear about all your questions or stories regarding SEO practices and tips so please leave me a comment and let me know, especially if you noticed something that made a big difference to your rankings.

Credit: kennymatic