Reviewz 'n' Tips

4-Step How-To Guide to Dealing with Problems in Your Online Business

2012-11-02T19:24:00.000+02:00

The recent domain change I did brought a lot of work...

I had to update dozens and dozens of links, spread throughout more than 100 posts. I had to deal with sitemaps, robots and all those tedious SEO tasks. On top of that all social media counters were stuck at zero...

Fixing one problem was bringing a new one and that soon began taking its toll on me...

I went from super enthusiastic to "I don't really care" kind of thinking...

Fortunately I was able to resolve the issue rather fast and today's post will overview just that. In the below paragraphs I will share with you the emotional side on dealing with problems in your online business - be it blogging, social media-related or something else. Enjoy!

Should You Really Feel Bad About It?

That is the most important question to ask yourself before jumping into that soup of emotions that recent problem brought in your day.

First is it really a problem? Is what happened actually slowing your progress or can you rather easily get out of the stinky situation?

Well the thing is that the answer to the above questions doesn't really matter. Whether or not you will need to put a lot of hours into fixing what happened, sitting there thinking and rethinking the situation is simply a waste of time.

Can You Do Something About It?

Image Credit

A few weeks ago I had a problem with one of my posts on Triberr (What's Triberr?). It just wasn't getting any shares. Not a pleasant situation considering the fact that the service gives me 60-70 additional retweets.

The only thing I could do, was to send a support ticket and wait for the guys to fix the issue. Even though I knew the problem wasn't on my end, I wasted like half an hour and a lot of nerves searching for a solution that didn't exist...

So instead of the above, if there's nothing you can do about the issue, start working on productivity and get on with your daily tasks. If you aren't sure what to do, refer to the post I wrote - My Blogging Day: When and What I do Plus Tips and Tools

Action is the Antidote to Despair

Heard of that phrase? It is actually a quote from Joan Baez and a pretty good one. When there is no easy fix to the problem and especially when that same problem isn't of your competence just leave it aside.

As I said in the above paragraph, getting back to your tasks will slowly put you on track. Another positive effect is that once you dive into whatever you decide to (I'd recommend writing - "4 Reasons to Write Everyday") the problem simply vanishes from your thoughts. That is exactly what you need to achieve!

The more you think about it, the less motivated you are to keep pushing. And often the simplest of problems turn out to be the reason why a lot of bloggers and marketers quit.

It isn't only about improving productivity. It's about moving on.

Are You Measuring the Wrong Metrics?

Looking at the topic from a different angle, let's assume there is really something that could be done about what you are struggling with... Let's assume that yesterday the number of Twitter followers you have began decreasing.

First question - did you do something different yesterday?

If the answer is yes, using pen and paper try to remember and write down the steps you took that were different from your usual routine.
If the answer is no, don't start worrying. Fluctuations are generally a normal thing. If you are following the same routine for some time and it is bringing good results, one bad morning should not set you on fire!

Second question - did that had an effect on traffic and earnings?

If the answer is no (and it most probably will), take a deep breath and relax. Observe the situation for a couple of days and if all goes as usual, then there is no reason for panicking.
If it is yes, don't take it too hard on yourself! If you can do something to deal with the problem, get going! Leave the daily routines and put all your focus into fixing that problem area. More often than not solutions are far simpler than we think, so you might be surprised by how fast you will sort out the issue. Stay positive!

Final Words

Key notes to remember are - if you can't change the situation - just get back to your normal schedule - that is good for your productivity and will also help you avoid thinking about the issue. Secondly - expect fluctuations in numbers. And thirdly - if there is something to be done, start now and put all your energy into it! What's your approach guys - how do you tackle problems in your online endeavors? Let me hear what you have to say in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

I'm Daniel, an 18 year old student and the author of this blog. My articles cover a variety of topics, including blogging and writing tips, social media, traffic generation and more. Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Negative Comments: Should they Really Matter to You as an Internet Marketer?

2012-10-29T18:25:00.000+02:00

Image Credit

Negative comments and negative feedback - you've certainly got them at some point. And yeah, it isn't a great feeling...

Hearing people say good things about you and seeing all those social media signals along the way matter to you, don't they?

In reality however there are always those who don't like something... So, you get into worthless conversations, trying to explain what you did and why you did it. More often than not, to no avail of course.

The truth is that no matter what, critics are here to stay. That is why I decided to put up this article - to hopefully help you understand the reality behind negative comments and how to act upon them:

Is it About Pleasing All of Your Readers?

When it comes to building relationships, the approach is basically one person at a time. But what do you do when it comes to sharing your posts?

Something I have learned throughout the months is that, although some of your fans might share a lot of what you publish, there is no way to get the same people to tweet and like every single piece you write and polish.

Think about yourself - do you read every article from the blogs you have subscribed to? Probably not. An article might be good and useful but just not what you are looking for at that specific day.

So no - the idea definitely doesn't come down to pleasing everyone. Keep reading please!

The Big Picture is What Matters, but...

Although often times looking at those smaller details (as in my post "It's in The Details: Social Media Traffic and 4 Reasons You Aren't Getting It") can really help you get more exposure and readers, other times you need to zoom out and take a look at what really matters.

Let's assume you published an article a day ago. Judging by the social media sharing counters, you are doing pretty well. A dozen of likes, some Google pluses and almost fifty retweets...

And then you come across a Twitter reply. Someone is criticizing every single point you've written. In that case, which would be more important - the hundreds of people who have obviously read and liked the article or that single negative comment from someone who might just not like you?

Well... actually both, or kind of... On to the next point we go...

On Criticism and Why You Should Handle It...

Yep, it might just be a single negative comment but as small and insignificant as it might seem, you should go there and reply back if you are serious about what you do!

I am definitely not saying that you should get all stressed out. That's not the point. What matters in the online world is accepting other people's standpoint and learning to live with it.

So what you should do in that kind of situation is to simply get back to the guy and give your reasoning. It's not about coming to an agreement. If someone doesn't like something, hardly anything is going to change that. It's rather about proving that you care and also making it clear to yourself that you should keep pushing, no matter what!

What are Your Analytics Saying?

And then again, as we assumed two paragraphs above, you've got a pretty decent amount of social media shares along with that (hopefully) one negative comment, you already dealt with.

Now it's time to take a look at your analytics. Retweets and shares after all are only part of the story. They don't guarantee traffic. It's all about the clicks. Observe your numbers - are they below or above average?

Analytics are a fairly accurate traffic data, based on which, you can decide whether or not the critics actually have a point. If they do have a point though, it might be time to start listening. Haters are always there, but don't forget that some might just want to point you the way!

In the end keep in mind that fresh content is what gets the traffic (take a look at: "5 Reasons to Publish at Least Twice a Week"). As long as what you published is of a good quality, numbers will be steady, so less than usual visits are a good sign that something is wrong.

In Conclusion

All in all what I want to say is that blogging and criticism go side by side. Since there is no way, even with the best content and the best social media strategy to get rid of it, simply try to learn from it! And remember, the details matter, but don't forget to look at the big picture! Now on to you - what do you do when you receive negative comments? Is criticism helpful? Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Pinterest and Instagram: 3 Simple Ways to Find Out if The Two are Actually Worth Your Time

2012-10-24T20:25:00.000+03:00

The following is a guest post by Harrison Kratz. Harrison walks us through Pinterest and Instagram and more specifically whether or not we should utilize the two. Enjoy!

I recently sat in on a panel that focused on visual storytelling through social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. It was a great discussion that featured marketing directors from some of the top brands in the world.

While listening to their insights and answers, it was clear that each person had taken a completely different path to finding success for their brands on these platforms.

The differences in their strategies was the most valuable aspect of the program, but it brought up a bigger issue for marketers of any brand or company – Is every network right for your brand and if so, what does success look like?

To figure the answers to these issues, here are some further questions to ask yourself as you develop a strategy for social networks, both new and old.

Evaluate your community

You should already know who your audience is, but here you have to find out if they are present or active on the target network. This question should not only alter your strategy but could effect whether you’re going to be present at all. I manage a community for MBA@UNC, an online MBA program at the University of North Carolina – potential MBA candidates aren’t really on Pinterest yet, so there really isn’t much reason to put stock into a strategy at this point and time.

However, a fashion or retail focused brand has to focusing their efforts because their audience is active and present on the network. Not to mention, the conversion rates present a distinct ROI for those brands.

Does your messaging fit the network?

Even if your audience is on a certain network, it’s very important to listen and understand the tone of conversation before jumping in.

You could find out that your overall brand message doesn’t even fit the nature of the network. If you find that is the case, it is best to reevaluate not only your adoption of the network but also your brand as a whole.

While you shouldn’t revamp your messaging just for a network, take this as an opportunity to see where you may be able to adjust to adapt to future trends and potential audiences.

How will you define your presence?

For a communications professional, being present isn’t enough. A good communicator will always look for ways to define their presence against their competitors.

Having this insight allows a brand to get the most out of their engagement because their approach is creative and unique to their community, rather than being a template version of brand messaging. This will be the final factor in determining the success and value of a network and where it should fit in your marketing strategy.

And in the end...

While the examples and details I have used to support my points may be specific to these networks, the main points are really fundamental questions that any marketer should ask themselves when adopting a new strategy. It’s important to remember that while the tools may be updated and refreshed more than ever, the fundamentals of telling a brand’s story remain the same.

Once you establish those fundamentals, you can start to look past standard uses and start getting creative to build a presence that not only supports the business, but starts to become a key component in what drives success for a brand.

What brands do you think have adopted these new networks well? Have any stumbled out of the gate?

Post Written by Harrison Kratz

Harrison Kratz is the Community Manager for MBA@UNC, one of the top online mba programs from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He sticks to his entrepreneurial roots as the founder of the global social good campaign, Tweet Drive. Feel free to connect with him on Twitter, @KratzPR!

Triberr: 6 Simple Ways to Build your Tribe and Get Dozens of Retweets Along the Way

2012-10-22T20:19:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

Yeah, I know I talk about Twitter a lot. That is basically the platform that propelled this blog and I owe a lot to it. Twitter alone however wasn't enough. Several apps gave me a huge helping hand and without them I wouldn't have gotten even half the traffic.

Triberr is one of those tools. I have already written a an article about the service (I'd advise you to first take a look at it - Triberr Review) and today I'd like to take that a step further.

As I have been able to increase my Triberr reach to almost 20,000,000 (twenty million, yes), I decided to share some of the tips that helped me achieve this.

Keep reading to learn how to get into more tribes, widen your reach and get dozens of retweets on every blog post you publish!

More Followers Equals More Tribemates

The first thing you need to know about Triberr is that numbers do play a role here. How much followers you have can pretty much determine what kinds of folks you will have as tribemates and how much members your own tribes will have.

It is simple really. If you have 10,000 instead of 100 followers, people will be more inclined to send you an invite. When you share their content, you will bring it in front of a bigger audience. Retweets from people with a lot of followers boost credibility as well.

That is the first step. To go about achieving it you might want to see my best Twitter tools list and also my Tweet Adder review.

Relevancy Plays an Important Role

Unfortunately relevancy is one of the drawbacks when it comes to using Triberr. The problem is that although every chief aims to invite bloggers who actually have something to do with the subject, a lot of guys end up in tribes they don't belong to.

If your goal is to join as much tribes as possible, you might succeed. However if you want to get as much shares and traffic as possible, then that isn't a winning strategy.

When going through my stream of posts, from let's say 50, I rarely share more than 10-15. A lot of the articles there aren't exactly what I'd like to tweet.

All in all if you want to make it easier on yourself and also on your tribemates, do share relevant content and don't request invites for tribes you can't add value to. The additional reach won't really help you solidify your brand, as you will be targeting the wrong people.

Bonfires are There for a Reason

Image Credit

Next thing to do once you've signed up is to head to the so called Bonfires (basically a forum), click on "Looking for Tribes", find someone who is in search of tribemates in the niche you are interested in and leave a comment. Include what topics you cover and add a link to your blog.

You can also start a thread and ask others to join your own tribe. The first few lines of your comment are used as a title so start with your tribe's focus and reach (if it's worth bragging about).

Then once every couple of days share the post on Twitter with a good call to action:
"Are you into *niche of your choice* and would like more retweets? Join me on Triberr - *link*."

Something along those lines works well. Of course don't tweet the same message over and over and use variations instead.

As Always, Pay Attention to Your Headlines

In the social media world post titles can make the difference between zero and a ton of clicks (more on the topic: "5 Tips for Titles that Get Retweets"). It's the same story when it comes to Triberr.

Although what headline you come up with won't necessarily impact your click rates (it probably will though), choosing it well will ensure that the bigger part of your tribemates decide to approve what you submit.

The most important thing here is not to give false claims. Most Triberr members will first read or at least scan through the posts in their streams before approving anything, so something telling something that isn't true will only work against you.

Don't Forget to Submit to StumbleUpon First

Image Credit

When approving an article to be shared on Twitter, there is also the option to like it on Google+, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon.

Since sharing on StumbleUpon takes only two clicks, a lot of folks will decide to give you a thumbs up there. If you are the one to submit it that is. No one likes submitting a post himself...

So, do yourself a favor - before adding a new post to Triberr, share it on StumbleUpon first!

You never know which like is going to get you the big traffic!

Don't Share Others' Posts for the Sake of It!

Upon joining a new tribe a lot of newbies start with saying they share every single post in their streams. That is great for the guys having their content tweeted but there is a problem...

As I mentioned above you often come across a good lot of unrelated posts or articles that simply do not live up to the quality expectations. A lot of people like to reciprocate so sharing everything might get you more retweets. I don't recommend it, as it might get people to unfollow you though.

Most Twitter users tend to just skip irrelevant content, you might just happen to see your followers declining after several low-quality tweets. And that definitely isn't worth the additional shares you might receive (see "How Not to Get Yourself Unfollowed on Twitter").

Final Words

All in all with the right approach you can really turn Triberr into a powerful traffic generation machine. If you haven't yet signed up, now it's the time to do so! Hope you found the tips useful! Do share your thoughts, questions and feedback in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Facebook Traffic: 6 Effective Tips to Improve the Visibility of Your Fan Page

2012-10-19T19:55:00.000+03:00

I've been learning a lot, since I began working to improve my Facebook presence. I have had my fan page up and running for more than an year but results were never impressive...

Things are starting to change though!

My Analytics reveal that I've close to doubled Facebook visits in September as opposed to August - from around 340 to 650. My stories are now getting 3-4 likes on average and new people are liking my page every day.

The following article will be all about telling the story behind the changes! Keep reading to learn how to get more Facebook traffic, more likes on your status updates and more fans for your fan page!

Facebook Traffic Tip #1: The Widget and Where to Place It

Setting up the Facebook plug-in is easy. Making it effective requires a bit of testing though.

As you can see, above the fold I have placed a simple "About the Author" (see why you need it in "5 Blog Design Tips to Help You Convert Visitors into Readers")

The Facebook box is basically in the middle of the sidebar with some other widgets around it. I've chosen that position for two reasons:

Not every reader will reach the end of the post and many don't have to read the whole post to click like.
On the other hand people want to first get to know who you are and maybe read a little before they take any action.

Testing is always a must and then again, the middle of your sidebar is a good starting point.

Facebook Traffic Tip #2: Scheduling Posts Does Give a Helping Hand

As I talked in "Social Media Traffic and 4 Reasons You Aren't Getting It", you often times end up posting a lot of updates but don't get the traffic and engagement you expected. The reason is simple - you are posting at the wrong time.

Scheduling updates to go out when you are not in front of the computer is a great way to reach the bigger part of your audience. Otherwise you are simply not making the most out of your fan base.

Throughout the day I share four updates at most and I try to spread them evenly. That should be your goal! That way every new update brings different people to your fan page.

Note: Don't mistake Twitter and Facebook. While a lot of tweets might be okay, Facebook posts are easier to grab the attention so overdoing on that aspect might scare some of your fans away.

Facebook Traffic Tip #3: The Descriptions You Write Matter

An interesting trend I noticed was that descriptions, in which I asked a question that people can relate to in one way or another, generally resulted in more likes than the plain overviews.

"Sitting in front of your desk more time than you would like to? Check out some unwanted changes that could happen with your body due to this and how to avoid them:"

The above is a good example:
You need to find a connection between the topic and your fans i.e. the question, to have a call to action and to tell people what to expect i.e. the second sentence.

Leaving a story without a description or saying "check this out" feels like you found a random article and shared it just to keep the flow going. That is not a good marketing approach.

Facebook Traffic Tip #4: Sharing from Your Blog Alone is Boring

When it comes to social media diversity matters...

Yes, it is your blog's page, but that doesn't mean that posting updates solely from your blog is what fans want to see.

You might be sharing great content. People love it. The fact however is that if you are only publishing your own stories, those who tend to click "Like" might get a little upset. Self promotion is probably not something they are keen on.

It rather comes down to helping people. Share posts from other blogs you believe will be useful to your fans. Help first and you will be helped - it is a proven philosophy. Try it if you still haven't!

Facebook Traffic Tip #5: Don't Forget to Tweet your Facebook Updates

Getting the right people to follow you on Twitter is easy compared to doing the same on any other platform. The right tools (one of them is Tweet Adder) and being there to engage is pretty much what you need...

So, tweeting your Facebook stories makes for a lot of additional eyeballs. You are targeting people who are already following you. Converting those guys into fans will be much easier since they most likely already enjoy your content but just haven't discovered you on Facebook.

So how do you tweet your Facebook posts?

You simply click on the date header
The post opens up in a separate window
You copy the link and tweet with that URL

This approach helped me almost double my fanbase in the span of just forty days...

If you aren't doing it, it is time to start!

Facebook Traffic Tip #6: Asking Questions Creates the most Buzz

An important social media rule I learned throughout the months is that generating buzz works best when you actually start talking with the ones following you. That is especially valid when it comes to Facebook and your fan page.

The foundation of every successful relationship is trust. You can't build trust by simply publishing great stories. They do help, but you need to get real, literally.

Prove you are one of them!

Ask questions. Be willing to accept all kinds of feedback, both positive and negative. Whenever you happen to ask your fans for feedback, don't forget to reply back. Say thank you. Those small details do make a difference in the long run.

Now It's Your Turn

Hope you enjoyed the tips fellas! That is all I have on the Facebook topic for now. On to you! What else can you add to the list? What are your ways to get more Facebook fans, likes and traffic? Don't hesitate to share your strategy in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Building Relationships on Twitter: 3 Tips to Help you Make a Head Start Today

2012-10-15T20:19:00.001+03:00

Image Credit

Building relationships - everyone from gurus to newbies in online marketing is talking about social media and how it helps us connect with our prospects.

On- or offline, knowing the big names can and will make a difference. Getting to know those seemingly smaller players or your fans however, is as equally important. The latter group is namely the ones I will focus my attention on in today's post.

Since Twitter is a great place to start talking, the below tips will walk you through to how building relationships on the microblogging platform works. Keep reading to find out what to do, how to do it and when to engaging with your Twitter followers:

1. Should You Really Be There All the Time?

An important takeaway before jumping into that building relationships thing is time. Being able to organize all of your tasks is crucial if you want to improve your working productivity and start making progress.

So no, you don't have to be there all the time (see more common social media success myths). That just isn't worth the hassle. It's great when you reply to a question or a request in a matter of minutes, but you should also look at the big picture...

TweetDeck for instance lets you know whenever someone mentions you on Twitter. As good as that might seem, it is a distraction. Getting things done the right way requires a steady focus.

With over 50,000 followers, if I was to apply that approach, I would have been replying and replying every couple of minutes. Instead I do a simple routine - once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once before bed. It works like a charm!

2. Which Situations are Good for a New Talk?

In real life building relationships with people you just met is not always an easy task. The good thing about social media is that the boundaries here are rather thin.

So when is the right time to say something to someone on Twitter:

Every time you get asked or mentioned - That is mandatory. Even if you don't have a good answer, you should reply back, saying that you don't know and optionally recommend someone who might have a clue.
When someone follows you - take the time to look through the list of people who follow you every day, check their profiles, see their interests and chose 3 or 4 folks. Simply thank them for following and ask a relevant question about what they are working on.
When you get retweeted - When someone shares a post of yours, reply back to them, saying you appreciate the share. Consider what the retweeted article is about and try to think of a suitable question. If you can't come up with one, there's always the option to ask how their day is going - you might be surprised but such simple questions often create engaging discussions
After reading a great post - If you are into curating content (relevant read - "Content Curation vs Plagiarism"), then you certainly read a lot of quality content. When you really enjoy a post, aside from retweeting, don't hesitate to mention the author and add a word or two about what you liked. You are in for an interesting talk as long as you get a reply.
Ask a question - That's probably the most obvious of them all. If you want a discussion and you want it now, be the one to start it. A questions regarding the topics you cover is the way to go. Don't simply ask about the weather or pose a "how's it going" kind of question. Go through your articles if you can't think of anything. That will surely spark some ideas.

3. Learn that It's About Them, Not You

The sooner you get used to the above phrase, the closer you will be to not only connecting with people, but to also getting them to help you. The fact of the matter is that the ones who succeed (i.e. make money, attract attention, get a lot of traffic) are the ones who show they care.

Reciprocating is important. And not I don't mean following back everyone who follows you...

Let's assume there's a guy who is sharing a lot of your posts for two weeks straight. Even if your content is great and you believe it deserves to be spread, think about the retweeter! The guy might expect something in return.

The least you can do is to take the time, check out his stuff and share your thoughts in a reply. If you enjoy what he brings to the table, don't hesitate to retweet and leave a comment. That way you might just keep the wheel spinning if you know what I mean. The wheel doesn't necessarily spin itself, don't forget that!

Final Words

And voila, that's basically how creating discussions in the online world works. It doesn't seem to hard and it really isn't. Once you start it becomes quite addictive. Hope you enjoyed the post guys and do share your thoughts! Do you think relationships are all that matters in internet marketing? What is your way of doing it? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Writing Headlines: 3 Ways to Create Titles that Get Traffic and Draw the Attention

2012-10-10T18:30:00.000+03:00

This is a guest post by Ali Abbas. More about the author you can learn at the end of the post!

You've heard enough about writing headlines already.

You've probably read that listing a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways, works the best. Someone probably already told you that headlines should be short...

Today, we'll talk about three rules you don’t come across too often. To understand their importance, you first need to grasp the purpose of your headline!

The basic aim of any blog post title is nothing but to target those,who might be interested in your products or services, and to "force" them to read your copy.

So let's start with the tips!

1. Optimize your headline for search engines

To get a click, first you must reach out to your audience. You can do so through several channels, yet search engines are the most rewarding source.

Your title is the first and foremost aspect search engines consider to assess what your write-up is all about. Make a mistake while optimizing your blog post title and you're dead in the water.

Writing headlines that are search engine-friendly is simple:

Write 70 characters at most
Use relevant keyword if and possible start the title with it
Don't stuff too many keywords
Don't write duplicate or irrelevant titles

2. Target your audience in the headline

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” ~ David Ogilvy

Why so many people don't read your body copy, even if it has a highly magnetic headline?
Mostly, because they feel your content is not relevant.

When writing headlines, you need targeted audience, and the headline is how you do the targeting. Untargeted headlines are either too silly or too clever. In either case they're of no use.

Take a look at the following clever headlines:
Go For The Gong - Your Face Will Be Red If You Don't

What on earth is this headline selling? It’s neither a sex scandal story nor a TV game show, but a pitch for you to advertise in a suburban newspaper.

Here’s a better alternative:
Free Report - How To Reach Customers Spending 1.9 Billion Dollars With Effective Newspaper Advertising

Here’s another clever and confusing headline, trying to sell office furniture:
Just What A Slab Of Seasoned Wood Needs. A Little More Seasoning!

And here’s the alternative:
Every Piece Of Raymond’s Office Furniture Is Made From Salvaged Timber… And Is Guaranteed For Life!

See how clearly the alternate headlines point out their ideal readers?

3. Use successful templates (and power words)

Do you know almost all the writing greats copied someone else’s work?

Even the mighty Shakespeare used to steal plots from Roman and Greek dramas, Thomas Jefferson copied John Locke’s Declaration of Independence,and so did the others.

Guess what, the successful bloggers also do it – especially when writing their titles. They have swipe files containing nothing but successful headline templates.These templates are time-tested, and have always worked.

Yes, they'll work for you today, tomorrow and every day after tomorrow.
To download such templates, Google the keyword “headline swipe file pdf”(pdf files are usually more trustworthy).

Ok now,what are the power words?
These are words that carry more ‘weight’ and act as attention grabbers. John Caples – the head of a famous advertising agency in the US – tells us the ten most used power words in one hundred most successful headlines:

You..........................31
Your.........................14
How.........................12
New.........................10
Who..........................8
Money.......................6
Now..........................4
People.......................4
Want.........................4
Why..........................4

Look at you – no, not you, the power word you – it was found in 31 of the 100 titles. That shows the importance of putting your audience in the headline.

Here are some other power words you can (and should) stuff in your headlines:

What If
Do You
Amazing
At Last
Little-Known Secrets
Life
The Truth About
Love
Facts
Discover
Inside-Secrets of
Announcing
How to
Free
Hot

Over to you

Keep in mind these simple tips when you write your next title, and see what happens. What rules do you follow when writing your blog headlines, let’s discuss in the comments!

Post Written by Ali Abbas

Ali Abbas is a young, enthusiastic freelance writer & blogger. To learn more about the art of writing killer headlines Check Out His Blog, where the amazing FREE mini-eBook: The Secret Ingredients To Writing Magnetic Headlines That ALWAYS Get Noticed, awaits you!

5 Easy to Implement Blog Design Tips to Help You Convert Visitors into Readers

2012-10-08T19:45:00.000+03:00

When it comes to blogging, it's not entirely about what you publish.

When a new visitors lands on your blog, you have to catch their attention. Otherwise you might have hard time getting them to scroll down and read.

Reviewz 'N' Tips is up and running since more than three years now and I went through a lot of design changes throughout that time...

The next few paragraphs consist of five blog design tips that will walk you through some of the most important design components I added to my blog over time, why you should also consider them and why they matter:

A Move Towards Simplicity

As months passed, a couple of changes took place:

Text background - Back then I used grey. I didn't think it was bad until I got a couple of complaints. The reality is that on different monitors colors appear differently. Therefore white is the best choice.
Blog background - I guess some remember the wood-like background texture I used. Truth be told it was kind of amateurish. All in all solid color is what you'd like to have if you want to be taken seriously.
The sidebar - Mine was green. Green is one of my theme colors and I wanted to show that. However visibility proved a problem once again. Changing to a white-like color resulted in more clicks and was the next step towards a less amateurish design.

I guess you've got the main idea. Flashy is simply not the trend anymore. Contrast between letters and text background is always to be taken into consideration. The background color should not be too imposing as well. Everything should "point" to the actual content.

Header Text with a Clear Message

If people aren't familiar with your blog, the first thing you need to tell them when they land is what to expect. Having a description of some sort within your header can greatly help with the task.

A well-designed logo is a must, but that alone is rarely descriptive enough...

You probably noticed what my header message states:
"Make a head start in blogging and social media"

The three keywords here are:

Short - Ten words at most.
Descriptive - Straight to the point, no fluff, no hidden messages.
Eye-catching - Many use simple Arial text. It might work, but adding some design touches makes it stand out.

About the Author Widget

Creating a simple "About the author" widget is one of the design elements I believe are crucial for every blog in terms of authenticity. The concept is self-explanatory and you can see it in action on the left, in the sidebar.

The ingredients are:

A photo of yourself - Visual information is perceived faster than text. Seeing your face, people will instantly identify you with your blog.
Actual text and a link - It's good to supplement the photo with a brief bio. Thirty to forty words will do. At the end place a link pointing to your About page for those, who want to learn more about you (more people than you think do, trust me).
Social proof and buttons - in my case I have included a Twitter follow button, which also shows the number of followers I have. It is a way to build credibility. I have also placed a LinkedIn and a Google plus button. That way people can see who I am, learn more about me and subscribe - all from one place.

Sharing Buttons on Key Locations

Taking a look at my Twitter mentions, reveals that most of the retweeting on my posts is done from within Twitter. It's simple to notice, since links, shared from my blog use the t.co shortener and most retweets I receive are shortenend with bit.ly. Can't tell for Google plus or Facebook, but the trend is probably similar.

What I want to say is that sharing buttons are not as widely used as people think they are. So to get the most out of them, you need to make them obvious.

To do that, I've added social buttons:

Below the title of each blog post
At the end of each blog post
Via a fixed sharebar that scrolls with the viewer

I have basically covered all possible positions. Less is more doesn't apply here. The more you have, the better the chance for someone taking action.

Some Neat CSS3 Effects Here and There

I know, I know. I said that simplicity is what you should be striving to achieve. A bit of eye-candy, if done right, is never a bad thing though. And after all a couple of well-made visual effects can still result in simple yet neat design job.

As you might have probably noticed, throughout the last couple of weeks I've been experimenting with shadows and gradients (would really appreciate to hear your opinion by the way!) and I am happy with the overall result.

If you don't have the knowledge to create those yourself here are two useful tools to help you:

CSS3 Gradient Generator - You can add as much swatches as you like so with a bit of tweaking you all kinds of gradients are possible. Don't forget to include the "background" property with a solid color in your CSS for browsers that don't recognise gradients!
CSS3 Box Shadow Generator - That's the tool for you if you need shadows. Use the sliders and look at the preview to get the desired result. Then simply copy and paste the code to your CSS file.

Final Words

All in all when it comes to creating a good design, it is all about being able to present the right visual information at the right place, while keeping your blog posts the focal point. Now on to you! Does design matter in your opinion? What is the first thing to catch your attention when you land on a new blog? Let me know what you think!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Quality over Quantity: The Real Value Behind Your Followers and Fans

2012-10-03T18:20:00.000+03:00

Quality over quantity is a "popular" debate in the social media field.

Followers don't mean a thing... How much fans you have isn't important... How much comments your posts receive doesn't play a role...

There are a lot of posts out there, aiming to prove that. There are also a lot of folks, who believe that quality is the only social media factor.

But is it really so?

That is exactly what I am going to cover today! The below paragraphs are my two cents, regarding the quality over quantity issue. Discover which is more important and what you should actually focus on:

So What Difference do Numbers Make?

If you have the drive to get more followers, you need to have a clear idea of what purpose those same followers will serve in the future.

Let's assume you decide to buy them or let's say you just start following or sending friend requests to totally random people. Will that really make much of a difference? I guess you know what the answer is.

From all those fishy techniques, social proof is the only thing you get. Some might be more inclined to check you out if you have say 2000 Facebook friends. However if that's all you are counting on and don't have a good strategy in place, you will still be at ground zero.

Should Social Media Shares be Your Goal?

The answer is yes and no.

Most of the articles I publish here get well over 150-200 retweets. That is a different kind of social proof... a more trustworthy one. Seeing all those shares, doesn't it make you more willing to keep reading?

As opposed to number of Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, etc, getting a lot of engagement and comments is kind of a seal of approval that the article is good. And you don't want to be wasting your time with mediocre stuff, do you?

Aside from that of course, each retweet brings you visitors (see "16 Ways to Get More Retweets"). And after all the more traffic you get, the better the chance to find your next potential client...

But in the end it isn't really much about those shares themselves, neither about the traffic...

Building Relationship: Key or a Piece of the Puzzle?

And as much as I'd like to agree that relationships are all, they can only do so much. You totally need them if you want to build trust and still there's the thing... If you don't focus on content (although I believe Content Isn't King), then you simply won't reach that much people.

Content is what brings the visits. Stop posting links to your articles and traffic will shrink even if all you do is talk with people. Don't get me wrong. I do engage on Twitter, I do ask questions on my Facebook page...

From a different perspective, haven't you noticed those times, when you are so into the conversation that you totally forget to take a look at the guy's blog or website and share them? Then comes the next great conversation and the cycle repeats...

So it's not quality over quantity. You need the right followers - to engage. You also need a lot of them, so that you get more clicks. Quality and quantity I'd say.

Are Your Followers Helping You
and Finding the Right Ones

Or even more generally put - is social media helping you? And no, "help" doesn't come down to a like on Facebook, a retweet or just more traffic. That is all good but it's really not your goal...

If you are able to not only get your followers to share, but to also engage, subscribe and purchase, then they are followers, worth having. Those kinds of followers are the ones you should be striving for.

A theory is that automation can't help you with the task of getting those kinds of people (Note: not talking about buying). Well that's not really the case. Everyone who has tried the tools and techniques, knows that.

Check out my post on automation for more information:
Putting Your Tasks on Autopilot: 3 Reasons to Do It and 2 Myths not To Believe

Final Words

So in short, quality over quantity? Both. It is not all about the numbers yet they are an integral part of the equation. What are your thoughts? Is it all about engagement or could a couple more followers make a difference? As always, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Blogspot vs Wordpress: What Do Visitors Want and What Makes for a Good Blog

2012-09-29T22:14:00.002+03:00

For my two years of blogging I can safely say that I've made the most out of Google's blogging platform - Blogger. A month ago I cracked the 10,000 montly visitor mark and approaching 15,000.

So as a Blogger user who used free hosting for more than two years, I decided to walk you guys through some of the reasons why those two factors don't play a significant role.

The below paragraphs are for all of you Blogspot and Wordpress users, who believe that buying a hosting and chosing the next awesome Wordpress theme guarantees success. Keep reading to see what plays a more important role:

And Although Wordpress is Great...

There is no denying that when we talk about blogging, Wordpress is what comes to mind. It is better... better from a user's perspective that is.

You defiintely don't need as much technical knowledge as you would with Blogger. Tasks like finding and adding a widget or chanigng something in the design are less complex. In terms of SEO, it might have some features to make things easier but other than that it isn't that different really.

And then again, what about the visitors? When do they care about that and when they don't? Keep reading!

No one Cares when… Your Blog Loads Fast

How much do you wait for a site to load at most? If it is your favorite one, you probably don't pay much attention. If you however stumble upon a link, recommended on a Forum for instance, you are probably going to click the "X" button after just a couple of seconds...

No one likes waiting, especially when one's not really sure whether the wait's going to be worth the discovery...

If you take the time to:

Learn how to do image sprites
Simply specifiy the dimensions of your images
Compress your images and reduce their qauntity
Remove widgets and Javascript that aren't helping nor you, neither your visitors

Then you are one step closer to getting the kind of readers who don't see a difference between your Blogger blog and a competitor's Wordpress one.

No one Cares when … You have a Compelling Design in Place

There are literally a ton of plug-ins avialable that make edititing and adding functionallity to Wordpress-powered blogs easier. If you know what you are looking for however, you will also be able to find pretty much whatever you want for your Blogger-powered blog.

Add to that a bit of CSS and HTML knowledge and you can achieve some pretty decent results. My blog actually helped me learn the two languages and I am grateful for that. It is always useful to know the mechanics behind how things work.

Here are a couple of tips to help you do a good designing job for your Blogger blog:

Make Links Visible - highlight them with one of your theme colors
Steer away from clutter i.e. less is more - content should be the main focus
Chose a theme that isn't too flashy - three main colors at most
Make sure you have a good contrast between letters and the background
Place a short bio with your own photo above the fold and link it to your About page
Don't forget to include a stylized description of what your blog offers in the header

For more information see "Blog Optimization - Tools that Helped Me and Tips I Followed"

So with that one out of the way, you have a fast-loading blog that looks good and is easy to navigate. Does it matter if it's Blogspot or Wordpress? I guess no. We are not finished though...

No one Cares when… You Provide Content that Ain’t Just Filler

Content is all that matters you'd say (or maybe not - see "Content Isn't King"). A king or not, if your visitors reach your site quickly enough and if your blog isn't an eyesore, they might just happen to start reading...

If you've successfuly passed the previous stages, then with or without free hosting, on Wordpress or on Blogger, now it is up to your writing to grab the attention. If you fail here, you are the one to blame. If you are producing content that's worth sharing, then with the right tools you have a good chance to create some buzz.

You shouldn’t Care if…

The above paragraphs showed you in which cases being a Wordpress or Blogspot user won't matter... But what about you?

The success of any blog comes down to three components:

You need traffic
You need to convert it into subscribers
You need to make some moeny (see "Affiliate Marketing: 6 Tips to Get You Going")

Are you able to achieve those? If the answer is yes, then the platform obviously doesn't matter. If the answer is no, then it also isn't neccesarilly what counts, especially if you haven't followed the above "no one cares when" points!

Conclusion

So all in all if you aren't into blogging yet, I wouldn't recommend you to start with Blogger. If you've already jumped into it however, start with the above tips before moving to Wordpress. What do you think - can a paid hosting and a shiny new Wordpress theme make all the difference? Is free hosting THAT bad? Let me hear your thoughts!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

3 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Mobile Friendly and Improve User Experience

2012-09-26T20:05:00.000+03:00

Following is a guest post by Celina Conner. Celina will walk us through three ways to improve the way our blogs look on mobile devices. Enjoy!

Fast to gain its lion share is the mobile market. Almost everyone today browses profiles and engages in personal, casual or business talks in Facebook, Twitter and other social networks using smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

As people go increasingly mobile, creating a mobile-friendly version of your blog is essential. Question is, “Are your website design and content ready for mobile devices?” Surely, you don’t want your readers to feel frustrated or cramped after viewing your site and read your content. In this article, we will talk about three things that you can do to make your blog mobile-friendly.

Why Adapt to Mobile in the First Place

The fact is that people nowadays are walking around with “computers” on their pockets. If you are a business owner or an individual who wants to promote your brand online, having a website accessible through the web is not enough. You need a website that has a mobile-friendly environment, to cater for your viewers’ pleasurable experience.

This mobile equivalent of your website is not one that is the same as the original web version but is a light version of your main blog. Those traditional web designs are made specifically for laptop and desktop computers. A mobile website requires more user-friendliness in terms of navigation and display of items.

Remember - users have to pinch, zoom and scroll in to view the items on the page in smaller screens with convenience.

How to Make Your Website Mobile-friendly?

1. Use Smaller Images or Cut Back on Images

With mobile devices, your site will be viewed on smaller screens with slower or lower bandwidth. Your ultimate goal is to still grab your reader’s attention at once. But how do you make this happen without compromising on the lead time to load heavy graphics? You should have high-resolution pictures only resized smaller—and limited to one to two per post. These should be enough to make your post compelling to be read. Your text should make the user experience worthwhile; the images are just there to fuel their understanding better and not to distract them from digesting the content or material on your web page.

Now if your website cannot stand on its own and live harmoniously without having such large-sized images, then make sure that you upload them with JPEG, PNG or GIF as these file formats take lesser time to load. Also, be reminded not to put pop-up images or Flash-based elements as these will block off the user’s concentration and will more likely just annoy them.

2. Place Larger Call-to-action Buttons

Buttons should have a high periodization. Imagine having to press on small site buttons on tiny-sized screens with descriptive text that sets no clear expectations from the user. If you’re the mobile user, you most probably will leave the website no matter how cool the design and great the content is.

Well-spaced and larger buttons are your safest best when it comes to optimizing your site to be mobile-friendly. Remember, content (textual or graphical display) is only good for seeing and learning. But buttons are ones that give you the conversion rates! People click on buttons to close a sale, to pay, to navigate and work around the website.

3. Jive with the Plugin Approach

If your blog is running on the WordPress platform, you can utilize many of its available plugins which can help you transform your blog into a mobile-friendly site quite instantly. Some recommended plugins or applications that you can install for free are Mobify, WPTap, and the WordPress Mobile Pack. They are compatible for BlackBerry, iPhone, Samsung tablets and other common devices out there in the market.

With Mobify, you can utilize a JavaScript framework to automatically resize images and load mobile content with greater acceleration to offer just the convenience your viewers need. Play around with WPTap which have themes consisting in elegant slideshow and thumbnail images that make it an ideal choice for showcasing your products. WordPress Mobile Pack is a set package that already includes a mobile switcher that allows users to select mobile themes according to their personal style, easy addition of extra widgets and device adaptation.

With these simple WordPress plugins, you can customize your blog themes, layouts, responsive images and other branding elements to enhance its usability for an improved quality of user experience. You can also try browsing for premium packages. Sure, they may come with a cost but they will be worth the price when your users appreciate your website and boost your sales.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that mobile technology now is getting real big. You can experiment and follow other several ways to make your website mobile-friendly. These are only a few that you can start with. The key is to have smart navigation and practice good design with good visuals, to stay on top of the competition.

Post Written by Celina Conner

Celina Conner is a Yoga Instructor, an alumna of Marketing Management at Martin College Australia and a mother of a beautiful daughter, Krizia. She has a passion in cooking and formulating vegan recipes.Follow her adventures on her Twitter.

Losing Twitter Followers: 4 Simple Things to Help You Reduce Unfollows

2012-09-24T19:40:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

I've recently got an email. A reader of my blog was asking about his Twitter followers and why they were decreasing by the day.

In the email he said he was doing everything as it should be done - quality and relevant content was a priority. And although he was tweeting useful, in his words posts, he was still being unfollowed for seemingly no reason.

I bet there are a lot of you who are having the same problem. That is why I decided to put up this article!

The below paragraphs will help you discover four reasons as to why people stop following you, whether that is actually a problem and what you can do about it. Hope you find the information useful!

Should You Expect Unfollows in the First Place?

Basically the more followers you have, the bigger "the fluctuations" will be. You are followed by more people but also unfollowed by more people. Folks might find you interesting at first but they might change their minds after a while. That's a normal behavior - you have probably done it yourself.

On the other hand you can't please everyone. Even if someone's following you, it doesn't necessarily mean that a tweet can't put them off. While some might find a more controversial update interesting and retweet it, others might decide they've had enough.

What I am trying to say is that having tweeps stop following you is normal. Below however are some tips to help you limit the issue as much as possible:

1. Tweeting is Great, but Don't Overdo!

As I have said more than once, the tweets you send reach far less people than the number of your followers. That is simply because folks don't hang on Twitter that much and when they sign in, they don't scroll all the way down to read everything they've missed. That is why many "marketers" literally bombard their followers with tweets every few minutes.

Yes, everyone wants their updates retweeted. However there are no guarantees even if you post the same thing five times. That is especially true if you don't have a lot followers and tweet at the wrong time (something I talk about in "Social Media Traffic and 4 Reasons Why You Aren't Getting It").

Additionally if what you overshare happens to be of suspicious quality, the chance of getting unfollowers is obviously bigger. And no, it's not their fault - it's yours.

2. Be Careful with Promotional Tweets

Image Credit

In blogging and social media, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn money (see "6 Reasons to Try Affiliate Marketing" for more information). Be it on- or offline, when it comes to earning, a lot of people don't know when they've gone too far.

Although I am strongly against posting links, pointing directly to affiliate products, if you ever decide on that, do it as rarely as possible. You might make a commission or two, but those kinds of links are for the most part referred to as spam.

What you should do is to write a review of the product and tweet that instead. That way people don't end up on the product's page and discover what it is about and why it's good.

Of course that strategy should also be done with caution - don't tweet more than a couple of times a week!

3. One Tweet a Week Isn't Motivational Either...

From one extreme, to the other...

The idea of social networks is obviously to not only be there but to also prove you are there. It definitely isn't for the shy.

But there are those days... The flow isn't going and you don't feel like tweeting. It happens once in a while. The thing about procrastination is that once you start, stopping is easier said than done. And if you aren't posting something, then with or without a ton of followers, you are simply not making progress.

Tools like ManageFlitter for instance have a feature that allows you to find inactive tweeps i.e. folks who publish less than once a day and unfollow them. Such option wouldn't have existed if there wasn't a demand.

So I'd say you need at least 4-5 updates every day if you don't want to see numbers declining.

4. Aside from That… Start Building Your Followers

Although that is not really a solution, if you have already considered the above tips, it might just be time to get some more followers. Fighting fire with fire is not always a bad idea.

Unless you are a celebrity, reaching 30,000, 20,000 or even 10,000 is a battle on its own. As much as we'd like to believe, quality content combined with conversations is just not enough. You also need a set of tools in order to gain momentum.

Tweepi (see "Best Twitter Tools") and Tweet Adder (see my Tweet Adder Review) are the two tools that can help you get more followers. Of course we aren't talking about any followers but for targeted ones.

And do keep in mind that buying followers is a bad strategy - aside from serving as a social proof, those followers, no matter how much, are basically bots that nor click neither retweet.

Final Words

As you noticed I put a lot of emphasis on tweeting. How and what you tweet is basically what makes the difference between unfollows and follows. Of course you can't satisfy everyone, so occasional unfollows shouldn't bother you. Now on to you! Are you being unfollowed? When do you decide to unfollow someone on Twitter? Let me hear your thoughts guys!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

5 Key Steps You Must Go Through Before Publishing Anything on Your Blog

2012-09-20T20:38:00.001+03:00

Image Credit

You have written an amazing piece of content and can’t wait to hit publish.

As far as you are concerned, there are no reasons why you need to wait. You have a great idea and you can’t wait to let your readers know.

You have spent some time perfecting the post and now feel ready to share.

But just before you hit publish, I suggest going through this checklist to be absolutely sure that you haven’t made a mistake, or haven’t left anything out.

You do want to make it worth your readers’ time, don’t you?

Let’s take a look.

#1 Is the idea relevant to your target audience?

Image Credit

You might be surprised to discover that in your excitement you have written about something that really doesn’t concern your readers all that much.

The goal remains to write about something your readers will feel like reading. It should not deviate from your blog topic – the topic people are interested in learning about.

A list post, a how-to one; a personal narrative or a round up one, it doesn’t matter what the format is, all that matters is that it should be highly focused in meeting your audience needs.

Make your posts personal when you can. By doing so, you will have a chance to connect deeply with your readers and hopefully entice a reaction from them. (More about that later).

#2 Will the headline interest them enough to click on it?

What is probably the most crucial aspect of writing your blog post?

Getting the headline right.

If you think I am being a tad overdramatic, think again. Your headline alone can make the difference between your post going viral or being a flop.

Keep the 4U formula when you write your headlines:

Unique: Must hint to something that is different to the rest of the content on the similar topic.
Useful: Promise your readers something. It could something that takes away their pain like how to get rid of your writer’s block or make their lives easier. Eg: how to write a post in 20 minutes from start to finish.
Ultra-specific: Spell out exactly what the reader is getting.
Urgent: Something that you should read today, rather than tomorrow.

Headlines are especially important if you want your content to spread through social media.

Imagine for a moment you have logged in to your twitter account. You have a stream of tweets in your feed and more coming through every second. What makes you click on something as opposed to the next one?

Why does a particular tweet get your attention while the other one gets ignored? It is the headline, of course.

#3 Will your reader find it visually appealing?

It has been said a number of times, but it is worth repeating. You need to make your post a good fit for the web.

It is a good idea to stand back and look at how your post ‘looks’ and ‘behaves’ on the screen. There should be lots of white space so the eye relaxes immediately.

If you run into any long piece of text, break them up by using images or screen shots. Try and use short paragraphs.

Keep the elements of Scannability in mind:

Bullets
Numbered lists
Bold, highlight and underline
Sub-headings

#4 Will your audience engage with the idea?

It’s not enough to write something that your audience will find useful. We don’t want them to only read and then move on.

We want them to engage with the content. We want them to comment, share, tweet, like or even send you an email about it.

With the ever changing face of blogosphere, comments are on the decline. This unfortunately means that it is become increasingly difficult to keep your audience attention and get them to take some action.

However, this doesn’t mean that it is impossible to do so. The engagement is still there, it could possibly have moved to a social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+. A Retweet says to me, ‘look at this interesting content I found that I m sharing with you’. It is equivalent of a ‘great post’ comment.

Few ways you can get your audience to engage with your content:

Take a stand. Make a provocative statement. This could potentially divide your audience and compel them to share their views.
Leave things unsaid. Sometimes a post is so well written and complete that there is really nothing left to be added. Make sure to leave a few ends untied.
Write in a language they understand and use themselves.
Take a fresh perspective. Yes everything has been written but not with your unique point of view. Go ahead and make the piece your own.

#5 Will your readers know what to do after they finish reading?

Don’t forget to add a call to action to your post.

What do you want your audiences to do after they have read your post? Do you want them to:

Subscribe to your blog
Comment
Share on social media
Contact you
Buy a product or a service?

Aim for them to do one thing only. You will find that revisiting your purpose (See point 1) will help you to add a call of action.

That’s it. Next time before you hit publish, make sure you keep these points in mind. Anything you would like to add to this list? Leave a comment below and I will surely respond.

Post Written by Marya Jan

Marya Jan is a proud content creator for Open Colleges, an education provider with awesome business and writing courses. When she is not busy blogging for them, she can be found helping other small business owners revamp their blog content at Writing Happiness. Check it out and grab the free ebook ‘How to Write Blog Content that Works’.

Affiliate Marketing: My Story and 6 Tips to Get You Going Right Now

2012-09-17T22:09:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

What I generally share on Reviewz 'N' Tips is advice to help you improve your blog and generate more social media traffic.

However in the end not how much traffic you receive, but how many people decide to take action is what you should be measuring.

In May this year, I jumped into what they call affiliate marketing and today I will share my experience with you! Below are six tips that will hopefully help you make a flying start and get those commissions rolling in faster. Enjoy!

Firstly, Why Consider Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing... you probably know what it is about... You recommend a product and when someone buys it, you earn a commission. But is it really worth the time and money?

Here are the key points:

It isn't rocket science - Affiliate marketing is probably the easiest way to make money from your blog. You only need a product that you find useful and would like other people to try.
You don't really invest - After all you generally don't buy the products just to promote them. You buy them because they are useful, so promotion is kind of a bonus.
Making money isn't all that hard - That's probably the most important reason to give it a try. If you do things right (and you will if you read the post) earning money is closer than you think.

So, on to the tips...

1. Check out What Others are Promoting

The first and probably the most important step that you need to go through before even thinking about recommending a product is to check on your competition.

In the marketing field there are more than one or two blogs that publish their monthly incomes. Those posts can be quite useful to folks who are newbies and don't really know what sells well and what isn't worth the time.

If you have something specific in mind, start by searching for product reviews. If you can't find any or there are just a couple, then there's probably not enough buzz around your pick and you might not earn as much as you expect. If you do your part well, even with more competition, you will be able to find you way.

2. Write a Thorough Review Post

Image Credit

There is simply no better way to grab the attention and get your visitors to check out what you promote than to share your experience and go through the most important features in a blog post.

You'd say why bother... after all pretty much every affiliate program offers banners that you can just add to the sidebar and thus remove all the weight off of your shoulders. While I am not saying that those are a bad idea, if they sit there all alone, people won't really be inclined to click. I will expand on that later in this article.

So back to the point. When it comes to writing the review, the general rules still apply (see "9 Tips for Posts that Grab the Attention"). You need to put more emphasis on images here than on any other type of post though. Images are more descriptive than words. Don't forget to add a screenshot for the most important features you recommend!

As for length, even if you generally write short posts (see "Article Length Importance"), I'd recommend you to deepen your review with as much detail as possible. That will certainly be a good way to show people that you have actually tried what you are promoting.

3. Don't be Scared to Promote Your Post

If you want to be able to make the most out of your review in the future, take the time to create some kind of a schedule. Based on that schedule you are going to share the post on the social media networks you are using every now and then.

Remember that Twitter, Facebook and Google+ don't work the same way:

On Google+ the engagement levels are rather low. Since people don't post that much, your updates are visible longer. I'd recommend you to share the review once in an interval of at least 30-40 days.
Although there's a lot more activity going on on Facebook, the interval should be similar.
As for Twitter you can ramp up and share as much as twice a week. People are following and followed by hundreds, so there's a lot of competition and hence far less exposure.

Take a look at my review post for further reference!

4. Affiliate Marketing without SEO won't Work

Image Credit

Being able to rank your articles on the first page of the search results for the keywords you want is great. For product reviews however, it is crucial.

If your review is on the first page for "*Product name* review" (e.g. Tweet Adder Review), then you are in for some cash. Whoever searches for the product's review is a person, who is probably in the decision-making process i.e. someone who is likely to buy.

So to improve your chances, you need to have "*Product name* review" in a number of areas in your review post:

In the headline - it is a must, aim for the beginning (e.g. "*Product name* review - *reason for people to try it*").
In the first paragraph - that is the next thing crawlers will see. Adding the keyphrase there is almost as important as having it in your title. That is mainly how spiders know what to expect in the post.
Every now and then - as long as it is readable and not too intrusive, it is okay to include the keyword within the different paragraphs. It should feel right when reading. Remember, SEO is worth it only if the reader actually enjoys the post.

5. Link to the Review as Often as Possible

Aside from adding the keyword within your review, you can boost search engine rankings with interlinking. Simply linking to my Tweet Adder review article, wherever I found relevant, helped me achieve first page in the SERPs.

If you'd like to know what the exact approach of my interlinking strategy is, check out:
4 Good Reasons to Start Interlinking Your Posts and 5 Simple Steps to Doing it Right

6. Be Careful with the Sidebar

Soo, back to the sidebar...

As I said there is no problem with promoting a product via a banner, placed there. However that alone wouldn't really make someone buy what you recommend.

There are a couple of reasons:

It doesn't seem trustworthy - People need to know why are you promoting it.
It doesn't give enough information - Banners generally consist of just the logo and a very very short description
It feels like you just want the sale - While the main idea is without question to earn, you need to show that you care about your audience. A random product's banner, slapped on the sidebar doesn't contribute to that.

So what should you do?

Take a look at my banner. I first give people a reason to try the product after which I provide them with a link to the product's review so that they can decide better whether it is something they'd be interested in. Choosing a different color for the sidebar widget to make it more obvious does help as well.

Final Words

So that's basically what you need to consider when choosing and promoting your favorite product or service. Hope you found a thing or two that you hadn't thought of! Are you into affiliate marketing or any other form of monetization? Feel free to share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Automating Social Media: Does it Work or Do the Critics Have a Point?

2012-09-13T19:41:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

Automation... Every marketer out there has without doubt come across dozens of apps, designed to put specific tasks on autopilot and thus save precious time and effort...

As useful as this might seem, many prefer the traditional approach and believe that all automation equals spam. The opinion that those, who automate can't be taken seriously, is widespread. And still there are bloggers and entrepreneurs who are keen on having the latest tools to help them improve productivity...

But are those tools really that good and can they help you become more successful in a shorter period of time or do the critics have a good point?

That is exactly what I will try to answer! In the below paragraphs I am going to take closer look at the positive and the possible negative sides of the phenomena called automation:

Myth #1: You Get Used to Doing Nothing

So theoretically once you start leaving various tasks on to the hundreds of apps available, you slowly start falling into a hole.

I have to admit that something similar has happened to me a couple of times. There are those moments when I would just stop, sit there and not to know what to do next...

However that generally lasts no more than five or maybe ten minutes, after which I get back to the usual schedule. Furthermore the same can happen even with a checklist in front of you. The latter can get quite overwhelming, especially when you aren't relying on any tools to get the job done.

All in all if you are used to doing nothing, whether you are automating or not doesn't really matter. Either way you won't be making progress.

Myth #2: You Stop Keeping it Real

Whoever uses automation, doesn't know how to engage and build relationships. You probably heard that before...

Why should automation has something to do with being untalkative?

Although thousands of egg-spammers are autotweeting, there are also those seemingly genuine folks who just don't know how marketing works.

They're welcoming their new followers and reply back... as long as it has something to do with their product that is. Oh yeah, and they like mentioning you only to tell you about their great service... that you don't really care for.

So isn't it all the same? Isn't it up to the one behind the tools to decide what to do?

I am automating and creating discussions at the same time and let me tell you - it works perfectly fine!

Pro #1: You Have more Time for Writing

Moving on to the pros...

Writing was quite a struggle for me some months ago. Most of you probably know the importance of everyday writing. Publishing articles that grab the attention requires more than a day of hard work every week.

Aside from being able to put more time into writing, once I began automating, I was also able to start publishing more frequently (see "5 Reasons to Publish Twice a Week"). The traffic increase that the change brought is a good proof that fresh content is what keeps a blog alive and that you need to do everything you can to maintain it.

So what's better - doing the tedious tasks yourself or putting up great content? After all that very same social media won't get you traffic if you don't have anything to share...

Pro #2: You Get Better Results, Sooner

Being able to improve productivity is after all what automation is all about. And still there are plenty of people who argue that automation does actually return positive results.

I know I am giving it far too often as an example, but the Twitter traffic my blog receives everyday, is the most important evidence that those seemingly shady tools are worth it. Apps such as Tweepi (see "Best Twitter Tools") and Tweet Adder (see my Tweet Adder review) are helping me discover tweeps I could have never found without the help of all the filtering options that these two provide.

The simple truth is that unless you are a celebrity, reaching 50,000 Twitter followers doesn't work just like that. And 50,000 are better than 1,000. If you organize your day, engaging even with that much followers, isn't a problem either. (see "7 Twitter Myths You Should be Aware of").

Pro #3: You Can Make the Impossible Possible

Well the reality is that you can only do so much in 24 hours... considering that 8 of them go for sleeping.

Scheduling certainly comes to mind when we talk about automation. As I mentioned in my article "Social Media Traffic and 4 Reasons You Aren't Getting It", one big mistake that many marketers seem to make is that although they post a lot of social media updates, they post them at the wrong time.

Not quantity but rather timing is what matters here. That is where Facebook's integrated scheduling (Note: integrated automation) and the great app called Buffer come into play.

In that case automation is pretty harmless... it just lets you have a calm sleep and publishes your updates whenever you want them to go out. How cool is that?

Final Words

You probably saw where I was going with the post right from the start. As far as my opinion on the matter goes, automation is a good thing and if used properly, is a great marketing tool, saving time and worthless effort. What are your thoughts? What should and what shouldn't be automated? As always, I am looking forward to hearing your opinions!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

It's in The Details: Social Media Traffic and 4 Reasons You Aren't Getting It

2012-09-10T19:36:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

It's social media time once again...

Are you getting social media traffic? Are you happy with the results?

I am certain that most of you, folks, reading the post, already have an account on all major networks. I am also certain that a good percentage of you aren't really getting as much traffic as possible.

Although sometimes you should rethink your whole strategy, there are those little things slowing your progress. As insignificant as they might seem, you might need to take a closer look.

The following post will focus namely on those small details. The below paragraphs will walk you through some obvious yet often neglected social media mistakes. Avoiding them might just be the key to more social media traffic, readers and engagement!

You Haven't Filled Your Profiles

Although adding all the important information in your social profiles takes a few minutes, it seems like many marketers are far too busy. Coming up with a couple of sentences to sum up your projects and objectives isn't too hard.

Think about it that way. Why would anyone want to connect with you when they have no idea what you are working on? It doesn't make sense. After all when reaching out to someone, you don't want that someone to be a random person. Vice versa providing a bit of information about yourself proves you are the right.

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and pretty much every other network's search algorithms highly depend on the information you provide. Having it will ensure that the right people find you, connect with you, follow your updates and eventually subscribe.

Just make sure you are specific and use the right words. Think about the keyphrases you will use when searching for people in your niche and apply the same to your own profiles.

Sharing Links Just isn't Your Thing

Let's say you have a fan page on Facebook and you have like 10,000 likes. That's great for credibility, especially if you decide to put one of those widgets in your sidebar. People will know that you are famous.

Having those thousands of likes however is not really a way to get traffic. People land on your blog, let's say from Google. They read a post of yours and they find it interesting, so they click the like button and that's it. It's like they are subscribed to you and will receive your updates. As long as you have updates that is.

Yes, content might not be king, but if you don't post, no one is going to notice your existence.

It's the same with Twitter and any other platform. If you post twice a week, there is just no way that someone sees your updates.

Consistency is not only important in blogging but also in social media.

You Simply Don't Post at The Right Time

Image Credit

Posting frequently isn't all. There have been a number of infographics (here is one of them), revealing the best time to share your content.

Even if your posting pattern is rather infrequent, yet you are tweeting and posting at the right time, you might get higher exposure, than those who don't analyze that aspect.

You must consider scheduling updates for when you are not in front of your computer. In my case for example I get most of my visits in the night at 1-2 AM. Without a service like Buffer (see "Best Twitter Tools") I would have been missing out on subscribers and commissions. As for scheduling Facebook updates, the process is simple - see the post "My Blogging Day" for more information!

You are Using Each Platform Separately

Let's say you decide to open an account on a new network. What is the best way to start making connections there and of course get some social media traffic?

Posting frequent updates is certainly going to help you. Adding your bio and a photo of yourself will also be of a good use. But then again why not leverage the platform, where you are most successful?

In the beginning of July I decided it was time to get my Facebook fan page up and running. Although I had it for quite some months, it wasn't active.

So one day I began publishing stories and ask various questions. That was the first step...

Since I have over 50,000 Twitter followers, I decided to share those Facebook updates on Twitter (clicking on the date header of any Facebook post returns the story's URL). Tweeting that way helped me double the number of fans I had in less than two months and as of now I am just below 600.

Final Words

Quite simple, aren't they? Sometimes even the smallest of details can have a huge positive effect on the performance of your social media strategy and might be your way to more social media traffic. Hope you enjoyed the post guys, do share your thoughts in the comments section! Have you fallen for some of the above? What other simple mistakes that can spell disaster can you think of?

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Content Curation, Plagiarism and the Difference Between the Two

2012-09-06T20:17:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

The following is a guest article by Lauren Bailey. Content curation has been a popular topic lately. Here are some do's and don'ts when it comes to doing it!

In this world of constant access to information through the internet, most web users have become used to the constant sourcing and re-sourcing of popular content. By the time one news story breaks, multiple other sites will have copied the story and re-produced it on their own site. The way this reproduction should be done and the way it is attributed to the original source is still up for grabs in current web discourse.

For the most part, websites will spin the story in a new way, with any major facts linked to the original article. In fact, many blog networks make millions doing little more than curating content from other sources. This is how cash cow Huffington Post became popular. And content aggregation is now becoming the model for all web properties looking to remain relevant and make money.

But how do we know when content curation has gone too far and begins to border on plagiarism? Is there a right and wrong way to copy or cite other writers’ work online? While the answers to these questions lie in mounds of regulations that may apply to one web property, but not to another, there are some general rules that everyone should follow to make sure they are not blurring the lines.

First, what is plagiarism?

Plaigarism is, for the most part, taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. An example would be completely copying the work of another writer and posting it to your own website without linking back to the original source, or even citing it. Most websites will make an effort to cite others’ work, but sometimes shady tactics are used where the citation is so small it is unnoticeable, or the reproduction fails to include a link back.

While this may seem cut and dry, the umbrella of plagiarism actually extends beyond simple copying and pasting. For example, if you completely re-word another writer’s work, along with their sources and facts, and fail to attribute that knowledge to the source you found it from, that is also definitely considered plagiarism and is simply bad form.

So, what is curation, then, exactly?

The term curation comes from the art world. Curators are the people who choose pieces of art to place together in a particular show. So, when someone is “curating” online, they are carefully selecting content that they want to be shown together, within their space, possibly in a different light.

Curating content respectfully includes complete transparency. It should obviously state that the content was taken from an outside source. It should italicize or quote anything that is copied directly. It should also include a link back to wherever the information was found.

Final Words

Although there are plenty of fine lines when it comes to plagiarism online, the best bet is, when in doubt, cite and link back. Even if you’ve written a completely original piece, there is nothing wrong with shedding light onto where you found the information you’re working with and any other writing that helped form your opinion along the way. That is the most honest way to go about web writing, and it’s also the most respectful way to go about content curation.

Post Written by Lauren Bailey

Lauren Bailey is an education writer and freelance blogger. She frequently writes about online colleges and courses and welcomes comments and questions via email at blauren 99 @gmail.com..

So, What do Your Readers Really Want to Read on Your Blog?

2012-09-03T19:38:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

That's the million dollar question, isn't it?

Although in my opinion content isn't king, it is an integral part of every blog. And if you are able to provide the content that your visitors are looking for, you can pretty much get them to take any action you want. The latter should after all be your goal.

Anyway. Throughout the two years of writing and publishing articles for Reviewz 'N' Tips I have had a lot of bad performing and also some very well performing posts.

Well it turns out that a bit of digging into the archives can give you a lot of information as to what works and what doesn't. That's exactly what I did.

Today I am going to share with you my findings or in other words I will reveal the best performing types of articles based on what I have published here on this blog and the feedback I have received. Scroll down, please!

The Tools of the Trade

Based on my observations that is the number one thing that your visitors will want. Whatever the topic you cover on your blog there will be specific tools involved in the work process. Sharing those and telling people how and why to use them is a sure way to get a lot of shares and traffic.

That is especially effective, when you are very successful at something. My Twitter presence is a good example. Since I have a lot of followers (53,000 as of now), sharing the tools that are helping me get and maintain them, resulted in well over 300 retweets on my post about the five best Twitter tools.

I'd highly recommend you to put up a post of that kind if you haven't! If you do it well, you can be certain that there will be a lot of reading and activity around it.

Practical Tips not just Random Thoughts

So posts like the above are a good idea, but you can't come up with more than a one or two of that kind, can you?

Articles that don't do much more than to just "fly over" a topic without really saying something useful are generally ignored. Fluff might be great for school essays when there's certain amount of words to be reached. Blogging is different though. Word count doesn't mean anything (see "Article Length Importance").

Let's assume you are writing an article on headlines and one of your points states "make them eye-catching". That sounds valid but when someone reads the paragraph, they don't really learn how to achieve it. People know well enough that their titles need to catch the attention...

Basically giving away information that can be put to practice straight away is what you should be striving for if you want happy readers. Check out my post "5 Tips for Titles that Get People to Click and Retweet" as an example.

Thorough Guides for Credibility

I have stated more than once that you are better off publishing two smaller posts than one monster piece... However there are exceptions.

The fact is that writing in-depth analysis isn't by everyone's taste. And although not all readers might reach the end of one such article, those who do are very likely to share and subscribe. My post "16 Effective Ways to Get More Retweets" (which is over 2,000 words) gets retweeted every time I share it on Twitter. It is also one the five most read posts here.

In brief - no, I don't recommend writing and publishing huge pieces on frequent basis. You are likely to scare people away. Instead aim for short and straight to the point posts but be prepared for definitive guides every now and then. They are what proves your expertise. And that is the foundation to building trust (see "10 Steps to Building Trust"). Building trust is how you seal the deal.

Conclusion

So all in all in order to make your posts go viral and in order to get people to like them and subscribe, you need to be able to provide useful information. It is not about filler posts. It's not simply about fresh content... Now it's your turn guys! What do your readers want? What are your most successful types of posts? Let me hear your thoughts!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

My Blogging Day: When and What I do Plus Tips and Tools to Save You Time

2012-08-30T20:09:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article (see "9 Step Blog Checklist") where I shared nine of the most important tasks you need to perform every time after publishing a new blog post.

Later I came across a request in the comments section to share what tasks I perform throughout the day.

The following article will tackle namely that subject. I will share exactly what I do in terms of blogging and social media.

Keep reading to find out how and when I perform my tasks in order to save time, keep productivity at its highest and get the most out of my content and social media strategies!

Starting in the Morning...

I have always believe that if you really want to be productive and make progress, starting work on your projects right from the morning is a must. I generally can't say I'm an early riser though. Anyway here's how my blogging mornings go:

8.45 AM - That's breakfast time. Eating healthy is an important ingredient to your head start for the day. You can't be motivated if your stomach is empty, can you?
9.15 AM - That is when I sit in front of the PC and when my blogging day officially begins... I first start with checking my to-do list (I talked about it in my post about increasing your flow of content ideas).
9.20 AM - Email. Sending emails, replying to emails, that is the time!
9.30 AM - Twitter time. Replying and engaging holds a huge importance if you want a loyal readership. Time to thank the retweeters, ask and answer questions and wish people a great day ahead.
9.45 AM - It's Twitter again. Now off to get some new followers. I find relevant and active tweeps using Tweet Adder for both my Twitter accounts. I follow them and start engaging. After that I check for inactive followers using Tweepi.
10.40 AM - Having dealt with Twitter I move on to Facebook. I schedule updates for my fan page (scheduling is simple - just click the clock-like button below the message field). I then schedule tweets, linking to the post on the fan page itself via Buffer. You can get to the URL for the specific post by clicking on its date header. For the scheduled ones - click "Edit Page" followed by "Use Activity Log".
10.50 AM - I get off of the PC and start with the exercises. You need to make up for more than an hour sitting and not moving at all. I turn on the music and get going for at least 40-50 minutes.

A bit of Afternoon Work

So until now I have spent 1 hour and 35 minutes (roughly of course) on blogging and social media. The morning is the most intense part of the day...

12.20 PM - Lunch time.
12.35 PM - Having finished with the meal, I move on to writing. I prefer completing the less time-consuming tasks in the morning so that I don't have to think about them when I open up my text editor. Once I start writing, I write and don't do anything else (see "Social Media vs Blogging"). No checking Twitter, Facebook or Google+ and no TV. I try to put up as many words as I can, but I don't force myself.
2.00 PM - Writing's done. Time for a fifteen minute break. I either stay on the PC and browse for fun or turn on the TV (I am done with writing so I am allowed).
2.15 PM - I check out some of my Google+ circles, give +1s to good posts and share the best on my own wall. I also circle people who I find interesting.
2.30 PM - I open up Buffer again and schedule updates to be sent throughout the next 24 hours.
2.40 PM - Time for side (mostly school) projects that don't involve blogging.
5.00 PM - I either do a bit more writing if I am in the mood or check out my Twitter profiles and reply to folks.
5.30 PM - If the weather's good I go out with friends for a few hours.

Late Night Finish (Kind of)

I have spent an additional hour and fifty minutes at this time. I'm generally not keen on working late night. I believe that productivity is at its highest in the morning and it gradually starts to drop throughout the day. That is why I prefer finishing the more daunting tasks first thing in the morning. Anyway back to the schedule...

8.00 PM - Home and done with the dinner, I get back to work. I log in to Triberr and start approving posts to be shared on Twitter. If you don't know what Triberr is I urge you to check out my Triberr Review and sign up for the service!
8.20 PM - Time to check Twitter and reply to followers and friends once again. That takes 10-15 minutes. After completing it, I am done for the day.

And the Total is...?

So that's pretty much how one of those more intense blogging days of mine goes. Not as much hustle as you probably thought there would be. The thing about blogging and social media is that once you gain that momentum it all becomes easier.

So anyway based on the above schedule, I calculated that I roughly spend 4 hours a day. Also some of the tasks I mentioned (like scheduling updates) aren't done everyday, so that is basically the absolute maximum amount of time I get to spend.

Your Turn

Off to you guys! What are your blogging routines? When do you prefer doing the writing - mornings or afternoons? Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section below!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Content Isn't King: 4 Other Marketing Elements that Might Deserve the Crown

2012-08-27T19:24:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

Content is king... If you are into blogging for more than a week or two, you will most probably already be familiar with the phrase. There is always someone, telling you how important your content is and how quality is all that matters. Kind of like a church on its own with hundreds of bloggers, preaching it all the time.

But do you know when was that popular phrase coined and who coined it?

I did a bit of research and it turned out that the author was none other than Bill Gates. He stated it some 16 years ago, back in March 1996 in an essay...

Not sure about then (and how can I be, I was two years old at that time), but a lot has happened throughout the years...

Nowadays that modern "religion" and "belief" might just be starting to crack. Keep reading to discover which marketing elements are trying the steal the king's crown:

The Audience Won't Just Come...

Let's assume you just started blogging. Having already heard about the content-being-most-important principle you decide to start writing, focusing on quality and frequent blog posts...

It's all going great for you. One published post, two, three, ten, twenty... and then comes one of those enlightening moments when you realize that the thought-to-be-great content isn't receiving much of a feedback. No comments left. No new subscribers. Silence only.

Neither the search engines have been to your blog to index the quality content, nor readers, interested in your niche are to be seen...

So yeah, publishing several articles when you are starting is good just to have a base. At a certain point though, you have to realize that your audience won't just come. In the end you need the analytics data, you need the right tools and you need the research.

Social Media... a Step in the Right Direction!

So now you have already realized that clicking "Publish" and expecting a flock of visitors is probably not going to work.

Another one of those enlightening moments comes... Hey I am on Facebook, why not share my posts with my friends!

It seems like you might just be on the right track. Your friends aren't exactly mountain bike enthusiasts (let's assume that's what your blog is about), but checking your favorite analytics tool (see "Clicky Analytics Review") reveals that there is some activity going on. It's your first time ever to have 40 visitors reading your posts in just one day!

That's great, you are getting the visitors. However the sharing buttons you placed a couple of weeks ago are still at zero... It's not only content, it's not only social media, what more there is to it?

Marketing Strategy and Relationships...

Some more weeks pass. You are publishing new posts and promoting them to your Facebook friends. You still haven't got more than those 40 visitors... In the end you are doing the same thing, you can't expect different results!

By now you know that how good your content is, isn't as important as you previously thought it was. Then one day you happen to come across an article titled "7 Myths Surrounding the Twitter World" (what a coincidence!).

Twitter... you've heard of it. You sign up, start following people and tweet some of your posts...

As time goes, you discover some great Twitter tools. You follow the right people, you start talking and engaging with them. You do a guest post or two, their audience discovers you... Your newly created Facebook fan page is getting fans, you signed up for Google+, people are circling you.

In the end do you owe everything to your content?

Are you Able to Grab the Attention?

Because that is what it all comes down to. If you aren't able to do achieve this, content will only do so much...

Of course being able to get people interested doesn't all come down to social media, SEO or your traffic sources for that matter. Only people who are bad at designing a site (blog in our case) will tell you that design doesn't matter (click here if you believe in the same). These days there are themes, both free and paid, there are also detailed tutorials for the DYI kind of guys (like me).

Starting with your banner, going through how your sidebar looks and ending with the font you use, it all matters. A clear message, combined with good color combinations and structuring is what gets people reading...

And Back to Content and Its Role

...And that is the point when content actually starts playing a role. And it plays its role for how much? Something like 3-4 minutes maybe...

From then on the design and your message come into action once again. Your call to action is next. If people liked your content and you don't present them with the option to like and subscribe to your content, those 3-4 minutes that went into reading are worthless from your point of view.

Final Words

And that is pretty much it. Neither of the elements I mentioned above is king and neither should be. Some are less important while others play a more significant role. In the end you need all if you want to succeed.

Now it's your turn guys! What do you think of the whole "content is king" dilemma? Is it really the king in your opinion? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

5 Smart Ways to Create Content When You're Not in The Mood

2012-08-23T18:07:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

We as bloggers, are not always in "the writing mood". In the blogging world however, fresh content is the one thing you can't go without. No matter how much time you put into promotion, the less you publish, the less traffic you will get.

As obvious as it is, I am being contacted by a lot of folks, wondering why there's no traffic to their blogs when they post like once a month. Think about it. If you are write an article once every two weeks, will people really have a good reason to visit your blog on daily basis?

The following article is for all of you who don't feel like writing, but know they need to be consistent. The 5 tips below are helping me and will help you keep a flow of fresh content when you are not in the mood to write:

Start with Reconsidering Your Mindset Towards Writing

Although not really a direct method for producing content, that first tip does play an important role. First let's start with a question - when writing, do you feel like practicing a hobby or rather just doing what needs to be done?

If it's the latter, then you just discovered the key to low productivity...

One of the main reasons not to be in the mood to write is stress. Deadlines, strict schedules or just failing to do what you set out to do might be some of the causes. What I learned throughout the months is that limiting yourself in the hope to produce more in less time often has the opposite effect. See my post "7 Reasons Why Working Less Might Improve Your Marketing Results" for more on the topic.

Taking what you are doing as something that has to be done at all costs is often a reason not to succeed. Doing things just because you feel that if you don't do them your business will suffer is generally not the right mindset.

So think about this before you move on!

Guest Blogging... Worth it?

A couple of months back I wrote an article on accepting guest articles and how can this reflect your blog (check out "Running Guest Articles on Your Blog"). There are some potential issues, but all in all it is an approach worth considering.

If you do a good job with your "Be a Guest Blogger" page and your blog is getting some decent hits and shares, you might get some decent proposals. Tweeting that I'm in search of contributors also resulted in a lot of emails and a lot of new articles being published a few months back.

All in all having a couple of guest articles is a good way to fill in the vacancies when you run short of fresh content. Over 20 posts here on Reviewz 'N' Tips aren't written by me and I don't regret it. It's a win-win situation. You get content that grabs traffic, whilst contributors receive links that helped them establish their business.

Use Old Successful Posts as a Base

For many of you older articles probably don't play much of a role. I mean back in the day when you published them, they might have served their purpose well. Now they are just sitting there collecting dust.

As a matter of fact taking a look at your archive can give you a good helping hand in creating content when you are out of ideas. Open it up, scan through the headlines of the old goodies and find something that's relevant today!

After you are done with that, it's time to rip apart the post you just discovered. Leave just a couple of ideas to use as a starting point. Think about what has changed throughout the months. Think about new experiences you had and try to look at the topic from another angle. Ask your audience different questions.

Take Advantage of Those Who Engage

Of course you can just start your writing editor and brainstorm, but that's sometimes easier said than done. So what you can do instead is to get others to provide you with blog post ideas.

Of course the number one reasons to get poeple to visit and read articles is because you want them to convert into buyers. However some folks might comment on every blog post and never try any of your offers. To take advantage from those as well, just listen! Listen carefully to what they say, what they criticize and what advice they give.

Getting more comments and engaging is not only good for your brand - it can also help you come up with ideas. Don't wait for commentator only though. Don't be scared to leverage Twitter, Facebook and your email list by asking people what they'd like to see on your blog. A service called Bloggeries provides a great tool for creating polls, which you can also use for proposals.

Do an Interview with a Fellow Blogger

Similarly to allowing guest articles, interviews are also a win-win. You pretty much get someone else to create the article for you.

The great thing about that type of articles is the low chance of someone denying your interview request. Having one's name on a headline is sure to boost credibility, which is the reason why many would be more than willing to answer your questions.

To be certain that your interview request will be approved, you need the right person. Don't aim too high - especially if you are starting out with blogging, don't expect any of the bigger names in your niche to put time into something like that. They neither need the backlinks, nor the traffic. Aim too low however and you will end up interviewing someone, whose opinion and point of views don't matter to no one.

Do a bit of research around the blogger, his content, his promotion strategies, etc. and think of relevant questions to ask. The best interview outline is to begin with an introductory question and conclude with asking about the interviewee's future plans.

Now It's Your Turn

So those are some of the things you might want to try if you are stuck and need content that brings traffic and shares! Now it's your turn. What are your ways to publish new posts when you are not in the mood but the time has come? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

5 Simple Ways to Make Your Social Media Efforts Just a Pinch More Effective

2012-08-20T20:33:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

As I said in my post about the war going on between social media and blogging, distractions are everywhere...

The social media niche is huge nowadays. Hundreds of bloggers (including me) are writing guides, providing tips and creating infographics to help you get the point of it all. Part of the information can be put to a good use while part of it is time wasted. Some headlines get you to click, others don't.

As useful as all of this might be and as much as it might help you get the hang of that thing called social media, it is really just part of the story. Building followers and turning your service or startup into a money maker involves more.

Then how do you go about achieving that goal?

With the below paragraphs I will try to give you some direction as to how to approach all of the content available, how to make the most out of it and of course how to make your social media efforts just a pinch more effective:

1. Know Why You Are There

So you are a newbie... or you have jumped into it 4-5 months ago? Well that doesn't really matter. The truth is that many folks are there but don't really know why.

There are all kinds of stories...

My brother told me Facebook's great for marketing - why not sign up and start sending messages to everyone about my business without caring whether they want it or not! (see "6 Fishy Facebook Strategies")

Or...

I just read a post on Twitter, now I will create an account, follow a thousand folks and let all of them know how great that eBook of mine is! (see "5 Bad Twitter Habits")

Is that the case? I'd say cut the crap and check out the above links instead!

2. Plan of Attack, Do You Have it?

The plan of attack means choosing where to focus your attention, developing some sort of a strategy and targeting the right people.

So to get going, you need to first do a bit of a research...

Even if you haven't yet started to drill deep into Twitter, Facebook or any major network, you are probably getting some referral traffic. Google Analytics is a good starting point. Bounce rates, pageviews, time on site - a lot of metrics can give you an idea.

Secondly there's the competition. That is probably the best way to learn about your target audience. Simply checking your competitors' profiles, tweets, Facebook updates can show you the way...

Thirdly there are the next paragraphs, keep reading!

3. Reading is Good, Doing is Better though

So you want results?

Reading is crucial. I used to do it a lot back in the days when I started. I was reading like 10 posts an hour. Although the guides were super-detailed and gave me a lot of hints, once I decided it is time, I was still in the dark.

It's like learning HTML. The theory is one thing but once you start putting your first lines of code, as easy as it seemed, you get stuck at a certain point, not knowing how to move on... And that is when you really start seeing the big picture.

What I'm saying is that the sooner you realize reading is often an excuse not to start, the closer you will be to building your following.

4. 50% of Your Time to One, 50% for the Rest

That is just a rough calculation of course (similar to the one I gave in my post "Social Media Versus Blogging"). But wait a minute... what exactly am I referring to?

Audible results require time. My approach when it comes to social media was to put my effort towards one single site.

In my case it was Twitter. When I began that was THE platform for me. I was spending hours and hours. I discovered the tools and the strategies and after two years I'm just about to hit 50,000 followers.

In the meantime however I hadn't embraced any other platform. And that was a bad move...

Instead I had to go for the 50/50 principle that I am following now. What I basically do is focus on tweeting, while keeping an eye on both Google+ and Facebook. Thanks to that approach, I got close to 200 new Facebook fans in a month, which is an increase of almost 100%!

So in short, focus on one, embrace more than one.

5. Should You be Joining Every Network?

And then comes the question, is every networking site out there worth it? Is joining each and every newly-released platform good for you or are you wasting precious time, trying to be everywhere?

As far as I'm concerned, there is no definitive answer to that question... There are the pros, but there are also the cons....

Of course as you start conquering more and more ground, you will get to know new and different people. The reality is that not everyone who uses Twitter is also on Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+. The reality is that you won't find diversity in just a single network, no matter how many millions of users there are.

In the end it is all about striking a balance. Basically three factors have to align:

Is that new social media platform worth it?
If it's worth it, do you have the time to make the most out of it?
Won't getting into it hurt your performance on the networks, where you have already established a presence?

Final Words

So that's about it. That's the way I believe social media should be tackled and that is how my time is really paying off with solid results in the form of traffic, subscribers and buyers.

What do you think about the tips I just shared? What is your approach? I'm waiting to hear your thoughts on the topic in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

5 Reasons to Publish at Least Twice a Week and How to Achieve It

2012-08-16T18:53:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

Blogging schedules, posting frequency or whatever you call it is to say the least a topic of interest for many folks.

Should I publish new article once a week? Will posting everyday really be worth the time? Is two times a month enough to get a solid readership?

That's just a small portion of the questions you can hear when talking about writing and publishing. And today I'm going to cover just that!

Below I will overview what kind of results moving on from one to two weekly posts brought for me and why making the move will prove good for you and your blog:

1. You Generate More Social Media Traffic

If you have taken the time to study your analytics data (see "Clicky Analytics Review"), you have probably noticed that the biggest traffic spikes occur after you publish a new article.

A lot has been said about fresh content and its importance to search engines. When it comes to social media we are talking about a similar mechanism.

Sites like Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon hugely depend on relevancy and recency. Plus social media updates have a short term effect. An hour or two after posting them they will most probably be buried.

StumbleUpon's algorithm for instance is made in such a way that if an article doesn't get poeple's attention in the very few minutes after it is posted, it won't be displayed anymore. So basically the more quality articles you publish, the better the chance of reaching that threshold.

2. You can Cut Down on Writing a Bit

When it comes to posts of over 2,000 words it turned out that they aren't really worth the effort (take a look at "Article Length Importance").

If you happen to be one of the folks who go for long in depth articles you might want to try a different approach. Instead of putting days work into comprehensive posts, you can divide all of the information into smaller, more digestible pieces and spread them throughout the week.

Unless the article is really groundbreaking you'd better stick with shorter posts. People just get bored. Creating three short articles instead of one that makes for an overwhelming read will give you all the benefits of fresh content and will make it easier for visitors to reach your call to actions.

3. You Encourage Visitors to Take Action More Often

When you update your blog frequently enough, poeple get used to share and comment. From my observations during the blogging breaks I've taken, once the activity on settles, all sharing ceases as well.

You need to be the one spinning the wheel, not your visitors.

Content curation is big nowadays. Many folks subscribe to blogs that post quality content on frequent basis, so that they share it and thus get more fans and followers for their own projects. So the more frequently you put up new content, the better the chance to end up in one such list!

Consistency and quality is also how I got into more than twenty tribes on Triberr (see "My Triberr Review") and why my articles receive over 100 and even 200 retweets each.

4. Your Fan Page Gets More Traffic & Likes

As I have stated in my 9-Step Blog Checklist, posting your new articles on Facebook is a must.

I guess you already have a fan page for your blog. If you don't, it's time to create one! I won't go through the benefits of a fan page over a normal profile, but that is the way I share and I'm happy with it.

So let's assume you decide to cut down lengthy post into smaller, yet useful pieces...

You will have two or even three instead of one. So logically your fan page will appear roughly three times more often in other people's streams. It's simple - the more it does, the more fans and likes.

What I also do when publishing on my fan page is to tweet the post with a link pointing to Facebook and not the actual blog. That way I get additional eyeballs. And again more eyeballs equal more fans and likes.

More on Facebook:
6 Fishy Facebook Strategies that Won't Get You Noticed

5. You Become Better at Organizing Your Time

If you are publishing once a week and you are intending to double the number, the first problem you will face is time. You will say nah... a week is not enough.

But think about it! You have a full week to write just one article... Are you really productive? Are you really giving your best to get it up and running?

I bet you don't do that much writing. Writing everyday is probably out of the question as well. Full week to refine a single article with the excuse that quality wins over quantity? That's plain laziness if you ask me!

When you actually decide on doing two (or more) articles per week, you will end up spending your time more wisely. You will realize that if you focus, a couple of hours everyday are all you need. Of course you won't know it until you try!

Your Turn

So that's pretty much why I did the change and let me tell you - I don't regret it the least! The traffic numbers have grown by almost 20%, I'm getting a lot of retweets and likes, which makes the additional two-three hours well worth it!

Now let me hear your thoughts! Is publishing just one article per week enough? How frequently do you post? Looking forward to hearing ya!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

5 Ways to Increase the Flow of Ideas and Improve Your Writing Productivity

2012-08-13T19:37:00.001+03:00

Image Credit

Have you ever happened to write a post in like 20 minutes?

Most definitely many of you have had the chance to both come up with an awesome idea and convert it into a finished piece in far less time than they thought possible. It's great when that's the case!

Unfortunately those kinds of "perfect" situations don't happen everyday. What turns out more often than not is that you either have a great idea in mind but don't have the time to turn it into a post or you desperately need new content but don't know what to write about.

The following post will tackle exactly that issue...

Read below to discover six ways to ease the whole coming-up-with-ideas struggle. The next paragraphs will also try to help you transform your ideas into articles more effectively. Let's get going!

1. Be Prepared for Spontaneous Ideas

The thing about article ideas is that they rarely come when you are sitting in front of your desk and trying to come up with them.

Ideas occur rather randomly. They might spark from a walk in the park or a totally unrelated conversation. If you want to be certain that those ideas will transform into articles, you need to capture them right away.

A simple notebook is a great way to write down thoughts, sentences or just plain keywords. That way forgetting things will stop being a problem.

If you don't have to deal with trying to remember that great concept that came to mind a few hours earlier, you'll have more time to actually write. Add to that a bit of social media (see "Social Media Success") and SEO (see "Interlinking Your Articles") and there you have it - more traffic.

2. Stay Away from Strict Scheduling

When it comes to improving productivity, a lot of bloggers like to talk about schedules and their positive effect.

Based on my experience though, the only schedule you need to have should come down to social media tasks and writing. No "do this at 9AM, do that at 11AM" kind of stuff. After you complete social media, you start writing. The order doesn't matter. How much time each of individual thing takes doesn't matter.

With strict timeframes, instead of thinking about getting things right, you are thinking about getting them done fast. That often results in mediocre stuff. You only need to keep track of progress i.e. to know what you've completed and what you haven't.

3. Create a Simple File with Your Daily Blogging Routines

So here's how to keep track of progress...

Sometimes (or even most of the times) the simplest of ideas produce the best results. Opening up Notebook and writing your daily routines down takes two minutes. As simple as it is for me it works better than the "sophisticated" task-organization tools I have tried.

Having a list to look at is a certain way to spend less time wondering if you've missed something..

I have actually gone a step further and added a bit of HTML. It is just a numbered list with what needs to get done (checking Twitter mentions, replying to comments, etc; see "My 9-Step Checklist"). I have set it as my home page, so every time I open up my browser, I get all the tasks in front of me. Simple and convenient.

4. Have a List with Possible Future Posts

Consistency is crucial in blogging (see "Building Loyal Readership"). Sometimes however we are stuck with no ideas and there is nothing we can do.

Although you might not be able to beat it and come up with a good blog post idea, you can prepare. Aside from catching ideas for soon-to-be-published articles (first point in this post), you need a back-up plan.

One thing I do is copy and paste various headlines I discover while searching for content to retweet (see "How To Keep Your Twitter Stream Alive"). Just the headlines, you don't need anything else. Then I cut them down to 3-4 words to leave just the basic idea.

After that I add some notes to have a direction for the article. From that point on, a finished piece is a day away.

5. Feel Free to "Borrow" a Concept

Although not a great time-saver, another good idea for creating content is to use another article as a "backbone". Here you don't confine yourself to the headline only and go through a couple of other procedures...

Here is what to do:

Find an article that covers points you can relate to
Aim for pieces not longer than 700-800 words
Copy the full article and paste it in your word editor
Research for additional information on the topic
Delete introduction and ending lines
Read the post thoroughly
Cut the points you don't agree to
Come up with your own ones
Leave only a couple of keywords in the paragraphs that you haven't deleted
Start writing!
Don't forget that adding images is important
Come up with a title that gets shared and clicked

In the end you will have a blog post that is longer than the original piece and one that provides unique perspective along with much more additional details.

For more information on creating better blog posts see:
9 Vital Ingredients for Posts that Get People to Read and Take Action

Final Words

So that's pretty much how I do it. Do take the time to try out some of those techniques when you are stuck and unsure how to move on. They are helping me big time, so they will probably prove useful to you as well!

Now it's your turn! What strategies do you follow to produce a lot of ideas in a short period of time? How do you go about turning them into articles? I'm looking forward to hearing your two cents!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

4 Good Reasons to Start Interlinking Your Posts and 5 Simple Steps to Doing it Right

2012-08-09T19:17:00.000+03:00

Image Credit

SEO is a topic I haven't covered myself on this blog. I'm not that good at it and when I'm not good at something, I prefer to leave it to the experts. However a lot of things happened in the past couple of months...

Generally I was never able to get a lot of search engine traffic. That is also probably one of the reasons why I began paying so much attention to social media.

Building quality followers and getting them to take action was proving a lot easier than SEO.

Then came interlinking...

Today I'm going to share with you, folks, how something simple as interlinking your posts (linking one of your posts to another), can help you get more search engine traffic and improve rankings. Below are also 3 more reasons to start adding links in your articles:

The Story of Backlinks

Getting backlinks nowadays is tough. There is guest posting. There are also the interviews (see "5 Ways to Spice Up Your Content") if you are successful enough.

Both are great. You can build hundreds and even thousands of backlinks by writing articles for blogs in your niche. However that is not really an "organic" way to get people to link to your blog. They do it, as a way to say thank you.

There are occasional roundup posts, sharing the best content of the week or month. There are also occasional posts linking to external articles. In most cases however those links point to the already established blogs and hundreds of quality blogs remain unnoticed.

The thing is that instead of linking, people prefer to just retweet or like your post, which doesn't really help SEO...

Internal Linking vs External Linking

Before starting, just to make it clear - no, putting links in your articles is not a replacement to normal backlinking. It is rather a different approach to making a head start in the tough and uneven battle with the big players.

The thing is that not everyone has the time or the expertise to write 10, 20 or 30 posts for other blogs. For many of you blogging is a hobby or a side project. There is also your blog's content and social media to take care of.

That is where interlinking comes into action. Let's move on!

How to Do it (or How I Do it)

SEO is the main goal but you must not overlook your actual visitors...

My golden rule is first come the visitors and then everything else. Don't forget that your main goal is not search engine traffic. Your main goal should come down to converting that search engine traffic.

So here is the simple step-by-step guide:

Don't rush through it - If you haven't done any interlinking, don't start adding links from your next article. Instead open up your archives and work your way through at least the last twenty published posts.
Focus on relevancy - you might be talking about social media, but linking to an article talking about Twitter, although still social media, is not exactly relevant. It not what the reader might expect. Instead add links as a way to provide deeper details.
Include them at the end of paragraphs - A great way to catch the reader's eye is to put links just below the contents of your subheadings. Add something along the lines of "For further information read my post "Article Name"
Within sentences - Instead of adding an anchor tag directly, I prefer to open brackets and use a long tail keyword e.g. (see "Long Tail Keyword Goes Here"). Putting it in brackets and adding italic makes it more noticeable. Although not spectacular, the word "see" is sort of a call to action.
Don't overdo - Once you get the hang of it and start adding links, at a certain point you might just lose track and turn your post into quite a mess. Having 5 or more links within a single subheading will scare people away. I'd say 2-3 should be the maximum number and only if they help the reader make sense of what you are saying.

Other Than SEO, You Lower Bounce Rates

SEO is of course the main reason, but let's look from a different angle...

Just for the record, a bounce rate is how many of your visitors click off to another website without viewing any other page other than the one they landed on.

As of now my bounce rate is actually pretty high so I wouldn't want to brag much about it. And still from the 82% that it was a couple of months ago, it has gone down by almost 3%. Of course that isn't much of a spectacular result.

In order to get the most out of interlinking, this time not in terms of SEO, you need to make the links obvious. They should stick out from the actual content. I'd say go for colors other than grayish, so that there's a good contrast.

You Get People to Stay More Time

So lowering the bounce rates means that the visitor won't stay on a single page and will instead click here and click there...

If you did a good job at placing the links, some of your readers will decide to open them up and move on to read them after finishing with the current post. The more useful the content you linked to, the longer folks will stay on your blog.

It's simple really. As long as you don't overdo and put too much of them, links will attract the attention. Not everyone will click, but a good percentage will.

You Improve Conversion Rates

Conversion rates... That is probably one of the most important metrics to keep an eye on if you are serious about making an income from your blog.

There are a lot of ways to convert your visitors. It is all about what you want them to do. In most cases conversion rates are referred to as how much of your visitors you are able to turn into subscribers or buyers.

So back to the point. Interlinking helped you reduce bounce rates. People were more inclined to stay on your blog because of the additional information they hoped to find via the links. If it's all going according to plan and they enjoy your content, they might just click some more.

But that is not what you want. In the end you want readers to take action. The more you are able to keep them interested, the better the chance of them seeing your call to action and deciding that you are someone they can trust (see "Tips to Building Trust"). From that point on, getting them on your list will be much easier.

Now It's Your Turn

So that's how you do it. Hope you enjoyed the read and learned a thing or two guys! Remember, interlinking is important in terms of SEO, but you should always pay attention to real people if you want to do it right.

Are you linking your posts? What is your way of doing it? I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section!

Post Written by Daniel Sharkov

Reviewz 'n' Tips

4-Step How-To Guide to Dealing with Problems in Your Online Business

Should You Really Feel Bad About It?

Can You Do Something About It?

Action is the Antidote to Despair

Are You Measuring the Wrong Metrics?

Final Words

Negative Comments: Should they Really Matter to You as an Internet Marketer?

Is it About Pleasing All of Your Readers?

The Big Picture is What Matters, but...

On Criticism and Why You Should Handle It...

What are Your Analytics Saying?

In Conclusion

Pinterest and Instagram: 3 Simple Ways to Find Out if The Two are Actually Worth Your Time

Evaluate your community

Does your messaging fit the network?

How will you define your presence?

And in the end...

Triberr: 6 Simple Ways to Build your Tribe and Get Dozens of Retweets Along the Way

More Followers Equals More Tribemates

Relevancy Plays an Important Role

Bonfires are There for a Reason

As Always, Pay Attention to Your Headlines

Don't Forget to Submit to StumbleUpon First

Don't Share Others' Posts for the Sake of It!

Final Words

Facebook Traffic: 6 Effective Tips to Improve the Visibility of Your Fan Page

Facebook Traffic Tip #1: The Widget and Where to Place It

Facebook Traffic Tip #2: Scheduling Posts Does Give a Helping Hand

Facebook Traffic Tip #3: The Descriptions You Write Matter

Facebook Traffic Tip #4: Sharing from Your Blog Alone is Boring

Facebook Traffic Tip #5: Don't Forget to Tweet your Facebook Updates

Facebook Traffic Tip #6: Asking Questions Creates the most Buzz

Now It's Your Turn

Building Relationships on Twitter: 3 Tips to Help you Make a Head Start Today

1. Should You Really Be There All the Time?

2. Which Situations are Good for a New Talk?

3. Learn that It's About Them, Not You

Final Words

Writing Headlines: 3 Ways to Create Titles that Get Traffic and Draw the Attention

1. Optimize your headline for search engines

2. Target your audience in the headline

3. Use successful templates (and power words)

Over to you

5 Easy to Implement Blog Design Tips to Help You Convert Visitors into Readers

A Move Towards Simplicity

Header Text with a Clear Message

About the Author Widget

Sharing Buttons on Key Locations

Some Neat CSS3 Effects Here and There

Final Words

Quality over Quantity: The Real Value Behind Your Followers and Fans

So What Difference do Numbers Make?

Should Social Media Shares be Your Goal?

Building Relationship: Key or a Piece of the Puzzle?

Are Your Followers Helping You and Finding the Right Ones

Final Words

Blogspot vs Wordpress: What Do Visitors Want and What Makes for a Good Blog

And Although Wordpress is Great...

No one Cares when… Your Blog Loads Fast

No one Cares when … You have a Compelling Design in Place

No one Cares when… You Provide Content that Ain’t Just Filler

You shouldn’t Care if…

Conclusion

3 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Mobile Friendly and Improve User Experience

Why Adapt to Mobile in the First Place

How to Make Your Website Mobile-friendly?

1. Use Smaller Images or Cut Back on Images

2. Place Larger Call-to-action Buttons

3. Jive with the Plugin Approach

Conclusion

Losing Twitter Followers: 4 Simple Things to Help You Reduce Unfollows

Should You Expect Unfollows in the First Place?

1. Tweeting is Great, but Don't Overdo!

2. Be Careful with Promotional Tweets

3. One Tweet a Week Isn't Motivational Either...

4. Aside from That… Start Building Your Followers

Final Words

5 Key Steps You Must Go Through Before Publishing Anything on Your Blog

#1 Is the idea relevant to your target audience?

Are Your Followers Helping You
and Finding the Right Ones