Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

The Journey To Success Part 9

Developing Alliances and Friendships With Other Bloggers

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success. If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series please follow the link above to do so.

Be sure to read the comments as they have often added a wealth of information to the original posts. Please feel free to reply to the comments or leave one of your own

Moving on to part 9:

Developing Alliances and Friendships With Other Bloggers

Throughout this series I have been saying about visiting blogs and forums that share the same passion as yourself, seeing what they have created from that passion and getting in the mix with them.

It’s amazing what you can learn from bloggers and it’s free information that has been tried and tested, saving you time, frustration and a whole heap of headaches.

When I first started online I would sit alone at my PC and try to figure everything out for myself, wasting months in the process, and not really getting anywhere. I really do wish that I had started visiting blogs a lot sooner than I did and took advantage of the information available.

So how do you start developing alliances and friendships
with other bloggers?

When you visit their blogs and read their posts be sure to check out the comments as this will tell you whether the blogger is interacting with their readers or not. The majority of bloggers will reply to the comments being left and continue the conversation or answer questions, regardless of who you are.

Sure you’ll find some bloggers that think it’s acceptable never to reply to anyone, or worse still they’ll reply to their “pals” and leave everyone else whistling for a reply, even when questions have been asked. You’re never going to build any form of friendships with these people so while their content may be of help to you I wouldn’t waste your time trying to get any form of friendships going with them.

Focus on the interactive bloggers that are posting the information you need and are talking to their readers in their replies, offering advice, encouragement or just acknowledging the people leaving comments.

Don’t leave stupid comments

You’ll never build any form of alliances or friendships online if you leave stupid comments like “great blog I’ll be back”, “love your blog”, “great post, thanks” or similar rubbish. All you’ll do by leaving comments like that is annoy the blog owner and you’ll probably find that the comment doesn’t get approved anyway. If I ever get comments like that they go straight into my trash folder and will never appear on my blog and I know that many other bloggers hold the same view.

Don’t be afraid to leave a comment

Some people fear leaving comments when they first start visiting blogs. This is a personal hurdle that you have to overcome, there’s nothing to fear as long as you leave decent comments.

When I say “decent comments” I don’t mean you have to write an essay but you do have to acknowledge the content of the post. Maybe ask questions if you don’t understand something or mention your experiences if you do.

Don’t be concerned that the blogger may be a big name and have loads of experience, quality content and comments. If they’re replying to their readers they’ll reply to you as well. If you express concerns in what you’re doing or areas of the post you didn’t quite grasp you’ll find the blog owner will explain it to you.

On occasions you may find future readers, that have experience of the subject, will offer their advice and try to help you as well.

Once you’ve left your comment share the post

The Social Media Networks play a huge roll in our businesses, offering us all free traffic as well as additional information that is shared between friends and followers.

They also open doors that allow us to get to know people on a more personal level and by sharing their blog content on your Social Media walls you will start to become noticed by the blogger, many of which will come and thank you for sharing their information.

If you don’t have accounts on the Social Media Networks then open them and fill out your profile, add your photo and start using them on a regular basis. Be sure to use the same photo for each of your profiles so as to be recognized at a glance.

Twitter

Facebook

Google Plus

LinkedIn

Stumble Upon

Are the major platforms used by bloggers, so be sure to set up accounts on each one and then share the blog posts you like on your walls and try to connect with the bloggers on those platforms. If you’d like to connect with me you can do so from the “Follow Me” tab to the right of this post.

You may not see an immediate response from the bloggers who’s posts you share but over time if you keep sharing you’ll be noticed, appreciated and thanked.

That, my friends, is how you start developing alliances and friendships with other bloggers.

Let’s prove the point

As you know your comments are very much appreciated so please feel free to add to the post in any way at all. If you can relate to anything said in the post please share your experiences so as to help others and drive home the point about our online friendships and how we build them.

I will be creating an eBook from the series and the best comments will be included in the eBook, attributed to the comment author and linked to their blogs

Oh and please share this post by using the buttons below to send it to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble and G+ as I mentioned above it’s how we start building friendships

Until next time, Find Follow and beFriend like minded bloggers

I wish you all a Happy Prosperous New Year and hope that you can make this year your best year online, and I hope to help you achieve that.

I should have written this post last week but I had my head down finishing a project that I’ve been working on for some time, it’s nearly ready for launching but more on that at a later date

Ok, onto the post:

What would you like to achieve this year?

The majority of my readers are already blogging, but are you achieving the success you desire and deserve?

It does take time to find success online but you can fast track that, in just 12 weeks, if you want to take action and get yourself a mentor. The only recommendation I make is Sally Neill’s Learn With Sally The Replays. Regular readers will know that I have taken the course and am now seeing success from doing so.

The course doesn’t only cover blogging it also covers traffic foundations, Social Media success, 3 types of video creation, email marketing, easy product creation and a whole lot more.

You only have to look around my blog and you’ll see the evidence of what I have learnt from Sally. Check out my videos and see how they’ve improved since taking the course, I still have to pinch myself sometimes

I can’t sing Sally’s praises loud enough, she really is a great mentor that cares about her students and wants us all to succeed. Our success is Sally’s success and that is what she strives for: Our success!!

2011 was my best year online and I have Sally Neill to thank for that.

Maybe you’re on a tight budget and want to try and create something yourself. Which is fine as long as you know what you’re doing and everything that needs doing to complete your projects.

So many of us start something and never quite finish it, which is why I recommend getting yourself a mentor. We can do it as long as we put our minds to it and constantly take action to achieve our goals.

Many of us doubt ourselves when it comes to creating something. The first ebook I wrote took me over 12 months to finish simply because I doubted myself and you know what….. by the time I had finished it eBay changed their rules and my eBook was dead in the water.

Arrggg self doubt, what a dream killer it can be.

We sit at our desks with no one to answer to and skip through what we’re doing without ever really getting anywhere because of a lack of direction and/or self doubt. I did it for years myself and now view those years as a total waste of time. I was playing at being an internet marketer and not working towards being one and that is so silly.

As I said, last year was my best year since coming online and I want this year to be even better. Not only for myself but for my readers as well.

So I ask you again: What would you like to achieve this year?

Would you like to create your own product or products?

Would you like to start creating videos?

Maybe you’re already doing something and want to improve on it…

If you haven’t created a plan for the year and are still unsure of what you’d like to achieve please let me know in the comments below and let’s see what we can do about it.

Experienced Bloggers: Did you ever suffer from self doubt and find yourself held back by it? If so please let us know how you got over it in the comments below.

Please share this post with your friends and followers by using the buttons to the side and lets help as many people as possible achieve their dreams this year.

Until next time, picture your dreams

Hello and thanks for stopping by

I hope that you all had a great Christmas and made the most of the holiday season to catch up with loved ones and share the celebrations with them all.

I had a fantastic Christmas with my wife and children and then Boxing day I had my mum and two of my brothers around for a good ol’ feed and some festive fun. Which I thought topped off my year nicely, but how wrong was I….

In my last post I detailed how this year has been my best year since coming online and all that I had won and achieved this year. Now it’s all well and good me saying about my progress but when other bloggers mention it the feeling is simply fantastic.

Could this year end any better?

I didn’t think it could but am so very pleased to tell you that it has ended on the highest point I could imagine.

I have been awarded the Sunshine Award not once but twice this week and that is the best feeling I have had online…. ever! It really is an honour when other bloggers give you such an award as it drives home just how far I have come, not only in my eyes but in the eyes of other successful bloggers.

So what is the Sunshine Award all about?

There is no prize or trophy attached to the award, it is more about recognising bloggers whose positivity and creativity have inspired others in the blogging community. To be awarded the Sunshine Award from established bloggers that we aspire to really is an honour and to be awarded it twice is more than I could ever of dreamt of.

I have to thank Adrienne Smith and Jeffrey Morgan for awarding me the Sunshine Award. As I have said it really is an honour and to come from such established, successful bloggers as Adrienne and Jeffrey really does mean so much to me, thank you both so very much

The 3 Rules of the Award

There are 3 rules to the award which are:

1: To thank the person(s) that gave the award.

2: To Answer 10 questions.

3: Pass the award on to 10 deserving bloggers.

I have already thanked both Adrienne and Jeffrey for the award, but thanks again. It really does mean a lot to me, thank you

The 10 questions are:

1. Favourite colour – Blue, well I am a boy
2. Favourite animal – Dog, sadly my dog had to be put down but after 14 years with him at my side how could I choose another animal.
3. Favourite number – 7, while other kids were learning their 5 times table I learnt my 7 times table for some strange reason and 7 has been my favourite since.
4. Favourite drink – Tea, very strong, white without sugar.
5. Facebook or Twitter – Twitter, it’s where I have met some fantastic friends and Twitter is my number one traffic source.
6. My passion – Helping others on my blogging journey.
7. Giving or receiving gifts – Giving without a doubt, but I still like receiving
8. Favourite day – Sunday, I show love and appreciation to my family every day but Sundays are set aside just for them.
9. Favourite flower – Roses, being an Englishmen would you expect anything else?
10. Favourite food – Chinese, loads of different dishes shared out between everyone at the table.

10 Deserving Bloggers To Pass The Award To

I could probably list 20 bloggers with ease but have to keep it to 10. So in order to do this I have chosen people that helped me on my journey this year, assisted me over hurdles and commented on my posts on a regular basis. Please don’t be offended if you’re not mentioned, all of my readers are valued but I have to keep it to just 10 people.

Adrienne Smith: It may seem strange that Adrienne awarded me the Sunshine award and I’m awarding it back to her but Adrienne is my number one blogger and any award without mentioning her wouldn’t be right in my eyes. Adrienne is an all round lovely Lady that helps so many people online, not just in blogging but on the Social Media Networks as well. I have recently interviewed Adrienne and will be making the interview available to everyone shortly into the new year.

Jeffrey Morgan: Again it may seem strange that I award the Sunshine Award back to Jeffrey but he has really helped me this year. He wrote 2 guest posts to help my readers back up their blogs safely using both FileZilla and our C-Panels. I recent had an issue with one of my regular readers comments going to the spam folder, so I asked Jeffrey how I could solve the issue. Not only did Jeffrey advise me he also worked his magic on a plugin to whitelist the person and all this during his preparation for the launch of Jeffrey-Morgan.com in just a few hours time on 01/01/12 be sure to visit his brand new blog ASAP.

Ian Ieba: I’ve got to know Ian really well this year as we have faced a few issues together and overcome them, as I detailed in my post Headaches, Heartbeats and Helpful Friends. Ian and I have become real friends and have helped each other with both online and off line issues. We connect on all the Social Media Networks as well as email and regular Skype sessions. Ian is currently putting a PLR series together on his blog and I have to say it’s the best PLR information I have seen online…. and it’s all free. Beat that you gurus

Sally Neill: I’ve been a regular visitor to Sally’s blog for some time now and through those visit I was lucky enough to win a place on her Learn With Sally coaching and as I have detailed through my posts her training has taken me to a whole new level of Internet Marketing. Prior to that training her posts, and the interaction in comments on some of my posts, have taught me plenty. Not to mention the free products she has created that help us all progress online. No blogging award would be complete without mentioning Sally.

Dawn Kay: I first met Dawn through the 100 Blog Comment Challenge and we’ve been regular visitors to each others blogs ever since. Dawn is all about helping others through her posts and has created some excellent checklists to help us all stay focused on our work. Throughout our LWS coaching Dawn has been there to help and advise on any concerns I had, as well as detailing her journey on her blog in such a way that enables others to follow her example. Dawn has also been the Queen of the shout out sharers this year and has shared my content on all the Social Media Networks.

Dee Ann Rice: Dee Ann and I connected earlier this year after she commented on one of my posts. Shortly after we connected Dee Ann accidentally deleted her whole blog and had to re-install it all from a back up, which she detailed in a post as well as in a video to help others avoid making the same mistake. I love the way Dee Ann details her journey through her blog posts and always tells people where she found the information she is using.

Randy Smith: I’ve been a regular reader and subscriber of Randy’s for a few years now and I love the way he says it as it is. He always gives an honest review of any products he looks into and has often told his readers to save their money and pointed out why. Randy’s very approachable, has time for all of his readers and offers helpful free gifts on a regular basis. Randy has a saying that we should only spend our cash on what will help us now and not on what we may use one day. Randy holds a monthly meet up in the north of England where internet marketers get together to discuss their projects and progress and kick each others butts if and when they slack off.

Mandy Allen: Mandy and I first connected through John Thornhills Masterclass, where Mandy is now a moderator and constantly helps people over whatever hurdles they’re facing. When I have needed her help she has offered it without question or concern for her own time. Mandy is the organiser behind the Journey To Success blog series that I am currently taking part in, which came about because of her desire to help as many people find success as possible. Mandy has a few projects on the go with her most recent one being Calendars For Marketers, I do know of others but they’re at the hush hush stage at the moment

Julie Dunlop: I first met Julie through Ian Ieba, after he pointed her in my direction after a video I had created. Since then Julie and I have become regular visitors to each others blogs where we comment and encourage one another. Earlier this year I held a video challenge and although Julie had never created a video before she accepted the challenge and spent a whole weekend finding her way around the software so as to create her first ever video. I recently took part in the 7 links challenge, where I nominated Julie to take the challenge, which of course she did

Terry Conti: Terry and I also first connected through John Thornhills Masterclass but we connected more on the blogging side of things where we really got to know each other. Terry was a regular visitor to this and many other blogs throughout the year but unfortunately his father recently passed so he is currently looking after his mother. While at the same time holding down a full time job in the restaurant industry, working very long unsociable hours, leaving himself very little time to get online.

“I hope your situation soon levels out for you Terry and allows you to get back online and follow your dreams mate”

To all of my readers: I wouldn’t have had half as good a year without your input so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for helping me achieve my best year online.

I appreciate and value everyone of you and wish you all a very Happy New Year. Please let me know in the comments below if there’s any way that I can help you achieve your goals in 2012.

Oh and please use the buttons below to help share the content of this post.

Until next time, Have a safe night tonight and a Happy Prosperous New Year

This time last year I was busy making plans for 2011 but they didn’t come off as I put them on hold to be by my mothers side during another health scare.

My mum had another bleed to her brain, this time leaving her with vascular dementia, and was in a bad way. Being both deaf and partially sighted communication was extremely difficult for the staff around her so I was by her side nearly all day every day for the first few months of the year.

As you can imagine the whole experience was extremely stressful and left me quite numb and unable to focus on anything constructive.

I tried keeping my blog up dated and started inviting guest posts, which really helped.

As my mums situation settled down a bit I was able to start spending less time with her so I continued with my blog hopping as best I could. Through leaving comments on other peoples blogs I was lucky enough to win a few prizes.

I first won a free Transcription from Dawn Kay “Thank you Dawn”.

I then won a free place on the Learn With Sally coaching course which has taught me a whole heap of new skills and has taken my Internet Marketing to a new level. “Thanks Sally and Jade (my lucky mascot)”

Then through Dawn Kay declining the prize and saying to give it to 2^nd place I won a free Camtasia and Snagit licence from Kathy Dobson’s traffic competition “Thanks Kathy”.

Sally then held a Traffic Generation competition, with the prize being a digital camera, and yes I won that as well which has enabled me to start facing the camera and talking to you live, as I do in the video below. “Thanks again Sally”

I also won a prize from David Taylor of a Mailwash Pro subscription for 12 months, “Thanks David”.

Blog commenting has really paid off for me this year and I have to say that this year has been my best year online

I have learnt so much this year that I know every year from now on is going to get better and better and that is a direct result of the Learn With Sally coaching, simply the best coaching I have experienced This isn’t a sales pitch, but if you’re not getting the success you crave for then I highly recommend Learn With Sally, The Replays so you can make 2012 as successful as possible.

I’ve had my very own Calendar created by Calendars For Marketers and you can download your copy, with my thanks.

And a personal video of thanks to you all

My top 15 traffic sources for the year were:

twitter.com

facebook.com

sallyneill.com

johnthornhillmasterclass.com

ianieba.com

billmurney.com

dawnkaysblog.com

nine95.com

google.com

stumbleupon.com

adriennesmith.net

youtube.com

terryconti.com

johnmcnally54.com

linkedin.com

Thank you to everyone that visited my blog over the last 12 months, commented and shared my content. Without your input many of the sites mentioned above wouldn’t be there

I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so please leave them below and let me know whether you’ve had a good year this year or what you have planned for next year.

I’d also be grateful if you could help me share the post on the Social Media Networks via the buttons below.

Until next time, Have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Over to you Steve:

You work on the world wide web but do you really consider your business to be global?

I was on the same coaching course as Barry back in 2009 and since then I have become a product creator, an affiliate, a traffic generator, email newsletter creator, list builder etc etc…and most importantly I became tired…and if I’m honest a little bit jaded by IM.

Lot’s of people peddling their wares and newbie suckers being taken in and ‘being looked after’ until the money runs out.

There had to be a better way…I just didn’t know what it was…until now.

As an Internet Marketer would you like to have any of the following:

• A Place where your completed product is always available for sale in the market place
• No fees if you don’t make a sale for a little while
• A place where there are hundreds of thousands of affiliates all willing to promote your product
• And millions of potential customers all ready to buy.

Where is this magical place?

Why – it’s the App Store in iTunes.

Since October, I have been converted some of our video golf coaching programmes into iPhone & iPad Apps and we have just made a sale to our 26th different country.

For me the journey to learn how to create Apps has not been as complicated as learning to build websites or mini-sites and affiliate pages etc, – In fact the whole process has been very rewarding…especially when the app is completed and you really can set and forget it and get on with making the next one.

And to top it off, Apple only takes 30% from my sales revenue…which compared to the 75% I used to give away to ClickBank affiliates is just an absolute bargain.

If you could go back 5 or 6 years on the internet, with the IM knowledge you currently have – do you think you could make a decent living. Everyone says how much easier it used ot be back then…well in my opinion the App market is exactly where the good old w.w.w. was 5 years ago…

….and it truly is global.

Here’s a little picture of our Apps being prepared for the Christmas Period…for the next two weeks I can just sit back and think about all the people downloading our apps and paying us a little bit of money each time…happy days!

As John Thornhill teaches – ‘Many Streams Make a River’ – he’s right and in eight short weeks we have successfully developed nine golf apps…and that’s not something I would ever have imagined being able to do properly with my Clickbank products.

All shiny and new

I wish all Barry’s readers a very festive holiday season and I urge you to check out the App market while the opportunity is still so big. It’s not as complicated as it may sound, and as Barry will testify, back in 2009 I was a complete non techie – so if I can do it anyone can

Happy Marketing

Steve King Weekend Golfers

Thanks very much for such a detailed post Steve, I will of course respond more in my comment below.

If you would like submit a guest post please view my Guest Post Page and if you can agree to the guidelines there then please feel free to contact me via the link on the page.

Share your thoughts!!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the post and have been able to take some inspiration from it. If you have any questions or comments for Steve please leave them below and he will reply to you personally.

Please use the buttons below, or to the side, and help me share this content with your friends and followers. You never know this could be just what they needed

Until next time, see what you can do differently

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

The Journey To Success
Part 8:

Innovate, take the road not taken and

Try Something New:

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success. If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series please follow the link above to do so. Be sure to read the comments as they have often added a wealth of information to the original posts. Feel free to reply to the comments or leave one of your own

Moving on to part 8:

Innovate, Take the road not taken and try something new.

That may sound very daunting to you as this may be a new experience for you anyway, but in part 1 I said about finding Forums and Blogs that have the same passion (niche) as you and start making notes of what others had created.

You don’t have to create the same as everyone else because that defeats the object. After all, do you want to be a sheep or a shepherd? Do you want to lead or follow your target audience?

It’s your passion and you should only use these sites for ideas and inspiration, kind of like a spring board to your success. As well as looking to see what others have done with the passion you share you should also be on the look out for things they haven’t done.

For Example:

• Whilst visiting these sites have you noticed anything important that people haven’t covered on the subject?
• Maybe something that you feel you can add to your project that others haven’t covered in enough detail?
• Have they over emphasized the points they’re trying to make and in doing so rambled on so much it has become confusing?
• Do you see a common problem that people face? If so can you help get them over it?
• Are these people keeping up with the times or they still using the old methods to get their message out there?

These are just a few things to look out for and if you find them and address them it can make you stand out from the crowd.

In part 4 of this series: Learning As You Go I said about the internet forever changing and that we have to keep up with these changes and apply ourselves to them.

Not only has the internet been changing but the way people access it has also changed over the years. Fran Aslam wrote a guest post for me that detailed how people are using mobile devices as their new computers. Fran stated, at the time of writing, that 56.9million people are searching the internet from these mobile devices each and every day. That number will continue to rise as new devices are created and released.

It’s huge market that is growing daily and we need to be sure that whatever we are creating is accessible to that market.

Our kids are growing up with this technology and to them the normal thing to do is pull out their mobile device to watch their favourite videos on YouTube, read their latest eBooks from Kindle or plug in their headphones to listen to their MP3′s.

Make the most of the new technology and use it to your advantage.

Create videos: You should create videos as and when you can and upload them to YouTube to reach as many people as possible. You may find this a daunting to start with, but don’t worry they’re easy to create.

You could buy a digital camera and film yourself carrying out certain tasks so as to show others how something is done. Or talk to the camera directly and get your message across that way. This also allows people to get to know you and so build the Know, Like and Trust factor that we all need.

Maybe you could create a screen capture video and give people a demonstration or tutorial of yourself carrying out certain tasks so they can follow along. There’s free software available from CamStudio.org which is easy to use.

You could also create PowerPoint Presentations. PowerPoint also has the ability to create videos straight from the software and if you don’t have PowerPoint then you can download Open Office and use their free software to create your slide show presentations and then record them with CamStudio.

Create eBooks and Turn Them Into Kindle eBooks: Creating ebooks isn’t hard at all but if you’re unsure of how to do so Eamon Diamond has an excellent video showing you how to create ebooks. Once you have your eBook created take a step further to reach the people using mobile devices and create a Kindle eBook. People don’t need a Kindle eReader to read kindle eBooks as Kindle have created apps for all the other mobile devices that are free to download.

Create Audio Files: It’s easier to talk than type and we’ve all seen people using their ipods and other MP3 players so we need to cover that market as well. Again there’s free software that will allow you to create audio files. Audacity not only allows you create audio files it will also allow you to convert tapes and records into digital recordings as well editing and splicing them together.

Here’s another cool thing you can do with audio files: Rather than typing out your eBook you could record yourself talking about your project one chapter at a time and save each audio file. Then you can either use it as an audio book, transcribe them to text yourself or send them to a transcription service, as mentioned in part 7. Dawn Kay owns First Class Transcriptions and has an excellent post on her blog showing people where to get the software she uses and how to transcribe your audio files, again using free software.

I hope that has given you some ideas as to what is possible for your creations and as you can see it doesn’t have to cost you the earth

Before I end this post I would like to bring a very special young lady to your attention to show you how you can turn problems around to your advantage.

This young lady came to my attention earlier this week and I found her story so inspiring that I want to briefly share it with you.

Cassandra Bankson lives in the US and has had a long term problem with acne. She was bullied throughout school and left early to be taught at home. This young lady really is remarkable as she started creating videos for YouTube to demonstrate how she now covers her acne and details all of the steps needed for others to follow.

One of her videos Foundation Routine Flawless Skin For Acne Scaring has had 3,248,228 views to date. So please pop over and see how she is turning things around, you may need some tissues as the pain this young lady faces is evident in the video.

The good news is that Cassandra has now gone on to become a model, just search Google for Cassandra Bankson.

Now that my friends is an inspiration and a perfect example of taking the road not taken and turning it into success.

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success.

As always your comments are very much appreciated so please feel free to add to the post in any way at all. I will be creating an eBook from the series and the best comments will be included in the eBook, attributed to the comment author and linked to their blogs

Oh and please share this post by using the buttons below to send it to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble and G+, Thanks

Until next time, put the Satnav away and use your instinct

Hi, thanks for stopping by.

This week I have a Guest Post for you, and what a post it is, from Sylviane Nuccio. This will get you thinking

Most internet marketing tutorials will teach you a great deal about the advantages of submitting articles on article directories, however you will hear very little about guest posting and the advantages that this method of writing could bring to your online business.

Writing lots of article for directories is great, but what about writing as a guest blogger, have you tried that yet? Let’s see what the differences between writing for an article directories and writing for another blogs are, and what might be best for you in the end.

Writing For Article Directories

The main purpose of writing articles on various directories is to expand your content, get back-links to your site and even make direct sales. There are hundreds of article directories out there that are hungry for you content, because your articles are their reason to be in existence and their mean of generating income.

Most well known article directories have become more restrictive about the kind of content that they do accept now, especially since Google have penalized them for promoting what is called content farm (low quality content) as opposed to fresh and original content.

Even reputable article directories such as EzineArticles, for example, which is accepting only original content had its share of low quality articles. If you have ever read a hand full of articles posted there, you might have read enough to realize that some articles are very low quality, indeed. Some articles hosted on directories are barely acceptable in my book.

Because of the effects of the Google slap, EzineArticles and other well known directories have become much stricter about the articles that they do accept now. This is indeed for the ultimate good of the readers, the back links quality and even us, yes, the writers.

However, as good as article directories content may be, what you are getting from the time and energy you are spending writing dozens and dozens of articles for such directories might not be as good time spent as what you could be getting spending more of your writing time guest posting on someone else’s blog instead.

Guest Posting

I don’t know about you, but all in all I do not find article directories the most rewarding avenues to bring me more readers to my blog, more followers on my Twitter account or even more customers or clients than guest posting does.

As a matter of fact, guest posting brings me much more rewards and this is why…

It’s true that guest posting might require a little more effort than just writing a simple article for a directory, because you want to make sure that your guest post is of an outstanding quality and probably longer as well. The owner of the blog might also be more demanding than directories when it comes to the quality and requirements for your article.

Needless to say, you might even be more nervous about posting for a high ranking blog, feeling that your writing is not good enough. However, once you’ve analyzed the pros and cons you might reconsider and realize that doing the extra mile guest posting more and writing for directories less can bring you some incredible rewards.

Let’s compare what it takes to post on article directories and blogs as a guest.

Advantages of Writing for Article Directories

• You write an original article

• You make sure the article is 400-500 words

• You link your site to your article either in the content or what is most common for article directories in the resource box which is located in the “footer” of the article

• You are going to get readers who are interested in your topic as long as they are looking for your keywords

• They will find your article only if you made sure that your article is keyword optimized

• Building relationships with your readers through articles online can be long in coming

Advantages of Guest Posting

• You write an original article

• You make sure the article is anywhere from 600 to 1000 words (depending on the blog you are writing for)

• You will be able to link your site within the content of your article in most cases(content back links are worth more than footer back links).

• You readers will be ALL the readers of the blog you are guest posting for, who are for the most part subscribers or loyal readers, and most likely pertaining to the same niche as yours (your market).

• Such readers will find you regardless of the keywords of your article

• You can build relationships with such readers easily as they are already followers of that blog

Now, let me ask you, which method of the two do you think is a better investment of your time and efforts? Yes, that’s right, in the end guest posting will give you more back than writing articles for any article directory.

I am sure that you have to agree that it would be worth your time and effort to guest post more often, wouldn’t it?

The main two reasons why internet marketers are not guest-posting as often as they should or even at all is that…

1. They feel that they can’t write well enough.
2. They don’t want to invest so much time in writing for a blog that is not theirs.

It’s my hope that by rethinking it all while reading this article makes you change your mind and motivates you to guest post more often for your own advantage.

Sylviane Nuccio is an Internet Marketer, Blogger and Freelance Writer as well as a Life Coach.

She loves to help others not to make all the mistakes she made herself, and become successful entrepreneurs of the online business. She is the owner of http://persuasivearticlemarketing.com And http://affiliatesuccessmethods.com

Thanks very much for such a detailed post Sylviane, I will of course respond more in my comment below.

If you would like submit a guest post please view my Guest Post Page and if you can agree to the guidelines there then please feel free to contact me via the link on the page.

Share your thoughts!!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the post and have been able to take some ideas from it. If you have any questions or comments for Sylviane please leave them below and she will reply to you personally.

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Until next time, share your thoughts…..

Sadly last week was the end of the live call webinar’s and the completion of the course. Not that I’ve completed it yet There’s so much to the course that I’ve been busy learning and applying, making notes then learning and applying some more but I still need to go over some areas and to make sure I’m getting it right and that it has all sunk in correctly

Regular visitors to my blog would have seen the transformation in my blog and the way I now apply myself and my new found skills.

My blog has gone from this….

…..to what you see around you now.

As I’ve been going through the course work, learning and applying, I’ve used some of my new found skills in my posts to demonstrate them as well as creating my videos and showing you how the journey has been progressing, and what a journey it has been.

When I first started with Learn With Sally I spoke on the first webinar, for the first time, and when asked what my biggest fear was I came out with a stupid answer “my wife”. Since then I have spoke on nearly every webinar and even went on to co-host one, without any stupid answers

My Traffic foundations are now in place and working very well, with my traffic increasing, my Alexa ranking improving and the number of sites linking to me going up on a regular basis.

I now have a presence on the Social Media Networks, where I automatically send my content via Twitterfeed, which also brings me in free traffic

My video creation skills have improved ten fold and I’m now able to create all 3 types of video, screen capture tutorials, Power Point Presentations and me facing the camera.

I am now able to monitor my email marketing and drill down to see what emails are getting opened and which are not, allowing me improve on the areas that are needed. As well as being able to split test my email broadcasts to see which are working best. This is still an area where I need to improve but I do now have a good understanding of how it works.

I have an Instant Profit Machine in place, Triple Blog Traffic, which is also building my list and offers those that subscribe a free video, MP3 and eBook which will show them how to Triple their blog traffic using free resources.

I now have A Facebook Fan Page in place with my Triple Blog Traffic system. Again I need to apply myself a little more in this area and create further Fan Pages but again I now have an understanding of how these Fan pages work.

I have a product in the making through an interview I’ll be holding with Adrienne Smith. If anyone has any questions you’d like me to ask Adrienne please feel free to leave them in the comments on the post.

I now have a better understanding of how to attract and recruit affiliates to help promote my products. Which has come in really handy as I have a product that will be ready for launch in the coming weeks or maybe in the new year as I want everything to in place correctly.

If anyone is interested in helping me promote my new product please visit the affiliate page of Ease The Squeeze With Auctions and leave your details in the opt-in form and I’ll keep you updated. Don’t worry about being bombed with emails, this list is just for affiliates and news of my product launches. If you require a review copy of the product let me know once you’ve signed up

As well as seeing my own skills improve I have also had the pleasure of seeing my fellow students improve as well. They really are a great bunch of people that have also come a long way and offer each other encouragement and support in everything we all do.

My fellow students are:

Dawn Kay

Kathy Dobson

Ian Ieba

Nikki Stephens

Jacinta Dean

Jean Shaw

Nigel Yip

Michelle Lyall

Greg Taylor

Terry Conti

Fellow bloggers that joined later:

DeeAnn Rice

Kerry Russell

Igor Griffiths

Mandy Allen

It’s been really good getting to know them all and as I said we offer each other encouragement and support in everything we do and will continue to do so through our Facebook group, which is rocking.

So as you can see I’ve been on one hell of a journey with the Learn With Sally coaching, my skills have increased, I’ve overcome my fears and I know that the future is going to be brilliant. I’ve already been approached by two people asking to interview me, which was strange but I’m accepting both offers

I realise that whilst I’ve been detailing my journey in some of my posts I haven’t been passing many of the techniques on to my readers but I will be putting that right in the near future

I’d like to close this post with special thanks to Sally Neill and my lucky mascot Jade who picked my name out of the Daz box.

“Sally your coaching has been first class and has taught me everything I need to create success online. You’re an excellent teacher, a very inspirational person, you always bring out the best in your students and have helped us all overcome our fears, without swinging your size 3 towards our butts It really has been a pleasure learning from you these past few months and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My future really is in my hands now so sit back and watch it take off Sally, thank you x”.

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so please share your thoughts about this post.

If you are suffering from fears holding you back please let me know what they are and lets see if I can help you face them.

Oh and please use the buttons below to help share the content with your friends and followers, thanks a lot.

Until next time, Face your Fears and Form your Future

Regular visitors to my blog will remember that two weeks ago I published a post about Interviewing Adrienne Smith. Once I had published the post and completed the bookmarking and setting up the Twitterfeed it was time to go blog hopping.

The first blog I visited was Adrienne’s, where to my delight I found that Adrienne had nominated me for The 7 Link Challenge. You can use that link to read the rules but basically I have to find 7 of my posts that I feel fit the categories that are pre-selected in the challenge rules. I then have to nominate 5 further bloggers to pass it on to

Now anyone that knows me knows that I’m not one to shy away from a challenge, time permitting, so here are the seven posts that I’m entering.

Most Beautiful post:

This one was easy, not because of the post itself but because of what lead me to write it. I was having some issues with my blog and found that Ian Ieba was also having the exact same issues. For over a week Ian and I were talking over Skype, emailing and Facebook messaging each other late into the night trying to resolve this problem and an additional one I had found on my blog. Through all of the drama our online friendship blossomed into a real friendship that I know we both value very much.

I was so touched by the help and assistance that I wrote Headaches, Heartbeats and Helpful Friends.

Most Popular Post:

I nearly went with the post I entered for the 100 blog comment challenge due to it having over 200 comments. But part of the challenge was for everyone taking part to visit all of the other blogs that were taking part and leave a comment.

So instead I’ve chosen another challenge post but this one is where I challenged other bloggers to create a video and put it on their bogs. A lot of people that had never created videos before stepped up to the challenge, which was great to see and I hope that they continue creating videos.

Challenge: I’m showing you mine, but will you show me yours?

Most controversial post:

This one was really difficult as I don’t write controversial posts. I’ve had enough controversy in my life without coming online to generate more. I try to be a helpful guy rather than a wind up merchant, but I have found a post that raised a difference of opinion.

I have a dislike of pop ups on blogs as I feel they defeat the object, with the object being to get people to visit our blogs, read our content, like it and share it.

I know that list building is a very important part of our online efforts so I wrote a post and created a video showing people How To Add An Opt-in Form Beneath All Of Our Blog Posts. As I said the post raised a difference of opinion from those that use pop ups and some of the comments received actually made me see things a little differently, just not enough to change my mind

Most helpful post:

I had to think about this one as I try to make most of my posts helpful. However there is one that stood out as it was aimed at helping a new blogger that had lost everything after updating his blog theme. He didn’t have a back up and had to start over again So I wrote The Simple Solution To Every Bloggers Worst Nightmare, which detailed a plugin that will automatically back up your blog data base and sent it to you via email.

Although the post was helpful I received a comment that pointed out some vulnerabilities when downloading the back up file. So in my reply I asked the commenter if he would write a blog post detailing how he carries out his back ups. Now what I meant was for him to write a post on his blog explaining how he does it.

But Jeffrey Morgan actually wrote a guest post for my blog explaining how to back up in our C-Panels. Some people then commented saying they were a little concerned about going into their C-Panels, so Jeffrey very kind wrote an additional post explaining how to create a back up using FileZilla. Both of these posts are linked to from original post I wrote.

Please note: Jeffrey has a big launch coming up on New Years Day where he’ll be launching Jeffrey-Morgan.com. Make a note in your diary as I have a feeling this is going to something very special

Post who’s success surprised me:

Earlier this year my mum had some serious health issues so I spent pretty much the first 6 months of the year going back and forth to the hospital and later the care home. During this time my work suffered and my plans came to a halt. The only work I done was to keep my blog updated, which was fairly difficult as I had a head full of mush and found it hard to focus on anything.

So to keep my blog updated I wrote a post on Learning Some Basic HTML Can Improve Your Articles and make them stand out.

Bearing in mind my state of mind at the time I was really pleased with how the post was received and some of the comments it generated, some of which really picked me up.

Post that didn’t get the attention it deserved:

Boy oh boy did I have to search for this one and weigh up things like comments, tweets and shares. In the end I found this post that has just two comments and two shares But it is from my very early days of blogging and the first ever review I had written. Generating Traffic To Your Websites highlights what you get if your purchase Total Web Traffic. I was really proud of it at the time, but like I said I had only been blogging a couple of months.

Post most proud of:

I had to think about this one as well because there are quite a few posts that I’m proud of. But this one made the grade due to the fact that it was the first time I had bought a product solely to put it through it’s paces and write a product review about both the product and the creator. Both of which really impressed me and when I say put the product and its creator through their paces I mean exactly that.

During the process of reviewing the product I followed every step and published my first product on Kindle. I also sent the product creator a series of help questions to see what response I would receive. Both product and creator were excellent so I wrote: Kindle Publishing Made Easy By Val Waldeck My Review.

When I contacted Val to tell her I was reviewing her product I asked her if she’d offer my blog readers a discount, which she very kindly did. Not only that but 6 months or so later I also got an updated version of the product, free of charge

So there you have my 7 links for the challenge some of my readers may have already read most of them, but if you haven’t take a look over them and maybe comment and share……

I really enjoyed going through all of my old posts and finding these 7 to include in the challenge. I think what I enjoyed the most was seeing how far this blog has come since I first started blogging.

Now for the second part of the challenge: Which five bloggers to nominate to take The 7 Link Challenge, and this part was harder than the challenge itself but I have found 5 to nominate:

• Kathy Dobson The Outsource Queen
• Nikki Stephens The Minxy Witch
• David Walker How To Make Money Online
• Robyn Campbell Helping You Live The Dream
• Julie Dunlop Learn Grow and prosper

If you know any of the five nominees please let them know that I’ve put it on them for this challenge. I hope they accept it and have as much fun going through their older posts as I did.

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so tell me what you thought of the posts I included for the challenge and indeed this post itself.

Oh and do me a favour please, use the buttons below to tell your friends and followers all about this post, thanks

Until next time, challenge yourself to complete a new task