A Decidedly Intellectual Blog | Bloggerative

8 Ways to Earn Money with Digital Photography - How to Sell Photos Online

2011-08-11T11:04:00.000+08:00

Are you a shutterbug? If you like to snap pictures at family events or just out in the neighborhood, put that camera to good use in ways that will earn you money for your efforts. This article mentions eight ways that you can make money with digital photography.

The world of photography has changed since the instant camera was developed. With a digital camera, you can take a not so good shot and make it perfect using a variety of software options. Best of all, pictures can be printed on quality paper on your printer or at a store kiosk for just a few cents per picture.

Technology has created memory cards much like the flash drive storage medium to file and save pictures for sharing on the Internet. You can easily upload pictures from the memory card to your friends, family and a blog or website if you have one.

1. Stock photography
This business is growing. For website newsletters, magazines and articles, publishers look for photos that capture the essence of their articles. It is not terribly convenient to go out and snap some pictures every time you need one. Selling stock photographs to businesses and individuals is convenient for them and lucrative for you.

2. Wedding photographer
Okay so if you aren’t a professional you won’t be the main photographer at first but you can be hired to take candid shots at the reception or wedding photos after the ceremony. The happy couple can order as many pictures as they want and you can create wedding CDs of the pictures you took.

3. Newspaper pics
If you are in the right place at the right time, you might capture photos that are worthy of the newspaper. When news happens, a newspaper photographer might not be on the scene. You can capture the moments and sell them to newspapers. Snapping shots at community events may also earn you some money from local newspapers.

4. Magazine photographer
Create a portfolio of photos that you’re taken and submit them to magazines. Looking at your work, they may hire you for assignments. Magazines are a tough market to break into so cut your teeth on other smaller assignments for local newspapers.

5. Local photography business
Ever gotten a mailing that shows cars for sale or houses for sale? Someone had to take those photographs. It could be you. Hire yourself out to area businesses to do the photographs for them.

6. Event photographer
Some families like to document their events like family reunions, christenings, bar mitzvahs and birthday parties. You can be the eyes in the room catching candid shots of everyone.

7. Photography website
If you know a lot about digital cameras and photography, create a website to sell photography products. Keep visitors and customers coming back with engaging content on various aspects of photography.

8. Teach a photography class
Those cameras look easy to use but some of those symbols can mix people up. Teach others to use their digital camera and create great pictures that they, too, can market as a business.

Do you like photography? What started off as a hobby can become a new business venture.

Top 10 Traffic Ideas For Your Blog - Generate More Web Traffic!

2011-08-11T11:03:00.005+08:00

Blogs are popular ways to create an online presence for personal and business reasons. You can build a blog for free and begin posting content right away. But, what good is that content if no one is reading it. Here are ten ideas to bring in the traffic your blog needs to survive.

Of all the successful blogs on the Internet, hundreds more have failed. Running a blog is like running a business website. Unless you are willing to put the time in and treat it seriously, you won’t be blogging long.

That is not to say that the failed bloggers weren’t serious about blogging. Mostly, new bloggers aren’t prepared for the work that goes into creating a successful blog. Just building the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessary come to you. You pursue the audience and give them a reason to see what you have to say.

1. Fresh Content
No one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. Update your blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and upload them at the appropriate times.

2. Article Marketing
The niche you’re chosen for your blog is one that interests you. If it is interesting you will spend more time doing it. Create content not only for your blog but also to be submitted to article directories. Use the resource box to advertise your blog so people can find you. Article Marketing Robot is a popular software to register accounts and submit your articles to over 2000 articles directories automatically.

3. Social Networking
These sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections. You can join groups of likeminded people who are also bloggers or entrepreneurs.

To make social marketing more effective, many marketers will also use tools. The most powerful and popular tool among them is SEnuke. It can automate and schedule all web 2.0 social marketing tasks, including social bookmarking, posting on social networks, video sharing, RSS, builking forum profiles and web 2.0 profiles, press release, etc.

Another choice is Synnd. While SEnuke automates tasks by software, Synnd do it by outsourcing to other thousands of members.

4. Viral Marketing
This is where you spread the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even strangers. Give out business cards that have your blog address on them. Install Viral Friend Generator script on your website to drive visitors to tell their friends about the site.

5. Use RSS Feeds
RSS stands for really Simple Syndication. Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online.

6. Submit Blog to Search Engines
Doing this allows your blog to be ranked. Google and Yahoo! are two of the most popular search engines you want to crawl your blog pages. It doesn’t guarantee top ranking, though. You’ll have to do a little more work for that.

7. Joining Forums
As a blogger you are a budding entrepreneur. Right now you are marketing yourself to find traffic and then profit. Become a member of business forums, work at home forums and others to meet new people and share ideas. You can add a link to your blog in the signature line so others can find you.

8. Visit other blogs
Show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone. Add links to your blog in your comments. Remember, don’t just say something like “Good post!”, it will be regarded as spam. Make contribution. Decent comments can add value to the original post. It will make your comments sticky. You can find relevant blogs manually by searching or use tools to make it more efficient, such as Blog Comment Demon.

9. SEO Marketing
Whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Keyword density between three and ten percent is good for getting higher page rankings in search engines. Base your keywords on a research you do to find the most popular words used in search engines for your niche.

10. Social Bookmarking
Submitting posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want.

Blogging Platforms, Which Is Right for You?

2011-08-11T11:03:00.002+08:00

If you are going to blog, you’ll need to choose a platform. A blogging platform is the software or service provider that has established the blog format you’re using. In the world of blogging there are several well known platforms you can use…

* Blogger, owned by Google
* Typepad
* WordPress

Other blogging platforms include:

* MoveableType.org
* Joomla
* And many website hosts have proprietary blogging functionality.

How Do You Choose a Blogging Platform?

* Price – Many blogging platforms cost money. For example, Typepad requires a monthly fee. WordPress however, is free. Price may be a very real decision maker for you.

* Options – The more popular the platform the more options you have. For example, WordPress has thousands of people developing templates, plug-ins and other functions. If you plan on doing a lot of different things with your blog then you may want to go with a blog platform that offers myriad options.

* Ease of use – How easy is it to use the interface? Some platforms are intuitive and you don’t have to open a page of your user manual or put the help desk page on your bookmarks. Other platforms feel as if they require a technology degree to work with. Explore the various interfaces and find one that feels comfortable to you.

* Navigation – Can you create a blog that will offer easy navigation for your visitors? Presumably you’re blogging with the intention of attracting readers. Does the blogging platform support a good reader experience?

* Features – Does your blog meet all of your needs? Again, the more
options you have the more likely a blogging platform will meet your needs – from ecommerce to membership sites or information marketing.

* Customization – Can you easily make your blog look and feel exactly like you want it to without a ton of work, time and money?

* Reputation – Does the blogging platform have a good support system? Are you able to find or get answers when you need them? If they host your blog is there ever downtime where your blog is inaccessible?

Before you choose your blogging platform decide:

* What you want your blog to accomplish
* What you want your blog to look like
* Where you want to host your blog
* How much you expect your blog to grow over the next couple of years.
* How much time you have to devote to your blog
* How much you want to spend on your blog

Once you have the answers to the above questions you can begin to compare your options. Spend time on this decision. Moving your blog to another platform won’t be fun or easy. Choosing right the first time will save you time, energy and money.

The Best Facebook Advertising Strategies

2011-08-11T11:02:00.005+08:00

Facebook advertising can be a great way of getting targeted traffic because it can offer you many options to target your traffic and owing to the popularity of this social site and with its millions of active users. But advertising on this platform is a bit expensive as many marketers have observed.

Display advertising is more effective on this social site as many web marketers have observed and Facebook can easily display advertisers with their easy accessible open platform. Many small and medium sized marketers and advertisers who want to establish their brand are turning to this ad platform.

While Facebook advertising may be more expensive than other online ad campaigns, if you want branding as your objective you can still make use of this campaign. While this may not be the cheap and cost effective channel for you, it may still give you the success by doing a smart ad campaign on this social channel.

You can still make the most out of your campaign on this social site if you can really do the smart advertising that you have to do. You can make the best Facebook advertising strategy if you do the methods below for your ad campaign on this social site.

The first thing that you have to do is create an ad and include the URL of the page that you want to send your traffic to. The best place to lead your visitors to can be your fan page because this can be the best and interesting plan for your visitors.
The best method where your potential visitors may make notice is the use of images in your ad copies. An effective Facebook advertising strategy is to use an image of an attractive man or woman which makes your ad have effects in which the image may have impressions as if directly talking to the viewer.
Attractive personalities can command attention and this method may get get your prospective viewers to view your landing page or fan page. Your prospects may see the image as yourself speaking to them directly and invite them to your fan page.
Get high click through's with this image strategy and it is better if you can find the very relevant image to use. This may be a bit a hard thing to achieve, being difficult to identify which is relevant, but you can still get one with a little patience observed.

Always remember that your objective must include getting a high click through rate because this is the greatest factor in determining whether you can effectively lower your ad costs or not even with the reputed expensive campaign on Facebook your high click through rate may still lower it.

5 Excellent Tips to Know When You Get Blogging Advice

2011-08-11T11:02:00.002+08:00

When you start blogging there may be lots of things that you want to know and lots of things that you need to figure out. This can be for any number of reasons - to get more people to read what you have to say, to make more money, to share your passion with other like minded people. Now, instead of taking years to find out all the secrets to these things there is a simple way to get all the best blogging advice you can. You got to get a guide which provides blogging advice that discusses all the details around blogging and how you can turn your passion and interest into a full time business.

Here are 5 excellent tips you need to know before getting any blogging advice.

1. Specific info - Your guide got to have every detail about blogging that you can think off including the discoveries and information shared by the author. The guide got to be very specific and offers a lot of useful information that really helps. From experience, I do get many ebooks and guides that you will find will give you a lot of meaningless stuff and not very specific info, perhaps for fear of giving too much away or something.

2. Author’s philosophy - If I were you, I do look for author who has the philosophy of giving more, by telling everyone the secrets to successful and profitable blogging. He does this as he knows it is not going to harm his business in any way. It is a win win situation and you will be spending good money for all this information.

3. Step by step instructions - Blogging guide which you buy got to have step by step instructions. With these, it makes it easier for any blogger to understand and to set everything up Preferably, the guide includes step by step screen shots of all the details and during your blogging process, this will be a perfect handbook to refer to at any time to help you along.

4. Resources - Your blogging guide must offer you other websites that you need to join, where to find links that will pay you, and how you can get the best keywords to use to optimize your blog site in the correct way. All the details that you need to know about the setting up, the maintaining, the planning and the profit making are all listed in this not too long, very comprehensive eBook.

5. Setting the stage right - The last important factor is that the author does share with you the right mindset of setting up a blogging business. The blogger, who is successful, knows what you got to take to be as successful as him. He knows that for you to know the technical stuff is not enough. He educates you to learn and digest about the type of mindset a successful blogger needs to have.

It is with these details that you can thrive and is great for those that don’t really have a lot of spare time to learn the ropes of the internet and blogging world. You just need to follow a blogging guide book and take all the blogging advice that you can get from it. When you get the right guide book, it will become a one stop shop with helpful hints, great resources, links to websites and tools that you will need to use, things to avoid and not only this, but it will basically tell you in order just what to do and how to do it. With the right book, you will not need to use another eBook or blog guide ever again if you get the right one and you will soon be making a great amount of money from this venture.

John Yeo is the author of Bloggers Pay Check. He is a pro-wedding blogger and social worker who generates $2000 each month of passive income just from his one wedding blog.

Source / Author : John Yeo
Repost by : Exabytes.com.my

SEO Tip: Optimizing The Landing Page

2011-08-11T11:01:00.004+08:00

The landing page is that web page where you lead your prospective customers after they click on your ads or on a link on the search results pages. This web page will display all the relevant information that you want to relay to your prospective customers.

The importance of the landing page is to be taken with great consideration because this page will determine the success or failure of your marketing campaign. The actions that your prospects will show when they are on these pages will show if your landing pages are effective or not.

For your landing page to be effective you have to show its relevance and have it optimized for it to be effective. in optimizing your landing page, these things found below have to be done.

Your landing page content has to be relevant to be effective, and will not lead your prospective customers to click back because of non interest with your contents. These pages should be attractive and compelling and the use of your keywords will be needed here.
For better results do not make your homepage be your landing page because the prospective customers may get disinterested outright. Show contents in your landing page that are informative and beneficial to your users and you can lead them later to your homepage where your products features are displayed, including the added benefits they can get from the products.
Include a strong call to action in your landing page. Although this may sound forceful but do it in a subtle way so that it will not overwhelm your prospective customers and these things may be in the form of sign-ups for free emails or anything useful to users.
You have to keep your landing page free from all the unnecessary clutter that will just make your prospective customers go away or click back to search or the previous page where they come from. Make your landing page easy for the prospects and not bore them.
Make efforts to make your visitors stay in your landing page like providing information that may have a continuation in your other pages. Provide a link to these inside pages and this will add up to curiosity of your prospective customers.
Make your landing page simple yet compelling and attractive. Do not make your prospects more confused with what you provide in your landing page and provide only easy to understand and information or instructions.
Providing free things in your landing page will add more to its attractiveness. People usually go for anything free and providing these freebies in your landing page will add more to its effectiveness to the prospective customers that clicked on your ads or on these links in the search results pages.

A General Overview For Google SEO

2011-08-11T11:01:00.001+08:00

Due to the technology of today people can have their web business get the success even if they are only new to the business or only a small time business owner. With the internet and the search engines, a small web business owner can be at par with the big businesses around. Small businesses can have all the opportunities on getting the quality traffic to their website, courtesy of the top placements in the search results pages where many people can have a good view of their website. This is courtesy of the search engine Google and the SEO strategies implemented to get these high placements.

Search engine optimization can be successful if on page optimization is done to the site, like making all adjustments needed on the webpage content to get the high rank possible. Getting this rank is also needed for links to be created, and strategies to get the links can be one of the things enumerates.

Ask for them, and this can be through posting comments or linking to other relevant sites and requesting them. This is a hard thing to do and quite impossible to think but you may still be lucky and get the links.
If you submit your site to the relevant directories you can get one way links from this method. If you have articles and submit these to the article directories you can have one way links, especially if you submit to RSS feeds for syndication.
Utilize forums and you can get probable links from forum members. Finding the appropriate forum in your market will be a good strategy for SEO and you can get the relevant links from these people.
Use blogs in getting the links. Creating quality blogs and submitting these to the popular blog platforms in the net can bring you plenty of these links needed for your SEO ranking objectives.
The social media can be used also to get plenty of link possibilities because of its high popularity. Get an account with these social sites and you can have these link possibilities.

In SEO with Google the kind of links is given more importance in the site ranking process. Links coming only from the relevant and high ranked sites can get you the high rank that you desire. Do not go for buying links because this may not get you the success of your search engine optimization ranking efforts, and these links may not be the relevant links, at all. It can be better if you go only for the relevant links, those from the reputable sites because in Google SEO the quality of the links can be more effective than the quality of these links.

Why You Should NEVER Hire a Social Media Manager

2011-08-11T11:00:00.003+08:00

This could be a very controversial post for many, however this must be pointed-out. It seems like social media "gurus" are a dime a dozen in today's time. In lieu of this, businesses must be extremely cautious about who they select based on the results they're seeking.

Listed below, are three reasons you NEVER want to hire a conventional social media manager.

1) A large majority of all social media managers have no experience building a brick-and-mortar business or a highly profitable online company using the web a nd social media.

How can you expect a person (or company) to help you substantially grow your business with the internet when they don’t actually have experience personally doing it? Just a word of wisdom. Do not even think of hiring someone that doesn’t have a long personal track record of success.

I should hope that’s a bit of common sense.

In reality, most individuals waste time with social media and only a tiny fraction of businesses actually generate worthwhile income with it. You'll find that with inexperience comes poor strategy and consistent obstacles.
I'm reminded of a quote…. “You can either make friends with social media or you can make money, but you can't do both.”

2) Expect to pay a lofty premium if you’re going to hire a person with a bunch of experience.

Now, I should point-out, there IS a time and place to pay a high premium. Price should not be the deciding factor, the proven results-based track record should. You will pay for quality most of the time.

The ballpark average experienced social media manager salary (if they’re worth anything) starts at over $70,000 per year. Remember, this is an employee you’re bringing-in to your organization, not an entrepreneur with a strong eye towards growth.

I'm sure you'd agree, employees need guidance in most cases. They don't just take the baton and run with it.

For the average small business owner, paying over $6,000 per month isn't feasible, especially when your company is forced to commit to a six month contract or more.

A big corporation will easily invest this amount monthly but it's not advisable for other businesses doing under a half a million per year. Don't count on finding someone off of Craigslist to make the marketing profitable and effective, too.

Far too many companies do this and they end up guessing at why “social media does not work.” The reality is, social media works, it’s just that your strategy sucks.
Managing social media is one aspect. Aggressively growing your company is another.

3) Your social media manager will not have enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be completed. In order to be successful, you should have the following online marketing methods working for you around the clock:

- Keyword and market research
- Facebook organic marketing
- Facebook ads (ppc) marketing
- Online video creation
- Online video submission / optimization
- Podcast creation / submission
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Articles written and submitted to top directories
- Press releases written and submitted online
- Google Places optimization
- Blog creation and post updates regularly
- Backlink building
- Directory submissions
- Google organic marketing
- Google Adwords PPC management / optimization
- Automated reports generated to track results

In truth, it’s practically impossible to find a social media manager that has experience doing everything listed above. If you can, you'll pay a big premium. Realistically, you need to have a TEAM of experts working on your behalf.

Social media is just one piece of the internet marketing arsenal. If you leave-out the rest you won’t get very far. Knowing these 3 key points, you now have a simple choice to make.

Would you rather pay an inexperienced social media manager $70K+ per year to “try” to build your business with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc..?

OR…

Would you rather hire a specialized team of experts with a time-tested strategy (at a small fraction of the cost) that has experience selling MILLIONS of dollars worth of products / services from the web?

If you’re smart, committed to business growth, and choose the latter, here’s the perfect solution for your individual business needs.

4 Steps to Making $100 Per Day on the Internet

2011-08-11T11:00:00.000+08:00

4 steps to making money online - sounds simple right? Well, making money on the Internet is not difficult. It requires understanding of a few basic principles. However, you might think getting started online is a difficult thing if you look at the thousands of products catering to the Internet marketing scene. But all it takes is a few simple steps to start making profits. Focus on these steps and you'll bring in money!

Don't be a complete perfectionist and wait until all the conditions are right or when you have all the information you need. The conditions will never be 100% perfect and you'll never have all the information out there. Just concentrate on the major things that will affect your profits and you will start making money, then you can make adjustments to your business model.

Here are the 4 steps to making $100 per day on the Internet:

1. Find A Niche
Find a topic that you are interested in and has demand. Having interest in the topic isn't a must, but it's a big plus as your enthusiasm will ensure that you have quality products and quality marketing materials. But your niche has to have demand.

2. Create A Website
You will need a website as the foundation to build your business on. Personally, I like setting up simple opt-in pages to capture subscribers. You should always get your visitors to subscribe to your mailing list so that you can market to them for months and even years.

3. Build A Mailing List
Use an autoresponder to build your list. The ones I use are Aweber and Get Response. There are other options like I Contact and 1 Shopping Cart. Choose wisely because the autoresponder you choose will host your subscriber information.

4. Create/Promote Products
Create products based on the needs of your subscribers. Survey them and then create products based on the survey answers. If you don't want to create your own products, just head down over to Clickbank and find some hot affiliate products to promote to your list!

How to Start a Blog for Profit - for Beginners

2011-08-11T10:59:00.003+08:00

An online presence is important these days for whatever enterprise you engage in. to connect with a wide variety of people there is no bigger forum than the Internet. If you are looking for a way to show off your expertise and also make a little money while doing it, consider starting a blog.

What is a Blog?

A blog is actually an online journal of sorts. With a blog you can upload daily posts about anything that you want. Some people create personal blogs as a way to keep in touch with family members. Pictures, videos and other information are uploaded so your loved ones are current with what is going on with you.

Here we are going to talk about business blogs. This is a blog that you begin to attract traffic in order to sell products or services. To be interesting to others, your blog will need to:

- Have updated content for visitors
- Be marketed to draw traffic
- Register with search engines so it can be found in the rankings

How to Start

If you are new to blogging, use a free blogging platform to get your feet wet. Sites like Blogger.com, WordPress.org, Blogspot.com and others offer free blogs to users. Depending on the site you choose, the themes and plug-ins (added features) will vary. Most will walk you through the process step by step so that you can be up and running in no time.

Before you start posting, decide what will be the theme, or niche of your blog. A jack-of-all-trades type of blog doesn’t do as well as one that is geared towards a certain niche. If you like crafts, that can be your niche. Create posts that talk about how to craft, what to craft, how to make crafting profitable and so on. Once you have decided on a path, it is time to create that great content.

How to Make Money

In order to make money with your blog, you need to have people visiting it. That is where marketing comes in. to draw traffic you have to get the word out about your blog. Tell all of your friends and family members that you are online with your blog for a start.

Any money-making venture will take place once you have built your readership with interesting posts. Then you can put into play a number of profitable additions:

- Google AdSense
- Selling Advertising
- Affiliate Marketing
- EBook Marketing

The simplest one to pursue is Google AdSense. You are using targeted advertisements to create revenue for your blog. You are paid per clicks on the ads.

There are other options where you can get paid when someone makes a sale on that website. That is more likely to happen when you join an affiliate program. Join affiliate program that work well with your website niche.

EBooks are short downloadable electronic books that you can create yourself and sell on your website. They can be on a variety of subjects but in order for them to sell, you must be able to offer new information to your customers.

Blogs can be used to build revenue. Start with your chosen niche and market your blog to find the traffic you need. Then, utilize these ideas to turn a profit.

Two Hidden Pages on Your Website That Can Bring in Huge Affiliate Commissions

2011-08-11T10:59:00.000+08:00

You have some pages on your website right now that could bring in a nice and steady flow of affiliate commissions but chances are you’re not taking advantage of them. Let me show you how to turn those pages into money making machines that work 24/7 for you.

Thank You Pages

One of the pages I am referring to are the thank you page you send customers or subscribers to after they sign up for your newsletter or buy a product from you. You have already impressed these people enough to at least get them to give you their email address. Now is the perfect time to make them an offer.

Look through the various affiliate promotions you have on your site and pick the one that seems to convert the best and include it in your page.
On a thank you or download page for customers, I usually add it toward the bottom after the actual download link. On a newsletter signup thank you page, I tend to just thank them for signing up, then make the offer and give them the download link for any freebie they are getting as a “thanks for signing” up at the end.

Error Pages

The second page is your 404 error page (or any other error page for that matter). People will always mistype urls or link to pages on your website that don’t exist. In short, visitors will end up on your error pages so you might as well take advantage of it.

Again, look through your affiliate promotions and find the one with the most general appeal. Create a custom “Sorry this page couldn’t be found” message, and then transition into your offer.

With both error and thank you pages, set them and forget them. Go work on your site, write some articles or play with the kids. Both of those “hidden” pages will be working for you for added commissions.

A Comprehensive Post on SEO

2011-06-21T02:20:00.000+08:00

I’m a blogger now but in a former life I did SEO professionally. As a part of the industry I’ve seen first hand the insane amount of misleading information available. Even so-called “professionals” have been known to give out absolutely terrible advice.

That’s why I’m writing this article. I want to finally teach you bloggers the truth behind SEO and how to rank well in Google. Some of the following information might be obvious and some of it might seem strange, but stick with me. If you follow my advice you’ll be ranking number one in no time.

The information I’m going to give is specific to Google, but the same tips will also help you rank in Bing and all other search engines.

Meta tags

Meta tags are a part of the HTML of your page that appear in the header. There are hundreds to choose from but only two matter when it comes to HTML: the Title tag and the Description tag.

Some people talk about the Keywords meta tag but Google has made it clear that they completely ignore it. It doesn’t hurt to have a keywords tag, but don’t assume it will help you rank in Google.

The Description tag

This is what Google (sometimes) uses to describe your site in the search results. It’s shown in the screenshot below.

This does not effect your rankings, but it can be used to help entice people to click on your link in the search results. Make sure it is relevant to your site, and describes what people will find when they click your link.

As you can see in the screenshot, the term that was searched for will show up in bold in the results. You can use this to help get more clicks—but don’t abuse it.

The Title tag

The Title tag is (sometimes) used by Google as the main text of your link within the search results, as seen in the screenshot below:

The words used here have been proven to help with rankings. Basically, the closer the keywords are to the left edge of the link, the better the result will rank for those keywords. For example, Geek Juice: Canadian Tech News won’t rank as well as Canadian Tech News by Geek Juice for the term “Canadian Tech News.”

“Sometimes”?

In both instances I said that Google sometimes uses these tags. This is because they sometimes use other sources. Google may display content from your site instead of your chosen description or title tag if Google’s algorithm believes it is more relevant. Google may also use content from DMOZ (the open directory project.)

Keywords

The tips I’ve seen online for on page SEO range from ill-conceived to downright frightening. People tout keyword densities and other strange points of data as the be-all and end-all of SEO. In reality Google hasn’t used keyword density in years. Stuffing a million keywords at the bottom of your page won’t help; some believe Google actually penalizes sites for this.

As long as you mention a chosen keyword once or twice within a blog post, you’ll be fine. The important thing is that the rest of the post is about that keyword. Google has figured out a lot of very complex ways to make sure your post is about the keyword you’ve chosen. For example if you’re talking about the keyword “Toronto Raptors” you’ll probably mention basketball and scores and various other basketball related information.

The best thing you can do when it comes to keywords is simply talk about the things you love.

Building links

Google first built its search engine on the idea of page rank: a page was probably relevant if a lot of people linked to that page. The more links to that page, the better. Early in Google’s life this approach was easily spammed, and to this day people continue to try and gain PageRank.

You’ve probably heard advice such as putting your link into blog comments and forums, and within your profile on social networking sites. The problem is that these days these links are all marked as “no follow” links. “No follow” tells Google not to use this link within its determination of the site’s ranking. So in the end, these links count for very little.

The only real way to build links is to create great content that sites want to naturally link to. The issue is that if you are a new blogger, your chances of getting a link are slim to none. There are ways to build them though…

Guest posts

Guest posts (such as this one) will almost always produce a really high-quality link to your site. Don’t guest post just anywhere, though. Google likes it when sites that are similar to yours links to you. So guest post on blogs that have similar themes.

Contests

Running a contest where you give something away is a great way to naturally product lots of links.

Viral content

If a single post or image of yours somehow gets to the first page of Reddit or Digg, you are guaranteed to get tons of links pointing to your site.

Social signals

Both Google and Bing have admitted to using social signals within search results. This is getting more and more prevalent.

However, it’s still a brand new part of SEO, and it hasn’t been thoroughly studied yet. What I can suggest, though, is that you make sure you have a Twitter and Facebook account and that you interact with your followers regularly.

Ultimately, all this advice amounts to one tip for achieving good search rank: create great, high-quality posts and interact with your readers regularly.

Are you doing this already? How’s your search rank looking?

4 Success Secrets of Infamous British Author, Jeffery Archer

2011-06-20T23:19:00.000+08:00

Love him or hate him, there is no denying the phenomenon that is Jeffery Archer. With 27 book titles to his name and international sales passing $250 million, Archer is a phenomenon.

So what can a man as successful as Archer teach you about blogging success?

Lesson 1: Blog about what you know

We have all heard that you should blog about what you love but, according to Archer, you should blog about what you know.

“I always say to people,” said Archer in an interview, “don’t write about goblins; don’t write about wizards just because they’re in. Write what you feel at ease with. Write what you feel good with.”

He gave the example of Jane Austen, whom Archer believes wrote well because she wrote about what she knew.
“Always remember Jane Austen. [She] lived in a small village, and wrote about her mother being unable to get rid of four daughters. Then she wrote about her mother being unable to get rid of three daughters. Then she wrote about her mother being unable to get rid of two daughters. Then she wrote about the daughter.

“And genius—you have to turn the page not only because of her wonderful command of language but because she wrote about what she knew about.”

Lesson 2: Be persistent

Archer’s first book—Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less—was rejected by 13 publishers before being accepted. The 14th gave him a £3000 advance. Most people would not have had the persistence to keep trying after the first five or six rejections, maybe nine or ten if they were pushing it, but Archer kept pushing.

What was persistence worth to Archer? At last count, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, has sold over 27 million copies worldwide. And that is just one of his 27 plus books.

So do not lose hope if a few blogs turn down, worse yet not respond to, your guest post submissions. Do not lose hope if your blog does not open with a bang. Your big break might only be a submission away. Imagine if Archer had given up after the 13th rejection.

Lesson 3: Be a storyteller

The next lesson is that you do not have to be a great writer to be a successful blogger—but you do have to be a great storyteller.

What is the difference?

“I tell audiences all over the world,” explains Archer, “that a writer is someone who is very well educated, who has a tremendous command of language. Patrick White is a classic example. He is unquestionably, unquestionably a great writer, won the Nobel prize and he’s brilliant.”

A storyteller, on the other hand, “begins once upon and a time, and prays.”

While his definition of a storyteller is a little vague, the point he makes is clear. You do not have to have a MA in English to tell a tantalizing story but you do have to tell a tantalizing story to be successful blogger.

Lesson 4: Understand the importance of the inner circle

A woman once asked Archer how he got through his prison sentence.

“I just want to know how did you get through those two years being confined in a cell when you had the world at your feet? How did you get through? I mean, I know if I was put in a jail cell I’d probably commit suicide, I couldn’t survive. I just couldn’t do it.”

“I promise you,” replied Archer, “you’d be fine if your friends stood behind you. I promise you’d be fine. I was inspired by and kept going by my friends. If they’d run away from me, if they’d deserted me, you’re right – I’d have gone under, I’d have given in. But they kept me going.”

This is probably the most important lesson. In order to survive as a blogger, you need someone to believe in you. You need someone who shares your mindset, who thinks it can be done or at least will support you till you find out either way.

You look at most successful people and they have all had someone who supported them through their journey. Goethe had his brother, who sent him money nearly his whole life. Stephen King had his wife who never complained. Jeffery Archer had his friends.

But it does not have to be someone you know personally. You can find an online community, like this one, which will keep you positive and connected.

Have you applied these lessons in your own blogging career somehow? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The Perils and Pitfalls of Blogging in College

2011-06-20T17:19:00.006+08:00

In March of 2010, during my sophomore year at Elon University, I started a blog called the Jersey Jets Fan as a way to exercise my passion for professional football. What originally started as a hobby evolved into much more than that, as I constantly looked to further promote my blog and slowly began to monetize the site.

In January 2011, I launched my second blog, BROcrastinator.com in hopes of capturing a large piece of the male college demographic. While, I’ve had varying degrees of success and made a few dollars along the way, I’ve learned a lot about the blogosphere. Balancing the work load of college as well as maintaining a full-time blog is a difficult thing to do and it certainly has its benefits and pit-falls. Here they are, according to yours truly.

Pros

Real business experience

College is a time in which you’re supposed to learn everything you need to adequately survive in the real world. As a marketing student, I’ve learned my fair share of terms, equations and statistics in college, but only blogging has given me the real world experience that will help me to become successful in the business world.

In the past year and a half blogging, I’ve joined various affiliate networks, spoken with a ton of potential advertisers, hired/fired/kept bloggers, worked with different partner sites and created business opportunities for myself on the way. I’ve never made a lot of money, but it’s been enough to offset the costs of up-keep on my blogs and even to splurge on a few items like new golf clubs.

Resume booster

Whether you’re applying for an internship in the summer, grad school or a full-time job, include your blog in your resume. When I was applying for an internship in sports marketing, my experience as a blogger with the Jersey Jets Fan was one of the key factors that generated employer interest.

A lot of people say they are interested in a subject or have experience in something, but not many people have the dedication to maintain and run an effective blog. If you do, don’t be ashamed, write about it in your resume and it might help you earn that job you’ve been striving for.

Self-esteem booster

Never in a million years when I started blogging did I ever believe my articles would be featured on Sports Illustrated or talked about on the New York Times website. It truly gives you a sense of accomplishment when you work hard and someone notices by featuring your work.

As a blogger who only gets around 400 views a day, sometimes I get discouraged when reading the “quick and easy” success stories of other bloggers who reach a million views overnight. Even though I’ve never had a viral post or even broken 1,000 views in a day, it makes you feel good when someone acknowledges your work.

Cons

Lack of time

While I originally started a blog because I had spare time in college, I soon realized the amount of spare time I had wasn’t enough to take my blogs to where I wanted them to go. There were points in time in which I was too spread out, writing for too many blogs, concentrating on too many social media sites, talking in too many forums. You only have so many hours in a day, and I’ve learned that you must spend them wisely on what works well for you.

At one point, I was writing for a prestigious New York Jets blog in addition to my own. While I was at first honored by the opportunity and experience, I didn’t have enough time to put full effort into both. Something had to give and as much as it pained me, the prestigious blog wasn’t as important to me as my college grades or my own blog.

Lack of capital

Like many of you, one of the reasons I began to blog was because of the chance to make money. I was never hoping for much, just enough for some spending cash on the weekends. However, there have been times when I started to believe the saying, “You have to spend money to make money”. Well, like I just told you, I am cash strapped college kid with a few spare dollars here and there but nothing significant. It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to launch a good looking website with about $100 while others out there are spending thousands.

I’m aware that my blogs aren’t the prettiest thing your eye has ever seen, but I’ve done my best with the money and technological skills I’ve had. While some older bloggers may have the spare cash to drop $10,000 on a beautiful looking website, college bloggers might have to quit at a $50 premium theme. I’m not saying you need money to build a good looking and successful blog, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Overcoming the difficulties

When blogging in college, or on any time constraint, it’s important to make sure you know your priorities. While I place school work over blogging, when I’m not studying, I use that time to advance my blog. I actually spend a lot less time doing school work then I did before blogging because I know I have additional work to attend to when I’m done. The most difficult times can occur during mid-terms and final exams when the stress of multiple classes all come crashing down at once. Sometimes, you just have to put your blogging goals on the backburner for a week, even if your visits and page views have to suffer.

In regards to the lack of money many bloggers have, I’ve learned to make the best with what you have. I originally started with a free WordPress theme and then moved on to a Thesis theme with a premium skin as my blogs advanced. By re-investing almost all of the money my sites have earned, I’ve been able to improve the design and even spend a little money on advertising. While I sometimes wish I had thousands of dollars to spend on my blogs, the reality is I don’t. However, with some smart money management and a little creativity, you can stretch your dollar and take it a long way.

There you have it, those are some of my main advantages and disadvantages to the college blogger. I hope I’ve shed some light on the topic, especially to you college students out there who are looking to potentially start a blog. It’s a tough thing to do, but it is certainly well worth it. I’ve found in blogging that you only get out as much as you put in, but if you put forth a ton of effort, you can find huge rewards.

Optimize the Most Underutilized Page of Your Blog

2011-06-20T17:19:00.003+08:00

Whilst it’s easy to get excited about crafting your latest blog post it’s far less likely you’ll be kept awake at night thinking about your blog’s Contact page. Indeed many bloggers don’t even bother to add a Contact page to their blog at all—but this can be a big mistake. As you’re about to discover, when contact pages are done right, they can become one of the most important parts of your entire blog…

The importance of your contact page

Image copyright kpwerker, licensed under Creative Commons

A key blogging concept that sets it apart from running a standard static website is the “community” element. Blogs are built for discussion and networking and any blog worth its salt will have a group of like-minded subscribers reading and contributing on a regular basis.

In the same vein, your Contact page is just one more way to interact with your blog visitors. Here are just a few of the many types of email you might get as a result of having a contact page—just take a look at all these benefits.

Site problems

Spelling mistakes. Grammatical errors. Broken links. Strange page alignments. Despite your best efforts sooner or later a few issues are likely to creep into your blog, either because you failed to proofread your writing before publishing, or because of changes to old posts that you haven’t noticed (such as the removal of photos you’ve linked to, affiliate programs closing down, or linked websites changing their site structure).

Sure, it can be both a little frustrating and embarrassing when someone contacts you to say that something isn’t quite right on your site but would you rather resolve the issue or leave the problem to run for the foreseeable future?

Making it easy to contact you allows your visitors to report any problems they are having with your site. That enables you to not only quickly resolve these, but to really take care of your readers by responding to thank them for the heads-up, apologizing for the situation, and telling them what you’ve done to resolve their problem.

Product review requests

Anyone releasing new products—from publishers to manufacturers—likes to get feedback on new products. It not only helps them make their product the very best it can be, but can also help to make their latest release more visible to potential consumers.

A highly-visible blog written by someone who clearly knows what are talking about can be an ideal avenue for this. It’s not uncommon for the blogger to be contacted in person and offered free products to look at that closely relate to the subject of their blog.

Without a Contact page, you make it very difficult for anyone to offer these to you. You miss out on potentially interesting and unique content, and freebies too!

Affiliate program invitations

The most profitable affiliate campaign I have ever run was as a result of being approached through the Contact form on one of my blogs. The gentleman who contacted me was one of the founders of a well-known online company who had since sold it and was setting up a new venture. He’d tweaked his sales process to within an inch of its life and was looking for a few beta testers.

That one affiliate program replaced my full-time income the day I added the links to my site.

And it was all because I ran a visible blog and was easy to contact. Without my Contact form, I’d never have been invited to join this “private” affiliate program and would be literally tens of thousands of dollars worse off.

Visitor questions

Ever wonder what your blog visitors really want to read about? Ever spend hours working on a post only for it to get little or no response from your subscribers?

Actually getting out there and surrounding yourself with your readers is one of the very best ways to create a uniquely tailored blog that’s perfectly in line with the interests and expectations of your audience.

And one ideal way to understand your visitors better is quite simply to pay attention to the questions you get asked. Look for common themes that you’re asked about on a regular basis and construct blog posts that specifically target these.

Advertising inquiries

A friend of mine with a small travel blog recently got contacted by an online advertising company which offered her a monthly advertising deal that, by itself, is equivalent to around 50% of the salary from her job. And all she has to do is paste a few adverts into her blog—a job that will take a few hours at most.

A 50% pay rise just for being easy to contact? Yes, contact pages really can bring in some amazing opportunities.

Media inquiries

The media constantly needs “experts”—for interviewing, fact-checking, raising awareness, consultancy and so on—and a visible and easily-contactable blogger makes a perfect target for these media professionals.

All these benefits from having a contact page on your blog that’s easy to find and encourages feedback? Hopefully you’re starting to see why you need to overhaul your Contact page! But what should you do to make the most of all these opportunities?

Contact page best practices

Make it easy to find

The first step with publishing a Contact page is to make it easy to find. Ensure that anyone who wants to contact you can quickly and easily find your Contact page.

A great service for helping you understand how easy your website is to use is UserTesting, where real visitors who have never been to your website are set assignments (such as “Find my Contact page”). They carry out these challenges on video while describing their thoughts so you can exactly how real-life visitors view your site, and how easy it is to navigate.

Encourage feedback

A well-designed Contact page doesn’t just provide information on how to get in touch with you—it actively encourages anyone reading your page to drop you a line. Let it be known that you love to hear from your readers, that you’re a real person and that you genuinely value their feedback.

Set realistic expectations

What should your visitors expect when they contact you? Try to improve the whole experience for your readers by giving advice on how long it normally takes you to respond to different types of queries, what type of contact you encourage (and what you simply don’t have the time to respond to), and so on.

Even consider giving tips on how you like to be contacted. For example do you prefer email, phone, Twitter, or Facebook? Do you prefer detailed messages, or short, to-the-point contacts? Are there any essential elements that your visitors need to ensure they include in their message to you?

List your social media profiles

Too many contact pages simply provide an email address on which you can be contacted. However, if you’re a blogger you’re probably involved in social media in a variety of ways, so your Contact page is another great place to list these profiles, thus offering more opportunities for interaction and growing your social network.

Add a Contact form

There are two problems with simply providing an email address on your Contact page. The first is that there is a risk your email address will be harvested by spammers who will then bombard you with junk email. The other is quite simply that you make it more difficult for people to contact you—and as a result you will reduce the number of messages you receive.

While it seems like a tiny thing having a Contact form that readers can fill in and send straight from your Contact page will make life significantly easier for your visitors and so encourage them to contact you.

Does your blog have a contact page? Has it helped you connect with your readers, the media, and others? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

A Blog, a Book and a Business: One Author’s Journey

2011-06-20T17:19:00.000+08:00

This guest post is by Kevin Cullis of MacStartup.com.

I don’t like writing. Or should I say, I used to not like writing. My reason? I found no reason to write other than writing a college paper or something for work; it was a requirement; I had to do it.

I was bored with my computer sales job and still had plenty of talent and motivation to do something—but nowhere to channel it.

One day at work I had an idea: use my talents to write about my experience. Initially I had no clue where this was going to lead me, much like spontaneously taking a late night drive on a country road and only seeing as far down the road as your headlights will shine: let’s just head out into the open road of writing and see where it leads!

My book idea

To start, I just began writing, and days turned into weeks. My idea was to combine both business processes and computer solutions into one content document, not separating these into one subject or another and then into finer and finer details like other writers have done.

This writing was different from my previous efforts: I now had an outlet for my pent-up boredom and an engaging interest in my subject matter because it combined both my talents and experience selling computers to businesses. In addition, I had daily, ready-made access to content and a list of potential readers.

Whenever I came across something relevant in my work, I wrote it down—both the problem and solution. As my writing began to take shape, I organized the information into specific and logical sequential steps for my future potential business readers. My realtor wife even became a guinea pig in my endeavor. When I heard the familiar “Honey, I need some help,” I’d go in to help her, taking notes, and writing the solutions down when I was done.

Now for my blog

One day, a business customer recommended turning my writings into a book, and wondered when it would be done so she could buy one. Until then, it was just a writing idea, but now my idea took on a larger goal: to get a book published. I was now seeing farther down that lonely country road with larger and brighter lights of my writing journey.

In 2009, I started a blog because a fellow author said that during the one to two years it would take to write a book, my writing would improve and change. Talking with other bloggers, I was told that 250-750 words was an appropriate length for a blog post—and similar to having a goal of writing 1000 words a day for a book. Writing a blog would provide another outlet for increasing my monthly goal word output, and improve my writing skills. Later, I found out that blogging allows one to test out content ideas online and provides both personal and additional perspectives for the readers of the book. Also, an author’s blog almost always points to that author’s book.

In the spring of 2010 I attended the Colorado Independent Publishing Association conference and connected with other professionals in the publishing field. There, a local editor suggested that I use an initial (raised or drop) cap in my book design. I couldn’t afford Adobe’s InDesign or to pay someone to help me. I used Apple’s iWork Pages to write my book, and I had to eat my own dog food. But I did not know how to create a drop cap in Pages.

So I spent three hours finding the answer and, rather than lose this experience because of my infrequent use of it, I posted it on my blog. Within weeks it rose to near the top of my most-viewed articles, and still remains one of my most popular blog posts.

Not only were people hungry for my information, but I have personally referred to my site using my own blog to find long forgotten answers to problems. And if I hadn’t blogged about it, I’d have to revisit the process again. Oh, and when I showed my printed proof to the editor, she didn’t believe that I used a $79 office suite to produce what I did until I showed her the file on my laptop. Then she gave me a B+ for my results.

Book, blog, and business working together

As both my book and blog posts progressed, my blogging experience awakened me to how a blog could be more useful for me. Over time I began noticing trends in my blog statistics. An affinity surfaced when I looked at monthly, quarterly, and even yearly post view counts. Using this information, coupled with my day-to-day interaction with business customers needing computers, I was able to get a much clearer vision of my content for both my book and blog.

When I first blogged, I considered it to be like shooting in the dark in terms of working out what to write about, but over time this multi-sourced feedback helped provide me with content direction. Writing my blog also helped change my book’s content to today’s third version. It’s one thing to scratch your own itch, but it’s even more motivating to get actual, statistical feedback from others who have the same itch that needs scratching.

Going forward from today with my blog, I’ll be using Google Analytics and keyword research to help determine what people are looking for, so that I can provide immediate answers to my ideal blog audience. Using this approach will help narrow down my potential content and solve a customer’s points of pain in the short term, but I have also found that it may not provide a good focus for all of my content. Here’s why. Answers people are searching for comes in two forms and everything in between: I know what I want to know (my drop cap example), and, I don’t know what I want to know (I have no clue what to look for).

The first search is easy. The second one is more important, but it’s solved by awareness and education.

So my future content will take on many forms. While some of my blog posts might be the “thrill of the road hot rod” looking for an adventuresome driving experience of immediate answers, be sure that I’ll also provide “slow, steady, reliable transportation” posts to educate my blog readers to find the right answers to their many different journeys and destinations.

AJ Michalka’s song title states it right—It’s Who You Are—so I write my blog posts about my subjects because it’s who I am. And watch out for the occasional spontaneous “road trip” breakout blog post occurring before a long weekend that just might shake things up a bit.

Can you see potential in your work, interests, and life to combine blog, book, and business? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.

9 Ways to Better Protect Your Blog

2011-05-29T01:39:00.000+08:00

When I think of the amount of time that I’ve invested into my blog and its resources I’m absolutely staggered by the thought of losing any part of it. So I’ve taken certain steps to protect myself, as well as my blog.

Everyone’s blog is at a different level, but regardless of which one you look at, we all have one thing in common: we’ve poured our hearts and souls into them. Here are a few things you can do in order to protect them.

Back up your website

Image used with persmission

You’ve heard that advice before, and if you’ve ever had a catastrophic loss of data that took your website offline for a few hours, or—worse—a few days, I’m sure you’ve remembered it.

Backing up your website is protection from server crashes or hacker attacks, but the only way they are fully effective is if you do them religiously. Determine how often you are going to back up your data, and then simply schedule some time to do it. It takes no more than the click of a mouse usually, but can save you a ton of heartache and grief down the road.

As someone who has experienced a hacker attack, I can tell you it’s not only important to keep the last few copies of your blog, but also a known clean copy in case your backups become corrupted. Often, a website owner may not find out about a virus on his site until he’s already completed several backups. If those are all he has, he’ll be no better off than if he didn’t have any at all.

The majority of hosting companies have cPanel installed for their users. If yours does, simply log in to your control panel, and scroll down to the backup icon. Once you click it, you’ll be taken to the Backup and Restore page, where you can then click on the Download or Generate a Full Backup button. This will provide you with a full backup of the website, emails, and databases, as well as any “custom” email setups you’ve configured such as forwarding. Once the backup has finished you’ll receive an email notification and can then download the backup file to your home or office computer for safe-keeping.

It’s important to note that if you ever do run into a crisis, and do not have a current backup, most hosting providers will generate a copy from their end for a nominal fee. These backups are usually only performed weekly so you could end up a week out of date with your site’s data.

Back up your resources

Backing up your website is only half the battle. Most of us have a ton of resources sitting on our hard drives in the form of ebooks, video courses, guest posts, graphics, podcasts, competition analysis data, as well as programs we use to promote ourselves, build our social networks, or track our keyword rankings, and so much more. I’d recommend creating one master folder that contains all the individual files, so that it can be easily zipped up, labeled and stored on a separate drive or CD.

If you’ve ever downloaded materials off of the Internet you know that files are compressed for both sending and storage. Two of the most popular programs are Winrar, and Winzip. With these, you can simply right-click on the file or folder you’re looking to compress for backup, and choose Add to archive. You’ll then end up with a compressed version of all your important files and programs.

Back up your list

“The money is in the list” is another phrase I’m sure you’re aware of and many internet marketers would assert that it is their most valuable asset, yet very few people bother to back it up. Having your list under a third party’s control leaves you with no recourse should the unthinkable happen, and your list end up being lost forever.

For more information, see Are you protecting your blog’s most valuable asset?

Install protective measures

Using anti-virus measures should be a no-brainer these days, but in case you’ve missed the message, there are literally hundreds of thousands of different viruses out there, and these nasty bugs can not only crash your system, they can also steal passwords, banking information, and much more. Protecting your computer system will ensure that you’re still online tomorrow to make that post, and promote your blog.

Here’s a list of antivirus solutions listed in my personal order of preference.

I’ve used each one of these at one time or another, and they each do a commendable job of keeping you and your computer protected the majority of the time. However, it is worth noting that no antivirus program will protect you from every virus 100% of the time.

Protecting your system is only half the battle. It’s important to also protect your blog from attack. There are several methods you can choose to use to keep the bad guys out. Here are just a few to look into.

Antivirus plugin for WordPress. This monitors your website for changes to the code, and alerts you with an email letting you know when they’re found.
Exploit plugins, which scan your WordPress blog for known exploits and alert you.
Change the default login page. Everyone knows they can usually find the admin page of a WordPress blog by simply adding /wp-admin after the domain. By changing its location, you can effectively thwart would-be hackers.
Make sure file permissions aren’t set to 777 if you can help it. You can change permission settings once you’ve logged in to your site via an FTP client. If you are unsure how, contact your hosting provider and they can direct you, or most likely simply switch them for you. It literally takes a second! See a more detailed set of instructions here.
Use brute force protection so that if the wrong password is entered in too many times the person’s IP address is locked out for a pre-set duration.
Keep up to date with the latest WordPress version. WordPress is great for letting you know when there is an update to any of your plugins, make sure to heed the alerts and update as soon as possible.
Use complex passwords, and limit access to consultants you can trust. A strong password will include upper and lower case numbers and letters as well as a special character mixed in. I’d hate to be the one trying to guess #4Rrtx37EE
Actively monitor your log files to see if anyone is trying to access your site. Hosting panels provide analytics and log files. By checking these from time to time, you can spot unnatural activity and take action to protect yourself!

These are just a few measures you can look into implementing on your blog, but obviously the more secure you can make it, the better.

Find a good web designer

I’m sure many of you have the skill and talent to recode your website from scratch, but there are also many like myself who are at risk of ruining everything each time they try and manipulate the code within their site. While this doesn’t stop me from constantly tweaking and enhancing my blog in order to continually improve it, it does mean that I keep a designer’s phone number on speed dial just in case.

Protect your brand

It’s a simple matter to setup a few Google Alerts to inform you whenever someone mentions your name, your company name, or the name of your blog. These alerts get conveniently delivered to your inbox where you can take a look to see what is being said about you, and can then respond almost instantly while the effect will be maximized.

If you head over to Google Alerts while you’re logged in with your Gmail ID (you will need to have a Google ID, but don’t worry, they’re free and easy to set up), you can enter the terms you’d like to be notified about, and Google will start keeping an eye out for those terms while it’s going about its daily business. Once a website is published or updated with that term, you’ll be sent a notification letting you know.

Protect your content

Unfortunately plagiarism is one of the threats we face as bloggers. Unscrupulous individuals scrape content and reuse it on their own thin sights in order to try and outrank sites such as yours. Fortunately Google does a fairly decent job of choosing the original work and ranking it accordingly. Placing a copyright notice at the bottom of your pages is the first step, but you should also actively scan for stolen articles using sites like Copyscape.com.

Find a blogging buddy

This is just someone you trust who can take care of posting for you while you are away, perhaps on holidays, or an unforeseen absence of another sort. Just as you’d have a neighbor look in on your house, it’s a good idea to have someone you can trust to look in on your blog.

Make a blogging will

Your blog is an asset, and should be treated that way. Even if it’s just a case of creating a document instructing your wife who to contact in case of the need to sell it, or perhaps a full-fledged document that details how everything works, and how to continue running things in case you yourself are unable to do so.

While this might be a morbid thought for some, the thought of losing all the work you’ve invested after a few missed hosting bills is even more unbearable for many. Darren recently wrote a detailed post on the subject.

Getting yourself into a few healthy habits such as the ones listed above can save you time, stress, and money. The peace of mind that will likely result from these actions will more than make up for any inconveniences you incur implementing them.

What tips can you add from your own experience protecting your blog? Share them in the comments.

Why Bloggers Should Also Be Freelance Writers

2011-05-28T22:38:00.000+08:00

Blogging can feel like a long, hard road—especially when you’re starting out. You haven’t hit 100 subscribers, let alone 1,000, and it feels like you’re writing into a vacuum.

And even when you’re a little way down that blogging road, it can still be tough. You might be spending two or three hours a day on blogging—writing content, answering comments, building up friendships on Twitter and Facebook. Chances are, you’re not making much money from it, though.

I’m not going to suggest that you give up. I’m not going to suggest that you work harder, either, pouring more and more hours into your blog.

Instead, I’m going to suggest something which you might never have considered before: becoming a freelance writer as well as being a blogger.

This might sound like a huge step. But really, you just need two key things:

the ability to write well
some contacts who’re willing to pay you.

These might well be challenges—but they’re not insurmountable hurdles.

Prerequisite #1: Being able to write

You certainly don’t have to be a budding Shakespeare in order to write a competent, professional blog post—but you do need a strong grasp of grammar, and the ability to write engagingly.

There are certainly a few sites out there which will pay you for sloppy, lazy content—but the rate of pay will be abysmal. If you’re going to write for a good, reputable blog, your writing needs to be solid. That doesn’t mean flawless (even professional authors have copy-editors) but you should know:

how to construct an engaging blog post, with a gripping introduction, clear message, and strong conclusion
how to format your posts for easy readability, using subheadings, short paragraphs, bold text, and bullet pointed lists
how to adapt your writing style for different purposes—some blogs will want a much more casual approach than others.

I firmly believe that writing is a skill. It comes more easily to some of us than to others, but everyone can learn and improve. (Reading the posts here on ProBlogger is a great start.)

Prerequisite #2: Contacts who can pay you

You might not have many contacts yet, but if you’re thinking about freelancing, you’ll want to start getting to know editors of big blogs and websites. Sure, plenty of jobs are advertised but most higher-paid positions never get publically advertised.

If you feel a bit intimidated by the idea of networking with editors and blog owners, take the pressure off. Believe it or not, big bloggers are human too! I’ve met several of my blogging heroes—like Darren Rowse and Daniel Scocco—and they’re lovely, friendly, normal people.

A great way to strike up contact is by using Twitter or Facebook to send a friendly message letting an editor know how much you enjoyed a recent post. Don’t be smarmy or fake about this—focus on blogs which you personally love.

My first few blogging jobs all came from sending in guest posts. A well-written, targeted guest post is a great way to get an editor’s attention. It proves that you can write, and that you know their audience. (And even if you don’t land a paying job as a result, you’ll still get some traffic to your own blog, plus great exposure.)

You’ve probably got your hands pretty full with just your own blog. You might think it’s not worth taking the time to improve your writing ability, or to build up your contacts.

But here’s why you might want to think again.

You’ll make money (fast)

Of course, money isn’t everything, but if you’re in the problogging game, chances are that you’d like to see some financial reward for your hard slog. Problem is, you can’t attract big advertisers and you don’t have any products to sell yet.

If you write a piece as a freelancer—whether that’s for a blog, a magazine, or a newspaper—then you get paid. For a typical freelance blog post, you’ll receive around $40–$60.

Doesn’t that sound a lot more efficient than watching the pennies trickle into your AdSense account?

The money from your freelance writing might let you quit your day job, so you can put more time into your own blog or other projects (that’s how it worked for me). Or, if you keep your freelancing as a job on the side, it’ll at least let you afford hosting, premium themes, and training materials for your own blog.

You’ll build your blogging network

When you’re Joe Newbie in the blogosphere, you’re probably used to big bloggers ignoring you. It’s not personal—they just don’t have the time to reply to every single comment and tweet.

But when you’re a freelance writer, your editor will definitely know your name. In fact, they’ll probably get to know you while you’re building up your freelancing contacts—perhaps you’ll have been a regular commenter on their blog, or you’ll have sent them a couple of guest posts, before landing that paid gig.

Plus, when you’re regularly having work published on large blogs or websites, other big bloggers will start paying attention to you, too. Instead of trying to get attention to your own blog, you’ll be able to leverage an existing audience—quite possibly one of tens of thousands of readers. And you’ll be getting paid to do it.

Even if you only freelance for a few months, you’ll have made contacts which you can maintain throughout your blogging career.

You’ll get audience feedback

When you publish a post on your own blog, how many comments do you get?

It’s probably not as many as you’d like. Maybe most of your posts seem to sink like pebbles dropped into an ocean—no-one ever sees them, and they don’t make any ripples.

If you write for a blog that’s big enough to pay writers, you’ll get feedback. That might be:

comments from readers who loved the post
comments from readers who hated the post—this can be tough to take, but it can also teach you what doesn’t go down so well
tweets about your post, or Facebook “likes” for it
indirect feedback from the editor—if bits of your post were edited, try to work out why the changes were made
direct feedback from the editor—they may tell you to do more of the same, or they may ask for something different next time
emails from readers—there’s nothing better than a heartfelt message from someone who was really touched by your writing.

As a writer, you need to get feedback on your work: this is how you know what’s going well, and what’s in need of improvement.

You can write about anything you want

This might seem like an odd reason to freelance—but it’s one of the reasons I love it: you get to write on a whole range of topics, and you can often choose exactly what you write about.

If you find it hard to stick with one interest—perhaps your own blog is suffering because you post about several diverse topics—then freelance writing will give you an outlet. You might be writing one post every week or every month, so you won’t run out of things to say.

Plus, writing about lots of different topics is a great way to stay fresh and to continually hone your writing skills. You might end up researching an area that you knew very little about—or writing for an audience of people who have a very different background from yours. Getting out of your writing comfort zone is an essential part of your growth.

I know that the problogging dream is to have your own huge, successful blog with hundreds of thousands of readers, a line of products, some great advertisers and lots of affiliate income. The truth is, though, that it takes an awful lot of time and hard work to get to that stage. So while you’re working your way up, why not give freelance writing a try?

Have you done freelance writing? Share your experiences in the comments—I’d love to hear about them.

Behind the Scenes of Our New Ebook Launch at FeelGooder

2011-05-28T16:37:00.000+08:00

It’s been six months since I launched my latest blog—FeelGooder—and today it’s entering a new phase, so I thought it might be time for a bit of an update.

You might remember back in November we launched FeelGooder and I outlined some of the backstory here on ProBlogger. The blog was a slightly new approach to me for a number of reasons—partly because of the wide niche (it covers everything from health, to relationships, to finance, to social good), but also because I decided to launch without any kind of advertising, and with the intent of monetization without ads.

It was an ambitious task and something of an experiment, but I was excited by the prospect.

Over the last six months, the focus on FeelGooder has really been to build up an archive of content (and a team of authors), and to build up a core readership. We’ve done both, although the going has been a little slower than I’d hoped, mainly because of the juggling I and my team are now doing across multiple websites.

However today we’re moving into a new phase and are launching an ebook: 7 Ways to FeelBetter.

You can read more about it on its sales page, but in short, it’s a week-long challenge for readers to work through. We think it will lift their spirits, help them to feel better about their lives, and hopefully help them to develop some life-changing habits.

I’m very excited about the reaction we’ve been receiving from those who have already reviewed it, and love the way it looks (we’re getting a lot of positive feedback on its design).

A new approach (for me) to launching products

One of the things I’m excited about in this particular ebook launch is that we’re experimenting with a slightly different launch process. Here’s how it looks:

We’re giving the first 500 copies away for free.
We’re then offering the next 500 copies at 50% off ($4.99).
Then we’ll be selling it at its normal price of $9.99.

UPDATE: due to limitations with e-junkie allowing only 100 free copies to be given away per day I’ve had to put the price up to 1 cent for the first 500 buyers.

This is a bit of a departure from my normal launch process, and is one I’m excited to see the results of. You can check out how it’s going over at FeelGooder today, because as this post goes live, we’re starting the giveaway part of the launch.

One of the main reasons I’m taking this approach is that, with a smaller audience on FeelGooder than here on ProBlogger or dPS, I suspect it’ll be a little harder to get momentum going with a new product.

The aim with this giveaway is to get what we think is a great product in front of as many people as possible. My hope then is that with it “out there,” we’ll have some opportunities to grow the momentum as people begin to use it.

One of the ways that we’ll do this is through a push via social media—particularly Twitter. We’re encouraging those who participate in the challenge to use a common hashtag to document what they’re doing with the challenge.

Time will tell how it goes, but I wanted to keep ProBlogger readers up to date as to what we’re experimenting with on FeelGooder.

P.S. Want to give some copies away on your blog?

If your niche relates to that of FeelGooder (life tips, health, relationships, fitness, finance, social good, etc.), any tweets, blog posts or linkups to this great little ebook would be greatly appreciated.

We’re also open to doing a handful of giveaways on related blogs—feel free to contact me via the contact form here on ProBlogger if you think your readership might be interested. Do include a link to your blog and any details of your audience (size, demographics, etc.) with your email.

June is ’31 Days to Build a Better Blog’ Challenge at SITSgirls – Join them Today

2011-05-28T12:36:00.000+08:00

If you’ve been blogging for a while now but feel ‘stuck’ – there’s a group of bloggers about to take the ‘31 Days to Build a Better Blog‘ challenge that you really should consider joining.

The Group is SITSGirls – a blogging community with over 8000 women bloggers – and for the 2nd time they’re running #31DBBB. Last time around was amazing – by my count over 400 bloggers joined that challenge and the impact that I witnessed was pretty profound.

It was the first large group of bloggers that I saw walking through the eBook together and to see so many tackling the daily challenges together and supporting each other through them just highlighted how much more effective blogging can be when you take a communal approach to it. In addition to just working through the eBook there was lots of support in the forum area as well as on Twitter.

The SitsGirls challenge starts on 1 Juneand participants in the challenge get the eBook at 33% off. If you already have the eBook this is the ideal time to put it into action.

The coordinator of the challenge is Shelley from I’m still Standing – you can read her kick off post here.

Everything’s Already Been Said. Now What?

2011-05-28T10:36:00.001+08:00

Over the course of human history, nearly everything has already been written about extensively. Despite this, more people are writing than ever before.

It’s because there will always be more to say.

It is very challenging to write completely original content. Quite often, the best we can do is present known content in a new way or combine it with another idea. There is no limit to the number of ways you can say something, and yet some approaches are vastly superior to others.

Consider the following sentences that carry the same basic message (hint: one of them isn’t any good).

I want to have good sentences.
I want to convey information in a manner that is enjoyable to read and accurate to my intent.

Teach an old idea new tricks

A recent 50-word article from the brilliant Seth Godin laid out a single concept: you can’t have success without being willing to fail. I can prove this isn’t new. My second post was titled, “Are You Willing To Fail? It Is The Key To Success,” and you’ll find about 100 more posts like these via a quick Google search.

What Seth did to make his article unique was tie in the concept of innovation. He replaced “success” with “innovation” in the formula, and people loved it. They hadn’t thought about how innovation and failure relate to each other, even though it’s a simple derivation from the failure/success concept.

As soon as you say, “failure is not an option,” you’ve just said, “innovation is not an option.”
—Seth Godin

Overwritten, tired topics can be re-energized with a fresh perspective and choice words. Seth’s post was 90% recycled information, but the 10% of new material changed it as a whole. A nasty analogy is that of adding a few drops of gasoline to a gallon of water—it has a dramatic effect!

One way to say something old in a new way is to leverage yourself. Great writers are cherished for their unique style. Every single person on this planet is unique (an amazing fact of reality). In an effort to write “correctly,” we may miss out on opportunities to be our more interesting selves.

Here’s an example. The personal development niche is one filled with serious writing. Changing lives is serious business! This observation and some incorrect assumptions about how a personal development blogger should write were stifling my creativity. Namely, I wasn’t injecting ~~steroids~~humor into my posts like I naturally would.

Imitation = Limitation?

How about imitating the greatest writers? Most articles and books I’ve read recommend this. There are some things that you absolutely should imitate, but be careful about taking it too far. If you’re unique in some way, it could be a mistake to disguise that with imitative writing (unless your unique writing attributes are poor). Blogging is a medium that allows for wild creativity and individuality.

I believe that Steve Pavlina is currently the best in personal development blogging. He “gets it.” However, I’m not going to try to be a clone of him. Steve Pavlina is the best Steve Pavlina out there. I may pick up some great ideas or techniques from him, but I’ll be incorporating them into Stephen Guise’s writing style and ideas.

I want to be the best and most innovative voice in personal development and believe I have that potential. What if I fall way short of that? No problem, I’m willing to fail in order to succeed and innovate! You can’t become the best or anywhere close to it believing that 45th best is your upper limit. Do not put a ceiling on your ambition. Imitate great writers on this point—they don’t believe in ceilings unless it is raining outside.

Your ceiling is too low

When you put a ceiling on your potential before you’re exhausted from trying to reach it, you artificially ruin your chances. Like a nervous fan walking up to Jay Z, you’ll be timid about what you’re saying, thinking that successful people have magical powers. In your posts, maybe you’ll throw in some power words to feign confidence. Unfortunately, when the problem is underlying, it will bleed through to the actual content of your writing. You can’t hide it. You’ll play it safe and lose to those who are going all out … like me!

The answer, as I mentioned before, is to leverage yourself and your voice. Nobody can be you better than you. Darren Rowse can’t. Seth Godin can’t. Steve Pavlina might be able to. Their voices are different (and awesome, to their credit). Bonus: If your unique voice is terrible, you’ll find out sooner by trying really hard.

This has been said before

Oops! I’ve just rehashed a couple of cliches in this post.

“Believe in yourself.”
“Reach for the moon, and if you fall short, you might land on a star.” Side note: How did this catch on? The moon is closer to us than any star is….

Those are very common sayings. A possible reason you’re still reading this post is that maybe I’ve found a better or more interesting way to say those things (in just a few more words). Do you think I am audacious to invite comparison of my writing to a couple of the most well-known phrases? Me too, but it’s because I refuse to have a ceiling. I will never rule myself out before the umpire makes the call—and neither should you.

Maybe this post did fall short of those popular sayings and it will be forgotten tomorrow. I accept that as a possibility.

But maybe my perspective of this topic connected with you. Maybe my unique construction of words and ideas had an impact on you. That’s what I hope for. That personal connection is what makes blogging beautiful. That’s why we do it.

How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

2011-05-18T21:24:00.000+08:00

After all, that’s the dream, right?

Forget the mansions and limousines and other trappings of Hollywood-style wealth. Sure, it would be nice, but for the most part, we bloggers are simpler souls with much kinder dreams.

We want to quit our jobs, spend more time with our families, and finally have time to write. We want the freedom to work when we want, where we want. We want our writing to help people, to inspire them, to change them from the inside out.

It’s a modest dream, a dream that deserves to come true, and yet a part of you might be wondering…

Will it?

Do you really have what it takes to be a professional blogger, or are you just being dumb? Is it realistic to make enough money from this to quit your job, or is that just silly? Can you really expect people to fall in love with what you write, or is that just wishful thinking?

Sure, it’s fun to dream about your blog taking off and changing your life, but sometimes you wonder if it’s just that: a dream. This is the real world, and in the real world, dreams don’t really come true.

Right?

Well, let me tell you a little story…

How I quit my job

My van

In April of 2006, I was hit by a car going 85 miles an hour.

I didn’t see him coming, and I don’t remember much about the accident, but I do remember being pulled out of my minivan with my shirt on fire. The front end of the van was torn off, gasoline was everywhere, and my legs were broken in 14 places.

For the next three months, I had nothing to do but endure the pain and think about my life. I thought about my childhood. I thought about my dreams. I thought about my career.

And overall, I decided I didn’t like the way things were going.

So I quit.

I sold everything I owned. I stopped paying most of my bills. I turned in my letter of resignation, worked my two weeks, and then disappeared without saying goodbye.

Hearing about my insanity, a friend called and asked me, “Well, what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “Maybe start a blog.”

And so that’s what I did.

For the next three months, I didn’t just tinker around with blogging. I dedicated myself to it. I started work at 8 AM in the morning, and I kept going until 11 PM at night. I didn’t watch television. I didn’t see my friends. From morning till night, I was writing, reading, and connecting with other bloggers. Nothing else.

Within a month, I had On Moneymaking off the ground, and within two months, it was getting 2,000 visitors a day and Performancing nominated it for the best business/money blog of the year. A couple of months after that, Brian Clark asked me to become the Associate Editor of Copyblogger, and so I sold On Moneymaking for five figures and went to work at one of the most popular blogs at the world.

And amazingly, that’s just the beginning of the story.

How I moved to paradise

Have you ever woken up one day and realized you secretly despise everything about where you live?

The weather is horrible. Your neighbors are jerks. You don’t like inviting anyone to your home, because it’s always a wreck, and you’re ashamed of how it looks.

Well, that’s exactly what happened to me in January of 2009. I was sitting in my pathetic apartment, wrapped up in blankets to keep warm, trying to get some work done on the computer, when it struck me how monumentally stupid it was.

I was a full-time blogger, for God’s sakes. I could do my work from anywhere in the world. Why on Earth was I living in this hellhole?

The only problem was I had no idea where I wanted to go, but a couple of weeks later, the telephone rang, and it was an old friend who had retired to Mazatlan, Mexico. As usual, he was calling to gloat about the weather and the food and the general superiority of the Mexican lifestyle, but instead of just suffering through it this time, I stopped him and said, “No, don’t tell me any more. I’m moving there.”

My office

“What? When?” he stammered.

“I don’t know exactly when,” I told him, “but I’m starting right now.”

Two months later, I took a one-week trip to scout it out and look for places to live. When I got back, I started selling all of my stuff, packing the rest of it into storage, and saying goodbye to friends. Almost one year to the day after our phone call, I hopped in the car and drove just shy of 3,000 miles to my new beachfront condo in the finest resort in Mazatlan.

As I write this, I’m sitting on my balcony with my laptop, watching (no kidding) dolphins jumping out in the Pacific. It’s a sunny day, there’s a nice breeze, and I’m thinking about ordering a piña colada from the restaurant downstairs.

Lucky me, right?

Well, what might surprise you is I left out a piece of the story. It’s the part where I have a fatal disease, I can’t move from the neck down, and yet I essentially get paid to help people. Let’s talk about that part next.

How I get paid to change the world

You know what’s funny?

Yours truly

The worst part about having a disease like SMA isn’t how everyone treats you like a charity case. It’s not the frustration, anger, or depression. It’s not even the inability to reach over and pinch a cute girl’s butt when you want to (although that’s pretty bad).

No, the worst part is the freakin’ bills. The doctors. The medication. The nurses.

I added it all up, and the total cost of keeping me alive in the US was $127,000 a year. That’s not rent. That’s not food. That’s justmedical expenses.

Granted, I didn’t actually have to pay all that. I had private insurance, Medicaid, other government aid programs, but all that support comes at a price: they control you. The government allotted me only $700 a month to live on, and I had to spend every single cent above that on medical expenses, or they would cut me off.

So for years, that’s what I did. If I made $5,000 one month, I set aside $700 for living expenses, and I spent the other $4,300 on medical bills. Nothing was left. Ever.

And eventually, I got sick of it.

I wanted to make money without having to worry about losing my healthcare. I wanted to take care of my family, instead of them always having to take care of me. I wanted to actually live somewherenice, not some ratty little apartment built for folks below the poverty line.

The only problem was, it just wasn’t possible for me in US. No matter how I played with the numbers, I couldn’t make it work. So, I did something crazy:

I quit Medicaid. I moved to Mexico. I stopped worrying about myself at all and started a business based on one simple idea:

Helping people.

I found up-and-coming writers who wanted a mentor, and I trained them. I found businesses who wanted to cash in on social media, and I developed their strategy. I found bloggers who wanted more traffic, and I created a course on how to get it.

In exchange, they paid me what they could. Some folks gave me $50 an hour and others $300 an hour, but I treated them all the same, and I dedicated myself to making their dreams a reality.

The results?

Within two months, I was making so much money so fast PayPal shut down my account under suspicions of fraudulent activity. Today, not only am I making more than enough to take care of myself, but a couple of months ago, I got uppity and bought my father a car.

Do you understand how precious that is? For a guy who can’t move from the neck down to buy his father a car?

And the best part is, I’m not making money doing mindless drudgery. I’m changing people’s lives.

Every day, I get emails from readers who say my posts have changed their thinking. Every day, I get emails from students who say my advice has changed their writing. Every day, I get emails from clients who say my strategies have changed the way they do business.

I can’t really believe it. Normally, a guy like me would be wasting away in a nursing home somewhere, watching television and waiting to die, but here I am speaking into a microphone and essentially getting paid to change the world. If my fingers worked, I’d pinch myself.

And here’s the thing:

I don’t want it for just me. I want it for you too.

The reason I told you this whole story wasn’t just to brag but also to convince you of one incontrovertible point:

YOU CAN DO THIS!

You want to quit your job and become a professional blogger?

You can.

You want to travel around the world, living life to its fullest?

You can.

You want to dedicate your every hour to helping people and making the world a better place?

You can.

Because listen … I know it’s horribly cliché, but if I can quit my job, risk the government carting me off to a nursing home because I can’t afford my own healthcare, convince my poor mother to abandon her career and drive my crippled butt 3,000 miles to a foreign country, and then make enough money to support myself, my mother, my father, and an entire nursing staff using nothing but my voice, then what can you accomplish if you really set your mind to it?

My guess: pretty much anything.

No, it won’t be easy. At some point, I guarantee you’ll want to quit. I guarantee people will treat you like you’re insane. I guarantee you’ll cry yourself to sleep, wondering if you made a horrible mistake.

But never stop believing in yourself. The world is full of naysayers, all of them eager to shout you down at the slightest indication you might transcend mediocrity, but the greatest sin you can commit is to yourself become one of them. Our job isn’t to join that group, but to silence it, to accomplish things so great and unimaginable that its members are too awed to speak.

You can do it.

I believe in you.

So get started.

Right freaking now.

5 Tornado Ingredients that’ll Ensure Your Next Post Turns Viral

2011-05-18T19:23:00.000+08:00

You know what it’s like to blunder into an article that seizes your attention?

I do mean seize. Not something that charms your gaze for thirty seconds, then falls apart. I mean something you are absolutely compelled to read. Don’t misunderstand me to mean flicking through the bullets and skimming some juice. I’m talking about the business of being perfectly glued to every word.

Image used with permission

In such a construction, the blog post is a dense nugget of gold that cannot be ignored. It forces you to leave a red-hot comment. It induces you to shout and thank the writer from the bottom of your heart. It literally changes your day. It refuses to be forgotten.

Content that demands such behavior is termed viral. If you ever encountered such content, I need say no more—you know precisely what I’m talking about.

You don’t grudge reading this sort of content. It reads itself to you. You don’t guiltily sense a squandered ten minutes’ precious living. You return to your labors fresher and jubilant.

Have you ever contemplated the fate of viral content? I tell you, it spreads. It gets an unholy amount of likes and retweets. It hogs traffic and steals comments. It snatches email subscriptions and hugs them forever.

In the opening three months of my blog, I experienced the sensation of having more than a thousand people read a single article. It was enough to kill a better man than I.

Traffic is power, and power is addictive. If you resemble the average healthy blogger, you crave to write just one article that spreads like wildfire. If you more resemble the likes of an obsessed writer, you dream of constituting wildfire every single time you hit Publish.

Regardless of how gravely Blogging Syndrome has stricken you, there are five tornado ingredients that ensure your next post turns viral.

1. Steal your first 50-100 subscribers in solid guest posting

If your blog already has subscribers, you can skitter past this step. But the opening prescript to viral content is building an audience. It doesn’t have to be a big one—but it’s important in getting step two right.

Play your cards wisely and you’ll breeze through this step quickly. My brand-new blog had 89 subscribers after I appeared on ProBlogger. Even if you’re a painter or dentist, write a guest post for ProBlogger. You don’t have to be “professional.” If you’re a blogger at all, you’ve some fresh fodder to share with the community. Readers will subscribe to your blog because after all, some of them are painters and dentists too. I know this for a fact!

2. Write what your audience is passionate about

Hands down, this is the single most important component to viral content.

Nobody cares what you’re passionate about. If you write with gusto and expect every one to catch your enthusiasm, you’ll fail. As Sonia Simone likes to say, just because you’re a serial fangirl of broccoli ice cream doesn’t mean you’ll be able to persuade anybody to buy it. Don’t bleed your dreams and enthusiasm on the screen and assume it’ll rub into your readers. It usually doesn’t.

The fundamental key to crafting viral content is to write what your audience needs to read.

Pay close attention to what your subscribers talk about. Read their comments and blog posts. Talk to them through email and Twitter. Tickle their pulse. Learn what keeps them awake at night.

Once you have a sense of their problems, write about it. Confirm their suspicions. Allay their fears. Encourage their beliefs. Support their ambitions. Reveal their mistakes. In a word, be viral.

3. Develop a smashing headline

Ninety percent of bloggers don’t understand the crucial job their headlines play. On social networks and email subscriptions, the headline is the first or only thing people see. It needs to be bang-up for them to click. There’s lots of noise on the Internet and you need to dynamite your way into people’s attention.

Take your time. Do research. Analyze synonyms. Write and rewrite. Sleep on it. Choose nouns, adjectives, and adverbs that are clever, unique, evil, exciting, extraordinary, provocative, or stimulating. Example: it’s not every morning you see “tornado” in a headline. It catches your eye, see?

4. Don’t write for just your audience

In order for your content to spread outside your own network, craft it to suite a large audience. This doesn’t mean you become generic and lose your flavor. Rather, make the article stand alone without a lot of necessary introductions and inside information.

In short, a total stranger needs to be able to understand and benefit from your article without having to read six preceding articles. I visit blogs that don’t make sense because there’s too tight a flow from the last five months. It’s very difficult to get bulky, presumed knowledge off the ground. Viral content must stand alone.

Write with a newbie’s eyes. Those are the ones you need to attract. Once you get a complete stranger to properly relate to your content, your regular readers will relate to it too. If you wordsmith your content correctly, everything falls into place beautifully.

Part of writing for a larger audience means you cannot talk about yourself much. Don’t begin your posts with “Lately I’ve been thinking” or “here’s my opinion.” Cut out the Is and mys. When you refer to yourself, make sure you’re doing it to create value for the reader, not just mumble your diary. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Never forget that.

5. Don’t blog too much

Write your hands off, but don’t blog too much. It’s impossible to offer viral content on a daily basis, so don’t publish often. Instead, spend more time writing each article. Jon Morrow, the associate editor of Copyblogger, spent four hours on a recent headline—just the headline. I spent a good five or six hours on this article.

As you become renowned for publishing viral content, people will eagerly read everything you write. The viral strength of your work will build on itself. Publishing less often requires patience, but the rewards are worth it.

Get with it

Maybe you’re asking yourself, “If it’s this easy, why don’t more bloggers go viral?” In a word, most bloggers are lazy. Being viral isn’t extremely difficult, but you have to know your plan and stick with it. If you’re serious about writing a blog that’s read by thousands of people, I can assure you from experience that you’re only a few weeks away.

Have you had your posts go viral? What are your tips for making viral content?

Writing for You, and Why it Works to Draw Others to Your Blog

2011-05-18T17:22:00.000+08:00

There’s one common thing about the four blogs that I run today—I started them all for myself.

ProBlogger Blog Tips: When I started ProBlogger I was experimenting with the medium of blogging to make a living. I was already doing it to some extent, but I’d been looking for a blog on how to do it better and couldn’t find it. So I started it myself with the goal of improving my blogging and connecting with others who were blogging for an income.
Digital Photography School: My previous photography blog was about camera reviews (which I partly started because I was researching cameras to buy), but after a couple of years of using a digital camera I wanted to connect with other digital camera owners to learn from them. Most of the photography sites around back then were either focused upon film or were stagnant info sites without dynamic, updated content, so I started dPS in an attempt to document what I was learning and connect with others in the space.
TwiTip Twitter Tips: Similar to the start of ProBlogger, TwiTip was a blog that I wanted to read about a medium that I was experimenting with.
FeelGooder: This blog was all about topics that I’ve always wanted to have a blog on. I’ve long wanted to read a blog that helped people lead a more positive life, and while there are some great ones about, I started FeelGooder based upon some core topics that I wanted to grow in and explore.

I started each of these blogs at least partially with my own need to learn and grow in mind. Interestingly, in each case I’m not sure I’d call myself an “expert” on the topics I’m exploring. In the beginning of each blog I certainly had an interest, but I was also still growing in my understanding of the topics involved.

I contrast the above list with most of the other blogs that I’ve started over the years (ones which failed), and in most cases I feel that they at least partially failed because I didn’t really have an interest in the topics—I was writing them more because I thought they could be popular or profitable.

Why writing for you works

Why does writing for yourself work? Three main reasons come to mind.

Firstly, since you’re writing about something that you are personally interested in, you’ll find people are more drawn to it because it’ll be written in a more engaged and personal tone. People tend to have pretty good intuition in this way—if you’re not really engaged, the chances are that your audience won’t be either.

Secondly, because you’re engaged, you’ll find it a lot easier to sustain the blog for the long term. It’s tough to keep a blog going for a year or more when you’re not really interested in the topic!

Lastly, you’ll be writing about real needs, problems, and learning. Because you’re writing about a topic you have something invested in personally, you’ll be a lot more in tune with real needs of those who are reading. For example, on dPS in the early days, I was writing about the basics of digital photography as I discovered them for myself. While I wasn’t an expert teaching a comprehensive guide to the topic, readers seemed to connect on a deeper level because I was writing from their perspective about challenges that they were feeling and facing in their own photography.

Do you write for you? I’d love to hear your take on this issue in the comments.

Setting Personal and Professional Boundaries for Your Blog

2011-05-18T15:22:00.000+08:00

Boundaries in blogging are more important than you can imagine, because they set the tone for your blogs and for your relationships on and off line.

I never considered the concept of setting personal boundaries on a blog until a guest-blogger asked if he should publish a particular article on my site. His fear was that his story could hurt his wife’s feelings. It was our ensuing discussion that clued me in to how many personal boundaries I had set with my own blog.

Want to know why that sounds weird? Because my blog talks a lot about relationships, physical intimacy, and other “taboo” topics. Somehow we have managed to walk a fine line.

Here are some boundaries you may want to consider for your blog, based on those I’ve set for the creation of my blog.

Personal relationships

I rarely speak in a way that refers specifically to my family or to my friends. This protects their identities and protects the integrity of my relationships with them offline. In addition, I can tell you that my family and friends are not going to want their personal experiences shared with the world in a way that identifies them.

Experiences that we share are often discussed and hidden behind third-person tales. Those relationships are sacred, and I don’t want what I do to hurt them. That is my bottom line.

Be careful what you write about your family, including your mother-in-law. Assume that what you say will be read one day. Those little ones will be teens one day and may not appreciate every one of their embarrassing school moments told to their mother’s 15,000 closest friends.

Language

We choose our language carefully. Using curse words seems to be a strong line. Your basic four-letter words set tone. I do not curse on my site. Do you see a lot of curse words on ProBlogger?

I sum it up this way. Do you want to be the New York Times or the National Inquirer? Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of profitable tabloids. However, language sets the character of your blog. One is taken more seriously in some circles, and is avoided in others.

I can tell you that if I used curse words, I would lose my more family-focused followers. So that is a conscious decision for me. Curse words set off alarm bells in certain readers just as they attract others.

Tone

To judge or not to judge? That is the question. Here we are referring to people, mostly, and the things they do. ProBlogger is an incredibly positive and reinforcing site. Even when sites review products, it can be done respectfully or harshly and critically. Both approaches have their pros and cons.

When we speak about taboo topics, it is done in a respectful tone without degrading others, and while being open to lots of different perspectives. This philosophy of tone can be applied to just about any subject.

What if you cross a boundary?

If you cross a boundary, admit it. The most powerful blog posts I’ve seen arise when a blogger admits his or her mistakes. Another approach is to set yourself up for making mistakes from the beginning, by laying out expectations on your site. One place to do this is on the Mission page of your site.

Now, it’s time for you to choose your boundaries. You probably already have subconsciously. Make your own set of rules. Make them on the basis that one day, your blog and its contents could be the center of a large group’s dinner discussion that you are attending. The conversation that follows with friends should be interesting because of your work, but not embarrassing…

Do you have any personal rules or boundaries you have successfully made for your site?