You’re interested in blogging. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be here.

For that reason, I’m not going to bang on about how ‘the money is in the list’, because I’m sure you’ve heard it countless times.

Assuming that we both know quite how powerful email marketing can be, you probably arrived at this article looking for effective ways to quickly grow your email list.

Well lucky for you, today I’m going to show you three very powerful, easily actionable ways to explode your email list.

A Brief Look at ‘Normal’ List Building

More and more people are starting to realize the power of email marketing, and so more lists than ever are building built.

However, if you really want to out-grow your competition, you need to get creative, and build on the ‘normal’ techniques used by most bloggers.

By ‘normal’ techniques I mean the following:

• Including opt-in forms on your blog (usually in the sidebar, or under posts)
• Offering a free incentive such as an ebook for joining your list
• Having a specific page on your site for building your list (such as our landing page for our 7 day blogging course.

Now, I totally recommend that you do all of these things, as they are great ways to start building your list.

However, the trouble is that not only is everyone doing them, but they have become the bare minimum of what any aspiring email marketing should be doing.

3 Tried and Tested Strategies for Exploding Your List

At Blogs.FanExtra we’re not interested in doing the bare minimum. That’s why today I’m going to expose three simple, actionable, but highly powerful list building strategies that I’ve seen work wonders.

Here we go…

Web Designer Depot’s ‘Zero Bundle’

Web Designer Depot is a huge blog in the design niche, and has grown their email list to a staggering 150,000+ emails in a relatively short time. When it comes to list building, they’re the masters!

One of their most successful list building campaigns was their Zero Bundle.

The idea is that there had been some really popular premium product bundles released in the design niche, so why not release a bundle of similar quality but offer it for free!

They put together a bundle that was such high quality people would have gladly paid for it, and then simply gave it away. The one catch – you had to enter your email to download the bundle.

The Zero Bundle site helped explode Web Designer Depots email list in a very short space of time.

Let’s take a look at why this site was so effective for list building:

• The bundle was giving away premium quality for free. Giving up your email for this type of content is a no brainer.
• The bundle (like premium bundles) was limited time. The counter ticking down to bundle expiration was a great incentive for people to sign up now, rather than later, resulting in a surge of sign ups.
• Because of the unique nature of the bundle (all other bundles at the time were premium), it went viral on social media.
• Even after the bundle expired, there is an email sign up form to notify you of the next bundle (see above image). This is great for gathering emails of people who feel like they missed out on the last bundle, or want immediate access to the next one.

Beyond these main reasons, there is a deeper psychological reason why the bundle became such a huge success:

It felt like an event.

The Zero Bundle became more like an online event than a list building tactic.

Think about it. You aren’t going to get hoards of people on social media shouting about how you have an email sign up form in your sidebar. It’s never going to happen.

By making the Zero Bundle a big launch event loads of people were discussing it and it spread like wildfire.

Think Traffic’s ‘Traffic Toolbox’

In a world where everyone and their mum is offering a free ebook to email subscribers it’s time to do something with a little more impact!

That’s exactly what Corbett Barr over at Think Traffic did.

Rather than offer a single freebie for his email subscribers, he set up Traffic Toolbox.

The idea is that this acts like a kind of members area for subscribers, where they can access multiple pieces of private content.

Corbett includes business templates, helpful videos, blueprints and more for his subscribers.

The Traffic Toolbox acts like a members area, full of useful resources for email subscribers.

Let’s look at why this approach as been so effective for gathering emails:

• It offers more value than most sites that only offer one freebie. By offering several resources Corbett is able to out-value his competition.
• The perceived value and ‘behind the scenes’ allure of a members-area type setup is more appealing to people than a regular ‘download’ link. People are more likely to sign up to access a ‘VIP’ or ‘private’ area.
• The Traffic Toolbox is constantly evolving, so like a members area new resources are being added over time. This helps increase the perceived value further, and makes it feel like static and more like a constantly improving mini-site.

PSD.FanExtra’s Freebies

As I’ve recently begun to focus on my own email marketing I had to include a recent experiment of mine. For the record, this is certainly not a strategy that’s totally unique, but it’s still pretty under used (particularly outside of the design niche).

I decided to offer a freebie on my site (as I have done before), but this time make it email opt-in to access.

You can view the freebie and post here: Freebie: Smooth UI Kit.

The Free Smooth UI Kit has acts as a great additional way to build my email list for PSD.FanExtra

So how did it perform?

Pretty nicely to be honest. Not amazingly, but this is really a pretty small freebie, a simple, but cool looking UI kit. I also promoted it a little, but I could have done more, and it’s certainly not gone viral or anything like that.

That being said, I’ll easily get over 100 opt-ins from this freebie in it’s first month online.

Not mind blowing, but certainly a very easy, effective way to boost my email list numbers, especially considering that my email lists for PSDFAN were only started recently (I know, dumb decision!).

The real power of this strategy comes from it’s potential.

You see… I’m going to be releasing more freebies like this in the future.

If each freebie easily attracts 100 opt-ins in it’s first month (some should attract considerably more), and if I release 1 freebie each month, then that’s 1200 opt-ins in a year.

Of course the number of sign ups will drop off and then plateau for existing freebies, but it’s easily to continually promote past freebies via my social media. Let’s say that each freebie gets downloaded an additional 20 times each month (being realistic).

Here’s how my list would grow over 12 months:

• January freebie: 320 opt-ins (over 12 months)
• February freebie: 300 opt-ins (over 11 months)
• March freebie: 280 opt-ins (over 10 months)
• April freebie: 260 opt-ins (over 9 months)
• May freebie: 240 opt-ins (over 8 months)
• June freebie: 220 opt-ins (over 7 months)
• July freebie: 200 opt-ins (over 6 months)
• August freebie (180 opt-ins (over 5 months)
• September freebie (160 opt-ins (over 4 months)
• October freebie (140 opt-ins (over 3 months)
• November freebie (120 opt-ins (over 2 months)
• December freebie (100 opt-ins (over 1 month)

Total: 2520 opt-ins.

Now bear in mind that this strategy is in addition to my main list building strategies and you can see how it’s a very actionable, easy way to boost your email list.

And what if I decide to release 2, 3, or even 4 freebies each month? Well you get the idea…

Important Lessons Learned

Looking at these three examples it should be clear that you could (and should) be doing more to grow your email lists.

What’s great is that each of these techniques can be used in virtually any niche, and don’t take too much effort to set up.

Here are some broad lessons that I think can help:

• More value = more emails. Go nuts with the value that you give to your email subscribers. If your competitors offer a free ebook then you offer 5, plus training videos. Think premium product quality, then offer it for free.
• Increase perceived value. Almost as powerful as real value, perceived value is how valuable your subscription rewards appear to your potential subscribers. Increase perceived value through awesome digital packaging, exclusivity (the feeling of a private members area), and regular updates.
• Launch mini-sites and online events promoting unbelievable subscriber only products/deals/bundles. Promote these heavily.
• Make your freebies opt-in. If you’re offering quality freebies people should be happy to sign up.

And most powerfully of all…

• Combine as many methods as you can! If you have the basic opt-in boxes on your site, a cool subscriber-only area on your site, regular opt-in freebies, and several mini-sites offering opt-in bundles then you’ll be growing your list through a variety of channels simultaneously. This is how to really explode your list.

What Do You Think?

I’d love to know what you think about these advanced strategies, and I really hope that you’ll try at least one of them. They’re a great way to build up your email lists, and are all very actionable.

If you’re reading this blog then it’s very likely that you’re either involved in, or at least familiar with the make-money-online niche.

It’s a very lucrative niche, and a great one to be part of. However, owing to the promise of huge financial success the niche has to be one of the most competitive.

Whilst awesome content is the best way to stand out in any niche, this is no longer enough in the make-money-online niche. It seems as if every blogger has kicked their marketing efforts up a notch. It’s impossible to see any self respecting blogger in the make-money-online niche who isn’t building a solid email list, offering free (or premium) products and generally marketing themselves like crazy.

In a niche where everybody is at the top of their game (or at least putting in a hell of a lot of effort to get noticed) how do you become successful?

Well the answer may surprise you…

Choose a different niche.

If you’ve been used to working within the make-money-online niche you’ll find it much easier to stand out in an alternate niche.

How to Dominate Alternate Niches

If you look at any other niche online the competition is MUCH less than the make-money-online niche.

If you listen to the experts they will frequently tell you to avoid the make-money-online niche like the plague and pick a different niche that suits your talents.

I started my largest blog in the graphic design niche (which has since also become really over saturated).

Most experts in the make-money-online niche became successful in another niche, and ONLY THEN started blogging about HOW they became successful.

If you haven’t yet become successful online then don’t blog about online success!

Reuse the Strategies That Have Failed For You

Because of the tremendous amount of competition, it’s entirely likely that even if you market yourself day and night you’ll still fail in the make-money-niche.

This can leave a lot of bloggers wondering ‘what did I do wrong??’.

You may have done everything right, but unfortunately it’s just a tough niche to break into. It can take some of the best figures in the niche years to make any serious headway.

The beauty of entering an alternate niche is that the same marketing tactics will apply, but they will be infinitely more effective!

Consider the following marketing tactics:

• Building a responsive email list.
• Setting up a stream of quality follow up emails.
• Being active on social media
• Having an awesome website design.
• Offering incredible freebies to your audience
• Upselling premium services to your audience.
• Split testing your emails and website pages to optimize performance.

All of these have become the ‘standard’ within the make-money-niche. They are what everyone is doing as a bare minimum.

However, in most other niches these types of tactics WILL make your stand out. If you look at most websites their marketing SUCKS.

You’ll be giving yourself a huge advantage by using the same tactics that may have failed for you in the make-money-online niche.

In the past advanced marketing was left to the corporate giants, but today we have access to a range of tools and services that allow us to market ourselves like pros for very little money.

Using ‘bog standard’ techniques in one niche can work wonders in another. It’s all relative, and by being more marketing savvy than your competition you’ll be far more likely to dominate your niche.

The Delay of Realization

I’ve noticed a pattern across online niches that has proven true for as long as I can remember.

Creative and innovative marketing tactics that become the norm in the make-money-online niche take several years to become prevalent in other niches.

More and more websites are now starting to build up their email lists as they’re realizing how valuable it can be to their business. However, blogs in the make money niche have been doing this for many years. The expression ‘the money is in the list’ was coined before I even got into blogging.

It’s only since I’ve become more involved in the make-money-online niche that I’ve started to build up email lists on my other blogs and take their marketing more seriously. If I had have marketed these sites properly from the start they could honestly be 10 times larger than they are today.

What Can You Do?

You may be wondering what you can do to dominate alternate niches.

Well read on intrepid bloggers:

• Become involved in the make-money-online niche and read many of the top blogs. Soak up as much marketing/business know-how as you can.
• If you have a blog in an alternate niche then use your marketing knowledge to grow it more effectively.
• If your only blog is in the make-money-niche and not going as planned then start another blog in an alternate niche, using the expertise that you’ve picked up.

It’s really that simple.

Don’t be afraid to market yourself, don’t be afraid to charge for content and don’t be afraid to put yourself and your business out there!

Stay close to the make-money-online niche and steal tactics from it to help you dominate alternate niches where these tactics will be far more powerful.

Good luck!

Today I’m going to be redesigning Wayne Duhon, an eponymous blog that acts as a personal portal, showing a resume, blog and other such details. Wayne Duhon is a tech professional and entrepreneur.

The Original Design:

You can see the original site design below:

You can check out the original website here: Wayne Duhon

First Impressions: Strengths

Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these:

Some Attempts at Personal Branding

Wayne has clearly made some attempts to push his personal brand. His eponymous site title/domain and prominent logo area hint at as much.

His welcome area also uses a very personal tone, and mentions how he’s ranked number for ‘Wayne Duhon’.

Even the links/twitter feed carry a lot of personal weight with them. Asides from not including a picture, or more helpful welcome area, we instantly get a sense of this being Wayne’s site, about Wayne.

Pushes Social Media

It’s always good to see site’s pushing their social media presence.

As it happens, Wayne is going a little overboard on this site (I’ll discuss that later though).

Nevertheless, the presence of social media at all is a plus.

Fairly Simple/Minimal – Feels like a Portal

I think for a personal portal site such as Wayne Duhon it’s imperative to keep things simple and to the point.

I do think that his site achieves the ‘personal portal feel’ and it’s generally pretty simple/minimal. There isn’t a lot of fluff content on the page, as it really boils down to a logo area, menu area and welcome area.

First Impressions: Weaknesses

Of course no website is perfect, and our site’s often make negative first impressions upon readers without us even realizing! Here are the negative first impressions I received from this site:

Unclear Purpose, Useless Welcome Message

Like many sites that I have to redesign, the purpose of Wayne Duhon is very unclear. I only discovered what Wayne really did after clicking through his resume. Nowhere on the homepage is it apparent.

Let’s look at some of the problems with clarifying this site’s purpose:

• The logo slogan reads ‘the search you started ends here’. This is totally unhelpful and doesn’t tell us anything about Wayne or the site in general.
• The only imagery on the site is a cityscape photo. Again, this tells us nothing about the site and seems totally irrelevant.
• The welcome message is absolutely baffling (more on this below).

The welcome message reads as follows:

Welcome to the new WayneDuhon.com! If you have visited before youll remember I made the site so that I would be the number one ranked Wayne Duhon (that link will probably take ya back where you came from!) on any search engine. Well that still holds true! So Welcome, I admit I am not that intersting. but thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to take a look around and please remember the site is usally under construction at all times!

Let’s breakdown the issues with this:

• It tells us nothing about what Wayne does, who he is, or what his site’s purpose is.
• It’s far too personally invested. Sure, you’ve ranked number one for your name (which isn’t very difficult to be honest), but your readers won’t care about this. Think about how you can inform and help them whilst browsing your site. Talking about your search rankings isn’t helping them…
• You even speak negatively about yourself (‘I am not that intersting‘). If you’re not interesting then why would your visitors want to stick around? Also ‘interesting’ is misspelt – this looks unprofessional.
• Telling your visitors that your site is constantly under construction is also unprofessional and will push them away. Your site can be a working progress, but don’t broadcast this, and be proud of your web presence!

Unhelpful, Largely Pointless Menus

There are several issues with the navigation for Wayne Duhon.

First of all, there are two identical menus (with the left menu including the item ‘links’). This is totally pointless as the page is so simple it’s unnecessary repetition (both menus are clearly visible above the fold).

The menu also feels very dated, using chunky 90′s style buttons.

Finally, the entire site structure is a little strange. The ‘links’ page is a page full of useless links that don’t help the visitor. The page ‘max’ just contains a couple of images of the owners dog – again, totally unhelpful for your visitors. You need to figure out the primary purpose of your site. If it’s to spread your profile, network, or get more work then photos of your dog aren’t really going to help. It’s fine to use him as a personal touch to make you more personal/human but he certainly shouldn’t warrant a primary menu item.

Twitter Area is Too Prominent and Feels Dated

The Twitter widget on Wayne’s site is far too prominent, comprising the most eye catching area of the page.

It’s a good idea to promote your social media profiles, but the space and color used by this area is simply too much, and detracts from the real purpose of the site (to promote Wayne).

My Redesign Proposal

You can see my redesign proposal below:

Let’s look at some of my aims for the redesign:

Clarified Site’s Purpose

One of the main issues with the original site was that the purpose of the site was totally unclear.

From what I could gauge this site acts as a personal portal for Wayne Duhon, and is used to promote his CV, and his business.

I narrowed the focus of the site to clearly reflect this, including a relevant tagline, more informative/professional welcome text area and clear call to action button to encourage people to use Wayne’s service.

I Created a Much Cleaner Layout

I don’t think that the dark, dated layout was helping Wayne’s brand so created a much more modern, clean design for him.

The new site includes subtle background textures, clean edges and attractive typography. It helped to throw out the dated 90s buttons, dark header photo and old school logo typography.

I Promoted Wayne’s Personal Brand

As this site is after all Wayne’s personal portal, it seems only right to push forward his personality and personal image.

I tried to achieve this through a variety of methods including:

• A more prominent logo area including Wayne’s name.
• A tagline making the site more personal.
• More personalized navigation area icon.
• A more personal welcome text area.
• A friendly, personal side photo of Wayne and his dog Max (who seems to be a big part of his life).

Suggest Your Own Site for a Redesign

You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.

Aside from this, most new blogs will fail for the following reasons:

• The blog launches without everything being complete
• The blogger runs out of time to write and loses a consistent writing schedule.
• The quality of content may waver due to time constraints or lack of inspiration.
• The blogger loses their voice, or loses the true purpose of the site over time.
• The blogger loses interest in writing, usually because they don’t see enough reward for the effort invested.

The proportion of new blogs that fail is staggering, and so if you’re thinking about starting your own blog you better make sure that you’re prepared!

Gone are the days where it was deemed good advice to simply ‘put yourself out there. Don’t wait to start blogging but start today and start writing!’

The truth is that whilst you may improve as a blogger, if you launch badly your blog may be doomed from the start. A strong blog launch is invaluable, and often the very start of a blog can determine it’s fate. Moreover, if your blog has more early success you’ll be far more inclined to continue to expend the effort required to run a successful blog. If your launch sucks and your blog is poorly received (or worse, totally ignored) then you’ll be far more likely to abandon it.

Do you want your new blog to succeed or fail? It may be a total cheesy cliche but failing to plan really is planning to fail when it comes to blogging. Learn how correct planning can drastically increase your chances of success.

The Pre Blogging Strategy

Today I want to present a blogging strategy that should overcome most of the problems associated with launching a new blog.

More work pre-launch means less work post-launch

It’s obvious that the more work you do before launching your blog, the less work you’ll have after launching.

The best bloggers will advise that you do the following before even launching your blog:

• Setup WordPress
• Install your blog design
• Ensure that all details are working (email forms functioning etc…)
• Publish 3-10 posts to engage your initial readers, rather than launching with an empty blog.

This is all advisable, but still leaves you with a hell of a lot of work to do after launching your blog!

There’s where the pre blogging strategy comes in. The idea is to do absolutely all the work you can manage BEFORE launching your blog.

Here’s a breakdown of what you need to do:

1. Publish 10 Posts Before Launching

I’ve mentioned this point already, as it’s something that a lot of bloggers do. However, as part of this strategy we want to take it to an extreme.

Publish 10 posts before you launch your blog, and make them all pillar articles.

A pillar article is one of the strongest articles on your blog and something that should be attracting more traffic than your regular posts. Make it incredibly helpful, comprehensive and easy to reference.

Also be sure to cross-link between your pillar articles. 10 posts is still not many, so you want to try and maximize the time on site by linking between them.

2. Prepare 20 Posts and Schedule Their Publication

This is where the hard work really begins!

Plan and then write out 20 outstanding posts.

Anticipate the urls for each post and then cross link between these articles and also the pillar articles that you’ve already written.

I totally recommend that you publish one EPIC article per week. If you try to write every day then it’s very easy to fall into the traps mentioned at the start of this article. Loads of bloggers publish frequently but offer low quality content. Publishing once each week is plenty as long as each post is extremely high quality.

The idea is that if you write 20 posts before even launching your blog, you have 5 months worth of content scheduled for publication once your blog goes live.

That’s 5 whole months without stressing about meeting post deadlines, without running out of ideas and without letting the quality of your content slide.

Sure, it’s a huge amount of work pre-launch, but if you promise yourself not to launch until all 20 posts are written then you can’t fail to provide 5 months of epic content. This is something I guarantee almost all blogs aren’t doing. 5 months of epic content is a hugely valuable asset.

If you need some help writing epic content then check out our post How to Really Write Epic Shit.

3. Write 20 Epic Guest Posts

As well as writing 20 posts for your own blog you’ll want to do some serious guest posting to draw in traffic to your new blog and gain a reputation in your community quicker.

I recommend writing out 20 awesome guest posts, again before your blog has even gone live.

Approach the top blogs in your niche ahead of launching your own blog and schedule the posts to go live shortly after your official launch.

If you need help approaching top blogs with a guest posting proposal then check out our helpful guide: Writing an Effective Guest Posting Application Email.

4. Write 20 Follow Up Emails

If you’re familiar with email services then you get broadcast emails (emails you send out on a specific date) and follow up emails (emails that are sent out relative to a subscriber’s sign up date).

Email marketing is huge, and a great way to offer additional value to your readers and keep drawing them back to your blog.

Follow up emails are the perfect ‘set it and forget it’ way of doing this, as you can setup a series of emails to be automatically sent out, in order to each new subscriber.

If you write 20 awesome follow up emails and set them to be sent out on a weekly basis, then you’ll also have 5 months of solid email marketing setup for the future.

Putting it Together

Ok, so let’s review the usual situation for a new blogger. They launch their blog without really preparing because they heard it was a good idea to ‘put themselves out there’. They fumble together some early posts, but over the next few months their posts become sporadic in frequency and quality. They are spending a ton of effort on their blog and seeing very little reward (typical for new blogs).

Let’s look at the ‘prep it and forget it’ approach:

The blogger has worked incredibly hard for a couple or months (or more) preparing everything they need for a successful blog.

They run a pre-launch, building up social media profiles, gathering early emails and building initial buzz.

They launch.

They have 10 incredible pillar articles on the site to engage early visitors. They have 5 months guaranteed content scheduled. They don’t even have to hit the ‘publish’ button, it’s all automated. They have 20 weeks of emails lined up for all new email subscribers. They have a slew of quality guest posts going out to promote the new site.

All the most stressful, difficult elements of blogging have been handled in advance of launching.

Now they can focus on:

• Sending out a quick broadcast email once a week once a new post goes live.
• Networking, building relationships, participating in community discussions etc… (basically all the fun stuff).
• Learning more about blogging and immersing themselves in the process and community.

This strategy certainly doesn’t preclude the blogger from hard work post-launch. What it does do is increase the probability of the blog’s success massively. It reduces the post-launch workload massively. It helps keep the blogger sane, and makes blogging a pleasure not a stress.

What Do You Think?

What do you think of this strategy? It’s something I wish I’d done with this blog, and am planning on applying to my upcoming blogs.

I’ll be discussing elements of this strategy in more detail in the future, but overall I think it’s very solid and is the best way to ensure quality and consistency.

It’s not a guru technique, or a cop-out. It just ensures that you HAVE to do the hard work required for a successful blog. There’s no ‘I don’t feel like writing today’, as you can’t launch your blog until all of the content is prepared and perfected.

I would rather launch 3 months later with an awesome blog then launch today with an ill prepared blog.

After 91 weeks of fantastic 30 minute redesigns, for some strange reason, this week we received no suggestions for this weeks redesign!

If you would like to receive a totally free in depth redesign of your website this Saturday simply suggest it in a comment below. I’ll choose my favorite to redesign this weekend.

Today I’m going to be redesigning Harrison Amy, a blog teaching professional copyrighting skills. Amy’s a bit of a blogging buddy of mine, so it’s great to get this chance to work with her design.

The Original Design:

You can see the original site design below:

You can check out the original website here.

First Impressions: Strengths

Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these:

Great Header, Great Brand

Whilst there are some issues with Amy’s site header (which I’ll get to later) it’s generally a real feature point for her blog.

The use of her mascot is an image that has become synonymous with her online brand helps her set her apart from many competing blogs in her niche. Similarly as her name has become more well known within her niche, using it in bold letters in the header as part of her logo area works really well for establishing her personal brand.

The band of bold red for the header background is eye catching and immediately grabs our attention.

Overall a very solid header design.

Good Marketing

Of course it’s important for many blogs/websites to generate income, but this doesn’t have to mean flashing banner ads all over the place.

It’s great to see Amy taking an active approach to her on-site marketing.

She advertises several of her digital products in her sidebar, including testimonials and key product features.

She is also building up her email list, which is something I recommend everyone should be doing! She offers a ‘free tips’ as an incentive for signing up.

Finally, Amy also includes a ‘as seen in…’ area that showcases some leading blogs that have featured her writing. This is a HUGE example of social proof in action. In fact, I actually included Amy’s blog in a recent post about social proof (she’s number 8 in the article): 10 Social Proof Strategies Used by the Experts That Will Grow Your Blog.. This area is one of the first things that encouraged me to stick around and read her blog when I first discovered it.

Good Focus on Headlines, Good Visual Hierarchy

As you would expect, Amy being a well known copyrighter makes use of some great headlines in her blog’s copy. Her post titles often lure me in to explore her writing.

It’s great to see that her design helps forefront these headlines, as she uses a large, non-web font to make them stand out. This serves the double purpose of establishing a good visual hierarchy for the site, as your eye is drawn naturally down the list of recent posts.

First Impressions: Weaknesses

Of course no website is perfect, and our site’s often make negative first impressions upon readers without us even realizing! Here are the negative first impressions I received from this site:

3 Columns is 1 Column too Many…

I’ve never been a huge fan of the three column approach as it tends to clutter a site and make it more difficult to get your readers to focus on the key content (generally the blog posts).

I view it as more of a necessity than a design feature, and it’s only really necessary when there is a HUGE amount of content that simply can’t fit into two columns.

This isn’t the case with Harrison Amy as her columns aren’t all that busy at all. By using three columns Amy is not only detracting from her left column containing her blog posts, but she also leaves a huge amount of wasted space in the side columns, which remain empty for most of the page length.

On a related note, her blog posts are being pushed down below the fold because of a narrow left column (due to having two sidebar columns) and having a large, poorly padded email sign up area above her top blog posts:

Lack of Call to Action Buttons

I really enjoy Amy’s content, and as I’ve mentioned already she used great, enticing headlines for her content.

However, if I’m being totally truthful I don’t read her blog anywhere near as much as I would if it actually drew me into her content. Whenever I visit her site it pushes me away more than it pulls me in. A big part of this is the content being below the fold, but also there are no clear calls to action encouraging me to read more content or check out her guides/products.

I think solid call to action buttons could really help with this, as they would encourage her readers to actually click through and read the content behind her awesome headlines.

The same goes for products featured in her sidebar. They are enticing, but it’s pretty unclear how to click through and learn more about them. For example, her sales page product advert features a headline, a testimonial and product shot. However, there is no link or button visible to click to learn more about the product. It appears more like a banner advert than one of Amy’s own products. Even when I tried to click through to learn more, the product image and ‘get the book now’ text don’t link anywhere, only the headline ‘sales page’. I guarantee this is hurting Amy’s conversions and business.

Nothing Drawing People Into Your Content Archives

There’s a ton of great content at Amy’s blog, but it’s virtually impossible to find it!

Literally the only way is a tiny, hard to notice ‘previous entries’ link stuck between some of the posts on her homepage.

There’s not even a ‘related posts’ area on the individual post page, and none of the menu links point to archived content or post categories.

This means that any new visitors are really unlikely to discover 99% of the content on Amy’s site, which is a big waste.

My Redesign Proposal

You can see my redesign proposal below:

Let’s look at some of my aims for the redesign:

Smaller Header Area

One of the main issues with Amy’s blog is that her blog posts are being pushed down below the fold, meaning that her visitors have to scroll down if they want to read her content. Many visitors simply won’t bother to do this, and by not presenting her winning headlines in clear site Amy is guaranteed to be missing out!

To fix this, I retained the style of her current header, but vastly reduced it’s height. This way I was able to move up the most recent blog post putting it well above the fold. This should help engage a lot more of her visitors.

I Included Call to Action Buttons

A big issue for the site is drawing people into reading Amy’s post content.

In the original design there was very little drawing people into reading her content or checking out her various products/guides.

To help fix this I implemented some bold call to action buttons. These range from ‘read more’ buttons for her blog posts to buttons encouraging people to learn more about her products.

I Promoted Non-Homepage Content

Very importantly Amy is missing out by hiding away her non-homepage (archive) content. Asides from a tiny ‘previous entries’ link hidden between her post previews there are absolutely no other options to allow people to explore older posts.

To try and fix this by making it more obvious to click back to older posts. Crucially, I also include a ‘popular posts’ section in the sidebar, which I would strongly recommend for Amy. This is a potentially great option to encourage her visitors to check out her best content.

Suggest Your Own Site for a Redesign

You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.

Today we’re lucky enough to be joined by Corbett Barr, a super influential blogger who has made a name for himself by helping thousands of aspiring bloggers over the past few years. Corbett runs three blogs; Think Traffic, Expert Enough and his personal blog CorbettBarr.com.

Read on to learn how Corbett has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to his blogs and become a well respected six figure blogger.

Today we talk with Corbett Barr, a really well respected blogger who has helped hundreds of aspiring bloggers setup their sites and improve their blogging.

Q 1: // Building Something That Matters

Tom:

Could you let us know how you landed upon that philosophy and how it’s become such a core part of your work online?

Corbett:

Most people start by addressing their own personal needs. Making money is one of the biggest things on people’s minds, so they tend to focus on that first. That’s fine, but eventually you realize that in order to make money, you have to create value and have an impact on other people’s lives. Plus, just making money becomes boring eventually. You start to look for more depth from your life. That’s where ‘doing something that matters’ comes in. Ironically, by focusing on doing something that matters, you can reach your personal goals (including earning a living) much faster.

Corbett’s main blog ThinkTraffic.net provides content that goes above and beyond most blogs, disregarding social media hype in favor of promoting quality content and a practical, passionate approach to blogging.

Q 2: // Marketing Tactics

Tom:

You seem to have a really solid foundation in marketing. As well as producing epic content, you market yourself like crazy. I’ve seen your countless subscriber bonuses as part of your ‘traffic toolbox’, your product launches and promotions and your email marketing content. Online marketing is something that a lot of bloggers still avoid or are naive towards. How crucial has it been to your success?

Corbett:

It’s easy to be afraid of putting yourself out there. That’s why most artists and independent creative people struggle. Talking about yourself and your projects is scary and can seem sleazy or spammy. Instead of focusing on yourself, it’s much easier when you realize that the most effective marketing is value- and results- based. Give value through your marketing. Entertain, educate or enlighten people with your marketing and it will work better, and you won’t be so afraid of doing it anymore.

One of Corbett’s marketing brainwaves was to offer a subscriber only ‘traffic toolbox’. This is in the form of a subscriber only area that features content hidden from most of the site users. It’s a fantastic way to draw people back to the site and deliver more value than most email marketers.

Q 3: // Who Are Your Mentors?

Tom:

You’ve mentored some pretty inspiring bloggers, including Scott Dinsmore who we recently interviewed. Who are your blogging mentors, and who helped you in the early days?

Corbett:

I didn’t really work closely with any mentors when I started started out. I’m not saying that’s a good way to go, it’s just how I operate. I did look up to Chris Guillebeau (The Art of Nonconformity) quite a bit. I also hired Chris Garrett to do a site review for me. Beyond that, I received the biggest help from peers of mine, like Adam Baker, Karol Gajda, Pat Flynn, Chris Ducker, Everett Bogue and others who I spoke to on a regular basis and traded strategies and ideas with.

Corbett avoiding learning directly from mentors and instead immersed himself in the blogging community, growing with his peers and thus building deeper relationships with them.

Q 4: // Starting Out, The Early Days

Tom:

At Blogs.FanExtra we’re really keen to expose how all bloggers typically struggle in the early days. I know that you’re also a fan of being transparent about the work and effort involved in launching a successful blog. Could you talk us through your early day struggles and lessons?

Corbett:

It’s easy to understand the strategy behind becoming a successful blogger. You need to address an interesting problem or topic, regularly produce helpful or entertaining content, and spread the word about what you’re doing. It seems easy, but it’s much much harder to accomplish than it seems.

Nearly every successful blogger I know spent years in the trenches (either on their current project or on projects that failed) before becoming the blogger everyone knows now. The most important things every blogger needs is perseverance and practice. If your blog isn’t successful now, it probably means your content isn’t very good. You need to keep practicing and practicing until you get better. That takes time and effort, and most people give up because they aren’t willing to put in the work.

ThinkTraffics first ever post. 3 Comments, 1 twitter mention, 1 facebook mention. They’ve come a long way, and it took time and hard work to reach their current level of success!

Q 5: // Networking in Your Niche

Tom:

You’re regarded as very well connected within the blogging community. If you had to give a top tip for networking and connecting with other bloggers in your niche what would it be?

Corbett:

Don’t be shy. It’s always surprising how willing people (even seemingly popular/busy people) are to help and connect. And yet, it’s even more surprising how few people every reach out and take the initiative to start a conversation or relationship.

Every blogger should be reaching out to at least three other bloggers (both peers and bigger names) to say hello and connect. Some of those simple conversations will turn into friendships and opportunities. Others won’t. The key is to make enough connections to find the friends.

Q 6: // Launching a Successful Product

Tom:

Your course ‘How to Start a Blog That Matters’ had a really inspirational launch and I know it’s helped a lot of bloggers. Could you tell us a little about how that product came into being and any notable lessons you’ve learn from launching a successful digital product?

Corbett:

The course has been a lot of fun. Over 750 people have joined us already in just a few months. From this course I learned that the better you know your material, the easier it is to provide people with incredible value. Make sure you practice your craft over and over until you know it backwards and forwards. Once you feel confident in doing what you do, that’s when you can create a big success. Don’t take this advice and get discouraged from creating your own course very soon, it’s just something to aim for. We all should aim to become experts at what we do.

Corbett’s course Start a Blog that Matters has helped hundreds of aspiring bloggers and turned over $70,000+ in revenue!

Q 7: // Diversifying Into New Niches

Tom:

Since ThinkTraffic you’ve also launched ExpertEnough. In addition to this you run your own personal blog CorbettBarr.com. It’s great to see you diversifying outside of the blogging niche, and so successfully. What are your thoughts on diversification, in terms of content, web properties and income?

Corbett:

It’s very difficult to run multiple websites and to do it well. For most people I recommend focusing on very few projects because most of us can only do one or two things well at a time. Once you gain traction with your main project, you can start to branch out if you want to because you’ll have the momentum and resources to make it work.

Q 8: // Productivity Secrets?

Tom:

How do you manage your time effectively whilst running multiple blogs, organizing products and product launches and participating actively on social media? Do you have any productivity secrets?

Corbett:

Do what you enjoy. Productivity isn’t an issue if you really love what you do.

Q 9: // The Importance of Evolving

Tom:

You seem to be constantly evolving, working to improve your content, marketing, income and a range of other areas. This is evident as I’ve watched you move into video interviews, your own show at Expert Enough, your resolution in 2011 to ‘Write Epic Shit’ amongst other examples. How important do you think it is for bloggers to evolve, improve and learn?

Corbett:

It’s not just important, it’s critical. If you don’t evolve, learn and improve, you’ll never become successful.

Q 10: // Best Piece of Advice

Tom:

I’m afraid we’ll have to get a little cliched here, as this is something that I think will help a lot of our readers. If you had to give one piece of advice to something starting out in the blogging world, what would it be?

Corbett:

Make mistakes. Your work is going to suck in the beginning. You have to get comfortable with making crappy work in public in order to improve. Invite feedback, and don’t take it personally. Look at your work as an outsider, and use the feedback to make it better, day by day, until it’s as good as you knew you were capable of.

You can follow Corbett on his personal blog CorbettBarr.com where he shares more of his blogging wisdom.

Connect with Corbett:

We hope that you enjoyed this interview and encourage you to connect with Corbett:

Corbett’s personal website
Think Traffic
Expert Enough
Corbett Barr

Today I’m going to be redesigning SemiDoppel, a blog about web design and programming.

The Original Design:

You can see the original site design below:

You can check out the original website here.

First Impressions: Strengths

Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these:

Unique, Memorable Logo

It’s awesome to see such a unique, creative logo being used. Many blogs use generic, unmemorable and this logo definitely helps establish a strong brand for the site.

The fun, illustrative nature of the logo helps convey the author’s personality and creativity.

Consistent Color Scheme

The purple color-scheme used on this blog is very consistent across the site. This helps establish a steady visual palette for the page, and doesn’t detract from the content by using too varied a color-palette.

There is also a varying degree of purple shades used to draw attention to key areas, such as post titles.

There Is Some Attempt to Explain the Purpose of the Site

Most blogs that I review are very unclear about their purpose, which leaves visitors confused. I actually think the purpose of this site could be clearer, but it’s encouraging to see the use of a slogan in the header that partially explains the site:

“Welcome to my Online Journal… I Search, I Observe, I Share!”

This sums up the blog quite well – it’s personal, and provides a real mixture of content that John stumbles across.

First Impressions: Weaknesses

Of course no website is perfect, and our site’s often make negative first impressions upon readers without us even realizing! Here are the negative first impressions I received from this site:

The Menu Area is Pointless

As much as I’m a fan of a helpful navigation area, there is no need for this blog’s menu. Most of the links are entirely pointless and don’t help your audience, such as ‘blogroll’, ‘recognition’ and ‘privacy policy’.

The adsense units underneath the menu are also misleading, and may generate a small bit of income, but aren’t very user friendly. You don’t want to trick your readers into clicking ads, you want them to actually read and engage with your content!

I don’t think there is any need for a menu on this site at all.

There Isn’t Much Drawing People Into the Content

Asides from the large post titles there isn’t a whole lot drawing people into the blog posts. Most importantly, this is a blog that relies on viral-style content. Viral content typically relies on engaging images, but all the images are kept for on the post pages, not anywhere on the homepage. As a result all of the post preview areas look the same with nothing to distinguish them.

I would recommend using image previews and better calls to action to draw people into your content.

Too Much Obsolete Content

There is a lot of obsolete on the current site, especially in the sidebar. Not only does this appear unprofessional, but it detracts from the main content.

I’m referring to the ‘top blogging’ badges and the links to posts from other networks/sites. This type of content appears pretty dated and doesn’t help your readers.

My Redesign Proposal

You can see my redesign proposal below:

Let’s look at some of my aims for the redesign:

Cleaner, More Helpful Header Area

I made the header area much cleaner and more attractive. I got rid of the menu, which didn’t feel very necessary.

I also made the purpose of the site even clearer with a large slogan area, which clearly states that the blog is a personal ‘online journal’.

Finally, I added nice design touches. These range from a subtle glow around the logo, to a subtle pattern on the slogan area, including attractive typography for the slogan.

I Made the Post Preview Areas More Engaging

On the original design there was nothing to distinguish between the post preview areas or to engage people. Given that the site posts a lot of viral content it’s also essential to use images in the post previews, as these will encourage people to click through and read the posts. I also made sure to include a bolder, more obvious call to action in the form of a ‘read more’ button.

I Cleaned up The Sidebar, Including a Personalized About Area

I got rid of all the obsolete sidebar content to really clean it up and ensure that people focused on the blog content.

In particular I added a very personalized ‘about me’ area to the top of the sidebar. Given that this is a personal journal I think it’s crucial that people are able to connect with the author straight away. I included a list of personal interests to make the area even more personal, including small icons to make the area more visually attractive.

Suggest Your Own Site for a Redesign

You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.

Today I’m going to be redesigning Beneath the Tree, a blog about web design and programming.

The Original Design:

You can see the original site design below:

You can check out the original website here.

First Impressions: Strengths

Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these:

Clear, Legible Menu

One of the main strengths of the current design is how clear the menu is. The text is bold and easy to read, and the menu as a whole attracts a good amount of attention.

Overall you wouldn’t struggle to navigate this site, and the menu area feels intuitive.

Consistent Color Scheme

Whilst I’m not a huge fan of the dull color-scheme used at this site, at least it is consistent. The dark green and gray color palette is used throughout the website, and it’s consistent definitely helps to establish a visual brand.

The shade of green is also used to effectively draw attention to key areas such as headers and the menu.

Prominent Search/Subscription Area

It’s encouraging to see Beneath the Tree using a very prominent search and subscription area on their site. If users have to make an effort to figure out how to search for content or subscribe to your feed then your site will suffer.

The search form is placed in the bold menu bar, making it highly visible and well above the fold. The subscription options are also high up the page, positioned at the top of the sidebar.

First Impressions: Weaknesses

Of course no website is perfect, and our site’s often make negative first impressions upon readers without us even realizing! Here are the negative first impressions I received from this site:

The Site’s Purpose Isn’t Clear

This is an issue that I see time and time again, and it’s a real problem at Beneath the Tree. Upon visiting the site I really wasn’t sure what the blog was all about to start with. I could see some articles reviewing other blogs, the occasional article discussing coding, but I had to venture to the about page to really figure out what the site offered. Most of your visitors won’t make this much effort, they will just leave if the purpose of your site is unclear.

Particularly the header is quite unhelpful. The menu offers generic links. The site of the name offers no clue, and the logo doesn’t help explain. There is no logo tagline to help us understand, and no visuals to clarify things either.

The Dark Color-Scheme Isn’t Very Engaging

Of course not every site has to have a light color scheme, but if you’re using a dark color scheme it should at least be sharp and eye catching. Everything about the color palette for Beneath the Tree turns me off of the site. The dark moody grays and washed out greens feel very dull and don’t hold my attention.

It also seems to contradict the nature of the site. A site discussing design and programming for me should feel very clean and modern, and this design feels dated and dull. Particularly the content areas suffer, as the gray background areas for post previews feel heavy/clunky.

Way Too Much 90s Style Filler Content

There is a HUGE amount of wasteful content on this site. This content is not only pointless, but actually appears very unprofessional and will put off a lot of your readers. I’m talking about the content such as live tracking of visitors as they appear on your site, the dozens of badges in the footer for ‘top blogs’ and ‘vote for me’, and the random feeds of content at the bottom of the page. All of these types of content are very outdated and out of style.

Most importantly, they simply do not help your visitors in any way. If something isn’t benefiting your readers, scrap it! You want them to focus on the content, not the mess of unhelpful graphics/links plastered all over your design.

My Redesign Proposal

You can see my redesign proposal below:

Let’s look at some of my aims for the redesign:

New Color-Scheme, New Brand

With Beneath the Tree I didn’t want to simply move a few elements around to improve the site, I wanted to be more drastic. I completely scrapped the old design, and came up with a much lighter, fresher blog design.

I replaced the dull, dark color-scheme with a bright and fresh green/yellow/white palette. I used this to help create a new brand, based around the ‘Beneath the Tree’ name. I created a stylish, simple new logo, and then used this tree visual throughout the site in various regards, from the watermarked header, to the sidebar elements.

I Clarified the Purpose of the Site

One of the main problems with the original site was that it’s purpose was unclear. It was hard to determine what the blog was all about.

I tried to fix this through several ways. I included a logo tagline, but more importantly I added a prominent ‘about this blog’ area to the to of the sidebar. This not only helps me instantly read what the blog is about, but allows you to add a personal touch, including a picture of the blog owner Aj Banda.

Encouraged Reader Action

Something very few blogs do successfully is encourage action on the part of their readers. Bloggers often assume that people will see their posts and immediately feel driven to explore and read through them.

This often isn’t the case, and readers generally need a little nudge in the right direction.

To help encourage reader action/engagement I used large post title text, attractive post reviews and a bright call to action for each post preview inviting the visitor to ‘read more’. However, I went a step further and thought about the primary types of content for the blog and what Aj was trying to promote the most. It seems that his redesign series (which is similar to this 30 minute redesign series) has proved popular, and that he’s been encouraging bloggers to leave their site for review. To help his cause I included an area in the sidebar that prompts visitors to submit their site for review. This should really help him get more submissions and get more readers involved in the project.

Suggest Your Own Site for a Redesign

You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.

Today we had the privilege of chatting with Chris Spooner, and old design/blogging buddy of mine. Chris is a blogging force to be reckoned with, with his two blogs totaling over 120,000 RSS subscribers. What’s even more refreshing is that he is in no way connected with the make money online niche. Chris is someone who has been hugely successful simply by blogging about his passions for design, coding and gaming.

Want to learn how Chris attracted millions of readers to his blogs over the past few years? Then read on…

Today we talk with Chris Spooner, a well respected blogger and designer. Chris runs Blog.SpoonGraphics and Line25, both design/web related blogs.

Q 1: // Blogging Solo

Tom:

You’ve always come across as a very personal blogger. Blog.SpoonGraphics is connected with your personal portfolio, and you always put a lot of personality into your sites. In a world where many bloggers shy away from this kind of personal exposure, how has it affected you, and your blogs success?

Chris:

While many design blogs have headed down the ‘magazine’ route with multiple authors I’ve always enjoyed keeping my blogs as playgrounds where I post my design experiments. This allows me to maintain the fun factor of blogging rather than it becoming more admin related when dealing with content from guest writers. Having every post written by Chris Spooner has also helped develop my ‘personal brand’, which in turn has helped bring in client work where my tutorials and blog posts would act as portfolio pieces. Back when I was taking on freelance projects almost every client was sourced from my blog in some way.

Chris shows how you can be totally personal when blogging and still be very successful. Everything from his writing tone to his about page let’s his fun-loving personality shine through. This doesn’t make him look unprofessional, merely approachable.

Q 2: // Using Your Blog to Further Your Freelance Career

Tom:

I know that you’ve landed quite a bit of freelance work through your blog. Could you give our readers any tips on how you’ve successfully ‘piggy-backed’ some of your freelance success from your blogging efforts.

Chris:

It was all a natural side-effect of posting design related tutorials and content. Each tutorial acted as a portfolio piece where it showed what I could do, except each one of these posts would be receiving tens of thousands more views than any of my portfolio website entries. The tutorial posts gained a lot of exposure because they helped people out and were shared across the web, which in turn develops a lot of exposure for you and your style of work. You would think that describing how to create something yourself for free that you’re otherwise charging money for would devalue your service, but it actually did quite the opposite. A portfolio piece shows the final design, but a tutorial describes the whole process and shows just how much work is involved to create a certain design.

Chris has successfully cross-promoted between his blog and his design portfolio. Whilst his design work may not constitute direct blog income, it’s a great example of how a blog can lead to additional income streams. Don’t be afraid to use your blog to upsell other services or give your brand more exposure.

Q 3: // Launching a Second Successful Blog

Tom:

Blog.SpoonGraphics is huge in the design community, and you managed to follow it up with Line25, which is even more popular, given it’s age. Blog.SpoonGraphics seemed to grow very naturally and quickly as part of the 2006-2007 blogging bubble. Could you let us in on some of your blog launch tactics for Line25? How did you launch your second blog quite so successfully in a different niche?

Chris:

I did kind of have a head start when setting up Line25 in 2009 because I already had a good follower and subscriber base that I could promote the new site to, but I did also have to make sure I was posting good content that would persuade people to stick around. The two main ingredients are to make sure you’re posting content you really think is going to help people out and to keep doing it! I mix between showcase type posts and tutorials on Line25, showcases are always popular for providing inspiration and tend to gain good short-term traffic, whereas tutorials don’t often receive the same traffic boost but help grow the blog over the long term as they gain good search rankings and attract people looking to learn design techniques or find a solution to their problem. The second ingredient was time, while I did have a head start with my already decent audience all three of my online ventures (Blog.SpoonGraphics, Line25 and Gaming Channel) have taken roughly a year to reach a decent success where it became lucrative to start looking into earning money from ads.

Chris utilized his following at Blog.SpoonGraphics to help him successfully launch Line25, his second blog. Whilst the established audience certainly helped, as always quality, unique content was the key to this second blog taking off so quickly.

Q 4: // Social Media Success

Tom:

You’ve amassed quite substantial social media followings. Your design/dev blogs hold over 70,000 combined twitter followers, thousands of Facebook fans and hundreds of thousands of Youtube views. Your gaming Youtube channel has grown to over 1.6 million views. There are endless articles discussing social media strategy. What is your personal formula for success across these platforms?

Chris:

Those numbers sound pretty cool when combined! It always amazes me when I think about the shear number of people who read (or watch!) my content. I did used to read various social media strategies back in 2007-2008 but I can’t say I’ve used any existing formulas. My basic rule is to simply create content that fulfills your own passion and to try help people out by explaining the topic in a way that you wish someone could have taught it to you. Finding a little niche and doing something different to the norm also helps out. Blog.SpoonGraphics gained popularity for its Illustrator tutorials, which at the time were pretty rare. My most popular topics on Line25 are those that explain how to build a website from scratch and my gaming channel has gained popularity because I combine pretty design visuals with gameplay to explain tips/techniques. So overall I just try to create content I hope people will enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Chris has built up some insanely huge social media followings, but like many other successful bloggers his focus remains on creating content that is epic and unique. Remember – it’s better to create awesome content than spend your time reading up on every social media tactic.

Q 5: // Growing Subscriber Counts

Tom:

Your blogs have also grown to over 120,000 RSS Subscribers which is incredible in any niche. I know from personal experience that subscriber numbers can easily plateau. What do you think has been most crucial to your continued subscriber growth?

Chris:

I definitely noticed a plateau in my subscriber count. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s a bug with Feedburner or whether there was a mass shift away from RSS but one day in Octover 2010 but my blogs plateaued at the same time and haven’t increased in subscriber count since. My traffic to these sites is still growing however, but it’s at a much slower rate than a couple of years ago. Overall though I think the continued growth is all down to those tutorial posts. I received a Twitter message just yesterday thanking me for my Illustrator tutorial. I asked which one and it turned out to be one of my first from 2007!

Q 6: // Entering Saturated Blogging Markets

Tom:

Looking at your online ventures you’re not afraid of a saturated market. The design, development and gaming markets can be a terrifying prospect for a new blogger, as there is simply so much competition. How do you manage to stand out and expand within such saturated niches?

Chris:

It all comes down to the same old principle of trying to do something a little bit different that is going to help people out. I try to think about the types of content I enjoy consuming, then aim to create my own content that if I was a viewer I’d enjoy reading/watching. In the design industry I saw lots of Photoshop tutorials, but not many people were explaining Illustrator techniques that you could use in real life projects. In the web design industry many of the coding tutorials are pretty confusing so I try and write my guides in ‘plain english’. In the gaming scene many people were just posting gameplay and talking about a topic, so I aimed to explain something with visual designs alongside gameplay clips.

The above image shows an example of the awesome custom graphics that Chris adds to his gaming videos. Whilst this interview is focused on teaching you his blogging tactics, I think it’s a really important lesson that he stands out by doing things a little differently. If you spend the extra time to create awesome videos for your blog, great custom graphics, or a really unique blog design then it will pay off!

Q 7: // Posting Infrequently

Tom:

Rather unusually for your niches, you post fairly infrequently (usually twice a week). Are you never tempted to increase your posting frequency in an attempt to grow to the next level? What is your strategy behind this posting schedule?

Chris:

It’s really all down to time. I’ve always tried to write pretty thorough tutorials so creating more than two a week (one for each site) would be too much to handle. I’ve always been the only author and I’ve always managed my blogs around either fulltime work or freelance work. When my blogs started accounting for a large proportion of my income I could have increased the posting frequency, but the one main post followed by a weekly roundup schedule had worked for years, so why change!

Q 8: // Blog.SpoonGraphics Members Area

Tom:

It’s great to see that you’ve been diversifying your income in the last couple of years. Congratulations on your popular members area at Blog.SpoonGraphics. Many bloggers have been launching their own members areas, as it’s a great, non-intrusive way to earn extra income and foster a loyal community. What are your top tips for maintaining a popular members area?

Chris:

My member’s area has been a great addition to my blog. The main idea I had was to create something that would be a good bargain. Individually the resources and source files I post might not be worth the membership, but when you look at it like a bundle it soon becomes economically worthwhile for anyone looking to join. That’s the great thing about these kind of members only areas, as time goes on the amount of resources increases so it’s forever becoming a better deal.

Q 9: // Future Ventures?

Tom:

What future plans do you have for your existing sites, and are you planning any additional online ventures?

Chris:

I never really have any plans. I simply just keep plodding away doing what I fancy at any given time! I don’t have any new ventures planned. I think I’ve reached my capacity with the 2 blogs and gaming channel so anything else might end up with me neglecting a current site.

Chris’ ‘keep it to the basics’ style of blogging is really refreshing and something we can all learn from. Forget the thousands of ‘guru’ tactics out there and focus on the basics. Time+effort will get you there!

Connect with Chris:

We hope that you enjoyed this interview and encourage you to connect with Chris:

Chris’s personal website
Blog.SpoonGraphics
Line25
Chris Spooner’s Websites