If you think that headline sounds a little insane right now, welcome to my life. It’s true. I quit my job yesterday and I’m separating from my wife. Being a successful blogger may not seem like a big deal in the face of all that, but I enjoy it and it’s how the bills get paid (soon it will be the only way the bills will get paid).

Oh, and, by the way, I started a personal blog. Why? because Darren Rowse did, and I want to be cool just like him. Seriously, I had been wanting to for a while, but the inertia I would have to overcome to create it was a dealbreaker. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then two things happened: Darren Rowse really did create a personal blog, and I realized I should not wait—there was no point in waiting.

Inspired by his example (hey, he’s still the “big poppa of the blogosphere” and I still learn from him), I created one, too. Second, Posterous blew up big and I thought, “why not use it for my personal blog?” So, problem solved. With Posterous, there isn’t even any real setup to speak of. I don’t think it could possibly get any simpler. At some point later, I’ll migrate to a hosted WordPress blog.

So, back to the job/wife thing.

The job/wife thing is also the successful blogger thing. In other words, the same traits and actions that are allowing me to weather these massive changes and come out on top are the same ones which help you succeed at… well, anything, really, not just blogging. Plus, the events of life are all intertwingled. What happens in your life does not occur in separate boxes.

Here’s the secret: don’t do things the same way other people do them. Do things the way you really want to do them, in that special way only you can do them.

Seriously, that’s it. Of course, it’s not easy for most of us, because we were raised to not do that. That spark was snuffed out by parents, society, religion, and education. But it can never be completely snuffed out. You can work it back up into a flame with care and attention.

Most people are not successful. That’s not exactly a newsflash, I know, but think about it for a moment:

If you really want to be successful, then how can you possibly do what most people are doing and expect success?

I mean, right? Most people are not successful, so don’t do what they do.

And the people who are successful, what do they do? They do their own thing. Which means you can’t just say, “do what they do” like some kind of magic formula you can follow. Successful people do what they want. Not in a lawless or undisciplined kind of way, but in a free, confident manner. They do what is in their nature to do. And they refuse anything else.

I’m using the word successful here because you expect it. You know what it means. And that’s part of the problem, because true success you have to define for yourself. Following anyone else’s idea of success will make you profoundly unhappy. If you look deep within yourself for what will be fulfilling and worthwhile in your life, it’s likely you’ll strike out on your path to happiness, which will be scary and piss people off you leave behind.

What is it that most people do about work? They work for someone else, and they hate it. They’re taught that is the way to be, and to not think about it, and that’s that. Work is simply something you hate. If you love it, it’s not work, it’s play. But the only people who get money to play are professional athletes, right?

It’s more possible than ever to make a good living running your own one-person (or more) business on the web. But that’s not even really the problem. The problem is that we are only taught one way to leave a job: you either quit right now and walk away, or you give two weeks notice. Two weeks is (usually? hopefully?) not enough time for you to be easily replaced. I’m not interested in burning bridges, but I am interested in maintaining strong relationships.

I gave my employer two months notice, and after that I’ll still do some occasional contract work for them. This works so much better for me than the usual scenario people expect. And that’s the point. I don’t do what’s expected. I do what I feel is going to be truly best. I’m not going to automatically follow some tired old “script.” This way, everybody gets what they need and we all still respect each other.

I’ve been married for over ten years. I still love my wife and she still loves me, and we’ll always love each other. We’ve realized that we can’t be together as husband and wife and be ours true selves. We each can’t be what the other person truly needs—it’s not in my nature to be what she needs, and it’s not in her nature to be what I really need. We’ve tried for years to figure this out. I can’t be someone I’m not. There’s no rancor here, no hate, nobody’s out to hurt anyone. Our eyes are wide open about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. There is no other way.

We’re not following the script everybody else follows. We never did, not even from the beginning. I think of us all more as a tribe than traditional family. The normal script says that when your marriage isn’t working, you seek out an affair and/or get counseling. That script says you should lie and cheat and then feel guilty and outraged when caught. That script says your divorce shall be bitter and expensive and ruinous. That script says you end your relationship in hatred.

I don’t know who wrote that script, but they’re a fucking idiot.

Sure, there are times when I feel incredibly sad about what’s happening (who wouldn’t?), but we couldn’t go forward living a lie—that would be even worse. We had to do what we felt was right, what we wanted, even though almost nobody else does it. And I am so very glad we did. This is going to be better for the both of us, and for kids & grandkids (I only have one grandchild now, but I anticipate more in the future).

With blogging and business, it’s the same way. Most people don’t succeed, so… don’t do what they do! What truly succeeds is not formulaic. There may be similar or repeating elements, but one person’s success can never be exactly duplicated by another.

What’s funny about the blogging “scripts,” is that it’s not that they say the wrong things, it’s that people just don’t understand what’s truly being said in them. They read trite blogging commandments, like, “write great content,” but they haven’t a clue what that really means. It’s not reproducible except in the most general sense.

The most powerful thing you can do is inject as much of your personality and your own life into your blogging as you can. If you have no life and no personality, then you don’t have anything to blog about. Get a life, be adventurous, do things that are true for you and scary. Being knowledgeable about a subject isn’t enough (and most people aren’t even that).

Let me see if I can distill all this:

1. Don’t do what everybody else does. Find your thing and do it.
2. Inject your personality and your story into everything you do. Figure out why you’re different and better and rock that.
3. Do what you’re great at, even if (especially if) you have to define something new, and ignore just about everything else, or make a jack move in an unexpected direction.
4. If you’re doing this in your personal life, it will carry over into your blogging and your business. If you’re doing this in your blogging and your business, it will carry over into your personal life. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. A very, very good thing.
5. Profit! After all that, you’re bound to have the guts to ask for the sale and make your money. Remember that money is a means, it’s not the ends.

I hope this post really charges you up and/or really bothers you. I hope it makes you a little uncomfortable with how personal I’m getting. I hope you feel called to task a little bit.

And I hope you rise to the occasion, live your dreams, and never look back.

July 4 is the day America celebrates its independence and its establishment as a democratic republic. Paradoxically, the same systems and forces put in place by our Founding Fathers to grant us freedom also allow people to behave in ways which, over time, have systematically constricted our freedom in subtly destructive ways.

How many of you living in America feel that the ideal of the American Dream is what it once was? Every business interest in the nation has taken over every aspect of that dream and twisted it around into a way to blackmail your paycheck and your sense of security: the health care industry, the financial industry, the insurance industry, and consumer products and services. At times they hardly seem better than legal organized crime (I mean, really, have you ever even seen a good bank?).

And yet…

And yet, along with this long-term evolutionary perversion, the same freedoms and technologies also empower us as individuals or groups to make a go of it doing our own thing. Entrepreneurialism is alive and well. And it is the new creatives, the tech-savvy businesspeople of today who are rewriting what the American Dream means.

Many of us are rewriting the dream on our blogs, with each post.

Thanks to the democratizing power of the web, anyone can learn to earn an income online. In some ways, it’s easier than you think; in other ways, it’s harder, but anything worth doing with a possibility for high rewards is never easy—or everyone would be doing it. If you have access to the right information, you can have it easier than others do.

I hope I can be part of that for you, and make it easier for you to help us keep rewriting the American Dream, one blog post (and tweet) at a time.

Happy Independence Day, America.

Do you have hardly any time to write for your blog? Most people feel as you, so at least you’re not alone. But let me tell you something which may surprise you.

For a new project I’m doing with Grant Griffiths (sorry, can’t tell you what it is, yet), we recently conducted a blogging survey in which people gave some puzzling and conflicting answers. One question on the survey asked: why do you have a blog? Out of the possible choices, the number one answer was: to get more customers for my business.

Another question was: what’s the biggest problem you have with blogging? This question wasn’t multiple choice, it was a short answer essay. People could’ve written anything they wanted; there were no choices to influence their answers one way or another. And do you know what the most common answer was? I’m sure you’ve guessed based on the headline for this post. Most of the respondents said their biggest problem with blog marketing was not having enough time to devote to it.

Let me see if I have this straight:

• Method for acquiring customers: blog marketing.
• Activity there’s no time for: blog marketing!

So, um, yeah: that’s a problem.

If you don’t take the time to market your business, you will eventually no longer have a business to market.

Feast-or-famine is no way to run a business. Since without customers you have no business in the first place, it’s a little disingenuous to say you have no time for activities which generate leads and convert them into customers (marketing and selling). If you have no time to blog and use email and social media to acquire new customers and stay in touch with existing ones, then your activities are critically unbalanced and unsustainable. You need to steady things out. Here’s how you can make your wobbly life a little more even:

Create an Editorial Calendar for Your Blog

A blog editorial calendar is when you plan out your post topics in advance, even specifying the dates your posts will be published. This gives you plenty of time to plan ahead and get good posts written on time. You won’t have to waste time just sitting there racking your brains for a post topic, because you already figured that out and all you have to do is write the post (or, better yet, finish writing it if you’ve already started).

You cannot create and work with an editorial calendar unless you regularly set aside time to work on it. By definition, you cannot “wing” a preplanned calendar. Preparing in advance, rather than hurriedly putting out flames which suddenly sprang up (ZOMG, I forgot to write a blog post today! Quick: what can I write about?) is much calmer and leads to far better content. Better content has incredibly better long-term benefits all-around for your business.

Batch Your Blogging Tasks for Greater Efficiency and Less Gear-Shifting

Batching is when you perform related tasks in one block of time, rather than dealing them as they come up or as the mood strikes you. It takes time to mentally “shift gears” when we have to move from one kind of task to another. If you’ve ever been in the middle of a writing a blog post and allowed yourself to be distracted by television, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever, and then tried to get back in your writing groove, you know what I mean.

Back when I was posting here every day (more on that below), I would write as many posts as I could during the weekends, and I would write them all in one sitting. This was tremendously productive and efficient, because I didn’t have to keep mentally shifting gears. I closed my email, closed TweetDeck, turned off my phone, and wrote, wrote, wrote.

Batching your blog tasks is a sure-fire way to make more time out of thin air.

Share the Burden of Content Creation

One way to quickly create content for your blog with less effort is to not do it all yourself. And one way to not do it all yourself is to team up with someone else:

• Guest posts: You can solicit guest posts for your blog, especially from bloggers looking to establish themselves. Guest posts from experienced, more well-known bloggers are easier to get than you might think (simply ask).

  In addition to saving you time, guest posts get you more traffic and strengthen your relationship with the guest poster, which is always good for business down the road.

• Interviews: A fantastic way to distribute the burden of content creation is interviewing another expert. What’s really super time-efficient about this is that you can do it by email. You make contact with an expert and present your case for an interview. Most people will grant an interview for the sheer ego boost of it, but you can always indicate what the benefits will be for the interviewee. Then you send your interview questions via email. Politely ask for the answers to be sent back by a specific date. Take the questions and answers and copy & paste them into a blog post. Interviews have the added benefit of also sending you more traffic, because the person you interview will link to it and spread it around.
• Open mic style posts: Liz Strauss does this very effectively with her “open mic night” posts, and it’s a great example of community-building as well. An open mic post is where you don’t write a big post yourself, you present a question or a topic for discussion and your readers add their thoughts or ask their questions in the comments. Don’t think for a moment this is a technique which can be used by the lazy. You have to be hanging in their with your readers, responding to their comments. But the cool thing is that you don’t have to spend a large chunk of continuous time on this. You can check in on it from time to time.
• Use different media: Writing takes a lot of time, but popping off a quick video or audio often does not take too long. Just keep in mind that when you do this, you can’t really do any editing or you’re not saving time. You just spit it out and go. You can use services like YouTube and Utterli. YouTube lets you record videos directly from your computer’s webcam, and Utterli lets you post audio right from your phone. By just chatting for a couple minutes into your camera or phone, you don’t have to spend huge amounts of time writing.

Blog Less

Despite the fact that nearly every blog-advice blogger on the planet says you should blog every day, quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to blogging (most people aren’t successful, so why is doing everything they do a good idea? Hmm?). I’ve seen this first hand for myself, ever since I dropped down from seven posts a week to 5, and now I’m down to a whopping single post per week. Did I kill my business? No! In fact, my subscriber count and my income are up, up, up! (Some of you are aware of FeedBurner recently adding FriendFeed subscribers in with feed counts, which raised everyone’s feed subscriber counts overnight—I’m talking about an increase I saw before FeedBurner made this change.)

It’s true that in some ways, posting every day or even more than once a day can grow your blog’s audience. Certainly it will help with blog SEO, but maybe not as much as you might think. In my own example, I’m writing bigger, meatier blog posts that are absolutely my best writing. The result is that each post gets more trackbacks and more traffic. The more backlinks a webpage gets, the more authority it has in Google’s eyes, which is ultimately better for SEO.

Having more posts indexed by Google but getting fewer trackbacks or less influence & reach is not an even trade. Quality is better than quantity. If you make people happy, you’ll also make Google happy. And if you make Google happy, Google will make you happy when you see your PageRank numbers and search engine rankings.

Blogging less leaves me more time to do important stuff like spend time with my granddaughter and really be there for her in her life as she grows up (I just got her her first kite, and now we’re waiting for a day with some breeze in it—I can’t wait!). Blogging less also allows me to make more money, because I have more time to create and promote information products or maintain my network.

You just don’t need to blog everyday (but you do need to be consistent). What you need is to blog about stuff your audience can’t live without. You need to blog about stuff they want to spread to their friends and link to in their own blogs and on social media.

Thanks for Your Time

One last thought: it’s been my observation (of both others and in myself) that no matter what anyone says about being pressed for time, people always take time for what’s truly important to them. If you say your family’s important to you, but you never spend time with them, you’re sending mixed messages. Your real priorities are revealed by how you spend your time, not by what you say. If you say blogging is the way to get customers, but you choose not to take the time to do it (how we spend our time is always a choice), then what are your actions really saying?

Thesis includes its own SEO options, eliminating the need for multiple SEO plugins. I wrote this as the Ultimate Guide to Thesis SEO.

Once you’ve installed Thesis, you can modify various SEO settings in the Thesis Options under Appearance in your WordPress admin.

Title Tag

You can decide whether to show the site name or the site tagline in the title tags for your blog’s home page, or both, and in what order. These settings are only for the home page and not for single post pages or other blog pages.

This matters, because Google places a lot of importance on what the <title> tag has in it. To search engines, a document’s title is the primary indicator of its contents. In Thesis, what you call your blog and use for the blog tagline may become your blog’s title tag content. Title tags are often (but not always) used by Google as the main link text in a search result.

I would only show the tagline if it’s short and has more important keywords than the site name. For instance, if a site name is a brand name instead of a keyword, but if keywords are in the tagline, then consider showing the tagline in addition to the site name.

Google is sensitive to what appears natural (and seems to be growing more sensitive to this by the week). The most natural “non-SEO” way to do titles is to have the site name first (and often as the only thing).

Keyword-heavy titles are a no-no, precisely because to Google it looks like you’re “trying” to artificially boost your search rankings. Notice I didn’t say no keywords. Keep it light and keep it real.

Append site name to page titles

Checking this box in your Thesis options sticks the name of your blog after the titles of pages—and that include single post pages. It’s common now to exclude the site name on other pages, and for blogs especially to exclude site name from single post pages. I don’t think this is a smart idea, for two reasons:

1. It’s more “natural” and “non-SEO-ish” to include the site name, and faking naturalness is the paradoxical name of the game where Google is concerned.
2. If it’s good for people, it’s usually good for SEO.

For me the bottom line with appending site name to page titles or not has to do with brand-building and being user-friendly. Page names without any site names would make your browser history, back button, and tabs more difficult to use, not easier.

Thesis also lets you choose the text separator character placed between blog name and tagline. By default it is a hyphen. Any common character is fine, such as colons or pipes, which look like this: | (a simple vertical line, it is shift+backslash on your keyboard).

Home Page Meta

Meta tags for SEO are the meta description and meta keywords. Except it’s really only just the description. Google and most other search engines pay little to no attention at all to the meta keywords because of past abuses by site owners. However, the meta description becomes the descriptive text below a result link in search engine results pages (called SERPs), so what you write in it is very important. You have to keep it short: about 150 characters or less (use twitter’s “countdown” feature in the tweet box if you don’t want to count characters yourself).

Whatever you create for your blog’s name, tagline, and home page meta description are going to have a big impact on what your blog’s home page gets found for in search, and whether or not people will actually click on its entry in the results pages when it appears.

Add Noindex to Archive Pages

Google sends its trusty Googlebot search engine spider to crawl the web and add pages to the Google search index. You have control over what Googlebot sees by controlling which pages are added to Google’s search index. These search spiders are also called robots.

Why would you not want Google to add all of your blog archive types to its index? Because if there is more than one URL for the exact same blog post, then Google will see those URLs as separate, individual web pages that have the exact same content in them. This creates what SEOs refer to as “duplicate content.” The real problem with this is that you are now competing against yourself and these URLs are weaker than one big strong URL would be. In other words, Google likes an obvious main choice.

So you really only want one type of archive pages to be indexed by Google. Which one you pick could depend on how you have your blog’s permalinks set up.

If you’re using category-based permalinks like this: http://domain.com/category/postname/, then you want to uncheck category noindex. If you’re using typical date-based pretty permalinks like this: http://domain.com/year/month/day/postname/, then uncheck the daily archives noindex.

It’s also worth noting that checking boxes does more than noindex these archive pages: it also nofollows them. Not only will the pages not be in Google’s search index, their links will not be followed (seen, really) by Googlebot to their destination (think of it as “blocking the exits” but only for search engine spiders).

Canonical URLs

You want this. This is a brilliant feature in Thesis. Canonical URLs tell search engines which URL for a post is the one you want it to see. This is done through a link tag in the head of the HTML: <link rel="canonical">. So a link to:http://michaelmartine.com/2009/06/11/frugal-theme-review/#comment-98707 would actually be seen by a search engine as http://michaelmartine.com/2009/06/11/frugal-theme-review/.

Optimizing at the Page/Post Level in Thesis

When you write a post or a page and you’re using Thesis, you have many great SEO options at your command.

Custom Title Tag

You can supply a custom title that is different from the post’s main headline. You should use this… but not like you’re probably thinking. Here’s the thing: there is nearly no difference between a headline that’s great for SEO and a headline that’s highly attractive to people. Having gobbledegook title tags that are “SEO optimized” is an outdated strategy.

When you submit a post to any social media service, the title tag is used to create the headline for the item on the social media service. So if your title is different from your blog’s headline, this could create a problem. The title tag has to be a great headline, so it should be the headline. And of course, titles (not headlines) are what Google uses as the headline link in search results pages. So, even in search, the headline does all the work of pulling people in.

In other words, what I’m really saying here is take the time to create killer headlines for your blog posts that are so good, you won’t have to use the custom title tag feature in Thesis.

Meta Description

Same deal as meta description for the blog’s home page mentioned above, except this time it’s for this individual page or post. The character limit (about 120-160) is short. What you write here matters. Google bolds keyword matches in this text in search results pages (also for titles). Do not needlessly repeat keywords in the meta description–once is enough, really.

Meta Keywords

Fairly useless, but if you feel you must, put about 3 to 10 keywords here.

Noindex this Page

Checking this box essentially tells Google and other search engines: “Hey, don’t bother adding me to your search index, I don’t want to be found.” In other words, the entire page or post will not exist for Google (and for the world, essentially).

Post Image Alt Text

You can supply a post image in the Thesis single post options that is treated differently than placing the image directing in the post content, which is one of the coolest features of Thesis. This alt text is designed to be used by assistive technologies which allow the disabled to browse the web. Making this text target important keywords for your blog can help your SEO (so does accurate image file naming).

Excerpt

You should write unique, original material in here that is not the same text as your meta description.

About Thesis in Combination with All-in-One SEO Pack Plugin

If you are using the ever-popular All-in-One SEO Pack plugin (hereafter referred to as AIOSEO), you have some extra work to do. Thesis will allow AIOSEO to prevail, so you should be safe. If you want to preserve all the old AIOSEO settings while now beginning to use Thesis SEO settings for new posts, you can certainly do that. You will need to check the box in your post editing screen that will disable AIOSEO for that post only.

You will also need to deactivate many of the automatic settings of AIOSEO, such as auto meta descriptions (you should be doing all of these manually, anyway, for the best possible optimization). You will also have to make sure AIOSEO is updated, even if you’re only keeping it around to maintain the optimization of your pre-Thesis posts (should you decide to take advantage of Thesis’s SEO options).

Some optimization is better than no optimization, which is why “out of the box” blogs are still better than most regular websites, and the automatic settings of AIOSEO are better than not having AIOSEO. However, manual creation of the meta tags and careful choosing of all settings will deliver the best optimization possible with these tools. One reason why I like Thesis is that it does not automatically provide content for these settings. No magic bullet SEO automation will work as well as insightful manual optimization.

And This is Only One Reason to Get Thesis

Thesis is much more than better search optimization for your blog. It’s a highly-customizable theme for WordPress self-hosted blogs (in other words, it’s not available for wordpress.com users). You can customize a huge array of elements in Thesis without doing any HTML/CSS/PHP coding. If you’re a designer/developer or a multiple blog owner, get the developer’s license. The developer’s license lets you use Thesis on all of your blogs.

If you already have Thesis, but want more information on optimizing your WordPress blog overall (including keyword research, permalinks strategies, and more) then you’ll want to check out WordPress SEO Secrets, my step-by-step guide.

Frugal is a premium WordPress theme developed by Eric Hamm, who is a brand-new daddy and all-around cool guy. Eric is passionate about blogging and the web, so naturally he’s into the blog design and theme business.

WordPress themes are at a crossroads. On the one hand, you have tons of free themes out there, and most of them are crap. On the other hand, you have premium themes for which you pay. What you get for your money is:

• Cool customization features not found in free themes
• Support
• Upgrades
• Uniqueness (most people use free themes)

Introducing Frugal Premium Theme for WordPress

Frugal is Not Thesis

Let’s address the inevitable Thesis comparison: Frugal is not Thesis. It isn’t supposed to be. Frugal is different than Thesis. If you really need what Thesis gives you, than Frugal is not for you. If you need what Frugal offers, then Thesis is not for you. Apples and oranges, and all that. If you’ve resisted jumping on the Thesis bandwagon this long, you should give Frugal serious consideration: it might be just what you’re looking for, but didn’t know it.

Thoughtful Balance

So I loaded Frugal onto my testing blog and played around with it. One aspect of Frugal I really appreciate is the thoughtful balance between ease-of-use and control. Frugal has a single options panel you can edit once you’ve installed it. The options allow for some real flexibility in your blog. Here’s a quick rundown of Frugal features:

• A 2-column right sidebar layout
• A 2-column balanced sidebar layout
• A “thin” layout
• A wide layout (check out the video below for more on the layouts)
• Image dimensions for adding your own header image are right on the options page–no guessing or hunting for this info
• Blog categories can appear as a secondary navigation bar under the main navigation bar for pages
• A “featured” top section
• Three “top feature” boxes across the top
• Excluding certain pages from your navigation bar without coding by entering their page IDs into a box on the options page
• Adding a RSS subscription link at the right of the navigation bar
• Entering custom RSS feeds and RSS-to-email links (no plugins or html/javascript FeedBurner forms to mess with)
• Adding a “Follow me on Twitter” link with your Twitter ID at the right of the navigation bar (replaces/overrides the RSS subscription)
• Adding a search box at right of the navigation bar (replaces/overrides both the RSS subscription and the Twitter links)
• A box in which to paste your Google, Woopra, or other web analytics code so that it will be placed right before the closing body tag in the HTML.
• A customizable “static” home page

Documentation is Excellent

Most beginners should be able to take advantage of all the above features without freaking out. However, the documentation that comes with Frugal is thorough, with real step-by-step instructions for how to use it. You can always go to the Frugal forums if you have any questions, and there is a PDF you get with Frugal that’s very helpful. On the Frugal site are videos to walk you through it all.

Customization

Part of the appeal of Frugal is its minimalistic, clean design. The default design sports the Georgia font for headings and Arial for body text. Text is black or dark gray, and links are a nice dark blue. The borders are clean and there’s enough whitespace around elements that you don’t feel crowded. Frugal is really all about being a framework to display your content, and the focus is on the content, not the design. This is definitely a writer’s theme.

If you want to customize the appearance of Frugal, such changing the fonts or changing the colors, you edit the CSS file for the theme choose your colors right in the interface, as of Frugal 2.2 (woohoo!). There is only one file to edit and it’s easy to find what you need in it. The CSS is not complex, and the documentation contains a well-written crash course in editing it. If you know what you’re doing with CSS, you can effect major changes in minutes, such as choosing different fonts, link colors, and text & background colors for various elements.

If you’re a little more advanced in your knowledge of CSS, then in particular you’ll want to note how to style widgets and other elements through the use of CSS classes.

Beginner or Designer?

Is Frugal a good theme for beginners? Yes, absolutely. You don’t have to know a bunch of technical stuff to use it beyond needing FTP to upload it to your web server. In this case, however, you’ll need to like the way Frugal looks, because without editing the CSS, there are very few ways to change its appearance.

UPDATE: Frugal 2.2 is now available, and it gives you the ability to easily choose colors for your fonts without coding any CSS! This is a most welcome upgrade, because this puts the power of Frugal securely and easily into the hands of beginners.

Frugal very configurable via a wide array of widgetsAnybody can work with widgets, since they’re a basic feature of WordPress. There is plenty of information online for how to work with widgets if you’re into this aspect of WordPress. Frugal has its own catalog of custom widgets that allow for all manner of unique content on the home page or elsewhere in the blog. This is a great way to easily create custom content for your home page.

Designers can run wild with Frugal’s basic framework: modifying the CSS to change fonts, text sizes, colors, and backgrounds can transform the design into whatever is needed. Because design is separated from content by CSS, and content can be created for special regions through widgets or the Frugal options, this means a designer can create a flexible design for a client and doesn’t have to get roped into being a content creator/editor as well. If you’re a WordPress blog design freelancer, consider having your clients purchase Frugal for you to work with (get 40% of the price back in your own pocket by having your clients sign up through your Frugal affiliate link).

Frugal Free or Frugal Premium?

There is a free version of Frugal, but the features of Frugal Premium are significantly better than the free version. Eric made a great video that gives the lowdown:

As you can see, the video does a great job of showing you what Frugal is and how it works.

Why Frugal May Not be for You

If you want a fancy graphics-intensive theme, Frugal is not the right theme for you. Frugal is for blogs where the content is the most important thing. If you’re not comfortable with FTP and CSS/HTML, you will be limited in what you can do tweaking Frugal. Also, Frugal is great for both beginners and designers, but there aren’t a ton of super-advanced features built into it. For example, there is no real SEO capability.

Some people may not see this as a disadvantage at all, either because they don’t like or care about SEO, or because they like things to be less complicated. If you’re concerned about SEO, then get a few good SEO plugins to compliment Frugal and you’re golden.

My Overall Recommendation

Overall, Frugal is fast, light, clean, and easy to work with. I think that with Frugal, there are far more advantages than disadvantages (so much so, the disadvantages are more a matter of opinion), which means I can recommend it and stand behind that recommendation.

It happens all too easily: we’re just too close to our own shit. We thrash around in our own mud puddle like we’re drowning in a bottomless swamp. We get caught in endlessly repeating closed loops of thought we can’t break out of alone. We need an extra brain. Somone who’s “been there, done that.”

You are not alone. You are not the first person to ever have problems with your blog. Why on earth should you have to figure them out as if you were?

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of intelligence: smart people hire other smart people to help them because they know they can avoid mistakes and reach their goals faster.

But how do you know it’s the right time to seek that “extra brain?”

I’ve been a blog consultant for a few years, now, and I know when professional help will give you the biggest boost. There are five way to tell you need a blog consultant:

1. Your traffic is too low or has leveled off
2. You haven’t created your blog yet, but you know you want the best possible start for it
3. Your blog does not appear anywhere near the first page of results in search (for something other than your name or your blog’s name)
4. There is little or no response to your content
5. Although other things seem to be in place, you’re not making any money

If any of the above sound like your situation, please keep reading as I explain each one in depth. I am going to assume that you have also made an effort to find information online, but it hasn’t solved your problems.

1. Your Traffic is too Low or has Leveled Off

I realize that every blogger wants more traffic regardless, but what I mean here is that the traffic is too low compared to how long the blog has existed. If you’ve been blogging for six months and you don’t have at least 50 subscribers, regular comments, regular search traffic, and regular social media traffic, you have a serious problem. Or, if your traffic was growing, but now has plateaued, then whatever you were doing to get you to your current situation is no longer sufficient or you took a wrong turn without realizing it.

Certainly, there is plenty of information online (free and otherwise) about growing your traffic. However, you still have to identify the real problem.

Low or stagnant traffic is not the problem, it’s a symptom.

Unless you can identify the underlying problems which result in this symptom, you may spend a lot of time (and money) trying to fix the wrong problem, which won’t help anything at all and may even make things worse.

2. You haven’t Created Your Blog Yet, but You Know You Want the Best Possible Start for it

You’ve done some research, but you want to get your new blog off to the best possible start–you don’t want to leave anything to chance. You’re faced with an insane array of choices. How do you know you will make the best decisions? Without an experienced mentor to guide you, you don’t. Much of the available blog advice online is great stuff (some of it isn’t so great), but it’s not always obvious how that information pertains to your exact situation. This is exactly the kind of situation where a good blog consultant will cut through the fog with actionable advice specific to your situation.

When you’re getting started, you are especially vulnerable to committing the same mistakes everyone else does and regrets later. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can have a guide to walk you right past all that frustration, leaving other bloggers in the dust. You can speed up the learning time significantly–in many cases, twice as fast or faster than if you did it on your own. Anybody who’s ever said, “If I only knew then what I know now,” understands what I’m talking about.

3. Your Blog does not Appear Anywhere Near the First Page of Results in Search  (for something other than your name or your blog’s name)

If your blog can’t be found in search, well, that’s not good. Even though there are a million blogs on every subject, a constant and consistently implemented correct SEO strategy will move you closer to the number one position in search (provided the content is good). As with the traffic problem above (this problem is related to traffic), getting SEO (search engine optimization) information online can be a rough ride. And even though I’ve created a home study course on WordPress SEO, it’s often still necessary to get specific advice (or at least confirmation) regarding your SEO strategies and tactics.

What’s really important is how SEO ties in with everything else about your strategy. As with the traffic problem above, not ranking well in search is also not “the problem,” but rather a symptom of a misaligned content strategy and vague objectives, commonly. There’s nothing I know of you can read or study that will suggest to you exactly how to fix your  content strategy, because that requires specific knowledge about your blog and your goals.

4. There is Little or No Response to Your Content

Even a blog with very little traffic can compel what few readers it does have to comment or link back to the content. It all depends on the content. Blog content that connects with or provokes people is the fastest growth strategy for a blog. The “response problem” is also a symptom in disguise. Not only that, it may be a cause of problems 1 and 3 above. Poorly-written content can result in low traffic and an equally poor search ranking. This is because content that is perceived as low-quality does not receive links or other forms of activity which indicate to Google it has any authority.

This is a tough problem, because, other than just hiring a great writer, there is no external fix for it. There’s no magic bullet for substandard writing–you simply must improve your writing.

And even then, good writing is not enough, because it has to be good writing for a blog. Excellent blog writing isn’t the same as excellent article or book writing. Writing for a blog isn’t the same as writing direct sales copy (though you can borrow much from direct sales copywriting).

Typical advice for this problem suggests you engage in various tactics to get comments from readers, like simply asking them to comment or asking open-ended questions at the end of a post. There are a million ideas for how to get more backlinks to your posts.

Nothing wrong with that stuff, but if you do it in a suck-ass blog post, guess what? It’s not going to help. This is a multifaceted problem, because it touches on every aspect of a blog: it’s connected to your uniqueness, SEO, your goals–everything.

5. You’re Not Making any Money

It’s entirely possible for you to have decent traffic and search rankings and still not be making money with your blog or the business behind the blog, depending on whether you’re monetizing a blog or marketing a business. Monetization vs. marketing a business are two very different things, but from the point of view of a blogger in either position, the problem looks the same: no stash of cash piling up in the bank account. Monetization is tried far more often than running a real business, but a business is far more profitable.

What complicates this is that everyone has something to sell you in order for you to make more money, and your own greed too easily leads to damaging compromises. There are worthwhile products and services that will help you make more money. And just because you sold out, that doesn’t mean anyone’s buying.

Making money from your blog is full of paradoxes and traps. There are strategies and tactics which have proven to work most of the time for most of the people who try them. As the old saying goes, most people don’t recognize opportunity, because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.

The money problem is often related to the other problems listed above. If you have no traffic, can’t be found in search, and have low response rates to your content, well, don’t be shocked when you don’t make any money from your blog. But like I said, I’ve seen good blogs earn little to nothing because the wrong methods were being used. My advice in this area goes way beyond trite stuff like “advertise,” “try affiliate marketing,” or “become a freelancer.”

Treating Symptoms Doesn’t Fix the Problem

The big take-away here, the secret sauce that maybe you weren’t expecting, is that most of the above aren’t even the real problems–they’re symptoms. The real problems lie deeper. A lot of blogging advice online in other blog posts only treats the symptoms.

Engaging with a blog consultant one-on-one can root out the true problems and help you come up with a plan to address them and reach your goals. Having a conversation with another human being who knows how to work through this process gives you breakthroughs no post on any blog will ever match.

If you’re ready, I’m here.

Can blogging make you a better person?

Well, that depends: do you want to be a better person?

Think carefully about your answer. Most people would say “Yes” without a moment’s hesitation, but their actions in life would belie their words. Most people don’t want to be better, they want to stay the same. Most people hate change.

Blogging means you will deal with change every day. Change forces you to reevaluate, to choose. Blogging tends to be self-reflective, and self-reflection can lead to self-development and self-actualization (or total narcissism). Blogging can make you a “better” person in much the same way as journaling of any sort.

The person who wants to be a better person sees everything as part of the path to betterment, blogging included. In other words, it’s not necessarily that things happen for a reason, but that there are always lessons to be taken from everything that happens. And it’s up to us to decipher those lessons out of life’s events.

Everything is a test if you see it that way, but the only person who knows whether you’ve passed or failed is you.

I’m not sure I believe that blogging itself can make you a better person.

I believe that striving to have a successful blog can help you be a better person. That dedication to success makes part of, but not all of, the difference. If you are dedicated to blogging success, then:

• Blogging helps you hone and refine your thinking through the effort to write clearly. Clear thinking is better thinking, from which comes many long-term rewards.
• Blogging helps you achieve greater understanding through interacting with others’ points of view, which may differ greatly from your own. By putting yourself out there on the web, you’re exposing yourself to a multitude of ideas. Some of those ideas you can take for your own and they may even prove highly profitable to your long-term success.
• Blogging helps you learn discipline, because no highly successful blogger is undisciplined. The rewards of discipline are many. Work and success come to those who can execute.
• Blogging helps you learn to be consistent (consitency is discipline’s brother) because without it your readers will abandon you in favor of someone more reliable. Consistency builds trust.
• Blogging helps you learn how to set and meet goals, because you must if you are to succeed at it.
• Blogging teaches you to withstand attacks to your arguments and (unfortunately) to yourself as a person. You learn to measure your response carefully, or risk damaging your reputation.
• Blogging helps you connect with other people, because they will find your content through search or links and you can make contact with them. Who knows what kind of wonderful opportunities or partnerships will arise? These connections with other people will enrich your life.
• Blogging helps you express yourself creatively through writing or other media such as video. Creative expression brings with it a million latent benefits (I’m sure that’s the scientifically-proven official number).
• Blogging to genuinely help people in a way that you feel is important and worthwhile helps you see the value of acting on your values and beliefs. You’re making a difference in the world, touching people’s lives. This is a very fulfilling experience which can lead to self-development (but also egotism, so be careful).

Can Blogging Make You a Worse Person?

Is it possible that blogging could be harming you? Could blogging be unhelpful to your self-development? Again, it really depends on why you’re blogging and how. To provide a little contrast, let’s examine some ways in which you could be holding back your own self-development through blogging.

• Your blog topic is angry or negative, and the posts you write on it are usually rants, attacks, or “bitch festivals.” Writing in this way tends to make you feel more angry, more bitter, more oppressed, rather than empowered or like you “got it off your chest.”
• You wallow in feelings of depression or inadequacy in your writing. Writing this way only intensifies these feelings, it usually doesn’t do anything to help you pinpoint their origin so you can take action against feeling bad. Also, it’s nearly impossible to succeed with such writing. Nobody wants to read writing that overflows with self-pity and melancholy.
• You are blogging only to make money. You have no passion but you figure it will make some money. There is almost nothing worse than having to write on a topic you have no passion for.
• Your views are stridently one-sided and there is no point in even entertaining any other views. “Preaching to the choir” does not make for successful blogs or better human beings. It doesn’t cultivate the inner qualities associated with self-actualization.

What Do You Think?

Are there any other ways in which blogging could make you a better (or worse) person? We all have our own thoughts on what makes a “better” or “worse” person. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

When you’re totally new to internet marketing, you have questions about pervasive practices which everyone “in the know” takes for granted, but which you find baffling.

I realized this when I got into a conversation with an attorney on twitter over the weekend. He asked me questions that I found hard to explain in only 140 characters! But my eyes were opened to how people perceive internet marketing when they’re not already involved in it. “Because that’s how it’s done” isn’t a very good answer, so I wanted to write an “internet marketing FAQ.” Below, you’ll find some questions and extensive answers. If you have your own questions, I invite you to ask them in the comments and I’ll update the post with some of them.

The Internet Marketing FAQ

Does anyone really read those long sales letters?

You’ve seen them: sales letters that go on forever. I’ve written a few myself. In the name of All That Is Holy, why? Does anyone really read all that?

Internet marketer Eben Pagan says, “No–buyers read them.”

Get the difference? If it’s something that solves your problem, you are going to be very interested in what it says. A purchase is often an important decision, one which requires enough information for the buyer to feel comfortable.

The late Gary Halbert used this analogy to explain: Say you’re looking for a mate, and the only way you get to choose one is by the letters they write you telling you about themselves. Now, which do you think you would prefer: a short letter, or a long one that describes in great detail everything you would ever possibly want to know about your potential mate?

If you’re not looking for a mate, a long and detail-packed “why you should pick me” letter is going to seem way too long, because you’re not in the market for a mate. Or if it’s clear at the start that the type of mate isn’t right for you, you’ll skip that particular letter without reading it and look at the letter from a different suitor. If the second one seems much more of a good match for you, are you going to continue reading it? Something tells me you are. In fact, not only will you read the whole thing, you might even reread it just to make sure this mate is right for you.

There is, however, another reason why even buyers wouldn’t read a long sales letter: they already trust the marketer and have no need to be convinced all over again–they’re already sold. These folks hit the sales page and head down to the bottom as fast as they can to click the buy button. 

How is this possible? The marketer has spent a lot of time and effort establishing a relationship with the buyers and building trust with them. This what blogs and email marketing are good for (and why you should be reading blogs like Copyblogger and Remarkable Communication). This is often called content marketing or relationship marketing.

Why don’t internet marketers show their actual sites? 

One of the maddening things you see everywhere is a particular byproduct of marketing to marketers: you don’t see the actual sites the marketer used to make his supposed millions. This kind of internet marketing is only a tiny fraction of all internet marketing. Most marketers are too busy making money with their sites and don’t even want to enter the “guru” business.

But the reason why you don’t see the marketer’s actual sites is not because there aren’t any and the marketer is a big liar. It isn’t because what they’re doing is evil.

The reason is simple and obvious once you understand it: they hide their sites because to reveal them would cause the marketers to lose their advantage in that market.

Marketing and business is an awkward dance between secrets and imitation. For example, Microsoft rips off Lotus and (formerly) Macromedia, then outsells them, while protecting their own intellectual property from the same.

That’s business.

There are thousands of sites selling in any kind of product category you can imagine, and they all rip each other off. It is human nature for you to follow someone else’s example and do what already works so that it will work for you, too. And if you now do a better job than the other guy, don’t you deserve your earnings? 

Not only is this natural and common, it’s smart. If you were going to create an ecommerce site now, and you didn’t look to Amazon for example and inspiration for how to do it right, you’d be an idiot.

But often an internet marketer’s success comes from figuring out the best keywords to target for paid search advertising (if not organic search). It’s all about search.

If you know the “magic words” and you get all the traffic, do you think you’re going to reveal what those words are?

Oh, hell no.

Because if you did, then others will target those keywords as well. This will instigate a pay-per-click advertising bidding war and drive up the cost of your marketing (thus reducing your profit). You want to keep your competitive lead, thank you very much.

So, when you’re in the “guru business,” you don’t reveal your magic words, because all your marketing product customers will then immediately turn on their mentor and begin competing with you (often through laziness and a lack of imagination to find their own niches). When feeding pihranas, it’s wise to not stick your arm out too much.

There is an exception to this secrecy, and that is when your position is so unassailable that nobody else has any hope at all of even touching you. For example, Brad Fallon of StomperNet uses his site WeddingFavors.com as an example all the time in StomperNet training materials. He has no reservations about this, because he is so well-entrenched that you will never, ever supplant him. You have no hope of ever competing against his juggernaut wedding favors site.

But like I said, that’s an exception. Most internet marketers aren’t going to reveal their sites, because to do so would mean they would reveal their keywords, too, which would weaken their position by inviting a flood of competition from their own internet marketer customers.

Are those testimonials and case studies for real? How do we know they’re not fake?

If you wanted to run a business and make good money over the long haul, do you think you’d survive long and prosper if you had fake testimonials and case studies? I’m sure that somewhere, someone has faked it, but it’s been my experience that every testimonial is real. Most people don’t bother to ask for them (to their detriment).

There are two reasons why there are no URLs (or at least live ones) for the people who give a testimonial:

1. On a sales page, the only link that should be there is the buy button. There should not be any possible means for a reader to get distracted and leave.
2. If marketers are the customers (as when marketers are marketing to marketers), then the whole “protecting the magic words” thing I mentioned above applies.

In internet marketing, the term case study has a pretty loose definition. These are not medical or scientific case studies. They are often nothing more than interviews with customers who have succeeded with the product being sold.

In these interviews, the purpose is to show that it’s possible to succeed with the product (whatever that means for that particular product and market). Because if others have succeeded, you can, too. But you probably won’t see the domain or website or keywords revealed. ”Protecting the magic words” also applies to case studies. 

You may see screenshots of money earned, or, in a different market, other kinds of unverifiable evidence. For example, if I were selling an ebook on how to grow strawberries, I’d have pictures of huge, lucious red strawberries grown by my ebook’s customers. Is there any way to prove undeniably this evidence is real? In most cases, no. Does that mean the evidence is fake? In most cases, no, it’s real.

I wouldn’t be in business very long if I put up faked screenshots or pictures that could easily be found elsewhere online that weren’t the strawberries grown by my customers (I don’t have such a book, by the way, that’s totally just a made-up example).

We’re all familiar with the “before-and-after” images used by miracle diet marketers. In some photos, you can tell it’s the same person, but in others they look like two different people. Or they look “photoshopped” (digitally edited). It’s possible to do the same thing with screenshots and totally lie about earnings and numbers. But if thousands of people bought a product that didn’t work, the marketer wouldn’t be in business very long.

Why do internet marketers send out a flood of emails whenever they launch a product?

So you’ll buy it, of course!

They’re not interested in having you on their list if you’re not going to buy something. So if you don’t want to buy, unsubscribe from the list. The unsubscribe links will work: one click is all you need. The only people the marketer wants on an email list are those who are likely to buy. If that’s not you, then why did you sign up? Is it because you were promised free information? The “free sample” is one of the oldest and most effective selling methods on the planet. If the free sample is good, imagine what you’d get if you bought the product.

If you are interested in possibly purchasing the product, then each new email only serves to whet your appetite and make you hungry for the product. You wish you could buy the damn thing RIGHT NOW. All of us have, at one time or another, waited eagerly for a product to become available so we can spend our money on it as fast as we possibly can.

Movie premieres are a good example of this: the studio releases trailers (free content) and engages in marketing to whip up the buying audience into a frenzy, so that the premiere of the film is a bockbuster record-breaking sales event. Do you even for a moment resent being marketed to? No, because you want to see that movie so badly you eagerly devour anything related to it. There can’t possibly be too many trailers, too many “leaked” set photos, too many juicy pieces of gossip or information about the stars or the plot.

If the emails you’re receiving aren’t appealing to you, it’s because you’re just not in the market for the product (or the marketer’s doing a terrible job marketing). Right now, for example, Clay Collins is releasing free content to whet your appetite for Project Mojave. If you have no interest in being able to quit your day job and earn a living from running an online information product business in less than four months, then Project Mojave is not for you. As a faculty member for Project Mojave, I’m also an affiliate, so if you join through my link, I’ll make a commission. So I’m sending out emails fairly frequently as new Project Mojave content is released. When the launch is done and over with, the emails about it will cease.

When I’m not promoting a product I created, believe in, or work with, I’m sending my list lots of free information which I hope they find helpful (the feedback I’ve received is that it has been very helpful). When another product comes along (mine or someone else’s) that I’d like to promote, then the emails will increase as part of the campaign.

A good marketer will do his best to make sure that what he promotes is relevant to his customers. During a promotion, you’re naturally going to receive more emails than usual.

How You Can Help This FAQ Be More Useful

If you have questions of your own about internet marketing that you don’t see here, ask them in the comments below. I’ll add them to the post above.

I have some great news!

I’ve been asked to join Project Mojave as faculty for SEO and blog stuff. But that’s not nearly as cool as the fact that Project
Mojave exists at all.

What is Project Mojave? It is something amazing created by a friend of mine, named Clay Collins. If you want to understand what Project Mojave is all about, I need to tell you about Clay.

I met Clay last year at SOBCon ‘08. We hit it off (turns out we liked some of the same wacked-out electronic music artists) and
talked about all kinds of business and blogging and life stuff. In the year since then (SOBCon ‘09 just happened, though neither of us went), Clay has learned and executed on blogging and internet business LIKE A MAD MAN.

Clay first busted onto the scene with his blog The Growing Life.

The writing and the perspective on that blog was just shockingly fresh. He was the “anti-productivity-blog” guy and I learned more about what real productivity is from him than from anyone else.

Then he created a blog called Finance Your Freedom, on which EVERY post is simply amazing, and contains powerful, actionable advice you can use immediately and profit. And again, with that uniquely fresh “Clay” perspective on things.

Now, he’s doing this Project Mojave thing, which I’m honored to be a part of.

Clay is a rising star and he is one of the smartest, sharpest people out there. He is 100% “for real.” I am proud to say he’s a
friend. Clay is the kind of guy who means it when he says you can call him anytime or that he has your back.

Now, about Project Mojave. Project Mojave is about how to create a “freedom business.”

If you’ve read The Four-Hour Work Week, you may recall Tim Ferriss talking about setting up a “muse” business. A freedom business is a similar idea (you may also have noticed that Ferriss doesn’t go into much detail about how to set up this kind of business–Clay does).

He’s got a great video already available: Anatomy of a Freedom Business.

I’ve already seen another version of this on the inside of Project Mojave (I was also one of the “founding members”) and the new version Clay has up now is even better. He’s really good at explaining this internet business stuff.

You can watch this video right now and you don’t even have to provide your email address (let alone spend anything). If you
decide to opt-in, you’re going to get even more valuable use-immediately information.

I highly recommend you watch this and take notes.

You will learn some amazing things. Things you can benefit from immediately.

I stand behind Clay 100%. I can’t say it any plainer than that. As a faculty member of Project Mojave, I represent Project Mojave too. If you have any questions, you can ask me and I’ll pass them on to Clay (I’m not going to presume to answer for him).

This content will be mind-blowing. There isn’t much I describe as mind-blowing, but it’s been a regular occurence working with Clay. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it, but it’s regular.

I really wanted to share with you my personal story of how I know Clay and how I know why this is something to be excited about. I felt it was important to give you the background and the history here. This isn’t hype, it’s real people who respect each other working together (Dave Navarro and Laura Roeder are faculty, too).

I’m kind of shy about showing how excited I really am, because I know it would probably look “hypey” or something, but damn, I’m excited about Project Mojave!

If you have questions, leave them in the comments below or email me personally (michael@remarkablogger.com). Like I
said, I’ll forward them on to Clay and he can answer them here in the comments or some other way. Meantime, enjoy the awesome video!

You really should opt in. You are gonna get some really good stuff if you do.

I got a great question from a Mandy Moore in the comments on my post, How to Write an Ebook that Doesn’t Suck. It’s such a great question, I’ve written a post to answer it. Here is her comment:

This was both useful and timely as I’ve been putting off writing an ebook that many people have asked me to put together just because I didn’t know where to start.

I’m wondering what your thoughts are about soliciting reviews and editorial feedback. My current plan is to send one of the last versions to several friends as well as many of the well-known bloggers in my industry to see what the reaction is. My hope with the bloggers is that it will not only potentially earn me a blog mention but also help gain the attention of those who might want to do some affiliate sales. Pretty much just as an ARC for printed books go out to stores and reviewers.

Does that make sense or do you think it might be best to just keep it in the family (so to speak) until it’s ready to go and then give out review copies when the book is complete and the site is 100% up and running.

Thanks for any thoughts you’re willing to share and thanks again for the great post.

OK, so: should we get feedback, and how do we get reviews and feedback, especially from well-known bloggers?

Getting Ebook Feedback from Your Own Audience

There’s no doubt in my mind that getting feedback and reviews & testimonials from people before you put the book on sale is a winning idea. Presenting it to well-known bloggers has its pitfalls, however (which I’ll get into in a minute). The people you’re most interested in hearing from are the ones you plan to sell (or give) your ebook to.

Pick a few members of your audience with whom you have regular communication and email them. Ask them if they’d be willing to help you out with something special. To those who respond favorably, send them a little proposal: they get a free copy if they review it and offer honest feedback to you.

My friends Dave Navarro and Naomi Dunford have this covered beautifully in their ebook: How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook, which I highly recommend you get if you’re even the tiniest bit serious about selling ebooks.

Another idea is to ask friends on social media or in a forum you’re a member of.

None of this works if you don’t know anybody–reason number one why you should be actively networking with others!

And that leads me now to the notion of pitching well-known bloggers to review your ebook.

How to Get Your Ebook Reviewed by a Big-Name Blogger

For the most part, it’s best if you already have a relationship with a well-known blogger. You’re much more likely to be heard and responded to if the other person already knows you. Stalking someone for the purpose of slipping them your ebook, however, is disingenuous and generally not cool.

I asked around on Twitter to see what some of the bigger names in the blogosphere wanted to see when someone wanted to approach them to review an ebook. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger kindly responded:

@remarkablogger a quick email telling me why it’s relevant to my audience with a copy attached and any other relevant info (aff program etc)

4 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to remarkablogger

problogger

What’s important to Darren is the ebook’s relevancy to his audience and whether or not there’s a monetary opportunity for him via an affiliate program if he decides to write about it on his blog. This is absolutely appropriate and a very common-sense approach. Now, when we’re talking “review” here, we mean a review in the form of a blog post. I don’t think Darren took this as review for feedback prior to launching it. However, that would be my fault for not communicating the idea clearly enough (I blame Twitter’s 140-character limit, yes, that’s the ticket…).

Regardless of what kind of review (or how “big-name” the reviewer), I think anybody would appreciate the same thing.

The bottom line is this: feedback/reviews will help, and all you have to do is ask.