Mike's Life - Life Can Get Better!

Review - Feedmail Pro. An Aweber Alternative?

Mike — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:01:34 +0000

Fate has a way of playing tricks in the blogging world. Almost as I finished writing yesterday’s post about Why an E Book launch went wrong, I had an email from Brian Armstrong, asking me if I would review his email product for bloggers, Feedmail Pro.

Let me start by declaring something here. Regular readers will know I’m a big fan of Aweber. If you are a blogger who intends to earn money from your blog, then I believe Aweber is a product you should have and use. It’s set up is perfect for those of us in that category, and if you aren’t already using Aweber, then you should be. It’s as simple as that.

However, not all bloggers are looking to earn money from blogging, and for those who aren’t, $19 a month can seem expensive for building a simple community.

Enter Feedmail Pro.

It’s a simple to use system, which provides the basics for bloggers, and best of all it’s free for up to 1,000 subscribers. Even once you break through that barrier, the charge is a flat $10 a month.

Here are the features:

Really nice, easy to use interface
You can import subscribers from your existing system without requiring another opt-in
It turns your blog’s RSS into a newsletter, which you can send as often as you want
You can auto send the newsletter, or elect to edit it first to add some personal stuff
You can add your own template to the email, to match your blog’s branding

It’s a good system and is easy and intuitive to use – even the import feature is straightforward.

The downside for me, and the deal breaker if you’re blogging for an income, is that it’s not possible to set up autoresponders. Those are the automatic emails you can schedule over months or even years, which can bring blog traffic and income to you. I’m also slightly concerned about the lack of double opt in and the potential for deliverability problems. But I discussed that with Brian and he assures me that so far there have been no issues and that a large number of blogs are using the service. He also plans to hire a company soon whose sole job will be to ensure Feedmail Pro maintains good relationships with ISP’s and is recognized as a “White list” email provider.

So, if all you want to do is send a regular email update of your posts, and the occasional broadcast email to your community, then Feedmail Pro may be just the thing for you. If this is you, then head over there now to sign up for free.

Disclosure: If you sign up for Feedmail Pro using my links, I earn nothing (as you pay nothing!). But if you eventually start paying once you break through 1000 subscribers, I will earn a small sum. If you use the Aweber links at the top, I will earn a little money. Neither affects the thoughts and views in this post.

Why an E Book launch went wrong

Mike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:58:46 +0000

Paula started her blog a year ago. She’s worked hard and she’s done well to get to around 400 visitors a day. She’s just launched her first product, an E Book. And it bombed. She sold 4 in the first week. Earning just $78 for her hard work.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I asked her about her email subscriber list. Here’s what she told me:

“When I first started my blog, I put an email subscriber list on the back burner, all I wanted to do was focus on writing posts and getting traffic.

Then about three months in, I realized everyone was telling me I should start a list. I looked around at ways of doing it, but most seemed to cost more money than I wanted to pay. I decided to create my own list, using a simple opt in form, and setting it up in Outlook with blind copies, so people wouldn’t see each other’s email addresses.

After around six months of doing that, I had just over 150 subscribers, but I realized how hard it was to segment the lists, and I was also getting a lot of bounce backs. It was time to invest in a system to do it all for me. The trouble was, once people had to confirm their new subscription, I actually ended up with 87 people on my new list, and that was nine months into the blog.

I really focused on getting subscribers at that point, and managed to build back up to just over 200 by the time I launched my product.”

Her story is common.

I asked her to calculate how many subscribers she would have had, if she’d pushed for the first nine months like she had for the last three.

She felt that had she been really going for it, she could have got to 1000, or five times what she actually achieved, by using a competition or giving away some free content.

Five times the subscribers? That would have been five times the sales? $390, no?

Not a fortune, but so much better than what actually happened.

Are you putting enough time and effort into building a community of subscribers around your blog?

Are you giving them great value all the time, and occasionally offering them products for sale?

Or are you leaving all that on the back burner?

By the way, are you part of the Mike’s Life community yet? No? You know what to do:

Twitter lists are fantastic!

Mike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:15:14 +0000

This is a guest post by Gordie Rogers.

Twitter Lists are finally here and I think they’re great! With Twitter Lists, you can now look for more followers that are in a similar niche to yourself. Now all you need to do is to look at other people’s lists by niche or category to start following people in the same niche as you. Those people have already screened those followers and then put them on to one list. By choosing to follow people on someone else’s list, you’re going to save a lot of time and also reduce the likelihood of following spammers. Someone else has already done the hard work of sorting them by niche and screening them for you.

This morning, I followed about 500 people in half an hour by just following most of the members on three lists belonging to one Twitter user. That’s so much faster than I’ve ever been to look for targeted people to follow before. It’s better than using Twitter search as Twitter search doesn’t screen for spammers.

No excuse to not follow huge numbers now.

With Twitter Lists, you as a blogger can have the best of both worlds as someone, who’s trying to market your blog on Twitter, as well as someone who is trying to be able to have some degree of meaningful communication on Twitter.

As a blogger, you don’t want to just spam your posts on Twitter, but you definitely want to promote them. You probably know that by following a huge number of people on Twitter, the noise can become unbearable. Now, with lists, you can put those people into lists which you really want to follow. You can even create smaller lists of for friends, family and professional contacts, etc.

For example, my main niches are lifestyle design and personal development. I’ve found targeted people to follow on lists titled “Personal Development”, “Inspirational” and “Motivational”, etc. It has increased my efficiency greatly and can do the same for you.

Conclusion.

I give Twitter Lists two thumbs up and can’t wait till it moves out of beta mode. Use Twitter lists to help you find a more targeted audience and to reduce the chance of following spammers. Good luck!

Gordie Rogers is a Kiwi who’s currently living in China and blogging about lifestyle design and personal development.

Here’s more on Twitter:

1/ The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter

2/ Creating a Twitter landing page

3/ How I use Twitter

How to get the best from being an Amazon affiliate

Mike — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:32:34 +0000

The good news is that most bloggers sign up to be Amazon affiliates pretty early – the opportunity seems huge as Amazon sells so much stuff, and it’s easy to both become an affiliate and also to use their links, widgets and other tools for bloggers.

The bad news is that most bloggers quickly become disillusioned with Amazon as they go for month after month getting 4 clicks and selling one book to earn 82 cents!

The key to success with Amazon is to treat it as a long term project. What you are doing now is sowing the seeds for future income, when your blog traffic gets larger and larger.

Use text links

You will get the best conversions by using text links, or the small photo and text links Amazon offer. And put them in the content, rather than in the sidebar.

Use lots of them!

Because of the huge range of products Amazon offer, you can often find something relating to a post on pretty much any subject. For example, while researching this post I simply searched on Amazon for “Affiliate help” and came across half a dozen books on the subject, including this one:

The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web: How to Use and Profit from Affiliate Marketing Programs

And of course, if your readers prefer to download information rather than read it, you could always recommend they should buy the fabulous:

Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, U.S. Wireless)

Make sure the post is well key word optimized, then publish it!

As your post gains traction on the net, and decent search results, people will start clicking your link and you’ll start making sales!

Disclosure

You should make it clear to people that you may make a small commission if they buy through your links, so either set up a site wide message explaining that, or add a small message to each post where you use an affiliate link.

If in doubt, leave it out!

If you’re not sure that a product is any good, or useful to your readers, then don’t link to it. You’ll do more harm than the small amount of money you can make will compensate for.

Find out what works for you and keep doing it

Over time, you’ll start to establish a pattern for what sells on your site. Is it books about a topic, cameras, maps? Once you know, then begin to focus more on those types of products, and consider putting up an Amazon shop or widget.

Don’t forget you’ll benefit from further clicks and add ons

Amazon are brilliant at maximizing their income per customer. When you order one product, their system recommends other things that the customer may be interested in. As the affiliate recommending them, you will earn commission from these additional products, and a few cents for a book you recommend, may turn in to a few dollars for other stuff.

Get moving for Christmas!

Like any retailer, Amazon enjoys huge sales leading up to Christmas, so now’s the time to start cashing in on the opportunity!

Summary

It can take years to build up a decent income as an Amazon affiliate, but the sooner you start, the sooner the income will become worthwhile for you. In the meantime, keep adding those links and think of it as something you’re building for the future.

Disclosure: The links above are really there as examples, but if you do click them and buy something, I will earn a small commission.

You should also read:

1/ How does E-Junkie work?

2/ How do you sell an affiliate product?

3/ How does Clickbank work?

Mike's Life POW - 7th November 2009

Mike — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:13:48 +0000

Here are my favorite posts from around the web this week. A reader asked if she could add to this list in comments – please do! But stick to one link and not to your own site!

Help! I’m at a lifestyle design crossroads

By Gordie Rogers on Lifestyledesign4u

An interesting and extremely honest post from Gordie, which gets better and better as you read the comments.

Creating Abundance

By Steve Pavlina on Stevepavlina.com

I’ve struggled with Steve lately. He’s become a little too touchy / feely / trendy for my tastes. But if you can get past all that stuff, this series of videos contain some really good messages.

The Email of the Week

by John Chow on Johnchow.com

Sometimes it’s good to be edgy and make your readers uncomfortable. This post certainly had that effect on me. In fact I commented on it that I thought it was cruel and unnecessary. What do you think?

How to achieve your goals by changing the way you surf the web

by Maki on doshdosh.com

Can you believe this is Maki’s first post since May? Worth waiting for.

How to write for your blog readers just riddled with ADD

by David Risley on Davidrisley.com

Classic Risley post – slightly tongue in cheek, but a really strong message.

Those are mine – any thoughts? Want to add some?

Good stuff on this site this week includes:

1/ How many posts a week should I do?

2/ So Twitter doesn’t work for businesses

3/ 11 things to do after installing Wordpress

Did Apple screw up with the iPhone?

Mike — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:21:41 +0000

When the iPhone launched I wanted one, in fact I lusted after one. I’d been a Blackberry user for some time, and the iPhone looked so much cooler. The problem was it was launched with an exclusive contract with a different airtime provider than the one I had moved to with a great deal of complication – we have 14 phones on a contract.

I checked my contract, and realized I would have to wait a year or so to change back, to avoid paying some big penalties. I was bitterly disappointed.

Then Blackberry launched the Storm. OK it wasn’t an iPhone, but it would keep me going until the day came when I could get the iPhone, which by now had been upgraded. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but the deal with the Storm extended my contract a little more. But by then there was a rumor that Apple were going to make the iPhone available to a number of other airtime providers, so I got excited about the prospect again.

Until yesterday.

When I saw this video about Sony’s new Android device:

I don’t want an iPhone anymore? Do you?

11 Things to do after installing Wordpress

Firas — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:40:20 +0000

I would like to begin by thanking Mike for giving me the chance to join the Mike's Life team as a Staff Writer. I hope that the information which I am going to share is beneficial and useful for you.

Installing Wordpress is not a mission impossible, on the contrary; it is a one-click process. By installing Wordpress you're not yet done with setting up your blog, you still have an important journey ahead; tweaking and modifying your blog.

1- Activate Akismet

You should directly activate the Akismet plugin, which is a plugin that comes with Wordpress by default and it prevents spam comments from entering your blog. I don't think that you, nor Google want spam comments on your blog. Activating Akismet requires an API key from wordpress.com, it is free and all you have to do is to register an account in wordpress.com, login then go to “Edit Profile” from “My Account”

2- Burn your blog feed with FeedBurner

FeedBurner helps you monitor and manage your RSS subscribers, in addition to assisting you in combining all types of feeds in one feed. FeedBurner also helps you to keep count of your RSS subscribers and shows them off to your readers by using its chicklet.

3- Signup for a Google Webmasters Tools account and add your blog to it

Google Webmasters Tools is a must for any webmaster. A few features include helping you get your blog indexed on Google, monitoring the indexing process, alerting you when any error occurs, and much more that will really help in SEO.

4- Write a kick-ass “About” page

Whenever people arrive to your blog, they most probably don't know who you are or what your blog is all about. Therefore you should have a kick-ass “About” page that will attract viewers allowing them to know you more, hence having them return to your blog regularly.

5- Install WordPress Related Posts plugin

What this plugin basically does, is that it suggests a number of posts that are related to the current one for the reader, this way they can get to read interesting articles and you get the chance to increase your page views.

6- Install Google XML Sitemap plugin

This plugin works on creating an updated XML sitemap for your blog which is of course, a Google friendly sitemap. That will help you gain extra attention from Google Bot.

7- Setup your permalinks

First of all, just in case anyone doesn't know what a permalink is, it is the unique link for each one of the posts on your blog. Once you go to “Permalinks” options under “Settings” you will see 5 different options for your blog's permalinks structure. You need to know that the healthiest permalink should contain actual words and keywords related to your article, rather than random numbers and special characters. Search engines, like Google, give priority and attention to permalinks with keywords and proper words.

8- Install Statpress Reloaded Plugin

Statpress Reloaded plugin is an analytical system for your blog. It has many cool features, the best of them is that it has live updates and doesn't need any period of time to update. It also gives a number of page views, visitors, referrers, top pages, top OS, top browsers and much more detailed information that could give you an indication of how your blog is performing.

9- Install comment relish plugin

Comment Relish is a very simple plugin that will send an email (which you will write in the plugin's setting section) to all users when submitting his/her first comment, only their first comment. I believe that such a plugin will increase the loyalty of the readers and will increase the chance of them visiting your blog again. I also remind them within the email to subscribe to my RSS Feed.

10- Place a HUGE RSS Subscription button on the blog!

Any website on the Internet is measured by the number of its subscribers. Therefore you should do your best to convert your readers into subscribers. I believe that there should be an attractive RSS image that is different than the usual ones, and recommend that it be VERY visible to the users, and to be placed either on the header or on the upper part of the sidebar.

11- Install MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer

This plugin helps you in the pinging process and it saves a blogger from being tagged as a ping spammer.

Also worth a look at:

1/ Useful resource posts for new bloggers

2/ Maintaining motivation in the middle phase of blogging

3/ Why you should switch to Google

So Twitter doesn't work for businesses?

Mike — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:52:19 +0000

I was talking to a pal of mine earlier today who is now a VERY senior guy at a VERY big company. I asked him what Social Media tools he was using and he was quite enthusiastic about their blog. I checked the blog while we were talking. Nine posts in the last month, eight about products and one about a prize the company had won – they looked like press releases, and I told my friend so. I gave him a bit of a hard time and explained some ways he could get much more from the blog, by giving more.

Then I asked him about Twitter:

“Ah, we tried that, it doesn’t work.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t work?”

“Oh, we set up an account, IT arranged for our blog and press releases to be sent automatically to the Twitter stream. I got marketing department to allocate a grad trainee to send out regular stuff every day about new products, shows we were attending, price increases and so on. Complete waste of time.”

“In what way?”

“We got a marginal increase in web traffic, but no decent sales leads and no sales at all that I could measure.”

“Talk me through the instructions that were given to the grad who was running the account.”

“Simple really. Keep it business like, don’t waste too much time on there. Four Twitter posts a day telling people about our products.”

“OK, well maybe we can start there…………………..”

“Sorry Mike, can we pick this up later, I’ve got to get to a 2010 budget meeting.”

“Sure, let me email some thoughts to you.”

“Great. Talk soon……”

At this point I started to pen an email, and then I paused. I’d already given my friend some stick about the blog, so how would he react to me banging on about Twitter. Maybe he’d think I’d gone soft since leaving the cut and thrust world of big business, maybe he’d think I’d been “converted.”

And then I had an idea! I’ve recorded our conversation almost word for word above. So without leading you in any way, maybe you can help? Please let my friend have your thoughts in comments below. Let’s see if we can get a virtual Twitter training session going.

Over to you………….

How many posts a week should I do?

Mike — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:33:04 +0000

“I’m really not making any progress with my blog, traffic is hardly growing, I’m only getting a couple of subscribers a week, I need to change something. I’m looking at the niche and maybe the branding:”

I hear this all the time! And the first thing I do is check how much posting activity there is on the blog. Guess what? They’re often hardly posting! Time and time again, I come across struggling bloggers who are doing so many things well, but they are letting themselves down by simply not posting enough or regularly enough.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This all came to mind when I was working on the “Pete Cashmore” section of our book Beyond Blogging. As you probably know, Pete started Mashable four years ago, from his parent’s house in Scotland. We now all know Mashable as a massive site, with lots of writers who pour out a huge amount of content. But just like you and I, Pete started as a one man band. During my research, I was looking at some interviews Pete did and one phrase stuck in my mind “I just focused in the beginning on producing 7 posts a day, every day.” Seven posts?

I began to wonder how important posting frequency is to a blog. If you look at the Technorati top five, they’re all blogs which knock out dozens of posts every day. But the comparison is a little unfair as they all have several writers. So I decided to experiment with this blog through October and I’d like to share my findings. But first, let’s have a look at some of the top blogs out there, where there is essentially one writer, and check out their posting frequency:

Problogger: 36 posts in October

Chris Brogan: 41 posts in October

Seth Godin: 34 posts in October

Now before you say: “Yes, but these guys are full time bloggers – I have a full time job as well!” Consider this: Both Chris and Darren attended BWE in Las Vegas during the month, Chris is in the middle of a book tour. Darren also runs Digital Photography School. Chris and Seth have big businesses they run. These guys are also working full time jobs outside of these blogs! And yet month after month, they keep putting out at least one post every day.

Let’s move on to my analysis:

I wanted to increase my posting through October, and I raised the total from 17 posts in September to 29 in October. That’s a big increase in posts, and resulted in around a 20% increase in page views for the month. But when you start to analyze things on a daily level, it gets interesting:

On days where I posted once or not at all, the average page views were 3327

On days where I posted twice, the average page views were 4561

On days where I posted three times, the average pages views were 5058

And here are some cracking stats:

In October 47% more people subscribed to Mike’s Life than in September!

In October 16% more people subscribed to the RSS feed than in September!

Note: I made no changes to either process or the positioning of the buttons during the months in question.

So where does this leave us?

Increasing the number of posts you make will increase your page views, your subscribers and your RSS readers.

There isn’t a direct correlation – in other words posting twice as much won’t double your page views – that’s because a significant number of your readers come in via Search.

The next problem is how to increase your posting frequency. Here are some ideas:

Devote more time to it!

Simply reduce time on other tasks like design, reading other blogs, posting on forums etc. Or work more hours!

Write some shorter posts

Your posts don’t all need to be long or detailed – you can write short pithy ones as well!

Write resource posts

Posts that provide lots of links can be quick to write. My Posts of the Week posts only take ten minutes to get online.

Try questions posts or polls

You can simply write a question and ask readers to answer in comments, or you can put a poll up – in both cases your readers are doing the work!

Ask for guest posts

Getting other people to write your content is easy, and provides an interesting counterpoint to your own style.

Use video or audio posts

These can often be put online quickly.

What can you add to this list?

It’s the Second of November today. How many posts are you going to make in the month?

Please have a look at these as well:

1/ Eight ways to get more page views

2/ Debunking the lie that content is king

3/ Eight ways to overcome a lack of motivation as a blogger

Mike's Life POW 31st October 2009

Mike — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:14:13 +0000

I need your help!

Every week I put the really good posts I’ve enjoyed into a folder. When it gets to POW day, I then enjoy re reading them and whittling them down to my six or so favorites.

Today I had a problem. There were only two posts in the folder! It seems to have been a poor weak on the blogs I read. So I need your help please. Remember how we all had a chance to resurrect our own “old but good” posts here earlier this week? Now it’s payback time!

Would you help me by choosing a post from another blog that you really enjoyed? Write a short comment about it and leave us a link. I’m looking forward to reading your suggestions. The only rules are that you can’t recommend one of your own sites, and that it must have been posted within the last seven days.

Here are my two from this week:

Analyzing the state of the blogosphere 2009

by Zemalf on zemalf.com

This data is around everywhere, but what Zemalf does is pick out the interesting stuff and add his own great commentary to it.

How I diversify my site and income

by Darren Rowse on problogger.net

Darren is just so helpful, and his writing is just so easy to follow. Yet another classic from him. He seems to be able to produce a gem every week.

Those are mine, over to you: