The Reader Appreciation Project

Avoid Avoiding Affiliate Marketing

Bes — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:00:46 +0000

Should you jump into affiliate marketing?

John, one of RA Project readers and commentors, suggested that RA Project also cover affiliate marketing. Starting today affiliate marketing and its relationship to appreciation will become part of the RA Project scope. Everything a blog and a business does online or offline is part of your life and also part of RA Project. If you are online to make money in any manner, you have to figure out whether or not you want to be part of the biggest money making system on the planet: affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is basically the act of sending a customer to any business and earning a commission, or a referral fee, if that customer buys something. This simple, yet powerful, trend has both been improved and abused by different people in order to make money in the long and the short term. People doing affiliate marketing honestly try to do it for the longer term, while those who want to lie and make money by sending people to wrong or useless products try to do it in quick bursts for the short term. You can decide which term works for you and how you can do it honestly and effectively, regardless of it being the long or the short term. But before you do that, you have to commit to yourself that you want to actually be an affiliate marketer.

In order to realize whether or not affiliate marketing can work, you have to figure out the reasons why avoiding affiliate marketing can be a deadly mistake.

5 Reasons Not To Avoid Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing gives you an honest income.

The entire idea of affiliate marketing revolves around the fact that you convince others that they need or want something that can help them. The only big reason you may avoid affiliate marketing is if you think no one will be convinced by you to buy anything.
Affiliate marketing can give you a lot of money.
There are millions of affiliate marketing options in the world right now, with some of the major ones being by Amazon Associates and Link Share. You can let others know about solutions to almost anything in the form of books, movies, products, cars, seminars, e-mail newsletter & marketing, and more! What are you waiting for? If you are online to make money, Affiliate Marketing is for you.
Affiliate Marketing is both extremely easy and extremely hard.
Because the actual product you sell through affiliate marketing involves other people, your main responsibility becomes being the main person who actually connects buyers and sellers. Affiliate marketing is very easy because you do not have to create an actual product. You basically create a service in which you facilitate the connection between the buyer and the product, like a shopping cart. Affiliate marketing is also extremely hard, because simply telling someone to buy something does not result in a sale. You have to work hard to ensure you know what you are recommending, to realize how and if a product can help others, and whether or not you have to try different methods to get people to realize what you are saying can help them.
Your day job is basically a different form of affiliate marketing.
Any kind of job you have basically revolves around the concept of making people buy something so that you can get a commission, whether a regular salary or salary based on income, in the end that exceeds your actual cost of trying to make people make the purchase. That is the exact same as any standard form of affiliate marketing. Therefore, if you have any day or night job, you should realize whether or not the reasons you avoid affiliate marketing are simply myths, or something you actually do not care about because the end result or making money sounds attractive to you.
Getting started with Affiliate Marketing online is very easy.
Affiliate marketing in the offline world has been abused a lot by several MLM schemes. Online, such schemes exist, but the actual process of legitimate affiliate marketing programs are overall extremely easy compared to offline programs. You simply visit a website, sign up for the affiliate program, and then spread the message. Signing up and getting actual product information and links can take less than 3 minutes. Again, what are you waiting for?

Are You Utilizing Affiliate Marketing?

Are you part of any affiliate programs? Does affiliate marketing work for you? What kind of affiliate marketing tactics do you follow or avoid?

Please share your thoughts, opinions, questions or anything in your comment below. Thank you for reading!

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Things to Include in Your Website Testimonials

Bes — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:00:33 +0000

Are you including necessary elements to make your customer testimonials effective?

One of the best things about social media today is the opportunity to see what other people online say or do. Such an opportunity makes websites like Facebook or Twitter very popular. Your website and blog itself usually gains more traction or attention when endorsed by other people who do not get paid to endorse you. The testimonials section of your website can turn a lot of visitors into paying customers.

Your testimonials should not only make potential customers realize that other customers have happily bought from you before, they should also make your potential customers feel completely safe and ready to buy after reading a testimonial. Your testimonials should exist to both make customers feel safe and make your customers ready to buy right away. Testimonials are a form of a social connection between potential customers and existing customers.

In order to make sure your testimonials are effective and do not actually harm your credibility, make sure your testimonials include the following five things.

5 Things to Include in Your Website Testimonials

Relevancy to the page a potential customer is looking at.

One thing you should do for any testimonial is to try and have relevant testimonials. A customer looking to buy a car may not buy a car from you if your testimonials are from customers who bought laptops from you. Similarly, if customers want to buy Product A, and your testimonials are about Product B, try to include Product A testimonials. The entire reason you have testimonials is to make customers feel less scared for jumping into new waters. You want your potential customer to know that other customers have taken the same leap of paying you money and are satisfied with it too.
The freshness of a testimonial.
Nothing destroys the meaning of a great testimonial more than the relevancy of freshness. If your testimonials are from 1999, no one knows if your website or product is doing as great today as it did several years ago. Try to include fresher testimonials, or avoid using dates if possible. You should know that customers tend to buy more if they see a fresher testimonial left within the last several months.
Any identification or contact information to validate and verify a testimonial.
Almost every scam website that sells a product includes fake reviews with fake names and information. Try to include some identifiable information like a website address that belongs to the customer. You can always ask your customers about some contact information that potential customers can use to verify testimonials on your website.

Another thing you can do is what Daniel from Daily Blog Tips does in his newsletters. Daniel lets his newsletter subscribers know that any testimonial he includes for his product or blog advertisement can be verified by you by contacting Daniel, who will then ask the original testimonial customer to contact you directly.
Reputable customers.
In your testimonials, try including some reputable customers or customers who bought something extremely important. If a potential customer wants to buy a $100 product or service from you and majority of your testimonials are from customers who bought a $5 product, that potential customer may hesitate to try on something that has a different price tag than what other testimonial customers have purchased, even if those other testimonials customers love you and your website offering.
Accessible from any page on the website except the shopping cart.
Your testimonials should be accessible from any page of your website except your shopping cart. The more ways and areas your customers can see that you actually have other customers who are happy with you, the more they would be willing to trust the different pages and products your website brings to those potential customers. Also, the reason your testimonials should not be in your shopping cart is very simple: avoid adding unnecessary distractions in your shopping cart. If customers have added something to their shopping cart, they already trust you a little bit at least. Simply focus on enhancing their shopping cart and buying experience from then onward.

Do Your Website Testimonials Have These Essential Things?

Have you incorporated any of the above elements into your online customer testimonials section? Which of the above points do you think would help your customer testimonials display the most?

Please share your thoughts, experiences, tips or any questions in your comment below. Thank you for reading.

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How Fast Do You Process Refunds?

Bes — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:00:35 +0000

Are you giving refunds enough attention?

In addition to satisfied customers and new customers, you also have to deal with existing customers who decide that your product or service is not for them. Your product may be great, though the customer may have needs that do not get resolved by your product. Regardless of the reason, anytime a customer asks you for a refund, the only usual way of making that customer happy is to give them back their money.

In such cases, while you may be losing money, you try to focus and make sure the customer in question leaves you or your product at least a bit satisfied. In addition to making sure you get new customers, you have to make sure that one of the most popular trends among customers, the trend of getting a refund, gets sorted out and planned well by you. Without working out a plan or focusing on how you can make your business or blog offer refunds faster or easier, you may never be able to get people to try out your products or services on an effective scale.

How are customers viewing your refund policy? What kind of refund policies do you offer?

How Easy is Your Refund Process?

The easier your entire refund process is, the better. Many businesses simply require customers to present a receipt or an authenticated online request to immediately give those customers the requested refund. Your online blog or business can do the same. You can make sure your customers realize they only have to take one step to get a refund: ask you. When your customers realize that, they would be willing to go through the biggest hassle of giving you their money. Telling customers your exact refund policy helps avoid any confusions. Remember the most important rule: the businesses which confuse customers the least get the most customers.

Ajax Edit Comments is an example of such service that offers a great 7-day no questions asked refund policy. A fast and no-question asked refund policy does not mean you would be losing money. A fast and no-question asked refund policy means you get more customers who want to try your product or service without much worries. And if your service is great, people would be more willing to remain your customers.

How Fast Do You Offer Refunds?

Based on the above info, what kind of a refund policy do you offer?

Please share your opinions, questions or any tips in your comment below. Thank you for reading.

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The “I want to speak to your manager!” Phenomenon

Bes — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:00:45 +0000

Are your first level contacts unable to help customers?

You encounter this phrase almost weekly. You see other people saying it and many times you may have said it yourself. “I want to speak to your manager!” Those words, usually spoken when angry, probably stem from a frustrating situation when a customer may feel that someone they are currently dealing with at a business may be unwilling to help them at all. The manager in such situations has to be called so that the customer can either be given what they want or so that the customer can be gotten rid of from the premises of the business with as less damage and drama as possible.

The number of times your customers or blog readers ask anyone at your business or blog to have someone else, besides you or your co-worker, interact with the customer or reader in question gives you a very good way to measure how your business or blog helps solve customer issues. The larger the number, the more problematic your business or blog solving plans and techniques may be. Problems may always happen on any blog or in any business. The trick is not to focus solely on keeping the number of problems to a minimum. The trick is to also keep the number of ways to solve customer problems and the level of satisfaction of customers after problems very high too.

One of the best ways to keep the level of satisfaction in customers high is to ensure that you minimize the number of times customers actually feel left behind by your blog or company. That will help ensure that customers having problem always feel they got the help they needed from interacting with anyone via your blog or company.

Eliminate the chances that make clients upset enough to ask for the manager

Customers wanting to speak to someone else in charge means that the business has somehow failed, at least in the mind of the customer, in terms of actually solving the issue of the customer through the proper official or common channels. The fewer amount of people a customer has to go through to get a solution, the more loyal your customers may be. That is the main reason a company like PG&E has long time satisfied customers, while Comcast does not. Calling PG&E results in an actual person with full power over your account to do everything you want on your account right over the phone, while calling Comcast results in you having to be transferred to different departments for billing, appointments, technical support and sales inquiries.

If customers are regularly asking you or someone else at your blog or business to let a supervisor or someone else handle the problem at hand, chances are your business is attracting problems that can be fixed when a customer uses a service. Eliminating the elements that cause customers to get dissatisfied with the first level of contact from your blog or company means that you simply have to give more power or emphasis to those first contacts. Learn from PG&E in this case.

Are your customers not happy with your current public channels?

Have you ever asked to see the manager for any business? Have your clients or blog readers asked to see a supervisor or a superior officer to resolve some problem? Do your customers get the help they need on their first contact with you? What do you think of the PG&E and Comcast example above?

Please share your opinions, experiences, tips or ask any questions in your comment below. Thank you for reading.

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What Would You Like in August, 2010?

Bes — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:00:51 +0000

What do you want to see on RA Project in August, 2010?

Since the beginning, RA Project has been dedicated to helping you, the blog reader. Beginning this year, you and I took RA Project to the next step and made it cover business and customers further. Now is again the time for you and me to take it another step. It is time to actually decide what you would like to be covered during the month of August, 2010.

You can decide what RA Project should cover for you. From your company to an industry or online trend to money and any blogging or business topic, RA Project covers it all and can cover it all. You can also guest post if you wish. Is there a topic you are struggling with at your business or on your blog or both? Is there something you wish to improve? Do you need suggestions for something? Do you need to find the right answers, methods or tools to something you wish to be perfect at?

What would you like RA Project to cover in August, 2010?

Please share any topics you want covered or answered, or any questions through your comment below. You can also contact me at RA Project privately with anything you wish. Thank you for reading RA Project!

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Avoiding Fallacies in Reporting: WSJ Example on Mashable (4)

10 Steps to Make Your Blog Legally Safer

Bes — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:00:12 +0000

Have you worked on making your blog legally safer?

With the creation of over a million new blogs and websites every week, the online world has become the new shopping and fighting frontier for businesses and consumers. In addition to winning customers and loyal readers, businesses have to work to protect their work and to make sure their online work remains as legally safe as possible. Your blog is no exception to that legal principle.

If you blog regularly, chances are there will be a time when you may be sued or accused by someone of copyright infringement. You yourself may want to take legal action against someone else who may steal your work. If you simply take legal action or defend yourself against someone in court, chances are you will have a hard time to win if your blog already did not publicly have some legal notices and warnings in place. I started working on RA Project’s legal disclaimers and related policies last week, and decided to share with you what I have learned to always have on any successful and business blog, or any blog that makes you money in any manner or amount.

So just for you, here are 10 practical and legal notices you can immediately implement on your blog in order to start covering yourself legally for times when you may need to take any kind of legal action related to your blog. If you are serious about blogging, start implementing these 10 practical steps today to make sure your blog is legally taken seriously by others and by yourself. Remember: if you do not take your own blog or blogging legally seriously, why should I or others take it seriously? If I can recommend you to read only one RA Project article in the month of July, this article would be it.

10 Steps To Make Your Blog Legally Safer

Declare Your Online Advertising and Referral Practices.

Since October of 2009, this has become the most important, yet still least focused on aspect of any online blog that earns and makes money through any channel inside or related to the United States. On your blog, you should list in any public area a disclosure or declaration policy or statement that tells any blog reader or visitor if you try to or actually do make any form of money or compensation from your blog. An example of this is the RA Project Disclosure Policy. This is probably one of the most important things to do, since avoiding this step can mean the government can come after you with axe.
Publish Your Privacy Policy.
Your blog can be covered or at least helped legally on so many grounds through a privacy policy, that you may actually be setting yourself up for trouble if you do not have a privacy policy or if you avoid putting any good effort into creating a good privacy policy. A privacy policy tells your site users how their privacy is managed and handled by you when they interact with or through your website to any product or service or information. An example of this is the RA Project Privacy Policy. For RA Project, I have combined and included the E-mail privacy policy as part of the standard Privacy Policy for simplicity and clarity.
Publish Your Anti-Spam Policies.
The Anti-Spam policy basically makes sure your website or anything related to what you offer are not used to spam anyone. Such a policy allows you to go after people who may be spamming your commentors or customers, and to make sure everyone knows whether or not you want to legally sue people who use your blog and brand to spam others or even spam you. An example of this is the RA Project Anti-Spam Policy.
Publish your Disclaimer.
General disclaimers basically tell everyone on your blog that what you say on your blog may or may not actually produce the same effect that you have expressed in or through your website. This is extremely important, specially in cases where you tell others about how much money they can make using certain techniques or what your website is all about. Since I like customizing things to their fullest, I have combined this fully into the RA Project Disclosure Policy listed in legal step #1 above.
Publish your TOS – Terms of Service.
TOS or Terms of Service basically tell your users what to overall expect in and around your site. I am at this moment working on a comprehensive and updated TOS that will be up within 24 hours of this article. Once up, it can be found and referenced via the RA Project TOS page.
Publish Your Sales Disclaimer Policy.
This is extremely important if you wish to actually sell anything through anything related to your blog. Having a Sales Disclaimer policy shows what you are trying to achieve, and what users or customers should expect. This can actually be combined with the monetary declaration policy in step # 1 above, the way I have for RA Project in the RA Project Disclosure Policy.
Publish your TOU – Terms of Use.
TOU, or Terms of Use, basically tells people how you hope or expect them to act in, on or around your website. Such a policy, or recommendations list, helps cover you during legal troubles when people might claim that something bad happened because of your website, or that something bad happened without them knowing about it. An updated TOU for your reference, if you wish, will be available within 24 hours on the RA Project TOU page.
Publish Your External Links Policy.
If your blog has even one link to any other website on the internet, you should have an external links policy. The external links policy makes sure that users and others realize that anything that happens on or because of those external websites happens at the sole discretion of the users visiting those links, and that any and all of such events are outside your liability and responsibility. An updated RA Project ELP will be available within 24 hours.
Publish Your DMCA.
If you do only one thing on your blog in terms of publishing a legal documentation, this should be it. While everything else is necessary for advanced legal coverage or for successful blogs, a DMCA, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, basically tells everyone that in cases where someone thinks your blog or website may be copying someone else’s material without their approval or infringing on anyone else’s first, to contact you first so that you can resolve the issue. This saves a lot of legal issues because legally, with such a DMCA policy, you get a chance to solve any legal disputes before they go further than the first basic steps. As is the case today with majority of the RA Project legal documents being updated, an updated RA Project DMCA policy will be available within 24 hours.
Communication Policy.
The communication policy, while almost unknown to majority of the bloggers, can actually set the ground rules of how and why you communicate with users through and via your website and other related methods of communication. Such a policy can make sure users realize your intentions behind all of your communication. The RA Project Communication Policy will be up and running within 24 hours also.
Bonus Step # 1: Put Your Copyright © , Trademark ™ or Registered Trademark ® Notice Online.
This may be the simplest step you can take. It may also be the best step in terms of actually legalizing your blog today or anytime in the future. The same way RA Project uses a copyright © notice at the bottom of every page, you should use one of the above notices and disclaimers to show that your work and your blog or site brand name is owned and created by you. This can help register your name fully in the future, and can also solve a lot of disputes where someone else may start a blog or some monetary or compensatory business which may have a name or brand similar to yours for the sole or indirect purpose of monetizing on your brand name or work. This can be seen clearly on the bottom of this very page also.
Bonus Step # 2: Publish Your Copyright Policy.
In its simplest form, a copyright policy basically tells others to not copy or use your work without your explicit permission, or at all. Many people will try to copy your ideas, site name or even your techniques and when possible, you may want to legally take action to make those people not infringe on your work. The RA Project Copyright Policy will be up within 24 hours.

How Are You Making Your Blog Legally Safer?

In the end, each and every step you take here using the RA Project recommended steps above helps you get your blog 1 step closer to be legally safer and more mature in the business world. The more you can cover yourself legally, the more fine tuned and efficient you can be in making your blog a better and more viable business.

Based on the above comprehensive information, is your blog legally safe? Have you done everything legally possible, short of hiring a lawyer, to cover your blog legally? What are your plans on hiring or contracting a law firm to cover your blog business?

Please share your blog urls, policy tips or links, experiences or any questions about any of the above points through your comment below. Thank you for reading. Please let me know if you need any help with your legal disclaimers or policies. Remember: this is the situation where a lawyer or a law firm can be one of your most valuable assets in the long run.

Also, please let me know if you would like each of the above 12 points [10 steps + 2 bonus steps] to be covered in detail in future articles with examples, mistakes to avoid and samples.

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2 Typical and Deadly Trends Your Blog Should Avoid

Bes — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Is your blogging avoiding these 2 deadly trends?

Every blog you visit has some things you like, and some things you do not like. Your own blog is also, fortunately or unfortunately, judged or viewed by others in a similar fashion. Everything on your blog usually comes off as a good or a bad thing for your blog readers. While you cannot cater a blog to everyone’s needs, you can try to have good things and avoid bad things that you think may affect all or almost every blog reader who comes across your blog.

Last week we covered the idea of things your blog should have. In addition to knowing the things you should have on your blog, you should realize the things you should avoid on your blog. It can be very hard to do and try new things on your blog, so in contract it may be very easy for you to try and avoid certain things in your daily blogging.

Today we shall go through 2 important things that you should try to avoid on your blog and in your blogging. Avoid these 2 things on a daily basis and in every blog post if you wish to have a blog that wins both loyal readers and customers.

5 Things Your Blog Should Avoid

Becoming a non-blogging marketing brochure.

The entire idea of a blog is to engage people. Because of the immense presence of ads in everyday life, people are more likely to read and leave your blog quickly than to succumb to your marketing promotions. Everything on your blog should provide some value to your blog readers, even if it is something not related to your actual product. Blog readers are more likely to buy from you if they see something useful on your blog. Otherwise, the same way people avoid and not look at car salespeople at car showrooms, people will avoid visiting or looking at anything on your blog if they realize your blog only wants them to buy something.

This is one of the reasons majority of all corporate blogs get no comments or no new customers via blogging.
Not having regularly updated content.
If there is one main thing people want daily when they go online, it is updates. Not giving users something new regularly means that your blog has ceased to be something people want to check regularly. Blogs without any regularly updated content will only attract those users who are looking for a quick answer. Readers only become loyal blog readers and customers when they realize that a blog can offer them at least a short-term mutual benefit. Otherwise, there is no point in the mind of a blog reader to create any sort of a relationship with your blog. Offer regularly updated content, whether it is daily, weekly or monthly, and your blog readers will realize you will be there to offer them something on some schedule. Even offering changelogs and release notes on anything your blog readers are interested in can do wonders.

This is probably the sole reason many personal blogs have ceased to exist, because of people instead flocking to blogs which have regular content.

Are you avoiding these 2 typical trends?

Based on the above 2 deadly trends, do you think your blog may be exhibiting such features? What have you done on your blog to avoid such things? What do you think of the above points?

Please share your opinions, experiences, tips or any questions in your comment below. Thank you for reading.

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Do you believe in keeping your users up to date?

Bes — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:00:28 +0000

Are you regularly updating your customers?

The next time you go out and get interested in buying a car, chances are you ask what kind of features it has. Your business and blog users are no different. They regularly try to figure out what is changing in the products and services that you offer. Customers want to know what kind of different new features any upgrades or add-ons may have, while potential customers and users try to figure out the specific things your overall core of business actually provides. Unless you provide all of such people with actual updates and notes, you may be losing business or loyalty in the long run.

Keeping your users up to date with the latest release note helps maintain customer loyalty and interest in an extremely powerful way. Your users regularly try to find out what is changing in the services and products they use. Corporate blogs of any kind, from Facebook to PlayStation to Microsoft, help loyal customers realize and relate to what is happening at such companies.

In order to make sure customers know constantly that you are there for them, you have to update your customers and users of all kinds with the different announcements and information that relate to them.

Ways to keep your users updated

Blog all updates and changes under special categories, labels or tags.
Keep changelogs or release notes on your site. Google provides Google Voice Release Notes as an example, whereas HootSuite does not provide any release notes for their HootSuite Android App.
Post updates on your social networks for anyone on such social networks to find out and utilize.
E-mail them with a newsletter service like Aweber. An example of this is the RA Project Updates.
Contact your users via the phone, email or texts to let them know about critical changes they may be interested in. Many users will actually take you more seriously and thank you if you notified them via the phone of security or money related updates and changes.

Do you keep your blog readers regularly updated?

Now, as time passes and based on above information, would you keep your users updated on a regular basis about different things happening in and around your blog, company and services? Can you apply this principle to other things and figure out whether or not you would, or would like to, keep your users updated on anything you have publicly announced?

Please share your answers, opinions, questions or what you think about the above through your comment below. Thank you.

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What is Customer Appreciation All About?

Bes — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:00:26 +0000

How are you appreciating your customers?

Every business works hard daily to keep the customers happy. Both existing and new customers are part of the daily operations of all websites and blogs that try to make any money. And this happens for a good reason too: without a happy customer, the future of an income and a business partnership is at jeopardy. We actually appreciate clients so that we can minimize the risk of losing clients or recurring revenue in the long run. Customer appreciation of almost any sort, when done effectively, can help avoid such and other risks.

In its most basic form, customer appreciation is the idea of appreciation a customer so that the customer can be happy or so that the customer can do something that you would like them to do. Otherwise, what is the point of customer appreciation, correct? The best way to appreciate a customer is to do something that your actual specific customers, that you are aware of, may realize and even appreciate in return.

In order to appreciate customers, you have to realize what trends and specific things can define customer appreciation for you. Here are 15 examples of customer appreciation to get you started.

15 Different Forms of Customer Appreciation

Thank your customers.
Help your customers solve their problems.
Offer discounts to your customers.
Apologize when you know you are wrong.
Avoid holding the customer accountable severely when you know the customer is wrong.
Contact your customers before they contact you.
Help your customers save money when the customers least expect it.
Offer refunds or credits to customers in times of issues or when you can.
Go the extra mile to help the customer even when it is outside the scope of your contract.
Give good advice to customers when you are not obligated to.
Follow up with customers.
Help customers find good alternatives when they want to find someone else.
Make it easy for customers to start doing business with you.
Make it easy for customers to leave you if they want to, even if it is a professionally emotional situation.
Be proactive with customers.

How do you appreciate your customers?

Based on the above information and 15 examples of customer appreciation, how do you appreciate your customers? Which trends can or cannot work for you or your clients?

Please share your answers, tips or any questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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Things Your Blog Should Have

Bes — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 09:00:19 +0000

Does your blog have these things?

A blog without any content is simply an empty page in the eyes of a blog reader. Similarly, a blog that does not allow people to leave comments is simply also an empty page, devoid of any useful purpose, in the eyes of millions of blog commentors. A blog can be very powerful if it exists to enable people to engage with the blog content and the blogger. A blog should have certain things in order to make it every powerful and effective.

Your blog can survive without having many different things, though some certain things help you as a blogger immensely in today’s socially networking world. You can focus solely on blog content, but if you do not pay any attention to the elements surrounding the blog content, your blog as a whole may suffer or may not reach the heights you want it to.

So how can you make sure your blog performs well outside of the scope of your blog content? Here are 5 things your blog should have in order to engage people.

5 Things Your Blog Should have

Comments.

A blog without comments enabled can be like a social networking site without any users. Blogs can be very powerful if people are allowed to engage on it. Allow commentors the power to comment on your blog, or else blog readers may think you are simply using your blog as an overall marketing tool.
Social Media Sharing Features.
Allow blog readers to share your blog articles. For example, every RA Project article including this one allows you to share it with others. Check out the share buttons above and below this article.
Different Delivery Methods
You should allow your blog to deliver itself to your readers and clients through multiple channels of delivery.
Security, Safety & Privacy.
Your blog should offer security in terms of making sure any e-mail address, name or any other identifiable information of a blog reader or commentor stays safe and does not end up in the hands of any scammers or other people. Your blog should offer safety to everyone so that someone voicing an opinion through their comments does not get bashed or bothered by others on your blog in an extreme fashion. Your blog should also offer privacy to people, so that people can interact with you and other commentors with as much anonymity as they wish and as much anonymity as you can possibly offer.
People who engage with your blog.
This may sound strange, though this is also one of the most essential features of any successful blog. You should try to invite users who actually do something around your blog in addition to simply navigating around. Your users should comment or interact with the different things your blog has to offer. Any and all of your efforts that revolve around getting more traffic to your site should keep that principle in mind.

Does Your Blog Offer the Above 5 Features?

Does your blog have the above 5 things available for all your readers and clients?

Please share your answers, questions or any tips through your comment below. Thank you for reading.

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Should You Contact Customers Through Personal Channels?

Bes — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 09:00:20 +0000

Do you contact customers through personal channels?

The most important thing that many customers prefer is communication from and with the companies that they do business with. You can communicate with your clients through practically hundreds of ways. You can realize beforehand, however, that the channels through which you communicate with your clients can be divided into a few categories, including the personal category.

Contacting customers through personal channels shows initiative and actual interest in the success of the customer. It lets the customer know that you are interested in being proactive with your customers. The same way you can communicate effectively or poorly, communicating through different channels could be good or bad depending on what the customer actually prefers.

Should you contact your customers through personal channels? Would you be appreciating clients more if you approached them through personal channels? There are a few ways to figure out the answer that would be best suited for your clients and your business.

Contacting Customers Through Personal Channels

A personal channel through which you could contact your customers may fall outside the direct reach of something like your website or blog. The same way you could run into a client on the street accidentally and ask them if the problem they were having before has been solved, your customers may actually feel either very favorable to you or very uncomfortable solely because of your interaction with them through personal channels that the clients usually reserve for friends and non-business contacts.

Contacting customers through their personal Facebook accounts can show that you keep in touch with customers on a personal level, but would that intrude on the privacy and safety of people who want to keep their business and personal contacts separate? Contacting clients through their blog can show that you are trying to appreciate and support your clients, but would that mean your clients may feel they have to treat you differently in their responses to you on their blog in order to get good service from you? Calling customers on the phone to follow-up or to offer discounts to their existing services and subscriptions with you can make customers appreciate your efforts to save them money, but would your customers not appreciate you because of you bothering them over the phone instead of through e-mail? All of these and other questions should be kept in mind when contacting your customers through any unofficial channel that is not openly explained to customers prior to them paying you for any service or product.

Do you contact customers through personal channels?

Based on the above info, do you think it would be appropriate to contact your customers through personal channels?

Please share your answers, opinions, experiences or any questions in your comments below. Thank you for reading.

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Reach Out to Customers

Bes — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:00:40 +0000

Are you reaching out to your customers?

If you work regularly, chances are your work focuses on bringing in a set of services or products that will draw in customers. Your business may be trying regularly to generate interest for customers in order to have the customers inquire and interact with your company. While many customers like interacting with different businesses, many other customers including potential customers usually hesitate before contacting a company for further information. Any competitor who may answer all the questions for a potential customer without having that potential customer ask such questions first may end up winning that customer.

Instead of focusing solely on making the customer come to you, you can also try reaching out to the customers yourself. Surprise them and contact them. Let them know what you have to say directly. Solve their problems before they ask for a solution. Help them out with the issues they are facing. Give them advice about things they may be thinking about on their personal blogs. Offer discounts and specials for services they may be interested in. The more you contact customers before they contact you, the more you show to them that you are there for them and that you are looking out for them.

In order to realize more about customer appreciation and to appreciate both your business and your clients more, you have to reach out to them without waiting for them to reach out to you.

Are You Reaching Out to Customers on Your Own?

Here are a few practical ways to reach out to your customers starting right now. These are proven ideas that I apply for my hosting company Infura almost every day, with amazing results every day too. Doing these on a regular basis will ensure that your company kicks off the way you want it to.

Contact customers through their websites to answer any questions.
E-mail customers before they e-mail you in case of service problems you notice from your end.
Contact customers on other blogs, websites and forums if they talk about you or your service.
Answer questions from potential customers on other websites, blogs or forums.
Offer a regular newsletter service, like through Aweber, which informs any subscribed customers about any future updates, discounts and announcements. This allows people to let you know that you can reach out to them without them being bothered.
Cover different social networks regularly to see if your customers are on there.
See if any social networks have potential customers who may benefit from your products.
Offer discounts and specials to both existing and potential customers before they ask for a discount.
Provide information to customers about specific problems they may encounter and any solutions for their specific situations in advance.

In the end, which ways you decide to reach out for existing and potential customers depends on you and your preferences. Experiment around, and you will start noticing any results within a week or so. If something does not work well for you, be sure to modify it after a while to see if any results are obtained then.

Do you reach out to customers?

Do you have plans in place to help you reach out to customers yourself? Does your blog and business make sure that your customers are not always forced to reach out to you?

What do you think about this principle in general? Please share your answers, opinions, experiences or any questions below. Thank you for reading.

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Where Does Your Blog Fit in Your Business?

Bes — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:00:40 +0000

Do you know the role your blog plays in your business?

Every business should try to regularly review the different components it depends on and uses to figure out their place within the business. From different departments to actual products and services, a business can figure out the importance or shortage of different elements needed for both survival and prosperity. Your exact focus on anything in life in order to make money makes it the equivalent of a business for you. You should try to figure out the roles different elements play in any business for you.

Your blog should go under the same kind of review. Your blog, whether personal or business or both, probably exists to serve some kind of a need. Your blog can either make or break your business. By seeing the wrong tools or articles on your blog, people may avoid taking you seriously and may actually not do any business with you. With the good tools and content, your blog can help you and your business become better and generate more clients and readers. Therefore, you have to figure out the role your blog plays in your business if you want to improve both your business and your blog.

In order to figure out the role your blog may play in your business so that you can appreciate clients and your blog more, regardless of the size or type of business, you may start figuring out the types of roles a blog can play in any business.

5 Different Roles Blogs Can Play in Your Business

Here are 5 different places or values that a blog can bring to your business:

Your blog is your business.

Your blog is your main business. It is the main venue through which you communicate with clients and readers. It is also the one of the sources or the main sources of your income. Your blog may include all of the points below.
Your blog complements the help desk.
Your blog aims to educate people on how to use certain things or how to figure out some concepts. Thus, you want people to come to your blog to get answers.
Your blog complements the marketing news announcements.
Your blog is where you announce all your products and services. Your blog is like a brochure, where people come to find out what you and your services and products are all about. Your blog is also where your existing customers go to find out about the latest updates and news for services and products they have purchased from you.
Your blog points to other resources.
Your blog may serve the same purpose as a link and information directory. You point and refer people to interesting things elsewhere. Thus, people come to your blog to find out what interesting things on other websites you have found for them.
Your blog tries to help people in the related industries and fields.
Your blog may focus solely on topics and situations related to the industry your actual money making services or products focus on. Thus, your blog focuses on talking about things in the computer industry in general if you sell computers, or the blog world if you sell blog hosting.

Do you know what function your blog has in your business?

Based on the above points, can you pinpoint the exact function of your blog in your business? What does your blog try to achieve?

Please share your opinions, experiences, tips or any questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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6 Things Customers Hesitate to Give You

Bes — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:00:20 +0000

Do you ask customers for sensitive information?

Every time you buy something in person from a store like Target, Neiman Marcus or Best Buy, the cashier asks you if you have a membership with their store in the form of a membership rewards program or a credit card. Chances are you either have such a card or you are offered an application for such a card. Many businesses ask you for your personal information in order to sell you credit cards and rewards programs to make more money. While such trends are very popular, businesses also realize that customers are very hesitant to hand out their sensitive information.

Your business and blog can perform better if you asked customers information that they are not hesitant to give to you. You can also work harder to make customers feel at ease when you ask them very sensitive information that a potential scammer could misuse. If you ask customers for their real full names while your competitor only needs their e-mail address for the same product or service, chances are your potential customers may start going to your competition. Similarly, if you only need an e-mail address and PayPal information from your customers, while your competitors need more information in addition to those, potential customers may prefer your business because of not having to divulge too much personal information.

What kinds of information should you ask your customers in order to provide more services and to generate more profits? You can start figuring out the answer by looking at the different levels of hesitation customers have when sharing personal information with businesses.

6 Sensitive Things Customers Hesitate to Divulge to You

The following list is sorted from the most sensitive to the least sensitive, with #1 below being the most sensitive to #6 being the least sensitive of the group.

Their personal identification numbers, driving license # and social security numbers.

Considered more private than even credit cards, many people avoid giving out their social security numbers and other legal association numbers that are directly and probably forever linked to them. In very few rare cases would you need such a number, like when you are hiring contractors or employees or when you are offering someone a credit card offer. Avoid asking for something like this when you have no use for it, because customers may end up not shopping from you if you ask personal information that has nothing to do with their purchase.
Their Credit Card Numbers.
Many people avoid giving out their credit card numbers to anyone, including many businesses over the phone. Many people prefer using PayPal and many others prefer paying your merchant processor directly. Therefore, asking your customers the last 4 digits of their credit card numbers to verify orders or account numbers may turn off some customers. There are other ways to verify identities.
Their Home and Work Address.
At #3, more people are willing to give out their home and work addresses than their credit card and social security numbers. Still, people will prefer to give out other information than their home address. Avoid requiring customers to share their home or work address unless you need it to process a credit card or to mail something. Once again, a service like Google Checkout or PayPal allows you to circumvent such a step indirectly.
Their Phone Numbers.
Because of the increasing number of annoying marketing calls people get, you may feel some resistance when asking people for their phone numbers. You may even get a lot of phone numbers from customers who do not think a phone number should be required by you.
Their Real Full Name.
It may sound strange, but many people prefer being completely anonymous online, even to people and businesses they deal with on a regular basis. Unless you absolutely need someone’s name, avoid forcing people to enter their actual full names. For example, RA Project tries to discourage spammers from submitting useless comments by having them use a real name, a fake name, or any nick name, in place of using only keywords.
Their E-mail Address.
For many people, sharing an e-mail address is the easiest thing to do compared to any of the above points. This may be something you can ask anyone, as people may usually only be scared of getting more spam in their e-mail accounts. Try to avoid asking people for their e-mail address when it is not related to something that those people have actually requested from you.

What are you asking your customers to share?

Based on the above points, what do you usually ask your customers and blog readers to share? Are you asking customers too much or too little? What do you yourself like or dislike sharing with other companies and blogs online?

Please share your opinions, experiences, any tips or questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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Your Shopping Cart Should Avoid These 5 Distractions

Bes — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:00:31 +0000

Are your customers getting distracted while adding things to shopping carts?

Shopping carts are the main source of income for many websites. In fact, Amazon.com relies mainly on its shopping cart to make almost all of its sales. Amazon does one thing very good compared to many other retailers: it allows customers to have a distraction free shopping cart experience.

Your shopping cart also needs to be an experience that allows customers to dive into the world of the product they are buying. There should be absolutely nothing on your end that can distract the customer when they are ready to buy something from you. The same way offline retail stores try to make sure customers do not have to wait long to pay a cashier, you have to make sure your customers have a quick and distraction-free shopping experience in order to have better sales and more satisfied customers.

Are you doing everything you can to make sure your shopping cart does not distract customers from purchasing an item? Start focusing on such a task by avoiding implementing the following 5 distractions in your shopping carts.

5 Distractions to Avoid Implementing in Your Shopping Cart

Links to non-shopping pages of the site.
Any links to other products.
Any information related to your website that is not related to the product places inside the shopping cart.
More than one prominent “Empty Cart” button or link.
On the page where customers enter their credit card info, any textual information that does not reinforce the safety of the sensitive information customer is handing over to you.

Are you distracting your shopping cart users?

Is your shopping cart distraction-free? Are your customers adding things to their shopping carts and moving on to other parts of your website before making any purchase?

Please share your shopping cart opinions, tips, experiences or questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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Offer Discounts to Increase Appreciation and Sales

Bes — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:00:10 +0000

Are you offering discounts to everyone?

One of the two probably biggest reasons people do not buy anything from you is because they do not feel interested in your products. The other reason is that many people do not see a good value in what you are offering. You can try to convert this second category of potential customers by offering discounts. Discounts are basically a way to offer your same product at a lower price while still making a good profit. It is a win-win situation for both you and the customer.

There are many different ways to offer discounts, though companies like AT&T usually focus on offering discounts and rebates to new clients only. One of the biggest reasons people leave any company is because they find a better value elsewhere. You have to offer discounts and incentives to allow both existing and new clients to benefit from any price reductions.

Here are the 5 general concepts of offering discounts that you can apply to your blog and business practically and immediately.

5 Ways to Offer Discounts

Offer discounts to existing customers.

While your business may look better with more customers, it will do better if it retained all the new customers. The best way to retain customers is to offer them discounts even after they have signed up with your products and services. Offer discounts to existing customers also to show them that they are as important as new customers.
Offer discounts to new customers.
This is the most common trend, and it is also a very good practice. Offer discounts to new customers on an almost daily basis. Your discounts for new customers can actually be different than the discounts offered to your existing clients.
Offer discounts for referrals.
The best businesses are built on referrals. The same way you probably do not need to be explained why a Porsche or a Ferrari is a good car, because you already heard that from a hundred other people you know, people will sign up with your services more if they hear about you from a friend. Offer discounts and referral commissions to customers who refer others, and they will be inclined to refer more and more people.
Offer discounts on all new products.
You should have a discount or promotion on all new products. The first opening stages of your product are also the perfect times to create a lot of attention for your product. Offer discounts to anything new you come up with for a week or two, and people will more than likely want to be first in the line to sign up for new things you roll out.
Offer random unexpected discounts to those who help you in any manner.
Reward people who help you in any manner. If any client or potential client has ever given you feedback or advice about anything, you can reward them by offering them a discount to any of the services or products you offer. Very few things show more appreciation to someone than saying to them that you are thankful enough to charge them less money for something you sell at full price to others.

Are You Offering Discounts Via Your Blog?

Do you offer your blog readers discounts? What kind of discounts are your clients looking for?

Please share your opinions, experiences, tips or any questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading!

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Deliver Your Blog Content in Multiple Ways

Bes — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:00:36 +0000

Are you delivering your blog content in different ways?

Your blog content depends on a delivery venue. The computer screens and browsers that your clients use greatly affect the way your site performs and appears in the minds of the blog readers. The same way browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox deliver your blog to your blog readers, there are several other methods your blog readers can use to get your blog content.

Majority of the blogs on the internet depend upon the trend of having a blog reader visit them. You can take a step further if you want to be very successful. You have to bring your blog to the blog readers. When you bring your blog to a blog reader, you are basically allowing that blog reader to view and benefit from your content at their own preferred venue and time. You also reduce the number of steps many blog readers have to take in order to get your blog content. The easier it is for your blog readers to get your content, the more loyal blog readers you will get for your blog.

In addition to the regular browser, you can deliver your blog to your readers and clients in many different ways, including the following 4 important and powerful ones.

4 Different Ways to Deliver Your Blog Content

E-mail Newsletters.

It is a known fact that e-mail continues to be the most widely used medium of communication for a large number of people. E-mail is still popular, even in the age of Facebook and Twitter. In fact, every social network depends on and uses the e-mail system for communication and business. You can do the same with your blog. Deliver your blog to anyone interested in it via email updates. Aweber is a great service for this, allowing you to send out unlimited messages, updates and Autoresponders to your blog subscribers.

RA Project Updates uses e-mail newsletters everyday to deliver e-mail updates to you and other RA Project readers and clients.
RSS Feeds.
RSS Feeds basically allow you to automatically or manually have all of your previous and existing blog content available in a format that can be read by millions of people through their newsreaders like Netvibes and Google Reader. That way, your content can go to all your blog readers and clients wherever they want them, instead of your content forcing your blog readers and clients to always visit your blog.

If you are not sure what RSS Feeds are, I have covered them before in a The Reasoner article titled “What is RSS.”
Mobile browsers.
While a mobile browser of today is an extension or a modification of the browsers found on standard desktop computers and laptop, millions of people are already using their smartphones daily to check websites and read the news. You should make make your website more mobile friendly. If you use WordPress, you can try two popular plugins called WpTouch and WordPress Mobile Edition to create mobile friendly sites. You can also try Mobify.me, which works for any site including WordPress.

As a practical test of this point, try using your BlackBerry, iPhone, Droid, WinMo, Palm or any other smartphone you may have to visit any RA Project article, including this very article you are reading right now. You will see RA Project customized nicely and neatly for your mobile browsing experience.
Social Networks.
Probably the newest entry compared to other venues, promoting your blog on social networks can do wonders. Try allowing your readers to find out about your article on the social networks they already frequent. While you can post a brief intro and a link on Twitter, you can publish larger descriptions or even full articles on social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

After e-mail, social networks are probably the most personal venues for your blog readers and clients. If you are part of such networks or allow your content to be available on such networks, your blog readers and clients are more inclined to read your blog content.

How are you delivering your blog content to your blog readers?

Do you employ any of the points above on your existing sites? Do your blog readers prefer one venue over another?

Please share your opinions, experiences, tips or any questions by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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Consistency in Your Blogging Efforts

Bes — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:00:21 +0000

Are you consistent in your blogging efforts?

While it can be very easy to start a blog, it can be quite hard to maintain it. From writing blog posts, coming up with topics to write about and bringing in visitors to answering e-mails, replying to comments and keeping people interested in your blog, the entire concept of blogging can be the most time consuming online activity in your life. And that can be for a good reason too, because all the time and effort you put into your blog pays off in both the short and the long run. The one thing you have to realize through your entire blogging effort is consistency.

Being consistent in your blogging efforts basically means that you keep maintaining your entire blog and the elements related to it at least on an almost regular basis. For example, if your blog gives blog readers one new article in July, two articles in August, 20 articles in September and then 5 articles in October, people may simply lost interest in your blog because of the inconsistent scheduling of your blog posts. While consistency itself may have nothing to do with the quality of your blog and blogging efforts, blog readers do try to incorporate your blog and your ideas into their already active lives. Being consistent means your blog readers can find it easier to be interested in your blog in both the long and the short run.

In order to have a successful blog, you need to be consistent in your blogging efforts. The following list will help you focus on 5 things in your blogging efforts in order to be more consistent.

5 Things to Be Consistent About on Your Blog

Your Blogging Frequency.

The amount of time you spend blogging can be divided up to make it easier for both you and your readers to be interested in your blog. Whether you post daily or once a week, having a consistent frequency will also let your readers realize on their own when to expect new content from you.
Your Blogging Topics.
While blogs can be about anything, your blog can be better if it tried to focus on a certain topic of writing or analysis in the long run. You could write about anything, but your blog may suffer if you do not focus on something similar in the long run that your readers expect from your blog.
Your Contact Methods.
The way your blog readers and clients can contact you is very important. You should rarely change the way your blog readers can contact you, though it is a very good idea to continually improve and add new ways to be contacted. For example, your contact form and e-mail address should not be given up completely for newer alternatives, because your blog readers may be used to them for contacting you.
Your Communication Methods.
The way you communicate with your bloggers is also important. E-mail newsletters, RSS Feeds, and any other channels through which you send out your content to your blog readers should usually remain consistent so that your blog readers can rely on you and those channels to get your content.
You.
The most important aspect of any blogging effort is probably yourself. You should remain consistent in terms of being interested in your own blog and the topics you focus on through your blog. If you keep changing and losing interest in your blog, it may show through the quality or type of your blog posts and your blog readers may start losing interest in your blog too.

Are You Consistent on Your Blog?

Based on the 5 points above, are you consistent on your blog? Is your blog giving your blog readers a consistent quality of information and help? Which points are more relevant to you than others?

Please share your opinions, experiences or tips by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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Allow Your Customers to Vent

Bes — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:00:17 +0000

Are you allowing your customers to vent?

Probably not a day goes by where your blog does not end up making someone upset. Whether it is because of what you said or because of what your blog stands for, the idea of getting upset means that all of your blog reader and client base includes several people who are not completely satisfied with you. In order to build a good blog, you have to both get customers to become happy and customers to work with you in solving their problems. The only way to do the latter is to figure out what problems customers are having.

You may already be wondering why your clients get upset. In addition to working out different plans to see why some or several of your clients may be upset or not as active as other clients, you can create venues on your blog to allow clients and everyone else to vent and let you know the things that they do not like. Blogs that do not allow customers to vent are like shops which do not allow a customer to do anything other than to pay for a service.

The only successful way to keep a customer loyal and happy for the long run is to actually find out the problems a customer may be having so that you can solve them. And the best way to find out a problem is to have a customer vent to you directly.

3 Ways to Allow Customers to Vent

Have a contact form.

Have a contact form specifically for people to ask questions, voice complaints or to contact you for any reason. You will be surprised at the number of people contacting you regularly.
Have forums.
This can be one of the most popular and effective ways to allow customers to vent so that you can help them and turn them into completely happy customers. Forums allow for one of the best ways for you to be very transparent with everyone around you.
Have surveys.
While they can be one of the simplest and least time consuming things to implement, surveys are also one of the most informative and effective ways to allow customers and blog readers to let you know what they think about you and your offerings. Be very specific in your surveys and allow customers to rate you very specifically. Ask them what they think about your service, what they think of your new design, how easy your blog is to navigate, and more.

Does your blog allow customers to vent?

Allowing your blog readers and clients to talk about what they wish openly or directly with you opens a series of new doors between them and yourself. The more possibilities there are for frustrated or upset clients and readers to express their feelings and problems to you, the more you are likely to realize what to do to help them. That exact result is the reason why in the end your blog readers and clients will choose you over others in the long run. People would rather deal with an entity that offered solutions and paid attention than deal with an entity that offered solutions but did not pay enough attention.

Do you offer your clients different ways to express themselves? Is your blog setup so that any upset readers and clients can vent if necessary?

Please share your opinions, experiences, questions or tips by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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5 Ways to Appreciate Guest Bloggers

Bes — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:00:37 +0000

Do you appreciate your guest bloggers?

Each and every guest blogger who writes for your blog also needs the same amount of attention that you give to all your blog readers and clients. A guest blogger and make or break your blog, depending on how much devotion they place on the importance of your blog in their blogging efforts. The same way a blog without comments can be like a lecture, as Chris Garrett says, a guest blog post without the full backing of the guest blogger can make your blog less valuable for your clients and readers.

Every commentor is a writer, and every writer is a commentor. A guest blogger is basically both: a writer who is commenting on your blog. A guest blogger also has the advantage of being a main commentor who attracts other commentors. I previously presented to you a list of 5 Ways to Appreciate Readers. Today we shall cover some ways you can appreciate guest bloggers on your blog.

In order to attract and maintain a healthy list of amazing guest bloggers, you have to start treating guest bloggers with respect. Here are 5 ways how you can do that.

5 Ways to Appreciate Bloggers

Disagree with politeness with a guest blogger on your blog.

Many times I notice that bloggers will either refrain from disagreeing with their guest bloggers, or they will disagree very strongly. Don’t be scared! Disagree with respect; disagreement does not mean you disrespect someone, so feel free to say “I think the post may not be correct in assuming…” or something similar, while offering your opinions and the reasons behind your opinions. Remember, your opinions count too, so if you make sure you disagree with your guest blogger politely, they will not only be inclined to guest blog more on your blog to attract more attention, they will also guest blog more effectively in order to address future concerns by you.
Contact the guest blogger outside of the comments area.
You can try to interact with a guest blogger outside of the comments area for the article they wrote on your blog. If a guest blogger only wants to be contacted through the comments area, then you can focus on commenting directly. Otherwise, you can also communicate with the guest blogger through e-mail, instant messaging or any other way you communicated with them prior to their guest post on your blog. Ronald has previously explained 7 ways that bloggers can allow interaction; if you notice any of those things, use them to your advantage.

Bloggers who appreciate guest bloggers will find that guest bloggers will feel more content if they are treated nicely. While simply commenting on a guest blog post on your own blog can work, you should let the guest blogger know about any feedback outside of the commenting area also. Contacting guest bloggers outside of the comments area shows that you are taking the time to interact with them through different methods, which means that whatever the guest blogger may be doing on your blog to spark interaction from readers seems to be working. Your guest blogger will surely want to guest blog for you more if they feel they have your full support.
Tell a blogger how to improve.
Criticism is considered evil by many people. I think it is ok for you to contact a guest blogger only to tell them that something they are doing through their writing or their blog may need “work or modification” while you offer suggestions on how that guest blogger can improve. The guest blogger may even think you are evil and rude, though in the long run, they will be able to correct their mistake if you really think they are making one. Do not refrain from giving advice if you think someone may find you rude. Do things politely that you think are necessary to help others, without trying to hurt others through your words. Your guest blogger needs his or her guest posts read by others on your blog, and you need a guest blogger who writes great posts. It is all right for either of you to let the other one know how to improve such a business relationship.
Support guest bloggers when they may be nervous.
Many bloggers these days are getting invited to be guest bloggers on other blogs. If you see your guest blogger being hammered by commentors or your guest blogger feeling nervous, step up and support them! If you agree to what they say, let guest bloggers know with good reasons that they have done a good job at writing such a great post. Make your guest bloggers feel that they have full control of the page on your blog where their guest blog post is published. That shows your appreciation for the guest blogger.
Disagree with guest bloggers when they may be nervous.
The same way you should support guest bloggers, you should also disagree respectfully and express your opinions if you think a guest blogger is mistaken about something. Do not agree to everything guest bloggers say simply because they are writing on your blog. Show disagreements even at times when a guest blogger may feel nervous, while also showing respect and supporting the nervous guest blogger. Do not make someone nervous on purpose. Disagree with something, show respect, offer your opinion and congratulate the blogger for doing such a wonderful job at bringing up a topic that prompted you to participate.

Do You Appreciate Guest Bloggers?

Those are 5 ways to show your appreciation to a blogger. Interaction on the blogosphere has to work both ways, with bloggers appreciating readers and readers appreciating bloggers. Only then can you and the guest blogger mutually understand and respect each another.

What do you think of the above points? Do you appreciate guest bloggers? Have you guest blogged on other blogs?

Please share your opinions, experiences or any tips by commenting below. Thank you for reading.

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Are your customers not happy with your current public channels?

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What would you like RA Project to cover in August, 2010?

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10 Steps To Make Your Blog Legally Safer

How Are You Making Your Blog Legally Safer?

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5 Things Your Blog Should Avoid

Are you avoiding these 2 typical trends?

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Do you believe in keeping your users up to date?

Ways to keep your users updated

Do you keep your blog readers regularly updated?

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What is Customer Appreciation All About?

15 Different Forms of Customer Appreciation

How do you appreciate your customers?

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Things Your Blog Should Have

5 Things Your Blog Should have

Does Your Blog Offer the Above 5 Features?

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Should You Contact Customers Through Personal Channels?

Contacting Customers Through Personal Channels

Do you contact customers through personal channels?

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Reach Out to Customers

Are You Reaching Out to Customers on Your Own?

Do you reach out to customers?

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Where Does Your Blog Fit in Your Business?

5 Different Roles Blogs Can Play in Your Business

Do you know what function your blog has in your business?

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6 Things Customers Hesitate to Give You

6 Sensitive Things Customers Hesitate to Divulge to You

What are you asking your customers to share?

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Your Shopping Cart Should Avoid These 5 Distractions

5 Distractions to Avoid Implementing in Your Shopping Cart

Are you distracting your shopping cart users?

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Offer Discounts to Increase Appreciation and Sales

5 Ways to Offer Discounts

Are You Offering Discounts Via Your Blog?

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Deliver Your Blog Content in Multiple Ways

4 Different Ways to Deliver Your Blog Content

How are you delivering your blog content to your blog readers?

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Consistency in Your Blogging Efforts

5 Things to Be Consistent About on Your Blog

Are You Consistent on Your Blog?

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Allow Your Customers to Vent

3 Ways to Allow Customers to Vent

Does your blog allow customers to vent?

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5 Ways to Appreciate Guest Bloggers

5 Ways to Appreciate Bloggers

Do You Appreciate Guest Bloggers?

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