The first principle a lot of people don’t understand is that there is absolutely NO direct link between work and money… People must learn to be effective instead of efficient.
Your banker will never ask you how hard you worked for your money.
Having the right strategy is very important in order to make cash online.
The second thing a lot of people who fail to make money online lack is a sense of urgency.
Most people rationalize like crazy, and the most popular and money sucking excuse is manipulating time.
I’ll do it later… or I’ll do it tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes. The road to someday leads to a town called nowhere. Out of the few people that really do take action… some of them fail because they become perfectionist, and spend months if not years creating their product… instead of focusing on marketing.
The third reason people fail to make good money online is because they focus about 90% of their time on product creation and the remaining time to getting traffic and marketing their product.
If you ask me this ratio is a recipe for disaster. A great ratio that works great is to spend 20% of your time on product creation, 40% of your time on the marketing of that product, and 40% of your time on generating leads and traffic for your product.
If you get this ratio wrong, you might have an outstanding product that no one ever sees.
The fourth major reason people fail to make money online is because they lack the belief. Answer this question right now… How hard would you work if you absolutely knew without a doubt that the next product and sales letter you create would make you 1 million dollars? If there was zero doubt that it would be a mega success?
Every successful person needs to create that sense of belief and certainty that their ideas will be profitable… and honestly that belief comes from competence.
Competence breeds confidence.
Start small.
Don’t set goals of being a millionaire by next week.
If you’ve never made any money online… start with a simple goal of making $1 profit on the internet.
I guarantee you the 2nd dollar you make will be easier and so will the 3rd …all the way until you are making enough cash per month to pay all your expenses, and then you can kiss your job goodbye.
If you avoid the 4 reasons people fail to make money online, and follow this
easy success formula… your goals are almost guaranteed to become reality.
Step 1: Know exactly what you want. Have a very specific, clear, and achievable goal.
Step 2: Take massive action, do everything you can to get you closer to your goal.
Step 3: See what results you’re getting. Have enough sensory acuity to know if what you are doing is getting you closer or further away from your goal.
Step 4: Keep changing your approach until you get what you want.
Those are the action steps I want you to take as soon as you finish reading this article. Reading will not get you what you want. Taking action will… so take action and implement what you have learned in this short yet powerful article.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
10 Things To Blog About When You Don’t Know What To Blog About
Today, I was sitting at my computer desk trying thinking of something to blog about. I sat around for quite some time trying to think of something but nothing came to my mind. Then I finally thought of something. I thought I should write a post of ideas to blog about when you have no clue what you want to blog about. Updating is very important in blogging so what if you run out of ideas to blog about? Pretty much every blogger gets writing block and it’s not fun. So here are a few ideas to help you out when don’t have any ideas.
1. Go to Google!
I personally think Google is one of the best things that ever happened. I use it a bunch and it can be a great tool to use for a bunch of stuff, and when you don’t know what to blog about. Make a search of things to blog about or new stuff that’s going on like hot trends. I’m sure you’ll find an idea to make a post about there.
2. Keep a list/journal of things to blog about
This is what I do and it really helps. Sometimes I’ll just be doing whatever and an idea will pop into my head about what to blog about. So, I keep a journal and I just write each idea down. This way if you’re ever thinking of something to blog about, you just get out your journal and pick a topic from there.
3. Maybe re post an old post?
Perhaps if you made a blog entry a few months or years ago you can take one of your old posts and revise it to make it better and re post it. Perhaps you’ve learned more since then and have some new ideas you would like to include.
4. Take a nap or go to bed
Sometimes when you think too hard it can be very frustrating and mind-boggling and you just need to relax and get some rest. Go take a nap or go to bed and when you wake up you might feel refreshed and you might think of a new idea. Maybe even take a few days off and do stuff you like to enjoy. Give your mind a rest and when you come back later it might be a little easier.
5. Write a tutorial
Maybe you could write a tutorial to teach some of your readers to do something. For instance, write a tutorial on Web design, how to make money online blogging, etc, depending on the type of website or blog you have. Whatever you do, try not to go off topic.
6. Reply to a readers question
This is always a good idea for something to blog about. Take a question that one or some of your readers have asked you and address it in a post to inform the readers. Readers always like when the blogger themselves interacts with them.
7. Tell your readers to ask you some questions
Make a post where you tell your readers to ask you any questions they want. Then once they’ve submitted their questions, you can answer a few of them in a new blog post. This is always a good idea because you can gain loyalty from your readers and it’s an extra thing to post about when you don’t have any ideas.
8. Check your email
Check your email. This kind of ties in with 6 and 7 but maybe some readers have sent you a question or an email regarding a certain topic you could cover in a post.
9. Ask somebody
Maybe you could talk to a friend or somebody you know and ask them what would be something interesting to blog about that they would like to learn about. This might not work if they have no clue really about what you’re trying to do but it’s possible. I myself have come up with a few blog posts this way.
10. Interview somebody
Interview somebody. Interview a blogger. In most cases many people won’t mind sharing some information with you. Write up a few questions and be prepared in case they say yes. Perhaps they’ll make a post about you linking back to your site resulting in some more traffic!
So, if you ever get writers block, try a few of these ideas out for yourself and see how they work and most likely you’ll come up with something!
1. Go to Google!
I personally think Google is one of the best things that ever happened. I use it a bunch and it can be a great tool to use for a bunch of stuff, and when you don’t know what to blog about. Make a search of things to blog about or new stuff that’s going on like hot trends. I’m sure you’ll find an idea to make a post about there.
2. Keep a list/journal of things to blog about
This is what I do and it really helps. Sometimes I’ll just be doing whatever and an idea will pop into my head about what to blog about. So, I keep a journal and I just write each idea down. This way if you’re ever thinking of something to blog about, you just get out your journal and pick a topic from there.
3. Maybe re post an old post?
Perhaps if you made a blog entry a few months or years ago you can take one of your old posts and revise it to make it better and re post it. Perhaps you’ve learned more since then and have some new ideas you would like to include.
4. Take a nap or go to bed
Sometimes when you think too hard it can be very frustrating and mind-boggling and you just need to relax and get some rest. Go take a nap or go to bed and when you wake up you might feel refreshed and you might think of a new idea. Maybe even take a few days off and do stuff you like to enjoy. Give your mind a rest and when you come back later it might be a little easier.
5. Write a tutorial
Maybe you could write a tutorial to teach some of your readers to do something. For instance, write a tutorial on Web design, how to make money online blogging, etc, depending on the type of website or blog you have. Whatever you do, try not to go off topic.
6. Reply to a readers question
This is always a good idea for something to blog about. Take a question that one or some of your readers have asked you and address it in a post to inform the readers. Readers always like when the blogger themselves interacts with them.
7. Tell your readers to ask you some questions
Make a post where you tell your readers to ask you any questions they want. Then once they’ve submitted their questions, you can answer a few of them in a new blog post. This is always a good idea because you can gain loyalty from your readers and it’s an extra thing to post about when you don’t have any ideas.
8. Check your email
Check your email. This kind of ties in with 6 and 7 but maybe some readers have sent you a question or an email regarding a certain topic you could cover in a post.
9. Ask somebody
Maybe you could talk to a friend or somebody you know and ask them what would be something interesting to blog about that they would like to learn about. This might not work if they have no clue really about what you’re trying to do but it’s possible. I myself have come up with a few blog posts this way.
10. Interview somebody
Interview somebody. Interview a blogger. In most cases many people won’t mind sharing some information with you. Write up a few questions and be prepared in case they say yes. Perhaps they’ll make a post about you linking back to your site resulting in some more traffic!
So, if you ever get writers block, try a few of these ideas out for yourself and see how they work and most likely you’ll come up with something!
6 Reasons To Encourage More Comments On Your Blog
Most Bloggers with less or no commentators on their blog would say, “Who cares about a few talkative people when we have a lot of visitors?”. That simply gives me a laugh, imagine yourself giving a good lesson to your class and the students just stare and walk away after a while, you delivered your message? Yeah right! Let me explain myself for those people in a few bullets(I don’t mean real ones):
Feedback
You get feedback on your content, or shall I say more of a proof that people who visit your blog actually read the content. A survey or a question would have a much better feedback.
“Hey, You Need to learn how to proofread!”
You become aware of your flaws and know where you lack when people point it out, mind it: It is not a bad thing if people correct you, or don’t agree with your point. After all, everyone has a freedom of thought. Bloggers become ProBloggers when they learn from their mistakes, but if you don’t even know your mistakes, then how will you learn?
Inspiration
For me, it is the biggest inspiration that a blogger can get, good comments are like a life-saving drug for a dying blog. Many good commentators are out there, knowing the truth about your writing feels great to know after all the hard work you put into it.
Attract Advertisers
It is a good way to attract advertisers to your blog, imagine having spectacular Alexa Ranking, Subscribers count and technorati ranking and you have less than 4 comments on each article. Not only would that give a bad image about the blog to the advertiser but also would rise doubts about the traffic being legit/real.
It Helps SEO
If you don’t already know this then you’re in for a hidden surprise package beside every comment. Searches which are very much in depth of a topic, words normally not used in titles and by you particularly in posts would mostly be discussed by commentators. Moreover, they are majority and discuss the topic into further depth, thus helping your SEO efforts to best fit all related keywords.
1 brings 2, 3 bring 4
Remember, average internet users are more like a sheep. 60% of them will not comment if the post already has n0 comments on it. Get the first few comments, and the rest will come smoothly like skiing with butter on pancakes.
So I hope if you had any doubts about comments helping your blog or blogging experience would have been cleared. There are dozens of blogs that concentrate more on increasing comments rather than traffic. Let me ask you a question, wouldn’t a blog like Carl Ocab dot Com seem very unimpressive if popular Articles on it would have less than 5 comments? I think the importance of comments becomes very obvious.
Feedback
You get feedback on your content, or shall I say more of a proof that people who visit your blog actually read the content. A survey or a question would have a much better feedback.
“Hey, You Need to learn how to proofread!”
You become aware of your flaws and know where you lack when people point it out, mind it: It is not a bad thing if people correct you, or don’t agree with your point. After all, everyone has a freedom of thought. Bloggers become ProBloggers when they learn from their mistakes, but if you don’t even know your mistakes, then how will you learn?
Inspiration
For me, it is the biggest inspiration that a blogger can get, good comments are like a life-saving drug for a dying blog. Many good commentators are out there, knowing the truth about your writing feels great to know after all the hard work you put into it.
Attract Advertisers
It is a good way to attract advertisers to your blog, imagine having spectacular Alexa Ranking, Subscribers count and technorati ranking and you have less than 4 comments on each article. Not only would that give a bad image about the blog to the advertiser but also would rise doubts about the traffic being legit/real.
It Helps SEO
If you don’t already know this then you’re in for a hidden surprise package beside every comment. Searches which are very much in depth of a topic, words normally not used in titles and by you particularly in posts would mostly be discussed by commentators. Moreover, they are majority and discuss the topic into further depth, thus helping your SEO efforts to best fit all related keywords.
1 brings 2, 3 bring 4
Remember, average internet users are more like a sheep. 60% of them will not comment if the post already has n0 comments on it. Get the first few comments, and the rest will come smoothly like skiing with butter on pancakes.
So I hope if you had any doubts about comments helping your blog or blogging experience would have been cleared. There are dozens of blogs that concentrate more on increasing comments rather than traffic. Let me ask you a question, wouldn’t a blog like Carl Ocab dot Com seem very unimpressive if popular Articles on it would have less than 5 comments? I think the importance of comments becomes very obvious.
5 Tips To Grow Search Engine Traffic To Your Blog
No matter what others have said about natural search engine traffic, it is a significant traffic source for many bloggers. Some blogger friends admit that search engines account for 30 - 60 percent of their entire blog traffic.
It is possible and recommended to diversify and avoid relying your business solely on one traffic source — and company, Google. However, search engine traffic converts and if you can get more of them to your site, and assuming everything is the same, you will increase the sales figures and revenue from ads.
The details about how search engine works may be beyond most of us — in search engines don’t reveal their exact algorithm — but the basic is not rocket science at all.
Here are 5 tips to help you grow search engine traffic. (If you are interested to learn more about SEO, I have a complete article series of blog SEO.
1. Know your keywords
Keywords are the building blocks of a blog and web site. Naturally, you should target just one keyword per blog post. Avoid creating content just for the sake of having the keyword on your blog. You should provide valuable content and impress the visitors. Only then will they consider subscribing to your content feed.
You should be thinking about what the visitors do on your site. Optimizing the result from the same amount of traffic is as important, if not more. But, I digress…
2. Optimize your blog design
You will be surprised that many bloggers claim their blog themes or templates as search engine friendly because the themes were advertised as such. Spend some time to check the template to make sure it has the right title tag, order of content, heading tags and so on.
Your time will be well spent. After all, it is most likely a one-time task. It may make a difference between ranking for long tail keywords and not getting found at all.
3. Restructure your site
Theming with silos is a great way to structure and divide your blog content into subtopics. Many SEO experts represent siloing as simple tiered content. They are quite similar in a few points but nevertheless you should thinking about making your content topics obvious to search engines.
Tiered content without proper linking doesn’t help build topic on your site. For instance, you should only link to a silo (or parent) instead of children cross another silo. Good practice avoids diluting the theme of your site or blog.
That can help rankings because once search engines think your blog is related to certain subtopic, you are going to get more long tail keywords for that subtopic.
4. Gain inbound links
There is more than one way to do it, from article marketing to link baiting, blog commenting, forum marketing and so on. When you are just starting out, every little tactic matters to grow your traffic level to a few hundreds a day.
Your aim is to reach more center of influence. Once you are at this level, every new post will result in a few more backlinks to your blog.
5. Patience
As the age of your domain increases, your blog will also be considered more valuable, especially if you keep it active throughout the time.
Search engine optimization doesn’t produce flood of traffic immediately but it is often worth the effort. Giving up too early in the process is one of the biggest reasons why people fail at this.
Another thing to keep in mind is that traffic from organic search grows gradually. As you target more keywords within your content and gain more authority through backlinks, you will only grow your traffic.
You may be surprised that after several years, I still notice growth in traffic to some of my blogs from search engines. It helps if you aim for the long haul and really drill deep in a niche, because that’s what a real business is.
It is possible and recommended to diversify and avoid relying your business solely on one traffic source — and company, Google. However, search engine traffic converts and if you can get more of them to your site, and assuming everything is the same, you will increase the sales figures and revenue from ads.
The details about how search engine works may be beyond most of us — in search engines don’t reveal their exact algorithm — but the basic is not rocket science at all.
Here are 5 tips to help you grow search engine traffic. (If you are interested to learn more about SEO, I have a complete article series of blog SEO.
1. Know your keywords
Keywords are the building blocks of a blog and web site. Naturally, you should target just one keyword per blog post. Avoid creating content just for the sake of having the keyword on your blog. You should provide valuable content and impress the visitors. Only then will they consider subscribing to your content feed.
You should be thinking about what the visitors do on your site. Optimizing the result from the same amount of traffic is as important, if not more. But, I digress…
2. Optimize your blog design
You will be surprised that many bloggers claim their blog themes or templates as search engine friendly because the themes were advertised as such. Spend some time to check the template to make sure it has the right title tag, order of content, heading tags and so on.
Your time will be well spent. After all, it is most likely a one-time task. It may make a difference between ranking for long tail keywords and not getting found at all.
3. Restructure your site
Theming with silos is a great way to structure and divide your blog content into subtopics. Many SEO experts represent siloing as simple tiered content. They are quite similar in a few points but nevertheless you should thinking about making your content topics obvious to search engines.
Tiered content without proper linking doesn’t help build topic on your site. For instance, you should only link to a silo (or parent) instead of children cross another silo. Good practice avoids diluting the theme of your site or blog.
That can help rankings because once search engines think your blog is related to certain subtopic, you are going to get more long tail keywords for that subtopic.
4. Gain inbound links
There is more than one way to do it, from article marketing to link baiting, blog commenting, forum marketing and so on. When you are just starting out, every little tactic matters to grow your traffic level to a few hundreds a day.
Your aim is to reach more center of influence. Once you are at this level, every new post will result in a few more backlinks to your blog.
5. Patience
As the age of your domain increases, your blog will also be considered more valuable, especially if you keep it active throughout the time.
Search engine optimization doesn’t produce flood of traffic immediately but it is often worth the effort. Giving up too early in the process is one of the biggest reasons why people fail at this.
Another thing to keep in mind is that traffic from organic search grows gradually. As you target more keywords within your content and gain more authority through backlinks, you will only grow your traffic.
You may be surprised that after several years, I still notice growth in traffic to some of my blogs from search engines. It helps if you aim for the long haul and really drill deep in a niche, because that’s what a real business is.
14 Simple Ways To Drive Massive Traffic To Your Site
You know, it is impossible to make money if you don’t drive massive traffic to your site. So I decided to talk about traffic generation strategies below. How can you increase website traffic to your site today?
Here are the massive traffic generation strategies and resources:
1. Article Distribution
Article marketing is an amazing way of getting traffic. You can benefit from article marketing in a different ways. You will get direct traffic from article directories, but your traffic will explode if ezine and website publishers publish your article on their ezines and websites.
Article marketing is a great way of getting backlinks to your site. You should add 2 or 3 links to the resource box of your articles. It is better to put at least 1 anchor link in resource box.
2. Social Networking
Social marketing is a new way of generating massive traffic. Digg, Stumble Upon and other sites are getting millions visitors each month, so you can use them to drive targeted traffic to your sites.
Social bookmarking sites are different from social news sites. In social bookmarking sites (like Delicious), you just bookmark sites, but social news sites give you a chance to network with other people. So social bookmarking sites will not bring you traffic, but they are good for getting backlinks.
You can get high traffic from social news sites because people see your site in social news sites and vote for it.
3. Submission to Directories
Submitting your site to website directories will benefit you with getting one way links to your site which will improve its search engine rankings. If you list your site on directories such as Yahoo and Dmoz, you can get direct traffic from them, too.
4. Review
There are a lot review sites on the net. You can open account with them and start reviewing the products related with your niche. When you do it, you should refer to your URL at the end. Most review sites will allow you to add your URL there.
Best place for reviewing is Amazon.com. Create a profile there and start making reviews as an expert.
5. Press Release Distribution
It is one of the most productive, but forgotten traffic strategy. You should write press releases that would be interested for the media. If journalists like your press release, you can get the media attention and drive tremendous traffic to your site at the same time.
Here are the massive traffic generation strategies and resources:
1. Article Distribution
Article marketing is an amazing way of getting traffic. You can benefit from article marketing in a different ways. You will get direct traffic from article directories, but your traffic will explode if ezine and website publishers publish your article on their ezines and websites.
Article marketing is a great way of getting backlinks to your site. You should add 2 or 3 links to the resource box of your articles. It is better to put at least 1 anchor link in resource box.
2. Social Networking
Social marketing is a new way of generating massive traffic. Digg, Stumble Upon and other sites are getting millions visitors each month, so you can use them to drive targeted traffic to your sites.
Social bookmarking sites are different from social news sites. In social bookmarking sites (like Delicious), you just bookmark sites, but social news sites give you a chance to network with other people. So social bookmarking sites will not bring you traffic, but they are good for getting backlinks.
You can get high traffic from social news sites because people see your site in social news sites and vote for it.
3. Submission to Directories
Submitting your site to website directories will benefit you with getting one way links to your site which will improve its search engine rankings. If you list your site on directories such as Yahoo and Dmoz, you can get direct traffic from them, too.
4. Review
There are a lot review sites on the net. You can open account with them and start reviewing the products related with your niche. When you do it, you should refer to your URL at the end. Most review sites will allow you to add your URL there.
Best place for reviewing is Amazon.com. Create a profile there and start making reviews as an expert.
5. Press Release Distribution
It is one of the most productive, but forgotten traffic strategy. You should write press releases that would be interested for the media. If journalists like your press release, you can get the media attention and drive tremendous traffic to your site at the same time.
6. RSS Feed
Having RSS Feed on your blog is very important. When a visitor sign ups to your feed, he (she) will get informed each time you write a new post and will return to your blog again.
You should also submit your feed to RSS Feed directories to get more people to sign up to your feeds.
If you haven’t added feed to your blog yet, you can create one with http://FeedBurner.com.
7. CraigsList
Craig’s List is the best classified ads site. Most ads on Craigslist are free. Some ads will cost you money, but it is less than you would pay to local newsletters.
8. Ebay
Ebay is a powerful system for finding customers for your products and services. You can also benefit from eBay adding your URL to your pages there and getting visitors and inbound links at the same time.
9. Audio (Podcasting)
This is relatively new type of marketing, but is going to extend in the near future. You can easily create audio on Audio Acrobat and submit to podcast directories. It will bring you good traffic.
10. Ezines
There are different ways of using ezines for getting massive traffic. You can contact an ezine owner to send your new product to his (her) list and share the profit. Also there are ezines that accept articles. You can send your articles them and get great exposure (articles will contain your links) to your site.
Buying ads on ezines can be very effective too, but you should choose the right ezine for it. Visit http://www.bestezines.com for a free list of ezines.
11. Forums
Online forums are very effective for getting traffic and building authority in your niche. You should join the forums which don’t allow advertising.
Don’t spam forums with advertising and hype. Give good answers to the questions and gain the respect as an expert in your niche. Don’t forget to attach a sig file to all of your posts so members can visit your site.
12. Ebooks (freebie product)
Create your own ebook and then give it away for free. Ebook will contain your sites and programs in it which will bring you extra traffic.
13. Yahoo Groups
Find Yahoo Groups which are relevant to your niche, join and actively participiate there. When you post on Yahoo groups you should add your link to the signature.
14. Videos
Video marketing is going to be one of the most productive marketing tips in the future. It can take time to create videos, but it is worth of it. After you create the video, add it to YouTube and other video sharing sites. It will be great exposure for your website traffic.
Bum Marketing, Does It Still Work?
On the first months of my internet venture, I’ve heard tons of ways to make money online. For a start, you have those “Get paid to” sites. Pretty tempting for a 13-year old back then, but I never tried one. You have eBay and a whole lotta other ways. But what have most intrigued me is this - bum marketing.
For the next months, I will be doing a live experiment, testing if bum marketing still works.
What is bum marketing?
Easy as pie. You write an article related to the product that you will be promoting as an affiliate then submit it to Ezinearticles.com. Do the process hundred times. Wait for the search engines to rank you article.
Higher rankings = more traffic to your article = more clicks to your affiliate link = more affiliate sales.
Listen. Here’s the secret to bum marketing success… domination. Dominate every search term for the product.
Let’ say you will be promoting a fishing tip product. To dominate the niche of your product, try hitting long tail keywords e.g. trout fishing, Alaska salmon fishing, Florida fishing, etc. and write one article for every keyphrase.
Why bum marketing?
I’ll skip the long paragraphs and bull point it out ;-)
No computer skills required
You can start with a low budget
You can start right now
Money on snowball effect
Why not bum marketing?
Too many articles to write
You depend too much for search engine traffic
The solution
Too many articles to write - If you don’t have the money, you’ll have to pay time to get money. If you don’t have the time, you’ll have to pay money to get time. Now I have the money, I don’t have to write the articles - I ordered my first batch of 15 articles from one of my writers.
You depend too much for search engine traffic - Then why not add a dash of web 2.0? For this case study, I will be using Social Poster to bookmark the articles I’ve submitted to Ezinearticles.com. I will also make a couple of Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com pages.
What I’ve done as of now
If you want to do the same and test it for yourself - or do it for the profits, here are the things that I have done at the moment.
Looked for a product to promote over at PayDotCom (Clickbank alternative) with a good conversion rate and a reasonable price
Bought a domain name because Ezinearticles.com don’t allow direct affiliate links - $7.15 (with coupon price from godaddy)
Bought 15 articles related to the product I will be promoting - $45
Set upped a campaign on my autoresponder (I am currently with GetResponse) to capture leads for long term traffic - $17.95
Bought a private label product to give people an initiative to sign up to my list - $3
Hosted (I recommend Media Temple) my squeeze page where I will drive my traffic to - $20
Did a keyword research via Aaron Wall’s keyword suggestion tool and targeted the keyphrases with around 100-300 overall daily search to compete with less competition
Submitted an article to Ezinearticles.com
Bookmarked my article using Social Poster
Made a Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com page for my article
With that kind of set up, it would cost you less than a hundred dollars to start.
I did my best to cut the cost here for everyone to take play. You can eliminate some expenses like the buying of articles by writing ones on your own and probably the hosting if you’ve got your own host.
For the next months, I will be doing a live experiment, testing if bum marketing still works.
What is bum marketing?
Easy as pie. You write an article related to the product that you will be promoting as an affiliate then submit it to Ezinearticles.com. Do the process hundred times. Wait for the search engines to rank you article.
Higher rankings = more traffic to your article = more clicks to your affiliate link = more affiliate sales.
Listen. Here’s the secret to bum marketing success… domination. Dominate every search term for the product.
Let’ say you will be promoting a fishing tip product. To dominate the niche of your product, try hitting long tail keywords e.g. trout fishing, Alaska salmon fishing, Florida fishing, etc. and write one article for every keyphrase.
Why bum marketing?
I’ll skip the long paragraphs and bull point it out ;-)
No computer skills required
You can start with a low budget
You can start right now
Money on snowball effect
Why not bum marketing?
Too many articles to write
You depend too much for search engine traffic
The solution
Too many articles to write - If you don’t have the money, you’ll have to pay time to get money. If you don’t have the time, you’ll have to pay money to get time. Now I have the money, I don’t have to write the articles - I ordered my first batch of 15 articles from one of my writers.
You depend too much for search engine traffic - Then why not add a dash of web 2.0? For this case study, I will be using Social Poster to bookmark the articles I’ve submitted to Ezinearticles.com. I will also make a couple of Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com pages.
What I’ve done as of now
If you want to do the same and test it for yourself - or do it for the profits, here are the things that I have done at the moment.
Looked for a product to promote over at PayDotCom (Clickbank alternative) with a good conversion rate and a reasonable price
Bought a domain name because Ezinearticles.com don’t allow direct affiliate links - $7.15 (with coupon price from godaddy)
Bought 15 articles related to the product I will be promoting - $45
Set upped a campaign on my autoresponder (I am currently with GetResponse) to capture leads for long term traffic - $17.95
Bought a private label product to give people an initiative to sign up to my list - $3
Hosted (I recommend Media Temple) my squeeze page where I will drive my traffic to - $20
Did a keyword research via Aaron Wall’s keyword suggestion tool and targeted the keyphrases with around 100-300 overall daily search to compete with less competition
Submitted an article to Ezinearticles.com
Bookmarked my article using Social Poster
Made a Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com page for my article
With that kind of set up, it would cost you less than a hundred dollars to start.
I did my best to cut the cost here for everyone to take play. You can eliminate some expenses like the buying of articles by writing ones on your own and probably the hosting if you’ve got your own host.
The Key To Affiliate Marketing Success
Most people think the key to affiliate marketing success is all about referring the most sales, others say it’s all about choosing the right product and while those factors play an important role on whether or not you will succeed in affiliate marketing, most marketers fail to implement the most valuable technique of all into their businesses.
Do you know what it is?
The answer is very simple “Help Others in the Process”. You see most people simply focus on making a quick buck by promoting mediocre products that don’t really work simply because they convert well or the payout is very high and they completely forget about the human element, they forget that the person on the other side of the fence put his trust and money on your hands expecting a solution to his problem. What happens next?
They get disappointed, they get upset and plain and simple they’ll never buy from you ever again. Is this what you really want for your business? Hopefully the answer is no.
This is why is so important to help people in the process of making money with affiliate marketing, you will build trust and you will build a strong and loyal relationship between you and your customers. Once that kind of trust has been established they will buy from you over and over again and your affiliate marketing business will grow bigger and stronger throughout the years.
I have to say that people are becoming wiser and wiser everyday; they know more about scams today than they did two years ago, they are more skeptical and in the very near future the only online businesses that will succeed are the ones who provide their customers with the greatest value possible.
Whether you use your blog or an opt-in list to run your affiliate marketing business, choose wisely the next affiliate program you’re going to promote since there is a fine line between making money and losing your credibility and reputation. You will never see Carlocab or myself promoting products on our websites we’re not proud of and will not deliver the most value to our visitors.
Do you know what it is?
The answer is very simple “Help Others in the Process”. You see most people simply focus on making a quick buck by promoting mediocre products that don’t really work simply because they convert well or the payout is very high and they completely forget about the human element, they forget that the person on the other side of the fence put his trust and money on your hands expecting a solution to his problem. What happens next?
They get disappointed, they get upset and plain and simple they’ll never buy from you ever again. Is this what you really want for your business? Hopefully the answer is no.
This is why is so important to help people in the process of making money with affiliate marketing, you will build trust and you will build a strong and loyal relationship between you and your customers. Once that kind of trust has been established they will buy from you over and over again and your affiliate marketing business will grow bigger and stronger throughout the years.
I have to say that people are becoming wiser and wiser everyday; they know more about scams today than they did two years ago, they are more skeptical and in the very near future the only online businesses that will succeed are the ones who provide their customers with the greatest value possible.
Whether you use your blog or an opt-in list to run your affiliate marketing business, choose wisely the next affiliate program you’re going to promote since there is a fine line between making money and losing your credibility and reputation. You will never see Carlocab or myself promoting products on our websites we’re not proud of and will not deliver the most value to our visitors.
Making One Hundred Dollars A Day As An Affiliate Marketer
Maybe the idea of making one hundred dollars a day appeals to you if you’re nine to five it every day. Makes me think about all the people taking that morning train from Hoboken to New York for the daily grind and then back home again on the path. Does the idea of not having to work like a dog appeal do you?
I started internet marketing about ten years ago selling an eBook I bought online with resale rights. I would send out thousands of emails every night and watch my hit counter slowly move on my mini site. If I wanted more traffic, I would send out more emails until my ESP shut me down for spam mailing. These were leads I paid good money for but, these emails were considered spam.
Today, affiliate marketing has evolved. Now the tools of internet affiliate marketers are lead capture pages and Adsence. Marketers are using eBook affiliate programs to promote and not promoting Private label eBooks like before. Now many affiliate marketers may have hundreds of lead collection tools in place and thousand of webpage’s with several sites and domains cross connected to each other.
Many affiliate marketers are not selling their own content or products but using one of the many products available on digital affiliate warehouses. To become a member all you need to do to represent them is sign up with your tax, bank account or PayPal information. I personally use the same type of company to sell my eBooks that I have written. Some eBooks I sell however do a much better job of converting customers then my own site so I promote the best sellers equally to my own material.
Getting your account to produce one hundred dollars a day actually is very hard at first. I believe most people fail at affiliate marketing is because they try to focus on one product instead of going after the top ten best sellers. About eighty percent of my sales come from products that I am cross promoting. I am always amazed where some of the sales come from some forgotten classified or forum URL or some other posting in my countless affiliate promotion campaign.
The real key to becoming a good affiliate marketer is to keep doing what you’re doing until you get a result. If you’re doing affiliate marketing at nights and on weekends keep doing it to you get results. Once you get a result, lead capture or whatever it is you’re trying to do, keep doing it to get more.
Slowly, your list will grow and soon you will have a great report with you mailing list if you get them much needed content and make them look forward to your mailings. Once you have a few hundred people on your list you will start to see sales every few days from your mailings. If you’re able to grow your list to a few thousand people, you will be able to make a nice decent second income from list.
I recently made a special list for just my buyers where I give them all my best web pages, mini sites, lead capture pages, videos and other useful marketing information that they can use to become successful at working their own website or home internet business. With the right tools, desire and the right information you too came make a hundred dollars a day as an affiliate marketer.
I started internet marketing about ten years ago selling an eBook I bought online with resale rights. I would send out thousands of emails every night and watch my hit counter slowly move on my mini site. If I wanted more traffic, I would send out more emails until my ESP shut me down for spam mailing. These were leads I paid good money for but, these emails were considered spam.
Today, affiliate marketing has evolved. Now the tools of internet affiliate marketers are lead capture pages and Adsence. Marketers are using eBook affiliate programs to promote and not promoting Private label eBooks like before. Now many affiliate marketers may have hundreds of lead collection tools in place and thousand of webpage’s with several sites and domains cross connected to each other.
Many affiliate marketers are not selling their own content or products but using one of the many products available on digital affiliate warehouses. To become a member all you need to do to represent them is sign up with your tax, bank account or PayPal information. I personally use the same type of company to sell my eBooks that I have written. Some eBooks I sell however do a much better job of converting customers then my own site so I promote the best sellers equally to my own material.
Getting your account to produce one hundred dollars a day actually is very hard at first. I believe most people fail at affiliate marketing is because they try to focus on one product instead of going after the top ten best sellers. About eighty percent of my sales come from products that I am cross promoting. I am always amazed where some of the sales come from some forgotten classified or forum URL or some other posting in my countless affiliate promotion campaign.
The real key to becoming a good affiliate marketer is to keep doing what you’re doing until you get a result. If you’re doing affiliate marketing at nights and on weekends keep doing it to you get results. Once you get a result, lead capture or whatever it is you’re trying to do, keep doing it to get more.
Slowly, your list will grow and soon you will have a great report with you mailing list if you get them much needed content and make them look forward to your mailings. Once you have a few hundred people on your list you will start to see sales every few days from your mailings. If you’re able to grow your list to a few thousand people, you will be able to make a nice decent second income from list.
I recently made a special list for just my buyers where I give them all my best web pages, mini sites, lead capture pages, videos and other useful marketing information that they can use to become successful at working their own website or home internet business. With the right tools, desire and the right information you too came make a hundred dollars a day as an affiliate marketer.
Using Current Trends To Make Money
If you’re doing affiliate marketing for quite a while, you would notice that there has been a huge saturation in the market. As many people learned doing affiliate marketing, the market has become well-penetrated and it has become harder to profit.
But you see, a lot of people are still producing high numbers and to be honest everyone can do it too! Ok enough fluff here, what I am talking about is taking advantage of current trends and events to make money.
As you see everyday there is an issue, a hot topic or whatever you may want to call it. Now the thing here is that you have to be quick. Usually a hot trend can be profitable for at least a week before it goes down. Now here it goes, you can look for current issues/trends using the following:
Google Trends
Yahoo Buzz
Digg
StumbleUpon
So what are we gonna do with them? Basically if you visit them, you can find a common trend. For example “American Idol” . American Idol has its new season and basically we know how popular it is right? How are we going to make money with it? Affiliate Marketing! There is actually a ton of way to profit from it, but I would tell you the easiest yet the low-risked one, email submits. Basically email submits are offers wherein you get paid for when someone puts his email address. Most of the time the offer is about getting a free ipod, ps3, or tech gadgets. This offer converts on first page email submit. Easy? :-)
Now we will create a page that puts up a survey like this. “Who is going to win the American Idol? Vote now and win a free ipod nano.” Then whatever answer a person chooses he will be redirected to an offer mentioned above. The next thing to do now is send traffic to our page. In this we will do pay-per-click through Google Adwords. I have written a post about doing pay per click on email submits this last month and I think its worth a read.
Then profit! The tip here is that most keywords that we will be bidding on has a very low Cost per click. Why? Because no one bids on American Idol, no one bids for “Jett Travolta”, no one bids on something that hasn’t been related to an offer! But what we did is we simply incorporate the latest trend with a certain offer! Do you get the point? You will be getting dead cheap clicks. Now about worrying if you are going to convert or what, listen. Email Submits again converts on first page which means a user only has to submit his email and you will be paid $1.25 for it immediately. You can then work your way up and start promoting different offers that have a higher payout. It depends on what you can do and your expertise with affiliate marketing
Using trends like these really helps! Not only it can get you started so quick but also it can make you profit without having to go through the tight competition in your niche.
But you see, a lot of people are still producing high numbers and to be honest everyone can do it too! Ok enough fluff here, what I am talking about is taking advantage of current trends and events to make money.
As you see everyday there is an issue, a hot topic or whatever you may want to call it. Now the thing here is that you have to be quick. Usually a hot trend can be profitable for at least a week before it goes down. Now here it goes, you can look for current issues/trends using the following:
Google Trends
Yahoo Buzz
Digg
StumbleUpon
So what are we gonna do with them? Basically if you visit them, you can find a common trend. For example “American Idol” . American Idol has its new season and basically we know how popular it is right? How are we going to make money with it? Affiliate Marketing! There is actually a ton of way to profit from it, but I would tell you the easiest yet the low-risked one, email submits. Basically email submits are offers wherein you get paid for when someone puts his email address. Most of the time the offer is about getting a free ipod, ps3, or tech gadgets. This offer converts on first page email submit. Easy? :-)
Now we will create a page that puts up a survey like this. “Who is going to win the American Idol? Vote now and win a free ipod nano.” Then whatever answer a person chooses he will be redirected to an offer mentioned above. The next thing to do now is send traffic to our page. In this we will do pay-per-click through Google Adwords. I have written a post about doing pay per click on email submits this last month and I think its worth a read.
Then profit! The tip here is that most keywords that we will be bidding on has a very low Cost per click. Why? Because no one bids on American Idol, no one bids for “Jett Travolta”, no one bids on something that hasn’t been related to an offer! But what we did is we simply incorporate the latest trend with a certain offer! Do you get the point? You will be getting dead cheap clicks. Now about worrying if you are going to convert or what, listen. Email Submits again converts on first page which means a user only has to submit his email and you will be paid $1.25 for it immediately. You can then work your way up and start promoting different offers that have a higher payout. It depends on what you can do and your expertise with affiliate marketing
Using trends like these really helps! Not only it can get you started so quick but also it can make you profit without having to go through the tight competition in your niche.
Five Reasons You Aren’t Blogging Correctly
The Internet is overflowing with useful information. No matter what you blog about (unless its personal), I can almost guarantee you that there will be at least 10 different articles somewhere that are about the same thing.
It’s not easy getting your blog noticed today, considering all of the options for readers out there. That’s why your first impression is your most important, and will determine whether the reader will ever return.
Presentation in a blog post is one of the most important things. If you cannot organize your thoughts and ideas correctly, people will have a harder time reading and interpreting them.
1) You aren’t using headings and formatting.
Headings in posts are one of the most important things. They provide a way for content to be divided up into sections. It also gives readers an idea of what they are going to read. It’s almost like a table of contents.
Formatting can be used to make certain information stand out. If a post is all plain text, a user won’t be able to tell exactly which part is more important. Use bold text to make text stand out, but remember,
IF YOU MAKE EVERYTHING BOLD, NOTHING IS BOLD.— Art Webb
2) Line Heights - It ain’t rocket science.
A lot of blogs that I see tend to not believe in line height. Lines of text are piled on to each other, line after line after line, all in one big chunk of text. It makes me claustrophobic!
I suggest that line height be at least 1.5em or something like that (50% more than default). This gives your eyes a little space, and it allows your brain to rest for a second or two. It’s like reading those long classics with small letters that are all jammed together, it makes your intention span last for about 10 seconds.
3) Every idea needs a paragraph
I don’t care how short your idea is, if its one sentence, or five, it needs its own paragraph.
Paragraphs, just like line heights, allow your eyes to relax a little before starting to read again. It separates chunks of information into short, easy to read blocks. Would you rather read this blog post the way it is, or would you rather read it all in one paragraph? I thought so.
4) The ‘list’ icon is there for a reason, silly!
Lists are one of the best ways to organize text. Plus, all humans just love to read lists. Why do you think there are all those ‘Ten Best WordPress Plugins’ or ‘Top Twenty Artists’ or whatever. As Carl said in a recent post, if you didn’t like lists, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.
Another example, read the below two chunks of texts (Taken from the Advertise page.
This blog is #1 on Google for ‘Make Money Online,’ has 5400+ RSS feed subscribers daily, is highly influential and authoritative in the “Make money online” niche, is one of the Top 2000+ blog among 200 million world wide according to Technorati, and is the top 68,013 website according to Alexa.
or…
This blog is #1 on Google for ‘Make Money Online
5400+ RSS feed subscribers daily
Highly influential and authoritative in the “Make money online” niche
Top 2000+ blog among 200 million world wide according to Technorati
Top 68,013 website according to Alexa
Now, which was easier to read?
Should it be long or short?
Here’s the thing, why does it really matter? As long as your post is interesting to read, and gets the point across, then it could be 100 words, or 1000. As long as you use the above methods to organize your thoughts, it won’t really matter.
The problems however, are these:
If your post is short, it may be harder to get the amount of information that you want to. Your post may not be detailed enough, and be incomplete.
If your post is too long, then you may start repeating yourself. If you write a 5000 word essay, there’s a pretty good chance that you said the same thing in paragraph 7 as you did in 24. Also, I would rather read 200 words of information than 500 words of fluff. If you are going to give me fluff, then please, well, don’t.
So in the end, as long as you are giving details and information, and do not repeat yourself, it does not really matter. Just make sure that you post consistently. It’s better to post once every other day than post four times in one day, once two days later, and then not post for a week.
It’s not easy getting your blog noticed today, considering all of the options for readers out there. That’s why your first impression is your most important, and will determine whether the reader will ever return.
Presentation in a blog post is one of the most important things. If you cannot organize your thoughts and ideas correctly, people will have a harder time reading and interpreting them.
1) You aren’t using headings and formatting.
Headings in posts are one of the most important things. They provide a way for content to be divided up into sections. It also gives readers an idea of what they are going to read. It’s almost like a table of contents.
Formatting can be used to make certain information stand out. If a post is all plain text, a user won’t be able to tell exactly which part is more important. Use bold text to make text stand out, but remember,
IF YOU MAKE EVERYTHING BOLD, NOTHING IS BOLD.— Art Webb
2) Line Heights - It ain’t rocket science.
A lot of blogs that I see tend to not believe in line height. Lines of text are piled on to each other, line after line after line, all in one big chunk of text. It makes me claustrophobic!
I suggest that line height be at least 1.5em or something like that (50% more than default). This gives your eyes a little space, and it allows your brain to rest for a second or two. It’s like reading those long classics with small letters that are all jammed together, it makes your intention span last for about 10 seconds.
3) Every idea needs a paragraph
I don’t care how short your idea is, if its one sentence, or five, it needs its own paragraph.
Paragraphs, just like line heights, allow your eyes to relax a little before starting to read again. It separates chunks of information into short, easy to read blocks. Would you rather read this blog post the way it is, or would you rather read it all in one paragraph? I thought so.
4) The ‘list’ icon is there for a reason, silly!
Lists are one of the best ways to organize text. Plus, all humans just love to read lists. Why do you think there are all those ‘Ten Best WordPress Plugins’ or ‘Top Twenty Artists’ or whatever. As Carl said in a recent post, if you didn’t like lists, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.
Another example, read the below two chunks of texts (Taken from the Advertise page.
This blog is #1 on Google for ‘Make Money Online,’ has 5400+ RSS feed subscribers daily, is highly influential and authoritative in the “Make money online” niche, is one of the Top 2000+ blog among 200 million world wide according to Technorati, and is the top 68,013 website according to Alexa.
or…
This blog is #1 on Google for ‘Make Money Online
5400+ RSS feed subscribers daily
Highly influential and authoritative in the “Make money online” niche
Top 2000+ blog among 200 million world wide according to Technorati
Top 68,013 website according to Alexa
Now, which was easier to read?
Should it be long or short?
Here’s the thing, why does it really matter? As long as your post is interesting to read, and gets the point across, then it could be 100 words, or 1000. As long as you use the above methods to organize your thoughts, it won’t really matter.
The problems however, are these:
If your post is short, it may be harder to get the amount of information that you want to. Your post may not be detailed enough, and be incomplete.
If your post is too long, then you may start repeating yourself. If you write a 5000 word essay, there’s a pretty good chance that you said the same thing in paragraph 7 as you did in 24. Also, I would rather read 200 words of information than 500 words of fluff. If you are going to give me fluff, then please, well, don’t.
So in the end, as long as you are giving details and information, and do not repeat yourself, it does not really matter. Just make sure that you post consistently. It’s better to post once every other day than post four times in one day, once two days later, and then not post for a week.
Making Money Without Jeopardizing Your Blog’s Theme
This article is guest posted by Lyndsay from Latest Fashion Trends from a Fashion Girl- Lyndsay Cabildo.
Tip #1- Traffic
When you have enough traffic, you have audience that will be your potential customers when you start making money from your blog. It is the first key.
Tip #2- Blog Content
Your blog is your world. Your blog is the biggest component of your money maker machine online, so you would like to write good contents for your blog as that will make readers stay longer reading and browsing more pages in your blog.
Tip #3- Related Affiliate Partners
Signing up with the Affiliates related to your sites get more potential buyers as they are already interested reading your blog content, they are more likely to browse on the related items or program affiliate you are with, gaining you possible commission when they do buy the product or service.
Tip #4- Using Product Links
As you write about the specific product, it is better to use a specific image from the Affiliate Partner and link it directly to the product page(if possible). It increases more possible sales that way, minimizing their time to browse for the specific product.(e.g Your Fave Shoe image- Link it to the exact location)
Tip #5- Related Banners
Pick cautiously the banners that you would use on your page, as they will be present in every page the reader will browse on your blog. Choose Very Related and high commission rate affiliates because they occupy more space on your blog. Do not waste the opportunity, yet be smart, and anticipate possible reader reactions to your ads.
Tip #1- Traffic
When you have enough traffic, you have audience that will be your potential customers when you start making money from your blog. It is the first key.
Tip #2- Blog Content
Your blog is your world. Your blog is the biggest component of your money maker machine online, so you would like to write good contents for your blog as that will make readers stay longer reading and browsing more pages in your blog.
Tip #3- Related Affiliate Partners
Signing up with the Affiliates related to your sites get more potential buyers as they are already interested reading your blog content, they are more likely to browse on the related items or program affiliate you are with, gaining you possible commission when they do buy the product or service.
Tip #4- Using Product Links
As you write about the specific product, it is better to use a specific image from the Affiliate Partner and link it directly to the product page(if possible). It increases more possible sales that way, minimizing their time to browse for the specific product.(e.g Your Fave Shoe image- Link it to the exact location)
Tip #5- Related Banners
Pick cautiously the banners that you would use on your page, as they will be present in every page the reader will browse on your blog. Choose Very Related and high commission rate affiliates because they occupy more space on your blog. Do not waste the opportunity, yet be smart, and anticipate possible reader reactions to your ads.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Ten Tips for writing a blog post
Here are ten tips that help me with my blog writing.
1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.
2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.
3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.
4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.
5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.
6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.
7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.
8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.
9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.
10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.
I hope you enjoyed my tips for writing a blog post - feel free to share your own blog writing tips below.
1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.
2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.
3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.
4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.
5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.
6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.
7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.
8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.
9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.
10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.
I hope you enjoyed my tips for writing a blog post - feel free to share your own blog writing tips below.
Main Article Problogger
10 Principles of Successful Business Blogging
Great business blogging can add value to your business, create loyal customers and build trust in potential clients. On the other hand, bad business blogging, or inconsistent business blogging, can have a negative impact on your brand. Keeping the points below in mind should help ensure your business blog is working effectively to draw clients in, not push them away.
1. Use your professional voice. When you take a business-related call with a client who you’re not familiar with, do you use slang, swear, or are you otherwise impolite? Hopefully, no, and the same rules should apply to blogging. Think of your writing as an extension of your professional voice.
2. Edit each post you think is done. Maintaining good grammar, spelling and fluid expression is a simple way to show potential clients you’re an intelligent and professional person. The more informal your writing looks the less professional you and your enterprise will appear. Avoid embarrassing slip-ups by re-reading and rigorously editing each post before you hit publish.
3. Present information clearly and concisely. Make your posts scannable by including sub-headings, by making key words and phrases bold, and by using paragraph breaks frequently. This makes your writing look more professional and will enable busy clients to extract the essence of your posts even if they don’t have the time to read each word.
4. Be personal. A funny anecdote or interesting story can help build a friendly face for your business, as long as the story is relevant to the topic of your blog. Injecting a bit of personality into your writing will help establish yourself as someone clients can relate to. In doing so you’ll also be building trust. A post I read recently that I thought did this well was ‘Apparently I Work for Google‘ at SEOmoz, a business blog about SEO.
5. Don’t be too personal. Don’t get into specifics about your family, your relationships, your work stresses or otherwise delve beneath the surface of your daily life. This is not only unprofessional but can imbue your blog with a sense of negativity. Keep your voice positive and stay away from personal issues.
6. Keep your opinions and beliefs to yourself. Today’s world is increasingly divided along political and moral lines. If you reveal your thoughts on controversial issues there will be some clients who’ll no longer be willing to support your product or service. Keep politics, morality and controversy out of your business blogging, regardless of how strongly you feel about an issue.
7. Be objective. Too many business blogs serve as extended advertisements for the company and little else. It is no wonder that these tend to be unsuccessful. A good strategy is to take a birds-eye view of the industry you’re in while frequently returning back to your own business.
8. Treat readers like you would customers. Respond to every comment and e-mail in a prompt and courteous manner. Answer every question to the best of your abilities. Enforce a strict comment policy to ensure your blog comments are a happy and productive place. Your readers are potential clients and will generate an impression of your customer service based on how you manage your blog community. Take the time to do this well.
9. Less is more. Every post you write is a reflection on the quality of your business. Take the time to produce well thought-out posts which offer value to readers, even if it means you end up posting less regularly.
10. Don’t start what you can’t finish. If you start a business blog you better be prepared to stick with it. A client who enjoys your business blog for a month only to watch it fall into disuse and disrepair will make some powerful assumptions about your business as a result of this. If you’re not absolutely committed to your business blogging then, simply put, don’t start. If you lose your enthusiasm at any point be sure to recruit someone who can keep things afloat for you.
1. Use your professional voice. When you take a business-related call with a client who you’re not familiar with, do you use slang, swear, or are you otherwise impolite? Hopefully, no, and the same rules should apply to blogging. Think of your writing as an extension of your professional voice.
2. Edit each post you think is done. Maintaining good grammar, spelling and fluid expression is a simple way to show potential clients you’re an intelligent and professional person. The more informal your writing looks the less professional you and your enterprise will appear. Avoid embarrassing slip-ups by re-reading and rigorously editing each post before you hit publish.
3. Present information clearly and concisely. Make your posts scannable by including sub-headings, by making key words and phrases bold, and by using paragraph breaks frequently. This makes your writing look more professional and will enable busy clients to extract the essence of your posts even if they don’t have the time to read each word.
4. Be personal. A funny anecdote or interesting story can help build a friendly face for your business, as long as the story is relevant to the topic of your blog. Injecting a bit of personality into your writing will help establish yourself as someone clients can relate to. In doing so you’ll also be building trust. A post I read recently that I thought did this well was ‘Apparently I Work for Google‘ at SEOmoz, a business blog about SEO.
5. Don’t be too personal. Don’t get into specifics about your family, your relationships, your work stresses or otherwise delve beneath the surface of your daily life. This is not only unprofessional but can imbue your blog with a sense of negativity. Keep your voice positive and stay away from personal issues.
6. Keep your opinions and beliefs to yourself. Today’s world is increasingly divided along political and moral lines. If you reveal your thoughts on controversial issues there will be some clients who’ll no longer be willing to support your product or service. Keep politics, morality and controversy out of your business blogging, regardless of how strongly you feel about an issue.
7. Be objective. Too many business blogs serve as extended advertisements for the company and little else. It is no wonder that these tend to be unsuccessful. A good strategy is to take a birds-eye view of the industry you’re in while frequently returning back to your own business.
8. Treat readers like you would customers. Respond to every comment and e-mail in a prompt and courteous manner. Answer every question to the best of your abilities. Enforce a strict comment policy to ensure your blog comments are a happy and productive place. Your readers are potential clients and will generate an impression of your customer service based on how you manage your blog community. Take the time to do this well.
9. Less is more. Every post you write is a reflection on the quality of your business. Take the time to produce well thought-out posts which offer value to readers, even if it means you end up posting less regularly.
10. Don’t start what you can’t finish. If you start a business blog you better be prepared to stick with it. A client who enjoys your business blog for a month only to watch it fall into disuse and disrepair will make some powerful assumptions about your business as a result of this. If you’re not absolutely committed to your business blogging then, simply put, don’t start. If you lose your enthusiasm at any point be sure to recruit someone who can keep things afloat for you.
Copyright © 2008 Daily Blog Tips
5 Blogging Traps You Need to Avoid
This is a guest post by Alan Johnson.
As a blogger, there are more than a few mistakes which can and will make you waste valuable time and resources, so that identifying them in order to be able to take action is simply a must.
The opportunity to interact with your readers is one of the most important things which makes blogging special in the first place. Never make the mistake of neglecting the community you can build around your blog through the comments section, or you will definitely end up regretting your attitude down the road.
2. Not Taking Feedback into Consideration
You will certainly receive your share of emails with suggestions on how to improve your blog, and not taking them into consideration would simply be a shame. After all, if a reader has taken the time to write you an email and share his or her two cents, listening to what that person has to say is the least you could do.
3. Taking Breaks From Blogging
You are obviously only human and will need to recharge your batteries every now and then, but that doesn’t mean that not publishing blog posts for several days in a row is the way to go. Take advantage of the timestamp feature, write a few blog posts before you leave and there you have it.
4. Seeing Blogging as a Chore
The “I’ll just write this post and get it over with” attitude is never recommended if you are serious about seeing long-term results. Pick a topic you are both passionate about and knowledgeable in, and make sure that your posts reflect the way you feel about blogging.
5. Not Respecting Your Readers
When interacting with readers, always be polite and helpful. Don’t look down upon a person simply because the question he or she has asked seems like something obvious. It may be obvious to you, but it may just represent something extremely important to a person who is just starting out. The same way, you should encourage the loyal members of your community to always be ready to help a fellow member out since, as I’ve previously stated, not taking advantage of the comments section would simply be a mistake.
Conclusion
I am convinced that it’s more than clear which blogging traps you need to avoid and, now that you have identified the problem, taking things to the next level is a must. Time is not exactly something you can afford to waste and, as a blogger, maximizing results is the way to go if you are serious about standing out.
What about you? Are you guilty of any of these and, also, which other blogging traps have you identified? What advice would you give to a blogger who is just starting out when it comes to the mistakes he or she should steer clear of?
As a blogger, there are more than a few mistakes which can and will make you waste valuable time and resources, so that identifying them in order to be able to take action is simply a must.
1. Neglecting the Comments Section
The opportunity to interact with your readers is one of the most important things which makes blogging special in the first place. Never make the mistake of neglecting the community you can build around your blog through the comments section, or you will definitely end up regretting your attitude down the road.
2. Not Taking Feedback into Consideration
You will certainly receive your share of emails with suggestions on how to improve your blog, and not taking them into consideration would simply be a shame. After all, if a reader has taken the time to write you an email and share his or her two cents, listening to what that person has to say is the least you could do.
3. Taking Breaks From Blogging
You are obviously only human and will need to recharge your batteries every now and then, but that doesn’t mean that not publishing blog posts for several days in a row is the way to go. Take advantage of the timestamp feature, write a few blog posts before you leave and there you have it.
4. Seeing Blogging as a Chore
The “I’ll just write this post and get it over with” attitude is never recommended if you are serious about seeing long-term results. Pick a topic you are both passionate about and knowledgeable in, and make sure that your posts reflect the way you feel about blogging.
5. Not Respecting Your Readers
When interacting with readers, always be polite and helpful. Don’t look down upon a person simply because the question he or she has asked seems like something obvious. It may be obvious to you, but it may just represent something extremely important to a person who is just starting out. The same way, you should encourage the loyal members of your community to always be ready to help a fellow member out since, as I’ve previously stated, not taking advantage of the comments section would simply be a mistake.
Conclusion
I am convinced that it’s more than clear which blogging traps you need to avoid and, now that you have identified the problem, taking things to the next level is a must. Time is not exactly something you can afford to waste and, as a blogger, maximizing results is the way to go if you are serious about standing out.
What about you? Are you guilty of any of these and, also, which other blogging traps have you identified? What advice would you give to a blogger who is just starting out when it comes to the mistakes he or she should steer clear of?
Alan Johnson is the owner of The Rating Blog and author of The Online Business Handbook.
Copyright © 2008 Daily Blog Tips
Do We Really Need to Optimize Our Sites for Mobile Phones?
If you have a website or blog, you probably already heard about the importance of optimizing it for mobile phones, creating a specific version for the iPhone and so on.
I won’t challenge the fact that mobile devices are more popular than ever, and that as we go forward more and more people will be using them to get online.
What I am not sure is if webmasters really need to worry about that trend when creating and managing their websites.
One possible scenario: within five years or so, when the number of users accessing your website via a mobile device will be big enough to matter, those devices will no longer need a special version of your website anyway.
If you think about it, the iPhone and similar smart phones are closing the gap from mobile phones to computers. You can already visit most websites with those devices without needing to load a special version of the site. The software is definitely there, and the hardware is arriving.
Maybe within five years most mobile devices will be able to load websites just like your desktop computer does today. If that is the case, webmasters will be able to keep focusing on building usable and accessible websites, and that is it. There will be no need to create special mobile versions because mobile devices will behave just like any other computer.
I won’t challenge the fact that mobile devices are more popular than ever, and that as we go forward more and more people will be using them to get online.
What I am not sure is if webmasters really need to worry about that trend when creating and managing their websites.
One possible scenario: within five years or so, when the number of users accessing your website via a mobile device will be big enough to matter, those devices will no longer need a special version of your website anyway.
If you think about it, the iPhone and similar smart phones are closing the gap from mobile phones to computers. You can already visit most websites with those devices without needing to load a special version of the site. The software is definitely there, and the hardware is arriving.
Maybe within five years most mobile devices will be able to load websites just like your desktop computer does today. If that is the case, webmasters will be able to keep focusing on building usable and accessible websites, and that is it. There will be no need to create special mobile versions because mobile devices will behave just like any other computer.
What do you think?
Blog
A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.
Types
There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.
Personal blogs
The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. A type of personal blog is referred to as "microblogging," which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks to capture a moment in time. Sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing or writing. This form of social media lends to an online generation already too busy to keep in touch.
Corporate blogs
A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs.
Question blogging
is a type of blog that answers questions. Questions can be submitted in the form of a submittal form, or through email or other means such as telephone or VOIP. Qlogs can be used to display shownotes from podcasts[3] or the means of conveying information through the internet. Many question logs use syndication such as RSS as a means of conveying answers to questions.
By media type
A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).
A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.
By device
Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog. One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.
By genre
Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.
Source: Wikipedia
Monday, March 9, 2009
Remove navbar in Blogspot blog
In a blog hosted at blogger.com, you would always see a default navbar in the top of the blog page, and it has a search box, flag option etc.
There are a couple reasons why you would like to remove the navbar in your blogger blog -
1. The professionalism of the blog is not maintained. Really, the blog does not look good with the navbar.
2. Sometimes you do nothing wrong, but someone flags your blog through the option in navbar, so you are in risk.
So here is how to remove the navbar in blogger template -
Go to your blog settings > Layout > Edit HTML
There are a couple reasons why you would like to remove the navbar in your blogger blog -
1. The professionalism of the blog is not maintained. Really, the blog does not look good with the navbar.
2. Sometimes you do nothing wrong, but someone flags your blog through the option in navbar, so you are in risk.
So here is how to remove the navbar in blogger template -
Go to your blog settings > Layout > Edit HTML
Find this -
/* Variable definitions
====================
Above that, paste this -
#navbar-iframe { display: none !important; }
And save the setting. You are done and the navbar is gone! Pretty easy huh!
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