Blogussion » guest post

Why You Should Make Wealth – Not Money – With Your Blog

RossHudgens — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:00:50 +0000

Astoundingly, it seems like the number one goal of blogging is to make money. This seems fundamentally correct – after all, we all need money to feed ourselves and keep a ceiling over our heads. However, there’s something blogging can do that we often overlook, and in reality, is bounds more important than ever making a dollar – building wealth.

I first truly understood this concept from reading an essay by Paul Graham, “How to Make Wealth.” Graham is the popular founder of Y Combinator, a seed-stage startup funding firm – but more than that, he’s known for his informative, game-changing essays such as the one mentioned here.

Since Graham does a better job than I can of truly encapsulating what wealth is, let’s refer to his definition within the essay:

Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn’t need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn’t matter how much money you had.

Who would you rather be – one of the richest people in the world in 1800 or a lower-class citizen today? If you’re like most, you answered the latter. The reason is that although the people in 1800 might have had more money, they are far, far less wealthy than a lower-class citizen today.

A lower class citizen has things people in 1800 never did, like air conditioning, easy transportation, television, and more. Although you might have had power (the non-electrical kind) in 1800, that’s about it. Every other part of your life, if compared to a lower-class citizen today, was pretty terrible.

What Does This Have to Do With Blogging?

When creating a blog, one often establishes some metric of success. Generally, it’s money. What’s my market size? Can I sell things? Is there a niche I can target and monetize? Rarely, though, do we effectively look at different metrics that really matter – in this case, the defining metric – the wealth we create.

Besides wealth for ourselves, what blogging really does is create wealth for others. Some of us want to be healthier or better looking or more fashionable, and in many ways, several blogs help provide us that assistance without ever denting our pocketbooks. Why is this, though? Every blog has the potential to monetize, right? Not necessarily – or, at least, not in the way that can efficiently fund your life.

Imagine an internet where everyone only wrote on topics that could be efficiently monetized. No offense to Alex and Blogussion, but we’d end up with an internet we’re already quickly approaching – one “>saturated with blogs about blogging.

Many of these are great blogs, yes, and they can all help us improve our lives in some way. But what this does is leave us all with an incredible expertise in blogging, and an incredible lack of expertise in everything else.

Wealth Outside Monetization

Every niche has monetization capabilities, but many have limitations in terms of market size and the potential spending abilities of its audience. What these niches offer, though, is no different from what a blogging blog or business blog does – create wealth – but the area in which they’re created is different.

Take, for example, a recent blog I’ve become a huge fan of – Zen to Fitness. I love this blog – as it offers good, well written tips on how to improve one’s health.

However, I can’t imagine how it’s monetizing very efficiently. There’s an e-book, but do I really need an e-book on these kinds of tips? Not really, because rarely do I find myself thinking that I need a complete, absolute guide to fitness. I think of fitness as an abstraction, one that can be intermittently filled with the holes in my strategy.

Unfortunately, I will likely never give Zen to Fitness blog a penny of my money – but I will be indebted to it for the tips it has offered to make my life, better. I will be indebted to it for the tips it has offered to make my life, wealthier.

How Are You Creating Wealth?

At the beginning of your blogging career path, you’ll almost certainly see money as the driving force behind your efforts. It works the same way as you start any career.

But the fact of the matter is, money isn’t the thing that makes up happy – and it’s also not the thing that motivates us. Dan Pink recently discussed just this in his talk on the surprising science of motivation.

It turns out that financial incentives actually dropped productivity in the workplace. The things that actually drive motivation, Pink says, are autonomy – working without micro-management, mastery – becoming the best, and purpose – doing something that matters.

We spend so much time behind our chairs and churning away, and so little time actually spending money or swimming in pools. It makes sense, then, that we should do something that we care about – and blogging is no different.

My argument, here, is that you shouldn’t worry about how your blog will monetize – it CAN monetize, no matter the area, in some fashion – you should worry about how that blog will make you happy, make the others around you happy, and overall, create wealth for yourself and those around you.

If you’re just plugging out another blog about blogging, you’re doing the world a disservice – there’s enough people in the world doing that well already. Find your obsession – and then multiply it by your voice. Merlin Mann, productivity guru, said it best:

Topic times voice. Or, if you’re a little bit more of a maverick, obsession times voice. So what does that mean? I think all the best nonfiction that has ever been made comes from the result of someone who can’t stop thinking about a certain topic — a very specific aspect of a certain topic in some cases. And second, they got really good at figuring out what they had to say about it.

If you want to write, write. But don’t do this because you found that it can make you lots of money after you read the Four Hour Workweek. Do it because you love doing it. Then find something else you love doing, and write about it. Anything else isn’t enough.

If one of those two parts doesn’t mix, do something else. Seriously. Find that mix, find the batter, spin it up, and create a blog – or a thing - that you’ll love – we’ll love – and the world will be better off for.

We could use the extra wealth.

Photo by Jeff Belmonte

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Corner The Market: Become A Big Fish In A Small Pond

Andrew Henderson — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:00:38 +0000

Are you drowning in a sea of bloggers who are blogging about the very same topic you are? Is your voice getting lost in the crowd? Are you tired of being non-existent among search engine results pages? If so, it's time to get with the program and start "Cornering the Market!"

Like many others out there, I thought I should blog about my passion. Which I certainly would encourage everyone to do. However, what do you do if your passion is a popular one? Are you up for the challenge of competing in a saturated market? In this post, I will explain why you may want to consider blogging about a topic somewhat "off the beaten path" in an effort to run a successful blog and perhaps even start making money.

See The Beaten Path and Avoid It

People tend to think alike

In my experience, I have found that most people tend to think alike. As a website developer, I’m often being presented with proposals for starting blogs, usually fashion, celebrity gossip, or finance. I think starting a blog is a great idea for many reasons, but my advice to these people is, "you had better be one heck of a salesman, writer, and personality." Otherwise, be ready to hustle.

Me, I’m into the development of internet culture, application websites in particular, and how people are using them. A little over a year ago, I decided I was going to start my own blog about web culture. Nearly every day I myself read several popular blogs on the subject. Clearly there is a demand! How could I go wrong?

Then it occurred to me, the internet is flooded with bloggers and teams of bloggers like TechCrunch practically shoveling first-rate content at us on a daily basis! How was I supposed to compete with that level of content flow? So much for being the Web culture guru!

Recognize The Opportunity & Do Your Research

Eight months later, a friend approached me about developing a craft beer blog. He was an avid fan of craft beer, very knowledgeable, and seemed enthusiastic about starting the venture, so I told him I would consider it. Craft beer wasn't exactly my passion, nor did I have what I felt was the required knowledge to be an authority on the subject. Nonetheless, I did some research on the beer industry and took a look around the Blogosphere to see what sites were covering craft beer.

I was pleased to discover that few beer bloggers appeared to possess the skills or resources I have as a website developer and video editor. Furthermore, it didn't seem as though they fully understood many of the aspects of blogging that we discuss here at Blogussion, things like proper internet marketing strategies.

After doing my research, I felt the niche was ripe for the taking.

As I worked on the design of our blog, I continued to study other successful bloggers and learn the tricks of the trade. I decided our site would approach craft beer from a different angle. It would be more about entertainment than information, since many blogs were already covering that area of the industry. This turned out to be a good decision.

Enjoy The Success & Build On It

In what felt like no time (half a year to be exact), our traffic is doubling from month to month, our brand is becoming widely recognized within the beer community, and we are now in the process of developing advertising relationships. Not to mention, nearly half of our traffic is Google organic!

Of course building the blog and community has been and continues to be a lot of hard work. There is still lots to do if we are to be as big as I hope we can be, but in a relatively short amount of time we were able to start building what I see as a promising community of dedicated viewers, and I believe that’s because I (along with my partner) recognized a need and sought to fill it.

Look beyond the obvious

There are so many needs out there not being met. Unfortunately, most bloggers are supplying ones that already are. My advice is to look beyond the obvious. Why attempt to grow your blog on land that is already being tilled? I’m finding running a promising blog with an active and growing community to be exciting and a lot of fun. Who wants to run a blog where no one comments? Perhaps providing a useful resource for like-minded individuals was my passion!

If you see an opportunity, but don’t possess the knowledge on a subject, find someone who does and team up. Let your job be managing the blog and promoting it. That’s plenty. Take it from me.

What do you think?

Is "Cornering the Market" a valid approach to running a blog or should we stick to our passions no matter how popular or competitive they may be?

Blogging With a Battle Plan: My 3 Phase Marketing Plan

Chris Scott — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:00:28 +0000

When I began my blog about blogging, I decided to not make the same mistakes I had in creating previous blogs. I decided to have a concrete marketing plan, one that I would stick to no matter what. After all, most Internet marketing plans are not flawed intrinsically but flawed in the way they are carried out.

Today, I’d like to reveal some of the key concepts of my particular marketing campaign and where I am in that plan. I can honestly say that after 3 months I am right where I intended to be, no where near the top of my niche but slowly gaining ground.

Below is a brief overview of my plan. I’m giving away just enough information as to not show my hand to any would-be copycats.

The Battle Plan

Phase 1: Foundational Content Building

Since I’ve started my blog about blogging in February, I’ve written over 70 posts, which amounts to something like 3 to 5 posts per week. Some weeks, the information just flies out of my brain like a jet stream of free-flowing consciousness. Other weeks, I just can’t get motivated and need to rely on things like Alex’s official “Get Your Ass in Gear or Bad Things Will Happen” list, which is really all the inspiration I need sometimes.

The importance of having a vast archive of information is essential to any blog marketing campaign. Not because people like to crawl your archives (you are the only person who does that) but because your archives serve as a catalyst for permanent, ever-flowing search engine traffic.

Once you have a substantial archive of original information, you can afford credibility from Google. I’ve developed websites for years and, in accordance with what the gurus say, Google uses original content quantity as a primary factor in determining rankings. That means that if you set out to target an individual keyword for Google traffic, you are much more likely to be successful if your landing page is found on a site with a vast number of other pages.

This may seem obvious but many web entrepreneurs set out to sell a product online through a single page site (sometimes called a mini or micro site) and driving traffic solely on the merit of strong link building campaigns.

Mini-sites can be great for selling products through referral and affiliate traffic (traffic from other sites) or for social media campaigns (e.g.: Matt Inman’s army of comic mini sites including Things Bears Love) but are comparatively less effective than content rich sites for attracting organic search engine traffic. Because of the nature of blogging, my guess is that most bloggers are looking to get traffic by building content-rich sites.

The definition of a content-rich site

At what point is a blog considered content-rich in the eyes of search engines? That’s a matter that is very much up for debate among web developers. Some gurus say 100 pages is enough. I’ve decided half that number, primarily because a majority of my first few dozen posts are long (over 600 words).

Phase 2: Short-tail Keyword Targeting

After about 50 posts or so, I decided to move into phase two and target short-tail keywords (logical search terms) to establish credibility with Google and get that initial flow of traffic. I use all ree methods of link-building which includes but is not limited to: commenting on do-follow blogs, link exchanges and article marketing.

Manual link-building is a tedious task and the fruits of your labor are not seen until many months later, if ever seen at all. The best and most powerful links are natural links or those that come from other websites voluntarily. Ironically, you can’t get natural links until you first have unnatural links – or links created as a direct result of your efforts.

If you think people like Chris Brogan still spend time manually building links by submitting to article directories, commenting on other blogs and asking for reciprocal links, think again.

Chris Brogan has put his time into manual link building, and is now enjoying the benefits of a constant stream of natural links. All Brogan has to do is provide the content. Now, the quantity of natural links Brogan receives is only variable to the quality of his content. That’s where I want to be in three years. First I’ve got to put my hard time in.

You can replace the name “Chris Brogan” with the name of any big-time blogger. All big-time bloggers have one thing in common: they worked extremely hard to get to where they are now. If you thought Internet marketing was going to be easy money, get out now.

So far, I’ve successfully targeted two major keywords in my niche and ranked 1st in Google for both of them. Along with passively targeted long-tail keyword traffic, the two targeted short-tail keywords have given me roughly 200 daily visitors and an Alexa ranking close to 200K. That’s quite an achievement for me. Soon I will be moving on to phase three, which I will briefly explain below.

Phase 3: Extroverted Marketing

The two previous phases in my plan were somewhat introverted. I needed to build an enormous stockpile of content for MY site. I needed to build links to MY site. Phase three involves something a bit counter-intuitive: building quality content for OTHER PEOPLE’S sites.

Rather than only offering something of value on my own site, I will soon focus my marketing efforts on bringing value to other sites in my niche. On the Internet, very few things are accomplished alone; through the use of guest blogging, I can grow my blog by providing a service to other bloggers.

Guest posting is not for everyone. It requires strong copyediting skills and a tenacity that will not dimmer when posts are rejected or never looked at. Writing is my forte so I am very excited to soon be moving into phase 3 of my plan.

There is a large base of make money on the Internet, blog tips and SEO blogs authored by non-English speakers that have found enormous success by relying on marketing tactics that require no writing ability whatsoever. This is because search engines don’t know the difference between good copy and bad. People do know the difference. If you plan on guest posting you really ought to learn how to use a semi-colon first.

That’s MY Plan…

Now that I have given a brief outline of my blog marketing plan and where I am in it, I’d like to hear what some of the Blogussion readers have as a plan and where they are in it.

Do you even have a marketing plan? Do you consider yourself on track with it? What parts of your marketing campaign need to be amended?

How to Achieve the Same Benefits of a Guest Post by Leaving a Blog Comment

srinirao — Wed, 26 May 2010 04:00:48 +0000

Sometime in November I submitted a guest post to Problogger. I’m always respectful of the fact that Darren Rowse is probably one of the busiest bloggers on the web so I have no bitterness about the fact that my guest post was never published. If anything, it was the inspiration for this post to some degree.

Guest posting is something many bloggers can’t do because of how long they take. However, leaving a comment on a blog can bring in the same results as writing a guest post, and Srinivas Rao will talk about exactly how that’s possible and how you can benefit.

While a guest post on Problogger is definitely something that will get you a big boost, I would venture to say it’s not the answer to all you problems.

A few days ago I spoke to Colin Wright at Exile Lifestyle and in our discussion about blog comments he said something that really struck me:

Your comments on a blog can be just as valuable as a guest post on that blog.

The great thing about comments is that you don’t always need prior approval for them. You can write as much or as little as you want. Let’s look at how you can take advantage of that.

3 Ways to Make Your Comments as Valuable as a Guest Post

Doesn’t it sound almost unreal to just post a comment and have it bring in similar effects to that of a guest post? It’s possible, and Marko Saric has even compiled a pretty detailed report about how one comment brought him many unique visitors to his own blog.

The 3 methods I used to build some pretty decent traffic to my own blog by just leaving a comment are simple ideas, but will take a little extra effort on your part. But, the rewards you can get in return are huge.

1. Build on the Post

My first exposure to the idea that comments could be as valuable as a guest post was on a blog that doesn’t currently accept guest posts.

Everett Bogue wrote a superb summary of his first 6 months as a blogger. My comment on this post was long enough to be a guest post. What was interesting to note is that Disqus had a “like” button that other readers could click and my comment was moved to the top of the list.

Two things happened after that. I was on Everett’s radar, and since my comment was so long, I’m guessing a fair amount of people learned who I was. The key to making this work however is authenticity. I genuinely had plenty to say about his post. If you try to force this it won’t work.

2. Present an Opposing View Point

Opposing viewpoints are also an excellent way to make you comment as valuable as a guest post. While opposing viewpoints might seem a bit like you are attacking a blogger, done properly they can generate a very interesting discussion and put you on the radar of all of the readers of that particular blog.

3. Generate A Conversation Among the Commenters

Another approach you could take is to try to generate a conversation between all the people who have commented. I often wonder how many people leave a comment on a blog and never go back to look at the response from that blogger, or the other readers.

You really should look at the responses because there are several things you can gain from looking at them:

An opportunity to build a relationship with the owner of the blog
An opportunity to build a relationship with the other readers
Ideas/inspiration for future blog posts
Potential collaboration opportunities

Each of the three methods of commenting could be as valuable as writing a guest post for a particular blog. So, next time you are about to submit your one paragraph in response to a post on a well known blog, consider the notion of writing something as lengthy as a guest post as your response and put it in the comments. You might surprise yourself with the results.

If You Blog, You’re Controversial. But is it Worth the Commotion? – Wired Weekend

Alex — Fri, 14 May 2010 04:00:05 +0000

Many bloggers recommend as one of the best ways to bring a large surge of traffic to your site is to write about a controversial subject. They say this because there are always at least two varying opinions on anything controversial. And people just have to read what you say about it, and if you capture their interest enough – they’ll want to voice their opinion on it.

Some people just like to participate in a good debate. Others want to cause trouble. Whichever it is, a good controversy gets people talking. And as a blogger, isn’t that what you want?

What Constitutes as Controversy

Anything you write is controversy. As long as you have added you opinions into the article you have written, you will have created a controversy. Looking through the archives here, I see very few articles here that wouldn’t be considered controversial.

Many people who ready articles today on the web don’t realize the actual controversy in them. Most people who write don’t realize they’re writing controversy either. Think back to the last article you wrote on your blog. Did you add an opinion to it? Chances are you did, and chances are someone disagreed with you.

Controversy is not always popular

Just because you write your opinion on something doesn’t make your controversy something that will draw thousands of hits and hundreds of comments to your blog. If that was true, we’d all be blogging superstars by now.

Some topics have more grounds for debate than others. Which sounds like more of an interesting topic to debate about?

Both are very interesting topics, but statistics prevail and say that topic #1 (SEO) is the better grounds for debate. It is a topic that more people talk about in this niche, and something that more people think about.

In association to blogging, which do you think about more? SEO or a large ego?

Learn by Example

A few days ago I stumbled upon a really great example of an article bringing in discussion with conflicting opinions. The discussions I saw in the article had everything you would normally expect to see in a controversial topic.

Two different sides debating two different views, detailed opinions, facts, agreement & disagreement, name calling and some very long comments. This was one of the most in-depth discussions I have ever seen on a blog, and it really made me think about the effects of having a controversial issue posted on your blog receiving such a response.

Luckily, I knew that blogger. Nicholas Cardot from Site Sketch 101 is a friend of mine, and he wrote about the Thesis Theme for WordPress. It is something that so many bloggers’ use and go crazy about (myself included), and he decided to write out against it. It’s something the Thesis community isn’t used to seeing.

So the response was huge. I talked to Nick about it on Skype, and he was kind enough to give me his impressions of how he thought the post went.

In a recent article at Site Sketch 101, I found myself in the midst of a torrent of heated debate. I wrote brief article challenging the supremacy of the Thesis WordPress theme. The article was born of an email response that I had put together for a very well-intentioned blogger who had developed a skin for Thesis.

My opinions being what they are, I thought that the concepts outlined in the email were worth sharing with my readers. I honestly had no intention of creating a debated issue out of it. That was probably a bit naive of me. The comments came pouring in. Some people called me ignorant. Others labeled me as uninformed.

As I look back over the article and effect that it had on my site, I don’t regret sharing it. I believe that we should be able to challenge the way that people think. We should be allowed to post articles that go against the status quo and we should be able to do so without name calling.

I don’t believe in writing controversial topics just to be controversial; just to get attention. I do believe in standing up for your beliefs and in sharing your opinions and when that means being controversial then don’t back down.

Is it Worth it?

A lot of things can happen if a debate on your blog escalates out of control. Would you say the discussions over at Nick’s blog got too hectic? A few people seemed to have really lashed out at his ideas and defenses in the comments section, and those sort of things can really get to some bloggers.

Do You Want to Guest Post? Listen Up

Alex — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:03 +0000

Guest posts are life savers to many bloggers. I know I would stress out about writing five blog posts a week if it weren’t for guest writers. So for everyone who has generously submitted a post to Blogussion: thank you. You make it easier for me, and everyone else you write for.

I am usually very excited to open my admin panel and find a new guest post in queue. It actually makes me a lot more motivated to start working for the day. But upon opening a guest post and seeing what some people submit, my happiness goes just as fast as it came.

Some people just don’t really care what they submit to a blog.

Now, not every guest post I have ever received is bad. Most of them are great, and I can’t wait to publish them out onto Blogussion. Just look at a few of the great posts I have received from others in the past:

The problem that I have with some of the guest posts that are submitted here, is that some people just don’t care. They don’t care about the blogger, they just want to gain traffic to their site. I don’t think some people understand rejection, so they don’t take guest blogging seriously.

But it is important, and it’s not something you can just mess around with. It’s a fundamental aspect of marketing, and some people just f**k it up with a lack of care.

I have been blogging for almost a year and a half now, so let me tell you that I have seen some horrible guest post submissions here. Things like:

Terrible grammar and spelling.
ZERO formatting, all one giant block of text.
Duplicate/ripped articles.
A giant plug for their site.
Completely off-topic articles.

I just don’t know what it is with a guest post that makes some people stop caring. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

What you should do with EVERY guest post you write

I am trying to get more into guest posting myself as I don’t really do it. I just recently submitted an article to a high-profile blog, and I spent more time than I usually do on posts just to make sure everything sounds great. Wish me luck!

But while writing that post, I came up with a list of rules in my head to follow. I figured I would write them down here so you can refer back to them when you’re writing your own guest posts, or going through submissions on your own blog.

1. Take it Seriously

An article you submit elsewhere needs to be take more seriously than one you put on your own blog. Since you’re not calling the shots, you don’t have room for messing up (usually you get chances to make revisions, but the quicker the better).

A guest post can bring in a ton of traffic to your blog, and even bring new readers into your community. That is HUGE for all of us, and it’s worth spending the extra time getting right. Readership is step one to a successful blog. Don’t mess around!

2. Do some research

Before you even begin writing that article, do some research on the blog you want to write for. This is the #1 thing I tell people who submit those guest posts that look like they were done in ten minutes:

Look around the blog, compare your article to an article of mine, or another guest writer’s article.

If some people actually take the time to do research of the blog they want to write for and try to write in a style that matches the other articles on the blog, then there won’t be any problems for either parties.

3. Format!

I reject articles on the spot that have no spacing between paragraphs. I will not even dare to add spacing myself, and I shouldn’t have to. It should already be done for me, and I have to assume that if the writer didn’t take the time to add even this most basic type of formatting to their article, they also didn’t take the time to write quality. That’s just how I look at things.

If you don’t want to add headlines, no problem. If you don’t want lists – no problem. I don’t even ask that you use basic styling like bold or italics. All I ask is that you add spacing between paragraphs, everything else can be added by me. And I’m not the only blogger who is that lenient either, so many of you are in luck!

4. Go the extra mile

I always love when I see that a blogger has taken the time to add images into a post. Even though the way we add images to posts here at Blogussion is completely whack, I always appreciate the effort very heavily.

No one will deny your guest post if you don’t add an image into your submission, but it never hurts to make your post as beautiful and as enticing as possible.

5. Stay Professional

This is what I absolutely hate seeing when I chat with people who want to write for me. In the email they send me to tell me about their guest post, they use improper grammar. Now don’t get me wrong, everyone makes spelling mistakes. I’d be lying to say I didn’t, and even Copyblogger isn’t perfect.

But it is just unreal how some people can’t even take time to formulate proper sentences in their request to write for me.

When you go to send your proposition to another blogger, please do both of you a favor and follow these guidelines in your email:

Use spell check, and write complete sentences.
Address the blogger by their name. Don’t spell that wrong either.
Get straight to the point, don’t even waste time telling your life story. Let your article do all the talking.
Never consider writing for someone else if you can’t give it your all.

You don’t have to suck-up to anyone you want to write for. It is actually a privilege for anyone to receive an article you have written. But it’s not an obligation for anyone to actually use it, so don’t be hurt if you’re rejected.

What’s Your Experience?
Do you have any bad experiences with guest posts? What made that particular post so bad that you just couldn’t approve it? Share them all here, I’m sure you have some to tell.

7 Ways to Improve Your Blog in 2010

David — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:49 +0000

Today, David Walker shares seven other things you need to be doing on top of your New years resolutions to keep your blog staying steady. Want to write for us too?

The hysteria of your New Year’s resolutions regarding blogging should have ended now. After promising yourself on December 31 to write a new post every day, leave comments on every industry blog going and contacting hundreds of potential new JV partners on a weekly basis, a dose of reality should have set in.

Now the madness of January is firmly behind us, I want to share with you seven tips on how you can improve your blog and stand above your competition in a practical manner during 2010.

As you read the seven items in this list, compare them to the resolutions you made at the beginning of the year. How do they compare to them, and would you be willing to adopt these new items to your list?

1. Let Your Passion & Personality Shine Through

I am a firm believer you should only blog about subject matter which you are knowledgeable and madly passionate about.

Your passion is your edge in a cluttered marketplace and is what makes you stand out from a crowd of “same old, same old” merchants.

When producing your blog content, establish a voice and let your personality shine through. People will pick up on it, be drawn to you and will be keen to know your take on the topics that mean the most to them.

2. Add Depth to Your Posts With Images

One of the best decisions I ever made was to illustrate my blog posts with images. Numerous people have told me how much they enjoy my posts and that the photographs I use add depth to what I have written.

Adding photographs doesn’t have to be expensive if you purchase quality stock images from the numerous online depots but my weapon of choice these days is Flickr.

There are millions of high quality, interesting and downright weird photographs on that website taken by professional and amateur photographers alike, many of which you are free to use and adapt for your own purposes.

Want to find some great images? I have found some of the coolest images for my blog posts by doing the following:

Go to Flickr
Type in a keyword that relates to your post (tip: don’t search for images directly related to blogging; try using metaphors)
Be sure to check the creative commons options before searching. This is so you are only searching for images that can be used on your blog.

Always be sure to give credit to the image author somewhere in your post for using their image. You can scroll to the bottom of this article to see how it is done on Blogussion (all images here are found through Flickr).

3. Use Video & Audio Too

Photo by Mark Tomlinson

As well as using photographs, try to use video and audio content on your blog too.

I am not suggesting you ignore written blog posts in favor of multimedia content, far from it, but a video post or audio interview with another expert in your niche can help to keep things fresh.

A great phrase I heard recently is “the money is where the fear is,” so if you are nervous about recording videos or conducting interviews, then push yourself into doing them.

You can be sure at least some of your competitors are NOT so it’s a great opportunity to get in front and if they are, then you don’t want to get left behind, do you?

4. Comment on Other Blogs

Leaving comments on other blogs is a great way to build your authority but you are not going to impress anybody by just writing “Great post” in response to every new blog post which opens up in your RSS reader.

Choose which posts you are going to contribute to carefully and make sure you fully understand what the content before you add your own take on what’s been said.

If you find a particular blog which resonates with you, leaving comments on a consistent basis will help you build a relationship with the blog owner and lead to future JV opportunities, not to mention directing some of their readers to your own blog.

5. Don’t Forget About Your Own Readers

When people leave a comment on your blog then you should do your best to leave a reply. Obviously, there is no point in responding to any “Great Post!” type shenanigans (I usually just delete those!) but if someone has made an effort then they deserve to be acknowledged.

Responding to comments helps conversations to develop and enables your readers to interact with both you and each other and fostering a sense of community helps to build your authority in your chosen niche.

6. Write Guest Posts

Guest posting is a hot, hot topic during the early stages of 2010 and it is an act you need to get in on yourself if your blog is going to grow.

Writing a guest post for other blogs in your niche opens you up to a brand new audience and a precious backlink to your blog will also help your long-term search engine positions.

If you manage to get published on one of the authority blogs in your niche, then in a way you will be seen on a similar level because your post is to some extent an endorsement from the blog owner.

You get perceived authority, instant credibility, free traffic and a better position in the search engines for one article you can write in less than an hour – and you are NOT doing it?

Photo by T.W. Collins

7. Forget About the Money to Begin With

Nobody expects you to blog for free, forever, but you should view your blog and your marketing in general as a long-term commitment to your niche.

There are hundreds of people who try to “ram raid” a niche in the misguided dream that all customers are idiots and will hand over their money because they have put up a half-assed blog and a shoddy product.

If you are just starting out with your own blog this year then you need to build trust through high quality content and work hard to stamp your authority on your niche.

Instead of plastering your blog with Google Adsense and banner adverts, collect your readers email addresses and build a relationship with them through helpful, free content.

The money will soon come and you will be hailed as your niche’s saviour in the process!

How Will You Improve Your Blog?

These are just seven tips you can use to improve your blog and your own authority during the remainder of 2010.

They are all realistic and achievable, you just need to put in some time and effort (but you are already, right?)

If you have any other nuggets of wisdom to share on how to take your blog to the next level this year then please share them in the comments below!

Successful Guest Posting Strategy in One, Two, Three

Ann Smarty — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:00:55 +0000

Like anything else, a guest post needs to be perfectly planned if success is to be achieved through it. Ann Smarty has written out what a successful guest post plan would look like, and does so in great detail. Want to write for us too?

Guest posting is probably one of the most unappreciated forms of marketing that I can think of. If you can use the proper strategies and have your mind set towards creating a quality guest post – you will be rewarded for it.

Because really, only the passionate bloggers guest post. The benefits are plenty and lack of time is no excuse, however, it is something that many bloggers just can’t get around to doing.

Some of the most important benefits of guest posting that I value the most are:

Get inspired by exposing your content to new audience and getting new comments, fresh insight, etc
Get more readers and subscribers, more promoters who will tweet and stumble your content.
Build your authority and reputation of the real expert in your niche;
You will be building new contacts with the blog owner, and the people in their community.

I hope that was enough to convince you to keep reading about how useful one simple guest post can be to your blog.

Finding blogs that accept guest posts

1. Start by contributing to your friends’ blogs. This way you will learn to “feel” another blog atmosphere and adapt to it.

The first place to start with is to look around your contacts. Your current blogging friends will be glad to accept your guest post and will help promote it. Besides, it’s a good way to remember your old contacts and remind them of yourself.

2. Search Google
If you are a new blogger (who doesn’t have a lot of friends who blog on the same topic) or if you have already blogged for most of your friends, head over to Google. I did a detailed post on finding guest post opportunities using Google. Read it thoroughly and try to apply the tips you’ll find there. Search queries you want to start with include:

“Submit a guest post” / “Submit post” / “Submit blog post”
“Add blog post”
“Submit an article”
“Suggest a guest post”
“Send a guest post”
“Write for us”;
“Become an author”, etc

3. Check (guest) blogging forums and communitie
Blogging forums that can be used for hunting guest posting opportunities are plenty. Some of them are general: Authority Blogger is one community to consider: it was started by a guest posting guru Chris Garret.

Another two places to be aware of are BlogHer (uniting blogging women) and 20sb.net (which unites bloggers aged between 20 and 30 years). Speaking of the latter, they regularly run guest posting events that encourage members to exchange guest posts.

Another place to find guest blogging opportunities is MyBlogGuest.com. That’s a forum (started by yours truly) that is meant to connect bloggers interested in fresh content to authors who would like to promote it.

2. Act now: write a killer pitch

Once you have found a couple of great guest posting opportunities, you may want to contact them and offer your guest post. Here’s how the process should look like step by step (also be sure to check this post by Alex on preparing a guest post in 5 steps):

Read the blog carefully. Think what type of a guest post might be interesting to the blogger and his readership;
Brainstorm a few great post ideas;
Search through the blog to see if there are any overlapping posts already;
Write the post (if nothing similar has been published yet). Don’t forget to link to related articles you found in step 3;
Contact the blogger and attach the post.

Note: there may be some intermediate steps. Some people prefer to discuss the post ideas with the blogger before submitting the post. It is really up to you. I can do either way from case to case.

Now to the ethics:

Spend some time on writing a good, personalized pitch: start with the blogger’s name and mention why you think the post is a good fit for his blog
Don’t send one and the same article to multiple bloggers. Send it to just one. This is very important. Don’t turn your guest blogging into article distribution. This is just plain wrong.

3. Now wait. Be patient

High-profile bloggers are very, very busy. Don’t be offended if they don’t respond to you for a week or so. I usually wait a week and then write a follow-up message and wait one more week. If I do not hear a response even after that, I will send them an email one last time to ask if they every plan on using the post. If there is still no response, I will submit it elsewhere.

Once your post is published, be sure to check back often, subscribe to comments and reply to everyone who comments. This is important, because writing the post is only about half of the job. Replying to comments and really engaging is the second part many do not take seriously.

Something else that can be useful to you is to track any Twitter mentions of the posts. Three tools I recommend you can use to help you track tweets around the post are:

BackTweets is a popular tool that tracks and aggregates Tweets linking to a particular page. It supports a number of URL-shorteners which makes the tool one of the most complete.
Twitter Reactions (for Google Chrome): shows the Twitter juice about the current page;
Topsy displays recent tweets for any given URL:

How do you do it all?

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, guest posting is a very powerful, but often overlooked form of marketing. The benefits it brings in can be immense, but at the cost of a lot of hard work.

So, how do you do it? What drives you to write an entire article for someone else? Are you in it for the traffic? Or are you looking for something greater than that?

How We Earned Over 200 Subscribers with 2 Simple Posts

Seth — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:34:34 +0000

I have written hundreds of posts over the last few months on a variety of blogs. In fact, my role on Blogussion is primarily to write great content and promote our blog. Alex also writes awesome content and has insane design abilities.

Together we are building Blogussion’s brand by connecting with our readers and networking with hundreds of other bloggers. Our goal is for Blogussion to be the source of great content on blogging tips. Reaching our goal requires us to promote our content to everyone on the internet. Today, I am going to explain our #1 source for bringing in new traffic.

Guest Posting Strategy

Let me first explain the most important part of our strategy when it comes to guest posting… sitting down and doing it! This isn’t going to be the first time many bloggers have heard of guest posting. If it is or isn’t your first time, listen up and get ready to do some serious promotion. Guest posting is the best way to get new subscribers and more traffic.

Why Guest Post?

Bloggers spend a lot of time worrying about traffic and trying a variety of different methods. Some work great and others just take a lot of your energy away from other important things. The majority of traffic methods usually lead to bloggers wasting valuable time instead of writing new content or seriously promoting their work. Many of the methods are not even worth the efforts made to use them.

After trying everything, guest posting is the single most effective way to build traffic to your blog.

Promoting your blog is hard and can be very frustrating. You tweet, stumble, digg and comment all over the internet and still your blog seems to find little change in readership. Eventually you dive into SEO and try to learn more about keyword rich titles and content. You know links are important, but you’re scratching your head as to how to get more of them. You have heard about guest posting but for some reason you are too scared, too tired, or not aware of the powerful results.

Personally I learned the power of guest posting when I started blogging for a new site. The blog was only a week old but I had produced 30 quality posts to launch the blog. With the help of some of my blogging buddies, and the start of search engine traffic trickling in I began my promotion methods the very first day I began blogging. Here’s what I did to turn a new blog into a busy blog.

Research Your Niche

I knew from previous experience what blogs were important in my current niche (topic) so I went to five of the top blogs and began reading their posts. While reading their posts I asked myself these 10 important questions:

What exactly are they writing about on this blog?
Is there content similar to my content?
Would their readers be interested in what I write?
What topics are they currently writing on?
Are there any ways to elaborate further on recent posts?
Are there any major post topics they are missing?
Do they use guest posts?
What style of writing do they use?
How can I use my background and blog uniquely in their content?
Are my experiences useful to their readers?

Photo by Stefan Baudy

Asking these questions and answering them honestly will help you come to the conclusion of whether or not the blog is worth guest posting on. To many of you I give this advice… I can find a way to fit ANY blog topic into a post for ANY other blog, and so can you. If you need help, just go to the contact page and let me know what blog you want to write for and what help you need.

Once you have a few big blogs to write on… get out a piece of paper, whiteboard, or open a document and start writing post ideas. You should brainstorm as many post ideas that would fit with the guest posting blog as you possibly can. Then start to narrow the posts down into posts you think are most interesting and easily researched/written.

How to Guest Post

Writing is the next step. First begin with an outline of major points for the blog post ideas you liked best. Really try hard to get the main point of your post idea in the outlines you write. Then look for the posts with the clearest outlines and most interesting topics. Start thinking of stories, analogies, web tools, images, or anything else which could compliment your post. Then do some research on the topic to make sure your opinion is correct, or at least arguable.

The next step is different for many bloggers, so choose carefully. Your options are to either email the owner of the blog with your proposal to guest post, main point (one sentence), brief outline, and contact information to see if it is worth writing up, or you can go ahead and write the entire thing.

I have done both and found that emailing a very brief and succinct outline of a post I wanted to write works very well, especially when you are less experienced. When I had started my blog this is what I did for my first guest post on ProBlogger. Darren Rowse was very nice and sent me a quick reply telling me my ideas were worth writing [note: his reply did not mean he would automatically post my written article, but rather that he liked the current direction]. Then I wrote up the post and sent it too him. He replied that he would love to post it soon.

I did the opposite for Daniel Scocco, Daily Blog Tips, the very same week. I wrote the entire post because I knew the idea would really connect with him and emailed it. He quickly sent a reply and told me he would be posting it soon. The very next week I had a guest post go live at BOTH ProBlogger and Daily Blog Tips and my blog had been live for only a week!

Writing a Guest Post

In the last 6 months I have guest posted on dozens of blogs all around the internet. Guest posting four times at Problogger, two times at Daily Blog Tips and then over 23 different blogs have rapidly increased my blogs links and traffic. Currently I have three guest posts waiting to be published at three very high traffic blogs. Each time I have submitted a guest post, it has been accepted so I have tried to think of how you can replicate this success.

The key is to write your very best content for others! They will love it and so will their readers. Then traffic and links will soar on your blog. When I named this post, I thought of a significant event on this blog. It was when we received 200 new subscribers in 2-3 days! What happened is I was featured two time on Problogger in two days! We got thousands of visitors and hundreds of new subscribers. Many of you reading this might have come from one of those posts.

In addition to writing your best content, be sure to look at Alex’s recent post and reverse the role that Alex talks about in Preparing a Guest Post. His post has you thinking as the blog owner, but put yourself in the guest posters shoes and think about how you could make the blog owner’s job easier.

One way I do this is by making the emails very brief when I send my guest posts. I include:

My name and link to my blog
Proposed Title (usually 2 options)
Main Text
Image (w/ attribution)
Byline

I promise you, if you spend 2 hours writing a powerful guest post for your blog, you will have more traffic and subscribers then by spending 2 hours doing anything else online! So stop what you are doing and get your guest post written and sent in today!

How To Fight Spam Without Affecting User Experience

Ishan Sharma — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:00:16 +0000

Today, Ishan Sharma shares three simple and easy to implement methods of fighting spam without dragging your readers into the middle of it. Want to write for us? Read here.

Spam! We bloggers hate it! We end up wasting a lot time fighting spam. And many of us then take strong steps that affect user experience!

Doesn’t it feel irritating when your comment just disappears because a plugin marked it as spam incorrectly? Or, when you have to fill an unreadable CAPTCHA? How about when you are asked to register just because you want to comment on an article? Your readers may also get irritated if you use such measures!

In this post, I will discuss three easy methods that will help you in fighting spam without effecting user experience on your WordPress blog.

Comment Moderation

Many of us enable moderation to fight spam. While this is most effective way, it requires lot of time. Why not take this idea a step further?

Block comments on older posts

Go to Settings ? Discussion. Select “Automatically close comments on posts older than x days” (you can choose the number).

You can see this option in effect at ProBlogger, where after the post has been published for 90 days, the ability to comment turns off.

This idea may only want to be applied if your community is larger and gets a lot of spam as it completely cuts off discussion in older posts, which may hurt your community.

Set limit on amount of links posted

In the same area of your admin panel, edit the option that says “Hold a comment in the queue if it contains…” and change it to 1. Most of the time, spam bots will post more than one link at a time.

User Experience Pros & Cons

Not much change is noticed by the user by applying these simple option changes. However, if you do decided to turn comments off on older posts, newer readers who may have found your blog through search engines or an old referring link may not have the chance to participate in the topic discussion.

But on the brighter side, all the heavy link spam is taken care of automatically and spam on old posts is also blocked.

Anti-spam Plugins (Akismet Alternatives)

Next thing in the list is to get a good anti-spam plugin. Here are some good anti spam plugins that you can use (and no, you will not find Akismet in this list):

Defensio: Defensio is a great alternative to Akismet. In fact, it is better than Akismet. First, from personal experience, I can say that it learns much better than Akismet. The comments marked as spam are listed as “Somewhat Spammy”, “Very Spammy” and “Obvious Spam” which makes filtering them easy.
Raven’s Antispam: Raven’s antispam is another good plugin that can control most of spam left by bots. It shows a CAPTCHA only when JavaScript is turned off in visitor’s browser(usually, spam bots do not have it on).
SI Captcha: SI Captcha can add a CAPTCHA on comments form and/or registration form. This prevents both spam comments as well as automated registrations.

I recommend using Defensio and Raven’s Antispam in combination as they can block virtually all spam. If you still get lot of spam comments, you can try out the very effective CAPTCHA option.

User Experience Pros & Cons

If you use Defensio and Raven’s combo, most of the readers will never see an “irritating” CAPTCHA. Also, for the owner (that’s you!), you will see far less spam comments and it will be easier to filter comments for you (with Defensio’s presentation).

The only negative side I can think of is that if you do use the CAPTCHA feature, it may be a turn off for some people to fill out as it just makes adding a comment more complicated.

Polishing the front end

Now, last thing to do is polish the front end a bit.

If you comment regularly on WordPress blogs, you must have noticed how WordPress behaves when your comment is marked as spam. You hit enter and tada – your comment just disappears! A very bad experience! isn’t it?

With the help of a small plugin WP AJAX Edit Comments, you can change this behavior. This plugin allows you to set a message that is shown to user if his/her comment is marked as spam.

Also, it lets your readers edit their comments for a fixed time (you can turn this off or change the time limit).

User Experience Pros & Cons

Readers know that their comments has been marked as spam and can contact you for rescue. Also, readers can correct spelling mistakes and typos. On the admin side, you can edit comments straight from front end and also mark/unmark as spam.

I cannot find anything negative to say about this approach, it works very well to improve the user experience while posting a comment.

Spam is nasty. Leave your readers out of the fight.

The three methods I just shared with you should make the experience of your readers on your blog a whole lot better. Now, you should see a less spam filled blog and a happier community

So, what other methods do you use and recommend to combat spam? Do not forget to share them via comments.

This was a guest post by Ishan Sharma. He blogs about Blogging Tips and Resources on Blogging With Success. If you liked this post, check out his post How To Sell A Dead Horse For $500!