Blogussion » Marketing

The Ugly Side of SEO

Carmela@Blogussion — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:28:40 +0000

AS a blogger, I’m sure you’ve already come across advice that extols the merits of using SEO. Since it’s one of the quickest and most effective ways to drive traffic to your web site, SEO is now considered as one of the most essential site maintenance tools. Properly applied, this can empower your website and make it much more appealing to your market.

Black hat, white hat: It only takes a devious or uninformed move to turn an innocuous SEO technique into something unethical or downright illegal.

Now you can easily find lengthy online lists and discourses on what SEO practices can benefit your blog the most, and you may have relied on a few of them. But have you ever considered that as some point, some formerly recommended SEO techniques may inadvertently turn you into a spammer?

Here are a few common SEO practices that have turned ugly.

Comment and email spamming

Let’s begin with outright spam activity. First off, promoting your business via email and blog comments is encouraged and practiced by plenty of professional online marketing companies. If you do this the right way, you can generate widespread interest in your website quickly and very easily.

On the other hand, when your email or comments degenerate into a one-size-fits-all one-liner message + link, then that’s pure spam. Check out online regulations regarding spam, such as the CAN-SPAM Act. If your SEO techniques fail to comply with its rules, then you better find other ways to market your blog.

Link spamming

Flooding a comment box, forum post, or article with links to the same site is automatically considered as spamming activity, but sometimes it also takes just one badly placed link to create spam. I’ve seen this mostly in forums and comment boxes, where one-time posters leave one link in a remotely related discussion and never return.

IT DOESN’T WORK. Whenever Google detects spamming activity, it will simply send the site to the Google Sandbox for up to several months, and later remove it from the search engine index. If that happens, your site is doomed.

Random keywords

Keywords are the foundation of SEO. However, many misguided posters, writers, and webmasters simply incorporate random and usually irrelevant keywords throughout their content in the hopes of attracting as many visitors as possible.

If the keywords that you use are not what your market needs, then they won’t serve you at all. You can beat this by doing research first on what resonates well in your market so you can adopt the most effective keywords for your website.

Keyword stuffing

Related to wrong and random keyword usage is keyword stuffing. How many times do you expect to see the keywords ‘web development’ in a single paragraph of 200 words?

Bad SEO practitioners liberally pepper their statements with the same or similar keywords, sometimes to the point that the entire thrust of the message is lost. It only makes the content sound forced. It’s much better to trim down your keywords and apply them strategically at the strongest points of your content, where they matter.

Link buying

Once considered effective, this is now a highly dubious practice. Buying links to generate better online exposure poses more risks than returns because it is easy for your competitors to keep up with you and leverage their other assets against your business. At best, link buying can be used to support your entire marketing strategy.

Cloaking

As the term implies, cloaking is presenting different content to a search spider from what you show to your readers. What happens is that the search engine receives a set of scrambled but targeted keywords to increase the site’s ranking. It is also used by some webmasters to trick users into visiting their site.

For instance, a user will click on a website based on a search engine’s results and description, but will be redirected to another site different from what was described in the SERP’s. Obviously, this method is highly deceptive and could quickly get you banned.

Have you ever tried any of the methods listed above, and how did they affect your blog or website? Have you encountered anyone attempting to spam your website with these and other tactics, and how did you deal with them?

These practices may increase blog traffic at first, but in the long run they will drive more potential traffic away.

In the end, it is still much better to create substantial content, products, and services that will offer your target market specialized value, then promote it in a systematic, strategic, and ethical manner at a slower but steadier pace. And it only takes one false move to destroy months or years of building your brand’s integrity, so protect it at all costs.

Photo credits: asdfing.com, artdriver.com

Carmela Maraan has written on various topics ranging from marketing, advertising, blogging, and creative writing to adult material. She is enthusiastic about expanding her repertoire as she views the world as one huge library. During her free time she is also a voracious reader, an irrepressible singer, and a mom who hardly sleeps.

The Importance of Promoting your Blog

Carmela@Blogussion — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:34:53 +0000

FOR every performance, there should be an audience. The same applies to blogging. Without your audience, your blog won’t survive. So what do you do in order to increase your traffic? Simple –- by promoting your blog.

Your blog will only take off when you know and understand how to sell your ideas to your target audience. The key is in finding out which strategy works for you best.

Sounds easy, right? Yes, but take heed — so many bloggers tend to cut corners by resorting to sneaky promotional methods (eg. spamming) in the hopes of gaining overnight success, and they end up compromising their own credibility and integrity. Those tactics hardly ever work in the long run.

Although increasing your blog’s popularity and hits takes time, it is well worth the effort. There are several sure-fire and legit ways of doing this, and the following are only a few tried-and-true methods employed by professional bloggers. Best of all, these techniques are free and can be immediately implemented.

1. Blog Commenting

While posting links in your comments is frowned on these days, it’s still a favorite promotional tool. The key to making this work is to post relevant comments in blogs that you actually subscribe to. Find a topic that is in the same niche as your blog, and post your comments there. This way you will attract the attention of the blog’s readers AND owners. It also will lessen the chances of your comments being deleted. Trust me, I am one of those who actively deletes comments that sound spammy or even remotely off-topic.

2.Email Marketing

This is another fast method for driving traffic to your site. If you have an email list – and you should – you can regularly send out messages telling your recipients to check out your latest blog post. It’s that simple.

3. Social Communities

Plenty of bloggers swear by posting scheduled tweets on Twitter, creating Facebook fan pages, or posting links in LinkedIn. This is an extremely fast way to create a buzz and get both traffic and backlinks. Facebook fan pages also allows you the opportunity to interact directly with your fans and readers.

Aside from popular social networks, you can promote your blog in forums, blogging communities, and general directories. You can also post your own linked articles in a blog carnival. However, promoting your blog without any other active group participation is considered distasteful by many and could get you banned or even blacklisted as a spammer. One obvious example of doing this is posting your blog link in your forum signature.

The best way to go about this is to actively participate in group discussions on topics that are related to your blog. Build a community of like-minded people, and you don’t just get traffic, you may even establish yourself as an expert in your blog niche.

4. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are a tad different from social networks, in the sense that the former is used more often for link building. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of bookmarking sites, including Del.i.ci.ous, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg, where readers sign up to bookmark links to their favorite sites.

The upside to promoting your blog in these sites is that your blog can quickly go viral and can receive a huge amount of traffic in record time; however, you don’t get much backlinks from bookmarking, so save this tactic for getting more hits and readers.

5. Direct Interaction

This is an oft-overlooked promotional tactic. With the sheer volume of bloggers cropping up, personal interactions with readers go down. Many blog readers find it flattering to be the subject of a blog author’s attention, and this ultimately helps create a buzz through their testimonials.

Frequent interaction with your readers also allows you to encourage them to keep on reading, participate in your contests, subscribe to RSS feeds, etc. As with real-life businesses, this kind of personalized service inspires loyalty and attracts new traffic.

These are only a few strategies for putting your blog out there. Remember that success isn’t instant, and you’ll have to deal with plenty of rejection as well. You will have to resist the urge to take underhanded shortcuts, but if you apply the aforementioned methods strategically and consistently, chances are your blog will eventually double or even triple its readership without sacrificing your reputation. Good luck!

Photo credits: dressful.com, tipsblogger.com

Obtain A Beneficial & Continual Focus with Your Competition

Derek Jensen — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:00:24 +0000

During the creation and expansion process of our blog we tend to focus on what our competition is doing or not doing. When it comes to creating a blog you have a set mission or vision that fits your inner thoughts and voice. Instead of solely focusing on your competition, focus on and compare with their talents, skills, and perspectives.

When you think of the content that is present on Blogussion what other blogs do you think of? This is what Alex and I have been thinking about when working on the redesign for all of you.

When looking at the competition of blogs about topics related to the practice of what bloggers do the obvious few competitors are ProBlogger, CopyBlogger, Daily Blog Tips, How to Make My Blog, and Blogging Tips.

I’ll be focusing on what we truly need to look at when it comes to our competition. We can compete with or against them by doing something better or just making slight changes. Instead, let’s just look at the overall feel and movement our competition is going or has been going. As I said before, “focus on and compare with their [competitors] talents, skills, and perspectives.

To do this we will analyze our own blog, then the competitors, and bring it back to our blog for improvement and a better overall continued focus.

I’ll be using Blogussion as a case study, but please think about your blog of course.

Find the True Differences

When looking at your competition begin to find the true differences. These true differences are not just your voice and unique community but deeper. Why is your voice (content) and community unique?

Asking and Reading What Others Think

Surfing the web I found the following words on Blogussion:

Blogussion is run by 16 year old Alex Fraiser and his blog serves differently to most “make money online blogs”. He offers great how to advise to customise and improve your blog as well as offering a great insight into how other blogs make it big. -Michael Dunlop
I’ve always been a huge fan of blogs, namely up and coming stars. Blogussion caught my eye a few months ago, and I’ve been following their articles ever since. Jam-packed with blogging and internet traffic-related SEO articles, Blogussion is one of the top blogging resources on the web today.- Jake Rocheleau
For a beginning blogger trying to figure out where to start, there is probably no better blog to read than Blogussion. -Blake Waddill
I strongly suggest that you go and have a look because it really is great and gives loads of fantastic tips on blogging.-Genevieve

Additionally, you should ask your readers via Twitter or Facebook what they think of your blog’s content and overall feel.

Taking a Quick Glance at Your Competition

Now that we know what others think about us and why we stand out we can look more into why our competitors are standing out.

The following thoughts are of Michael Dunlop and will be used to get a general sense of the difference Blogussion has from competitors mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Problogger: Problogger offers all the advice new bloggers will need to improve their newly created blog. With subjects covering almost everything anyone would ever need to know about, there is little reason to use Google to find it.
CopyBlogger: Copyblogger offers some great tips, tricks and advise on how to write better blog posts, create better blog copy and all in all, a better blog. A definite recommendation for the more advanced blogger taking it up a notch.
How to Make My Blog: They teach everything you need to know about starting your own blog (if my eCourse wasn’t enough) – a great resource for anyone wanting to set up, customize and launch there blog.
Daily Blog Tips: Daily blog tips to creating a better blog, covering all the new blogging guidelines, updates and tricks as they come out.

Doing a Compare, Not to Just Contrast Yourself

What does that mean? Compare your blog with the competing blogs with the intent on not just being different or better than them.

Reflecting on Your About Page

Know that we know what readers and other views think about our blog and our competitors’ blogs we can see if that matches up with the about pages when looking at the story and/or overall mission. This is usually when we have to make improvements to our blog to either make it more known to the readers what your blog is truly about or to improve your content, design, and community interaction.

First look at the chunk of your about page that would strive to sell you blog over your competition.

This is what is currently written in our about page:

We are a blog about blogging that provides outstanding tips for excelling your blog in a variety of topics. Whether or not you are someone who earns an income from blogging, or someone who wishes they were – we will teach you how to create a blog that truly stands out from the crowd.

Established on the turn of the New Year of 2009, Blogussion has proven to be one of the top blogs in the whole “blogging tips” niche. With a consistently updated blog, a rapidly expanding community and much will to continue on and expand – Blogussion is a blog that should be in any bloggers feed reader.

After looking at your about page and what people say about your blog you can start to compare with your competition. Remember we are not comparing to just contrast ourselves. We are trying to establish the better thought of what to focus on when it comes to our blogs and our competition.

Also think about visiting your competitors’ about pages and see how their message is either working or suffering. Also consider looking at these about pages.

Adjust & Improve to Compete Better

Yes we can all have different stories, prove to be better than our competitors, or establish different overall missions. What we need to do on a constant basis and will be more beneficial to our blogs in both the short and long run.

Focus on continually matching with your reader’s thoughts and growing those same thoughts.
If your reader’s thoughts are missing your true importance or distinction this is your fault. You cannot benefit from your community helping you out against your competition if they are misguided.
Don’t just make changes to be different. Make the changes that you want to make that go in favor of your strengths and your passion.

The Beneficial & Continual Focus

Don’t compare and contrast with your competition to be better

Building our blogs is put on our own time schedule. This usually correlates with the purpose of your blog and how bad you really want it.

I’m focusing on the bloggers that want it really bad and want to really stand out from the crowd in their niche and their competition. To do this you need to obtain that beneficial and continual focus with your competition.

In this article we looked at the importance of the relationship between your readers and the mission you are actively pursuing which is shown through your community interaction, content, and design. This relationship is the focus we need to have and observe how our own personal talents and skills will strengthen our blog’s mission and community to compete.

Our competition did not just create their blog to compete or be different. They created because they knew what they were good at and just strived to only get better. If I were you I would give this focus a shot otherwise you could be running into a passive failure. But, you are not alone we all make mistakes. Having a better focus always helps though.

Photo by Adrian Boliston

21 Reworks to Achieve a Better Blog in 2011

Derek Jensen — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 03:16:18 +0000

It’s 2011 and the way people are sharing items, talking with others, and getting their content is changing at a rapid pace. This pace might increase, but more importantly we need to be ready and stay on the leading edge. Whether it be your blog design, content, marketing, or how you’re making money we can all achieve a better blog in 2011.

Just before the new year you’ve probably noticed many blogs changing their design, adding to their content base, trying different marketing methods, and making money in different ways. In the blogosphere we’ve been entertained by some major reworks to prepare for 2011 and I’ll focus on a few out of the many hundreds of thousands in the first two categories.

The 4 categories we will be focusing our reworks on will be design, content, marketing/sharing, and making money. The methods, concepts, and ways behind each of these categories are changing especially for 2011.

Design

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration. -Jeffrey Zeldman

Design is that upper most subjective element of your blog and yet it remains to be very vital to how your community perceives the view of the blog and it’s content. Without a quality and effective design we can’t stand out, attract more people, and show people the true dedication of our content and mission/vision. A design says a lot, especially when its reworked.

Why would they change their blog design? Are they minor or major?
Are they redefining their mission or going down a different path?
Is it expansion or simplification?
Reorganizing the content and user-experience in what ways and why?

Let’s now look at a few blogs that have changed their design and focus the attention to why they were reworked.

Problogger.net:Adding a featured post or a highlighted post that Darren Rowse wants people to make sure they check out along with a new professional overall layout.
CopyBlogger.com:Known for having that “CopyBlogger” free WordPress theme and really was just focused on content. Added a podcast, specialized pages of information, and a cleaner overall design.
Mashable.com:Have been through many design changes to handle the different topics, stories, and feedback covered/received. Featuring more about what is trending.
MarsDorian.com:A “simple” tagline went from “Spread Your Influence” to “The World Needs You”. These words represented the overall image and direction of the blog. A new design followed or shall I say it was a refresh.

Now it’s up to you on what you want to rework with design.

See what major changes you can make to enhance your content, your reader’s experience, or the mission/vision of the blog.
Do you stay on WordPress, go to Ruby on Rails, or even experiment with Squarespace or Tumblr?
Make additions or cut backs to better your power and/or your focus related to your mission/vision.
Do you stick with the blog-style layout or go more towards the feeling of a homepage. (CopyBlogger vs ProBlogger)
Are your users ultimately able to connect with your content how you want them to and how new technology would allow them to?
Navigation and what content should be displayed and the priority of that display. Consider the proximity of things such as your sharing options etc.

Content

Content is what your readers and people from the outside come to judge, observe, reflect on, share with others, and really embrace for quality and having an urge.
Your content may come in many shapes and sizes but must reflect consistency and have an good voice that makes people want to read, listen, or watch.

Think about these thoughts:

What content is popular?
Why expand your content on different formats? Good or bad? Thinking about personal strengths and not just going to other formats just because everyone else is doing it. i.e. Podcasts, Video, Live Shows, Mobile, eBooks, etc.
How could your community or future community members better grasp your content?
Re-check the quality, the relation to your voice and mission, copy-writing skills, and many other basics.

Let’s now look at a few blogs that have changed their design and focus the attention to why they were reworked.

CopyBlogger.com:Separate out the content (related to design) by putting key content on individual landing pages for people to navigate from there. They also include a newsletter for “smart people” and a podcast show.
SiteSketch101.com:Experimenting with the content… First is was like the blogging version of Mashable and now it’s back to more elaborate and “artistic” pieces of writing. The current (brief experiment) reassured the quality of the content.
VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com:The frequency of posting has dropped mainly due to the content has really all been written down and published. Now you add videos and podcasting to keep the interaction going.

Now it’s up to you on what you want to rework with content.

What type of content are you finding your readers more interested in and in what format is that preferred? (Take a Survey/Poll)
Reread your mission statement and about page. Are you over-delivering or just doing too much?
Try out a different format or two for your content but if your community is set on one make that dedication.
How is your content organized? Do you organize by topic or by format or both? The focus of your content might change and so should the organization of it.
Using Facebook, Twitter, and Quora as tools for the pre-production of your content.

Marketing/Sharing

How are you getting out there? Are people talking about you? In order for this to happen we push to market ourselves with our blogs but also need to think about how willing people are to share your blog/content. What two big ways do we market our blogs? Guest posting and commenting.

While this are still ways to market let’s think about these:

Now it’s up to you on what you want to rework with marketing/sharing.

Think about other things than just within the online realm of content creation and your competitor’s blog. What about using Quora or Facebook?
Create a viral video for YouTube that models the mission/vision of your blog. Just don’t make it a lame, cheesy blogging video. It needs to entertain.
Go offline, into the wild, and form many different groups to create a name for yourself.
Setup events and/or workshops offline, then bring them online, and that transition will be like you are their guardian for the web.
Get the organic word-of-mouth going (online and offline) through the methods previously mentioned but be sure you remain transparent.

Making Money

Yes, there are those who just blog to blog. I’ve begun to realize though that anything you create and can be seen by anyone has the potential to put some money in your bank, PayPal account, or wallet. You might not have the intentions of making money, but the possibilities are always there.

With that said many others want to make money from their blog and one common route is affiliate marketing and advertisements.

The true best way to begin making money is building a name for yourself and you can do just that from some of the marketing reworks we just discussed or by just creating something awesome (super quality) and getting noticed by the right people. If you do that you’re covered, but you do have to hold up your reputation.

If you don’t have a name for yourself just yet think about these methods:

Now it’s up to you on what you want to rework with making money.

You have a blog but think of something outside the blogosphere. Call this your new project that is a service or a product that could (if you wanted it to) support your blog.
Create products for your blog and charge a subscription for them to receive something exclusive to a continued discount.
Start a members area only that is different from what I just mentioned. i.e. The ProBlogger Community
Setup a paid-subscription newsletter through letter.ly or Tiny Letter
Sponsor your content. Sponsorships show more connection and relationship with the content than advertisements.

21 Reworks Later

2010 was a year where many new things were created, tested, and continue to be tested. 2011 will surely be more testing of new creations and how people adapt to them but this will happen at a good rate.

Blogging continues to change with everything. We just have to be willing to rework before we are worked-out.

Oh, Blogussion is Reworking Too

You’ve heard that right. Blogussion has been through a few versions over the years all adapting to the community, a change in direction on pleasing the community, and how the creators behind it all vision Blogussion. All I can show you is the new logo that could even be tweaked in the next few months as it is being continuously worked on as I speak.

Alex and I would love to hear what you plan on doing to make your blog a better blog for 2011 in the comments.

Photo by Nikko Russano

The Crucial Need for Power & Voice Through Taglines

Derek Jensen — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:57:03 +0000

Taglines have been around ever since we were creating something for others to view or buy with competition present. Then, people and businesses turned more to their marketing plan and brand personality when designing or redesigning their taglines. How does your tagline match up in this huge blogosphere? It’s crucial to let your voice be heard and “stand out from the crowd“.

“Stand out from the crowd” is a five word tagline, but says more than just those five words. Yes, not all of those words really help the mission and focus of the message to people, but they all work together to deliver one powerful voice.

Many of us treat a tagline as a way to describe our blog. We either say what our content is going to deliver or we simply just explain the name of our blog.

You want to be boring, unoriginal, and just clutter the blogosphere?

Center every aspect of your blog around your tagline

I hope not. I push for bloggers and people in general online to truly be who they are and replicate that through all of their online actions and the ultimate beginning it having a tagline that’s powerful and speaks your voice. My tagline describes my energy, desire, and push for people to be happy and be noticed online. I push myself to do the same and it shows I do just that inside my content.

Surely, there’s a secret to creating the ultimate tagline for your blog. It’s you, your message, and ultimately how you want you are your blog to be memorable.

Delivering Your Message with Power

Taglines are important. Without them we would have to write a very long blog name or there would be many blogs named, “Read My Content and Hear My Voice”. Yes, that might be extreme but the point is is that if your tagline is weak it’s almost like you have no tagline at all.

We want to make our message clear, but not too clear (obvious). Does your blog have a tagline such as:

An Entrepreneur Blog
Making Money Online
Blogging About Technology

If so, consider changing it. You’re not delivering your message with power. You are delivering the message that simply would say, “received your message” in a text message or email inbox.

Be creative and James Chartrand, in her post on CopyBlogger says to think about the benefits that anyone coming to your blog will gain. Along with being creative, clear, and powerful at the same time you need to think about your voice.

Listening to Your Own Voice

Your voice is ultimately the number one thing that makes a blogger truly and always stick out and be known. Their style of writing. Their focus. Their relationship with the content.

But, so many bloggers feel that by just them putting their name on a post or blog shows their voice. Well, this might be true if you have a community that talks about you and their chatter is essentially your voice.

Problem is that while you still might have this, there is still new community members. How are they going to truly know your mission and voice. Everyone first goes to the tagline to get a general sense and that is when they determine whether to stay or not. Surely an active and high quality community does help to attract them, but no tagline and your community then has every right and power to redefine you and your blog. Be careful!

It’s about you helping them and being yourself. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

What do you truly believe in?
What is a problem you currently see and how can you make a difference?
You have hidden talents, now how are you going to make people notice them?
What’s your true devotion and desire at the end of the day?

These are just some. The point is that your tagline has to be original and you have to stand by it 101% in your content and community engagement in order for it to be powerful.

Make and Leave Your Mark

It could also be, building your true influence with people. Just look at the 30 most influential people online. Each of them have a distinct place on the web. When digging through the origin of how they got this far it would come down to their very own personal mission statement. That mission statement is a tagline.

Stick to It or Rebrand

Once you’ve taken another look at your tagline and find your content and voice to not match up, rebranding is a must. Why?

You’ve gotten people to read and join something you don’t have a strong voice in anymore
Your true supporters and community will thank you later
You will be happier and more successful!

There is never a good time to really rebrand, except the sooner the better. If this is you, get to work, and hustle!

Your tagline is your engine

If not, stick to your tagline and center all aspects of your blog around that tagline.

Want more? I offer my voice at my very own blog called UniqueBlog and since it’s launch two weeks ago its been getting nothing short of a positive response.

Please know its NOT a blog teaching you how to blog or any blogging tips. It’s merely a place, community, and resource for you to discover your hidden talent and stand out from the crowd online.

I only promote UniqueBlog, because I strongly believe it to be the next blog you should all be apart of. You can even see how I got started and why I’m writing how I write today in my personal story.

How are you transforming or practicing your current tagline today?

Photo by atomicshark

Going Viral: Stop-Motion, Hip-Hop, and Alex Fraiser’s Disembodied Head

Nick Scheidies — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 04:00:02 +0000

Do you want to know how we used the three things above to spike our traffic from 20 visits a day to over 2,000? It’s time you start thinking outside of the box when it comes to marketing and promoting your blog — way outside of the box.

Your Problem: No One Cares About You or Your Blog

(Except your mom — and she could be jiving too)

Q: What do you call a million people all shouting the same thing at once?
A: The Internet.

If you’ve ever tried to drive traffic to your blog, then you’ve probably felt like one of the million people all saying the same thing: “Hey — come listen to what I have to say!”

It might work. But one-in-a-million isn’t very good odds. So, even though you provide good content, you utilize every social media site around, and you get fresh ideas daily from sites like Blogussion, nobody really seems to care.

All of those things are good — and that’s exactly your problem. They’re just good. Good isn’t good enough. You are remarkable — and it’s about time you started acting like it.

Nobody cared about us either. Until…

It was the summer of 2010. My buddy (and budding business prodigy) Nick Tart and I had just finished interviewing 25 of the world’s most impressive young entrepreneurs — including Alex Fraiser himself — for a book. The only problem was that just a select few really cool people knew about it.

We had tried spreading the word with emails, articles, and comments — but we were only making ripples where we wanted to make waves. That’s when we had a kooky idea: make a stop-motion music video to promote our book.

I got to work writing music and mixing in audio chopped-up from the interviews. Nick Tart got busy buying Sharpies and making cut-outs of all 25 young entrepreneurs. Overall, we put in around 68 hours into the song/video and the results made it completely worthwhile.

They speak for themselves:

Quit Moping Around & Create Something Remarkable

But You Don’t Like Making Stop-Motion Videos…

Good for you. They’re a pain. To find your personal promotional perfection, don’t look around at what other people have done. Look at your own life. What do you like to do for fun? What creative things did you waste your time on as a kid?

In our case, those were silly stop-motion videos, but in yours it could be anything from finger paint to play-doh to wooden blocks. Simply create something that you would want to tell all of your friends about.

And don’t play the “I’m not creative” card. If you’re one of the left-brained among us, then you can still use your technical prowess to make something awesome, like a big row of dominoes that spells out your URL.

From Hobby to Purposeful Content

Of course, you can’t just make a video of your stamp collection and expect it to be a promotional boon for your blog. You have to redirect your hobby so that it fits your purpose like a glove. Recognize your assets and your message — then start thinking creatively from there.

In our case, we realized that the audio from the 25 young entrepreneurs we interviewed was one of our biggest assets. So, we decided to incorporate some of the best audio clips into a song. We also knew that more people would recognize these bloggers by their faces and accomplishments than by their voices — so we decided to incorporate a visual component too.

You can do the same thing to promote your blog. Think about the possible ways that your creative stream overlaps with your blog. Find an idea that’s unique and exhilarating and then go for it! A few nights of hard work and you’ll have your killer promotional content.

Let Your Content Roam Free, Like The Wild Buffalo

People are incredibly lazy (as a former lazy person myself, I can vouch for this). Even if you’ve created a mind-blowing song/dance/paint-by-numbers-drawing for your blog, nobody’s going to share it unless it’s really, really easy for them to do so.

Here are the three ways we made our video more viral than pink eye:

Facebook Comments
This is a new tool that lets you put a snazzy little Facebook comment box underneath any scrap of content. It’s great because it encourages feedback, community, and it posts a link on the person’s wall.
Tweet Button
Everyone tweets. Even your grandma. That means that one or two tweets about your promotion aren’t going to make a big dent in things. But if you can attract a whole flock of Twitterers with a sleek little ‘Retweet’ button, then you’re in business.
Posted on YouTube
We uploaded our video onto YouTube so that people could easily embed it onto their websites and Facebook profiles. YouTube is also the second biggest search engine in the world and it’s especially popular with younger people — which happens to be our primary demographic.

Here’s the video that helped us go viral:

There are very few reasons not to be remarkable.

If you can think of a few good reasons to be average, then ignore everything you just read. Otherwise, get out there and start transforming something you’re passionate about into a perfectly mind-blowing promotional campaign for your newly-remarkable blog.

Ready to jump in with DIY marketing? Or are you convinced that your hobby is too weird, dorky, or illegal to be transformed into eye-catching promotional content? Hop on down and join the brain-storming in the comment box below.

Photo by Fergus Ray Murray

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?

The Immediate Benefits of Having a Newsletter & Why You Need One Now

Alex — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:00:26 +0000

A few weeks ago, I launched a newsletter here that really has had a big impact on the blog today. It is another community of readers that is growing pretty strongly here, and the effect this has all had on the blog is really quite big. I want to try to encourage you to start a newsletter on your own blog as well.

First of all, your newsletter has to do with emails, meaning you send content out to anyone who subscribes with their email address. You can send out as much or as little content as you want, and doing this over time will grow your email list to a larger and larger audience.

A newsletter is for everyone. Anyone can do it, regardless of the niche you’re in. That’s what’s so great about them, as long as you can offer great content on a consistent basis, you can have a great newsletter. Maybe you’ll make money too, but that’s for another post.

The great thing about your newsletter is that it gets better every time you send out new content. So, one week you decide to send out an email to a list of 550 people, and from that time to the next week, your list will have a chance to grow into a bigger audience.

So that list of 550 may be a list of 580 the next week, 600 the next week and so on. This growing number of subscribers is how we see results on our blog.

After growing my own email list on this blog and sending out a few newsletter (plus a 10 day course written on my blog), I have noticed a few things different about the blog.

1. More Content, More (Deep) Traffic

I see my newsletter as an opportunity to give this new community of email readers some great content, as well as send some traffic back to the blog. Keep in mind, with a newsletter anyone who reads it will not be sent to your blog unless you send them there by linking to it.

If you caught a glimpse of what a newsletter here looks like, you will see that I link back to Blogussion quite a few times in the content area and other elements. This sends traffic back to the actual blog, and can convert those email subscribers into commentators, RSS subscribers, and maybe some will buy my product.

I have found that when you write content in a newsletter, any interlinking you do back to old posts will get clicked quite a bit, so long as you create some convincing anchor text.

2. A New Audience

An email list is basically a list full of people who have visited your blog and just happen to sign-up to get emails. Some are first-time visitors, and some can be your loyal fans. Either way, since you are speaking to them over a different medium of communication, I find that you are speaking to a whole new audience.

So, I figure if I have a new audience I want to try to speak to them in a whole other way. Yes, I will still be posting the most insightful content as possible in my newsletter, but I also want to try some new things too. Maybe some actual monetization strategies, since I don’t do it here.

A newsletter opens up a lot of opportunities, but none as important as what’s next.

3. Branding Opportunities

With this “new audience,” you have that chance to do new things; to do something different and build up this new audience in a different way than you do your blog. Not everyone who views your newsletter views your blog, so what should you do?

I personally think you should try to convert as many of your email subscribers into regular readers of your blog as you can. One great way to do that is by branding your newsletter. You can get a custom design for it, or just do something as simple as putting a logo at the top.

Get your site’s name up there, get a link to it and if you write a great enough newsletter, expect to see some of those newsletter subscribers at your blog in no time (maybe you’ll recognize their email address in a comment, I don’t know).

My Opinion on Newsletters

I think creating a mailing list for your blog is something you need to do today. With a service like Aweber, doing it is easy and managing it couldn’t be simpler.

As great as newsletters are, they also require a lot of work. Maybe you want to send out an “x day ecourse” like I did, or maybe you just want to send out content once a week. it doesn’t matter what you decide to do, but how you do it.

You can’t really expect to see positive results (increase in blog traffic, making money, etc.) if you just half-ass your newsletter. Instead, you will just be creating more work for yourself, and as always: getting nothing in return.

So while I believe newsletters are for every blog, I don’t think they’re for every blogger. Getting actual content up onto your blog is more important than getting it to your newsletter, so if you don’t think you can manage the two then I suggest you just don’t get into newsletters at all.

What’s Your Take?
Newsletters can be big for you, but they can also be a bust. So far, it has worked out for me and I hope to make it an even larger part of my blog in the near future. If you run a newsletter, what are some of the things you have noticed change in your blog as a result?

Creating a Trend to Effectively Stand Out

Derek Jensen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:00:47 +0000

What does it mean to create a trend? A trend is really a specific direction that something or someone develops over a given amount of time that begins to spread to many others. In the case of blogging we, bloggers, should think about starting a trend for our blogs. Creating a trend will allow us to effectively stand out from the immense blogosphere. I strongly feel if we don’t have that urge to create a trend, why even blog, so let’s get started and spread our passions!

We can adapt many known practices to blogging

This thought initially came from hearing my professor lecturing one day in my advertising class. It had stricken me that if we push for creating a trend then followers and competition will increase. This is a thought process that has been practiced in our markets all across the world, so why not adapt that to blogging.

I am pushing for you to really dig deep into your passion, thought process, and overall vision. You, your content, and your community will all be affected. The post itself is a long read, but I hope you enjoy and looking forward to your feedback.

We all should be standing out in the blogosphere or the web if are striving for that ultimate success or happiness. I know that we each have a different definition or scope for our success or happiness, but we need to stand out.

Why should someone see, visit, or even care about you versus “them” or someone else? This comes down to your “unique selling point” and your overall marketing strategies. Our marketing strategies seem to all be very similar today, but many are brainstorming how to “twist” these proven and practiced strategies around in strictly benefiting them, their blog, and their community. So what’s this twist?

It’s setting a trend. They are creating a trend to promote them and their content in ways that will directly and indirectly positively affect them. Time to stand out.

Let’s now break this “creating a trend” concept down.

1. Bond to Your Passion

Your passion should be the reason you are blogging, creating quality content, and striving to be happy and having others feel the same way. I really want to emphasize that this needs to be your passion and not something that you thought would be great to do because you saw potential, etc.

Conversations with people may present more insight than you thought

For instance, while having a casual conversation with Daniel Delaney from Vendr.TV the other day, I asked him if he started Vendr.TV because he saw it as a potential or untapped niche or if he did it because it was his passion? His response was that it was his true passion and he wanted to make sure he rocked it out.

Once, we have our true passion we can then begin bonding to it. Bonding to it? Yes, act as if this passion is your child and strive to make it grow the best and healthiest ways possible. Don’t like the analogy, then bond to your passion by staying close with it and always checking whether whatever steps (big or small) you’re taking that they actually fit.

Allow time for your passion to truly find you and be ready to roll with it if you aren’t already.

2. Push for Originality & Creativity

Here are where things get interesting, messy, and filled with many ideas while brainstorming. Even while you might see this as “not for me” because this is not how you role with things, you should think about these general ideas:

Showing Your Voice
Quality & Unique Content
Word-of-Mouth

These are some general ideas of how we make our blogs different than others, whether they be in the same niche or not as us. Digging deeper, we must go beyond these ideas and begin to think about making that trend I’ve been talking about.

For a quick example you can use already established tools like Twitter, Facebook, Skype, related blogs, people, and Google to help integrate in this “digging deeper action”.

Missing the necessary “funk” could lead to a slow death for you and your blog

Now, originality and creativity are terms that have to come from the inner part of you. And to get to the point of starting a trend, think about the ways and methods you will put into immediate effect in order for people to make an immediate realization or generalization. This could be very simple or very complex depending on the level of creativity, originality, and needed hustle.

We’re now in a spotlight and waiting for everyone to come piling through the doors to see and hear what you have for them.

We all have some sort of originality and creativity to help us and our blogs stand out from the typical crowd into our very own spotlight.

3. Influence on Auto-Pilot

Things are on auto-pilot when you have everything programed in, figured out, and it’s just a matter of being along for the ride. Additionally, you are able to spend time focusing on more specific things such as reaching closer to your community.

Now, that you are closer to your community and your community feels this relationship the term “influence” starts to take shape. You now begin influencing your community, which influence other people all seeing what you have just done. What you have done meaning your original passion that you’re bonded to. This intial reaction from the infleuence is really inspiration that leads to a trend.

People are inspired by you and what you have merely done with your passion or finding out that their passion relates to yours to go out and “compete”. So many are aspiring to be like you and this influence will be on auto-pilot to continue that trend you either intended or not on starting.

While your influence continues to grow the trend, how do you make sure you stand out?

4. Being the Leader-of-the-Pack

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Now, you are at the point of being what I call the “leader-of-the-pack” where you are at the top of this trend/movement.

A quote by the honorable George S. Patton is highlighted directly above (to the right) and raises a terrific point while you are the leader-of-the-pack.

Since we have have built this trend we now have the responsibility of maintaining it. We must treat everyone who has been influenced to be apart of the trend as competition. But, we must not fear of this competition. We should only fear of us losing our touch. But, we are really at the point to effectively stand out in whatever niche or area we feel we are in. It’s really all up to you though.

Finally, we are back to square one in bonding to our passion. No, this is not simply a repeat.

5. Spreading Your Passion

Bond to your passion by staying close with it and always checking whether whatever steps (big or small) you’re taking that they actually fit.

Sticking to your passion will only continue to spread this trend. This will then most likely spread your passion, which goes back to my first point of that this should be the main reason we all blog.

What will be your trend and how will you stand out?

Let’s go starting make our very own trend and spread our true passions!

5 Things Madonna Has to Teach You About Blogging to Success

Petteri Ollila — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:00:31 +0000

Learning from successful people who have been able to achieve something big is one of the best things you can do for yourself if you want to succeed in anything. And how many people have achieved what Madonna has in their life?

I remember when I listened to Madonna’s album Ray of Light over ten years ago for the first time and couldn’t stop wondering how it is possible that one artist can make popular music for three decades by not making the same album over and over again.

Whether you like Madonna’s music or not, the fact is that she has been one of the most successful pop music artists in the world for about three decades now and is still going strong.

She has got many traits and habits that have made that kind of success possible for her, and I believe those things can and should easily be applied to blogging as well. They are all something any blogger can relate to as well.

1. Never Give Up

When Madonna was a young girl, she didn’t have any money. What she did have was an endless amount of persistence and an incredible drive for success. Even for her, success didn’t happen overnight. For the first years after moving to New York to build a dance career, she had to work in low paid jobs to support her.

It might take ten years to get a break in the music business, but blogging business is much easier compared to the music business. Many successful bloggers have blogged for a year without any big publicity or huge traffic, but then at some point their persistency has been rewarded and they have been able to make their living just by blogging.

Most bloggers probably give up after just a few months because of low traffic that leads to frustration and loss of motivation.

Don’t be that person!

Never give up. If you are not getting enough traffic to your blog right now, find out what the reason is and work more. Maybe you are not marketing enough, or maybe you have to write better content. There is always something you can do better.

Success follows the ones who never give up.

2. Be Limitless

Even before Madonna became popular in music business, she tried to make a living by dancing, photography, art modeling, acting, and founding two bands, in which she played also drums and guitar.

During her career, she has also written books for children and done a numerous amount of other things, so she has definitely not set any limits to what she can or can’t do.

If Madonna had decided early on that playing drums is the only thing she is going to do in her life, she probably wouldn’t have succeeded this well, so don’t do the mistake in your business either. If you try something and you find out that it doesn’t work out for you, don’t hesitate to take a new direction.

However, taking a new direction every three months is usually not wise. It takes time to get a momentum, no matter what your business is, and even if you gain success by blogging, it is a little bit risky to have only one income stream.

Always think about new ways of making passive income after one of your ideas takes off, just like Madonna did.

3. Collaboration

Her album Ray of Light made me wonder already twelve years ago how it is possible for one artist to continuously make popular music. It is also possible that the albums are always influenced by the newest and coolest genres but still sound like they are Madonna’s albums.

Now I know that it is not Madonna alone who is behind her enormous success. If you get to know the music industry a little bit, you realize quite fast how important a great producer and good songwriters are for an artist.

Most of Madonna’s songs are not written nor produced by her. She has right from the beginning understood that she must find the most talented producer every time she makes a new album, and it has worked out beautifully. She then focuses on what she can do best – performing and entertaining.

The same thing applies for blogging really well. If you try to do everything alone, you make things very hard for yourself. Always try to find the best people to cooperate with. Don’t try to be an expert in everything, but instead focus on what you are good at and find skilled people to do things that are out of your expertise.

Also, getting to know smart and influential people can save you years of time when you try to get a break. There are always plenty of opportunities for cooperation that will benefit you, your partner, and your customers. Keep your eyes and your mind open.

4. Know What Sells

Whenever I think of her, I always see those sexy outfits and crazy acts she’s done. She has clearly decided to have a sexy image, and we all know that sex sells. Sexuality is one of the most powerful driving forces for human beings.

But as her career went on, she chose to change her image a bit. But, she has always done controversial things, such as kissing Britney Spears publicly which make people talk about her and remember her.

The best blogs have always had something unique about them that separates them from other blogs and makes you remember their blog after your visit.

Maybe what makes you come back to most blogs you read is the personal touch of the blogger, or the great information they offer. It could be because of their controversial opinions, or even the other resources they offer. But the point is, there is always something that makes a blog appealing for you.

I believe that Madonna has thought about the things she is passionate about and then searched for the opportunities to follow her passion by doing something that people are ready to pay for. That’s why she is a filthy rich pop music artist instead of an average art model.

No matter what your passions are, there are always possibilities to find a niche that you can write about, that people are also interested of and willing to pay for some of your products. You must find that niche first. The good thing about blogging though is that you can usually quite easily tweak your blog’s niche as you go, especially if the name and the brand of your blog are not too limiting.

5. Evolve

I bet that Madonna wouldn’t be as successful as she has been, if she would have kept repeating the success recipe that worked for her in the eighties. She has been able to change her looks, her image, and the style of music she sings during all these years. That is one of the biggest reasons why she has been able to be successful for all these decades.

Every business idea and product has a lifespan, and nothing lasts forever, so even though everything might look perfect for your blog or your business right now, always be ready to evolve if you notice that consumers’ preferences are starting to change.

Evolving also means learning new skills and becoming better at what you do. Life changes and those people, who can change with it, can ride a wave of success for the longest.

What Have You Learned From Madonna’s Success?
But more importantly, how do you plan on using the lessons she has taught you today for your own good? Just because Madonna isn’t exactly blogging doesn’t mean she can’t teach you the most important things about blogging.