Award Sounds

This guest post is by Sean Davis of SDavisMedia.com.

Blogs do not produce income. Simply writing and publishing content does not increase your bank account balance.

The idea that money is a direct result of blogging is a myth that the best bloggers have dismissed, but most choose to treat it as a law of the blogosphere.

What a shame.

Many new bloggers will jump out of their online careers just as quickly as they jumped into them when they realize that it’s not enough to simply create content.

There is, however, another goal for creating content. It’s not until you understand this goal that you will know how to make money from your blog.

The goal of blogging is not to earn money. It’s to earn attention—the attention of those who will, in turn, provide the revenue you’re looking for.

Why you need to focus on attention

“If you build it, they will come.” We can argue all day about whether this is true or not. No matter what, though, we should all agree that just because people come to your blog doesn’t mean that they will buy your product, sign up for your email list, click your advertisement links, or whatever it is you need them to do in order to produce income.

As a personal testimony, I created an infographic about four months ago that seemed to be pretty popular on the internet for a day or two. The blog I published it on was only about three months old, and the infographic brought me over 1,000 visitors in one day. For some, that’s nothing. For me, it was the attention I had been dreaming about.

Take a wild guess at how many email subscribers I earned from that infographic.

If you guessed zero, you’re wrong!

The answer is actually one. One lonely person out of over a thousand visitors signed up to my free newsletter, which, by the way, offered a free gift for those who signed up.

This is when I learned that blogs have the power to bring attention, however, it’s what you do with that attention that matters most.

Introducing Monroe’s Motivated Sequence

If you’ve ever taken a college-level language course or a speech or communications class, chances are you’ve been introduced to the art of persuasion.

Simply put, in the business world, whether it be brick and mortar or internet marketing, you have to know how to persuade people to take action—especially when they are visiting your blog.

Almost a century ago, Alan Monroe of Purdue University introduced a persuasion method that takes the human mind through a natural cycle of establishing a need, developing a solution to satisfy that need, and then becoming enthusiastic about implementing that solution.

There are actually five steps to this sequence:

1. Attention: The first step is to gain the attention of the target audience. You can do this with a story, a thought provoking question, or anything that makes the audience stop what they’re doing with curiosity and focus.
2. Need: This is where you explain to the target audience what their need is. This can be an obvious, well-known need, or a need that you create on the spot. Often, a need is established by giving an extreme example of some unfortunate event that should never happen again.
3. Satisfaction: Now that your target audience understands the need, it’s time for you to fly in like Superman and save the day. Provide a solution to erase that need and prevent the aforementioned unfortunate event from ever happening again.
4. Visualization: Tell your target audience exactly how your solution can be implemented and how it will solve the problem. Also, tell them how things will progress (that is, get worse) if your solution is ignored. This is where you would provide proof—preferably a previous instance in which your solution was implemented—that convinces your audience that your solution will work. Politicians do this a lot when referencing what other nations have (or have not) done, and why it is important that we make the same (or different) decisions.
5. Action: Get the target audience involved. You’ve already explained to them what the need is, how to satisfy that need, and what things will be like for them once the need is satisfied. Now, you have to convince them that they play an important role in making that change happen. In other words, you introduce an action that they can take to implement your solution.

If you take a step back and thoroughly observe TV commercials, political campaigns, sales pages, etc., you will notice that the most persuasive ones follow this sequence. Why? Because it was developed to follow your own natural thought patterns.

It was developed on the basis of human nature.

How to use this persuasion technique on your blog

What if you could use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence in every area of your blog?

From the content you produce, to your blog’s unique design, you can follow the steps in the sequence to lead your readers down a path that causes them to take action.

Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com enlightened me a few weeks ago on why he doesn’t write the typical “17 Things You Can Do To Blah Blah Blah” articles on his blog.

He said that he encourages the reader to focus on one action to take with each of his articles. As a result, his readers leave his blog with something they can actually implement instead of a list of options—something that’s been shown to be less effective at prompting action, by the way.

Considering Derek builds email lists like crazy, it’s safe to say that he understands human psychology and what makes people tick online.

Does he use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence? I don’t know. But imagine the results you could produce, article by article, if you focused each one of them on one specific action to take, as Derek does, and you used Monroe’s Motivated Sequence to do so.

Are the ideas flowing yet? I hope so.

Remember: blogs don’t earn money. Blogs earn attention. Once you have attention, which is nothing more than a visit to your blog, you have to know how to guide the visitor down a path that leads them to an action you’d like them to take.

Whatever your goals for your blog, you can start using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence right now. Simply break something you want your visitors to do down to one single action, and then follow the steps of the sequence.

Take a few moments to think about communications you encounter every day and how they follow this sequence. And imagine the possibilities for your blog if you can master this technique.

Sean Davis is an internet entrepreneur dedicated to constant growth and helping others. Check Sean out at SDavisMedia.com and follow him on Twitter @SDavisMedia.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence to Call Your Readers to Action

This guest post is by Neil Davidson of My Web Presenters.

In November of 2011 David Hsieh, VP of Marketing at Cisco famously stuck his neck out by proclaiming that 90% of internet traffic will be viewing video in three years’ time.

<iframe src=”http://blip.tv/play/goRrgtq7MQI.html?p=1″ width=”480″ height=”390″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe><embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#goRrgtq7MQI” style=”display:none”></embed>

The actual figure is already 51% of traffic, and it’s climbing fast. For bloggers like you and I, this has consequences. You can either bite the bullet and get started with video, or you can hide under the sheets and hope the storm passes.

For this post, I am going to assume that you are firmly in the “get on the train” camp.

At first sight it may seem that moving into video content production from textually based content is very difficult, as it requires a very different skillset. Also you may need to speak out loud or, worst of all, show your face on camera!

However, getting into video production and marketing is actually a natural progression for a blogger. Here are some ideas on how you can get started.

1. Video production Use smartphones for impromptu interviewing

Hands up if you’ve got a smartphone. Many smartphones now have high-quality video cameras built in—some even have HD video. These can be highly effective for taking advantage of unusual situations…

Imagine that you’re at a blogging event and you find yourself standing next to Darren Rowse. You strike up a conversation that gets interesting. Suppose you were to pull out your smartphone, ask him a few questions on video, and post it to your blog. If the “interview” went well, chances are that Darren would be happy to tweet and share that content for you.

Suddenly you would be catapulted out of nowhere into the limelight—all through a chance five-minute meeting. A traditional interview would take a lot longer to capture, as well as to prepare and write up, and the chances are that busy people, like Darren, may well have to refuse an interview request. Compare these two approaches:

• “Oh, wait a moment, I am really enjoying this conversation and I know the readers of my blog would love it too, do you mind if I just video you answering that question again?”
• “That’s really interesting, do you mind if I just go and grab a pen and paper and note down the conversation that we are having?”

Use screencasting videos to show how something is done

Another very accessible form of video is screencasting. Essentially, this technique makes a video of your computer screen and films the actions you’re taking on it. This is very similar to the concept of a screen grab for obtaining a static image of your screen.

Screencasting videos are fantastic for making “how to” videos. They allow you to visually and verbally take your viewers through a process to show them how something is done. Here are some ideas from Camtasia, the makers of video software, on how their technology can be used. In this video, they explain how the tool can be used practically:

Camtasia costs $99 for lifetime usage so it certainly won’t break the bank! Perhaps the second most popular screen casting tool on the market is ScreenFlow, which this costs the same as Camtasia and has pretty much the same features. The best thing to do with these products is to download them (both offer free trials) and practice using them to make videos.

One tip that will help you get up to speed more quickly is to write down a list of the steps that you will follow in your video and have it on the desk in front of you whilst you are making the video. With a written blog post it is natural to pause and think, and to go off researching something mid article, but with video, the research must be done beforehand. You need to film to a plan.

Be strict. If you’re not happy with your video, delete it and start again. It gets easier and easier—you will be very surprised by how quickly you speed up and improve your abilities. Before you know it, you will actually be enjoying it, wahey!

2. Video publishing

There are two places on the net where your video really needs to be:

1. on your blog (or website)
2. on YouTube.

Initially, you should publish the video to Youtube. If you use Screenflow to make a screencast video then you can publish straight from the platform to your YouTube channel. From Camtasia, you can go straight to Vimeo.

The reason that it is important to publish to Youtube is not just because it is so much larger than the other platforms and is so closely tied with both Google search and Google+, but also because it easily enables your video to be openly used by other bloggers through the video embed code shown here:

Once your video’s on YouTube, anyone who has a website can grab your embed code and plonk your video on their website. This gives you additional exposure via their audience and also gives you a link back to your YouTube video. A side note here is that the number of embeds of a video is factored into the ranking algorithm of videos on Youtube and Google.

When you’re posting your new video to YouTube, there are a number of tweaks that you can make to enhance its visibility both on YouTube itself, and within search engines. Here is a detailed overview of basic video SEO for YouTube.

Once the video is up on YouTube, you can then grab the embed code and put it onto your blog simply by pasting the code into the HTML of a blog post. Don’t forget to write a short textual piece around the video to explain the content of the video and encourage visitors to actually watch it. This little blurb will also enable search engines to understand the context of the video file, since they can’t read video files themselves.

3. Marketing your video

This is where your experience in marketing textual blog posts really comes into play. Great content is essentially great content, and the people you want to reach, whether you’re creating video or textual content, will not change.

There are however, a couple of new tools that will help you market your video effectively.

Oneload

Oneload (a.k.a. Tubemogul) is an online video distribution tool. The tool allows you to upload a video once and publish it to over 20 video platforms in one go.

Prior to your first use of Oneload, you’ll need to identify all of the video platforms that you want to submit your video to, and go and create accounts with each of them. You can then link them all to your Oneload account for easy distribution.

Realistically, you’re looking at around a day’s work to set up 20 accounts on video platforms and to enter your profile information, but once it’s done, it’s done.

Other distribution tools

Finally I will just go over some tools that you’re probably more familiar with, and highlight how they can be used to market your video content.

• Hootsuite: This social media management tool allows you to manage your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn communications all in one place. You can therefore submit your video to your Facebook page, plus your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts through this tool.
• Shareaholic and Addthis: These two tools allow you to bookmark content to multiple social networks and social bookmarking sites with ease. They are also perhaps two of the most popular social sharing button plug-ins for WordPress. Install either one as a browser plugin (they work on all major browsers), then select the social bookmarking sites that you are interested in, and you have a one-click way to share your video posts on these platforms.

A word of caution here: don’t expect instant results. You need to build up a presence and some relationships with others in your niche who are active on these sites so that you content gets a kick-start once you submit it.

A wide variety of techniques are available to market your videos solely within YouTube, both to build up a following there and to push these people back to your site. That will have to be saved for another day though, as it’s a huge topic. If you’re interested, though, look into the topic of video annotations with links to other videos.

It would be fantastic to hear some tips from others who have experience with video blogging, as the starting points I’ve covered here really are just the tip of the iceberg. Let us hear your advice in the comments.

Neil Davidson is the Founder of My Web Presenters, who are a leading Online Video Production specialist. They create and market compelling and emotive video that helps businesses to grow. You can keep up with their video marketing blog here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Video Starting Points: Make and Share Your First Video

This guest post is by Timo Kiander of Productivesuperdad.com.

Are you afraid that you’ll never reach blogging success? Are you working your backside off on top of your day job to produce articles, ebooks, videos, and podcasts, and learn everything about Pinterest (or any other social network for that matter)?

Do you feel you are running on a blogging treadmill like a hamster but never giving yourself time to rest and recover?

If this is you, then welcome to the club! I have been there, done that, and I can relate. It’s not a very pleasant feeling to experience. However, things don’t have to be that way: there is a solution for this situation.

Burnouts, broken relationships, and abandoned blogs

Let’s face it: working harder and longer hours on your blog doesn’t necessarily make you more productive.

In the short term it might do that, but in the long run you are going to burn out. You are going to lose the fun of blogging too—even on the topic you’re passionate about.

On top of all that, you also put your relationships with your closest ones to danger. When too much of your blogging time is prioritized over the family time, you are soon in a situation where you have to make a decision: you can choose either your blog or your family.

They’re to blame (and you too!)

It’s a lot easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility for your own actions, but in this scenario there are really two responsible parties: them and you.

No matter which blogging hero (or productivity hero) you listen to, they keep telling you that more is better. Create more. Engage more. Be everywhere!

They say, “You cannot build a successful blog without working like crazy, taking massive action, and producing solid, shareable content on a frequent basis. And if you can do it all on a daily basis, that’s even better!”

So, you look up to your blogging hero and think, “Well … s/he must be right. I’ve got to get my act together and work more, do more, engage more. Otherwise, I’ll never see the blogging success that I want or the six-figure income that I’m dreaming about.”

You believe the stories they tell you. It’s virtual peer pressure at its worst—and you take the bait.

Time to slow down

I have been blogging since 2010 and I have consistently produced material for my blog twice per week. That includes written content and videos, and at some points I was even doing podcasts.

In addition, I have guest posted on big blogs and produced couple of ebooks as well—all while having a day job, a family (my wife and a son), and some time-consuming hobbies (I’m a triathlete and a marathoner).

Lately, I have felt like that hamster on a treadmill—I keep running and running but I never have a chance to relax or recover. Nor have I had time to study, do more research, or truly connect with other bloggers.

That’s why I decided to slow down my blogging pace. I’m not leaving blogosphere. I’m just cutting down the speed a bit. By doing this I aim to grow my blog even bigger than it is now.

In practice, slowing down means posting every other week instead of on a weekly basis. This change gives me more room to breathe, and allows me to do more reading and testing, and to create more new material.

For instance, for a couple of months I have wanted to build my own time management system, but I had to postpone the project because of lack of time. Or what about learning photo reading? That’s yet another project that I had to postpone. Interviews, tests, experiments, case studies … I guess you already know by now why I have never started with these projects, though they’re all on my list.

Some people are scared of this change and think that slowing down is like regressing—that if you slow down, you won’t be on everyone’s minds and lips anymore.

Well, maybe. But look around. There are many big bloggers who don’t follow a daily blog post pattern, and they’re still doing well! Derek Halpern and Glenn Allsop and Jon Morrow come to mind (and by the way, check out this video to learn why Derek is posting so infrequently).

In my opinion, slowing down is not regression. Actually, it is the best thing that has happened to me for a long time.

How to slow down successfully

Slowing down may sound easy, but in reality it’s not. One scary word keeps most of the bloggers working the same way they always have: fear.

They fear that if they change their routines and habits, they are not going to reach blogging success. They are also afraid of missing something crucial if they don’t follow to the letter what the gurus are teaching (advice that so many other bloggers are following).

But if they’re brave enough and decided to get through that glass wall known as fear, a new world would emerge for them. Are you one of these brave ones? If you are, here are five steps to follow that should make the transition much easier:

1. Acknowledge your current situation. You are stressed or burned out by blogging, thus you want to spend more time with your loved ones. Things cannot continue this way any longer.
2. Listen to external signals very carefully: Are you working too much and taking the common time off from your family? Are you working like a madman, but without any remarkable results? These clues should give you indication that you should slow down your blogging.
3. Make a decision to test the blogging slowdown. Shift to blogging once per week instead of every day, for example, and see what advantages and disadvantages it has for you.
4. Hire some professional help if possible. In fact, my decision to slow down was greatly affected by my blogging coach. Although at first his suggestion of slowing down sounded foreign, I have learned to appreciate it and I feel grateful for this advice! That’s really the power of having an external person looking at you: they have the ability to give powerful, objective advice for your benefit.
5. Connect with other bloggers and ask them to write guest posts for your blog. That way, you get content almost without any effort, and you can free up your time even more. And don’t forget interviews either. They are great a way to generate valuable content with less effort.

Don’t get me wrong: it is fine to learn from gurus, but be sure to adjust their lessons to your unique situation! You are the only one to say if you are capable of producing epic content every day, or only once a week.

Over to you now: have you slowed down your blogging pace because of increased stress, weaker relationships with your close ones, or just plain burning out—even when blogging about something you are passionate about? Leave your comments and share your experiences below. Let’s support each other to slow down!

Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD superdad productivity for work at home dads. If you want to get more productive in your own life, grab 222 of his best Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blog Better by Slowing Down

Over the last few days we’ve been talking about taking your blog to the often-elusive “next level.”

We’ve seen tips for developing your voice and message, creating stronger calls to action, and increasing traffic.

If you’re already working on those aspects of your blog, and are happy with your approach, you’ll probably be hungry for other ideas, looking to the future, and trying to predict what will be most successful tactics for you.

I know I do this myself—I’ll get an idea like the QLD blogging challenge and throw myself into making it happen.

That’s great—one of the best things about blogging is that it lets us pursue our passions!—but I have noticed a tendency to let things drop off my To Do list as these new ideas pop up. An example was pointed out by Ed Boyhan on my Google + post. He wrote:

“Seems kinda odd: here you are providing some useful info on how some use G+, but nowhere on this page is there a “+1″ button to let me share with a circle I have for future reference. Makes me doubt your involvement in the G+ community.”

This is a valuable comment for two reasons. First, it’s a reminder of something I need to do, which dropped off my list. Whoops! Second, it explains what the implications of that oversight are—how that looks to my readers, which gives me motivation not just to get that task back on the To Do list, but also to actually act upon it and make that change to my blog.

But I know I’m not the only one who hesitates or overlooks small blogging tasks that, logically, I have no excuse not to have done!

Take a look at the comments on Kelly Crawford’s recent post, If Your Email Newsletter Isn’t Generating Cash You’re Doing Something Wrong.

Many of the people who responded to that post admitted that they hadn’t tried out some of the most common, and proven, newsletter marketing techniques for one reason or another, even though they knew they should, and wanted to.

All this makes me wonder if we wouldn’t see some big advances on our blogs if we just got through some of those little, should-have-done-it-ages-ago tasks that we keep pushing aside (even if we have good reason for doing so).

What if each of us put a day aside in the next week to knock as many of those little tasks off our To Do lists for good? What difference would that make to our blogs over the longer term? If nothing else, it would probably give each of us a much more solid platform from which to try to climb to the “next level.”

At the very least, let’s start by admitting some of the things that have slipped off our To Do lists. Don’t be embarrassed—I bet the things you’ve neglected aren’t as basic as my G+ sharing oversight!

What do you know you’re not doing, that you should be doing? Admit it in the comments. (You might even help remind the rest of us of other things we’ve forgotten we should be doing…) Even getting a small task off your list could be a big step in the right direction for your blog.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What Blog Tasks are You Embarrassed to Admit You’ve Overlooked?

This guest post is by Bamidele Onibalusi of YoungPrePro.com.

Guest blogging is currently among the most popular marketing tactics, and you can be sure find guides on guest blogging almost anywhere you go online.

The problem with guest blogging is that it is being used by so many people today that if you donít have a solid plan your blog will hardly benefit.

What do you want from guest blogging?

Imagine I ask the question, “What exactly do you want from guest blogging? How do you want guest blogging to contribute to the success of your blog?” What would be your answer?

I’m sure a lot of us will answer along the lines of, “I want to score a guest post on ProBlogger and get hundreds of visitors back to my blog as a result.” Or “I want to score a guest post on {insert top blog’s name} and bring my blog to limelight.”

The reality, though, is that while following the above approach might sound like a smart thing to do, it is hardly very effective. A guest post on a big blog in your niche won’t make your blog popular; ten guest posts on big blogs won’t, either.

I’ve written hundreds of guest posts for my blog in the past two years, a good portion of which were published on big blogs. I’ve even had a guest post published that sent me 1,000 visitors in a day, and another one that sent me around 1,500 visitors in one week. You’d expect these to be some of my most effective guest posts ever, but unfortunately, they weren’t.

The best guest posts I’ve ever written, in terms of results, were written in one week, and they were submitted to blogs youíve probably never heard of. I wrote 31 guest posts, and I submitted them all in one week.

Together, all of those guest posts sent me less than 150 visitors in total referral traffic. But, those 31 guest posts I wrote in one week have resulted in over 60,000 additional visitors in search engine traffic over the past six months.

Re-read the above paragraph; that was 31 guest posts in one week, submitted to very small blogs that sent little or no traffic, but which lead to over 60,000 visitors in six months.

If we do the math, that’s like an additional 10,000 visitors in a month, for just one week of work. It’s an average of 1935 visitors per guest post. (It’s actually more, because the real number was around 64,000 visitors, but I rounded it down for the purposes of this discussion. Another thing worth noting is that around 26 of those guest posts were published, but let’s leave it at the number written—31—for the sake of this article).

You’re probably thinking, “How did he do it?” I’ll answer that question in this article, but before I do so, I’ll try to convince you as to why this approach is better than just focusing on writing hit-and-miss guest posts for big blogs in your niche.

So you see clearly what I mean, here are screenshots of my search traffic before and after the challenge.

Six months of traffic before the challenge:

Six months of traffic after the challenge:

You’ll notice a huge increase in traffic in just six months with these screenshots. It’s like a 200% increase in traffic, even though I never did anything to increase my SEO traffic after the challenge.

I know a lot of factors count when it comes to SEO, so the stats above are to some extent subjective, but I’m certain the search engine traffic increase is hugely influenced by those 31 guest posts I talked about earlier. To prove this, I wrote a post just ten days after the challenge, since I’d already started noticing an additional 100+ search engine visitors. You can read the post to read more about my experience.

Why you should write guest posts for SEO instead of instant traffic It’s more effective in the long run

If you’ve written a number of guest posts on big blogs before, you will notice the traffic you get hardly lasts. Depending on the quality of your guest post and content on your blog, you’ll be lucky to retain 10% of the visitors you got from a big guest post (you can retain more, of course, if you focus your efforts on getting subscribers).

With this in mind, even guest posts that sent me thousands of visitors only do that in the week or month of the guest post being published; after that, the traffic dies down and I hardly get any more traffic from those guest posts.

With guest blogging for SEO, however, the effect of a single guest post can last for months. Search engines take time to recognize and calculate links, but you can start seeing effects a few weeks after gaining a link.

The difference between writing guest posts for traffic and for SEO is that traffic dies down as your guest post gets buried on the blog where it was published, while traffic increases from the search engines as time goes on; in other words, the value of your linked guest post increases with time.

It’s easier to do

If you want a huge spike in traffic from your guest posts, you have to choose the very best blogs in your niche, and, to be honest, it takes time and effort to get published on them. In contrast, writing for links is easier with smaller blogs.

In other words, you can write, say, three guest posts for smaller blogs in the time it will take you to write one post for a bigger blog, and if you do things right you will be able to get results from the guest post on the smaller blogs in no time.

You get targeted traffic

Let’s be honest: when you write for a blog that publishes a host of topic, the traffic you will get will only be targeted to an extent, no matter how targeted your guest post is.

However, by focusing on SEO ,you’ll get more closely targeted traffic. People only use the search engines when searching for something specific, so they’re more likely to subscribe to your blog or buy your product if they come from the search engines (or at least, if they come through targeted keyword results).

It’s a passive, long-term strategy

A few guest posts can have an effect for years. Traffic doesn’t die down like it does when you experience a spike in traffic from a recently published guest post—with search-optimized posts, your traffic keeps increasing for years.

What’s more, you keep on getting more traffic without doing anything. For example, since I completed the 31 guest post challenge, I haven’t done anything to improve my SEO. Yet my search traffic keeps increasing.

SEO is very competitive, though, so depending on your field you might need to keep building links actively. But you’ll also get great results from doing that, and it will be more cost-effective than paying for ads.

What kinds of blogs did I submit my guest posts to?

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of writing guest posts to improve your SEO, let’s talk about the kinds of blogs you can write for. While my recommendation in this section reflects what I did, note that the better the blog, the better your results.

Here some metrics you can use when trying to select a blog to write for.

Alexa rank

Alexa ranks websites based on the number of people who visit the website with the Alexa toolbar installed. Even though this is subjective to an extent, that doesn’t mean it isn’t an effective measurement. In my own experience, blogs with good Alexa ranking have some authority in the search engines, so getting a link from them can be very effective.

During the challenge, I only wrote for blogs with an Alexa ranking below 400,000. Yep, you read that right. These kinds of blogs are very easy to find (in fact, you can find hundreds of them in a few hours), so getting published on them probably won’t be much of a problem.

You can check the Alexa ranking of any website by installing the Alexa toolbar.

Google Pagerank

Google Pagerank is still as effective as it used to be, and it is an actual sign of how much trust Google places in a website. For the challenge, I used blogs with a Pagerank of 2 or more.

The thing, however, is that I either used Pagerank or Alexa rank to assess the sites—rarely both. So if a blog has an Alexa ranking of 400k or less, I don’t care about its Pagerank. If a blog has a Pagerank of 2 or more, I don’t care about its Alexa ranking.

You can check the Pagerank of any website by installing the Google Toolbar, for Firefox, or the Pagerank Status add-on for Chrome.

Mozrank

The Mozrank of a blog is another important factor when determining whether to write a guest post for it or not. I didn’t know much about how Mozrank worked when I started the challenge, but it seems more accurate than Google Pagerank and Alexa ranking, so any blog with a Mozrank of 3 or more is a good fit irrespective of its Pagerank or Alexa rank.

You can check the Mozrank of any website by using the tool at Moonsy.com.

Customrank

This seems to be the best metric at the moment. It uses a combination of a blog’s Alexa rank, Mozrank, and other metrics to calculate the blog’s worth. Any blog with a Customrank score higher than 30 is a good place to start.

You can check the Customrank score of any website by visiting Customrank.com.

How to find blogs based on these metrics

While the above metrics give you an idea of what kinds of blogs you can write for to get good results, actually finding a blog to write for is another thing.

I’ve published the ultimate guide to guest blogging on my blog, and it contains practical and extensive tips on almost every aspect of guest blogging that this article won’t be able to cover. Check it out if you want a better idea of guest blogging and how to find blogs. However, here’s a short guide to finding blogs for guest blogging in any niche:

• Technorati: Technorati.com is the biggest blog directory available online, with a lot of quality blogs in various niches. You can find blogs on almost any topic you want by searching for the keyword of that topic using the Technorati search box on top of the page; one thing you should note about the search box, though, is that there are two options. There is an option to search for posts, and there is an option to search for blogs. Make sure you select the “blog” option when typing in your keyword. Also, make sure the keyword you’re searching for isn’t too generic or too specific. For example, don’t search for “health” if you’re in the health niche, and don’t search for “the major dangers of health” either. The first keyword is too generic, and the other is too specific. Instead, search for something slightly specific like “family health,” or “health blog.”
• Alltop: Alltop is like a more sophisticated and more organized version of Technorati. Unlike Technorati, it contains more quality blogs and is neatly organized by niche. Blogs in Alltop are also manually reviewed, so it’s very unlikely that you’ll find a blog in the wrong category. A disadvantage Alltop has in contrast to Technorati, though, is that it doesn’t list as many blogs. So while you will find quality blogs, you will find fewer of them than you will on Technorati.
• Google: You can find relevant blogs that accept guest posts in Google by using the following ideas:

  {niche} + write for us

  {niche} + submit guest post

  {niche} + guest blogging

  {niche} + submit post

  {niche} + guest blogger needed

  {niche} + contribute

  You can also try changing the terms to keywords you think people in need of guest posts will use. Make sure you replace “{niche}” with your niche, but let the plus sign remain. E.g. in the blogging niche I’ll search for something like “blogging + write for us” (of course, without the quotes).

You will find a lot of blogs using the methods I outlined in this section, but you can’t use all of them. Make sure you gauge any blog you write for with the metrics we discussed above.

Content, tags, and relevance: what kinds of guest posts did I submit?

One major question that comes up a lot when it comes to SEO and link building is that of relevancy. A lot of people are confused as to how effective it is to write a guest post for a non-relevant blog, or how relevant the post’s title should be.

My blog is a writing blog, but I didn’t write a single guest post for a related writing blog during the challenge, so I guess that answers your question about relevancy! I only wrote for blogs in the technology, blogging, and make-money-online niches, and the impact on the results I got was still significant.

One thing to note, however, was that I didn’t write irrelevant posts for these blogs. For example, I didn’t write a post about the latest Apple iPhone for a tech blog and link it back to my writing blog.

Every guest post I wrote was in some way related to my blog, and to the blog I contributed to. For example, a guest post on a blogging tips blog might be on how to write better blog posts. A guest post for a technology blog might be a post on top writing apps I have on my Blackberry (and I do have a Blackberry!). A guest post on a make-money-online blog might be a post on how to make money writing. You can see how those posts tied the topic of my blog to that of the host blog.

One major myth you’ll hear about using guest blogging as a link building strategy is that the quality of the content doesn’t matter; it does, so make sure you put extra effort into your content if you want to get good results from this tactic.

In a nutshell, there are two things to remember when writing guest posts for link building purposes:

• Relevance isn’t that important: By “relevance,” I’m referring to the relevance of the blog you’re submitting a guest post to, as compared to yours. Instead, focus on writing thematically relevant content for the blogs you guest post on. This means your content should tie the topic of your blog to that of the host blog. If you were to focus only on blogs in your niche, your approach will be limited. But if you can bridge the topic between your blog and that of your host, you will significantly increase your chances of getting good results.
• Use your keywords in your article: One thing I haven’t talked about is using keywords in your articles. With my challenge, I tried to use the keyword I want to rank for in every article at least twice, and I think this had a significant impact on the value of the links I got.

Using anchor text

As you read this article, you might come to the conclusion that this tactic isn’t effective with bigger blogs. The fact is, it is; in fact, the bigger the blog, the better your results.

The problem most people have when it comes to writing for big blogs, though, is that they don’t use anchor text, and that alone costs the author a lot of potential traffic.

What makes this whole approach worthwhile is your use of anchor text. The anchor text is the keyword you use to link back to any page on your blog—it’s a vote of authority for your site, and it tells the search engines what the page you link to is all about.

You have to use caution when using anchor text, though. Here are a few things you should keep in mind:

• Use variations: Don’t just keep using the same anchor text in your guest post bio. Use something different, but related to the same keyword. If you want to rank for “blogging tips,” don’t keep using that key phrase alone as the anchor text in every guest post. Some variations you might use are: blogging, blogging tips, blog, blog marketing, blogger, etc. All these keywords hint at the same thing, and over time you will end up ranking for your main keywords—and more.
• Don’t always use anchor text: Aside from using anchor text variations, one other thing you should consider is to not always use anchor text. If you think about it, not everyone will link to your blog using a keyword. Some will tell their readers to “click here” to read the article. And some will paste the direct link into their post. That’s exactly how you should approach your campaign, too—just make sure the majority of your links contain anchor text. A good approach is to use anchor text in a ratio of 1 to 10—don’t use keyword-rich anchor text for every ten keyword-rich anchor text links you create.
• Don’t focus on ranking just one page: The real key to success as far as SEO is concerned is relevancy; in other words, your efforts should be directed at pages that achieve or support a specific goal for your blog. Don’t make the mistake of linking to just the homepage—or just one page, for that matter. Focusing on optimizing a single page that isn’t popular will look unnatural; focusing on five or more different pages on your blog will look more natural. By focusing on a single page, you can also be affected should you stop ranking for that keyword, but focusing on several pages will more likely leave you unaffected.

I’m not saying you should link to all pages in your guest post; a guest post should link to just one or two pages. This means the success of your campaign will depend on the volume of the guest posts you can write.

What effort has it taken to keep the traffic? Was it really worth it?

The final, and most important question is, What effort has it taken to keep the traffic this challenge generated? Was it worth it? Was it a good return on the investment of my time and effort? You can bet it was worth it, as those 31 guest posts have attracted tens of thousands of additional visitors to my blog from the search engines. And they’re just the ones I could count—of course, a percentage of those visitors will share my posts, a percentage of those visitors will subscribe, and a percentage of those visitors will tell their friends too.

I haven’t tried using ads to grow my traffic before, but I know that the one week of effort I put into this challenge was more profitable than any ad could be. I generated free, targeted traffic I couldn’t get elsewhere, and it only continues to grow as time goes on.

I was so impressed with the results of the challenge that I’m planning to make guest blogging for links an integral part of my marketing approach going forward.

How are you using guest blogging for your business?

The good news is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a blog or a business owner, guest blogging can be a smart way to grow your traffic and improve your search engine rankings. Is this idea entirely new to you? How are you using guest blogging to grow your business? Tell us in the comments.

Would you like to take your business to the next level with smart guest blogging? If so, hire me and letís discuss how I can help take your business to the next level. Also, if youíre interested in cutting edge tips and techniques on how to use your writing to grow your business, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter by downloading my free eBook, The Writerís Handbook: How to Write for Traffic and Money.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Increased My Search Traffic by 200% in 6 Months

This guest post is by Greg Digneo of Sales Leads in Thirty Days.

Here’s the dirty little secret: there are actually two steps to building an extremely popular blog.

The first and most popular step is to drive traffic by guest posting, social media, and SEO.

The far less sexy step is to convert that traffic into loyal readers who will become the backbone of your community.  Who will share every piece of content you produce with their friends.  And who will ensure that every post sparks an engaging discussion.

But most of all, they will be the first to buy your products and services.

The key to converting random traffic into loyal readers

Most likely, your readers have dozens of blogs in their RSS feed.  They follow hundreds of people on Twitter and have “liked” quite a few brands on Facebook.  With all this noise, your message is bound to be lost.

The most guarded space in a person’s online world is their inbox.  If you are able to get your blog post into your reader’s inbox, then there’s a much higher chance of your post being read.

But, you have to earn your way into someone’s inbox by creating a killer call to action.  Give your readers exactly what they want, when they want it, in exchange for their email address.

Below are five ways that you can create a killer call to action.

1. Get a celebrity endorsement

On the back of every non-fiction book, you’ll see at least four notable authors or industry experts boasting about how great the book is. On television, weight loss ads are endorsed by actors and athletic apparel ads always feature athletes.

Marketers have long used the power of celebrity endorsements to motivate their target audience to take action and buy their products.

This is a tactic not lost on Derek Halpern, founder of the site Social Triggers. When you arrive at the Social Triggers blog, the first thing you will notice is a feature box at the top of the site. Derek’s feature box promises to give you psychology-based marketing advice in exchange for your email address.

But what makes Derek’s feature box so effective is the celebrity endorsement by Chris Brogan that says “I’m totally loving Social Triggers.” Derek is a master of psychology.  He understands that his readers will be more willing to subscribe to his email list because someone of Chris Brogan’s clout loves his work.

An endorsement from an A-list blogger is truly something that needs to be earned by posting high-quality content and building strong relationships over time. However, it is one of the most powerful ways to help build your email list.

2. Create a tangible offer

Research shows that when you create a very tangible benefit, your audience will be more inclined to take action.

On Quicksprout.com, Neil Patel creates a very tangible call to action in three steps that explains to his audience exactly what they are going to get.

The first thing Neil does is create a very compelling headline.  Instead of making a vague promise such as “How to get more traffic”, he decided to create a headline that will tell you exactly how much traffic you are going to get.

The headline “Double your traffic in 30 days” is so compelling because his readers can imagine how much better their blog will be next month with twice the traffic.  They can easily imagine more Tweets, more comments, and more money.

Second, by telling his readers that the course is worth $300, he provides a specific value.  This further increases the reader’s excitement because they feel like they are getting a bargain.

Finally, he has pictures and books and CDs just below his headline that provides a physical representation of the information.

By offering a tangible benefit that your readers can wrap their heads around, you will be able to grow your email list, and your blog, much faster.

3. Create social proof through trusted sources

When Ramit Sethi drives traffic to his blog on Iwillteachyoutoberich.com, one of his goals is to get readers to sign up for his free “Dream Jobs” course.

Ramit’s niche is the extremely competitive personal finance space.  Aside from being a great copywriter, he creates a great call to action by pointing to readers that he has been featured in mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNBC, and Fortune.

Because everyone interested in money and career advice is seeking credible experts, citing his features in the most renowned mainstream publications makes Ramit’s call to action almost irresistible.

There’s a good chance that you have never been featured in the New York Times or the the Wall Street Journal, but you can use similar tactics to build credibility by guest posting on popular blogs.

The most popular blogs only publish guest posts with unique and interesting content.  If your content has been published on a popular blog, then you’ve built credibility in your reader’s mind that your blog is interesting and worth reading on a regular basis.

4. Speak to your readers’ innermost desire

Do you know what your audience really wants?  Do you know what they think about late at night when everyone else is fast asleep?

Jon Morrow knows. He has an intimate knowledge of what his readers truly desire.  On his blog BoostBlogTraffic.com, Jon is giving away a free cheat sheet that reveals 52 hacks to write great headlines.

While bloggers may be interested in writing great headlines, Jon understands that bloggers really want blog posts to go viral. And headlines are one of the elements that make viral posts possible. The only way for Jon to truly understand the inner desires of his audience is to speak with them on the phone or in person.

If you are able to speak with your readers frequently, you will understand what keeps them awake at night and create a call to action that speaks to their innermost desires.

5. Create a relevant offer

At the bottom of every post on Hubspot is a call to action that gives readers more information on how to be better at social media and internet marketing.

What’s remarkable about Hubspot’s call to actions is their relevance. For instance, this offer for a free ebook on email marketing came at the bottom of a post titled “How to Breathe Life into a Boring Email Newsletter”.

By offering an ebook on email marketing after a person has just spent five to ten minutes reading an article on the subject, Hubspot is able to increase conversions—they’re simply offering a way to receive more information on the topic in which a person has already expressed interest.

Creating relevant offers isn’t something that can be done right away.  Hubspot is able to do it because they have an entire team of marketers creating ebooks, webinars, and tools for their readers to download. As your blog progresses, you will be able to repurpose your content to create relevant calls to action.

The bottom line

The truth is even the most perfectly crafted call to action isn’t going to turn you into an A-list blogger overnight. You probably won’t get thousands of people to subscribe to your email list tomorrow.  That takes connections, work, and time.

But what if you get a hundred email subscribers this month?  And what if five of those subscribers buys your $500 course? How can you transform random traffic into loyal readers and paying customers?

Get thinking. Be creative. And over time, you will have a raving mob of loyal readers eager to consume your next blog post or purchase your next product. Just be sure to remember me when you’re rich and famous.

Greg Digneo is the author of the blog Sales Leads in Thirty Days and is hosting a free webinar that shows bloggers and content marketers how to drive more traffic to their blog and convert that traffic into sales.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

5 Effective Tricks to Create a Killer Call to Action

This guest post is by Danielle LaPorte of DanielleLaPorte.com.

Blog = up? Posts = rolling? It’s time to get obsessed with your message.

A quick dictionary moment, to differentiate between your voice, your topics and your message.

• Your voice is what makes your writing distinctive, compelling, unmistakably you. You’ll carry your voice from your blog, right into your book. Seamless, identifiable. Individual.
• Your topics are the categories or subjects you write about (Eco-luxe weddings on a shoestring budget! Savvy corporate management, with heart and soul! Thrifty vegan recipes!)
• Your message is your core teaching—the why behind your what. It’s the reason you write what your write. It drives your vocation. It’s the soapbox that you’re proud to stand on. If your blog had a “life purpose” or “calling”, this’d be it. (And it goes without saying, if you’re not obsessed with your message, nobody else will be, either.)

Putting it together

Your core message is the defining character of your brand, as a writer—and for maximum visibility, you’ll apply your message to specific subjects, reaching diverse and unexpected audiences, outside of your industry. Here’s an example:

Dr. Christiane Northrup’s message is about women’s wellness. Through her numerous books and products, she filters that message through topics such as nutrition, menopause, prenatal care, joy, parenting, and sexuality. So, Dr. Northrup can take her message to niche audiences that are focused on nutrition, menopause, prenatal care, joy, parenting, and sexuality. That’s a very big audience.

The message is the over-arching theme—and lots of people share Dr. Northrup’s message. However, not everyone has her voice, which makes her writing distinctive. People go to Dr. Northrup not just for her message, but for her unique way of delivering the goods.

Let’s say you write about grieving the death of a loved one and creating a new life—your essential message is about how to heal grief. You might think that your audience is narrow. But just ask yourself: where else does grief show up for people? It goes beyond the loss of a spouse. People experience grief when they lose a job, when a dream dies, when a family pet passes on, when their children grow up and leave the home, and so on.

You could be writing about your “process” of healing grief in a variety of outlets (magazines, newspapers, your blog, someone else’s blog), with audiences who are interested in career-change, creativity, pets, parenting… Same message. Different houses.

Cross-pollinate

Perhaps your core message is that financial freedom rocks, and everyone should strive to achieve it. You’ve got theories and formulas, worksheets and how-to’s to help people make that happen.

Awe-some. Now, don’t stick to writing on the obvious financial management blogs. Go meet the people who need you and meet their needs when you get there. Get interviewed or contribute an article (or a series!) to a popular parenting blog: “5 Ways to Help Your Kids Become Money Savers.”

Does it matter that teaching kids to be money-aware is not your primary focus? Or that your next book is about making money on real estate? Nope. What matters is that you’re getting in front of grownups (book buyers, subscribers, event-hosters, humans in need), who care about financial freedom.

Hang ups

While your message and voice will ultimately define you, don’t get hung up on any one component of this—trying to get your “message” just perfect, or worrying about how your “voice” is different from someone else’s. The first six months that you’re writing a blog is all about finding your voice, and for some of us, it’ll take a bit longer.

Every movement has a story. Every nation has a story. Every community has a story. Every person has a story. You were born to tell yours.

There’s no such thing as wasted time when you’re working on your craft. Get the stories out of your inner world, give them time to breathe, and then see what’s true for you in the present time. If telling the story is between you and your God or only for your family, be proud you did it. You gave it voice. Then let it go. Something else will whisper in your ear, asking to be written.

Cross-pollinate

Once you know what your message and voice is, it’s time to spread your wings and do something that the innovative and forward-thinking types will do: cross-pollinate their audiences.

Let’s continue with the example of a core message centered around financial freedom. Want to shake things up a bit, do things differently?

Write for a major style website. Yep—style. “Financial Freedom = Hot Fashion: How To Get Smart with Your Cash So You Can Have Everything You Want In Life … and In Your Closet.” Same tips, tailored spin. Greater exposure to a niche that’s full of people who need what you’ve got.

Take time to sit down and imagine all the different venues where your message could take part. Perhaps get really radical and make a top ten list of the places you think your message could never show up—and just to get creative, stretch a bit and imagine how, if you absolutely had to do it to pay rent next month, your message could work with that unlikely audience.

That’s how top bloggers think.

Cross-pollinate your audiences. Blend n’ stir. Watch it grow.

Danielle LaPorte is the author of the forthcoming book The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide for Creating Success on Your Own Terms (from Random House/Crown). An inspirational speaker, former think tank exec and business strategist, she is the creator of the online program The Spark Kit: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs and co-author of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. Over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice on DanielleLaPorte.com, a site that has been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.”

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Get Obsessed with Your Message

We’ve all heard of it—the elusive “next level” that so many bloggers talk about online.

But what is the next level? How many levels are there? Is there an end point in leveling up?

These are all worthwhile questions—especially for more experienced bloggers who have spent a lot of time and energy in reaching the level they’re already at. For these bloggers, trying to reach the next level can involve a degree of risk, so the steps that get us toward the next level might be taken slowly and with care.

On the other hand, the web isn’t exactly undersupplied with “radical” ideas to get your blog to the next level, either. The idea here is one of leapfrogging your way to the next rung on the ladder—of taking a risk, and investing significant time (and sometimes money) in the hopes of a dramatically successful outcome.

In my experience, both approaches are valid—different techniques work at different times, after all. What might not be appropriate for you today might be the perfect solution to a problem you’re having growing your blog in a year’s time. After all, wherever you are as a blogger, there’s always a “next level.”

Over the next few days we’re going to be presenting a few ideas for getting to the next level from some of ProBlogger’s most popular guest bloggers. These ideas are varied—they cover content, conversions, and traffic—and while some are more subtle in their approach, others aim to help “blitz” your way to the next level—whatever that is for you.

It’s fair to say that these ideas could be of use to any blogger at any point in their journey, so I’m hopeful that they’ll be useful to you.

Before we kick off, I’m curious to know if you’ve ever had a blogging experience that’s taken you and your blog to the “next level.” What level were you at to begin with, and what was the technique that helped you break new ground? Please do share your experiences with us in the comments—we’d love to hear your stories and advice.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

On the Elusive “Next Level” of Blogging

Wish you could get to Blog World Expo this year, but can’t make it to New York? Me too.

I’ll be in Queensland with the winners of my blogging competition, but I know there are plenty of bloggers from other countries, as well as within the States, who won’t be able to attend Blog World this year.

Fortunately, you and I don’t need to miss out on the information and fun of the Expo (and if the speaker list for this year is anything to go by, the conference is going to be really impressive).

We “remote” bloggers can still “attend” on a BWE virtual ticket. And if we register by May 15 (that’s roughly 24 hours from now!), the good folks at Blog World will give us a $100 discount on the tickets.

That’s a great deal—the full virtual ticket price is $397, so this is a discount of 25%.

The virtual ticket includes access to every recorded session (including audio and the slides presented by the speaker), as well as various bonuses that the BWE team adds exclusively for those with virtual tickets—click here for full details of what’s included.

Don’t miss this great discount—grab your Blog World Expo virtual ticket here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Grab Your BWE Virtual Ticket for $100 Off—24 Hours Left

This guest post is by Karol K of ThemeFuse.

Seeing a headline like “How to Install a WordPress Theme” on ProBlogger might seem strange at first. This doesn’t sound like a “pro”-thing at all, right? If you’ve been dealing with WordPress for a while then this is probably even more than obvious to you.

However, everyone starts somewhere, and there are plenty of experienced bloggers who haven’t ever installed a WordPress theme—but would like to give it a try. Maybe you’re installing your first theme right now, and you’re searching for a quick guide on how to do it.

Where can you get a good WordPress theme?

This is tricky. You see, when you’re installing a plugin the best place to go is the official directory at wordpress.org. When you’re installing a theme, however, the official theme directory is not the best place to go, I’m afraid.

Of course, you can find some interesting themes there, but you’re more likely to make your search much more fruitful if you just go to Google.

The thing with the official directory is that it only contains 1,490 themes or so. This is by no means the total number of themes available on the internet. There’s much much more interesting stuff out there, and settling for what you can find in the official directory would not be a wise thing to do.

Yesterday, I described how to select a theme that’s perfect for you and your blog. So here I will just assume that you already know which theme you want to use.

Step 1. Download the theme

Once you find a theme you like, you’ll need to download it to your computer before you can do anything else with it.

The package containing your theme can consist of many various elements. Depending on the license you’ve selected, you might find some PSD files, additional bonuses, documents, and so on. Of course, the theme files themselves will be present as well. Most of the time, all the contents of a theme are delivered as a ZIP archive.

2. Extract the files

Next, you have to extract the archive somewhere—onto your desktop, for example. If the archive contains more elements than just the theme (like the bonuses I mentioned above), open the archive’s readme file to locate the main theme’s directory.

As an example, here’s what you’ll find inside a ThemeFuse theme archive:

Once you’ve successfully identified the main theme directory, you can proceed to the next step.

3. Upload the theme to your WordPress blog

This step will require FTP access to your hosting account, and a piece of FTP software. You can try FileZilla—it’s good, and it’s free.

The theme’s main directory is the one you’ll be uploading to your blog. Connect to your site via FTP (the FTP tool’s help documentation will explain how to do this if you’re not sure) and navigate to the wp-content/themes directory of your site. This is where you upload your theme’s main directory.

Here’s the default look of the directory when it contains only one theme—the default theme TwentyEleven:

The next step in the process takes place in your WordPress Admin panel.

4. Activate your new theme

Log in to your WordPress Admin panel using your Admin account details.

Installing new themes requires Admin access rights; it can’t be done through other types of accounts.

Go to Appearance > Themes, as shown here:

Your new theme should be visible among all the others. The only thing left for you to do now is activate it:

If everything goes well, your new theme will be marked as the Current Theme, and your blog will have an entirely new look.

5. All done!

This is where the guide ends. There’s nothing more for you to do now other than enjoy your new theme! Of course, you could make some final adjustments to make your blog look truly unique, for instance, adding branding elements such as your logo, pictures, and so on. Or, if you’re ready to install a WordPress plugin, we have a guide to that, too!

Have you installed a WordPress theme yet? Share your tips with us in the comments.

Karol K. is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland and a writer at ThemeFuse.com, where he shares various WordPress advice. Currently, he’s working on a new e-book titled “WordPress Startup Guide – little known things worth doing when creating a WordPress site.” The e-book launches soon, and now the best part … it’s free. Also, don’t forget to visit ThemeFuse to get your hands on some premium WordPress themes.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Install Your First WordPress Theme

This guest post is by Karol K of ThemeFuse.

Selecting a WordPress theme is one of those tasks that seem fairly easy at first How hard can it be? you ask yourself. You simply go to Google, type in “best free WordPress themes” and you’re good to go, right?

I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this. So let’s just say it out loud so we can put it behind us: Forget about free themes! They are evil! This is something I’ve been saying for a little more than a year now. And hey, don’t blame me, it’s just the way it is.

Long story short, almost all free WordPress themes include some kind of strange code in their structures, usually in the footer section. The code is encrypted, and, often, the theme stops working if you try to remove it. Also, you don’t have a clue about what’s actually in that code until you decrypt it. Just to make things clear, as a developer, designer, or simply a website owner, you never want to have any unknown code on your site.

What other solutions are there if free themes are out of the game, then? Three main ones:

• You can have the theme developed by someone on a contract agreement.
• You can develop the theme yourself on top of a popular theme framework (and create the design as well).
• You can buy a premium theme.

Of course, at ThemeFuse (the theme store I’m a part of), we strongly encourage you to take advantage of the last option because, well, that’s our business.

But I’m not speaking as a businessman now. I’m speaking as a WordPress developer. So let me take you through the most important elements of the decision-making process, so you can select the perfect WordPress theme for your website or blog.

What do you need the theme for?

This is the first and the most important question you can ask yourself.

Every website has its own purpose. And this purpose will greatly affect the kind of theme you should be searching for.

WordPress was originally designed to work with traditional text blogs, but over the years this purpose has evolved into something much broader. Nowadays, WordPress can successfully run almost any kind of website.

Some possible applications include:

• Video blogs: this is a new breed in the blogging world. Every day there are more and more bloggers who present their content exclusively through video.
• Photo blogs (or graphical portfolios): These blogs are popular among photographers and designers who want to showcase their work.
• Online magazines: These sites are created around the idea of publishing news from a given field, often along with a descriptive image to accompany text content.
• Business sites: These sites are owned by all kinds of professionals and contract workers, from dentists and tailors, to consultants and teachers … and more!
• Traditional blogs: These are run by people who want to share their own articles. Mostly, traditional blogs are text only content. In other words, these are blogs like we know them.
• Corporate sites: Big companies have a slightly different idea of what a good website contains, and that’s why the corporate style has sprouted up.
• Software/app/product sites: Some businesses are built around a given product or a piece of software. The websites of such businesses tend to focus on the product, rather than on the business itself.
• Small to medium-sized business sites: Such businesses often find it hard to choose a site design. The corporate style is too big, and a product site just doesn’t seem to fit many service-based businesses.
• Real-world, local business sites: This is a type of site that’s targeted towards all kinds of physical businesses, like hotels, restaurants, galleries, shopping malls, and every other brick-and-mortar business imaginable.

There are probably tens of other types of sites that WordPress can handle, but let’s just stop here as I’m sure you get the idea.

Whatever you hope your site will end up to be, you have to start with its purpose. That purpose will suggest specific goals for your site, and its design should reflect those goals. Only when you’ve decided what’s important for your future site and what isn’t, can you start searching for a theme.

The most important features of a WordPress theme

There are tons of features a custom WordPress theme can provide you with, but let’s just focus on the most essential stuff—the things you’ll actually use on a daily basis (or during the initial setup).

Price and license

This is probably the most important factor to consider when you’re choosing a theme. Just like every soon-to-be website owner, you’ll have a specific budget set aside for this, and you’ll tell yourself you won’t get anything too expensive no matter how great it is. This is a perfectly reasonable approach.

Therefore, there are some important things to be aware of here. For instance, ask:

• Does the license you’re about to get allow you to use the theme on more than one site?
• Do you get free support?
• Do you get the PSD files?
• Do you get the source files?
• Do you get any additional bonuses?

If you’re a WordPress developer and you plan on using a given theme for more than one client, you should consider getting a multiple site license, or maybe even a complete theme package (containing all themes a given theme store has to offer). Of course, the more you want, the more you have to spend, but such an investment might pay off soon.

If you’re only looking for a theme for your own site, then getting the most basic license will probably be the best choice for you.

An SEO friendly structure

No matter what other website owners are saying, SEO still is, and will remain, a very important element for the whole “getting popular on the internet” thing.

An SEO friendly theme is a really valuable asset. If you’re planning on doing any kind of SEO work around your site, then such a theme is essential. And even if you don’t have time for SEO, an SEO friendly theme can do a surprisingly big part of the work for you anyway.

Good SEO always starts with getting the basic characteristics of your site just right. Only then you can tackle link-building and other off-page SEO tasks.

How can you find out whether a theme is SEO friendly or not? Unfortunately, you can’t know for sure until you start working with a given theme. However, there are still some things to look for when you’re playing with a theme’s live demo, or analyzing the screenshots of a theme.

• Is there the ability to set the titles and descriptions for every post and page individually (including the homepage)?
• Does the theme use <H> headings?
• Are the categories and tags visible?
• Is the layout clean and simple?
• Does the theme support major SEO plugins?

Some of these factors can be seen when you’re looking at a theme, while others are simply listed in the promotional materials of the theme. Make sure to pay attention to these considerations, though. The more SEO features a theme has, the better.

Compatibility with every browser

This is a very important feature to look for when you’re selecting a theme. Your visitors will always use a range of browsers and devices to access your site. You, as the website owner or the developer need to make sure that the site looks the same in every environment. This is difficult to do if your theme doesn’t provide that functionality from the get-go.

There are a couple of ways to find out whether the theme you’re interested in has cross-browser and device compatibility built in. The time-consuming way is to check the live demo on different browsers yourself. The easy way is to look for the information in the theme’s promotional materials.

Customizable design

Your new theme shouldn’t force you to stick to the default layout. It’s usually difficult to find a theme that fits your requirements exactly. Serious theme developers understand this, so they provide you with the possibility to change the layout a bit.

Changes like switching to a two sidebar layout, or moving sidebars from left to right should be available inside a good theme.

Also, the sidebars should be dynamic, so that you don’t have to settle for a given layout for the whole site. You should be able to choose custom layouts for individual pages of your blog.

Different color schemes available

Sticking to the topic of customization, let’s have a word about color schemes.

Every website needs a brand identity or some other point of differentiation. Chances are that you already have a logo made, and that you want to use it with your new theme. The logo itself represents most of your visual identity, so the theme should follow the same direction and be in tune with the logo.

There’s no easier way of keeping everything in tune than by simply changing the color scheme of your theme. Good themes have a couple of predefined color schemes built in, as well as a number of well-defined CSS classes that enable you to create new color schemes with little effort.

This might not sound important at first, but it actually makes tuning the theme a lot easier if you have a color scheme in place at the outset.

Easily customizable header

Whenever someone gets a new theme, the header is always the first place where any sort of customization happens. This isn’t surprising at all: everyone wants to include their own logo, their own menu, or an advertisement banner.

Customizable headers are essential for every theme. If the theme you’re considering doesn’t support this, it’s going to be really time-consuming for you to do any kind of modifications by hand (i.e. by working with HTML and PHP code).

Widget-ready areas

Widgets are small blocks of content you can include in various areas of your blog’s structure. The most common location for widgets is the sidebar, but that’s not a rule.

Every quality theme has a number of widget-ready areas predefined within its structure. Such areas are not only a form of a placeholder, but in most cases, they’re set with custom formatting and styling too.

The most common uses of widgets are:

• displaying your Twitter stream and other social media icons
• displaying recent comments
• offering an additional search field
• showing categories and tags
• listing recent posts
• showing popular posts
• displaying archive links
• displaying ads, additional menus, and so on.

Custom homepage support

For a traditional blog, the homepage is simply a list of recent posts. This is how it used to work for years, and it’s still the default setting in WordPress. But as I said earlier, there are many possible uses of the WordPress platform these days, and this default listing is the optimal solution for almost none of them.

Of course, if you’re a blogger publishing insightful articles on a regular basis, then by all means you should make the default listing of recent posts your homepage. However, if you’re a business owner of any kind, you’re probably better off to create a custom homepage displaying the most important information about your business and its offerings.

Most quality themes enable you to create a custom homepage and choose the individual elements you want to place on it. This is either done by a special category or another widget area (depending on the theme).

Video and image friendly

Just to make things clear, you can obviously display videos and images on every WordPress blog … I haven’t stumbled upon a situation where a blog wouldn’t support images. However, some themes make working with multimedia really, really effortless.

For instance, here’s a YouTube video. If you want to embed it into a standard WordPress theme, you have to go to YouTube, click the Share button, click the Embed button, grab the embed code, go back to your blog, switch to HTML editor, and finally paste the embed code where you want it.

But if you know you’ll be using a lot of video and imagery, you’d do better to choose a theme that caters specifically to those content types. For example, doing the same thing in a Themefuse theme requires only one action. In the visual editor, you simply use the shortcode:

[youtube width="600" height="350" link="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keIGj-bTagE"]

Making an image slideshow, or displaying a map from Google Maps is quite similar.

Social media integration

Social media and all of its forms is very popular. Everyone has a Twitter or Facebook account, if not tens of other profiles. Quality WordPress themes follow this trend and provide some form of social media integration. The most popular way is to show various share buttons next to the content, Follow or Like buttons, and sometimes even Twitter or Facebook streams.

Of course, you don’t have to use all of these options, but it’s good to make sure the theme you’re considering has a few possibilities you can choose from.

The “wow” effect: your theme’s looks

Setting all the features aside, there’s one really important characteristic that every good theme offers. All the features mean absolutely nothing if you simply don’t like the theme visually.

Some people will try to tell you that looks can always be changed and that you shouldn’t focus on this that much. I advise a different path here.

If you see a theme, and it doesn’t make you think something like “wow, this is great!” then don’t get it. Period.

Of course, remember your purpose for the theme. The looks itself are not enough to make a theme perfect for you—there are other important considerations as well, as we’ve just seen.

A theme can’t be overused

Popularity is a funny thing when it comes to WordPress themes. On one hand, it’s great to get a popular theme because you know that it’s a quality product. It’s a kind of social proof—if many people have decided to buy a certain theme, then it has to be good, right?

On the other hand, if too many people are using the same theme then it loses all of its uniqueness, and it can make branding it difficult.

Now, I’m not saying that an overall number of downloads for a given theme is important in itself, but it is important for your specific niche. The fact that 50 people might be using your theme in a different niche is not a problem. But if ten people are using your theme in your niche, that could be a big problem.

Simply do a little research before buying a theme to make sure that there aren’t too many people using it in the niche where you want to launch a site. (If no one is using the theme, that, of course, is the perfect scenario.)

Reviews are important

Depending on a theme’s popularity, you might be able to find some customer reviews, or even professional reviews to help you decide whether the theme is really worth purchasing.

The best way of finding those reviews is using Google. Search for something like “theme-name review”. The rule is simple: the larger the number of good reviews, the better.

On the other hand, if you don’t find anything, it doesn’t mean that the theme isn’t good quality. Usually, happy customers don’t spend time submitting reviews around the internet, they simply enjoy their purchase and go on with their lives.

Documentation and support

Some developers don’t believe in the power of documentation, and it’s hard to understand why. The fact is that even when you get a new washing machine, you get a user’s manual.

Essentially, digital products are no different—they, too, need a manual of some kind. Serious developers understand this so they always try to make their customers’ lives easier by providing documentation that’s easy to grasp.

Support is different. The better the product is, the less work support teams have. But still, there are times when you’ll need some assistance, either when something stops working or when you simply want to do something unusual with your theme.

Don’t choose a theme that doesn’t have any documentation or support. This might be okay when you’re getting a theme for free, but when you’re paying money, it’s not acceptable.

Only up-to-date themes allowed

This is an easy trap to fall into. Here’s the scenario: you’re browsing the web to find a nice theme, you stumble upon one that’s interesting, and you decide to get it. Only afterwards you find out that the theme you’ve chosen hasn’t been updated lately and that it has been developed for version 2.7 of WordPress, for example.

I’m not saying that every next version of WordPress is completely different from the previous one, but some things do change, and you need to make sure that your theme implements all the new functionality and interesting features of the platform.

Every self-respecting theme store makes sure that the themes it offers are always up-to-date with current versions of WordPress and current trends of the web as a whole. So when you’re shopping for a theme, simply take notice of whether the theme you’re about to get has been updated lately and if it’s compatible with the newest version of WordPress.

A step-by-step approach

This has turned out to be a rather lengthy piece, so let me sum it up with a quick step-by-step guide on how to select the perfect theme for your blog:

1. Start with the purpose of your site. When you decide what you need the site for, you’ll be able to list its most important traits—traits you need the theme to support.
2. Note the details about the themes you’re considering. Some possibilities include: price and license, SEO friendly structure, compatibility with every browser, customizable design, different color schemes available, easily modifiable header, widget-ready areas, custom homepage support, video and image friendly, and support for social media integration.
3. Let me quote myself: If you see a theme, and it doesn’t make you think something like “wow, this is great!”, don’t get it.
4. Make sure that the theme is not overused in your niche.
5. Try to find some customer or professional reviews.
6. Make sure that documentation and support is available for the theme.
7. Make sure that the theme is up to date with the current version of WordPress.

Even though it seems like there’s much to do when selecting a theme, it can actually be worked through very quickly. You just need to know where to look for the most important information.

Essentially, selecting a good theme is like selecting any other product—digital or otherwise. You just need to know what you’re looking for. Don’t forget to ask or read about the details that are important to you and your blog.

There’s been a lot of talking on my part here. Now it’s your turn: how did you go about selecting your current WordPress theme? What words of wisdom can you give those who are about to do it for the first time? Let us know in the comments—and don’t forget to visit again tomorrow, when I’ll show you how to install the theme you’ve selected, set by step.

Karol K. is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland and a writer at ThemeFuse.com, where he shares various WordPress advice. Currently, he’s working on a new e-book titled “WordPress Startup Guide – little known things worth doing when creating a WordPress site.” The e-book launches soon, and now the best part … it’s free. Also, don’t forget to visit ThemeFuse to get your hands on some premium WordPress themes.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Select the Perfect WordPress Theme for Your Blog

Today on ProBlogger, we’re publishing the first in a little two-part series of posts on WordPress themes. The first is on choosing a theme, and the second is on installing themes.

Now, some ProBlogger readers might wonder if professional bloggers need this kind of information. Of course there will always be pro bloggers who haven’t ever installed a theme, and the articles may be helpful to them. But is that our key target audience here?

Understanding reader segments

The census we conducted earlier this year revealed a lot about ProBlogger readers—enough that we could break you up into different categories or audience sub-segments.

This is a useful exercise for any established blog, as it allows you to get a clearer picture of the different user types your content attracts. It can also help you to identify content gaps that you need to fill.

That’s exactly what our census did—it showed us that although many of our readers were blogging happily, and making money from their efforts, many were apprehensive about technology. There was also a specific sub-segment of bloggers who weren’t pro bloggers, but wanted to become so, and couldn’t without developing their technical skills.

“Pro” doesn’t translate to readers having professional or high-level skills in every aspect of blogging. So we need to cater to a range of skills levels in every topic we cover.

Translating needs into content

Having identified the need among this audience segment for helpful, approachable articles on WordPress basics, we were able to approach experts to write guest posts covering those topics.

As well as being technically and factually accurate, and useful for those among us who want to go out and, for example, install their first WordPress theme, the content serves other purposes, too.

It helps to show those who are just starting out blogging that ProBlogger can take them on the journey from would-be-blogger to blogging professional. And it supports the friendly, helpful and professional ProBlogger brand—which is helpful in continuing loyalty among all our readers.

Undermining “pro” positioning?

Some would argue that publishing anything other than high-level content that assumes readers have a professional level of skill with every key aspect of blogging risks undermining the “pro” positioning of my blog.

I disagree. As I mentioned above, even the most experienced bloggers are less-skilled in some aspects of the field. We all need extra help in different areas.

Also, those pros who are, for example, comfortable with choosing and installing WordPress themes may well do nothing more than notice or glance over today’s and tomorrow’s articles. But unconsciously, they may be more likely to recommend the blog to a blogging friend who’s not as skilled with the technology, or to search here for the topics that they themselves know they lack skills in.

Scheduling for maximum impact

One of the key elements of avoiding undermining a particular brand position when you offer content that suits a sub-segment of readers who are at a different level than your main readership is to consider how you’ll present and publish that content.

As an example, the pieces we’ll be publishing have the following characteristics:

• They acknowledge in their introductions that the content is probably known by a lot of readers—but will defnitely be helpful to a targeted sub-segment.
• They follow one after another, to keep the continuity of the message strong. This also can help lessen the potential for diffusion of brand value, since the two parts are published consecutively. High-level, loyal ProBlogger readers who aren’t interested won’t feel like they “keep seeing” low-level content in their ProBlogger feeds or lists: we expect they’re more likely to read, say, this post, then understand that the next two posts that are coming won’t be for them. But after that, they know to expect that we’ll resume programming as usual.
• They’re expert pieces, so they’re well-written and are more likely to include information that may surprise even experienced bloggers.
• They’re scheduled to published in “off-peak” timeslots during the ProBlogger week. We leave “on-peak” days for content that meets the needs of the majority of our primary audience. Using this approach, we can get valuable, needed content onto the site (and into the search engines), meeting the needs of a valuable sub-segment of readers, without distracting the majority of readers from our core content.
• As I mentioned above, they’re supported by this post, which is targeted to high-level ProBlogger readers of the type who already know the information that’s explained in the two posts that will follow. This post gives those two context, clearly supports the “pro” in the ProBlogger branding, and ensures that our core readership gets value even as a result of posts that aren’t targeted to them.

How do you tailor posts to different audience segments?

This basic outline should shed some light on the approach we take to publishing content for users who are at different stages of their problogging journey. But we’d love to hear how you meet the needs of different sub-segments of your blog’s audience.

Do you do this consciously? Is it an ongoing part of your posting approach? Share your advice with us in the comments.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How Do You Tailor Content to Different User Levels?

This guest post is by Lars Holdgaard of Gode Karakterer.

So you have a blog which has some kind of self-defined success. You are maybe making a good portion of money and you can see the visitors numbers rising. Your position in Google is also doing better and better every month, and everything is progressing.

But maybe it doesn’t feel right. You can see the results, but it still doesn’t feel right. Writing every blog post feels like a pain, and you postpone it as much as possible. Actually, you would much rather just write about something else. But your current audience are used to your current way of doing things—so, what to do?

Let’s take a case

Let’s take a look at Timothy Ferris as he is a good case for this subject. I bet most of you know who he is, but for those who don’t, you should really consider buying his book The 4-Hour Work Week.

He wrote that book in 2007. It’s a book about building a lifestyle earning money from passive income, so you can spend the time just the way you want it. Back when the book became popular, his blog became massively popular too. Every new blog post got between 50 and 100 comments within days. Tim primary posted about business ventures, productivity and tips to outsource.

However, some months before the release of his second book, The 4-Hour Body, the blog changed slightly. There were several blog posts about training, the body, and sport. Now, there could be many reasons for making this change, and of course, one of them being marketing and building up the hype for the book. But the other reason, which Tim also have revealed in interviews, is that The 4-Hour Work Week made it possible to write the book he was really passionate about—The 4-Hour Body. His biggest passion is the body.

I personally stopped following the blog at this time, because the focus was different from when I signed up and followed the blog. I know quite a lot people stopped following the blog because of this change, but at the same time, its popularity grew. So when he changed his style, more people actually came and followed Tim.

Why change style?

Why is this case interesting? I am a firm believer that you have to follow your passion. When we follow our deepest passion, we as human beings, have so much more power. We will find solutions we wouldn’t have found otherwise.

And let’s be honest: if you have been blogging on the same subject for several years, your current biggest passion has probably changed. Changing your style of blogging allows you to come closer to your current life situation. If you have been blogging about growing orchids for two years, maybe it is time to expand to sunflowers or ranunculus. As our interests change from time to time, it is very wise to question how we can change our blog’s style regularly, too.

Changing style has its consequences

However, when we change our style, it has consequences. It doesn’t matter what you do—if you change your theme, change subjects, change writing style, or anything else—it will have consequences.

Some people will definitely not like your changes. Some will most likely even hate it. If you have a fair amount of followers, some people will mail you and tell the change is the worst thing ever you’ve done in your whole life. Just look at the global rage each time Facebook makes some kind of update—everyone has to give their opinion and share it with the world.

When you change style, you will lose followers. If ProBlogger suddenly started to blog about Java programming, a fair chunk of the regular followers would most likely be upset and stop following, as the new style is not what they signed up for. This is what happened with a lot of people with Timothy Ferris.

But when you change, there is a very positive side too. You will attract new followers. As any change you make hopefully will make come closer to your passion, it will shine through. People can feel your energy and passion in your words. So something you will probably experience during change of style is a decrease in visitors for a short time span, and then it will rise again.

Case example: Maj Wismann

I’d like to show you a real life example. Maj Wismann runs the Danish sex and relationships website www.websexolog.dk. She teaches people to focus on love and the relationship before focusing on the sex.

Now, when you write about sex, there are two obvious styles you can choose. First, you can choose the boring and factual way. However, you can also choose a more subtle angle by being very direct and naughty in your communication.

When Maj started her website, she took the first approach. This attracted quite lot followers who bought her products. Maj actually made quite a lot of money from doing this, and changing her approach was really risky. But she wanted to change her tone to become more direct, to write about subjects which are taboo in a very open way—and even to write her articles using profanity!

Even though she was extremely scared about making the change, she adopted it 100%. After her old website had run for three months, she changed the style overnight. Her new style of writing was what was “real” to hear. However, she feared correctly—some of her readers did not like the new style, and she actually lost quite a lot of followers.

But a funny thing happened—the new style let her connect better with the rest of her readers. Those readers started to recommend her website, and today she has many times more subscribers than before. Now, nine months later, she has eight times more subscribers than before.

Why did this change work? It’s hard to say, but I would guess it’s because Danes are open towards sex. An open attitude towards sex and being direct, and even a bit naughty, wasn’t a problem. Doing the same trick in USA or Asia wouldn’t necessarily be a good idea.

Ways to change your style

Let’s now look at how you can change your style of blogging. Not everyone will do it the same way as Maj did, so let’s look at the options.

1. Doing nothing

The first and easiest solution is to do nothing. You can ignore your decreasing passion, and keeping on hating writing each and every blog post.

But truth is that you will most likely burn out. Even if you live from the income you earn through the blog, it won’t be suitable in the long run. Hopefully you don’t see this as an option.

2. Slow and steady change

The easiest and probably most common way is to make a slow change. Give your audience an appetizer of what you really want to write about, and move slowly toward that new position over time.

If it is a new writing style, try that. If you want to write more about cats and your current blog is about dogs, try to make some posts about cats—and make sure they are high-quality posts.

By looking at the response from your audience, you can estimate how well a radical change will be perceived. This was what Timothy Ferris did—since the launch of his blog, he had few posts about the body and health. People responded really well to these articles, and since it was his passion, he knew it would be a success.

3. A complete change

Instead of making a series of small changes over time, you can do it will a full heart. Change your style overnight, and let the followers live with it.

This will, of course, have bigger consequences than making the change slowly. This way, you can risk losing a large number of followers within a very short time span.

However, if you do it, it has its positive sides too. Yes, it is a big change—but it lets you come closer to what you really want to be doing, in a much shorter timeframe. Therefore the quality of what you do will most likely be much higher.

4. A new blog

Another option is to create a completely new blog. By making a new blog, you can keep the old audience. This is a totally risk-free option, as your old audience need not know about your new project.

However, you will have to start over. Getting visitors for a new blog can be a huge amount of work—especially because you can’t rely on the search engines for quite a while.

You have to be unique

Remember that today, more than anything, blogging success is about being unique. Just look at the comments on all these blog posts on ProBlogger—there are so many people trying to compete on the Internet. And if we are being honest, how many blogs do each of us really follow? It is primary the best ones.

Those we follow are the ones that are really exceptional and unique. Mediocrity isn’t interesting anymore, as we can go to another blog right away. As so many people have written before me, today it’s about being the best, as the competition online is fierce.

If you currently don’t love what you blog about, change. You can either change slowly, fully, or take on a new project—the most important thing is that you do change. You will lose followers, and you will hear from people telling you that you are making a mistake, but believe in yourself. Your passion will shine through, which is exactly what we need and want today.

This article was written by Lars Holdgaard. He owns two websites which both have active blogs: Gode Karakterer which helps Danish students with everything regarding to school and Mulius which is a Danish toys webshop.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Take a New Road with Your Blog

This guest post is by Ryan Barton, author of Smart Marketing.

You’ve got an editorial calendar, you’ve scheduled blog posts weeks in advance. Look how professional you are. Well done. You’re an inspiration.

You press Publish and bask in retweets, praise, and a flood of comments. You’re “resonating” with your “tribe.” You’re prolific. You’re a cocky so-and-so.

Then it hits: the loathing.

You’re exhausted. You’re ignoring your calendar. You can’t be bothered to think about new topics. Your writer’s well is bone-dry. You’ve met the resistance and it has won.

Your writing becomes programmed (verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus). It’s no longer art, and no longer an exercise in intellect. It lacks moxy. You’re phoning it in.

This is a low point. Have you been there?

If you bore yourself, how do you expect your readers to read, let alone share, your content?

What do you do when you loathe your own blog?

Find a way to restart, tabula rasa. And you’re the only one who can make it happen.

1. Do a design refresh

You buy new running shoes, and suddenly you want—need—to run. I must satisfy the shoes, it is their reason for existence. You buy a new car and instantly you cease dreading your hour-long commute.

It’s the same with your blog. Launch a new theme and you’ll feel the need to create new content that mirrors the sophistication of your new design. It pulls you back in and urges you forward. Clearly, your own boredom isn’t reason enough for a design overhaul, but it’ll certainly reignite your fire.

2. Narrow your focus

When I launched The Smart Marketing Blog in 2007, my posts were eclectic random. Readers didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what to expect. One day, a post about bus stop ads, the next day, how to set-up PDFs to open at screen height, and another day, musings on a new social network. There was no focus.

But now, when I focus only on smart marketing for small business success, my readers know what to expect. I have focus—a roadmap.

3. Take off the chains

Darren publishes daily. Sort of. Somebody on the collective ProBlogger team publishes daily. But I think he’d agree that expecting you, by yourself, to generate mind-blowing content daily is expecting too much.

At one point, I followed an editorial calendar that scheduled posts twice a week. But even those posts were rubbish. They weren’t inspired, they were the result of a self-imposed guideline. Sure, publishing more frequently drives more traffic, but also yields disappointed readers who are trying to digest your traffic-driven rubbish.

Write because you can’t help it, not because there’s a blank post to fill. Today, I write only when I can imagine giving a speech on my topic. The topic is that good. So good, I can visualize myself preaching from a soapbox. And you know what, my traffic has remained the same, despite publishing much less frequently.

4. Ship something

I don’t advocate shipping something simply for the sake of shipping; that only yields mediocrity. But shipping evokes pride and passion and a fierce sense of taking names. Last year I published my book on smart marketing for small businesses, this year I launched my newsletter, and in the months ahead I have two other books in the works. Each functions to inspire and refill my writer’s well.

Aside from your blog—because your blog is not your product, your blog supports your product—what can you create to inject that same inspiration?

5. Change your routine

Want to find new inspiration? Approach your trivial, mundane tasks in a new way. When you break your habits, you force yourself to problem-solve, expand your thinking, and consider other solutions. It’s that same thinking that yanks you out of your writer’s rut. Purposefully take the longer route to the office, travel to a foreign country, run instead of lifting weights, read a different genre book to stretch your mind, expand your palette with a new coffee brewing method, keep your phone off when it’s normally on, watch a documentary instead of that sitcom—or better yet, read a book … with pages, not a screen.

6. Change how and where you write

Last week, I sat in a dark parking lot waiting for takeout from a local eatery. I was isolated, undisturbed, and focused. So much so, I made great progress on a blog post in the matter of minutes. Just me, a journal, and a soft dome light. Working out of coffee grinder-dominated cafes doesn’t foster the same productivity. Neither does sitting in front of a television or high-traffic public venues. Sure, use the excuse that people-watching inspires you. Rubbish.

Take yourself seriously, hide yourself, sever ties to notifications, reminders, and the urge to make sure you’re always in-the-know. Your writing—your art—deserves nothing less than your undivided attention.

7. Read new, not more

How many blogs do you subscribe to? Right now, how many blog posts sit unread? If you’re no longer challenged—if you’re glazing over posts out of habit, if you’re no longer being inspired and challenged—unsubscribe and find new ways to be stimulated. Stop wondering if you’re missing out on anything, cut ties, and stretch yourself. You may be out of school, but that’s no excuse for not remaining a student.

8. Who’s your muse?

Who do you work for? Wake up for? Breathe for? Write for them. Is it your wife, your lover, your most loyal subscriber, or your unborn child? Use them as your motivation to keep driving when you’re not strong enough to persist yourself. Keep this person’s photo nearby as a reminder. Don’t get so busy that you forget why or for whom you’re working so hard.

9. Declare victory or failure

When starting a new project, name your goal. How else will you measure success? Seth said it best, “Declare one or the other, but declare.” Maybe it’s time for self-evaluation. Maybe it’s time to reflect and determine what you did right (to do it again) and what you’ll avoid the next time. Because there will be a next time. “Failure” isn’t never blogging again. No, failure is taking valuable lessons and proactively applying what you’ve learned to the next iteration of your blog.

We’re artists. We all feel the urge to tweak our logos and change our avatars. We see the same “us” every day, and we’re bored. But what we find repetitive and boring and loathe-worthy, our tribe views as consistency and resonation.

The real artists find a way to push through, put their shoulders back and chin up, and reignite their own passion.

Talk back

Have you hit the blogging loathe-wall before? How did you bust through it? Leave a comment below so others might be inspired to do the same. And stick around—later today we’ll take a look at a case example of a blogger who changed their blog’s writing style overnight—and reaped the rewards.

Ryan Barton is a small business marketing, social media, and design consultant. He is the author of Smart Marketing, blogs at The Smart Marketing Blog, tweets at www.twitter.com/RyanBarton, and lives in Los Angeles.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

9 Steps to Take When You Loathe Your Own Blog

This guest post is by Neil Patel of Quick Sprout.

Anybody can be a content marketer … but not everyone can be a good or even great content marketer who creates articles that convert and rank high in the search engines on a consistent basis.

Over time experience will teach you how to do this, but you also need the right tools.

You need tools that will help you spot the hot topics at that very moment, generate list upon list of high-converting long-tail keywords, automate some of your processes, and even show you the best places to publish your content.

In the last several months four very cool tools have come onto the scene that will help you do just that. Eric showed us one of them—the Content Strategy Generator Tool—earlier today, but I wanted to show you three others that are definitely worth experimenting with.

IFTTT: Automate your content curation tasks

Your first experience of IFTTT may seem a bit like a head-scratcher. That’s why IFTTT has given you some very specific “recipes” to add.

What exactly is a “recipe”?

That’s just a set of commands to perform an action when certain conditions are met. That’s what the acronoym means: If This, Then That.

How can this tool help you create compelling, high-converting content? It will basically automate tasks that you normally do.

For example, Evernote is the ultimate tool bloggers use to save ideas we come across on the web. Even though the steps to save that content to Evernote are pretty simple, wouldn’t it be nice to accomplish two tasks in one—and even eliminate some steps in the process?

Standford Smith recently shared his favorite IFTTT recipes that make content curation painless:

• Save a starred item in Google Reader to Evernote.
• Save a specific keyword in an RSS to Evernote.
• When you favorite a tweet, save to Evernote.
• Save tweets by specific users to Evernote.
• Add specific keywords that appear in your Twitter stream to Evernote.
• Add “Watch Later” video to Evernote.
• Add posts in Google Reader to a specific Evernote notebook.

When curation tasks like these are automated for you, you can concentrate on creating better content that will convert more readers and rank higher.

Übersuggest: the keyword search tool on steroids

If you want a keyword search tool that will help you build a highly relevant and targeted list of long-tail keywords, then you need Übersuggest.

It combines Google Suggest with other services, and it’s simple to use. Just write a keyword in the box, choose a language, and get suggestions.

You can break these down into just normal web searches, or you can look for terms in verticals like video, shopping, and news. If you click on one of the keywords it then delivers even more suggestions:

There are literally thousands of content ideas you could get from these real user queries.

Click the plus sign and this will put the keywords in a bucket:

After you’ve selected a few more keywords, you can then click “Get” and then copy and paste these keywords:

If you want to take this idea a step further, throw out all those keywords that won’t work for you. Those remaining drop into Google’s keyword suggestion tool.

From that list you can grab the hottest trending keywords and create some high-converting content that also ranks well.

Google Insights: 4 ways to boost your content conversion rates

In its most basic use, Google Insights for Search is great for seeing what people are searching for using broad terms, or narrow ones.

But as a content marketer, you are looking to use Google Insights to help you create highly-targeted content that will boost your conversion rates.

Google Insights offers four ways to do that, using its filters. The first filter we’ll look at is the Web Search.

The Web Search filter

Let’s say you’re a real estate agent in Seattle. You are looking to create some articles for your blog, but you are tired of talking about home prices and want some fresh and relevant topics to discuss.

To keep the content tight and focused on your market, you can filter the content to your region and restrict results to those from the last three months. Then, choose “real estate” as the category.

Note: Leave the “Search terms” box blank if you want to see what’s trending.

This is what you could see:

What you care about here are the Rising Searches and the Breakout search terms.

As you can see, when I did this search, the “Trayvon Martin case” was a hugely popular term in the real estate category. Perhaps you could create some fresh content around issues like the pros and cons of living in a gated community, or a guide to creating a voluntary Neighborhood Watch program. Both are highly-qualified topics that could rank high.

The Image Search filter

The next filter you can use to generate some high-converting content ideas is Image Search. This time you will enter some search terms.

Let’s say you’re a graphic designer and you want to see what’s trending among images. You choose “book covers,” “email newsletters,” and “desktop.”

Your results will show you that the email newsletter topic is flat-lining, but the desktop topic is flying high!

That means you need to roll up your sleeves and focus your content on a topic like desktop design. If I were you, I’d use the CSGT or Übersuggest to generate some very refined keywords that will attract that right people and convert well for you.

The News Search filter

The third filter to try is the News Search. This is another one that works really well if you leave the search terms box blank.

Imagine you are a blogger who covers technology, so you enter a search in the News. You make it a worldwide search in the last 90 days, and select Computers & Electronics.

Your results will look something like this for that time range:

Notice how Apple dominates the top six spots, but doesn’t hold place two and four? Those offer some interesting possibilities for content creation.

For example, “anonymous” refers to the hacktivist group Anonymous—you may want to cover their latest efforts. And the “galaxy s3” refers to the latest rumors about this smartphone. Perhaps you can follow that as a possible story idea.

Either way, these will be hot, trending topics that could help you land some heavy traffic!

The Product Search filter

The last filter we’ll look at is the Product Search filter. Anyone who sells anything can use this—and it doesn’t have to be a physical product. It could be an information product or even a service.

Say you have a blog from which you sell stock buying information in the form of email alerts, and you want to relate something back to one of your products.

Search “worldwide” and “finance” without putting anything in the “search terms”.

Here’s what you will get:

Because it was tax season when I ran this search, most of the searches were around the topics of taxes. But what is sr22? And why is it breaking out? Click on it and you get this report:

This is important, because the “sr22″ search term can refer to a number of things, including insurance, pistol, or an airplane.

These particular searches, however, are focused on finance, which should give us a clue that this topics is probably about insurance. The subcategory tells us that it is most definitely about insurance.

Click on “Insurance” and you’ll see that sr22 is a specific kind of auto insurance. Now you can create content around sr22 auto insurance, and then tie it back into one of your products, capturing the attention of—and hopefully some conversions from—highly-relevant traffic.

The blogger’s favorite tool/s

In the end, if you want to succeed as a content marketer, then you need to know what type of content is working, what topics are trending well and which keywords are relevant to your context. The tools above will help you find that out.

These tools as they are your key to creating content that not only ranks well but converts readers into subscribers or customers.

Are there any other new tools that I missed that will help a content market create better content? Share them in the comments.

Neil Patel is an online marketing consultant and the co-founder of KISSmetrics. He also blogs at Quick Sprout.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

3 New Tools That Can Help You Create Better Content, Convert More Readers and Conquer Higher Search Rankings

This is a guest post by Eric Siu of Evergreen Search.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes—Napoleon Hill

Unfortunately, sometimes it’s very hard figuring out how to come up with blog post ideas. And based on that quote, if you can’t come up with ideas, then it doesn’t look like you have a starting point from which to create a fortune.

Over the years, many different aggregators and tools have become standard ways to generate post topics. Some people might use Quora or Yahoo Answers to look for problem-solving topics. Others might use Twitter or news aggregators to check for trends. All these tactics are effective, but it can be difficult to track everything at once.

What if there was an all-in-one tool that could combine these tactics into one, so you didn’t have to painfully click around anymore?

Enter: the Content Strategy Generator Tool (CSGT) by Daniel Butler of SEOgadget.

What is the Content Strategy Generator Tool?

The CSGT is a Google Docs spreadsheet that utilizes importXML functions to pull various data around the web for content brainstorming. That content doesn’t have to be restricted to blogging—the tool can be used to research videos, infographics, or audio.

With this tool, you can spot trends, get great headline ideas, come up with your own spin on topics, view new keyword opportunities, and more—and all in one spot. Talk about saving time!

Setting it up is a matter of completing a few steps:

1. Get the tool here.
2. Make a copy in Google Docs (File -> Make a Copy)
3. Enter your keyword in cell B3 (for multiple keywords, using the ‘+’ operator e.g. pet+stores).
4. Sit back and watch the magic happen.

What’s inside

The spreadsheet itself can display quite a bit of information. This section will break down the different types of data that is pulled into the sheet so you can begin to formulate a strategy on how you’d like to use it.

News

CSGT pulls news from Google News and Bing News. For Google News, three columns in the spreadsheet give you the title, author and time posted, and a description of the article. For Bing News, you’ll find two columns: one for “best match,” and one for “most recent” articles. This gives you the flexibility to dig through all the latest topic-related news on Bing.

Digg and Reddit are also included in the sheet. Similar to the information it provides on Bing, the sheet will display “most dugg” and “most recent” data from Digg. It will show you the top posts only from Reddit.

Social Media

If you’re looking for video content ideas, you’re in luck: CSGT also displays the top videos from YouTube related to your search.

Topsy, which is a great tool for displaying trending tweets, shows you the latest tweets in the last day as well as the top trending tweets. You’ll also see the usernames, author names, tweets, times of tweets, and number of retweets for each trend. Twittorati Search will pull in more tweets from the highest authority bloggers, and display the user and Twitterati Authority as well.

Facebook isn’t left out, either. AllThingsNow pulls the hottest Facebook shares for the day into the spreadsheet.

Aggregators

CSGT also pulls in topics from various aggregators like Blog Catalog, Fark, Redux, Helium and Cracked.

These sites are all different in their own ways and, at the end of the day, add more diversity to the scope of topics being presented to you. Perhaps you might look at Cracked and come up with a funny spin on a niche topic—anything could happen!

Q+A Sites

The benefit of having Yahoo Answers in the spreadsheet is that this data shows you popular problems that people are actually having right now.

Yahoo Answers will pull the most-answered questions related to your query, and display them for you. You can then go to Google and search on those specific questions. If the answers on the first page aren’t that good (and you think you can do better), you may just have picked up something to write about.

Miscellaneous

Uber Suggest is an excellent keyword suggestion tool and CSGT brings it right to the sheet so you don’t need to go to the website to find suggestions for other relevant keywords that you can target.

Google Insights will show you what the top and rising searches are in your niche.

And finally, How Stuff Works results will give you ideas for potential how-to content that you can generate.

Source and Place

That’s not all, though—the Source and Place tab will tell you how to find the top Twitter experts, bloggers, and editors in your niche. Use this to figure out who you can follow—and start new relationships with.

How to use the tool

Whenever you are stuck or want to spot trends on a subject, just pop open this tool and enter a topical keyword into cell B3. You can use modifiers to do some more digging, but the bottom line is that this is a great starting point for any content campaign.

At the end of the day, the main benefit of the Content Strategy Generator Tool is to save you time while giving you more ideas. The simplicity and the fact that it’s free makes this tool a must-have for any content creator.

Have you used the CSGT yet? Did you find it useful? Tell us what you thought of it in the comments.

Eric Siu is the Vice President of SEO at Evergreen Search, a digital marketing agency in los angeles. He’s also written about Minimum Viable SEO: 8 Ways To Get Startup SEO Right and 10 Immutable Laws of SEO. In his free time, he likes watching football, playing poker, hiking, reading, or eating ice cream. Feel free to follow him on Twitter( @ericosiu) or on Google+:+Eric Siu

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The Must-have Blog Post Topic Generation Tool

Content marketing—using content to promote our product or service—is a favorite promotion method of today’s bloggers. Many of us are in the content business, so content marketing makes sense.

The activities that come under the umbrella of content marketing are broad. They cover everything from guest posting to uploading content to purpose-built networks (like YouTube or Soundcloud), to offering your own free, downloadable content products on your own blog.

Content marketing opportunities are, literally, limited only by your imagination. But this isn’t to say that all content marketing is good content marketing. Or that all strong content marketing is as great as t could be.

What makes good content marketing great?

The answer to this question depends on your blog, target audience, and the content marketing goals you’ve set yourself. There’s not really a one-size-fits-all solution, though as we know, some solutions are used more commonly than others.

However, if you’re looking at new ways to use content marketing to promote your blog, these are some of the main factors you’ll probably want to think about before you jump in.

Does the opportunity support your brand values?

When we’re promoting our blogs, we’ll often look for the opportunity that gives us the biggest bang for buck. For example, we’ll aim to have our guest posts published on sites that have larger readerships rather than on those with smaller audiences.

While that’s fine, it’s also important to look at the outlet itself, and see whether it supports your brand effectively.

For example, both my Digital Photography School and ProBlogger brands use image content. So, in theory, I could use that content to market both brands on Pinterest. While the content is highly appropriate for the outlet, it’s easy to see that Pinterest is more closely aligned with the brand values of a visual brand like dPS than it is with those of ProBlogger.

While Pinterest could be a good way to market both brands, it’s a no-brainer for dPS. IF only I had time to be active on Pinterest!

Is the format appropriate?

There’s sometimes a tendency among some content marketers to jump on whatever bandwagon comes by—whether it’s creating video, or publishing a free blog manifesto, or something else.

The thing is that not all formats for content marketing are going to be appropriate for you. Let’s look at video. If you don’t use video on your blog, and have never made a video, then creating videos just to market your blog may not be the best idea. It may well take you a lot of time, and since you’re not experienced with the format, the content you produce may not be of a level of quality that supports your brand as best it could.

This isn’t to discourage anyone from trying something new—it’s just that you can make content marketing as difficult or as easy as you like. Embarking upon a brand new format purely for marketing purposes is going to be time-consuming and challenging. And the results may not do as much for your blog as you hoped, especially if (tying in the point above) the format doesn’t complement your blog’s branding.

Does the content offer a doorway into your blog?

In some ways, content marketing is like providing free samples of your product, so it’s important to make sure the content you use is a fair representation of what your blog offers. If you create a great video to promote your blog, but the blog itself contains no video, then you may risk disappointing the new visitors who were attracted specifically by your promotional video.

However, this issue goes deeper than formats. Look at what you’re communicating through the content marketing piece, and consider whether that message a) resonates with new readers and b) reflects a core characteristic or value of your blog.

Once the reader consumes that promotional piece, and arrives at your blog, is there a natural pathway for them to follow to engage more heavily with your blog on the basis of the expectation that your content marketing has set?

I’m not just talking about a conversion funnel here—I’m talking about an emotional and intellectual sense of engagement. That process may be upset if your promotional content looks different, sounds different, or delivers differently than your blog does. Consistency of message and tone is as important as consistency of look and feel and formats.

Is the content targeted to the audience?

Any potential content marketing outlet will have an audience. Does that audience reflect a market that you want a foothold in? And does your content speak to that audience?

This consideration is particularly important if you’re repurposing existing content for an outlet whose audience is slightly different from your own—and that’s likely to be the case with most content marketing opportunities.

To be successful, your content marketing efforts will require you to micro-target your brand and message to new audience sub-segments. So simply rehashing the same content over and over in different formats or outlets probably won’t be as effective as targeting each communication to each specific opportunity and its particular audience.

That means more work for us, but also a better return on the investment we make, in terms of time and effort, to promote our blogs.

Does the content provide real value in and of itself?

What constitutes “value”? The answer to that question lies with your target audience. A recent, very successful content marketing effort by CollegeHumor.com makes that point—here, value is measured in terms of laughter and fun. For your brand, “value” might mean practical outcomes, inspiration, or something else.

The important thing is that the content you’re using in your content marketing strategy provides real value. That’ll get it shared more often, backlinked more often, and more search traffic than lower-value content that exists merely to beat your own drum. Also, high-value content is likely the only kind that will meet the points we talked about above.

Your content marketing plans

As I said, the possibilities for content marketing are almost endless, but the factors I’ve touched on here are among those that make good content marketing really great. Which ones are you using, and which have been the most successful for you? Share your experiences with us in the comments.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What Makes Good Content Marketing Great?

Over the last few years I’ve hosted two events here in Melbourne for bloggers. What started in 2009 as a quickly pulled together and very cramped and crowded event for 150 bloggers has grown considerably.

Today, tickets have gone on sale for our October Event and it is going to be big—both in terms of attendee numbers, the venue itself, and what we’re setting out to achieve.

This year’s Problogger Training Event will be held over two days at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium (or rooms within the stadium). The dates are 12-13 October.

Great speakers

The majority of our speaker lineup is from Australia’s amazing blogging community (we have some innovative and entrepreneurial bloggers here) but we’re also flying in Chris Guillebeau to bring a little international flavour. Chris will be presenting twice—once as a keynote and once in a workshop.

Other speakers and panelists include myself (I’ll be involved in three or four sessions), Sarah Wilson, Shayne Tilley (Web Marketing Ninja and regular contributor here on ProBlogger), Nicole Avery, James Tuckerman, Jules Clancy, Stan Lee, Mrs Woog, Valerie Khoo, and a load more (see the full list of confirmed speakers and panelists here).

A focus upon building profitable blogs

The focus of this year’s event will be much more upon monetization and building profitable blogs. While we’ll touch on some more general topics in the course of the event, the feedback from last year was that attendees wanted training on how to monetize.

As a result, we’re featuring sessions that are very much on the topic of making money through a variety of methods. This will include sessions looking at the different models available to bloggers, advertising and working with brands, ebook creation, courses and membership areas, selling your services, sponsored posts, and much more.

Solid training

The style of teaching at this event is a combination of keynotes, panels, and interactive sessions. However, based on feedback from last year we’re including more keynote presentations than previously, to allow for more intentional training that leads attendees through processes.

While there will be plenty of time for networking, discussion, and a little fun at this years event, the feedback from our second event last year was that we’d put on the most solid training event in Australia for bloggers—we only want to strengthen that.

My intent for this event is that bloggers not only walk away with theoretical teaching, but with practical advice and strategies that they can implement immediately.

You can see our preliminary schedule here.

Secure your tickets today

Tickets for the event this year will be price at $299.99 AUD but we currently have a limited number on sale for $249.99 AUD.

This price covers the two days of training, a networking breakfast on day one, all lunches and morning/afternoon breaks, drinks and food at a networking event (at one of Melbourne’s finest eateries) on the evening of the first day, as well as a Digital Pass to the event (where you get access to audio recordings of the event and PDFs of the presentations).

Sponsors

This price is as affordable as we can possibly make it, thanks to the support of some amazing sponsors—a special thanks to our Gold and Silver sponsors MYOB, Yellow Pages, Curtin University.

We do have a limited number of sponsorship spots still available for brands wanting to reach out to the Australian blogging community and beyond.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Early Bird Tickets On Sale for Melbourne ProBlogger Event—#PBEVENT

This guest post is by Mitt Ray of The White Paper Blog.

With the rise in inbound marketing, more and more blogs are using white papers to promote themselves effectively. Blogs can use white papers as part of their marketing campaigns to spread expertise, generate leads, get more subscribers, and to take advantage of many other benefits. If you’re keen on learning how to write effective white papers and then use them to promote your blog, then you have to read this post!

What is a white paper?

A white paper is a cross between a magazine article and a brochure. It possesses both the educational qualities of a magazine article and the persuasive qualities of a corporate brochure. This combination of education and persuasion makes it one of the most powerful marketing tools.

How do white papers differ from guides and reports?

Guides and reports are helpful documents that usually dwell into the solution right away. There’s a brief paragraph or two as to why the guide is helpful and why they need to read the guide, and then the helpful information starts.

A white paper, on the other hand, dwells into the problems first. A white paper usually starts with a headline and an introduction which explains what the white paper is about, and how it’s going to help the reader. Then there’s a detailed description of the problems faced by the reader. The white paper goes into detail about every problem faced by the reader and how it affects them and their business. After making the problems clear, the white paper discusses the appropriate solutions in details.

This is the main difference between a white paper and a guide—a white paper dwells on the problems before providing the solution. One more difference is that the white paper has a persuasive brochure at the end which usually sells a service or product relevant to the solution in the white paper. This can play an important lead generation. Another important point to keep in mind is that white papers can be scientific with a lot of references.

When should you use a white paper and not a guide?

As I mentioned above, a white paper can be a fantastic tool to promote your blog, but you can’t always use it. If you want to use a white paper to promote your blog, you need to make sure that a white paper would suit your blog topic, your audience, etc. A white paper might be a fantastic marketing tool for some blogs, but it might not be for others.

For example, I have two blogs on marketing: one of them is on white papers, and the other’s on social media and inbound marketing. On my white paper blog I give away the free white paper on how to write white papers. This works because people who visit my website are people looking to learn more about white papers and how to write them—therefore a white paper on how to write white paper acts as a helpful document and sample, and this helps promote my blog.

When I first started my other blog on social media and inbound marketing, I offered the free white paper “How to get started with inbound marketing.” This white paper explained the problems with outdated marketing methods, how inbound marketing works, and how to get started with it. This white paper did well, as I was able to display the problems and solutions clearly and white papers do play a role in inbound marketing.

Recently, though, I took that off the site and replaced it with a guide on how to get started with Pinterest. I could have written a white paper on it, but I decided to use a guide as a white paper on Pinterest would have been redundant. If I wrote a white paper on how to use Pinterest, I’d need to talk about the problems with other social media and image-sharing sites and I didn’t feel that this would be appropriate. Also, I wanted to make a free guide which doesn’t have any marketing messages or information about any of my services. This is why I decided to write a guide instead of a white paper.

If you want to write a white paper for your blog or to promote your business you need to be clear about your aims, your audience, your topic, etc. and then decide if it would be better off to use a white paper or to stick with a guide. Normally it’s best to use a white paper if you’re providing a service or product in the B2B sector. Sometimes white papers might not work in the B2C sector; the best thing to do in those cases is to use a guide instead.

How can blogs use white papers?

Whether your blog is part of a business, or whether it’s a standalone blog, there are plenty of ways you can use a white paper to promote your blog or your business. Here are a few ideas.

How can an independent blog and a blog that is part of a company use white papers?

The different ways in which standalone blogs, and blogs that are part of businesses, can use white papers include:

1. Get more subscribers: One of the best ways to get many people to sign up to your newsletter is by offering a free white paper in exchange for the signup. When you let people know that they get a free white paper in exchange for their email addresses they will readily give you their names and email addresses. For this to work well you need to make sure the white paper you give away is in relation to the topic you blog on.
2. Rejuvenate old blog posts: If you are disappointed with the amount of traffic your old posts are receiving, then the best thing to do is to convert them into a white paper. You could select some of the best posts which did well in the past and combine them together to create a powerful white paper. This way you will be happy with the extra recognition some of your hard work is receiving, and your reader will be happy with the quality content you provide.
3. Increase blog traffic: A white paper can also be used to increase blog traffic. Your white paper doesn’t just have to contain content and pictures—it can also contain links to blog posts on your website. For example, if you need to define a term or explain something clearly, you can just add a link to the blog post from your white paper, instead of adding heaps and heaps of secondary content to the white paper itself.
4. Attract backlinks: A well-written white paper can be fantastic link bait. If your white paper is written really well, and is unique and contains lot of fantastic tips, people will want to link to it. If someone’s writing a tip on SEO and they feel that your white paper is the best resource for more information on a particular tip, they will want to link to it. This can help you get a ton of backlinks which can, of course, help improve your website’s search engine rankings.

How can blogs that are part of a business use white papers?

Below is a list of the benefits of white papers to blogs that are part of a business. These advantages usually don’t apply to independent blogs:

1. Spread expertise: If your white paper is filled with amazing tips which can help readers run their businesses better, it can help you or your company gain recognition and authority as an expert in te field. And what’s the advantage of being “the expert”? Everybody wants to work with the expert!
2. Generate leads: As mentioned above, white papers can be used to generate leads for a service. After reading your white paper, people have two choices: they can either try out the tips you have provided by themselves, or they can hire the expert who has provided these tips. It’s more likely that they are going to hire the expert, as people prefer to work with someone experienced who has produced results, instead of taking a chance themselves. This is exactly what your white paper proves. In this way, it can increase your chances of landing the job.
3. Sell products: White papers can be used not only to sell a service, but also to sell products. At the end of your white paper in the brochure section, you can let people know about your product, explaining how it provides the solution you’ve described in the white paper. This can really help to increase the sales of your products. White papers are commonly used to sell expensive products.

How to create white papers from your blog posts

You can either create white papers from scratch, or from your blog posts. Given that we’re all bloggers, I’m going to teach you how to create white papers from blogs post. If you would like to learn how to create white papers from scratch, read my white paper on How to Write White a Paper!

Contents of a white paper

A white paper usually consists of:

• headline
• sub-headline
• an introduction
• a statement of the problem
• an explanation of the best solutions
• a “brochure” section that explains your offering.

If your blog has been around for a while, you can probably get all the above required information for a white paper from your blog posts. In fact, you can take any solution-focused blog post and use it to build a white paper.

A blog post usually consists of a headline, followed by the introduction where you briefly write about a problem. Next comes the main part of the post, where you write the solutions to the problem in detail. As you can see, it’s pretty easy to either repurpose blog posts, or use them as the basis, to create your white paper.

Creating the white paper

As I mentioned earlier, white papers usually detail problems, then follow up with solutions to these problems. So let’s start off by taking all the blog posts you plan to include in your white paper. Make sure all these posts are on the same subject or belong to the same niche.

1. Write down the problems

Write down a list of all the problems from the blog posts you have amassed. After you have written them down, go through them thoroughly.

Now, write down a brief introduction to the Problems section of the white paper. This needs to be written briefly, based on all the problems you listed.

After you finish writing this introduction, you can start listing out each of the problems and describe them in detail. Make sure you expand on those few lines you wrote earlier. You want each problem’s description to be between 100 and 400 words long.

After you have listed all the problems, write down a brief conclusion which tells the reader that the problems stated can be solved with simple solutions. This conclusion should lead the reader into the Solutions section of the white paper.

2. Write down the solutions

For the Solutions section of the white paper, you can use the same solutions you provided in your blog posts. You might need to modify it a bit to suit the white paper and the detailed problems you just wrote.

First, start off by writing a headline and brief introduction to the Solutions section. Here, write about all the solutions you plan to discuss, and how they can help solve the problems you’ve already covered.

After that introduction, list the solutions one by one and copy in the content from your blog posts, modifying the content so that it reads well in sequence and so that the problems and solutions match each other perfectly. This will improve the flow of the white paper and make it easy to read.

3. Write a conclusion

At the end of the Solutions section, write down your conclusion. The Conclusion should lead the reader into the brochure section of the white paper. You need to let the reader know that the tips you have provided in the white paper do work, and if they would like to try out a product or service that provides the same solution they should keep reading…

4. Create the brochure section

After the Conclusion, it’s time to create the brochure section of the white paper. Here, you can just give a brief outline of your blog or business, and then follow it with the benefits of your product or service. At the end, don’t forget to include a linked call to action which asks the reader to contact you to find out more about your product or service.

5. Write the Introduction and headline

After you finish writing the Problems, Solutions, and Brochure sections of the white paper, go back to the beginning and write the headline, sub-headline, and the introduction. I like to leave this task till last, because by the end of the writing, I know exactly what’s in my white paper and how I’ve pitched the problems and solutions. Writing the Intro and headline last means I can make sure that they pre-empt the content of the white paper very well.

First write an attention-grabbing headline and sub-headline that will convince the reader to read the rest of the white paper.

For the introduction, all you need to do is sum up the contents of the white paper in around 300 to 500 words. Here, just outline some of the contents of the white paper. Let the reader know what the white paper is about, mention some of the important problems and solutions that are discussed here, and highlight how they will find the information helpful.

Think of the introduction as a mini-white paper, or a teaser. Don’t give away too much information in the introduction, as you still want the reader to read the rest of the white paper and find out more about what it contains by themselves.

6. Check the flow

After you finish writing the entire white paper, read it several times to make sure all the contents of the white paper complement each other and fit in well together. This will improve the flow of your white paper and make it easy to read.

If you follow this process you should be able to create a powerful white paper from your blog posts. You can then use this white paper to take advantage of all the benefits mentioned above.

Have you ever created a white paper from your blog posts? Have you got any other tips you would like to share with us? Please share your comments with us below.

Mitt Ray blogs about white papers on “The White Paper Blog,” where you can download his free white paper on “How to Write a White Paper.” He is the Founder of Social Marketing Writing and the Director of imittcopy. He is also the author of the book White Paper Marketing. You can follow him on @MittRay.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Create White Papers From Your Blog Posts and Use Them Effectively

This guest series is by Greg McFarlane of Control Your Cash.

Image courtesy stock.xchng user lusi

Welcome to the final installment in our hexalogy, concerning how to sell blog products in an era when people are reaching into their pockets and finding mostly lint. So far, we’ve discussed how to plan out products drawn from your expertise, create them, distinguish yourself from your competitors, test-market, figure out how much to charge, and find a clientele. If you’re late to the party, check out the previous parts of this series, right from the start, before going any further.

Say you’ve done all of the above. Now, the only remaining step is to get the sale. Sounds obvious, but all the preliminary work means nothing if you don’t close. You need to tell people to buy, rather than just crossing your fingers and hoping that they might.

It’s not just writing…

There’s a certain finesse required with this. You don’t sell in the same voice in which you entice, cajole, or inform. Lots of bloggers have trouble making the transition. If you’re going to put yourself out there as a seller of “you-branded” content, you don’t have the luxury of stumbling through and hoping that your sales pitch falls on receptive ears.

At this point, considering how much you’ve put in, selling yourself is mandatory, not optional. You have to use language forcefully, more forcefully than you do in your blog posts. Burrow into your prospect’s head, and by extension, your prospect’s wallet.

Focusing on the benefits

There’s a timeless axiom in the advertising business: People don’t want a bar of soap, they want clean hands.

The benefit of the product is far more important than the product itself. When you instead start focusing on the product—which, granted, you expended considerable effort to create—you’re not exactly empathizing with your clientele. It’s supposed to be about them, not you. No one cares how many hours you spent interviewing people for the DVD series you’re selling. Nor could anyone be less interested in how many pages your ebook is. (Beyond a certain point, of course. If you’re going to charge $329 for a three-page ebook, it had better contain the GPS coordinates for the Ark of the Covenant.)

No, cost-conscious buyers—any discerning buyers, really—want to know the answer to the universal question:

What’s in it for me?

How are you going to make your readers’ lives easier/simpler/richer? State how you’re going to do it. Yes, it’s great that you poured your heart and soul into your work, but that doesn’t necessarily make it sellable.

The human tendency is to concentrate on oneself, rather than other people. Which makes perfect sense—of course you’ll brush your own teeth and wash your own windows before doing the same for your neighbor. But if you want other people’s money, you have to force yourself to think about them first, as unnatural as that might sound.

Here’s an example of what not to write to get people to buy your products. The example is technically fictional, but it’s a composite of other bloggers’ calls-to-action:

“Starting today, I’m running a discount on my latest project. You can get my 36-page, 8,459-word ebook for just $11.99. This ebook, Car Noises And How To Diagnose Them, is the result of many months of research, and is now being made available to you for a special introductory price.”

Wow. Thanks for doing me the favor of offering to take my money. This is like the employee who walks into the boss’s office requesting a raise, and the first point he cites is how many hours of uncompensated overtime he puts in. Or that he has a baby on the way. You need to give your employer, or anyone else in the position of enriching you, a reason for doing so. Again, concentrate on the end users here. Without them, you and your product are nothing.

Here’s an alternative sales script, one that focuses on the buyer. It’s longer, but it also (hopefully) appeals to the buyer’s senses:

“Your car makes an unfamiliar noise. So naturally, your first reaction is to drive to the nearest mechanic, and waste maybe half an hour in the waiting room, putting yourself at the mercy of a professional whose livelihood rests on finding as many things wrong with people’s cars as possible.

For the love of God, don’t. Stop throwing your money away. That knock you hear doesn’t mean you need a new $1400 transmission assembly. It means you need to spend a couple more dollars on higher-octane fuel. That ear-splitting undercarriage rattle can be quieted in seconds, with the appropriate ratchet and a quarter-turn of your wrist.

My new ebook, Car Noises And How To Diagnose Them, breaks down the most common, least pleasant sounds that can emanate from your car. It tells you where they originate, what they mean, and how to prevent them. Some will require a look from a technician, but you’ll be amazed how many won’t. Fix them yourself instead, and you’ll save untold time, money and aggravation.

Car Noises And How To Diagnose Them includes sound files of dozens of the most common noises, along with complete directions on how to locate and assess them. Download it here for just $12, and I’ll include a mobile link for iOS and Android (because very few car noises occur when you’re sitting in front of your computer at home).”

Obviously that sales treatment isn’t going to be suitable for your blog and its products, but you get the idea. People are more budget-conscious these days than they’ve been in some time. They will part with their money, but you need to give them a compelling reason to.

Drawing the line

This doesn’t mean you should be penning advertising copy with dubious assertions. (“Scientifically proven to regrow hair!”) Quite the contrary. If there’s ever a time to be honest, it’s when you’re explaining to your readers what your products can do for them. Your readers will respect you for it, and if you give them value, they’ll spread the word.

For an established blogger, creating products that extend that blog can be a rewarding way to engage your readers and foster an ever-growing audience. For an up-and-coming blogger, selling a worthwhile product can cement your reputation as an authority in your field all the more quickly. Creating blog products takes plenty of time and effort, and while selling them in a rough economy can be a challenge, it’s such challenges that separate the average bloggers from the remarkable ones.

Say what your product’s benefit is (not what your product is, what its benefit is.), and sell.

Key points

• Understand that writing sales copy is different than blogging.
• Don’t write about yourself.
• Don’t write about your product.
• Write about your product’s benefits.
• Practise makes perfect: keep trying to improve your sales writing skills.

That’s it for our tour of the tricky business of building blog products that sell. How are your products selling at the moment? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Greg McFarlane is an advertising copywriter who lives in Las Vegas. He recently wrote Control Your Cash: Making Money Make Sense, a financial primer for people in their 20s and 30s who know nothing about money. You can buy the book here (physical) or here (Kindle) and reach Greg at greg@ControlYourCash.com.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Build Blog Products That Sell 6: Tell the World