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Make Money Online Center

2009-10-21T13:04:00.001-07:00

Make Money Online Center

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 08:28 PM PDT

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Where we talk about the delicate issue of making money online. We will explore all possible ways available to make money online

Make Money Online Center

2009-10-20T13:13:00.001-07:00

Make Money Online Center

ProBlogger: Stop Scrapers and Spammers Fast

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 05:26 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Stop Scrapers and Spammers Fast

Stop Scrapers and Spammers Fast

Posted: 19 Oct 2009 08:35 AM PDT

One of the challenges that bloggers face is what to do when others want to use your blog for their own gain by either taking your content or spamming your comments section. The more I talk to bloggers about how they deal with these issues the more I realize how many different approaches there are to the problems. Today Seth Waite from Blogussion shares his approach. I’d love to hear your approach (whether it be different or the same in comments below).

Every blogger quickly learns the reality of hard work in blogging. After the “make money fast” hype has wore off and the reality that blogging is a great way to earn an income if you work for it has set in, you are left with a choice?

The choice is whether to stay in blogging or not. Many bloggers decide to stay but are again left with another extremely important decision. Should I put the effort into become a great blogger or just try to still do things the easy way and hope things will be different for me?

Those choosing to work hard begin the process of learning and eventually find success by learning, networking and earning their way to better blogging. Bloggers who are unwilling to face reality either quite or eventually become spammers, scrappers, or beggars.

I am not going to address the problem of bloggers who beg for help without working for it, but I do want to talk about spammers and scrappers. Most importantly, I want every hard working blogger to know how to stop selfish bloggers trying to use your work disrespectfully to help them.

Stopping Spam

The easiest way to stop spammers who are trying to get you to link to their blog/site is by controlling your comments and trackbacks. Although essential to building a great blog community, comments must be moderated to ensure your actual readers feel comfortable with the discussions on your blog.

Captcha

Commenting at first was easily controlled by forcing commentators to put their email address into the comment form. Spammers quickly got around this and now a very easy way to stop spammers is by adding a captcha feature to your blog comments.

Captcha is already used by Blogger and easily adds to Wordpress and other blogging platforms with plugins. The way it works is that you put in a series of numbers or letters from a visual image in order to post your comment. Other systems require you to add the numbers or fill in the form based on another easy question. Using captcha is a quick and easy way to minimize your blog’s spam, but it may also be annoying to regular readers.

Plug-ins

For many blog platforms, like Wordpress, a simple plug-in will solve many of the spam problems. The most common spam blocker is Akismet, which is now available for over 20 other blogging platforms besides Wordpress. Using this plug-in on your blog is simple and requires you to only check to make sure occasional comments are not being counted as spam. In addition to the normal comment protection it provides, it goes above and beyond captchas by protecting your blog against unwanted trackbacks.

Stopping Scrappers

Scrappers are bloggers who steal content you produced and put the entire work on their own blogs and websites. The practice sadly is common and creates reproductions of your content around the web. Luckily most search engines are good at recognizing the original content, but scrapping is illegal and damaging to the blogger and blogging.

Identify: The first step to stopping scrappers is by identifying your content and checking for copies. An easy way to do this is by using the sites CopyGator or Copyscape to check for the originality of your content and any potential duplicates.
Ask: Once you have found scrappers who have copied your material [note: the content duplication should be significant and their reasons should be to represent your content as their own, not to promote yours] email the owner or comment on the blog/site where the duplicate is found. In most cases the scrapper will take it down and apologize for misrepresenting the work. Always try this first so that the blogosphere can stay friendly and young bloggers who might be making an innocent mistake will learn without being accosted.
Block: The next step if they are unresponsive or belligerent to your requests is to use .htaccess to block the scrappers from your blog. This can be a little bit tricky for anyone who has never done this before, but here is a great link to learn how to stop scrappers [item #9]. Basically you are blocking the access of the scrappers from receiving your blog and rss feed.
Take Action: At this point you have been nice, notified them of their misdeed, blocked their access and still the content is ripped off and on their site. The next way to get your content off of their site is by contacting the site’s ISP or hosting. The easiest way to find that out is by using Who.is and just inputting the site’s web address into their search bar. The hosting information will then show up with the rest of the site’s information. Once you have the host information contact them with a formal letter or email specifically claiming what and where the content originated and where it has been reproduced. The host will then quickly take down the content and offer the site owner a chance to explain themselves. Warning, this is serious for everyone involved so do not use this lightly. If this does not work there is yet one more option. This is legal action. Filed suits can be taken up depending on the scrapper’s home country and legal system.

Stopping scrappers and spammers will not only protect your work but also encourage the internet to be a better place. Every time a spammer is thwarted, other bloggers win too. So be an internet community builder by taking the proper steps to stop content thieves.

Seth Waite is Editor at Blogussion.com and enjoys helping every blogger reach their blogging goals. to contact Seth directly, just find him on Twitter @Seth1492

What’s Your Approach

From Darren: as mentioned in the introduction to this post - there are many stances that bloggers take on these issues, particularly when it comes to scrapers. Many take a similar line to Seth while others are more lenient and take the approach that as long as someone’s reading their content somewhere that it doesn’t worry them. What do you do? What tools do you use?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Stop Scrapers and Spammers Fast

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Make Money Online Center

2009-10-19T13:05:00.001-07:00

Make Money Online Center

ProBlogger: How to Use Apture

Posted: 19 Oct 2009 05:17 AM PDT

ProBlogger: How to Use Apture

How to Use Apture

Posted: 18 Oct 2009 08:17 AM PDT

By Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Do you want to create posts that sparkle, dance, enthral, touch the heart, and inform? Do you want your blog to stand out, and subscribers to scramble in at the door? Then I suggest you check out what the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the World Wildlife Fund, the blog of Tim Ferris, and Goodlife ZEN all have got in common: they use Apture.

Apture is a plugin that transforms an ordinary blog posts into an extraordinary media experience.

Here’s what Jim Brady, the Executive Editor of the Washington Post says about Apture:

Apture adds a new dimension - a web of information - inside washingtonpost.com stories, and continues our mission of bringing readers the most comprehensive and in-depth news coverage.

The most important feature of this award-winning plugin is that readers can access additional information - without having to leave your page. Whether it’s a Wikipedia article, a related blog post, or a video - all can be integrated seamlessly into a post. And Apture is free for blogs with less than 5 million visitors per month.

So are bloggers thronging to use Apture?

No - not yet. Typical responses I get are “It seems like advertising and it makes a site look too busy.” I don’t agree. I think Apture rocks!

10 reasons why I love Apture:

It’s free.
It saves time.
It keeps my readers onsite for longer.
I can create a multimedia experience for my readers.
I can offer a greater depth of content through layers of information.
I can shape and control the ambience of my blog.
I can use high resolution images and videos without bandwidth headaches.
I can draw readers deep into my blog through using attractive links to related posts.
Apture is stylish.
It’s creative, and it’s fun.

I think there are two reasons why bloggers are slow to embrace Apture. Firstly, bloggers don’t know how to use Apture. Which is hardly surprising, seeing that Apture lacks a user guide and tutorials. Not only does Apture lack information on how to use it, the team manages to hide some of the best features - which is an interesting kind of reverse-marketing. Secondly, Apture works with popups, and popups are seen as spammy advertising gadgets.

Are all pop-ups spammy?

A criticism frequently leveled at Apture is that it ‘looks like ads’. That’s because we associate pop-ups with nasty advertising. ‘In-text advertising’ or ‘contextual advertising’ means that links in the text lead to adverts, and not to further information. Some of the worst offenders are Vibrant Media, and Kontera. Personally, I hate contextual ads. They seem to me a betrayal of our readers. After all, readers come to a blog for information or entertainment - and not because they want to be shopped by the blogger.

Contextual advertising has created enhanced hyperlinks, called ‘blooms’. This means that a link can ‘bloom up’ into an image, a video, an article, a flash advert, and so on. There are other products on the market that are easily confused with Apture, for example Snap - which also ‘blooms up’ contextual links. Snap is primarily an advertising tool and gives bloggers and readers little or no control over their online experience. Snap uses pesky auto links, i.e., it automatically creates links in a post.

In contrast, Apture places control firmly in the hands of the blogger and the reader. A blogger can choose what she or he would like to link to, and the reader can determine how they want to use Apture. And they can even disable it. A new player on the market is Zemanta. You can read a review of Apture vs. Zemanta.

I’m sure you can see why Apture is treated with suspicion by many bloggers. I mean, who wants a spammy gadget on their blog!

But forget about ads for a moment. You see, the Apture guys had a brilliant idea: they decided to use the latest in-text advertising technology in order to create layers of information, so that the reader can understand the wider context of a particular topic, or drill down into more detail.

Apture is the art of adding layers of information to your blog posts, and wrapping multimedia around your readers.

You can see why the big newspapers have rushed to embrace Apture for their online resources. After all, their mission is to drive more and better information to the readers. Bloggers have yet to discover how Apture can transform their work. In this post you can learn how to use Apture, and get a taste of what it can do.

First up are step by step instructions on how to use Apture (including links to 5 training videos), followed by a section on Apture for minimalists. Next, I confront the Apture team with some challenging questions. And finally, you can find out how to wow your readers with Apture. In this section I discuss a post by blogger Arvind Devalia whose inspired use of Apture demonstrates that this plugin can transform a good post into a brilliant one. (If you’re short on time, head directly to Arvind’s 6 Key Lessons in Life From a 140 Year Old Man in order to get a sense of what Apture can accomplish. Make sure you click on all the links to get the full juice. There are some surprises…)

1. How to download Apture

Apture is configured for a variety of different blogging platforms, such as WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, Ning, Tumblr, and Drupal. You can can download Apture here. (If you use Blogger, Typepad, of Tumblr, you’ll need the Apture Firefox plugin.) In this post with its accompanying training videos, the focus is on using Apture in WordPress. If you’re not familiar with how to upload a WP plugin, watch Episode 1 of my screencast series Apture Made Easy.

2. How to install Apture

Installing a plugin is normally an easy process, but Apture is a little different, because there is an additional activation process. You can watch Episode 2 of my Apture Made Easy series.

Here is a short summary of action for more experienced bloggers: Once you’ve uploaded the plugin, activate it like any other plugin. When you then write a new post for the first time, a popup offers to install a short piece of code automatically into your site. You will also need to register with Apture at this point. If the code hasn’t installed, copy it and paste it before the last body tag in the footer code.

Apture has two widgets, the Link Widget and the Embed Widget. Together they make up the Media Hub. The Link Widget creates an in-text link - whether it’s an internal link which opens directly on your page, or an external link which transports the reader to another website. The Embed Widget takes objects, such as images, videos, etc, and embeds then into the post.

3. How to use the Apture Link Widget.

Apture links work just like plain links. For example the blog you link to gets ‘link juice’ - even through your readers dodn’t need to leave your page in order to follow the link. Watch Apture Made Easy Episode 3 for detailed information on how to use the Link Widget.

In brief, when you highlight words and click on the Link Widget ( the one of the right-hand side), a window opens that allows you to choose what to link to.Here is what you can do with the Link Widget:

Link to Wikipedia or other information sources. Scroll bars in the popups allow the readers to read a complete Wikipedia article. You can also choose Wikipedia articles different languages. You can also link to a particular section in Wikipedia.
Link to other websites. The links function like plain links,i.e. the blog you link to with Apture gets link juice - without the reader having to leave your site. You can also find links you previously made with Apture.
Internal links Apture links are a great way to entice readers deep into your blog. I use the Embed Widget in order to link to previous posts. Each Apture popups contain a post image and a snippet of text and looks very attractive. Here’s how to link to a previous post: click on the Embed Widget, and then choose ‘Enter a Specific URL’ . The Preview will show you what the link will look like. If you have more than one image in your post, you can select which one - if any - should appear with your post.
External links: You can choose to use Apture for plain external links that open in a separate window.
Customizing your sources: you add additional sources from Apture to pull from.
How to add links: check out the short article from the Apture team that explains how to add multiple links.
Twitter links: The Apture team has come up with some great options for embedding Twitter. You can link to a single Tweet, or show Twitter search trends. You can even embed your Friendfeed in your blog. Check out a YouTube video that shows some of the cool Apture tricks for Twitter. I think that Twitter fans will be all aflutter over these options.

4. How to use the Apture Embed Widget

Sourcing and embedding media is a snap with Apture. You can find step-by-step intructions in Episode 4 of my Apture Made Easy video series. Here is what you can do with the Embed Widget:

Embed images: Using Apture saves me a lot of time. For example when I use an image from Flickr, the shortest time it takes me to source, resize, embed, and credit an image is 06:48 minutes. The same process with Apture takes me just 44 seconds. Check out how to use Creative Commons images in Apture. If you use stock images, you can upload the images from your computer quickly resize them with Apture, using the ‘Upload File’ function. Check out how to resize images.
Embed audio: Apture embeds an elegant audio player. At present, music can only be sourced from Imeem and NPR. It would be good to see greater range audio sources, including radio stations outside of the US, such as BBC, etc. In order to upload audio podcasts, I suggest you upload the audio to Amazon S3, and then link to the file using the Apture Embed Widget.
Embed video: At present Apture supports videos by YouTube, Reuters, Truveo, Dailymotion, Imeem Video. If you want to embed your own flash videos, you may run into problems. Apture works with a fixed size of 320px wide and 250px high. In other words, Apture only supports videos that have the Standard Definition aspect ratio of 4:3 , and not ones with the High Definition aspect ratio of 10:9. (I have been assured by the Apture team that this flaw will be fixed very soon.)
Embed YouTube. With Apture you can control start and stop times of YouTube videos. This means that you can choose a clip from a YouTube video to support your post.
Use captions: You can use captions on all your embeds.
Add Additional content: You can add up to 6 pieces of additional content to your main link. The additional content is visible in thumbnails beneath the main embedded item. Watch this excellent video by the Apture team on the effect of adding additional content to one link: Why Include 1 Piece of Content When You Can Include 7

5. How to update a published post with one click

Let’s say you’ve published a post and some new information has come to light. Maybe a commenter has suggested a link, or you’ve found a new image that you want to include in your post. The old way of updating your post is laborious: you need to go into your WP dashboard, bring up the post, make changes, and save them.

With Apture, all you need is to go to your published post and bring up your Apture Dashboard by clicking ‘e’. (This is a widget that hovers on top of your published post. Then you can make changes to the published post by highlighting text and adding new links or images. Watch Episode 5 of my series Apture Made Easy for step by step instructions on how to use the Apture Dashboard.

6. Reader control

The reader is in control of her or his reading experience. A small question-mark in the bottom right-hand corner of each Apture ‘bloom’ leads to a popup where readers can customize their Apture experience. They can disable Apture completely, or choose whether Apture links open through a hover, or through a click.

7. Apture for minimalists

Hard-core minimalists may think that Apture look too busy on a page. I think it depends very much on how you use it. I recently ran a Virtual Zen Retreat and used Apture in order to create the daily retreat posts. I used images that supported the calm retreat ambience. I also embedded a couple of videos in order to sharpen the focus of particular posts. My aim was to create a calm retreat ambience that allows participants to deepen their experience. The feedback showed that it worked: most participants mentioned how much they loved the calming images and inspiring videos.

My suggestion to minimalists is to use Apture in a - well - minimal way. For example minimalists could use Apture just for fast selection of images, or for attractive internal links.

8. Apture secrets revealed

Apture hides many of its top features. (Note to the Apture team: how about installing a search function on your site?). Here are some features even die-hard users may not know about:

Apture uses Amazon S3 to store all media it provides links for, without passing the storage cost on to users.
Google Street View is supported by Apture. Watch this fascinating demo on what this could do for your blog.
Apture provides support for Linkedin profiles
Bing web and image search is integrated into Apture.
Apture supports super-search engine Lijit.
Apture integrates into URL shortener Kiw.is.
Apture supports Wikinvest. You can insert stock charts within their apturized embeds and links.
Apture has partnered with SlideShare, a community for sharing presentations where individuals or organizations can upload and share PowerPoint, PDF, or OpenOffice presentations. Check out how Apture integrates with Slideshare.

9. How to monetize your blog with Apture

As you can imagine, Apture has great potential for monetization, especially for blogs selling products. I use Amazon Affiliate links on Goodlife Zen and I’ve notice that since using Apture, my Amazon affiliate income has increased by 28%.

I am sure that there are many ways to monetize your blog with Apture. Here are two tips: if your blog is focused on Real Estate, read how Apture can help the Real Estate community make more sales.If you write about the Stock Marked try embedding real-time stock charts on their site.

10. Confronting the Apture team: questions and answers

Transparency is important. If we as bloggers want to engage with Apture and learn to use it, we need to be able to trust the company and know that it isn’t going to change the rules on us. So I asked Andrew Machado

When we invest our energy into learning how to use a major plugin, such as Apture, it’s important to be sure that we’re not going to encounter problems further down the track. So I asked Andrew Machado from the Apture team some searching questions (Andrew is the Community Manager at Apture and runs the Apture Blog.)

Question #1 Is Apture safe?
Answer: Apture was vetted by the technical and security diligence of the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, and Reuters tech teams. We’ve also tested to make sure Apture is compatible with other WordPress plugins.

Question: If I decided to deactivate the plugin, would I lose all the images, videos and links created with Apture?
Answer: All baked Apture links will turn into regular hyperlinks pointing to their primary destination (Reference, Maps, Videos, Images, ….). All embedded images will remain while Videos turn into screenshots of the video which link to the video when clicked. Documents and Reference Viewers will turn into an image representing document or reference content that links to the document in question.

Question: When a new version of WordPress appears, how fast can you update the plugin? Will there be down times until you’ve adapted the plugin to a new WP version?
Answer: The plugin code responsible for inserting our JavaScript (which enables the viewing experience) is extremely small (10-20 lines) and interacts with a part of WordPress that is extremely stable over time. Very major changes to WordPress might cause problems with the editing aspect of Apture. Because of this (and for general compatibility) we test with pre-release versions of WordPress so the update is always ready in time for new WordPress releases.

Question: Can you confirm that for bloggers (below 5 mill visitors a month) Apture will remain free?
Answer: Yes, we will not be charging for the (current) basic version of Apture.

Question: What’s the long-term viability of the Apture project?
Answer: We raised our Series A round about a year ago and are very happy with our current financial situation and are very actively hiring and growing the team. We are absolutely in it for the long haul and all believe in the vision behind the company. The company was incorporated in July of 2007, we received our Angel financing at the same time, launched a beta in April of 2008, launched fully in July of 2008, and raised our Series A in the fourth quarter of 2008. We have, however, been working on Apture in some form since January of 2006.

11. How to wow your readers with Apture

So far we’ve looked at Apture as a tool for adding levels of information. But for bloggers, the secret of creating outstanding posts is to turn turn a read into an experience. I asked one of the new breed of up-and-thriving bloggers -Avind Devalia of Make it Happen - to test Apture. He was reluctant and wrote: “I’ve previously tried Snap on my blog but found it distracting and irritating as the boxes seemed to open up all too frequently by just hovering over a linked phrase.”

Finally Arvind decided to rework one of his popular posts with the help of Apture! The post is about Gandhi’s enduring legacy. Against this serious background, Arvind created a counterpoint with Apture links that are playful, emotional, rousing, fascinating, and surprising. Arvind’s post leaves the reader inspired, smiling, and with a tear or two. Check out 6 Lessons in Life from a 140 year Old Man. (Make sure you click on all the links to get the full experience!)

I think Arvind’s inspired use of Apture has turned what was a good post - into a brilliant one.

12. Conclusion

I think blogging is at at crossroads between old-style blogging, and new-style blogging. Old-style blogging replicates print media. In other words, the reader’s experience is focused on a page of text, which may contain images. In this scenario, the reader follows outward-bound links in order to access more information. New-style blogging creates a multimedia experience for the reader. Bloggers are waking up to the fact that Broadband allows us to deliver not only text, but simultaneously images, videos, music, and other media to our readers. Apture is a perfect tool for new-style blogging because we can add depth and focus to a post, as well as enhance mood and message - all by using easy one-click actions.

Quite simply - if you’re not using Apture yet, you’re missing out on the hottest tool for bloggers.

You can read more by Mary Jaksch on her blog GoodlifeZen or on Write to Done where she is the Editor. Join Mary on Twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Apture

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2009-10-18T13:06:00.001-07:00

Make Money Online Center

ProBlogger: The Holy Grail to Writing Great Content - Rhetoric

Posted: 18 Oct 2009 05:09 AM PDT

ProBlogger: The Holy Grail to Writing Great Content - Rhetoric

The Holy Grail to Writing Great Content - Rhetoric

Posted: 17 Oct 2009 08:24 AM PDT

A Guest Post by Patrick Riddel from Must Know Investing.

Darren has debunked the myth that great content markets itself. There are countless blogs that produce quality content that don’t get read. Why is that? Because no one knows about them.

He followed up with a post on 9 things you can do so that your next blog post is read by more than your mom. In other words, 9 things you can do to promote your content … or as he says, “seed” rather than “force” your content.

But, what if you’re stuck at square one … writing great content.

You hear it all the time …

“Content is king! If you want to attract a massive loyal following to your blog, there is no substitute for great content.”

Well, if that’s the case, what makes certain content great? How does one go about writing great content?

This may surprise you but it’s not as much about what you write but how it’s written. Sooooo, it’s the context of your content that makes the difference. Forget “content is king” … “context is king!”

To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at one of Leo Babauta’s recent guest posts here at Problogger.

You see, Leo’s someone who can teach us a thing or two about writing great content … the kind of content that piques a readers interest quickly and effectively, the kind of content that becomes like a virus and spreads over the Internet like wildfire, the kind of content that inspires a reader to take action, the kind of content that creates a loyal following. That’s what great content is all about!

Leo wrote his first blog post in February of 2007. And today, his blog, Zen Habits, has over 130,000 subscribers and is ranked 66 in Technorati’s top 100 blogs. AND he’s in an extremely competitive niche … personal development.

So what is it that makes Leo’s content so great?

Just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have even noticed … but my quest to become a better blogger led me to the seemingly forgotten lost art of rhetoric. And rhetoric is, simply put, the effective use of language … the art of writing or speaking persuasively.

It’s obvious Leo knows about rhetoric … as you’ll see in a moment.

There are many rhetoric techniques, or rhetorical devices, that can be used to make your reader pay more attention, give a greater understanding, make your content more memorable, in an interesting and entertaining way. These techniques, these rhetorical devices are the context of your content. That’s what turns “average run of the mill content” into “exceptional I can’t put this down content”!

Let’s analyze Leo’s most recent guest post, How Passion Can Transform Your Blog, to see how he uses rhetorical devices to make his content irresistible …

“Many of the problems that many bloggers face — not drawing enough readers, not knowing what to write about, not writing well enough, not finding the time to blog — can all be solved with one solution.”

Here, Leo uses anaphora, a rhetorical device, which is the repetition of the same word(s) … as in “not drawing”, “not knowing”, “not writing”, “not finding”.

“Passion is the exact opposite: it will infuse your writing with excitement, make it more interesting, compel people to read.”

Asyndeton, or what I like to call “don’t-use-a-conjunction-ton”, he omits the use of conjunctions.

“It's not the answer to all problems — you still need to be a decent writer, and share really useful information, and help people solve problems, and write great headlines.”

Leo uses the opposite of asyndeton … polysyndeton, or what I call “over-use-of-conjunction-ton”. He says, “and share”, “and help”, “and write”.

How does Leo write such great content?

One major reason is because he uses simple rhetorical devices to enhance and improve the effectiveness of his writing. The same rhetorical devices that you can use to write great content.

Here’s a killer free resource that lists 60 rhetorical devices. Check it out at http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm

Now for your homework: Commit to studying rhetoric and making it a part of your writing. Pick 3 rhetorical devices that you WILL use in your next blog post and put them in the comment area below.

Cheers to Writing Great Content!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Holy Grail to Writing Great Content - Rhetoric

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2009-10-17T13:03:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Learn From My Mistake - Don’t Leave Money on the Table!

Posted: 17 Oct 2009 05:16 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Learn From My Mistake - Don’t Leave Money on the Table!

Learn From My Mistake - Don’t Leave Money on the Table!

Posted: 16 Oct 2009 08:08 AM PDT

Have you ever found that you’ve been leaving money on the table? It’s a frustrating feeling and one that many of us can relate to. I discovered that I’ve been doing it for the last few months - here’s my story.

I run Chitika Premium ad units on some parts of my blogs - particularly at my photography site on single pages. One ad unit that I’d had running for a while now was one that appeared above posts whenever anyone from the US arrives at my site from a search engine.

I like these ads because they don’t appear to regular readers arriving from RSS feeds, newsletters or other sites - just those people coming in from Google - PLUS the ads that show are contextual ads to the search that the person has just performed.

I’ve always found that the ads convert pretty well - but this week I realised that for months now they could have been converted ALOT better.

I made this realisation by making one simple change to one ad unit - here’s what happened to my earnings on that ad unit when I made the change.

Yep - the ad unit had been averaging around $37 a day - but in the few since making the change it’s earned around $108 a day on average - around 3 times as much!

Considering I’ve had the ad running for quite a few months now - I’ve been leaving money on the table.

OK before I tell you what change I made (and it’s so simple that I’ve been kicking myself for a week now) I want to really emphasise the take home message here - even though it is so very obviously - test your ad units!

Here’s the thing - the chitika ad that I did have in this ad position used to perform to the best of its ability. I’d previously tested it and made sure it was working well. However Chitika added a new option to their premium ads - an option that I ignored. In actual fact someone from Chitika told me to make this change months back - I got distracted (life’s busy) and never got around to doing it.

While I feel pretty stupid and am completely aware that I’ve cost myself thousands by not making this change earlier - I know I’m not alone.

Many bloggers are in the same boat. We put ads on our blogs, get them to a point where we think they’re well optimised and then move on to work on other aspects of our blog without ever coming back to make sure things are still performing at their highest potential. Ad networks change their offerings, add features and sometimes blogs just change and things that used to work well no longer do.

The lesson here is to revisit your ad units and to test if there might be someway to increase their performance. You might not see the tweaks you make bring in $70 a day like my one did - but over time the small tweaks add up!

What was the change I made?

The change was so simple - I just made the Chitika ad unit bigger. The ad unit I used to have on there was a 468×180 pixel sized ad. The new one is a 550×250 pixel ad unit. It’s considerably wider (it now takes up almost the whole width of my content area) and a little deeper.

It does push the content down the page a little but as it’s only impacting search refferal traffic and the content is still above the fold user experience isn’t impacted that much - but the ad performance is so much better (with 3-4 times the click through rate depending upon the day).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Learn From My Mistake - Don’t Leave Money on the Table!

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2009-10-16T13:03:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Usefulness - Principles of Successful Blogging #3

Posted: 16 Oct 2009 05:35 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Usefulness - Principles of Successful Blogging #3

Usefulness - Principles of Successful Blogging #3

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 06:02 AM PDT

Today we continue my series in principles of successful blogging by looking at something that is at the heart of my own philosophy of blogging (and business) - usefulness.

I’ve said it many times on ProBlogger but if your blog is not solving a problem or fulfilling a need or desire among your readers then you’re unlikely to see them return.

The needs, desires and problems you can be meeting need not be large ones - but if you’re connecting with people on these levels you’re being useful and this goes a long way towards making the type of impression on someone that draws them into a loyal relationship.

Better still - if you’re useful to someone they’re often going to tell others about it which is a big part of the growth of many successful blogs.

Examples of Useful Blogs

Being useful can take on many different forms. Lets looks at some examples of fairly well known blogs:

Mashable - gives people the latest news on Social Media but also teaches them how to use it.
Boing Boing - a blog that gives a laugh and looks at curious trends in technology
Lifehacker - helps people become more productive and be better at different technological pursuits
TMZ - feeds people’s desire to know the latest gossip and celeb news
Seth Godin - teaches on the topic of Marketing
I Can Has Cheezburger - gives people something to giggle about
Treehugger - resources people to live green
Seeking Alpha - gives financial news and advice
Zen Habits - helps people be more productive
CopyBlogger - helps bloggers write better

Now you might not read all of these blogs (and there are many thousands more that we could use as examples) - but they all have many thousands of devoted fans and daily readers, because they’re producing content that meets some kind of need, fulfils some kind of desire or solves some kind of problem.

The ways a blog can be useful are many - but here are some of the basics (taken partly from ProBlogger the Book):

Entertaining - increasingly blogs are being used as entertainment. People are going to them for laughs, for gossip and for fun conversation.
Educational - many successful blogs teach people to do or be something
Informational/News - these blogs might teach you any practical skills but they keep you up with the latest on a particular topic, location or trend
Thoughtful - some readers want a place where they can have their minds open to viewpoints.
Debate - some blogs serve as places for people to come together to have dialogue and debate around a topic.
Community - many blogs are build more on people having a sense of belonging and feeling that they’re a part of a community than the actual content.

Of course this list could go on and on and will vary from blog to blog with some meeting multiple needs and others just targeting one.

How is Your Blog Useful?

This is a question that I think bloggers would do well ponder before they start blogging as well as during the blogging process (in fact it’s probably a question to ask every day before you publish anything). Strive to meet a need and enhance people’s lives in some way and you’ll be taking a step closer to connecting with people in a way that will hopefully be part of a lasting relationship.

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2009-10-15T13:06:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: The #1 Reason My Blogging Grew Into a Business

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 05:23 AM PDT

ProBlogger: The #1 Reason My Blogging Grew Into a Business

The #1 Reason My Blogging Grew Into a Business

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 06:02 AM PDT

Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything changed?

You might not have known it at the time - but the moment was defining, it changed the course of some area of your life in a way that turned things upside down.

I had one of those course changing moments early in my blogging. It was a moment that resulted in my blogging moving from being a hobby that generated a nice bit of secondary income into a full time business.

It was a moment that at the time didn’t feel life changing - but it was.

The funny thing about this moment is that it wasn’t a discovery of some secret way to make money blogging, it wasn’t the day I stated one of my blogs… in fact it was a moment that didn’t immediately lead to any particular change on my blogs - because it was largely something that happened in my mind - a paradigm shifting moment.

It all started with 9 words from my wife (V)

‘You’ve got 6 months to make blogging full time.’

She then told me that if I didn’t get it to this kind of level I’d have to get a ‘real job’.

Up until this point I’d been talking about how blogging could one day provide us with a full time income. I’d been showing her the growth of the earnings from the blogs so far and projecting forward to what they might be in the future if things kept going.

I’d been on about it for months and things were going OK - the earnings graphs I kept showing her were trending up - I could see the possibility of one day being a full time blogger.

But I’d been talking a lot…. dreaming a lot…. creating a lot of pretty graphs…. and not really DOING a lot.

I didn’t really see it (I was too close and too caught up in my dreams) but V knew it and so she set me an ultimatum - a deadline that changed my thinking and more importantly led to me changing the way I went about my blogging.

In the moments after V’s ultimatum I had a realization that while I dreamed that one day my blogging would become a business that I’d been treating my blogging like a hobby.

I knew that if I were to succeed in going full time in the next six months that that had to change. I needed to start looking at my blogging as a business now - even though it was only earning a day or two a week’s income.

That moment changed everything.

That was the day I….

started putting serious time aside for blogging
became more focused upon my core tasks of creating content
wasted less time on distractions
became more strategic in my thinking and set myself goals to work towards
began to look for new income streams - beyond AdSense
started hustling for advertisers - ringing up businesses in my niche and pitching my blog to them
began to seek out guest writing opportunities on other blogs and even in main stream media
started setting myself deadlines for posting a certain number of posts a day and developed an editorial calendar
I started networking more with other bloggers
began to invest more time and even money into my learning of different aspects of blogging
started to look for a business coach who could teach me how to look at what I do as a business instead of a hobby

That day began the process for me of looking at what I do as a business.

While not a lot changed on my blogs that day - the impact over the last 4-5 years has been significant. I’ve not looked back and many of the things I changed back then have become patterns and a natural part of my blogging work flow.

The #1 reason my blogging grew into a business was that I began to treat it as one.

Tomorrow I want to share a free opportunity with you that I think will help many of us as bloggers to make this mind shift. You see many of us are stuck in the mindset of looking at what we do as a ‘hobby’ and need to make a shift into looking at things more as a business person.

Update: due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve pulled tomorrow’s post. I was going to promote something that I thought fit the bill but on further investigation - it doesn’t. My sincere apologies but I don’t want to promote something that doesn’t fit with my ethos.

However I do recommend people take this idea of learning how to build a successful business seriously. I did this through finding a business coach, reading books and networking with business owners (offline and online).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The #1 Reason My Blogging Grew Into a Business

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2009-10-14T13:15:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: How 12 Experts Make Money Through Their Blogs (And How You Can Learn Their Secrets)

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 05:13 AM PDT

ProBlogger: How 12 Experts Make Money Through Their Blogs (And How You Can Learn Their Secrets)

How 12 Experts Make Money Through Their Blogs (And How You Can Learn Their Secrets)

Posted: 13 Oct 2009 06:22 AM PDT

A guest post by Jade Craven

I review a lot of information products. Rarely, does one impress me as much as More Buyers Mastermind. Rather than provide a pitch, I thought I’d explain why I believe so strongly in this product.

For the busy people, here’s the rundown:

It is becoming hard to directly monetize your blog
Dave Navarro has released a seminar, featuring 12 people who are making a LOT from selling products.
This is one of the best valued products available online.
He has released a LOT of content as part of his pre-launch - including an awesome twitter contest. Read the ‘P.S’ to find out.

Why its getting harder to monetize your own blog.

It is getting harder to monetize your blog via direct methods. There are more people publishing content online and more competition for the advertisers. Additionally, the global financial crisis has also slashed the revenue of many who relied solely on few methods.

Many people are now transitioning and offering more products and services. Just look at Darren - he recently launched a paid forum and an ebook.

Solution: A teleseminar from 12 people who are making A LOT online

David found a solution: 12 people who are making a LOT from selling products and services. The More Buyers Mastermind is a seminar featuring 12 awesome bloggers. Dave interviews top talent including:

Chris Garrett
Michael Martine
Chris Guillebeau
Naomi Dunford
Brian Clark
Laura Roeder

Every person on that list makes their income based on their blog. Lets re-examine that list:

Laura Roeder sells information products and consulting services
Brian Clark creates and recommends products at Copyblogger
Chris Guillebeau makes the majority of his income from his Unconventional Guides
Michael Martine sells a SEO ebook and consults at Remarkablogger
Chris Garrett offers his freelance services and sells an e-course
Naomi sells multiple online products and brainstorming consults

Now, they still make a decent income from advertising banners and affiliate income. The bulk, however, is from the indirect methods.

You need to act fast…

After this Friday, Dave is raising the price to $197. After 30 days, it will almost triple in price.

Some people avoid buying because they assume the product will come on sale eventually. Dave doesn’t offer discounted products. I agree: his products are awesome value as it is. That’s why you should take advantage of the entry level price now - its very rare you get a seminar this valuable.

Who is Dave Navarro?

Dave Navarro is the highly successful blogger behind Rock Your Day and The Launch Coach.

He has become a good friend of mine. Ever since I reviewed ‘How to Launch the **** Out Of Your Ebook‘ here on Problogger, he has gone out of his way to help me. At first I thought he was trying to suck up but I quickly learned that he naturally loves helping people.

I am not kidding about this. Anytime I tweet about my posting commitments, he reminds me not to burn myself out. He’s THAT awesome.

Why it is so valuable:

Its less than $10 a call

I’ve bought a lot of products. Anything less than $30 a call is a bargain. Dave is offering you 12 calls for $97. You also get the additional coaching calls and workbooks. Most of these people charge over $100 for an hour of their time. Their information products are often just as high.

Dave will ask the right questions

I’ve listened to other audio products by Dave and he has the skills to get the exact information you need. You wont be paying for a product targeted to the beginners.

My final Opinion.

I’ve bought a lot of information products. Dave is one of the few people that consistently delivers.

I doubt that there will be another seminar this valuable in this price range. As Dave often says - ’Price is what you pay. Value is what you get’

Bonus 1: Competition and Content

Dave has released 3 free workbooks as part of his launch cycle. They are accompanied by three of the best blog posts I have read.

Additionally, he has launched a twitter contest with over $2000 worth of prizes.

Call to action: Click here to check out the awesome workbooks and

Bonus 2: An extra goody

Dave knows that you guys may struggle with the cost of the course. He is willing to provide you with extra value by offering one of two Problogger resource. You can choose from:

6 months free membership to the Problogger.com community
A free copy of the 31DBBB workbook

Just contact Dave after you’ve purchased. He’ll send you your product after the launch has died down.

Call to action: Click here to take advantage of this limited bonus.

Disclosure: Dave Navarro is a good friend of mine. I have received review copies of his products. This does not affect my endorsement of this product.

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How 12 Experts Make Money Through Their Blogs (And How You Can Learn Their Secrets)

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2009-10-13T13:13:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Win Dinner with ProBlogger and Special Guests at Blog World Expo 2009

Posted: 13 Oct 2009 05:33 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Win Dinner with ProBlogger and Special Guests at Blog World Expo 2009

Win Dinner with ProBlogger and Special Guests at Blog World Expo 2009

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 07:03 AM PDT

OK - this is a competition that is only for those attending Blog World Expo (please don’t comment below if you’re not attending). I know that excludes most readers but I hope we can include everyone a little by posting some pictures of the event.

The prize is a free dinner with me and some of my blogging buddies at BWE at the lovely Fiamma Trattoria and Bar** in Vegas.

I’m still confirming which other guests are coming but we have 3 spots open to ProBlogger readers - hence this competition.

Contest Rules

1. You must be attending Blog World Expo 2009 in Las Vegas, NV.
2. You must be available for dinner on Wednesday night, October 14th at 6pm. We cannot change the scheduled time or modify to suit anyone’s schedules.
3. You must provide your own transportation to and from the event.
4. Since we will need to place your name on a guest list, you will need to provide identification at the door upon arrival.
5. To enter, simply leave a comment below - make sure to use your REAL name and your most often checked email address in the name and email fields. Lara will do the draw using random.org on Tuesday at 4pm Eastern Time (NY, USA) and will contact the (3) winners privately via email. Please then confirm receipt of the email before 8pm ET.

*Please don’t leave a comment if you’re NOT available to attend the dinner. Because we’re running on very short notice, we need to keep this process as streamlined as possible, and weeding through comments wouldn’t help! Thanks for understanding!

** Dinner graciously provided by Fiamma Trattoria and Bar at MGM Grand @TasteMGMGrand.

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Win Dinner with ProBlogger and Special Guests at Blog World Expo 2009

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2009-10-12T13:17:00.001-07:00

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“Win a Weekend Pass to Blog World Expo Worth $495” plus 1 more

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 05:39 AM PDT

“Win a Weekend Pass to Blog World Expo Worth $495” plus 1 more

Win a Weekend Pass to Blog World Expo Worth $495

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 04:09 AM PDT

Today I’m running two competitions here on ProBlogger - both centre around the Blog World and New Media Expo happening in Las Vegas next week. The first (in this post) gives one lucky blogger an opportunity to get a last minute pass to attend - the other (which I’ll post about in a few hours) gives 3 readers the chance to come have dinner with me.

For those of you who’ve not heard about BWE - it’s going to be a great event with thousands of bloggers coming together to talk blogging and social media. I’ll be there and speaking on a number of panels including:

Internet Marketing for Smart People - with Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and Sonia Simone.
How to Make Money Online - at WordCamp Las Vegas with Jeremy Wright and Chris Garrett (yes I’m finally going to meet me coauthor of the ProBlogger book)
Blogging Super Panel (Live Feedback Site Reviews) - with Jim Kukral, John Chow, Zach Johnson and Brian Clark

OK - onto the first competition

The prize is a chance to win a weekend pass to attend. It’s worth $495 (see full details of what it includes here).

Please only enter this if you’re able to get to Vegas for the weekend and cover your own accommodation. This prize only gets you into the conference (and to a couple of the parties).

To enter you have to do two things:

Either write a blog post that links to Blog World Expo saying why you want to attend OR tweet a tweet that says why you want to attend and includes the #bwe09 hashtag (choose one of these options, not both).
Come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your post or tweet to prove you did it.

We’ll close off entries for this competition at midday on Wednesday Vegas time/ (yes you need to get your skates on). There is one entry per person (so don’t set tweets to go off every minute til the closing time).

Thanks to Blog World and New Media Expo for putting up this prize. If you’re coming along I do look forward to seeing you!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Win a Weekend Pass to Blog World Expo Worth $495

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How to Go from 1 to 1,000,000 Users (or Readers)

Posted: 11 Oct 2009 07:40 AM PDT

The gang over at Carsonified has released the following video this week by Kevin Rose talking about taking a web app from 1 to 1 million users.

While the video talks more about web applications and not specifically about blogging - some of the principles that Kevin talks about I think are applicable to blogging.

Taking your Site from One to One Million Users by Kevin Rose from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Go from 1 to 1,000,000 Users (or Readers)

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2009-10-11T13:21:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: What are Your Favorite 10 Blogging Tools?

Posted: 11 Oct 2009 05:05 AM PDT

ProBlogger: What are Your Favorite 10 Blogging Tools?

What are Your Favorite 10 Blogging Tools?

Posted: 10 Oct 2009 08:10 AM PDT

It’s time for a little discussion - lets talk blogging tools.

Over in the ProBlogger.com forum there’s been a lot of talk about different tools, applications, platforms and plugins that helps to improve blogs. I’m loving the different opinions and experiences and thought it’d be a good question to open up to the wider community - what are your favourite 10 blogging tools?

I suspect most of us will probably include our blogging platform (Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad etc) in the list somewhere but other than that anything goes. Perhaps it’s a comments tool, perhaps a desktop editor, perhaps a plugin or widget - anything goes!

But limit it to 10!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What are Your Favorite 10 Blogging Tools?

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2009-10-10T13:08:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: How To Backup Your WordPress Blog In Three Easy Steps

Posted: 10 Oct 2009 05:26 AM PDT

ProBlogger: How To Backup Your WordPress Blog In Three Easy Steps

How To Backup Your WordPress Blog In Three Easy Steps

Posted: 09 Oct 2009 08:23 AM PDT

A guest post on backing up your wordpress blog by Jason Tarasi

Do you want to see your blog on the side of a milk carton? No? Then keep reading because…

It is very likely this will be the most important article you read all year. Of course you can choose to skip this article, but you will regret it, especially since I am such a groovy kind of guy. Ok, I hate bellbottoms and green furniture, so maybe I’m not so groovy. However, I am going to show you an easy way to protect your most valuable marketing asset - your WordPress blog.

If you understand the difference between how to backup both your MYSQL database and your standard Word Press files, congratulations! You don’t really win anything, except peace of mind, which I consider invaluable. However, there are literally thousands of WordPress users who are in the dark about the proper way to backup their blogs (yes, I’m probably talking about you).

Unfortunately, even experienced online marketers are making this same mistake. My partner, who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars every year online, was also totally clueless. When I asked him to backup one of our membership site blogs, he sent me a zip file that just included the main WordPress files. When I asked where the database file was, he got a look on his face like he just French kissed Jabba the Hut. Since I couldn’t stand the look on his face for a minute longer, I had to explain why it was so important to have the database file.

Now this is where you should start to pay attention *cough*

Your Word Press blog is powered by a MYSQL database. This database stores all of your content and the settings for your blog. Without this database, your blog would essentially be a black hole lacking any content. Now what most people don’t know is that this database resides on another part of the hosting server. Since the file is in a different location, it needs to be backed up separately from your standard Word Press files.

So here is what all of this means; if your host has a server crash, you will not be able to restore your blog without the MYSQL database. Basically, you will be up a creek without a paddle, a boat, any food, no mapÖ you get the idea, right?

At this point you are probably telling yourself that your hosting company will backup this file for you, right? Not exactly. Many hosting companies are not responsible for backing up your files. I found this out the hard way several years ago, and it could easily happen to you next. So don’t be foolish enough to rely on your Website host to do this for you.

Now here is the good news - you can backup your MYSQL database in three easy steps by following this simple plan:

Step One:

Go and download the “Word Press Database Backup” plugin here.

Step Two:

Install the plugin on your blog.

Step Three:

Set the plugin to your desired specifications. It really is quite straightforward to setup, but you can always refer to the plugin documentation for help.

I personally set the plugin to make either a daily or a weekly backup for each of my blogs. If I post to a blog frequently, I make a daily backup. If I post infrequently, that blog is backed up on a weekly basis. I then have the backup file sent to my email. However you wish for the file to be saved is entirely up to you though. Simply use the method you are most comfortable with.

From start to finish, the entire process takes about 10 minutes per blog. That is of course if you grab a snack to slow you down. So there is absolutely no excuse not to set this up today. I would think ten minutes of your time is well worth the peace of mind you will feel when it’s done.

Now you could be lazy and find out the hard way how much fun it is to have your entire blog wiped out, with no hope of ever seeing it again.

Is ten minutes of your time worth going through that?

Discover the little known money making ideas used by the experts in my hot new ebook ‘Secret Lives of Internet Marketers’. You will discover the successful blueprint seven famous marketers used to become financially independent and how you can easily apply it to your own online business! To download my FREE REPORT instantly, follow this link below

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How To Backup Your WordPress Blog In Three Easy Steps

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2009-10-09T13:07:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: How One Blogger Made $3k a month by Helping People - And How He Can Help You

Posted: 09 Oct 2009 05:31 AM PDT

ProBlogger: How One Blogger Made $3k a month by Helping People - And How He Can Help You

How One Blogger Made $3k a month by Helping People - And How He Can Help You

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 08:26 AM PDT

A Guest post by Jade Craven.

Have you heard of Johnny B Truant? He started writing at ‘The Economy Isn’t Happening’ but recently, he revealed he’s made $10′000 in 3 months. In his Ittybiz column, he told how he made nearly $3′000 in one month. He’s also written a couple of guest posts here on ProBlogger here and here.

What really attracted me to him was that he didn’t earn this money by taking advantage of people or using questionable tactics. He did it by finding out what people wanted and providing them with a solution that benefited them both.

In this post, I’ll talk about how Johnny did it. I’ll provide strategies and case studies so you can apply these tips to your on blog. I’ll even talk about the tactics he used to promote his killer new ecourse, for those who are looking at selling information products from their blog.

Finally, I’ll give you an exclusive discount for that e-course Zero to Business - just skip to the bottom if you want 10% off.

4 Ways To Earn Money By Helping People

Give Free Stuff strategically

Image by Anil Jadhav

How Johnny did this:

He released a free instructional ebook about setting up a blog.
He did free website setups in return for testimonials

How You Can Do this

Barter your services with other skilled bloggers
Release an introductory report
Do free work in return for references or exposure
Do case studies highlighting your skills.

Case studies.

Leo Babauta, Skellie and Chris Garret got a lot of exposure because of their guest posting.
Neil Creek takes headshots of attendees at twitter meetups for use on their social media sites. He has received a lot of praise over this, both from the local twitter community and international photographers. He has gone on to get many more clients and enquiries.
Darren used to do case studies on his blog as an advertisement for his consulting. He no longer offers this service.

Provide calls to action regularly

Image by kozumel

How Johnny did this:

He would frequently have P.S at the end of his post - including a few humorous ones
He would simply state “Call to Action”

How you can provide calls to action:

In the conclusion of the post, tell the reader what you want them to do
Give them an incentive to click through

Case Studies:

Ali Hales guest post on Problogger. She talked about the topic of staff blogging before encouraging people to check out her ecourse. As an extra incentive, she gave the readers a discount code.
Dave Navarros post on Freelance Folder, where he encouraged the readers to give an example in the comments.

Find your people.

Image by Elvire.R.

How Johnny did this:

He got a guest posting slot of Ittybiz, offering himself as a case study
He is on the faculty of Project Mojave
He has guest posted on the places where his target readership hangs out

How to do this:

Find blogs that attract the kind of people you want to target. See if you can guest post on that blog.
Seek work and joint venture opportunities
Look for regular writing opportunities

Case studies.

I don’t need to offer any case studies. Look around at your favourite blogs. Do you see the same people being featured? Are the same people interacting? They are the loyal fans.

Are you a loyal fan of anyone? You’ll usually find you tend to hang out in that persons group. You may buy from more than one person. These are the people you want to connect with.

Selling something? Focus on selling solutions.

Image by Doug88888

How Johnny did this

He offered wordpress installs at a discounted price. To compensate, he asked that people buy through his affiliate link
He sold group coaching to those that couldn’t afford the price of individual coaching..
When realizing that people were still needing information, he created a course that was cheaper than getting Johnny to help them through the process.

How you can do this:

See if you can offer a service at a discounted rate in exchange for purchasing something through their affiliate link
Find creative ways of making your products more affordable without underpricing yourself.
Listen to your audiences needs and create products to help them.

Case Studies:

Sarah Prout does this in her Twitter Success Blueprint. She realized that businesses needed an affordable way to learn about twitter, so she created an ebook with information catered to professionals, as well as other twitter users.
Men with Pens do this with their blog critiques. They offer a discount for ones offered on the blog.

I know many people hate being sold too. Rather than promote his course Zero to Business, I’ll talk about what you can learn from it.

What you can learn from the course

There are three main things I loved about the promotion strategy:

He created humorous videos with viral potential.
He purposely avoided hype in his sales page
He provided real and useful bonuses

Lets discuss how you can learn from each strategy.

The Humorous videos.

He mocked a number of the key sales tactics in the internet marketing niche
In his letter to his affiliates, he recommended that people promote the videos rather than the product

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

Offering a quality resource that your affiliates can promote
Mock some of the common techniques used in product launches in your niche

Avoiding Hype

Johnny repeated several times that this product would provide technical solutions. It not make them rich.
He then explained the costs of learning this if you paid his normal consulting fees.

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

Talk about the practical reasons about how your product can help someone
Explain to them how your solution is better value than the alternative

Cool Bonuses

He provided individual coaching to the first five people that signed up
He offered group coaching to those who signed up by a certain date.

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

Offer bonuses that are exclusive and are not freely available to other marketers
Offer bonuses that will provide real value to the majority of your buyers

My call to action:

If you want 10% off Johnnys e-course, Zero to Business, just use the word ‘problogger‘ as the discount code. Its that easy.
If you want to check out Johnnys blog, go on over to his fancy new site.
If you want rants about zombies, check out his twitter feed.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How One Blogger Made $3k a month by Helping People - And How He Can Help You

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2009-10-08T13:09:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Trust - Principles of Successful Blogging #2

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 05:31 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Trust - Principles of Successful Blogging #2

Trust - Principles of Successful Blogging #2

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 07:51 AM PDT

Today I want to continue our series of posts looking at principles of building a successful blog by looking at the topic of Trust.

A Quick Definition of The Type Of ‘Successful’ Blog I’m Writing About

It might be worth stating that the type of blog that I’m talking about in this series is a blog that isn’t purely about profit or traffic - but a blog that has influence in its niche.

It is certainly possible to build a profitable and/or well trafficked blog without Trust - in fact I know a few bloggers who blog purely for Search Engine Traffic who don’t really care about influence, brand or loyal readers but who just want traffic that they can convert to cash.

These bloggers are certainly ’successful’ on some levels (I guess ’success’ really comes down to your goals) - but that’s not the style of blogging that I do and is not what this series is on about.

What I’m on about is helping bloggers to not only be profitable and have traffic but to build blogs that have profile, influence, authority, credibility, respect and a brand that opens up opportunities beyond quick profit.

By no means is my approach the only way to make money blogging - but it’s where I’m at and as a result is what I write about.

Why Building Trust is Important

OK - so now we’re on the same page lets talk about Trust.

I’m not sure we need to spend too much time talking about ‘why’ building trust is important as it’s pretty much common sense - but in short - if you’re looking to build influence, to build a brand that is respected and you want a site that is authoritative - you’re going to have a lot better chance if people actually trust you.

Yes with some clever copywriting and good positioning in search engines you can probably convince people to buy certain products - but in order to build lasting influence - trust is going to need to play a part.

On the flip side - many businesses today have seen the way that a lack of trust or even worse, broken trust can hurt a business, destroy reputations and ruin years of hard work.

So building and maintaining trust is paramount for bloggers wanting to build influence - so how does one do it?

One of the best resources on the topic of building influence through trust online is Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. However as it’ll take a day or two for Amazon to ship you a copy (and I recommend you get one) I thought I’d jot down a few principles of building trust online that I’ve gathered over the years both from my own experience of trusting others and building trust with others.

A Quick Exercise Before You Read Any More

Before you read my thoughts on how to build trust - here’s a very quick exercise to do.

On a piece of paper or in a text document - jot down a blogger or blog that you trust. Under the name - list 2-3 reasons why you trust them.

OK - read on.

4 Principles of Building Trust Online

1. It usually takes time to build

I’m a pretty sceptical guy - I don’t really want to be but after years of being bombarded with marketing messages and experiencing disappointment at expectations not being met by people making big promises my guard is up. I suspect I’m not alone.
While I’m sure there are people who are more trusting than others - I’m pretty certain that most people in my generation (and the generations that come before and after mine) are a fairly suspicious lot. We are capable of trust - but it usually takes time to get there.

2. It is Earned

I do have the capability to trust you - but more often than not it’ll only come once I see that you’re worthy of that trust. An example of this principle hit my inbox this morning - it was from a reader who had just bought my 31 days to build a better blog workbook.

Her email included this:

“I’ve never bought an ebook before, partly because I don’t trust people with my credit card information and partly because I’ve always suspected most ebooks are just fluff…. But after reading your blog for 12 months and being on the receiving end of useful information every day over that time I decided you were probably a credible source of information”.

The sense that I got from her email was that she only made the purchase based upon her previous experience of what I do - something that was earned by providing her with help day by day over a year.

The take home lesson for bloggers is to give value, be useful and prove that you have something worthwhile and authoritative to say on your topic.

Look for ways to genuinely and generously improve the lives of your readers - do this over the long haul and your deposit in the trust bank with readers grows over time.

3. The recommendations of others are important

I still remember (but can’t find a link to) a post by Seth Godin a year or so back where he talks about how he sells a lot more books through a blog post when he’s talking about someone else’s book than his own.

It was the perfect illustration of how the words and recommendations of other people promotion you carry a lot more weight than you promoting yourself.

We’re social beings - we make decisions together - we buy things that others recommend - we trust those that others trust….

This means you have a couple of tasks to do:

Build relationships with others. Some bloggers take the attitude that other bloggers are potential competition and as a result they stay clear of them. However a recommendation from someone else in your industry could be gold - build relationships.
Find Ways to use this social proof. If someone does recommend you it doesn’t hurt to highlight it to others. You don’t need to do it in an ego driven or big headed way - but do find subtle and relevant ways to share it with those in your network.

4. Be Yourself

One of the fastest ways to destroy trust is to be caught trying to be something that you’re not.

Make a promise that you can’t fulfil
Present yourself as someone that you’re unable to be
Make a claim that’s not true

All of these things set up expectations in the eyes of others that can’t be met which will lead to disappointment, anger, disillusionment and as a result - broken trust.

Not only that - I find that people are pretty good these days at picking people who are presenting themselves as something that they’re not. You might not even have to get caught out to have people suspicious (and untrusting) of you.

As a result it’s best to be yourself.
Let people know what you do and don’t know.
Be transparent about your motives.
Share your stories of failure as well as your successes.
Admit your mistakes.

All of these things make you more human, relatable and help to build trust.

What Would You Add?

I’ve only scratched the surface on Trust with this post - there’s so much more to say and I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say on the topic.

What bloggers do you trust (who did you write down in the exercise above)? Why do you trust them?
How do you build trust with your readers?
What stories and experiences do you have to help illustrate these principles of building trust?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Trust - Principles of Successful Blogging #2

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2009-10-07T13:07:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: 3 Principles of Effective Communication

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:49 AM PDT

ProBlogger: 3 Principles of Effective Communication

3 Principles of Effective Communication

Posted: 06 Oct 2009 07:35 AM PDT

Do you want to learn to blog in a way that goes beyond just conveying information and helps people to take action on what you’ve written?

Last night as I was watching the new Australian version of The Apprentice I saw a very short segment featuring public speaker Brett Rutledge. The winners of a task were rewarded with a session with Brett to talk about communication and public speaking. The show only showed 30 seconds of Brett but in that very short snippet he said something that resonated with me.

He was talking about principles of communication in leadership - but I think it applies pretty well to bloggers. I’m paraphrasing here but what he said boiled down to this:

To communicate to me clearly you need to do three things:

Give me a Message
Make me Care
Give me a Way to Remember it

I suspect there’s a lot of truth in that for leaders communicating in the business setting - but it rings true for me as a blogger wanting communicate effectively each day through my blog.

Lets explore each in turn briefly (this is of course my interpretation for bloggers on what Brett was getting at with his points).

Give them a Message

I suspect many bloggers work pretty hard on principle #1 - we craft our posts carefully and work hard on communicating clearly - but perhaps the other two elements are things that could lift posts to the next level in terms of getting people to actually take action on the things we write about.

Giving a message of course means we ourselves need to know what we’re trying to convey and what action we want readers to take at the end of posts. If we don’t know what we want people to do it’s pretty hard to get action.

It’s also about communicating clearly and giving people a call to the action we want them to take.

Make them Care

When someone cares about what you’re writing - they have much more motivation to take action on it.
When someone cares they’re more likely to tell someone else about it.
When someone cares they’re more likely to respond to you with a comment.

Communicate something to someone who doesn’t care and you might as well not be communicating!

How do you make them care? I think it partly comes down to showing people how what you are sharing with people applies to them, how it will make some aspect of their life better, inspiring them with a picture of how things will be once they’ve done something - it’s about getting people in touch with their feelings, fears, motivations, values and desires and tying them to what you’re communicating to them.

Give them a Way to Remember It

Have you ever read or heard something that inspired you to go away and take some course of action…. only to promptly forget to do it? I do it all the time. Sometimes I don’t take action because I change my mind, sometimes it is because I get busy and sometimes I just forget to do it (I’m thinking to myself ‘I’m sure there was something else I had to do today).

It’s one thing to communicate clearly what you want and to get someone to care about it - but a whole other thing to get them to actually take the action. A big part of closing the deal is to give them a way to remember what it is you want them to do.

I’d love to hear Brett (or others) talk more about how he helps people to remember what you say - but I find that I have most success in ‘closing the deal with people when I give them something simple, achievable and immediate to do.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

3 Principles of Effective Communication

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2009-10-06T13:06:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: 6 Reasons to Join the ProBlogger.com Community

Posted: 06 Oct 2009 05:28 AM PDT

ProBlogger: 6 Reasons to Join the ProBlogger.com Community

6 Reasons to Join the ProBlogger.com Community

Posted: 05 Oct 2009 07:06 AM PDT

Since I announced ProBlogger.com mid last week the ProBlogger Community Forum has grown to well over 1300 paid members (note the member numbers are reported as higher but also include people who have yet to confirm their membership with a payment).

Because it’s a private, walled community it can be a little difficult for those not on the inside to assess whether it’s something for them - so I thought today I’d highlight some of what’s going on inside:

1. Community Challenges

Something that we’re going to run this week is a ProBlogger Community Challenge. In the challenge I nominate a type of post for our members to go away and write up and then everyone shares their links to those posts over the coming days. Then members are encouraged to surf through the list, comment, give feedback and then share those links that they resonated most with their own network.

The idea is that we all do something together, there’s opportunity to learn from how others approach the task and of course there’s opportunity for extra traffic both from other members and from where they share the links that they like.

Update: I’ve just launched the first community challenge - it’s now live.

2. Blog Critiques

We’ve set up a specific area of the forum where any member can share a link to their blog and ask others to give feedback on it.

Members putting their heads together on this means that people asking for critiques are getting a variety of responses on their blogs from a community with diverse experiences, skills and ideas. There’s also the opportunity to learn by watching critiques of other blogs.

3. Opportunities for Collaboration

The collaboration area of the community is one of the most active. This is one of the key reasons I wanted to start the forum - putting bloggers together to work together for mutual benefit can lead to wonderful outcomes.

We’re still only seeing the beginnings of where these collaborations will lead but to this point we’re already seeing some creative ideas. Bloggers are hooking up with other bloggers in their niches to work together, we’re seeing bloggers working together on social media campaigns in groups, bloggers are helping one another with content creation and more.

The effectiveness of this area will only grow as more bloggers join which will open up possibilities to work together with other bloggers in similar niches and locations.

4. Secondary Connections

One of the cool things that I’ve already seen start to happen is people making connections with other bloggers outside of the community. For example in a thread where I invited members to share their Twitter ID’s we’ve had hundreds of people share them and people reporting seeing marked increases in their follower numbers.

While having more followers is nice - the real benefit of this is that these connections have the potential to build the depth of interaction between bloggers, strengthening networks and opening opportunities for fruitful interactions.

Another example of this is groups of bloggers already planning to meet in person at different blogging events. For example there’s a group going to get together at Blog World Expo and a few people asking if there are bloggers in their local areas who might like to have a meet up.

Member Tutorials

Yesterday I added a new area to ProBlogger.com - one for ‘Tutorials’.

There are two main reasons I wanted this area - firstly I’ve already seen a couple of really excellent posts by members exploring different topics. I want to highlight this type of content as I think there’s a lot we can learn from it. Secondly I’d like to give community members the opportunity to have some of their ideas featured here on ProBlogger.net occasionally as guest posts. I won’t use all tutorials submitted here on ProBlogger - but from time to time will use the best and most interesting submissions with the permission and credit to the author.

6. Our Members

1300+ members in less than a week isn’t a bad result if you’re thinking purely about numbers, but what I’m thankful for and excited about is the quality of those who’ve joined.

Members come from all parts of the world, all levels and with an amazing variety of experiences. Already there have been numerous threads where bloggers have shared different opinions on topics in a way that doesn’t tear anyone down but instead where the diversity of opinion and experiences help facilitate learning.

What our 6 of our Members Say about ProBlogger.com

On that note - let me share 6 testimonials from these very same members to finish off this post:

“After recently rebranding my blog and website, I’ve felt as if my blogging attempts have been floundering, and with no support and no one to lean on, I’ve had difficulty finding the inspiration and focus to write. Since joining the ProBlogger Community just a few days ago, I now feel like I’m part of a family who has already supported, encouraged, and helped me to get my focus and determination back! Thanks for creating this community, Darren - I’m truly excited to see it evolve in the coming months!” - Ursula Comeau from UCWebCreations.com

“Without doubt, the new home of bloggers. In less than a week it has established a community spirit that most forums can only dream of.” - Kevin Muldoon from Blogging Tips

“The thing that I’ve really gained from the forums is motivation! Most forums tend to suck up my time, I think I’m barely on ProBlogger.com for more than ten minute before I have to go and write a post, go searching for inspiration or look into a new form of monetisation. Within the first week it’s impressive to see that there’s already a strong sense of community among the members and it’s great to see everyone so willing to help other bloggers reach their goal.” - fern from Craft Blog

“After signing up for Problogger.Community I submitted Summer Tomato to the critique section. I’d never had anyone but friends and family give me their thoughts on my design, and I’ve always been curious what “real” bloggers might think. Within a couple hours of signing up I had wonderful positive and constructive advice on my blog from experienced bloggers, and even a few new readers! As far as I’m concerned this subscription has paid for itself already.” - darya from Summer Tomato

“If you want to grow your blog, you need to work with other like minded bloggers…plain and simple. Problogger.com has been an incredible avenue for blogging collaboration and it is just getting started. It is really a no-brain’er.” - Robb Sutton

“Not being much of a forum user I was a little hesitant at first to sign up at problogger.com, especially since it was going to cost a whopping $1.95 (gasp!), but I’m glad I did. Already I’ve connected with some great people and just having a more personal interaction with Darren makes the cost worth it.” - David Turnbull from Adventures of a Barefoot Geek

“I’m not the best networker in the world but problogger.com has made a massive difference. Without even asking for it, members have gone out of their way to help promote my blog further and being a member has given me so much extra motivation for blogging that my traffic has doubled in the week that I’ve been there! It’s paid for itself many times over already.” - Lee from Smash and Pees

Join us Today

If ProBlogger.com sounds like a community that you’d benefit from we’d love you to join us today. The cost is $1.95 a month (you can unsubscribe at any time) - we plan to increase this price but if you sign up at $1.95 you’ll be locked in at that price and never pay more to get access to the forum.

The process for joining is simple:

just head to the registration page - this registers you as a forum member (but doesn’t give you access to threads until you’ve done the next step and paid.
once you’ve registered and logged in head to the payment page where you select the $1.95 option and will be then taken to PayPal.

Once you’re paid - you’re in! If you have any problems along the way let us know via the contact form on the forum.

PS: I’ve set up a ProBlogger.com Twitter Account to keep people up to date on problogger.com specific news.

PS2: One thing that has naturally started happening is that groups of bloggers have been joining up together. A few bloggers told me that they felt a little overwhelmed by joining and participating in this community as they felt a little out of their league - so they convinced a friend or two to join with them.

A couple have even bought memberships for friends so that they’re entering in with someone familiar that they can buddy up with from the start.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

6 Reasons to Join the ProBlogger.com Community

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2009-10-05T13:06:00.001-07:00

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“Free Hour Long Call with Andy Wibbels on Blogs and Social Media” plus 1 more

Posted: 05 Oct 2009 05:03 AM PDT

“Free Hour Long Call with Andy Wibbels on Blogs and Social Media” plus 1 more

Free Hour Long Call with Andy Wibbels on Blogs and Social Media

Posted: 05 Oct 2009 03:03 AM PDT

Long term readers of ProBlogger will know of Andy Wibbels - the two of us put together a course a couple of years back called Six Figure Blogging - one of the best learning experiences of my life.

Funnily enough we’d never met until this time last year at Blog World Expo but it felt like I knew him really well as we’d spent so much time together.

Andy went on to work at SixApart (makers of TypePad and MovableType - among other products), he’s the author of one of the first blogging books ‘Blog Wild’ and he has a wealth of knowledge in the space of blogging.

Andy’s about to run another course called Blogs and Social Media for Instant Global Impact and is offering a free one hour call on the topic. The call is on Wednesday for those who register (there will be a recording for those who can’t make the live call). I’ll be listening in myself because Andy’s got a habit of packing his calls with useful stuff.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Free Hour Long Call with Andy Wibbels on Blogs and Social Media

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Freedom to Be

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 07:14 AM PDT

I love hear bloggers talking about their journey of blogging and some of the discoveries they make alone the road. Today in this guest post Renee Mayne from Bra Queen does just that.

Everyone has a purpose, a reason as to why they start blogging.

Mine was because I had heard "It was good for business" So I started blogging using my business name.

I didn't get much satisfaction from it because I was always thinking of the business name and my business partner and I was representing all three. I was holding back and wasn't being true to myself or my personal opinions, I was playing it safe.

However I was enjoying the writing or blogging process and believed in what I was doing so I thought "I need to be 100% myself, I need a title."

It's like when you call a business do you like to talk to a machine or a person?

A person of course,

The exact same goes when you're blogging and with that Bra Queen was born. I soon become more at home at my blog then at my business so I sold my business to pursue Bra Queen.

Once I gave myself freedom to be… Bra Queen Sky rocketed, I became so passionate with my writing and the topics. I was like a mad woman frantically typing at the keyboard and 80% of the time I was doing so through tears because I felt so strongly about the topics.

I write everyday because you have to be consistent but I vow to write honestly and passionately, everyday.

I look at blogs that I once loved however when they started blogging everyday I felt they lost their passion and drive. You can always tell just by reading them. I really try to just let myself be when I write.

The beauty of blogging is it gives people a chance to express themselves. You have a voice and you can be 100% you and people will either like you or they won't, their choice. But at least you have given yourself permission to be.

I have learnt that in order to have a successful blog you have to be:

Knowledgeable in your field (you should be anyway)
Passionate
Persistent

If you are those 3 things an abundance of opportunities will come your way.

Those 3 things have brought me this:

Immense satisfaction
Happiness within yourself and my career
My Love Your Life Challenge starts 5th Oct then will be available via e-book
Contributing Author in SPROUT WEALTH
Contributing writer to various resource websites
Oodles of new ventures with amazingly successful people
Lingerie and Business Consultant, coaching businesses to a new found success.
Multiple interviews online, on podcasts and on the radio.

Give yourself the freedom to be!

Are you holding back? Don't.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Freedom to Be

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2009-10-04T13:10:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web [Video Review]

Posted: 04 Oct 2009 05:37 AM PDT

ProBlogger: The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web [Video Review]

The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web [Video Review]

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 07:24 AM PDT

Here’s a quick review of a book that I’ve been reading - The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web - through over the past few weeks by Tamar Weinberg.

It’s a great read!

Apologies to Tamar for mispronouncing her name - should have been more like ‘Tuh-MAR’!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web [Video Review]

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2009-10-03T13:06:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Why Blogging is Like The Wizard of Oz and There’s No Place Like Home. A Polemic or Maybe a Manifesto. For all the Red Shoe Bloggers.

Posted: 03 Oct 2009 05:35 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Why Blogging is Like The Wizard of Oz and There’s No Place Like Home. A Polemic or Maybe a Manifesto. For all the Red Shoe Bloggers.

Why Blogging is Like The Wizard of Oz and There’s No Place Like Home. A Polemic or Maybe a Manifesto. For all the Red Shoe Bloggers.

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 07:29 AM PDT

A Guest Post by Kelly Diels.

Let’s mash up reality and assume that Dorothy wrote The Wizard of Oz and it is a memoir told through the lens of pharmaceuticals and it is to be published next year.

Dorothy has written a great book: part trippy fantasy, part freudian/jungian/wonky archetypical therapy, part love letter to friendship, and a prefeminist, feminist, post-feminist meditation on the nature and power of femininity wrapped in a trendy, little-dog-carrying, hot-shoe-wearing package. It is Sex and the City meets Eat Love Pray meets Little Red Riding Hood, on acid. It is a journey. It is a great book. It must be read.

Dorothy knows this. She feels it right from her soul to the soles of her ruby red shoes. She can see the future: a movie. Musicals. The talk show circuit. Oprah. Much money, much love, much conversation, and a place in popular imagination.

It can be all of these things, not because she promotes the flying monkeys out of it - which she will, and absolutely should do - but because it offers a watery answer to our thirsty, questioning souls: you are the author of your own affair. Plus there are weird scary creatures who learn to love each other and grow as twisted, maturing moral entities and we all know that stuff sells. I hear a little book called Twilight is doing quite well these days.

So this book should sell. It needs to sell. Dorothy wants it to sell. Even more than that, Dorothy wants it to be read, to land, to take root, to grow, to inhabit, fertilize and animate our popular imagination.

If I was Dorothy - and I am - I would start a blog before I even started writing the book. I’d go all Seth Godin and build a tribe on Twitter. I’d find my people. I’d give them somewhere to find me. I’d get on the cluetrain. I’d Oprah. I’d firestart. I’d listen to Leo Babauta when he says he doesn’t believe in SEO. I’d make friends. I’d work the aich-ee-double-hockey-sticks out of ProBlogger and spend serious time with Outspoken Media. I’d figure out the lessons learned by our pantehon of blog gods and best-selling writers. I’d figure out the mechanics of demand and distribution and audience and I’d build it and they would come. And if they didn’t come, I’d go get them and then hug and pet and feed them because that is the purpose of promotional tricks and lassos and rodeo ponies and hoopla.

But I would only do that if, like Dorothy, I had something wizardly to offer: the journey. The passion. The learning. The love. The living. The lessons. The magic. The really, really great content. Please.

And this is what exasperates me about the ‘blogging and social media for money’ superhighway. So many times I follow the yellow brick road laid by an enterprising blogger who’s working the system - rocking the comments, manufacturing controversy, guest posting, paper-training SEO, tweeting - and when I get there and pull back the curtain…nothing. No wizard. No magic. No message. Just a lot of mechanics and whirling buttons and a robotic, soulless special effects machine.

Honestly, that’s what a lot of problogging and blogs and social media enterprises are looking like these days. It is turn-key blogging. It is execution unsparked by ideas. It is a waste of time and tweets and it won’t make you money.

Straight up: I don’t make a cent from my blog and I’m certainly not disparaging bloggers who do. I LOVE money. I want money. I want you and Dorothy and every other problogger out there to have as many tiny dogs - more! - as you and your minions can carry. I just want you to make it from selling wisdom, truth, experience or sparkly scarlet maryjanes (and if you are, I’m ALWAYS in the market for red shoes, so please put me on your mailing list). I want you to make an offering. I want you to have something to offer. I want you to be a Red Shoe Blogger. I just made that up.

A Red Shoe Blogger is not blogging exclusively for money. A Red Shoe Blogger has a mission and is animated by passion and all the tips and tricks and hacks and tools and tweets are harnessed in service of that divine, cosmic, helpful, genuine, meaningful objective. That mission is Home.

So this is what I want from all the Red Shoe Bloggers out there: I want you to buck the system, or work the system, but know that the system is not a slot machine that will pay off if only you keep pulling that arm and never ever run out of nickels or take a pee-break.

Success is not just about the systems. The home address of success is passion, talent (let’s be honest), creation, contribution, collaboration, conversation, and community.That is where hot sweaty abundance and cold hard cash reside (FYI, they’re totally a couple) and I wish more bloggers lived there too.

Because, after all, there’s no place like home.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Why Blogging is Like The Wizard of Oz and There’s No Place Like Home. A Polemic or Maybe a Manifesto. For all the Red Shoe Bloggers.

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2009-10-02T13:08:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: ProBlogger.com is Live!

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 05:11 AM PDT

ProBlogger: ProBlogger.com is Live!

ProBlogger.com is Live!

Posted: 01 Oct 2009 07:17 AM PDT

What would happen if the thousands of bloggers who read ProBlogger each day decided to work together to improve their blogs?

This is a question that has been on my mind lately - I thought it was time to find out what the answer is.

So far 800 1000+ bloggers have agreed to join me in finding out - will you join us too? We’re offering it as a special introductory price of $1.95 a month for access to the forum (once you’re in at that rate you’re locked in at it and it won’t rise).

I’ve been asked to add a forum area to ProBlogger for almost as long as this site has been live (5 years last week). It’s something I’ve been open to but never quite got around to doing - but lately a number of things have changed my mind including:

1. The success of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Forum - this temporary forum/community rocked and led to quite a few bloggers going into partnerships and collaborations with other bloggers.

2. More and more reports of bloggers forming alliances or collaborative relationships - bloggers have joined together in networks and groups for years now - but lately I’ve been hearing a lot more stories of bloggers forming alliances and collaborating.

3. The realization that while here on ProBlogger people do collaborate in comments - that a blog is really not the medium for it to go to its potential.

Out of all this - I’ve decided to finally launch ProBlogger.com in collaboration with the team at b5media who are looking after the back end of the site.

So far I’ve invited those on my email list to join and 800 1000+ have signed up. Today I’m launching it to the wider community.

Note: You can get much of the information below in a video at the bottom of this post if you prefer that format.

What is ProBlogger.com

ProBlogger.com is all about community, collaboration and learning together.
It is a paid forum ($1.95 USD per month subscription - more on why it’s paid below)
It is a private and moderated forum - walled from the general public, search engines and spammers
It’s currently in version 1.0 - a forum but we plan to add features as it grows.

Why is it a Paid Community?

I’m aware that the idea of paying to join a forum is not going to suit everyone and I don’t pretend that it will appeal to all - but there are a number of reasons I’ve taken the decision to put a $1.95 monthly subscription fee on it.

1. I want to staff the forum - there’s nothing wrong with volunteer moderation (and we’ll add this as we go) but I wanted this community to be administrated by a paid and dedicated staff member (Lara Kulpa who many of you are familiar with) to ensure that the forum is as useful as possible. We’re dedicating 100% of the income of the first 1000 or so members purely to cover this (and then a % of all further membership). My goal is to have Lara full time on this task.

Having a paid community manager is important to me because I know it’ll be run well, well moderated, more useful and that members will be looked after by someone accountable and focused on the task.

2. It’s valuable and I want it to be seen as such - my experience of forums in the past is that they tend to attract a lot of lurkers who join but rarely turn up and contribute. While having a cost on the forum may keep some away I believe it gives those who do join a little more reason to participate. If something costs you’re hopefully more likely to use it and a forum that is actually used is more valuable for everyone.

3. Discourage Spammers - while I fully expect members will successfully promote their blogs in this community - that’s not what it’s really about and I hope that putting a fee on it will keep spammers and self promoters a little more at bay. Feel free to tell us about your blog - but do it appropriately and as a good citizen of the forum. Spammers are not welcome.

The Details on Price and Introductory Offers

The introductory price of ProBlogger.com is $1.95 USD per month. Payment is via PayPal (sorry to those who are not able to use PayPal but at this point it’s the system that is easiest for us to use and is the most widely used option).

This introductory price of $1.95 is a limited time offer. I’m yet to decide on the price that we’ll put it up to but if you join at this rate you’ll only ever be charged this much per month for access to the forum. Those who join later will be charged at the higher rate.

I’m also offering 50% off the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook to anyone who joins the forum in the first month. This is purely an optional thing and not something that I expect everyone will want or need. You’ll be given a discount code once you register and pay for your first month on the inside of the forum for this.

To join simply follow this process:

head to the registration page of the forum here - add your details and join the forum.
go to the forum and hit the ‘complete the registration process by clicking here‘ link
hit the ‘$1.95′ option in the ‘cost’ drop down menu and click ‘order’
this will take you through a process where you can pay with PayPal and set up the subscription - once you have you can head back to the forum and start posting.

Will You Join Us?

At this point we’ve had 800 1000+ members join as paid up members and we’d love to have you join us. You can unsubscribe at any point if you find that it doesn’t fit your needs and stop future payments. While I know it won’t fit with everyone’s situation I do hope that you check it out and join the community as an active member - this will be as good as we make it so get involved!

Here a video (also on the front page of ProBlogger.com) where I go through a lot of the above information for those who prefer to watch and listen over reading!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger.com is Live!

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2009-10-01T13:12:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Should You Use a Localized Domain Name?

Posted: 01 Oct 2009 05:33 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Should You Use a Localized Domain Name?

Should You Use a Localized Domain Name?

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 07:49 AM PDT

I’m regularly asked about local domain names and whether they are worth using on a blog.

My answer usually revolves around the question of ‘what audience are you trying to reach?‘ Let me explain.

When I first secured my own domain name I chose a .au (Australia) domain without really giving much thought to it. I figured as I was an Aussie I might as well include that in the domain and as the .com version of the domain was taken I though it was the next logical step. That was a naive decision and one that I regretted later (although it did have some benefits too).

There were a number of impacts of having a local domain:

the blog ranked relatively well in Google.com.au’s results - being an easily identified Aussie site it seemed to get priority when Aussies were searching for terms related to it
the blog didn’t rank as well on Google.com - .com domains (and other non localised ones) seemed to get ranked higher in other international versions of Google
confusion with readers - time and time again I heard from readers that they kept forgetting to add the .au. As a result they ended up on other sites and some gave up on even coming to the site.

Ultimately it was a mistake for me because my goal was to connect with an international audience rather than just and Australian one. I ended up with some good Aussie search traffic which was nice but it could have ranked better internationally which probably cost me traffic.

Take Home Advice: As a result, I generally advise people to go for a local domain name IF they are trying to reach a local audience. If you’re looking to connect with an international audience go for the .com or another non localised domain like .net or .org (.com is my #1 preference though).

The other reason to get a localised version of a domain in addition to the .com is as a defensive move OR if you think you might produce a local version of your blog at some point in the future. Having the local domain means someone else can’t get it and it gives you the option of expanding into local markets (as Gawker blogs have done with some of their more popular blogs).

Do you use a local domain name? What are the advantages or disadvantages from your perspective?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Should You Use a Localized Domain Name?

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2009-09-30T13:14:00.001-07:00

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ProBlogger: Listening - Principles of Successful Blogging #1
Motivate Yourself IV
Motivate Yourself III
Motivate Yourself II
Motivate Yourself I

ProBlogger: Listening - Principles of Successful Blogging #1

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 05:30 AM PDT

ProBlogger: Listening - Principles of Successful Blogging #1

Listening - Principles of Successful Blogging #1

Posted: 29 Sep 2009 07:11 AM PDT

Last week I shared a set of slides from a presentation I recently gave which outlines a variety of lessons that I've learned as a blogger over the last 7 years. Over the coming months I intend to expand upon many of the points in that presentation - starting today with 'Listening'.

When I began blogging in 2002 I made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of false assumptions about blogging. One of the things I quickly found out didn't work when trying to grow a blog was to use it purely as a broadcast tool.

In the first few weeks of blogging it was almost as though I was using the blog as a platform or a stage where I stood with a megaphone in hand blasting out my message for anyone who might happen to be passing by to hear. It's no wonder that only my wife read my blog that first week (and even she never really came back).

Nobody likes a loud mouth. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of someone talking AT them.

The people we tend to be drawn to in real life are people who pause in conversation to let you have a say, people who ask questions about you, people who have a genuine interest in what you've got to say.

The same is true (in most cases) when it comes to blogging.

Of course there are cases where blogs are successfully used as broadcast tools with little interaction between blogger and reader - however in most cases there is at least some element of 'listening' going on by the blogger. Let me explore a few ways that a blogger should consider 'listening':

Listen to the culture of the blogosphere

This is one for those yet to start blogging (and it should also be applied to those getting into new social media tools like Twitter, Facebook etc).

I was chatting with a new blogger recently who described her first week of blogging as being similar to travelling to a new country and having to adjust to a new language, climate, etiquette and customs as an outsider.

When travelling overseas for an extended stay (perhaps for a new job) most travellers know that one of their first tasks as a new resident is to make some cultural adjustments.

learning some basic words in the local language
finding a local who can talk them through the etiquette
getting a map so that they can find their way around
learning to use systems like public transport…. etc

In a similar way - when you're new to the blogosphere (or any new part of the social media-sphere) it's important to pause, take stock, learn about the culture, learn to use the tools, discover what is acceptable (and not acceptable), learn the rhythms etc

The danger in not learning the culture of the blogosphere is doing something that not only doesn't work but that offends 'the locals' and hurts your reputation.

Listen for where your potential readers are gathering

One of the key tasks that any new blogger who wants to grow their readership should do is identify where their potential readers are already gathering online.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back - it's not enough just to build a good blog with great content in order to find readers for your blog. If you want people to know about your blog you need to 'get out there' and interact with them and develop a presence in the places that your potential readers are already gathering.

Of course before you can find these places you need to have an understanding of who you're trying to attract - so do a little work on defining who you want to read your blog and then begin to look for where that type of person is already gathering (I talk more about how I did this in this recent video on how I use promote my blog).

Listen to what others in your niche are saying

One of the most powerful things that I did which helped take my early blogs to the next level was to begin to monitor what others in my niche/industry were talking about.

I discovered the power of this accidentally one day when I just happened to be surfing on another small blog that broke news of a big story. I picked up the story on my own blog (linking to the first) and then my post got picked up by a massive blog which drew in a lot of new readers. Knowing what was happening in the niche helped to break stories but also build relationships with other bloggers in the niche.

Back then the tools for monitoring other blogs and topics were primitive and meant some manual hunting around (I remember in the very early days having to manually bookmark the blogs I wanted to track and visit them each every day to see if they'd posted anything new) but these days it is a lot easier to set up and automate.

My own monitoring of my niches generally happens in two ways:

Subscribing to Feeds of Key Sources of Information - these days most sites have some way of subscribing to them, usually via an RSS feed. I have a folder in my feed reader for each of my main topics which contains a number of key blogs and news sites in that niche. I used to follow close to a thousand blogs to do this - but these days have refined the list to much less for each topic.
2. Keyword Alerts - using Google's news and blog alerts I have a number of alerts set up so that if any news site or blog uses a keyword that I'm interested in I know about it. Choosing keywords that are specific enough can take a little time (some words just generate too many alerts) but on almost a daily basis these alerts identify important posts in my niches.
Recommendation Sites - the other listening tool that I use to help me know what's going on in my niches is to subscribe to sites that are in the business of looking for popular content in my niches. These sites can be a little hard to find depending upon your niche but because I'm largely working in the Tech space there are a few including TechMeme and Delicious. TechMeme looks at what content key blogs are linking to in the tech space and Delicious is a bookmarking site that produces a list of popular content being bookmarked at any point in time (it's not purely tech related but does consistently produce good results for me). Both of these sites have RSS feeds you can subscribe to to monitor what's hot.
Twitter - I also find that being active on Twitter and developing a Twitter account that has a niche focus can also help you listen to what people are saying about your niche. This partly happens naturally (those you follow in your niche will share links) but there are also great tools including Tweetmeme (which shows you what is being retweeted in different categories) and other monitoring/search tools such as Twitter search (you can set up an RSS feed for different search terms) and tools built into Twitter clients (like TweetDeck which allows you to set up a column specifically for alerts). More and more useful tools are being set up for Twitter to help monitor what people are saying about your industry.

Listen to what is being said about you

The other use for some of the tools mentioned above (keyword alerts and the Twitter keyword monitoring) is that you can use them to alert you when someone is talking about you, your business, your blog or your brand specifically.

I've talked previously about setting up a vanity folder in your feed reader to help you do this so won't go into great detail about it here - however it's something that I've found particularly useful for a couple of reasons:

Building Relationships - when another blogger links to you it is useful to know about it so you can go and build a relationship with that blogger and their readers.
Reputation Management - from time to time you might also be mentioned on another site/blog/press in a more negative way. Knowing quickly about this is also important as it enables you to respond (if necessarily) or at least monitor developments.

Create Listening Spaces on Your Blog

Have you ever had a 'conversation' with someone where you simply could not get a word in edgeways? The person talked so fast and without taking a breath - to the point where there simply wasn't space for you to be listened to.

Sometimes I get that same feeling while on blogs. It's not that the blogger isn't interested in their reader - it's just that they get so excited about what they're blogging about that they just don't stop long enough to let others have a say.

One of the simplest ways to create these 'listening spaces' on a blog is to ask questions. Ask them at the end of your posts, ask them half way through the and even write posts that are nothing but questions.

Listen to the Questions Your Readers are Asking

One of the most important things to be on the listen out for is questions.

I remember one of my first teachers drumming into the class I was in that there was no such thing as a dumb question and that if one person asked a question it usually meant that others also had the same question going around in their minds.

As a result - when a reader asks you a question, you can bet that they're not the only one thinking it.

Questions reveal potential topics to write about, problems with your site and opportunities to expand what you're doing on your blog. Pay careful attention to them in the following areas:

comments section - this is the most obvious place for your readers to ask questions
your inbox - what questions are you getting from readers via your blog's contact form?
search engine referral terms - often people arrive on your site having plugged a specific question into Google. Most stats packages will reveal these terms and phrases - keep on the look out specifically for questions - also check out 103bees - a tool that specifically monitors and collates questions being asked in your search stats.
questions typed into onsite search boxes - this is a goldmine of information, monitoring what people are searching for when they're actually on your site will show you all kinds of needs, problems and challenges that your readers want to learn more about. Lijit is one tool that helps you track these questions.
ask readers for questions - from time to time it can be worth writing a post on your blog that specifically invites readers to ask a question.

Listen to what is working (and what isn't)

The last thing I'll add on the topic of listening before I open this topic up to others to share their thoughts is to listen by tracking what is and isn't working on your blog.

This means setting up your blog with a good metrics tool (I use Google Analytics but there are other great ones out there) and regularly using it to work out what is readers are responding to on your blog.

Some places to start include:

What posts are being read most?
What posts are generating good conversation/comments?
What posts are being linked to by others most?
How are readers using your design? (use a tool like CrazyEgg to create a heatmap)
What days of the week are people reading your site most on? What times of the day?
What pages are people 'bouncing' from your site on (bounce rate shows how many people arrive on your blog and immediately leave)
What posts are people spending most (and least) time on?
What posts are you getting most negative feedback on?

It is easy to obsess on some of these stats - but it's also easy to ignore the useful stuff in them that could help you improve your blog.

How else do you Listen in your blogging?

I've talked for way too long on a post about listening - so now it's over to you.

What would you add? Do you use some of the above techniques? What has worked well for you? I'm all ears!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Listening - Principles of Successful Blogging #1

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Motivate Yourself IV

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 04:34 AM PDT

"Square your shoulders to the world, be not the kind to quit; It's not
the load that weighs your down but the way you carry it." – Anonymous.

"Accept everything about yourself. I mean everything. You are you, and
that is the beginning and the end; No apologies, no regrets." – Clark
Montanas.

"If you believe in yourself, things are possible." – Shannon Macmillan.

"The biggest mistake you can make is continually fearing you will make
one." – Anonymous.

"If you want to accomplish anything in life, you can't just sit back
and hope it will happen. You've got to make it happen." – Chuck
Norris.

--
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Motivate Yourself III

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 04:33 AM PDT

"The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of
obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within
and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber."- William Mather
Lewis.

"Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no
courage unless you're scared" – Eddie Rickenbacker.

"One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself,
know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go." –
Sheila Murray Bethel.

"For every person who doubts you, tells you you will fail, try twice
as hard to prove them wrong." – Anonymous.

"Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what
strengths you have, what you can accomplish." – Cecile Springer.

Don't' let the low times keep you down. Learn from them and reach for
the high times." – David Wiemers.

"Being committed to some goal in your life – a sense of having a
mission, a purpose, even a calling – is a very motivating, very
comforting thing. Some people's mission steps up to greet them, others
have to hunt theirs down." –
--
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Motivate Yourself II

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 03:44 AM PDT

"People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that
they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the
first secret of success." - Norman Vincent Peale

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you
have imagined."- Henry David Thoreau

"If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed."-
David Viscott.

"Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning."-
Winston Churchill

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole
staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

--
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Motivate Yourself I

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 03:42 AM PDT

Quotes for Self-Motivation

Self-motivation quotes can be used as important tools to help us reach
and obtains our goals. When talking about motivation, one of the main
things to do to make sure that you stay on the right path is to
constantly speak to yourself in an encouraging tone and use positive
words. And what better way to motivate yourself than by using
self-motivating quotes?

People choose different types of self-motivating quotes to empower
themselves and to give themselves that much needed inspiration and
enthusiasm to meet targets and achieve goals. While some choose to
focus on inspirational and religious quotes, others prefer to listen
to quotes that solely deal with business success. The important thing
however is to choose those quotes that make a difference to you.

Here are some quotes that work as self-motivation:

"Build upon strengths, and weaknesses will gradually take care of
themselves." - Joyce C. Lock

"Things will happen in your life that you can't stop, but that's no
reason to shut out the world. There's a purpose for the good and for
the bad" – Walter Sparrow, Now and Then.

--
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Motivate Yourself IV

2009-09-30T04:34:00.001-07:00

"Square your shoulders to the world, be not the kind to quit; It's not
the load that weighs your down but the way you carry it." – Anonymous.

"Accept everything about yourself. I mean everything. You are you, and
that is the beginning and the end; No apologies, no regrets." – Clark
Montanas.

"If you believe in yourself, things are possible." – Shannon Macmillan.

"The biggest mistake you can make is continually fearing you will make
one." – Anonymous.

"If you want to accomplish anything in life, you can't just sit back
and hope it will happen. You've got to make it happen." – Chuck
Norris.

--
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Motivate Yourself III

2009-09-30T04:33:00.001-07:00

"Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no
courage unless you're scared" – Eddie Rickenbacker.

"One of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself,
know who you are, what you believe in and where you want to go." –
Sheila Murray Bethel.

"For every person who doubts you, tells you you will fail, try twice
as hard to prove them wrong." – Anonymous.

"Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what
strengths you have, what you can accomplish." – Cecile Springer.

Don't' let the low times keep you down. Learn from them and reach for
the high times." – David Wiemers.

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http://boongle.blogspot.com
http://hotgirlsexplorer.blogspot.com
http://weblogexplorer.blogspot.com
http://bangjokes.blogspot.com

Motivate Yourself II

2009-09-30T03:44:00.001-07:00

"People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that
they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the
first secret of success." - Norman Vincent Peale

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you
have imagined."- Henry David Thoreau

"If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed."-
David Viscott.

"Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning."-
Winston Churchill

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole
staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

--
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Income From Ads

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Are all pop-ups spammy?

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7. Apture for minimalists

8. Apture secrets revealed

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10. Confronting the Apture team: questions and answers

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Examples of Useful Blogs

How is Your Blog Useful?

Further Reading

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Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything changed?

It all started with 9 words from my wife (V)

The #1 reason my blogging grew into a business was that I began to treat it as one.

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Case Studies:

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How Johnny did this:

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How Johnny did this

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The Humorous videos.

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My call to action:

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A Quick Definition of The Type Of ‘Successful’ Blog I’m Writing About

Why Building Trust is Important

A Quick Exercise Before You Read Any More

4 Principles of Building Trust Online

1. It usually takes time to build

2. It is Earned