Comment spam is a pain in the butt. It’s a sneaky method of spammers who want to use your website to get backlinks and sell their dodgy wares. Here is how to avoid it.
Category : Blogging, Fundamentals, Wordpress
Is your idea strong enough to carry your blog to success?
Because there are so many blogs and web sites about blogs on the internet, it can be a real challenge to distinguish your blog from all of the others. Whether you are starting up a new website aimed at bloggers or whether you are looking to make your existing blogging site more distinctive, the key to building and maintaining a site that will capture the interest and attention of the blogging community is discovering your niche. If you can fill a unique need in a way that no other website does, you’ll be able to build a lasting readership among web surfers. Once you have discovered a niche, you will still have a lot to do, but finding your place in the blogosphere is the place to begin. Every great blogging web site starts with a great idea, and you can’t build a successful site that will last without one. There are many great sites aimed at today’s bloggers, and competition for the attention of this growing demographic is fierce. To make your blogging web site stand out from the pack, you will need to offer something that no other site is currently offering, or you will need to do the same thing that an already popular site does but in a more impressive or valuable way.
One way to discover an ideal model for your blog is to look at the sites that have successfully captured an audience already to determine if you can appropriate some of their strategies to help realize your vision. Of course, you will also need to add a unique flair to your project in order to stand apart from your competition. Many people agree that the web sites that do the best in today’s market are the sites that have the most personality. The fiercely individual surfers who are bloggers are a demographic that responds especially strongly to personality, so consider how you can give your site a unique and attractive feeling by lending your own voice and sensibility to your site’s design and content.
Once you have a great idea for your site, have pinpointed a special niche that you are well equipped to fill, and have infused the site with personality, the next step is figuring out how to get the word out to bloggers. In the long run, a great idea just isn’t enough to propel your blogging web site to success. You will need to draft a smart and realistic marketing plan in order to draw readers to your site. Once you hook a blogger, your great content will keep them coming back, but it is vital to get that first glance or your site won’t have a chance to shine.
So you want to blog for profit?
You won’t be the only person dreaming of blogging for profit, and this goal is not far beyond the reach of someone with average intelligence, a willingness to work hard, and a basic grasp of blogging technology. However, very few people manage to reap the profits they want from their blog. Most people who try to make money with their blogs do not succeed for two reasons. Often, bloggers have unrealistic expectations of how fast their readership will grow and how much money they will make, and when these expectations are not met the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging. The other trap that most bloggers fall into has to do with lack of planning. If you really want to turn a profit as a blogger, the key to success is to make a realistic plan and stick to it.
To succeed at blogging for profit, the key thing that you will need is a large readership. The higher your traffic, the more advertisers will agree to pay you. However, cultivating the regular visitors that you will need in order to make a profit isn’t easy. As more and more blogs appear each day, having a great idea or a wonderful writing style is no longer enough to get attention. You need to be able to market your blog effectively!
Too many bloggers spend most of their time writing posts and almost no time marketing their project. To be certain, updating as often as you can is a great way to keep your blog high on blogrolls and high in blog search engines like technorati, and once your readers know that you update frequently they will return to your site on a regular basis. However, it does not matter how often you update if nobody is reading your page, so dont skimp on the time that you spend drawing visitors to your site. To make your dreams of blogging for profit a reality, try decreasing your number of posts and using some of that time to draw new visitors by setting up link exchanges with other bloggers, making contacts in the blog community, and following other established modes of winning traffic.
Of course, even if you are a marketing genius or have a really great idea for a blog, success is not going to happen overnight! Building the kind of readership that blogging for profit requires takes time, and in all likelihood it will be at least several months or even years before you are able to turn much of a profit. Try to stay committed to your blogging project during this initial rough period. To stay motivated, set goals for how often you will update and how many readers you want to attract, and then reward yourself for sticking with your plan.
Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick have just launched their new report on how to become a blogger!
And it is amazing!
This is a totally free report which sets out the future standard for blogs, and the news is that multimedia will be king. The days of successful pure-text blogs could be over!
Download the report and take a look for yourself. You’ll read it through in 30-40 mins and I urge you to read it through cover to cover in one sitting. I must admit that when I did so I felt very agitated – but in a good way. I couldn’t wait to start exploring the ideas shared.
The report demonstrates the ‘Five Milestones’ we need to reach to become a successful blogger, and even describes a flow to undertake.
The best thing about the report is it shows reals examples of successful blogs that demonstrate success according to the milestones. This isn’t just bluster.
I recommend this report – the report itself is a milestone in the evolution of the blogging industry…
Look out for posts here that will show you how to achieve these milestones as efficiently as you can!
Blogging… blogging… hmmmm…. what must your blog DO?
Seth Godin
Well Seth Godin on his blog answers this question, beautifully. It’s all about making connections. His post (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/how-to-make-mon.html) is the best I’ve read so far in succinctly explaining what, if you want to make money, you must do with your blog. Make a connection, make a success. This is powerful stuff, Seth!
OK, so if I’m advocating the work of this genius, then what’s my story? Well taking Seth’s advice, what I do with this blog is…
- Connect Information Seekers with Information – I give you information on how to most efficiently startup your blog
- Connect Advertisers to people who want to be advertised to – you want to see options in the blogging marketplace and make informed choices, don’t you?
- Connect people buying with people who are selling – I make no apologies for wanting to show you the best products around to get your successful blog going by promoting these products
Seth speaks wise words in this post. If you’re not making any of the connections he discusses, then what are you doing… and why are you doing it?
Category : Fundamentals
There are Three Types of Blogger. Which are you? Find out here…
There is the Rambler – this is a blogger who mutters their thoughts online without any real purpose other than to spread their thoughts. Ramblers are the schoolkids that share their love stories and fascinations with the latest band. They are the artistic types that right poems about clouds and cheese. They’re the niche experts that haven’t yet woken up to their monetization potential. The Rambler blogs without structure – they are the free spirits unconstrained by external influence. A Ramble has the lowest barrier of entry, requiring only a browser, keyboard and a few brain cells. About 95% of all blogs are Rambles, and comprise the majority of abandoned blogs.
There is the Reporter – the blogger who is the web-journalist without the press card. They can say what they want and often do. Reporters are conduits for information without adding a great deal of value to it themselves. Reporters are there for one thing – to amass content to funnel browsers into ad-clickers. A Reporter selects a wide field of view and blogs about many subjects, often restating content from other sources, perhaps adding a twist. The Reporter’s attempts to build high-value relationships are thwarted by their lack of authority in their subjects. A Reporter can Ramble should they choose to, and the difference between a Report and a Ramble is sometimes unclear, if facts are disputable. A Reporter only needs a browser, access to the full spectrum of websites and information sources, and a slightly larger brain that the Rambler.
And there is the Expert – the Expert is a blogger who creates their own content based off their insight and deep knowledge and skill in their niche. The Expert limits their field of view to a narrow subject and then dominates it. The Expert, over time, builds a great deal of trust and authority in their subject, and most importantly, influence over their readers (Darren Rowse, an expert himself, has written a post on how RSS subscribers create influence). The Expert can also Ramble and Report if they wish to, but at the risk of damaging their authority. The Expert requires significant amounts of knowledge and experience to exist. Experts are able to turn this influence into profit by building a ‘virtuous circle’ – the value received by readers is shared with the blogger, and the blogger’s value creates fresher value for readers, and so on.
Category : Fundamentals
Reporter vs Expert – Why Most Bloggers Are Stuck Reporting
There are basically two types of bloggers in the world – reporters and experts – and some people perform both roles (usually the experts, it’s hard for reporters to become experts, but it’s easy for experts to report).
If you have ever taken an Internet marketing course or attended a seminar specifically for beginners, you have probably heard about the two different methodologies. Whenever the business model is based on content, and if you blog for money then the model is based on content, people are taught to either start as reporters, or if possible step up as experts.
I’ll be frank, you want to be the expert.
Reporters leverage the content of the experts and in most cases people start off as reporters because they haven’t established expertise. Experts enjoy the perks of preeminence, higher conversion rates because of perceived value, it’s easier to get publicity, people are more likely to seek you out rather than you having to seek others out, joint ventures come easier, etc… experts in most cases simply make more money and attract more attention.
Most Bloggers Are Reporters
The thing with expertise is that it requires something – experience. No person becomes an expert without doing things and learning. Bloggers usually start out without expertise and as a result begin their blogging journey by talking about everything going on in their niche (reporting) and by interviewing and talking about other experts (reporting again).
There’s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it’s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts – there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on.
Don’t Replicate Your Teacher
If you have ever spent some time browsing products in the learn Internet marketing niche you will notice a pattern. Many people first study Internet marketing from a “guru” (for lack of a better term). The guru teaches how he or she is able to make money online, and very often the view that the student gleams is that in order to make money online you have to teach others how to make money online.
The end result of this process is a huge army of amateurs attempting to replicate what their teacher does in the same industry – the Internet marketing industry – not realizing that without expert status based on a proven record and all the perks that come with it, it’s next to impossible to succeed.
Even people who enjoy marginal success, say for example growing an email list of 1,000 people, then go out and launch a product about how to grow an email list of 1,000 people. Now I have no problems with that, I think it’s fine to teach beginners and leverage whatever achievements you have, the problem is that people gravitate to the same niche – Internet marketing – and rarely have any key points of differentiation.
How many products out there do you know of that all claim to teach the same things – email marketing, SEO, pay per click, affiliate marketing, and all the sub-niches that fall under the category of Internet marketing. It’s a saturated market, yet when you see your teachers and other gurus making money teaching others how to make money (and let’s face it – making money as a subject is one of the most compelling) – your natural inclination is to follow in their footsteps.
If the key is to become an expert and you haven’t spent the last 5-10 years making money online, I suggest you look for another niche to establish expertise in.
Report on Your Process, Not Others
The secret to progress from reporter to expert is not to focus on other experts and instead report on your own journey. When you are learning how to do something and implementing things day by day, or studying other people’s work, you need to take your process and what you do as a result of what you learn, and use it as content for your blog.
It’s okay to talk about experts when you learn something from them, but always relate it to what you are doing. If you learn a technique from an expert it’s fine to state you learned it from them (and affiliate link to their product too!) but you should then take that technique, apply it to what you are doing and then report back YOUR results, not there’s. Frame things using your opinion – your stories – and don’t regurgitate what the expert said. The key is differentiation and personality, not replication.
Expertise comes from doing things most people don’t do and then talking about it. If you do this often enough you wake up one day as an expert, possibly without even realizing how it happened, simply because you were so good at reporting what you did.
You Are Already An Expert
Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.
Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously, you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.
Blogs, and the Web in general, are amazing resources when you leverage them as a communication tool to spread your expertise because of the sheer scope of people they can reach. If all you ever do is talk to people in person and share your experience using limited communication mediums, you haven’t much hope of becoming an expert. Take what you know and show other people through blogging, and you might be surprised how people change their perception of you in time.
Reporting Is A Stepping Stone
If your previous experience and expertise is from an area you want to leave behind or you are starting from “scratch”, then reporting is the path you must walk, at least for the short term.
Reporting is a lot of fun. Interviewing experts, talking about what other people are doing and just being part of a community is not a bad way to blog. In many cases people make a career of reporting (journalism is about just that), but if you truly want success and exponential results, at some point you will have to stand up and proclaim yourself as someone unusually good at something and then proceed to demonstrate it over and over again.
Have patience and focus on what you do to learn and then translate that experience into lessons for others, and remember, it’s okay to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s all most experts really are.
This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.
To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link: www.BlogMastermind.com
It’s real easy, if you take it easy!
Most blogging software is specifically designed to be simple to use and maintain, but even the least intimidating blogging system can feel very overwhelming to somebody who has not spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of different kinds of software. Particularly for newer bloggers, learning how to use the interface of blogging software is the most difficult part of blogging. If you are somebody who feels comfortable expressing themselves in another medium, it may prove to be well worth all your time and effort to learn blogging software, but that doesn’t mean that the task will be as easy as pie.
The main thing that will help you find success as you learn how to use a new kind of blogging software is to try and take things slowly. Most people get so excited about learning to blog that they try to rush into the thick of it and start exploring the most complicated features of a program right away. This can often lead to getting confused and feeling frustrated, and all too many potential bloggers burn out during this stage of the process. If you take your time learning the basics of your blog software program before you move on to more advanced techniques, you will be more likely to retain what you have learned, use your new knowledge effectively, and keep feeling positive about your ability to understand the world of blogging.