Award Sounds

A Guest Post by Elle from Couple Money.

I’ve been blogging for a couple years now and I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. Couple Money is not my first blog, but it is the first one I created with a specific goal in mind. I wanted to share how we’re building our net income while creating a mobile income from our passions and create a community of like minded couples.

My other sites started off as personal blogs and haphazardly morphed as I gained readers. Without a particular goal or process, the blogs’ growth tapered off. I wanted to change this with Couple Money and I knew I needed to get it done sooner rather than later.

I’ve been a reader of Problogger and after reading the 31 Day Challenge that Darren presented, I knew this is something I need to improve my site. I completed my Challenge last weekend and I wanted to share some tips I’ve done to maximize the Challenge for my blog.

Promoting Your Blog Post Effectively

One of the first tasks in the challenge is promoting a blog post. I’ve been guilty of promoting my blog posts to the annoyance of other readers and bloggers when I first started a couple of years ago. I had thought the best way was to keep posting updates on new posts. I learned the hard way that method does not work. When I receive constant direct messages on Twitter to promote posts, I feel less inclined to help, even if they’re good posts.

I was happy to see what I could do to promote my posts without seeming spammy. I tend to promote my posts through Twitter and I mixed them up with posts from other bloggers that I’ve found very informative. Since I work during the day, I try to batch my tweets as I review sites in the evening. While that’s great for me and my schedule, it wasn’t too effective.

I found that releasing them around the same time does no one any good. Not too many people clicked to read my posts or other people’s posts because they felt overwhelmed. I decided to make it a win-win situation. I now use Su.pr to schedule my tweets and spread out some community promotion through out the work day.

The Seesmic app is my buddy on my phone to keep in touch. I check replies and messages on my Samsung Moment during breaks and lunch during the day to communicate with my network. I also try and take the time to thank everyone who retweeted my posts. I think that appreciation and gratitude goes a long way with effective promotion.

Interlinking Old Posts Quickly and Easily

Writing posts that can grab readers’ attention is great, but it’s only part of getting a community started. I realized I needed to get my visitors to dig deep and become readers. The best way to help them is presenting them relevant links within the posts they’re interested in enough to read. In addition to helping readers, including relevant links can improve your site’s SEO strategy.

Darren suggests making interlinking a routine part if your blogging activities. To maximize my relevant links and minimize my time doing it, I use CrossLinker and Insight. These two plugins have helped me to quickly create links to my pillar posts and my best content. Crosslinker allows me to focus readers to my pillar posts and choose which keywords to link to it with. Insight is very helpful as I’m writing my post, as I can search for my posts and other blogs for helpful and resourceful links.

I’ve noticed that completing this task has improved my incoming search traffic for certain keywords. I’m starting to get on the first page of results for my relatively young blog. As I continue making interlinking to older posts a habit, I’m hoping to get even more improvement.

Find Some Blog Buddies to Turbo Charge Each Other

If you want to build a community, you have to be a part of one. Day 15’s task was to find a partner to help encourage each other to improve. I checked out some tips on finding blogging buddies and decided to join a small band of bloggers with the Yakezie Challenge. It’s the perfect combination of camaraderie and friendly competition that I needed. As a reader of Financial Samurai, I noticed his challenge to other bloggers to improve their sites by using Alexa as a gauge.

I compare it to someone who’s looking to get in shape by joining a neighbourhood sports team. You’re working hard to improve your game, but the teamwork makes it seem more like fun instead of just fitness.

So if you’re looking at finding a blogging buddy, my suggestion is to look around your niche and find some bloggers who are hungry and have a specific goal you share. Being a part of your niche’s forums is definitely important, but having a competition really focuses you on getting your work done.

Breathe Life Into an Old Post

As I noticed more search traffic for my blog (loving the results of this challenge!), I saw the need to follow Day 21’s task advice on going back and improving my old blog posts. My problem was that I didn’t have a large block of time to research what I needed to do to make it more resourceful and while still keeping up with current posts.

I decided to beef up posts based on my first time reader review (Day 17) and from analytic tools: Google Analytics and WebMaster Tools. My goal was to make sure older posts were providing information that my readers were looking for. I checked several statistics to see what I needed to focus my attention on:

• Popular Posts: Since time was limited I focused on posts that were already getting some attention and just needed a bit more to help them stand out.
• Search Terms Used: I wanted to see how readers were finding these posts and if there were any specific questions they were asking. I can either adjust a post with an answer to that question or write a new posts and link to my older posts.
• Heat Map: On my homepage, I include links to some of my older posts. I look and see which ones are popular and try and figure out why.

I recommend doing this on a monthly basis with your older posts and just focus on what your readers want to read more of. After all, if you’re looking to build a community, it can’t always be about you. Looking at older posts can be a bit easier to see objectively and you can address your readers’ needs more effectively.

What’s The Plan Now?

I have to admit I was really sad to see the challenge over. It was really easy to follow along a daily blogging schedule and having a specific goal to achieve. Having a framework to write and work from helped me to be more productive.

I decided I’m going to use the 31 Day Challenge as my guide for the rest of the year. Instead of going through the guide in the traditional 31 days, I’m going to focus each week on one of the daily tasks. I’ve seen how the guide has improved the quality of my content and the community so I want to really dig deep and focus on all the activities I can do with each task.

How about you? How have you maximized the 31 days to Build a Better Blog Challenge with your site?

Elle has been blogging over at Couple Money on how she and her family handles their finances. To follow Elle you can chat with her on twitter (@Elle_CM) or subscribe to her blog.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Tips for Doing the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge

Share This

In this post Mark Hayward shares some great tips on social media for small business.

Image by jn is not here

Do you own a small business? How long have you been using social media as a marketing tool and what have you learned?

In a little over a months time I will have owned my business for just about three years. When I began using social media some thirty six months ago, I had no real marketing background experience, and I certainly had never written a blog post, interacted in a forum, or sent a Tweet.

My social media evolution began with a simple foray into blogging as a way to try and rank well for some keywords related to my business. From there I expanded to niche forums, review sites, FLICKR, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Man! Just trying to keep up can be intimidating and overwhelming.

However, my number one goal has always been to create a distributed social media footprint with all of my online marketing activities pointing back towards my small business website.

After almost three years of working hard, learning continuously, making lots of mistakes, and monitoring successes, below are thirty valuable social media marketing lessons that I have learned through my experience. I hope they help you:

1. Location is dead. We have now fully entered into the Interaction Economy.

2. It does not pay to engage in ‘pissing contests’ on business review sites or in forums.

3. When used properly, a small video camera like a Flip and a standard digital camera (or just an iPhone), can be like having your own marketing department.

4. Instead of trying to be everywhere in the social media space, determine what online activities work best for your business and focus your attention there.

5. Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is important but it needs to be combined with a well distributed plan for Search Engine Visibility (SEV).

6. Conceptualizing and then defining your social media goals can help to keep you on track.

7. Social networking sites can be a tremendous time suck. Use a site like Egg Timer to help limit the time you spend interacting online.

8. Get to know the online influencers in your small business niche, as well as, the social media pros.

9. There is gold to be mined with Twitter Search if you are willing to use it to listen, engage, and provide value.

10. Uploading well titled and tagged videos to YouTube and photos to FLICKR can drastically improve your Search Engine Visibility.

11. Consistent small business blogging pays the greatest returns.

12. Technology changes daily. Read often.

13. You should not fear customer review social sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Rather, you should embrace them.

14. Helping people online when they least expect it can bring you great rewards.

15. Even on your worst day, you have to remember that every interaction counts.

16. Spamming and jamming your business down the throats of potential customers only drives business away.

17. Not everyone is going to like you, so be prepared to get flamed and read negative reviews.

18. Turn negative reviews into a positive by using them to help better define who your ideal customer is.

19. Your backstory matters and weaving it into your online business persona is important.

20. Social media is a lot like exercise. Doing a little bit consistently everyday will produce better results than one eight hour marathon session per month.

21. The people who criticize you the most for using social media to promote your small business are the one’s who are most afraid of embracing change.

22. One of the easiest ways for small business owners to measure social media ROI is to ask every customer how they heard about your business.

23. When starting your social media marketing efforts for your small business you will get frustrated. Try to keep a long term outlook like six months to a year.

24. Don’t discount the power of niche forums that are related to your small business.

25. Use Google Alerts to see who’s talking specifically about your business and anything related to your business.

26. If you are using social media as a customer service tool, when something goes wrong (and it always does!), being sincere, humble, and apologetic will be greatly appreciated by your future potential customers.

27. Utilizing free email lists like Help A Reporter Out (HARO) can help you find valuable public relations and news opportunities for your business.

28. Social media in the short term does not work. You must be in it for the long term and be persistent, consistent, and committed.

29. Anyone who owns a small business can ‘do’ social media, but NOT everyone ‘does’ it. (And that is your true competitive advantage.)

30. If you have a spare hour or two everyday to aimlessly surf the net, or sit and watch T.V., then you have more than enough time to commit to using social media for your small business.

How long have you been using social media for your small business? What have you found works best?

Mark Hayward hates the snow and cold! Luckily, he owns a small business in the Caribbean. Mark is passionate about helping other small business owners avoid the online mistakes he has made. You can follow Mark on Twitter @mark_hayward and you can subscribe to his RSS Feed for weekly small business social media marketing tips.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

30 Valuable Lessons Learned Using Social Media for Small Business

Share This

When you write down your goals, your primary aim is to create a new vision for what you desire to experience next in life, so that you can begin to make that vision a reality.

So what do you do when you sit down to write a vision for your life, and you’re coming up with a lot of blanks that you just aren’t sure about?

Guess.

It really is that simple. Just take a stab at it. Don’t even worry about making your best guess. Just make any guess that seems remotely reasonable.

Now take that guess and run with it. Write 1-2 paragraphs to describe the vision that pops into your mind when you think about that possible direction.

Make sure your vision is written with positive, present tense statements. Add some emotion to your vision. Include how you expect to feel (“I’m thrilled to be…”, “I’m feeling deeply grateful as I…”).

Don’t worry about whether your guess is right or wrong at this point. Truthfully this isn’t a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter of suitability for you. You’re free to make whatever choices you desire. You just want to identify choices that make sense for you. You want to make choices where you can expect a very positive outcome.

Now re-read that vision statement once or twice per day. As you read it, imagine it as already real. See yourself there. This should only take a minute or two to do the visualization part for a single goal… maybe 30 seconds once you’re accustomed to it.

As you imagine your vision as real, notice how you feel about it. Do you feel really, really good about it? Does it appeal to you on an emotional level? Or do you feel neutral or negative about it? Do you feel some hesitation or resistance?

Quite often, something will feel a little bit off when you visualize your vision. That’s perfectly fine. If it’s a very vague feeling of unease, just keep renewing this same vision on a daily basis for several more days. Allow your mind to expand and play with the vision a little more each time.

Eventually you’ll get a sense of whether the vision is a keeper or if it needs some tweaking.

Your vision may be just right to begin with. Maybe it feels great every time you imagine it. You know you want it. You’re practically lusting after it. That’s great. You’ve found a keeper. Hold on to that vision, and keep renewing it each day. This will help to imprint the vision onto your subconscious. Usually within a month or less (sometimes much less), you’ll see evidence that this vision is already becoming real for you.

Another possibility is that as you imagine your vision, your mind will begin to tweak it in different ways. It will twist it in a slightly different direction or add more details to improve it. Keep renewing that vision until it becomes a keeper, or it becomes clear that the vision just isn’t working.

And finally, you may encounter a situation where your vision just doesn’t quite come together in a way that feels good to you. Maybe it’s internally incongruent. Maybe it doesn’t mesh well with some other part of your life. In that case, ask yourself, What is it about this vision that fails to delight me?

Take note of the details of the vision that just aren’t working for you. It can be helpful to write them down. This is a time where it’s okay to be negative. Identify the parts of the vision that don’t feel right.

Now ask yourself how you can re-engineer those broken parts of the vision to create something better. Maybe the problems are minor and you can swap in different details to improve the vision. Or maybe the problems are so deep that you feel it’s best to throw out the whole vision and start over from scratch with a totally different direction. Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle.

However it turns out, that’s perfectly okay. You’re using your imagination to beta-test your vision, running the vision through your feelings as a filter. If it doesn’t feel right to you, you know that something is off and needs tweaking.

If you continue to hold a vision that feels off, your negative feelings will block you from allowing it to become real. So it’s important to get your feelings on board. Holding a vision that doesn’t feel right is a waste of time. Holding a vision that makes you feel nothing special is also a waste of time.

Once you update your vision to correct the problems, repeat the process. Write out your new vision. Then visualize it as real on a daily basis for several more days. Notice how you feel about it. Use your feelings to identify problems. Then revise the vision to take a stab at correcting the problems.

This is an iterative process. You probably won’t get your vision just right on the first attempt. You probably won’t get it right on the second or third attempts either. But with each pass, you’ll get closer to your true desires.

When you eventually have a vision that passes your emotional filters, it tends to manifest very quickly. I’ve seen some amazingly fast transformations occur in my life when I reached that point. Sometimes a new vision shows up the very next day, like it was just waiting for me to become a match for it. Other times I’ll see breadcrumbs leading me right to it.

I review my written visions each morning. I have a few paragraphs of vision statements for each area of my life: career; finances; health; relationships, family, & social life; workflow & order; personal & spiritual; and lifestyle, travel, & adventure. You don’t have to use the same categories. I just find it helpful to make sure I’m creating a vision for each important part of my life.

If you don’t create a vision for each part of your life, someone else will do it for you. The intentions of others will fill in the blanks. You see… you’re always working to fulfill some vision. Either you’re creating and fulfilling your own vision, or you’re working on someone else’s vision for you. There is no neutral. If you aren’t creating your own vision, then you’re obediently fulfilling a blended vision created by others, such as the vision that you should be a good citizen and taxpayer, that you should relate to people a certain way and live a certain kind of lifestyle, and that you should manage your affairs a certain way until you die. If you’re in love with the vision that society is expecting you to live out, then there’s no point in creating your own vision. But if you’d like to hold the reins of your own destiny and direct your life path more consciously, then you must absolutely create a vision for yourself.

By default, you are visualizing the status quo. Without a grander vision to occupy your thoughts, you will naturally succumb to the habit of thinking about what you’re already getting, and you’ll often feel some emotions when you do so. This is exactly how you hold the intention to manifest more of the same. So by default, you are automatically holding intentions to keep getting what you’re getting.

This is why it’s rather silly to complain about your problems. Sometimes people come to our discussion forums and write really long posts to explain what they’re experiencing in life and why they don’t like it. What they don’t realize is that what they’re doing is the exact process necessary to ensure that they’ll experience more of the same. They’re imagining their past and present as they write about it, and they’re feeling strong feelings as they do so. They are using the power of vision to create a future that resembles their past and present.

If you want to create something different than what you’re already getting, do NOT do what I described in the previous paragraph. It’s stupid. This is the exact opposite of an intelligent solution. Only do this if you want to be stupid. And if you catch someone doing this, please refer them to this article, so they can hopefully understand why it cannot possibly work… and so that they’ll get some motivation to start creating a new vision, even if they have to guess at first.

(Incidentally, if you want to see a prime example of what NOT to do, here’s a good one from a few days ago. I’m not trying to single out and embarrass the original poster or anything like that, but I do want to emphasize that it’s totally fruitless to do such things. I’ve been guilty of this myself at various times, so I’m certainly no angel here. Hopefully in the next few days, other forum members will share some good examples of posting about their dreams and desires. Lots of positive ripples are created when people do that.)

Instead of reviewing and rehashing what you don’t want, create the vision of what you do want. If you feel a need to post something online, post about your dreams and desires. Write a really long, emotional post about what you most want to experience next in life. This way you won’t make the terrible mistake of reinforcing what you’re already getting. I like to do this publicly at least once a year by writing about my primary focus for the upcoming year in advance. What’s really cool about that is that when I share my vision in public, some people will find that my vision appeals to them too, and they offer to help me make it a reality. That help wouldn’t come to me if I didn’t feel so good about what I wanted to create that I was willing to share it publicly. Your willingness to share your desires publicly is a good test of how ready you are to experience them in reality. For more on that idea, see the article Broadcast Your Desires.

If you don’t like what you’re already getting, the best thing you can do is to ignore it. Turn your back on it. Stop dwelling on it. Only pay the minimal amount of attention to it that is truly essential. Turn the bulk of your attention (and emotion) to the new vision you’ve created. Spend more time living in the new reality you’re creating as opposed to the old one you wish to leave behind. This will quickly draw that new reality into your life in physical form. Don’t worry about trying to be perfect at this. Just do the best you can. The more you can turn your attention away from the past and towards your new vision, the better. The more you practice this, the easier it gets.

“Going with the flow” only makes sense if you’re going with the flow of your own vision. If you don’t have a clear vision and try to live in such a way that you go with the flow, all you’re doing is going with the flow of social conditioning. It just means you’re going with the flow of the default social vision for you. There will be a flow that you’ll experience in that case, but it can be chaotic at times, and it’s generally very slow moving. But if you love what you’re experiencing and you love the current pacing of your life, then technically there’s nothing wrong with going with the social flow. It’s an option that’s available to you.

Personally I’m not a big fan of going with the social flow. I find it tediously slow. With my own clear vision, I can create something in less than a month that would otherwise take years to create if I went at the pacing of the social flow. An individual can greatly outpace a pack that moves at the speed of its slowest member.

Keep tweaking your vision as you feel the need to do so. Keep renewing it once or twice per day. Feel the feelings of being there. Eventually you’ll create a vision that feels so good that you’ll find it immensely pleasurable to just sit back and imagine it as real. You may reach the point where you’d rather live in your new imagined reality than in your current physical reality. That’s what creates the shifts that make your vision a reality.

Happy manifesting!

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the next transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas.

Discuss this article in the forums.
Make a donation.
View a random article from Steve's blog.
Get the free newsletter.
Visit Erin Pavlina's blog.Steve Recommends
Man Transformation - Attract a high-quality relationship
Site Build It! - Build an income-generating website
PhotoReading - Read books 3x faster
Paraliminals - Accelerate your personal growth
The Journal - Keep a secure journal on your PC

© 2010 by Steve Pavlina.

Over the last few days I’ve been in Austin Texas attending the South by South West Interactive (#SXSWi) conferences. Sometimes known as ‘Spring Break for Geeks’ I try to get out to this gathering each years because there are so many of my colleagues in attendance and it is an opportunity to meet up with old friends, network, do a little business and a meet a few readers at the same time.

Today is the last day of SXSW (I return home tomorrow) and despite some late nights I woke up this morning with a start on the dot of 5am (jet lag sucks). As I lay in bed reflecting upon the days I’ve just had I just started to feel very very grateful for this opportunity and especially the chance I’ve had this week to interact with some very special people.

A few highlights come to mind:

People Practicing the Art of Saying Hi

Lets start with what has happened constantly, day and night, since arriving. The people who come up and introduce themselves are amazing. Whether they be past or present readers of ProBlogger (or one of my other blogs), members at Third Tribe, previous bloggers from b5media….. the amount of people who have come up to say hi has been amazing.
I think what I enjoy so much about these real time and face to face interactions is that it makes me realize in a more tangible way that what I do as a blogger impacts ‘real people’. I find it very inspiring and a great reminder to keep building a blog here that helps such people to take their blogs to the next level. If you are one of the people who stepped up (sometimes a little out of your comfort zone) to say hi – thank you.

Salaam Garage

One project I came across on day 1 was Salaam Garage – founded by Amanda Koster (a photographer, author, speaker… and great person) – Salaam Garage brings together a variety of things I am interested in and passionate about – storytelling (with writing, video and image), humanitarianism (partnering with international NGOs) and traveling in teams. You can read more here.

Book Reading

On Friday at 5pm (day 1) I had the opportunity to do a book reading to promote the upcoming 2nd edition of ProBlogger the book (I’ll talk more about this in coming weeks as its launching late April). In the 20 minute session I planned to share what was new in the 2nd edition and run through a case study on my photography site (which is a new chapter in the book).

The session was 20 minutes but 10 minutes in a siren began to sound and an announcement came over the speaker system saying that an emergency had just taken place in the building and that everyone should evacuate. Wow – talk about a mood killer :-) Everyone calmly filed out (literally thousands of people in the building at all of the different sessions taking place at that time).

My stomach sunk a little as I realized how far I’d travelled for this 20 minute session that was now potentially just 10 minutes but even as I traveled down the escalators people were very kind and I met some amazing people. Luckily we were let back in the room 10 minutes later and I was given 10 minutes to finish my presentation.

About half those who had been there returned which was great. The other half of those who were there for the 2nd half were there for a completely different book which was strange but it seemed to go ok!

I’ll turn the presentation into a video in the coming weeks but in the mean time if you’d like to see what the reading was like you can read the notes of one person in attendance here and here and see some visual notes on it here.

Photo Shoot – Meeting Jasmine

As I was leaving the book reading (the first time…. during the ‘emergency’) a number of people said hi – one of whom was an amazing photographer by the name of Jasmine Star. I’ve long admired Jasmine’s photography and have particularly enjoyed watching her blog develop over the years (she is someone who uses her blog VERY well to build her business – a great case study). Jasmine is a photographer who many of my dPS readers LOVE too.

We only met fleetingly on the elevator but later that evening Jasmine emailed me to ask if she could photograph me. I’d only been telling someone earlier that day that I needed to get some new headshots taken and so when the opportunity came to have someone of Jasmine’s calliber take them I leapt at the opportunity.

The shoot was fun and it was interesting to watch how Jasmine approached it – but even better as the opportunity to hang and connect with someone like Jasmine who is a very genuine person. You can see some of the results of the shoot at her blog (tell me which shots you like best as I’ve got to choose some).

Other Stuff

There are numerous other great things that have happened at SXSW this year. We had a great meetup for Third Tribe (at a pretty wacky bar), I spent a great relaxing afternoon with a smaller group of bloggers at a house party, there have been some fun larger parties in the evenings, I’ve done a number of fun interviews with both bloggers, media and for the promotion of the book and have had opportunity to catch up with some good friends who I’ve not seen for a while.

All in all I’m feeling very very grateful and lucky to be in the position I’m in. I’m also feeling pretty inspired to keep at what I do and to be as useful as possible.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Updates from SXSW

Share This

Yesterday I wrote a post about some of the factors that bloggers might consider when deciding whether to end a blog or not.

Today I want to continue the theme and look at some options available to bloggers who have decided to end their blog but who don’t quite know how to do it.

Here are some of the most common ways that I’ve seen people end blogs:

1. Sell It

Before you decide to delete your blog, or simply decide to stop writing – consider whether it might have some commercial worth. This might not be appropriate for all blogs (for example if you have a more personal blog you might not want to give it over to someone else) but if your blog is more commercial/entrepreneurial in nature you’ll probably find that it has some value to somebody else.

There are a variety of places where you can sell blogs and websites online but one of the best that I’ve had a little to do with is Flippa which has regular auctions of blogs and sites running. A quick survey of blogs listed there over the past few months has seen blogs sell for anything from two digit numbers right through to some pretty large sales (I just saw one that went for $60,000).

Obviously the more traffic and income your blog has the better but you might be surprised what people are willing to pay even for smaller blogs that have been around for a while and which have some page rank and incoming links.

Another option if you’re not willing to give away your content but still have a domain with some commercial value is to simply sell the domain without the content. Again – if you have a more established domain with lots f incoming links pointing at it you’ll find that some will be willing to give you something for it.

2. Hire a Blogger or Take On a Partner

If you’ve lost your passion for the topic of your blog but it still has potential to generate traffic and income you might want to consider hiring another blogger/bloggers to write for your blog (or even the run the whole thing).

There would be a variety of levels that you could do this on – from hiring a blogger to write a certain amount of posts per week which you edit, to hiring someone to write and do all the editing, to hiring someone to take on everything (including managing ad sales, maintaining the blog’s platform etc).

The model for this might be to pay a per post rate or you might choose to make it more of a partnership where you share ownership and income with the other blogger.

3. Transition it to a Community Blog

This is similar to the last option but if you have a blog that does have a group of loyal readers it could be worth handing the blog over to volunteers from your community to help you keep it running. In a sense it will become a blog which is largely made up of guest posts from readers.

This approach will only really work if you have an established readership who feels strongly that the blog is something that they believe in and want to keep running – even if it costs them some time to contribute to.

4. Relaunch

One option that I’ve not seen done many times but which could be considered is to refocus or relaunch your blog. This will probably only work if you have a domain name that is suited to more than one niche but instead of completely scrapping your site and starting again from scratch on a new domain perhaps you could build upon the Google rank that your blog has and start a new one on the same domain.

Again – there would be some branding considerations to keep in mind here and it work work best with a small shift in topic, but it could work in some situations.

5. Stop Writing But Let the Blog Sit as an Archive

I’ve done this a number of times – instead of just deleting my blogs I generally will just stop writing and then let them sit on the web in archive mode.

The benefit of this over completely deleting your blog or letting your domain name lapse and someone else grabbing it is that you keep the option open of using it again later and if you are monetizing it you have the opportunity to keep earning a little money from it in the mean time.

The other benefit is that you still are making your content available to readers who might be loyal to your blog and who want to keep referencing what you’ve written previously.

I’ve seen a number of people take this approach and also take up a more aggressive monetization of the site, do some link building to it and treat it virtually like a more static website that targets search traffic.

6. Redirect Links to a New Project

Another approach to consider if you’re starting a new blog on a similar topic is to set up your old blog and get it redirecting its permalinks over to your new project to help that new project get established with a little extra SEO juice and forwarded readers.

This is something I’ve seen a few SEO types do quite successfully and could be well worth doing instead of deleting your blog and not building upon what you’ve already done.

7. Delete it

This would be my last preference for most blogs but could be an option if you don’t want to keep paying for a domain/hosting and don’t care if your content disappears for ever.

I would probably sell my blog before doing this (or at least sell the domain) but I suspect that this is probably the most common approach among bloggers who simply let their domain names lapse and/or switch off their hosting.

What Have You Done with Old/Dead Blogs?

I’d love to hear what approaches you have taken with your old/dead blogs? Have you done some of the above or have you tried something else. Please share your experiences of ending blogs in comments below.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

7 Ways to End a Blog

Share This

Over on Twitter last week @ChrisGuthrie asked me – ‘At what point should you quit a blog and move onto the next project?’

It is a good question and one that I’m not sure that there is any single answer for – however I can certainly talk about what has led me to quit some of my previous blogs. There have been a variety of reasons – in fact in most cases it was more than one reason that led me to quit a blog. The reasons included:

1. Lack of Passion/Interest in the Topic – I went through a phase where I decided to choose topics to blog about that I thought would be profitable – rather than choosing things I had an actual interest in. After a few months of blogging on these topics I soon realize that I simply could not sustain them.
2. Lack of Traffic – there have been a few instances where I started blogging on certain topics that I did have some interest in – but which didn’t attract traffic. In one case I think it was because the niche was too narrow and people just were not searching for the topic, in another instance there was so much competition in the niche it was difficult to break into but in other instances I think it was probably more to do with my lack of passion for the topic shining through (people can tell if your heart isn’t really in it.
3. Lack of Profit – this one tends to flow out of a lack of traffic (which can flow out of a lack of passion….. see how they’re all linked?) but at times I’ve quit a blog simply because I couldn’t justify keeping it running for the amount of time I was putting into it.
4. Lack of Engagement/Lack of Personal Satisfaction – one of the blogs that I quit a couple of years ago actually got quite good traffic (mainly from search engines) and actually was quite profitable – however I found the idea of developing a blog purely for search traffic to be quite un-stimulating and unsatisfying. The lack of reader engagement and the fleeting visits from visitors didn’t really leave me feeling I was doing much that was worthwhile – I so I let the blog die to create blogs that were not only profitable but also hopefully more engaging.
5. Running out of Things to Say – this one relates to a few of the other reasons however is worth saying. I can recall one blog which I started which I simply couldn’t think of more than a handful of posts to write about. The niche was too narrow to really sustain it over the long haul.
6. The life of the Niche Ends – one of the first profitable blogs that I developed (in partnership with another blogger) was one on the Athens Olympic games. While it was an amazing experience to blog about it and it was a very profitable time in the lead up to and during the games – the niche simply ended. We could have possibly extended it with blogs on future Olympics but in the end we felt we could do better by concentrating on different niches.

I’m certain that other bloggers will have quit blogs for other reasons (please share yours below).

Two Extra Thoughts

There’s two more things I want to throw into this discussion:<?p>

Don’t Quit Too Early – One thing I do want to emphasize is that I think many bloggers quit blogs too quickly. Not every blog will be hugely profitably or get loads of traffic – however those that do often take quite a few months (if not a year or two) to start reaching their potential.

In having talked to thousands of bloggers over the last 6 or so years I’ve found that most bloggers who quit blogs tend to do it in the first 2-3 months. While you can get a bit of an indication on some factors in this time (factors like your own passion for the topic, whether there’s much to say about the topic etc) it is certainly not long enough time to expect your blog to have reached its traffic potential.

It takes time to build a profile, to get ranked by search engines and to develop an archive of useful content. In my experience 3 months is just the tip of the iceberg of a blogs potential. My own blogs have not really ‘taken off’ for at least a year to 18 months after launch.

It is OK to Quit – The other balancing factor that I’d throw into the mix is that it is ok to quit a blog. I’ve talked to a number of bloggers over the years who ended up feeling trapped by their blogs. They realized early on that the blog wasn’t getting traction and that they might not have had a real passion in their topic – but because they’d been writing content every day for it for a period of time they felt guilty in giving up on it. As a result they continued to blog for years to come despite knowing that it probably wasn’t worth doing.

Hanging in there an giving a blog time to grow is one thing – but continuing to blog on a blog that you know deep down isn’t really going anywhere it probably not a wise thing. In this case I’d be encouraging a blogger to consider either ending their blog, hiring or partnering with someone to help them blog or even selling their blog – all of these things will enable you to move onto something else that perhaps is a better fit for where you are.

Tomorrow: How to Quit Your Blog

In my next post I’m going to continue this train of thought and share a few options from my experience on HOW to quit a blog.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

When Should You Quit a Blog and Move On?

Share This

A Guest Post from Ali Hale from The Blogger’s Guide to Effective Writing.

You know how to hook the reader at the start of a post. You know how to end on an strong note. But somewhere between that gripping first sentence and that finish-with-a-bang last sentence comes … the middle.

I’ve just released an ebook, The Blogger’s Guide to Effective Writing, and while I found plenty of great advice about beginnings and endings of posts, I found surprisingly little about the middle. And yet, the middle of your post:

• Is where most of the content lies – this isn’t an intriguing anecdote or a punchy call to action, it’s the meat of what you want to say.
• Can easily lose the reader – have you ever started reading a post only to end up skimming within the first few paragraphs?
• Often loses us as writers – have you ever begun writing only to get bogged down somewhere part way?

The middle of your blog post doesn’t need to be a hard slog through an uncertain wilderness. You – and your readers – can get from start to end without getting lost along the way. Here’s how.

1. Know Where You’re Going

Firstly, you need to know what journey you’re on. Although some bloggers can pull off a rambling, digressive style, most of us can’t. Having a clear title or topic in mind (even if you revise it later) helps. Be clear – in your own mind, and in your post’s introduction – what ground you’re going to cover.

Is your post going to be a step-by-step walkthrough of a particular topic?

Is it a quick tip about some aspect of your field?

Is it an update about your life, or about your blog?

This is also a good time to start thinking about your call to action. You don’t just have to bring this in at the end – you can hint at it throughout. For example, if your post is aimed at selling your product, you might want to make it clear during the post that this is an introduction to a topic which you’ve written more about.

2. Get Yourself a Map

Some people like to travel without a map and to let their mood take them where it will. I’m not one of them. The last time my fiancé and I went on a journey without a map, we ended up wandering around near Lake Windermere (in England’s Lake District) for five hours…

You don’t want that to happen with your post.

With a blog post, having a map means creating a structure. I write a lot of blog posts for various sites, and I always have a template structure in my head: whether it’s a how-to post, a list post, or just a generic one. With this post, for instance, I wrote out all the subheadings at the start, to form a very simple template.

Having some guidelines in place doesn’t mean that your journey is dull and uninteresting: you can still change your mind or take diversions. It does, though, mean you’re much more likely to finish!

When I showed a draft version of my ebook to some reviewers, Dave Rowley commented that the bonus pack of templates alone would have been worth the price for him, because they provided a structure for getting him through the long middle of a post to the finished product:

They clarified things for me and made the idea of writing blog posts a lot less daunting. I have a lot of half written blog posts, most of them are pretty good content, the difficulty I’ve been having is in organizing that content into readable posts that get the point across as clearly as possible.

Just going through the templates, I started to see where I could address some of those problems. I’ve already started using them to shape some drafts and can see solid content shaping up nicely with much less effort.

Having a map lets you know what type of journey you’re on. Are you writing a how-to post, a comprehensive guide to one area? Are you writing a list post, a whistle-stop tour of lots of points of interest? Or are you writing an essay-like post which helps the reader explore?

3. Put Up Big Signposts

When my fiancé and I got lost on our epic walk, we were very relieved to stumble out of the forest onto a road which had a sign pointing us to the nearest town!

Your post has signposts too, which help break up the journey and which tell readers what’s coming next. These are your subheaders, which split your post into convenient sections. In very long posts, readers might choose to bookmark the whole thing and read one section at a time.

Signposts also help you when you’re writing: if you list your subheaders before you start, you’ll know what you need to cover in each section – which helps ensure that you say enough and not too much.

To make your subheaders into effective signposts, you need to:

• Ensure that they make sense to someone skimming
• Make them Google-friendly – use keywords (this helps readers find your post in the first place)
• Use a large enough font to make them stand out. Some bloggers use bold type for subheaders – make sure you’re using header tags instead. Depending on your blog set-up, you’ll either want Header 2 or Header 3 tags
• Make sure your signposts really do what they say! If the material under your subheading wanders far off topic, readers will be even more confused than they would’ve been without a signpost.

4. Point Out Any Dangers

Sometimes, you will want to go off on a tangent in the middle of a post – or mention something that may lose your readers.

To minimize the risk of a reader twisting a metaphorical ankle and dropping out altogether, signal any potential dangers before you reach them. Just as road signs warn about difficult stretches of road, you can alert readers to difficulties that they might be about to have.

This could mean:

• Warning readers that the next bit of your post is quite specialized or technical, and that they can skip it. This reassures readers that the section after that is going to be comprehensible again!
• Explaining that you’re about to go on a digression – this could mean putting a section in brackets or italics, or just saying something like “slight digression here” or “tangent coming up”
• Pointing readers towards a blog post which explains something more fully – for example, if you’re touching on a topic you’ve covered extensively in the past, you might write, “To read more on this, check out my post…” or “If you’re not sure what RSS means, you can find out about it here.”

Here’s an example of making sure that a digression is clearly signaled and doesn’t confuse readers: the section in italics starts “Sidebar” and isn’t on the main topic of the post:

Proactive actions aren’t nearly this structured. Often times, we don’t know what it is we’re creating, let alone what effect it’ll have on the world. Nothing about being a creative is a sure bet except the consequences of not doing your thing. (Sidebar: I’ve worked with people who were physically, emotionally, and mentally sick because they weren’t doing the creative thing that would make them come alive; the fix wasn’t therapy, medication, exercise, or vacations – the fix was them doing their thing, and the rest started to fall in place.) (Charlie Gilkey, How to Lose An Hour’s Creative Mojo in Two Minutes, Productive Flourishing)

5. Make the Route Interesting

Would you last long on a walk which involved nothing but a long, grey, empty stretch of road? Probably not – unless you’re walking purely for exercise’s sake, you want some variation in the scenery.

Most of your readers are not reading your blog because they just want information. They want at least some level of entertainment and interest. Long, dreary blocks of grey text are offputting – however gripping your introduction is.

Making the route interesting means adding some visual elements to your post. This includes:

Formatting
You can do a lot to spice up a post without having to do more than press a few buttons in Wordpress. Try using:

• Lists, which are easier to take in than long sentences split with commas or semi-colons
• Bold text to draw the reader’s eye to key points in your post
• Blockquotes to offer interest in the form of a different voice (someone else’s words) and an inset piece of text
• Italic text to emphasize a key word and suggest tone of voice
• Subheadings, and nested subheadings where appropriate – just like I’ve done in this section with the smaller headings “Formatting” and “Images”

Images

A lot of bloggers just use images to catch attention at the start of a post. Getting graphical can vastly improve the middle of your post, too. Don’t use pictures just for the sake of it, but try:

• Screenshots to enhance a technical how-to
• Using images in keeping with the brand and voice of your blog
• Graphics to visually show statistics or figures which you’re using in the post
• Adding product images for a review post or a recommendation within a post

The middle of your post can easily form 80% of the content. However great your gripping introduction, readers will never reach that killer of an ending unless you get them safely through the middle first. Are your middles up to scratch – or are they losing readers?

Ali Hale has just launched “The Blogger’s Guide to Effective Writing” – normally priced at $29, ProBlogger readers can get a $5 discount by entering the code “ProBlogger”

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Navigating the Middle of Your Post – Without Getting Lost

Share This

A Guest Post by Johnny B. Truant from The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions.

I got an email the other day from a man who was at his wit’s end.

The email explained that in this man’s business, he was doing many of the same basic things that I was doing, but with much less success. He had been building websites for years. He had refined his craft. He felt that the sites he built were better, more complete, and had more features and better support than mine. He had more experience than I had. He even said that he was probably smarter than I was.

Yet I was doing really well and he was not. So what was the problem?

I replied that he was looking at the situation incorrectly. Generating the business I have — over 70 current active leads at last count — has nothing to do with making better websites, or being faster, or being cheaper. And it certainly has nothing to do with being smarter. (Besides, I graduated first in my class, ahem.)

There are a million people out there who do what I do. A million people putting up Wordpress sites and making them sing. Plenty of these people are better, faster, and cheaper than I am.

So I told him: People don’t come to me because I create the best Wordpress websites in the world, because I don’t. The people who come to me do so because we’re friends.

This is the Third Tribe

I’m not going to argue that relationship-based marketing is better than bulk-traffic based marketing, because I know that many incomes have been built on attracting a ton of people who you don’t know and who don’t know you. However, I will say that if you’ve never truly tried to get to know your readers, followers, commenters, and casual online acquaintances, you may really be cutting off your profits at the knees.

In case you missed the memo, Darren is one of the principals of the Third Tribe — a group and a philosophy with its roots in building businesses and audiences based on interpersonal connections. If you’re operating with a Third Tribe mentality, the sheer number of people who visit your site or read your blog matters far less than the number of people you exchange a few words with, or who you help without asking for pay, or who like you enough that they’ll retweet everything you post or buy everything you put out.

A Third Tribe business is about getting as many people to like you as possible. I tell my consulting clients that my job is to teach people to make friends.

And yes, I know how naïve that sounds. But hear me out.

Most people in my shoes, looking to sell Wordpress website setups by leveraging social media, would get on Twitter and announce their service’s features and low prices. They’d blast their specials and sales out to Twitter and Facebook. Maybe they’d create a fan page so that people could be “fans” of their business — because, you know, it’s really natural to be a fan of a business. They’d optimize sales pages and plan careful upsells, and they’d massage prospects through their product funnel.

By contrast, here’s how I use social media:

• On my Facebook profile, I have photos of Robert Goulet Photoshopped into ridiculous scenes from my “travels.” (I used to use Robert Goulet as my avatar.)
• Most of what I put out on Twitter are dumb jokes: “I’ll bet zombie dinner parties are really awkward” or “They say that true beauty is on the inside. The problem is that nobody can see it in there, so you’re still going to look ugly.”
• A lot of my own blog posts have nothing at all to do with my business, like “I want to join Fight Club” and “Why I’m exactly like Morpheus.”

That all looks really backward, until you realize that my goal isn’t to create customers, but instead to make friends.

If you’re funny, people tend to like you. (I’m not saying you should be funny if you’re not, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it.)

If you write and talk about yourself as a whole person, rather than a one-dimensional business drone, people tend to be interested in you.

If you answer tweets and emails in a somewhat chatty, personal way instead of going for the sale when it’s not obviously warranted, people tend to enjoy talking to you.

And when all of those friends — and friends of those friends — one day have a need that you are able to fill, they won’t go to Google and look for the first search result or for the guy with the cheapest price. It’s human nature that they’ll come to you — their friend — first.

This really can be as simple as I’m making it sound. If you have an easily consumable product or service that a lot of people need and can afford, then all you really need to do is to get out there and make online friends. And they don’t even have to be friends-friends, if you know what I’m saying. They can be people who have read what you wrote somewhere and liked it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard something like, “I read something you wrote on IttyBiz about kung fu, and would like you to build me a website.”

I’m so not kidding.

The beauty of this approach is that it’s easy and natural if you can just unlearn some of the ingrained habits you’ve gotten used to, like a feeling that a businessperson should be “professional,” or that a fashion blogger should, you know, always talk about fashion and nothing else.

The web has magnified our interpersonal connections and the ability to meet new folks in new ways, but it hasn’t changed the fundamental nature of relationships. If we like people, then we want to hang out with them more, and do more with them. It’s that simple.

Now get out there and make some new friends.

Johnny B. Truant writes about Fight Club, tweets about zombies, and is one of the two extremely personable guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions. If you want to build a cool business while being a real person instead of a boring business drone, you should definitely get in on those.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Why Your Business Needs Friends

Share This

One of the series of posts that we’re building here at ProBlogger is all about what to do in the first week of your new blog. We’re assuming you’ve already got your domain, chosen your blog platform and have installed a template/theme/design – but what comes next?

So far we’ve covered:

• Writing Your First Compelling Content
• Planning Future Content

Today we’re going to look at some of the key pages on your blog that can be worth setting up.

Why ‘Pages’ are Important

When a new person arrives on your blog there are a variety of types of pages that they may look for that will help them to decide whether they want to remain connected with you (or that will help them to actually make that connection).

Many blogs come with some of these set up by default but you’ll want to personalise these defaults as much as possible and possibly create some new pages of your own. These might include:

• About Page – setting up an about page is really important – it’s one of those pages that a new reader will head to in order to help them work out what your blog is about, who is behind it and to decide whether they’ll keep reading it. Read more on how to do it at Add an ‘About’ Page to Your Blog and How to Write Your “About Me” Page.
• Contact Page – some bloggers get a little nervous about being contactable either out of a fear of being overwhelmed by emails or over privacy concerns. While I get this – there are many benefits from being contactable (it opens up opportunities to be contacted by potential partners, advertisers, other bloggers, the press and readers) and there are ways of safeguarding your privacy. If you use WordPress there are numerous contact page plugins that will help you to set up a page that will safeguard your privacy.
• Subscribe Page – most blog templates have subscription buttons and links built in by default – however not all of your readers will be familiar with what they mean or how to use them. While most of us as bloggers understand what that orange RSS symbol means – many will not. Over at my Digital Photography site where I have readers of all levels of tech savyness I have a subscription page which outlines the different subscription options that we offer. This page is visited a lot and converts very very well both with RSS and Email Subscription methods (note: later in this series we’re going to explore the idea of ’subscription options’ to help you think through how to let readers connect with your blog).
• Other Pages – there are a variety of other types of key pages that you might want to consider setting up, depending upon the goals of your site. These might include a ‘Advertise with Us‘ page, ‘Press‘ page, ‘Disclaimer‘ page, ‘FAQ‘ page, ‘Resources‘ page (if you’re selling something for example), a ‘Privacy Policy’ page, ‘Testimonial‘ page (if you have some good ones from previous customers), a 404 page, a ‘Resources’ page, an Archives page etc. Not all of these would be relevant for new blogs but for more information on these and others – I’ve previously outlined 20 types of pages that bloggers should consider.

What pages have you got set up on your blog?

Position Links to Your Pages Appropriately

Once you’ve set up the pages that are important for your blog it is also important to think carefully about where you’ll link to these pages on your blog. Having the pages is one thing but you’ll also want to think about how you’ll be driving traffic to them.

This will depend upon your blog’s design but as with anything – make sure that the pages that are most important to you (for example an ‘About Page’ or a ‘Contact Page’ might be included in this category) ‘are linked to prominently on your blog. This might mean setting up a navigation area across the top of your blog or having one at the top of your sidebar.

Other less important pages might be linked to from your About Page or even in your footer (in this case I’d be putting things like disclaimer pages).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The First Week of Your Blog: Set Up Key Pages

Share This

Earlier in the week we looked at the importance of ‘niches’ when it comes to building profitable blogs. Today I want to extend the topic and gives the process that I tend to use when working out if I want to start a new blog in a particular niche. I hope you find it helpful.

Many factors will come into play when it comes to choosing a niche to blog about – but the following are those that I tend to pay most attention to:

1. Your Interest in the Topic

I started out blogging on topics that interested me – but as I began to see the potential to make money from my blogs began to experiment with topics that I had less interest in but which I thought would be profitable.

What I discovered in creating these blogs that had potential for profit, yet which I had little interest in, was that I couldn’t really sustain them. I had little to say on the topics and when I did write something I suspect that those who read my content could tell that it was a topic that I was not passionate about. As a result the traffic did not come, I did not become known for the topic, nobody linked up and the blogs were far from profitable.

On the flipside of this – the blogs that I did have an interest in and a passion for have flourished. My interest in the topic is not the only factor that made them successful but I suspect it is a fairly important one that underlies much of the success and profit that I’ve had.

One question to ask yourself in choosing a niche is ‘What are YOU about?’ Choosing a topic that reflects you means you’ll be in a position to be able to find enough to write about and you’ll write it in a way that engages with the topic and your readers.

2. The Popularity of the Topic

You can have all the interest in the world around a topic but if nobody else shares your interest you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle to build a blog that gets much traffic.

This doesn’t mean you need to choose the most popular topics going around – in fact they may not be a wise choice due to the competition also targeting those niches – however you will want to choose a niche that has some level of demand for content.

There are many ways to do research on this whether topics are popular – here are three that I use:

1. Google Trends – do some searches on Google trends for keywords around your niches (and compare them) and you’ll see whether the topic you’ve chosen has been growing or shrinking and how it compares to other topics.
2. Market Samurai – I’ve written about the potential ofhttp://www.marketsamurai.com/c/problogger(affiliate link but it gives you a free trial)tool for optimising posts on your blog for SEO – but it is also a useful research tool in looking at the popularity of topics – particularly the module that allows you to assess how many searches are being done on different tools in Google.
3. Your Local News Stand – perhaps one of the simplest ways to look for popular topics is to head to a local news stand and look at what publications are being sold there. Not only look at the topics of magazines – but check out what is being written about as hot topics IN the magazines and you might find an emerging sub-niche to focus upon.

Ultimately you’re looking for topics that people are interested in, passionate about, want to learn more on and/or that people want to talk about and interact in a community around. There is an unlimited number of topics and ways to tap into them. Watch TV, talk to your friends, head to a local library, read a newspaper – see what people are into and you could just identify a topic worth exploring.

3. Competition

One of the factors that I see some bloggers failing to acknowledge in the choosing of a niche is how much competition (and how strong the competition is) in their potential niche.

The danger in choosing some popular niches is that you might be competing against some very powerful sites in those niches. While this isn’t always going to be a factor to stop you exploring a niche it should definitely be considered and it can perhaps help you to shape your niche to be something that will give you a competitive advantage.

There are a variety of ways of assessing the strength of competition in niches.

One of the simplest is to simply do some searches on Google to look at how many sites exist for keywords on your topic. This won’t give you an indication of the power of the competition – but it will give you some indication on the ’size’ of competition and it will identify some sites that you will want to be monitoring.

Market Samurai (mentioned above) is one tool that can take your analysis a little deeper. As highlighted in my recent optimising posts on your blog for SEO post it has a module that will not only show you how many competing sites there are but also how strong they are (around a number of factors). It’ll also identify what type of level you’ll need to get to in order to compete with them.

As you begin to assess your potential competition in a niche don’t be completely put off by niches with lots of strong competition. Instead as you analyse what other sites are doing look for opportunities in two areas:

• ways to differentiate yourself – as you look at other sites look for gaps in the topic that they’re not covering or things that perhaps you could do that might differentiate yourself. Perhaps there is a sub-niche that everyone is ignoring, perhaps they all ‘look’ the same, perhaps they all approach the topic in the same sort of ‘voice/style’. These things could be things to explore in offering an alternative to the established sites.
• ways to interact and leverage the competition – as you look at other sites look for places that you might be able to connect with, contribute to and leverage in the building of your own site. Perhaps the competition has the ability to submit guest posts or articles or perhaps they have a forum area for interaction. Find ways to be a genuine contributor to your competition and you might find ways to help build your own site indirectly.

4. Is the Topic Sustainable?

Another factor that I see some bloggers neglecting in the choosing of a niche is consideration of whether the topic is one that they’re able to sustain.

This partly relates to the interest and passion that the blogger has for the topic – but it also relates to the topic itself and whether it is dynamic enough to have content written about it on a regular basis.

• Will it be possible to keep new content flowing on this topic?
• If the blog will be a ‘news’ blog – is there enough news or developments happening on this topic to keep reporting on it?
• If the blog will be a ‘how to’ type blog – Is the topic deep enough to be able to come up with enough tutorials or tips?

A number simple exercises to help assess the sustainability of a blog (depending upon the type of blog you’ll be developing):

• Brainstorm topics – set aside 10 minutes to brainstorm topics for blog posts. Do you run out of ideas or are they flowing easily? This will give you an indication on how many posts you’ll be able to write.
• List ‘problems/needs’ of readers – if your blog will be a ‘how to’ type blog list off problems or needs that your potential readers might have that you could tackle.
• Google News – if your blog will be a ‘news’ type blog – check out Google News for your keywords and see how often news is breaking on the topic. Is there lots of news or is this a topic that only has occasional news breaking?
• List Products – if your blog will be a ‘product’ related blog – do some research into how many products there are in that category and how often new products are released.

Got the picture? Really it is about doing a little analysis of the topic to see if there is enough in it to keep producing new frequent and regular content. If there’s not enough – perhaps consider either another topic or a different format for your site (blogs tend to do best when they’re updated but you could create a more static site).

5. Is the Niche Profitable?

This won’t appeal to everyone as not all people want to monetize their blog but if it’s a goal to make money from your blog then you’ll want to assess the potential for profit before you start.

There are a few ways to get indications on whether a niche will be profitable – including:

• Google Ads – do a simple search on Google.com for your topic/keywords. Look at what ads Google is serving for those keywords over on the right side (or above the search results). Doing some analysis of these ads can be useful on a few fronts. For starters they’ll show you if any advertisers are actively targeting those keywords. This is handy to know if you’re planning on running AdSense on your blog. It will also be handy to check out who is advertising as they could be potential direct sponsors of your site. The other useful thing to note is whether any of the ads are for products that have affiliate opportunities as they could be products you could promote as an affiliate.
• AdWords Analysis – another related way to check on the value of a niche is to do some analysis of how much people are willing to pay as advertisers in the Google AdWords program. Just knowing there are advertisers is a healthy sign but they could all be just paying a cent or two to have their ads appear. Using the AdWords Keyword tool will give you a bit more of an indication of what people are paying to rank highest for their ads.
• Affiliate Products – speaking of affiliate products – do a little hunting around to see if you can find any products online that have affiliate promotions that you might be able to promote. Sometimes this is as simple as Googling ‘keyword affiliate product’ but other times you’ll want to check out affiliate networks like Commission Junction or PepperJam (aff) to see if they have any relevant products listed for your niche.
• Brainstorm Potential Products of Your Own – what could YOU sell directly to readers? As you’re pondering a niche it could be well worth while keeping in the back of your mind potential products that you might be able to develop to sell from your blog. These might include information products (e-books, training etc), membership areas (where people pay a monthly fee for extra teaching, community etc), personal services (coaching, speaking etc), a physical product relevant to your niche – or something else. More and more bloggers are turning to developing their own products as ways to monetize their blogs so keep this option in your mind from the beginning.
• What are others in the niche monetizing with? – one of the quickest ways to work out whether there is potential to monetize a niche is to check out what other sites are doing to make money on that topic. Check out the biggest sites first and look at whether they run advertising (and what sort), whether they’re promoting affiliate promotions, what kinds of products/services of their own they sell etc. You might find that you come up with a quick list of things to start monetizing your own site with very quickly by doing this.
• Market Samurai – I know that Iv’e mentioned Market Samurai already in this series but it’s a tool that also has a monetization module that allows you to look at the profitability of a niche. In fact there are a couple of tools within the Market Samurai system that are worth using when assessing the profitability of a niche. One is in the ‘keyword research’ module which gives you options to look at three factors including the Adwords value of the work, the SEO value and some assessment of whether people are searching with the intent of ‘buying’ or just surfing for ‘information on the keyword. The other module allows you to search for affiliate promotions relevant to your keywords (very handy).

6. What Else Do You Bring to the topic that You Can Leverage?

Previously when I’ve covered the topic of how to choose a blog niche I’ve stopped after exploring some of the above points. However there are almost always a number of other factors that individuals bring to certain topics that can make those niches more sensible choices.

I guess ultimately it comes down to looking at what you have at your fingertips that you will be able to leverage to help you get your blog up and running and working really well.

There are many factors that might come into play including:

• Expertise/Experience – you might be someone with years of experience in the industry which would give you a real head start in the creation of content and also building authority and profile in the niche.
• Contacts/Network – perhaps you already have some good contacts with other bloggers and web site owners in the niche that you’ll be able to leverage to help you promote your blog.
• Established Sites on Related Topics – maybe you already have another blog, newsletter list, website, forum or site on a related topic that you could use to help you launch your new blog.
• Repurpose-able Content – some people already have a lot of content written for other purposes that they can use as the basis for their new blog (for example I met one person recently who had been training in an area and who had already created hundreds of documents for offline use that could easily be used on a blog).

This list could quite easily go on and on. Essentially you need to do a bit of a SWOT analysis of the topic and see what strengths and opportunities that you uniquely have that will help you to get a leg up into this topic.

Sleep On It

My last advice on choosing a niche for your blog is to take your time and don’t act too hastily. While you don’t want the process to drag out too long – I look back on the 30 or so blogs that I’ve started over the years and wish I’d taken a little more time going through this process. I went through a phase where I impulsively started a series of blogs that I quickly knew were not right for me – if I’d only given the ideas a little time to breath I might have discovered before I started that perhaps there were better ways to use my time going forward.

So take your time – share what you come up with with a trusted friend or two – do a little research into the topic and then, when you’re ready and are in a good position to make a decision – ACT!

Also keep in mind that you might need to go through this process with a number of topics before you find one that fits for you. You’re unlikely to find a topic that fits all of the above criteria perfectly – but hopefully something will stand out to you a little to help you make an informed decision.

Questions for Discussion:

1. What other factors would you say come into play when choosing a niche?
2. If you already have a blog – what were the most important factors for you in choosing that niche?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Blog: How to Choose a Blog Niche [6 Tips]

Share This

As this post goes live I’ll be in the process of arriving at SXSW Interactive in Austin Texas.

I was fortunate enough to at SXSWi two years back and it was one of the best conference experiences that I’ve had – so I’ve made it a priority this year to return.

My schedule is pretty open. The main thing that I’ll be doing is a book reading this Friday night. I’ll be talking about some of what Chris and I have included in the 2nd edition of the ProBlogger book (due out next month).

The book reading is on at 5pm, Friday 12 March on the Day Stage. I hope you’ll come!

For those of you involved in the Third Tribe there is a drinks/meetup the next evening (on Saturday 13th from about 5.30pm) at a bar called ‘Lovejoys’ at 604 Neches Street (2 blocks north of the convention center).

Note: I originally thought that my reading was on Saturday and we’d do one after the other…. but I messed up the time so the book reading is Friday and the Drinks/Meetup is Saturday. Sorry for the messing around 3rd Tribers.

Other than that I’ve got a pretty open few days and am looking forward to checking out a few panels and keynotes and doing as much networking as possible. If you’re at SXSWi I’d love to meet you – feel free to come up and say hi any time!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Let’s Meet at SXSWi!

Share This

guest post by Kelly Diels

warning: there are lessons and even actionable advice in here, but it is buried inside a story. I write stories because I love you and don’t want to bore you and because if you laugh then chances are that you’ll remember the educational bit, too. There’s actual research that this works – it is not just because I am in love with bloviation but hey, tomato tahmahto.

I have big love for tech. You could not pry my dishwasher out of my house without bloodshed and death, most likely yours. And the internet? Don’t even get me started. I want to french-kiss the web. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s my job or at least my blog’s mission statement.

Still, I’m more of install (or pay someone to install) and hope-it-works kind of gal. I want the fuss without the muss.

And I have this theory about tech: some key pieces of hardware and software make a huge difference and everything after that amounts to tweaks and hacks. But the good tech, like a great love, (initially) inspires awe, affection, and respect and make your life much better on a daily basis. You think: how did I ever live without you, front-loading washer? We wasted so much time.

And then, after the infatuation fades, you get on with your happily functioning and newly-enhanced life and start taking your love, machines, shockingly-white-whites and programs for granted.

I like it like that. I like low-maintenance relationships (don’t tell anyone) and I LOVE that electricity just works and I don’t have to think about it. I like finding the right things, that work, and let them do that in the background. Nearly invisible function is hawt.

WordPress is one of those key pieces of tech that made a big difference in my life. It is like a long distance lover. I don’t quite understand it and I should probably spend more time with it but damn I like it a lot. It does me right, mostly virtually.

Actually, let’s be honest: I LOVE WORDPRESS. My blog is my boyfriend. I adore it. I spend all my time with it. Because of all the fabulous people who love me up in the comments, my blog sates my unabashed lust for attention – which, in turn, has started saving me from terrible IRL relationship decisions.

(Wordpress is saving the world from needy girlfriends. Someone call the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.)

So the thought of someone getting their sweaty, malicious hands on my boyfriend blog and doing dirty things to it makes me nauseous.

It happened to a friend of mine, Kelly Livesay. One of her blogs was hacked and posts and theme modifications deleted.  It happened to journalist Helen Mosher. If you Google her name, the first search result is now “Cheap Viagra Online”. This is not – perhaps obviously – what she intended for her blog. It happened to Robert Scoble, who lost two months of blog posts and gained a very serious sense of personal violation.

And that sense of violation is exactly the prompt for this post: the movie The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo completely FREAKED ME OUT (capitalization absolutely appropriate and required).

Do you know The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? It is the first of a trilogy of books by Swedish author Stieg Larsson who completed this epic series and then promptly dropped dead. It is a gripping book and it almost killed me, too. I read it in five hours.

And then I got my hot little hands on the movie. Lisbeth, the main character and dragon-wearer, is one tough chick. You don’t want to mess with her. She’ll hack you.

Because that’s what she does. Lisbeth is a freakishly talented hacker. She works as an investigator and conducts her investigations from the convenience of her laptop. She gets into your computer and reads your naughty e-mails, your work memos, your sexts, your bank statements, your browsing history, and then uses that information as she sees fit, for her clients, or herself.

And if you’re on her side – I mean, who doesn’t want her to catch the lady-killing villain? (the villain) – then you’re with her, all the way, as she uses her scary powers for good.

So: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Wrenching read, haunting movie. Great entertainment, especially if you’re looking for a new reason to become deeply paranoid about all the ways people can screw with you online.

Robert Scoble’s not kidding when he says that he feels his virtual house was burgled. Thanks to this paranoid movie, I now feel his paranoia pain and I’m deeply worried about my boyfriend blog.

Still, I don’t  understand the point of hacking blogs, so I asked my friend Dave Doolin (Website In A Weekend), who knows Serious Stuff about WordPress, code, programming and How Things Work.

Kelly Diels: What’s the point of hacking a blog? Why would someone want to break into a blog and make it say BUY VIAGRA! instead of just building a sex blog to sell Viagra?

Dave Doolin: Honestly, I’m not really sure, but I’ll hazard a guess: it’s cheaper to spray spam by the trillions than it is to create your own site and work at building traffic. It costs next to nothing to hire people to send a e-mails, so even a really tiny conversion rate generates profit.

Kelly Diels: So how do we keep hackers out of our blogs? On your site, you recommend that bloggers change “Admin” to something specific and then delete the Admin user, so I did that, and Amanda Farough told me to make a unwieldy, ridiculous password that is actually a sentence with random capitalization and characters.

Dave Doolin: Yeah, those two things are a good start. You do want a long, complicated password. The other thing that everyone should do is read the WordPress Development Blog and Other WordPress News. They’re both in your dashboard, and they’ll keep you up to date on the latest hacks and security threats.

(I studiously ignore those two boxes in my WordPress dashboard but now, as of right this minute, I’m going to pay attention.)

And, now that I’m paying attention, I checked in once again with Amanda Farough, who is my designer/developer/chief-cupcake-sharer/coder-extraordinaire. She takes care of my site, because, as I mentioned, I like my tech to work but I’m not really inclined to make it work myself.

Kelly Diels: So, Amanda, what are we doing to keep my site secure? And by “we”, I mean you. What advice do you have for bloggers to keep their blogs on the unhacked side?

Amanda: Here’s my security short list:

1. Change your .htcaccess to protect your database name and password by adding the following line of code: <FilesMatch ^wp-config.php$>deny from all</FilesMatch>. In the event of someone hacking your blog, they won’t be able to determine where your tables are, protecting you from losing everything.
2. WP-DB-Backup is your new best friend. Get it emailed to you once a week or, if you’re really paranoid, once a day (note: Dave Doolin said we should do it once a day and I heart paranoia. That’s totally where I’m living right now. Thanks, Dragon Tattoo conspiracy). Don’t trust your server or your email server. Save copies of the database to your local drive as soon as you get the email. That way, you’ve got two copies: one on your email server and the other on your local drive.
3. Update Wordpress every single time you’re prompted to. These releases are the blogger’s equivalent to driver updates: they fix holes in security, functionality, and usability. If you’re running 2.8 when we’re on 2.9.2, then run that update. You’ll be glad you did.

And that – according to my friends in the know, because trust me, I didn’t know – is the short story of how to keep your blog safe and out of the sweaty, dragon-tattooed hands of malicious hackers itching to delete your hot copy and sell us sex aids in your name.

WordPress Security Summary:

• Get rid of your Admin user account
• have a long, complicated password
• keep up to date on WordPress tips and news by reading WordPress
  Development Blog and Other WordPress News
• BACK IT UP, baby
• Protect your database name and password
• UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

__________________________

Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT - an internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Win great prizes – free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.

THE NEXT CLUE:

This site explores everything Apple, but don’t tell Steve Jobs because this weblog is officially unofficial.

Kelly Diels writes for ProBlogger every week. She’s also a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blog Security: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Scares Me Into Taking It Seriously.

Share This

I recently had the privilege of reading the book Master Your Workday Now! by Michael Linenberger. I daresay this is the best book on workflow management I’ve ever read — and I’ve read a LOT of books on that subject.

The book just came out this week, and last I checked it was in the top 30 books on Amazon.com (#1 in the Time Management category). I predict that this book is going to be a huge hit and a long-term classic in its field.

I met Michael at a leadership retreat in January, and we spoke on the phone for about an hour last week to discuss some of his ideas. He shared what I considered some truly elegant workflow management strategies, so I was eager to read his book and learn the whole system he developed. I’m seldom impressed by time management books these days since I’ve read so many of them, but I must say that Michael’s Workday Now system impressed the heck out of me.

I’ve been gradually implementing changes to my own processes based on Michael’s ideas, which are so intuitively and logically sensible that I can easily see they’re going to make my workflow management significantly more effective. Many of his ideas made perfect sense because he was often one or two steps ahead of me in terms of refining workflow processes I’ve been using for years now.

It’s hard not to compare Workday Now (WN) to David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD), which has been an extremely popular time management book, especially in the blogosphere. GTD deserves its position as a classic in the field, but in my opinion WN presents a superior overall system. I loved GTD when it first came out, but I had to make numerous tweaks to the system to make it more practical for me, and there were certain elements of the system that bugged me, like the tediousness of the weekly review, the potential for truly massive Next Action and Someday/Maybe lists, and the questionable Waiting For list.

The WN system is in many ways similar to GTD. Both of them start with a bottom-up approach to time management, encouraging you to first take control over the out-of-control elements of your work in order to reduce stress and restore a sense of order to your life. Both involve creating and organizing task lists and identifying next actions. Both stress the importance of processing your email inbox to empty and not using it as a surrogate to-do list. Both systems are complete in the sense that you can trust them not to leave loose ends if you work them as the authors propose.

What’s different about WN, however, is that it focuses your attention on a specific time horizon, looking approximately 10 days into the future. This is called the Workday Now Horizon. Michael suggests that somewhere in the 1-2 week range is the natural time horizon people use when thinking about their upcoming to-do items. Beyond the 2-week range, most of us think of our to-dos as being somewhere “over the horizon” and not of immediate concern. We don’t need to deal with them until they become more urgent.

This Workday Now time period is further subdivided into the Critical Now (tasks which are truly urgent and MUST be completed today) and the Opportunity Now zone (tasks which are pending within the next 1-2 weeks but which don’t absolutely have to be done today. All other tasks and projects are placed on an Over the Horizon list.

The Opportunity Now zone is limited to 20 tasks maximum. It’s an evolving list that you’ll update each day. Once you complete your Critical Now tasks for the day, you set to work on your Opportunity Now tasks as time permits. The nice thing about your Opportunity Now list is that since it’s fairly short, it keeps your attention focused on what needs to be done soon. You aren’t distracted by tasks and projects that are weeks into the future; this was a problem with GTD’s Projects and Next Actions lists, which could grow massive in size for busy people.

If you end up with more than 20 items on your Opportunity Now list, you have to push some of them onto your Over the Horizon list. This disciplines you to consider only on what can be accomplished within the next week or two when planning your current workday. Then at the end of each week, you can review your Over the Horizon list and pull some items onto the Opportunity Now list.

I really like this method of managing tasks because it offers an elegant way of balancing urgency and importance. Urgent tasks are a business reality. They must be dealt with in a timely manner. In the WN system, the truly urgent tasks are given top priority, and less urgent but still important tasks are given the next priority. By managing urgent tasks effectively and not allowing them to overwhelm you, the WN system helps you get control of your workflow, thereby freeing up time for important but less urgent tasks. This is a very practical approach because it doesn’t compel you to over-organize long-term tasks and projects that you may never get to. In fact, WN assumes that you probably have more to-dos on your plate than you can reasonably complete. WN helps you take control of the urgent with a simple yet effective approach, so you soon become less urgency-driven.

WN fills in a lot of holes and solves many of the weaknesses of GTD. I would say that overall, WN can be more complex than GTD if you implement every element of each system, but I think WN will be much less burdensome to manage. WN’s complexity is presented in layers of different options. The core WN system can be managed with nothing but a pen, two pieces of paper, and only minutes per day. I’d say that you can begin putting WN into action and getting results with it in less than an hour after you learn it. The basic GTD system takes a lot more work to implement because you must do so much pre-processing up front, typically on the order of 2-3 days’ worth. As you get comfortable with the basics of WN, you can then begin adding more layers of refinement to suit your particular situation.

If you’re already familiar with a system like GTD or if you use some other planning or workflow management system, then you’re way ahead of the game; you’ll likely find the extra subtleties in WN to be particularly useful; their practicality should be readily apparent.

What I described above is really just the first third of the book. The second third explains how to integrate higher-level goals into your life, including how to activate them with emotion. The final third explores how to connect your workflow to a greater sense of life purpose or mission. These sections are well-written too, but since these topics overlap my own work so much, I didn’t personally get as much out of them. However, I agree wholeheartedly with the strategies Michael presents in these sections. I especially like his idea of setting goals that balance vision (the passionate image of an outcome) and targets (the specific deliverables to be achieved).

My only real criticism of the book is that I felt that the second and third sections could be better integrated with the low-level workflow management system in the first section. The lack of top-to-bottom integration was a major weakness in GTD, and while WN goes much further in achieving such integration, I still felt it stopped short of the completely integrated top-to-bottom package I was hoping for. Nevertheless, it gets pretty darned close to that ideal, closer than any other book I’ve read to date.

I give Master Your Workday Now! a huge thumbs up, and I highly recommend it if you’re at all interested in improving your personal effectiveness, getting your e-mail under control, and aligning your actions with your life’s purpose. This is not a book to be read in a single sitting and tossed aside. This is a book you’ll want to keep as a reference, so you can refer to it again and again. I expect you’ll gain powerful and practical insights you can apply from nearly every chapter.

Visit the Master Your Workday Now! website to learn more about the book, or order your copy on Amazon.com. This is an amazing book that could help you take your personal effectiveness to a whole new level.

Achieve new breakthroughs in your habits, career, finances, relationships, health, and spiritual development. Register now to attend the next transformational 3-day Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas.

Discuss this article in the forums.
Make a donation.
View a random article from Steve's blog.
Get the free newsletter.
Visit Erin Pavlina's blog.Steve Recommends
Man Transformation - Attract a high-quality relationship
Site Build It! - Build an income-generating website
PhotoReading - Read books 3x faster
Paraliminals - Accelerate your personal growth
The Journal - Keep a secure journal on your PC

© 2010 by Steve Pavlina.

While I get many questions from bloggers asking for advice on ‘how to blog‘ perhaps one of the biggest questions a new blogger needs to ask themselves before they move on to the HOW to blog question is ‘WHAT will I blog about?’

There is no real right or wrong answer to this question as blogs come in all shapes and sizes and focus upon all manner of topics. However thinking through the question before you start a blog will help you make some of the other decisions that you’ll want to make later on in this guide (for example the domain name and the name of your blog will probably come out of this decision).

Reasons to Focus Upon a Niche with Your Blog

Choosing a niche to blog about is important for a number of reasons. These include:

1. Niche Blogs Appeal to Readers

My first blog was a personal blog with no real niche focus. It did start with a main focus upon Spirituality, but over time began to cover a large range of topics including blogging, photography, culture, politics, personal stuff that I was doing etc. The more topics I covered the less I appealed to everyone.

Sure a certain group of people were interested in Spirituality and Blogging, but less of them were into photography, even less also liked my stuff about Australian Pop Culture….. each topic narrowed the chances of me writing something that would appeal to all of my readers. I started to get complaints from them – ’stop writing about XXXX’.

When I began to break topics out onto their own blogs my audience responded well – those who were into photography gathered around that topic, those that were into blogging gathered on that blog.

In the end this is about relevance – people seem to be drawn to niche focused blogs because they know that they’ll see content on them that focuses upon the things they are specifically interested in.

2. Niche Blogs Monetize Better

I tried to make money from my personal blog for a while but found the going really tough. At the time I mainly tried to make money from advertising and found that sponsors were simply not interested in promoting their product (which had a specific focus) to an audience who were there to read about a whole range of things.

What camera manufacturer wants to promote their latest camera on a blog about photography that also touches on spirituality, politics and what movie I saw on the weekend?

Niche blogs also tend to work better with contextual ad networks like AdSense. AdSense is getting better are providing ads that related strongly to what is on a specific page of content but I have seen instances where blogs covering lots of different topics attract ads that don’t always relate to content on a particular page.

The other thing about AdSense is that it is a system that gives advertisers the ability to target specific sites. These types of targeted campaigns can be quite profitable but they are less likely to happen if a blog covers a large range of topics, many of which don’t relate to that advertiser.

When I went niche I found monetizing with advertising a lot easier. In fact monetizing with a variety of methods seems to be easier on niche blogs. Affiliate promotions and selling your own products work better because your audience is there to get information on certain topics – so when you promote products on those topics…. they’re much more likely to buy.

3. Niche Blogs Do Better in Search Engines

It is possible to rank well for all kinds of topics on a generic/multi topic blog. It’s possible – but I find it is easier when you have a blog with a focus upon a niche topic. If your whole site is about the one topic Google treats it as more of an authority on that topic the more content you add, the more you interlink the posts, the more other sites in your niche link to it etc.

There are certainly exceptions (mega sites like Wikipedia are obvious ones) but unless you have the pulling power of a massive site like that a niche focused site could be the way to go.

4. Niche Blogs Build Credibility and Profile

One of the consequences of moving to more of a niche focus with my blogging was that I noticed I was starting to become known for that topic.

The first time this happened was after I started my first photography blog and 2 months later had a phone call from a city-wide newspaper asking for a quote on a photography related story. This had not happened to me before as a result of my personal/multi topic blog but having a site purely focused upon a single topic gave a perception that that topic was ‘my thing’.

For me having niche focuses has helped me to become known on different topics – which has led to all kinds of opportunities in those niches – including writing books, speaking opportunities around the world, main stream media appearances and all manner of partnership opportunities with wonderful people in my industries.

Not everyone wants to build their profile and become known in an industry – but if that’s part of your goal then a niche blog on those topics can be powerful.

Note: Niches Need Not Just be Topic Related

Before I conclude this post on niches I thought it might also be worth noting that a blogs niche need not only ever be focused upon a topic. I explored this more fully in a post titled – Does Your Blog Focus Upon a Niche Topic or a Niche Demographic? As the title of that post suggests – there are some successful blogs around that cover a variety of topics – that appeal to a similar type of person or demographic.

So instead of just writing about video games – a blog might choose to blog about topics that appeal to teenage boys – video games being one of the topics that they might have an interest in.

Worth noting though is that if you do decide to target a niche demographic rather than a niche topic – you could be opening yourself up for a lot of work. Covering a diverse range of topics can certainly work – but to cover them all comprehensively can take a lot of time and energy.

How to Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons WHY a niche can be a powerful thing to think about before you start looking at HOW to blog – later this week I’m going to continue this post with a followup post exploring a number of factors that those looking to start a blog might consider when choosing a niche.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Blog: Choose a Niche for Your Blog [Why Niches are Important]

Share This

A Guest post by Heather Allard from The Mogul Mom.

If you’re a regular ProBlogger reader, you know that Darren dishes up heaps of incredible blogging advice 7 days a week, 365 days a year. His archives positively overflow with information on how to build a blog from the ground up, how to engage readers, how to earn a living from your blog, how to search engine optimize your blog, how to market your blog through social media and so much more.

If you’re a beginner blogger, there’s no better place to learn than at ProBlogger.

I know because when I started blogging in 2007, ProBlogger was like a launch pad for me.

I blasted into the blogosphere, writing posts in rapid fire succession as new idea after new idea spilled out of my bloggy brain faster than I could jot them down in trusty notebooks scattered around my house and car.

I churned out short posts, long posts, reviews, interviews, vlogs, linkies and more list posts than you could shake your cursor at. I SEO’d the daylights out of my blog, carved out a nice niche for myself and built up a pretty sweet subscriber base. I came, I blogged, I monetized. Oh yeah.

And then, after 3 solid years of blogging, I suddenly found myself with nothing left to say. No, not just blogger’s block. I’m talking not a damn thing to blog about. Zero, zip, nada. Last stop on the blogosphere for this lady.

350 posts, 1200 subscribers and 2000 comments later, I was officially all blogged out.

So I spent a week curled up in the fetal position deciding whether it’s better to burn out or fade away from the blogosphere, and then it hit me.

Surely I couldn’t be the first – or the only – blogger to feel this way!

So I did what any blogger worth her Alexa rank would do – I decided to BLOG about being all blogged out.

Newly invigorated, I set out in search of other solo bloggers who’d felt this same way to ask them what they did about it.

What I found was 10 top bloggers with very different takes – and advice – on being all blogged out.

Laura Roeder @lkr

Blogging Since:

Well I’ve been creating and sharing content online in various formats since about 1996. But I’ve never really considered myself a “blogger”or had one mega-popular blog. My current blog for my business has been running for about a year and a half.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Yes, definitely! I don’t blog that frequently so I usually don’t try to force it. I sometimes only update my blog once a month, it just depends on what I have going on and what I’m inspired to create. 99% of my blog is in video format, it is really difficult for me to write a beginning-middle-end article, it’s just not how my thoughts come I guess. But I could talk forever so video is the perfect format for me!

What did you do about it?

I plan out an editorial calendar at least 6 months in advance. This is the key part – you can’t just plan but you have to force yourself to stick to the weekly topic. I think too many bloggers wake up in the morning and try to think of a great topic that day – planning out a calendar in advance is a great solution. And then you have time to filter your ideas to make sure they’re all good instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperate to come up with ANYTHING to write about!

Chris Guillebeau @chrisguillebeau

Blogging Since:

2008 — although I had been writing in other formats for a couple of years prior.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Thankfully — no.

How have you avoided it?

I’ve avoided it by trying to be somewhat intentional about the process.

First, I don’t limit myself in writing about one specific, niche topic. I write about a number of topics (travel, entrepreneurship, motivation) for a number of venues (my own blog, other blogs, a newspaper column, magazines, books, etc.). The variety is very helpful, because even though I’m writing a lot, the deliverables are not always the same.

And second, writing is my job. It’s just what I do. If a plumber gets bored, she still shows up every day and goes to work. Why should it be different for creatives? Steven Pressfield wrote about this in the wonderful little book The War of Art, which I re-read regularly and would recommend to anyone feeling “blogged out.”

Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan

Blogging Since:

I started in 1998 back when it was called journaling. I’ve used several different sites before settling on my own domain, and my blog technologies used to be WYSIWYG website design tools, so those ones are lost to all but the Wayback machine.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Never. I have more blog posts than I have time to post them. I write two or three at a time, so that I have a few in my rainy day pile (though at the time of writing this, I ran out, so will have to blog a few things on the next two airplanes). I never feel all blogged out. We have TONS to cover, and lots of ways of looking at things.

How have you avoided it?

Blogging/writing is about practice. The more you do it, the easier it comes. It’s like exercise. You can’t join a gym and bench press 300 pounds the next day. It takes a while to work your muscles up into the shape you need to perform. Same with writing.

I keep my eyes open. I read. I spend lots of time on other people’s blogs. I cultivate relationships, where sometimes the question someone poses makes for a great blog topic. There are tons of ways to find blog topics. One trick to doing something about it is to maintain a list of blog topics to write about for rainy days. I’ve given people over 300 over the last few years.

Danielle LaPorte @daniellelaporte

Blogging Since:

2008

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

No, never, absolutely not, the very thought makes me gasp in horror. For real.

How have you avoided it?

Everything is content. Believing that it’s all around you will help you find it. The conversation that you had with your girlfriend about Haiti, or the absurdity of phone books being delivered, or why your barista gives you the best customer service. Notice what you notice and trust that you can create some value out of it.

Tell a story. My speaking coach, Gail Larsen told me something that changed how I approach both speaking gigs and writing: Creating good content is not about looking for stories that will support your message, it’s about letting the stories find you. The stories that you remember so vividly, that you recall with the most affection or emotional charge – they’re in your psyche for good reason. You’ve held on to them because they resonate with your truth, your message – and that’s where the creative sweet spot is. Find the message in the stories you’re inspired to tell.

Get interviewed. Ask a friend to ask you some questions. Keep it casual or turn on a video camera while you’re at. You will be amazed at how damn profound, informed, and creative you can be when you get to riff to someone who already thinks you’re great.

James Chartrand @MenwithPens

Blogging Since:

I began blogging in early 2007 for my own business blog at Men with Pens, and I also began guest blogging at various other sites around the blogosphere at the same time. This spring, it’ll be three years that I’ve been a full-time blogger.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Oh, absolutely. Since my focus has always been on freelance writing, and that’s what I’ve tried to blog about the most, there comes a point where you tell yourself that you’ve said all you could, that you can’t think of anything else to say. That feeling never lasts very long for me – I have a pretty active mind that seizes on new ideas and spins easily – but sure, I think every blogger goes through a period of feeling there’s nothing left to write about.

I feel that many people, when they hit this point, fall back on repeating the same messages or content, only in different words. It’s a way to break through the problem, but I didn’t want to go that route. I feel a sense of obligation not to cheap out just to be able to slap up a post – I worked hard to build my blog up, and it means more to me than that. Blogging is more than just a job you have to do; it’s a commitment you make and uphold.

What did you do about it?

To avoid feeling I was running on empty, I looked instead at the related subjects of freelance writing. I realized there’s a lot more to writing than just writing about writing. There’s the business side, the administration, the customer service, the branding, ways to land new jobs, etc. When I realized that I wasn’t limited to what I could write on and still stay within my specialty, a whole world of possible posts opened up. I revisit that vast pool of potential each time I feel tapped out.

Another trick I use when I’m feeling like I just have nothing to write about anymore is to write – about something else. I put the blogging aside and work on some fiction or creative writing, just for fun. Or, I go out for a day and screw off, and I find that taking myself away from feeling like I have to blog brings me new inspiration. As I enjoy my day, I think about how the experiences I have relate to my subject. How are buying a pair of boots and blogging the same, for example? How is grocery shopping and writing similar? What did I like about that sign, and why did it catch my attention?

Sometimes, to be creative, you have to get away from trying to be creative, and ask questions that you wouldn’t normally think of asking.

For tapped out bloggers, my best advice is to take away the pressure by reminding yourself that this isn’t an obligation. In the bigger scheme of life, missing a week of blog posts while you disconnect or cutting your posting frequency from five days a week to once every two weeks won’t really make much difference. It’ll give you some relief from that ‘have to blog’ feeling, remind you of what’s really important in life and let you take care of yourself first.

Johnny B Truant @JohnnyBTruant

Blogging Since:

I really only started seriously in late 2008, writing my old pure humor blog at theeconomyisnthappening.com. I’d been writing “blog-like” stuff for some time before that on and off, but never actually launched a blog until 08.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Oh yes. Around 2001, I used to write a humor newsletter that I’d manually e-mail out to my friends and family. (The salvageable newsletters became the earliest posts in the humor archive on my current site.) Although I haven’t hit a wall since starting blogging in earnest in 2008-9, I hit several with those old pseudo-blog writings.

I started that endeavor with a weekly newsletter, and then slipped into monthly. Several times, I’d re-run old posts because I had nothing to write about, and once I wrote a post about having nothing to write about. The reason that pseudo-blogging ended was because I got tired of feeling like I had nothing to say every week — or at least, nothing to say that was funny.

What did you do about it?

I just quit.

Now, I’m not particularly concerned about running out of material and here’s why: Back in the day, I wrote humor and only humor. If it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t fit to run — with one notable exception just after 9/11/01. So not only was I looking for funny things to happen, but I had to work hard to tell folks about them in funny ways. That’s really, really hard to do — especially ongoing.

My blog now is an unashamed hodge-podge. I’ve deliberately kept my blog from having a niche, a genre, or a focus. It’s just about me, my business, what I’ve learned, what I do, and whether or not wild turkeys have found their way into my barn. Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s dead serious. All I have to do now is write what’s in my life, my head, and my heart — whatever that may be.

Lastly, I’ve only run two guest posts ever on my blog, but I’ve had other offers and may just start accepting some if I do get bogged down. I’ve seen some of my blogging friends do that if they are running low or if they go on vacation. I haven’t done it yet, but it’s nice to know the option is there.

Sarah Bray @SarahJBray

Blogging Since:

Don’t tell anyone, but I actually started several failed blogs before having even a whiff of success. My first one was in 2004. And no, I’m not giving details (curse you, Google archives!).

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Heck yeah. Every blogger has those moments. We pressure ourselves to crank out amazing post after amazing post, and then we wonder why the wheels stop turning. For me, it was my subject matter — writing posts about the strategic side of web design for such a wide audience. I’ve got fellow designers who want to know how I do it, entrepreneurs who are completely new to the web (or the social web), entrepreneurs who are definitely NOT new to the web, people who are curious about my adamancy for content-driven websites…it’s just a really broad audience.

More challenges:

• Writing about technology without inducing cricket chirps or loud snoring
• Writing about things that anyone can do — not just super-technical people (which requires getting out of my super-technical brain and pretending I’m my computer-challenged mother…an interesting and involved process)
• Writing about new ideas that are not talked to death all over the internet already

All of that has the power to turn me into a headlight-mesmerized deer if I think about it too much.

What did you do about it?

I put a lot of pressure on myself to only publish stuff that gives me a blood-rushing-to-the-head feeling. It’s what I do instead of punching all of those people in the face who say that bloggers aren’t “real writers”. Or maybe it’s because I like that writerly high you get when you know that you’ve communicated something really effectively.

So to answer the question, I stick to a posting schedule that will allow me to do this. During some seasons of the work year, I publish three times a week. In this particular season, I publish once a week. I’m a huge believer in sticking to a posting schedule. It’s like your favorite show being on tv at the same time every week…you feel more committed to it when you can expect it. At the same time, I let myself be comfortable with changing my publishing schedule when that makes sense.

I wouldn’t recommend doing this if your entire job is to write. But for my situation, giving myself permission to change my posting schedule for a season makes more sense than writing crappy stuff, not writing at all out of sheer overwhelm, or not getting my client-related work done. It takes some of the pressure off during busy times, which somehow brings blog topic epiphanies out of the sky. I don’t know how it happens…magic, maybe.

Dave Navarro @RockYourDay

Blogging Since:

I started the RockYourDay.com blog in 2006, but didn’t really start building it seriously until the beginning of 2008, when I went all guns blazing (thanks to some inspiration from @menwithpens). I started The Launch Coach in early 2009 and hit the ground with a running start on that one, since it was making me money right off the bat, and that’s where I put 95% of my blogging time.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

I feel that way all the time – I think it’s a natural part of a writer’s psychology, when we wonder how we can write something good when it’s already been done. We worry that what we write might not be good enough compared to other people or compared to our own successful posts, and it’s draining.

What did (do) you do about it?

The way out of that is to remember you’re in this to help people, not achieve God-like status on a post-by-post basis. What I do to break the funk is look through old comments for where people talk about what they’re struggling with and write about that, imagining I’m writing to that one person. That breaks the all-about-me-drama and gets me back on track. (And if I haven’t had comments lately I go to other blogs and look at their comments).

Audrey McClelland @AudreyMcClellan

Blogging Since:

I started blogging in June 2008.

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Definitely. I started my personal blog in June 2008, after I had my 4th son. After blogging about his birth and then about being the mother of 4 boys – I started to feel VERY “all blogged out” in November of 2008. I wanted to blog about things beyond my personal motherhood story. I think I kind of felt like, “What makes my story different or unique?” I kind of felt like nothing did… my blogs started to get very much of the same feel. So I made a conscious decision to change the direction of my blog in January 2009 because I felt it would infuse me with added energy.

What did you do about it?

I came out of it by starting my 365 Days of Fashion Advice for Moms. I loved sharing my experiences as a mom, but I wanted to get away from constantly talking about how difficult mealtime was or how I was so tired from not sleeping throughout the night. I wanted to add my love of fashion to the mix. So I started blogging about fashion advice for moms and I brought my own motherhood experiences to it, as the mother of 4 boys.

The advice I would give a blogger that is all blogged out is bring another dimension into your blog. I had worked in the fashion industry for 6 years previous in New York City and I had a love and a passion for fashion. I did and still do wake up every single morning excited to blog about it. I just needed to take that step to bring another piece of me onto the table and not be scared to do it. Things changed for me professionally when I did make the change and it was all because I was feeling “blogged out.” I didn’t feel like my writing had a direction in 2008 and I wanted it to. Niching my blog became the best thing I ever did.

Michael Martine@Remarkablogger

Blogging Since:

I had been creating and designing websites since 1994 (pretty much as soon as I got online when the Internet became available to anyone via AOL back in the day). I discovered Blogger in 1999 before Google bought them and have been a blogger ever since (though I switched to WordPress as soon as I discovered it).

Have you ever felt all blogged out?

Never! My audience is made of up certain segments who all have specific problems. So between that, the basics, and the new stuff that keeps unfolding, there is no end of topics to blog about.

How have you avoided it?

There are several reasons why I’m never blogged out. My readers, clients, and customers are mostly business owners. Different businesses have different challenges when it comes to blog marketing, so by focusing on a specific niche (like, say, real estate agents or freelance web designers) and then addressing a specific problem someone in that niche faces, I simply never run out of topics. I don’t always focus on a specific industry, but I’m guaranteed an infinite number of blog post topics if I do.

This means my posts tend to be longer than the usual 250 – 500 words of a typical blog post. Because of this, it takes me longer to write a post and so I don’t publish as often as many other bloggers. At the least, I publish twice a week. At most, I may publish up to four times a week. But I never publish every day of the week. This makes it easier to come up with ideas and keeps the quality of the writing higher.

Here are some tips for coming up with post ideas:

• Think of a specific type of person in your blog audience and a problem they have, then write a post for that person that addresses the problem.
• The basics never go out of style. Tackle them in your own way or link to posts which cover the basics.
• Tell a story from your own life that has a lesson to teach your audience.
• Compile a list of resources your audience will find valuable.
• Accept guest posts from others in your niche (sometimes you have to ask for them).
• You can always interview others in your niche.

To prevent yourself from getting blogged out in the future, try these tips:

• Be in constant communication with your audience: ask what keeps them up at night, what their problems are, what information they are hungry for.
• Think of series of posts you can write. A series guarantees post ideas for many days. Note how successful Darren has been with his “31 days” series. You have to think of these in advance and plan them out.
• As you surf the web, collect links by topic in Evernote or some other note-taking system. Then, when they become numerous enough, you can publish them in a resources post. These can build up over time, so that very little work is involved in creating them.

Don’t let ideas get away from you when you do have them. There are many ways to capture ideas.

So, if you’re feeling all blogged out, you’re in good company. And you’re definitely not at the end of the blogging road.

Laura, Chris G., Chris B., Danielle, James, Johnny, Sarah, Dave, Audrey and Michael gave awesome ideas about what to do when you’re feeling all blogged out. And, I don’t know about you but my head is swimming with new blog ideas. Now…where’s my notebook?

Well? What about you? Have you ever felt all blogged out? What did you do about it?

Heather Allard lives in Rhode Island with her husband, three kids, Hope, Grace & Brendan and one big dog, The Dude. Since 2001, she’s started three businesses and sold one of them for six figures. Now she shows mom entrepreneurs how to build a business between diaper changes and play dates – without breaking the bank, or their spirit. Find her on Twitter as @HeathAll.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.


Feeling “Blogged Out?” [10 Pro Bloggers Share Their Advice on What to Do]

Share This

Last week on Twitter I was asked by @southrngurl6489 the following question:

If you had to pick only one thing that makes a blog stand out from its peers, what would you pick and why?

I thought it’d be a good question to open up to a wider audience as its something I’ve touched on quite a few times over the last year or so and because what makes a blogger distinct is often, by definition, something that can vary from blog to blog.

What are you doing to make your blog stand out from the crowd? What have you seen other blogs do that makes them stand out?

Further Reading: Here’s a post I wrote on the topic earlier in the year – The Power of Uniqueness [19 Starting Points for Being a Unique Blogger]

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What Do You Do With Your Blog to Make it Stand Out from the Crowd?

Share This

A guest post by Dustin Riechmann of Engaged Marriage.

My life is pretty typical for a 30-year old family man these days. I do my best to maintain a hectic schedule and the demands that come with balancing a wife, kids, a full-time career, a mortgage, church, community service, tee ball practice, my daughter’s tea parties and the occasional beer or round of golf with my buddies.

Oh yeah, and I’m a blogger, too.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You crawl into bed several hours after what would be considered a normal bedtime. Sure, you are short on sleep and you have a big meeting in the morning, but you are feeling pumped about the great post you just knocked out. This could be the pillar content or the guest post for ProBlogger that puts your blog on the map.

Is your spouse happy for you, or do they feel left out or abandoned?

Of course, the answer to this hypothetical (but really important) question won’t hinge on your actions on one particular night spent working late. The way your spouse and/or kids view your online pursuits will be based on the way they have been impacted and where they feel they fit into your many priorities.

A healthy family life is not only critical for your happiness but for your success in blogging. The creation, growth and maintenance of a remarkable blog requires a great deal of energy and hard work. And if you are constantly fighting the resistance of those in your own household, you are simply not able to sustain the required effort for the long haul.

7 Tips to Build Family Support for Your Blog

I have experienced these struggles first-hand during my first six months of blogging, and I happen to write on the topic of building an extraordinary marriage and family life.

Here are some tips that should help keep your spouse happy and your family supportive of your admirable efforts:

1. Set Priorities and Keep Them

Trust me, I know how easy it is to become totally obsessed with your blog, and this is especially true when you are getting started and trying to do so many different things to create a quality site and attract an audience. I think this passion is an awesome thing, and if you don’t have it you probably need to question your chosen niche or maybe even your desire to be a serious blogger.

However, you really need to take a step back and make sure you have your priorities straight. If you have a family (and you like them and would prefer that they stick around), you cannot let your blog trump your love and attention to them. Set your priorities, communicate them clearly and then let your actions confirm your good intentions.

2. Create Healthy Boundaries

The best way to stay true to your priorities is to create some boundaries with your time. For example, I have established a “no computer time” rule for myself where I don’t use the laptop (or my smart phone) between the time I get home from work and when we get the kids to bed. By setting up this boundary, I free my time and my mind to enjoy my children, play outside or help my wife out with dinner each evening.

Tell your spouse about your boundaries and encourage them to let you know if they see you slipping and not holding true to your commitments. Your family should be your best accountability partner, and they’ll know better than anyone when they feel like you’re not keeping them your top priority.

3. Communicate Your Reasons for Blogging

Why are you investing all this time and effort into blogging anyway? Take the time to tell your loved ones why your blog is important to you and how you see it as a benefit for your family.

It could be that you see it as a creative outlet, it makes you a better person or simply that you want to make money with your blog. Whatever your reasons, I’d bet that your intentions are good and that your entire household could be helped by your hard work. Tell them about it!

4. Sacrifice Personal Time, Not Family Time

If you have made the commitments that should come along with marriage or having children, it’s vital that you don’t push those aside in deference to your time online. We already talked about setting priorities, but the way you prove your intentions is in how you spend your time.

When you need to put your blog time into overdrive to meet a deadline or create your own product, it will require a sacrifice of time from some other area of your life. If you want your family to stay on-board with your efforts, you must sacrifice your own personal time. This may mean skipping poker night or a girl’s night out, but it shouldn’t mean missing your date night with your spouse or your daughter’s school play.

5. Seek Their Input

If you want your family to love your blog as much as you do (okay, so that’s not possible), try to get them involved in some way. This could be as simple as having your spouse proofread a post, or it could mean that you share your thoughts about a recent family event with your audience in a relevant way.

The way you handle this will obviously depend on your niche. I wouldn’t expect many writers to share the same level of personal stories as someone with a marriage blog, but you can surely find a way to make your family feel like they have at least a small ownership in your efforts.

6. Don’t Get Too Personal

While you want to get their input, you need to be careful not to cross the line by sharing too much personal information on your site to the point that your family becomes uncomfortable. You should have a general agreement with your spouse about what is okay to include in a blog post, such as using real names, personal stories or family photos.

My site discusses some pretty intimate issues (sex, money and spirituality for instance), and I love to include personal examples to help create compelling content. However, we have discussed this issue thoroughly, and my wife is totally cool with it as long as I don’t get too crazy. In fact, that’s actually my family in the picture above for all of ProBlogger nation to scrutinize.

Make sure you define the “personal line” with your family and don’t cross it without their permission.

7. Be Inspired By Your Family

You love your family, and if you are like me, they motivate you to do great things. Let your time with them fuel your motivation and inspire you to have an awesome blog.

This could be as simple as breaking writer’s block by goofing around with your kids, or it could mean literally writing a post based around a unique family experience. Let the love and energy your family provides shine through in your writing.

You Can Have It All

A successful blog requires some late nights and a lot of time. There really is no substitute for hard work, and you are not going to get the results you desire without a significant investment of your energy and attention.

However, if you keep things in perspective and make the proper investments in your relationships, you can have a thriving blog amidst all the craziness of life. More importantly, you can have the awesome marriage and healthy life that your entire family deserves.

So, what will you do to ensure that your family remains supportive of your blogging journey?

I’ve gotta run…I have a date night planned with my wife. And soccer practice bright and early tomorrow morning.

Dustin Riechmann created Engaged Marriage with the mission of helping others achieve the extraordinary in marriage and in life. Please visit his site for more proactive and practical advice on topics ranging from Sex to Spirituality…and find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

7 Tips to Keep Your Family On-Board for Your Blogging Journey

Share This

A Guest Post by Mark Hayward.

What the hell am I supposed to write about, I own a {insert your small business here}?

Really, who cares about your flower shop, bike shop, auto parts store, or coffee house?

Answer: Your customers certainly care.

We all know by now that consistent small business blogging can drastically improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and overall web presence. Additionally, a small business blog can increase your opportunities to interact with (and highlight) your customers and provide an additional occasion for you to share your expert knowledge.

Unfortunately, nothing stops a would be small business blogger faster than a perceived lack of time, and the frustration that comes with a lack of ideas to blog about.

While I can’t help you with your time issue, I can provide you with nine tips for creating more small business blogging ideas:

1. Keyword Tool

One of the best semi-secret sources of the more savvy small business bloggers are the free keyword tools that are available like Google Adwords and Wordtracker. If you are not familiar with searching for keywords, essentially you type in a word or phrase related to your small business and the tool shows you what people (your potential customers) are searching the internet for. You can easily get hundreds of new blog post ideas from a couple of keyword searches.

2. Your Backstory

Potential customers want to know about you and your business, it’s a cornerstone of trust building. One of the best ways to familiarize your customers with your business is to blog about your backstory and personal history. Backstory topics could include any of the following:

• Who you are?
• Where did you come from?
• Why did you choose your business location?
• What is it that makes you passionate about your small business?
• What have you done in your life that makes you unique?
• What struggles have led to the creation of who you are today as a business owner.

3. Customer of the Day

Presumably, if you are running a semi-successful business, you have customers coming in on a daily basis. If you are struggling for post ideas, why not make your customers the focus of your blog one or two days per week?

Not only will you get almost unlimited post material, but since customers like to feel special and appreciated, blogging about them is a great public relations tool. You could even give the participants an additional ten percent off of their purchase for their willingness to participate. Featuring your customers and telling their story gets them excited about your business and can help to establish a customer based community around your blog.

4. Create Resource Posts

Resource posts are great because they are fairly easy for you to put together and people love to read scannable and easily digested information. Ideas for small business resource posts might include:

• Top ten selling products in your store and why.
• Five reasons you love your business
• Twenty best ways to {insert business specific information here}.
• Eight reasons why customers loveÖ

5. Answer Customer Questions

Your customers have questions and you have expert knowledge. Do not take your knowledge for granted. If there is a specific set of questions that customers seem to ask on a daily basis then turn those queries into individual blog posts.

6. Tutorials

Similar to answering questions, tutorial posts that are specific to your industry (e.g. teaching customers how to change a flat tire, make better coffee, repair their fishing rod, etc.) might be a common task for you, but could really provide value your customers. One simple way to liven up tutorial posts is to add video or photo which can help enhance your instructions.

7. Mind Mapping

If you are not familiar with mind mapping, you can read Darren’s terrific mind mapping articles here, here, and here.

To create small business blog post ideas with mind mapping, draw a square in the center of a piece of paper and write the name of your business in the square. Begin jotting down ideas as you work out from the center. Do not stop to think, over analyze, and critique just get your ideas down on paper and you can refine them later.

8. Comparison Post

Take two similar items in your business and do a side by side comparison of the benefits, cost savings, and overall value of each. Own a bike shop, why would I buy a Cannondale over a Trek? Or, own a flower shop, what are the similarities and differences between roses and sunflowers?

9. Day in the Life

Many small business owners find it difficult to write about themselves. But your daily activities are truly unique and blog post worthy.

• What is a day, a week, or a even a month in your small business life like?
• Do you get up at 5:00a.m. and work until 10:00p.m.?
• What are you doing during the workday at your small business?

10. Your Suggestions

We have gotten you to nine tips for creating more small business blog posts and now it’s your turn to help get us to 10, 11, 12…. 100 suggestions. What are your tips for creating small business blogging ideas?

Mark Hayward hates the snow and cold! Luckily, he owns a small business in the Caribbean. Mark is passionate about helping other small business owners avoid the online mistakes he has made. You can follow Mark on Twitter @mark_hayward and you can subscribe to his RSS Feed for weekly small business social media marketing tips.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

9 Tips for Creating More Small Business Blogging Ideas

Share This

A Guest Post by Cori Padget from Write Syntax and Big Girl Branding.

In a word?

Engage. Engage, engage, engage, engage. Get it yet? ENGAGE! OK, I’m thinking you get it now, kinda sorta. But in case you don’t, let’s discuss it further. EN… Just kidding!

If you’re a writer, or a blogger, or someone who likes to share their thoughts and feelings with words in print (no, hair pulling and pinching don’t count… that’s over sharing and it’s not possible in print!) then you know what it’s like to write something you’ve poured your heart into, only to find it seemed to fall with a resounding splat once you exposed it to the rest of the world. The silence after streaking in all your naked glory was deafening. Not a single comment. Not a single Tweet. Heck, you couldn’t even get a lousy thumbs up! Can I get a ‘Amen’?

You’re not alone fellow wordsmith.

I feel your pain. It sucks when you write and it seems no one is interested. Or maybe they were and they did read… and just didn’t respond. Who knows? But kudos to you for baring it all and putting yourself out there anyway, even when it feels as if no one is listening.

Writing takes guts. And writing honestly takes guts and sweat. And writing honestly and in a way that engages people takes guts, sweat, and a lot of mental cursing and swearing and ice cream and chocolate. Hmnn… maybe the ice cream and chocolate part is just me.

But the reward of all that guts and sweat and ice cream and chocolate is that slowly people begin to respond. Slowly they begin to answer your questions. Slowly they begin to ask their own questions. It doesn’t happen quickly… but when you write in a way that draws your readers in and engages them in what you’re saying… responding to you becomes almost a compulsion they can’t help but obey. It’s like secret wordsmith mind control.

Dry, boring information=deafening silence.

Engaging, compelling information=deafening silence… at first. It’s a bit like sharing a first kiss with a new lover. In the eyes of one another you’re both hotter than Mister and Mrs. Smith in their skivvies. Volcanic even. Dare I say… engaging?

But you don’t kiss on the first date. You share company and spend some time together engaging, and then eventually you work up the nerve to share that first kiss. Then you share another kiss. And another. And then, all of a sudden, you’re past that first kiss and engaging like mad mating love bugs in June!

And I’m sure you’re sitting there reading this right now, getting all hot and bothered and wondering where exactly I’m going with all of this. Right?

No?

Dang, I must not be engaging enough today. Sheesh. Stroke a girl’s ego a little bit why don’t ya. This is our first kiss, and first kisses are scary!

My point is this…

If you don’t want your readers to run screaming in the opposite direction when you decide to get naked and engage them, you have to be WILLING to get naked and engage (metaphorically speaking of course). You have to be willing to write with honesty and authenticity. You have to be willing to sit down and have a conversation with your readers… one human to another.

Writing to engage people isn’t just about writing with the proper punctuation, using conjugated verbs, or avoiding fragmented sentences. It’s not about the technicality of writing it’s about the emotion of writing. It’s about the feeling behind the words you are sharing. It’s about connecting with your readers on some sort of emotional level, and making them want even more from you. Making them want to share things with you.

OK, fine… now you might be wondering how the frig you’re supposed to do that exactly. Well, glad you wondered! It’s really not rocket science, and the rules are pretty simple.

Here are my top 8.

You can also check out some more of the best writing advice. Ever.

• Write to a specific person. Doesn’t have to be a real person, just has to be a specific person. Think of it like this. You wouldn’t write the same way to your best friend Peggy as you would to your Grandma Dot. You wouldn’t write the same way to your neighbor Jim Hanson as you would to your brother Fletch. Get specific about who you’re writing to and get on with it.
• Write the way you talk. I’m not saying go all crazy and use a bunch of street slang and shorthand. But if you can’t read it out loud without stumbling and tripping everywhere then it’s probably not written in the same way you speak. Fix it.
• Use simple language. Most people on the web have a grade school reading level. A handful will be at college level. Very few will be beyond that, so save that particular style of writing for the text books. Keep your writing simple and easily understandable, and it makes it easier for people to relate.
• Tell a story, make it funny. Or heartwarming. Or motivating. Or some other suitably rousing emotion. The point is, stories engage and when you pair it with emotional triggers… you’ve got a winner!
• Relate to your readers. Use words and language that lets them know you understand where they’re coming from and that you’re just as human as they are. They really like that. It’s when they start thinking you’re an alien that you should probably start to worry a little. Just a little.
• Make it easy to read. Big fat paragraphs with long run on sentences send your readers screaming to people who DO know how to write properly. Break it up, use bullets, use subheads, even use occasional pictures to help break it up and engage your reader more.
• Sleep on it. Don’t publish something at midnight, it’s a sure bet you’re slap happy and exhausted and that 10 mile long article on social prosperity is nowhere NEAR to being as compelling and engaging as you are currently deluding yourself into believing.
• Finally, enjoy it! Write about what fascinates you. What you’re passionate about. Write about what you love. When you write about things that are important to you, it becomes clear to readers with every single new word they read, that what you’re saying is important to you. Therefore it becomes important to them!

There you have it. 8 ways to NOT repulse your readers and send them hot-footing it to the hills. How about you? Do you have any writer’s voodoo that you work on your readers to keep them hot for you and what you have to say? Are there any tidbits you can share with the rest of us on how you turn that first hesitant kiss into a full on make-out session? Do you have top secret ways to engage, engage, engage that you’re willing to come clean with? I’d love to hear them.

Warm regards,

Cori

Cori is a freelance ‘ghost’and the creative brains and dubious brawn behind her blog Big Girl Branding. She’d also like to note that ‘big’ does not mean what you think it means. It was meant to indicate being a grown up. Sigh… Of course you probably didn’t get that, and it totally loses its effect when she has to explain it. So I guess she’ll just have to put on her ‘big girl’ panties and deal with it. She’ll feel better about the whole misunderstanding though if you just visit her and say hello.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How To NOT Repulse Readers And Send Them Running Scream… Um…I Mean Clicking Away

Share This

Last week on my Photography Tips site we published a guest post titled Three Lenses Every Photographer Should Own.

The author of the guest post emailed me a few days later amazed at amazing amount of comments left on the post. While the average post on dPS gets a reasonable amount of comments this post is climbing up towards 200.

Why did it do so well in engaging readers?

There are a few reasons. The guest poster didn’t really set out to do any of them – but stumbled upon one of the best ways to get readers interacting on a blog post:

1. He Expressed an Opinion – the post shares one persons opinion on which lenses each photographer should own. While the post itself did indicate that it was his own personal preference and that others would find other options more suited to their situations – whenever you express an opinion you’re going to get other people reacting with their own.
2. He Made a Claim – the title was key in generating this discussion. It made a claim that every photographer should own 3 lenses. I’m not sure how intentional this was but make this type of claim and you’ll almost always get a reaction because you’ll almost always have someone who doesn’t quite fit into what you’ve proposed – and they’ll want to tell you why. Write a post about ‘essentials’, or ‘the best’ or something ‘everyone’ should do – and you’ll generally get this type of response.
3. He Invited a Response – the post finished by asking others what they’d include in their ‘must own’ category of lenses. This is the perfect invitation for an ongoing discussion.
4. He Chose a Topic People Had Invested Heavily Into – the last thing I’d say about this topic is that he stumbled onto a topic for the post that readers had strong opinions about because they’d invested into the topic. Camera owners carefully research their lens purchases and put up considerable dollars to buy them. As a result they tend to feel quite strongly about their lenses and often feel the need to defend/explain their decisions.

Keep in mind that while when you write these types of posts you will almost always get a reaction from people that you need to be willing and ready to hear some strong opinions back – something that are not always easy to hear.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The BEST Way to Generate Lots of Comments on a Your Next Blog Post

Share This