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- How Guest Posting is Like a Personal Loan
This guest post is by Frank Angelone of SocialTechZone.com.
Have you ever lent a friend money? If so, was this someone you thought you could trust? If you answered in the affirmative, as they say in The Social Network, than you will want to keep reading.
The thought may already have crossed your mind, “how does lending money to a friend relate to blogging?” Well, I’m glad you asked because when it comes to guest blogging, the blog owner is lending you their blog just like when you lent money to your friend.
Let’s start off with a story and we’ll bring this all together later on.
The perils of lending property
Let’s dive right into this personal story of mine and I’ll show you the best practices to take when using my experience in your guest blogging ventures.
A friend of mine, who I once considered my “best friend” had been in multiple financial jams when it came to paying rent, bills, or (let’s be blunt!) anything with a due date.
So, like any friend would, I decided to lend him the money to help pay his half of the rent and any other bills.
Little did I know that this pattern would continue down a path of destruction. What started out as me helping out a “brother” turned into me supporting him.
There are two things to point out: I shouldn’t have been so oblivious that he was taking advantage of me, and I’m not the only culprit on his list of lenders.
My friend swindled me out of about $1,000. It became so bad that it was starting to affect my financial situation and the best thing that happened to me was finding a way out of that terrible situation by returning home.
When a friend takes advantage of multiple people who lend their resources, they’re obviously not a friend, but someone who gets by through manipulation. The bottom line, as the saying goes, is “If you want to lose a friend, lend them money.” It’s safe to say I don’t talk to this individual anymore.
Guest posting? You’re borrowing a blog
I mentioned in my story above that I loaned money. Well, when it comes to guest blogging, you need to be aware that the blog owner is lending their blog to you. Their resources, whether that be their audience, their reach in the blogosphere, or even their own reputation, are made available to you when you share your voice on their property.
The resources the blog owner gives to you are like a personal loan. You need to pay the blog owner back for giving you the opportunity to share your insight with his or her audience. Obviously you’re not paying back a monetary value, but you should still be looking to give back in some way.
I know most people are going to feel that you “pay back” the owner of the blog by writing a high-quality article for their audience. That’s not enough. It’s too generic a way to give back. Writing a great article should be understood as a basic part of the exchange, not an added bonus.
The last thing you want to do is disappoint the owner of a blog after they decide to publish your article on their site. This can ruin the relationship and ruin your personal reputation, just like my friend did by taking advantage of many of his so-called friends. Also, if you don’t return the favor of the individual who lends your their blog, that news can spread like wild fire among the popular bloggers—especially if you have an article published on an A-List site.
I want to pay back the blog owner. What should I do?
First and foremost, I always email the blog owner directly after seeing my guest post go live and thank them for the opportunity. I know it sounds like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised by the strength of the the emotional connection you will hit with the blog owner in doing this.
They are expecting that you are using the guest post as a marketing strategy to bring traffic back to your blog. That’s understood because that’s what everyone is doing when it comes to guest blogging. However, you can take it a step beyond the publicity that you are being given, and work on continuing to build the relationship with that blog owner.
A personal email would be like the old-school version of mailing a letter. People like the written word, not a “thank you for the opportunity” message on Twitter. That’s not showing the effort, nor are you “paying” the owner back.
The personal email means more. Just think how you feel when someone emails you and thanks you for commenting on their blog. It sends a powerful message.
You can also ask the blog owner in the email if there’s anything you can do for them! Maybe they have a new product or post coming out and they need help promoting it. They may even have a service that they’d like you to test out. Anything of this nature that shows you are trying to make an effort to “repay your lender” is great, but do it in a genuine way—not just because you feel you have to.
Gain opportunities and build the relationship
There aren’t enough people who give back, in my opinion. My friend never gave back the money he owed me, nor did he really ever do anything to show our friendship meant something. The blog owner is looking for this same feeling of being your friend.
Everyone always wants more friends, and to develop new relationships. When you give back to them after they lend you their resources, then it can strengthen the friendship or business relationship.
You run an almost 100% guarantee of ruining the relationship if you screw over the blogger by not responding to comments left on your guest post or refraining from continuing to keep in touch with that blog owner. By doing so, they will know you were “using” them for one thing … one-time self promotion.
My friend used me and I was gullible enough to allow myself to be taken advantage of. Hopefully these insights along with the integration of my personal story paints a clear picture of how to give back to those who help you out.
What have you done after having a guest post of yours go live to “repay” the blog owner? What were the outcomes of those actions? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Frank Angelone provides social media strategies and tech tips through personal stories on SocialTechZone.com. His goal is to help and give back to people from his own experiences. He would love to exchange personal interactions with you, so please subscribe to his newsletter and receive his free blueprint to improve the speed of your computer.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
How Guest Posting is Like a Personal Loan
Переслать - Boost Your Blog #8: Incentivize Your Email Opt-in
Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:
8. Add an incentive to your email opt-in
Chris Garrett suggested this one on Google+ when I raised the topic of this post, and he’s a guy who has seen real benefit from doing it.
Chris offers a couple of ebooks when you subscribe to his list, and from what I can tell it significantly increase the opt-in rates to his lists. Of course, increased opt-ins can lead to many benefits over the life of your blog.
Have you incentivized your list subscription? Can you do it today?
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Boost Your Blog #8: Incentivize Your Email Opt-in
Переслать - 7 Steps to Setting Blogging Goals that Stick
This guest post is by Tim Brownson of A Daring Adventure.
I suspect that all the technical information you could ever need to be a successful blogger is out there in the public domain. If that is the case, why do the vast majority of blogs fail when it comes to providing the owner an income they can live comfortably on?
Copyright Mark Aplet - Fotolia.com
Firstly, I think many bloggers grossly underestimate the psychological side of blogging and what is needed to get their heads right in the first place.
Secondly, few bloggers that I speak to start off with any real plan or goal to keep them on track if and when things don't go according to expectations. They simply dive into the process with no real idea of where it will take them.
Today I want to show you a seven-step process for goal setting that will exponentially improve your chances of succeeding with your blog.
You may well be familiar with the SMART method of goal setting because it's been around for decades. Bear with me though as I expand on that process and make it way cooler and more useful for you—and far more likely to help you succeed.
Just in case you aren't familiar with SMART, let me give it a quick run through.
Specific
Is your goal specific enough that somebody else could read it and know exactly what you mean? A goal of having a popular blog misses this aspect because it's too vague and subjective.
I have a popular blog, but if I gave my readers to Darren and took his in return he'd be pretty unhappy with the deal—he has about 40 times more than I do.
“Owning a blog with at least 5,000 subscribers that earns $500 per month from AdSense” is the kind of goal that nails this element.
Measurable
Using the last example, you can see at any point in time where you are in your plan. If you have 2,500 subscribers, you are half-way there. If you are earning $400 per month, then you're 80% of the way toward that goal. Having a measurable goal is important to keep your motivation going and for you to know whether things are working or not.
Action-oriented
Any goal, if it’s to be a real goal, requires input in some form from you. In other words, you have to act and actually do something to make it happen. Lying in bed hoping people are buying your ebook that you haven't promoted properly isn't a goal—it's wish or a dream, and it’s almost certain to fail miserably.
Realistic
I'm not big on this aspect of the SMART method, because unless something is physically or scientifically impossible, then to me it's still realistic.
If Darren had told people eight years ago that he intended starting a blog called ProBlogger and by 2011 he'd have 150,000 subscribers and be one of the top 2,000 websites in the world according to Alexa, people would have been lining up to tell him he was being unrealistic.
He wasn't, so don't worry too much about being realistic. Understand there is a huge difference between something being very difficult and being impossible. Landing on the moon was very difficult; landing on the sun is impossible (unless you go at night!).
Time-bound
This is probably the most under-appreciated element of SMART goals. Without a timeframe, goals have a habit of slipping.
Most people are busy and, as such, are responding and reacting to events. Therefore, without an end game in sight there will always be more pressing issues for you to attend to.
There is a great reason why people work more efficiently up to deadlines. It's because the brain kicks off a mini fight-or-flight response, which allows them to focus more efficiently.
Okay, so that's the traditional model and it's all well and good, but I want to help you make your goals even more effective by turning SMART into SMARTER.
Ecology
When you’re setting goals you have to be aware of the effect they will have on you and those close to you. So you want to be a problogger and intend spending as many hours as necessary to achieve that?
How will that affect relationships with your loved ones? How will it impact your social life and your health? How will you pay the bills as you build up your following?
The answers aren't reasons not to try, or to quit before you start. But they are things that need to be taken into consideration now, so they don't trip you up further down the road.
Reward
This is the really big one as far as I'm concerned, and it’s the thing that so many people miss out on or just don't get.
What is your reward for having a successful blog?
I'm not talking about money here: I'm at a deeper level than that. We are talking about values and what is fundamentally important to you at the level of your identity.
What really drives you? If you think that's money, what does that money give you? Maybe it's freedom, peace, security, significance, or maybe you want to leave a legacy.
It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you know. This is what's going to motivate you if and when things get tough.
If you can't come up with a reason that will get you out of bed at 5.00am enthusiastic about the day ahead, then there's a high probability you will burn out sooner rather than later.
As an example, I am a Life Coach because I love helping people. I don't earn as much money as I did when I worked in sales, but I'm way happier and, more importantly, I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. Do you?
Tim Brownson is a Professional Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner and published author. He runs the A Daring Adventure blog where he writes about self development. If you would like a free copy of his book How Do I Set Goals That Work? Click the link.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
7 Steps to Setting Blogging Goals that Stick
Переслать - Why the Road to Blog Success is Bumpy (and What to Do About It)
This guest post is by Jane of Find All Answers.
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why does it always happen to me?”
I am sure you have. It always happens. Whenever you have a shiny goal for your business project, or whenever you want to start a new business, you face them—challenges.
They are everywhere just waiting to welcome you. You don’t like them and you wonder why it always happens that you need to take the hard, bumpy road to success.
But wait. It’s not just you. Whoever travels the path to success for the first time faces this. The road is never smooth and it is never as expected.
Why is the road bumpy?
There are so many reasons. But the fact that it is bumpy doesn’t mean that it is bad. And it is also true that you will learn a lot of lessons by traveling down a bumpy road.
Let me discuss some of the causes of a bumpy road.
You are at it for the first time
Usually when it is your first time, it is rough. If you are in a project for a first time, if you are trying a new business idea, taking a new blogging initiative, and so on, you cannot expect a smooth road.
Your expertise, your ability to handle the outcomes, your capability to anticipate and develop alternate plans under pressure—all these factors depend on how well you know the ground. If you are in business for more than two years, you already know what to expect. You already have a Plan B for Issue X.
But if you’re starting a totally new business, say blogging for instance, you neither know Issue X nor Plan B. And there can be so many Xs in the whole process! All these make the road bumpy. You end up running like a headless chicken if you are not prepared for it.
But the road may not be bumpy just because you’re taking it for the first time. There may be another important reason…
You don’t have a plan
You can avoid a bumpy road—or at least anticipate it so that you sustain the least damage—if you have an action plan.
Whatever kind of business you’re in, you absolutely need an action plan. There are so many reasons to devising one, and one is to help you avoid at least some of the potholes in the bumpy road. Having a proper goal and an action plan will save you lot of hardship. This way, you work smarter, not harder.
You don’t learn from your mistakes
Let me make one thing clear. Here, I am not talking about those who start a business or a project without a proper goal or an action plan, then wander through all storms and deserts to get somewhere they never wished for.
Such persons invite the challenges for themselves. They don’t have a goal, so they don’t have a plan either. When they don’t know what exactly they want to achieve, they have not defined their own success.
But there are people who are really prepared for what’s ahead—who know what to achieve and how to achieve. However, since they are starting out in a new business, some unexpected events may occur. When they happen, they tell the individual that they have to learn a lesson.
So let’s say you take Plan A and execute it. With it comes Issue 1, which you never managed to anticipate. So you struggle somehow to manage the chaos, get Issue 1 solved, and get on with Plan A.
Now the next time you execute Plan A for a different purpose in your business, you now need to anticipate Issue 1 and incorporate it into your plan. Not just that, but you also have a solution to Issue 1. The second time, you’ll have learned from your previous execution of Plan A.
If you have failed to learn your lesson (you may be forgetful, negligent, or lazy), then you’ll have to face all the chaos the next time too!
What to do about bumpy roads
Anticipate them
This is a brilliant way to face an issue: expect the worst. You don’t have to be pessimistic or surround yourself and your business with negative thoughts. But always remember that you may have to face something bad, something serious, or something that could drive you totally mad.
If you have a plan, you could easily anticipate that problem.
Be flexible
This is another great thing to do. Face the hurdles, but don’t be hard on yourself. If things didn’t turn out as you planned, you don’t have to panic. Just stay calm and go with the flow.
Adjust yourself and your business to unexpected hard times. You will adapt to the trouble soon. Just don’t develop a comfortable attitude to hard times. If you do so, you will never travel smoothly.
Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors
Of course they don’t! If everything’s perfect from start to end, you won’t get smarter and sharper. You won’t learn skills or attitudes, and you won’t learn about your competition and your capabilities.
You have to have some hard roads in the beginning. These will make you learn skills that are needed to overcome issues. You may learn that you have a tough competitor in you business only after you face an issue.
You might learn what you are capable of only after you have attempted to do something beyond your limits, and failed.
You might learn that you need to develop a particular skill only once you realize that you are unable to develop a major part of your business.
The school of life
My Ph. D. supervisor Aneta Stefanovska used to tell me that life is a school. We learn lessons everyday. We learn all different sorts of lessons, and we always learn. This applies to our business, too.
A bumpy road teaches us a lot. Such a road is not always bad. Sometimes failures in your business are essential in helping you to get smarter and sharper, and preparing you for a tough ride the next time.
When you happen to come across a bumpy road, evaluate. Stay calm, evaluate the causes and see what you can learn from it. Find out ways in which you can take your blog to success along a road that gradually becomes smoother.
Jane writes about Blogging Tips, Relationships and Self Improvement at her blog Find All Answers. She wants to tell you that you absolutely need a blogging action plan.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Why the Road to Blog Success is Bumpy (and What to Do About It)
Переслать - Boost Your Blog #7: Interlink Your Posts
Continuing our discussion of things you should be doing right now to improve your blog, today’s tip is:
7. Interlink your posts
Another task that I try to do on a regular basis (not as regularly as I should!) is going back through old posts in my archives and looking for opportunities to interlink them.
Many times bloggers write multiple posts on their blog on related topics, and each one is an opportunity to interlink relevant content. This benefits your readers, as you give them further reading on the topic, and helps with your search rankings (internal links help your SEO a little).
Pay particular attention to opportunities to link to your own products in older posts—this can be a money spinner.
Do you regularly go back and interlink old posts?
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Boost Your Blog #7: Interlink Your Posts
Переслать - Your Blog Is Not Seen by Over 2 Million Federal Workers!
This guest post is by Rick of www.morebettersmarts.com.
Filtering software may be blocking your blog from being accessed on government computers.
When I first put my blog online, I discovered that my friends on the local military base were prevented from viewing it by the government's filtering service, Blue Coat.
As none of my posts contained any questionable content, I was interested to find out why my blog was blocked. More importantly, as there are literally millions of federal workers worldwide, I wanted to ensure blog was seen by this audience.
While this information pertains specifically to the Blue Coat filtering service, it no doubt applies to other filtering agencies. Blue Coat just seems to be one of the more popular services used by the Department of Defence (DoD) and other government agencies.
Copyright Paul Maguire - Fotolia.com
Also note the information provided isn't a way to circumvent the filtering service. The method used is perfectly legal, and I worked through Blue Coat to get it resolved.
The problem
When my friends on the military base attempted to access my blog, a very official-looking page popped up with the heading, "ACCESS DENIED." Further down the page explained that my site was blocked as its “Webfilter Category” was classified as “Blogs/Personal Pages.”
The page also included specific information about contacting the Blue Coat Webpage Review Site if there were any problems. That link is: http://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp
Clicking the link took me to a simple form that allowed me to enter my URL to see how my blog was categorized. I entered my site name, and clicked Check Rating. Sure enough, my site was classified as Blogs/Personal Pages, and was thus blocked by the DoD computers.
The fix
In addition to seeing your site's category, the review page also provides a form that you can use to easily request a review of your site. This is how you go about getting it reclassified.
There were several dozen categories to choose from via a drop-down menu, and I was initially unsure of which to choose. However, Blue Coat allows you to enter the name of any site to review, so I looked at a couple of blogs that I patterned mine after, to see how they were classified.
Several of these were classified as Reference, so I decided to use this category. I also checked with my friends on the military base that the sites using this classification could be accessed. They verified this, so I was good to go.
I selected “Reference” from the drop-down menu, and didn't bother with the optional second category. In the comments, I wrote:
www.morebettersmarts.com has the stated mission of “Providing practical wisdom to improve your life and work, home, and play.” The site provides articles on health and fitness, public speaking, life hacks, and productivity. The site is currently listed as Blogs/Personal Pages, but should be classified as Reference. Thank you for your review.
I then clicked the box asking the results be sent to me via email, selected Blue Coat ProxySG as the filtering service, clicked the Submit for Review button, and crossed my fingers.
The actual review process only took a few hours, and I received an email stating my site was now reclassified as Reference. However, it took around 24-48 hours for the government servers to catch up to this change. After that, my blog was made available to several million federal workers. Now only if it would be viewed by several million federal workers, I could probably blog full-time…
A few issues
Of course, your site could also fall under one of the many other classifications regularly blocked by filtering software. For example, if your site is categorized as Political or Entertainment, it will most likely continue to be blocked, so you're probably out of luck.
Additionally, a note you'll see all over the Blue Coat site is the filtering service doesn't decide which sites are filtered. It's up to the agency or company to make this determination. For example, if the federal government wanted to allow sites classified as Blogs/Personal Pages, there wouldn't have been an issue.
If you're new to blogging, there's a good chance your site is classified as a blog by these filtering services. Hopefully, this quick and legal fix will open your site to a great new source of traffic.
Rick is the owner/author of 'More Better Smarts,' supplying practical wisdom to help improve your life at work, home, and play. Visit Rick at www.morebettersmarts.com.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Your Blog Is Not Seen by Over 2 Million Federal Workers!
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