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- What You Can Take From Your Blog's Worst Day
Thee fateful day started with a morning that marked a month since the launch of my new blog. A blog that had ten posts and few visits per day.
On that morning I woke up and went on to sit in front of my laptop. This is my usual routine. I check all the updates, reply to comments (if there are any), and so on. Everybody knows how much there is to be done in the initial days of a blog’s life.
Phase 1: disaster!
On that day I started my laptop, clicked on the shortcut, and bang!
I was greeted by a white box on a big red screen, shouting “Warning!” in big, bold letters. A small description indicated that Google had detected counter-WordPress malware on my blog.
Distributing malware? I hadn’t even been distributing ebooks!
That was enough to start the morning. I closed the browser and called my office to inform them that they weren’t going to see me that day.
I took a deep breath and a morning tea with the newspaper. After that, I started googling the malware, and searching for a process to clean it from my site. I found a lot of information on Google, along with a few helpful threads on WordPress support forums. I collected all the information and went about the process of cleaning my blog, which took around seven hours of hard work.
I was able to clean my site and store it to its original state, though I admit a lack of activity on my blog at the time also helped in my case. This was the worst day of my blog in its short life. But it didn't end there…
Phase 2: giving back
I was feeling pretty angry about what happened, and I had only a handful of posts on my new blog—there were plenty of others who had much more at stake, and were going through the same process.
Once my blog was clean, I dug into it further, to check the source of the attack, and what scripts had been run on my blog. I shared details on the WordPress support forum.
Inspired, I decided to help other people like me. I created a guide explaining the process for removing the malware on my blog. Then I went back to WordPress support forum to help people.
As it happened, that guide ended up ranking number three on Google for some crucial keywords, right after the WordPress support forum threads. It brought a lot of new people to my blog. That guide is still a good source of traffic for me, and varies between third and eighth rank on Google. I’ve also been able to create few other posts to which I drive traffic from that post.
So at the end of the day, because I refused to quit, and showed an urge to help others, I gained a lot from my blog’s worst day:
- A post that’s appearing on the first page of Google.
- A couple of post to which I am able to drive traffic more deeply into my blog.
- A handful of email subscriptions—a good thing for a starter blog!
- A few backlinks to my blog from other sources.
And on top of these benefits, I have this post on ProBlogger only because of that day.
So if you keep yourself calm and keep your eyes on opportunities, you can end up converting your worst day to a great day for your blog.
What have you got from your worst day as a blogger? Share with us through the comments.
Sanjeev currently owns two blogs and writes to make the Web world a better place, and help others to use it and get something out of it. You can check his blog Make Web World or get his RSS feed here.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
What You Can Take From Your Blog's Worst Day
Переслать - What to Do When Your Product is Only a Suggestion
This guest posy is by John Hoff of securemyblog.com.
When we’re new to making money online, many gurus tell us we should think about what we know, what we’re good at, and what we enjoy doing.
They tell us to think about it like this:
If money wasn’t a factor, what would you do?
They tell us to then take that thought and turn it into something we can create a business out of, but remember…
It’s not about making money.
No, it’s never about the money, is it? (Wink… nudge, nudge, wink.)
It’s about doing what you love and helping people better their lives because of the things you do. Do that and the money will follow.
Image copyright Nikolai Sorokin - Fotolia.com
The problem is, the money doesn’t always follow, does it?
Sure, you might get a nice burst of sales when you launch, but typically what happens after that launch-promoted surge of traffic disappears is a dip. A dip in sales and a dip in your attitude.
You don’t understand why people aren’t buying your product.
It’s good. Darn good. But sales trickle in slower than a race between a snail and a turtle.
Assuming you’re getting traffic to the site and very few people are buying, here’s the problem you might be having…
Your product is a suggestion, not a solution.
What your product may be lacking
Many of us bloggers look to make money online, and as you have probably figured out, blogs don’t make money: people do. If when you signed up for this Internet marketing gig your information came from a reputable guru, they probably told you that you needed to focus on these potential customer issues:
- fears
- pain
- desires
- wants
- needs.
But sometimes when we’re all jazzed up about getting our own first product out there, we tend to forget things—or even worse, don’t listen.
It doesn’t matter what kind of product you have: ebook, membership site, advice, or coaching service, if your product fails to tap into any of these fundamental reasons that motivate people to “need to buy” your product, you’ve got a suggestion product.
If you’re one of those people who owns a product which is seen as a suggestion rather than a solution, the way I see it, you have two choices:
- Educate customers about the problems and convince them to buy.
- Set up a clever sales funnel.
Option three, of course, is to give up, but sometimes giving up isn’t what we want to do even when our logical brains tell us otherwise.
Option 1: The time suck—suggestion education
Hey I’m all for educating, after all, teaching sells, right? In fact pretty much everything I do online involves either teaching something or learning something.
But strictly speaking about product creation for a moment, I never lose sight of the fact that a product that provides a solution to something will require less teaching and educating than one which only provides suggestions.
This means it’s easier to sell.
As an example, my first information product is a WordPress security ebook.
When I created the product, I thought to myself, “John, there’s a real need out there for people to secure their blogs against hackers, and when you show them how bad a hacking problem WordPress has, people will be fearful and want to buy this product.”
Notice how I mentioned three of those big issues we need to tap into? But here’s the problem: they weren’t problems my target customers felt or understood (yet).
And that’s the difference between educating to create a sale (a suggestion) verses educating to close the sale (a solution).
The problem with educating to create a sale for a product which is a suggestion is that it typically takes a lot of time and effort, and unless you’re a top-notch content marketer, your sales will likely be sporadic.
Also, assuming this is the only strategy you use to entice people to buy your product, it is likely that many of your prospective buyers will never find you.
Why?
That’s simple: because they aren’t looking for what you’re offering them; they’re looking for something else. They are looking for a solution to a problem they have today, and your suggestion product couldn’t possibly be targeting every problem your target customers are having.
Option 2: Setting up a clever sales funnel
Okay, so you’ve got yourself a darn fine product and you know people will benefit from it. The problem is that even though you’re trying to educate them as to why your product will be good for them, sales just aren’t coming in the way you thought they would.
If this is the case, the most important thing you can do is take a really close look at where your buyers are coming from, and where they could be coming from.
You probably have a decent idea of what kind of person would buy your product. Now take that person and spend some time really digging into their true wants, needs, problems, desires, and so on.
If your product teaches people how to take control of their money and budget better (your suggestion product explains how to do it), then one of the needs your prospects might have is to make their next month’s mortgage payment.
Now imagine if you could create the website and a product which solved that problem for them.
Perhaps you partnered with a Payday Loan company or an investor, and offered a loan program which solved that problem for them in twenty-four hours.
After buying that frontend product and capturing their email addresses, you can then begin marketing to them about your how-to budgeting product.
Another problem your prospective customers might have is divorce over money. Assuming a person does not want to get divorced over money, they need to find a way to fix the problem they’re having.
So you create a site and new info product or service on how to solve divorce problems related to money issues. And there’s your second funnel.
What we’re doing here is creating secondary products which give people immediate solutions to their problems, then funneling them into your suggestion product.
The key point to remember is that when you’re setting up your funnels, you need to position yourself as the person with the answers they need. In other words, you need to be the authority in their eyes for the fill-in-the-blank niche.
Your best bet, of course, is to do both option one and option two as I’ve explained them here. But if you ask me, one option deserves the majority of your time (option 2).
John Hoff is a content marketer… but you don’t care about that. What you might care about is what he can do for your WordPress security. He can also help you with that blog SEO thing (free download, no email required).
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
What to Do When Your Product is Only a Suggestion
Переслать - How a Blog Can Help Grow Your Offline Business
This guest post was written by Gordon McLachlan of 8 Gram Gorilla.
I've been both an avid blogger and a huge advocate for blogging for many years now. But until recently I've never had any personal “success” to be able to back up my claims that blogging isn’t just an excellent pastime, it’s also a tremendously useful business resource.
Sure, it's easy to point people to the likes of ProBlogger as a testament to the power of blogging when answering the question "why have a blog?" but I've always struggled to relate any major achievements of my own as further proof to my assertions.
Until now.
How my blog helped my offline business grow
It all began three years ago when I first started blogging in earnest and opened the doors to an online gaming blog (think World of Warcraft et al), the subject matter being a hobby of mine that I've thoroughly enjoyed for many years.
I guess, if I'm being truly honest, I did have a little thought/hope/dream in the back of my mind that one day I might “make it” as a blogger and become so popular and make so much money through advertising that I could relocate to the Bahamas and live out the rest of my life sipping Mai Tais whilst blogging from a laptop on the beach. Of course, that never happened.
I wasn't particularly cut up about that, though, because I was primarily blogging for the simple reason that I enjoyed it so much. Plus, within a year or two, I’d managed to establish myself as one of the more popular blogs in my niche with a loyal readership and tens of thousands of visits a month. I was content and never thought my blog would help me in any other way.
Then something magical happened.
Five months ago, I took the biggest risk of my life and left my job with a company I'd been with for over six years. I started up my own business, a web agency, with two other very talented individuals. The web has always been my passion and not only did my new colleagues and I want to make a living running our own design and development company, we also knew that we wanted to engage with the Internet through all available means.
Taking a punt, I wrote up a post on my gaming blog advertising my new company site and new company blog, 8 Gram Gorilla, hoping that we might be able to pass through some link juice and garner a little bit of interest from my gaming readership.
The response was overwhelming.
Securing international business
Within a few days of my blog post, we'd received emails from readers about job opportunities, some national, here in the UK, and some international. These people had looked at our company blog, our company website, and our portfolio of work, and decided that we, as a business, were worth investigating.
Long story short, through contact stemming directly from my gaming blog, we were able to secure international work that, as a result, has helped us survive and thrive—no mean feat given how tough it is for new businesses to establish themselves in the current economic climate.
I think it's important to stress here that we didn't have people just phoning us up and offering us guaranteed jobs or easy money—we still had to pitch for the work and go through the usual hoops of tendering and proving ourselves to be the right people for the job. In fact, not every lead even converted into a project. But that's not the point.
The point is, just like any form of networking and relationship building, it's about getting in front of people who might actually have a need for your service, and who respect and trust you enough to give you a shot at going up for it.
At the end of the day, we only won the work we got because we were the right people for the job. What my blog did give us, though, were some amazing leads and the ability to pitch for work that we would never have known about otherwise. And that's been truly invaluable.
Better than any networking event
I've attended a lot of local networking events and I can tell you that most of them are a waste of time. Aside from the fact that they're usually filled with people all trying to sell their own wares and services to each other and not actually buy anything, they don't tend to offer enough time to really get to know anyone properly. And that's why blogs are so beautiful.
Over the two and a bit years my blog had been running, I'd written several hundred posts on, mainly, my views of gaming, but also about my personal experiences at home, details about my wife and family, and other bits about my life, like my reading interests and holiday activities.
All this information helped cement a relationship of trust and friendship with my readers. They felt like they knew me enough, and perhaps more importantly, liked me enough, to give me a chance when I started my own business.
Funnily enough, this intimate connection has also made the business relationship with any readers easier and more relaxed than any other because, after all, it's hard to maintain a stern, impersonal corporate facade when someone's seen your embarrassing holiday photos. I can be completely natural with them because I know that they've already read hundreds of hours of my thoughts, moans, and opinions, leaving me nowhere to hide—even if I wanted to.
And all of this is why a blog, any blog, can help benefit your offline business. It allows you to make connections with thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people from all across the world whilst constantly establishing a relationship of trust, authority, and kinship.
It doesn't even matter what your blog is about, because your readers will ultimately share your passion for the same subject and, importantly, over the course of time, they’ll come to relate with you more and more.
The moral of the story
You don't need a blog that makes money itself by selling products or generating huge ad revenue to reap the real, tangible life-changing benefits of having one.
Just writing about what you love, regardless of what it is, is enough. People respect passion and admire talent, and sometimes, just using a blog as a vehicle to establish trust and connect with others is enough.
Indeed, one of the best things a blog can do for you is introduce you to thousands of people who share your interests and hobbies and, just like networking in the “real world,” maybe one day one of those people will need the services your offline business has to offer.
After all, you never know who might be reading.
This post was written by Gordon McLachlan, one of the founders of Primate, a digital agency driven by an overwhelming passion for the web industry. In addition to having a slightly unsettling love for monkeys he also co-authors their rather witty blog, 8 Gram Gorilla.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
How a Blog Can Help Grow Your Offline Business
Переслать - Why Your Brand Is Everything
This guest post is by Matthew Kepnes of Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.
Let's begin with some word association:
- Disney World
- Nike
- Apple
- McDonald’s
- BP
- Goldman Sachs.
What did you think about when I mentioned these brands? What words came to mind? Thoughts? Feelings? Images?
Image copyright Andy Dean - Fotolia.com
Whatever it is that came to your mind is the brand image you associate with that company. When I think of those companies, I think of (respectively):
- family fun
- serious athletes
- youthful and innovative
- cheap
- careless
- heartless.
These words may be simple but they represent a whole array of feelings and emotions that the company names express to me. And it is those thoughts and emotions that shape my interactions with them, just as it is your thoughts and feelings that shape your interactions with them and how you relate to them. It is those feelings that either turn is into loyal customers or loyal "people who always shop elsewhere."
You are an idea
What are you? What about me? What do we represent?
This is not some existential question about life. These are questions about what your website or company is about and how people identify with it. Whether we know it or like it, our websites create an image in people's minds, and we need to be conscious of that image because if we aren't, our expectations and goals for our business won't match the real perception of our business.
When we think about "brands" we think of marketing, business techniques, and icky sales terms. We think of slick ad men and women who are putting together ad campaigns to pull the wool over our eyes.
But this article isn't an article on how to manipulate your brand image, it's about how to understand and use it. The idea of a brand is a powerful tool that can help you engage your readers, foster trust, and create credibility. If you want to be successful, you need to understand your brand.
Think about Apple. What is Apple's brand? When I think of Apple, I think trendy, cutting edge, and youthful. When Apple is about to launch a new product, I know right away that it will make me drool with excitement over how technologically advanced, functional, and stylish it will be. It's why people pre-order a new iPhone without even looking at it. It's why people will wait in line for days to get a phone they can get the following week without waiting. They just think, "It's Apple, so it must be good" and line up to buy the product.
Once the product comes out, it continues to follow Apple's pre-existing brand image of style, trendiness, and technological awesomeness and thus reinforces the idea of what Apple is in the minds of people. (This isn't duplicitous. The products are great in their own right. They help people, which only further strengthen the brand and creates a self-feeding cycle.)
Think about what you convey when you build your website. What do you want people to think about you? On my site, Nomadic Matt, I like to convey the image of thoughtful, yet fun and inexpensive travel. To me, my site shows anyone can go out, have fun, break out of their cubicle, and still not spend a lot of money. When I asked my readers what words/images they associate with my site, they told me:
- backpacking
- budget travel
- muppets (my Twitter avatar is a fraggle)
- solo travel
- fun
- practical.
I want people to think about a trusted source for fun budget travel. As a consequence, everything I do revolves around conveying and strengthening that brand image. I don't write about luxury trips, I don't promote books that don't enhance the travel experience, I don't write about blogging, and I don't talk about hotels.
I get a lot of emails on joining digital nomad affiliates, but that's not my audience and it's not my brand. I'm not a digital nomad, I'm simply a nomad. I don't write about making money, I don't do sponsored posts, and I don't talk about the mundane events of my life. All of that takes away from my brand image. I stick to a consistent message.
Strengthen your brand
Look at the words people associate with my site. They are the exact words I want them to be. I want to create a site that conveys those exact words, and by focusing my content, I can focus my brand to create the type of site that conveys it.
All that stuff I don't do has only helped my site. I may not appeal to everyone but I've found that the more I am to fewer people, the more connections I make with them. In other words, I'd rather have a strong following of 1,000 people than a weak following of 10,000.
When creating and marketing your site, it is important to stay focused. Staying focused on what you want your site and brand to be about will help increase your traffic much faster.
Don't be everything to everyone. Instead, be that one thing or expert that everyone turns to for information. Because when people get asked, "Can you recommend a budget travel expert?" I want them to recommend me. And by religiously focusing on what my site is about and never deviating from it, the more I become that budget expert in the minds of people. And that's what I want. I want to be that budget travel guy, not anything else.
The mistake that many bloggers make is trying to be everything to everyone. They create content that is all over place. There's nothing wrong with that if you just want to keep a personal, opinion site. However, if you want to run a website that supports yourself, you need to find a topic and stick to it. You need to ask yourself what you want to be, and focus on creating content and a brand around that.
My name is Matt Kepnes and I'm the budget travel guy. Who are you?
Matthew Kepnes has been traveling around the world for the past four years. He runs the award winning budget travel site, Nomadic Matt's Travel Site and has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian UK, AOL's Wallet Pop, and Yahoo! Finance. He currently writes for AOL Travel and The Huffington Post For more information, you can visit his Facebook page or sign up for his RSS feed.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
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