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- Are You Blogging Just Like Everyone Else?
It’s a paradox. The pundits encourage bloggers to find a niche, think differently, and say something unique and valuable. Then they give us standard formulae for producing content, as if your unique voice, approach, readership, and topic will be neatly addressed by a preselection of three or four formats.
The formats
In editing the content at ProBlogger and FeelGooder, I receive posts in the same few styles over and over and over (and over). These are the most common.
The personal story
Personal story posts are characterized by an arresting opening, a fictional style, and a personal voice. Frequently they separate sentences that are intended to blow you off your feet into their own, single-sentence paragraphs.
Often they are long, requiring the reader to surrender to some degree, because to read this kind of post, you have to be prepared to be captivated before the author lets you in on the true purpose of the post, often with the words “How does this relate to [topic]?”
The news report
The news report cuts right to the chase, relating facts, and linking to sources. Whether it contains the blogger’s opinion or not, it’s about alerting readers to something big, something immediate, something they need to know about now.
Image copyright Silkstock - Fotolia.com
Fear and panic, or alternatively fun-poking, often have a role to play in bloggers’ news reports—that’s them injecting their own unique brand of [insert adjective here], the thing that sets their blog apart from the others.
The how-to
The how-to is a process, and is often presented as a list post. Most how-tos oscillate between carefully paced and plodding.
Often it seems the blogger really isn’t that interested in producing it, because by the end they’re all out of fervor and finish the piece without so much as a “Let me know if you have any problems”—let alone a conclusive summary.
The conglomeration of stuff
The conglomeration of stuff is usually pretty easy to pick—it’s got a title that includes the word “things” (e.g. Five Things You Must Know Before You Launch an Ebook), and on reading it, you find that it lacks a frame of reference, solid purpose, or strong angle.
All too often the conglomeration of stuff ends up being little more than a bunch of things, loosely linked, that need to be somehow mentally filed by readers. The only problem is that the author hasn’t told them how that mental filing should work, so readers are left with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction.
Think differently
I’m not saying these approaches are bad, although I have pointed out above what most commonly happens when these post styles are used as out-of-the-box formulae.
The thing that’s important to remember is this: an established “approach” should not necessarily dictate the content you produce.
If no one had ever broken out of the established approach to particular kinds of content products, we’d never have had movies like Pulp Fiction, books like In Cold Blood, or series like The Sopranos.
You do not need to create content the traditional way.
Back to basics
You write a blog post because you have something to say. What is that message?
Most bloggers seem to start with that question and then, once they’ve ascertained the answer, turn their thoughts to the Official Blogger’s Catalog of Post Types and choose the one they feel will best communicate that topic.
That’s fine, but what if you did it differently?
What if the first thing you did after you defined your post’s message was to think about your audience, or a medium you’d never used before, or a technique you’d seen used elsewhere, in a different medium, that might work more effectively to communicate your message than any other? Maybe it doesn’t involve writing. Maybe it requires the input of others.
Joke and Biagio included a two-part script in their recent ProBlogger post. Macarongg used the language of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange in her retelling of her experience baking Korova Sables. What about blog posts posts that are comprised entirely of comics, or sound, or videos, or songs?
What’s the best way to communicate your message to your audience? The answer might lead you down some exciting avenues involving experimentation, collaboration, and new creative adventures. It did for Leo Babauta, who wrote his yet-to-be-released ebook The Effortless Life in Google Docs in a single day, with real-time input from his readers. It did, too, for Seth Godin, who redefined “pithy blogging” with his now-famous 57-word post.
What do you think? Is it time you stopped blogging like everyone else?
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Are You Blogging Just Like Everyone Else?
Переслать - Space … Silence … Solitude … [What I Need More of as a Blogger]
As I reflect upon the times when I’ve felt most “effective” as a blogger (and perhaps as a human), I think it’s times when I’ve built these three things into life.
Space
Perhaps it’s just me and my personality, but I find that if I don’t create space…
- to reflect on life
- to consider how I’m feeling
- to analyze what I’ve experienced
- to ponder priorities.
then I tend to allow the busyness of my life determine what I do, rather than letting what is important determine my actions.
I find that if I don’t create space, blogging either doesn’t happen, or it happens in a very ad hoc way without me really thinking clearly about the journey I want to take readers on.
Silence
If I don’t create silence, I don’t notice the gold in the clutter of life.
Image copyright Tyler Olson - Fotolia.com
I need to turn off what distracts me sometimes—Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, the Media, the iPhone—to truly hear what I need to hear.
I spend too much time broadcasting, and I need to learn to listen more. When I do listen, I find what I say is more useful to others.
Solitude
I spend a lot of time alone physically, but emotionally, in the work that I do online, I’m realizing that I’m not switching off from those around me.
This point is connected perhaps to the silence I mention above, but the realization that I’m having is that I need to build times of solitude into my life.
I need to learn how to disengage—if only for short periods of time—from the conversations, the requests, and the demands of readers, friends, and followers.
I need to do this not because these people are unimportant, but because if I don’t experience solitude, I’m not really in a position to be able to help anyone.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Space … Silence … Solitude … [What I Need More of as a Blogger]
Переслать - 20 Ways to Make More Money from Your Blog
This guest post is by James Penn of AcceleratedNicheProfits.com.
A few weeks ago, on the ProBlogger Community Boards, I started a new forum topic titled, “Help Me Monetize 1,000 Visitors Per Day.”
My natural health blog had experienced some rapid traffic growth, and had grown from 80 visitors per day to over 1,000 visitors per day using these seven strategies.
Yet my income was pitiful.
Image copyright Monkey Business - Fotolia.com
My only monetization strategy was linking to relevant Amazon products, and I was generating just over $100 per month. I worked out that if I carried on like this, simply promoting Amazon products, I'd need to be clocking 50,000 visitors per dayto make a comfortable, full-time income with this blog.
That wasn't going to happen anytime soon, so I sought advice from fellow ProBlogger forum members, undertook my own research, and carried out my own experiments in a quest to discover alternative ways to increase the revenue I generated from my blog.
In this post, I share twenty strategies you can use to increase your blog income. Many I’m already using, many I plan to use, but some I don't think would work on my particular blog, though they may work on yours!
1. Google Adsense
I'd always been against adding Google Adsense to my webpages for fear of it taking away from the user experience.
I needn't have worried as I've been able to add one ad unit in a fairly prominent position and one in a more secluded area of the blog without disrupting my readers.
I've only had these ads up a few weeks but initial results suggest they will earn me more this month than I earned with my entire blog last month.
2. Sidebar linking
Your sidebar appears on every single one of your blog pages. You need to be making the most of it.
Something I've experimented with is adding a new link category with a title that’s something like, "My Top 5 Health Books."Then below that title I'll link to my favourite health books on Amazon. It's a good way to get more readers in the door at Amazon and earn more Amazon commissions.
3. Deep-linking Amazon products
Sidebar links can work well, but deep linking to specific products that are relevant to the content I'm sharing is the most effective strategy for driving Amazon sales.
For example, on my health blog, if I have a post about the benefits of avocado oil for skin and hair, then linking to the most effective avocado oil on Amazon will generate a number of clicks and sales.
4. Localize your Amazon links
One of the problems I was having with my blog is that I was only linking to Amazon.com. Only 55% of my traffic was from the US—meaning I was missing out on a huge portion of commissions from the rest of the world.
There are a few plug-ins that "localize" your Amazon affiliate links, so a reader from the UK is taken to Amazon.co.uk, for example. This is a good way to pick up extra commissions that you wouldn't have received otherwise.
5. Sell your own products
A large chunk of Darren's revenue is now generated from selling his own ebooks. In January and February of this year, ebook sales were his number one revenue generator.
Bloggers have a huge advantage when it comes to selling their own products since they've already gained trust from their readers and displayed their expertise. If your free blog content is good, then readers will assume your paid content is even better—and you won't need to be a copywriting whiz to get sales.
I have two ebooks already written from a few years ago that I have simply let gather digital dust. A few tweaks and a new design and these ebooks will be promoted on my blog to my reader base.
6. Adding promotional boxes
On problogger.net, at the end of each individual post page, Darren has a promotional box that promotes the Genesis Framework.
I know this box works because I ended up buying Genesis via this promotion.After setting my blog up with Genesis, I had my programmer design a promotional box for me, promoting a hair care product that pays $40 commissions. I added this box to every single post in my "Hair Health" category, meaning the promotion is shown only to the most targeted prospects. I'll now be making more of these boxes so that I can put them into other categories, promoting other specific products.
7. Find alternative affiliate programs
With my health blog I got a little too comfy with the Amazon Associates program. It was so easy to just find a product, get a link, and put it on the blog. It was easy to set up, and easy to keep track of, but I was only getting about 7% commission.
Now when I go to insert an Amazon affiliate link, I do a search first to see if I can find a better commission rate.
8. Pop-ups
This is another technique Darren’s using on prologger.net currently. At the top of the page is a very unobtrusive, 1cm thick pop over that simply serves to get people to click to his 31 Days To Build A Better Blog course.
This is something I plan to add to my blog when I have my eBooks up for sale, but it's something you could do today to get people to click through to affiliate products.
9. Donate button
I'm not a big fan of this strategy, but some use it effectively. If you have a loyal following that you treat well and really help, many may be happy to send a few dollars your way for blog maintenance, or merely as a thank you.
Perhaps put a Donate button on your blog for a few days and see how it works? Have you ever tried this? Did it work?
10. Convert more visitors into subscribers
If you aren't building an email list, then every single person who leaves your blog is gone, forever, unless they find you again via a search engine or link on another blog, which is unlikely.
But if you manage to collect their email addresses, you can stay in touch. You can send them back to your blog regularly and you can promote your own ebooks or affiliate products to them.
If you can get their email addresses, you can send them back to the blog every time you publish a new update. This achieves a number of goals:
- It gives them another opportunity to click on one of your Adsense ads.
- It gives them another opportunity to buy your ebook or an affiliate product.
- It increases your number of pageviews, which increases your revenue from CPM banner advertising.
- It gives them an opportunity to share your blog on Twitter, Facebook, or Stumbleupon, thereby increasing your traffic and revenue.
This ability to retain readers will help you generate more revenue from the same visitors, which can only be a good thing.
11. Promote products via email
Prior to my mission to make more money from my blog, I was simply sending updates to my subscribers directing them to new blog posts.
I realized that to increase my blog revenue, I needed to sell in my emails, too.
I sent a test promotion of a natural hair care product I've previously mentioned to an extremely targeted list of just 340 subscribers generated from the blog. I made four sales from one email resulting in $160 in commissions.
Before I monetized my email list, it would have taken me one and a half months to earn this kind of money from my blog.
12. Charge for email advertising
Many are happy to pay to get an ad, or an entire solo ad, in an email list. Consider offering email advertising packages to further increase the revenue generated from your email list. Create an Advertise With Us page on your blog and state your rates.
13. Reviews
Seven days ago I wrote my first product review on my health blog. I don't want to share what product it was, but after pressing Publish, I was instantly ranking in the top 10 for a number of keywords such as "[product name] review" and "buy [product name]."
This review, with no promotion, has generated $120 in commissions in the first seven days, and I expect it to continue like this for the foreseeable future.
14. Sponsored competitions
Something I see a lot of on popular health blogs are sponsored competitions. A company donates a few of their products to a blogger and the blogger runs a competition giving away these products.
These competitions are free to run, and can be immensely profitable. Firstly, they are capable of drawing huge traffic, and secondly you can promote the product using an affiliate link. Competition entrants who don't win, or who don't even enter, may end up buying the products via your affiliate link giving you a nice commission boost.
15. Sponsored posts
A few months ago I was approached by a plastic surgeon. They wanted to publish a post on my blog promoting their plastic surgery business. They offered $125 for a 500-word post which they would write.
I had to reject their offer because my blog focuses on natural alternatives, but it opened my mind up to the possibility—and profitability—of charging for sponsored posts.I've yet to try it, but in the very near future I'll be approaching natural health and beauty companies offering them an opportunity to publish a post promoting their business. I won't be able to use this method too often or fear of annoying readers, but one or two sponsored posts a month is an extra $100-200 monthly. If you're really cheeky, you may also be allowed to use your affiliate link to promote their products.
16. Bestseller lists
Darren gave me this idea with his post about creating a bestseller list. This involves creating a list of the most popular products your blog readers are buying as judged by your Amazon affiliate reports.
I immediately went away and created my bestseller list on a new page of my blog. This page is linked from my top navigation bar so it receives exposure on every single page of the blog.
17. “Gift ideas” posts
Prior to major holidays, such as Christmas, Mother's and Father's days, and so on, it's a wise idea to create a "Top 10 Gifts For Health/Nature/Photography/Sports/ Enthusiasts” list. Simply create a gift ideas list for your blog’s market, and you'll see an increase in affiliate commissions as you get traffic from keyphrases like "gift ideas for photographers."
Another idea is to create Top 10 DVDs or Top 10 Books lists for your market. On my blog I have articles such as The Top 5 Natural Sunscreens, and The Top 5 Natural Shampoos. Pick a product in your market and write a list of the top five or ten brands.
18. Premium content
This is not something I've tried, but I know some bloggers have used it well. I'm not sure it would work too well in my market, but I'm sure there are many markets it would work in.
This idea simply involves creating a premium quality, longer-than-normal blog post. You publish the first part as a teaser and then require the reader to pay a small fee to read the rest of the post—perhaps $5 or so.
Like I mentioned earlier, if your readers love your free content, they'll assume your paid content is even better.
19. Plug your high-value content
On my blog, I have certain content that I know generates more revenue than others. Therefore, to increase my revenue, it makes sense to push my readers towards this content.
Darren pushes his high-value content on the homepage by making certain posts "Featured." You can also push people towards high-value content by interlinking within your posts, and linking to your high-value posts from the sidebar. You should also focus on building backlinks to your high-value content to push them up the search engines and attract more organic traffic to these posts.
20. Charge to review guest posts
This is a slightly out-of-left-field strategy I learned from Darya Pino of SummerTomato.com and it's not actually a way to increase your own revenue, but instead to raise some money for charity.
Darya was disillusioned with the number and quality of guest posts she was receiving and so decided to require a $10 donation simply to review a guest post.
I'm getting between three and five guest post submissions per day. I reckon I could cut this number down significantly, increase the quality of guest posts, and raise some money for charity by charging to review guest post submissions.
What can you add?
Above I've presented 20 strategies you can use to make more money from your blog and your existing traffic.
What strategies are working best for you when it comes to monetizing your blog? Do you have any “out of the ordinary” strategies that are helping you to profit from your blog? Share them with us.
James Penn is a keen blogger and shares his internet marketing experiments, tips and secrets at AcceleratedNicheProfits.com. He is also a big fan of building niche email lists and has documented his top list building strategies in his step-by-step guide 100 Subscribers Per Day.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
20 Ways to Make More Money from Your Blog
Переслать - 6 Tips for Dressing Up Your Product Reviews
This guest post is by Peter Lawlor of the B2Web Internet Marketing Blog.
One of my favorite methods of monetizing my blogs is by promoting products as an affiliate.
As an affiliate, I have the opportunity to learn all I can about a product I promote, and share what I know, including likes and dislikes, with my readers.
I’m constantly experimenting with ways to pre-sell products, with a focus on quality content and dressing up reviews with eye-catching and informative techniques.
In the end we have two goals when promoting products as an affiliate:
- Attract targeted visitors to your pre-selling page.
- Persuade visitors to click your affiliate links.
Pre-selling is both an art and a science
The art of pre-selling lies in the unknown qualities of your posts that encourage people to click your affiliate links.
Image copyright gemenacom - Fotolia.com
It could be:
- voice
- sincerity
- reputation
- the way you present information on the product
- your shared experience of the product
- the design of your website and/or post layout
- contextual aspects of your affiliate link placement.
The science of pre-selling entails:
- attracting traffic, be it organic traffic from the search engines or paid traffic
- the formatting of tried and proven pre-selling techniques (i.e. tables, charts, and quality of a review).
Taking all of these criteria into account, I use and test six methods for dressing up product reviews and other pre-selling pages when promoting products as an affiliate.
6 Tips for dressing up reviews and other pre-selling articles
1. Use images
I use a slightly unusual approach when procuring images for my pre-selling posts and pages. Many bloggers go to large image retailers and grab an eye-catching image for the post. I rarely do this.
Instead, I use screen capture software and capture many images from the vendor’s website. I also use any images provided by a vendor (usually physical product vendors have several images affiliates can use). For example, I may use an image of a vendor’s home page at the top-right of the post.
One type of image I like using in my posts is pricing images for products that offer various packages, and present these in a stylish pricing comparison table. I simply screenshot them and include an affiliate link to the vendor’s order page on my blog.
If you’re selling a digital product or web-based software, buy the product or sign up for a trial offer so you can take screenshots of the back end of the service. You can use these screenshots to show how easy it is to use a product, or turn a series of screenshots into a how-to tutorial.
2. Tables and charts
I love websites that use tables and charts to present a great deal of information in a succinct manner. For example, you can set out the product features and specifications, along with a brief write-up, in an attractive table or chart. I also like using tables and charts to compare products within a product-line or industry.
I use WordPress and both TinyMCE Advanced plugin and/or the WP-Table Reloaded plugin for creating tables and charts.
3. Demo videos
You can take the image screenshot method further by creating demo videos of the product you promote. For example, if you’re promoting web-based software, you can do a screen capture video of yourself using the service. Again this forms a great pre-selling demo that informs your readers about the product.
If you’re promoting physical products, you can make videos of yourslef using it, assembling it, or pointing out its various features.
4. Quote boxes
Some bloggers like to include quotes taken from reviews and testimonials of the product they’re promoting. You can dress up re-published reviews with the Quote tool in the WordPress visual editor.
I use the Quote tool for parts of a post and reviews other than quotes. It’s an easy, fast, and stylish method to split up your posts for your readers.
5. Coupons and sales pages
A coupon and sales page is a no-brainer for any affiliate marketer. Many vendors, whether they sell physical products or digital products, routinely offer coupons, sales, and discount opportunities for affiliates to promote.
As a blogger and affiliate marketer, you have a great opportunity to earn commissions with these discounts. You can create a dedicated post setting out the discounts your readers can use.
Be sure to do some keyword research first to see what type of “sale”- or “discount”-oriented keywords consumers in your niche use to look for deals. Then, optimize your sales and discount page for the most used terms. Personally, I like displaying multiple coupons, sales, and discounts in a table.
6. Bullet points
Using bullet points isn’t new, or an earth-shattering technique. However, it merits mention because bullet points are effective in dressing up any type of web page, including pre-selling pages.
At the end of the day, it’s a great idea to try different techniques, both in your writing style and the visual presentation of you your product promotions as an affiliate.
How will you do it?
There certainly is not one way to promote products as an affiliate on a blog. The key is offering your readers variety and providing information in a useful format that helps them with their buying decision.
Although the above “dressing-up” techniques help you pre-sell, the most important element of your reviews and other pre-selling articles is the quality of your content.
What’s been your experience of pre-selling affiliate products? Share your tips and advice in the comments.
Peter Lawlor is an affiliate marketer and contributing author at the Defintive Guide to Affiliate Review Websites and the B2Web Internet Marketing Blog.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
6 Tips for Dressing Up Your Product Reviews
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