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- From Blogger to Book Author: The 4-Step Guide
This guest post is by Jeff Goins of Goins, Writer.
Some bloggers don’t start a blog to make money. They start blogging, because they have a message that the world needs to hear. In other words:
Some bloggers blog to get published.
Recently, I signed a contract with a book publisher. I had always hoped to one day publish a book, but I never thought it would happen in a few months.
What made this possible? In a word: blogging.
If you want to go from blogger to book author, you’ll need to do a few things. But the pay-off can be significant.
Image copyright Lasse Kristensen - Fotolia.com
Why you should publish a book
With the rising popularity of ebooks and self-publishing, why should you go with a traditional publisher?
Why even write a book at all? Doesn’t a blog suffice?
Well, no. Not always. In some cases, self-publishing (especially your first book) may not be a good idea.
Reasons to work with a publisher
Although self-publishing can work just fine, there are still some legitimate reasons to go traditional:
- Marketing: A publisher will offer its resources and knowledge to help you not only promote your book, but consider the marketability of it before it’s published.
- Editing: A publisher will help you with the actual writing, as well as proofreading and copyediting. Normally, you would have to pay someone to do this or do it yourself.
- Authority: There is still a great deal of social clout when it comes to having a published book from a reputable publisher. Publishing a book will make you more of an authority in your niche.
Of course, some authors make good money off ebooks without ever going through a publisher. So this may not be for everyone. But it’s at least worth considering. (Even Darren and Chris G. released their Problogger book through Wiley. It’s not about money as much as it’s about influence.)
If you’re interested in becoming a published author, there are the three steps you’ll need in your path to publishing.
Step 1: Build a platform
All publishers want to know the same thing: Do you have a platform?
In other words, are you “legit”? Do you have the audience and authority to speak on a particular topic? Money is so tight in publishing that if authors don’t bring their own marketing chops, they have little hope of succeeding.
A platform can range from a podcast to a television program; however, in our case, we’re going to assume it’s a blog.
Why a blog is a great platform
Blogs are great for authors, because of the following reasons:
- A blog allows you to practice writing.
- A blog allows you to capture email addresses (with a service like Feedburner or Aweber).
- A blog allows you to communicate a core message over time.
My blog has been instrumental in helping me find my voice as an author, as well as providing some content that I’m actually re-purposing for my upcoming book.
Step 2: Release a manifesto
Once you’ve built a blog and starting building a decent audience, you can now work on something that articulates your core beliefs: a manifesto.
A manifesto is a short, actionable ebook that you give away for free. The point of it is to spread idea and help you connect with your tribe (i.e. people who share your beliefs).
This can also be a great way to capture attention, by exchanging the ebook for people’s email addresses. I grew my email list from 75 to 1000 subscribers in a week, thanks to a manifesto. And it also caught the attention of my publisher. It works.
If writing a manifesto sounds hard or overwhelming to you, don’t worry. It’s not.
The DIY way to publish a manifesto
- Find the content. Dig up an old blog post or series of posts that resonated with your readers.
- Develop it. Build upon your original idea and edit out what’s irrelevant.
- Finish writing. Shoot for 1000-10,000 words long. It needs to clearly communicate one, important idea. The shorter you can make it, the better.
- Create it. You can do this through a program like Word or Pages (for Mac), or you can use a slide presentation program like PowerPoint or Keynote and export as a PDF. Michael Hyatt also has a great seven-step tutorial for how to do this. (Note: This may create a huge file, depending on the length of your e-book. If you get something that’s over 10 MB, you can use the program PDFshrink to make it smaller.)
Alternatives
If you’re looking to spread an idea quickly, you can even publish the manifesto through a site like ChangeThis.com. Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, and Guy Kawasaki have all done this. Only the best ones make it, though, so this doesn’t guarantee you’ll get an ebook published through them. (See mine here.)
You can also hire someone to do it for you, if you have the budget.
Step 3: Connect with people through social media
Social media is a great way to find fans and create advocates that will spread your work for you.
The great thing about social media is that it’s social (obviously), which means it can lead to other meaningful interactions, including real-life relationships.
From follower to friend
I’ve connected with more people through Twitter than any other way. This has led to grabbing coffee with other writers, picking up freelance gigs, and even getting to meet some of my heroes. It’s the best networking resource I’ve found.
Starting a Facebook page for my blog has also been a great way to share content and connect with my audience.
The people you connect with through social media may begin as followers, but they can quickly become friends and even patrons of your work. If you do it right—by adding value to your readers and followers—these people can become life-long supporters of you.
What better asset to have before publishing your first book than an already large and growing fan base? The publishers will be fighting over you.
Step 4: Establish your brand by adding value
Every author needs a brand—an established voice that makes his or her content unique.
Blogging can help you do this, because it allows you to practice in public. It also attracts an audience, which can help you in defining (and building) your personal brand as a writer.
Serve your way into influence
The best way to earn trust and establish a brand is to serve people.
Do the grunt work. Hustle to help people, and you will get noticed. In a world full of self-promoting sleaze bags, if you add value to people’s lives, you will never have a marketing. People will come find you.
This is a great way to brand yourself as an author, too. Someone who serves others doesn’t have a hard time selling books. People know you’re going to help them, so they’re eager to pay money to hear what you have to say.
And if you can demonstrate that, a publisher will be honored to work with you.
Interview experts
Another way to do this is by interviewing experts. You can seek out other authors and bloggers in your niche and ask to interview them. Do this over time and you’ll not only deliver value to your readers, you’ll also build relationships with influential people.
Pretty soon, people will come to think of you as the expert—which is exactly what publishers are looking for.
All of these relationships (if founded on serving others) will come back to help you. It’s true what they say: what goes around comes around.
You’ll be publishing a book in no time.
Jeff Goins is a soon-to-be-published author, blogger, and nonprofit marketer. You can connect with him on Twitter @jeffgoins and Facebook and get his free, weekly newsletter. You can also find out more about his path from blogging to book contract by getting his eBook Every Writer’s Dream: How to Never Pitch Your Writing Again, which is free for a limited time.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
From Blogger to Book Author: The 4-Step Guide
Переслать - Why I Haven't Made a Dime From My Blog—and How You Can
This guest post is by Alexander Heyne of Milk the pigeon.
When I first started my blog, I wrote a series of posts I was sure would resonate with thousands all over the world, create a movement, and bring massive traffic over to my site.
Except when I published the posts, they went to the black hole of the Internet.
No one heard them. No one saw them. Just a couple Facebook friends and maybe my mom.
Suddenly my idea of writing about what I enjoy, and making a living (however small) off it was shattered. It was time to regroup and start over.
Image copyright Renee Jansoa - Fotolia.com
A model for making money
Just as you need to have a serious game plan to ensure your success blogging, including a master plan and many smaller plans, you need to have a model to work with for monetization.
You need a simple path that gives you a general idea of where to go and what to do, and in what order.
Following the next six points will ensure you'll be six months ahead of where I was when I started, and you'll no longer be writing for "someone". You'll be writing for your future massive, engaged audience willing to buy your products.
1. Create a list and engage your audience
This is blogging 101 to most bloggers now—especially those who are planning to release a product or course to their audience. But it wasn't to me. I mean, I figured I would just write some good stuff, and maybe some advertisers would contact me, and then I'd somehow end up making $2,00 or $3,000 a month from advertisements.
Rookie mistake.
Make an email list as soon as you start your blog, and start collecting subscribers. But unless you have an established reputation people most likely will have a hard time forking over their email address to you, so what do you do?
Give them a reason to subscribe, like a free ebook or a mini course. The sooner you start building your email list, the better. Because the sooner you have a list the sooner you can start building trust with your audience and establish yourself as having expertise in some area.
What I did: waited until month three to make an email sign up list, and offered no incentive to subscribe.
What I should've done: I should have signed up on day one with an email subscription service like Aweber, and offered an ebook or mini course for subscribers.
2. Fine-tune your content
Sometimes your niche is pretty clear—blogging, marketing, or running, for example. But sometimes it's not and covers a wide range of things—lifestyle design, location-independent work, or self-help.
Assuming you fall into the latter categories, you are probably going to need to do some content fine-tuning. That means testing a variety of closely related topics and seeing which ones resonate best content-wise and message-wise with your audience. You can test those qualities based on re-tweets, views, shares, and comments, although these metrics alone should not be the be-all end-all.
Just remember that in the beginning it's going to be harder to work out what your audience likes and doesn't like, because you may not have an audience yet! Just have fun at the beginning and experiment a lot.
What I did: Wrote about a variety of topics, and kept no analytics on what was popular or why.
What I should have done: I should have deliberately tested various types of content with my audience and used those results (Google Analytics) to hone in on what I should've written more of in the future. It also gives you potential product niches.
3. Show some link love
One of the worst, most sinful mistakes I made was not reaching out and trying to connect with others in my niche, not trying to follow people who had already achieved the goals I wanted, and not establishing other relationships with people in the online world.
It goes pretty much without saying that you can't make it alone in the blogosphere—and that nurturing genuine relationships will be the single most beneficial thing you can do to help your business take off.
The following three types of people you should make a list of and establish friendships with:
- people in a niche somewhat similar to your own (peers)
- people who are doing what you hope to be doing one day (mentors)
- people who you see will be up and coming and need to be heard (pupils)
What I did: Believed I could succeed alone, and made no effort to connect with others.
What I should have done: I should have networked until my eyeballs hurt, shared as much as possible with my peers, share posts by people whose mission I believed in, and established several people as mentors who have attained the goals I am striving for.
4. Consciously build your audience and list
There are three ways you can deliberately build your list and audience more rapidly than letting them organically grow:
- getting better exposure via guest posting
- holding a webinar where people need to subscribe to participate and get more information
- offer exclusive content or a free additional course that requires a sign up. For example, on your products page you can have a "free marketing 101 course." You could then have a ten-part auto-responder course (or ebook) that gives great content, for free. And in return you get someone's email address added to your list.
What I did: Thought that the "crawlers" would just find my content and it would go mainstream.
What I should have done: I should have guest posted as much as humanly possible, combined efforts with other bloggers to hold webinars, and given away tons of free, extremely valuable content (in various forms).
5. Do some spy work (probe your audience members’ brains)
At this point you should be asking yourself, “What am I doing with all these people? I have been giving them great content, building relationships with others around me, and now have a list of quite a few people. What’s next?”
Here's one of the next steps to take: find out what specifics your audience wants and what problem of theirs you can solve.
I'm going to work with the assumption that you don't have three to six months of free time to make a product that flops, so here is one way to test for demand. Offer free or paid consulting. At this point, your audience hopefully respects you and sees you as somewhat of an authority. So why consult for free?
- You will acquire some experience which you can later use to transfer into paid consulting.
- You'll realize patterns of problems that your audience has, and you can begin to develop a product tailored directly to their needs.
What I did: Assumed I knew what my audience wanted.
What I should have done: I should have done a number of things: given out a questionnaire, consulted (free/paid), asked directly (via a blog post), or researched what other people are selling in the same niche.
6. Make a product or promote a product
As far as products go, the historic route that people have taken is to make an ebook. Ebooks work well and lend themselves to automation, but there is one other product recommendation that tends to work better for some others.
Launch a limited-time program or online course, for example, once every four months. The reason I suggest making an online course is that it helps you jump exponentially over time (both in terms of influence as well as financially).
Every time you launch your course, you build your email list, you get feedback, and you find out what updates your audience wants. And then you can launch the course again—and, assuming you have received feedback, you can update it. And, assuming you did a good job developing your product, you now have a bigger list, more exposure, and a larger audience. The benefits grow over time.
The other option is to promote someone else's product. I know quite a few people who made their first dollar online by promoting a product they tried and thought their audience would like.
If you know of a product (ideally that you have tried) that genuinely provides a solution to a problem your audience has, write a post reviewing it. State clearly what your audience will get from the product, let them know that you've tried it, and keep your promise. Afterwards, you can keep a smaller banner advertisement or list it on your products or resources page.
What I did: Got half way through an ebook, realized it probably wasn't going to sell as much as I wanted, and went back to the drawing board.
What I should have done: I should have #1 followed through, because even if your product only makes five sales, you are getting some feedback and now have experience making a product.
I should also have decided if I wanted to make this an ongoing product with support and feedback options. If you want a product that requires no updating and support, go with an ebook. If you want a product that has much more potential for growth but will require a larger time investment, go with an online course.
What next?
So why go through all these steps? Why bother with an elaborate checklist of things to go through?
The reason is because if you don't have a model, you'll be taking shots in the dark. Your work is going to be all guesswork, and guesswork is going to lead to disappointment. You'll be running your blog with the same intentions I had: "Do a couple posts here, a couple posts there, maybe get some ads on there, write an ebook, and then I'll be making $5,000 a month."
Save yourself from the same silly assumption I made: otherwise you'll end up like me—never making a dime from my blog.
Milk the pigeon is about killing that lost feeling, standing out in the crowd, and living a life of greatness. Download a free copy of Milk the Pigeon’s manifesto here: Killing Your Old life and Living the Dream
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Why I Haven't Made a Dime From My Blog—and How You Can
Переслать - 12 Essential Tips for Revitalising Your Blog in 2012
This is a guest post by Gregory Ciotti of Sparring Mind.
As 2011 comes to a close, now is a better time than ever to evaluate your blog, its performance, and most importantly, what you can do to improve your blog in 2012!
A point I always like to drive home is that you will never find blogging success by turning into an “eternal student”, one who always consumes information but never creates or takes action.
As I am in the process of taking a step back from my own blog to reevaluate what things I could do better, I wanted to present Problogger readers a list of actionable tips that they could act on right now to improve their blog for the new year.
Image copyright mipan - Fotolia.com
So check this list out, bookmark it for later (or tweet it out to your fellow bloggers), and make sure you go through and see what quick actions you can take to improve your blog!
1. Optimize (or start) your email list
Had you email list become stagnant, with a slow trickle of subscribers rather than a huge flow of new signups? Have you not even started building a list yet?
Now is the time to take action, because your mailing list is the most important aspect of your blog’s long term success. So if you haven’t already, create one now.
If you have a list, let’s think of a few ways to optimize it…
- Make sure sign-up forms are in the best locations (sidebar, feature box, at the end of posts).
- Create a “toolbox” of freebies that only subscribers get access to (think of it like the free ebook strategy, only kicked up a notch).
- Create newsletter only content just for subscribers (makes the newsletter more worthwhile for them).
Last but not least, make sure there is an option to subscribe on the pages of your site with the most traffic. I’m talking about your intro/about page, your resource pages, and any other pages that visitors often visit from your homepage.
Start building your list now the right way. You won’t regret it in 2012!
2. Make a list of every blogger (who writes quality content) in your niche
You might be wondering why bother to do this. Certainly if you at the intermediate stage of blogging, you already know about the power of guest blogging and the kind of traffic and subscribers it can bring you.
The thing you have to realize though is that as powerful as guest blogging is, it is only one part of being good at networking in your chosen niche.
In order to truly succeed as a blogger, you are going to need important people who are truly rooting for you. The best way to do that? Network.
Most bloggers are afraid to start, so by creating a list like this, you are already on your way, and it takes far less time than you might think. Simply use sites like AllTop and Technorati, along with the blogs that you regularly read, and create a comprehensive list of the best ones in your niche.
Plan on emailing each one, maybe breaking the ice with a completed (and awesome) guest post. From there, stay in touch, actively support the other bloggers in your niche, and in time, you’ll find yourself getting links naturally, it won’t take a guest post for your fellow bloggers to mention you…
They’ll be doing it because they support you. And that is an essential ingredient to growing a popular blog.
3. Re-evaluate your blog’s unique offering to readers
What about your blog makes it distinct? What are readers getting there that they simply cannot get on the hundreds to thousands of other blogs in the same niche?
For 2012, you should take a look at your blog, and really evaluate what you are adding to the web that nobody out there is doing exactly the same.
The key word there is “exactly”, because your blog doesn’t have to be a totally unique experience that is doesn’t compare to anything else, it just has to be a twist on existing topics.
For instance, there are a lot of blogs for people who love blogging, but how about people who love Tumblr? Heck, your twist can just be what medium you use to create content.
For instance, there are a lot of personal fitness blogs that use video, that makes sense. But what about a finance blog that uses a lot of video? What about craft blog that uses a lot of video? How about a marketing blog that focuses on podcasts? How about a personal development blog that utilizes SlideShare?
The point is: it’s not too hard for you to put a “twist” on your niche, making it something that adds value and that also helps you stand out from the sea of others. 4. Try new content types to keep your blog fresh
Speaking of different content media, a lot of bloggers get so overwhelmed with different traffic methods and writing techniques that they fail to realize that they could be putting their efforts to a medium they might be better (or more comfortable) at.
Maybe writing posts really is the thing you feel most comfortable at, but I’d definitely suggest giving a few other mediums a try. They can bring extra traffic from being hosted on the parent site (like YouTube videos) and can give your blog a appeal by creating content in an unusual form.
Here are some great content types you can try:
- video (on YouTube or Vimeo)
- audio on SoundCloud (or by starting a podcast)
- ebooks
- slideshows on SlideShare
- workbooks
- infographics
- webinars.
See if some of these suit you better from time to time, and you’ll likely be one of few blogs in your industry doing them!
There’s also another great post idea I want to discuss…
5. Interview someone influential in your niche
Interviews are a blog kickstart technique that seriously work for any niche—at least, I’ve yet to encounter one in which they don’t work well!
Interviews are great for a few reasons:
- The person you are interviewing will notify their following of the interview, bringing you traffic.
- People will respect you more for getting the thoughts from an influential person, and be more inclined to check out your self-made content.
- Interviews add instant social proof to what you are saying, and if you can even add small parts of an interview to back up your own claims, readers will appreciate it.
Scared to ask someone for an interview? Don’t be! Research has shown that people are more likely to help you out than you think.
They key: keep your emails short and your requests reasonable. Also, never send the questions in the first email, ask for permission first!
I’ve used interviews with people like Brian Gardner (owner of StudioPress) and popular musicians on my electronic music blog to get, literally, thousands of new visitors in days, not weeks or months.
And this is on entirely new blogs!
Trust me, finding a good person to interview (an interesting or unusual expert is always good) and creating great questions for the interview will likely be a huge benefit for your blog. It’s a must-try technique in 2012.
6. Clean up your sidebar: show what matters
If there is one part of a blog that typically turns into a complete mess, it’s the sidebar in the typical content/sidebar blog layout.
Bloggers (especially newer bloggers) are tend to add way too many widgets and sections on their sidebar, and instead of making their site better, they end up making it far worse!
How? The first thing is site speed. I’ve written about how to speed up WordPress before, and the conclusions you can draw from other website owners and SEO experts is this:
- People won’t wait for slow loading sites, general wait time is as little as a few seconds (that’s single digits).
- Site speed has an impact on SEO, affecting your rankings.
- A fast-loading site is apart of a great user experience, and users appreciate fast page loads far more than you realize.
Those are some pretty important reasons to be concerned about your site speed… But there are even bigger concerns that you should be worried about!
In addition to slowing your site down, the results from this research study have shown that too many choices can actually decrease conversions!
What that means is that a cluttered sidebar is likely to decrease your conversion rates on new subscribers! This is bad, bad news for your blogs potential success.
Fortunately, this can be fixed quickly, by scrapping all of the junk in your sidebar and including only the essentials, which are:
- sidebar opt-in (must be at the top!)
- list of popular posts (shows readers your best content, right away!)
- resource sections (these sections showcase a lot of info on a single topic, or including things like what blogging tools you are partial to using)
- …nothing else!
Honestly, having only these three items in this list might make you think I’m crazy, but hear me out: those really are the only essentials!
Of course, if you blog offers a product, service, or advertising, these need to be included, but for most people, the three I mentioned will increase your conversion rates after you get rid of the junk.
Unless your blog as 1000+ posts, you don’t need a search bar, categories—none of that stuff. What you do need is a fast loading site that converts well, so make it happen.
7. Improve your knowledge of SEO and SEO copywriting
If you are running a WordPress blog, understanding the fundamentals of WordPress SEO is essential to succeeding as a blogger (I’d highly recommend starting with SEOMoz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO, it’s a great read that’s highly detailed and includes great visuals).
More importantly though (and non-platform-specific), you need to learn more about SEO copywriting if you don’t know about it already.
The process of effective SEO copywriting is far less confusing than you think. In fact, even if you just learn the basics of good interlinking habits (linking to old posts of yours in new posts, naturally) you’ll already be more skilled than most bloggers in your niche.
It is essential to understand good SEO copywriting as a blogger because it allows your site to do better in search rankings, offers a better user experience for readers by involving your old content in a natural way, and adds a new skillset to your blogging knowledge—one of great importance.
8. Add social proof where it matters
Bloggers sometimes get too caught up in social networking proof, rather than what social proof really means (and when it’s actually useful).
Social proof can be as simple as quote from one of your readers/fans on what a great blog you are running, how you helped them, or how your content has benefited them in some way. This type of social proof is often as powerful as a big Facebook following, and it’s much easier to get legitimately!
Here are a few easy ways to get a powerful statement for your blog:
- Ask! Ask one of your readers if they’d mind giving you a quote to use on your blog as social proof. Most people will be glad to provide one!
- Use a comment. Take a comment from a reader on your site that states something positive, and use it as social proof.
- Quote someone else. Has anybody else mentioned your blog or writing before? Quote them, whether it’s from Twitter or their own site, people will usually have no problem with you quoting them for social proof.
Okay, so we have some ways to get social proof that’s outside of a big social networking following…
Where should we put it? Here are the two best spots to put social proof:
- anywhere there is an “opt-in” form
- anywhere you ask users to purchase something.
Simple, clear use of social proof boils down to this: any time you need someone to trust you (to opt-in to your list or to buy something from you), social proof is king, and those are the locations in which you should use it.
9. Start a “post ideas” journal
I’ve discussed the importance of using journals (or some storage device) in order to break through writer’s block, as they can serve as a growing list of ideas (that may come at any moment) you can access when you need to write a new post.
Writing down great posts ideas as they come in your head will not only benefit your own blog, it will help with writing all of those guest posts to get your name out there!
The thing is, great posts ideas could come to you at any moment. The problem? You are not always in a position to expand on those ideas or to see if they’d really make for a great post. The solution? Write any decent ideas down, and save them for another time.
This way you can keep any ideas that you might have lost if you relied on your memory, and you also get to work on great ideas later that might turn into dynamite posts.
10. Guest blog using the “funnel” technique
If you are going to utilize guest blogging to build your blog (and you definitely should be), you should start approaching your guest posts with an actual strategy, rather than relying on blind writing.
The best (and easiest!) strategy to try is the “funnel” technique of guest posting. The funnel method involves writing a guest post that has to do with one of three big aspects of your blog:
- your blog’s unique offering (discussed above)
- a free ebook/guide you’re giving away
- an opt-in webinar or course you’re offering.
How and why does this work so well? Simple: you are priming readers with a post about a specific topic. Then, you offer them additional content (via your email list) by offering one of the three options listed above.
In case you still don’t get it, think of it like this: I’m a personal fitness style blogger, but I only focus on writing about high-intensity interval training (HIIT for those familiar with the acronym).
So, it would make sense for me to post on fitness blogs, but to focus on writing an article like “5 Reasons Why HIIT is the Best Form of Cardio.” The reason this makes sense is that anybody interested in Fitness and HIIT would go to check out my blog, where they would be greeted with more content on the subject. This would make them more likely to subscribe.
This also works with the other two methods: offering a freebie such as an ebook or Webinar on the topic that my guest post was about. Try this and I guarantee your blog will see maximized conversions for all of your blog posts in 2012!
11. Evaluate your social media buttons
What do I mean “evaluate” your social media buttons? Simply put, you need to take a step back from your blog and look at the buttons that you are using on your site.
Many bloggers just plaster up whichever buttons they can without really evaluating what’s been working in their niche. The key point here is that you most likely don’t need all of those buttons! It’s been proven time and time that too many options can decrease conversions, and this applies to social sharing too.
The reason bloggers get misled is because they see big sites like Mashable using every button under the sun, but what they don’t seem to get is that Mashable is about social media, so a majority of their traffic and “subscribers” are social media users.
It makes sense for them to have tons of social media buttons, but for a blog like yours, which is most likely concerned with growing a stable and profitable email list, you need to evaluate which buttons work best for your audience.
For instance over on my electronic music blog, I immediately removed the LinkedIn and Google+ buttons when I found out that they weren’t being used. It made sense, but I wanted to test things out first.
The thing was, my audience was younger, and not interested in tech or business aspects as much as most LinkedIn and Google+ users are. Generally, they stuck to Facebook, and used Twitter slightly less.
So I updated the social sharing buttons to include only those two, and guess what? My traffic didn’t drop by a single visitor. In fact it increased, all while I was speeding my site up!
Make sure your social buttons are actually being used by your readers.
12. Utilize the most powerful social network of all
When most people think about networking these days, they tend to think about social networks.
While social networks (especially those like Twitter) are indeed extremely useful for establishing connections, in reality they better serve as icebreakers for real planning on the most powerful social network of all…
Email.
That’s right. All of your guest post submissions, all of your interview requests, collaborations, joint ventures, product launches, everything will be happening behind the scenes through email (or at least the important stuff!).
What else will you be doing to revitalize your blog in 2012? Share your plans in the comments.
If you are a blogger who wants to tap into the psychology of successful content marketing, you need to check out Sparring Mind, where Greg prefers to write about what works (backed with research and data) and avoids the fluff. Find out more here and start marketing your blog the right way.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
12 Essential Tips for Revitalising Your Blog in 2012
Переслать - 20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012
This year, I tried to go outside of the social media echo-chamber and focus on people who are expanding beyond their blogs. As Michael Stelzner said at Blogworld, "You’re not a blogger, you’re a publisher!"
These are 20 people who stood out to me this year. There is no ranking, nor is there a competition. If you are after more variety, I’ve included links to other round-ups at the end of this post.
Do you know of someone that has really stood out in 2011? Let us know in the comments, or create and link to your own list post. Enjoy!
Maria Popova
Maria Popova describes herself as “interestingness curator and semi-secret geek obsessed with design, science, storytelling and combinatorial creativity”. She is the editor of the much-loved Brain Pickings, which she described as a “a destination for indiscriminate curiosity.”I love Maria’s work because talented curators are needed in this cluttered blogosphere. Maria goes beyond the collection of links and ideas, and provides a narrative that just enchants you. In the aforementioned interview, Maria said that “curation is all about pattern-recognition, seeing how various and diverse pieces of content fit together under the same taste umbrella or along the same narrative path, so the guiding principle has to be the sole storyteller with a strong point of view.”
I think Maria will be an influence on curators for years to come.
Kristi Hines
Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, online marketing consultant, and social media enthusiast that blogs at Kikolani. She has become famous for her weekly resource posts, Fetching Friday, and is a prolific guest poster on many high-profile sites. Her work is highly regarded in the social media community and she was recommended multiple times in the comments section on last year’s list.Her book, Blog Post Promotion, is extraordinarily in-depth for a book at its price point, and is something I’d strongly recommend to those who need help getting more attention for their posts. You guys may also enjoy her post about making money online through blogging and writing.
Corbett Barr
Corbett Barr is someone I’ve been watching for a few years. He had a popular blog, Free Pursuits, but focused on creating a legacy rather then just being a blogger. He started Think Traffic in 2010, and quickly built a solid reputation for building quality content. In 2011 he created the Million Dollar Blog Project and launched his case study blog, Expert Enough.I like Corbett because he’s one of the people who evolved with the challenges that blogging presented, rather than giving up. Some of the best discussions of 2010 came from his blog and I believe that the Million Dollar Blog Project will result in a few more bloggers to watch.
Marcus Sheridan
Marcus started a swimming pool company in 2001. Thanks to his blog, and inbound marketing, it grew to be one of the biggest companies of its kind in the world. Marcus had amassed a large amount of knowledge about content marketing and created The Sales Lion to teach others about the power of community.
I love his blog. He isn’t a pseudo-guru testing his theories—he only teaches about stuff he’s personally experienced. He also has a talent for community engagement. Many of his posts contribute to the conversation surrounding many facets of our industry, which encourages related companies to adjust their model to serve bloggers better.
Hands down, Marcus is one of the coolest guys online. He helps so many of us when he already has a successful business and doesn’t need the social validation. I hope we’ll see a lot more of him in the coming year.
Alexis Grant
Alexis Grant is a publishing powerhouse. She describes herself as a “journalist, blog & social media strategist and a budding entrepreneur.” She has been experimenting with digital products and micropublishing, such as her popular eguide on building a Part-Time Social Media Business. She’s also the managing editor of the Brazen Careerist blog.I’ve had the pleasure of being friends with her for past few months, and it’s been fascinating watching her grow. She has a unique work history, starting out in traditional journalism and evolving until she landed a job editing a popular blog. I think we will learn a lot from her experiments in digital publishing, especially during the latter part of 2012.
Colin Wright
Colin Wright intrigues me. He runs a popular blog, but I wouldn’t called him a blogger. I don’t think anyone really knows what to call him. Every four months, his readers vote on the next country he’ll move to. He has an everlasting ebook called Exiles, runs a T-shirt shop called I Have No Shirt, and has published six ebooks.I like Colin because of his constant experimentation with micropublishing and entrepreneurship. He closed eBookling because he’d achieved what he had set out to do, despite having a profitable model. He was one of the first in my community to experiment with Kindle publishing. He’s a genuinely cool guy with a thirst for knowledge, and a desire to improve on existing creations. I think that’s an attitude we all can benefit from.
Torre De Roche
Torre De Roche is the Fearful Adventurer. While overseas, she “fell for a 31-year old Argentinean man who had a humble sailboat and a dream to set off exploring the world.” She accompanied him on his trip across the South Pacific which led to her blog and later, a book about her journey. Within two months of self-publishing her book, she landed a big publishing deal. Her book, Swept, will be out in 2013.
I think that Torre will be one of the writers that will really stand out over the coming years. She has such a natural talent, yet is still a bit of an unknown in the blogosphere. I’m confident that will change over the next year and I think that we are in a fortunate position to watch her evolve.
Deb Ng
Deb is an accomplished blogger. Previously she was the founder and owner of the Freelance Writing Jobs network of blogs, as well as the community manager for Blog Talk Radio. Now, she is employed as the conference director of Blog World Expo and has released her first book, Online Community Management for Dummies.In 2012, she’ll be just as busy. She’s authoring her second book for the Dummies brand and planning is already well underway for Blogworld in New York.
I love her work, and her contribution to the industry. I especially enjoy her blog, Kommein, where readers are fortunate enough to get an insight into the work of someone whose career spans multiple areas of the blog industry.
Jen Bishop
Jen is mostly known as the publisher and editor of Dynamic Business magazine in Australia. Part of what makes the magazine so successful is its prominent web presence, which feature a wide range of bloggers. But I’m not including her because of that. I’m watching her based on her work at her new blog, Interiors Addict.Interiors Addict is a blog that curates a lot of the best information her passion, interior design. She’s leveraged her skills as a journalist to get access to industry news and interviews, and has turned her hobby blog into a very prominent force.
One of my favorite trends this year is how journalists are dabbling in creating their own digital presences. I believe they enjoy a lot more success, and learn more, when their blog is based on an obsession rather then just their personal brand. I’m also enjoying how Tumblr is aiding bloggers that focus heavily on curation.
Derek Halpern
Derek runs Social Triggers, a site that “breaks down psychological research and business case studies into simple, actionable steps that can help you improve your online business.” His content isn’t the reason I’m watching him, although it is high-calibre and he only publishes his best work. No, the reason he’s gotten my attention is because of how he got noticed.Early in 2011, he did blog reviews of popular sites such as Chris Brogan, Think Traffic, Smart Passive Income, and David Risley. He showed both the blogger and those who watched the videos how they could increase conversions, which resulted in massive word of mouth from both the readers and his peers.
2011 was the year he spent working hard, and getting attention. I’m curious to see how he leverages his brand in 2012.
Jenny Blake
Jenny Blake is an author, blogger, life coach, and sought-after speaker who helps others "Wake up, live big! and love the journey." Jenny recently took her own great leap by leaving Google after five and a half years to pursue her passions full-time.
I’ve enjoyed watching Jenny evolve as she released her first book, Life After College, and expanded her digital offerings. She is fast approaching the end of her first year of self employment, and I think she’ll really start to shine during the latter half of 2012.
Yasmine Surovec
Yasmine is the creator of the popular web comic Cat Versus Human. She documents the everyday realities of living in a multi-cat household via a series of hilarious drawings. In late 2011, she released her first book, Cat vs. Human.I read a lot of web comics, and I enjoy the fact that they don’t do many of the things that bloggers typically recommend. She has a cat’s bottom in her sidebar, a self-deprecating about page and a contact page that had me hunting for tin-foil. I think that we can all learn from her example and poke more fun at our work, while maintaining a growing brand.
Molly Mahar
Molly Mahar is the founder of Stratejoy, a positive corner of the Internet that provides thousands of women the tools, strategies, and camaraderie to lead authentically joyful lives. There are many career blogs targeted at people in their twenties, but hers is focused on helping people through their “quarter-life crisis.”I think her blog is fantastic. She invites a number of people to blog for her for a “season,” so that readers can follow their journeys over a five-month period. It’s a great way to build community, encourage new voices and make sure her content is always interesting to that demographic. I’ve heard so many good things about her blog, and how it’s helped people.
Kristin Glenn and Shannon Whitehead
Kristin and Shannon started {r}evolution apparel, a sustainable fashion company based in America. They came up with the idea for their fashion line but knew they had a lot of work before it could reach the market, so they decided to blog about their journey. Thanks to their blogging and networking efforts, they’ve had massive success with their fundraising to launch their first product. At the time of writing, they have reached double their target for their kickstarter campaign and still have a week to go.
They focused on building their community while building their business. As a result, they had a lot of people willing to help them when they asked for support. Their story shows that you don’t need to wait until your product is ready to get your message out there.
Young House Love
Young House Love chronicles the story of two DIY dorks who are turning their house into a home, and sharing every detail as they learn. The content is great, but what I really loved was how they delved into their personal lives and shared the personality behind the bloggers. Their stories are compelling and somewhat harrowing, such as the details of their daughter’s traumatic birth.I love how they’ve transformed a personal blog into an amazing resource. Look at how they changed the sidebars for the mood board section. They are incredibly savvy. Their work highlights the potential to build your brand beyond a blog, and shows how you can leverage your archives.
I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to discover Young House Love. I plan to spend many hours delving into the archives after finishing this post.
Lingerie Addict
Treacle is the founder of The Lingerie Addict. She started her site in 2008 because she couldn't find any resources for people like herself—women on a budget who wanted honest, objective lingerie advice, reviews, and suggestions. She has since turned it into the #1 resource in her niche, attracting over 100,000 readers a month. In October, she quit her job to offer her consulting services.I think Treacle has done an amazing job empowering women to embrace their body shape and buy underwear that makes them feel gorgeous.
Nerd Fitness
Steve Kamb is the founder of Nerd Fitness: a community for nerds, desk jockeys, and weekend warriors looking to level up their lives. He built up a strong following and has since expanded with Nerd Fitness Message Boards, a clothing range, and several useful products. He is a natural leader—just look at how he doesn’t pressure people to join his rebellion.
I enjoy his work because he is incredibly savvy, yet has a very friendly/casual tone on his blog. He makes new visitors feel very comfortable in a niche that can feel rather alienating.
Sarah Peck
Sarah describes herself as a storyteller who communicates ideas through words, pictures, and other visual media. Her blog, It Starts With, started as a column about making the transition to the professional world and finding out what's important for you and your career. It has evolved into a blog on business, generating ideas, entrepreneurship, management, and design. She also leverages blogging for her professional work, and is the founder and editor of Landscape Urbanism.Sarah emerged in the blogosphere early in 2011 and is shaping up to the one of most unique and inspiring voices online. Her content is always thought-provoking and will force you to confront the challenge of executing your best ideas. She studies where great ideas come from and help individuals and businesses do great work. Every blogger has a tipping point and her post on 28 in 52 Notes made Sarah a blogger to keep an eye on 2012.
Tara Gentile
Tara Gentile is the editor of Scoutie Girl, a daily zine with the aim of getting you thinking about your creative life and the changing world around you, and the owner of a boutique web design business. She quickly built a reputation as a DIY lifestyle design expert. She has transitioned to consulting and writes about the philosophy of the new economy, creativity, social media, value and meaning, and wealth.I really resonate with Tara. She has empowered a huge segment of the creative community to take pride in the marketing of their work. Her work has affected an entire industry. I can’t wait to see what she does in 2012.
Joel Runyon
A year ago, Joel was just a guy with an inspiring blog. He wasn’t satisfied with that. He expanded his original blog to create Impossible HQ, a hub that incorporates a separate motivational community, a T-Shirt line, and a manifesto. He also created a separate site, NerveRush, to cater to the adrenalin-seeking segment of his audience.
I think Joel is just getting started with what he has to offer. He is always adding new ways for his community to engage with his site and, as a result, is creating an increasingly passionate readership. I’m really excited to see where he takes the ‘Impossible’ brand in 2012.
More bloggers to watch
Want more? Take a look at these blogging round-ups:
- A-List Bloggers Are Boring – 5 People Whose Blogs You Should Be Reading
- 20 Brazen Young Professionals to Watch in 2012
- 10 Global Women with Gusto
And don’t forget to give us your suggestions in the comments!
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Переслать - A Quick and Dirty Guide to Your First Guest Post
This guest post is by Neil Patel of KISSmetrics.
You can't really turn anywhere these days and not hear somebody telling you that in order to grow your blog, you need to guest post.
I know you've heard that before, but have you actually done it?
Or are you looking for somebody to tell you how to actually go about creating a guest post content strategy, finding the right blogs to guest post for, approaching that blogger and actually writing that post? If so, then you've come to the right place.
Develop your guest writing strategy
Your first step is to create a content strategy. There are a couple of decisions you need to make. Listen: guest posting is not easy work. If you have a full schedule and your own blog to keep up with, you now need to find the time to write posts in addition to your regular guest posts.
There are two common approaches:
- Slow and methodical: This is very strategic and targets one, maybe two blogs and dishes out guest posts for them at least once a month. This is a really great way to ease into the habit of guest posting. You'll stay sane with this method, but results will build up more slowly over time.
- Fast and furious: The other method is simply to write as many guest blog posts as you possibly can in a short period of time. The way to make this happen is to blast an announcement to your social media sphere announcing that you'd like to write a guest post for anyone who signs up. You'll be surprised how many takers you'll get. People are desperate for content. Next, set aside large chunks of time … like every night of the week from 6pm to 10pm, or devote your entire weekend to it. Then write non-stop. This was The World's Strongest Librarian's approach when he wrote 42 blog posts in a seven-week period. It's one that may make you go nuts, so don't over commit.
Which approach you choose will determine the quantity and quality of your guest posts, so choose wisely.
Brainstorm for fresh, relevant guest posts
It doesn't matter which approach you chose above, the following brainstorming ideas will help you come up with ideas for your guest posts.
- Mind mapping: Mind mapping is the concept of starting with a central idea and then branching out from there into subsets. FreeMind is an open source program that will help you do that. It even allows you to add images and hyperlinks so you can track all your ideas.
- Time machine: Another creative way to brainstorm unique ideas is to pretend you step into a time machine. From there imagine how someone from the 70's might solve a particular problem. Or look to the future and make a prediction about how particular problems could be solved.
- Push the envelope: One of the reasons I like to guest post is because it forces me to push my boundaries of thinking. It's a great way to see how far you can go with an idea. When you think you found an idea's limits, take it farther.
- Role play: You can do this either alone or with a partner. Alone, all you need to do is just put yourself into someone else's shoes, like a child or client, and try to imagine how they would approach a particular problem. If you have a creative partner, ask him or her to play the devil's advocate and have a conversation about your topic idea. Take note of all the ideas that pop up.
- Hot potato: This is a great one to use when you are hanging out with a bunch of friends. This brainstorming technique basically involves someone starting an idea … and then passing it on to the next person. Use a timer and some kind of object to pass around so you can keep track of whose turn it is. This technique is great for getting everyone to pitch an idea.
Build a social media presence
If you choose to go the slow and methodical way, then when it comes to guest posting, it's helpful if you build your reputation with the blogger you hope to write for before you ask to guest post. The best way to do this is to start following him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ and interact with him. Here are some other things you must do:
- Comments: Start to leave thoughtful comments where you are asking questions and engaging with the blogger on his site. But don't ignore everyone else. Answer questions that other readers leave. Busy bloggers love it when someone comes along and starts answering questions that allows him to not to worry about following up on every comment.
- Join forums: If there is a forum to join, join that. Subscribe to his email newsletter if he provides one, too. Occasionally it's a great idea to reply to his or her email newsletter. Do it from your inbox so he or she will see your email signature, which should have your blog address on it. Hopefully they'll take the time to look at it. I've had a few bloggers invite me to write guest posts for them after exchanging emails.
- Email: At some point you should directly email the blogger. It doesn't have to be about guest blogging. It could be just to ask a legitimate question. For example, you could compliment them on their writing and then ask where they learned how to write. You want to build that relationship.
Of course, some blogs like problogger.net have guest posting guidelines that you can follow and skip the above process, but most don't. And don't think of this as a waste of time just to get the guest posting opportunity. This is really about building long-term relationships, so it helps to do it whether they have a policy or not.
Master the components of a guest post
Is a guest post different than a post you'd publish on your own blog? The answer is yes. See, when you are posting on somebody else's blog, you need to put your best foot forward. Your hope is that the guest post will generate some subscribers to your own blog, so you better be on top of your game.
Here's what you need to think about:
- Links: Bloggers like it when you write a post that has links in it, both internal links and external links. When you create a blog post that links to the blogger's own content, it shows that you've done your homework. And he or she appreciates the external links because that builds his credibility with those bloggers.
- Advanced blog posts: The jury is still out about whether you share your best stuff or not on guest blogs, but my view is that you write a damn good post no matter what. This means give the host blogger something unique to his sight. This won't work if you've decided to write fast and furiously, because advanced blog posts take time.
- Create a conversation the audience: Your post must answer some question relevant to the host blogger's audience … not yours.
- Demonstrate you are an authority: Don't be afraid to casually mention the reasons why the audience should listen to you. You won't be bragging if it's true and part of the conversation.
- Hook headlines: Although there is a good chance the host blogger may change your headline, give him or her the best one. Yet, give them three to choose from. And remember, a great headline is unique, useful, ultra-specific and urgent. They're the four Us. Use them!
Conclusion
That's it. If you follow those steps, you should be on your way to your first guest post gig in no time. All you have to do is start pitching bloggers.
When pitching bloggers make sure you play the numbers game, as everyone won't say "yes." What other tips do you have for guest posting?
Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and blogs at Quick Sprout.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
A Quick and Dirty Guide to Your First Guest Post
Переслать - Why You Should Wear The 6 Thinking Hats On Your Blog
This guest post is by Nischala Murthy Kaushik.
Wearing the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog helps in generating valuable, interesting and diverse content.
What are the 6 Thinking Hats?
Dr. Edward de Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. And once they’re learned, the tools can be applied immediately!
The premise of this concept is that the human brain thinks in a number of distinct ways which can be identified, deliberately accessed and hence used in a structured way to develop strategies for thinking about particular issues.
Image copyright Lisa F. Young - Fotolia.com
De Bono identifies six distinct states in which the brain can be “sensitized”. In each of these states, the brain will identify and bring into conscious thought certain aspects of issues being considered.
His 6 Thinking Hats are:
- the White Hat, which calls for information that’s known or needed: “The facts, just the facts.”
- the Yellow Hat, which symbolizes brightness and optimism; under this hat you explore the positives and probe for value and benefit
- the Black Hat, which is judgment—the devil’s advocate that spots the difficulties and dangers, and where things might go wrong; this is probably the most powerful and useful of the Hats but a problem if overused
- the Red Hat, which signifies feelings, hunches and intuition; when using this hat, you can express emotions and feelings and share fears, likes, dislikes, loves, and hates
- the Green Hat, which focuses on creativity, the possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas; it’s an opportunity to express new concepts and new perceptions
- the Blue Hat, which is used to manage the thinking process; it’s the control mechanism that ensures the Six Thinking Hats guidelines are observed.
How to wear the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog
Blogging is a testimonial of an individual's thoughts, creativity, and literary expressions. And the quality of the content you create on your blogs is directly linked to the quality of your thoughts. Given that de Bono's principles focus on mindful thinking, the Thinking Hats concept is highly relevant to blogging.
In my journey as a blogger for more than two years, I have published 1000+ blogs and have been featured in several forums, communities, and reputable sites. And when I look at the body of work that I have created, I realize today that I have consciously and unconsciously worn these many hats in my blogging.
The Six Thinking Hats can help you create diverse content on your blog, keep it vibrant, enjoy blogging, and create a meaningful relationship with your readers. Here’s how.
The White Hat
Ensure that some content in your blogs are based on hard data and facts. This can be information that you personally know, or links to articles, research, and literature available in published sources.
This is important because:
- You tend to read and learn about key data and facts before you can blog about them
- Sometimes the data itself can alter your and others views, comprehension, opinions, judgments, perceptions, and conclusions on a subject
- you have logged this data for your future reference, and also the reference of your readers
- you build credibility when you support your views and opinions with hard facts and data
- readers place more value on the content you generate, since your blog is not purely based on your thoughts and feelings
- the chance that you’ll be quoted or referenced in other places is significantly higher than if you never wore the White Hat.
The Yellow Hat
Ensure that some content in your blogs gives a positive, bright and optimistic view. This is important because:
- when you write positive stuff, you tend to think and feel positively
- when anyone reads your blog, they take-away a positive thought, message or emotion
- readers are more likely to share a positive post in their sphere of influence—the positivity just spreads and magnifies along the way! And it all started with your blog!
The Black Hat
Ensure that some content in your blogs highlights the difficulties, challenges, risks, dangers, and negatives of your topic. This is important because:
- this is the reality of life and it needs to be reflected in your blogs; otherwise, you may appear to be in your own dream world, far from reality
- having all positive, data-driven content does not give the real holistic picture for any topic, hence it is imperative to wear this hat.
The Red Hat
Ensure that some content in your blogs articulates your feelings, hunches, and intuitions. This is important because:
- it makes you think, introspect, and feel
- it also gets your readers to think, introspect, and feel
- it makes you connect within—to draw from your creative imagination
- it makes you acknowledge, recognize, and appreciate the power of your sixth sense.
The Green Hat
Ensure that some content in your blog is creative, innovative, novel, and radical. This could present your own views or thoughts or something you've read and would like to share with your readers. It’s important because:
- when you read and hear such things, they transport you to a different plane—a different world in which you are able to view the world through a very different lens; this usually gives you a radically different perspective on any topic, and on life itself
- when you immerse yourself in creative, innovative, novel and radical readings, thoughts and ideas, you tend to dream and visualize beyond the realm of the known.
The Blue Hat
Ensure that some content in your blogs is about processes. This is important because:
- it makes you clear in your own mind about processes that should be followed
- it gives you an opportunity to showcase your knowledge and understanding on subjects which you are aware of and strengthens your own personal brand.
Do you wear the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog?
You can wear the 6 Thinking Hats on your blog for many purposes:
- to choose a topic that you will blog about
- to write the title of your post
- to create the actual blog content itself
You can wear one or many hats in a single blog post. But ensure that over a period of time—a month, for example—you wear at least four of the hats in your blog. We all wear the different thinking hats at some point, so the more you wear, the more likely you’ll be to meet the varying needs of your readers.
Do you wear all six thinking hats in your blog? Tell us in the comments.
Nischala Murthy Kaushik currently works at Wipro. She blogs at VERVE: The Quintessence of my Life, Nischala’s Space, Thoughts & Expressions, 12Most.com, PaulWriter, Wipro & Mindblogs. She has completed her MBA from IIMB, one of the premier Business schools in India. She takes pride in being a mother, philosopher, writer, scholar and guru of life for life. You can follow her on Twitter @ nimu9.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Why You Should Wear The 6 Thinking Hats On Your Blog
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