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- 5 Simple Ways to Discover What People Are Dying to Read
This guest post is by Brad Smith of FixCourse.com.
Blogging doesn’t have to be hard.
It takes a lot of hard work and perseverance, but it’s not technically difficult. Anyone can (and should) do it.
One of the hardest challenges to overcome is figuring out what your audience wants to read. You know, the type of epic content that gets shares, links, and traffic.
If you read through any blogger’s archives, you’ll notice that their writing evolves tremendously. But it’s not just the topics: the tone changes, the style changes, and even the format changes.
And if you look even closer, you’ll start to see a pattern of what people want to read.
You can do the same thing on your blog. You just need to know where to look for it. Here’s how.
The successful formula … and the clues you need to find
Most successful blog posts follow a formula. Here are the key elements that you need to get right.
Topic + Theme (USP) + Style + Format
- Topic:Some topics are in more demand than others. For example, there’s a bigger demand for articles on social media and blogging than there are for plumbing.
- Theme (USP): Now, how does that topic fit into your blog’s overall themes and unique positioning? It’s not enough to simply rehash popular topics. You need to take popular topics and connect them with a deeper meaning.
- Style: Style is all about copywriting 101. The words you use, the way you write, your “voice,” and how you get people interested enough to read your entire blog post.
- Format: Finally, the structure and format of your post will have a huge impact on your success. For example, how-to and list posts are some of the most common posts you’ll see, because they always work.
Your job is to pick up on these clues, and try to string them together in every blog post you write. Here are five ways to start finding and using what works well, while avoiding what doesn’t.
1. Start with your own most popular posts
Start by looking at your own blog. Which posts have been the most popular, and why?
Sometimes you think a post you’re about to publish is definitely going to go viral … and then it flops. Other times you’re afraid to publish a post because you hate it, and then people can’t get enough of it.
The truth is that you don’t really know what’s going to work before you try it. So learn how to innovate and start making little bets or experiments. Then let data be your guide, and see how they worked.
Take a look at your blog analytics and focus on a few key metrics. You can find the most popular posts by looking at visitors, views, social sharing, and comments.
If you have a large, active Facebook audience, then you can also use Facebook Insights to determine what people like. Focus on the engagement metrics and you’ll start to see the same patterns.
Now comb through these popular posts, and try to determine why they were so successful. Did you write more persuasively and go into greater detail? Maybe your use of storytelling made the lesson easy to connect with. Or maybe your topics were simply more popular. Whatever the reason, you should start to see patterns emerge that you can carry over into future posts.
2. Scan the popular posts of big blogs
Whenever you’re stuck, go back to the most popular blogs in your niche.
Take a few hours to scan through their popular posts, and take notes on what they write about and how they write. You can also start incorporating some deliberate practice to learn from the best and improve your writing.
In the book Talent is Overrated, you’ll find that deliberate practice is one of the main reasons Benjamin Franklin became such a great writer.
He literally took the best examples of writing that he admired, and began copying them word for word to pick up on the author’s voice and style. Then he would try writing the same passage in his own words, and compare the two. This was hours of painstaking work. But he was determined. The reason he became such a successful writer was because he isolated the specific elements that he wanted to improve, and then worked tirelessly.
Take a look at your favorite blogger’s popular posts. Print them out, and sit with pen and paper to write it out word by word. Then try rewriting it in your own voice and compare the two. Before long, you’ll start to internalize these lessons, and your writing will improve dramatically.
3. Submit your posts to social voting sites
Voting sites can give you insight into what people like, and what they don’t. The good stuff will be voted up quickly, and everything else will be ignored.
Each time you hit your blog’s Publish button, submit your posts to different voting sites. After some success, you’ll start to come across a certain topic or style that resonates with people. And if the post does take off, then you’ll know you found a winner.
Here are a few social voting sites that you can use today:
- BizSugar: Small Business
- Digg: Business (General)
- Hacker News: Start-ups
- Inbound.org: Inbound Marketing
- Ampm Insure: Insurance (yes, seriously)
- RealEstateVoices: Real Estate
4. Write an article you know will be shared
There are certain types of posts that always do well. So before you even start writing, you should know if it will be successful or not. Let’s look at two of these post types: the how-to and the tactical article.
How-to articles
How-to articles are always successful because people love step-by-step detail. However don’t confuse length with depth. You should go over each section in great detail, but don’t just write fluff to fill space.
Instead of just telling readers about a specific technique, show them your thought processes, the actual implementation, and a real-world example. Use images and statistics if they help prove your case.
Valuable how-to posts have a level of attention to detail that makes the information easy to understand, and lets readers take action on the advice. Focus on providing value first, and the length will take care of itself.
For more information on the elements of a how-to post, read this great article from Neil Patel.
Tactical articles
People love tactics. They want that idea they can use today, or a secret shortcut that will save them from hard work. That’s why a post called “5 Twitter Hacks” will do well, even though these kinds of posts are so common. People are bombarded by messages all day long. They want simplicity. They want instant gratification.
So what’s an easy way to come up with these kinds of posts? Just think about your daily routine. How do you update Facebook, and why? The actual process and routine that you ignore could be helpful to other people who are struggling or just starting out. Show them a faster, better, or more beneficial way to do something, and they’ll love it—and likely share it with their friends.
5. Focus on topics using simple keyword research
People are already looking for specific content around your topics. You just need to give it to them. Start using keyword researchas a quick guide to figure out what topics are popular.
The easiest solution is to head over to the Google Keyword Tool, and start writing your major topics and keyphrases into the search box.
Then switch Match Types from Broad to Exact,because you want to narrow down the suggested keyphrases to the closest matching options. Now start looking at Local Monthly Searches to get an idea of how popular these phrases are. All you’re looking for is the relative number ranges (because this data isn’t completely accurate). Here’s how the results might look.
Create a list of relevant, long-tail keyphrases (with about 500 Local Monthly Searches or less) and start creating content around these areas.
If you want to take this strategy one step further, then read Ian Lurie’s execellent post on data-driven content strategies.
Conclusion
Blogging takes determination and perseverance. But it’s not brain surgery.
You can use these five simple techniques to quickly discover what your audience loves and wants to read more of. Remember: the key to building a successful blog is doing more of what people like, and less of what they don’t.
Brad Smith is a digital marketing consultant who focuses on lead gen for businesses by getting more traffic, leads and sales online.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
5 Simple Ways to Discover What People Are Dying to Read
Переслать - 5 Unexpected Benefits of Adding Podcasts to Your Blog
This guest post is by Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing.
Are you having trouble keeping your blog readers interested in what you have to say?
If interest is waning, it may be time to add some variety to what you’re giving readers, besides just writing blog posts, week after week.
Back in July 2011, I started doing monthly live training events for participants in my membership community, which I record. Then, I began editing down short excerpts from those hour-long events and using them as blog posts. I’d write a short intro, and then just let people listen to a short podcast of five minutes or so.
Free software such as Audacity and free webcasting platforms such as Anymeeting make it easy to record your voice and create short audio trainings for your audience.
If you’re on WordPress, the Audio Player plug-in also makes it super-easy to install a podcast right inside a blog post. All of which definitely helped me, since I’m not technically gifted.
In short, if you’re intimidated by adding video interviews to your site—maybe you don’t feel you’d make an attractive, poised talking head?—podcasting can be a great way to go.
Adding podcasts achieved my goal of helping me keep readers and grow my subscriber base—I added about 1,000 new subscribers in the first six months after I began podcasting.
But I’ve gotten much more from podcasting than a bigger, more engaged readership. I discovered there are some powerful fringe benefits of podcasting, too. Here are five unexpected benefits of podcasting.
1. Stand out from the crowd
Instantly, when you add podcasts, you have separated yourself from the unwashed masses of bloggers. You’ve got more going on than most—you have tasty audio recordings people can listen to. Since some people learn best through listening rather than reading, you can capture another segment of readers who might otherwise might not be interested in your blog.
2. Make useful new friends
Most good podcasts aren’t one person talking, but two or more. I’ve found that as a podcaster, you can approach nearly anyone about appearing, and many top bloggers will agree. Once you’ve featured them on your recording, it’s often the start of a deeper relationship that may lead to any number of additional interactions, including your guest posting on their blog.
Since hosting them on my podcasts, I have appeared on the blogs of many of my podcast guests including Renegade Writer Linda Formichelli and Successful Blogging’s Annabel Candy.
Many A-listers may not have time to give you a written guest post, but you can post their podcast or an excerpt of it on your blog, effectively turning your well-known guest into a guest poster on your own blog.
3. Create products
Every time you create a recording, you have a new product in your hands. There are myriad ways you can make use of this valuable property, including:
- Offer it as a premium freebie for your blog subscribers.
- Offer it as a bonus when readers do an earlybird purchase of your paid product.
- Offer it as a bonus when readers buy an affiliate product through your link.
- Bundle it with other recordings on similar topics to create a free or paid online audio course.
- Get it transcribed and turn it into an ebook.
- Use it as part of the content for members of a member community platform.
4. Get interviewed
Once you have audio samples of how great you sound doing audio podcasts, it positions you as a strong candidate for being interviewed on others’ podcasts. For instance, I ended up featured on Blogcast.fm. This can help expose you to new audiences and also bring in more readers.
5. Gain affiliate opportunities
I believe my podcasting success led to my receiving several offers from top bloggers to affiliate-sell their lucrative products. These were situations where only a handful of affiliates were given the opportunity. I made over $2,500 selling just one of them.
How does podcasting help here? Bloggers know one of the best ways to get readers interested in a paid product is to first offer them some valuable training in a related topic through—you guessed it—a live podcast or Webinar. With demonstrated podcasting experience and an audience that’s been trained to consume live information, you’re in a better position to get these sorts of exclusive affiliate-sales offers.
How are you keeping readers interested in your blog? Leave a comment and let us know.
Carol Tice writes and podcasts on the Make a Living Writing blog, and serves as Den Mother of the writers’ learning and support community Freelance Writers Den.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
5 Unexpected Benefits of Adding Podcasts to Your Blog
Переслать - 8 Ways to Get More Out of Your Facebook Fan Page Today
This is a guest post by Raag Vamdatt of The WordPress How To Blog.
If you have been paying even the slightest attention to the blogosphere lately, you would have noticed that it’s abuzz with talk about the new Facebook fan pages. And there is a reason behind it—the Facebook fan page's new timeline view is a drastic change from the old fan pages we are used to seeing. These changes came into effect from March 30th.
The changes are far-reaching, and are pushing people out of their comfort zones. Since most bloggers have active fan pages that they use for attracting new readers and for making sales, they have started panicking. However, like any change, you can view this as an opportunity instead of seeing it as a problem.
The new fan pages don't allow you to use many of the tactics that you might be used to. However, these changes do open up many new possibilities as well. Here are a few things you can do to effectively use the new timeline-based Facebook fan pages to your advantage.
1. Pin announcements or sales pitches
Previously, there was no way you could highlight a post on Facebook. Even if it was an important post, say about an upcoming launch, it would get buried under newer posts. How can a post have the desired impact if it is not even seen by your visitors?
This is a problem from the past, friends! Now, you can "pin" a post, and when you do this, it stays as the first post on you fan page. In blogging terms, you can say it's a "sticky" post!
This is huge. Finally, you have the freedom to make people see your most important messages, without making them land on custom tabs (which is not possible any more, by the way).
2. Star important posts
There is one more way to highlight posts that need special attention: you can "star" any of the posts on your fan pages.
Doing this makes the post span both the columns of the timeline view, making it quite distinguishable from other posts. Whenever a visitor is scrolling through your fan page, he or she is bound to stop and pay attention to a starred post because of its double width.
This feature can be used to highlight content that doesn't need immediate attention, but is important nonetheless. For example, if you have a post about contest winners, or about you being mentioned in mainstream media, you can "star" such posts to give them prominence.
3. Use the cover image effectively
Now, you get a huge amount of space—851px by 315px to be precise—to play with for the cover image. The new timeline view has introduced a cover image which appears as the first thing on your fan page. And due to its massive size, it will draw your visitors' attention as soon as they land on your Facebook fan page.
Before you start getting ideas, let me tell you that this space cannot be used for any marketing messages—you can't ask people to buy something or to like your fan page, you can't use it to offer any pricing or discount details, you can't have your contact details displayed there, etc.
In spite of these restrictions, you can use this space quite effectively. It can be used to brand yourself and your blog—the image you use here can convey a positive message about your blog to your visitors. In fact, you can even use a text-based image here as long as it is not promotional text. You can also include pictures of your products in this space.
4. Using custom tabs to channel visitors
Just below the cover image are small, square images called custom tabs. These are links to your applications. The first one is always a link to your photos, but the others can be customized.
This feature can be used quite effectively. For example, you can have a custom tab pointing to one of your products, and the image for the tab can contain a quick, attention-grabbing call to action.
You can have up to 12 of these custom tabs. Excluding the one for the photos, you have 11 opportunities to channel your visitors to important applications or sub-pages of your fan page.
5. Utilizing the profile photo
The profile photo, which used to be up to 180px by 540px in size, is now reduced to a mere 125px by 125px. However, this photo doesn't come with any restrictions like that for the cover photo, so it can be utilized in creative ways.
Of course, you can have your picture or your logo as the profile photo of your fan page. In fact, most people would have this type of a setup. But now,you can play with the profile picture and the cover image to create some cool effects.
An aggressive tactic: If you want, you could create a profile image with the text "Like Us", and an arrow pointing to the Like button. This is not something you can do with the cover photo, but it might help to boost your Likes.
6. Effectively using the new messaging system
The new fan pages now come with a messaging system—anyone who has liked your page can now send messages directly to you! (Please note that the message has to be initiated by the user—you cannot send a message to a fan unless he or she has messaged you first).
Again, this is a massive change, and one you can use to your advantage. You can use this feature for problem resolution—your fans can write to you privately (maybe with sensitive details like their order number), and you can provide personalized query resolution and support.
Of course, if you have a ton of fans, this won't be feasible for you. But if you are just starting out and have only a few fans, this can be a big image booster and might earn you a lot of praise!
7. Using milestones to your advantage
Facebook now lets you create milestones on your fan pages. Milestones are the events or dates that are important for your page. The best part about milestones is that you can post milestones from the past, with dates from any time since the year 1000!
You can use this to let people know more about your blog or business—when it started, when it achieved some critical milestones, etc. Knowing these things may inspire more trust in your visitors, and could result in a few additional fans.
8. Checking out your competition
This is a neat trick that not many people know about. In fact, I myself discovered it by accident!
When you visit a fan page and you see a box with the number of Likes in it, click on it. What do you see? You see the analytics data (or "insights" in Facebook terms) about that fan page. Some of the things that you can see are:
- how many people are taking about the fan page
- the trends regarding new likes and number of people talking about the page
- most popular week, city and age group for that fan page.
This is really cool! Till now, you could see the analytics for your own fan page. But now, you can also see the highlights of the analytics of other fan pages. This is a great opportunity—you can take a look at the data of your competitors, and use it to your advantage.
How are you using your new Facebook fan page?
How are you using the new features of the Facebook fan page to build your blog’s following both on Facebook and on your blog itself? Share your tips with us in the comments.
Raag Vamdatt runs multiple blogs, and writes from his experiences at The WordPress How To Blog. He also offers a free step-by-step course titled "Make Money Blogging" that guides about starting a blog and making money from it.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
8 Ways to Get More Out of Your Facebook Fan Page Today
Переслать - Build Brand Awareness and Business with Creative Video Blogging
This guest post is by Ryan Critchett of RMC Tech.
We all know that video blogging is a powerfully effective tool for business lead generation, but does everyone have what it takes to execute on it?
We can all get in front of a camera, hit record, and start talking about our products and services … but will it entertain people?
Is entertaining people, while indirectly informing them of what your business offers a good strategy for video business blogging?
I’d say, yes, everyone has what it takes, no, not all content will entertain people, and yes, entertainment with a bit of indirect promotion is a solid way of generating business from video blogging.
The business: RMC Tech
RMC Tech is my tech repair company. I started the company in 2011, after having been immersed in the blogosphere and social media for years. That gave me the edge.
I’ve always done videos on the web and lucky for me, I’ve gotten extremely comfortable in front of a camera. So, jumping into the tech repair industry, I had to take what I knew about video blogging and social media, and apply it to business.
Besides building iPhone apps, our core service is iPhone repair. People break their phones all day long and it’s normally in the form of a cracked screen. When they need it repaired, our service is an exact market fit.
But just having the skills to rip apart an iPhone and replace the screen doesn’t really do me any good. The next step is letting everyone in America know not only that I can perform the service, but that they can trust me.
The strategy: video blogging
What solidifies trust more than people actually seeing your face and hearing your voice? Not much! Video blogging is a goldmine. It’s second only to actual face-to-face communication, which is one of the ultimate binding points between consumers and businesses.
So here’s what we did. Every iPhone I repaired, I would keep the damaged part. Everyone keeps saying that storytelling is a precious art and if used correctly, can really help a business reach people. So I decided to put the two together.
I created this series called iGraveyard. The iGraveyard series is simply a two- to four-minute video where I display the broken iPhone part, and tell the story behind how it got damaged.
These things get run over by trucks, people drop them off cliffs, and I just recently had someone accidentally drop a power tool on one of them. People love to hear about these kinds of things! It’s helped my business tremendously to extend the reach of our offering.
Our iPhone service is now nationwide, and we’ve been able to penetrate new markets, through the use of video blogging and social media. People know we do iPhone repair in Philadelphia. They know that if they’re in Chicago, we’ve still got their backs. The web’s reach is endless.
Here’s one of our latest videos, so you can see what I’m talking about:
Entertainment + silliness = trust
A great equation to build trust is simply making people smile, or feel good, and to show your human side and be a bit silly. Everyone, at some level, can appreciate that and for me it’s worked wonders in spreading the word.
You have to think, “how can I spread awareness on what my business is while not directly selling to people, and be a bit entertaining while I’m at it?”
You have to tap into your creative reserves, ditch the conservative mentality, and understand that you’re not dealing with conservative people. You’re dealing with human beings. They’re all a bit crazy and silly at some level, they all love being entertained, and your mission is to reach them through emotion.
The critical step of exposure
Having your creative, entertaining content may not be enough in and of itself. You have to get it in front of people, right? You have to find a channel to reach your market.
Real, live people are on Twitter. All (almost!) of those people you see in your Twitter streams are real, just like you and me, and in many cases spend an appreciable amount of time reading the Twitter stream and interacting with people.
The mission is simply to socialize with them. Find people, through the search function in Twitter, who are talking about things similar to your industry. Reply in a playful way, not in a salesish way.
I know, I know, this doesn’t convert to business right away. Of course it doesn’t. If you want to convert business right away, find a good traditional marketing platform, pay a boatload of money, and do some push marketing.
Social is different. You’re building long term awareness in people’s minds about what you do. You’re solidifying trust points with potential customers all around the world, and in your markets and if you have the community skills to “work the room” as they say, it has a powerful potential to contribute to your bottom line.
It’s the perfect forum to support your creative video presence.
Noise-makers create results
The great part about cranking out a lot of good content and making a lot of noise is that you have a great chance of being picked up by other people who are interested in what you’re doing.
Recently, a pretty large Pennsylvania Business Journal picked up on some of the social interaction and business operations I was engaging in and decided to write a nice piece about it. Everyone who read that article was in my target market: people with iPhones.
So not only are you creating awareness, creatively through entertaining but informative content, but you’re also increasing the probability that news, media publications, and other interested parties get involved in what you’re doing.
That’s what entrepreneurs do. 2012 is the year of the entrepreneur. It’s the year of the web marketer. It’s the year of the blogger and creative video blogging for business is a powerful tool in spreading the awareness that could take your blog, and business, to the next level.
Are you using creative video blogging to boost awareness of your business? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Ryan Critchett is the founder of RMC Tech, a technical service company that focuses mainly on iPhone repair, iPad Repair and mobile device services.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build Brand Awareness and Business with Creative Video Blogging
Переслать - Register Today for a Free Podcast With Ana White
This Wednesday at 9pm (Pacific Time in the US) I will be spending an hour with a DIY carpentry blogger I’ve admired for some time now by the name of Ana White—and you’re invited to listen in via a webinar (register here).Ana is the blogger behind the popular Ana White Homemaker blog and she has a great story to tell. Here are a few highlights:
- In just over two years Ana, has grown her blog from nothing to one that gets around 3 million unique visitors a month.
- Her blog is now generating enough income to support her family and she does it all from her home in Alaska.
- Ana will be releasing her first book with Random House/Potter Craft later this year.
- Her #1 source of traffic is Pinterest.
- Over 90% of the content on her facebook page is written by Fans.
- Ana gives away hundreds of furniture plans to her readers.
- She is regularly featured in popular magazines.
All in all, I think Ana’s model is fascinating and I’ve been wanting to spend some time with her for a while now to hear more. I figured we might as well open it up to readers here at ProBlogger to listen in on the conversation.
In this free, one-hour webinar, I’ll be asking Ana about all of the above (and more) and you’ll have opportunity to submit your own questions, too. This is not a “selling” webinar—just 100% free and hopefully useful information.
I hope you’ll join us! Register for the webinar here.
Note: here are the times in different parts of the world
- US Pacific Time—9pm Tuesday 8th May
- Australian Eastern—2pm Wednesday 9th May
- Alaska—7pm Tuesday 8th May
- London—5am Wednesday 9th May
- Tokyo (Japan)—1pm Wednesday 9th May
- New Delhi (India)—9.30am Wednesday 9th May
PS: I know that this time will not suit everyone, but when you get an interview between an Aussie and an Alaskan (both with busy schedules and family commitments) and have a blog with an international audience, timing can get tricky!
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Register Today for a Free Podcast With Ana White
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