Tag: FAQs Help and Tutorials

How To Create Link Bait Content

LINK BAIT - Tsavo Media
Image by Somewhat Frank via Flickr

Throughout my blogging career, I’ve worked hard on my writing style. I’ve improved over time, and I’m at a point now where I believe I have perfected my ability to write link bait articles. A link bait article is an article that makes many readers want to reference it within their articles, or link to it as a general resource.

The thing I love about link baiting is that it allows your blog to build some quality backlinks and increase search rank over time. It also means additional targeted traffic is attracted to your blog, which can mean more subscribers. Let’s see how you can start writing such articles, and increasing your presence on the web.

via problogger.net

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

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10 Reasons Why New Blogs Fail

Many bloggers don’t even make it to a full year. The truth is, blogging is much more difficult than most people realize. It seems easy enough, keep an online diary on a topic you love and people will read it, right? Wrong. I’ve witnessed so many blogs rev up…and burn right back down. Avoid these common pitfalls to stick around for the long haul!

via quickonlinetips.com

If you’re interested in blogging, you’ll want to follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article — it’s worth the price of a click… :-D

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How To Provide Attribution in the Blogging World

John Maxwell Speaks at Grand Nationals
Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr

Though the Internet has no set guidelines for how to provide attribution, one rule is clear: Links are the currency of the Web.

If you use someone else’s content, whether licensed directly or through fair use, it is important to be sure to provide a clickable link to the original site if at all possible. This not only helps visitors to your site find the original work, but also provide SEO benefits for the creator of the content and guards against your site from being mistaken by the search engines as the original work.

With that in mind, let us take a look at several common situations many bloggers find themselves in and the way most feel is appropriate to attribute them.

  1. Quoting: If the original work is part of a larger work, for example block quoting part of another article, an inline link is usually all that is required. Typically, when inline linking, you mention the person’s name and/or the site they write for and link to the original article. This can be done very easily in any blogging application and takes only seconds to do.
Go to the source of the quote here: blogherald.com

Many of my students ask me about my curation style. My understanding is based on articles like the one I quoted here. To date, only two people have ever complained about being quoted on my blog; John Maxwell and an obscure blogger from South Dakota. With over 2,700 posts I’m satisfied that I’m compliant with internet standards. Questions? Feedback?

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6 Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines

a chart to describe the search engine market
Image via Wikipedia

In an earlier article, I talked about the importance of blogging and search engine rankings. However, once you’ve got the blog up and running, the next thing to do is to start optimizing your posts for the search engines. Although search engine optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming to the newcomer, once you understand a few basic concepts, you’ll soon find it’s really not that difficult.

Good SEO copy and a search engine–optimized website accomplish three things:

  1. They’re easy for the search engines to read
  2. They’re easy for the target audience to find
  3. They’re easy for people to read

Everything you do to optimize a post is based around those three basic concepts.

So with that in mind, here are six things you can do to optimize your website or blog posts for the search engines…

via socialmediaexaminer.com
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go directly to the source to get the whole story if you’d like to get the 6 ways…
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The 7 Deadly Fears of Blogging and How to Overcome Them

Adam West at the 41st Emmy Awards
Image via Wikipedia

I remember back to early 2008, when I’d just started blogging, that even though I had great ambitions, my knowledge, expertise, and confidence as a blogger was sorely lacking. I stumbled through my blogging career for over a year before I felt I had a really good grip on things, and even then, there were many things I struggled with.

But more than anything, through all of the struggles I faced, there was one enemy that kept popping up time and time again, each time in a different form than the last. This enemy was fierce, determined, and relentless, and eventually I had no choice but to either confront it, or forever commit to a life of running.

Finally, in a Bruce Wayne moment of clarity, I decided to turn-around, face this enemy, and obliterate him. His name was fear, and there are seven ways that he tried to take me out. Here are the tactics I used to fight back.

Click here to go to the source and get the 7 deadly fears and their antidote; problogger.net
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5 Steps to Reduce the Pain of Starting a Business Blog

Darren Rowse - Photography Blogger Extrodinaire
Image by kk+ via Flickr

Blogging can be intimidating for someone who hasn’t done it in the past or grown up in the age where everyone has a personal blog.  It is, however, critical that business owners and marketers ‘blog for business.’  Putting pen to paper or more appropriately, putting fingers to your keyboard is the biggest challenge for most people.  So let’s talk about how to get started.

via blog.hubspot.com

If you’re interested in blogging but not sure how to get started, you’ll want to follow the ‘via’ link above to read the rest of this article. If you’re going to start, I encourage you to set a goal of posting once per day. If that seems like a lot, remember that all your content does not need to be original! In my book, there are two main types of posts; creation [original thoughts] and curation [quoting someone’s content with proper attribution]. I uses tools like Gist and Google Reader to listen to subject matter experts in my field, quote their articles, and then post my opinion just like I’m doing now…

Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business!

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400 posts redux; Lesson #1

Image representing Alexa as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

This is the first post in what I anticipate will be a 7 part series…

11 months ago, I posted this introspective piece on the results I was getting from blogging…

Yesterday, I passed the 400 post mark. 400 posts over 18 months. Wow! Roughly a post a day for a year and a half. Is that a lot? Is that too little? I really don’t know. What I do know is this — when I use my ‘pass or play’ methodology, traffic to my site increases and my ‘pipeline’ fills…

My good friend [and brother in law] Jim Gilligan has a blog that he’s starting for his life coaching business at EffectiveLiving, LLC. Jim asked me how many posts he should create before he goes ‘live’. I told him a dozen or so is enough to get started but recently I did an experiment and I believe the number at which you start to see good results is closer to 100 over a 3 month period. Here’s a real world case study…

I had neglected my business blog for a little over a year — my passion was politics and I was attempting to leverage my social media skills in the political space. My political blog was ranked most influential in Wisconsin a dozen times earlier this year and my Alexa ranking rose to within the top million sites in the world, but it didn’t get me what I wanted. More business. One year ago today, my business blog, however, had only served up 147 page views for the month. The whole month. Two weeks ago, I got 233 pageviews in a single day and my traffic so far this month is 11 times greater than a year ago [and the month’s not even finished yet]. By the way, the Alexa rank on my blog is currently 338,142. [That was in the US at the time — now my rank is 341,593 global. ed.]. All this as a result of 100 posts over a 3 month period. Pretty good return on investment, I think.

Yesterday, I passed 2,400 posts — 2,000 additional posts — in less than 11 months. What do I think I’ve learned? Here are some more or less random observations…

1. Blogging is the best, fastest, least expensive way to establish a thought leadership position. Period.

The key to thought leadership is having a point of view that is ‘searchable, findable, knowable and shareable‘ as I say in my seminars. There is not better way to do that then frequent reiteration of that point of view on the internet. If you use the right set of tools, it’s easy and fun to do as well…You can read my posts on blogging here, but two of the best I posted within the past week; read ‘Why I blog’ and ‘Confessions of a really new blogger‘ for two different perspectives on why blogging rocks. It is helpful, however, if you have a simple, repeatable process so that you don’t burn out…

There are 6 more lessons that I’ll roll out over the course of the next week or so; be sure to collect all 7…

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From thinker to thought leader in one easy workflow

So you wanna be a thought leader? There’s no better way to make your point of view ‘searchable, findable, and knowable’ on the internet than this suite of tools. It is the simplest and most straightforward blogging workflow I can imagine and if you’ve got a better idea, I’ll be the first to admit [and use] it…

Updated 5/25/10 to include LinkedIn and YouTube. h/t Alan Petras. Lesson learned? Don’t leave YouTube off a social media workflow when you’re talking to a video guy…

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Wow!

Even I’m impressed by the way my new blogging workflow has increased traffic recently…

Compare this with your numbers and then comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your business…

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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“What the hell am I supposed to write about?”

a tulip arrangement
Image via Wikipedia

I’m a huge fan of blogging for small businesses — after all, it has worked so well for me! This question invariably comes up sooner or later…

“What the hell am I supposed to write about, I own a {insert your small business here}?

Really, who cares about your flower shop, bike shop, auto parts store, or coffee house?

Answer: Your customers certainly care.

We all know by now that consistent small business blogging can drastically improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and overall web presence. Additionally, a small business blog can increase your opportunities to interact with (and highlight) your customers and provide an additional occasion for you to share your expert knowledge.

Unfortunately, nothing stops a would be small business blogger faster than a perceived lack of time, and the frustration that comes with a lack of ideas to blog about.” Source: 9 Tips for Creating More Small Business Blogging Ideas

You’ll have to go to the source for Darren Rowse’s 9 ways. Questions? Feedback? Comment, call or contact me to discuss how this applies to your business…Technorati Tags: ,

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How often should I post?

The icon used by Apple to represent Podcasting.
Image via Wikipedia

Let’s start here…

“Without question, blogging provides an effective way to market your business, be a valuable resource and build your personal brand online. And most folks know that, generally, the more frequently you blog, the higher your traffic. But does that mean you should follow the advice of many to create a new post every single day?

Focusing only on traffic numbers, instead of the concentrating on sharing content and building relationships will send you down the path to burnout. Here at WebWorkerDaily, we have multiple writers contributing to help keep the content fresh. But for one-person blogs, blogging daily works for some and not for others.” Source: Just How Often Should You Blog? – WebWorkerDaily

Go to the source for some good thoughts on ‘how often’ — it’s really good stuff! In the meantime, I’m heading in another direction…

I just closed out my best blogging month ever traffic-wise. What was significant to me was that I did it in a ‘short’ month with no speaking engagements. Usually, when I have a chance to speak, my traffic spikes because all the seminar attendees check out my site — it’s usually good for a couple hundred pageviews. In February, however, I did it all on my own, post by post by post. I’ve already laid out all my tactics and tools in the series “Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Tightening your Tribe” and yes, I used them all this past month. I did make two significant changes, however. #1 I redesigned my site using the ‘Thesis’ theme which promises some kind of magic SEO foo and really seems to have delivered for me. #2 I experimented with spreading my posts out throughout the day. Instead of posting 3-5 posts at 6:00 AM, I spread them out every two hours or so throughout the day. Whether it was one, or the other, or both, my traffic’s going nuts!

HubSpot gives me a grade of 96 on my site, Google tells me I have 6,076 pageviews over the past 30 days and Alexa tells me my site is ranked 484,123 in the US. Not much left to prove from my perspective and the thing that excites me most is that my success is the result of a systematic process I can teach to anyone. I usually benchmark myself against local radio station WTAQ because I like to see how I fare against ‘old’ media in my market. They have an Alexa ranking of 116,615 which is really awesome. It thrills me that I’m actually ranked higher than local social media wunderkind Dana VanDen Heuvel [a good friend to e1evation], although I’m sure that won’t last long. He’s at 520,219…

I’m certain my traffic will drop some during the upcoming month as I’ll be directing a great deal of my creative energy toward three projects I announced in February. They are the Social Media Academy — an online training class on the top tactics and tools for effective social media, The Damn Good Social Media Guide — the accompanying ebook, and last? A weekly podcast. I’m currently looking for beta testers for the Social Media course. If you’d like to save yourself the $499 fee and get all the content in a rough format for free, comment, call or contact me and let me know. As always, thanks for reading…

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Mr. Rogers on blogging

Are you a blogger?

“As bloggers, we put a lot of effort into telling our readers how to do things.

We believe that if we can just give them enough informative content that they’ll subscribe to our blog and never leave. We try to become the best teacher we possibly can, instilling wisdom down into short, usable posts that our readers can put into action right away.

But what if that’s not what they really want?

What if they don’t want a teacher to tell them what to do?” Source: The Mr. Rogers Guide to Blogging from the Heart | Copyblogger

Go to the source for the rest of the article…

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Taking your expertise for granted

Logo of Posterous
Image via Wikipedia

This post from Darren Rowse has me thinking about myself and the people in my trusted network…

“I recently was chatting with a new blogger and they made the comment that after 3 weeks of blogging that they’d run out of things to write about. They had written 10 posts so far but felt that they’d nothing else to share of value on the topic.

What surprised me about their comments was that the blogger was actually a seasoned pro in their niche. They were new to blogging about their topic but they’d been working in their industry for 25 years and were seen as an expert in their field…. yet they didn’t feel like they had anything to say about the topic!

I dug a little deeper and it turned out that the reason for their issue was not that they didn’t have much to write about – but that they were taking for granted the level of knowledge that they actually had. Much of what they’d learned over the years was now so basic to them that they didn’t realise how valuable it was for someone at a lower level of expertise.” Source: What Are You Taking For Granted That Might Be Useful to Others?

Are you one of those that doesn’t appreciate the fact that she’s an expert? Well — you’re wrong! You don’t get to this point in life without having gained expertise at something. Your expertise might only be interesting to 100 people on the planet, but by blogging, you’ll find them. Or more likely they’ll find you…

Having taught classes before on ‘finding your gift’, the one thing I’ve learned is that the more you exercise your ‘gift’, the more it feels like breathing. In other words, it becomes so natural that it’s just a part of you. And who would be interested in little old you?

Well? Your wrong. You’re an expert and your point of view is interesting to other people who aren’t as far along their path. Or who are. Or who are ahead of you. Here’s a dirty little secret; there are no experts. The body of knowledge is expanding so fast that no one can master it all. Your point of view is a valuable part of the puzzle but no one will ever know it unless you make your point of view public; searchable, findable and knowable!

How do you get started? I’ve researched all the tools and I haven’t found anything easier or more powerful than Posterous and the Posterous bookmarklet. Your expertise can turn you into a thought leader if you’ll only publish and promote your work! Comment, call or contact me to discuss how this applies to your business if I didn’t make myself clear…

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Just getting started as a blogger?

Darren Rowse, Problogger
Image by Technosailor via Flickr

My brother in law Alan is a talented writer [his new book is called “Gods of Venice“] who is just moving into the online world. If you’re like him, you may benefit from brainstorming around these 20 different types of posts that a blogger can use to build their site content…

“Blog Tip 18 – Change up your posting form – find new blog topics – In the same way that it’s easy to get ’stuck’ in always posting in the same voice – it’s also possible to get stuck in always writing in the same form or genre.

Yesterday I decided to look through a the 500 blogs entered in Australia’s Best Blog Competition (I didn’t view them all but looked over at least 200). I was amazed by the talent out there. I also came away from the exercise struck by variety of different approaches that people take to blogging – especially with the form of posts that they write.” 20 Types of Blog Posts – Battling Bloggers Block

Click the link to go to the source and read through the 20 different types of posts — it’s great stuff, but too long to incorporate here. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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