Create an Awesome Home Business » Blogging

How to Not Make Money Blogging…

Martin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:29:51 +0000

… use an auto-blogging application of some kind.

For people new to working online there’s a tremendous attraction in the idea of automated blogging.

Everyone wants quick results, with as little effort as possible. It’s human nature.

And for people new to working online, the idea of an automated business, earning money on auto-pilot, is hugely attractive.

But don’t go there. It’ll do you more harm than good.

Most automated blogging systems rely on you adding some keywords, specifying the sources (news items, articles or whatever), defining some posting parameters and hitting the ‘go’ button.

But what you’re doing, at best, is regurgitating old information. At worst, if your system doesn’t allow for attributions, you’re plagiarising (stealing other people’s work).

You also have little or no control over the quality of articles that end up being published on your site and, unless you’re really good with your keywords, you’re quite likely to end up with articles that aren’t even relevant to the theme of your site.

Most of the search engines are quickly able to discover sites that are populated with regurgitated material, and ignore them. So the traffic you were hoping to get won’t arrive.

And no traffic = no money.

The simple fact is: if you want to make money online you have to work at it.

There are no short cuts to building a sustainable business in the off-line world, and there are no short cuts online either.

So if you want to make money blogging you need to do the work.

Know your subject, study it (you can never know everything), and work at making sure you produce a site that provides real value.

And remember: blogging itself is not a business model. It’s a promotion channel.

Back here I described some ways of building a business model by getting hold of something to sell. It’s worth a read.

Blogging is only effective as a way of making money if it’s acting as a promotion channel for whatever you’re selling. There has to be a real business behind the blog.

Otherwise you’re just blogging.

What Are the Problems With Blogging?

Martin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:47:29 +0000

Interesting question from Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger today: What’s wrong with blogging?

The interesting part was that although he invited responses, he stipulated that none of them should be positive.

They all had to point out deficiencies in the medium of blogging.

And when you’re asked to point out the deficiencies of something you’re passionate about you have to think. Hard.

So, having thought long and hard, here’s what I believe are two deficiencies in the medium of blogging:

Lack of Accountability

There are no codes of conduct for blogging and there are no checks and balances – as there are in journalism (editorial oversight) or novel writing (publishers)

The result is that the standard of writing is often poor (or terrible), the language used is often profane, and looseness with the truth is often frequent.

Therefore I would strongly support the formation of some kind of accreditation system for bloggers.

For example, on my travel site I have a Trust Earned Travel badge, which indicates to visitors that I adhere to certain professional standards on the site.

How about a Trust Earned Blogging accreditation?

In order to qualify, a blogger would have to agree to adhere to certain professional standards.

They would have to submit their blog for review before accreditation would be given, and there should be random follow-up reviews to ensure standards were maintained.

Technology makes it too easy for people to steal your work

I get seriously frustrated with people stealing my work. Especially when there’s no accreditation or links back to the site they took it from.

RSS is a great tool, but only when used correctly. Unfortunately there are a gazillion blogs out there that only contain other people’s content, which gets there via RSS.

These blogs add zero value since all the content on them has already been published elsewhere.

Only this morning I got 3 pingback moderation requests, all of which were from blogs that published articles of mine taken from my RSS feed.

At least they included links back to my original articles.

Unfortunately, the articles were all old and, therefore, not only offered that blog’s readers information that had already been published elsewhere, but information that was out of date.

I would strongly support some kind of ability to selectively cut off my RSS feed to blogs that were publishing my articles in this way.

So, continuing Darren’s question, what do you see as deficiencies in the medium of blogging? Leave an answer in a comment below or hop over to Darren’s article and leave an answer there.

Some Recommended Blogs for Internet Marketers

Martin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:33:31 +0000

I have a confession: because I’m building a new travel site I’ve not had time to research, plan and write my usual article for today.

So I’ve pulled together the top 5 blogs I follow on a daily basis.

These are the places to which I turn for inspiration and guidance. Some of them I’ve followed for a number of years, a couple of them only for the past few months.

But all of them are written, owned and managed by people I respect enormously for what they’ve achieved online. They’re all people who not only talk the talk, they walk the walk too.

Note that some of the links below are affiliate links. That means that if you sign up for something I’ll get a bit of beer money.

Here they are, then – the top 5 blogs I follow on a daily basis:

Firstly:

Brian Clark’s CopyBlogger. This is (if I remember correctly) the blog I’ve followed the longest. Initially I followed CopyBlogger because I needed to learn how to write for the web, but over the years it’s developed into a remarkable place to learn about content marketing.

In addition to their daily copywriting tips, Brian and co-editor Sonia Simone, plus selected cohorts, have released a number of top class educational products including Teaching Sells, the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint and, most recently, The Third Tribe.

Secondly:

Seth Godin’s Seth’s Blog. Another blog I’ve followed for a long time, Seth imparts short but unbelievably succinct messages each day focusing on Marketing, Business and Mindset.

Seth’s books include the Purple Cow, The Dip, All Marketers are Liars and 10 more. He’s also the founder of Squidoo.

Thirdly:

Nathan Hangen’s Nathan Hangen. I only discovered Nathan’s blog recently as a result of a guest post he did on CopyBlogger, but that post hooked me and I’ve followed him for a couple of months now.

Nathan is still in the Military but he’s been combining his duties in the forces with the development of the online business he’ll be starting full time once his term ends in a few more months.

Everything Nathan does is action focused – meaning he gets stuff done. One of the difficulties many face (including me) is converting plans and ideas into reality.

Everything Nathan writes about is practical and action focused – and he shames me into action whenever I’m in procrastination mode

Fourthly:

James Chartrand’s Men With Pens. Another blog focused on copywriting, it comes at it from a different angle from CopyBlogger because it focuses on off line writing (including novels) as well as writing for the web.

Articles come out 2 or 3 times a week and are packed with detail. I usually keep these articles on one side to read over the weekend because they’re longer and require (deserve) more time and focus than I usually have during my work week days.

Finally:

Darren Rowse’s Problogger. A practical blog focused specifically on the business of blogging.

A large portion of Darren’s articles describe his experiences as he develops and tries new things on his blogs (both Problogger and Digital Photography School). It’s like you’re watching over his shoulder as he grows his blogging businesses.

He’s incredibly open with information, often publishing traffic reports displaying the results of different techniques he’s tried.

Darren recently launched his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course and work book, and the Problogger Community – a forum linked with his blog.

OK – those are the top 5 blogs I follow on a daily basis. If you have others you’d like to bring to our attention leave us a comment!

Money? Fame? Or Both?

Martin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:27:33 +0000

What do you really want for your blog?

If I’m to believe Johnny B Truant’s message it isn’t your first answer.

And I do believe him because, honestly, the answer I’ve given myself for a long time is not the real answer either.

I’ve spent months (years, actually) focused solely on building up traffic for my blog. So my answer to anyone asking me what my goal for my blog is would have been ‘traffic’, or ‘readers’. (And more of both).

But I’d have been wrong.

What I really want from my blog is an income.

And the light-bulb moment for me reading Johnny’s guest post on Problogger, was the realisation that I don’t necessarily need thousands of readers before I can earn money.

I do already earn a few pennies from here, mostly from my consulting gigs and promoting Thesis. It keeps the lights on, but I definitely want more.

Johnny sets out 5 principles that will help you to earn money from your blog when you don’t have a hernia-inducing mailing list or a mountain of readers.

So what do you really want from your blog?

If it’s money, his article is well worth a read – see it here.

Is RSS Dead?

Martin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:35:42 +0000

A couple of years ago RSS was THE big thing.

If you didn’t have RSS available on your site you were doomed to Internet Marketing failure.

I had multiple ways and places people could sign up to my RSS feed, and I used various encouragements to get them to do so.

Today I have only one place, and no encouragements.

Why the change?

RSS simply hasn’t become the ubiquitous service it was once projected to be.

It’s only people who are working online who are enthusiastic about it. People who don’t work online by and large don’t get it.

These days people can get your updates via Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and probably a dozen other places – all intuitive and user friendly services for people who aren’t web-heads.

So is RSS now dead?

No – but the way I use it has changed.

I use RSS to get my blog posts onto Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo.

Once they’re on those services they’re seen and followed by many, many more people than I have subscribed to my RSS feed.

I do still have an RSS subscribe link in my sidebar.

But I also used to have one in my navigation bar and I also used to use the What Would Seth Godin Do plugin, which was designed to encourage people to sign up to my RSS feed.

I removed them, because I preferred to use the space for other things and because most non web-heads aren’t interested in subscribing via RSS.

They’d rather follow me on Twitter.

So should a blog or a website have an RSS feed?

Yes – because it enables you to syndicate your articles far and wide as a ‘behind the scenes’ distribution mechanism.

But I think it’s a waste of valuable space to spend too much effort encouraging visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed, unless you’re writing for a tech/web savvy crowd.

What do you think?

8 Steps to Making Your Blog Successful

Martin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:22:24 +0000

When I look back at the early articles I wrote on my first blog I swing between cringing with embarrassment and smiling to myself.

I had no idea how to write for the web.

I wrote for the Corporate world. I’d been in it for more than 20 years and I was great at creating PowerPoints, memos and reports that carefully ensured I never took a controversial position on anything.

Dry, humourless, characterless and perpetually on the fence, there was always a way out of anything I wrote.

Little wonder, then, that my first blog was not a roaring success.

Success is relative. So when you have no readers a day, getting 10 is success. 10,000 readers a day and you’re aiming for 20,000.

So it was interesting to see a question today asking what makes a good blog. One that attracts loyal readers.

The definition of a successful blog will vary depending on its nature.

A blog that’s a reference site – that provides answers to problems – may be wildly successful in terms of visitors but have very few subscribers.

Its bounce rate will be high, because people find it when searching for an answer. If it provides the answer they’ll immediately leave to implement it. If it doesn’t, they’ll leave to keep searching.

In both cases they enter and leave from the same page.

The opposite is a blog that’s a diary, or a news, commentary or gossip site. These blogs can build a fiercely loyal band of followers.

The bounce rate will be much lower and the average visit length much higher than the reference site.

Which one is more successful? Neither (or both).

So before you can say what makes a blog successful you need to establish a) what type of blog you’re building and b) what your criteria for success are.

Is it readers? Money? Length of stay? It doesn’t matter what criteria you choose, as long as you identify how you’re going to measure your success.

8 Steps to Making Your Blog More Successful

So here are 8 steps to making a blog more successful:

Make sure you know who you’re writing it for.
Make sure it’s properly set up and optimized for the search engines.
Make sure the information on your blog is valuable to whoever you’re writing it for.
Let your personality shine through – whatever your personality is.
Take a position. Express your opinion and don’t hedge your bets.
Interact with your readers – ask for comments and personally respond to each one.
Market and promote your blog.
Recognise that there are billions of web pages out there and it will take time and persistence to get yours noticed, so keep at it.

Leave us a comment and tell us what your definition of success for your blog is

5 Ways to Build Links to Your Site

Martin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:37:12 +0000

Another question I saw recently: how do I build incoming links to my site?

So why are incoming links important?

Because they are the search engines’ way of assessing how good your site is. And if they think your site is good they’ll send you lots of visitors.

The logic goes that if lots of sites (particularly good quality, high traffic sites) are linking to your site it must be good.

Plus the number and quality of incoming links forms the major part of the off-site bit of search engine optimisation.

So how do you build lots of incoming links to your site?

With a lot of work!

Seriously – off-site optimisation is a never ending process of generating and retaining as many high quality links to your site as possible.

Ways to Build High Quality Links

1. Blog Directories.

Blog directories like Blogarama, Blog Traffic Resource and others, are a good place to start. But they’re not going to bring you floods of traffic, despite their promotional blurb.

When I first set up this blog I registered it on a lot of Blog directories and I can tell you that the traffic coming from them was minimal.

And since blog directories have sprung up all over the place even the links from them are of questionable quality these days.

None the less – every little helps, especially when you’re just starting out, so this is a good place to start.

If you look under the ‘Useful Links’ heading in the sidebar to the right you’ll see the blog directories where this site is registered.

You’ll need to reciprocate with a link to each Directory but, once you’ve developed a healthy flow of traffic, you can begin to remove some of the links and cut down on the number of directories.

2. Social Sites.

The first big jump in the number of visitors to this blog came when I started seriously working the social sites.

Beware, though. Many articles you read on Social Marketing (or Social Network Marketing) tell you to register on as many sites as you can. I did that in the early days of this site and nearly killed myself.

You cannot get any benefit from the social sites unless you’re active in them.

So unless you’ve employed an army of people to be active in the social sites on your behalf, your best bet is to think carefully about which sites will bring you the most benefit and just focus on them.

I focus on 4 sites at the moment and that’s quite enough. But, because I’m active in those 4, they all bring me quite a bit of traffic.

More than all the sites combined when I was trying to manage 11 of them, and I’m a lot less frazzled now.

Important things to remember with social sites: make sure your profile is filled out as fully as possible, including your real name and, of course, a link to your blog.

People like to know you’re real, and a fully completed profile is one of the factors that helps them know that.

Also – don’t spam..! Just participate in the community, answer questions, make friends and become known.

And make sure you participate every day.

As the number of visitors to your site grows so will the number of links, provided you’ve got good quality information on your site.

3. Commenting on Other Blogs

To some this seems counter-intuitive, but if you make thoughtful and valuable comments on other people’s blogs not only will the blog writer notice you but his readers will as well.

That will increase your traffic and, as long as you’ve got good information on your blog, it will bring links too.

A lot of blogs tell the search engines not to follow links from their site (the infamous no-follow tag) but ignore that.

If you’re worried about whether a blog has ‘nofollow’ set in its META tags you’re focusing on the wrong thing.

Concentrate on adding valuable input to the article (through your comments) and the visitors and links will follow.

Remember – there’s nothing to stop you turning a high quality comment you’ve written on someone else’s blog into a post on your own blog in the future, so you can kill two birds with one stone.

4. Link to your blog from your own sites

These are the other sites you own – your Squidoo lens, HubPage, and other blogs you have. Make sure the subjects of the sites are relevant to your blog and link to it.

In all cases you can put several links to your blog: One in the Recommended Sites or Blogroll section of your lens or HubPage, and as many as you like throughout the ‘page’ in each.

5. Participate in Forums

This is very similar to social sites and a lot of the same rules apply.

A big advantage with forums, though, is that you can create what’s effectively a mini ad in the footer of your posts.

Known as your signature, most social sites will enable you to create and add a link with some descriptive text and display it below each of your posts.

Most links from forums are ‘no follow’ so the links themselves don’t have much value in Google’s world, but they’ll bring you visitors and (as long as your content is good) visitors will often result in links.

As with social sites – don’t spam. You’re likely to be black-balled if you do and many will throw you out of the forum.

Keep your comments polite and helpful and, as people get to know and trust you, the number of visitors (and, as a result, links) will start to climb.

Good Quality Content

If there’s one thing that runs through each of the methods I’ve touched on, it’s the need for good quality information on your blog.

Without that you’ll be dead in the water.

So here’s a good approach to follow:

Make sure your site is set up properly for the search engines. See this article for more details if your blog is on WordPress
Write good quality, well researched articles that answer questions, solve problems or provide entertainment. And keep doing it.
Carry out the 5 link building steps I’ve set out in this article – and keep doing it. It’s a continuous process.

It will take time to build links to your site, particularly if you’re writing in a highly competitive niche, so keep at it.

Persistence cannot be over-rated as a requirement for success

How to Overcome Writer’s Block

Martin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:59:54 +0000

I’ve read a lot of posts on overcoming writer’s block (or blogger’s block) recently so I thought I’d add one of my own.

If you’re blogging to a schedule (you should be, if you’re treating your blog as a business) the time for your next article will often come around when you’re feeling uninspired.

You’re left staring at the ceiling, wondering what the heck you’re going to write about.

It happens to most of us – it certainly happens to me.

So here’s what I do when that happens:

I go to the forums.

I’m a member of three pretty active forums and two social sites, all focused on my niche. I participate in them regularly as part of my social marketing activities.

So I log in and do a search on whatever subject I want to write about.

A lot of the articles on this site are about WordPress, so I often go in and do a search on WordPress.

The results usually contain all sorts of questions about working with WordPress.

As soon as I find a question that I can answer I write a blog post about it and, hey presto, I’ve met my publishing schedule.

A good practice to get into if you’re regularly participating in forums is to make a note of questions you’ve answered and keep your answers for future posts.

Right now I have 5 blog post subjects lined up as a result of doing this, so my next few publishing dates are all catered for.

For further ideas on beating writer’s block there are two articles I’ve read recently which are pretty good: find them here (this one contains over 100 suggestions from people in the comments area) and here.

Both are well worth a read.

Making an ASS out of U and ME

Martin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:57:09 +0000

I’ve had two reality checks in the last 24 hours:

Firstly, I was helping a friend with something last night when he asked me to explain one of my articles to him (this one).

And I thought I wrote clear, jargon-free posts!

The second was a question someone asked in the Warrior Forum: ‘What is WordPress’?

And I’d been thinking for ages that everyone (at least everyone working on-line) knew what it was.

Both those incidents made me pause and think.

Here’s why:

I write this blog for people who are new or fairly new to working on-line. So to have someone who’s been blogging for a year ask me to explain one of my articles is a rude awakening.

I’m clearly not writing for the people I’m targetting.

Likewise, the person who asked what WordPress is. I’ve never explained that on this site – yet I’m targetting on-line newbies.

So what’s the lesson I learnt?

To get out of my head and into the heads of the people I’m writing for.

It’s too easy to assume a level of knowledge in others, whether you’re writing for them or talking to them.

And people don’t like to tell you they don’t understand what you’re on about for fear of looking dumb.

Which leads to the huge likelihood of a botched communication.

I’d forgotten a great lesson I learnt years ago: don’t assume. If you do, you’re likely to make an:

ASS out of U and ME

So my apologies to everyone who I’ve confused in the past, and I’ll do my best to be clearer going forwards.

And in return, a favour: if I’ve not made my points clear please give me a hard time in the comments section.

How to Write an Optimised Article

Martin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:53:48 +0000

Interesting question in the Warrior Forum today: are WordPress posts treated as pages on-line and should I target individual keywords in posts?

The short answer is ‘yes’ and ‘yes’.

Which led me to thinking about how to write an optimised article.

Here are the steps I follow:

Step 1: Optimising my post content.

The first step I fix in my mind is the point of the post. What’s the key message I want to communicate?

For me, one of the easiest ways of doing that is to look for questions – exactly as I did with this article.

The answer to the question is the message I want to communicate.

Once I’ve got my key message (my destination) I need to map out how I’m going to get there.

That means working out what examples, analogies, sub-headings and arguments I want to make to lead my reader through to my key message.

I often take a piece of paper and write my key message at the bottom. Then I start from the top and jot down the examples and arguments I want to make leading down to the key message.

That helps me to create an effective structure for my post. It’s designed to lead my reader logically through to my key message.

Having got my framework, I then get down to writing the article.

Step 2: Identify my keywords.

Contrary to a lot of advice I’ve read, I don’t identify my keywords up front. I find that constrains my writing.

I follow the process in step 1 and then I identify my keywords – usually just two or three.

I jot them down, and then think about what I’d type into Google if I was searching for what I’d just written about – and I modify the keywords accordingly.

Then I go to the keywords tool in Adwords and type in my first choice keyword. That will bring back a list of related search terms, from which I may pick one or two more, giving me a total of 4 or 5 keywords.

I try to pick one that has a high number of searches but low number of results. It doesn’t always work out that way, but I definitely try to get the best ratio of searches to results I can.

Step 3: Review and edit my post.

Having got my keywords tied down I then review and edit my article.

I leave a gap of at least 3 hours between writing my post and editing it. Sometimes I leave it until the next day.

The reason is that coming back to my article a day later enables me to read it with fresh eyes – as my reader would.

That makes my editing way more effective.

During the editing process I also review my headings and sub headings to see if they can be changed to align more closely with the keywords I selected.

But, most importantly, I do not alter any of the text in the post to accommodate my keywords. To me it’s very important to write for people, not the search engines.

I can always tell a post that’s been written for the search engines within the first paragraph – stuffed with keywords. And I don’t read any further.

In any case, my keywords came from my text so there should be no need to re-align them.

Step 4: Fill out my META description, title and keywords

Once I’ve completed my editing I turn to the META tags.

I use the All-in-one-SEO-pack plugin, which enables me to define the META title, description and keywords in the ‘Add New Post’ screen for each article I write.

The META title is what appears in the search results as the blue link to the site – I make sure this accurately describes what’s on the page and contains my main keyword as close to the beginning as possible.

Remember that the title field as a whole only allows 80 characters, so if the title fields on your blog are set up to include your blog title (e.g. Post Title | Blog Title) keep your post title as short as possible while still making it descriptive.

The description field is what appears under the blue link in the search results. I treat this like an Adwords ad and write a description that amplifies the title and entices people to click through.

Again, I make sure the description contains my first choice keyword

With the description field you have a maximum of 160 characters, and I always keep my descriptions to 150 characters or less.

A short, accurate and enticing description can greatly increase the chances of people clicking through to your site from the search results.

Step 5: Preview and publish my post.

Once I’ve completed the META tags I hit preview and check the article again. Reading the article in a different layout (preview instead of the Add New Post window) often helps to highlight typos or grammar glitches which I’d missed because I’d got too used to the add/edit format.

If I’m happy with the Preview then I publish it.

So to summarise:

One of the key principles I adhere to religiously is to write for people, not the search engines.

That’s why I write my post before selecting the keywords I’ll use. I let the post give me the keywords rather than the other way round.

For maximum search engines effectiveness keep to one subject per post – your key message.

I find the steps I’ve set out above enable me to:

Write content that’s focused on the key message
Find Keywords that truly reflect the article
Generate META tags that also reflect the article

… All of which leads to posts that are well optimised for the search engines.