BlogWritingCourse

By now you have had plenty of time to consider your reasons for blogging. Are you one who falls into the, “I want to blog for business reasons.”? If so, know that is fine. As a marketing tool, blogs have great potential. You can use a myriad of places to host your blog and everyone will still have access to it. You can update as needed and you can delete as needed. One of the best advantages of blogging is that you can do everything from the comfort of your own home or the nearest Starbucks.

If you have ideas and opinions to share, a product to sell, a brand to market…then blogging is an excellent option for you to consider. As you work hard to maintain your viewers by offering passionate content, you will begin building your online credibility. After all, credibility is truly what you are after.

If you do not already have a blog that is associated with your business or your website, then now may very well be an excellent time for you to start blogging. Blogging takes lots of time. A well written post might take several hours to write, but unlike email, the shelf life is much longer. Stay committed and keep your heart in it!

To learn more about blogging, and how it can benefit your small business, you can sign up today for one of our introductory blogging courses.  Our free online Get Ready To Blog course will introduce you to the basics of blogging terminology, platforms, and promotion.  This course will fully prepare you for our eight-week instructor led course, Blogging 101.  This course will guide you every step of the way through setting up your first blog, designing it, writing your first posts, and growing your readership.  Blogging your small business can be a key aspect of your small business marketing strategy, and we are here to help you get started.

A really fun and exciting way to kick off a new blog is by hosting a giveaway.  This can be as simple as asking people to comment on a specific post and then picking randomly from those chosen, or as complex as creating a skill-based contest that requires entrants to complete a task of some sort where you choose a winner based on your judgment. 

The process of creating a giveaway can be a little bit time consuming, but may be very well worth it if your goal is pulling new visitors to your blog.  Here are the steps you may want to follow to create a blog giveaway…

Decide on a prize 

if your blog has a specific theme, it is always nice to choose a prize that is related to that theme.  For instance, if your blog is dedicated to reviewing local theater then tickets to an upcoming production would be the perfect giveaway.  If you don’t have the advantage of a clear theme – - maybe you simply write a mom blog – - then you might want to give away something parenting related, or even settle on a prize that anyone can be happy with such as an Amazon gift card or Restaurant.com certificate.   The most important thing is to make sure that you have your prize IN HAND before beginning your giveaway…there is nothing worse than administering a giveaway and realizing the prize you counted on giving is backordered and you won’t be able to send it to the winner for another month.

Pin down your giveaway details 

Take a tour around the blogosphere before you begin your own giveaway and check out other bloggers’ approaches to the process.  How do they word their rules?  What kind of time limits do they use?  How do they get other people to share the news of their giveaway?  This type of info will be invaluable to you as you formulate a plan for your own.  Once you have decided what the goal of your giveaway is (do you want to create just traffic, or are you hoping people will comment more?  do you want people to add you to their blogrolls?) then you can decide on what the requirements to enter your giveaway will be.  And keep in mind that the more you ask people to do, the better the prize needs to be!  No one is going to take the time to mention your blog on their social networks for the chance to win a free coffee at Starbucks. 

Create your giveaway copy and graphics 

Now that you know how you want your giveaway to go, it’s time to set it up!  Graphics will be an important part of your giveaway post, because nice pictures of prizes are a huge factor in whether visitors will give your post a long enough look to find out what your blog is really about.  And speaking of which, make sure to include some teasers about your blog, or links to a previous post in your giveaway.  It’s important that your visitors do more than just enter your giveaway…give them a reason to stick around and check things out!!

Promote!! 

Finally, once your giveaway is live, it’s time to figure out how to let people know about it.  Posting about it on your social networks is a no-brainer, but you also want to let the blogosphere know as well.  You will want to submit your giveaway to online contest directories such as Online-Contest.com, make sure the word “giveaway” is in the title of your post (to make it easy for searchers), and promote it in any forums or email loops you belong to.  Then, as another more in-depth promotional tool, you can even use a simple picture creation software to draw up a simple badge that advertises your giveaway and offer an additional entry to anyone who is willing to post the badge on their website and link it back to your giveaway!  That’s the power of networking!!

Giveaways certainly aren’t the most effective way for building an audience for your blog (good writing and strong content are!), but they will definitely help build a short-term buzz around it, and may even bring you a long-term fan or two!!  For more ideas on building blog traffic and drawing new readers to your posts, sign up for our full Blogging 101 course.

So you are starting a new blog, and you want to have more than Aunt Erma and Cousin Grover reading it.  So you begin to explore all the different ways of increasing blog traffic (including taking our terrific Blog Writing Course!!) and yet you still feel like there is something else you could do to get the word out about your site.

And there is!!  It is called Twitter, and unless you have lived in a cave for the past five years you have probably heard of it.  You might have even looked into it, but weren’t sure how it could really benefit you.  Well, if you are a blogger, Twitter might have several benefits for you…

• Twitter can introduce your blog to a whole different set of readers.  Those who follow Twitter aren’t always the same ones who follow blogs, so if you create a Twitter account that is focused on the same subject as your blog, you might garner a whole new audience!
• You can have your new posts automatically post to Twitter!  That’s right…using a service such as Twitterfeed, you can link up your blog to Twitter and let TF do all the work!  Then, your Twitter followers will be immediately notified anytime you add a new post.
• You can get more mileage out of your blog.  Blog posts are very different from Tweets…they are longer, more indepth, and usually have more substance than the average Tweet.  But that doesn’t mean that you stop having things to say about your blog subject after you have posted.  If you want to add to the conversation, post additional remarks, or ask for opinions about what you have posted, Twitter is the perfect outlet!
• You can supplement your blog.  By posting additional information, links, and resources that have to do with your blog theme, you can use your Twitter account to be an all-in-one reference source for your particular subject.  This helps potential readers understand that you are serious about making your blog the Go-To place for info.

To utilize these strategies, you will also want to be sure to include a scrolling feed of your Tweets on your blog sidebar as well.  That way, your blog visitors can quickly view your between-posts information!

One of the great ways to build traffic for your fledgling blog is by both BECOMING a guest blogger and HOSTING a guest blogger.  If you have already made connections with bloggers in your genre, or have been reading a blog with a theme similar to yours for some time now, this may not be too difficult to set up. 

The first thing would be to send an inquiry to someone you would like to have as a guest writer.  You could have them write just one post, a whole week, or a series of posts.  The person should be someone whose blog has a decently strong following, because your hope is that that person’s readers will follow them over to YOUR blog, and be introduced to you in turn.  When you contact the author, you might want to explain to them why you think they would make a good guest poster for your blog (a little flattery never hurts!).  You also will want to ask them to announce their guest post status on their own blog, so you will get a direct link to your blog.

This technique for traffic building will probably have at least a modest effect on your blog.  But an even BIGGER traffic-building strategy is for you to guest post on someone ELSE’S blog.  So how in the world do you go about that?

Well, it requires some tact and some good writing, for sure!  Before offering your guest blogging services to anyone, you need to make sure that your blog is in tip-top shape.  Has your writing been stellar lately?  Is your design up-to-date and eye-catching?  These are the things another blogger will be looking for as they make the decision whether you are guest blogger material!  So before you make even the first inquiry about becoming a guest blogger, do an objective analysis of your recent content to see if it is up to guest blogger standards.

Then, when you feel confident that you have produced some pretty awesome content, go ahead and send your blog link and a request to five of your favorite blogs in your genre, asking them to take a look at your blog and consider you as a fill-in for the next time they are out of town or have hit writer’s block.  Hopefully, if they like what they see, they will keep your info on file, and will contact you with your first ever guest blogger opportunity! 

Then, when you take them up on their offer, be sure to link back to your blog somewhere in your post, so that when (not if) their readers enjoy your writing, they will be able to easily make their way over to your blog and become your next biggest fans!!

Chances are, you are already benefiting from feeds – - those wonderful time saving devices that go out and get the information YOU want, and bring it right to your doorstep. I have feeds for my favorite blogs, my local newspaper, and updates to my frequented websites. I don’t have to go out to all those different sites to get updated information – - instead, it comes to me.

You might not, however, have been on the actual "feeding" side of a feed until now. But when your blog starts to grow its readership, your followers will want the same convenience you do in having your blog updates sent directly to them. So, you will need to register with a feed service, to make sure this is accomplished easily. Another advantage of having a feed service, is that it tracks your feed subscribers. So you will know exactly how many people are accessing your feeds on a regular basis.

Sometimes, setting up an RSS feed for your blog is as easy as going into your dashboard or layout and tweaking a few settings.  In Blogger, for instance, you go into your “Settings” menu and look for “Site Feed”.  From there, you can choose how much of your site to syndicate.  Once you have enabled these settings, your site feed will automatically be generated.  Some Blogger templates will immediately begin showing a subscription option to your readers.  Others may require you to install a separate gadget for this purpose.

In WordPress, feed subscriptions are enabled with a widget called the “blog subscription widget.”  Your blog stats page will then show you how many people are subscribed to your blog. 

If you prefer more detailed or in-depth information about your feeds and subscribers, you might consider signing up for a separate RSS feed via an external feed site such as Feedburner or Bloglines.

You can write the most exciting, engaging, and even mind-blowing blog in the world, but unless people can subscribe to your content, they will never know when you have something new to say.  So make creating a feed for your blog a priority!!

This week, I only blogged twice on my personal blog, but I happened to notice that traffic – - especially new visitor traffic was way up.  I looked at my statistics a little more closely to see what might have created the boost, and couldn’t find any huge surge in backlinks or referrals.  There was no big Google search trend for anything I had posted about.  The only thing different that I could see was that I had used a couple particularly clever titles for my posts this week.

This got me intrigued, so I pulled up some older statistics and compared it to other weeks where my titles had been particularly interesting, and sure enough, there was a spike definite traffic/title correlation going on.

I guess this shouldn’t have been a real revelation, but of all the things about my blog, my titles are usually only given an afterthought.  Usually they just make me laugh, so I’ve always been good with that.

But now, I’m considering putting a little more thought into my blog post titles. Based on my short investigation, this is what I have come to conclude are the best choices for blog titles:

• Titillating words or phrases – - throw in a “Viagra” anywhere within a title, and you are bound to get a few extra clicks that week
• Things that make you go awwww – - some of my most traffic-inducing titles sound like they came from the inside of a Hallmark card.  Obviously we’re suckers for sap.
• Rhyming Words – - I’ll admit I’m still stumped by this one, but for some reason people simply can’t resist a good “Junk in the Trunk” story.  Must go back to all those “Hop on Pop” moments we shared with our mothers as toddlers.
• All Caps – - I beg you to use this one WITH CAUTION, but if you are desperate for a little bloggy action on a particular day, go ahead and give us the cyber shout.  We’re gluttons for punishment, it would seem.

Those are my simple, yet weirdly profound conclusions as far as titles go.  Granted, I didn’t give you the skinny on keywords, SEO, and other stuff that professional bloggers would wax eloquently about, but if you want real (albeit, temporary) results, then I’m telling you…add in your favorite E.D. drug of choice in your next post title and watch those stats surge! 

Until next time,

I read the most interesting article today!  Over at WebProNews, Chris Crum writes that: Blogs Can Still Drive Big Traffic

Here is what Chris said:

You would almost think blogging was dead, the way headlines are dominated by Twitter, Facebook, and social media in general. I’ve always considered blogging to be a part of social media anyway, as the commenting factor lends to engagement between author and user. But blogging is so five years ago right? It’s all about microblogging and status updates now isn’t it?

If you think that’s the case, think again, because blogs can still drive big-time traffic to websites. An example of this has been illustrated by the launch of e-commerce site Alice.com. How much traffic are you getting from blogs? Let us know. If you are not familiar with Alice.com, it is a site where consumers can buy everyday household items like toothpaste, toilet paper, laundry detergent, diapers, etc., right from the manufacturers, rather than through middleman retailers. It launched in June, and by July it had doubled its traffic to 387,000 unique visitors, according to Compete. Alice.com Guess where the majority of that traffic came from. According to Compete, it came from word-of-mouth from blogs. In fact, its number one traffic source was Blogger.com. Not Twitter. Not Facebook. Not search. Although each of these no doubt played valuable roles as well., Blogger.com has been the biggest factor in driving traffic for this site, and from the looks of things, that traffic is showing no signs of slowing down.

So that got me thinking about the differences between Twitter/Facebook and blogs.  Twitter and Facebook, I think, are probably more useful for fluid content.  In other words:  promotionals, sales, site updates, new product additions and news.  Whereas blogs are perfect for highlighting static information.  Product details, explanations, human interest stories, behind-the-scenes info, letters from the president, and editorials.

That might possibly mean that Twitter/FB has more appeal to bargain-hunters and promotion-junkies, but that true potential, long-term customers might be more persuaded by the more substantial content of a blog post.  It also might be true that blogs have more weight for SEO purposes.  After all, tweets generally link BACK to blogs!

So if you are a business owner, and are trying to decide how to best integrate blogs, Twitter, and Facebook into your marketing scheme, remember to save your in-depth copy and strongest content for your blog, and then drive traffic to that copy via the microblogging avenues.

For more information on blogging, and how to start a blog, check out our course offerings at BlogWritingCourse.com.

Until next time…

If you are a relative newbie to the world of blogging, you may or may not know much about Twitter.  I tend to find that a lot of Twitterers are bloggers.  I became kind of curious about the relationship between the two.  Here are some of my thoughts about the Twitter/blogging connection.

1. Bloggers are often told that Twitter is a good way to grow their blog readership.  First of all, you can easily feed your blog to Twitter, so that each time you blog, your new post is announced as a Tweet.  If discussion builds around either your post, or your tags, then you can quickly add a follower or two.  Also, your website or blog is prominently displayed in your Twitter profile, so that your followers can find out about it if they stop in. 
2. Twitter is kind of an in-between-blog-posts vehicle for some people.  Blogs are generally at least a couple of paragraphs long.  You have something to say, and you take a few minutes (or in my case, occasionally a whole darn hour) to compose your thoughts and put them down in your blog.  But what about when something comes to mind that you may not have time to write a whole post about, but you still want to share?  You tweet it.  140 little characters of burning info that just can’t wait until the next post?  You tweet it. 
3. Twitter is the ultimate networking tool.  Whether or not we quite accept it, blogging is about building networks.  But in most cases, network building for bloggers can take a long time.  Network building on Twitter, however, is much faster, and there are multiple ways to push it forward even more quickly: TwittGroups has a seemingly unending list of ways to network with people of similar interests, backgrounds, work affiliations, geographic locations, etc.  And building a network on Twitter is a highly effective way of getting new people to find out about your blog.

If you have a blog, or are thinking about starting a blog, you might want to give Twitter a chance.  It is an effective jump-start for building blog traffic, and networking with other like-minded bloggers.

Until next time,

In tough economic times, every penny counts, right?  Some of you may have been wondering if you could make money from blog writing.  It is definitely possible to make money blogging, and one of the most popular ways is through affiliate marketing.

At its most basic, affiliate marketing is simply promoting a product or service on the web using a special link.  For a blog, this would involve either direct advertising, reviews, or posts about this product that readers would click on. 

Some affiliate programs pay you just for that click.  Others require that those readers purchase the product through your link, and then you receive a percentage of commission off of that sale.

Amazon.com is probably one of the best known affiliate programs.  They have a multitude of ways to promote themselves via your blog.  One is by simply creating customized links to their products on your site.  Another is by displaying Amazon banners on your blog. Amazon has also created many different widgets that you can highlight in your blog sidebar.  They even have recently created the ability to embed a professional looking online store right within your blog.

But if you are thinking of blogging about a particular topic, it might be more applicable to choose affiliates that are relevant to your blog theme.  For this you might want to search through some of the many online affiliate directories to discover affiliate programs you are interested in.

No matter what type of affiliate you choose, the important thing is drawing traffic to your blog.  No matter how many affiliate links you have within your blog, if there is no one to click them, they won’t be doing you any good.  So creating a quality blog that has a steady readership is a must.

If you would like to find out more about creating a blog, and growing an audience, sign up today for our free online blogging course.  This course will give you valuable information on designing a blog, writing quality content, and building traffic. 

You can make money with affiliate marketing, and we would like to help you get started, so sign up today!

The most asked question by new bloggers is always…”How can I drive traffic to my blog?”  We’ve talked about many traffic-building ideas in this blog, but today we are going to explore one we haven’t yet covered.

One of the easiest, most painless, and free ways to increase traffic to your blog is by participating in a blog carnival.  For those of you unfamiliar with blog carnivals, the best way to explain them is to compare them to well…a carnival.  Just as a carnival travels from town to town, blog carnivals travel from blog to blog.  And just as a carnival draws a crowd…so does a blog carnival!

A blog carnival begins with a host – - a blogger who is willing to oversee the carnival, choose the topic and date of publication,take submissions, promote the upcoming carnival, and ultimately gather the submissions and publish them in a single post.  The host, though, is reliant on submitters – - bloggers who are willing to follow the guidelines of the carnival and submit a blog post from their blog that corresponds with the carnival theme.  Finally, you have the readers – - folks who are interested in the carnival subject and enjoy coming to a one-stop-shopping destination where they can read posts related to that subject.

You can see that the possibilities for blog promotion are tremendous with a blog carnival.  The host benefits by having submitters become familiar with his or her site, by networking with like-minded bloggers, and by receiving lots of hits on his blog following the carnival posting.  But even carnival participants can see spikes in traffic after their post has been featured in the carnival.  A carnival is a chance to showcase your work, and without much effort, readers will be flocking to your site to see more of what you have to offer.  A blog carnival directly links to one of your posts, so readers who have never heard of you before will click on your link to see what you have to say about the topic they are interested in.

Blog carnivals can be on almost any subject.  If you would like to find a blog carnival that matches your interests, go to Blogcarnival.com, which is a directory of all ongoing carnivals.  Not only is it a great way to increase traffic for your blog, but it is also a terrific outlet for meeting people with similar interests.

If you would like to learn more specific ways to grow your blog, sign up for our eight-week online blogging course, where you will cover all aspects of blogging from building a blog to writing quality content to promoting your blog.  This instructor-led course will guide you every step of the way toward creating a successful blog.  So….step right up!

Until next time,