posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 21
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There are plenty of us out there who are blogging and looking to become the next authority blog, but to do that it’s going to take a lot work. One of the most important aspects of your blog is the content, and without useful content you won’t make it very far in the blogging world. You’ll need to be able to offer people that noone else can offer them and you can’t become like most bloggers and regurgitate information that is found everywhere else. I want to spend some time looking at some tips you can implement into your writing so you can assist your blog in becoming successful.
Unique Content
As a blogger one of the worst things you can do is steal content from somewhere else and claim that it’s yours. Not only is this wrong in so many ways, but chances are your readers will catch on eventually and you’ll be stuck with a blog that has no traffic and no resale value. You need to make your blog your own by writing the content yourself so that you can interact with your readers. To gather loyal blog readers the only way to go is by offering unique content that is new and useful as well as interacting with your audience.
Know Your Niche
I’ve seen hundreds of bloggers in hundreds of niches that don’t know what a niche is. If you create a blog to write about airplanes then you shouldn’t ever be posting about recent celebrity news in your blog. Your visitors found your blog because they want airplane information and not celebrity information so make sure you know your niche. It’s important to not only know your niche, but you need to know what you’re talking about. The worst thing possible for a blogger is when your readers start correcting your information because it’s wrong. Take the time to write one good post each day and if you have to spend time researching the topic so that you don’t look stupid in front of your readers.
Keep Readers in Mind
The blog that you’ve created has probably been created so that you can eventually make some money off of it. Before you can make any money off of your blog though, you need a loyal readership that trusts you. In order to gain a loyal readership you’ll need to offer content everyday on topics your readers want to read about. You need to consider the different ways your readers have found your blog and then write content on those topics that are popular. It’s important to write what the readers want to read and not what you want on your blog if you want to have a loyal readership.
Reply to Comments
When someone takes the time out of there day to make a meaningful comment on your blog then you should spend the time to reply to the message. It doesn’t take long to reply to a couple comments everyday and if you do reply then you’ll be showing you care about your readers. A lot of people who make comments will come back to see if it’s been answered so make sure you stay on top of your comments in moderation.
Work with Competitors
Once you’ve established who your competition is you need to become friends with them and share resources. There is plenty of competition out there so by teaming up with a few other bloggers in your niche you’ll have a slight advantage over some of the other bloggers. It’s important to gain relevant backlinks so by swapping links in blog posts will other bloggers in your niche is important. You should also become an active reader and commenter on your competitions blogs as you’ll gain backlinks from your comments.
Writing is a huge part of blogging and if you think you’ll be able to get away without writing much content then you have another thing coming. Blogging is all about being able to offer readers useful content to read on a daily basis, so before you commit to blogging make sure you’re ready to write lots of content. All of these tips can be implemented immediately as long as you have the time, but if you don’t have the time for this then I recommend leaving blogging along and stick with static websites.
posted by Randy Roedl on Nov 7
There are many reasons that people choose to set up and run their own blog. They may be doing it as part of their company responsibilities in their regular job. They may be adding it to their existing website to improve their communication with their customers. They may be doing it as a way to make some extra money or even as full time self employment. And, they may also be doing it for fun without entertaining the idea of making money from it in any way. There is more that goes into running a successful blog than most people think. You need to set up and organize the blog structure, you need to update the content regularly, and you need to do daily or weekly blog maintenance which includes responding to emails and comments as well as building links to your blog so that more people will visit your site. But, there is one key element that will insure that your blog stays viable, relevent, and valued for the rest of its existence.
The biggest things that causes most blogs to fail is neglect. Blogs are living and breathing websites, updated frequently with new and pertinent information for your viewers to read. When a blog fails to be updated regularly, these readers fail to come back. Readers of blogs want new information and commentary, if all they see at a given URL is the same content that was there the last time then what is their motivation to come back again? The one key element that will keep readers coming back and keep your blog healthy and active is your interest level in the subject you are blogging about. If you are passionate about the content of your blog, you are more likely to keep writing at a consistent rate. When you write at a consistent rate, your blog never gets neglected and readers never use the reason that there is no new content as their reason to stop returning to your site. When your interest in your subject matter is high, then it is easy to write about the subject even in times when you don’t feel like writing at all. When you don’t care about your blog’s subject, there will be times when it is hard for you to be motivated to write anything.
To keep the blog you have, or the blog you intend to build, healthy and fresh, make sure that you have chosen a subject you are familiar with and passionate about. Your readers will be able to tell fairly easily if you don’t truly care about what you are writing. And, if you don’t care… why should they?
posted by Randy Roedl on Jun 3
Wordpress Blogging General Introduction
Millions of people around the world have taken the plunge into the blogosphere and many have been making thousands of dollars every month. Blogging wasn’t that popular up until a few years ago when more people began using it to market services and products. Before then people used blogs basically as online journals of their
daily lives. Now some people still do this, but the majority of bloggers are in it for the money now rather then the online journal aspect. One of the biggest and most popular blogging platforms that has risen in the past few years to become monstrous is Wordpress. Wordpress offers a free blogging service and also a download so that you can use Wordpress on your own domains. The free service allows you to own a sub-domain on the Wordpress.org website and although it’s free, it’s not the best option because your monetization abilities are limited and so are your customization abilities. Instead you should invest a little bit of money on a domain ($8/year) and hosting ($5/month), and set-up the Wordpress blogging platform onto the domain.
Once you set-up Wordpress on the domain you can begin to start posting blog posts. Now if you’re blogging for fun and as an online journal then you can write about anything, but if you’re blogging for money then you should try to research some highly searched keywords to use in your articles. Blogging has become so popular due to the high search rankings they receive and the ease of using the content management system.
The first thing you need to do is start posting articles and then once you have around ten articles you should start seeing some traffic trickle in. To help with traffic you’ll need to do some directory submissions, article submissions, social bookmarking and link exchanges. The best source of traffic is through the search engines though and this will solely depend on your link building and content. The number one most important aspect to blogging is the content, and you’ll need lots of content if you plan on having a successful blog.
posted by Randy Roedl on May 25
Some internet Marketers can get clueless when it comes to unleashing the full potential of paid eZine advertising. One of the most common dilemmas is that whether should the Internet Marketer advertise the product or service he is selling directly to the subscribers of the eZine he is paying advertising for?
This can be a wise method, but with ifs and buts. For one, the advertisement must be compelling and attention grabbing. Secondly, there is no telling if the eZine’s subscribers constantly practice a buying habit until you put some money to find out.
Investing even a small sum of money can be risky to a number of Internet Marketers who are on tight budgets. But in spite of the risk factors, eZine advertising can still be rewarding, if done right.
Thus the solution: the marketer would be wiser if he or she uses eZine advertising to build his or her mailing list. It makes sense, anyway. Since some eZines display more than one sponsored advertisement, you can grab the subscriber’s attention by giving a free or risk-free product or offer through your ad.
When the subscriber clicks on your ad, he or she can opt into your mailing list in exchange for the free offer, which can be a free report or even a trial service.
While you are not making a hard sell through your advertisement just yet, building your list by getting other eZine’s subscribers subscribed to your eZine allows you to follow up with them in the future, as and when you have new offers.
posted by Randy Roedl on May 6
If a person visits your website and leaves, chances are that he or she will not come back, especially if there are no compelling reasons to do so. After all, we all behave rather impulsively on the internet, so much so that we can easily forget where we were 10 web pages ago.
But the bottom line is that your visitor may not come back to your website again. If 1,000 visitors visit your website, leave and never come back again, you can imagine the amount of potential revenue lost, simply because they do not come back. You could have converted a fraction of the visitors into your customers.
Some may say that creating unique content can keep some of the visitors coming back, but very often, unique content is not the solution. The real, long-term solution lies in converting your visitors into subscribers of your mailing list.
Before your visitor leaves your website, you want to convert him or her into your subscriber via a simple opt-in to your mailing list. You do this by asking for your visitor’s name and email address through your opt-in form.
And if your visitor signs up to be on your mailing list, you can still follow up with him via email. You can get your subscriber to consider your offer, or endorse another offer to him or her.
All in all, you want to convert as many visitors into subscribers as possible and obtain the potential revenue you rightfully deserve – the easy, wise way.
