How to Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle

This guest post is by Ali Abbas of thenextgenwriter.com.

Have you published your blog on Kindle?

If not, you should do it, pronto! It’s easy, it’s productive and it’s free.

We’re not talking about publishing ebooks or PDFs, but your dynamic and regularly updated blog.

Rather surprisingly, not a lot of bloggers have considered this option hitherto, but some big guns, including The New York Times, PC Magazine, Amazon Daily, Huffington Post, and others—that realize the potential—are already there.

On a positive note, that means less competition for you.

Kindle publishing for blogs has already opened the doors to myriad opportunities for many businesses that have a blog.

Amazingly, all you need to do is invest just five minutes of your precious time. Here’s what you get in return:

Millions of people use Amazon Kindle as their ereader.

So, by publishing on Kindle you’ll pull in people who might never hear about your business otherwise.

As per the International Data Corporation report, Worldwide and U.S. eReader 2012–2016 Forecast, new models of Kindle Fire are more than likely to disrupt the market once again.

So, will people really pay to read your content?

Yes!

There are several reasons, but the main ones are that it costs only 99 cents to subscribe to a blog on Kindle, and it offers added handiness. Obviously, not all the Kindle owners want to be reading ebooks all the time when they can access more vibrant and au fait weblogs.

How on earth can kindle publishing help your SEO? It does not. Apparently, it doesn’t improve your blog’s ranking in SERPs.

But it can raise your profile.

Amazon is an authority even in the eyes of Google, and having your blog there gives you more exposure.

So even if nobody subscribes to your blog via Kindle, you’re getting free publicity and people searching for relevant keywords will surely be tempted to take a look at your blog after seeing it listed on the largest online retailer.

It’s free money. You get 30% of the total price, which is set by Amazon and can be anything between $0.99 and $1.99. So if you get, say, 1000 people to subscribe to your blog via Kindle, and the price is $0.99, you’ll make $297.

It may not be that lucrative for large publications, but it’s still a decent choice for solopreneurs and bloggers who don’t want to clutter their blogs with ads.

Kindle readers are paying to read your content and conversion rates are always higher for paid subscribers.

Unfortunately, the JavaScript and ads are stripped off Kindle-displayed blogs, and only text content, links and images are displayed. So if your Call to Action involves more than just clicking a plain link, make sure you encourage your Kindle subscribers to view the page on another device.

If your blog’s available for Kindle, people will be able to rate it, just like they rate any other product on Amazon.

If your blog features high-quality content (which I am sure it does), this is the easiest, and arguably the most efficient way to get endorsement and feedback.

Ready to get your blog onto the Kindle platform? Great!

Note that this functionality is currently available to the residents of the USA and the UK only.

The standard Amazon account won’t work, so you’ll need to sign up for the Kindle Publishing Account if you don’t already have one.

When you log into your Kindle publishing account, click Add Blog, and fill in the signup form.

Once you’re done adding all the info, hit Generate Blog Preview.

If you get the blog preview, cool. Go to step three!If you get an error as shown in the image below, don’t get teary. Just click the Save button and then hit Return to Dashboard. Here, you’ll see your blog has been saved as a draft. Open it and try again, and this time there will be no error.

Now go ahead and click the Publish button.

Don’t forget to add a screenshot (choose the most appealing page on your blog), as it will be displayed on the Amazon sales page.

At the end of the day, it should look something like this:

You’ll be redirected to a page where you can enter your address, business type etc. and choose the desired payment option. After that, your blog may take 48 to 72 hours to appear on Amazon.

To make a long story short, this is a quick self-publishing tool to help you sell your blog on the Kindle store.

Its working is similar to RSS: your updates are auto-delivered wirelessly to the Kindle and updated throughout the day.

The only difference is that instead of just the headline, your readers can access the full text content plus most images on your blog. Moreover, the updates are downloaded to the Kindle and can be read even when the device is not connected to the internet.

On a 70-30 revenue share, the bossy retailer walks away with the lion’s share and the publisher gets the smaller piece for all his hard work. That sounds cruel, but your blog is available freely on the internet … remember?

The more annoying aspect is that you can neither regulate the price, nor give away your blog subscription for free.

And in addition to the advertising, the useful social networking links for Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and Facebook are also removed> I don’t have much respect for that!

Maybe. Maybe not.

Yes, you can reach out to a sizeable readership through the Amazon Kindle, but don’t expect to make big bucks out of it. However it goes along, it’s a fascinating idea and part of the constant move to mobility.

Do you have any questions or suggestions about Kindle publishing for blogs? Let’s discuss them in the comments.

This guest post is by Ali Abbas. Check out his Blog if you want to: improve your writing skills, land better-paying writing gigs or learn some ‘kinky’ ways to drive traffic to your website. Ali is a young, enthusiastic freelance writer and blogger. Click here to learn more about him.

View the original article here

Why Twilight has Such a Massive Following—and How to Apply This Concept to Your Blog

This guest post is by Allison Boyer of NMXlive.com.

I’ve never actually met a fan of Twilight.

It’s true. I’ve met people who say they kinda-sorta-maybe like the books, but can’t stand the movie. I’ve met people who say they’re reading the series because they’re curious. I’ve met people who say they just watching the movies for a laugh. But I’ve never met, face-to-face, a hard-core, die-hard Twilight fan.

Yet they exist out there. I see message boards and fan sites brimming with excitement over the latest film or gossip about one of the actors, and when they show snippets of the premiers on the news, there are always lots of screaming fans. So why won’t anyone actually admit to me that they are a huge fan of Twilight?

The answer is exactly why I believe this series has such a massive following in the first place—and it’s an extremely important lesson for any blogger trying to grow a community.

The protagonist of the Twilight story is a teenage girl named Bella who is forced to move to a new town, where she finds that one of her classmates (and all of his siblings) are actually vampires and that her best friend is a werewolf. Two of the vampires fall in love with her, fight over her, and constantly save her from other supernatural beings.

Bella, as a character, is nothing special. And that’s the point.

At some point, we’ve all daydreamed about a hunky man or beautiful woman falling so deeply in love with us that they’re willing to fight off other suitors and even risk their lives on our behalf. We all know what it feels like to deal with unfairness in life, like having to move to a new town. We all know what it feels like to be unsure of our feelings, like Bella is with both potential partners at some point or another. And the supernatural element is just fun. We all have the child inside, who remembers how much fun it is to play pretend.

Bella is an empty shell, so the reader (or viewer) can image being in Bella’s shoes.

That’s why it’s so hard for people to admit liking this series, even if they have every special edition DVD at home. It’s embarrassing to admit that you just want to be like Bella, living in this fantasy world with two hotties fighting over who gets to save you this time.

(Of course, few people actually want that for real, but it’s a fun little escape from life for a few hours.)

This isn’t the only time an empty protagonist, or an “everyman” type of character, has shown up in a book or film. Ishmael in Moby Dick, Winston Smith in 1984, and Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy all have these qualities. It’s a common technique used to help you relate to a specific character.

All of us would love to have a massive following like Twilight, right? So how can we take the concept of an everyman character and bring it to a blog about food or social media or fashion (or whatever your niche may be)?

The answer isn’t an easy one, but the solution is to suck your audience into a story they can relate to, using that to support the thesis of your blog post.

Take this blog post for example. I’m writing about how to build your community, but I started by talking about something everyone knows—Twilight. My first line, about not knowing anyone who actually admits to liking the series, was designed to make you think, “Huh. I don’t either!” or even “Wait, I know someone!”

Either way, you’re internally having a conversation with me and this blog post now, rather than just passively reading a list of tips.

Many bloggers do this extremely well. Check out Elizabeth Potts Weinstein. Read a few posts from Erika Napoletano. Browse the archives of Man Vs. Debt for posts from Adam, Courtney, and Joan.

On all of these blogs, with almost every post, you learn something, but only after they suck you into the story, making your nod your head and completely relate to whatever they’re talking about. Even if you haven’t been in their specific situations, you understand what it feels like.

You can put yourself in their shoes.

And that is the key to make people come back again and again. It’s slow at first. People know they like a post you’ve written, but they aren’t quite sure why. So they read some more and then some more, and soon they are subscribed to your RSS feed and signed up to your mailing list and sharing every post you write with their social media followers.

This is obviously not the only way to build a community on your blog, but if you’re struggling to find your place, think about using this technique on your blog. How can you pull readers into your post by using an everyman story? How can you keep your fans coming back for more by helping them relate to you? How can you entertain and inspire instead of just educate?

For more tips on building a community, check out the “Three Very Unique Ways To Build A Massive Community” panel at New Media Expo (NMX – formerly BlogWorld) in January. It’s a can’t-miss session if you’re looking for new ways to find your fans and keep them coming back for more.

View the original article here

6 Things “Saved By the Bell” Taught Me About Blogging

This guest post is by Chiara Mazzucco of TheIndieChicks.com.

There are hundreds of thousands of articles written on being a successful blogger and driving traffic to your website or blog .

Bleh.

You can sit down and read each one, leading you to write your first blog post in about 4 years, or you can pick the gems (on sites like ProBlogger) and choose to drive inspiration from the world around you, instead.

Let’s take popular 90s sitcom, Saved by the Bell, for example. Would it blow your mind if I told you that watching just one episode could lead you to become a better blogger? Yup.

Here are six lessons I learned from Zack and the gang.

Screech stood out, without shame.

While thousands of other bloggers, known and unknown, write about the same thing, the only guaranteed way you’ll stand out is if you stay true to who you are and know your voice—without shame.

Start typing, without worrying about grammar, sentence structure and keywords. Thought flow is a unique process and it needs to be respected. If you worry about what others will think, how many sentences should be in a paragraph and whether or not you’re SEO optimizing your text, you’ll never actually write what you’re thinking.

Be unique. Readers appreciate honesty and individuality. Stick out.

Lisa was oh, so stylish.

You need to be blogging about things people actually want to read about.

The first step is to find your niche. The tighter the niche, the easier being trendy will be. Write on a popular topic that people care about, from a different perspective, with your unique voice.

And don’t forget, you pick the trends you want to follow. Don’t write about politics because #election2012 is trending when you know little about the presidential candidates and your blog is focused on Irish bagpipes.

Let’s be honest, Zack was a charming, trouble-making stud—and he was completely irresistible.

You may not be the most confident person at a social gathering, but the beauty of blogging is that it’s done behind a computer screen (and, more recently, any type of tablet or smart phone), which means, you are able to be anyone you please.

The key is to establish yourself as an expert. You want readers to be attracted—smitten, even—and to want to know your every move.

Even if you’re blogging for business, you can portray a sense of charm and confidence that immediately sets you up to be seen, and respected, as an expert in your field.

Remember Kelly and that sweet, snuggle-inducing smile of hers?

There is something to be said about the need for your readers to be comfortable in your home (blog).

Whatever you blog about, welcome your readers with open arms—even if you blog about hating your readers. It’s important you make your website easy to navigate, aesthetically appealing, and user friendly.

End your posts with a question, encouraging your readers to engage, and please, allow comments.

Deep down, we all had a thing for the girl (or boy) next door. Don’t you want your readers to have a thing for you, too?

A.C. Slater was a bit inappropriate… and it worked.

This particular lesson has to be taken with a grain of salt. You don’t have to be sexist to make it work for you—but you do have to be bold.

In order for a post to be a success it has to solve a problem, be controversial or be generally entertaining.

You can’t entertain or trigger controversy if you’re afraid of making a statement.

So be bold. People won’t be able to resist the urge to comment.

Jessie was a pain in the backside, even when she got addicted to caffeine pills. Putting her small indiscretions aside, it’s safe to say that Jessie always knew what she was fighting for, she had the knowledge to back it up and she was always vocal about what she believed in.

These are qualities, in my opinion, that are absolutely crucial to the success as a blogger and I’m grateful Jessie taught me about them.

First of all, being able to write something incredible and have it go live in front of the world without relying on a major newspaper to publish it, is truly a gift that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

The second quality I cannot stress enough is to be educated on the topic you’re discussing. Whether you’re writing about a celebrity love affair or the complicated matters in the Middle East, make sure you have your facts straight … and convey them without spelling or grammar errors.

Does this mean each characteristic has to be vibrant in every single blog post in order to make it a success?

Absolutely not.

Use the popular 90s sitcom to learn your strengths, your weaknesses and what you need to work on as a blogger.

You don’t have to hover over old Saved by the Bell episodes to learn anything new about blogging, either.

Look around you and be inspired. I happen to (shamelessly) love television, so I can tactfully take a CSI episode and learn that a blog post is like a murder mystery; pieces to a puzzle lead to a conclusion that solves a problem. Boom!

Chiara Mazzucco + is CEO and Editor over at TheIndieChicks.com – an online magazine for the badass independent woman – where she devotes her time to inspiring anyone who’ll listen. She wrote a book on dating and relationships, The 9 Mirages of Love: How to Stop Chasing What Doesn’t Exist, and can be found handing out free nuggets of inspiration to new badass subscribers.

View the original article here

The Value of Comments to a Profit-making Blog

We’ve talked about the issues of blog comments before on Problogger.net, but never from a point of view of profit-making.

Image courtesy stock.xchng user lusi

But as I was looking at the stats on dPS last week, I found that this short, helpful opinion post from 2010 was still attracting a steady stream of readers—and comments. I explained on Google+ why I think that post’s still so popular, but today I wanted to look a bit more closely at how comments can help a profit-making blogger.

So let’s step through some of the ways blog comments can—directly and indirectly—add to your bottom line.

Posts that engage readers are more likely to be shared, which draws more traffic back to those posts. Commenting is a very strong kind of engagement. That lenses post really does stimulate discussion, and at the same time it’s very helpful to those trying to work out which lenses to buy.

So if someone comments on that post, they may also be more likely to share it, which would boost traffic and ad impressions. And if your blog has a “most commented” or “most popular” list in the sidebar, an ongoing comment stream could push the post into that as well, drawing more attention to it from users on other pages of your blog.

Imagine if this post had included affiliate links to actual products. So long as I’d kept the links up to date, I could still be making affiliate revenue from a post we’d published nearly three years ago. Not bad!

This post obviously draws strong attention from my readers. It’s been shared on Facebook nearly 1,000 times, and pinned to Pinterest more than 17,000 times.

This could give me good reason to approach brands that make the types of lenses covered in that post, or mentioned by users in the comments themselves. I could contact them to see if they’re interested in buying paid sponsorship either for that post, or an updated version of it.

The comments on the post are really insightful. Have a read and you’ll get a feel for the experience levels of the users, what brands they prefer, what they’re shooting, how they use their equipment, and so on. They’re also tagged by date, so they provide some insight into the way my audience has evolved over time.

By spending a little time going through these comments, I might easily come up with a couple of ideas for new products to try with my readers.

There’s nothing worse than clicking through from a search result to find the article you’ve chosen is old and outdated.

Comments really do keep your evergreen content fresh and alive. This is a short post, but the scroll bar indicates there’s a lot more on the page. Any new visitor who scrolled down would likely be surprised by the number of comments, and the fact that the discussion is ongoing.

They might be encouraged to comment themselves, or at least to look around the site a bit more. Best-case scenario? They subscribe to the RSS feed or mailing list, prompted by the strong evidence of a passionate readership, as indicated by these comments!

In short, comments:

attract attentionkeep the discussion growingare helpful to other userscan solicit on-site engagement in a range of wayscan excite users to share, driving more traffic to the post.

But there’s a catch: not all comments are good comments—especially for those with a profit focus. So let’s look at the characteristics of comments that will help you achieve the goals we’ve just talked about.

The kinds of comments I want to keep on my posts are those that:

add to the discussion, rather than just repeating the article’s main pointscontribute insight or personal experienceare clearly writtenhave a username, email address, website or avatar attached.

These are the kinds of comments that potential post-sponsors will want to see, as will any advertisers or others who are considering investing marketing budget into your blog.

The kinds of comments I try to catch before they’re published are those which:

criticize without contribution: I love respectful disagreements in comments, because often they’re a great way to learn. But criticism that doesn’t add value is usually pretty unhelpful.aren’t clear, or don’t take the post or author seriously: Again, this doesn’t really add value to the discussion. it certainly won’t inspire potential ad-space buyers about your readership.simply promote their own products: Sometimes, this can be a fine line, but if a commenter simply suggests readers look at his or her own site, and doesn’t add to the discussion in any other way, I tend to send their post to the trash.

On that basis, I don’t necessarily delete comments that:

include offsite linkstalk about other (or the commenter’s own) productscriticize or disagree with the authorare short or informal.

If I did that, the comments could end up feeling fairly stilted and contrived—and that’s not going to encourage further comments over time. But also, the presence of any of those things doesn’t mean the comment’s no good. Each comment really does need to be judged on its own merits, and in the context of the post and other comments that haven been made.

Taken with the post itself, the comments should ideally provide real value that encourages sharing, bookmarking, repeat visits, and more commenting—that’s where the greatest profit potential for comments lies.

Do you treat comments as adding to the overall monetization potential of your blog? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

View the original article here

Blogging the Festive Season: The Blogger-Consultant-Speaker [Case Study]

Tara Gentile is a blogger and business strategist whose online presence underpins her thriving consulting business at taragentile.com.

As part of our Blogging the Festive Season series, we asked her how the festive season affects her business and blog.

What does preparing for the festive season mean for your business?

For me, preparing my blog and business for the holidays means preparing for time off. I try to produce extra content to fill blog posts and email updates for sporadic publication but I go easy on myself. If I don’t get the content created, I still rest.

My goal for this season is to clear the way for momentum and inspiration in the New Year. This year, I’ll be taking stock of a few new ventures, including my microbusiness accelerator Kick Start Labs, and setting the stage to hit the ground running with a few new projects which include beta testing a mastermind program and beginning serious work on my book.

I also launched a complete redesign (and refocusing) of the site. Since the holidays are a slow time for me, that gives me leeway in discovering any flaws or missed opportunities.

What usually happens to readership and traffic on your blog over the festive season, and what happens to your consulting and speaking schedules?

Readership and traffic tend to be low during the festive season. That said, sales are often brisk at the end of the year with people making last-minute business expenses before the US accounting year closes. However, the real work doesn’t need to be done till January or February, so I make a point to take about four weeks off between December and January. Why work for work’s sake?

I’ll write, think, and read. But I don’t answer much email, execute programs, or do calls during that time. It’s a chance to recharge my personal and business batteries.

I’ve found that it doesn’t pay to try to change sales trends. Instead, I try to amplify sales trends. If it’s normally dead, then I take time off, regroup, and enjoy the downtime. If it’s a busy time of year, I ramp up my activities and do the work that allows me to take advantage of buying seasons. For this year, that will mean taking lots of time off, but providing a few key offers right at the end of the year.

Plenty of solo operators would be worried about being away from their businesses for so long. Are you worried about missing opportunities in that time?

My customers are doing exactly the same—or at least, I hope they are. I’m not going to send out a lot of content they can’t use at this time of year so what work I do is focused on the future—both mine and theirs.

Future-focused work includes doing research or reading that inspires me to create the kind of work that will serve my customers well in the next year. I’ve noticed that when I take time off at the same time my customers are taking time off, no one really notices my absence!

Sure—consulting and speaking aren’t exactly seasonal purchases. You mentioned key end-of-year offers. Is that how you keep revenue coming in the door during the festive season?

Aside from providing a compelling offer or two at the end of the year for those who are looking for add-on business expenses at the end of the year, I don’t worry about keeping revenue coming in the door.

Just as a family plans big purchases or budgets for daily expenses, it’s important for entrepreneurs to plan their revenue. When you plan for the natural ups and downs, you can feel good about letting your revenue flow naturally instead of trying to force sales when they are difficult to come by.

So, even now, I have a good idea of what my revenue plan for 2013 is. I know what’s launching when and about how much I can expect. Of course, that plan will change and evolve as the year goes. But this way, I know I can feel comfortable about taking the summer off or taking family time in December.

Your site at taragentile.com has been has been going for a while now. How has your approach to preparing for the festive season changed in that time?

I’d say I used to approach each month of the year as if it were the same as any other month. Now, I try to be keenly aware of how each month is different, bringing with it its own challenges and opportunities.

As the years went by and I started noting trends, I could predict what would be important each month: more content vs. less content, more offers vs. less offers, more events vs. less events, and so on. Now I can use that information to effortlessly create a plan for the season months in advance.

Are there any special preparations you’re making for the time you take off?

December 16-January 10 are marked off for family and fun time on my calendar. During that time, I’ll work if inspiration strikes me and I’ll certainly be making reflections on the year past and journalling on the year to come, but I don’t worry too much about making sure my blog keeps going.

There’s little reward in expending energy just for the sake of continuity, especially if no one is paying attention.

My readers have their own work to do and their own families to attend to. I don’t worry that they’ll forget about my site or that the dip in traffic will last forever. We’ll all find our way back into the groove in mid-January.

My only goal is to have great content, new ideas, and a compelling offer waiting for them when they return.

And when you do return in the New Year, what will you be focusing on?

For early 2013, my attention will be split three ways.

First, I’ll be continuing to up the value at Kick Start Labs, a microbusiness accelerator community for entrepreneurs making difference through commerce. We’ll be releasing a new series of practical business learning resources.

Second, I’ll be beginning the next serious stage of work on my book. That means lots of research, interviews, and writing. My favorite things! Finding the time and energy for this project has been difficult to say the least, but it’s work that I enjoy immensely and I’m very excited about who the book will reach and how it will encourage them to take action in the You Economy.

Third, I’ll be beta testing a mastermind program. I’ve spent the last two years really getting clear on my process and how I work with clients. It’s time to put it to the test. The goal of the program is to free business owners from the day-to-day execution of their businesses and create the space that’s necessary to see their businesses from 10,000 feet up.

I’ll first be rolling it out to those who have worked closely with me already and then later in the year, I’ll roll it out publicly.

Sounds interesting! So what’s your advice to other bloggers who sell consulting services alongside their blogs to make the most of the festive season?

Take time off! Recharge! Unless you are coaching or consulting in the wellness industry (the classic New Year’s products), this is an off time of year. Make the most of it. Don’t make appointments with others, only yourself. Mark your calendar with appointments to address difficulties in your business, plans for the new year, or loose ends that need tied. Set aside time for writing, thinking, and research.

But set aside the most time for family fun, quiet evenings, and personal introspection.

Sound advice! Thanks so much to Tara for giving us her insights. If you run a consulting or contracting business that’s supported by your blog, let us know what your festive season plans are in the comment!

Next in the series, we hear the festive season plans of a digital publisher.

View the original article here

Blog Design for ROI Rule #3: Shower Attention and Appreciation On Your Community

This guest post is by Gab Goldenberg, author of The Advanced SEO Book.

This is part 3 of Problogger’s Blog Design for ROI series. Today we’ll talk about integrating your community into your design. Since a blog is a form of social media, even if—or especially if—it’s a business blog, it only makes sense to design the blog in a way that will maximize interaction.

Let’s address the importance of interaction, though, before we delve into the details of design.

The skeptics amongst you may ask, “What are the benefits?” Heck, giving attention to others may attract trolls and other negative behaviour!

One of the great benefits is that an engaged community promotes your blog, providing word of mouth marketing. This includes social bookmarking and sharing, as well as regular links from your community members’ own sites. So you increase your social and SEO traffic. Plus building community is more enjoyable than manually requesting links and attention…

I could go on, but check out Richard’s post on techniques to measure online communities’ ROI in dollars, or my own on the intangible ROI of social media such as better hiring, partnerships, and more.

There are a number of ways to visually reinforce the importance of community on your blog, and they center around giving your community visual prominence and rewarding (“gamifying”) their behaviour.

One easy way to do this is to use avatars—thumbnail pictures of your members that appear alongside their contributions.

If you accept guest posts, why make your guest authors anonymous? Instead, show their profile picture at the top of the posts they publish on your blog. (We’ll discuss this more in the next article in this series, on post design.) My friends at SEOmoz were some of the first people to do this:

Of course, this idea isn’t limited to post authors—most people comment and they are in fact the bulk of your community, so you should offer avatars to your commenters, as well.

Here’s what you want your blog comments area to look like:

What do you do for people who haven’t provided an avatar?

I’d suggest something generic that reflects your brand, perhaps with the text, “User hasn’t yet uploaded a profile picture.” The idea is that users will realize what they need to do to get the avatar to appear. (Note: avoid using the word “avatar” since not everyone knows what it means. “Profile picture” is clearer.)

SEOmoz gets this partly right by using their logo’s starshape icon, but they omit to specify why that’s appearing instead of human picture like other people’s. It’s a missed opportunity.

It is nonetheless a step up from the generic-and-distracting images provided by certain blog commenting/avatar systems.

Why limit yourself to just showing a person’s photo and name, though?

Since you want to encourage high quality participation, as well as helping people understand why they should visit a particular member’s profile page instead of clicking elsewhere, give your members titles (or “badges”) and display these alongside members’ profiles.

When I was in high school and really into hiphop, I used to frequent a forum, NobodySmiling, that did a good job of this, placing badges (in the shape of various trophies) for various achievements alongside members’ posts. In the screenshot below, you can see an excellent example of a site that recognizes user contributions.

The moderator MetiphOracle has his title, Moderator, displayed as well as multiple stars indicating his veteran-contributor status. Additionally, his post count, win-loss record (in hiphop battles), “Vicious rating” (how frequently other members clicked his Praise or Smite links, a pre-Facebook Like function), and two microphone awards are shown.

It’s also worth highlighting that most of the awards were accessible on the basis of merit—win ten rap battles and you got a bronze mic, for example. This is important, because if the awards are only hierarchical—that is, only one person can hold an award—then it can reduce motivation for newer members.

The site admins realized that this was a very popular feature and quickly added other awards for a variety of achievements.

That being said, being #1 (or in the top five or ten) is also very motivating to senior members—especially so if you make the achievement of that status a contest. That was the idea behind the belts, like the Vet Tourney award in the screenshot above.

You can take the idea even further though, and reward the best collaboration.

The crown award in the screenshot above went to the best crew—the group of rappers who beat other top crews in rap battles.

As someone who competed for (and won!) the crown, I can tell you that my friends and I spent hours talking on instant messenger about how we were going to do it. So the result of this kind of gamification of your community is that its members are no longer dependent on their interaction with you—they’re brought back to your blog repeatedly to interact amongst themselves, and the friendships they build.

You don’t specifically need different images for your reward badges though.

An easy way to start is to have some kind of general-purpose image on which you can overlay people’s titles. Below, SEOmoz have a gold-colour ribbon that appears below members’ answers in SEOmoz’s Q&A forum.

A simple way to do this without a lot of up-front coding work—and to see if you have enough traction in your blog’s readership to warrant the coding work—is to begin with a monthly community contest.

Offer prizes for different forms of interaction—the most comments, the best comment, the best comment by someone who never won before, and so on. Then, you can have a monthly announcement for the winners, and a page where you list current and past winners.

Another thing I recall being rather practical and popular on NobodySmiling—and which is now found everywhere from Skype and MSN messenger to Facebook (though not yet Twitter)—is the list of members online. Essentially, this is an invitation to members to chat or private message with each other.

Where does the “members online now” block belong?

I’d venture to say that it’s becoming conventional to list a similar block—the Facebook Page Likers list—in the sidebar, so it’s probably a good idea to place this here. Using conventions on your blog requires less effort from your visitors.

A further way to help encourage the contact via your blog’s design is to make member contact information readily accessible. You can see this done on SEOmoz member profiles:

Another tool that’s not pictured there is a button that lets members send each other private messages within SEOmoz, similar to the way forum software handles membership interaction.

An even better way to display this is to make the person’s contact information available at the end of all their posts and comments. You can see in the screenshot from NobodySmiling that MetiphOracle’s accounts—MSN and others—were all linked below his posts.

The following excerpt from an Inc. magazine article discusses how popular review site Yelp made a point of inviting its top members to exclusive parties.

This achieved a few things: it rewarded high levels of participation, provided recognition, and helped the members meet each other and interact.

“Without the cash for a national rollout, [Yelp co-founder Jeremy] Stoppelman decided to focus on making Yelp famous locally. With the help of a buzz-marketing guru he hired on a whim, Stoppelman decided to select a few dozen people—the most active reviewers on the site—and throw them an open-bar party. As a joke, he called the group the Yelp Elite Squad.

“[Yelp investor Max] Levchin thought the idea was crazy—”I was like, ‘Holy cr*p: We’re nowhere near profitability; this is ridiculous,’” he says—but 100 people showed up, and traffic to the site began to crawl up. Because the parties were reserved for prolific reviewers, they gave casual users a reason to use the site more and nonusers a reason to join Yelp.

By June 2005, Yelp had 12,000 reviewers, most of them in the Bay Area. In November, Stoppelman went back to the VCs and bagged $5 million from Bessemer Venture Partners. He used the money to throw more parties and to hire party planners—Yelp calls them community managers—in New York, Chicago, and Boston. The company now employs 40 of these people.”

Perhaps the most unique—and clever—form of tying a blog into a community that I’ve seen comes from the comic, Least I Could Do (NSFW Warning: sexual humour and scantily clad cartoon women).

Instead of using a common commenting system like Disqus, Least I Could Do (LICD) gets people to go to the forum to comment on blog posts.

The way the blog and forum are tied together is that blog posts are forum excerpts. In the screenshot below, you see that the Read More link (same as the Comments link) takes you to LICD’s forum.

The advantage of this approach is that forums comfortably hold longer discussions that are typically uncommon on blogs. Also, many of the community-oriented details described in this posts exists by default with forums (including easy member registration, avatars, recognition, member praise and thanks, and contact info links).

The disadvantage is that you need custom code to get your members’ avatars and other details to appear alongside their guest post author credits if you publish guest posts.

Show avatars and usernames alongside contributions: Help people stand out as individuals. The more you do this, the more likely people will be to remember each other, and members will become friendly with one another faster.Visually recognize members:When people achieve certain contribution plateaus, when they get acknowledged by other community members, when they gain seniority, and when they outperform others, let them brag with badges that are visible on their member profiles.Pro tip: Make these badges embeddable on other sites so that members who are proud of their achievements can link back to your site to show off their badges.Encourage members to interact: Provide links to as many contact methods as they want to provide—Skype, MSN, social media profiles, personal sites, and so on. Also, show who’s online at the moment so it’s easy for people to draw their friends’ attention to particular discussions they want others to participate in.
Pro tip: Offer a chat room. It’s old-fashioned, but it works! Before there were live webinars, people had live events in chat rooms.Use forums for comments: Encourage a community to build around your posts by putting the spotlight on members, allowing longer discussions, and more.

What design techniques do you use to recognize and reward your blog’s loyal users? What other ideas have you seen on the web? Share your experiences with us in the comments, and check back next week for the next part in our series!

Gab Goldenberg wrote The Advanced SEO Book—and you can get a free chapter here. Gab and Internet Marketing Ninjas, the folks behind the Blog Design for ROI series here on Problogger, are offering to mail you a free print copy of the Blog Design for ROI guide as a small book. Get your free copy from seoroi.com/blog-design-for-roi/ .

View the original article here

5 Ways You Can Become A Blogging Philanthropist

This guest post is by Stephen Pepper of Youth Workin’ It

Why should Bill Gates have all the fun?—Al Andrews

There are all sorts of reasons you may own a blog—to enhance your business site, to share ideas, to earn an income, or perhaps you just enjoy writing.

Imagine the impact you could have, though, if you harnessed the power of your blog to make an even bigger difference to mankind by becoming a philanthropist.

This may sound far-fetched, but it’s not at all. Here are five ways you can become a blogging philanthropist.

“How can I be a philanthropist if I have no money?”

This is the question Al Andrews asked himself. Instead of just giving up, he came up with a plan to make money. He’d write a book and donate the profits to projects around the world.

And thus, Improbable Philanthropy was born. His first book, The Boy, The Kite And The Wind, has already raised tens of thousands of dollars that he’s been able to donate to projects that benefit others.

You don’t have to write an illustrated children’s book. Many blogs sell ebooks, so why not write one whose profits you can donate to a charity that’s close to your heart? The readers of your blog will be more likely to buy the book if they know it’s going towards a good cause. And it means you’ll get your ideas out to more people, even if you’re not benefiting monetarily yourself.

Adam McLane and Rachel Rodgers are both bloggers who also own their own businesses. Adam owns McLane Creative, a web development and design company, while Rachel owns Rachel Rodgers Law, a virtual law office.

Both Adam and Rachel offer microfinance loans through Kiva. These loans are used to help alleviate poverty and to enable entrepreneurs around the world to start up their own businesses.

Adam also makes a new loan for every new client he receives—check out some of the beneficiarieshere.

Although Adam and Rachel offer these loans as an extension of their businesses rather than their blogs, that doesn’t have to be the case. How about making a loan every time you receive x number of new email subscribers, or when you hit a benchmark of y extra monthly visitors?

At the 2012 World Domination Summit, Chris Guillebeau gave $100 to every single paid conference attendee.

Why? He was investing the money in the attendees so that they could in turn invest the money themselves, whether that was through community, adventure, or service.

As Chris said, “Freely receive, freely give.”

Don’t worry, I’m not saying you have to give $100 to each of your readers! Instead, you could set aside some money and have your readers decide on how it should be used.

Similarly, you could allocate a certain percentage of each ebook you sell to be donated to different charities. When selling the book, offer the buyers different purchasing links depending on which project they’d like to support.

You may not have any money, but chances are some of your readers do. On his Stuff Christians Like blog, Jon Acuff set out to leverage his readership by raising $30,000 to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. The only thing is, he didn’t raise $30,000.

He raised $60,000. So his readers were able to build two kindergartens!

Set up a fundraiser, ideally for a project that has some kind of link to your blogging niche. This will encourage your readers to support the initiative.

Also, be ambitious! Jon’s readers raised the original $30,000 in just 18 hours, which is why he set a second target that doubled the original amount. Even if you don’t meet your fundraising target, you’ll hopefully raise far more than if you’d set the bar too low.

In addition to Youth Workin’ It, we own a number of other (non-blog) websites. These earn a somewhat modest income of a few hundred dollars a month through AdSense, Amazon Associates and similar affiliate schemes.

As my wife and I both have full-time jobs, this income is a bonus. It therefore means we’re able to use some of this extra money to bless individuals and organizations that we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

Do you earn any revenue through your blog via advertising or affiliate schemes? If so, why not use some or all of this income to make a difference in the lives of others?

There are five ideas on this list. What others can you think of that can help other bloggers become philanthropists? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Stephen Pepper is insurance administrator by day, youth worker & blogger by night. He and his wife run Youth Workin’ It which includes a youth work and youth ministry blog. They also produce their own youth work resources, the most recent of which is 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas.

View the original article here

4 Simple Steps to Get Sponsorship from Media Agencies

This guest post is by John Kelly of www.company.com.au.

When bloggers think about monetising their content, most will turn to Google AdSense for advertising revenue, and some may think about releasing an ebook or enrolling in an affiliate program. 

While these channels work for a few blogs, most will realise that the returns are frustratingly small for the amount of effort they have invested in their content.

The real advertising money is spent by media agencies. According to the IAB, in Australia alone, over three billion dollars was spent last year on online advertising, with the vast majority traded through a handful of media agency groups.

This is a source of revenue most bloggers neglect. But, with a bit of research and persistence, you can start to capture a small part of this expenditure.

The role of the media agency is to buy media space on behalf of advertisers.  They research the brand’s target audience and match this up with advertising placements.  At the same time, they will be trying to negotiate the best rates and positions for their clients.

Once the campaign is live, the agency will track results, and optimize creative and placements in order to achieve the campaign objectives.

How can the humble blogger sell his or her ad space to media agencies? Follow these four steps.

Life in an agency tends to pass at a frantic pace. Many agencies are understaffed and often, the detailed planning and buying work falls on a junior.  Getting through to the right person can be a challenge.

Firstly, you need to decide which brand you are targeting.  Determine which brands have products that they would like to sell to your audience.  Concentrate on brands that are actively advertising and have money to spend.

To work out which agency handles your target advertisers account, do some research online.  A search of the local ad industry trade sites will normally tell you which agency handles the account, and buying team members are often quoted in press releases. In Australia search the ad industry sites: www.mumbrella.com.au and www.adnews.com.au.

Call the agency reception and ask who manages the buying for the account.  While media planners are bombarded with cold calls and emails, if you have done your research and put together a compelling proposition, most planners will be willing to speak to you.  Don’t be discouraged if this takes a lot of calls. It’s not personal—that’s just the nature of the business.

Each brand will have its own marketing calendar of activity, with the budgets normally planned two to three months before the live date. Seasonality is a good indication of planning times; many B2B advertisers will run tax time promotions, while consumer goods businesses typically spend heavily before major holidays and avoid the summer months.

You are far more likely to get on the schedule if you pitch your ideas during the times when the media is being planned.

If you are interested in the details of the planning and buying cycle, Ad School has excellent, detailed content available for free on their website.

Most blogs can’t compete on reach, and shouldn’t be competing on price with mainstream publishers.  Your strength lies in the engaged and passionate nature of your audience.  Emphasise that you are offering depth over breadth—and a depth that can’t be found elsewhere.

Put this together in a short proposal, clearly highlighting your audience, readership numbers and a breakdown of costs.  Keep it simple and compelling.

Also, be reassuringly expensive.

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is pricing their content and audience too low.  Media agencies typically deal with three kinds of digital buying models for advertising:

Performance-based: This is where they pay for each action taken, such as a click or a sale.CPM: Cost per thousand impressions served.Sponsorships: A fixed price is charged for integrating a brand into a website.

Unless you have a blog with very high traffic numbers, the first two buying models should be avoided. At a $15 CPM, 100,000 impressions would only generate $1,500. While that’s nice to have, it’s not enough if you’re to become a pro blogger. And the returns on performance-based agreements are typically a fraction of a CPM buy.

Brands will buy on a sponsorships basis when it allows them to use engaging ad units and to integrate their message into your content.  With major advertisers dealing with budgets in the millions, media planners often think any buy below $10k is not worth the effort.

You may be asked make some changes to your blog template to accommodate the creative.  Your answer should always be “yes.”  If you are not technically minded, you can hire a freelancer to do this for a nominal fee on one of the many outsourcing sites (such as www.freelancer.com).

Then, expect to be asked to aggressively discount your pricing.  Media agencies are evaluated by their clients on the savings they achieved.  Your initial price should be higher than the price you’re comfortable selling at.

Be professional. As a blogger, you own valuable content and access to an engaged audience that many brands will want to tap into.  Treat your site as a product and market it professionally.  Any hint that you run your site as a hobby will lead to failure.Be prepared: You need to be prepared to demonstrate why dealing with a relatively small site is worth the effort when media planners are used to six-figure buys with the likes of Google and Yahoo.  Know your key selling points at all times.Be persistent: Many bloggers quickly become frustrated with dealing with media agencies.  Phone calls go unanswered, emails are unreturned and initial interest often goes cold.  These are issues major publishers also face.  Resolve yourself to spending one hour a day researching agencies and contacting buyers.  The hard work will pay off over time and can lead to significant revenues.

Check out how professional blog sites market themselves. Kidspot is a great example of a once-small site that’s gone on to be acquired by News Corp. 

The blog Mendel.me also has some more tips on how to write a sales proposal for bloggers.

Have you sold ad space on your blog to a media agency? Tell us how you handled it in the comments.

John Kelly is the editor of www.company.com.au a blog that provides small business news, advice and resources.

View the original article here

Blogging in Brief: Looking Good, Saving Face, Tags and Lags

We all make mistakes, but making mistakes in the media can be costly—especially to your authority!

…Or can it? We all know readers appreciate honesty. And our first story this week is all about that.

Last week, I got my regular flippa.com newsletter … and another a few hours later! The new subject line? “Our newsletter, now with functional links!”

Intrigued, I opened it to see this:

Way to save face after a blooper! If you’ve ever had to apologise for an error you’ve made publicly, online—perhaps even on your blog or with your valued subscribers—we’d love to hear how you handled it in the comments.

I mentioned last time the growing trend toward big-block header on blogs. This week, I found one that acts simply to pull you through to the latest content, on food blog Peas and Thankyou.

This screencapture shows the header on rollover—the opening of each post appears as an overlay on the header. This is a great use of imagery I think, and an excellent way to catch the attention of readers, especially those who are arriving for the first time. On dPS, I use a similar carousel for featured content, but it’s not simply for the latest posts. It really brings attention to your current content.

What do you think of this idea? Could this work for your blog?

The battle to find the best price for a blog product—one that maximizes your profit—can be hard to do. So the approach of letting customers choose their own price is an interesting one. Tara Gentile uses it on her blog:

The product is designed to change customers’ relationship with money, so the tactic is in keeping with the concept.

It’s an interesting tactic, and not one I’ve tried. Have you? How did it work? I’d love to hear of your experiences in the comments.

Many blogs show a popup on page load for first-time users—perhaps offering a download, subscription, or other goody.

But this week I’ve stumbled across a few that are really extremely slow to load as a result.

One of them flashed up the homepage before hiding it—so the screen was blank—for what felt like ages (but was probably 5-10 seconds) before displaying the popup. The popup itself didn’t have the usual close button in the right-top-corner, either, which meant that after the long wait, I had to spend more time trying to work out how to close it so I could access the site content. That finally appeared only once I’d found the Close window link.

Every time you add a new widget, plugin, or promotion to your blog, test the load times for different browsers to make sure your blog’s still accessible and usable for everyone who stops by.

Remember tag clouds? They were popular a few years ago, but they seem to have fallen out of favor now—though I notice the Blog World blog still has one:

Tag clouds can help users drill down to specific content that isn’t represented in your basic blog navigation, and to reach content in your archives that spans topics. In fact, in some cases it’s a great way to provide users with access to your older material. That said, I don’t use tag clouds—basically because screen real estate is so precious, and a tag cloud never really makes the cut onto my sites.

Are you using a tag cloud? How’s it working for you? We’d love to get an idea of whether you think this mechanism is still relevant to the blogs of today.

View the original article here

Why’d You Choose That Domain Name?

This guest post is by The Blogger.

Let’s admit one thing. We all started this web thing honestly, naively.

Our first site was designed to help people, to fill a gaping void we saw in the online world.

We wanted to do so much good.

Where, then, did it go so wrong? And why? Why did we end up with a website like “www.how-to-earn-money-online.com” that we can barely mention across the dinner table without blushing?

In this post, I’m going to target the psychology behind our seemingly harmless paths to web domination. I’ve been curious for a while about why a few of us start the Zygna.coms and Digg.coms while others go a, well, different path. It all dates back to the mid 1970s, when a man name Albert Bandura, the guy behind Social Cognitive Theory, examined how we seek to replicate success we see in our surroundings and in media, often at all costs. It gets a bit creepy.

It all began with GoDaddy.

“What is GoDaddy?” we ask Google. And Google responds with a full tutorial on GoDaddy.

“Thank you, Google. Now I’ve got my first domain and I have no idea how to use it.”

Well at some point, no thanks to GoDaddy, we find Blogger or WordPress. Your first domain name most-likely had a .blogspot or .wordpress in it. Hello, new blog.

“Wow, this is so interesting,” we think. “I can write posts, post images, create links, and put things in my side bar. And what exactly is a sidebar? I’m going to grow this blog to be huge! I’m getting 100 views a day! Wait, I was tracking my own views. Shut that off. So this actually is difficult … okay, I can handle that.”

We set up our first Google Analytics profile and hardly use it. We’re too focused positioning Adsense ads and garnering Facebook likes.

“Suggest to friends? I think so. Why did he not like it? Not my friend anymore! Write posts, write posts, write posts. Write even more. How am I ever going to have as many posts as that other site? Three a week, that’s it. Must happen. Three great posts of 500 words at least. More coffee. You can do this! Backlinks. Backlins! Need more. Alexa tells me I don’t have enough. Must network. Got one! Got a tweet too! Oh my dear god prepare yourself for traffic! Traffic didn’t come…why not? More posts … more domination!”

At some fateful point after much deliberation we decide to hack off the .blogger/.wordpress and basically think the world will rejoice over our decision.

“Sigh, they don’t. People don’t care. They’re focused on their own websites. Oh well, more networking, more Facebook marketing! Backlinks!”

At some point in blogging, we become jaded. It just isn’t like it was on Day 1. Our community blog, our niche review site, and our Google Adsense landing page just didn’t work as planned. It wasn’t all we were told it would be, but we did learn in the process.

So, we start a new blog. We suck up our pride. We hobble back over to the computer. We probably woke up later that day because we were up late making it big the night before.

This is where it gets interesting.

The day we start up a second website defines us in our blogging careers.

Why? Because (in case you didn’t realize yet) everyone starts a semi-successful-yet-pretty-mediocre website at first, then moves on to another project. It’s in that second project that we either:

show the world we’ve learned from our mistakes and are ready to build something useful, ortotally sell out and continue down the path to eventual existential failure.

I’m sorry, but it’s one or the other. Which path are you on?

Maybe you’re on a different path?! If so, let’s hear about it in the comments.

It may not be on actual day 3 of blogging, but the “third day” in your blogging career is the day you choose your next domain name. On Day 1 you made your first website, on Day 2 you decided to build another one, and on Day 3 you picked this new domain. And on Day 7 s/he rested.

So what did you pick?

If you picked a brandable domain then I’d like to buy you a beer. I’m proud of you. A brandable domain is something like “Twitter.com”. It’s something like “Coursehero.com” or “Koofers.com”. It’s a brother of “Problogger.net” and a cousin of “Alexa.com”. Its recognizable. It stands out.

It holds its own in a conversation across the dinner table. (Should that be the new standard?)

People learn not just from trying and failing, but from observing, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes for means of survival, what works for our peers.—Albert Bandura

The importance of a brandable domain is five-fold:

Unique: It stands out.Recognizable: People remember it.Bizarre: It’s weird enough to generate some intrigue the first time someone hears it.Worth mentioning: People want to talk about weird things.Worth putting on a t-shirt: Yes, you would consider wearing that logo with it’s branded image on a t-shirt.

If you picked a brandable domain I commend you because, while you won’t get immediate “direct match” traffic from Google, you will get many more returning visits because you have a pretty cool concept.

These websites are more likely to get blog comments and will inevitably build larger email followings. They may not be the best at making a quick buck, but they do have a long-term trajectory to success. Props to you for choosing this option!

If you picked this type of domain, you may want to watch this short video as Matt Cutts talks about how Google is changing the algorithm.

Short summary: A lot of noise and competition exists among keyword-rich domains. Google is altering the algorithm so websites with keyword-rich domains won’t get as much an advantage over similar websites with less keyword friendly domains.

If you picked a keyword-rich domain, this is my advice for you.

Check out onlineprofits.com: It’s a successful community that makes online profits.Check howtomakemyblog.com: It’s actually an awesome how-to site by Marko Saric.Check out onlinecolleges.com and literally every other domain name with some variation of the phrase “online colleges” in it. You’ll begin to see just how competitive things are getting.Learn some on-page SEO: It’ll help you immensely against the waves of others like you.Get used to being #2: Hey, look at how well Monster does in the shadow of Redbull.

It’s okay, as a few of these examples will show you. With your keyword-rich domain your blog might actually make that six-figure annual income you dreamed about on Day 2.

However, as time passes I can’t help but think keyword-rich domains will become a dime a dozen, and will get sifted out to the bottom of the blogosphere while unique, original concepts rise to the top. It’s a process that may be happening as you read this.

We’re human. We don’t want the things we do to eventually lead to failure.

We want to succeed, sometimes badly, and will often consider every means necessary to do so. Sometimes this means selecting a domain we at first would have scoffed at.

Albert Bandura was a renowned Canadian psychologist. He examined the characteristics we learn in our adolescence that leads us to success or failure. From the existing Social Learning Theory, it was known four key factors affect how we learn new behavior: drives, cues, responses, and rewards.

What Bandura found, in plain words, was that those of us who are more aggressive often skip a couple steps to get to the “rewards.”

This can be dangerous.

When our aggression outweighs our engrained moral compass, we exhibit “lapses in judgement,” as Bandura called them, where we totally avoid “cues” and “responses.”

It’s these tendencies which lead us to choose a certain domain and make larger, more long-term business decisions. It’s pretty hard to say a domain doesn’t hold vibes and messages that follow our website throughout its entire existence. So next time you’re sitting at GoDaddy about to make a purchase, remember Bandura and think about the long-term implications of your choice.

Bandura became the endowed chair of social psychology at Standford University in 1974 and is believed to be the fourth most cited pyschologist of all time. Go find more of his related work on Wikipedia.

The Blogger is a 25 year old guy from Manhattan who answers 150 blog questions before breakfast and holds a world record for comment response time. Sign up to his email club if you haven’t already (jeez) and find him on the Twitter.

View the original article here

Blogging the Festive Season: The Not-for-Profit Blog [Case Study]

Stephen Pepper is insurance administrator by day, youth worker and blogger by night. He and his wife run Youth Workin’ It, a not-for-profit site that provides consultancy and services for youth workers and organizations worldwide. This includes blogging 6 days a week about youth work.

As part of our Blogging the Festive Season series, we asked Stephen how he and his wife are preparing the blog for the festive season.

What does preparing the Youth Workin’ It blog for the festive season mean?

Over the last year or so, we’ve realized that we need to be well-prepared when it comes to writing posts about particular times of the year. We posted an idea for a Valentine’s Day fundraiser on February 13th, but this meant youth workers didn’t have any time to use the idea this year.

So we started publishing our Christmas posts a couple of months early, like a youth work session to include young people when planning Christmas activities and ideas for organizing a Christmas card fundraiser.

This will be your second festive season on the blog. What did you learn last year? What will you do differently this time?

Last year, we stole an idea from Jon Acuff. He wanted to take time off over the Christmas period but didn’t want to neglect his blog, so he re-posted his his most trafficked posts from the prior 12 months. This meant new visitors read material they might not have come across otherwise, while loyal readers were reminded of some of his best writing.

On our blog, we did something similar. This was based on the 12 Days Of Christmas, where we re-posted our most highly trafficked 12 posts since we started the blog on 1 September 2011. It probably wasn’t wise from an SEO standpoint, as we were effectively re-posting duplicate material. However, we’d moved into a new apartment at the beginning of December, so not having to write new posts for two weeks meant we were able to get settled in far more quickly.

Last year, we also found that our Christmas scavenger hunt ideas proved to be popular. We therefore started posting similar ideas throughout the year, which in turn also received a lot of traffic. Having identified the popularity of these activities, we published our second book, 52 Scavenger Hunt Ideas.

Youth Workin’ It has a global audience. What usually happens to readership and traffic on your site over the festive season?

As our blog was only a couple of months old in late 2011, we had very low levels of traffic in comparison to today, making it hard to identify any kind of trend. Our average number of daily visitors has grown approximately 3,000% since December 2011, so it’s hard to estimate what our traffic levels will be like this festive season in comparison, as we started from such a low base point last year.

Having said that, I’m anticipating that in the run up to the festive season we’ll see a bump in Christmas-themed search traffic. In the first two weeks of November 2012 we had close to 300 people find our site through Christmas-themed search terms, suggesting this trend will continue.

We’ve been seeing good growth all year, but I think that overall traffic will drop off over the Christmas period. Visits to Youth Workin’ It continued increasing throughout November, until two days before Thanksgiving when it dropped off for a few days while Americans celebrated this holiday, so I’m assuming the same will happen at Christmas too.

In January, though, I think we’ll receive a lot more traffic as youth workers will be looking for new youth work and youth ministry ideas for the coming year.

Do you think that having a “cause” blog provides you with different opportunities or challenges around this time of year than bloggers with more commercial blogs face?

For commercial blogs, I’d imagine Christmas is one of the best opportunities for generating revenue, particularly by driving sales through affiliate schemes.

Although we have the odd affiliate link on our site (mainly using Amazon Associates) and produce our own youth work resources, we’re not a commercial blog.

This means we can focus on writing material that we think youth workers will find helpful, rather than feeling like we have to focus on writing about topics or products that will earn us an income. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with commercial blogs—I’m simply not a salesman, so am glad I don’t have that pressure when I write.

This also helps ensure that most of our content is evergreen, rather than becoming dated quickly. If you’re trying to drive sales of the latest phone, or camera, in six months those products will be old news, and your blog post could equally become old news.

We therefore try as best as we can to take the opportunity to provide youth work ideas and principles that will be equally as valid in five years as they are today.

How else does the festive season affect your blog and blogging schedule?

I have a full-time day job and will only be taking a couple of days off over Christmas—I contract for an insurance company so if I don’t work, I don’t get paid! My blogging schedule therefore won’t change much, as I’ll be maintaining the same daily routine.

Our engagement with subscribers and social media followers won’t change much either, but that’s because we don’t have a large focus on those channels at the moment. Both my wife and I have full-time jobs, do volunteer youth work in our spare time, and blog six days a week. Unfortunately, we’ve therefore been unable to focus any time and energy on engaging with readers and followers on a consistent basis.

What’s the start of the New Year got in store for Youth Workin’ It?

Although we’re not taking any time off around New Year, the start of 2013 is going to be very busy. My wife Shae is going to be a speaker at Open Boston—a new youth ministry event—so she’ll be planning her talk for that. She also runs three girl scout troops in low-income housing areas that rely on fundraising in order to organize activities, which means she’ll also be focused on selling Girl Scout cookies.

The result of this is that I’ll be taking over more of the blogging responsibilities. I’ll therefore try to get ahead on my blogging schedule, particularly at weekends.

And what will you be most heavily focused on?

In addition to our regular blogging, we’re aiming to publish at least two new youth work resources again this coming year. That’s an area I’ll be focusing on, along with writing guest posts for other blogs. I’ve also been approached about another blogging project which looks set to be an amazing and fun opportunity.

On top of all this, I’ve recently set up a separate scavenger hunt blog. As mentioned earlier, these activities were popular on Youth Workin’ It, but we didn’t want them to be our primary focus. I’ve therefore set up this separate niche site so that I can keep publishing these ideas, which will also hopefully drive a few more sales of our scavenger hunt book.

Shae’s focus will be on getting more speaking and consulting opportunities. We’re also planning on setting up a non-profit that will work with young people in our local low-income communities, so we’re definitely going to be busy!

We’re not planning on making any changes to the general design or layout of our site, but are seriously considering signing up with AWeber instead of relying on Feedburner to deliver our daily emails.

One of the reasons for this is that we’re considering experimenting with popovers to gain even more email subscribers, especially having seen how much success Darren had with this technique.

As we’re not a commercial blog, we’d be paying for the service out of our own pocket without expecting to earn any revenue from email subscribers, which is why we’ve held off on doing this so far. The increase in subscribers should be a good longer term investment though, as it’ll help get the Youth Workin’ It name out more widely and will hopefully result in further speaking and consultancy opportunities for Shae.

What’s your advice to other not-for-profit bloggers to make the most of the festive season—both on their blogs, and in their personal lives?

Depending on the nature of your blog, prepare for the festive season well in advance. As I mentioned earlier, we’re already receiving hundreds of visitors to our posts relating to the festive season. As always, Google’s keyword tool is an invaluable resource for finding out what people in your niche are searching for when it comes to Christmas, the New Year, and other religious holidays.

In the New Year, people will be looking for a new start and fresh ideas. What can you offer them to make their lives better?

As for your personal lives, make sure that you have some balance. Answering these questions has made me realize how much I want to achieve for 2013, but this could easily result in working too hard and getting burned out. I therefore need to make sure that I intentionally carve out time—even if it’s just for one weekend in December—where I don’t touch blogging at all.

I’ve found this leaves me feeling incredibly refreshed, so this will set me up well to launch into 2013.

Huge thanks to Stephen for taking the time for this interview. If you run a not-for-profit or cause blog, what are you doing to prepare for the festive season? Share your plans in the comments!

View the original article here

Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? [7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging]

Every now and again I am pulled aside at a conference or am emailed and/or tweeted by someone wanting to get the “real” scoop on whether it is possible to make money blogging.

Is it really possible to make a living from blogging?Is it just a small number of people making money from blogging?Is it only really possible to make money blogging if you write about the topic of making money blogging?

I completely understand the questions and would probably want to add one more:

If it is really possible to make money blogging, how likely is it that you’ll succeed?

I’ve written many times here on ProBlogger about this in the hope of giving a realistic picture of the topic, but I think it is worth touching on again because there is a lot of misinformation out there right now.

On one hand, we see hype on the topic. Periodically someone will claim to be able to make millions from blogging quickly. These claims are usually accompanied with the release of a product or service (i.e. they are marketing spin).

On the other hand, I periodically see people writing about how it is impossible to make money blogging (or that anyone claiming to be full time is either a scammer, a liar, or is selling something on the topic of making money online).

The reality is somewhere between these two extremes.

I’ve been blogging for just under ten years and for nine of those I’ve been making money blogging. It started out as just a few dollars a day but in time it gradually grew to becoming the equivalent of a part-time job, then a full-time job, and more recently into a business that employs others.

I used to talk about the specific levels of my earnings when I started ProBlogger but felt increasingly uncomfortable about doing so (it felt a little voyeuristic and a little like a big-headed boasting exercise and I didn’t really see the point in continuing to do it)— but my income has continued to grow each year since I began.

On some levels I was at the right place at the right time—I got into blogging early (in 2002 … although I felt I was late to it at the time) and have been fortunate enough to have started blogs at opportune times on the topics I write about.

However I know of quite a few other bloggers who make a living from blogging, many of whom have not been blogging anywhere near as long as I have.

For some it is a hobby that keeps them in coffee; for others it is the equivalent of a part time job/supplementing other income from “real jobs” or helping their family out as they attend to other commitments (raising a family). For others it is a full-time thing.

I’ll give you some examples below.

Recently at our Melbourne ProBlogger event I featured numerous Australian bloggers in our speaker lineup who fit somewhere in the part-time to full-time spectrum. They included:

The year before, we had others, including:

Most of these bloggers are full-time (or well on the way to being full-time bloggers). They come from a wide array of niches and all monetize quite differently—doing everything from selling advertising, to having membership areas, to selling ebooks, to running affiliate promotions, to promoting their offline businesses, to selling themselves as speakers, to having book deals, and so on. Many have a combination of different income streams.

They are all also Australian, and are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is happening here in Australia—the same thing is being replicated around the globe.

There are many ways to monetize a blog. To give you a quick sense of the many methods check out this “money map” I created a year or so back, which outlines just some that I brainstormed (click to enlarge).

I also recorded this free hour-and-twenty-minute webinar giving an introduction to the topic.

From time to time, people have released products that claim to be formulas for success when it comes to making money online. They outline steps to follow to “guarantee” you’ll make money.

In my experience there is no formula.

Each full-time blogger I’ve met in the last ten years has forged their own path and has a unique story to tell. They have often acted on hunches and made surprising discoveries along the way.

There are certainly similarities in many of the stories but each blogger has their own personality and style, each one is reaching a different audience, and each niche tends to monetize differently.

The key lesson is to be aware of what others are doing and to learn what you can from each other, but to also be willing to forge your own path as well!

One common critique of the topic of monetizing of blogs is that the only people making money from blogging are the ones writing about how to make money blogging.

This is simply not true.

In the above list of speakers from our Melbourne event you’ll notice I included topic/niche of each blogger. None sell products teaching others to make money blogging—all are on blogging on “normal,” every-day topics.

My own experience of having a blog about blogging (ProBlogger) and a blog about Photography is that it is my photography blog that is by far the most profitable blog (I’d estimate it’s ten times more profitable).

I’ve interviewed numerous full-time bloggers of late in a webinar series including:

Interestingly, none of them make money by teaching others to make money online. Sarah largely blogs about health and wellbeing, Tsh blogs about simple living, and Ana blogs about woodwork.

Every time I’ve surveyed readers of ProBlogger about their earnings, we’ve seen that those making money from blogging are in the minority.

In a recent survey of 1500 ProBlogger readers we asked about their monthly earnings. What you’re seeing below is the spread of earnings from readers who are attempting to make money blogging (note: not all ProBlogger readers attempt to make money, so not all are included in these results).

Keep in mind that ProBlogger readers are generally newish bloggers—about half of those who took this survey had been blogging for less than two years.

So of those trying to make money blogging, 10% don’t make anything and 28% are making less than 30 cents per day. A total of 63% make less than $3.50 per day.

Let’s be clear—most bloggers who are attempting to make money are not making a living from blogging.

Having said that, of the 1508 bloggers surveyed 65 (4%) are making over $10,000 per month (over six figures per year) and a further 9% were doing over $1000 per month (which is at least a part-time level of income).

My feeling, having been attending blogging conferences for six or so years now, is that the number of full-time bloggers is on the rise, and there are actually quite a few more people now at least making the equivalent of a couple of days’ work a week in income from their blogs.

However, most bloggers don’t make much.

When I dig down into the stats from the survey on income levels above, and do some analysis of those who are in the top income bracket, it is fascinating to look at how long they’ve been blogging.

85% of those in that top income bracket have been blogging for four years or more. Almost all of the others had been blogging for three or four years.

This certainly was my own experience. I blogged for a year without making money and once I started monetizing it was around two years of gradual increases before I approached a full-time income level. It would have been four years before I joined that top bracket of income (over $10,000 per month).

Blogging for money is not a get-rich-quick thing. It takes time to build an audience, to build a brand, and to build trust and a good reputation.

And of course even with four or five years of blogging behind you, there’s no guarantee of a decent income.

Longevity is not the only key to a profitable blog. The other common factor that I’ve noticed in most full-time bloggers is that they are people of action.

Passivity and blogging don’t tend to go hand in hand.

Blogging as “passive income stream” is another theme that we hear in many make-money-blogging products, however it is far from my own experience.

I’ve worked harder on my business over the last ten years than I’ve worked on anything in my life before this. It is often fun and gives me energy, but it takes considerable work to create content on a daily basis, to keep abreast of what’s going on in the community, to monitor the business side of things, to create products to sell, to build an audience, and so on.

The key is to build blogs that matter to people, that are original, interesting, and helpful. But this doesn’t just happen—it takes a lot of work.

Yes, it is possible to make money blogging. There is an ever-increasing number of people making money from blogging at a part-time to full-time level —however they are still in the minority.

Those who do make a living from blogging come from a wide range of niches, however one of the most common factors between them is that they’ve been at it for a while.

To help you on your way to make money blogging (or make more money blogging!), don’t miss my special tenth anniversary sale, which is running right now, and which lets you get any of my ebooks for just $10.

How long have you been blogging? Are you looking to make money from it—and have you already? Share your experiences with us in the comments.

View the original article here

How to Target 25-40 Year-olds Online

This guest post us by Genevieve Flintham of www.stagweb.co.uk.

Pictures of the day’s events, winter landscapes, and memorable quotes. Titles laden with puns, facts, and intrigue. An architectural layout that’s accomplished, savvy, and uncomplicated.

Each target group demands a different set of things when it comes to websites and blogs, but in this instance we’re going to look purely at users aged between 25 and 40. This is my target market. With ten years of experience targeting this commonsensical group, we’ve made some discoveries through our two blogs, The Antler for grooms-to-be and best men, and the GoHen Blog for brides-to-be and maids of honour.

Here’s what we’ve learned.

As with targeting any group online, it’s important to first understand this age group. They’ve grown up with technology and sales pitches hitting them from every side and are, to some degree, immune to the typical advertising approaches.

As a first piece of advice, ensure that any form of engagement, whether it’s a blog post, advertorial or product description, remains fairly non-promotional.

We’ve found that people in this age group prefer instructional, informational posts; the most-viewed posts on our blog are Top tips for your Sunday hen party and Stag weekend planning—managing number changes. If you’re targeting a younger demographic, less-wordy posts tend to be favoured, such as those including bullet points, infographics, and pictures.

Another factor we’ve found when targeting this particular age group is that the bare facts ain’t gonna cut it.

We make sure to state all the facts (including that we’re financially protected, our contact details, testimonials, etc.) whenever we get the opportunity. Make information about yourself readily available and if you’ve got great credentials, let them know!

This demographic tends to be wise to companies that could rip them off and have seen a fair share of reputed companies go bust, so they need to know that they can trust you. To back ourselves up, many of our blog posts link to the following page:

There are many benefits to having a target audience of 25-40 year-olds.

One example is that picture placement seems to have little effect; we’ve spent years trying various positions of quality pictures and call-to-action pictures, but the resulting enquiries for each page haven’t changed with each different position.

As well as that, they’re wise to the testimonies of the company—great for genuine, successful businesses, since this audience is able to weed out the fakes.

Only slightly less tech-savvy than their 18-25 counterparts, 25-40 year olds are spending increasingly more time online. Many people have suggested that offline advertising will soon become redundant, but Direct Marketing News does point out that when trying to reach the 20- to 45-year-old demographic that “word of mouth has always been a powerful marketing tool.”

Word of mouth has transformed to be word-of-mouse now though, and if you’re looking at online advertising then mix in the elements of the old (aiming to get people talking about your product) with parts of the new (finding innovative ways to target consumers).

If you don’t mind paying for social media advertising, the best fairly new way to target specifically 25-40 year olds might be to employ the use of Facebook hypertargeting; when going through the advertisement setup process, select this age group as the only ones to see your ad.

Overall, to avoid making any egregious errors when targeting the 25-40 age demographic, ensure that your content is informative, your company values are reflected, and that you bring contemporary elements into a traditional mix.

Do you target 25-40-year-olds? What extra tips can you share with us?

This is a guest post by Genevieve Flintham of www.stagweb.co.uk.

View the original article here

Blogging the Festive Season: The Digital Publisher [Case Study]

Kimberly Gauthier has been running online pet magazine Keep the Tail Wagging for just on a year. As part of our Blogging the Festive Season series, we asked a few questions about how she’s squaring up for her first festive season on the blog.

You started Keep the Tail Wagging on January 1, 2012, so this will be your first festive season on the blog. Can you tell us what your goals are over the coming month to six weeks?

Keep the Tail Wagging is scheduled out almost through December 31st and I will be sprinkling extra holiday wish-list posts through that period as well.  I went back and forth a little on how I would handle the Holiday Season and decided to keep my blog on track (sharing tips on dog care) while adding extra posts for fun.

I’m working with several brands to promote Holiday Wish Lists that dog lovers will be interested in.  The brands are sending me their holiday look books and I’m choosing the times I want to promote—items that I would buy for our home and dogs.  I think these posts will come across with a genuine feel for my readers.

What does preparing Keep the Tail Wagging for the festive season mean?

This season, I’m working on building relationships with brands and small pet businesses, while helping my readers save time and money.

One thing that I promote on Keep the Tail Wagging is the ability to save money on quality dog food and products. Preparing for the season for me means networking with my favorite pet brands (for quality images and Black Friday sneak peeks) and making lists of items that I would purchase.

My goal is to be realistic about what my readers will buy and what’s safe for dogs.  I now have a rule that I won’t promote a product that I won’t buy for our dogs.  One vendor approached me about rope toys, which I find hazardous, because our dogs shred them and I worry about them swallowing the string (big vet bill).  I explained my thoughts and policy, and the vendor was able to share a different (very cool) product to promote instead.

I notice that you’ve already published a seasonal post from Petsmart. Is this a sponsored post, or a guest post? Does the festive season give you different opportunities to generate revenue than the other months of the year?

This is a press release that I agreed to publish on my site, because I’m a Petsmart customer.  I usually pass on press releases, preferring to post guest post (or my own post) instead.  In the upcoming weeks, you’ll see posts that I’ve written for Target and Petco.

These posts are generating revenue, but I am building a solid relationship with these brands.  A fellow blogger suggested that I hold out for money, because they’re taking advantage of me, but I disagree.  My logic is that I’ll be shopping at these stores and talking about it anyway. So why not work with the brands, get quality images and access to the stores (I spent the morning taking pictures at Petco with their permission), and build those relationships?

I’m excited about a recent job that I landed after working for free with a brand.  The PR group who represents the brand appreciated my work and is now paying me for a job this season.

That post’s archived in a category called “Happy Holidays”. Why create a separate category for festive season posts?

I wanted my readers to be able to quickly call up the holiday posts for when they’re ready to do their shopping.  I also want to be able to quickly call them up for repeated promotion over the next six weeks.

I’ll also be creating a button for my site that links to the Happy Holidays posts.  I’m all about making it easy for my readers to find things; plus, I want them to stick around on my site longer, which they’ll do if they’re not frustrated with my organization.

I’ll also be putting these posts in a “Gifts for Dog Lovers” category for the rest of the year.

How’s your blogging schedule looking for the festive season?

One of the bonuses of scheduling out my posts so far in advance is that it allows me to place more focus on other tasks.  Right now, I can focus on writing, promoting my Holiday Wish Lists, blog commenting, and sharing.

What I am going to start doing is spending more time on promoting images.  I’ve been uploading images to Flickr, Pinterest, and creating photo albums on Facebook and Google Plus.  I created a Fur-Holidays board on Pinterest where I’m storing all of my Wish List items.

Are you taking time off around New Year? How are you preparing Keep the Tail Wagging for that time?

I will be taking a break for New Year.  I will be writing a Year in Review post and a One Year Anniversary post to schedule around the New Year.

We stick close to home on New Year’s Eve so I can do some social networking, but I made a commitment that I will take a break during that time.  It’ll make it easier if I can schedule posts and only respond to emails and messages for a brief period (an hour) each day.  I receive over 100 emails a day (I know a blogger who receives nearly 1000) and taking the time to respond to, file, and delete emails each day will make my return to the blogging world much less stressful.

When you do return to the blogging world in 2013, what will you be most heavily focused on?

Content, building traffic, and affiliate marketing.

In 2012, I identified what I want to write about (dog training, behavior, nutrition, health, safety, pet products) and that I wanted to write in my voice, sharing my experience with my readers.

In 2013, I want to continue with this trend and connect with guest bloggers who have a similar writing style.

Building traffic is something we’re all working on and I will continue to do this through networking and PR, both locally and online.

I want to do a better job promoting affiliates through my writing.  I don’t want my site to come across as an online catalog, but it’s important that I remember to place those links and banners effectively throughout my blog posts and pages.

Sounds good! What’s your advice to other digital publishers who want to make the most of the festive season?

My advice is…

Be genuine. Don’t accept a check to promote something you don’t believe in, because your followers will notice and call you on it.  My goal is to build Keep the Tail Wagging into an authority that people will respect; they won’t respect me if I make choices that paint me as a hypocrite.Set office hours.  The longer I work, the more work that comes my way.  I’ve accepted that I will never get to the bottom of my To Do List, so I created a working schedule and try my hardest to adhere to it.  This allows me a much-needed break and gives me time to spend with my family and friends.Have fun.  If it’s not fun, then it’ll show through in my writing.  If I’m not into doing something, then I won’t do it.   I apply this to brands, guest contributions, and my own writing.  What’s the point in putting in the work to write, edit, and promote a post that no one will like, because you didn’t like it?  I’d rather spend that time walking the dogs; which is what I do when I find myself grappling with my blog.  Take a break, come back with a better approach later.

Special thanks to Kimberly for sharing her plans with us. Are you a digital publisher? How do your festive season blogging plans compare? What ideas can you share? Tell us in the comments!

Coming up next, Blogging the Festive Season: The Not-for-Profit Blog

View the original article here