The Blog Post Secret That Keeps You Away from Blogging
Face it – sometimes writers block hits you, so the question is What to Do When You Have No Idea What to Write About on your blog?
Apply the Blog Post Secret.
This is not a blog post automator trick (aka posting “automatic” content).
This is not about writing random thoughts or ramblings.
Anyone can implement this on their blog. It’s the best blog post secret that I know.
Those who are not using it have a big disadvantage because they’re missing a ton of new opportunities.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
running e-mail (text based) interviews with fellow experts or blog owners in your niche.
For example. If your blog is about police dog training, you could create an interview via e-mail where
you ask the owner of a similar niche-targeted blog 5-10 questions about how to train your police dog without paying for a professional.
If your blog is about blogging, you could get pro bloggers answer 5-10 key questions about blogging and how to monetize your content (like I’ll do within a few days myself on this blog)
If your blog is about adsense, gather a list with fellow adsense bloggers or site owners, and e-mail them your 5-10 question interview.
You get the idea. This works on almost any imaginable niche topic, and for any type of blog.
How do you know what questions to ask in the interview?
That’s easy. Spy on similar interviews . Do a google search: “niche” + “interview”. You would get quite a few ideas from different niches, not only yours.
Or, wait until you see how I interview these bloggers, and copycat my interview formula.
The biggest advantage of running an interview with other bloggers and site owners is that besides having new content to publish on your blog, you also get traffic when the interviewee decides to add the interview on his own blog, or link to the interview directly on your blog.
In 8 out of 10 times, that’s what should happen.
Now that you see the key advantages of using this blog post secret, start running interviews with folks in your niche.
I guess that’s not a secret anymore.
Here’s a blog which I visited recently and deliver great tips about the Honest Truth About Making Money Online
The site is runned by a 18-year kid from Vietnam. That’s quite interesting, what do you say?
P.S. An interesting article Does Your Next Blog Post Matter? was published on ProBlogger.net
Read it and tell me what you think.
Interviews with Top Bloggers: Liz Fulghum
Who would thought that a freelance writer could turn her passion for t-shirts into a real money-maker?
Introducing Liz Fulghum at PopCultureTees.com … I had the privilege to interview Liz about her blog and what makes it successful over all the other niche-related blogs out there.
Enjoy it and let me know what you think.
Feel free to send your feedback, and refer this post to all your friends and social bookmarking sites.
You could even download a no-cost copy of the PDF version, print it, and give it away to others
Click here to SAVE the PDF on your computer!
More interviews coming soon…
Here’s the text version of it (all the graphics are found in the PDF above):
1. Would you mind sharing a few things about yourself and your background with our readers?
Sure! I’m in my late 20s and I’ve been working as a designer/developer/writer for over 10 years. I’m passionate about design, typography, and the web.
Unlike a lot of people, I actually started my career as a freelancer, and then later moved to the 9-5 world. I currently live and work in Nashvegas, TN.
2. When did you get started blogging and why?
I’ve tried blogging off and on for years. I think I actually tried blogger when it first came out. Usually I would write about my professional interests mixed with some of what was going on in my own life. I think I started 3-4 blogs total, and quickly found that I would run out of things I wanted to talk about and they wound up sitting in the internet graveyard.
Originally, I think my main motivation for blogging was simply to try out a new way to publish, and I thought I had some things to share about web design/development that would be of value to other people. I saw what other early adapters were doing with blogs (some of the sites I followed back then included http://glassdog.com, http://kottke.org, and http://textism.com) and figured it would be an ideal way to network with like-minded people.
But to be honest, I never hard any clear goals during these early attempts. It was a shiney new toy, and I wanted to try it out.
When I “got serious” with blogging and decided to start PopCultureTees, I think I finally had a clear picture of what I wanted to accomplish with my site. This is probably part of the reason why it this site has been more successful than any of my past attempts.
My main goals were:
- To share my passion for t-shirts with others
- Have a way to generate some passive income via advertising
- Having a web presence that I could use to generate sales leads (both for design clients, and for any onlines stores I might create for selling t-shirts)
- Connect with other cool people in the industry
3. What’s the biggest mistake you made getting started with this?
The biggest mistake I made was under estimating how much work and how much time it takes to maintain and grow a successful blog.
When I started PopCultureTees – http://www.popculturetees.com - I figured I would spend a few hours every week putting together posts for the week and then be done with it. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I typically do something with the site almost every day – whether it’s a design tweak to incorporate a new plugin, responding to user emails, or just working on new content.
If your blog is about something other than your life, there’s generally going to be some serious research involved in coming up with new useful content. Generating these larger articles takes up several hours a week for me on top of everything else I’m doing for the site.
If you aren’t commited to spending this amount of time, you probably won’t be able to generate enough traffic to start making money from your site.
4. How did you come up with the idea of launching your blog?
Ironically, I registered the domain name a long time before I decided to turn it into a blog.
A few years ago I was the lead artist at a screen printing company (http://www.ndesigns.net, we designed and printed t-shirts and other apparel). I was pretty much living and breathing t-shirt design. I registered http://www.popculturetees.com because I thought it would be a great name for an online store to sell pop culture/news of the moment type t-shirts.
That idea never quite materialized, and it wasn’t until about 6 months after I left my job at the screen printing company that I decided to turn the site into a blog.
It really came down to the fact that even though I had switched industries (I now work at a record label), I still loved well designed t-shirts and had a passion for the industry. I wanted to continue to share that passion with people, and offer aspiring t-shirt designers some of the knowledge I had collected during the 4 years I worked in the industry.
5. How often do you publish and how do you get new content ideas?
I usually publish at least once per day, every weekday. This post is basically a “t-shirt” of the day, which makes it easy to do once a day. I have bigger feature posts that I run every few days/weeks, and sometimes I wind up posting news or interesting sites above and beyond my single daily post.
I’ve pretty much gotten the practice of getting new content ideas down to a science:
· I use Google Reader to manage the RSS feeds I get by subscribing to delicious tags relating to my niche.
· I use Google Alerts to get news delivered to my inbox daily.
· I follow a few sites which pull news feeds of major sites in my industry
· I read forums on my niche.
The first 3 methods are usually where I find new t-shirts to feature. The last one is generally where I find topics for major articles, based on questions that other people are asking.
6. How do you mainly receive (or generate) traffic to your blog?
Back links from other industry sites are the most valuable (because the people who visit are actually interested in what my site is about), but I also receive a lot of traffic from various CSS galleries that I have submitted the site to, as well as from articles on site design that have featured PopCultureTees.
Having a strong design for a blog definitely gives you a little extra boost, there are some places you can tap into to promote your site that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.
I’ve experimented a lot with the various social networking/linking sites with varied success. Time and time again, the most hits generally come for StumbleUpon, and usually in response to “top 10″ list articles and tutorials.
Right now the entire web seems to have ADD, and doing a Top 10 list per week seems to be an almost guaranteed way to generate a traffic spike.
I’ve also had good success with contributing articles to other sites as a guest author, even when the topic of the site I’m contributing to doesn’t necessarily match the topic of my own. There’s (obviously) a large spike immediately after the article is published, but it seems as though some people always stick around – I generally see a lift in my traffic even several weeks afterwards.
One final tip: Set up a network with your friends who blog so you can digg/stumble each others articles as needed. Don’t do it for every article and wear out your welcome, but usually people will be more than happy to help out.
7. What is your most closely-guarded secret about blogging for money?
It wouldn’t be very closely-guarded if I shared it, now would it?
To be honest, the one thing that I’ve really learned about making money from my site is that sometimes, the best ways to make money are not from advertising, but from indirect methods.
Until you have HUGE traffic numbers, good Google PR, and a great Alexa rating you can pretty much forget about commanding large sums of cash for ads. And to get all those things, it takes time and a lot of “link-bait” content (by “link-bait” I mean content that people like to re-link. Hot right now: lists, how-to articles, productivity tips and tricks).
But even if you’re a smaller blogger, you can still make money indirectly from your site – I’ve leveraged PopCultureTees to get generate freelance gigs doing design, wordpress customization, and writing.
I’ve found that if your blog is well enough done, it’s almost all the resume/portfolio you need.
I’ve also tapped into a few advertising networks that work well for still-growing sites.
http://BuySellAds.com is still in semi-closed beta, but if you’re accepted as an advertiser they let you choose whatever pricing you’d like, and only charge 25% finders fee for ads placed on your site.
http://ProjectWonderful.com is another site I’ve had success with. These guys allow advertiser to bid on space; the winning bid stays active until their terms runs out or someone out bids them. You can choose what you’d like bidding to start out, and it can be as low as .05 cents and will naturally increase as people try to outbid each other.
8. What differentiate your blog among all the others in your niche field?
First of all, let me just say that PopCultureTees operates inside of a pretty small niche, comparatively speaking. That makes it easier to look at what everyone else is doing, and do it a little bit differently.
The site started without one of the most creative designs out there (in our niche), and added to it a conversational/humorous tone to most of the posts. Most of the sites out there do the same thing we do – link to great looking tees, but I like to think that the bar for design is a little higher for PopCultureTees. What winds up on there is also based on my own aesthetics, and that is, of course, entirely unique.
The other thing that’s a little bit different is that I actually worked in the t-shirt industry as a designer. It gives me the opportunity to talk with a little bit of authority about how to design shirts and screen printing in general. So far, that’s translated into how-to articles and tutorials for would-be t-shirt designers that you won’t find anywhere else.
9. If you had to get a boost in comments from your blog readers, how would you do it?
Post a tutorial, post something controversial, or post a question. People only post comments if they’re mad, disagree with you, have a question, or are fired up.
10. What are the blogs you visit frequently and why?
Just checked google reader and apparently I’m currently subscribed to 81 feeds. Here are some of the highlights:
Productivity:
- http://lifehacker.com (links to useful productivity apps and web services)
- http://lifehack.org (articles about productivity practice)
Design:
- http://northtemple.com (these guys have some great ideas on design)
- http://coudal.com (these guys are just cool. I usually wind up finding one t-shirt per week through their feed)
- http://justcreativedesign.com , http://fuelyourcreativity.com , http://noupe.com (all awesome sources for practical articles/tutorials on design/development)
Writing/Blogging:
- http://copyblogger.com (the big daddy of all blogging sites, always great info here)
- http://freelancefolder.com (more great info for freelancers)
I try to stay away from other t-shirt blogs, just because I don’t want to be influenced by what they’re doing.
11. Who are your favorite bloggers and why?
I would have to say that my favorite blogs are http://northtemple.com and http://coudal.com. These two have really strong voices on design practice and theory.
12. Which plugins you can’t live without and why?
1. Lighter Menus (http://www.italyisfalling.com/lighter-menus). The admin side of my blog runs pretty slow, and this does a fantastic job of speeding everything up. The biggest thing: I don’t have to wait for a whole page to load to get to the new post screen.
2. WP-PageNavi (http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/) Puts the nice pagination at the bottom of each page on my site. I can’t imagine how I’d handle navigation without it.
3. Different Posts Per Page (http://www.maxblogpress.com/plugins/dppp/) This one took me a while to find, but it’s probably one of the most useful ones in terms of making the layout of the site more usable. Because I have featured articles (which are long) and t-shirt posts (which are short), I wanted to display full t-shirt posts, and excerpts of featured articles in the archives. This pluging let me easily set that up.
13. What is the most important thing you learned about blogging that you could share with your best friend
I think the most important thing I’ve learned is this: there’s two types of blogs… the blog you write for yourself and the blog written for other people. If you’re just writing for yourself, then you can’t worry about hits, or generating advertising. You have to do it just because you enjoy it.
Most blogs start out like this.
But the second you decide you want to blog for other people and that you want to make money off your blog, you have to start treating it like a business (even if you’re writing about what you had for breakfast every morning). You need schedules, goals and you need to be committed to posting quality content on regular basis.
14. What plans do you have for the future with your blog?
I plan on doing more longer-length articles and top 5 lists of t-shirts, which have proven to be most popular. I may also use the site to spin off a PopCultureTees store.
We wish Liz success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all!
========================
If you want to get further into blogging, check out these resources:
- WordPress Profit Maximizer – The BEST WordPress Plugins sent to you weekly via e-mail:
http://www.remarkableblogging.com/rb-products/wp-profit-maximizer/
- Lazy Blogging dot Com – “Here’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Building a Small Blog That Rakes-In $300, $3,000.. and Even $30,000 Per Month!”
Thank you,
Codrut Turcanu.
Interviews with Top Bloggers: Justin Premick
Haven’t you heard about Justin Premick yet? Does AWEBER ring a bell?
While you could learn a ton of cool stuff about e-mail marketing and subject lines, today we’re asking Justing some burning questions about “Blogging”.
Click here to download the PDF interview, or read the text version below…
1. Would you mind sharing a few things about
yourself and your background for our readers?
I plan and create educational materials designed to help business owners effectively manage their permission-based email marketing campaigns.
I started with AWeber in 2004 as a customer support representative. Through working with thousands of businesses on their campaigns, I learned a lot about what makes for good email marketing, and used that knowledge to move into my current position.
2. When did you get started blogging, and why?
A couple years ago, we were looking for a way to share articles, enhance our reputation as an email industry leader and connect with our customers in a more casual/personal way.
Blogging was a natural fit for these goals, and we launched it in August 2006.
3. What’s the biggest mistake you
made getting started with this?
If anything I’d say I was too long-winded at first – and that made some of my posts hard to get through.
But that’s the sort of thing that corrects itself as you blog more and get a better feel for how to write for blogs.
4. How did you come up with the
idea of launching your blog?
It really grew out of our larger plan to communicate more freely with customers and prospects.
There wasn’t really an “aha!” moment – we just decided that it made the most sense to use a blog to publish articles and interact with the AWeber user community. It was all very natural.
5. How often do you publish and
how do you get content ideas?
I shoot for two to three posts per week. Sometimes only one post goes up in a given week, and sometimes there are as many as four or five.
It really comes down to what I/we have to say that week. Putting out posts for the sake of sticking to a schedule doesn’t do you any good; you need to have something valuable to say, and if I don’t like an article I’ve written, I’ll withhold it from publishing until it’s the way I want it, or I’ll delete it entirely and go in a different direction.
6. How do you mainly receive (or generate)
traffic to your blog?
I focus on building our subscriber base, since I can reliably return them to the blog to read new articles.
I encourage visitors to subscribe to the blog by focusing on the convenience factor (I’ll tell them when there’s a new article so they don’t have to check back on their own) and offer a free bonus (our Email Deliverability guidebook, a PDF they can download after subscribing).
I also tell our other groups of customers and prospects about particularly compelling posts in my emails to them and link up new posts on Twitter.
I’ve published a series of posts on how we get more blog subscribers:
http://www.aweber.com/blog/email-marketing/double-blog-newsletter.htm
They go into more detail on my specific tactics than I can fit here.
7. What is your most closely-guarded
secret about blogging for money?
I don’t know that I have any “closely guarded secrets” but here are a few principles I think can help any blogger…
- Get your points across and get out of the way. Use as many words as you have to, but no more. Headers, bullet points, pictures and video are all great ways to “say more” using fewer words.
- Encourage people to talk and share. Invite comments and respond to them. Have a conversation.
- Don’t suppress your personality. Your likes, dislikes, sense of humor – all that stuff that makes up who you are – will keep people interested and coming back.
8. What differentiates your blog among
all the others in your niche field?
I think that for us it really comes down to listening to your audience and creating posts they want to read and share.
Many blogs in the email marketing industry are geared toward industry people – guys who have been doing this stuff for 10 years or longer and who know all the ins and outs.
Our blog isn’t like that. We publish for the end user (who is often already a successful business owner and marketer), not the industry expert who lives and breathes email all day long.
We do publish “thought leader” pieces now and then, but honestly, many of our most successful, best-loved posts are the simplest ones – “hey, here’s a simple way to get some more subscribers” or “here’s a list of ideas for things you can write about in your next email.”
9. If you had to get a boost in comments
from your blog readers, how would you do it?
Be controversial. Ask for readers’ opinions. Give them a chance to be heard. Write a rant (don’t overdo this, but do it now and then – nothing gets people talking like a rant).
10. Which are the blogs you visit frequently and why?
I’ve pared back my blog reading a lot – there are so many great ones out there that you could easily spend your entire day reading and never get anything done yourself!
A few that I still follow:
Seth Godin – http://sethgodin.typepad.com
Good for marketing advice, but almost more valuable for lessons in developing style and voice in your writing.
Copyblogger – http://www.copyblogger.com
Excellent copywriting and marketing blog from Brian Clark and team. Check out their series on headlines:
http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/
No Man Is an Iland – http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/
Email marketing blog that is also brimming with style. Mark writes some heavy-duty, thought-provoking posts on email – I try not to miss any of them.
11. Which are your favorite bloggers and why?
Lots of favorites although I don’t read many blogs lately. The guys above are on my shortlist, but I’d also include Darren Rowse – he posts way more than I can keep up with, but he’s very down-to-earth and readable. Makes you feel like you know him personally.
12. Which plugins you can’t live without and why?
I don’t use a lot of plugins but I do like SEO Meta Editor:
http://cheekyo.com/seo-plugin/
Makes it easy to write better meta descriptions for my posts.
13. What is the most important thing you learned about blogging that you could share with your best friend?
Don’t fear criticism and disagreement. Some of the best conversations come out of those kinds of comments.
At the same time, don’t tolerate abusive behavior. Decide what will and will not be acceptable in comments on your blog and don’t be afraid to moderate to preserve the community.
14. What plans do you have for
the future with your blog?
We’ve done a few audio and video posts, but haven’t made them a regular part of the blog yet. I think that will happen soon.
I also want to invite some other AWeber team members to write for the blog – once a blog is established, having a variety of voices and perspectives helps to keep the blog fresh and appealing to new and long-time followers.
===
We wish Justin success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all! J
If you want to get further into blogging, check out these resources:
- WordPress Profit Maximizer – The BEST WordPress Plugins sent to you weekly via e-mail:
http://www.remarkableblogging.com/rb-products/wp-profit-maximizer/
- Lazy Blogging dot Com – “Here’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Building a Small Blog That Rakes-In $300, $3,000.. and Even $30,000 Per Month!”
Thank you,
Codrut Turcanu.
Interviews with Top Bloggers: Matt Garrett
What a “black hat” guy who once got “adsense-banned” (several times) could teach you about blogging? Find out now…
Introducing Matt Garrett, at http://MattGarrett.com…
Right-click here to read the interview in PDF format (it has a ton of cool pictures too!), or read the text version below…
1. A “bit” about my Background –
Not an easy question to answer in itself, as I’ve been messing around with websites online since around 1996, although I didn’t start making money online until 2000, and then went “full time” in 2005.
I started of with simple affiliate Niche SEO based websites which I had a fair amount of success with, as I spent a lot of time researching everything I could about SEO and linkbuilding, which gave me a good understanding of how to get free “organic” traffic from the search engines.
I started to make AdSense Sites in late 2003, and was lucky enough to get in when it was still “easy money”.
In the process I learnt a LOT about the “Black Hat” side of SEO and site building, with cloaking and other sneaky techniques for building backlinks to sites.
I also bought the membership site www.TopKeywordLists.com from Keith Baxter in 2005, which was then mentioned in Joel Comm’s New York Times Bestselling book, The AdSense Code.
By 2006 I had hooked up with 3 other Brits to automate the process of mass building AdSense sites and we got to the stage where we were building out 10-12 thousand sites a month, unfortunately the “Giigle” police then caught up with us and I had 4 different AdSense accounts closed over a period of 6 months, including 2 that were totally “White Hat”.
It was a painful and expensive “learning” experience, but ultimately my business is better because of the lessons I learnt.
After that I decided to take a fresh look at my business and where I wanted to go with it and ended up writing the www.LazyGitMarketing.com ebook based on a simple method of making recurring commissions that I’d been using for several years, but had pushed to one side while I was concentrating on the AdSense sites.
www.LazyGitMarketing.com launched in April 2007 and was a far bigger success than I’d expected, as it was my very first “internet marketing” product, although not my first info product, having written and released a book for The World of Warcraft a month earlier, partly as a test run for LazyGitMarketing.
As I’d been in the background of “internet marketing” for a while, I knew a few of the big players in the business and managed to get some great JV partners on board, like Neil Shearing, Joel Comm, Phil Wiley, Jason James, Eric Rockefeller and Ewen Chia, which kind of helped…
2. When did I get started blogging and why?
It was late 2006 when I got in to blogging as a serious part of my business.
I’d got some “niche” blogs which I’d previously used for linking to my AdSense sites and figured I should do something with them, so I started learning everything I could about blogs and specifically WordPress.
In the process I realized I might as well set up a blog to share videos of what I learnt and BlogTactics.com was born, followed shortly by IMTesting.com, where I share the results of different stuff I test out for my own business.
The time I’d spent learning about blogs obviously paid off, as both started getting reasonably good traffic very quickly.
I know use 4 or 5 main “IM” based blogs to back up my affiliate marketing and list building efforts, and it works very well.
~##~
3. What’s the biggest mistake I’ve made?
lol!
I’ve made more than my fair share, but the biggest was easily going so deep in to “BlackHat” and trying to “game the system” with Google, that cost me a small fortune.
After that the biggest mistake is one that I’m still guilty of, I simply don’t outsource enough of what I do.
That’s my main priority over the next 6 months, to set up more of my processes as outsourced systems, to give me more time to concentrate on building my business even more.
Although a close second is having way too many sites and not being focused enough, although I’m trying to cut back on the 600+ sites/domains I still own at the moment.
Like many internet marketers I find it very tempting to jump from one thing to another without getting the most benefit out of each along the way.
4. How did I come up with the idea of launching my blog?
Having already got a bunch of old blogs that I wasn’t really doing anything with I spotted that they were still getting good traffic, which just backed up the consensus of opinion that the search engines like blogs, and they’re a real easy way of setting up a site and adding fresh content, so it just seemed obvious to turn a lot of my old, unused sites in to blogs and start using them to generate more traffic.
http://IMTesting.com came from the fact that I test a lot of different tools for myself, so it just seemed an obvious idea to publish that info and see what happened.
I’m glad I did, even though I don’t post very often to this blog, the response has been very good and generated some nice commissions in the process…
http://BlogTactics.com was partly somewhere I could share what I’d learnt about blogging and as I enjoy creating simple to follow tutorial videos, it seemed a good idea to make the most of the videos by using them as content for a new blog about blogging.
It’s become a pretty successful blog for me, helping to build a list of over 4,500 people interested in learning about blogging.
Another blog, http://IAMUncovered.com, came about when I discovered someone was using my newsletters as content for their own blog and I thought I might as well beat them to it and use it myself, so that blog is mostly just my newsletter content re-published on a blog.
It’s a great way of getting more than one use out of stuff that I’m writing anyway, and some people prefer to read the blog than get the newsletter.
http://MattGarrett.com was simply somewhere to put other stuff I wanted to share, although it’s ended up partly as a place for me to share the different bonus offers from “guru’s” for big launches.
I’ve also got a LOT other blogs covering subjects from Online Games to Movies, I guess I have a bit of an addictive personality, but they all bring in more traffic and money in one way or another.
~##~
5. How often do I publish and
how do I get new content ideas?
How often I publish on each blog varies, I don’t post just for the sake of it. Some, like IMTesting.com, may only get one or two posts a month, but others like BlogTactics.com and IAMUncovered.com, get 2 or 3 a week.
I don’t tend to post every day to any of my blogs, let alone several times a day like some bloggers.
That’s partly because there’s a lot of other stuff going on in my business, and to be fair, I would prefer to post more often as I know from experience that when I do it does help get even more traffic.
I still believe that if you post good quality stuff when you do post, then you can get away with not posting every day.
~##~
6. How do I mainly generate
traffic to my blog?
To get traffic to my blogs I don’t just rely on free “organic” traffic from the SEO stuff built in to WordPress.
I also use some social bookmarking (mostly automated) and Blog Carnival Submissions, I’ve made a free video on using Blog Carnivals here:
–
www.BlogCarnivalSubmission.com
I’ve also used Video Submissions (again with an automated tool to save time, www.VidPostRobot.com) with a lot of success for BlogTactics, which gets around 6,000 unique visitors each month, even if I don’t post very often.
There’s a lot more I want to do with RSS to drive even more traffic, which is one of my upcoming projects, as using RSS feeds can be very powerful, if you get it right.
I love the way WP has a lot of SEO stuff built in, which can be helped even more with plugins like the “All in one SEO” plugin, and using an SEO friendly permalink structure which is such a basic mistake that a lot of people make.
~##~
7. What’s my most closely guarded secret about blogging?
LOL!
Any one who knows me, knows I don’t keep secrets, I enjoy sharing what I’ve learnt way too much, that’s what most of my “IM” blogs are for…
I’d say that the most important thing anyone wanting to make money with a blog can do is set up a newsletter and start building a list.
If you checkout any of the “Top” bloggers who are making real money, we all have an optin newsletter.
After that it’s probably realizing that finding a core of high quality (preferably recurring commission) affiliate programs, that you’ve tested and use yourself, to promote is far better, and more profitable, than just jumping on board with every new product that’s released.
This also helps you to build up relationships with the owners of those programs and be able to secure better deals for your subscribers.
And the last one, which could actually be the most important thing, is persistence!
or “bloody minded stubbornness” as my mother calls it…
Don’t expect to start making enough to quit your day job over night, it takes time and effort, but it is well worth it when you get there!
oh, I think I mentioned this one earlier, focusing on one thing at a time and not jumping around all the while is also very useful, although it’s something that all of us tend to be prone to, even after “going pro” and working full time online..
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8. What makes my blogs different?
Well they say there’s nothing new in the world, and on the net that seems to be even more true, but each of my blogs has it’s own “angle” and I try to make sure they offer the best value I can give.
So http://IMTesting.com is simply sharing the results of my tests on products, to save other people the time and money doing so, which has made it pretty popular.
Where as BlogTactics.com is just full of free video tutorials of the kind of quality that you’d find in other people’s paid products, which again makes it popular, and means I get a lot of great feedback from visitors.
I don’t think it matters if there’s already a blog (or ten) that’s on the same subject as you want to do one on, just make sure you make your content as good as you can, get your message out there and keep at it.
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9. How would I encourage more
visitors to comment on posts?
I’ve tried out quite a few of the standard tactics for increasing feedback and comments on blogs and the ones that I’ve found work best, so far, are the simplest ones.
Like running a competition, adding a survey, making a post on twitter (if you’ve got enough followers), or just ask people for their opinion.
Only a certain percentage of people will ever leave a comment, so it’s always going to be partly down to how many people read the post, but it does help once one or two have already left a comment, so you can always ask a friend or two to get the ball rolling.
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10. Which are the blogs that I visit frequently and why?
Hmm, I don’t often visit other people’s blogs, simply because I’m usually too busy trying to get on with work of my own, and like spending time in forums, you can easily lose half a day just keeping up with the good bloggers out there.
But I do use a bit of software that lets me know when a new post is made on certain blogs, there’s currently a list of around 40+ blogs in it…
It’s a useful tool as if I spot a post that interested me I can quickly pop to the blog and I’ll usually be one of the first people to leave a comment, which can help to bring in some new visitors to my own blogs, providing the comment I leave is interesting and useful enough…
I do also pop in to some of my friend’s blogs now and then just to see what they’re up to and keep in touch.
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11. Who are my favorite bloggers?
lol! As I mentioned in the last question, I “keep an eye” on 40+ blogs, and I’d consider all of them worth reading, but there are some obvious names that stand out from the crowd, like (in no particular order): -
Chris Garrett (no relation), who is a fellow Brit and a real savvy blogger
Darren Rowse, who is another one of the worlds top bloggers and shares some very useful info and tips
Yaro Starak, another top blogger who understands exactly how to make the most from his blog
Neil Shearing, who’s a fellow Brit internet marketer who is one of the most respected names in the industry, with good reason
Jonathon Leger, another internet marketer who is an absolute star at SEO stuff and tests everything before publishing his results
Dan McGonagle, simply because he’s a mate and we bang a lot of ideas of each other, so I gotta keep an eye on what he’s up to
Soren Jordansen, who’s another mate and a whiz at Traffic Exchanges, so I like to keep an eye on what he’s up to
Andrew Hansen, another top “IMer” who’s main business comes from blogs, so has some excellent tips and info.
Alvin Phang, watching what Alvin‘s achieved over the last 18 months has been very impressive and I’ve picked up some useful stuff from him
ShoeMoney and UberAffiliate, as they’re another two of the worlds top bloggers and I usually find something worth the time when I visit their sites
I’m sure I’m going to get in to trouble for missing some, but the list could go on and on….
12. What plugins can’t I live without and why?
I recently made a post on BlogTactics covering my favorite 12 plugins for WordPress
The list obviously includes some basic stuff like WP DB Backup and Google Sitemaps, but also the essential SEO plugins like the “All in one SEO” plugin and Deans Permalink Migration.
As well as the Ping Optimizer from www.MaxBlogPressPlugins.com to make sure your ping list is working properly and not unknowingly hurting your blog.
Then there’s plugins that make your blog more sticky and user friendly like “Subscribe To Comments” that let’s people who post a comment know when a follow up comment is posted on the same post.
And then there’s the “Post Teaser” that crops the post to a certain length (that you choose) for the front page as a “taster” of the main post, so people can see more posts easily, as well as “Brian’s Threaded Comments” which allows you to reply to individual comments posted.
There’s also the plugin that I use to automate my social bookmarking for posts, www.WPAutoSocialPoster.com plugin, which is the only “Paid” plugin listed.
If you’ve got a blog in the “make money online” or “internet marketing” niche, then the DealDotCom.com Widget is also a nice easy way of monetizing your blog.
Then there’s the www.UniqueArticlesWizard.com auto content posting plugin which is an absolute Gem, especially for automating “niche” market blogs.
I’ve added a video to BlogTactics to show how to use the “UAW” free plugin for automated posts – http://blogtactics.com/automated-unique-content-blog-posts/
I have one blog that only gets content from this plugin and it now receives around 4-5,000 unique visitors each month, all hands free for me, nice!
And of course there’s my own BlogRoll Link “NoFollow” plugin to make blogroll links “nofollow” if Google hits you with a PR0 penalty for allegedly selling links, which happened to me.
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13. What’s the most important thing
I’ve learnt about blogging?
It’s hard to narrow it down to just one thing.
There’s simple stuff, like making sure you use the right permalink structure and a
good ping list.
You can grab a copy of the ping list that I use on http://Mat7.com/Blog/, it’s the second item down on the page.
Then there’s stuff that should be obvious, like make sure you post good quality content, spend some time working on backlinks and commenting on other related blogs.
Then there’s staying focused and keeping at it, having realistic expectations about being in for the long haul.
And of course making sure you don’t rely on AdSense for making money, there are far more effective ways, like building your own newsletter and concentrating on high quality products to recommend, and testing them out first yourself.
14. My Plans for the future?
At the moment I’m building out a new network of 150+ niche blogs at the moment which are to prove just how well one of my tactics for “Niche” blogging works, which I will be turning in to a video tutorial course on how anyone can do exactly the same. I like to help people realize that’s it really isn’t “rocket science”, you just need a simple, proven blueprint to follow.
It would probably already be done, but I forgot I should be outsourcing it, so now I’m preparing some videos for my outsourcing team to get them working on it, instead of me! lol!
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Thanks for the questions Codrut, I hope your readers find my answers useful. J
Matt Garrett
Blog: http://MattGarrett.com
Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MattGarrett/
Support: http://AskMattg.com
Blogging: http://Blogtactics.com
IM News: http://IAMUncovered.com
IM Tests: http://IMTesting.com
Blog Carnivals: www.BlogCarnivalSubmission.com
Resources: http://Mat7.com
PLR: www.PLRTutorials.com
We wish Matt success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all!
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If you want to get further into blogging, check out these resources:
- WordPress Profit Maximizer – The BEST WordPress Plugins sent to you weekly via e-mail:
http://www.remarkableblogging.com/rb-products/wp-profit-maximizer/
- Lazy Blogging dot Com – “Here’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Building a Small Blog That Rakes-In $300, $3,000.. and Even $30,000 Per Month!”
Thank you,
Codrut Turcanu
