Blogging. Fatherhood. Business Building. It's all here.

It’s time for a change…

November 14, 2011 By 68 Comments

This morning, I was getting for the day when I came to a realization…

I hate blogging about blogging.

What started off as trying to help people has turned into the vicious cycling that I had dreaded from day one.

So what exactly happens?

The more I post useful tips that actually work…the more people just want another list post about “how to get more comments” or “how to make more money” that they can tweet without reading or use on their own “make money online talking about making money online” blog. It is less and less about building a business out of something unique and more about copying the success of others in the hope that money can be made off of the same blueprint.

As this cycle continued to show itself…I was finding myself thinking about creating training course, more eBooks and other related materials that would basically just become more of the noise. I wasn’t happy about it and I was dreading every second of it.

Why I Initially Got Into Blogging

I got into blogging to connect and help other people in the biking industry with Bike198. Luckily, that site is still doing that. However, when I tried to apply that same theory to Blogging Labs, I was getting stuck in the rut that most blogs about blogging head in…and it is time to stop the madness.

I want to connect with people again and I do not care if that costs me money in the long run. That is not why I started writing about online publishing in the first place…but that is what it turned into. Bike198 is still doing incredibly well on the income side of things without having to sacrifice the connection and sharing within the industry. That audience could care less about the blogging and make money online world…all they want to do is share their passion online.

If I have to take an income hit to get back that connect here…it is worth the tradeoff to not be another “blog about blogging” or “make money online by talking about making money online” place on the web. There are enough people doing that already and 99.9% of them are all saying the same thing. Saying that, there are very few (ie. DavidRisley.com and some others) that are still publishing content that I will even read.

So things are going to change rapidly. I am going to get back to connecting with people by publishing everything here on RobbSutton.com and I am completely dropping Blogging Labs. The old content will stay live, but now you are going to be connecting with me…not some brand…not what the industry wants…just me. The about pages, categories and other items will shift into the direction that I want this site to take.

I have a lot going on now that I do believe can help people and I want to share, but I do not want it to be list posts about rehashed crap in an attempt for pageviews. If you want to connect with me…the guy behind the scenes…then you will love this change. If you want more list posts and how to posts that will “get you 100 more subscribers today”, you are not on the right site anymore.

It’s time for a change.

To start…I am going to give everything I used to charge for away for free. Ramped Blogging and Ramped Reviews are now yours to have whether or not you subscribe to a newsletter or purchase them. Here are the download links…

Ramped Reviews

Ramped Blogging

They will continue to be free for anyone who wants to download them. If you sign up for the newsletter or rss feed…great! I am glad to have you as a part of the site. But…I will no longer be offering a free incentive on this site as part of the signup process as the blogging about blogging world is full of people that purely signup for the free stuff and aren’t interested in staying connected. They are just interested in that next “magic bullet”.

Blogging needs to get back to its roots…

I have this fundamental belief that blogging needs to get back to its roots. What started off as making that one on one connection has now become almost solely focused on money and becoming another “get rich quick” scheme. What many people fail to realize is that the money came after the connection…not before. It is only when these connections got in such high numbers that bloggers began to gain respect for the amount of income they were producing that was a byproduct of the connections…it wasn’t the initial goal.

So here is RobbSutton.com…it will be about me. My successes, failures and life laid out  in the attempt to connect with people on the other side of the screen. I am going to keep this site as far away from MMO as possible and focus my life, what I enjoy and the principles that create successful ventures.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , ,

6 Tips On How To Get More Comments On Your Blog

November 1, 2011 By 2 Comments

I’m going to share a little secret: the process I go through when writing a new blog post isn’t usually this: “Idea = Blog Post”

Instead, my equation looks a little more like this:

“Problem > Research > Solution > Blog Post > Feedback > Better Solution”

You see, I’m entirely sold on the concept that a blog shouldn’t be looked at a one-way information vortex. Instead, it should be more like a hurricane or tornado (or some other turbulent force of nature) that stirs up information and ideas from a group of people. In the same way most people read a recipe and adjust it based on the reviews, I believe most readers find blog comments as rich in information as the blog itself. So, now you’re asking: how do I get more comments on my blog?

I’ll share a few ideas I’ve learned over my blogging experience:

1. Interact with other blogs

Find blogs that are related to yours, and join the discussion on their articles. In addition to learning more about your field of interest, you can share your expertise and get to know like-minded readers. You can often find appropriate places to add a link to an article you have written on your blog, but only do so if it adds to the discussion and benefits the other readers. Keep at it, and over time, thoughtful blog interaction could increase comment-giving traffic to your own blog.

2. Submit guest articles to other industry blogs

Why would you put time into an article that someone else gets to run without paying you? Well, in essence, you are getting paid; provided that the blog provides your author bio at the bottom. In one fell swoop, you’re getting your name out to a wider audience, a link to your page that could help search engine rankings (especially if the blog has a higher page rank), and you’re establishing credibility by positioning yourself as an industry expert. Anyone can create a blog and publish articles on it; however, having a reputable blog publish your articles speaks volumes to readers.

3. Keep it casual

This isn’t English 101 anymore – you can speak in first person, use contractions, and have a sense of humor. If your blog comes off too textbook-y, readers may be uncomfortable commenting for fear of getting slapped by a ruler after neglecting MLA format. That isn’t to say you should neglect spelling and grammar, or be unprofessional. But your goal here is to engage in conversation, and conversations don’t sound like term papers. Think of it like talking to colleagues over coffee. Oh, and in case you didn’t notice back there: I started a sentence with “but.” Yes, I’m a rebel.

4. Keep stirring the pot

The directions mean it when they say “stir constantly over low heat.” If you stick your blog post on the burner and abandon it, you’ll end up getting burned in the end. People who took the time to comment on your blog should be recognized and responded to, especially when they have questions or criticisms. The rest of your audience is watching how you respond to these comments, and the impression you make could be the difference between repeat visitors (and commenters) and a dwindling audience.

5. Be diplomatic in your comment responses

A reality you must accept about blogging is that your ideas are out there, open for praise or attack. If you get a criticizing comment, you should always take the high road in your response: thank them for contributing their thoughts, apologize and clarify if they misunderstood (or misconstrued) something you said, and maybe even ask them how they would do things differently. If the comment is non-constructive, mean spirited, or downright wrong, resist the urge to puff your chest and tell that person off. Respectfully disagree, or politely comment that you would appreciate more constructive feedback. You can’t win a war of opinion against an ill-mannered person, so don’t lose your professional image over a nasty comment.

6. Ask for what you want

Would you like more responses? Ask for them. In the footer of every article, ask the reader if they enjoyed the article, and tell them to add their two cents in the comments section. It sounds unnecessary, but if marketing has taught me anything, it’s that people respond better to calls of action. Many non-bloggers may not realize how much time and resources goes into writing articles, and that comments are what make it worthwhile for many writers. If you’re still not getting responses, consider whether you’re asking the right (or any) questions.

Now it’s your turn:

Remember the equation: Problem > Research > Solution > Blog Post > Feedback > Better Solution? This is part where you help solve a problem many bloggers (including myself) have. What advice would you give to a blogger seeking more comments?

Mandy Barrington is the lead web designer and blog author at RYP Marketing, an online marketing company whose name describes their objective – to “Raise Your Profits.” Take a stroll by the RYP blog to read more of her ramblings. When she isn’t busting out articles or websites, she’s probably cooking sinfully delicious food or planning her next getaway.

Filed Under: Blogging, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , , ,

Increasing Traffic Significantly While Making Things Easier On Myself

September 8, 2011 By 12 Comments

I recently made some big changes to the Bike198 site that not only made my life much easier…but the big changes also drastically increased my search engine traffic. There is something in this story — we’ll call it my big mistake — for all bloggers, so take this ride with me and see how you can use this story to improve your blog.

This story really starts back with the re-branding of Bike198.com. Back then…I had the idea that I wanted to have each of the separate cycling disciplines on their own sub-domain with individual WordPress installs. On paper, it looked like a great idea. I would have individual sites that could carry their own weight and have their own direct advertising campaigns while somewhat benefiting from each others back links. I even made it look cool by the colors switching between mountain, road, commuting and the base domain.

It was a dumb idea.

At least for me. I have always said on this blog that I learn as much from my mistakes…if not more…as my successes and I was learning a big lesson on this setup. What I basically did with that setup was create a HUGE headache for myself in several major areas.

  • Separate installs was like running 4 different blogs at once. A total pain in the ass and ultimately some of the categories/sub domains suffered.
  • You don’t really get the full benefit of back linking to the main domain. The other sites have to hold themselves up in a lot of ways.
  • This setup rendered the core domain Bike198.com literally useless as it had no relevant info. All it ended up being was basically a landing page with post lists.
  • When people linked to my website, 9 times out of 10 they said Bike198.com instead of the respective sub-domains. Who was really going to type mountain.bike198.com anyway?

That really only scratches the surface of the issues I was running into. Basically I created a setup that need a team to run…and I am just one guy with a blog.

So I had to go about fixing this as it was driving me crazy. My great idea on paper was driving me up the wall and hurting my business. So I started looking into a setup that would actually work for me while strengthening the site.

I made the decision…I was going to drop years worth of articles and photos on the main domain…Bike198.com. Mountain.Bike198.com, Road.Bike198.com and Urban.Bike198.com were going to get combined onto Bike198.com. Sounds like a big move and it was.

Luckily, WordPress makes this entire process stupid simple. Export from one into the other and click a simple check box stating you want the images to be downloaded too. It is actually so easy that you think you are doing something wrong. As far as moving the domains so Google and the other search engines wouldn’t get confused, I just hit up an article I wrote on moving domains and I was set.

So everything was on one site. Google and other search engines knew to take the change due to the 301 redirects and I was on my way to having an easier life with my main source of website income. Through the process, I even figured out that I could simulate the separate sites through WordPress 3.0.

  • Conditional menus with WordPress would handle navigation
  • OiOPublisher would actually handle the separate advertising by category for me (huge score for that plugin)
  • Each individual category RSS feed would be my different feeds for road, mountain and urban…so that was an easy switch

So the only thing I lost was my colors…and I can live with that. (Oddly enough, a coding genius friend of mine thinks he can still get that done with a couple of lines of Javascript…)

The Real Result: The next 72 hours…

A crazy thing happened in the next 72 hours. My traffic went through the roof…by a large percentage. It was actually so bad that I thought I had done something wrong. I was already ranking incredibly well for high competition keywords like “mountain bike reviews” so I am used to a surge of traffic especially during the warmer months. But I was not prepared for this…

As I started to research into what was “going wrong”, I found something really interesting. As Google was spidering my content and switching the url from the sub-domain to the main domain thanks to my 301 redirects, my rankings were increasing drastically within it’s rankings. I just started laughing to be honest. I thought it was a mistake and things would go back to normal soon.

It wasn’t a mistake…as things kept going…results kept getting higher and stabilized.

I was now ranking 1 and 2 for positions I was holding in the 4 to 5 territory. Long tail keywords (around 4 words) were always in the top 5. It was as if my site was given instant juice that was getting directly injected via IV into all of my pages.

The goal of this project was to make my life easier…and hopefully that change make my site perform better. If anything, I was expecting a slight drop off in traffic until Google caught up with the inbound links from the other sub-domains. That would have been completely normal…the increase is not when moving domains.

The big difference here is that I was performing actions that was making it like trying to run in lead boots. I had great content, it was getting linked to and I was otherwise making all of the right steps. Where I went wrong was trying to bite off too much at once…which ended up biting me in the ass by making my SEO efforts harder and my general site maintenance harder. Now…my site is getting full advantage of all of my hard work…and it is awesome.

So what should you take away from this?

I know you are probably thinking “Wow…that’s great. But I don’t have multiple sub-domains or the issues you were having…I am just trying to build traffic and subscribers.”

You are right. 99% of bloggers were not in my situation which you would think would make this post completely worthless to most bloggers. But like with most stories, there are things that you can take away that will help you in your blogging.

Getting Credit For All Inbound Links

Make sure you are putting your best foot forward by choosing www or non www in your domain and stick with it. While WordPress handles this by your settings…you need to make sure you are letting Google know exactly how you want to be indexed and linked to by putting a simple bit of code in your .htaccess file .

Redirect www to non-www:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Redirect non-www to www:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Think About Your Visitors…Not You

When you are designing your site and handling how your visitors will interact with your content, you absolutely have to think of your visitors first…what you think looks cool second.

If it doesn’t convert…it is not worth having. Drop all of the widgets that 70% readers aren’t going to interact with and make things easy to find. Beyond that it is about converting visitors into readers.

Do Not Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

As bloggers, we want to take on the world. Sometimes, this gets us away from what we are good at an in a world that we can not possibly manage. Try to avoid the shiny key syndrome (running after every new idea) and really plan your attack that will fit in your life. You can not possibly manage 10 blogs on your own and be good at it. Do what you do best…and manage your life at the same time.

Blogging is not rocket science…but we try to make it that way.

Blogging at its core is great content and marketing…not complicated site builds and big dreams. It is important to have goals and to see where you want to be in the future. It is detrimental to your success to not stay rooted in reality and plan your moves carefully.

You could be giving up a lot and making things harder on yourself like I did.

Filed Under: Blogging, Content, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , ,

13 Lucky Free Web Content Management Systems for a WordPress Hater

August 3, 2011 By 22 Comments

I honestly see no reason for hating WordPress. Millions of people simply can’t be wrong. Just look at the numbers. 13,800,000 blogs running as self-hosted installations, and 13,900,000 active blogs on wordpress.com (2010 data). Of the top 1 million websites (according to Alexa) 12.4% use WordPress. That’s a whopping 124,000 of them.

But still, you don’t have to be preaching WordPress if you don’t want to. So if you’re about to launch a new website you might as well use a different web content management system (CMS). Or don’t use any CMS at all, and build the site from the ground up with pure PHP and HTML. Although this is probably not the best possible idea since there are tons of great systems out there.

Here’s a list of 13 top web content management systems you should consider if you’re not really into this WordPress thing.

1. Joomla!

(http://www.joomla.org/)

I had been a Joomla! (don’t forget about the exclamation mark) programmer for a couple of years before I switched to WordPress. Joomla! is an advanced, full-blown open source content management system that powers 2.7% of the entire web (as it’s claimed on joomla.org). Joomla! provides many functions you would expect from a CMS, plus has an impressive directory of extensions (8,065 of them at the time of writing). This CMS is great for all sorts of corporate websites or portals, online magazines, e-commerce stores, small business websites, and other.

If you want a social proof here’re some websites that use Joomla!: http://gsas.harvard.edu, http://www.outdoorphotographer.com, http://www.quizilla.com.

2. Drupal

(http://drupal.org/)

An open source platform as well. Drupal is close to the top of this list not without a reason. It’s a great CMS for building corporate websites, information portals, enterprise applications and even blogs. Plus, you can choose from more than 8,000 modules (extensions).

Some websites that use Drupal: http://www.fastcompany.com/, http://www.popsugar.com/, http://www.symantec.com/connect/, http://www.observer.com/.

3. CMS Made Simple

(http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/)

The name itself is pretty self-explanatory. CMS Made Simple is the winner of the “overall best open source CMS award 2010″ by Packt Publishing. It’s a scalable platform (suited both for small businesses and large corporations) and provides a really big list of features. Some of them are: SEO friendly URLs, user and group management, multiple language support, multiple themes per website, forms, polls, newsletters, guestbookÖ there’s no point to mention every single feature here, just go to cmsmadesimple.org and find out for yourself.

4. Plone

(http://plone.org/)

First non-PHP CMS on this list. Plone runs on Python. But what it runs on is not important to the end user. What is important though is its simple and easy to use interface. “Elegant minimalism” they call it. The new version of Plone is claimed to be 50% faster than the previous one and to be one of the fastest open source CMS platforms on the market. Its many features and constantly growing community makes it the top non-PHP choice.

5. XOOPS

(http://www.xoops.org/)

Back to PHP systems. Easy to use, feature-rich, and fully modularized ñ this pretty much sums it up. Some interesting features are: expanded users management and theme-based GUI (with over 1,000 currently available themes).

6. PHP-Nuke

(http://www.phpnuke.org/)

This one is old-school. It was one of the most popular systems when I was starting out as a PHP programmer. Fortunately, it hasn’t been forgotten and it’s still developed by a devoted community. The counter on phpnuke.org indicates more than 8,450,000 downloads, which is impressive to say the least.

7. e107

(http://www.e107.org/)

“e107, it’s pimp, init?” ñ one of the random sentences you see when you visit e107.org. This is a great, developer-friendly CMS with many interesting features, and if you think there’s something missing you can suggest a new feature. There’s a special section on the site for that. If you happen to be a product owner yourself then here’s a hint ñ there’s no better way of showing your community that you care than by letting them suggest new ideas for improvement.

8. Magnolia CMS

(http://www.magnolia-cms.com/)

It’s targeted mainly towards business users, so it’s no surprise it’s the CMS of choice for many government and large corporate websites. Among its many features there’s a possibility to preview content exactly as it would be seen by the website visitor. If you’ve been working with other CMS platforms you know that it’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s quite difficult to explain to your client why in the end the content looks differently from what they see in the editor. No such problem here.

9. dotCMS

(http://dotcms.com/)

This one is a Java-based content management system. You can choose from two available versions (free ñ Community version, and paid ñ Enterprise version). Similar to every CMS on this list this one provides a wide range of features as well. You can use it to manage small, micro-sites as well as large online magazines. If you’d like something built around Java this is basically the route to go.

10. b2evolution

(http://b2evolution.net/)

This is a blog content management system (similar to WordPress). Free and open source. It provides some classic, blog features but also many additional ones. It lets you manage files and photos, launch multiple blogs, use detailed user permissions and more. Of course, there’s a lot of available plugins too.

11. CuteNews

(http://cutephp.com/)

If you need something really simple you should consider this CMS. It’s basically just a news management system that uses some standard files instead of a normal database (like MySQL for example). Somehow it still manages to support things like commenting, archives, search function, file uploads, and even backup and restore.

12. CushyCMS

(http://www.cushycms.com/)

This CMS is probably one of the easiest to use platforms on this list. A “truly simple CMS” as the authors say. And it’s hard to disagree. I was really surprised when I learned how the CMS works because it uses none of the industry-standard ideas. The first surprising thing is that there’s no software to installÖ yea, how about that? I encourage you to find out for yourself. The video on cushycms.com is just 5 minutes.

13. Nucleus CMS

(http://nucleuscms.org/)

Basically a blog content management system running on PHP and MySQL (same as WordPress). What’s interesting about it is the fact that you can use it to launch multiple sites with a single installation. If you like to you can extend it with a number of plugins (which is kind of a standard for top-shelf CMS platforms these days). One of the more interesting features is the possibility to backup and restore the whole database with just a single click.

Which one is the best?

There’s no best or worst here. If you need a good, feature-rich, and safe content management system you can go with either one from this list. It’s best to check them all out and see which one appeals to you the most. And when you do, don’t forget to come back and let me know in the comments which one is it.

P.S. My favorite one is still WordPress sorry.

About the author: Karol K. (@carlosinho) is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland who hates to work but loves to train capoeira. But anyway, tune in to get his blogging tips and tutorials.

Filed Under: Blogging, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Simple, Yet Effective Way To Increase The Uniqueness Of Your Content

March 3, 2011 By 7 Comments

Today I wanted to record this quick video podcast to illustrate one way I have been insuring my content is as unique as it can be on a regular basis across my blogs.

Like it or not…we are greatly influenced by what we take in on a daily basis. As we go about our day, read other websites and blogs and interact with people, we are taking bits of that information everywhere with us as we go. While this is actually a great thing and a source of where I find most of my ideas (life experience is always the best to pull from), we can jump into a trap in our quest to release unique, relevant content the web.

The Routine That Causes Content Blindness

If your morning started out anything like mine did, you probably go up, took a shower, got dressed, had some coffee and then opened up your feed reader to see what was happening on the web that day. Even if you did this routine at night after your regular job, you probably followed a similar routine…maybe minus the coffee.

Like any blogger, you are following numerous blogs within your given niche, so you started digesting content before you started producing it.

Going back to our theory of taking something with you from every experience and information absorption in your day, you can unconsciously start creating content on your blog that…well…looks a lot like your RSS feed. While it is good to stay on top of trends and write relevant content for your readers, it is increasingly important that you continue to produce unique content that does not look like rehashed, reworded articles that are found on other parts of the web.

By staying on top of the latest news and articles in your niche, you can get into this trap of just being another “me too” instead of a unique source. Readers read blogs to connect with that uniqueness and originality. If you become just a mirror of your RSS feed…you lose that draw and that will lead to growth decline.

My Challenge To Bloggers

As we think and reflect back on how our content digestion affects our content production, I have a challenge to you as a blogger. Just like you need to schedule your time with social media, schedule your content digestion time and keep it away from your content production. The goal is to have a clean slate to work with while you are formulating content ideas, writing articles and recording videos.

Personally, I have been scheduling my RSS feed time to about 2 to 3 times a week and then using Hootsuite to schedule RT’s throughout the remaining days. This not only has drastically affecting my efficiency, but it keeps my mind clear of everyone else’s content while I am producing mine. By staying on top of events several times a week, I am also not missing out on any developing trends on the web.

Have you taken a serious look at how your habits affect your content? How much time are you spending a week scouring the web instead of building your content library?

Simple changes like this one in your daily routine can bring swinging positive results in your business.

Filed Under: Blogging, Content Tagged With: , , , , , ,

10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress

January 27, 2011 By 7 Comments

The following article is a guest post from Matthew Polo (his details at the end of this article). To submit a guest post to Blogging Labs, hit us up and we’ll get the ball rolling.

If you are ready to launch a WordPress blog and join millions around the world, there are some things you should know while your getting started.

1. Your WordPress Blog Does Not Have To Be On Hosted WordPress

You can use WordPress anywhere. This means that you don’t have to have a .WordPress.com blog, ie your blog doesn’t have to be your-blog.WordPress.com but can be your-blog.com. WordPress can host your blog for you or you can get your own hosting at a different company. Another useful feature is the ability to import or export blog contents to and from WordPress. This will allow you to keep a personal archive off line.

2. There Are No Contracts

Because its free you don’t have to commit to anything. You can leave anytime and WordPress will give you a complete xml download of all your posts and comments, so you can pack up and move your blog if you want

3. You Need A Plan…. And A Name

It is always a good idea to plan something before you do it. Develop a blog plan about why you are creating a blog, including the purpose, the target audience and the level of commitment to maintenance you envision. Try to conduct some market research on blogs that are similar and not similar to your vision and don’t limit yourself to only looking at WordPress blogs. Research some names for your blog that are consistent with your vision. Investigate the “About” sections of other blogs to see why they started as well as how well they are going after how long. This research could tell you roughly how your blog is going to go, but in no way is it a guarantee that your blog will succeed.

You should also decide whether you want to use an existing email account or specifically create one for blogging. I like to create new emails for each site and manage them all through GMail rather than use my personal one. It helps to stop people spamming me personally as well as separates my work and personal life and if I ever want to sell the blog I can give away the email address and be sure that I don’t keep getting blog related emails after I sold it.

4. Knowledge is Key and Keep an Open Mind

It is always a good idea to keep an open mind when it comes to your blogs development. Try to explore each WordPress feature fully before initiating full scale blog development. Getting to know each of the features and how to use them effectively will help your blog run smoothly. For instance, you can blog through email and mobile texting, and allow people to subscribe to your blog with alerts for blog activity. You can also create a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed to allow subscribers to view a summary and updates of your blog content anywhere on the web. These are simple things to set up, but if you don’t get in there and learn how to set them up your blog won’t work as well as it could.

5. WordPress Is Free. But There Is Some Stuff You Have To Pay For

The great thing about WordPress is that it is absolutely free, which is great if you want to give blogging a go because it won’t cost you a penny. However, there are some features that WordPress offer that will cost you a bit of dough. You can check out the paid features at http://en.WordPress.com/products/ but before you go “gun ho” on all the paid features I suggest giving the free version a good thorough go. There are plenty of plugins that you can download that will let your WordPress blog do anything, so I suggest giving them a go first.

6. One Account..More Than One Blog

Another good feature of WordPress is that you can manage more than one blog from the one account. This means that you won’t have to login to each one as you work on them.

7. You Should Subscribe To Other Blogs

You can subscribe to other blogs on WordPress easily. Reviewing other blogs to discover what others are blogging about, how they blog, blog layout, naming, content categories and tags not only will help you get a sense of what you can do with WordPress but will also get you out into the blogging community. Some good places to check out other blogs, topics and titles is through Technorati, Mashable and blog directories as well as check out other blogs blog rolls. You should activate social media buttons on your blog as well as follow other blogs through social media sites. This will keep you in the loop as well as help you get followers on your own social media pages.

8. Pingbacks Are Helpful

Pingbacks will alert others if you link to their website or blog, and will in turn alert you if another blog has linked to you. You can also allow their citations to show on your blog. An easy way to get back-links to your blog is to post articles with links to your blog in one of the free article directories, like top ranked ones Articlesbase and Ezinearticles. Although it won’t impact your blog massively. It is still a good idea to do it as it will start getting your blog out there as well as let the search engines see your blog.

9. Check Your Default Settings

WordPress has default settings that although help you avoid a long and boring set up process isn’t always what you want. For example comments are allowed for each post without prior approval by default, this means that people can write anything they want. You can pre screen all blog post comments before they post or you can turn off comments but I wouldn’t suggest it. The default for blog postings is public viewing. You can create a top level private view or create private viewing by post, allowing just yourself, friends or people with a code that you create. You can also create viewership ratings for content per each blog.

10. Submitting Your Blog To Directories Will Help Get Your Blog Out There

Although blog directories like Blogexplosion, Technorati, OnTopList, Blogdirectory, Blog Web Directory, and others found via Wikipedia and Alexa.com won’t make a massive impact on how many people will see your blog it will still help it get out there, which isn’t a bad thing.

Maintaining your own blog can be a very rewarding thing, so get in there and have a go. After all its free, whats the worst that could happen?

Matthew writes about personal finances for an impartial Australian credit card comparison website where people can find balance transfer credit card offers that reduce interest payments and help them get out of debt faster.

Filed Under: Blogging, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , , ,

7 Things NOT To Do Before You Have A Lot Of Blog Traffic

December 8, 2010 By 38 Comments

Everyone reads the articles about what you need to do to grow your blog. From “pillar content” to list posts to holding contests, there are a ton of ways you can increase your subscribers and pageviews on your blog as you strive to take your show full time. However, there are not as many articles that explain what you should not do on your blog before you have the traffic to support it.

Sometimes…there are certain aspects of your blog that can actually be detrimental to your success if you jump on the bandwagon too early in an attempt to jump the gun.

Top 7 Things NOT To Do

So here they are…the top 7 things not to do before you have a significant amount of traffic on your blog.

Run A Poll On Your Blog

1. Run A Poll

Polls are a great way to interact with your audience and get feedback related to subjects in your niche. However, as much as you wish your readers were holding on to every article you publish, that just isn’t reality. Not all of your readers are going to see the poll and…on top of that…even the ones that do see it aren’t guaranteed to participate. Do you really want a week old poll on your blog only showing 12 votes?

Social proof is a large part of blogging so you have to be careful about what you display on your pages. It is normally best to hold off on polls until you have at least 1,000 unique visitors a day in my opinion. Do you really think you are getting a great sampling in your niche if you are only getting 100 entries anyway? Probably not…

Starting A Forum On Your Blog

2. Start A Forum

Forums are incredibly hard to start even when you have a lot of traffic. When you do not have the traffic to support the launch, you will have to work that much harder to get an active community (contests are typically the best way). There is nothing more detrimental to a forum’s growth than silence. If you do have a plan for a forum in the future, look towards large traffic numbers and serious marketing planning to get it off the ground and running.

Bike198‘s forum is running on IP.Board.

Displaying Blog RSS Count

3. Display Your Subscriber Count

Displaying your RSS subscriber count is a debate in which there are two sides. Personally, I display my subscriber count in certain circumstances where I see fit (you’ll notice it is not displayed on this blog), but if you are planning on displaying your count…I would wait until you have at least 500 subscribers. You are not doing yourself any favors by displaying your 47 loyal subscribers.

There will be some cases (like with this blog) where you might want to hold off on showing your subscriber count even if you have a lot more than that. It is up to you on whether or not that fits inot your plan, but displaying a number that is too low will actually hurt you in the beginning stages.

Wordpress Blog Design

4. Spend A Large Amount of Time On Blog Design

Until you have a lot of traffic on your blog, you do not really know how your readers are going to interact with your content. While you can guess and predict how your readers will interact and click through pages, spending a lot of time on design when you are trying to grow your audience is a waste of time. There are certain fundamental design elements that you need to have, but the most important aspect of your blog when you are trying to grow traffic is content and promotion.

9 times out of 10…you are going to find that your favorite design element that you are so proud of is worthless. I remember spending a lot of time on a newsletter opt-in form on my homepage only to find that the pop up hover was the source of 98% of my newsletter sign-ups. Spend your time where it counts the most and have a clean design that you can tweak over time as traffic increases and more readers interact with your content.

Need a good looking design? For out of the box themes we recommend Woothemes and WPZoom and this blog runs off of the Pagelines Platform Pro framework.

Go Full Time With Blogging

5. Go Full Time

Blogging is not a “get rich quick” method of making a living. It takes a lot of work over time to build enough of an audience to support a full time income. Most full time bloggers started their online empire while working a regular 9-5 at the same time. If you plan on walking in your boss’s office and quitting today because you found blogging, be prepared to be standing in the unemployment line. Only take your business full time when it can support the full time income.

Ideally, you want to bring in as much income for your household as possible, so you can do like I did and work both jobs as long as you possibly can. Two incomes are better than one right?!

Direct Advertising On Blogs

6. Solicit Direct Advertising From Large Companies

I am one of those bloggers that fully supports and encourages monetizing your blog from day 1. However, it is also very important to remember where you stand in the blogosphere and adjust your money making methods accordingly. If you do not have a lot to offer in the form of traffic at this point in time, it is not a great idea to go after larger companies in your niche soliciting direct advertising spots…even if they are cheap. Larger companies have to show direct return for their investment and you are not prepared to deliver the results that requires.

On the flip side of that argument, partnering up with smaller companies in your niche is a great way to make a little bit of income and warm up your readers to the idea of direct ads on your site. It is all about knowing how your traffic levels affect success rates in direct advertising promotions.

When you are ready, check out OIOPublisher to auto rotate and handle direct advertising payments.

Email Newsletters

7. Ignore The Need To Start Building A Newsletter

If there was one thing I would do over again in my blogging, it would be starting my email newsletter from day 1 instead of down the road when I felt like I had enough traffic to justify the cost. My newsletters on my blogs is the #1 revenue and traffic generator and they also happen to be my readers most valuable option on my blogs. If you want to capture your readers and keep them for the long haul, an email newsletter is essential to success.

I use Aweber for my newsletters and I would recommend going that route as their start-up plans are wicked cheap (can you afford $1?).

Ready To Rock It Out?

Sometimes the strongest asset we can have is knowing what not to do. It is up to you to spend your time wisely and create assets that grow your business instead of constricting it.

Filed Under: Interviews, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Avoiding Blogger Burnout: How To Keep The Wheels Turning

December 6, 2010 By 11 Comments

This post on avoiding blogger burnout was written by Steve Roy of Ending The Grind.

To the untrained eye, blogging seems to be a relatively easy job. Hell, anyone can just sit around at Starbucks all day and play on the Internet, right? Not quite.

Actually, there are very few successful bloggers, if any, who have the time to just sit around. Blogging is work, lots of work. I’m not saying it’s especially hard work, but the sheer amount of to-do items on a bloggers checklist can be staggering.

The vast majority of us are not successful bloggers however, but are aspiring to become one. We are full-time employees and part-time bloggers with the goal of becoming full-time bloggers and no-time employees. Millions of people have the dream of becoming an online success story and living the fabled “Internet lifestyle” that we hear so much about.

If you are one of these people, then you know all too well how time consuming trying to build your blogging empire can be. You (hopefully) realize that creating outstanding content, building significant traffic, understanding and helping your readers, and properly marketing your blog are all vital to your success.

Since all of these things are very important and also very time consuming, where are we supposed to find the time to do them all? If you’re like me and have a full-time job, you know that trying to write good articles, network on Twitter and Facebook, promote your brand, and build a list, are all major time suckers.

Well, if you’re anything like me and want to get out of your day job as fast as humanly possible, that means forgoing those late nights out with friends, watching mindless tv shows, or playing video games. If we are ever going to be successful in the realm of blogging, then our time needs to be spent building our business.

We simply cannot waste any time not working on building our sites and our dreams.

The Burnout

With that being said, many of us are burning the candle at both ends. Our sleep is suffering, our family time is suffering, and we have become almost obsessed with blogging and all it entails. We need to realize that this lifestyle is not sustainable (or our heads might implode) and we need to figure out a solution.

As our days get longer and our nights get shorter, it’s easy to start feeling overwhelmed. We are pouring our hearts into our blogs and many of us new bloggers are receiving few, if any, signs that we are on the right path. For most of us, the rewards of our hard work will take months or even years to show up.

It’s obvious that if you give up on blogging because it’s too difficult or too frustrating then you will fail. However, I’ve heard from multiple blogging pros that pushing through when things seems pointless is when people begin to make it. Yaro Starak, a highly successful blogger, has said that if you follow the right steps, the only way to fail is by quitting.

If we know that we will only fail if we quit, then why do so many fail? I think one of the main causes is getting burned out. We write and write, spend tons of time trying to make our blogs the absolute best they can be, and nobody comes…

Many of us can only do this for so long before despair sets in and we take a break from our blogs. When we take a break, we tend to forget about it. When we forget about it, we start to lose interest and focus.

Three days turns into three weeks and we still haven’t looked at our blog. I can speak from experience here and this is exactly what happens. We get excited about our blog, we write a ton of content, we try to build traffic, and then we are disappointed with the results.

We do this over and over and we get burned out. Believe me, burnout can spell the end of a blog. Don’t allow yourself to fall victim to this trap.

Here are a few tips on avoiding blogger burnout:

  • Although we will have the tendency to do it, don’t spend all your free time working on your blog.
  • Make sure you understand that blogging is not a get rich quick business. It takes time, often a long time to build a popular and profitable blog.
  • Create a plan of action. For example, block out 2 hours for writing a phenomenal post or maybe plan an hour for writing your email newsletter. Don’t just randomly work on whatever you feel like at the time. Believe me, it’s a huge time waster.
  • Find inspiration. Make sure you understand why you are working on your blog so hard. If you have a strong enough “why”, you should be able to get through the tough times.
  • Find a mentor. I suggest finding a successful blogger/Internet marketer with whom you can really relate to. There are plenty of people making money online and just as many teaching us how to do it too. Your job is to find the one(s) that work for you. When you follow someone who has been through the process and has seen success, it’s easier to keep your head up and avoid burning out.

If you love blogging as much as I do and are doing it for a meaningful reason, then you are probably going to be busting your ass day and night to build your business. That’s awesome, keep it up! Just remember that too much of a good thing is not always good.

Steve Roy is a blogger with a passion for helping people who are looking to build an online business, quit their day job, and live life on their own terms. His blog can be found at EndingTheGrind.com

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , , ,

Interviews With Bloggers That Are Actually Valuable

November 15, 2010 By 4 Comments

The latest trend in the blogging world has been to incorporate interviews in your content generation. I for one believe we have a lot to learn from those related minds around us and that is why I include interviews on all of my sites as they generate interesting content for readers. However, in the mmo/blogging niche, the interviews seem to center around the same cookie cutter questions (trust me…I have done the same interview about a dozen times at least) which makes them boring as hell. How many times can I be asked “how do you make money online?”?!!!

Awhile back, I was interviewed by Srini about diversifying income streams online and it was a refreshing conversation. I didn’t feel like I was getting asked the same questions I have been asked a thousand times…it was an organic conversation on what it really takes to be successful online. I was one of the first they interview on BlogcastFM.com and now they have an astounding list of over 100 bloggers they have interviewed on numerous subjects.

To help compile all of this incredible content into something that is useful that you can take action on, Srini and Sid (founders of Blogcastfm) have put together a premium coaching program based off of their massive amount of success breading content and BlogcastFM premium was born…

Within the doors of BlogcastFM you get:

“BlogcastFM Premium gets you access to 12 expert interviews a month, coupled with actionable worksheets and mindmaps to give you the advanced training you need to take your blog to the next level fast.”

  • Experts From Different Fields. We bring in experts who have succeeded across the board – so you don’t just hear what’s worked for one person, or one exceptional case. You get advice, techniques and strategies that have been successful for many people, in a variety of niches.
  • Frequently Published Training – Updated Every Week.  We’re constantly bringing you new content so you know what’s working in blogging today – not what used to work five years ago.  We bring back experts when they have new information to share with us, but we also focus on getting timeless advice and techniques you can use as well.
  • Expert Audio Interviews coupled with Killer Documents.  By combining audio training with actionable notes, you’re going to get the absolute most out of every expert we bring on. We also organize everything discussed into detailed mind maps for you – so you never miss a single technique or strategy.

I would love to spell out just everything you get in one blog post (I have have a membership so I have seen the content), but there is honestly so much actionable content within the doors it is crazy. Right off the bat you get modules based off of Adam Baker (Man Vs Debt), Dave Navarro (Launch Coach), Scott Stratten (UnMarketing), Yaro Starak (Entrepreneurs Journey), Michael Martine (Remarkablogger) and others with at least 12 new ones hitting every week. Next up to bat is my friend David Risley so that should be a great one to check out.

It isn’t very often that I promote coaching programs like this because I truly believe there are very few out there that are worth anything. However, after having interacted and worked with these guys in the past and having seen first hand what they have done with this program, I definitely recommend it for bloggers of all skill levels whether you are making money online already or just looking to get started. I for one am excited about what they have in store for the future and I will actually be taking action on their content and worksheets as well. There is always something I can learn from others to improve my business.

Their introductory price is going to end on Thursday November 19th, so check it out now while the going is hot.

Check out BlogcastFM and the full list of features by clicking here.

By the way…word on the street is that my module will be going live sometime in the future as well.

Filed Under: Blogging, Generating Cash, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Keeping Your Uniqueness Amongst The Sea Of Bland

September 8, 2010 By 1 Comment

Before blogging hit the mainstream and WordPress made it easier to publish articles than making macaroni and cheese, the few bloggers that took on the expensive hosting costs and DIY approach to website building had very little competition in the blogging world. With a small amount of competition, rising above the noise was an easy process because there wasn’t much of it!

Fast forward to today’s blogging world and everyone from top level news sites to stay at home mom’s have a website or blog to express their views and try to stand out to generate some sort of income online. For those bloggers looking to step into the realm of profitable blogging, the outlook could look bleak as you pine away at ways to bring a unique voice to the world of “me too” copycats looking to make a quick buck.

So how do we do it?

How do we stay unique to who we are in our writing but find a way to rise above the rest at the same time?! Luckily…if you watch successful blogs that have grown to power over recent years…the uniqueness is what drives growth, so here are some tips to being a bright light amongst burnt out bulbs.

Tips On How To Keep Your Uniqueness And Grow Your Online Presence

So here we are…with thousands of blogs started each day looking for our corner of the web to call home. How do we keep our uniqueness while growing our online presence at the same time?

  • Passion Breeds Unique Attraction – While you can be successful in blogging without passion on your subject matter. I have found that bloggers that are passionate have a larger chance for success because more of their uniqueness shines through in their content and they possess the willingness to push forward and write even when no one is listening. Blogging is not the easiest way to build a reputation and business online. Whether you are looking to a blog to generate free leads for your business or you want to become the next “problogger” in your niche, blogging is a long road of constant dedication that is made easier through a love of what you do and your readers will be drawn to that passion in your writing.
  • Practice Makes Perfect…Or At Least Close To It - When was the last time you read your blog posts from your first month of blogging…or year for that matter?! Sometimes I take a look back and think, “wow…I really wrote that and people listened?!” Unique writing that portrays your voice to readers who do not know you personally takes time and practice. Many times, you are not even sure what your unique voice is until you experiment with different styled posts or writing methods. You aren’t going to get it perfectly right away, but your willingness to step outside of the box and try new things is what will get you to the promised land when words just seem to flow that connect with your readers.
  • Look For Like Minded Bloggers and Readers – Just being unique and having quality content is not going to make your light the brightest. Blogging, social media and other online activities are made successful through the collaboration with others. This will require you to step outside of your comfort zone and actively seek out like minded individuals in your niche to collaborate with. By visiting online forums, guest posting, commenting on other blogs, responding on Twitter and cold emailing other people in your niche, you are able to pull new readers to your content and convert those new readers into regular subscribers. If you plan on the “if you build it they will come” technique, you are going to fail.
  • Do Not Be Afraid To Put Your Real Self Out There - The web does not want the next Brian Clark, John Chow or Darren Rowse. Those guys already exist. The web wants the next you! Forget about copying other successful bloggers in your niche as potential readers will see right through you. You can not be afraid to be yourself and put yourself out there for the masses to see. Your unique angles, attitude and personality is ultimately what is going to draw people to your content.

Quite possibly the best thing about blogging in my eyes is the ability to make money from an art form where you get to express yourself and your thoughts with other people around the world. When you try to be “the next big thing” by copying the views and voice of other successful bloggers in your niche, you are setting yourself up for failure. Get yourself out there and bring your unique voice and brand to the table. Blog readers genuinely want to connect with unique bloggers. That is going to be your strength and that is going to be what ultimately grows your online empire.

Filed Under: Blogging, Content Tagged With: , , , ,
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