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70+ bloggers gathered for London Blog Club September meetup

admin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:00:42 +0000

Want to spread your message to a crowd of London-based bloggers? London Blog Club is looking for sponsors. Contact Marko Saric for details.

Last week, more than seventy London bloggers gathered at the Talk Talk customer service centre in Oxford Circus for the September meetup of the London Blog Club.

The hot topic this month was music blogging, with cofounder and owner of indie digital label One Bird Records, Laura Scott, explaining her pro tips on getting exposure and using social media to promote bands and djs.

Guests were treated to drinks and refreshments by Talk Talk as they entered and attendees included a wide range of London based bloggers. Keen to share ideas and network were independent musicians, professionals, social media experts and internet enthusiasts. Beginners were well represented too as there was lots to learn all round.

Some of the topics covered were how to use video to enhance your marketing, how to get noticed in music journalism and building up your following through social media.

Back onto the rainy streets of London

Laura’s most significant audience was found on Twitter and she mentioned briefly how it can be quite confusing for a new user. It can take some time to get the hang of conversations happening across different users and does require some discipline to update regularly.

If you are trying to get into music journalism, Laura recommends getting out there, conducting video interviews and reviewing new artists work. Promoting the results of this fiercely will result in a larger following over time and will help to build a good base of influential contacts.

When reviewing work, bloggers can often be divided in their opinion. Should they be positive, even if they don’t like a band? Or should they always write what they think and be brutally honest? This was just one of the interesting topics thrown up for debate at the meetup.

After a brief question and answer session, the crowd came back together once again to network.

It was clear that everyone was having a little too much fun as our friends at Talk Talk began to slowly coax our internet addicted crowd back onto the rainy streets of London!

Want to spread your message to a crowd of London-based bloggers? London Blog Club is looking for sponsors. Contact Marko Saric for details.

Article by Shashank Deshmukh, a regular London Blog Club participant.

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How blogging can change your life

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 06:00:15 +0000

You’ve likely read all the articles that tell you the reasons to start a blog. Marko Saric does it right here every day. In fact his blog is the first one I subscribed to when I started out last August and I’ve found it invaluable. But does anyone ever tell you it changed their life? Because it can!

I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started WomanzWorld.com in August 2009. I just knew I had a bigger vision for my blog then simply writing my entrepreneurial story. I gave it a bold tagline – The Ultimate Resource for Female Entrepreneurs, and then I set about making that a reality.

The whole reason I had started my blog was to connect with other women who owned businesses, to provide them with insight, intelligence and inspiration, and to learn from them in return.

As a cofounder of a technology company at the time I knew that I was just one of just 3% of women to do so. I wondered where all the women were! I thought my blog would provide me with a platform to tell the story of my journey into the world of startups, and also to use it to approach women I admired by asking to interview them and feature them on my blog. It worked.

Humble Beginnings

I set up a WordPress blog, redirected it to my newly bought URL, got a hosting package and had a friend help me with the initial design. That in itself seemed like a big accomplishment. Unlike others I had not been doing this for years, I was not an online marketer, I was an offline traditional marketer who loved writing, entrepreneurship, connecting with people and learning.

So I did what came best to me and started doing the above. I also read – a lot. I read this fantastic blog and bit by bit implemented Marko’s suggestions when I could, all the time learning by doing.

I read other blogs that were related to entrepreneurship and women in business to see what their audience liked, what types of articles people enjoyed and could relate to and how they were designed.

Finding your voice

I initially played around with the style I wanted to convey. I struggled with the voice I’d use. Having dealt with corporate and consumer communications I found it hard to let go of the more formal speak, yet I wanted the blog to be really personal.

If there’s one thing that I hear loud and clear, especially with the phenomenal influence of social media and how this has shaped our language and behavior online, it’s that being your true and authentic self is what really matters.

So I did just that. I actually just wrote about what I liked, what I found interesting, what would help and be valuable to women running their business or aspiring to start one. I wrote on the fly, with no plan, and no structure and in my voice and people liked it.

Building a base

Surprisingly not many people visited my blog in the first few months. But I kept on writing. I started committing to writing at least two articles a week. The topics were always business related and they varied greatly. I was very focused on content and less on promoting what I was writing.

More people found my blog; I was fascinated by the whole process, where they came from, what sent them there so I started tracking some results. I was on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, dabbling in YouTube and using Ping.fm to do updates to all my networks. I installed Google Analytics, I used Bit.ly to shorten my links and track clicks, and I installed many widgets on my blog.

People could now retweet and share on Facebook. My blog posts became more regular – 3-4 times a week. I had momentum. I loved it. My audience was pretty small but I knew that if I did what I loved then people would come. And they did.

Setting up systems

I got more savvy and installed more widgets so that when I published blog posts from the WordPress dashboard it would automatically update Networked Blogs (and therefore Facebook), Twitter, StumbleUpon and more.

I would submit my articles to Ezine to expose them to a greater audience. I would submit articles to my LinkedIn Groups and start discussions. And so the WomanzWorld community grew, slowly but surely. It was enough to encourage me to carry on doing what I was doing.

The personal touch

The thing I enjoy above everything else, even writing, is the engagement. When I received the first comment on my blog I was so excited, the first email thanking me for providing a great resource, LinkedIn messages asking for my advice, complimenting me on a particular blog post – this all made it worthwhile. It drove me, made me want to improve my writing style, the quality of the content, work on more interviews and create more value.

A community is not built overnight

One thing is for sure, this stuff takes time. A whole lot of time and a whole heap of effort. Being active on other blogs and forums, commenting intelligently, partaking in discussions, answering questions and thinking up new content can be pretty exhausting.

Sometimes when you write an article and it doesn’t get a great response, it can be disheartening and then you realize people are busy and there’s a whole lot of information flowing out there, constantly 24/7.

For a long time I felt like I was operating in a void and no-one was listening and then all of a sudden my community grew. I have more subscribers, more newsletter sign ups, people talking back and forth; commenting everywhere and I feel my world has come to life. So never give up!

Marketing is key

I soon found out that I needed to spend at least 50% of my time marketing and 50% on building the business. You’d think as a marketer I would have known that. It’s a different type of marketing.

It’s not just self promotion, it’s real engagement, truth, honesty, genuine interest in others and then of course some strategic sales. I still don’t think I have the right mix either. I expect that if people like something they’ll naturally sign up for it, or buy a program I’ve spent weeks and months producing.

That was until I launched an online business coaching program and felt I had `over-marketed it’ only to find that several people missed out on attending because they hadn’t heard about it! It proved that 7-8 touch points at least are needed and you can never communicate enough.

Opportunities abound

What really led me to believe how much having the WomanzWorld blog had changed my life was the day I got featured in Forbes online. Strange and wonderful things started to happen after that. They invited me to become just one of 20 bloggers to be a contributor to the new Forbes Work In Progress blog for women. That was huge for me; it gave me credibility and also another platform to reach more women in business with a huge audience.

The Visa Business Network somehow found me and asked me to a featured blogger on their 100,000 strong community. I was honoured, especially when I was in the fine company of Brian Clark from Copyblogger!

I started using my `Media’ angle to get invites to cover great events for women and recently got given two tickets to an event in Las Vegas worth $2,000 to connect with and be inspired by some incredible female entrepreneurs. These are just a few examples.

Where to next

To give you an indication of how passionate I am about blogging, in April this year I actually left the company I co-founded to concentrate fully on turning WomanzWorld into a real online business.

So far it’s been a lot of pouring my heart and soul into it and working on products and programs that provide bite sized chunks of learning and value for business women. In fact I just spent 6 weeks travelling to Eastern Europe and working at the same time. That was an adventure.

More than anything blogging has opened up a world I just did not know existed. Whether you do it for yourself, the company you work or for business, just make sure you enjoy it, learn from it and always be open to where it can take you.

Never before has such an amazing opportunity been available to put yourself out there, to be found and more importantly to find yourself.

A guest post by Natalie Sisson, a self-described “Evolutionary Entrepreneur”, who brings to every project her curiosity about the world and an invigorating spirit of adventure. Natalie blogs at Womanz World. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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My name is Marko Saric and I help bloggers succeed. Subscribe to the RSS feed to join thousands of bloggers and get all my blogging tips for FREE!

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How to make your content work for you

admin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 06:01:22 +0000

People start blogs for many different reasons: to show their passion for food, to showcase new designs or artwork, to expose the world to musings about everyday life, or even to acquire a viable source of income.

A major problem of failing blogs is not knowing how to use and manipulate the content to their website to their advantage. Internet writing is so much more different than print writing, and you have to accomplish so many different tasks when you are writing content for your blog if you want it to be successful.

Regardless of the reason, one thing that everyone wants out of their blog is for their content to be read by as many people as possible. Knowing how to make your content work for you is a matter of knowing your blog’s purpose and keeping the modern reader in mind.

Web vs. Print Writing

The key to web writing is to keep it short and punchy. Get to the point as fast as you can. The web reader is turned off by large blocks of gray text. You could be able to write as eloquently as Mark Twain, but if you don’t get to the point your talent is lost on your readers.

Interesting facts about Internet readers:

79% of Internet readers scan pages instead of reading every word.
Only 16% of readers read every word.
Most web readers only absorb 75% of your page’s content, even if they read the entire page.

This is because reading on a screen is slower than reading on paper. To make your content work for you, keep it short and keep it informative.

How to Write Effectively For the Internet

Know Who You are Writing For – If you want to bring your traffic in from search engines, what keywords do you want to use? Do you know what kind of person will be searching for those keywords? What is their knowledge of the topic?
Pick a Good Title – In any form of writing content for websites, a catchy title is a great way to get readers interested. Make sure it conveys the message you want your content to show. It also wouldn’t hurt to include a few key words in it.
Plan Your Content – If you are wanting to write a post about the best ways to start an online retail business, you would need to write pages and pages to cover the topic thoroughly. Instead, plan for multiple posts on the topic. Link the pages together to create an article series. This will make your readers return for new information.
Linking – The Internet is a huge place and you can’t be expected to have all of the information on one page. Don’t be afraid to link away from your site. If you can link your readers to new useful information each time they read your content, they will return to find out where the best information is.
Don’t Be Afraid to Engage Your Readers – A key to making your content work for you is making sure your readers come back. At the end of each post ask for your readers to comment with their thoughts on your post, direct them to your RSS or Twitter feed. Just do something that will make them feel involved with your writing.

Do you think these tips will help you in your search to learn how to make your content work for you? What ideas do you think will help?

A guest post by Corry Cummings who writes at Content Customs. You can also find him on Twitter. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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5 tips to make blogging easy

admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:01:00 +0000

From the first day of blogging until now I’ve been hearing that blogging is not easy as it is very competitive and requires a lot of patience.

So, in my post today I am going to tell you how to make blogging easy and make your blog stand out from the crowd so as to remove the false assumption that blogging is not easy.

Let us start:

Competition

It is true that to compete with so many passionate bloggers we require a lot of hard work as well as smart work but if you’re serious about blogging do not think about anyone and start competing with yourself. How? I’ll tell you:

Set a target of number of page views per month and work hard to achieve it.
Try to get as much knowledge of the niche in which you blog.
Set a target to get particular number of comments and try to hit the target on time.
Set a target to write particular number of quality articles and work hard to achieve that target.
Each month increase your blog network and get loyal readers to your blog.

Take ideas from negative feedback

Another pit that bloggers fall into is negative feedback. Every blogger, along with positive feedback also gets negative feedback, so below are some steps you can follow on how you can take post ideas from negative feedback and write your next article:

Once you get any negative comment on your blog, save that comment in draft and search for the ways on Internet how to improve it.
Do in-depth research and collect at least 10 points
Now, write a new post on your blog giving all the 10 points you gathered and also thank the person who gave the negative feedback in your article.
The more negative feedback you will get, the more it will help you to make your blog better.

Super way to remain in touch with other bloggers

Most of the bloggers thinks that active participation is blogging community is must to make your blog better, though it is 99% correct but today I am going to give you a simple and very effective way that I use to remain in touch with fellow bloggers:

Note : Please note that this method requires only one time hard work

First I created a list of 50 bloggers in my niche
I sent an email to all those 50 bloggers asking them that I am starting a series on my blog where I’ll ask opinion on a topic to 50 bloggers and write about all the opinions on my blog each week and want to include you in my list, are you interested?
In 1-2 days I built up a list of 50 bloggers and created a list of emails along with their name and blog URL
Now, each week I ask them about their opinion on a particular topic and after I get 50 replies, I publish it on my blog
I again send an email to all those 50 bloggers giving link about the post, thanking them and also ask them to re-tweet that article and comment on them

In this way, I get huge traffic on that day when I publish this article and it is an easy way to build relationship with other fellow bloggers.

Always think that your blog is successful

To keep the blogging spirit alive, always think that your blog is successful, do no think that successful blogs are those that are making huge money and has high traffic, no! not at all, a successful blog is:

Any blog helping people is a successful blog
If your ideas stand out from the crowd, your blog is successful
If your blog is inspiring other bloggers, your blog is successful

So, from now onwards do not think that blogging is difficult, all the targets are achieved by not hard work but smart work. So, work smart and take your blog to the next level.

A guest post by Gaganpreet Singh, who gives blogging tips at CreativeBloggingIdeas.com. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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Spread your influence in 6 powerful steps

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:09:15 +0000

Influence is the power to affect, control or manipulate something or someone.

Everyone who wants to build a powerful online presence has to think about their influence:

How can I make my blog more popular ?

How can I make my readers take action ?

How can I make people spread my message ?

Whatever the question is, it always leads to practicing digital influence in one way or another.

Let me show my powerful 7 steps of increasing yours:

1. Have an epic mindset.

This never gets old. No matter what you want to accomplish, you first have to believe that YOU can do it.

I think the biggest part of anyone’s success online is their psychology. Famous bloggers knew they were going to make it sooner or later, it was just a matter of time.

Talk to yourself everyday, and use phrases like: I’m going to become the most influential blogger in my niche. It’s my digital destiny !

Sounds crazy, but it’s pretty powerful. Especially when you say it with conviction.

2. Tell me your mission.

If I go to your about page, how long will take me to find the purpose of your blog ?

Is it clear within the first seconds, or do I have to read through endless paragraphs to find out. This is more important than you think: the more concise and kick-ass your story, the easier it will be for your readers to promote you.

My mission: I’ll help you to spread your digital influence.

Short and tweetable, the way it works.

Make it easy for your fans to spread your message. Make it valuable and concise.

3. Find your keywords and dominate them.

Terms like internet marketer or blogger are excessively overused nowadays. Does the world really need the 10,000th blogger who teaches us how to make money online? No. So instead of aiming for the general terms, be more specific. Become the traffic expert, or the community niche builder. These keywords will become part of your brand, and you’ll create your unique selling point.

It will also help enhance your SEO if you keep using your keywords.

Mine is influence, what’s yours?

4. Create your online persona.

Most people say that in order to be personal writer, you have to be yourself. But what if you don’t like or know yourself? Ahh, forget about it. Take it one step higher and recreate yourself. Become the person online you always wanted to become – fully embrace your passions and obsessions, and then use them to market yourself.

If you are a true technical geek, then fully show it your posts: be so obsessed with your niche that your readers think it’s funny. Whatever your traits are, be extreme with them and show it. If you are not over-the-top in one way or another, you’ll end up a drop in the ocean.

5. Merchandise yourself.

You have a kick-ass blog, and created your unique remarkable brand. What’s next? Digital expansion. Guest posting and networking is standard, what else can you do to fortify your influence? Merchandise yourself.

I have recently printed my logo on T-shirts and pullovers. Whenever I make a video, or a coaching call, I wear my “own” brand. It makes a huge impact on my readers and clients. Find ways to expand your brand influence. Maybe you can create a kick-ass business card with your icon, or you “brand” another physical object. If you really want to become a well-known blogger brand, you should consider merchandising yourself !

6. Focus and rule.

A lot of bloggers think that using every social media channel is way to go. Meh! The more you try to be everywhere, the less quality you bring to each channel.

Instead, find your favorite channel of mass distribution, and rule it like a digital emperor. Focus entirely on that platform. Become so active that people start missing you once you take a day off

Rather than doing a hundred things, do one thing, but do it amazingly good.

I live and breath all of these steps myself. Some of these points may sound unreasonable, but remember: unreasonable people rule the world. If you copy the standard way of spreading your online influence, you will vanish into oblivion. Whooosh. Just like that.

Don’t worry, if you follow these 6 steps, this will never happen to you.

Now, go out and spread your influence. The internet is yours for the taking.

Mars Dorian helps people spread their influence and build passionate online communities. If you want to build a strong digital presence, dive into his world at marsdorian.com and follow him on Twitter. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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E-Commerce Blogging for Dummies

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:32 +0000

Let us say you own a website that sells products online in a particular niche. Now let us assume that you have competitive pricing within your niche and that you have decent conversion rates on the traffic you currently receive. That is great to hear, but the problem is your site is out-ranked by the big retailers and other competitors in your niche.

So what do you do to gain exposure? Invest more in pay-per-click campaigns? Test out the free and paid shopping channels? Did you ever stop for a second and consider launching a blog?

The immediate and long-term effects can be huge for the brand, and your SEO channel if done properly. I will review a few of the major reasons every e-commerce site should have a blog.

Becoming an Expert in Your Niche = Branding Karma

When you want to catch up on the sports scores for the day, which channel do you instinctively turn to, is it not ESPN? If you were interested in the latest celebrity gossip, which blog would you visit first?

Every niche has its own set of experts that followers turn to religiously for advice, news, best practices or simply their own enjoyment. There is no reason that your website could not be a top destination for your niche. You sell the products that its followers love, right?

If you are not a talented writer or have a writer on staff do not worry, there are plenty of hungry writers out there. Look for college journalism students, freelance writers and bloggers or those who are simply passionate about your niche (do not neglect your customers as a source!) are all potential targets.

You can pay them on a per contribution basis, with discounts for on your products, or for back links and the idea of personal exposure (if they have their own blog). However, just having a blog that you update on a regular basis, does not mean that your e-commerce site will automatically become an expert within the niche, the content is the key.

Produce Awesome Content

You need to create truly awesome content. “Awesome,” in this case we define loosely, as awesome could mean a number of things. It could be content that helps educate your customers, personal experiences or insights that provide a unique perspective upon the niche, statistics or whitepapers that you conduct, or perhaps a brilliant infographic.

No matter what the content is, the first step is determining what your customers and readers would define as awesome. How do you do that, you ask? Check popular blogs from experts within your niche or within a related niche. See which types of blog posts garnish a high volume of comments, re-tweets, shares, diggs, etc.

Come up with a list of topics that you feel would resonate with your audience. Now you have the writers and you have produced this awesome content but no one to read it!

Catch the Social Media Bug For Brand Exposure

How do you get people to read your awesome content? Well the first step is to open the curtains of your blog to the world. Start reading and participating in other relevant blogs within your niche by contributing comments on their blogs.

Do not, I repeat, Do not leave half-hearted or useless comments for sake of quantity. Comments need to be thoughtful and insightful. If you have not done so already, start acquiring social media handles and usernames related to your brand.

Blog promotion is a whole other science that we will not be able to get into within this post, but there are plenty of resources on this site and others to help you with promoting your blog on Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and others.

However, introduce yourself to your niche’s audience within these social media channels and slowly but surely over time you can start to develop a following (especially if your content is awesome). Use social media channels as a way to broadcast your tips and advice as well as to interact with those who care about the niche.

Not only will your brand start to become recognized but it also has the opportunity to acquire customers (at the end of the day, customers are the most important aspect of your business are they not?). New customers can come in the form of new visitors, e-mail subscribers, and social network followers or friends.

Awesome Content + Exposure = Visibility

Creating the content and obtaining exposure will certainly lead to improved visibility of your website. Visibility can be a direct result of your content development initiatives. An e-commerce blog is a great tool to supplement your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

Your blog can help your site achieve higher search engine rankings on targeted keywords through inbound links (internal linking from the blog to your e-commerce site, links from blog rolls, guest blog posts you submit to other sites, references to popular blog posts, etc.), and the in-blog post targeting of certain keywords.

You could write a product review to target highly relevant, specific keywords or produce a how to guide focusing on popular, broad terms. Each strategy pays its own separate dividends.

The social media promotion as mentioned can lead to increased exposure for your brand and develop a consistent flow of referring traffic from the likes of Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook and Digg.

In addition, networking your way in with the so-called, “power users” of these social media channels and creating brand evangelists will only solidify your reputation as a niche expert. It is one thing for your own handle to promote your content, it is entirely different if respected, well known members of the niche.

Customer Engagement = Customer Loyalty

When reviewing the BrandKey 2010 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, you will see that brands such as Amazon / Zappos.com, Domino’s, JetBlue have the most loyal customers within their respected industries. In terms of marketing strategy, what do all of these brands have in kind? Customer Engagement and Transparency.

All of these brands focus on providing solutions to their customers above all else. Zappos and JetBlue are leaders in customer service; they engage with and listen to their customers in order to improve their services.

While you might not have the advertising budgets as these companies’, you certainly can budget for the development of a blog, your online window to your niche and its customers. Discover what your audience will consider “awesome” and then waste no time in fulfilling that demand!

Have any other tips for an e-commerce site considering launching their blog? Drop them in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!

Jeff Herbst is an SEO manager with The Supplies Guys, a leading online retailer of genuine and compatible toner cartridges, carrying a wide selection of HP Toner supplies for your office needs. You can also find small business tips and deals on their B2B blog. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBLog? See more info here.

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Three ways bloggers just gotta have fun

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:01:03 +0000

What is the main purpose you blog? Perhaps it is to make money. Or it might be to spread information. It might be to change people’s minds or just to rant.

Or it could be to have fun. But that isn’t serious blogging, right?

Actually, if done right, blogging is a lot of fun. And if blogging is fun, you are probably doing it right. By blogging, I don’t mean just the actual writing. Writing your blog is indeed one way of having fun.

If you are not having fun writing the posts, maybe you are not doing it right. You could try blogging nude or lightening up your style, but if you do not enjoy writing, blogging is not what you should be doing.

There are two other great ways to have fun blogging – two other things that many bloggers do with too serious an intent to have fun (and they don’t do either of them as well as people who have fun doing them).

Blog commenting

Chances are that you have read about the importance of blog commenting. Perhaps you have read that it is about building relationships. Or perhaps that it is critical to build links for SEO. Or that the best way to drive traffic is to write an intelligent comment on another blog.

And chances are you take this advice seriously. But don’t take it too seriously. People can tell if you are smiling when you write; it comes out in your tone. Yes, it does. In blog comments, you have the opportunity to let your hair down and be approachable. To give interesting comments that won’t be deleted. All you have to do is to have fun.

Typically, you are advised to comment on blogs in your niche and on posts that are keyword-relevant. On this guest post that I wrote about blog commenting for SEO, I made an additional suggestion:

“Yes, you should also frequent blogs that interest you, even if they are totally off-topic. I suspect I might be the only SEO consultant making this recommendation, but I think it is worth noting that if you are a hiker, you will have more intelligent comments to offer on a hiking blog – and you will enjoy doing it, so it will be less like work and more like fun. And whether the links are all keyword relevant, they still count and you’ll enjoy it a lot more than trolling for blogs only on your professional topic. So there!”

Too many people try to leave the quickest comment possible, then move on to the next blog. That’s no fun. It’s also not very effective, as lowest-common-denominator comments are more likely to be removed and people are less likely to follow the link you leave. Here are a few things you can do to write the best blog comment:

Respond to other comments. Bloggers love interaction on their blogs, and so do readers
Try to outdo the best comment so far by writing an even better one
Be funny. Who doesn’t enjoy humour?
Add to the blogger’s argument
Play a polite devil’s advocate
Subscribe to comments and return to respond to other comments
Return to the blog a week later and become a frequent commenter

Social bookmarking

There are winners and there are losers when it comes to social bookmarking your blog posts. Here is the profile of the loser:

This is serious business, so you only do what you have to for your own website. You submit only your own posts. You submit them all, to each social bookmarking website… then move on to the next. You don’t engage, you don’t participate, because engagement and participation are fun, not work.

Here is the profile of a social bookmarking winner:

You are there to mix and mingle, to share your great content and to enjoy the content of other members. You submit your own posts, and you vote for others’ posts. You also submit plenty of great items that carry no self-interest. People appreciate this (yes, they actually notice) and they appreciate that you vote for and comment on their submissions.

Is it any surprise that they also vote for your submissions? That you get enough votes to be promoted to the home page? That your links become DoFollow and that you get more traffic from the home-page appearance? You can’t achieve this unless you are prepared to have fun.

Leave comments generously
Vote for friends submissions
Follow Good submissions and comment on the actual blog
Submit friends’ blog posts
Play the game with the other social bookmarkers on the website

Blogging should be fun – not just the writing, but also the promotion. Write great posts, comment on all the blogs fit to eat, and join the social bookmarking game for fun and profit.

David Leonhardt is an Ottawa based SEO consultant. When not guest blogging he occasionally finds the time to update his own SEO marketing blog. Or you can follow him on Twitter and most social bookmarking websites. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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Inspirational blogging – what to write about?

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:01:13 +0000

Blogging has opened up new passions in my life; for sharing and writing. Anyone reading this who has ever had the urge to author a book or write articles to be published now has the perfect way of expressing those creative moments by blogging.

The individual nature of blogging enables you to write about whatever it is you love the most. Those posts will then attract great people who think like you and add to that energy. It’s a Win-Win!

Opened a floodgate of ideas for me

Having my own blog has also opened a floodgate of ideas for me. Since starting my blog recently (I am a relatively new blogger) I have noticed that content for great blog posts has been presenting itself to me. This comes down to the personal development principle of getting more of what you focus on.

I’m sure those things were there before but I’d never considered them to be things to write about. Why would I do that if I had nothing to write them on? Now that I do, my blog, the ideas are coming thick and fast.

For example I had never been much of a fan for taking photographs, until I got a digital SLR camera which really allowed me to express some creativity in the photos I take. In the 18 months since I got my camera I have taken thousands of pictures, not all of them are masterpieces but who cares, I’m having fun and that’s part of my point.

My subconscious is constantly looking for beautiful things

I also find that my subconscious is constantly looking for beautiful things to take photos of. This is a completely automatic thing; I can be out and about and see something great and instantly I get that “this is a great subject for a photo”. Out comes the camera and the moment is captured.

Now I see the same parallels in blogging. As I’m enjoying writing and blogging in a big way I am constantly being presented with ideas for my posts. I’m sure those situations for those ideas had been there before but the fact is that now I am more tuned to receive those ideas because my mind is looking for them. Pretty cool huh?

I’m sure you’ve found the same with things you’re excited or passionate about. Who hasn’t bought a new car, driven off the lot and then seen 2 or 3 of the same car on the road driving home when you’ve never noticed them before. Same principle here: Now that your mind is focused on something, your mind notices more of it. Those situations were there before, it’s not that you’re encountering more of those vehicles, it’s just that you’re noticing them more.

An example from my experience was only recently when I had the most awesome day with my two daughters. I took them to swimming lessons, we hung out and played outside, I did some work in our home office where they came and visited me etc etc. It was a great day and great content for a post about me and my family.

That’s part of what my blog is about

After all, that’s part of what my blog is about. I took note of the feeling I had from that wonderful experience and I put it into words on my blog for all to see. That’s a personal thing to me, so it’s important to remember that your blog is all about you.

So…What are you passionate about? What do you know a lot about? What experience have you had that can serve others by sharing? Be attuned to receiving those inspirations, then here’s the next key: Write Them DOWN when they arrive! The worst thing that can happen to an idea is to let it slip through your fingers like sand so carry a notepad with you, or if you’re in the 21st century like me, key it into your phone somehow.

Ideas and inspiration can come and go in a flash so make sure you capture them. I have a page of ideas on my phone for posts and now that they’re ready to be actioned I just wait for the urge to write and I already have content to work on.

A guest post by Kieron Atkinson, giving back while creating wealth – it is all about contribution. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

Image by DBPhotography.

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My name is Marko Saric and I help bloggers succeed. Subscribe to the RSS feed to join thousands of bloggers and get all my blogging tips for FREE!

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10 ways to end your website shame

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:00:10 +0000

Confession time – do you have Website Shame? You know it when you have it – the hastily crossed out URL on your business card, the missing “website” field in your social networking profiles, the horror of someone you respect accidentally discovering your “still in progress” site, the botched attempts at “fixing” things that left you worse off than before.

If you’re reading this with a laugh of recognition it’s official – you’ve got The Shame and you’ve got it bad! We’ve all been there and the good news is it’s completely curable.

These ten strategies will take you from being ashamed to falling in love with your site again.

1. Recognize That You Are Not Your Website

If you’ve had a long term case of Website Shame, why do you think it has hung around for so long? I believe all comes down to fear, and as silly as it might sound our websites can carry a lot of emotional baggage! They are our public face to the world. You might be frozen in inaction because you see your website as such a huge insurmountable task that will reflect badly on you if you screw it up. Instead, remember that your website is just one project that you can start to make progress on one step at a time.

2. Remember Your Only Two Choices

You can either learn to fix your site yourself (this applies to any area of your site that needs help – copywriting, graphics, programming) OR you can hire someone else to do so. Those are your only two choices. End of story! Getting stuck because you don’t know how to do it yourself but think you can’t afford help is a dead-end road. Instead, empower yourself to move forward down one path or the other.

3. The Website Fairy Ain’t Coming

Related to your two choices above, let’s get real for a second – are you waiting for the Website Fairy? Do you plan on getting to your site “someday” when you have more time and money? Do you have a secret fantasy that the world’s most talented designer/developer might show up in your inbox one day offering to fix your site for free? Or that even better you’ll just wake up one day to an entirely different website? It might sound funny but honestly most of us have had these thoughts! The sooner you stop waiting for the Website Fairy to arrive the sooner you can get in gear on creating your fabulous new site without her.

4. You CAN Afford a Designer

I’m always surprised by how many people tell me that they know their site sucks but they can’t afford to hire a designer. If you’ve ever had that thought, it’s time for a serious reframe. You might think than an overhaul will be a drawn-out, multiple thousands of dollars affair, but in many cases one or two hours of professional design lovin’ will make an enormous difference to a site. Until you start that conversation with a designer, you just don’t know what your options are.

Quality designers can easily be found for $35 – $75/hour, and of course you can find much lower rates overseas. So if you have ever spent $50 on dinner you can afford a great designer! Instead of telling yourself you can’t afford it, start exploring options – could you find someone talented in India or the Phillippines? Could you barter? Could you find an odd job or new service you can offer that would net you $50? Stopping hitting a wall and start getting creative!

5. Get Back Control

Is there an area of your site that you’re totally in the dark about? Have you been “meaning” to learn how to install plugins or what FTP means for months? You don’t have to be a technical genious, but you do need to be able to confidently hold the reigns of your blog. And if you’re using a platform that doesn’t allow full control or customization, I’d strongly suggest that you switch to wordpress.org.

6. Stop Letting Past Mistakes Drag You Down

I see this one a LOT – people can’t bear to let go of an ineffective, disorganized, outdated site that they paid big bucks for. Listen – if you think your website sucks chances are the people visiting it hold a similar opinion! However, they don’t know that you spent $3,000 on it two years ago and frankly it doesn’t matter to them! I know this one can sting, but expensive mistakes in the past are no reason to let your site keep dragging you down.

7. Stop Making Assumptions For Your Visitors

People first come to your site with a blank slate – they have no idea who you are, what you write about or why your blog exists. When we examine our own blog it’s easy to overlook this, because what we do seems so obvious to us! You cannot overstate the purpose and overall theme of your website to first time visitors – so make it much more prominent than you think you need to. The crystal clear tagline on the header of How to Make My Blog is a great example.

8. Ditch The Jargon

Most of us are so accustomed to our own “insider” jargon it’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t know what “RSS” was. But if you write for beginners, any kind of jargon is going to lose and confuse your readers – especially when used in the navigation or categories of your site. Getting rid of jargon is an instant fix that will make your site much more friendly to new visitors.

9. KISS – Keep It Simple Smartypants!

Yes, I’m using “smartypants” instead of the more common version of this acronym (Keep It Simple Stupid) because most of us make our website difficult to use not because we are stupid but because we’re over-thinking things. You do not need 20 different items in your navigation. A post about vanilla cookies and vanilla wafers might seem quite different to you, but believe me by your readers standards they can go in the same bucket! When in doubt simplify and eliminate and your site will not only be easier to use but look much cleaner.

10. Clean Up The Junk Graphics

You know the ones I’m talking about! Jagged edges, weird white backgrounds that stand out from the color background of your site, too big or too small pictures that don’t quite fit how they are supposed to. These small “oopsies” add up to make your site look like the junk pile. Treat your site like a pro – if you wouldn’t be proud to send a graphic to your favorite blogger, do not put it on your own site.

A guest post by Laura Roeder, a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to create their own fame and claim their brand online. She is the creator of Zero to WordPress Website and Zero to WordPress Blog. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

Image by FlyNutAA

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My name is Marko Saric and I help bloggers succeed. Subscribe to the RSS feed to join thousands of bloggers and get all my blogging tips for FREE!

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How social media mashups will give you an edge in both engagement and monetization

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:00:30 +0000

As bloggers we are constantly looking for ways to make our blogs more interesting. It goes without saying that it’s important to write well and to know our audience and focus on topics relevant to it.

However, these days it may not be enough to simply write good blog posts and assume that our readers will be sufficiently entertained. So what more can we do? I have found that creating new multimedia experiences for our readers by mashing together various social media content is an effective way to increase audience engagement and drive more traffic.

A picture is worth a thousand words

We’ve all heard the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” it then would logically follow that a video has to be worth a lot more. Of course I’m not telling you anything new by suggesting that you should use video embeds in your blogs to pique your readers’ interest. We already know that embedding multimedia content such as web video, flash games and other widgets is an effective way to get your audience actively involved.

What I’m proposing is a different approach. Why not get more value out of your embeds by embedding more than one thing at a time? For instance you could enhance that YouTube video you were planning on embedding by combining it with a related Twitter feed. Thus, your YouTube video will come equipped with its own reader “comments”.

Your readers will not only get the opportunity to enjoy the video but they’ll be able to see what the Twitter community thinks about it as well. As a result your audience will likely be more engaged by consuming this YouTube & Twitter combination than by the “commentless” YouTube video alone.

Consider the multimedia mashup

You can also consider the multimedia mashup as a blog post contained within itself. It is sometimes a challenge to consistently come up with compelling content for our blogs. Why not use the creative energy of millions of YouTube and Twitter users to help us put together blog posts on current hot topics without investing a ton of time? You can write a short intro and supplement it with the YouTube/Twitter mashup. Your audience can enjoy the video and stay engaged by reading the endless flow of tweets.

The mashing together of multimedia content will not only increase engagement but can also help you monetize your blog. We can take that same YouTube video and combine it with the Amazon product widget. Your readers can enjoy watching the video and observe related Amazon products right next to it. It is the best of both worlds.

The viewing experience is not interrupted by having an advertisement intrude on the video in any way and yet the products remain highly visible. This particular YouTube & Amazon combination should result in a higher conversion rate than having the traditional Amazon sidebar which may or may not show content-related products and is not in the main view.

Making money outside of your blog

Another advantage of using the multimedia mashup over traditional affiliate marketing is the potential of making money outside of your blog. The Amazon widget contained within the mashup stores your Amazon affiliate code. As readers embed the mashup on other websites and blogs or link to it, your affiliate code travels along with it.

The mashup that started on your blog can now continue to work hard for you on other websites and help you get more value out of your affiliate marketing. In fact, this opens up a new way to take advantage of popular web videos. You now have a great incentive to leverage viral content by attaching your affiliate campaign to it. If your mashup goes viral that means your affiliate campaign just went viral as well.

My company uCubd.com (you cubed) was created to give bloggers and web publishers an opportunity to effectively leverage popular social media content. We have built a mashup platform that will allow you to add more value to your stand-alone embeds. The best thing about our technology is that it’s free and easy.

It literally takes seconds to create a mashup using our platform. All one needs to create a mashup is a YouTube embed code. Our system will automatically analyze the video and render related tweets from Twitter or products from Amazon next to it. Our mashups are not limited to YouTube, other embeddable video and widgets will work as well. We’re also currently working on building a variety of mashup templates that will offer users more options beyond Twitter and Amazon.

Give this a shot, have fun, make some money and let us know what you think.

A guest post by Marat Galperin, co-founder of www.ucubd.com. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

Image by Q Thomas Bower

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My name is Marko Saric and I help bloggers succeed. Subscribe to the RSS feed to join thousands of bloggers and get all my blogging tips for FREE!

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