The Art Of Mastering Skills–Are You A Blogging ‘Jack-of-all-Trades’?

This is a guest post by Chris Kahler. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Isn’t the definition of blogging kind of general?

Not really the word itself, rather the definition of the profession.

There are many individual parts that fit together to form a successful blogging venture.

What exactly do I mean by this?

It’s simple really…

A blog is not just a collection of words.

Its doesn’t depend solely upon a good design.

Connecting on social media is only a portion of success.

Other than providing beneficial value, blogs also need to get people sticking around in order to grow…

mastering as many of these various skills as possible is important.

But, I’m not here to tell you of the importance of mastering skills. That’s a basic understanding…

The important message here are the few skills to actually master. They are crucial if you desire to build your blog hands on and grow it effectively. I understand a lot of people prefer to outsource.

That’s why this is the art of mastering skills.

As with other forms of art, it’s only pursued by those who are interested in being skilled.

As a self proclaimed chronic do-it-yourselfer, I prefer to master the skills first and if I don’t thoroughly enjoy them over time, then I outsource.

When you find skills that you enjoy learning and doing, that make this process worth it.

Not only does this allow you to gain a specialized skill (or a few!) for your profession, it becomes an enjoyable craft as well.

These are three skills to have as a “well rounded” blogger. All are learned through practice and concentrated effort.

Of course, each skill has other parts to it. I’ve got the “sub skills” shown here as well so that you can relate the main skill towards blogging in a way that’s beneficial to your venture:

1. Experimentation
Sub skills: being creative, patient, and learning how to test.

Experimentation is: learning how to run with new ideas and adapt yourself along the way for improvement.

Being creative transforms almost any venture you undertake into one of enjoyment. Just as painters enjoy painting and poets enjoy reading/writing poetry, bloggers enjoy their craft as well.

But it’s only enjoyable if viewed from a creative standpoint rather than a business or work standpoint.

People don’t like the idea of work… it plagues them.

But when your job becomes a place that you can extend your skills creatively it gains a certain luster. Having that spark and applying the desire to make something better than before leads you towards the cultivating of grand ideas.

Experiment using patience, always apply creativity, and learn how to test your ideas for results. If you can do these things you’ll expand your knowledge into new areas and maximize your benefits from doing so.

What kind of experiments should you do?

Well you can branch out into other forms of media. If you aren’t making videos and sharing them online, start doing it. If you aren’t putting out guest posts, start doing that too.

The key is to start doing new things you aren’t currently doing. That’s an experiment because your taking a problem and attempting to overcome it using this “new thing” as the solution.

Then you analyze your results from doing that “new thing” and improve accordingly…. it sounds like a lot, but it’s really a no brainer for getting better at what you want to do.

2. Persuasion
Sub skills: building rapport, understanding benefits vs audience problems, psychological triggers.

I’ve been talking a lot about this topic over at my blog recently. There’s a good reason for this.

Persuasion will help you get what you want in life. It’s a tool you should carry with you in all areas.

Understand though, I’m not talking about manipulating people. What I’m talking about is natural persuasion. Being attractive enough so that people will join your cause willingly.

How can you get someone join what you’re doing… without trying so hard to influence them?

It isn’t how hard you try to persuade them that makes influence work…

It’s how much benefit they perceive to get out of you, followed by a simple “triggering” of an emotional chord inside of them to get an action.

This works for blogging in very powerful ways.

Your web design, brand (going in depth on this one below), and overall impression you make on your incoming audience establishes a sense of rapport.

Rapport is a form of trust in case you were wondering. It’s when you have something in common and are seen as genuine to someone. Rapport is an inner connection with a stranger.

You need to establish a connection with your audience, understand what problems they are having, present to them benefits through your value, and use psychological triggers to help direct their attention for growing your blog.

3. Branding
Sub skills: web & graphic design, developing your personal story, developing your unique voice

Your online brand represents your identity across the internet. It’s not so much what people believe about your brand that matters.

It only acts as a trigger.

What matters is the basic image you give off to others. They will build a perception of you and your business and through branding you can trigger them to recall associated emotions from that perception.

You create your identity slowly over time through your actions. It’s important that you build a reputation. The entire time you are building a reputation and fleshing out your personal story, you should be doing so in a uniform way.

This is why I put web and graphic design in the sub skills list.

It isn’t necessary that you become a Photoshop expert overnight… the actual web design skill itself isn’t super crucial to have.

Understanding the motive which drives this skill in the background is crucial.

When creating your brand… color scheme, slogans, logos, and all of that are a part of it and must be tied together appropriately for your cause.

As you create value and solve your audience’s problems, you should also be sharing your own personal story. It’s unique to you and is what gravitates people to listen to you. Others will find you interesting only according to your personal story… otherwise we’d all be the same, right?

Information is all out there; it’s my belief that people are looking for unique style.

Together, your personal story and creativity will help you to develop your own unique voice. As you present this story and unique voice across the internet in various ways (experimenting), doing so with a uniform appearance will “brand” your persona to your cause.

That’s how you create your own unique style and tie everything together.

Eventually they will become one and the same to a point that someone merely needs to mention your name or your brand’s name and others immediately feel a certain emotion or thought about you.

Now I want to know…

A lot of successful bloggers use these methods to help them grow their businesses. I know I’ve mentioned a few important skills to master, but there are more. It’s because of this reason that I’m running a long term series teaching every important skill I can think of for those who wanna really learn to blog.

What other skills are important for us bloggers to master in order to really gain an understanding of this wide reaching profession?

If you have any examples of these skills in action, care to share your thoughts?

About the Author: My name is Chris Kahler and I work as a copywriter and blog about strategies I learn through experimenting and improving myself. If you want to master these skills plus many more to become a Grand Master blogger, check out my Learn to Blog Series at BloggerITUS.com

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10 Sites to Buy Google Plus One +1 Votes

Want to buy Google Plus One +1 votes? Now several sites sell Google +1 votes for a fee. Webmasters add +1 buttons and get +1 votes which are said to influence search engine rankings and are now widely being promoted for good SEO. As Google contemplates re-ranking sites based on their +1 votes as a proof of social media power, they need to look out that +1 votes can also be gamed.

Here are some services we spotted where you can buy Google +1 votes. They are in random order and we have NO experience of using these sites or their reliability or eventual outcome with Google results.

1. Plus SEM – this ‘social media shop’ will let you buy 50 +1 votes for $19.99 and upto 2000 +1 votes for $359. They claim all +1's come from Phone Verified Google+ Accounts, all real people (no bots), and are being given by manually going to your website and clicking the +1 button. They claim the +1's are being given from different IP’s and given over a couple of days so it looks natural!

2. Google PlusOne Service - Starting at 100 plus ones for $25, you can buy upto 1000 plus ones for $250. The package claims to trickle +1 over time from new and old accounts, and confirm all accounts are real and generic.

3. Social Sprint - will sell 1000 +one votes for $399. They promise delivery at about 10-50 votes per day from non-targeted worldwide users who have low activity and high retention.

4. Get Real Plus1 - sells 1000 +1 votes for $219.99 only. They promise real profiles (no bots or fake accounts) who will +1 your page.

5. Real Plus1 Votes - you can buy upto 500 Google +1's for $119.99. They assure the +1 are 100% manually delivered, high quality Plus Ones with unique users from the U.S., with 0% bounce rate, money back guarantee and a delivery time of 5 – 7 days.

6. Buy Google Plus1 - will let you buy 200 +1's for $28. They further offer premium dripped option for delayed natural delivery over the month, and other options to get US, EU, CA votes.

7. Plus One Orders - From buying 50 Google+1 for $9, you can buy as many as 10,000 plus ones for $749! They assure  the Google +1s that you will receive are from real people with phone verified Google accounts and unique IP’s.

8. Plus One Hero - will sell 500 +1 for $177. They also promise 100% real Phone Verified Google Accounts, and will deliver  over time naturally among different URLs and have  live chat support

8. Buy Plus Onee - Willling to deliver  10000 Plus Ones for $1300. “Only Sticky Plus One which are long lasting”.

9 BuyGooglePlusOne - will deliver 500 Google +1  for $140. They also claim 100% real and manually delivered plus ones 7 with 72-96 Hour delivery time and money back guarantee.

10. Google+1 Buys – Will sell 5000 +1 votes for $899.

There are many services to buy Facebook Fans and Likes, but with plans of Google to use these +1 votes to influence search engine rankings of web pages, I hope they have anticipated that many such services will eventually crop up and will allow webmasters to buy +1 votes for a charge.

WARNING: Google +1 has strict publisher policy and by buying +1 you might be violating the Google guidelines. Always check with Google before implementing any SEO influencing trick.

Note: No financial interest. We have used none of these services and have no idea about their claims, reliability and outcomes. This is for informational purposes.

All comments are moderated. No HTML.

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7 Tips to Increase Your Blog Traffic Faster

Have you noticed how most blogs give away a free ebook, report or white paper to new subscribers? That’s because giving something away increases your blog traffic by encouraging people to subscribe and become loyal readers.

It also makes people want to tell their friends and online networks about your blog because it has something valuable to offer.

If you haven’t developed a free product you can give new subscribers you need to put that at the top of your list but it’s not the only way to increase your blog traffic.

This post was inspired by a new website called Personal Development Free. It was set up by Dirk de Bruin (his friends call him Diggy) to help him, and other personal development bloggers, showcase their free products and build their subscribers faster.

Diggy’s idea and the site he’s created perfectly embody the blogging tips I’m sharing below so I hope you’ll check out Personal Development Free, grab a few freebies that take your fancy and find some more interesting bloggers.

Blogging is much easier with a team of supporters. A blogging buddy is essential to keep you motivated and on track but a team of other bloggers are even more powerful to help you spread the word further and faster.

Form a Google Group or create an invite only Facebook page, ask other bloggers to join you then see who actively engages and is a genuine team player.

Think of new ways to help people spread the word.

While there are plenty of tried and tested ways to increase your blog traffic like guest posting, there are still many new ways that no one has ever tried before and even some old ways like simply asking people to share your posts that can be improved on.

In real life and in social media there comes a time when you want to stop meeting new people. Sometimes we all think we already have enough friends, more than we can keep track of and stay in contact with so what’s the point in having any more?

Forget that because some friends will come on the radar then disappear, others will sneak up on you from nowhere and be the ones that stick around for years to come. But you’ll never know who’s who unless you open your mind to possibility and make yourself available to everyone to begin with.

So open your mind and heart to meeting more people and never stop widening your network. The wider your circle the more potential readers you can reach.

People get very caught up in their blogging niche but life isn’t just about travel or fishing or fashion.

Of course, you’ll naturally want to spend time with other bloggers in your niche but make sure you broaden your perspective and also find time for bloggers and blogs outside your niche.

No one is focused on one topic all the time so readers who like travel may also have an interest in fishing and/or fashion.

You have to spend money on your blog. At least on a domain name and a decent logo and preferably on a unique blog design.

The more you invest in your blog the more you should get out of it although don’t invest too much to begin with until you’re really sure of your topic and your goals. For a new business $3,000 should be enough to help you set up a good blog which will stand the test of time and provide a good return on your investment.

Every overnight success, every well known business person, writer or blogger has put in hundreds of hours of work to attain that success. You’ll have to too because if you’re not prepared to go the extra mile someone else will.

If you haven’t already developed a free product you can give away to your readers now’s the time. It doesn’t need to be big, new or costly. You can create a simple ebook based on some of your most popular posts or a short email course with the information your readers need most.

If you need ideas or motivation to get you moving head over to Personal Development Free and check out the fantastic free products. I hope you’re as inspired by Diggy’s attitude to blogging, business and life as much as I am.

Have you got any questions, concerns or other tips to increase blog traffic? We’d love to read them in the comments.

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5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Blogging

We all make mistakes. I’ve blogged full-time since late 2008, after roughly a year of going at it. While I love the lifestyle of blogging for a living, I can’t help but kick myself every time I think back about my first year or two blogging, and what I wish I could change.

If you’re just starting out, here are some powerful concepts that are important even when you’re beginning — delaying and waiting could be essentially costing money and maybe even any long-term success at all.

I could write a small library on what I didn’t know that I should have known, but here are the most important to bloggers just now starting out:

Email Marketing.

This is the big one. Nearly 75% of my income now comes from my email newsletter, even though I launched it in 2010. That means I have literally years worth of email subscribers I could be making money with that I don’t have — I always planned on setting up a newsletter, but just never did. Learn from that mistake, and set up your email list today.

Personal Branding.

Writing isn’t just about bluntly talking about your topic — it’s about creating a voice that allows your readers to picture you in a certain way. Try to add a personal story to every post, figure out how you want your readers to “see” you in their mind, and start playing the part. The first year of my blogging I focused on the topic — while forgetting about myself. Focus on your brand and your content — they’re both important.

Info Publishing.

The most profitable week of my life so far has been writing a relevant report/ebook for my readers, and sending an email pitching it. Unfortunately, I only did this for the first time a year ago. Several books later, I just wish I’d started my website with a report for sale — it would have sped up the journey. Write a report on something important to your readers, set up a sales page, and sell it — worst case scenario, you only sell a few copies — but it’ll make you seem at least a little more of an expert in the eyes of your readers.

Real-World Authority.

If you’re not an authority on the topic you’re writing about, then you have two legit options: become an authority by learning, or hire one. One of the most important projects I’ve launched was a debt web site where I hired a debt collection specialist who had worked for the New York Times Company. It was amazing to watch how people linked to her content, shared it on social media — while ignoring mine. I learned my lesson: there’s nothing wrong with bringing in a real live expert if you’re not personally one.

Legitimate Networking.

Internet marketers love to “network”. Almost every day someone in one of my niches will send me an email literally saying “we should network!” Unfortunately, they don’t bring anything to the table and end up making me click the delete button. Looking back, the most important marketing campaigns I’ve worked on involved at least one other friend in the niche. No blog is an island — make legit friends, and use each other to become more successful.

Blogging is all about growth and conversion — grow your traffic while converting it as efficiently as you can, and you’re destined to a fantastic income. That’s why every systematic tip and every actionable concept can literally take you from doing pretty good to doing better than you thought possible — don’t put off anything, or you’ll regret it later.

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