The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing – 31 Steps to a Profitable Blog

Today we’re launching a brand new ProBlogger Resource – something we’ve been working on for many months now – The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing – 31 Steps to a Profitable Blog.

It is a Kit that is all about helping you create an income that sustains your blog.

Created by the Web Marketing Ninja – a guy who has helped me with my own blogging business – it is his own blueprint for online profitability and it will give you an insight into the way that I now make money from my blogs.

The Ninja helped me make my first million dollars selling my own blog products here at ProBlogger, so you know you can trust his expert advice.

It’s all you need to make your blog turn a profit now, and over the long term.

This essential guide retails for $99.99 USD, but for a limited time, you can secure your copy for just $49.99—that’s 50% off!

The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing—31 Steps to Profitable Blogging has two parts:

This clear, practical ebook includes 31 chapters focused on practical profit-creation strategies:

Conduct a brand auditCreate customer personasConduct the “three-second” testCreate a framework for measuring successGet set to A/B testMaster the campaignManage a launch Price productsDefine your sales funnelUnderstand the long tailKnow when to stop marketing…and plenty more. See the full chapter list here

Your downloadable, practical resource library contains more than 21 templates and worksheets to help you put the Ninja’s advice into practice immediately:

Sample sales pagesMeasurement frameworkCampaign planning proformaAffiliate performance measurement toolCustomer life-cycle analysis exampleJoint venture email template…and many more.

My 60-day money-back guarantee applies, as always, so there’s no risk to you. If this product isn’t what you expected, you can get a full refund.

Download your blueprint for blog profitability today. For more information on The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing—31 Steps to Profitable Blogging, visit this information page or get your copy by clicking the button below.

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Talking Funny: What Can Bloggers Learn from Comedians?

This guest post is by Dan Meyers of Your Life, Their Life.

I recently watched Ricky Gervais’ new show on HBO, Talking Funny, with guest comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K. These guys are the top of their field and use the show to discuss their strategies.

If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, you know they didn’t get to where they are by luck. They’ve practiced and performed for more hours than we can imagine.

I picked up some important concepts that are relevant to a comedian’s success as well as a blogger’s success.

Chris Rock says comedy “is like a relationship. Your woman is with you because you assume she loves you. She’s there every day but you still have to work on her liking you for this to work as a relationship. You have to put out effort. You can’t just come home and say hey, I paid the rent, like me.”

The same is obviously true for blogs. You must continually develop the relationship with your readers and put out effort to keep them around. ProBlogger is full of great examples of relationship building, such as showing your readers you care by responding to their comments.

Louis CK said comedians that don’t have great material get to a place and stay there. They might have one or two hits but they don’t continue building and they won’t sustain over time.

Chris Rock said, “Anyone can have a hot year but who the hell has sustained a career not being funny”?

Bloggers have the same reality. We must sustainably create good material that will keep users coming back.

Jerry Seinfeld said one thing that bothered him about acting was that a lot of people say they can do it and they actually can. He went back to stand-up comedy because there is no faking it. You’re either good or you’re not.

It’s easy for people to start a new blog as is evident by the total number of blogs doubling every six months.

Blogging is a combination of Seinfeld’s assessment of acting and comedy. You can fake blogging for a while, but if you don’t step up and produce over time, you won’t last.

This group of comedians all agreed that stand-up comedy is a great responsibility. There are multiple reasons, but one of the biggest is they recognize people give up a chunk of their lives to see them perform.

They had to get a babysitter, get dressed up, find a parking spot, and spend their hard earned money. They feel responsible for leaving with them something lasting. According to Seinfeld, really good bits go deep into your head and keep coming back.

In an example Seinfeld uses, Letterman talks about how he would spit toothpaste into the sink, let it dry, and serve it as after dinner mints.

It’s not the best joke I’ve ever heard, but Seinfeld said there’s something in that joke that has made it stick with him ever since. Are your posts going to stick with people?

People also give up their most valuable commodity to view your blog post. They give up their time. You must make it worth their while or they won’t be back.

You must also ensure you’re not putting bad information out as recommendations. Ricky Gervais said he feels a great responsibility not to hurt an innocent person. The same is true for people dispensing information.

Chris Rock said one of his most important principles in comedy is to talk about what people do, not what they are. He said some people do some crazy stuff that you can talk about, but if you think they’re actually crazy, you shouldn’t mention that!

To avoid making too many people angry, remember to talk about what they do and not what they are. Don’t say, “You’re poor because you’re an idiot.” Try, “You’re poor because you wasted your paycheck on hookers and alcohol.” Okay, maybe that’s not quote right either!

The great comedians have a way of going deeper into an everyday situation than you and I could ever imagine possible. Jerry Seinfeld is a genius at doing this.

Chris Rock takes a somewhat different approach because some of his jokes are ‘richer ideas’ and won’t be funny without the full premise of the story. He explains what he’s talking about because he knows if he sets up the premise right, the joke will always work.

The most successful bloggers take something, break it down, break it down again, and then break it down even more. Most of this is finding your niche. For example, Darren has more information on AdSense than the rest of the Internet put together!

Ricky Gervais asks the question, “What happens if people discover they can do comedy themselves?” The other comedians don’t view this as a threat because they view themselves as professionals with a level of talent much higher than most people.

Louis CK explains that the guys who make money on the Superbowl aren’t concerned by people who play football in the back yard.

This is even more relevant for bloggers. We live in a world where we aren’t cut throat competitors. Sure, we’re competing over products and content, but for the most part we all benefit as more people get involved in blogging.

These are examples from four of the elite comedians. One thing I observed was how they all have different styles. There is no one way to succeed as a comedian. It would be even harder to succeed if you tried to be the next Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock (or Darren Rowse).

The points they make during the interview are very relevant for comedians as they are for bloggers. Do you agree with any of the points? I would love to see your thoughts in the comments.

Dan Meyers wants to help you take control of your life so you OWN IT.  He started Your Life, Their Life to help you control your money, get out of debt, and find what you really want in life.  Interested?  Check out YourLifeTheirLife.com and follow him on Twitter (@YLTL).

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Twitter Tips For Bloggers

While the rest of the blogosphere has gone nuts for Google+ I’m pushing some retro social media cool. Twitter.

Yes, I might be a little bit in love with Twitter, but it’s not just a case of better the devil you know.

Twitter not only makes me feel good (most of the time), it makes me look good (because I maintain a strong ratio of followers compared to how many people I follow) and my blog statistics show that Twitter nets me some lovely readers too.

Some might call it traffic but to me they are readers. Real people looking for really useful information who found my blog on Twitter.

Let’s take Successful Blogging as an example of how Twitter can help get more readers to your blog.

Here at Successful Blogging, Twitter is the seventh best referrer of traffic. Google is first which is a huge success for a new blog (it’s only six months old) then StumbledUpon (this is a unique case I could write about in another post if you’re interested), direct traffic (people who typed www.successfulblogging.com into  their browser bar) plus referrals from my travel blog Get In the Hot Spot, then from Personal Development Free (where my three free book chapters are listed as incitement to sign up) then, (drumroll please) Twitter.

Twitter beats Facebook bringing 50% more readers than Facebook and, while Twitter is the seventh best referral for traffic, Google+ limps in at 31. Of course there’s room for improvement and Google+ is new, but common sense and experience shows it’s better to concentrate on the proven performers rather than the potential performers.

So I want to share more Twitter tips about the tools I use to manage Twitter and my other social media accounts.

I’ve written about the joys of Twitter as a motivational tool, mentioned it in Over Online Networking? Start Stalking People Instead and shared some Twitter tactics which is a recommended read if you need tips on what to tweet and how.

This is more of a hands on guide to help you use those Twitter tips and streamline your Twitter and social media accounts so they don’t eat up too much time but are still useful to you and your readers.

I said I love Twitter but it can be a love/hate relationship and I want to talk about the downside too.

Sometimes Twitter can be a waste of time. What better place to go when you want to avoid work?

Sometimes Twitter can feel like an obligation. There’s the feeling you have to be interesting, be connected or engage in conversation, when sometimes you don’t have anything interesting to say and you’d rather enjoy a bit of isolation or not speak to anyone.

Twitter can induce feelings of paranoia too. It invites endless comparison between you and other bloggers or makes you wonder why so and so are talking to each other and not to you.

But that’s just on a bad day. On a good day Twitter rules.

There’s a lot of nonsense on Twitter too. There are some people who follow everyone to boost their own followers and who just seem to be self-promoting spin doctors. There are bots (robots) and spammers who send Direct Mail to sell, sell, sell and hackers who tweet phishing links you should not click on.

Never click on a link in Twitter from someone you don’t know, even if they’ve tweeted to you. Usually when you look you’ll see they have no followers and it’s a hacking or phishing account.

But the majority of Twitter users are good people, normal people who want to find new information and make new contacts.

1. You have to be on Twitter. I recently wrote about 5 brilliant books to read. Only two of the author are on Twitter which is criminal.

Twitter offers writers an incredible opportunity to talk to their readers. Likewise business owners can use Twitter to connect with their clients and reach new ones.

Twitter is the very best social outpost because it’s incredibly easy to get started. It’s easy to use and it’s easy to connect with amazing people. Often without even trying.

At the very least bloggers should start a Twitter account and set it to update automatically every time you add a new blog post.

2. Follow other genuine Twitter users who are interested in  your topic and keep your tweet stream 80% related to that topic.

I have two main Twitter accounts: @GetIntheHotSpot for travel and @BloggingMentor for blogging. If you tweet or blog about two different topics having separate Twitter accounts is a good move.

3. Make sure you follow no more than the number of people who follow you.  If you follow a lot more people than follow you it creates a bad impression.

@BloggingMentor has 1,172 followers, 888 being followed – there I follow everyone who’s into blogging. @GetIntheHotSpot has 2,925 followers, 116 being followed – there I follow strong supporters, travel industry leaders and travel companies.

4. Mention your Twitter handle on your blog where people can easily find it and link to it. Some readers want to subscribe by email, others like RSS feed but some will want to follow you on Twitter so make sure they can.

I recommend HootSuite for Twitter and social media management because:

1. I’ve tried using the Twitter site and Tweetdeck but I like Hootsuite best. There’s a free version which lets you manage up to five different social media accounts including Facebook and LinkedIn as well as Twitter. It will also let you add the RSS feed to your blog (or two blogs of your choice) so your Twitter feed automatically updates when a new post is published.

2. Hootsuite has a built in URL shortener.

3. If you use Firefox as your browser there’s an extension called Hootlet which adds a button at the top of your browser window so if you read a post you like and want to tweet you just click the Hootlet button and it creates the tweet with the blog post title and a shortened url.

4. Hootsuite lets you set up streams for each of your Twitter account so you can easily see everything at a glance. I set up streams for direct mails, my sent tweets, my followers tweets, certain search terms or hashtags I’m interested in like #blogging.

5. It’s free. Try out the free version of HootSuite if you like the sound of it.

While five social media accounts is enough for me I’ve signed up for the Hootsuite Pro and pay them $5.99 a month because:

1. I can automatically retweet new blog posts by as many other bloggers as I like because Hootsuite Pro allows me to add an unlimited number of RSS feeds to my account.

This is brilliant because it means my Twitter stream is constantly updating with relevant information and links – I only set up a blog for automatic retweets if I know the blogger and trust that their content will be useful or interesting to my followers.

I’m providing a useful service to my followers and helping other bloggers in my field who often reciprocate by auto-retweeting my posts.

2. I can schedule a whole month’s worth of Twitter updates in advance. So if I’m away, or want to make sure my Twitter stream has useful tips from me without the distractions of actually being on Twitter, I can schedule my tweets once a month.

Of course I still check in at least daily to see if anyone’s retweeted something and thank them or see if anyone has replied to me or said hello.

3. For $5.99 a month it’s worth it because those things save me a lot of time.

You can sign up for a free 30-day trial of HootSuite Pro if you’d like to try it.

How do you manage Twitter and your other social media outposts? Please leave a comment and feel free to include your Twitter handle so I can follow you.

PS. Here’s where you can connect with me:

Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google+

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