How to Use LinkedIn to Create Unique Opportunities for Your Blog Business

This guest post is by Farnoosh Brock of Prolific Living.

I thought I had my social media game covered on all fronts: Twitter, check. Facebook, check. Even Skype, which I like to include as a necessary tool for connecting real-time, check-check!

Until I realized that I am missing one giant piece of the puzzle, and it is not even a new kid on the block. It is an old timer that has been around for a while and still goes by the same name: LinkedIn.

LinkedIn? Really?

Image copyright Nan Palmero, licensed under Creative Commons.

It made sense to have a LinkedIn profile when I was in the corporate environment, and when I was looking for jobs and needed to show off my resume and qualifications, or even when I wanted to be found by other potential employers—it sure was fun to fly out to Google headquarters for an interview in 2007, entirely thanks to LinkedIn. But is there more to LinkedIn?

You probably wonder, as I did, just what could it do for you as a blogger, a writer, or a solopreneur. What more can you really do on LinkedIn besides creating a nice static profile, connecting with a few people in your network, getting a couple of recommendations, and then letting it collect digital dust?

Apparently, a lot!

I was missing the point altogether. Now that I’ve had a chance to dig in deep under the surface of LinkedIn, I want to tell you why it is smart and even profitable to have a professional presence and engagement on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has become the world’s largest network for business professionals—it has over 100 million members. It is the best place to market yourself as such, and network with other business professionals. Facebook and Twitter combined cannot give you that space unless you spend a lot of time targeting the right people. Maybe.

LinkedIn, however, specializes in this: it makes it very easy for you to connect with like-minded business professionals in your field.

Since I started using it, I have had one of my raw vegan recipes featured on a food network show online, met an amazing client, connected with several coaches and speakers for possible collaboration, and am scheduled to be on a Chicago TV station later in October to promote my book. All from using LinkedIn Groups and ranking for the right keywords—and I am not even a serial user … yet!

First, allow me to anticipate and then respond to a common reaction:

“You mean I have to keep up with yet another social media platform? You gotta be kidding me!”

Yes, and I’m not kidding! Listen, make the time, even if you have to take a “vacation” from Facebook and automate or minimize your Tweets for a few days—or even a couple of weeks. Explore and learn to use LinkedIn well and integrate it into your schedule. It will do wonders for your blog and business.

You really cannot afford to ignore LinkedIn any more. Here are four reasons why you should embrace it, starting today:

The LinkedIn community approaches networking with a business-oriented mindset and wants to hear about your business, your offers, your products, and your services.The spirit of the LinkedIn community is to support one another as business professionals, as opposed to Facebook and Twitter where we are first peeps and friends before we talk business.The LinkedIn professionals are very likely decision makers in their business and your connection with the right person could mean real business and profits.LinkedIn search database is used widely for finding candidates not just for a traditional job but also for consulting, contracting, targeted projects, and other unique opportunities. You do want to show up when they search for your target keywords, don’t you?

Let’s get on with the show. Here are three fundamental ways you can build your presence on LinkedIn to make it really work for you.

You need to have an attractive profile. First, complete these sections using keywords relevant to your expertise and areas of interest:

your professional headlinethe Your Summary sectionthe Your Experience section.

As you fill out the above information, remember to not write in “resume” language—create something more along the lines of sales copy about who you are and what you can offer. Think about presenting yourself in that light to the world, and think about prospects, potential clients, and business partners who read this.

Think of this information as your brand in action. Make sure you stay consistent in terms of the way you present yourself on your website and other places online.

The recommendations on LinkedIn are essentially testimonials from your network telling about their experience of working with you. I know that these have brought me a lot of credibility over time, and it is a really good way to display social proof.

Use the following rules for building up your recommendations:

Find testimonials from clients and business partners in your email or on your website. Then contact them and ask them if they wouldn’t mind sending that to you in the form of a LinkedIn recommendation. Obviously, you’ll first need to connect with them on LinkedIn.Seek out your trusted friends, colleagues, and mentors whom you respect and offer to first write them a sincere recommendation. Then ask if they have a good story about interacting with you to send as a recommendation.Offer to write recommendations for people with whom you have worked in the past. Be sincere and specific in your praise, and do so without pushing to get a recommedation in return. Choose the people wisely, preferably only those with whom you are still on good terms. Most will likely write you a recommendation in return if they feel the same way about your work.If people offer to write a recommendation for you, thank them profusely and remember to point out your specific areas of strength and expertise that you want them to emphasize. Most will gladly comply.

The heart of LinkedIn is in its groups. Groups are the forums where discussions take place among hundreds of thousands of business professionals with a polished and clean user interface. I love the layout and the features in the Groups; it is far more advanced than any in Facebook and other online forums I have used.

Here are some quick tips for engaging well in groups:

Choose groups that interest you using Groups search.Look for active membership participation by browsing the discussions.Look at the Groups rules and be aware of them.Join your Groups of choice and watch first before jumping in to contribute.Contribute to an active discussion first before starting your own discussion.

The Groups are where the learning and the networking happen. I find myself constantly drawn to the knowledge that flows freely in the LinkedIn Groups. There is usually enough critical mass in a group that if anyone presents false information, it is quickly balanced out or corrected by other members. My experience has been extremely positive. In fact, a few weeks ago, I worked up the courage to create my own group! Who knows, maybe I have inspired you to do the same thing too?

It’s never too early or too late to jump on LinkedIn. Even if you are blogging just for fun or thinking about starting your own business down the road, there is only an upside to having a network on which you can rely and from which you can draw both inspiration and opportunity. LinkedIn fits that bill perfectly!

Farnoosh Brock is a corporate escapee, writer, photographer, yogini, and coach at Prolific Living. She empowers you to crush your daily fears and live life on your own terms with smart habits. Naturally, she would love to connect with you on LinkedIn!

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Ten Ways to Maximize Content and Take Your Business Places

If you’re here, chances are you create and use a lot of content for your blog and to build your business. Are you getting the best mileage you can from all of your content? Here are the top ten ways you can let your content do double duty.

10. Chop it up. Use snippets from your content and publish them as tips on social networking sites. For example, a single article might have five to ten tips. You can schedule them to be posted on Facebook and Twitter with links to your website.

That can equal at least a week’s worth of tweets going out to your followers. Be sure to post them at different times each day, or even twice a day. Not all of your followers are on at the same time.

9. Collect it. Collect similar articles and/or blog posts to create a larger downloadable product. For example, you might collect ten articles on the topic of organizing your closet and create a report for your visitors. It’s a nice way to offer something for free and provide your readers more value.

Plus, since it’s already been posted on your blog before, you don’t have to write all the content. Just add in some new tips, a few transitions between the articles and you’re good to go.

8. Piece it out. If you’ve written reports to give as free gifts you can separate those into smaller articles or blog posts and share them on your ezine.

7. Weekly wrap up. Create teaser paragraphs for each article or blog post you’ve published the past week and create a weekly wrap up. You can post it as an article and/or send it to your subscribers so they don’t miss a word.

6. Reuse social networking snippets. If you’re using social networking to grow your business consider pulling comments you’ve made or content you’ve published and use it on your blog or as an article marketing piece.

5. Give answers. You can also use any questions you’ve answered via comments on your blog or social networking sites and publish them on answer sites like Yahoo answers.

4. Link it up. Always strive to include a link. You can link to your website to drive traffic to a specific page. Or you can link to an affiliate product that relates to your article. Just don’t go overboard with linkage.

3. Newsletters and ezines. Repurpose or expand on articles or blog posts you’ve written to provide your subscribers with more information and value.

2. Syndication. Consider syndicating your ezine content. Syndicating your ezine content can help drive traffic to your website or blog and build awareness.

1. Rewrite it. Rewrite any and every article or blog post you publish and use it for article marketing purposes. Republish it on article marketing websites or as guest blog posts. Make the most of your writing efforts. In fact, you can hire a Virtual Assistant to rewrite your existing content and double the results.

Always think about maximizing your content. Every time you write a blog post or article think about how you can use it and its content in other ways. Give it more than one purpose.  Let it do the legwork for you.

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How a Blog Can Help Grow Your Offline Business

his guest post was written by Gordon McLachlan of 8 Gram Gorilla.

I’ve been both an avid blogger and a huge advocate for blogging for many years now. But until recently I’ve never had any personal “success” to be able to back up my claims that blogging isn’t just an excellent pastime, it’s also a tremendously useful business resource.

Sure, it’s easy to point people to the likes of ProBlogger as a testament to the power of blogging when answering the question “why have a blog?” but I’ve always struggled to relate any major achievements of my own as further proof to my assertions.

Until now.

It all began three years ago when I first started blogging in earnest and opened the doors to an online gaming blog (think World of Warcraft et al), the subject matter being a hobby of mine that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed for many years.

I guess, if I’m being truly honest, I did have a little thought/hope/dream in the back of my mind that one day I might “make it” as a blogger and become so popular and make so much money through advertising that I could relocate to the Bahamas and live out the rest of my life sipping Mai Tais whilst blogging from a laptop on the beach. Of course, that never happened.

I wasn’t particularly cut up about that, though, because I was primarily blogging for the simple reason that I enjoyed it so much. Plus, within a year or two, I’d managed to establish myself as one of the more popular blogs in my niche with a loyal readership and tens of thousands of visits a month.

I was content and never thought my blog would help me in any other way.

Then something magical happened.

Five months ago, I took the biggest risk of my life and left my job with a company I’d been with for over six years. I started up my own business, a web agency, with two other very talented individuals. The web has always been my passion and not only did my new colleagues and I want to make a living running our own design and development company, we also knew that we wanted to engage with the Internet through all available means.

Taking a punt, I wrote up a post on my gaming blog advertising my new company site and new company blog, 8 Gram Gorilla, hoping that we might be able to pass through some link juice and garner a little bit of interest from my gaming readership.

The response was overwhelming.

Within a few days of my blog post, we’d received emails from readers about job opportunities, some national, here in the UK, and some international. These people had looked at our company blog, our company website, and our portfolio of work, and decided that we, as a business, were worth investigating.

Long story short, through contact stemming directly from my gaming blog, we were able to secure international work that, as a result, has helped us survive and thrive—no mean feat given how tough it is for new businesses to establish themselves in the current economic climate.

I think it’s important to stress here that we didn’t have people just phoning us up and offering us guaranteed jobs or easy money—we still had to pitch for the work and go through the usual hoops of tendering and proving ourselves to be the right people for the job. In fact, not every lead even converted into a project. But that’s not the point.

The point is, just like any form of networking and relationship building, it’s about getting in front of people who might actually have a need for your service, and who respect and trust you enough to give you a shot at going up for it.

At the end of the day, we only won the work we got because we were the right people for the job. What my blog did give us, though, were some amazing leads and the ability to pitch for work that we would never have known about otherwise. And that’s been truly invaluable.

I’ve attended a lot of local networking events and I can tell you that most of them are a waste of time. Aside from the fact that they’re usually filled with people all trying to sell their own wares and services to each other and not actually buy anything, they don’t tend to offer enough time to really get to know anyone properly. And that’s why blogs are so beautiful.

Over the two and a bit years my blog had been running, I’d written several hundred posts on, mainly, my views of gaming, but also about my personal experiences at home, details about my wife and family, and other bits about my life, like my reading interests and holiday activities.

All this information helped cement a relationship of trust and friendship with my readers. They felt like they knew me enough, and perhaps more importantly, liked me enough, to give me a chance when I started my own business.

Funnily enough, this intimate connection has also made the business relationship with any readers easier and more relaxed than any other because, after all, it’s hard to maintain a stern, impersonal corporate facade when someone’s seen your embarrassing holiday photos. I can be completely natural with them because I know that they’ve already read hundreds of hours of my thoughts, moans, and opinions, leaving me nowhere to hide—even if I wanted to.

And all of this is why a blog, any blog, can help benefit your offline business. It allows you to make connections with thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people from all across the world whilst constantly establishing a relationship of trust, authority, and kinship.

It doesn’t even matter what your blog is about, because your readers will ultimately share your passion for the same subject and, importantly, over the course of time, they’ll come to relate with you more and more.

You don’t need a blog that makes money itself by selling products or generating huge ad revenue to reap the real, tangible life-changing benefits of having one.

Just writing about what you love, regardless of what it is, is enough. People respect passion and admire talent, and sometimes, just using a blog as a vehicle to establish trust and connect with others is enough.

Indeed, one of the best things a blog can do for you is introduce you to thousands of people who share your interests and hobbies and, just like networking in the “real world,” maybe one day one of those people will need the services your offline business has to offer.

After all, you never know who might be reading.

This post was written by Gordon McLachlan, one of the founders of Primate, a digital agency driven by an overwhelming passion for the web industry. In addition to having a slightly unsettling love for monkeys he also co-authors their rather witty blog, 8 Gram Gorilla.

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FREE Is The Future of Business

Right now I am reading a book by Chris Anderson called “Free – The Future of A Radical Price”.  You can find this on iTunes for FREE.  You can also search Google and find it pretty quick. Chris Anderson is Wired magazine’s editor in chief and gives us a glimpse of why the cost of doing business online is falling closer and closer to zero.  I really like how this has helped me with everything I am doing online.  The best way to get people online is to give them something free.  You see this on all the top blogs you read, top sites you visit and pretty much everywhere online.

In Free, Anderson breaks down the priceless economy into six broad categories, demonstrating how to make money in each:

- “Freemium”: Free Web software and services, and some content, to users of the basic version. (Think Flickr and the $25-a-year Flickr Pro.)

- Advertising: Free content, services, and software to an audience that advertisers will pay to reach.

- Cross-subsidies: Give away any product that entices customers to pay for something else. Example: It’s a free second-gen Wii! But only if you buy the deluxe version of Rock Band.

- Zero marginal cost: Anything that can be distributed without an appreciable cost to anyone, like online music.

- Labor exchange: Performing tasks to gain access to “free” sites and services.

- Gift economy: From Freecycle (free secondhand goods) to Wikipedia, money isn’t the only motivator.

Always give Away Something FREE

Your readers want to know that you care about them, so why not give them something free.  Not only does this show your reader that you’re giving them something free that has taken you a lot of time and effort, you also show them that you care about them.  This will inspire trust. This will give you more credibility.  This will break down the barrier that is between you and their information to re-market to them.

How Does Free Work?

Free breaks down the barrier between you and your readers.  If you are selling an eBook and you charge even $.01 you may get a small percentage of readers to purchase your product. But if you give it away for free you will quickly see that your numbers will increase, you’ll get more subscribers, and your blog will be more popular. People love something free, they don’t even think about it.  It makes it so they don’t have to think about the decision; it’s free, why not?

What Do I Give Away For Free?

Give away anything and everything. Just kidding, don’t get yourself into trouble.  I would personally go with what Zac Johnson, John Chow, and many others have done in the blogging space and give away an eBook.  An eBook is a great way to gain your readers trust while getting them to subscribe to your blog.  Use a service like aWeber to keep track and distribute your eBook.  It will keep track of your readers and let you email market to them in the future.  This will allow you to make money off your readers in the long run and keep them coming back to your blog consistently.  Make sure when you’re giving away something free that you don’t give away crap.  Giving away something free that is horrible will cause a bad taste in your readerships mouth.  Bad press travels much more quickly then good press.  If you put something crappy together and give it away for free it will damage your reputation.

I encourage all of you to read Chris Anderson’s book “Free – The Future of A Radical Price”  It will change your world and help you to understand free a lot more than you think.  It will help you realize how Google can give away 99.999% of it’s products for FREE and still make Billions Profit each year.  Please let me know below if you have read the book or have any questions.  I would love to help you out with and Blogging Tips that I have!

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If You Don’t Stop Doing This One Thing, Your Blogging Business Will Never Go Anywhere

This guest post is by Tommy Walker, Online Marketing Strategist and owner of Tommy.ismy.name.

Why are you reading this article?

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but isn’t there something else you could be doing?

What are you putting off?

I’m going to be straight with you. You are your own worst enemy.

And you are killing your business.

Photo by Stephen Brace on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

If you’re blogging regularly, at some point you’ll delude yourself into believing that reading every “5 tips to do this thing with your blog” article, and bantering back and forth with industry folks on Twitter, is “work.”

This delusion usually starts at the point where you hit a plateau, and your feedback starts to stagnate or wither.

So you hunt through other people’s work in search of the magic bullet.

Maybe if you read more, you’ll learn the secrets.

Maybe if you talk more, someone else in the industry will take notice and launch you into blogging superstardom.

If you just share more, create more, or interact more, eventually, somehow, you’ll make it.

Take this a step further, and you start buying information products, thinking that might somehow fix the problem. It doesn’t.

Meanwhile, your understanding of your audience hasn’t deepened, your writing hasn’t actually improved, your traffic hasn’t increased, and you still haven’t made a cent directly from your blogging efforts.

And you don’t understand why.

I know this, because I am you.

My blog has been live for a while, and granted there has been some steady growth. But when you’ve seen others rise up from nowhere in literally half the time, and make at least ten times your income, that extra 100 or so visitors isn’t really all that encouraging.

They get invited to speak at major conferences across the country, they get asked to do interviews with popular bloggers, they make six figures on their first launch.

You’re getting rejected from events from your own chamber of commerce.

And when it comes to talent level, their demonstration of knowledge is, well…

Doing more, giving more, and creating more, without having a purpose or an end goal in mind does nothing for your customers, and it does nothing for your business.

When you watch newbie after newbie surpass you in record time, it gets on your nerves.

After a while, it doesn’t make you want to learn more, it makes you want to quit.

For me, the moment came when I thought I was getting tired of working for myself, and considered taking a no-pressure sales position at Men’s Wearhouse selling suits.

But then I remembered,I got fired over a pair of pants in my last “real world” gig, so going back wasn’t really an option. It just seemed safer.

Of course, your customers don’t know any of this.

All they see is you phoning it in.

They see boring, haphazard updates desperate to grab their attention with no mission or purpose in mind.

They’re not sure what to think. You’re not helping them do anything specific.

So why would you expect them to do anything specific (like click the Buy button)?

I knew if I was going to revitalize my business, it was going to take something big.

I needed to prove I could do something impossible.

But let’s be real. There are plenty of reasons you can’t take on big projects, right?

For me, I have a nine-month old son.

I’m getting married in a month.

We’re moving into our first house.

I have a full-time client.

I conduct coaching sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I just started working on a collaborative project with seven other people.

While these are plenty of legitimate reasons to not do anything differently, the reality is that if these things controlled my business development, six months from now, I might not have a business at all.

Are you doing the same thing, day in and day out? Do you feel bored?

Have you convinced yourself you can’t do something because there’s too much other stuff going on?

Listen, the world is too small and life is too short for you to not do everything you can to make a dramatic impact.

One thing we have in common is that we share 24 hours in a day. Your impact on the world is a direct result of how you spend that time.

What do you have mentally filed away in the “I’ll get to it eventually” folder in your mind?

Chances are, that’s the best thing you could do for yourself, and you know it.

So really, what are you afraid of? Because isn’t that really what it comes down to?

Is it that that you might get criticism? Or that others’ expectations of you will increase?

Are you afraid that nobody will see it?

So what?!

“To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing”—Elbert Hubbard

Critics and downright haters mean you’re doing something right.

“Safe” inspires nothing: you don’t get people to think, or dream or hate.

Not everyone will love you. But consider yourself lucky that you’re able to inspire such a passionate response, even if it isn’t overwhelmingly positive.

And if nobody sees what you’re doing, do it again. And again, and again.

You are the only person in the world with your perspective, and to the right people, your perspective could hold massive transformational value.

So, with all of this in mind, I realized I didn’t really want to quit.

Knowing I had to prove I could do what I thought impossible, I decided to over-commit myself to a project.

Specifically, a project called 21 Days to a More Engaging Facebook Presence.

The problem with the “Facebook marketing” world is that too many marketers are focused on the “get more fans” aspect, and completely neglect how you can use the platform to genuinely learn more about how to communicate with your customer base.

I wanted to put out a free series that wasn’t just about Facebook marketing, but focused on developing an engaging voice that could be woven into every aspect of a business.

The principals really are universal, because it’s about truly connecting and bonding with your customers.

And like Gary Vaynerchuk says, “It’s the message, not the platform”

But here’s the thing: I didn’t plan.

Maybe three days before the beginning I said, “I need to sketch this thing out if I want it to be successful”

But three days came and went…

Plan or no plan, if I didn’t start on pre-designated Day 1, I knew I wouldn’t do it.

I scanned my brain for some of the most common complaints people had.

14 hours later, I scripted, screen capped and released a video entitled “Navigating Facebook to Gather Customer Intelligence” and introduced it as Day 1 in a 21-day series (which I still did not have planned out)

The reception to the video was overwhelming. New people as well as those who I had established relationships with were cheering me on and were very excited to see the rest of the series.

Each day, I thought about the problems that I had heard about, and created a new video.

Most days, I had no idea what I was going to do. But I knew I couldn’t stop.

I also knew that I wanted the information to be higher quality than some of the paid training that was out there, so many days involved a ton or research, and testing and experimentation to make sure that it was a caliber that would make people say, “WOW!”

It was hard.

Some days took 16 hours, other days the screen capture program would crash.

At one point I had to buy a new external hard drive, because I filled my existing hard drive with video data.

2 hours, 31 minutes and 4 seconds of video were produced.

My traffic is up 13% , people are taking 42% more actions than before, and my time per visit to my website is up 41%

I see a steady flow of daily traffic that is roughly double what I got before the series, and my Facebook Fan count is about 75% more than it was before.

Now here’s the kicker. I didn’t do much at all to promote the series. Between creating videos, doing client work, coaching, being a father, and being a fiancee, I didn’t have time.

It was pure organic growth, and every day I see inbound traffic coming from new links from websites I never heard of.

Anything worth doing is friggin hard.

In order to raise the bar, you have to over commit to something.

You’ll never learn how much you can do, or exactly what you’re capable of, until you push yourself to the limit.

Why are you holding yourself back?

Honestly.

Quit looking for dime-store tactics and commit to a project that forces you to level up.

Define a mission.

Develop your voice.

Do the impossible.

Then, and only then will you able to have a business that has any meaning for yourself or your customers.

So do yourself a favor, turn off twitter (after you share this article of course) close your email, and start fleshing out that idea you’ve had that you’ve been “too busy” to do.

Because your blogging business will never go anywhere if you don’t.

Tommy is an Online Marketing Strategist and owner of Tommy.ismy.name. He is about to release Hack The Social Network, the ultimate guide to Facebook Marketing, and is currently developing a “mind hacking” course.

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Make Business Blogging fun: writing about holidays, birthdays and other milestones

This guest post is Absolutely writeby Lindsey McCaffrey of.

Business bloggers: you will find every day labor day?

Take a breather: finding things to blog about does not have to be hard work.

In the light of the upcoming labor day weekend, I am going to share a little tip that I would like to tell customers who blog: holidays, birthdays and other commemoration consider.

By your blog post for an occasion, you can come up with some creative, timely and fun pieces.

Here is an example of giving your writing a holiday spin: leading until last year the Christmas season, I compiled my PR pet peeves, in an article best Santa — a PR expert of Christmas wish list.

Tip: think not just about the holiday you celebrate: those of other cultures and countries consider. You can just find an interesting rite or ritual to write about.

Mark a milestone birthday or event such as:

a birthday, anniversary year or death day/year of someone famous, infamous or otherwise (it need to be someone your readers would know, provided that there is relevant to the article) the birthday (day or annual) of a certain historical eventthe year of the release of a book, album, film or otherwise — something that maybe you learned a lot from, or that resonates strongly with you.

Tip: for more impact, it is the best on the occasion of a "landmark year" (think 5, 10, 15, 20 ... you get the picture) instead of something like the 53rd anniversary of X, Y, or Z.

There are also less-serious, officially recognized non-at-all days, months, and milestones observed worldwide. For example, in the United States:

Tip: before writing about a particular compliance, you can qualify. Ensure that it is something that at least a few people actually recognize, and not something that Joe called down the street about beer with the guys.

Here are just a few websites to use as resources:

What are some fun holiday, birthdays and anniversary you have written or read about?

Lindsey McCaffrey is a writer, editor, blogger and communications consultant based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Www.lindseymccaffrey.com/blogvisit her absolutely write blog on.

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My "methods" for building a successful Online Business

Today I received an email from someone asks what my "methods" are for building an online business. That is always a difficult question — especially since I have a feeling that it was asked by someone looking for a easy and quick reply.

Here is my answer. I'd love to hear what would you have added or said.

Thanks for the email.

It's hard to sum it all in an email (I published about 6,000 posts on ProBlogger on the topic and also written a book), but really, if I summarize what I had to do, it would be:

Blog about topics you know about and enjoy (I blog about the topics I had blog about for free).Try to blog something interesting and useful for others every day, for a very long time (I've been doing it for nine years). In touch with other bloggers and other places where people go around the topics that you write on (such as social media, forums, etc.). Put yourself "out there" on a daily basis find new readers for your blog.Build community around your blogs. Reader questions, stimulate discussions, make your readers feel engaged and involved. Love them to death!Experiment with different ways to make money from your blog (and because). There is no way to do this-it could be through a combination of methods, including selling formats do affiliate promotions, advertising, writing sponsored posts, creating and selling your own products, etc.None of these is easily or quickly. It takes time and daily work in the long run.There is no blueprint for guaranteed success in this space.In the end it is about continued useful to people and building a relationship with them. A byproduct of that is that they will keep coming back, bring their friends and to respond to your calls to action.

Thanks for your email address — in something I hope this helps.

Darren Rowse

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The 7 Cs of business communication: make your Shareworthy entries every time

This guest post is luck Writingby Marya of.

When I got my MBA degree ready about a decade ago, I took a course that taught me how to write great content for my blog.

Skeptical? I know what you think: blogging was not even around then! I know. Allow me to explain.

MBA to do it, I have a lot of topics such as Marketing and Management that are great for anyone who has a webpreneur or are looking to become one. That being said, business communication, by far the most enjoyable topic of the whole course was. And I knew it would come in handy one day.

I just knew that the area would not that blogging would benefit the most from it.

Time to dig through the dusty old boxes, search the textbook business communication and again the well thumbed pages again!

We all agree that effective communication is the core of great content. If you do not, you are almost assured to fall on what you are trying to achieve with your messages.

To compose effective written or verbal messages, there are certain principles which we must apply. These also provide guidelines for your choice of content and style of presentation, be it a post or a video on your blog.

These are the 7 Cs of communication:

Your message is only complete when it contains all the info that your reader in order to have a response that you want to.

Remember when you are writing a message, only you know what happens in your head — not the readers. They do not have access to all the voices in your head. For them to interpret the message as you plan, make sure you provide them with all necessary information.

That would be a back-story to your post; It would be were the questions that you are considering who thought that popped into your head while your post to do. Readers need to know what motivated you to write your post. Answer all the questions that are bound to come and relate to your purpose.

Gives your readers the whole image, determining the benefits and talk about the results to convince them. Your reader to the page where you start, or much context will be lost or misinterpreted.

Ahh ... I'm really partial to this — it is easily my favorite child of them all!

Brevity is to say what you have to say in the least possible words — without the other c grades. Attention to the last piece such as this is gold. It won't help you to write short if you don't have full information, lack of clarity, and are not polite.

A brief message saves time for both you, the blogger, and for your readers. By concise you are to show respect for your readers time. You focus on important ideas by eliminating unnecessary words, including only relevant information and avoiding unnecessary repetition.

Wordiness is the curse of writers for always has been. So long introductions to your post, omit unnecessary explanations, and not offend your readers.

Cut back pompous words, trite explanation and proclamation gushy. Stick to the purpose of your post. When combined with the "you view," which I will explain in a moment, concise posts are that much more interesting to your readers.

Write every post with your readers in mind. What they need? How much of a difference it will make your message in their life? Are aware of their desires, problems, circumstances, emotions and expectations.

Put yourself in their shoes. This is ' you ' view.

Most new bloggers are actually surprised to find that the most important word in their posts you and I is not. Yes, it may seem contradictory; I mean, you started blogging to air your thoughts, right? Well, that's probably not entirely true. Don't let your posts are an exercise in navel-gazing: writing with the goal of helping your readers in a way, be it educational or entertainment.

Show them the benefit of reading your posts, and gently put on the desired action — parts of your post, comment on it, or buy something from you.

The meaning of your head in the head of your reader — accurate — is the purpose of clarity.

Choosing the right words to bring your message will do wonders for your writing.

Be conversational, and avoid being superior in your writing. Your writing need not pretentious to be taken seriously. It doesn't matter how great your vocabulary, you will not achieve any results if no one understands you. use familiar language and words that you are well versed, and depending on the situation.

Use short words do you have a choice between the use of long or short. Avoid using technical jargon and explain, if you must, once for people who might be beginners in this field.

Construct effective sentences and paragraphs by laying emphasis on the most important idea. In general, short length works best, and make sure you unity and cohesion in the sentence structure of your own. Look at the style elements if you think you need some help in this regard.

You can reply to your comments? Thank you for sharing your messages, people tweeting them, and a link to them?

Your sincere "attitude you" makes you courteous — and it makes you sympathetic. Politeness is courtesy growing out of respect and care for others.

His thoughtful, appreciative, useful, and really respect to your readers. Don't forget that you are building a community here, so you want to promote values that defines you as a person.

Be specific, clear, and vibrant in your writing, instead of vague and General.

Use active verbs instead of passive, and choose image build words. Use analogies, if necessary, comparisons, and avoid boring language. Show off to your personality and your voice — that is what makes readers hang on every word.

And finally, an extension of that is the last C.

The easiest way to solve this problem is, and should never see the light of day — there's just no excuse for it.

Use the correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Check the accuracy of the facts, figures, and words. For oral presentations, to replace spelling with speech etiquette. Enough said — you're a reader, I can tell.

Follow these 7 Cs of communication when you write your blog posts? Tell us your approach in the comments.

Marya is a communicator of ideas, exploring the human face of blogging. She offers the quirky insight personal development for bloggersin. Catch Writing happinessmore of its posts on.

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Holiday time taking your business blogging

This guest post is by Stephanie Home with the Kidsof Foster.

I did something recently that I haven't done in a long time. I took a vacation from my blogging company about all. For once I spend the evening on holiday not catch up for lost time. I did not write blog entries. No tweeting, no blog comment, none of that stuff, for a whole week.

Sure, I still use my computer for fun. I brought it along and I even had access to the internet most days. I just don't use it for work, and did relatively little free time stuff on it. I was too busy on the beach, the Zoo, the places like that to bother with my computer.

Copyright press master-a vacation from my blogging company Fotolia. comTaking is something I do little of. My laptop always travels with me, and most times I spend my work evenings. The only problem with that is that I do not give my mind enough of a break from the business, so finally I get tired and even head to burned off overall.

Many home business owners are doing the same. It has all too easy to work long hours and rarely a break to refresh your body and mind, even for a few minutes during the day, let alone a whole week. However, it is necessary.

Taking a vacation from your blogging business is not something that you just can do on a whim. Well, you could, I think, but most times it is not that great an idea. You will need to figure out how things are going to go without you.

What about email? Cleaning of spam blog or forum comments you have on your site? What if your site goes down or gets hacked?

You need to figure out how many things that you can drop your company for a week or so, how much you can handle in a few minutes a day, while you are on holiday, and what should be transferred to a virtual Assistant or trusted friend or family member while you are away.

The great thing about many home businesses, especially if they are online with you quite a bit of what you do to take a vacation can drop often. Many things will wait. Others are not.

You can plan blog posts to run in your absence. I always like to do this, even though it means additional work in the preparation for a vacation. It keeps things with just a little bit and then I didn't feel rushed to prepare blog posts, when I get back because I have gone a week and there are no posts or ready for the next week. I can take a bit of time and convenience to take back in my work with only a small opening in my posting or even not at all if I get so far ahead that I can schedule what just after I get back.

It is not always easy to leave your home business only once you are on holiday, especially if you like what you do. There's always the temptation to just a bit of work to do during your downtime.

Don't do it. Another way to enjoy your downtime. Read a book for pleasure. Play with your children if you have some. Go with your spouse, significant other, some friends or just on your own. Keep your mind from your company. It will still be there when you return.

If you check on your business, must try to keep to just a few minutes a day, maybe first thing in the morning so the rest of your day is clear. If you are experiencing also to involve in things, maybe you do not plan good enough for your holiday and must think about how you can get away for a time.

I feel great now that I am back from my holiday. It was great not think about that next blog post for a time. If you are not real breaks, all the stuff that you know you should do more like junk in your head. It is there and you really can't deal with it effectively. A holiday you have time to sort it out, even if you don't actively thinking about at the moment.

A holiday can also brush up on your ideas. Work on a project for too long, and you get stuck with certain types of ideas. A holiday gives you time away from all that, and you might find new ideas come easier after, even if it's just a new perspective on the same things you were working on before.

You also need more relaxed after a holiday. It is a time when you should not be focused on what stresses in your life. Most of the things that lead to stress in your life can also wait for that week.

Taking a vacation from your blogging business is not always the easiest thing to do, but it's a great idea. You do not need to get your business along every time you go on vacation. Sometimes it's best to leave it all behind.

Runs at home with the childrenStephanie Foster, a resource for work at home moms and dads. She writes about running her home business, work at home scams and being a mother at home on her blog.

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Klipfolio dashboard – the, which lists all your Business data

Most companies and blog owners love to keep pace with their data as Analytics, marketing/sales/revenue, Adsense earnings, etc. Unfortunately, it's a pain to have to sign and from these data sources on the Web, in addition, it is rather time consuming, if you do this several times a day. Klipfolio dashboard aims to be a solution for this and allows you to organize all these data in a single dashboard Web site.

On the site support, says that Klipfolio dashboard "is software that you can use to stay on top of things and things that are the smallest and most versatile Board of the world". You can add to your dashboard, Klips are basically widgets (even if they say that it is smaller and faster than the regular widgets) that keep you updated with all kinds of news, statistics and data. You can create and customize your Klips so that is just how you like them. Klips may even posted on your website or blog and you can also buy individual dashboards for your desktop.

Today, we will look at Klipfolio dashboard running on the Web and is now in beta stage "Trial". Used to create your own Klips and share with friends or colleagues.

You can change the layout for your dashboard Klips. There are 5 layouts to choose from? by default it is configured in a single column.

I already have a tab on your dashboard called "Examples", which you can click to see example Klips. These samples include:

Revenues YTDCurrent RatioQTD RepRegional sales StatusOpportunity QTDBookings – distribution by MonthTweetsStock promotions

You can start adding your first Klip by clicking "add to Klip" in the upper-left corner of the dashboard. Here you can select a premade Klips (such as those mentioned above), or create your own. Building a Klip starts easy, but when I go to edit, this section Gets a bit intimidating depending on the type of the Klip that you create. Let's take a look.

First select which styles of Klip that you would like to start with. You can choose from:

Value – i.e. margin, rations, ROITable – i.e. sales, network condition, pipelineSparkline – i.e. as regards the use of the sites, budget YTD performance chart, trendingPie – survey results, opportunity – breakdownGauge, benchmarksNews – i.e. the RSS feed, Twitter updatesImage – that is, graphs, images, maps, webcams

I decided to go with news in order to keep up with one of my favorite blogs via RSS.

Then you must pick your Klip's data source. This can be a source of shared or stored (such as demos from the library or those shared by colleagues), a new source (such as an Excel file, or XML) or no source at all (if the content is static).

I chose "new source", since I want to get data from an RSS feed. From here you can choose to upload a file (Excel, CSV, JSON, XML) or point to a URL to access the web.

Now is the time to add the source file. After the URL, I was able to add the URL, select the data format and select a refresh rate (from every 30 seconds for each 24 hours). Then, you will need to verify that this is indeed the source you want, and then you can add a name and description for this.

Here is the difficult part. You should go and edit every part of you Klip as the main content, link, author, etc. This is done through data and clicking individual items. You can also enter formulas and text here. Frankly, this section is a bit confusing (and where it should stop), and probably will get some play to tell. You can click on a question mark next to a specific area in order to get help -how to use formulas.

Once here, you must enter a name and a description of your actual Klip and then will appear on your dashboard.

If all this seems a little tedious or difficult to you, then I would recommend using a premade Klip or buying an entire Tableau to meet your needs. While this is certainly a useful tool, actually editing a Klip is something that will not come easily to everyone, and I think this could ever really escape some users.

What are your thoughts?

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Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)

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An interesting Blog business model

This guest post is by Kevin Muldoon from WordPress Mods.

Most of you will be aware of the most popular business models for blogs. A large majority of blogs is dependent on revenue from advertising such as banner ads and paid reviews. Once a blog has been very successful, its owners usually branch out and physical and digital products to sell membership such as books, courses and premium content. Many successful bloggers use just their blog as a platform for their own advisory services.

It is important to do a little research into what business model suits you and your blog, when it comes to the way you make money through blogging. When I got my WordPress blog a year or so ago launched I decided to take a magazine model and make money through banner ads, to add reviews paid once the site is more successful.

Once the site is located, I will be in a good position to sell products through it, has also in the same way that Darren launched its fantastic blogging workbooks via ProBlogger and the hugely popular ProBlogger book.

Most blogs fall into the 10 Blog business models that Skellie talked about a couple of years ago, but there is nothing stopping you something a little different.

A good example of this is WP-Candy (one of my favorite blogs about WordPress). Well designed and updated regularly with great content, adopted his owner Ryan Imel the magazine model for WP Candy, although he did things a little differently. In place of the sale of banner ads, WP Candy has managed to remain ad-free with the aid of a so-called "Powered By" System.

The "Powered By" system is quite straightforward. Each blog post has a small link at the bottom stating that "Powered" the post. It is very similar to those that allow advertisers to sponsor a post, but there is one of the most important difference is: instead of the link to the website of the sponsor, it goes to a thank you page on WP Candy that tells you more about the site and the number of posts the sponsoring company has sponsored lists (take a look at the biggest contributor for an example).

Advertisers have a number of ways to let them stand out on the site. Only $ 5 per month you get a link in a post thank you each month, while a one-time payment of $ 50 you a permanent "Powered By" link on a post and a thank you in the weekly podcast will give.

Sceptics can look at the business model that WP Candy has adopted and say that everything she does is sell text links instead of banner ads. Maybe this is the case, although they have not broken any rules, they are simply a link to a special page for sponsors and the links on this page are encrypted "nofollow".

So is what they have managed to achieve offer a unique way for advertisers to market their products and services, while removing all banner ads from the site, making the reading experience more enjoyable for the reader (something that Leo Babauta also did with Zen Habits).

I'm not encouraging you to the "Powered By" system that WP Candy has created. What I encourage you to do is be more creative with the way your money through your blog.

Build a more personal relationship with your advertisers and encourage your readers to communicate with them.The development of high-quality products and services that are related to your blog.Grow your newsletter subscriber base, so you can communicate your readers more.Something interesting to do — something that no other blog in your niche is doing.

I'd love to hear of the interesting ways that you generate revenue for your blog. Have you grown beyond the magazine business model and alternative ways to earn money through your site developed?

Kevin Muldoon is a webmaster and blogger who in Central Scotland. His current project is WordPress Mods; a blog on WordPress themes, Plugins, Tutorials, news and changes.

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