Why Submit Your Best Posts as Guest Posts?

This guest post is by Aman Basanti of ageofmarketing.com.

If you have been in the blogging game for any number of months, you already know about the power of guest blogging in generating traffic and exposure to your blog. Yet there are new bloggers out there who hear about the power of guest posting, but still do not understand why it is so effective.

Image copyright Franz Pfluegl - Fotolia.com

As one reader commented on my recent piece on guest posting, “You people are always advocating guest posting. But I am not convinced about guest posting. Can you help me in this case? Why should we submit our best work to someone else?”

It is a valid question and as there are always new people entering the world of blogging, one that is worth answering for the blogging community at large.

Accordingly, here are three reasons why you should submit some of your best posts as guest posts.

Here is what a lot of new bloggers don’t know. A-list blogs get a lot of guest post submissions every week. On average, an a-list blog like ProBlogger might get around 30 guest post submissions. In comparison, most blogs only post five or ten posts a week, which means 20 posts get rejected.

If you are sending in your weak posts, chances are your post will get rejected. By sending in your top posts, you increase your chances of getting published on an A-list blog.

Guest posting on A-list blogs gets you high quality backlinks that help you improve your rankings in the search engines.

Now, you might say, “But I’m getting backlinks through the comments section. Why would I go to all that effort of writing and submitting guest posts when I can easily get those backlinks through the comments section?”

The answer is that links in the comments sections of the major blogs are “no-follow,” which means that they count for a lot less (some say not at all) than the “do follow” links that you get in your by line or author box alongside a guest post.

Also, links higher up on the page carry more SEO benefit. As SEOMoz wrote in a post on SEO, “We find that links higher up in the HTML code of a page seem to pass more ranking ability/value than those lower down.” As most guest posts include a back link at the start and at the end of the post, it further magnifies the power of the backlinks.

Combine these two factors and it is easy to see that the backlinks from guest posting are far more valuable than those in the comments section.

Traffic from guest posts is some of the highest converting traffic you can get. Here are the subscriber opt-in rates for my free ebook page:

Google Adwords (Banner ads on the content network): 5% opt-in rate (I know I have some work to do on this, but still)StumbleUpon: 0.5% opt-in rateGuest posting: 40% opt-in rate.

Traffic from guest posting is, hands down, the highest converting traffic you can get. Also, on a big site, the chance of your post going viral is high. It is simple maths. More readers equal more people sharing the post. The more people sharing your post the higher the chance it will be seen by an influencer, further increasing its chances of going viral.

My post on The Warren Buffett Method for Building a Successful Blog, for example, went viral because it was posted on ProBlogger. That post earned me 50 subscribers, showed that I was a good writer, and put me on the map of other bloggers in my niche.

In other words, I got a lot more value from posting it on ProBlogger than I would have had I posted it on my own blog.

Unless you already have a popular blog, there is no reason why you should not submit your best posts as guest posts on major sites. More traffic, better search engine rankings, and brand exposure are some of the key benefits.

Plus, it gives you a bit of kick to get so many comments on a piece you wrote, which can motivate you to keep blogging so that one day you too will get that many comments on your own blog.

Aman Basanti writes about the psychology of buying and teaches you how you can use the principles of consumer psychology to boost your sales. Visit www.Ageofmarketing.com/free-ebook to get his new e-book – Marketing to the Pre-Historic Mind: How the Hot New Science of Behavioural Economics Can Help You Boost Your Sales – for FREE.

View the original article here

Neil Patel’s Guide to Writing Popular Blog Posts

This guest post is by Neil Patel of KISSmetrics.

Do you wish you knew the secret to writing popular blog posts? You know, the posts that get over 200 comments, 20 backlinks, and hundreds of shares on social networking sites?

Over the past five years I’ve started two blogs. The first one became a Technorati top 100 site, and now I’m working on Quick Sprout.

Image copyright Yuri Arcurs - Fotolia.com

Fortunately I’ve learned a few lessons about writing popular posts while running these two blogs, and now I want to share those lessons with you.

The first thing you’ll probably notice when you look at popular blog posts is they’re really easy to understand. And it doesn’t matter what the content is about.

Why is that? The reason they are easy to read is because the writer chose to write with simple words.

I always write my posts using 5th grade vocabulary, rather than writing like a highly educated person. See, I’d rather you be able to read and understand quickly what I wrote, than to appear like an educated person who uses big, complex words, and ends up confusing people.

The interesting thing is you will still look like an expert. Also, people are more likely to share a post that they think other people will understand. So use simple words, not fancy ones.

Really great blog posts sound like they were written just for you. Do you know why that is? It’s because the writer probably used the word “you” instead of “we” or “them.”

When I write like this, what I’m doing is trying to make you feel like it’s just you and me, as if we were sitting down at a caf? for a cup of coffee.

Yes, my blog has thousands of readers, but my posts come across much more personal when I pretend like I’m just writing for one person.

A neat trick to help you do this is to think of somebody you know and write your blog post as if you are writing it just for them. I know some writers who even keep a picture of a person above their screens to remind them that they are writing for just one person.

One of the things I learned about writing popular blog posts is that people want useful information.

That blog content that I wrote for the Technorati Top 100 blog wasn’t very good, even though it was ranked high, and I think it was because I wasn’t trying to offer a solution to people’s problems. I wasn’t showing them how to do stuff. In this post, I’m pretty sure you want to write posts that people like and share, so that the traffic to your blog grows. I want to help you solve that problem.

The template for writing a “how-to” post is simple. Just sit down and write out all of the steps involved in doing something in particular.

Let’s say you want to show your audience how to subscribe to your blog with an RSS reader. Your headings might be “Choose a Reader,” “Sign Up,” “Click on the RSS button,” and “Subscribe.” Under each heading you would give more information, explaining what to look for, the pros and cons, and pointing out issues that might be confusing.

When I first started writing Quick Sprout, I got frustrated with how slowly it was growing. It seemed like it was taking forever! I was writing good posts and getting some comments, but not enough to really make people want to share and link back.

At one point I decided to experiment and write a really long, detailed post. It took me some time to write and I was wondering if it was worth all the effort.

Well, you know what? It was!

People commented and shared that post a lot, and from that point on I decided I was only going to write long posts with tons of good, specific information.

If you think about it, people love long, detailed posts because so much of what is offered on other blogs is short and light on details. This is not to knock other blogs, but simply to point out that this is an opportunity for you to make yourself different than other bloggers.

Another way to make your posts detailed is to add statistics and graphs. It’s been shown that posts with images, stats and graphs will get way more links than the very same post without visual appeal!

I really learned a lot about hooking your reader by reading blogs by Brian Clark, Darren Rowse and Leo Babauta.

These writers use some great tricks to compell readers to stop and read every word they write, which I think is something we all want to do, right?

The first rule of hooking readers is to write a great headline. Great headlines have four qualities. They are:

Unique: Unique headlines can only be used for your blog post, like this post I’m writing right now. It’s unique because there is only one Neil Patel!Useful: A headline is useful when it promises practical information. The reason “how-to” guides are popular is because it gives answers to problems.Ultra-specific: Adding numbers or stats to a headline makes it ultra-specific. My article, 6 Advanced Ways to Improve Your Search Rankings, is a good example of ultra-specific, since I used both a number and the word “advanced.”Urgent: The best way to create urgency is to put some kind of deadline into your headline. “6 Days until the Stock Market Crashes” or “Your Last Chance to Get a Free Copy of My Book” are good examples.

The best headlines have three or four of these features in them. This formula is called the Four Us.

After the headline, you hook readers by writing a great first sentence. How do you do that? Asking questions works really well. So does making a crazy statement that simply can’t be true, but then you promise to show your readers that it is. The point is to write a first sentence that people can’t resist. Quotes also make good first sentences, as do statistics.

Next, your reader will probably skim your post, especially if it is long, looking at all of your sub-headlines. This is why your sub-headlines need to also hook the reader.

Readers should be able to scan your sub-headlines and get a summary of what the post is about. I like to write my sub-headlines like normal headlines, trying to use the Four Us I showed you above. That way, you read them and say, “I got to read that!”

One of the most important parts of writing popular blog posts is writing like it’s a conversation.

Have you noticed all the questions I’ve been asking? Or all of the phrases I’ve italicized? I’ve done that on purpose. People forget that blogging is social media, and being social means knowing how to carry on a good conversation.

The way to do that when you’re actually talking to someone is to listen and ask the other person questions. It shows that person that you care about what they are thinking, and that it’s not all about you—because it’s not.

The same is true about a blog.

Creating a conversation also means you exchange words with each other after the blog post is done, usually in the comments, though some people prefer to email, which is fine.

If there isn’t a dialog then you’re talking to yourself, and that’s no fun. So at the end of your post, always ask people what they think and tell them to leave their thoughts in the comments.

It’s really important in your post to prove any claims that you make. For example, in the section where I said that graphs and stats in a post get more backlinks, I actually linked to another blog post that backed up what I was saying.

If you don’t do this, you’re likely to lose credibility and people won’t believe what you say.

But another benefit to proving your points by linking to other posts is that you are sharing with your audience another good source of information. And the chances are that author will probably link back to your blog at some point.

Lots of bloggers can get uncomfortable with this one because they feel like they’re tooting their own horn.

See, to show you’re an authority on a subject means you have to get other people or organizations to say that you are an authority. Then you point out that they said those things.

If you do that, it’s not bragging, but just pointing out the truth. Of course, it matters how you say it, so stay humble.

One way I show that I have the authority to speak on the subject of writing popular blog posts is by mentioning that my blog was a Technorati top-100 blog. It shows that someone else with lots of credibility recognized me as an expert.

Another way I could do this is by telling you how many readers Quick Sprout has. There must be a reason so many people like the blog, right?

I also mention that I’m a successful entrepreneur, which I can back up by telling you about the two companies I own. It’s not usually seen as bragging if you don’t force it, so look for ways that feel natural.

You’ll see blogs with “As Seen In” sections displaying the logos of important companies and media sources, like the Wall Street Journal, underneath. This is an endorsement—another way of showing you have authority.

Testimonials from readers and clients are also a form of authority. If you’re interested, I wrote a post on how to effectively use testimonials that explains more on this topic.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from starting two blogs, and several companies, is that you have to care about people, and show them you care.

I love reading blogs where I can feel the writer’s concern for me. I try to do that on Quick Sprout, too. One obvious way to do this is by bringing attention to the people who have helped you be successful.

I’ve discovered that if truly care about people—including your readers—you will naturally try to write a popular blog post, because you are always looking for ways to write better. In other words, you’ll constantly try to learn new ways to improve your posts so you help more people. And that’s certainly a good recipe for success!

There’s a lot of competition in the blogosphere, so it’s easy to get frustrated when your blog is not getting the attention it deserves.

Be patient and use the tips that I shared above. I’m certain that within time you’ll start writing popular blog posts on a frequent basis.

What advice do you have for people who want to write a popular blog post?

Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and blogs at Quick Sprout.

View the original article here

The Importance Of Scheduling Your Blog Posts

 

One of the most important responsibilities of running a popular blog such as Blogging Tips is scheduling posts. This is particularly true for blogs in which the blog owner doesn’t write every day themselves. That is, they just need to organise the articles written by staff and guest posters.

Scheduling is just as important for blog owners who write the majority of their content (this is perhaps less true if your posting frequency is irregular or you only publish an article once a week). One of the most important lessons I have learned over the last 4 or 5 years of running blogs that publish articles daily is that it is vital to schedule posts in advance. You never know when something unexpected will come up that will take away time from your usual working routine. Sickness and family emergencies can never be planned.

I try my best to always have around a weeks worth of posts written in advance when possible, more if I am planning a holiday. This week I was reminded of the benefits of doing this.

One month ago I fulfilled a dream of mine and came to South America. Unfortunately, I have an allergy to something in the apartment I’m staying in. Back home I suffer from the same problem when exposed to dust or animal hair from cats and dogs. My nose runs constantly, my eyes get red and sore and I generally just feel run down.

Fortunately, I brought Loratadine tablets with me just incase I was exposed to any animals but they haven’t completely stopped the symptoms. The most pressing thing for me is to find out what’s causing the allergy. The apartment has laminate flooring so there’s very little dust gathering, I’ve replaced the feather pillows with anti-allergy pillows and there are no pets allowed in the entire apartment complex. This has all left me baffled as to as to what is causing me so much grief. For my last roll of the dice I am going to buy an anti-allergy duvet to replace the cotton and polyester blankets that I’m currently using, though as I have used similar blankets back home with no problems I predict I’ll have to see the doctor next week.

On Sunday I was lucky enough to watch the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Bogota. I had an amazing day but forgot to take my tablet in the morning so I awoke yesterday morning feeling terrible. I generally work between 9 to 6 during the week but after a small article that should have took me 15 minutes to write took me over 2 hours, I switched the computer off and relaxed. Thankfully, I had articles scheduled in advance so I could afford to take time off to get myself better.

If your blog only posts about the latest news, you may find scheduling in advance isn’t really an option. News posts can’t be really written in advance as you need to publish the article when the news is still fresh and relevant, therefore the majority of news posts are written the day the article is published or the day before.

Most blogs contain a mixture of news, reviews and opinion type articles so what you should do is schedule posts that will be as relevant in a few weeks time as they are today. When the opportunity to write a news related post comes up you simply have to reschedule the scheduled post for another time.

Here are three WordPress plugins that you should all find useful when scheduling your posts:

Editorial Calendar – My favourite plugin for scheduling posts. The plugin adds an easy to read calendar page to your WordPress admin area. It’s a quick and easy way to see what days have posts and what days don’t. To move posts to a different day you simply have to drag and drop the article to the selected day.Future Posts Calendar – Adds a calendar to the top of your post editor sidebar that quickly see what days have posts scheduled on them.Auto Schedule Posts – The perfect plugin for blogs where the date the content is published isn’t really important. The plugin lets you set parameters for when you want articles posted online. If the plugin finds a day without a post it automatically schedules one of your completed posts for it.

I’m sure you are away of the limitations of writing articles too much in advance. In an ideal situation all content would be written on the say it published so that your blog remains relevant by reacting to popular trends. In reality, I think it’s best to plan ahead as if a ‘sick day’ could turn up at any time.

Be a smart blogger and run your blog just like any other business. Prepare for the unexpected and your readers will rarely see any irregularity in your posting frequency.

How do you schedule posts for your blog? Id love to hear your blog posting routine

Good luck,
Kevin

View the original article here

52 kinds of blog posts that are proven to work

Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request

This guest post is by Karol K of Online Business Design blog.

Blogging is not only about putting together 400-2,000 words of text and publishing them on your WordPress site. As a blogger, you can choose from a much bigger variety of possible blog post types (and content in general).

Let me be honest and admit that I’ve wanted to compile this sort of list for a long time. Coming up with new ideas for posts every couple of days might lead you to a hard stop on a brick wall very quickly… I believe writer’s block is the more politically correct name for such a situation.

One of the most effective ways of fighting writer’s block is having a big resource file, containing lots of ideas and frameworks for new posts. Besides, writing standard, old-school blog posts can get boring very quickly. That’s why every blogger needs some variety in terms of content if they want to be doing this for a longer period of time.

This list is divided into a couple of sections depending on the purpose and characteristics of each content type. Feel free to treat it as a resource file ?? you don’t have to go through the whole list at once.

This is one of the most popular post types and one that arguably brings the most value to the reader. The most important thing to focus on while writing it, is to give some specific information on how to do/perform/attain/reach whatever is promised in the title of the post. Videos and images work very well as additional resources for how-to posts.

Typically used by bigger blogs, leaders in a given field that have their finger on the pulse at all times. They are usually short (less than 500 words) and share an important piece of news in a given market. There are a couple of downsides if you want to make them an important part of your publishing schedule: you have to be fast (there’s nothing worse than yesterday’s news), news has a short expiration date (it’s hard to turn a news post into a piece of evergreen content), and finally, you have to be publishing them at least once a day.

A.k.a. Wikipedia-style post. What you basically do is choose a term that has a significant importance in your field and define it using simple language, so the term is easy to understand for someone who’s new to the topic.

List post is one of the most popular post types in use today (you’re reading one right now). The basic idea is that you take a topic or a problem and you try to come up with a number of separate solutions to it. List posts are so popular because they are extremely easy to follow. Each point is usually not related to the other ones, which means that even a distracted mind can get a lot of value from the whole post. List posts are also great for bookmarking or sharing with friends—precisely because of their reader-friendly construction.

Very similar to standard list posts. The difference is that now you’re not coming up with the content on your own, but searching for valuable information elsewhere and, in the end, sharing links to what you have found. This type of list post is very popular lately and many successful bloggers are using it as one of the most important elements of their publishing schedule. This kind of posts tend to get a lot of backlinks due to the fact that people who have been featured often like to let their readers know about that fact, so they go ahead and mention it on their blogs.

A profile is a post focusing on a specific person, usually someone famous or important in a given field. Profiles usually cover things like: why the person in question became famous, what’s so special about them, what they have accomplished, and what’s their history and background. There are no specific rules of creating a good profile post. You have to choose your target, find as much interesting information about them as you can, and combine it into an article.

Case studies present a way of solving a problem based on a real-life example. They are usually constructed in a step-by-step manner presenting each step in a detailed way, and explaining why this specific solution has been chosen. Case studies usually end with a roundup of everything that has been done and present the final results.

This is similar post type to case studies, only here, the solution doesn’t have to be one that has already been applied. It can be a description of a theoretical solution to a problem, or an idea worth considering for other people struggling with the same problem. For example, let’s look at amateur bodybuilding as a topic. One of the most common problems in that field is gaining lean (fat-free) body mass. A bodybuilder-blogger might create a post targeting this specific problem by giving a number of possible solutions, like introducing a special diet, different workout regime, different hours of sleep, and so on.

Every field has some specific characteristics or problems that can be solved by many different means. Comparison posts take two or more possible solutions and compare them to one another. Various aspects of these solutions need to be taken into account if the whole post is to be valuable. It’s also good to point out a winner at the end. Some of the things you can compare against each other are: software, books, courses, companies, etc.—even people.

There’s nothing like a good story. Stories are ones of the most reader-friendly types of blog posts. We ? humans ? are used to hearing stories ever since we were children. The power of stories lies in their ability of disguising certain messages while describing seemingly unrelated situations. You can create a story about someone who wanted to do something but failed because they didn’t know the most important elements of X, where “X” is the thing you want to share with your readers… Just an example.

The truth is people like to read controversial articles even if they don’t agree with the author. That being said, not every author has enough balls to write such a thing. Interestingly enough, creating a controversial post is not that difficult. The easiest way of doing it is to pick a topic, write down your thoughts about that topic, and then sharpen them up to the point of absurd. You can use some sarcasm while doing so. Here’s an example. Instead of saying “some Internet marketing tips published online have very few possible applications in real life,” say “every Internet marketer knows nothing about real-life business”—strong, to the point, and easy to disagree with.

Usually an inspiring story about someone (hopefully, an underdog) achieving something. The main message here is “if he can do it, so can I.” The only problem is that it’s not that easy to find something interesting enough to be turned into an inspiring post.

A step-by-step guide on how you are (or someone else is) researching a specific topic. For example, you can share how you’re doing your keyword research, or how you’re searching for a virtual assistant to hire, or how you’re doing market research to come up with a list of potential partners and competitors.

This is a combination of a research post and a link list post. The main idea is to find a topic and find other people sharing their opinion on that topic. Sometimes it’s better to not pretend that you are the most knowledgeable person in a given field, but share the opinions of other experts instead. It’s the thing Napoleon Hill was famous for.

A hypothetical post about something—”What would happen if X?” kind of thing. To start, choose an interesting topic, find an element that’s certain to exist in that field, and try to write a post about what might have happened if that element never existed. For example: “What if WordPress was never invented?”

A satirical view on a given topic. The easiest way of coming up with such a thing is to choose another publication about something, note down some of the ideas presented in it, and extend them to the point of absurd. For example, many building-a-successful-blog gurus tell you about the importance of commenting on other blogs. In response, you could write a post on “why you need to comment on 1,374 different blogs a day if you want to be successful.”

I’m sure you know very well what this is about. The only problem with coming up with these kind of posts is the “frequently” part. If you want to create a FAQ style post you need to have an audience to get the questions from. Creating a fake FAQ containing only some imaginary “frequently” asked questions is the biggest sin of them all.

A similar type to the previous one, but this time you, as the expert, provide a list of questions and answers your audience should be asking you. The trick here is that frequently asked questions are not always the ones that are the most important (that’s because people don’t know what they don’t know), so in a SAQ post you can present your expertise and deliver much value to your readers.

There are tens of blogs that focus solely on reviews of various products and services, mostly in the tech/gadget niche. I’m not telling you to start posting only reviews from now on, but submitting one every now and then surely can’t hurt you. In addition, you can include your affiliate links and make some money along the way.

I’m sure there’s a lot of potential people you can interview: experts, celebrities, ordinary people who have managed to do something significant, people sharing their success stories, companies, other bloggers. Just look around your niche and I’m sure you’ll find someone interesting.

The interview itself can be done in a couple of different ways. You can meet with someone in person (the traditional way). You can mail them your questions and they will mail you back the answers. You can call them via Skype or phone. You can do a twitter interview (tweeting back and forth questions and answers). Basically, there are no limits. Sometimes being creative pays a lot, so try to come up with your own ways of doing interviews.

Whenever you have a big library of resources, your own posts, notes, etc. you can combine them and turn into an ebook, and then announce its launch in a standard blog post. One of the best examples of using your existing blog posts to create an ebook is the work of Darren Rowse in 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Once you have your ebook ready, the best way of delivering it is, of course, as a PDF download. In fact, creating ebooks can be fun—something I found out for myself when putting together my own ebook.

It’s like an ebook, only smaller, usually focusing on just one aspect of a given field, and in most cases delivered free of charge. Other than that, you can approach it the same as creating a standard ebook, and once you have it ready, announce this fact in a blog post.

As Wikipedia defines it, “a cheat sheet is a concise set of notes used for quick reference,” and that’s exactly what it is. I’m sure that you can find many rules, tricks, methods of doing/using something that relates to your field or niche. You just have to put it all together in a neat PDF file and share it with your readers. Just to give you some examples of nice cheat sheets: Cheat Sheets & Quick Reference Cards for Developers.

A checklist is a set of specific steps that need to be taken in order to complete a task. Next to the headline of each step there should be an empty box where the person using the checklist can put a tick once the step has been completed. This forces you to use the PDF format once again. Once you have the checklist ready, write a post describing what it’s for and how to use it.

Infographics are very popular in today’s Internet. They are cool to look at, present information in an easy-to-digest manner, provide a lot of value, and have a high share-with-a-friend factor. The only downside is that they are very time consuming to create. And in most cases you have to delegate this work to someone (or work together with someone) if you want the final result to be exceptional. Nevertheless, they are worth to consider if you have the time and the resources. Here are some examples of great infographics: Infographics for Web Designers: Information You Ought to Know, 12 Amazing SEO Infographics.

In my opinion this is one of the biggest things you can do for your blog once you have a moderate readership. By “moderate” I don’t necessarily mean the numbers, but people’s engagement with your posts.

The basic idea is this. You announce a project that you will be participating in (or are an author of) and invite your readers to take part in it, and share their results. A great example is what Pat and Tyrone have done with the Niche Site Duel project.

This is usually a very short post. Just a single question to your readers about whatever topic. But, of course, it has to be something related to your niche, and it has to be something that actually interests you, something you want to know … maybe as part of research for your upcoming post. Publishing this kind of post can help you tighten the relationship with your readers and encourage some of the quiet ones to speak up. The only downside is that you have to have a moderate readership in order to make this work.

Similar to publishing an open question, only this time you are saying what’s your opinion at the beginning of the post, and let your readers pick a side, so they can share their own arguments in favor or against. One more time … you have to have an audience for this to work. Once you consider the debate finished you can shut down the comments and write a follow-up post pointing out some of the most important parts of the debate.

Let me just give you an example. A while ago, Corbett Barr published a post presenting a debate between Pat Flynn and Everett Bogue on whether or not you should allow comments on your blog. The debate has been prepared earlier by interviewing both sides giving them the same questions, and then letting them take a look at each other’s answers so they could react to them. This is a great idea and I have to implement it myself in the near future. I encourage you to do the same.

Yet another way of connecting with your audience. This time again you are the one asking questions. A simple poll consists of one question with a number of possible answers. For example: “Which member of the A-team do you like the most? 1. Hannibal, 2. Face, 3. Murdock, 4. B.A.” There’s a number of different WordPress plugins that can provide you with a possibility of creating a poll.

A survey is usually something a bit bigger. For instance, a questionnaire containing a number of poll-styled questions as well as essay questions, and simple fill-in-the-blanks. You can search the WordPress plugin directory to find an appropriate plugin for this too. Surveys surely provide much valuable information about your audience, which makes them worth considering once you have an engaged readership.

This is a kind of post consisting of links to other post within the same topic, and maybe some additional comment or content. For instance, this guitar blog sharing information on how to learn guitar chords. Each chord gets its own post, and at the end of the series there’s one big gathering post featuring the links to all the other posts and some additional tips and resources. In the end, the whole post looks like a kind of crash course on learning guitar chords.

In order to create such a post what you need is a topic, preferably a trending/popular one, and some time. Just go to twitter search and find some interesting tweets about the topic. You may search by keywords or by hashtags. Once you have a set of 20+ tweets you can combine them into one “what people are saying” post. This may sound like an easy way out, but in reality these posts can be very informative and, in many cases, very funny.

Very popular lately. Some of the best examples can be seen at Think Traffic and Smart Passive Income. What you do is simply take a look at your Google Analytics account as well as your bank account and report any changes comparing to the previous month. Of course, you have to be comfortable with sharing this kind of information. The other problem is that telling people that your traffic is at 346 per month and you income at $12 per month might not be the best social proof possible.

Contests are a great way of connecting with your audience or even getting an audience in the first place. The most important element of a contest is the prize. It has to be something worth competing for, which mean it involves spending some money or finding a sponsor. The theme of the contest can be anything. For example: “whoever sings the highest note wins an iPod”—you get the point. Entries can be submitted via email or, preferably, via a comment below the post. It’s up to you.

Something similar to a contest. The only difference is that the winner is not chosen by someone, but gets drawn randomly. Other than that, same rules apply.

Another idea that’s similar to a contest. The main idea of a race is to give your audience a specific task to do, and the first person to complete it wins. It might be something like: “first person to publish 20 comments this month on my blog wins an iPod.” The main benefit of such a thing is that apart from the winner submitting 20 comments you may get the runner up submitting 18, two people submitting 17, and so on. So in the end, running a race might bring you many more comments than 20. Just an example. The rules of running a contest apply here too.

How is it any different from a poll or a survey? Well, a quiz is not a tool for you to find out something about your audience, but a tool for your audience to find out something about themselves, usually in a funny and entertaining way. A great example is a quiz that can be found at theoatmeal.com, titled How long could you survive chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor?. It turned out to be a big link bait for theoatmeal and resulted in #1 ranking in Google for the phrase “bunk bed”, whether it was intended or not. Plus, at the end of the quiz you receive a cool badge which you can include on your blog or share on Facebook. I’m sure you too can came up with something quiz-worthy in your niche.

You can use a blog post to announce your new software, tool, plugin, service, etc. Share some information about the thing—what it can do, who it is for, how and when to get it, and so on. This might be a good way of notifying your readers of what’s going on in your business, what you’re up to, and what’s in it for them. You can get some ideas for new services or products by doing a brainstorm and researching what your audience might be interested in. Of course, to make it happen you have to know your audience first.

Every day more bloggers start to publish comics as a constant element of their publishing schedule. Take a look at Web Designer Depot. If you are, or can get, someone who can create the actual comics, it might be a good way for you to expand your audience and give them something that’s very easy to digest. It can be a nice link bait as well. Two examples of comics-only blogs: xkcd and Wulffmorgenthaler.

No further explanation needed. Obviously, it’s not a good fit for every niche, but who knows? Maybe it’s perfect for yours.

This is something that works well in the design niche, which is not very surprising. Designers are always on the hunt for some fresh, preferably free, icons/buttons or other graphical tools. Try to adjust this strategy to your niche. For example, if you have a photography blog you might share some free stock photos on Creative Commons license. If you’re in the business development niche you could get some Microsoft Word templates designed for you and then share them with your audience. It’s not just about icons.

If you’ve ever given a presentation on whatever topic I’m sure you still have the slides somewhere on your computer. You can upload them to Slide Share and then embed them in your blog post. Inside the post you can describe what the presentation is about, mention when and where you gave it, and encourage your readers to re-embed it on their own blogs.

First things first: what is a podcast? Quoting Wikipedia: “a podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication.” Translating it into plain English, a podcast can be a series of mp3s launched in a sequence. Probably the best idea is to register your podcast in iTunes and get some recognition there.

When it comes to the content itself, a podcast can contain whatever you want. You can give tutorials on various topics, tell jokes, even read poetry. Feel free to browse the iTunes directory to get some ideas.

These are similar to text interviews, only this time you conduct them over the phone or Skype and record everything along the way. Then you share them as an mp3 on your blog or turn them into a podcast if you’re planning to release more than one interview.

Again, some people you can interview include: experts, celebrities, ordinary people who have managed to do something significant, people sharing their success stories, companies, and other bloggers in your niche.

Something similar to an interview, but this time you’re getting a number of people (three or four) on the line or Skype, and give them a topic to talk about. Of course, you record everything so you can share it with your audience later on. This kind of talk is more focused on a specific topic rather than on the people participating in the talk. This is a good idea if you have the possibility to convince a couple of influential people in your niche to take part in it.

In order to pull this one off you need an engaged audience, or good marketing. The main idea is that first you announce you’ll be conducting a teleseminar on topic X and give people a link where they can sign up for it. Then when the time comes you give the seminar to a live audience. Of course, you can also record it and share as an mp3 later on.

The most popular way of running a teleseminar is to focus on a how-to topic. It should be something you can explain to your audience—something that’s really important to them, yet it’s not so easy to master alone.

All video post types on this list have one thing in common: once you have the video made you can embed it in a normal blog post, or share it with your audience as a video podcast.

Now, the talking head video. It’s the simplest video to make. What you basically do is sit in front of a camera and talk about something. One of the most famous examples is Gary Vaynerchuk and the posts on his personal blog. Of course, the topic needs to be interesting if you want to have any kind of impact, and you have to be comfortable with the camera—something many people find challenging at first.

Screencasting is another name for recording what’s happening on your screen. It can be done with software called Jing, for example. It’s a very easy-to-digest way of giving a tutorial on some technical things, like setting up WordPress or doing something in Photoshop. Sometimes it’s much easier to do a screencast than explain such things via text content. Usually the same amount of information can be delivered in a five-minute screencast as in 3,000 words of text. And the problem of you being uncomfortable with being in front of a camera doesn’t apply here, so it’s actually easier to make.

This is basically a kind of screencast. But it’s made by first creating a PowerPoint presentation (of course, you can use other software too), then firing it up and recording everything while you talk the viewers through the presentation. It’s very easy to make and the results can be great due to some of the PowerPoint’s fancy features.

Nothing new here, except this time you’re not writing or recording audio, but shooting a video instead. Video interviews always look more professional because they have that TV-like feel to them.

Shooting a how-to video is a good idea if you’re in a niche where it’s easier to actually show something than it is to describe it with words. The guitar niche is a great example. It’s much easier to show people how to play a specific chord than it is to describe this to them. The main problem here is that you have to be comfortable with being in front of a camera. If you’re nervous, people will notice.

Similar to teleseminars, webinars use video as the main medium. Other than that, the same rules apply.

The final advice I want to give you in this post is to recycle your content. Now, what do I mean by that? Whenever it’s possible and makes actual sense, try to take a piece of your content and repurpose it by turning it into a different medium.

For example, you can get your videos and mp3s transcribed and then share them as a regular blog post. You can also go the other way around: create an article first, then turn it into a script, and in the end shoot a video and upload it to your YouTube channel. Another idea is to take your email newsletter series, read every edition out loud and share the whole thing as an audio podcast on iTunes. I’m sure you get the idea by now. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.

What’s on your list? Do you have any interesting blog post type ideas you want to share? What’s your favorite type? Speak up in the comments: your input is more than welcome!

Karol K. (@carlosinho) is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland and a grad student at the Silesian University of Technology. He hates to do traditional business but loves to train capoeira. Tune in to get his advice on blogging and starting an online business.

View the original article here

Boosting your Blog # 13: Bundle your posts as an Ebook

Continuing our discussion of things you would need to do now to improve your blog, today's tip — the last in this series — is:

This is a variation on the first post in this series, about how to create a productcan, but for those of you feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a new product from scratch it is a good first product.

In fact my own first two ebooks (both of which are still my best selling ebooks —31 days to build a better Blog and The Essential Guide to portrait photography) are largely made up of content that was previously published on my blogs.

In both cases, I added to the previously written content, new content and updated the existing materials. And in both cases my readers overwhelmed me with thanks for the previously distributed content in full ebooks to compile.

These 13 methods are just the beginning. I am sure that there are many more ways to boost your blog.

Take a little time today to create sustainable and significant improvement in your blog business model. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to add them below.

View the original article here

Boost your Blog # 7: Interlink your posts

Continuing our discussion of things you would need to do now to improve your blog, and today it tip:

Another task that I am trying to do on a regular basis (not as regularly as I should!) is back to go through old messages in my archive and looking for opportunities to interlink them.

Many times bloggers write multiple posts on their blog on related topics, and each is an opportunity to interlink relevant content. This benefits your readers, if you read them further on the subject, and helps with your search rankings (internal links help your SEO a bit).

Pay particular attention to the possibilities to link to your own products in older posts — this can be a money spinner.

You frequently back and interlink old messages?

View the original article here

Boosting your Blog # 5: Check for hot posts

Continuing our discussion of things you can do now to improve your blog would be, and today it tip:

One of the tasks that I in my own blogging on a monthly basis (ish) build is to dig into Google Analytics. I do a number of things while digging in but one simple task that can have a significant impact is looking for "hot posts" — messages that attract a higher rate of traffic than normal messages.

Most blogs have a few hot posts in their archives, and they are not always the one you would expect. These posts are real opportunities — there are people who viewed them, and chances are that once they do, they then disappear to never to return.

Once you have identified your hot messages, think about how you can optimize them. You might have a little more time in optimizing them for SEO, you might want to think about how to get visitors to that page hook in a subscription, or you can even think of promoting a product (yours or someone else) of that post. Really depends on what you are doing your goals.

Does your blog post is called? And have you optimized them?

View the original article here

4 Tips for Pitching guest posts Like a Pro

This guest post is by Aman of Ageofmarketing.comBasanti.

I have since the launch of my blog in mid May 2011, guest posted on a number of A-list blogs in the blogging and online marketing niches (including ProBlogger, MarketingProfs, and Daily Blog Tips). In doing so, I've learned some important lessons in getting guest posts accepted on great blogs.

But instead of boring you with the usual advice (choose the right blog, research of the blog, pitch quality content etc.) I will be a specific aspect of guest posting attack — preparation of the pitch. If you want to learn about other check aspects of guest posting out Ali Luke's post, How to get your guest posts accepted Every Time.

I have identified four important elements that can greatly increase your chances of having your article or pitch accepted.

I had been reading ProBlogger for over a year before I threw them a guest post. By any measure, I would had done my research. However, my opinion of what would be accepted was gone.

The post that I thought it would be best for ProBlogger was rejected, as was the one who I thought would be second best. The one I had least expected to be published was accepted. I hadn't pitched three post ideas at one time, I would never have known. I have similar experiences with other editors.

So the lesson here to pitch multiple messages. You cannot guess what the editor will find interesting. Cease to be a mind-reader. Place your confidence probability.

If you have multiple pieces of pitch, not only if they contain attachments. A-list blogs get a ton of pitches every week and don't have the time to read through them all. Make it easy for editors and write a short description of each piece.

Here is a sample outline:

The Pimp, the grocer and the assassin: Magnetise your headlines using the power of the unexpected

An article about how human attention to unexpected events are connected and how bloggers can use unexpected details to write more attention worthy headlines.

Send article pitches, benefits rather than articles, also you don't need to have the post written before throwing. You see the pitch, if the blogger is interested in, and then write based on their feedback.

Multiple messages with contours pitching is the single most important thing that has helped me get more posts accepted. It cuts the guesswork.

As editors are busy, they have not the time to imagine how your post relates to their niche. Your pitch must be specific to their blog from the beginning. The simplest way to get your post appear to make more specific is the use of the appropriate language.

This is where your research will come into play. Most sites specific keywords. ProBlogger, for example, is focused on blogging-related keywords. So if you are pitching on this site, use the word "blog" instead of "website" and "post" instead of "article."

Even cosmetic corrections like this can make your pitches more attractive. As Georgina explained it to me: "I, like the search engines, like [keywords] used in the posts I am revision. There are plenty of online content that is relevant to blogging, but unless it specifically and explicitly to blogging and bloggers is bound, we cannot accept it. "

Include in your submission samples of your writing from around the web. Ideally you want your top three pieces, with at least one of them (if not all) is on another site than yours a list.

This will help the editor get a better idea of the quality and style of your writing. Even if they do not read it, it shows social proof. It shows that other blogs have found your writing interesting.

Here's the email template that I use to serve my guest posts. This should bring the tips mentioned above together in an executable plan that you can use the next time you have a guest post to post to a blog.

Hello [name of editor],

My name is Aman Basanti and I am a consumer psychology writer from Australia. I am interested in writing a guest post for your blog.

Are you currently accept guest posts on your blog?

So yes, I have the following ideas for you to consider.

Christina Aguilera-The error: you say ironic if you chance mean?
An article about how many people confuse with accidental ironic. It defines what is ironic, gives examples of situations that are often mistakenly identified as ironic. It then goes on to discuss why this distinction is important for bloggers, especially for those who put their articles to other publications.

-The Pimp, the grocer and the assassin: Magnetise your headlines using the power of the unexpected
An article about how human attention to unexpected events are connected and how bloggers can use unexpected details to write more attention worthy headlines.

-Idea 3
A brief description of the blog post.

Also, you can see samples of my writing at:

-4 secrets of the success of notorious British author, Jeffery Archer
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/06/18/4-Success-Secrets-of-Infamous-British-Author-Jeffery-Archer/

-The method Joe Girard: what's the world's biggest seller can teach you about sales and Marketing
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/The-Joe-Girard-Method-What-the-Worlds-Greatest-Salesman-can-teach-you-about-Sales-and-marketing/

-The Effect of Margaret Thatcher: does familiarity BREED contempt or content?
http://www.ageofmarketing.com/the-mere-exposure-effect

I look forward to hearing from you,

Aman Basanti
AgeofMarketing.com

There are no magic bullets to guest posts. Quality posts threw to the right publications in the right way will increase your chances of scoring a guest post and reaping the associated benefits. You send pitches to sites that you want to guest post on? Let us know how you approach of pitching in the comments below.

Aman Basanti writes about the psychology of buying and you'll learn how you can use the principles of the consumer psychology to boost your sales. Visit www. Ageofmarketing.com/gratis-ebook to his new ebook —Marketing to the Pre-Historic opinion: how the hot new science of behavioral economics can help you Boost Your Sales— free.

View the original article here