You’ve probably seen those small “Share This”-type links on many blogs and sites (like right here, the green thingie all the way at the bottom) that, when clicked on, let you “tell a friend” about a site, article, blog post, etc. For word-of-mouth marketing, they’re excellent…
…if people use them.
Popularity: 47%
Unedited Guest Article by Avril Harper
Most people understand the basics of blogging but very few know how to use blogging to grow a good income online. That’s pretty sad really, given it’s really easy to make money from blogging. You could, for example:
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This next batch of “spring cleaning” tasks will take a bit more thought, study and consideration. These’ll likely be more work and time than the pretty straightforward ones mentioned in part 1, but well worth the effort, I think.
With categories and tags being pretty easy to generate on the fly, if you’ve got a busy blog, there’s a good chance you’ve got a bunch of categories and tags you no longer need. From those that contain only single (or very few) posts to redundant categories and tags to misspelled ones, etc., they sure can pile up. It’s also very likely that you have two or more categories that you could combine into one, or have categories that would make more sense as subcategories of others.
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The goal is to simplify and make it easier for your visitors to find what they’re looking for. A huge mish-mash of categories and tags does not meet that objective… not with the typical rush-rush-rush visitor anyway. When there are too many options, they just leave.
So, take some time now to clean up and simplify your categories and tags.
I’ve been using a WordPress plugin called Tag Managing Thing to help out with tag reorg’s (it works with categories too). If you do decide to use this, be very, very careful. Backing up your data files first is critical. This is a very powerful tool, and it does not help that the interface is a bit buggy (due to it not being upgraded, I think, for a couple of years now). Workable, but not for the nervous. (Leave a comment, please, if you know of and can recommend a functionally similar but less technically intimidating alternative).
You’ll want to check your blogroll and linkroll for…
While you’re at it, add some new blogs and links. Can’t hurt to tell them you’ve added them too.
You should be doing this constantly, not just once a year. If you haven’t yet, now’s a good time to start.
If you run AdSense, check to see if you can improve on the current ads you’re running. Can you place the ads in better locations? Are there new ad formats you can try? Is Google still feeding you ads that match your content?
The same kind of “optimization” goes for any ads you run and promote as an affiliate. If things are already going great, I say don’t mess with them. But if there’s room for improvement, again, check location, for fresh marketing material, or even for new/better affiliate programs to promote.
If folks pay you to run their ads, check for new “ad space” locations you can sell off or new advertising schemes you can implement (such as text links within your posts). You may even want to review your ad rates.
…to be continued…
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25 Ways to Write for Money. Open your eyes to a variety of ways to make money with your writing skills, many probably previously unknown to you!
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Although briefly mentioned in a blogging advice piece I reprinted not very long ago, I got reminded of this plugin by Mike Haydon’s comment on my recent Blog Spring Cleaning Tips and Tools – Part 1 post. Thanks for the reminder, Mike!
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Finally, spring is here! I think it’s here, anyway… really hard to tell in the DC area (you sneeze in these parts, and the weather changes). My calendar says the timing’s right, though, so yay!
If you publish a blog, it’s a good time to do some basic blog spring cleaning. Good thing is that it should be a lot easier (and a whole lot less filthier) than that annual top-to-bottom house cleaning thing that many of us winter climate survivors have ritualized.
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Unedited Guest Article by Carma Spence-Pothitt
A blog for business is a bit different from a personal blog, as you probably already guessed. When you plan your blog for success, you should also give some thought to what your business blog will look like.
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Unedited Guest Article by Ted Demopolous
There are two basic types of names, whether it’s a blog name, book name, a name for a new breakfast cereal, or anything else.
A descriptive name is one that makes it obvious what the name applies to, at least to the target audience/market.
I see a sign for “The Bagelry” across the street from me. You can be pretty sure it sells bagels. It probably has a place to sit and may serve coffee and drinks as well, but certainly it has bagels. “The Bagelry” is a descriptive name.
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Ask the Atheist and CorporatePR are other examples of blogs with descriptive names.
Schneier on Security is another descriptive name. It’s about security and written by well known security author and thought leader Bruce Schneier
As I write this I’m at “Breaking New Grounds.” Breaking New Grounds? Is that a spiritual growth center, a construction company, or what?
Actually it’s a coffee shop. Get it? Coffee — coffee grounds, and the expression “breaking new ground” as in making progress? How clever.
Boing Boing is a clever name. Whether you or I personally think it’s clever isn’t the issue. From the name you can’t tell what it’s about, but it’s currently the 5th most popular blog on the planet so obviously that doesn’t matter much.
icanhascheeseburger is another extremely popular blog with a clever name (personally I think it’s stupid, but that’s not important). You can’t tell from the name that it’s about cats and other fluffy animal pictures with amusing captions.
Not all blogs with “clever” names are irreverent, primarily for amusement, or silly.
For example, a shel of my former self, by Shel Holtz is a serious business blog on technology and communications. I have no idea what the name means, although it’s clever and catchy. Maybe Shel used to be really fat and lost 200 pounds? I’ll have to ask him someday.
A third type of name is one you choose because it will get talked about.
This is typically a clever name that you hopes catches on and enters the vocabulary.
Examples include Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow; most people now know this means something that is remarkable and unique, whether it’s a product, service, company, or maybe their marketing.
Another example is “Google”; it now means to look something up on the Internet.
Note that both “Purple Cow” and “Google” are basically “clever” names, but ones that have really taken off and are now used to mean much more than the book and company they originally named.
It IS tough to choose a “clever” name like these that spreads virally as they have, but if you do you can have massive results! Imagine perhaps millions of people using your blog name in daily conversation.
Examples of viral blog names are rare, but one example is “dooce”. Heather Armstrong was fired in 2002 for things she wrote online about work in her blog dooce.com. “Dooce” is now widely understood to mean “to be fired from your job because of things you write online.” Dooce is also a very popular blog — a Technorati Top 100 Blog.
Another example, perhaps not as big as dooce yet but with enormous potential, is Pamela Slim’s blog Escape From Cubicle Nation. “Cubicle Nation” invokes such vivid and to many of us unpleasant Dilbertesque images that I can see it really taking off – that is, taking off even more it already has.
So, you’ve really got two choices for a blog name, “descriptive” or “clever.”
If you’re amazingly lucky your blog name, whether clever or not, may skyrocket along with its/your popularity, and enter or perhaps change the vernacular. Hey, maybe it’ll be bigger than Google!
Ted Demopoulos is the author of Blogging for Business and What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting. For 100 more tips on successful blogging, grab your free copy of his ebook Secerts of Successful Blogging.
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25 Ways to Write for Money. Open your eyes to a variety of ways to make money with your writing skills, many probably previously unknown to you!
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Unedited Guest Article by Justin Hitt
A well maintained, regularly posting business blog is a great way to keep customers informed, and to attract prospective buyers to your website. Business blogging can bring you quality traffic while lowering customer service costs.
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Unedited Guest Article by Bob Beacham
OK you’ve got your nice shiny new blog and you’re all ready to make some money on the Internet. All you’re missing now is some people. No people, no cash, simple as that. Assuming you’d like to be as profitable as possible we’d like that to be free blog traffic, not the paid stuff.
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Unedited Guest Article by Mike Cliffe-Jones
We constantly hear the mantra “Treat your blog as a business”, and of course, if we are here to make money from blogging, then that’s exactly what we should do. So I started thinking about what exactly that might mean, and that lead me to think about Henri.
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