a marketing lesson from the TV series The Apprentice

Advertising and marketing are creative disciplines. This is one reason why I, a part of the marketing industry love. Find creative solutions for clients to sell their products and services is a great way to earn an income. Apart from that, I must also say that too often I see marketers go too far.

In my opinion it is quite possible to be creative for your own good. What do I mean? I've put a very public example.

My example comes from the reality TV show "The Apprentice". Okay, so I'll admit, I love this show. I'm not much of a reality TV fan, but there is just something about these teams on business challenges week after week that the intrigues and amuses me.

They are often given the marketing tasks on the map. Let's face it, marketing is one of the most important tasks you will ever have in the economy. If you do it right, your company will more than likely do well. If you do not properly market your business is in difficulty.

In a recent episode of "The Apprentice" The mission was a TV commercial for Dove Body Wash Making The teams were instructed to work with an "out of the box" 30-second spot to promote a product. The result?

Both teams waste created! I think some may argue they certainly think, "show out of the box, and both teams to try what they did, but ultimately failed miserably in its job number one: the product to sell!

And that's what I think many marketers who are trying so creatively done. They lose sight of the fact that their job is to provide a product or service to sell. This effective your marketing in one word: irrelevant.

You can be as smart or creative as you want, but in the end, if your marketing is not relevant to the product and for those who are most likely to buy, you will be missed.

Look, I realize, we must be creative in getting our attention from the public record. Finally, we try to cut in a sea of marketing clutter. I just want more marketers are trying harder to connect with their audience against them simply to entertain.

Heck, I sometimes wonder if marketers know who their audience. This was certainly the game with two teams in The Apprentice Dove Body Wash men in their commercials. Come on, it should not make much sense to recognize this product for women! But because they are so smart to be concentrated, they lost sight of this very simple fact.

If I can leave with one thought, is this: Determine your audience and know, and then wants to directly connect with them in the conversation with them all in their heads about your product or service.

If you can do this, you will be catching their attention and effectively sell your product or service.

a completely new way to get rich quick

This new way is catching on worldwide. People are compounding money rapidly for themselves.

Are doing as "investment opportunity" and it has nothing to invest in the traditional way. Stocks, bonds, shares, etc.

This is hands on. The whole premise is to define the composition and being in the "Investor-source-based"

You see, when we finished our "professionals" We invest our capital fund our returns significantly diluted. It makes sense when you think about. They have no interest or incentive to better than 10% might produce if you're lucky.

"Describes Opportunity Investment" is a term, the process of taking responsibility for your own resources. This will be your own "investor source", which means that you determine by your daily actions and decisions, what is your return. I have managed over 2500% per year and it was easy. Starting with only $ 100 and on a whim, assembled, I order the $ 1 million U.S. dollars within 27 months

I discovered this 5 years ago. It is a book by a man, the pioneer of this formula is written and the results of everyday life. Hayden Muller. The book is called "The Inside Secrets of an ethical business opportunity investor"

The idea is to "investment objects" that with "excess intrinsic value endowed" with the recognition of profit where others do not, let us imagine in a position to access and portable invisible stored value into profit, which we pyramid and to connect quickly identify fortune.

after my opinion that this is not new at all. I think this is the narrow path that all "high net worth individuals discover" for themselves. What is new and new is the way packaged and published as a book free to anyone who choose to recognize their value.

I am so impressed, and my colleagues that we are an online resource for the many connections that have already invested their wealth quickly and safely every day to share. (Theres a link to the website below to learn more)

Theres revolution in the air. Ordinary people dare to come and take their first million. Million people are not satisfied with the work their whole life, then die. You bring it by their actions. You are living in large, comfortable apartments. They send their children to good schools, nice cars and the life they live is not the vote this morning.

We are part of this paradigm shift and we awaken to knowledge. Wealth education need not be complicated. Your wealth education would be much easier and more direct, if you choose. Simpler is always better, and the investment opportunity is the bare bones. The construction is robust and direct. Take it and like many who deserve to do so too.

Business Branding Strategies and Tips

Employing proper business branding strategies could spell the success for your business. Although it might be an intangible aspect of your business, it is basically what convinces people to buy or avail of your products or services. And when you garner enough sales, then only then can your business thrive.

What is a Branding Strategy?

A brand is not just a logo or a name, it represents your business identity. Therefore, it is a crucial part of the startup process for any business. Branding strategies are employed to provide the fundamental steps and recognize the valuable tools that will help create a strong business brand. In general terms, a strong brand is one that people recognize and believe to deliver good quality. Have you ever found yourself at the grocery choosing one product over the other because it is the more recognized or trusted brand?

It is therefore a branding strategy's objective to recognize what could turn your business into a trusted brand name. How can you make people trust your brand and its reputation? What should you do to communicate the objective and mission of your company? What is the message you are trying to send out to produce loyal customers? A sound business branding strategy will aim to find answers to these questions before you can establish a brand for your company that would excel in the market.

Create Name, Logo, or Website

Coming up with a name for your business goes hand in hand with creating a logo that will identify your company. When it comes to logos, always opt for something unique. Logos will be utilized in your advertising and marketing campaigns, so it must be well-recognized.

For beginners, think of a logo that will readily hint consumers about the nature of your business – such as whether you are in the food, automotive, or telecommunications business. Hence, choose images that are associated with the nature of your business and the products they will be used to represent.

Slogan or Tagline

Once you have the logo that you want, you can think of a slogan that will reinforce the message you are trying to communicate to the consumers. As long as you keep this part brief and straightforward, then this can be an effective branding tool for your business. This tagline will serve as an additional touch to the main message you are trying to give, thus giving you an edge over your competitors and highlighting the unique experience or service that consumers will be able to avail of.

One advantage that you can get with including a tagline is that it is not permanent, unlike the logo. Therefore, if your company wishes to employ a new marketing strategy, you can readily change your tagline to highlight this new marketing ploy. A tagline then opens up several opportunities to expand your marketing campaigns, as compared to the static nature of company logos because they are the ones more difficult to establish.

Colors and Images

As with logos, colors and images can be used to establish the identity of your business. Colors depict a corresponding set of emotions as well. Therefore, you need to carefully pick out exactly what type of color you are going to use in your logo in accordance with the image and personality of your business. Try to conduct a little bit of research about the different qualities of color types so you can determine exactly what best to use for your company.

Unique Services

When communicating your company brand into the market, highlight the services that only you can offer. If you can guarantee a service that none of your competition can, then you create an edge on your customers over the same businesses. Then, you can use that as a chief marketing strategy to draw more people into your business. An example of this would be a time guarantee on your delivery services, if you're in the food business.

Learning how to effectively employ these business branding strategies will help boost your company's campaign and be that much closer to your desired business success.

Basic Models Used For Branding Plan

Branding is a product of intense planning and conceptualization. To come up with innovative marketing ideas and an effective way to brand your products, you need to carefully laid out the steps you need to get there. Doing so will also enable you to take note of the vital aspects involved in the creation of a brand. Brand models have been formulated to create the framework needed to build an effective brand that will be able to withstand market trends and competition.

What is a Branding Model?

There are basic models utilized in the process of brand planning. Each of them will cover different scopes and aspects of the process to create a sound branding strategy. Aside from the ability to postulate methods for arriving at a specific brand idea, these models will also help businessmen understand the behavior of consumers in terms of their responses to a brand, which is helpful in adjusting old branding strategies or acquiring new ones.

All of these features are key in managing and reviewing brands, which are necessary steps that must be taken by any company in their branding efforts. These models are not directly linked but one does impact another.

Brand Positioning

This model involves your effort to create an image that will have its distinct position in the market. Firmly establishing your brand will help your target market to easily remember and and opt for your line of products. This is one aspect of your brand planning wherein you must focus on creating superior brands that will eliminate your competition. Here are steps you need to look into:

*This is the step wherein you begin to identify other brands you are competing against. Then, define the parameters of your own brand against your competition. This will enable you to focus your efforts.

*Next, your objective is to introduce attributes to your brand that will enable it to stand out from competition. You must also introduce elements into your brand that will produce in the mind of your consumers or target market the perceived quality of your brand.

*You must establish a slogan for your brand that will aim to reaffirm the position and values of your brand. It aims to articulate the message of the brand and what it promises to deliver to the consumers.

Brand Resonance

Once you're through the stage of creation and distinction placement in the market, your next step is to protect the loyalty of your consumers. To do that, you need to employ an efficient customer relation service and to provide a feedback system. This model follows from the initial steps laid out by the brand positioning methods. Now that have acquired target customers, your next aim is to strengthen the relationship between them and your brand. After all, majority of the business sales stem from repeat customers.

More than anything, this stage is where you must reinforce the messages initially conveyed by your brand. Hence, customers will remain satisfied with the level of performance and quality delivered by your brand. Are your methods consistent to the identity of the brand and its missions? Take into consideration the feedback of customers on your product and how you can build up on that relationship.

Brand Value Chain

This one is more focused on the financial impact of your branding efforts. The basic idea of this model is that the value of the brand consist in the customers, so that is where you should be focusing most of your branding strategies on.

Carefully combining these various models will provide a company a reliable perspective of the different areas involved in the marketing activity. Taking bringing all these branding steps into the formula will enable you to easily track progress or problem areas in the branding system.

Keeping your vehicle protected

Automobile guarantee

Being a driver I always wonder why there is no escape from paying hundreds ad hundreds of dollars on a car? Sometimes it seems to not matter what type of car you own, the design or the brand, the year or manufacturing country - you will always end up paying more than you were supposed to from the beginning. Why are the insurance policy ratings constantly increasing and when is it going to stop? The answer is - never. With the amount of accidents that take place today it is impossible to lower premiums on your insurance as insurance companies need to solve these problems somehow.

So what can we possibly do to help to keep the rates at a low point? What rule do we need to read? What types of sites do we need to visit?

First of all, no sites and books will give you any low premiums when the situation is drastic. The first factor that we need to consider is our driving record. We won't ever deny the fact that a good driving record helps. If your driving record in unpleasant, let's say it is simply bad, there is a possibility that insurers will not want to work with you under preferable conditions, which means their rates will be hiked up. If your driving record is simply poor - it is not that big of a deal. All you have to do is take the classes the state has to offer and lower the points on your driving license. You might want to check if you state has this type of program before you get too content about it.

The second point to consider is the safety features of the car. When people think of buying a car they usually rank it as a number one priority as your car may fall into a category that might cost you a fortune.

If you are an owner of a brand new sports car, don't be surprised to find out you have to pay extra or more than your friends have to pay. Sports automobile is in the risky car group which means the risk of an accident on the road is much higher than it would be having a simple family car. Insurance companies pay lots of attention to those autos that have some safety features, like anti-lock brakes, airbags, alarm, etc. So if you want your insurance premium decreased please consider having safety features in your car too.

If you policy has no lapse in it, it might help your premiums as well. If your history is perfect and you are famous for being on time with your payments, it is definite advantage. Try to not make any cancellations or miss any duty payments ever. Good loyal and reliable clients usually get good discounts from the auto insurance companies.

And the last but not the least is that most insurers nowadays want to know if you have ever been involved in a conflict with any insurance companies. They are curious about it as many costumers are filling in the claims against insurance companies and this factor can affect your premiums in a way that the insurance company will raise them due to a high risk of being sued by you in the future.

We want to let you know that there is plenty of information about car insurance online. Auto insurance quotes can be easily found and the information provided on the sites can be used as a starting point. Please get the update on auto insurance quotes weekly when you are about to get insured. It is important you stay updated.

Being responsible for your business

Be a professional businessman

If you are a respectful businessman you won't let yourself your company down by not having something that is required for good companies to have. You probably do have insurance yourself, whether it is car insurance, health insurance or anything else. You will never let people know you have weak points there for you will have your whole business insured. But don't think it is so easy to get a good deal. Before you actually pick up your phone and dial somebody's number you ought to know that there are certain requirements for each type of the company.

You probably have been asking your acquaintances around about a trustworthy insurance company or an agent that would be helpful. First of all, let us try to help you get some basic ideas about how your business should be insured and what it takes to do it accurately. You have to establish the reasons for the insurance. If you start off with gong online to check the rates and business insurance quotes please remember to request only liability coverage. The rates differ from one case to another. Don't come into the agent's office thinking you know everything when you don't even have a clue. We strictly recommend you to read some updates and feedback online before you start the conversation. The insurance that businessmen usually go for covers the boss as well as any clients for the small symbolic payment is known to be the best possible offer. If you only request quotes ad you are not sure whether you need the insurance now or little bit later you have to visit internet sites and order quotes through Internet.

There are specialized sites that will help you sort the whole situation out for very little money. What are the major Internet searching benefits, you might ask. Well, first of all, you can take all the time in the world going from one page onto another; you can make some calls and compare rates through the phone while your webpage is still open, you could easily check policies, service ad premium rates on any site you like, write them down and compare offers. You are free to search for a discount if you are fixated on receiving one as there are no obligations at all.

A business insurance quote will save you money. It is a commonly known fact. But you should also take a look at it from another point of view. Your situation may be totally unique so don't expect to pay for your insurance as much as you neighbor did. With hundreds of business insurance companies that are willing to compete for you. So never jump onto the first offer you got. That would be unreasonable.

Insurance turned out to be a vital importance nowadays. People don't treat it like luxury - they think of it as of having a meal. When you are running a business, you have to consider every little detail, think about tomorrow- how safe and secure it is, how you can control your investments and how to save on problems that might appear.

Get your business insurance quotes today and think about what you want to do. But remember one single thing - you do need your business insurance.

Making Money with Articles: Banner Advertisements

When you are trying to make money off of the articles on your website, it is important to effectively promote your site so that you will attract customers and they can see just what a good, quality site you have. There are several ways so market and promote your website, one of them being though banner advertisements.

What Banner Ads Can Do For You

Banner ads can help bring visitors from others sites to your own. Although monthly fees can be expensive to advertise on high traffic sites, in the end it may be cheaper and/or a faster way to start seeing significant revenue from your website efforts, rather than waiting for SEO techniques to bring your own site to the top of search engine results. Aside from paying to advertise on someone else’s site, there are also free banner exchanges to choose from. We will look at the pros and cons of each banner advertising method below.

Free Banner Exchanges

Free banner exchanges are when you and other sites exchange each others banners. Their banner will go on your site and your banner will go one their site. Although this option is free, there are two main problems with it. First, if you want your banner on a significant number of sites, it will mean cluttering your own site up with these banners. This could even shot you in the foot if you run an affiliate website because, instead of clicking on your affiliate links, your visitors may be clicking on your banner exchange links. Secondly, you have to be really careful about the types of sites that you exchange banners with. Some sites like to gather a lot of banners so that they can be a directory or portal site and not have to have any real content. These “banner farms” or “link farms” will do nothing positive for your site and, in the meantime, you will be bringing them potential traffic.

Paid Banner Ads

As we saw above, paid banner ads cost money, but they will eventually pay off if you choose the right ones. You need to ensure that the site produces the amount of traffic that they say and that they have your ad placed in a way that invites visitors to click without being too pushy. You also want to choose a site that does not house too many other banners on the same page as yours or that there are no competitor links on the same page.

All in all, banner ads can end up being profitable for you site if you go about it the right way. If you do decide to check out banner advertisement as a marketing avenue, be sure to keep the above tips in mind.

Making Money with Articles: Article Directories

Article directories are websites that house free articles. These articles are usually put there by whoever owns the copyright to them as a promotion method. Each article has the owners byline placed under it so that those who eventually read the article will know who wrote it (or at least who owns it) and will be able to get in contact with or visit their website for further information.

Articles directories are a great place to put your articles so that they will make you money. By using this method, people who are interested in your product or service will see your article, view you as an expert in the subject, and will visit your website. Even if you cannot write or do not have any knowledge on the subject on which you are promoting (for example for you run an affiliate website), you can always hire a writer to do the work for you. Getting quality articles written will be expensive up front, but they will pay for themselves in no time, either through affiliate sales or selling your own services, and everything from then on is pure profit.

Let’s take a real life example. Imagine that you are an accountant working from home. You write an article on an accounting topic and place it on various article directories. Those who are looking for the subject you wrote about will read your article, see that you have the knowledge and skill that is needed to do a job for them, and visit your website or contact you via e-mail. Your article just gained you a new client who may use your services regularly, but will definitely give you a nice profit at least once.

Furthermore, since you have posted it on a free article directory, others who have affiliate websites about accounting will inevitably use your article for their website. Since they must attach your byline to it, this will bring you even more exposure for every website that re-posts your article. This because you will be benefiting of off the traffic that they get to their website.

There are numerous article directories out there for you to utilize. Your bet best is to put a copy of each of your articles on every one for maximum exposure. It will eventually help to bring more traffic and customers to your website, which will lead to new orders and more profit.

Eliminated? Make Money with private label E-book Resell Rights

In the United States, there its millions Americans who have been classified as eliminated. Although much of those Americans able to be is concern their normal activities, such as work, there which others that is not possible. A handicap does not mean that you are not able generate income or support yourself, but it means that you go possibly in search to other manners that to do. Of those manners a chance business is that Internet goes through storm, private label resell rights. Private label resell rights is offered on a number of several products. These products are generally more, but cannot be restricted to, e-book, software and contents article. If you are in search of a relatively simple manner generate income, you are encouraged further examine if private label resell rights for e-book. Depending on your handicap, you find that this the chance that you are. To take part in this possibility, you must firstly finding e-book a writer who is prepared to sell, you the rights to their work. This can be done use simply by of the Internet. Simply by the implementation of a standard Internet zoeken, with the words house mark products e-book resell rights, you must with left to the different offers. Each of these offers vary and for this reason will be it important entirely to examine. In supplement on the treatment of the costs of obtaining e-book the resell rights, you also want examine possible restrictions imposed by the original offer. These restrictions have been generally incorporated in an agreement or the user a contract. As, much earlier mentioned of e-book offer you encounter will vary. There are a number of authors which sees rather that you are their work and with their name as an author. In the most of cases it only one request is, but you must agreement go with the following terms if them in a user agreement or contract. If you are able for an offer which is possible you e-book or a progress as your own, you must it. These types offer you allow more money, because e-book are possible you to make innumerable versions, which are possible you easily online sell. Of the reasons why resell obtaining the rights to e-book a good idea is, especially for people with a handicap, is because of being lacking travel. For many disabled employees, the most difficult part of the working hours comes there, especially as extra accommodations must be made. With sale of e-books, which you obtained legally by means of private label resell rights, do not have you to let your house, work unless you want that. Not only are possible e-book you buy the rights to resell to online, but you can sell also that book online. Beside travel accommodations, it can find you also easier to work in your own tempo. Or your handicap restrictions your performances able, do not have you react to orders of a superior. By making live rights resell to e-book buy and sofware sale of that book to the consumer, becomes you as your own boss. It is indeed this way that how more you work, how more apply you will make, but that means that have you for in long hours. In fact its many e-book resell correct purchasers are more than fortunately only works part-time and you can also. Restricted travelling and restricted working hours is only some of the reasons why sale of e-books can be of a surprising and potentially profitable venture. Of course is possible everyone money buys the rights to resell to e-book, but if you have been eliminated, you can profit of the most of advantages. As this sounds as a chance business that you are interested, is encouraged examine. There are a large number of e-book resell offers which are at present available. For the most of money with this possibility, you are requested for e-book that it has been not only well written, but that is in high question.

How you can do the money without the infinite one it lasted of the work

To the United States, a big percentage of the active population is employed. If you are one of these persons, you have probably already to know how it can be difficult to do money. Nevertheless, many workers are not only to do the money for the pleasure of this one, numerous are those that have themselves to support financially or of a family. Unfortunately, most of the jobs demand eager work and of long hours. You will find May that your current job is to take the important things of your life, for most of your time. Instead of learning to manage this unfortunate accident, it is counseled to do something. You easily can find another mean to earn money.

When it is a matter to do money, it ya a lot of persons that rush on the internet. Literally online, you will find a limitless number of occasions of matters. Good number of these possibilities promises you limitless income with little or no work. Although number of these timeliness of matters can be considered as the swindles, it certain ya that are legitimate. One of these legitimate possibilities implies the acquisition of the private brand to sell rights to a special product. After obtaining the rights of sell, it will be then reasonable to sell your product.

One of the numerous reasons for which ones the achievement of the rights and to sell them next the sale of a brand of product is very well because you do not have to do it the biggest one of the work. For example, if you buy the right to sell to an e-livre or of a software, you will not have to create the e-book or of software. It is ideal because the development of these products, not only takes time, but the talent or special competence. Private label to sell rights allows you to jump the hard work and to concentrate on the product sale.

The one of the questions more frequent, when it is a matter to sell rights of private label, is the reason the original author or a developer cannot sell their own works. The reality is that they are able, but the most choose of not. For many professional writers or the software designers, they do most of their money when they are creating a new one produces. That means that a lot to concentrate only on that. To their turn, they will lean on someone of other to offer their products to potential customers.

Sell a product, that you obtained the rights to sell, often rings as a program commission. These program types are available, but this is not the manner in which the labels to sell the rights. You pay simply, the author, developer, or all other person that is the sale of their product, for the rights to sell it. That means that you obtain from the money of the sale, of an electronic book or software, you can keep them.

To do money outside this occasion, you will have to sell the product that you have. This is there that the work will be, but this is not what you await May. Being given that you work as your own employer and you will be in the money check that you want to do. Consequently, you can choose your own hours. A lot of owners of right to sell most of the time of advertising or of marketing of their products to the general public. This marketing May will take time, but you can equally look for quick methods of the sale. These methods include May, but are not limited to, standard or quick websites checkouts sites of online bids.

As you can see it, it ya a number of advantages to the right acquisition to sell a product brand, as for example an e-book, collection of items of mass, or a software. Not only you can do money, but you can equally decide quantity or the little time want you to work. What that could be better than that?

Nimble Fingers - How To Keep A ProBlogger’s Most Important Asset Healthy

Today, Adam Steer from Better's Better and BodyweightCoach.com offers
up some tips to prevent common overuse injuries associated with work
in the digital age. Make sure you take advantage of his exclusive free
offer for Probloggers at the end of this post.

The myth of the internet lifestyle depicts the easy life. Four hours
of work per week will suffice to bring you the riches, entourage and
lifestyle you desire. But the reality is quite different isn't it? All
the successful bloggers and internet entrepreneurs that I know spend
hours every day bent over their keyboards - at least in the beginning.

If you've broken through, and are living the glamorous internet
lifestyle, I'd like to congratulate you. But if you are still working
on your ten-year overnight success story, you're going to need to take
care of your main asset - your fingertips.

Carpal tunnel syndrome, compressed joints, postural distortions and
all sorts of other nasty conditions can creep up on the ProBlogger.
Whatever we do repeatedly, we will adapt to, whether we like that
adaptation or not. Just as the sprinter will adapt to training and
he'll become faster, so the ProBlogger will adapt to sitting in front
of a computer.

I've written previously on several malaise of the Desk Jockey. But to
put it bluntly, if you spend enough time in your desk chair, your body
will eventually take on the shape of that chair. It's not a conspiracy
authored by your body. It thinks it's doing you a favor. If you're
shaped like that chair, it should be easier for you to stay in it for
long periods of time.

Your body is also going to adapt to all that tap, tap, tapping you do
on your keyboard. Which is why it's important to take care of your
number one asset - your nimble fingertips. OK, so your number one
asset is probably your head full of ideas, but the only way to get
them out to your readers is through those fingertips, right?

Why do athletes stretch and partake in other recovery methods? Because
their training results in positive performance benefits, but also
causes over-specializations that need to be compensated for. So our
sprinter might develop super-strong hamstrings, but also need to
devote time to the tissue quality of those hammies through stretching
and massage to make sure that his body does not become imbalanced.

Bad Stuff That Can Happen To The ProBlogger's Fingers, Hands & Wrists

Carpal tunnel syndrome - This is the most well known villain and the
bane of many a Desk Jockey. It's caused by the compression of nerves
that pass through the carpal tunnel of the wrist and is thought to be
brought on or exacerbated by working with a keyboard (eeks).
Compressed joints - If you don't move your joints through all their
potential range of motion, they get compressed, forcing out the
nourishing synovial fluid. Joints don't have blood circulation, so
they rely on that fluid to bring in nutrition and wash out toxins.
Compressed joints will get dry and brittle over time.
The "claw" - If the fingers stay curled in the "keyboard tapping"
position for too long without compensation, eventually the tissues
will adapt and it will be hard to fully extend the fingers.
Writers Cramp - The fancy name for this is dystonia. Involuntary
muscle spasms, twisting movements and tension in the fingers are a
telltale sign.

Three Exercises To Maintain Your Nimble Fingers

Now that I have you thoroughly terrified –– machinations of total
decrepitude roiling through your mind –– I want to reassure you that
there is an easy fix. Through years of experimentation, a man named
Scott Sonnon hammered out and codified a system of health, wellness
and fitness that pre-incorporates recovery and compensation. It's
called the Circular Strength Training® system.

Below, you'll find three exercises borrowed from the Intu-Flow Joint
Health and Mobility ring of the CST Three Ring system. Regular
practice of these three exercises will go a long way towards
preventing the terrors mentioned above. But daily practice of the full
Intu-Flow program will prime your entire idea generating pumps and
have you churning out blog content like never before!

So without further ado, here are your three compensatory exercises. Do
these daily to keep your fingertips tapping at the speed of a fiber
optic pulse.

1. Elbow Circles

Top circles - hold the elbow relatively still out in front of you.
Move the fist in an imaginary circle parallel to the floor above your
elbow. Notice how the elbow pit rotates around from facing the ceiling
to facing slightly inwards or outwards. This gives us the full range
of motion in the joint, combining flexion, extension and rotation. The
same principles apply for the bottom, inside and outside circles. Make
sure you keep your shoulders packed throughout by pulling them down
away from the ears.

2. Wrist Circles

Imagine holding the knuckles and the elbow fixed in space. Your goal
is to move the wrist itself in space. Start by moving it up and down,
moving to your full range of motion. You can hold your knuckles with
your other hand to close the chain and make it easier to move just the
wrist if you need to. Do the same moving the wrist side to side. Then
join all 4 points together - top, side, bottom, side - in a fluid
circle

3. Finger Rolls

Hold your hands in front of you, as if hovering over a keyboard, with
the fingers extended. Beginning with the thumbs, start making circles
one digit at a time. Do four or five circles in one direction with the
thumb, then move on to the index fingers, making four or five circles
in the same direction. Continue on down the line until you get to the
pinkies. The last two fingers may be tough at first, until you develop
the coordination to isolate the movement. Once you get to the end,
change direction of the circles and work your way back from pinkies to
thumbs.

Speed of implementation…

Get up from your keyboard and do these at your desk right now. Then
drop a line or two into the comments section below. Tell us how you
feel when you're done. These are just the tip of the iceberg. A full
session of Intu-Flow will leave you feeling loose as a goose, and ––
done regularly –– can actually turn back the ravages of time and untie
the knots made fast by your desk chair and keyboard.

Adam, co-author of Bodyweight Exercise Revolution, is offering a free
follow-along joint mobility session to ProBlogger readers. Visit
BodyweightCoach.com to access your video download. You can also grab a
free copy of the highly acclaimed Bodyweight FUN-damentals workout
ebook for free. Adam has been blogging for quite some time at
BettersBetter.com where he debunks the mainstream fitness myths and
offers improved health, vitality and fitness, one better decision at a
time.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger:How I’m Increasing Reader Engagement on my Blog

"What is the main thing that you're trying to get readers to do when
they visit your blog?"

Last week during a conversation with an ad network executive I was
asked this question as it pertains to my photography site. It was a
good question to be asked because it made me stop and think a little
about the priorities that I had for the site.

The first thing that I was tempted to answer with was 'clicking ads'
or 'buying affiliate products' - perhaps it was because I was talking
with an ad network representative that my mind automatically went to
that conclusion…. however the more I thought about it the more I
realized that my focus has changed over the last year or two away from
having earnings as the primary focus for that site.

I realized that these days I spend a lot more time focusing my
energies upon creating engaged and loyal readers.

The main calls to action on the blog and forum areas these days at DPS
are to get people to 'subscribe' or 'join' rather than to 'buy' or
'click' ads.

I know this hasn't always been the case - on previous blogs I was much
more interested on making the blogs profitable, but these days while I
want the site to earn an income I guess I've realized that it will
only increase in profitability if I work on other aspects of the site.

So my priorities are these days more about 'creating engaged and loyal
readers' - how am I doing that?

There are many ways that I've tried to do this of late with DPS but
the main 3 things have been:

1. Content

I've always attempted to make DPS as useful as possible but since
redesigning the site earlier in the year and expanding it in terms of
topics covered (we added a post production tips area and a cameras and
equipment area to our previous photography tips and tutorials section)
I've attempted to increase both the quality and quantity of content.

Quantity - Instead of one post per day we now have two per day. This
has definitely boosted traffic but more importantly it seems to have
increased reader engagement a little. It's hard to track it but I've
had quite a few readers email me over the last few months commenting
that they were a little dubious about the increase in posts when it
first happened but that they have come to appreciate us widening our
topics to cover the new areas of the site.

Quality - I've always wanted to keep quality high but in the last few
months I've made particular effort to create content that is more
interactive. On a weekly basis I now try to include either a poll, a
reader discussion question or some kind of 'challenge' for people to
go away and do. More often than not there's two of these types of
posts in the week. I've found that since doing more of these types of
posts that reader engagement has increased, comment levels has been on
the rise (in all types of posts, not just the 'reader engagement'
ones).

2. Building a network on Twitter

I've put quite a bit more time into both promoting the site's Twitter
account and using it more effectively. I'm not completely satisfied
with how I'm doing it yet but am seeing some real benefits of doing so
in two ways.

1. Firstly follower numbers have risen quite a bit of late:

The early rise back in May was when I did a post on the blog promoting
the fact that we were on Twitter. I've also added a Twitter icon to
the 'subscribe' area of the site (top right hand corner), have
promoted it in weekly newsletters and have mentioned it in numerous
articles on the site over the last few months.

2. The second aspect of Twitter has been the amount of traffic that it
has been driving to the site's two main areas, the blog and forum.

The Blog - When I started renewing my efforts with Twitter I spent
most of the time promoting new articles on the blog. Here's a chart of
traffic coming from Twitter.com to DPS since the beginning of the year
(click to enlarge):

You can see that even back before I started promoting the account more
heavily back in May it was driving some traffic to the site. This was
because we were tweeting new posts on the blog to those few followers
that we had and because occasionally others were sharing links.

However lately (particularly in the last couple of months) I've
started Tweeting not just the automated posts alerting followers to
new posts but also the occasional 'Earlier on DPS Tweet' later in the
day to catch other time zones but also links to popular archived
posts. This has helped bring about a marked increase in blog traffic.

The Forum - I'm not sure why, but until a few weeks ago I had rarely
shared a link on Twitter to any page in the DPS forum. Why I'd not
done this I have no idea but it struck me a couple of weeks ago just
how short sighted I'd been. So I began to Tweet links to 'hot threads'
and cool photos and latest assignments in the forum area. Here's what
happened:

Do I wish I'd been doing this earlier? You bet I do!

All in all a renewed effort and focus upon Twitter has helped to drive
traffic to the blog but also it is giving us an extra point of contact
with readers - many of whom had not ever used one of our other
subscription methods.

Note: keep in mind that the traffic above is just that traffic coming
in from Twitter.com and does not include traffic being driven from
Twitter clients like TweetDeck.

3. Building Newsletter Subscribers

This continues to be the ultimate goal for me on the blog. I push
people to subscribe to the newsletter wherever I can because I know
it's so powerful at increasing reader engagement, driving significant
traffic and as a result increasing earnings.

The guys who operate the servers behind b5media hate the days I send
newsletters - it sends as much, if not more, traffic as a front page
on Digg. My ad network partners always ask me why revenue increases so
much on Thursdays - the earnings are so good.

Another chart - firstly daily direct traffic (ie it doesn't include
referring site traffic or search engine traffic) on the blog over the
last month. You can see the days the newsletters go out pretty clearly
- direct traffic doubles (at least) those days. Page views go up by
even more because visitors from the newsletter typically view multiple
pages.

The forum has similar peaks on newsletter days.

The next chart shows the shape of AdSense earnings on the blog (with
the actual numbers removed) over the last month. Again you can see a
similar pattern.

If I were to chart affiliate earnings the pattern is even more
pronounced as I find my newsletter subscribers respond well to
affiliate promotions.

I really can't stress enough the power of this email newsletter that
I've been running and promoting heavily - it's certainly been a
cornerstone in everything that I do on that blog of late.

Summing it Up

Three years ago if you'd asked me what strategies I'd been
implementing on my blogs it probably would have been more about
optimizing advertising and affiliate promotions. While I still do work
on these things I guess I've realized that making money from a blog
tends to look after itself a little more when you have an engaged and
growing readership.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: How to Make Money (Passively) With Your Blog

Today, Shaun Connell from Learn Financial Planning explains how to
build a passive income from your blog without sacrificing value.

Trying to get the most "bang for your buck" has been behind the
invention of the wheel, light-bulb, the Internet and pretty much every
other major technological advancement in history.

True to this desire for efficient productivity, in the online business
world one of the most popular quests for someone who is just starting
out in their blogging business journey is to make money passively.

In this post we'll talk about the nature of a "passive" income, how to
avoid the short-sighted "greedy" tactics that can destroy one's entire
blogging income, and how this all relates to value-oriented blogging.

Passive Income: Short-Sighted or Good Business?

A passive income is, according to Investopedia:

"Earnings an individual derives from a rental property, limited
partnership or other enterprise in which he or she is not actively
involved."

If you make money without actively working at the time to earn that
money, then that's part of your passive income. Rental earnings,
dividends — both are often considered to be part of a passive income,
though whether any income is "passive" is always debated.

Tragically, thousands of get-rich schemers have latched onto the
desirability of a passive income, luring desperate consumers into
their traps with promises of "unstoppable systems" that can just be
"turned on" to make money forever. In a sense, these schemers have
given a bad name to passive income, making it feel (to some, at least)
almost like it's cheating.

Of course, the schemers are wrong — as are those who reject passive
income streams out of a (reactionary) principle. Building a passive
income isn't about "get rich quick"; it often takes longer, usually
takes more work, and almost always takes much, much more planning.

Before we move on to the exact tactics you can use to make money
passively, let me reiterate what should be one of the most important
concepts here: trying to make a passive income doesn't mean that you
try to stop writing valuable content, or that your goal is to make
money online so you can "stop working."

The exact opposite is true.

Writing valuable content and maintaining community is not at odds with
developing a passive income. You can do both at the exact same time.
Even more than that, developing both a passive and an active income
with your blog leads to more success, more financial security, and a
stronger income.

The best passive income strategy is multiplied by blogging with
valuable content. Every single tactic listed below is simply deadly
effective if mixed with value blogging.

How to Make Money Passively With Your Blog

By definition, a passive income from your blog is any money that you
make if you completely stopped working. Not income without work — but
income that continues to come in indefinitely after work.

The 3 tactics listed below are just to get you started — there are
tons of different ways. If you have an idea, be sure to share it in
the comments section.

Search-Engine Marketing.

Search-engine marketing is a little different than just writing "for
the search engines." For example, Brian Clark over at Copyblogger has
one of the best "user oriented" websites around. He's the copywriting
guru of blogging.

Yet if you look at his left sidebar, you'll see a collection of links
to pages, including one to Copywriting Courses. On the page he lists
two reviews of affiliate products that can help you master your own
copywriting. Of course, that page is the first result for "copywriting
courses" on Google, and will continue to stay there.

To build a passive search-engine marketing income stream from your
blog, just write enough valuable content that gives your main domain a
great amount of authority because of "real links" from other bloggers.
Then write an SEO page for the sidebar. I've done this with topics
like "online savings account" and it certainly does make money.

Subscription Marketing.

The best affiliate programs out there are those that offer residual
returns. In other words, if you are an affiliate for a magazine, it's
better to make $2 per month the person signs up than it is to make $20
one-time… the reason should be fairly obvious.

If only 1/5th of the subscribers stay on for several years, then that
1/5th of the buyers alone will earn you more than getting paid
one-time from all of the buyers combined. Plus, you also make money
from the 4/5ths who didn't stay on for several years — all-in-all, you
can double your income by earning on a subscription/residual level.

Also, if something happens to you and/or your blog, building a
residual income will provide a "safety cushion" for your income.

Bonus tip: mixing subscription marketing with search engine marketing
is simply deadly. Then you have a passive income that is growing
passively. Win-win!

Project Outsourcing.

Of all of the tactics listed here, this is probably the least
"passive," given that you still need to oversee the projects, and
aren't making the entire blogging process passive — still, you can
increase the "passiveness" of your entire online business in this
manner.

Outsourcing is when you hire someone to do some of your work. That's it.

Outsourcing is something all of us need to do, at least on some level.
Unless you have your own server, design your own blogs, write all your
own content and registered your domain without spending a dim to
anyone else… you've outsourced to somebody somewhere.

Some people, like Timothy Ferriss, are famous for trying to outsource
their entire business. Others, like Jon Morrow and Brian Clark, reject
the idea that outsourcing is always the best call.

So what should you outsource? I've experimented with hiring people to
design my projects, host my designs, write some of my content (all of
it for some websites), build links and market my content. So far, I
have not found the perfect formula for deciding what to outsource.

For smaller blogs with less competition, I usually outsource the
content. For my "flagship" blogs, I almost always write my own
content.

By writing my own content, I can make sure that I'm building a
relationship with my readers on a personal level, that the integrity
of my content is never compromised, and that the posts are optimized
for humans and search engines with just the right balance.

Help Us Out

This is just the beginning, of course. This post is more of an
introduction than it is a comprehensive guide. There are tens of
thousands of different ways you can make money passively, and I'm sure
you've stumbled across several of the methods, or are even using some
yourself.

Of course, almost all of the tactics and tips completely depend on
your blogging business model. Still, finding out new strategies allows
you to customize your blogging plan to be perfect for your own
personal blogging style.

What do you think about building a passive income? Overrated?
Under-discussed? If you had to build your blog in a manner that the
entire income had to become passive, what would you do? Which of the
above tactics do you find the most helpful? The most risky? Let us
know in the comments!

This post was written by Shaun Connell, the guy behind Learn Financial
Planning, where he writes about everything from picking online bank
accounts to learning how to make money online

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: What is Compelling Content to You?

Over the next week here on ProBlogger Ill be exploring the topic of
compelling content.

Ive identified 7 principles of compelling content that Ill be sharing
(actually it could blow out to 9 as the more I think about it the more I
realize theres to say on the topic) but before I do I wanted to open up the
opportunity for people to share their thoughts - undistracted from what Ill
share.

My hope is that in answering this question well begin to set the scene for
the posts that will come and that the series that follows will be more
useful to everyone. Id also like to use a few quotes from what you share in
some of my following posts so please make sure you include your name and
URL in the appropriate areas in the comments below.

So What Makes Content Compelling to You?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this question and sharing some
of mine in the coming week. Make sure youre subscribed to ProBlogger to be
notified of the posts to come in this series.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: Does Search Engine Optimization Make a Difference?

Earlier today I had a debate via instant messaging with another blogger who
told me that Search Engine Optimization doesnt make any difference any
more. They argued that you just need to provide good content and search
engine rankings look after themselves.

While I see where the blogger comes from and I agree to a point that search
rankings look after themselves when you build a useful blog - Im also
convinced that knowing some basic SEO and implementing it on a site can
have a significant impact.

What youre looking at above is the search engine referred traffic over the
last two months on my digital photography forum. The blue line is the last
month and the green line is the month before that.

You can see quite clearly that around 25th June something happened to
change the amount of search engine traffic arriving on the forum.

What happened? I simply installed a plugin called VBSEO. Its a plugin for
VBulletin (the platform I use to run the forum) that simply makes the forum
more search engine friendly. It does quite a few things including changing
the url structure of the forum to include keywords rather than numbers.

Within a day or two we noticed search engine traffic increasing. In the
period you see above search traffic is 35.98% higher than in the last month
than the proceeding one (that includes the first half of the month when the
difference wasnt massive). In fact over the last week search traffic has
been up by 69.66%!

Now it is worth saying that Vbulletin is not well set up for SEO in its
default form (in fact its pretty bad) and that most blogging platforms are
better optimized in their default form - however I think its pretty clear
from the above graph that SEO does have an impact.

Further Reading: check out our Search Engine Optimization Tips for Bloggers
for more specific details on how to optimize a blog for search engines.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: How to Treat your Blog like a Business

In this post Robb Sutton - author of the ebook Ramped Reviews. A very
helpful ebook that I've just read that has some great ideas on how to
get products to review on your blog, how to write profitable reviews
and much more. It's a great read on a topic that I think a lot of
bloggers will find helpful.

As you take a look at your blogging habits in your quest to become a
top blogger, you need to ask yourself several questions that will
determine how you need to shape your blog for the future.

Are you going to pursue direct advertising on your blog?
Are you going to attempt to generate revenue through affiliate promotions?
Are you going to open the doors to review product from companies in your niche?
Do you want your blog to become a sustainable source of income and
someday…just maybe…support you and your family?

If you answered "yes" to any of the questions above, you need to look
at your blog seriously and start treating it like a business. Each of
those questions directly correlates to a function that takes you out
of the pleasure blogging world and into running a secure business that
generates profits. As we continue on this path to creating a source of
cash revenues, what do we need to look at specifically to treat our
blogs more like a business and less like a hobby?

How to treat your blog like a business

Planning

Every successful business has a laid out plan of attack and blogging
as a business is no different. You need to have an idea of where you
want your blog to go in the future and the steps you are going to take
to get to that goal. Plans change and adapt with the times, but the
end result is often one in the same.

Are you trying to build a successful review blog on fishing equipment?
You have to lay out the steps required to get to the top of your
niche. What products are you going to need to review? Which interviews
do you need line up? Which companies and blogs do you need to work
with to create more traffic and subscribers? Are you going to hold
contests and giveaways with some of the industries latest gear? These
are all types of questions that you need to answer for yourself and
create action steps to carry out as you continue to grow.

This long term planning and focused goals are what sets the successful
blogs apart from the vast wasteland of un-updated waste that plagues
the web. Each of these blogs had grand plans of making it big, but by
not having a defined plan that required action…they become
unsuccessful and ignored in pursuit of the next big thing. By creating
these action steps that lead towards goals, you are developing a
business plan for the future of your blog. These actions steps need to
be written down on a whiteboard, digital checklist or any mind mapping
generator you feel comfortable with to keep the goals at the forefront
of your thoughts. Cross the goals off as they are achieved and create
new goals for the future.

Organization

For your blog to be taken seriously as a business entity, there needs
to be a defined organization to the content. By having clearly defined
categories, archives and design layout, you are insuring that your
content will be absorbed in the most efficient means possible by your
readers. This organization in your blogging also bolsters confidence
with potential investors, product companies, advertisers and future
partners. When it comes down to it, the more serious you take the
outward appearance of your blog, the more it pays off when you venture
into outside business relationships.

Branding

It today's marketplace, branding makes or breaks a business. With the
thousands of blogs that are started with each fleeting thought of
creating content, it is becoming more important to set yourself apart
from the pack. If you are really going to take blogging serious as a
business, your own domain name is going to be a must. Your cute setup
on Blogger is not going to instill long lasting confidence in your
blog from an outside perspective. If you are not willing to throw down
the pennies it takes to self host your site, then you are not willing
to make the investments needed to create a successful business in the
eyes of potential business partners.

Create a brand around your blog url and have a defined logo. This logo
will be used in the future for business cards and letterheads, but
more importantly…it brands your business in the eyes of your readers
and potential business partners. Successful logos are often simple, so
there is no need to get extremely ellaborate. If you can not come up
with any ideas, enlist the help of others.

Building Credibility

As you continue to treat your blog as a business, you are going to
start building up your credibility as a serious pro blogger.
Credibility is something that can be won and lost in seconds as you
continue to build something that you can call your own. To keep your
street cred high, you need to consistently pump out positive results.
Get in the habit of under promising and over delivering as you take on
more affiliate promotions and advertisers. You need to continue to
churn out quality content on a regular basis that consistently adheres
to some sort of schedule. As you continue to build upon your
credibility, more doors will be opened with even more avenues of
revenue generation. You will start to see the snow ball effect take
place as your readers and partners continue to be drawn to your
success and quality content.

Create A Business

Turning your blog into an actual business entity is a crucial step.
While creating a business to house your internet ventures has obvious
tax and protection benefits, there are some non-legal aspects that you
need to consider as well. By creating a business, you are now
protected your own personal information. You no longer have to give
out your personal and sensitive information to advertisers and
affiliate programs as all they need is your tax ID to generate
payouts. The outward appearance of your blogging is also secured
through advertisers and affiliates as they are now dealing with a
business and not a blogger. Again, you are strengthening your brand in
the eyes of the businesses that you are going to rely on to generate
income.

I would also recommend setting up a business checking and paypal
account to handle the money transfers. This keeps your blog revenue
separate from personal accounts and creates a lot easier organization
during tax time.

A Completely Different Mindset

When you are just blogging for fun (which there is nothing wrong with
by the way…just a different goal), you have a completely different
mindset than when you are blogging as a business that creates income.
You are stepping into a completely different world as you are now
managing, running and producing in your own small business
environment. Even the hugely successful personal blogs on the net are
run like a successful business on the back end. You now have to take
your future seriously and continue to take the steps to see success.

Like any business, you are going to see your share of failures, but a
successful business will analyze these failures and learn from them
for the next round. Bloggers and business owners that learn more from
their failures than their successes will enjoy the fruits of their
learning through increased success.

As you go to publish that next blog article, are you keeping your
goals close or are you just putting up another article as you go
through the motions of pumping out more content?

Check out Robb Sutton's great ebook Ramped Reviews.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: 6 Reasons Your Blog Traffic Might Be Declining

Over the last few days I've read a few comments here on Problogger
from bloggers who are feeling low because they've noticed a plateau or
even a decrease in the traffic coming to their blog.

While we all want to see our traffic rise the reality is that every
blog has days, weeks and even months where traffic levels out or even
decreases. This can be quite distressing for bloggers who have big
hopes and dreams for their blogs.

Today I'd like to look at some of the reasons a blog's traffic might
decrease and suggest some ways forward for each of them.

1. Seasonal Traffic

If you're still in the first year of your blog you are yet to see what
a full calendar year looks like in terms of traffic for your niche.
Most niches have natural rises and falls in traffic.

For example (see below for a chart of visitor numbers) on my
photography tips blog we see spikes in traffic in December and
January. December's traffic boost is generally to do with people
researching new cameras to buy and January is generally associated
with people working out how to use cameras that they got for
Christmas. On the flip side we often see dips in traffic over August
to October.

What to Do: The first time you see a seasonal rise or fall in traffic
it can be quite confusing - however the key with it is to not panic
when you see a dip but to identify opportunities to maximize the rises
and to minimize the falls.

For example it might be that you need to tailor your content for
certain times of year and what people are doing in relation to your
niche.

For me on my photography blog this meant writing content in
November-December on how to buy a digital camera (to capitalize on the
Christmas buying trend), writing beginner photography tips in January
(to capitalize on the trend of people looking for tips on how to use
their new cameras) and during low seasons (like July when it's summer
in the US) writing topical tips like Beach Photography Tips or How to
use a camera in the Bright Sun.

Another Tip - one great free tool for looking at seasonal traffic is
to use Google Trends to analyze what people are searching the web for.
For example if I type in 'digital cameras' I get this chart:

There's lots of interesting stuff in this (the downward trend for
starters) but it clearly shows what I've observed above - more people
are searching the web for that term from November-December each year.
This information could confirm a suspicion you have or help you
identify a trend to capitalize on in your niche.

Further Reading: Seasonal Traffic and How to Capture it for your Blog.

2. Topical Interest

At other times of year traffic events can be triggered by other
current events. For example I know one music blogger who has had a lot
of traffic this past few weeks simply because they'd previously had a
lot of content that ranked well in Google on Michael Jackson. Of
course in coming months as the news of Jackson's death subsides it's
likely that they'll see some declines in traffic.

What to Do: The key with topical rises and falls in traffic is to try
to capture as much of the rush of traffic as you can so that when the
decline comes you've got new subscribers/readers to your blog (see
further reading below on 'sticky blogs).

It's also important to be aware of upcoming events in your niche and
writing content in anticipation of that. This can be hard in
predicting the death of a mega pop star like Jackson but in different
niches it's possible to predict events.

For example - before the Athens Olympics I was involved in running a
blog where we wrote a post in advance of the Olympics for every single
event in the games. The posts included athletes names and any
information we could get on the events. We updated the posts with
results once they events had been run. As a result we were
consistently ranking very highly for 'Event name Results' when people
were searching for winners of events in Search Engines.

Further Reading: How to Create a Sticky Blog

3. Posting Frequency

One common reason for lulls in traffic is that a blog has had a lull
in new content being published. I saw one blogger writing a post
recently about how their blog was failing to gain traction and in the
comments of the post a reader pointed out that the blogger had hardly
been posting. The reality was that the blogger had produced very
little to be read and so people were not visiting.

What to Do: Posting more doesn't guarantee extra traffic but it can be
a factor to consider. Chart your last few months of posts and see if
there's any correlation to rises and falls in your traffic - you might
identify a trend!

Worth noting is that some bloggers report that when they post LESS
that they actually get more traction with readers. I know of one
blogger who was posting 10-20 times a day and when he dropped things
back to 2-3 posts a day he noticed not only increases in comment
numbers per post but that his posts were being shared more on social
media sites. At 10-20 posts a day posts were coming off the front page
of his blog so much that readers hardly had a chance to read and share
them.

Further Reading: What is the Ideal Post Frequency for a Blog?

4. Shifts in Search Rankings

Many blogs see the way that they are ranked by Google (and other
search engines) rise and fall over the years.

A Personal Example - Back in 2004 (just before Christmas) I woke up
one day to find that my main blog at that time had all but disappeared
from Google. I'd not done anything to the blog that wasn't allowed by
Google and hadn't made any major changes to the site - I just
disappeared. My heart sank (actually I felt quite sick) because that
blog was the main source of income from my blogging and 75% of my
traffic had vanished.

The lull in traffic lasted about 6 weeks before it magically
reappeared. In that time I got myself another job and diversified my
blogging and learned a lot.

What to Do: Sometimes search engines change their algorithms and
occasionally they seem to lose sites from their rankings for no
apparent reason. The key with this type of loss of traffic is to not
panic, make sure you're abiding by Google's guidelines (not selling
text links or doing anything else considered to be black hat) and then
 apply for re-inclusion using Google's webmaster tools.This has
happened to me a couple of times over the years and each time the
traffic came back - it wasn't quite as good as when it disappeared but
things seemed to right themselves.

Further Reading: Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers

5. Poor Quality Posts

Of course another factor to consider when looking at the traffic to
your blog is whether you're actually building a valuable site for
readers and producing high quality, engaging and useful content.

This one can be a little confronting to think through and might take
you getting an outsiders critique or feedback (sometimes it's hard to
be objective about something you've put so much work into). As I look
back on my own blogging I know there have been definite times where
traffic has suffered when I've struggled for inspiration as a blogger
and where this has impacted the quality of what I was able to write.

On the flip side there have been times where I've been inspired to
write series of posts that have connected with readers and helped them
in practical ways which has driven a lot of traffic to my sites.

What to Do: Ask yourself (and others around you):

Are You Being Relevant and Useful to Readers?
Is your blog helping your readers by providing them with value,
solving their problems, entertaining them or giving them a sense of
community?

If the answer is no then it is likely to impact the number of people reading it.

Further Reading: How to Write Great Blog Content

6. Promotional Activities

As I look at some of the rises and falls in traffic to my blogs I know
that some of them can be directly tied to my own marketing and
promotion of my blogs (or the lack of promotion that I've done).

Writing great content doesn't guarantee a blog's success. You can't
just build it and expect that 'they will come'. Sometimes you need to
get out there and promote yourself.

Perhaps the lull in traffic on your own blog is partly to do with
taking your foot off the accelerator in your own marketing.

What to Do: This means different things for different blogs but could
include investing into social media sites like Twitter, promoting your
posts to other bloggers, networking with other bloggers, running a
competition on your blog, leaving comments on other blogs and forums,
guest posting on other sites, doing promotions in main stream media,
doing some giveaways….. etc

Further Reading: How to Find Readers for Your Blog.

Keep Moving Forward - Don't Give Up

There are many other potential factors that could be at play (I invite
you to share others below) but the key is to not be paralyzed by the
declines and plateaus in traffic that you experience but to spend a
little time trying to identify the reasons and then keep on motoring
on with your blog.

You can see from the first chart above that my photography blog has
had quite a few months where traffic has plateaued and dipped - but
I've kept to the vision that I have for the site and continued to keep
working. A decrease in traffic from one month to the next is not
pleasant but it's not the end of your blog. If I'd allowed the dips to
determine whether I'd keep blogging or not I'd probably have lasted
2-3 months on that blog and failed to see it grow to the point that it
has.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger:How to Find Profitable Affiliate Products to Promote

"How do I find affiliate products to promote on my blog?"

Last week I spoke with a small group of bloggers here in Melbourne
over a coffee. One of the topics that a number of them were interested
in talking about was affiliate marketing. They were struggling with
the advertising as a model to make money from their blogs and wanted
to branch out and experiment with affiliate promotions on their blog.

However wanting to get into affiliate marketing and actually doing it
are two different things. There are a number of challenges to overcome
first.

One of these challenges is finding the right product to promoted.

Choosing the right products to promote in affiliate promotions is
crucial for a number of reasons - the two main ones being:

1. Relevant Products are Key - if your blog draws an audience centered
around a particular topic or demographic you're unlikely to be able to
sell products that have no relevancy to your blog's topic.

2. The Quality of Products can Impact Your Long Term Brand - promote
low quality products and you could be hurting your brand. Readers
remember who they heard about products from and their trust of you and
your blog will be increased or decreased by what you recommend to
them.

So - choosing the right affiliate product is crucial. It not only
impacts conversions and profitability but it impacts your brand and
relationships with readers.

How to Find the Right Affiliate Product to Promote

A few tips and thoughts on finding affiliate programs to promote come to mind:

Google It - this one isn't rocket science but it does work. If you
have a Beauty Product blog google "Beauty Products Affiliate Program".
Insert your main keywords into that search and you may just find
products that are relevant to your niche.
Look at Your Competition - what products are other people promoting in
your niche. Quite often a quick glance down the sidebar of another
successful blog in your niche to see what products and services they
are promoting will reveal affiliate products you could promote to (and
it could also point you to some relevant advertisers to promote).
Check out AdSense Ads - many of the AdSense ads appearing besides
Google search results, on other blogs and even on your own blog are
likely to be products with affiliate programs attached. Don't click
the ads on your own blog but checking out what the ads promote can
reveal all kinds of potential affiliate partners. The same thing is
true with other types of advertising. For example I was recently
surfing on Facebook and saw an ad relevant for my blog - on clicking
it I found a new product with an affiliate program that I'd not heard
of before.
Approach Potential Affiliate Partners - this one might not work if
you're a new blog with small traffic but as your blog grows you might
find yourself in a position to approach the makers of a product or
service to see if they'd start some kind of affiliate program for you.
I've done this a couple of times over the last year and it has been
great. The best part of it is that you get a head start on your
competition for the promotion as you're likely to be the only person
promoting it.
Search Affiliate networks - lastly there are quite a few affiliate
networks around that list many affiliate programs. Most of these have
search functions to allow you to type in keywords and find promotions
relevant to your niche. Check out MarketLeverage, Clickbank,
Commission Junction, PepperJam Network (disclaimer, MarketLeverage
sponsors ProBlogger) and many more.
Search Online Stores for Products - many online stores like Amazon
have affiliate programs attached to them. In general the comissions
are not massive (for example Amazon's range from as low as 4% up to
15% depending upon the type of product and how much you sell) - I
guess they have narrower profit margins) - but stores like this have a
massive range of products and can be a good place to start while you
build traffic and find other programs.

How do you find affiliate products to promote on your blogs?

PS: this post builds upon yesterdays post - What is Affiliate Marketing?

from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: How to Build Credibility

How do you rate when it comes to credibility? But more importantly,
how do you go about getting credibility if you don't have any or not
much of it? Important question for bloggers - Andrew Rondeau from We
Build Your Blog shares some tips on building credibility as a blogger.

There are some interesting theories around this topic. One such
exponent of a theory is Graham Jones who writes about the credibility
pyramid.

This pyramid is made up of four key elements.

1. Knowledge (10%) - At the bottom of the pyramid is a band of
knowledge. Although this only represents 10% of a credibility score,
it is nevertheless the foundation. If you don't know what you are
talking about, you have no credibility no matter what else you might
bring to the mix.

Focus (15%) - The next level up according to Mr Jones is focus which
constitutes 15% of the total score. Focus describes the process
wherein people do not deviate or go off at tangents. This is when we
come across people who seem to be single minded in their opinions,
approach and knowledge.

This does not mean that you need to bombard other people with huge
amounts of details and information in order to be considered credible.
It is more the clarity and enthusiasm as well as the consistency of
the information that is being presented that allows people to assess
the credibility factor.

In some instances it is even possible that providing far too much
information can undermine the credibility score. Perhaps this is where
the popularity of the 'elevator speech' comes into play. You have two
minutes to present your information. You have to be focused and only
provide the most important points.

3. Enthusiasm (25%) - The next component on this pyramid of
credibility is enthusiasm. This has an allocation of 25% which is
fairly high. We probably call this passion more often than not. We
view enthusiastic people as being far more credible than those who are
not.

Perhaps it is because we feel that if the person can't be enthusiastic
about their own topic then he can't be believing in his own words. Of
course this can be unfair. There are some people who are too shy to
speak up never mind appear enthusiastic.

4. Care and Concern (50%) - Possibly the most surprising component of
credibility is the top part of this pyramid. It shows that 50% of your
credibility is associated with your care and concern. If you show that
you care about your audience you will be able to gather up half of the
score towards a strong credibility rating.

This means that when building up your online credibility you have to
show a huge amount of caring and concern for the interests and
well-being of your audience. No matter what you are trying to do
online, whether build a blog, communicate with readers, sell a product
or even just hold a conversation on a social media platform such as
Twitter or Facebook, if you care for your audience you build
credibility.

It seems that a small percentage of your credibility is knowledge, add
to that focus and enthusiasm and you only have half of what makes up
your credibility. The other half is all about caring and concern for
the other person's well-being.

That could almost sound right.

from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger: What is Affiliate Marketing?

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It seems that more readers are asking this question than I previously
thought.

In a recent poll here on ProBlogger I asked readers whether theyd done any
affiliate marketing on their blogs. The results revealed that:

29% of readers regularly do it
24% occasionally do it
27% have never done affiliate marketing on their blogs
6% used to do it but dont any more
14% dont know what affiliate marketing is

Theres some interesting results there but it was the last category (of
bloggers not knowing what affiliate marketing is) that I wanted to write
this post for with the hope of answering the question. Its pretty basic and
quite beginner focused but for the 14% of you who dont know what affiliate
marketing is - heres a brief introduction.
What is Affiliate Marketing?

Perhaps the simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way
of making money online whereby you as a publisher are rewarded for helping
a business by promoting their product, service or site.

There are a number of forms of these types of promotions but in most cases
they involve you as a publisher earning a commission when someone follows a
link on your blog to another site where they then buy something.

Other variations on this are where you earn an amount for referring a
visitor who takes some kind of action - for example when they sign up for
something and give an email address, where they complete a survey, where
they leave a name and address etc.

Commissions are often a percentage of a sale but can also be a fixed amount
per conversion.

Conversions are generally tracked when the publisher (you) uses a link with
a code only being used by you embedded into it that enables the advertiser
to track where conversions come from (usually by cookies). Other times an
advertiser might give a publisher a coupon code for their readers to use
that helps to track conversions.

For example: when I recently released my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
Workbook I also give people an opportunity to promote the workbook with an
affiliate program whereby they could earn a 40% commission for each sale.
When you sign up to become an affiliate you are given a special code unique
to you that enables you to promote the workbook and make $7.98 per sale.
The top affiliates earned over $2000 in the first few weeks after launch
through these commissions.

Advertisers often prefer affiliate marketing as a way to promote their
products because they know theyll only need to pay for the advertising when
theres a conversion. I knew when I started this affiliate program that
while Id earn less for each sale that having a network of affiliates
promoting it would almost certainly increase overall sales levels.
Publishers often prefer affiliate marketing because if they find a product
that is relevant to their niche that earnings can go well in excess of any
cost per click or cost per impression advertising campaign.

Why Affiliate Marketing Can Work Well on Blogs

Affiliate marketing isnt the only way to make money from blogs and it wont
suit every blog/blogger (more on this below) but there are a few reasons
why it can be profitable in our medium. Perhaps the biggest of these
reasons is that affiliate marketing seems to work best when theres a
relationship with trust between the publisher and their readership.

Ive found that as this trust deepens that readers are more likely to follow
the recommendations that a blogger makes.

Of course this can also be a negative with affiliate marketing - promote
the wrong product and trust can be broken (more on this below).
Affiliate Marketing - Easy Money?

While affiliate marketing can be incredibly lucrative it is important to
know that affiliate marketing is not easy money. Most people who try it
make very little as it relies upon numerous factors including:

traffic (high traffic helps a lot)
finding relevant products
finding quality products
building trust with your readers
having a readership who is in a buying mood
you being able to write good sales copy (and more)

Theres also some risk associated with affiliate marketing in that if you
push too hard or promote products of a low quality you can actually burn
readers and hurt your reputation and brand.

Its also worth noting that affiliate marketing doesnt work on all blogs.
Some blogs are on topics where it is hard to find products to promote -
other blogs attract audiences who are not in a buying frame of mind and for
other blogs it just doesnt fit with the bloggers style or approach.

Tomorrow I want to continue the focus upon affiliate marketing with another
post - this one on how to find affiliate products to promote.

from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.