Is Blogging Dead? How Blogs are changing and How You Can Stay on Top
Image via Flickr user Spondle. This is a guest contribution from author and freelance writer Steff Green. Like that sparkly rhinestone jacket you purchased last year but suddenly realise is actually kind of hideous, blogging trends change with the seasons. What was once the mark of a high-quality blog now screams of incompetence. Readers are fickle and changing, …
How to Calculate the Value of Your Blog
This is a guest contribution from Tom Fanelli. For most businesses, blogs are marketing tools. And while most take the time to measure their ROI from other marketing avenues, I’m surprised by how many don’t truly understand how their blog is (or is not) benefiting their bottom line. Understanding your blog’s value …
Man Vs. Machine: Get Better Sales by Keeping Marketing Automation Human
Image via Flickr user Peyri Herrera This is a guest contribution from Veronica Taylor. Marketing automation without a human element is just a robot on autopilot. Before, during and after each automated campaign it is essential for real people to plan, edit and review. When campaigns aren’t working, they need to be tested and updated. Most people think of marketing automation as efficient yet impersonal. When used correctly, however, …
5 Sources of Ideas for My Blog Posts
On a recent webinar over at ProBlogger.com I was asked by John: “Where do you get your ideas for blog posts?” It’s a question we get a lot so I thought it might be a good one to write up here on the blog. Discuss: I’m also keen to hear your experience on the question because I’m very aware that my approach is just one of many ways to go about generating blog post ideas. 1. Questions from Readers Perhaps the #1 place I get inspiration for blog…
How to Use Google in the Most Unusual Way to Make Your Self-Editing Faster, and Better
This is a guest contribution from Karol K. You can read the first and second post in this mini series here and here.… “ then the evening came and she found herself sitting by the drawing board again, trying to “ Um … wait a minute, is it “sitting by the drawing board” or “sitting at the drawing board”? …
5 Quick Questions with Robert Scoble: What Makes a Great Tech Blog?
Robert Scoble is the brains behind the blog Scobleizer (which he’s just abandoned in favour of solely microblogging on Facebook), and a well-respected authority on social media, tech, and blogging. He has worked for Microsoft, and is currently with Rackspace. We were super-fortunate to grab a few minutes of his time to answer five questions about how to make your tech blog a success. What do you think are the essentials a tech blog should have in order to be successful? Define success! For some, it might be just getting an industry discussion going. …
Google Introducing ‘Mobile Friendly’ Tags in Search Results and Signal It Will Start Impacting Search Rankings
Over the last couple of years any blogger who has paid attention to their analytics will know that how people are reading blogs is changing. No longer are people simply arriving on your blog on their desktop computer or laptop but on tablets, mobile phones and more. Today I took a look at the change in how people arrive on my blog (Digital …
Making The Impossible Possible: How I Created A Full Time Blogging Income With No Qualifications
Image via Flickr user Susy Morris This is a guest contribution from freelance writer Stacey Corrin. It was a dark day in November 2012 when I first began to blog. Rain lashed the windows of the home we’d just moved into. Removal boxes lay strewn across the floor and the cries of my newborn twins rang shrill in my ears. I felt trapped, with no escape plan. Being a new parent can do that to you. It can make you feel like the only person in the room. It can…
Where I’ll be Speaking in 2015
I’ve had a few people asking in the last few weeks where I’ll be speaking in 2015 – I can’t believe the end of the year is so close! I love speaking and am excited by some of the opportunities next year. I hope you’ll consider joining me both here in Australia and Internationally. World Domination Summit 2013: Photo by Joshua Seaman Next year I’ll be speaking twice internationally (so far): 1. March 25-26: Social Media Marketing …
How to Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle
This guest post is by Ali Abbas of thenextgenwriter.com. Have you published your blog on Kindle? If not, you should do it, pronto! It’s easy, it’s productive and it’s free. We’re not talking about publishing ebooks or PDFs, but your dynamic and regularly updated blog. Rather surprisingly, not a lot of bloggers have considered this option hitherto, but some…
How to Establish the Right Priorities to Grow Your Blog and Profits
This guest post is by Nathalie Lussier of The Website Checkup Tool. Here’s a harsh nugget of truth for you. Once you get this, your blog will not only take off, it will become way more profitable. Are you ready for it? Here it is: You don’t need more how-to’s or to-do’s… You need priorities. As bloggers and business owners, we’re constantly introduced to cool new tricks, …
All ProBlogger Ebooks Are $10 for the Next 10 Days Only
Today is my tenth anniversary of starting blogging and to celebrate I’m offering all ProBlogger ebooks at just $10 each—that’s a 50-90{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} saving on their normal price. 10 Years of Blogging Ten years ago when I hit Publish on my first blog post, I could never imagined how that moment would change my life. Having read my first blog only minutes before I spontaneously decided to give it a go myself—registered a Blogspot blog and quickly wrote my first post. In that moment…
Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? 7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging
Every now and again I am pulled aside at a conference or am emailed and/or tweeted by someone wanting to get the “real” scoop on whether it is possible to make money blogging. Is it really possible to make a living from blogging? Is it just a small number of people making money from blogging? Is it only really possible to make money blogging if you write about the topic of making money blogging? I completely understand the questions and would probably want to add…
How to Target 25-40 Year-olds Online
This guest post us by Genevieve Flintham of www.stagweb.co.uk. Pictures of the day’s events, winter landscapes, and memorable quotes. Titles laden with puns, facts, and intrigue. An architectural layout that’s accomplished, savvy, and uncomplicated. Each target group demands a different set of things when it comes to websites and blogs, but in this instance we’re going to look purely at users aged between 25 and 40. This is my target market. With ten years of experience …
Blog Design for ROI Rule 2: Highlight Your Key Content
This guest post is by Gab Goldenberg, author of The Advanced SEO Book. Previously in the Blog Design for ROI series, I discussed the importance of prioritizing your email optin form within your page layout. The next best use of space in your design is to highlight your key content. Why does highlighting your key content matter? There are a few reasons why this is important. …
Are You Defining Your Niche Properly?
This guest post is by Charles Manfre of CodeConquest.com. When I started my blog, I made the mistake of not defining my niche well enough. In fact, I defined it with one word: “coding.” Defining the niche my blog targeted with one word was never going to be enough. Perhaps for the pioneers of the internet it was okay, but in this day and age, with millions of websites in the competition, you need more than a one-word topic name for a niche. I can’t emphasize how important it is to define your…
Become a Guest-post Ninja in 5 Steps
This guest post is by Timo Kiander ofProductive Superdad. There you are with a big smile, after slapping together another 400-word post. It took you 30 minutes to write, and now you are ready to submit it to some random blog. Although you didn’t really put your mind to the post, it got published anyway. Quite soon after this you start to wonder why you …
5 Fatal Mistakes Your Paid Content Marketers *Are* Making (and How Much it’s Costing You)
Businesses wanting to reach users in more subtle ways are jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Well and truly. In a recent Australian study, 62{57b8cc37fd24bce1cf64c8b05d9407ce9171516056c1f5e762677747187a0de4} of respondents said “blogs are the most appealing medium for business to promote a brand.” If you’re in a business that’s paying an agency to create content on your behalf and place it on niche- and audience-appropriate sites around the web, you might be surprised to learn how far short your chosen agency is falling. As Content manager at Problogger.net, I see agency…
Use Word-of-Mouth Promotion to Boost Blog Traffic
This guest post is by Jeszlene Zhou of First Communication Job. I love the idea of using a blog as your personal hub, and how it creates a centralised space for all your social media sites, your portfolio, and more. Most bloggers and social media professionals promote a link to their blog or website, and shamelessly direct traffic towards their personal hub. Yet interestingly, they do not promote their personal hub via word-of-mouth in the “real world.” Here’s a true story. Over the past few months, I’…
Become a Guest-post Ninja in 5 Steps
This guest post is by Timo Kiander ofProductive Superdad. There you are with a big smile, after slapping together another 400-word post. It took you 30 minutes to write, and now you are ready to submit it to some random blog. Although you didn’t really put your mind to the post, it got published anyway. Quite soon after this you start to wonder why you aren’t getting any great results in…