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10 Easy-Peasy Methods To Write High Value Blog Posts

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Write Quality Blog Posts

Content has always been king, and it will continue dictating which bloggers become successful. The bloggers who write the best content are the ones who we remember, and we return to these bloggers’ blogs numerous times. Every new blogger wants to know how to become a successful blogger, and the answer almost always points back to the fact that content is king.

We know that content is king, but how to we go about writing better content? How do we go about writing the type of content that leads to returning visitors? In this blog post, I will discuss 10 methods you can use to make your content king.

 

#1: Read Other People’s Content

The best way to become a better writer is to surround yourself with the best. The people you surround yourself with typically determine what type of person you become. Go on Amazon, look for books in your niche, and buy some of them. Read thousands of blog posts on the web from your favorite bloggers.

By surrounding yourself with high value writing, you will gradually pick up on what makes the writing so valuable. Each of the writers may follow a common writing style that makes their writing eloquent. Not only will you gradually pick up on what works for other writers, but you will also learn more about your niche. Taking the time to read books every day has allowed me to learn so much about my niche that I didn’t know back when I started. The only way to move forward is by obtaining new knowledge and implementing the right knowledge in what you do.

 

#2: Write Longer Blog Posts

When I wrote two blog posts per day for this blog, it was a big commitment. I was getting better at blogging, but I know a lot more now than I knew then. What I often did was write concise blog posts that rarely exceeded 500 words. Although some blogging styles encourage blog posts under 500 words, I became a better writer by increasing the length of my blog posts. Now, I always strive to surpass 1,000 words for every blog post, and some of my blog posts exceed 5,000 words. Writing longer blog posts forced me to spend more time writing content, and as I spent more time writing content, my writing improved.

When I wrote longer blog posts, I also went more in-depth on certain tips that I would normally skim over. I provided my personal experiences and other people’s case studies that added an entirely new meaning to my content.

 

#3: Provide A Story

Do you like a good story? Then again, who doesn’t? Some of the best stories have been passed on from generation to generation, and some stories that were told thousands of years ago still get told to this day (although the very old stories are mostly told in history classes). You don’t have to turn your blog post into a novel, but you can provide a story of a personal experience that applies to the blog post’s topic, or you can provide the case study of someone else’s story that applies to the blog post’s topic.

Providing stories within your blog posts has the potential to increase the value of those blog posts by providing your visitors with inspiration or a relatable experience. One time, I wrote a concise blog post about how urgency at TJ Maxx increased my productivity. I was in a desperate need for an updated wardrobe, but I got to the store only an hour before closing time. I somehow found and got what I was looking for within that timeframe. Maybe you haven’t had the same stress at TJ Maxx, but my story is a relatable experience for many people. Whether you were at a Target as it was about to close or had to prepare an email blast with 15 minutes to spare, you know what it feels like to suddenly get a productivity spike as the deadline rapidly approaches.

 

#4: Include Easter Egg Jokes

I sometimes reference kryptonite in my blog posts. Each time I mention kryptonite, I usually turn it into an Easter Egg Joke. Easter Egg Jokes are jokes that are hidden within the content, so not everyone will know that a joke is in the works. Disney movies are filled with Easter Egg jokes that children wouldn’t understand so adults could still enjoy watching the same Disney movies they watched as children.

Although it isn’t always easy to include an Easter Egg Joke within your blog posts, including them will strengthen the relationship between you and the visitors who get the joke. The relationship between you and the visitors who don’t see the Easter Egg Joke won’t be changed because of one Easter Egg Joke.

 

#5: Write Every Day

Practice makes close to perfect, and the best way to do better at anything is to practice it every day. Right now, I want you to think about the greatest skill you have. Then, I want you to think about how much time you spent practicing on your greatest skill compared to the amount of time you spent practicing on your least skillful area. You should quickly realize that you spent a lot of time practicing on your greatest skill but virtually no time practicing on your least skillful area.

If you want to emerge as a power blogger who writes high value content, then you must practice writing every day to reach that point. No matter what day of the week it is, and no matter how much homework I have during the school year, I am  always writing niche-related content every single day. On some days, when I don’t find as much time to write, I typically write 2,000 words. When I have an entire day to write, I can write over 10,000 words in a given day. By spending so much time writing content every day, it has now become easy for me to write high value content. If I really wanted to, I could write high value content with my eyes closed. By writing millions of words on my computer, I have memorized the location of every key on my computer. I wrote that entire sentence with my eyes closed.

 

#6: Do Additional Research Before Clicking Publish

After you write a blog post, do some additional research about your blog post’s topic and look for insightful information on the web. When you do additional research, you are looking for statistics and facts that you can use to attract more interest in your content. When I talk about the power of Pinterest, I almost always mention that 80% of pins are repins to show how easy it is to go viral on that social network. Providing this statistics strengthens my claim that Pinterest is a powerful social network. Imagine how different the blog post would be if the statistic doesn’t get mentioned. I would just be stating my opinion without supporting it.

 

#7: Be More Descriptive

When you describe events, methods, or anything else, be as descriptive as possible. Being descriptive allows you to write in great detail, and this great detail can make a visitor feel as if he/she were with you at an event or have a stronger connection with a personal story or case study. Your writing will improve as you become more descriptive because being descriptive requires you to spend more time thinking about what happened and creating sentences in such an eloquent manner that the visitor feels a strong connection with what you write about.

 

#8: Write A Strong Intro

The introduction is an important part of your blog. It decides whether a visitor continues reading or leaves your blog before reading another word. Your first sentence must captivate your visitor with a question, a cool statistic, a strong statement, or a small insight that leads into the larger insights in the blog post. The best way to write a strong intro is to read other blog posts in your niche and take note of which introductions grabbed your attention. My introductions are based on a combination of different elements in dozens of other bloggers’ introductions combined with my own style.

 

#9: Write A Strong Closing

A strong closing entices people to engage with your content with a series of questions while quickly summing up the entire blog post. Mastering the closing not only leads to more engagement, but people who like your closing will remember how great the blog post was, and these visitors may decide to look at more of your content. The stronger your closing, the longer someone will stay on your blog.

 

#10: Proofread

It would be such a same if you wrote an excellent blog post but didn’t take the time to proofread it. Spell check only does part of the job. Spell check wouldn’t alert me about “same” because it is spelled correctly. The sentence should read “It would be such a shame if you wrote an excellent blog post but didn’t take the time to proofread it”

The only way to catch those types of mistakes that hurt the value of your writing, regardless of how valuable your insights are, is by proofreading your content. Not only can proofreading expose the mistakes that a spell check can’t account for, but you will also find sentences that can be structured better and think of a new tidbit that can increase the value of your blog post. Never underestimate the power of proofreading. It is the one thing that most bloggers forget to do.

 

In Conclusion

Content is king, and making your content king will allow your blog to dominate your niche and attract a large audience. You can get blog traffic by promoting your content, but if your content does not provide value, you won’t get the returning visitors who eventually choose to buy your products. Successful blogging isn’t about getting traffic. It’s about getting traffic that sticks. You want returning visitors who appreciate what you do instead of one-time visitors who don’t appreciate the value that you provide.

Making your content more valuable for your targeted audience will entice those people to stick around, engage with your content, and tell their friends about what you do.

What do you think makes up valuable content? Which of your blog posts are you the most proud of? Which blog post on the web is your favorite (if it’s not one of mine, I won’t get offended)? What tips do you have for writing more valuable content? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Effective Blog Strategy

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Blog Strategy Guide

Success consists of various routes. Some people become successful by investing in stocks, singing very well, playing a sport very well, writing very well, or doing something very well that leads to a profit and meaningful, positive recognition. Success on the web also consists of various routes. Some people build their businesses around Twitter while others build their businesses around Facebook.

Although success on the web consists of various routes, 99% of all of the successes on the web have this in common—they all have successful blogs. Blogs are no longer online diaries. They allow you to build relationships with a targeted audience like never before. Blogs are now like business cards—you need them. Many people know that blogs are essential, and numerous people who visit my blog have blogs of their own.

However, having a blog does not guarantee that the blog will become successful or contribute towards your brand’s growth. Having a blog just means you have something that can potentially have a huge impact on your brand. Turning that potential into a reality is the challenge that all bloggers face at the beginning of their journeys. The most successful people who make their revenue on the web turned that potential into reality.

In order to get the same results from your blog, you must have an effective strategy in place. This effective strategy must account for various areas that all contribute towards blog growth, but in particular, it must account for traffic, SEO, social media, and subscribers.

 

Traffic

Without traffic, your blog won’t have an impact on your brand. You must come up with different methods of boosting your blog’s traffic and then implement those methods to see which methods bring forth the best results. You can use SEO, social media, and an email list to get more traffic, and I believe these three traffic-boosting methods are the most effective methods available. However, when you are first starting out, you need to generate some short-term traffic. Here are some tips that will help you generate the short-term traffic:

  1. Engage in forums based on the community guidelines. Don’t be over-promotional.
  2. Comment on viral pins. Your comment will almost always show up on the top since most pins (even the viral ones) get fewer than three comments.
  3. Encourage your friends and family to share your blog on their social networks. Social media shares will get you more blog traffic from the social networks and Google because social shares are critical factors in Google’s ranking system.
  4. Write guest posts and ask other bloggers within your niche to mention one of your top blog posts in the future.
  5. Write a lot of content. Longer blog posts rank better on Google, and updating your blog consistently also helps.

 

SEO

Once you start generating some short-term traffic, you should start learning more about SEO. My advice with SEO is to approach it with caution. There are thousands of SEO-related articles, and it is easy to get confused with the entire process of optimizing your blog for Google. It took me several years to master SEO, but part of the delay was that I spent most of my time on other things such as writing content and polishing up my writing skills. The first few blog posts I wrote were decent at best, but my writing has improved since then. Not only did I have to improve my writing, but I also had to learn how to optimize a blog to get more subscribers and to provide a noteworthy experience for first-time visitors. I read a few SEO articles every month, and now I am able to read them with greater intensity since my blog is optimized to perform well. To save you from reading countless SEO articles, I compiled a list of methods you can use to boost your blog’s SEO.

  1. Write longer blog posts. According to SEO expert Neil Patel, most of the blog posts on the first page of Google’s search results are 2,000 words or longer.
  2. Write blog posts at a consistent rate, preferably multiple blog posts per week. Google appreciates it when you update your blog consistently. No matter how good your blog is, if your blog does not get updated consistently and often, Google won’t put your blog on the first page. Google prefers to show blogs that get updated with fresh content. When was the last time you went to the first page of a Google search result and came across a blog post that was published two years ago on a now dormant blog?
  3. Use smaller pictures. Resizing a big picture into a small picture does not work here. You must choose pictures for your blog posts that are small from the start. I use Canva to create the pictures that I use for my blog posts. It is a free tool with a lot of versatility. Using small pictures makes your blog posts load faster, and speed time is another big factor of Google’s ranking system.
  4. Link back to your older blog posts. When I find it relevant, I will use a new blog post to promote an older blog post (just like this. NOTE: it’s an SEO blog post). Promoting your older blog posts will give those blog posts more traffic. A highly populated old blog post indicates evergreen content, and the search engines will promote it more often. The main function of this strategy is to decrease your blog’s bounce rate, and a low bounce rate lets search engines know that people stay on your blog for a long period of time. The search engine logic is that since people stay on your blog for a long period of time, it must be interesting. Therefore, the search engines promote your content with more intensity.
  5. Write blog posts with keywords. Although you want to avoid keyword stuffing (using the same keyword in every sentence just for the sake of SEO), you should use keywords in your blog posts often, and especially at the very beginning of your content.

It is better to apply a few methods to boost your SEO than it is to read hundreds of articles but not implement anything. Implement most or all of these tactics before you read numerous articles about SEO.

 

Social Media

The best way to strengthen your SEO in the beginning is to grow your social media audience and have that audience engage with your blog content. Getting more social shares from your social media audience will lead to an increased search engine ranking, and since you are growing a social media audience, you will get more traffic from your own social media accounts. When I started to get hundreds of daily visitors from Twitter, my SEO traffic increased to the same level, and the ratio of my Twitter traffic to SEO traffic is very close to 1:1.

Not only does social media provide you with more traffic and a better SEO rank, but you also get to interact with more people. Social media has allowed me to interact with thousands of people interested in my niche who now visit my blog and buy my products. Here are some tips to help you get started on social media:

  1. Focus on one social network in the beginning. Many people like to use them all and master them all in one go, but social media mastery does not work that way. Social media mastery works in the same way as trying to master multiple languages. You would not learn multiple languages at the same time because that would be confusing, and you would most likely end up being mediocre at a few languages but fluent in none of them. If you focus all of your time on one language, then it will be easier for you to become fluent in that language. In the same way, if you focus on learning one social network, then it will become easier for you to master that one social network. Moreover, once you master a social network, it will become easier for you to master a second social network, and each time you master another social network, it becomes easier for you to master the next social network that you attempt to master.
  2. Post consistently. The only way your followers will remember who you are is if they see you often. You can use a scheduling tool like HootSuite to schedule social media posts throughout the day.
  3. Interact with your audience. Interaction allows relationships to build, and some of the people you interact with will take you and your content more seriously after the interaction takes place. It will definitely be easier for these people to remember you and your brand.
  4. Grow a targeted audience. An audience consists of people. A targeted audience consists of people interested in your niche. There is a big difference between building an audience and building a targeted audience. When you interact with other people, look for the people who engage with the leaders in your niche. The people who engage with the leaders in your niche are targeted individuals who are interested in your niche. You want these types of followers to form your social media audience.
  5. Follow other people. The biggest mistake I made in the beginning of my Twitter journey was assuming I could get 100,000 followers and only follow a few dozen people. Although those numbers are possible, my account grew at a slow pace and got stuck at around 1,667 followers for an extended period of time. In short, this mindset did not work well for my social media audience. When I started following other people, and in particular, highly targeted individuals likely to follow back, my audience grew dramatically.

 

Subscribers

As the saying goes, “The money is in the list.” This powerful saying has encouraged thousands of bloggers to take their email lists more seriously. It is this saying that eventually led to my landing pages and optimizing my blog to grow my email list. You want to convert as many of your blog visitors as possible into subscribers because subscribers will buy your products and become returning visitors.

However, subscribers only engage with what you do if you interact with them often. You must send out at least one email blast every week to the people on your list so they constantly see your name in their inboxes. Although you don’t want to excessively send out email blasts, you must also send the email blast even if you lose subscribers. The reality about most email marketing efforts is that you will lose some subscribers every time you send an email blast, but if you never send an email blast, then you don’t get to tap into the goldmine that is your email list. Here are some tips to help you grow your email list:

  1. Get landing pages on your blog. Landing pages are optimized to collect email addresses. They typically offer a free prize that can only be received when someone enters his/her email address into a form. I use Optimize Press for my landing pages. The lowest price for Optimize Press is $97, but it is the best investment you can make as a WordPress.org blogger.
  2. Have a pop-up. Pop-ups work surprisingly well at getting more email subscribers. I was a bit skeptical to use a pop-up, but after I used Pop-Up Domination, my email list grew dramatically. Some technical problems prevented me from using the Pop-Up Domination plugin, and I saw a decline in the average number of subscribers I gained per day. If you buy a pop-up plugin, or any plugin for that matter, make sure that plugin comes with excellent support.
  3. Continue to get more traffic. At this point, this guide may sound like a yo-yo, and it should. The beauty of all four of these essential components of an effective blog strategy is that they all complement each other. More traffic leads to subscribers, and more subscribers leads to more traffic. Just get the cycle started, increase the power of that cycle, and then the cycle will continue itself as long as you continue writing blog posts and sending email blasts.
  4. Include a subscription form at the bottom of every blog post. I include a subscription form below my blog posts so that they people who enjoyed my blog post have easy access to a free resource that I offer in exchange for an email address. People who read through an entire blog post and appreciate the value will be more likely to subscribe, but no one will subscribe without a call-to-action. Including a subscription box or link to a landing page at the bottom of every blog post provides that consistent call-to-action.
  5. Use a paid emailing service. If you are not using a service like iContact, Aweber, or MailChimp, then you are not getting the best from your email marketing efforts. Many tools like Optimize Press work best with a paid emailing service, and these emailing services provide their users with functionality that free services don’t provide. Most of the paid emailing services provide their users with the ability to create autoresponders, segments, and send your own custom messages just to name a few of the available options.

 

In Conclusion

Creating an effective blog strategy requires you to focus on traffic, SEO, social media, and your email list. All four of these areas of blog growth complement each other well, and if you get a large enough audience through one of these methods (especially the email list), you can easily create a cycle in which people find you on social media, visit your blog, share it on social media (the social media visit and social share help SEO), and then these people may subscribe to your blog after reading one of your blog posts. Finally, these subscribers may decide to visit your blog and visit one of your social media accounts that you have on your blog’s sidebar. Then, the cycle continues. Continuing this cycle allows you to master blogging.

Which part of the effective blog strategy do you think is the most important? Do you have any tips to boost any of the four areas of the effective blog strategy? Do you think there is another essential factor to an effective blog strategy? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

6 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic With Your Email List

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Get More Blog Traffic From Subscribers

Have you ever heard of the saying, the money is in the list? Not only is the money in the list, but a stable increase in blog traffic is also in your email list. By interacting with your subscribers in an effective manner, you can potentially double or even triple your blog traffic depending on how many subscribers you have. Your email list consists of many of your best supporters who appreciate what you do and enjoy reading your blog posts.

Getting these subscribers on your blog will lead to more traffic for your blog. I look at all of my blog posts’ engagement, and I notice that when I send an email blast about my latest blog post, that blog post gets more social engagement, social shares, and comments than the blog posts that I do not promote to my email list. When I look back at my WordPress statistics, I can easily tell which days I sent an email based on the spike in traffic.

I will assume at this point that you use a service like iContact, Aweber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, or something similar for your email marketing. You must use one of these services because they provide many capabilities that free emailing services do not provide. In addition to providing various capabilities, the top tools for email marketing (i.e. Optimize Press) require that you use one of these popular emailing services to get the best experience possible. Optimize Press is responsible for the bulk of my subscribers in the form of landing pages and other tactics I use to build my list.

As you continue to build your list, it is important to interact with your subscribers in a way that would entice them to visit your blog more often so your blog generates more traffic from the initial email and generates more traffic indirectly because of the email blast. Here are six ways that you can get more blog traffic with your email list:

 

#1: Send Out More Email Blasts

One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they do not communicate with their email lists enough. You should send an email blast to the people on your list multiple times every week. The most successful bloggers appear in your inbox at least two times each week. Why do the most successful people send multiple email blasts every week? The answer is that these people want you to remember them. The moment these people stop sending emails, the more difficult it will be for subscribers to remember that person. Although you should avoid being excessive, you should definitely send out more than one email blast to your list every week.

 

#2: Use The Same Link Twice

In all of my email blasts that promote blog posts, I include a link to the blog post at the very beginning of the email and towards the end of the email. After running multiple split-tests, I discovered that when I included the second link at the beginning of the email, my email blasts got a higher percentage of clickthroughs.

It makes sense for an email to generate more clicks when a second link is added. Some of your subscribers who read your email won’t need to read the entire email to know they want to read your blog post. The title of your blog post may be convincing enough to get some people to read it. For these people, you want to include a link towards the beginning of your email. These people want expedited access to your content in the same way that people want Amazon expedited shipping—the only difference is that an email blast, your version of expedition is free. Some people won’t be convinced right away and will read the rest of your email to get an idea of what your blog post is about before clicking on the link and reading the content. I entice people to continue reading my blog post with a quick introduction of the blog post and a clickable link at the end of the quick introduction that leads to the actual blog post.

 

#3: Utilize Email Segments

Some people want specific advice more than others. There are some people on my email list that only want blogging advice while others only want social media advice. I occasionally send email blasts to individual segments for their individual desires based on which email list they signed up for. If you signed up on the landing page that promoted my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter, then you will occasionally get emails containing Twitter tips that are exclusive to the people within that segment. I rarely do this, but I see a higher percentage of engagement when I send an email that specifically relates to one of my email segments.

 

#4: Promote Your Blog In Your Autoresponder

In all of my autoresponders, I send a series of emails that contain past blog posts that still provide value. These types of blog posts are referred to as evergreen content, and the engagement that the blog posts generate to this day show that people still appreciate them. By sending these types of emails to the people going through the autoresponder sequence, the relationship between me and that individual is strengthened. Many of the people who get my autoresponder end up visiting my blog numerous times. With an autoresponder that sends emails several times before its completion combined with frequently emailing your subscribers, it will be easier for people to remember you, your services, your products, and what you do.

 

#5: Look At What Works For You

When I send an email blast to all of the people on my list, I analyze that email to see how it did. Then, I compare that email blast with some of the email blasts I sent in the past. When I see an email blast perform particularly well, I use the same form in my next email blast to see if it produces a similar result. There are countless ways to test your email blasts to see what leads to more engagement. You can change the subject line, where the links show up, how you start your email, and how you finish your email just to name a few of the methods you can use to enhance your email blasts.

 

#6: Look At What Works For Others 

I am not the only marketer with an email list who writes about the wonders of a large email list. No matter how large my email list becomes, I will continue reading other marketers’ articles and analyzing their results. When I read an article that indicated remarkable results that came from making a few small changes, I test out those methods and see if I get an increased clickthrough rate, open rate, or any other metric that I may be looking for at the time. Just because something worked for someone else does not mean it will always work for you, but when it does work out for you, you will know how to create a more optimized email blast designed to generate a massive amount of traffic.

 

In Conclusion

Your email list is a secret weapon that allows you to build a loyal audience of readers who come back to your blog often. I learned about building an email list late in the game, and because of this, I would have some really good months of traffic and then some really bad months of traffic. An email list gives you a platform you can use to consistently increase your traffic over a long period of time, and if you grow your email list large enough, you may get thousands of daily visitors to your blog just from your email list. Imagine the implications of getting all of those initial visitors. Some of them would share your blog posts on their social networks which would mean more social media traffic, and good social media engagement helps out with SEO. The email list is the not-so-secret to success.

What are your thoughts about using an email list to get more blog traffic? Do you find better uses for it? Do you have any tips on optimizing email blasts so clickthroughs and open rates increase? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

What Makes Spreadable Content

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Getting More Blog Post Traffic

Spreadable content is the type of content that people are eager to share. To some people, sharing spreadable content is a calling unable to be ignored. We enjoy sharing content that we like because we get to empower our audiences and get some of the praise for taking the time to share the content.

We will all continue sharing spreadable content, but what if your content was spreadable? What if people visited your blog, read one of your blog posts, and felt an obligation to share that blog post. Not just a maybe; an obligation. You want people to feel that sense of obligation to share your content each time they read any of your blog posts. If you can generate that sense of obligation amongst a large group of people, then you have spreadable content. People will share it across their social networks, and as more people come in contact with your content for the first time, they will share it with their followers, and the cycle will continue. A few thousand people who enjoy your posts may eventually lead to hundreds of thousands of people actively engaging with your content.

Cool success story, but you may be wondering how you can create spreadable content of your own. How do you get your visitors to feel that sense of obligation to share your blog posts? That’s what the rest of this blog post will cover.

 

Write Valuable Content

The only type of content that spreads is valuable content. You can promote your content all you want, but if the content is not written well, people won’t share it. Valuable content empowers, entertains, and/or inspires your readers.

If you write how-to blog posts, don’t be shy to write a lengthy, high-value blog post. Your free blog posts give your readers a general idea of the amount of value in your paid products. Not only does providing free value entice people to buy your products, but when you write valuable content, people stick around. If you want a reader to share your content, then that reader must be reading a particular blog post for a long period of time.

 

Optimize Your Blog For Social Shares   

If people read your blog post and appreciate the value they got from it, then they may want to share that blog post. However, these people live busy lives in which going on a social network, copying the link, pasting the link (and probably shortening it first), and writing the social media post takes too much time. Although this activity takes under 10 minutes, it is an activity that people don’t want to do.

The route around the problem is to optimize your blog for social shares. At the bottom of all of my blog posts are social share buttons for multiple social networks. When readers click on those buttons, they will get a prewritten tweet, Facebook post, pin, and more that could get published in a matter of seconds. I also make it easy for people to tweet custom-made tweets in the middle of my blog posts. Writing valuable content helps in creating spreadable content, but spreadable content must have a method of being spread. Optimizing your blog for social shares is that method.

 

Write Engaging Content

The content that gets the reader’s attention is the content that engages the reader. To make your content more engaging, turn your content into a conversation. Ask questions at different point in blog posts and use personal, relevant anecdotes so you and the reader can relate to one another. The relationship that builds from engaging content may lead to a reader sharing your blog post, and if enough people read the engaging blog post, that blog post will spread rapidly.

Writing engaging content isn’t just a method of creating spreadable content. Writing engaging content also allows you to build long-term relationships with your audience. This type of relationship is the relationship that grows a solid fan base for your blog and leads to product sales. Having an audience filled with loyal, returning visitors will be very helpful for your blog’s exposure.

 

Email The Top Bloggers About Your Blog Post

When you write a spectacular blog post that stands out, send a quick email to the top bloggers in your niche about your blog posts. Some bloggers will refer to this method as the “Skyscraper Method,” and it is a great way to get extra exposure for that blog post. If you get dozens of top bloggers to promote your blog post to their audiences, your one blog post alone could see thousands of visitors and dozens of backlinks within a few days. Although this seems too good to be true, it has happened.

When you email a top blogger, it is important to email them a blog post that stands out. Blog posts either stand out by providing an extraordinary amount of value, discussing something rarely discussed (new trend), or going into great detail about something (typically, big numbers help here. Think along the lines of “200 tips/tools or some massive number). The best part is that if you choose the top bloggers in your niche, you’ll get people from their audiences to read your content. These people are a part of your targeted audience since they read similar content on other people’s blogs.

 

Your Story

Remember when it didn’t matter whether you had a good reputation or not? I don’t, and I don’t think there has ever been a time where the importance of a good reputation has been undermined. Your reputation is important for getting loyal readers who will actively share and engage with your content. However, your reputation is also a part of your story. As bestselling author Seth Godin says, “Everything that you do becomes a part of your story.” How you tweet, write, talk to others, and live life all become a part of your story and how people see your brand—what you stand for.

The people with magnificent stories are the ones who have loyal audiences eager to share their content. Seth Godin doesn’t even have to write 100 words for his next blog post, and thousands of people will share it.

Not only do magnificent stories lead to loyal audiences, but they also spread like wildfire. If you have a spreadable story on the loose (that positively impacts your reputation and other people), then your content will spread as well.

 

In Conclusion

Spreadable content comes down to two things: the content itself and behind-the-scenes actions that must occur. Although the behind-the-scenes actions are not plentiful, they are all important, and they can lead to massive exposure for your content. Regardless of how much effort you put into creating spreadable content, patience is a must.

Do you think taking all of this time to create spreadable content is worth it? Which of these tips did you like the most? Do you have any additional tips for creating spreadable content? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

9 Ways To Strengthen The Bond Between You And Your Readers

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Better Blogging Experience For Visitors

A blog is more than just a bunch of blog posts put together. A blog provides you with a method to build a bond between yourself and the people who visit your blog…your readers. Building these bonds with numerous readers results in returning visitors who may share your blog posts on their social networks and tell others about you.

Many bloggers who go viral end up going viral because of their own work and the help from others. Going at it alone won’t help your chances of standing out, going viral, and making a full-time income on the web. The readers you know well are the ones who will help make your content go viral. Building the bond between you and your readers requires the usage of multiple platforms and interaction methods. Here are nine of the ways you can strengthen the bond between you and your readers.

 

#1: Start Conversations On Their Social Media Posts

Some of the people you know well on Twitter (when I say well, I am referring to a reader who may be in a different continent but you have interacted before in a meaningful way) may tweet links to valuable articles on the web. Since the average Twitter user has a little under 500 followers, most Twitter users, and social media users in general, are not a part of many conversations. These people often use social media as a broadcasting platform without taking the time to respond to or start conversations.

What I have noticed is that if you start a conversation with these people in a meaningful way, they will most likely respond to you. Just repeat the process and have numerous conversations with the same people, and that bond between you and those followers will grow. Some of them may decide to interact on your social media posts and share your content. This strategy is not exclusive to Twitter because social networks were primarily created to make socializing much easier. Use social media as a broadcasting tool, but also use it for its main purpose.

 

#2: Thank Your Followers For Sharing Your Content

Each time someone shares one of my blog posts on a social network, I make it a point to thank that person for sharing my blog post. This is something that few people do, and it is a great way to stand out and build the bond between you and the person who shared your content. Thanking your followers works because your followers will realize that you care when they share your content and that you are deeply appreciative of them sharing your content.

Regardless of whether someone has 10 followers or 10,000 followers, I thank the person all the same. With billions of articles on the web to choose from, someone choosing to share your article on their social platform is a big honor. When I see someone sharing my content, I understand that plenty of options exist, but the person choose my content. When this thought enters my mind, even if it’s midnight and I want to go to bed, I ask myself how I could possibly sit back and not thank someone for sharing my blog post. These people will most likely reply, a conversation will ensue, and the bond will be strengthened.

 

#3: Reply To Their Comments

On this blog, I make it a point to reply to every comment I get. Of course, if a comment appropriately ends up in the spam folder, I won’t respond, but for the comments that relate to my blog post, I’ll respond to them. This requires more time on my part because I can’t click “Approve Comment” and go on my way. I have to take the time to formulate a response. While most of these responses take less than a minute to write, others can take 5-10 minutes.

Replying to your readers’ comments will encourage them to ask questions and interact with you more. Once they interact with you often, they will trust you more, and almost to the level of a very reliable friend.

Not only does replying to comments allow you to build the bond between you and your readers, but replying to comments also allows new bonds to begin. Some of your new readers will scroll down to the comments section and see that you reply to every comment. These readers may leave a comment to test whether you respond or not, or they may comment with a question and come back waiting for the answer.

 

#4: Email Your Readers

When a reader comments on your blog, once piece of information you get is the reader’s email address. An email address is very valuable because conversations that take place through email are the most meaningful conversations you can have other than the oldie but goodie face-to-face conversation.

The conversations you have with your readers are only meaningful if you email your reader in the proper manner. The best way to have the first conversation through email is to send an email with a brief introduction of yourself and thanking the person for going on your blog. You want the first interaction to be short, sweet, and to the point because people don’t have much time on their hands. We are constantly going from one thing to the next, and a five sentence email is much quicker to read than a five paragraph email.

Sending a short, sweet, and to the point email is a great way to start the conversation, but when you have someone’s email address, you also have a huge responsibility. That simple responsibility is to avoid being irresponsible with what you have. Some marketers in an attempt to grow their email lists may look at past blog comments and copy and paste the email addresses into the list. You never want to put an email address onto a list that your reader never subscribed to because that will effectively hurt the relationship between you and the reader. Some of your readers may appreciate getting the emails, but it is always good to ask the reader first before you use their email address in any way. My recommendation is to guide and hint your readers to the process (“get this free product by entering your email address on the landing page” instead of “can I put your email address on my email list so you get more emails from me”).

 

#5: Make Them A Part Of Your Next Blog Post Or Product Decision

Giving your readers influence in your own decisions is a powerful strategy to build the bond and get more exposure at the same time. When you make your readers a part of a big decision, and you reach a conclusion based on data from a poll or survey, you will have to entice the majority of your readers when you create your next product or write your next blog post.

Enticing the majority is important because that majority will feel as if it had a direct impact on your product or blog post. These people that form the majority of your readers will be more likely to buy your product, so you have more sales right then and there. They will also promote your product or blog post that you published to their friends because they influenced the decision. If they didn’t vote, maybe a different product or blog post would have been published instead. Get your readers involved in what you do.

 

#6: Shout Out Some Of Your Readers

Shouting out readers is a great way to build the bond between you and individual readers. I don’t always shout out readers, but I will retweet some of their tweets that I believe my followers could get value from. In other words, my shout outs look nothing like this:

“Shout out to my boy @username for being awesome. #ff”

My shout outs are random, and I rarely do them. Many people ask me for shout outs, but I’ll only shout out the people I believe match my audience’s interests. Just don’t get into the habit of doing too many shout outs because then people will beg you for them, and there is a big problem with asking for shout outs.

 

#7: Continue Showing Up

You can have a strong bond between you and your readers, but the moment you stop showing up, that bond gets weaker. If you are like most people, you look at your inbox every day expecting an email from the same person every day, and you enjoy reading this person’s emails. Then, imagine if that person suddenly stopped sending emails for an entire week. An entire month. An entire YEAR!

Most people would forget who that person was within a year. Since so many options exist on the web, it will be easy for people to find a substitute. Once the bond between you and your readers gets disconnected, your readers will look for another blogger to bond with.

Not only is it important to continue showing up in your readers’ inboxes, but it is also important to continue showing up on their social networks. I send over 100 tweets every day which makes me hard to miss. By showing up often on social media, your followers will share your content which exposes your content to more people who may be seeing it for the first time. Once you commit to a niche, never stop showing up, but when you show up, provide value. It is possible to run and take shortcuts. It is also possible to run and complete the entire workout from start to finish. There is a distinct difference between showing up and providing value each time you show up.

 

#8: Assess The Current Bond

Regardless of whether you get dozens of daily visitors or thousands of daily visitors to your blog, there is a bond building between you and your readers. One way to strengthen the bond is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the bond. Where are you lacking? Can those areas be improved in an efficient manner? Where are your strengths? How can you easily but effectively make those strengths stronger?

How is it possible to improve at anything if you don’t know where you currently are?

 

#9: Play Nice

If you wanted to make some friends at the playground, then you had to play nice. Many people gravitate towards the nice people, and that makes sense. Would you rather live with an angry person or a nice person every day?

When you build the bond between you and your readers, some of these readers will pay more attention to the way you interact with others. As you continue growing your audience, you will face criticism. Criticism is an inevitable part of life, and how you react to criticism will impact the bond between you and your readers. If you respond to criticism in a controlled manner, then your readers will respect you all the more for it. However, if you lose control when responding to critics, then the bond between you and your readers gets hurt.

Your reputation is the most important part of the bond that develops between you and your readers.

 

In Conclusion

Building the bond between you and your readers is essential for success as a blogger. Strong bonds entice readers to come back to your blog, promote your content, and buy your products along the way. With a bad reputation, the entire bond will fall apart, so you must preserve your good reputation and always look for ways to strengthen it.

What are your thoughts on building a bond between you and your readers? Do you have any additional tips for building that bond? Which of these methods was your favorite? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Why You Need To Have A Pop-Up On Your Blog [Tips Included]

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Pop-Up Tips

About a year ago, I stumbled across Steve Scott’s blog. He is a successful self-published author who makes a full-time income from his Kindle books. On one summer day, I remember reading one of his articles explaining that the key to his success was his email list. As someone with 100,000 Twitter followers, 150,000 blog visitors, and no email list whatsoever at the time, this absolutely blew my mind.

I made one of the biggest mistakes any marketer could ever make. I ignored building my email list. With those numbers I mentioned before, I only got 300 subscribers which means 0.2% of my blog visitors were subscribing. Talk about a reawakening. Just as I read articles about getting more Twitter followers, I started to read more articles focused on getting email subscribers. This is when I went over to iContact and created landing pages.

Some of the articles I read discussed how pop-ups lead to a massive increase in subscribers. Initially, I was skeptical. I saw pop-ups as annoyances that block content and encourage people to go somewhere else. However, so many people recommended pop-ups that I decided to give them a try. After looking at multiple options, I ended up using Pop-Up Domination for the pop-up. My thinking was that worst case scenario, I would keep the pop-up on my blog for a few weeks, and if it didn’t get enough conversions, I could always take it down.

Sure enough, the pop-up got subscribers, and it exceeded my expectations. It accounts for more than 20% of all of the subscribers I get on my email list. There was no catastrophic drop in the amount of time people spent on my blog.

However, I didn’t just write this blog post to tell a cool story. I also want to share with you how to optimize your pop-up so it gets more subscribers.

One thing you must do in your pop-up is let people know they get a free prize for entering their name and email address. Some people call it the irresistible free prize, offer, or bribe. Regardless of what you want to call it, you must let people know that they get free value that is not available anywhere else. The exclusivity of the free prize will entice people to enter their name and email address. This free prize must be directly related to your niche. That’s why my pop-up shows my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. This free eBook fits my niche because I am a Twitter expert and have written hundreds of blog posts about Twitter on this blog and guest blogs.

After you introduce the free prize, let people know a little more about the free prize. For my pop-up, I include three benefits associated with the free eBook:

  1. Spread Your Message On Twitter
  2. Grow Your Audience
  3. Get More Blog Traffic From Twitter

Including benefits associated with your free prize will further entice your readers to subscribe to your blog. On the right side of my pop-up is a description, form, and button. It is very important to let people know that this is a free prize. I make it a point to use the word “FREE” twice in all caps. Using all caps make something EASIER TO NOTICE, and making that word easy to notice will increase the percent of conversions your pop-up gets.

Then came the button, and I experimented with that on my landing pages and through my pop-up. I use different text for the buttons as part of the A/B Split Testing I do with Pop-Up Domination, but here are some good ones that I use:

  1. Free Instant Access!
  2. Get Instant Access!
  3. Download Now!
  4. Get Your Copy Now!

The colors you use for the text and the button are also important. Use bright colors so it is easy for your visitors to see the buttons, and either use white text. You want it to be as easy as possible for your readers to see the button because few readers will subscribe if they can’t see the button clearly. I use bright green button with white text for my pop-up and orange buttons with white text for my landing pages. If you are deciding which colors to use for your button, I have compiled a list of good colors with their functions:

  1. Blue: trust building
  2. Green: works well for call-to-actions if it stands out
  3. Orange: inexpensive products (works well when you offer your free prize)

Of course, these are not the only three colors on the color spectrum, but these are the three colors you should choose among for the pop-up button’s color. One reason I decided against a blue button was because the free eBook I offer has a blue cover, there is blue text next to the picture of the eBook, and a blue box surrounds the form on the right. I use the a blue button for the HelloBar message that shows up on the top of my blog.

My recommendation for the description is to make it as clear as possible. Moreover, the description should only be 1-2 sentences. Remember that your readers are just getting an idea of what your free prize is all about. If you write a long description above the form, you won’t get as many conversions. Remember that pop-ups are initially annoyances that block out content. In order for your pop-up to convert, your reader should understand what your pop-up says from start to finish in 2-5 seconds. Anymore than that, and most of your readers will click on the “x” and continue reading your blog post or leave your blog.

 

In Conclusion

It was a year ago when I realized that I needed to take action. Now, my email list is growing at a healthy rate, and pop-ups are one of the benefactors that brings in a massive number of subscribers. Many people are quick to judge pop-ups as ineffective annoyances, but you can’t judge something until you do it. When I finally decided to put a pop-up on my blog, I was blown away by the results.

If you are looking for an easy way to get more subscribers, then get a pop-up on your blog. Creating a pop-up with Pop-Up Domination takes as little as 10 minutes once you buy the product.

Do you have a pop-up on your blog? If not, do you plan on getting one? Do you have a success story about growing your email list? Please share your thoughts and advice below.