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The 7 Things Your Blog Always Needs More Of

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What Does A Blog Need?

Blogs were one of the first things on the web that indicated the possibility of people making money on their own schedules, and while sleeping. Since the first couple of blogs took off, millions of people have created their own blogs. Some blogs are a collection of hobbies while other blogs are core components of successful businesses. This blog itself is one of the core components that determines how far my message spreads.

However, in the quest to be successful with a blog, many bloggers have taken the incorrect approach of trying to implement hundreds of tips at the same time. Some blog posts about blogging are so informative that they provide countless tips, and it is almost impossible to implement all of those tips, let alone at the same time.

In this blog post, I am going to provide you with seven things that your blog will always need more of. I will also provide articles you can use to grow those seven things.

 

#1: Traffic

Traffic is one of the most highly sought objectives of bloggers. Many bloggers Google phrases like, “How does my blog get more traffic,” and “How can my blog get more traffic.” In order for your message to spread, people need to see your content and be aware of your message in the first place. Of the six other things on this list, traffic is a critical component towards making four of the other six things happen. This article will show you various methods you can use to get more blog traffic.

 

#2: Subscribers

Traffic is beneficial, but the benefit that traffic brings depends on what your visitors do when they go to your blog. If your visitors are not subscribing, then they may forget about your blog and never return. Once you get someone to visit your blog, you want that person to subscribe. If you effectively communicate to your subscribers and occasionally promote products, then your email list will turn into a powerful stream of revenue. The money is in the list. This free book will show you some methods you can use to get more subscribers.

 

#3: Social Shares

The amount of social shares you get is dependent on two things: how much traffic the blog post gets and how valuable that blog post is. Before any of those factors come into play, you need to have the social buttons at the bottom of your blog posts in the first place. Social shares, especially +1’s, are valuable for SEO. Therefore, getting more social shares means more traffic from social media and the search engines. More traffic means more shares, and then the cycle continues. All you need to do is get the cycle started, and then it should continue for a long period of time. This article will show you some methods you can use to get more social shares.

 

#4: Sales

The successful marketer who makes $1 million in sales every year strives to make $2 million the following year. No matter how many sales you are making now, you can make more. As your blog gets more traffic and subscribers, you will get more sales when you promote your products. This article will show you some methods you can use to get more sales.  If you don’t have a product or want to create more of your own products, then this article is for you.

 

#5: Pageviews Per Visitor

Visitors who view multiple pages on your blog are beneficial users for two key reasons: these visitors lower your blog’s bounce rate (which helps SEO) and these visitors are more likely to subscribe and buy your products. Getting more pageviews per visitor is as simple as making your blog more attractive, providing valuable content, and making your blog easily navigable (make it easy for your visitors to read more of your blog posts).

 

#6: Valuable Content

Not only does a blog need more content, but it also needs more content that brings value. Valuable content is the type of content that brings people back to your blog, gets them to subscribe, and eventually buy your products. If you have seen Seth’s Blog once, chances are you’ll visit again (Warning: You might get stuck on it for a while). I have probably visited his blog hundreds of times. In order to write valuable content, you need to practice writing every day. There is no way around it.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1BzNgjb”]In order to write valuable content, you need to practice writing every day. There is no way around it[/tweetthis]

 

#7: Load Speed

The amount of time it takes for your blog to load has an impact on your blog’s SEO and what visitors do when they are on your blog. For every second it takes your blog to load, your visitor is less likely to subscribe or buy products. One of the most common reasons why blogs are slow is because of the pictures. I use Canva to create the pictures I put on this blog, and all pictures are set at 300 by 300 pixels. If you take a picture from Google sized at 2,000 by 2,000 pixels, and you resize it to 300 by 300 pixels, that picture will still load as if it were 2,000 by 2,000 pixels. Here are some more tips to make your blog load faster.

 

In Conclusion

There are dozens of areas in blogging that you can go after. However, simplicity is the best option. These seven areas are the ones you should go after if you want to establish an authority on the web and make a strong income at the same time. You need to have the authority and products to make the income, and you need to have the income to financially support your authority. Many of these seven areas complement each other nicely. Think of these three equations:

Traffic = Subscribers = Sales

Valuable Content = Subscribers = Sales

Valuable Content = Social Shares = Traffic = Subscribers = Sales

Pageviews Per Visitor and Load Speed can easily be plugged into those equations and different ones as well. These seven areas of blogging, when working together, will produce a large audience of people who appreciate your content, visit your blog countless times, subscribe, and buy your products.

What are your thoughts on these seven areas of blogging? Do you have any other suggestions? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

How To Boost Your Blog’s SEO [Infographic]

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To many bloggers, SEO seems like a giant puzzle with half of the pieces missing. I remember struggling to understand SEO as a new blogger. I thought writing valuable content was all you needed to do for effective SEO. However, there are various components that go into effective SEO. These are factors that go into SEO:

  1. Backlinks (don’t buy them. Only get the good ones help)
  2. Meta tags
  3. Picture optimization
  4. Blog speed

The infographic below mentions those five methods of boosting SEO along with some other ones. Not only does the infographic mention these methods, but it also explains how you can strengthen those areas.

How To Boost Blog SEO

What are your thoughts on SEO and the infographic? Should I do more of these infographics? Do you have any additional tips to boost SEO? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

How To Avoid Inconsistent Blogging

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Blogging Inconsistently Ends Now

Blogging is more than a way to make money on the web. It is a commitment to publish your blog posts at a consistent, frequent rate so your readers know when to come back for new content. However, numerous bloggers fall off track with this concept. Different events come up, blog post ideas are more difficult to come across, blog posts are forgotten about, and at the end of the day, many bloggers do not write their blog posts.

Some bloggers have not written a blog post for several years primarily because they can’t keep up with the consistency. These bloggers may be good writers, but they write blog posts inconsistently which means their audience gradually shrinks because they see inactivity. Sometimes the audience grows, but at other times, a blog may get no visitors. Remember that people need a reason to be on your blog. Valuable blog posts and the promise that other blog posts will be added in the predictable future will encourage readers to come back.

I write three blog posts every week. Part of that is so I can write more in-depth blog posts, and part of that is how much time it saves. Even though I write longer blog posts, I save time because I have to think of fewer blog posts ideas. That allows me to focus more of my time on what I do best: write blog posts and create products. On the days I do not write blog posts, there are over 1,000 blog posts that new readers have the ability to browse through.

The concept of blogging every day is a concept that I believe the new blogger needs to adopt. This concept builds the commitment needed to be a blogger. If a new blogger decides to start slow and blog once a week, there is a greater risk of falling into inconsistency. If the blogger forgets to write one of the weekly blog posts, then that’s two weeks of not writing a blog post. Then, writing blog posts will be more challenging (you have to write every day to get really good at writing blog posts. If you do something every day, you’re better at it) because you are not writing them frequently. Two weeks may turn into one month, and at that point, consistency becomes a think of the past.

When I started writing blog posts, I was inconsistent. My first blog was about the Boston Red Sox, and I took blogging as more of a hobby than a passion. I wrote a blog post whenever I felt like it. I would write one blog post every day for a week and then write the next blog post a month later. Writing that blog taught me that although I am a passionate Red Sox fan, I was not a writer who could passionately write about the Red Sox for a long period of time.

When I chose a blog topic that I was passionate about, it was easier for me to write one blog post every day. After many twists and turns, I finally started this blog about digital marketing, one of my top passions. If you want to consistently write one blog post every day, you must choose to write about that things you have a strong passion for.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1zGzi3m”]You must write about a topic you are passionate about if you want to be a consistent blogger.[/tweetthis]

When you choose to write about the things you have a strong passion for, other habits will be easier to adopt. When I started to write digital marketing related blog posts, it was easier for me to become responsible for my blog. I realized that no one else would update my blog other than myself. Therefore, I felt the full weight of that responsibility. I still feel the full weight of that responsibility, but that weight has now, with practice, become easier to lift. In fact, it doesn’t really feel like a weight. I’m on cruise control.

One of the main reasons that weight was easier to lift was because I realized I did not have to consistently write content every day in order for the content to consistently appear on my blog. In other words, I could write five blog posts in one day, schedule those blog posts, not write another blog post for the next three days, and blog posts would still get published on my blog at a consistent rate.

Some inconsistent bloggers fall into the pattern of publishing five blog posts every day and then not publishing another blog post for a few days or weeks. You can write multiple blog posts in one day, but schedule them so your blog’s consistency stays intact. If you were to publish five blog posts in one day, most of your visitors would not read all of those blog posts at once.

When you schedule your blog posts, think of it this way: the more blog posts you schedule, the more committed you are to maintaining the consistency. The blogger with blog posts scheduled for the entire month has more content on the line than the person who scheduled blog posts for two days. The more blog posts you write, and as the word count and value on your blog accumulates, you will practically become inseparable from your blog.

If you have a month’s worth of content scheduled in advance, you will feel a strong responsibility to keep that streak going. Baseball hitters like to extend their hitting streaks for as long as possible. The people who have a reputation for being successful want to maintain that reputation and grow in the process.

Having a month’s worth of content already scheduled does not put you too far ahead. It is okay to have that much content scheduled at one time. The most successful corporations have marketing strategies planned years in advance, so having your blog posts scheduled a few months in advance won’t create a big problem (unless one of your scheduled blog posts is about a news story that may get outdated. Scheduled evergreen content is the best).

 

In Conclusion

One of the most important factors towards a blog’s success is consistency. If you are consistently publishing your blog posts on certain days of the week at a certain time, your returning visitors will know exactly when to return to your blog to read new content. Blogging consistency all comes down to how much commitment you have towards your blog’s topic and writing about that topic.

What are your thoughts about blogging consistency? How often do you write blog posts? Please share your thoughts about blogging frequency below.

5 Reasons To Give StumbleUpon A Try

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Why StumbleUpon Is Good

StumbleUpon is one of the most underrated social networks on the web for getting blog traffic and growing your presence on the web. You do not need to have thousands of followers on various social networks for your content to be seen by thousands of people.

One of the most common reasons people do not give StumbleUpon a try is because of its reputation for a high bounce rate. Many people who visit your blog through StumbleUpon only visit for a few seconds and then move on to the next webpage. However, some marketers have noticed long-term relationships with visitors that come from StumbleUpon. Other than that reason, here are five reasons why you need to give StumbleUpon a try.

 

#1: Old Content Can Go Viral Too

You can make the same argument for any social network. The only difference about StumbleUpon is that it is extremely easy for content to go viral there, and old content can go viral too. Some content that was posted on StumbleUpon weeks, months, or even years ago may suddenly become viral. Therefore, if you are posting on StumbleUpon, and the post does not go viral, it is a seed that can grow and become viral later.

On other social networks, the chance of an older post going viral are not as likely. Tweets quickly go out of view on a feed (they get shoved down to the ever-growing bottom of the feed), and within a few weeks, most YouTube videos go from new to old. On StumbleUpon, it does not matter how old the content is. It still has a good chance of going viral.

 

#2: Posting On StumbleUpon Is Easy

StumbleUpon is by no means a difficult social network to post on. While YouTube requires a good video, all you have to do on StumbleUpon is take the link from any webpage, paste it, put the link under a category, and then write an optional comment. You can send out a few posts on StumbleUpon every day, and as you write more posts, you will have a higher probability of one of your posts going viral.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1wb8HUO”]It’s easy to post something on StumbleUpon, and it’s not difficult for posts to go viral.[/tweetthis]

#3: StumbleUpon Is A Different Type Of Community

StumbleUpon is not the type of community commonly associated with social networks. Unlike Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, StumbleUpon allows you to surf through other people’s websites while socializing in the process. It is a different social network with a different community for you to engage with.

 

#4: StumbleUpon Is Growing

The same case can be made with other social networks, but StumbleUpon is growing fast. StumbleUpon quickly went from another site on the web to a social network that gets more than one billion stumbles every month. As StumbleUpon continues to grow, going viral will present a greater impact in your traffic. When you go viral on StumbleUpon, you will get a big spike in traffic. Some content on StumbleUpon stays viral, and that spike in traffic may suddenly become the new norm.

If the traffic you get from StumbleUpon slows down, you may gain more traffic from other places because of the exposure you got from StumbleUpon (i.e. search engines, someone who saw your blog post on StumbleUpon mentioned it in a tweet or one of their blog posts). The more StumbleUpon grows, the greater the impact is of going viral, and the impact of going viral is already remarkable.

 

#5: Your Content Can Go Viral On StumbleUpon Even If Someone Else Share It

It is true that we can’t do everything all by ourselves. We need help from other people. Having a StumbleUpon button at the bottom of all of your blog posts gives your readers a chance to help spread the word on StumbleUpon and possibly make your blog post go viral.

 

In Conclusion

StumbleUpon may be different from the other social networks, but it is a social network that bloggers and entrepreneurs alike can no longer afford to overlook. StumbleUpon is a great social network for getting more blog traffic, and this social network makes it easier for your older blog posts to go viral. Even a blog post that was written years ago can still go viral on StumbleUpon and get a lot of attention.

Do you use StumbleUpon? Are you going to create a StumbleUpon account? If so, be sure to follow me on StumbleUpon so we can interact with each other.

How I Wrote Five Short Books In One Month

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Write books fast

Writing content has been a passion of mine for a few years now. I have written over 1 million words that have been published on the web as blog posts, tweets, product descriptions, and books. To think less than 10 years ago, I would have never considered writing as a career path. Now, I write thousands of words every day.

The strategy many Kindle authors take is they write books in bulk so they need fewer sales per book to make a certain income. It is mathematically easier to make $1,000 per month with 16 books than it is to make $1,000 per month with one book (assuming these books are all at the same prices).

However, I have another goal as well: become a New York Times bestseller. I knew that the approach I was taking was a good strategy for mathematically making it easier for me to reach certain income goals, but I knew this path would make it more difficult for me to become a New York Times bestselling author. I wanted to get the best out of both worlds, so what I decided to do is write as many books as I could in one month. That way, I would still publish books at a frequent rate even though I was focusing most of my attention on one book.

The result was writing five short books in one month. The shortest one was 7,000 words while the longest one was over 25,000 words. Some of these books have already been published while other ones are in the process, and in other months, I wrote anywhere from 2-3 books. All of this effort was designed to carve out a giant chunk of time working on a book that I aspire to see on the New York Times Bestsellers List. The rest of this blog post will be about the methods that worked for me, and by implementing these methods, you may end up writing five short books in one month too.

The most important way to write five short books in one month (one book every six days) is to have a passion for what you write about. The amount of passion is the making or breaking point of your journey. That sounds dramatic, and it should sound that way. All of my books cover some area of digital marketing because that is one of my top passions. In fact, most of the time I spend writing, I spend writing about Twitter, Pinterest, blogging, YouTube, or any other area of digital marketing.

Once you know what your passion is, the next thing you need to do is write a list of ideas. The longer this list of ideas is, the better. At one point, my list of ideas exceeded 50 books. However, after a closer examination of your ideas days later, you will realize that some of your ideas are good while others are duds. Some ideas that I was previously excited for look ridiculous a few days later while other ideas continue to have a place in my realm of excitement. Many of those ideas turn into my books.

Once you write down the ideas, you need to choose the top five and write about them. However, you never want to write multiple books at the same time because main points can be confused amongst your works, and there may be overlap in the content (two books essentially saying the same thing). Choose the order in which you will write your books. Know your first book, second book, third book, fourth book, and fifth book. The most successful businesses have marketing strategies and product launches planned years in advance. You should take considerable time planning out when you will publish your books.

The rest of the process can only be taken one book at a time. If you apply this process to all five of your books at the same time, then you risk overlap and lower quality content. It is great to publish books at a great frequency, but if they are all duds, then there is no point.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1wVkwzI”]It is great to publish books at a great frequency, but if they are all duds, then there is no point.[/tweetthis]

Once you identify your book idea, create an outline for that book. In this outline, identify the chapters and the key concepts you want to write about in each chapter. Take considerable time planning your outline because it a good outline makes writing the book easier. One of the most common reasons authors take a long time to write a book is because their minds wander, trying to think of ideas, while trying to write content. Human beings are horrible at multitasking. Plan out your book first so that when you write it, you are not trying to think of ideas to write about. Writing the outline first will allow you to write about ideas that you have already come up with in advance. That’s much easier.

Having an outline for your book is a great start, but some writers with outlines still take a long time to write their books. The reason it takes most writers a long period of time to write books is because they never have a sense of urgency to finish their books. The publication date is simply left as, “One day.” The problem is that there is no deadline.

When I write a book, I always give myself a deadline to finish that book. When I wrote five books every 30 days, I gave myself a six day deadline to complete my books. Naturally, some got finished quicker than others. One book took me eight days while another book took me four days. However, the average comes out to the desired deadline: one book every six days.

The only thing you have to do at that point is write more words when you are actually writing. My book How To Publish More Kindle eBooks Faster will show you how you can write more words every day. Time management has one of the biggest factor towards how many words you write in a given day.

 

In Conclusion

With the right mindset and planning, it is possible to write five books in one month. You cannot simply rush into writing without thinking of the content in advance. When you write, you are in the flow. It is important for you to stay in that flow for as long as possible. If you are struggling to think of ideas as you write the content, then it will be difficult for you to write at the necessary pace to finish five books in one month.

Which of these tips did you like the most? Do you have any other tips to write more books? Please share your thoughts below.

The Six Main Reasons Why Most Blogs Don’t Make Money

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Why Blogs Do Not Make Money

It is a well-known fact that a majority of blogs (about 90%) make little to no revenue. The saying that 10% of the people in the world make 90% of the revenue is similar to the blogging model. A handful bloggers are making the bulk of the profits.

The main reason many blogs are not making money is because most bloggers do not know how to effectively make money with their blogs. All these bloggers need is the right knowledge and the ability to implement that knowledge. This blog post will identify six of the main reasons why most blogs don’t make any money. Then, it is up to you to act upon this knowledge so your blog can become successful.

 

#1: No Traffic

One of the most common reasons why blogs do not make revenue is because they do not generate traffic. Without traffic, no one will know who you are. You can write the best blog posts on the web and provide your visitors with the best products, but that won’t matter if your blog does not get any visitors. This article goes into detail about several methods you can use to increase your blog traffic.

 

#2: No Subscribers

Having no subscribers for your blog is another telltale sign that your blog is in trouble. The money is in the list. That’s what the bloggers with six figure incomes say. You need to optimize your blog so it converts more of your readers into subscribers. Of course, your blog needs to get traffic to get more subscribers, but not all popular blogs get numerous subscribers.

There was a point when I got over 500 daily visitors but only 1-2 subscribers every month. That was not because my content was bad (you, as the reader, are the judge of that). Instead, it was because I poorly optimized my blog for collecting email addresses. When I started to optimize my blog, I quickly went from gaining 1-2 subscribers every month to gaining 10-20 subscribers every day. You can learn some of the methods I use to gain subscribers in this article.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1yPt2VJ”]Your email list is a big part of your success as a blogger.[/tweetthis]

#3: No Social Proof

Regardless of whether you sell products, promote other people’s products, or make money with advertisements, you must have social proof to make you stand out from the crowd. Social proof indicates that you are popular, and people love to gravitate towards popular things. If you see enough people doing or buying something, you may follow through in that process (sometimes, it is this action that can bring negative consequences, but this knowledge is useful for marketers). Would you rather go to the #1 restaurant in the world or the restaurant that opened for the first time? Would you rather hear advice from Bill Gates or some random entrepreneur? Would you rather buy products from successful individuals or individuals who are starting out?

 

#4: No Income Streams

One of the worst mistakes a blogger can make is having no income streams set up on his blog. Income streams allow bloggers to bring in revenue that make it possible to become a full-time blogger. There are a variety of income streams to choose from. You can create your own training courses, write your own books, promote other people’s products as an affiliate, and do a variety of other things to create more income streams for yourself.

 

#5: No Products

Some people, in a quick rush to have an income stream on their blogs, often stuff their blogs with affiliate links. First off, you should only use a few affiliate links. Overstuffing your blog with affiliate links will look like a desperate plead for the sale, and it will ruin your blog’s reading experience. Instead, you need to create products. Creating your own products leads to more sales, higher commissions (maybe even a 100% commission), and most importantly, a strong relationship to build between you and the customer.

 

#6: Reliance On Advertisements

I understand that some bloggers make strong incomes from their advertisements. However, these bloggers are typically the ones with hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors. Most bloggers are lucky if they earn over $10/month from their advertisements. The revenue generated from advertisements is generally low since few blogs are getting hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors.

In addition to producing a low revenue, advertisements also take your readers away from your blog. Instead of promoting an advertisement on your blog, why not promote one of your products? That way, the relationship between you and your readers will be strengthened. People want to see you and what you stand for, not another car ad that generates $0.02 per click.

 

In Conclusion

Making money on a blog is not an overnight success. Yes, another blogger said the same phrase, and it might drive you crazy. When I was a newbie and read other bloggers’ articles every day about blogging, the tip almost every blogger said was that blogging is not an overnight success.

It drove me crazy just as much as it might be driving you crazy. However, realizing that blogging is not an overnight success represents a simple approach instead of a complex one. That one sentence represents a simple approach that says, “Don’t give up on the journey you wish you pursue with your blog.”

It is important for you to avoid making these same mistakes. If you are making these mistakes on your blog, the first thing you need to do is fix them. Just launch your own product. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Then, launch another one and improve the process as you go. Grow your traffic and convert more of that traffic into subscribers. Build your social proof. And don’t forget to stop relying on those pesky advertisements all together. They drive your readers away from your blog.

Which of these mistakes do you make? Do you have any other suggestions for bloggers who want to make more money? Please share your thoughts and advice below.