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3 Reasons To Ask Questions In Your Blog Posts

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Questions

In a world where everyone focuses on quality content, SEO, and getting more traffic, there is a tiny detail that many bloggers forget to include in their blog post. Not including this element of a blog post makes these bloggers lose engagement and strong connections (some of those connections lead to sales). The element of a blog post that most people forget about is asking questions.

I always make sure I see one question in a blog post that I publish. I actually search for the question mark using the word finder just to make sure. The reason I make sure I am asking questions in my blog posts is because there are three powerful outcomes of asking questions in your blog posts.

  1. Your visitors will feel as if they are having a conversation with you. Asking a question in one of your blog posts starts a dialogue. The visitor has to think of an answer to that question. Then, as you ask more questions in your blog posts, the conversation will build. How do you think I am doing with this blog post so far? Your response is the continuation of our conversation that is currently taking place.
  2. You blog posts will get more comments. If you ask questions, you will start a conversation. The only problem for the particular conversation taking place (such as the one in this blog post), a visitor cannot ask a blogger a question and get a quick response. I can ask you how your day was and get a quick response. If you ask me how my day was, you would still be staring at a blank screen. In order to get a response from me or any other blogger who asks questions, a visitor would have to leave a comment below to get the proper response. How many comments do your blog posts get? Imagine what would happen if you could double that number. Asking questions throughout your blog posts makes that possible.
  3. Passive reading turns into active reading. If there are no questions in a blog post, then the visitor is passively reading that blog post. When you ask a question, you are turning passive reading into active reading. You are forcing your visitor to go from scrolling through your content to think of an honest answer.

Those are the three big reasons why you need to ask more questions in your blog posts. How did you like the blog post? What are your thoughts on asking questions in your blog posts? Please share your thoughts below.

 

Are You Guilty Of These Five Twitter Mistakes?

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Twiter Mistakes

Twitter is growing, and its growth shows no signs of stopping. Even as it Twitter continues to grow, mistakes are still being made at a regular basis. Some of these mistakes make you look like a newbie while others hinder your growth and make you look like a robot. Out of all of the mistakes people make on Twitter, there are five mistakes that show up the most.

  1. Not engaging with your followers. You need to engage with your followers to build strong connections. Your audience gets to know you better if you interact with them. If you do not engage with your followers, then some people will think you are a robot. Here are some ways to engage with your followers.
  2. Not having a good avatar. If your bio picture is not a picture of you or your company’s logo, then you do not have a good avatar. Your avatar is how people see you on Twitter, so make that avatar something that people would be happy to see. If you are looking for an avatar, just take a good selfie of yourself with your phone and use that for your avatar.
  3. Tweeting too much. Many people send out 10 tweets within 1 minute. That is too many tweets to send out in a short amount of time, and some people will get irritated to see the same person on their timeline 10 times in a row. That may result in some people in your audience unfollowing you.
  4. Not tweeting enough. I always got confused when the blogger contradicted himself/herself, but this contradiction makes sense. People hear that tweeting too much results in unfollows, but that kind of tweeting refers to sending out too many tweets at once. You can schedule tweets throughout the day so your followers read your tweets at a comfortable rate. I send out one tweet every 20 minutes. Ever since I made the move, I have gotten more engagement and followers.
  5. Not sharing enough of you the right way. “The right way” is in Italics for a reason. Many people promote themselves just for the sake of promoting themselves. Readers want value and won’t click on a link just because it’s your blog post. Your content needs to be the type of valuable content that your targeted audience wants to read. In addition, if your content is valuable for your targeted audience, they will want more of your content. In this case, you can tweet links to your blog posts all day long, and your followers will be grateful for the value.

Twitter mistakes are made too often. If you are making these mistakes, then you need to get them fixed as soon as possible. Are you guilty of these mistakes?

 

How To Put More Of You In Your Own Writing

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Chances are as you write more blog posts, you will do more digging on the web to find good ideas. For most bloggers, that means reading other people’s blogs and writing similar blog posts. Chances are people do the same thing to your blog and write similar blog posts. I have a blog post called 10 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers, but I am sure that there are numerous blog posts that are similar. Performing a Google search on this phrase leads to many results.

An additional problem is that as we read enough content, we start to like some of the writers. Then, we write content just like those writers without putting our own personalities into our content. It is important to look up to writers for idea, but it is also important to put who you are into your content. Other writers are here to give you ideas, but in the end, you need to express your inner voice.

There are hundreds of blogs like yours. I’d even take it a step further and say that there are thousands of blogs like yours, and that also applies for blog posts on the web that are similar to yours. The answer isn’t to accuse the other bloggers of plagiarism. The answer is you. To be more specific, your personality is the answer.

The key to expressing your personality is by writing something that no one else could have (or had the guts to) write. Mike Michalowicz does a fantastic job at expressing his personality in his blog posts. Here was one of his blog posts he used to promote his book Profit First. You’ll either get a good kick out of the blog post or wonder why I even decided to mention it in the first place. That’s Mike’s personality, and he is not afraid to show it.

The point of this blog post is not for you to rave about yourself. The point of this blog post is that it is okay to show your personality. This blog post isn’t going to destroy Mike Michalowicz’s reputation. In fact, most of the people in his audience probably liked the blog post. They respect the honesty in sharing a personal perspective (and some of us also appreciated the laughter).

Be who you are. Don’t act as one person at home and act as another person through your content. Then how are you going to act when you speak at the podium? The best thing to do is to read your content out loud as if you were having a conversation with someone, and they wanted you to recite one of your blog posts. Then, think of side comments you would have said if you were having a conversation with your friends. Then, add those side comments into the exact location of your content in which the mock conversation was taking place.

Show off your personality so people know who you are. Act as the same person in everything you do.

 

The First Hour You Wake Up Controls The Rest Of Your Day

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Start Of A New Day

There are a fair share of people who are productive, but there are more people who want and need to boost their productivity. While there are several methods to keep you productive throughout your day, the power of those methods are dependent on what you do on the first hour you wake up. Your first hour is the make or break point of your day. If you utilize this first hour properly, then you will be productive and happy throughout the day. If you do not utilize this first hour properly, then you will not be as productive or happy for the rest of the day.

Now that you know the first hour is by far more important than all of the others, you’ll definitely want to know how you can utilize that first hour properly.

One method is doing a 20 minute workout. Doing a workout makes you feel happier, and working out has a powerful impact on success. Another option is reading motivational books. Brian Tracy, the master of productivity, reads a motivational book for 20-30 minutes to start off his day. Those are the best two options you have. My recommendation is to either alternate between the two or do both of them within the same hour (reading the book and then working out).

The first hour sets the tone for the rest of the day. What you do in the first hour determines how much you can do for the rest of the day. Make your first hour count!

 

4 Reasons To Start Something

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Start

Some people have a constant desire to start new things while others can’t stand doing so. While some people jump too quickly to start something new, others do everything they can to avoid starting. Starting is a big step towards being successful, but starting the wrong thing can hinder your chances of becoming successful. Ultimately, there are four reasons to start something:

  1. You are passionate. Being passionate about something is a good reason to start. If this is a reason that you are starting, then starting will allow you to get closer to fulfilling your dreams and aspirations.
  2. You want to conquer your fear. One of the biggest things people fear is starting something new. You may need to do just that in order to conquer your fear. Fear only manifests when we think about ideas we have not done net. When we turn those ideas into action, the fear gets eliminated.
  3. You want more credibility. Starting something and then having it work will boost your credibility. If what you start does not work, that’s okay too. All you can do at that point is get up and try again. Bill Gates had to get up and try again when Traf-O-Data turned out to be a flop. He tried again and created Microsoft. Now Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world (sometimes, he’s the richest).
  4. You want to do more experiments. You don’t need goggles, lab equipment, or scientific procedures to conduct an experiment. An experiment is implementing your idea, giving it a try, and seeing what happens. As you do more experiments, you will be able to identify patterns. You will be able to identify what types of methods work and which ones do not work. Conducting more experiments allows you to do better at what you do. Most bloggers start out as either decent or bad writers. Writing many blog posts over time is what allows these bloggers to get better at what they do. They get better with practice.

Starting something new takes a lot of courage, and there are many other benefits to starting as well. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional reasons to start something? Please share your thought and advice below.

 

3 Ways To Know Whether You Have A Powerful Presence Or Not

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There are many definitions for what a powerful presence on the web means. To some people, it means more blog traffic. To others, it means having big numbers. That means a big number of followers, a big number of shares, and a big number of views. The bigger they are the better they are. When it comes to knowing whether you have a powerful presence on the web or not, all of those things I just mentioned get thrown out of the window. There are three ways to know whether you have a powerful presence on the web or not. Some of them will sound familiar to the ones I told you to throw out of the window, but they are distinct compared to the typical metrics people use to determine whether they have a powerful presence or not.

  1. People are honored when you respond to their emails. That’s how you know you’re a celebrity in your niche. There are few people that can make you feel honored by responding you an email. If one person was able to tell you how honored they felt to receive your email, that means there are other people who were honored to receive an email from you but did not tell you. In many cases, the greatest things often go unsaid.
  2. Grow an audience that matters. I did not say get big numbers. There is a difference between having a big audience and having an audience that matters. It is possible to put together a big audience and an audience that matters, but you need to know what kind of audience matters first. An audience that matters is one that shares your content, values your content, and appreciates what you do.
  3. People only buy products because you made them. Chances are there are dozens of other products for people to choose from. As your presence grows, some people will admire you to the point where they will favor your products over other people’s products. If you buy a Seth Godin book, you’ll end up buying as many as you can. That’s how you can tell he has a powerful presence on the web. Some people would buy a book just because his name is on the front cover.

By growing your presence on the web, you also grow your presence outside of the web. You will get the recognition and applauses each time you make a public speech. Big numbers have the power to make your presence look bigger than it really is. Your powerful presence come down to the three things on the list.