blogging tips

Why You Need To Respond To The People Who Comment On Your Blog

May 11, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

blog comment

Why do you want more comments on your blog posts? Most bloggers want more comments on their blog posts to show that people interact on their blogs. Bloggers want conversations to get started on their blogs to indicate that their blog is popular. The most popular blogs also happen to have numerous comments on every blog post. It’s not a coincidence.

What most bloggers forget is that they can build conversations by simply responding to other people’s comments. Responding to someone else’s comment counts as a comment in the grand total. If you respond to 25 comments, people will see that your blog post has received 50 comments. That shows bustling activity and popularity: the two things that people look for in a blog.

Not only is responding to the people who comment on your blog a way to bring up the numbers, but responding to other people’s comments will allow you to further open discussion. By further opening the discussion, you will encourage more people to comment and possibly learn about things in your niche that you did not know about before. As you continue replying to comments and building your presence on the web, some people will write a good comment on your blog just to get your reply. There is a point when a blogger becomes so famous that a reply from that blogger means a lot.

Another benefit to responding to comments is your ability to build stronger connections. The advantage with WordPress (and many others) is that the person who comments must enter their email address. By requiring everyone who comments to enter their email address, you will be able to reply to those comments and send emails to those people. The people who commented on your blog will be very grateful that you took the time to send a personalized message, and that will allow the connection to build. A new connection can end up becoming a customer, subscriber, or better yet, a returning customer.

There are many benefits associated with replying to comments on your blog. Do you reply to the comments on your blog? If you leave a comment below, I will be sure to respond.

17 Ways To Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines

May 10, 2014 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

Attention Grabbing Headline

The most read blog posts are the ones with the best headlines. Your blog post could get more traffic just by making your blog post’s title something that grabs the reader’s attention. Most people who share blog posts on social networks use the headline to determine whether they should share a blog post on their social networks or not. These are the 17 ways to come up with attention-grabbing headlines.

Use a different language in the title. You have to be Spanish to know what consejos means. In one of my popular blog posts, I used this word to grab the reader’s attention. This method drew in the reader’s curiosity, but do not get carried away with this option.
Use action verbs in your title. Grab your reader’s attention right from the start by using action verbs in your headlines. You will probably not be able to do this for all of your blog posts, but when you can use action verbs, they help.
Offer something special. Among my most popular blog posts are 100 Amazing Blogging Tips and 100 Amazing Pinterest Tips. Offering 100 tips stands out from the competition. Your headline needs to tell people what extra, above and beyond information you are giving them.
Use better adjectives. Good is a boring, overused word. “5 Good Tips” is not the kind of headline that grabs attention. “5 Powerful Tips” is something that grabs your attention by emphasizing how valuable those tips are.
Make your headline either really long or really short. A short headline will make the reader curious. In this scenario, readers will wonder why you decided to write a short headline. A long headline will give the reader information about your blog post before they read the first sentence.
Have a strong topic sentence. The topic sentence is to further emphasize your headline and grab attention.
Include the NSA in your headline. This one never fails. With Heartbleed and corruption on the loose, millions of people want to know what is going on with the NSA (the not so secure agency). You may win a Pulitzer Prize while you’re at it.
Write a headline about a breaking news story. Everyone wants to know the news. That’s why there are trending topics on social networks.
Write a headline with the name of a famous person and connect it to your blog post. A blog post called “How To Become As Dedicated As Mariano Rivera” would get more attention than a blog post called “How To Get More Dedication.” When you use this method, everything you say needs to be true (then again, that is always the case).
Use words that have been hardwired to get people’s attention. MONEY, FOOD, and SEX. I’m sure those words popped right out of your screen.
Look at the pros. The people who are making a living off of their blogs are the ones who typically master writing good headlines.
Use bigger words. Effective is a bigger word than good.
Occasionally use words people do not know the meanings of. Don’t go Shakespeare on us, but for 5-10% of your blog posts, you should use words that people do not know the definitions of. In order for this to work, you need to define the word within the first 5 sentences of your blog post.
Be controversial. What are your thoughts about President Obama, The United Kingdom, and a Jesuit Pope? Although you may not talk about those three on your blog, you can be controversial in your niche. Is retweeting better than mentioning? Is stretching better than lifting weights? The possibilities are endless.
Trial and error. As you write more blog posts, you will be able to see which headlines on your blog get the most traffic. Write headlines similar to the ones that get the most traffic.
What headlines catch your attention? 2K To 10K is a book about writing more words every day. That headline caught my attention, and some of my headlines are modeled around that headline. Everyone does this. A classic example is 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. Now there are blog posts about 7 habits of any highly effective person in any field.
Have a 7 in the headline. It works in getting more conversions, so why not headlines?

Those are the 17 ways to write attention-grabbing headlines. By writing attention-grabbing headlines, more people will read and share your content. What are your thoughts on the list, and do you have any additional tips to add? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The One Thing Most Bloggers Forget To Do

May 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

Blogging mistake

Authors do this several times for their books. However, many people skip this part of writing blog posts. What could it possibly be? I could say that I will reveal the answer in 9 minutes and have callers guess the answer similar to the Lite FM Radio Station. However, I am going to simply reveal the answer right now in bold letters.

Most bloggers forget to proofread their blog posts.

There are many bloggers who make the mistake of misspelling words. I recently read an article on a very credible blog only to discover towards the end of the blog post that tweets was spelled as “tweeets.” That is a mistake that could have been avoided with a spell check, but since the blogger did not use spell check, readers will notice that mistake. However, there are some mistakes that the spell check does not catch such as run on sentences and words that have been misplaced in the blog post.

A blog is a free book for your readers to read. If the free product does not deliver the way it should, people will be less likely to buy your products. The logic behind this is that if the free product does not deliver, the paid product probably won’t deliver either.

Proofreading a blog post will probably take up 5 minutes of your time, and really lengthy blog posts can take gasp 10 minutes of your time. However, by proofreading your blog posts, you will be able to provide your readers with better blog posts, and you will see the rewards of your hard work as you see your sales go up.

Proofreading your blog posts will allow you to see the mistakes. If you wrote 99 flawless blog posts, but one of your blog posts is flawed, then the proofreading was worth it. What are your thoughts on proofreading blog posts? Please share your thoughts below.

How To Jump Start Your Blog

April 22, 2014 by Marc Guberti 9 Comments

Jumpstarting Blog Statistics

Whether your blog is about gardening or food, you can easily jump start that blog. As you continue writing blog posts, your blog will eventually see a dramatic rise in traffic. That’s what plenty of the experts say, but there is a shortcut. Although this shortcut requires more work on your part, it will allow your blog to become successful at a much faster rate. In order to jump start your blog, you need to build a targeted following on your social networks.

The numbers game no longer works. Tools like TwitterAudit are being used every day to find out who has the real followers and who has extra cash in their pockets to buy fake followers. Building a targeted following is the only option we have left to be successful on social media. The blogs that we all know about were created by a blogger who now has a big presence on a social network.

Having a targeted following on a social network guarantees that your followers like the content that you post. In addition, these followers are eager to click on your links and read your blog posts. The reason this blog experienced exponential growth over a span of several months is because I got targeted followers at a much faster rate. Although the exponential growth has sizzled down, I will expect to see more exponential growth in the summer. That’s what happened last year, and this year should be a repeat.

The moment it becomes much easier (and free) to schedule pins, my traffic will be able to exponentially increase. The reason is that I have over 10,000 targeted followers on Pinterest. In addition, I gain hundred of targeted followers on Twitter every day.

Ever since I started to focus on gaining targeted followers, I have seen a noticeable increase in my blog traffic. In August 2013, I got 587 views. Less than 6 months later, to start off 2014, my blog got 11,709 views for the month. That is what exponential traffic looks like, and in order to get that exponential traffic, you need to grow a targeted following on your social networks.

Social media has played a big role in this blog’s success, and social media will continue playing a big part in this blog’s success. My prediction is that once my blog starts to gain traffic exponentially again (last year, this started in the fall), my blog could reach 100,000 monthly views by the end of 2014. If you want to give your blog a big jump start, do not focus on the search engines. Focus on growing a targeted following on your social networks. In fact, building a strong presence on a social network improves your SEO.

4 Big Reasons To Schedule More Blog Posts

April 14, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Scheduling blog posts was a game changing experience. As I was able to schedule more blog posts, I decided to try publishing two blog posts every day to give myself a bigger challenge and get better results at the same time. The entire process has been very rewarding, but scheduling blog posts has other benefits as well. Now, I have numerous blog posts that are scheduled, and throughout my adventure, I have learned about the four big reasons to schedule more blog posts.

Better results. I briefly mentioned getting better results, but I would like to go more in-depth about those better results. Immediately when I published two blog posts every day, my traffic doubled, and people who visited my blog stuck on for longer periods of time. That was because content was getting added to my blog at a faster rate. Therefore, visitors had more content to read.
The more you practice, the better you get. There is no limit to how good of a writer someone can become. In order to become an effective writer, you need to practice often. By frequently scheduling blog posts, you will be able to get in the practice that turns you into one of the best writers around.
Less stress. You do not have to be writing every day in order to publish a blog post every day. Instead of coming home on day at around midnight and rushing to write the blog post your readers are expecting, you can schedule blog posts in advance so you deal with less stress.
You can focus more on big projects. If your big project needs to be completed in a week, and you still have to write blog posts during that week, that will take up a lot of your time. However, if you have your blog posts scheduled weeks in advance, you will be able to focus more of your time on the big project.

These are the four big reasons to schedule more blog posts. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any other reasons that you schedule blog posts in advance? Please share your thoughts below.

How I Find The Time To Publish 2 Blog Posts Every Day

April 10, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

When I made the change last summer to write two blog posts every day instead of one blog post, I knew it was going to require a lot more work. In addition, I knew that I was encountered with a decision to cross the Rubicon. Once I start something new, and I like the results, I have a need to remain consistent and show gradual improvements.

Writing two blog posts every day was a big step for me. I had 20 blog posts scheduled at the time, but instead of having 20 days of blog posts left, I only had 10 days of blog posts left. Instead of writing three blog posts on some days and then taking a break, I started to write blog posts every day. In fact, I continue writing blog posts every day even now (unless something stops me from getting to my computer).

The biggest factor towards me being able to write two blog posts every day is that I love what I do. If I had forced myself to write a certain number of words per blog post, I would not have liked this as much. When I first started writing two blog posts every day, they were short and filled with mistakes. No one noticed because at the time, my blog was not getting a lot of visitors. I was simply practicing.

Then, I had the realization that I could make it far as an author, blogger, and entrepreneur. My short blog posts started gaining momentum, and now all of the blog posts on my blog combined average out to be 250 words per blog post. This indicates the big increase in words and information I have shared in more recent posts (in the beginning, many of my blog posts had 100 words or less). After the love came, the vision was able to drive me further. Then, I decided to increase the rate that I send out blog posts.

Then there’s time management. My ability to effectively manage my time has been a crucial part towards writing more blog posts. My love for blogging and the vision made me more willing to carve out hours of time to write blog posts. In order to carve out that time, I needed to sacrifice other things. I used to be a couch potato and watch TV for countless hours. Now, I only watch The Big Bang Theory, my Red Sox when they are on the diamond, and some football. Since those are not on every night, I sometimes go for days without watching TV. I decided that in order to become successful, I would have to commit more time to becoming successful. It’s a success model that makes sense, and it’s a success model that I decided to implement.

Ultimately, it comes down to your love for doing something and your vision. Having the love to do something and the vision of great success will make the process of time management a lot easier. We tend to carve out more time to do the things we believe can change our situation (or the world) than we carve out time for washing the dishes.

And that’s how I am able to two blog posts every day. So far, I have never worked a single day in my life, and I plan to have that statement remain true for my entire life.