blogging

The 5 Most Common Blogging Mistakes And How To Fix Them

November 27, 2013 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Creating a blog has become very easy. Over a million blogs are created every day. However, most blogs get stuck at only a few visitors a day and stay that way too long. There are a lot of mistakes that get made, but these are the 5 most common mistakes that most blogs make.

Not posting consistently. People who just created their blogs get excited and write blog post after blog post. This short burst of energy leads to 5 blog posts being written in a single day. However, there aren’t any blog posts for the next day or the day after that. Weeks, months, or even years after the first blog post, when a new blog post gets published becomes uncertain. People then lose interest in that blog.

How To Fix The Problem: Schedule blog posts to your comfort, but schedule them on a consistent basis. If you want to publish a blog post once a week, schedule all of your blog posts a week in advance. As you publish more blog posts at specific times or days of the week, your visitors will notice. If people know when to expect new content, they will be on your blog at that time. I recommend publishing at least one blog post every day.

Giving a really big sales pitch too early. The purpose of a blog is to allow people to know you for free. After they subscribe to your blog, they will get to know who you are through your content. If they like what they see, then they will buy your product. If you promote a product all over your blog before people have the opportunity to read your content or subscribe to your blog, you will scare people away.

How To Fix The Problem: Showcasing a product on your blog is important. However, you shouldn’t showcase the product too many times on your blog or else first time visitors will be annoyed. Show your products on the sidebar of your blog so they don’t get in the way of your content. The content on your blog leads to people buying your products.

Not having social media sharing buttons. Some of your visitors may want to share one of your blog posts with their followers. Without social media sharing buttons, the process of sharing your blog posts becomes more difficult for the visitor.

How To Fix The Problem: Make it easy for your visitors to share your blog posts by adding these buttons to the top or bottom of all of your blog posts. For my blog, all of the social media sharing buttons are at the bottom. When you put these buttons in your blog posts, give your visitors a bunch of options. I have social media sharing buttons for five social networks. Some bloggers also have a slide down on the side of their blog with more social media sharing options.

Not sharing your own social networks. Once people leave your blog, they won’t come back unless they remember who you are. The best way to help people remember who you are is by giving them links to your social networks. Without giving your visitors the links to your social networks, there is a risk that they forget about you for a while.

How To Fix The Problem: By including the links to your social networks, you will be able to get more followers on those social networks, and people will remember you. There is a lot of competition on the web, and in order to claim your place, people need to know who you are and not forget. There are a lot of WordPress plugins that will make your social network buttons look good and link to your accounts. You can also have a picture of the social network’s logo on your sidebar and have it link to your social network when it gets clicked.

Not Utilizing SEO Properly. There are a lot of ways to increase the SEO of your blog. However, a blog that is not utilizing SEO properly will not appear anywhere near Page 1 on Google. SEO leads to more traffic from Google which is where a majority of blogs get found.

How To Fix The Problem: There are numerous ways to increase SEO. One way to increase SEO is by reducing your blog’s bounce back rate. There are also some tips about increasing SEO here.

By fixing these problems, your blog will grow dramatically. When I fixed these problems on my blog, my daily traffic had a 300% increase. By fixing these mistakes, your blog will be able to grow dramatically.

100 Amazing Blogging Tips

November 16, 2013 by Marc Guberti 33 Comments

Best Blogging Tips

What started out as an online diary has taken significance importance towards getting more sales, traffic, and a unique voice on the web. Although blogs cannot be successful overnight, they can be successful after implementing various methods for a long period of time. There are a lot of bloggers who just started and are trying to make their blog the go-to place. Here are 100 ways to do that.

Update your blog consistently. People won’t forget about you.
Share your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and any other social network you can think of.
Track your statistics. This will allow you to see which days you are getting the most traffic on your blog as well as which blog posts bring the most traffic to your blog.
Have an About Me page on your blog. People need to know your story in order to have a reason to stick around.
Make your subscribe button easy to see. This will result in more subscribers, and more people will be emailed each time you come out with a new blog post.
Give people a free product when they subscribe to your blog. The free product can range from a video to a PDF. This will encourage them to subscribe.
Over deliver whenever you can. In addition to the free product you guaranteed, offer another free product or service as well.
Have good headlines. The headlines for your blog posts should make your visitors want to read on.
Include words in your headlines and your blog posts to boost your SEO. The search terms that people are entering into Google to find your blog should also be in your blog’s content.
Promote your products on the sidebar, not in the front of your blog. The content of your blog is going to get people to subscribe to your blog, and those subscribers will eventually buy your product, not the other way around.
Blog daily. If you blog daily, people are going to expect another blog post the following day. Some people will go on your blog the next day just because they know new content will be up there.
If you can send out a blog post more than once every day, that’s even better. If you choose to send out two blog posts every day, make sure you can do that consistently.
Give your blog a clear identity. This will give people something to talk about when they tell other people about your blog.
Comment on other people’s blogs. This will give you more backlinks and visibility on the web.
Look at the top blogs of your niche and look for common patterns. Following those patterns will allow your blog to get more traffic.
When you look at the top blogs of your niche, take different characteristics from each of those blogs and blend them together on your blog. If you get the results you wanted, keep the changes. If you did not get the results you were expecting, keep on experimenting and making changes.
Choose a name or URL that people will remember. Remembering a name is a lot easier than remembering a sentence. Typing in the name is also going to be a lot easier than typing the sentence.
Increase your presence on social networks. Here’s how you can do that with Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, and YouTube.
Use YouTube because it is going to dramatically increase the number of visitors you get.
Publish YouTube videos consistently and share them on social networks. I publish one YouTube video every Saturday at 9 am EST.
Put links on your blog that direct people to your other blog posts. This will increase your traffic and SEO.
Offer a Q&A on your blog that either gets done via email or comments. Answering questions quickly will make people happy enough to subscribe to your blog.
Give people the chance to contact you. Someone may contact you with an interview offer.
Don’t give up on blogging.
If you’re thinking about giving up, you need to see this picture.
The content on your blog shouldn’t fit your needs. It should fit the needs of your visitors.
Include social media buttons at the bottom of your blog posts so people can easily share them.
Write quality content that people will want to share.
Install the TablePress plugin to put tables up on your blog. This will allow you to organize and present information on your blog better than ever. Maybe you can incorporate a “Table Tuesday” or “Table Thursday.”
When recommending products, don’t be afraid to promote your competition. Visitors will recognize you for being honest, and your blog will appear on Google for your competitors’ keywords.
Tweet every hour with some of your blog posts. Once you have over a thousand blog posts, you will be able to tweet for days without any repeated tweets. You should be sending tweets about at least 5 of your blog posts every day.
Start conversations on Twitter. The people you talk to will decide to look at your profile. When they see the link to your blog, they will click on that link.
Do not rush a blog post. The best blog posts come after a lot of thought.
For 5-10 minutes, jot down a bunch of ideas for your future blog posts. The advantage of having a lot of ideas to choose from is that you decide which ones get implemented and which ones don’t.
Schedule your blog posts days ahead so staying consistent is not a pain. Then, you will be able to write really long blog posts like this one.
Some of your blog posts should be lists. The bigger the list, the more visibility it is going to get.
Include a link to your blog in your email signature. Don’t miss the opportunity to promote yourself in a powerful way.
If you are a speaker, pass out a form to your audience asking whether they want to subscribe to your blog or not. Give them a place to write their email and indicate their choice with a check mark. Then, you can enter those emails in your subscription box and get more subscribers.
Host a giveaway on your blog exclusively to your subscribers. This will encourage visitors to subscribe to your blog. By the time the contest is over, your new subscribers won’t want to click the unsubscribe button because they’ll enjoy reading your content.
Give visitors the option to follow you on your social networks. You can do this with buttons for your social networks with links to your accounts.
Give visitors the option to follow you on your social networks without leaving your blog. This will ensure more followers and the amount of time a visitor stays on your blog will increase.
Become a guest blogger for a blog related to your niche. You will reach a larger audience, get more traffic, and an additional backlink for your blog.
If you find something that works, repeat it. If something works the first time, chances are that it will work the second time as well.
Put pictures on your blog. This will make it possible for other people to pin your blog posts. Since 80% of pins are repins, your blog may end up going viral. That only happens if your blog post has a picture as well.
Write in small paragraphs. One big lump of text is difficult to read. Splitting your blog posts into paragraphs will make visitors read your blog posts for an extended period of time.
Make your blog remarkable by offering or doing something that no one else does. Be the next Purple Cow!
Send out your blog posts either in the morning or very late at night. Those are the two times when you will get the most traffic. Sending out blog posts in the afternoon isn’t as effective because people do not have as much time to read a blog post.
Write blog posts that will still be effective years later. You will be able to tweet the same blog post today that you wrote 2 years ago and get traffic.
Write a blog post about Google. This one works.
Get Google Authorship. When someone searches your name, a box with your picture and latest Google Plus post will appear to the right.
If you only post links to your blog posts on Google Plus, you will get more traffic from Google Authorship as well.
If one of your blog posts is doing very well, share it on your social networks the next day. If a lot of people looked at that blog post the first time, a lot of people will look at that blog post a second time.
Answer questions relating to what you blog about on Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers. Yahoo Answers and Wiki Answers almost always appear on Page 1 for Google search results.
Make sure you have a lot of blog posts on the front page. If you only have 5 blog posts on the front page, your visitors will have to click the “older posts” button more times than they would like.
Write 3-5 blog posts every day. That way, you will have blog posts scheduled for days, and you will also be able to choose which blog posts end up getting published to your blog.
Write your blog posts at a time of the day when you are the most productive. This will allow you to write more blog posts with greater quality.
Make videos about some of your blog posts. Your videos will get people curious until they click the link to your blog post.
Give your products to subscribers for free. Authors commonly give books away to subscribers and people who subscribe to their blog.
Review products on Amazon. Millions of people visit Amazon, and one of the products you like may only have 50 reviews. People hear your honest opinion, and as you review more products, people will see you more often. As people see you more often, they will want to learn more about you. Then, they find your blog.
Give yourself goals. How many blog posts do you want to write within a week? How much traffic do you want next month? Once you give yourself those goals, find ways to turn those goals into realities.
Include links in your blog posts to other places on the web. This will increase the clickout rate which also has an impact on SEO.
Know that blogging is a marathon with a finish line and a trophy.
After you finish a video, start another one.
Offer your subscribers super saver discounts.
Use words that everyone knows the definitions of.
Use a professional theme that is able to get your message across with a good look.
Respond to comments on your blog. This will allow you to build stronger connections with your visitors. They will come back and comment regularly.
Don’t make your blog dependent on search engines. Who knows when Google will decide to change their algorithms.
While search engines help, you should rely on social media to drive more traffic to your blog.
Using social media to increase your blog traffic will also increase the traffic you get from search engines.
Market your products in ways people wouldn’t imagine. People will take about it and become curious. That curiosity will lead to a Google search where consumers find the link to your blog.
Participate in forums. The Warrior Forum has one of the best Alexa ranks on the web.
Use fluent English that allows people to understand the message you are trying to convey.
Make sure that most of your blog posts should be short. The maximum for a majority number of words of your blog posts should be at 500 words. Only once or even twice a month should you write a blog post that passes 500 words.
Tell friends about your blog and have them subscribe. Your friends are going to do the best job at spreading the word about your blog.
Offer consultation opportunities for your niche. People want answers.
Upload pins about your blog every day.
Create products that revolve around your blog. The contents of your blog can be turned into a book, videos, training courses, and more. You can market what you already have.
Follow people on Twitter who have the same niche as you. These people will end up visiting your blog, especially if these people usually follow back.
Include a Popular Posts widget so new visitors can see your best.
Include pictures at the sidebar of your blog. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Use HARO to get free PR for your business. HARO allows you to submit content to a variety of publishers. You’ll find someone who wants something that you can perform. ABC, NBC, CBS, and others use HARO to reach out to more people.
Write some blog posts on what not to do.
Write blog posts about testimonials.
Comment on other people’s YouTube videos with your YouTube account. This will give your YouTube channel more traffic which in turn will lead to more blog traffic.
Offer a webinar on your blog and charge people for access.
Give all of your training courses and webinars a closing date so people act fast.
Make some of your blog posts password protected and give those to your subscribers.
Write blog posts that would go on your blog, but never publish them. You can come out with a book and title one of the chapters, “Lost Blog Posts.”
Keep all of your blog posts in a document on your computer. If you want to find all of your blog posts on Twitter, you can use Command F (for an Apple computer) and type in the word Twitter. This will easily allow you to find content with certain keywords.
Have your phone with you as much as you can. If you think of a really good topic to write about, use the Notepad App to write it down.
Interview successful people on your niche.
Get interviewed by people of your niche. Offer a chance for an interview on your blog.
Create a calendar to determine which days will be the best for writing blog posts.
This will also help you determine the one day of the month that you write a really long blog post filled with information.
Offer free KeyNotes on your blog.
Present them at public events and tell people about your blog.
Come up with a clever tagline for your blog.
Say a clever tagline at the end of all of your YouTube videos.
Don’t give up on blogging. I mentioned this before, but it’s the most important tip anyone could give.

Every Blogger Needs To See This Picture

November 4, 2013 by Marc Guberti 48 Comments

Why Bloggers Give Up Traffic Graph

Blogging can get rough at times. After constantly writing blog post after blog post, the same number of visitors come (or at times, less visitors come). However, there is a gold mine waiting to be discovered. That gold mine is your blog. Don’t take your eye off the prize, and do the consistent work that will allow you to receive that prize.

Some Of My Social Media Videos

September 26, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

I did a lot of videos over the summer, and my goal is to come out with one video every week about social media, blogging, and business. Right now, there are only videos about social media and blogging, but I can guarantee you that videos about business will show up as well. If you want to learn a lot about social media and blogging, these five YouTube videos will help out a lot.

In addition to those five videos, you can subscribe to my blog where I will give you free access to the Mastering Pinterest Video Tutorial where I share my knowledge about Pinterest and becoming a power user.

You can see all of the videos here.

Blogging Gets Better With Age And Experience

September 16, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

A lot of bloggers stop blogging 2-3 months after they start, and I know the probable reason that most bloggers quit. You’ve seen Seth Godin, Jeff Bullas, Social Media Examiner, and others. You’ve seen them boost their 200,000+ subscribers, bestselling products, and more. You see them getting millions of views every month, and it just seems so easy.

A blog does not get all of those subscribers in a week, month, or in some cases, years. It takes a long time for blogs to actually rake up and keep traffic.

If you are a blogger, I encourage you to continue. If you don’t have a blog yet, I encourage you to create an account on WordPress. You won’t be the next famous blogger until years of consistently sending out blog posts.

After you send out all of those blog posts, and you start to get a lot of traffic, you will start to see the difference. Blogging isn’t a sprint. Blogging is like running two marathons.

People Forget

September 3, 2013 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Remember that time when you had nothing to do for an entire day and nothing was on your agenda. Probably not.

People are very busy, and since we are all busy, we tend to forget some things. Some things get in the way of business. Less business time means more forgetting. Some entrepreneurs are famous for forgetting.

Every successful blog have one thing in common: they have a boatload of subscribers. In fact, all of their subscribers can’t even fit on a boat. They would need 2 or 3 boats. That’s how many subscribers they have.

Social Media Examiner, Seth Godin’s blog, Jeff Bullas’ blog all have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. They also have over 100,000 followers on Twitter. People don’t forget about blogs like those because they see great content, and subscribing is easy. Social Media Examiner’s subscription box couldn’t be any bigger although that’s an advantage. Social Media Examiner and Jeff Bullas offer free products to anyone who subscribes to their blog.

Seth Godin doesn’t provide a free product to people right when they subscribe to his blog. However, he gives away a lot of freebies which can be found on his official website (not the blog).

People forget. If you want to be remembered, you have to give people a reason to remember you. In order to have a successful blog people will remember, you have to get those subscriptions. Those subscriptions will allow you to email your subscribers automatically when one of your new blog posts comes out.

People forget. Your mission isn’t only to make them remember. Your mission is to make them want to remember.