Earn Money While Bloging

You have a lot of options when it comes to how you want to make money online. You can choose to become a professional blogger or freelance writer like me. You can choose to flip domains for profit. You can choose to develop digital products like WordPress themes and plugins.

Similarly, if you take the path of affiliate marketing, you’ll also find that there are many different advertising networks for you to consider. One of the newer players to enter the game is White Fire Media. It may not have the same level of popularity and prominence as some more established names in the business, but this review is a part of their marketing plan to get the word out and attract some more publishers (and advertisers).

If You Can’t Stand the Heat…

Do you have a flame burning inside of you, yearning to become a dot com mogul? If that’s the case, you have to be prepared to put in the hours and the effort to learn the tools of the trade. As the saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

I suppose that could have been the inspiration for the naming of White Fire Media, but I’m just going on personal conjecture. In short, White Fire Media is a CPA network that promises to offer the “highest payouts in the industry.”

As you may already know, the CPA (cost per action) model of advertising means that you direct traffic that completes an action of some kind. When visitors do this, you get paid a commission. On the surface, White Fire Media looks like it is very similar to nearly every other CPA network out there. It’s unfortunate that the information page doesn’t offer much in terms of information.

Navigating the User Dashboard

After you log into your account, you are presented with the standard user dashboard from White Fire Media. There are five main navigational links near the top: Home, My Account, Request Offers, My Offers, and Reporting.

From the main page, you can see the featured offers, news and events, new offers, and your manager’s contact information. Strangely, when I clicked on any of the new or featured offers, I was given a page saying that no offers could be found. Broken links are a definite no-no.

The user interface is clean and easy to understand, but this also gives the impression that it is not as robust as it can be.

Browsing the Affiliate Offers

Interestingly, White Fire Media presents its list of offers as if they are not all available for your disposal right away. Instead, you have to find them under the “Request Offers” section.

From here, you get at-a-glance information for the name of the offer, the average rating, a brief description, the payout level, category, and so on. There is a preview link to the left and a “Request Offer” button to the right. This makes it seems like you have to apply to use any given offer, but when I tried a few, they were all “approved” right away.

Clicking to find the details of a specific offer after approval, you are given the basic information for the payout, a preview, and the list of creatives. It would be nice to see how well the offer is converting for other affiliates in the network, but this functionality may be added when White Fire Media has grown some.

Payment Details

Reading the terms and conditions at the bottom of the signup page is the only way that you can find out about the payment details. I think that having a proper FAQ page would be preferable.

In any case, White Fire Media operates on a net-30 payment schedule based on a minimum payment amount of US$50. You will need to provide them with a valid taxpayer identification number of social security number. The assumption is that payment is made by check in the mail.

Make Money Online with White Fire Media

Is White Fire Media worth your time? This is still a very young CPA network, so they are aggressively looking to gain new publishers, as well as trust and credibility. In this semi-beta stage, White Fire Media doesn’t really have anything to set it apart from the crowd. As with anything else, your mileage will vary.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP WITH WHITE FIRE MEDIA

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I’ve received an invitation to attend a panel discussion on social media marketing vs. email marketing. The discussion would be pit the the social media marketing experts against the email marketers to find out which is best.

The answer to me is pretty clear. While social media marketing has made huge inroads and received tons of press in the past year, it’s still no match for good old fashion email marketing. My numbers don’t lie. This blog’s biggest income earner is its email list.

I think the panel is going about this the wrong way. This isn’t an us vs them kind of thing. There’s no rule that say you have to be a social media marketer or an email marketer. Why not do both? Social media and email marketing works great together. To do only one would be like depending on Google for all your income. That’s not the smartest thing to do.

Most new bloggers are using social media marketing to help build their blogs, and that’s great. However, they’re really missing the boat if they don’t have a mailing list. A lot of this have to do with cost. Social media is pretty much free. Email marketing requires a service like Aweber, which cost $19 a month (there is a $1 trial). For many, this creates a mental barrier of entry.

I say mental because people think it’s costing them money. The truth of the matter is, it’s costing them more money by not having a mailing list. If you’re making money off social media, you’ll be making far more if you combined social media with email marketing.

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!

I’m regularly asked about local domain names and whether they are worth using on a blog.

My answer usually revolves around the question of ‘what audience are you trying to reach?‘ Let me explain.

When I first secured my own domain name I chose a .au (Australia) domain without really giving much thought to it. I figured as I was an Aussie I might as well include that in the domain and as the .com version of the domain was taken I though it was the next logical step. That was a naive decision and one that I regretted later (although it did have some benefits too).

There were a number of impacts of having a local domain:

• the blog ranked relatively well in Google.com.au’s results - being an easily identified Aussie site it seemed to get priority when Aussies were searching for terms related to it
• the blog didn’t rank as well on Google.com - .com domains (and other non localised ones) seemed to get ranked higher in other international versions of Google
• confusion with readers - time and time again I heard from readers that they kept forgetting to add the .au. As a result they ended up on other sites and some gave up on even coming to the site.

Ultimately it was a mistake for me because my goal was to connect with an international audience rather than just and Australian one. I ended up with some good Aussie search traffic which was nice but it could have ranked better internationally which probably cost me traffic.

Take Home Advice: As a result, I generally advise people to go for a local domain name IF they are trying to reach a local audience. If you’re looking to connect with an international audience go for the .com or another non localised domain like .net or .org (.com is my #1 preference though).

The other reason to get a localised version of a domain in addition to the .com is as a defensive move OR if you think you might produce a local version of your blog at some point in the future. Having the local domain means someone else can’t get it and it gives you the option of expanding into local markets (as Gawker blogs have done with some of their more popular blogs).

Do you use a local domain name? What are the advantages or disadvantages from your perspective?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Should You Use a Localized Domain Name?

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If you fancy the idea of making money from creating your own books, then Blurb might be of interest to you. It follows a DIY model of publishing books (similar to self-publishing). But, without all the hassle of coming up with a huge capital and plenty of unsold books in your garage.

In a nutshell, this is how Blurb works: You write your book. You take care of the typesetting and layout. You make sure the whole document is publication-ready. Then, upload your book on to the system. Once it’s ready to be published, you set a price if you wish to sell your book.

Then, you can order a book (or more) from your account, paying the base price. You can just mark-up the price if you wish to sell your book in person.

Or, if you don’t want the hassle of ordering too many books and selling them yourself, you just get people to buy your book directly from Blurb. Then, you get whatever profit/mark-up that you provide when you set your price. You keep the profit.

Some of the things that I like about Blurb:

• Clean interface; really pleasant site to look at;
• You can have your own little Blurb shop, if you wish. You can then share that link to people so that they can buy your books there;
• They have a free software application (called Blurb Booksmart, available both for Windows and Mac) that you can use to create your book – really handy if you want to make sure that your book is formatted for publication. It even has a built-in function that gives you warning signs if your image is not going to be publishable, etc.
• If you prefer to format your own book, that’s okay too;
• Basic books starting price is reasonable (approx. $5 for a 20-page Black and White Text book with coloured soft cover), prices go up from there, depending on the number of pages, etc;
• There are a number of options and pricing available – soft cover / hardcover, 4-colour/BW, etc.;
• Bulk discounts are available (if you buy 10 or more, you can buy your book at a lower price; the more books you buy, the higher your discount); and
• They seem to cater for a number of countries.

In any case, yes, it works pretty much like Lulu.com.

Since I haven’t tried using Blurb yet, I’m not sure about the printing quality of the books. I hope to be able to try it out one of these days and report my findings back here at some stage.

If you have given Blurb a try, do let us know what you think of it. Do you like it? What’s the quality of the printed books like? What about the service?

Right now, they’re currently running the 2009 Best Blurb Photo Books Contest. The grand prize winner gets to win $3,000. The runner-up wins $1,000. Then, there will be honourable mentions, who will then win $50 gift cards from Blurb.

You Might Also Be Interested In….

• LoveToKnow : For Online Content Writers
• eHow: Writing How Tos to Make Money Online
• Fishpond: Australian Online Bookstore Affiliate Programme
• Bright Hub: First Payment In!
• Brighthub: Make Money Writing Web Content

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Blurb: Make and Sell Your Books

Providing freelance services is not without its unique challenges. Forget those images you see of the work-at-home freelancer who becomes incredibly rich and only works a few hours each week. Providing freelance services is a business just like any self-employed profession and you need to be aware of the challenges you will face and have a plan of how to meet them. Once you know how to meet them and have success at it, freelancing becomes an even more enjoyable and profitable venture. Here are some of the challenges you will probably face and some suggestions of how to meet them.

Get over the shock of how difficult the work can be. Too many new freelancers go into it thinking that they will have set or reduced working hours but quickly find out that the opposite is the norm. This is especially true when first starting out and trying to build a market presence and client base.

Another reason why the work volume increases is because the freelancer has to handle all business functions from product creation to billing. In other words, both support and profit-making tasks must be handled by the same person and the result is extended hours on the job. The best way to meet this challenge is to stay organized by not collecting stacks of paper, having a good filing system, and taking the time to plan and set goals. This way you not only stay on track but know how to find the tools and information when you need them.

Being alone at work is a new challenge for many freelancers. A new freelancer is excited at first at being in solitude and quiet thinking that his or her productivity will soar to new heights. But in just a short time, a cabin fever effect sets in and the freelancer begins to miss the water cooler gossip, lunch breaks with coworkers, and even the annoying busybody. It's tempting to get on the telephone and call those you worked with before and chat for several hours wasting both your time and theirs. The best way to meet this challenge is to be a mobile freelancer. Get out and go for a walk or exercise occasionally. If you are freelancing using a notebook computer, such as is with writing, go have a cup of coffee at a coffee shop and take it with you. You'll find that by taking small breaks and moving around that your day will be more productive.

Pricing can be somewhat of a challenge in the beginning. What many freelancers do in the beginning is quote lower than usual prices for their services or products in order to gain entry into the market. This is known as penetration pricing and it is a technique that will give you initial sales but cannot be sustained for long. Keeping prices too low can put you out of business. Eventually, you should develop a strategy of not quoting your prices up front but first communicating to the client what they will get if they choose your product or service. Establish the value first and then quote the price. Otherwise you will always be quoting too high or too low to your customer.

I was browsing through my RSS feed this morning when a post from BloggingTips caught my attention. It was titled: Problogger Community Launched.

I knew that Darren was working on a private community to be hosted on the Problogger.com domain, and it looks like the doors just opened today.

I went to sign-up straight away, as I am sure it will be an awesome place for bloggers to get together and network. The current cost is $1.95 monthly, which is symbolic price. It basically keeps the trolls out, ensuring the quality of the discussions.

The place is already very active. When I logged in there were 21 members online, despite being very early in the U.S..

Anyway check it out and consider becoming a member. Given the value that the forum will have for its members, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Darren raising the price to $19 monthly or more in some months, and if you get in now you lock your price at $1.95.

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Original Post: Are You A Member of the Problogger Community Forum?

This is a guest post by Ganesh K.. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Blogging in itself is a wide wide Universe. There are galaxies of blogs out there. Small, bright, well known, yet to be found, big, really BIG blogs and so on.

When thinking of starting a blog, we foresee a lot of competition because of that myriad of blogs.

Take any obscure niche targeting a very narrow audience, and you are sure to find umpteen blogs already catering the exact ground breaking service you thought was THE brilliant idea.

So, what is the take? Better… not to blog? Or be a philanthropist without any serious aspirations?

You could do that, but that is not what I thought would inspire you. So, here is an approach to be a great blogger without fuss, without pain (Don’t read “without work” though…).

THERE IS NO COMPETITION OUT THERE… YOU ARE THE MONOPOLY – is the mindset every blogger needs to have to enjoy blogging, which in turn makes his/her blog the best.

There are many benefits in having this attitude while blogging and here are the few benefits:

1. No Fear

You know what fear is capable of. Fear of not being successful, fear of losing the reader base, and fear of making your readers unhappy… drives any blogger crazy. You forget to enjoy blogging.

Then blogging becomes an ordeal with constant paranoia of missing your reader base. When you don’t enjoy something, the quality of your work goes down. It is as simple as that.

2. No Pretending

Also, you should never fear to be honest. You need not to pretend. You could say whatever you feel like to your readers, because at the end, your blog is, what you ARE, and not what you are SUPPOSED to be.

You wouldn’t be forced to act as the market conventionally does. You would take your own call. You would say what you really feel like saying.

3. No Numbers

Numbers drive us (at least me) crazy.

Total number of unique visitors, number of clicks, CPM, number of Feed Subscribers, number of direct visits… throw all these numbers in the dustbin.

I know, they help you to know where you really are, but to say the truth, they don’t matter until you want to review your blog. Reviewing your blog every day is not that intelligent. You could do it once in a few months or so.

When you think there is no competition out there, you won’t bother about these numbers. I doubt Google, if run by a single person, would be monitoring the number of searches every day.

Think as if your blog was Google and forget about the numbers.

And to state a truth, which you might already know, there is no competition as such. Many blogs could be in the blogosphere together. So, no worries. Create a blog in your own style and run it in your own rules and enjoy blogging.

Share your thoughts on having this mindset when blogging. What is your take? Drop your thoughts and experiences.

Ganesh is the author of iPENthisBLOG, where he shares blogging and productivity tips. He also carries out designing projects. Subscribe to iPENthisBLOG and to know what he is presently chirping about, follow him @ksganesh

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Original Post: Sometimes It Is Better NOT To Be Competitive

You are reading this article probably because you have a flash website and you need it to be ranked well. First of all, you should re-consider using Flash on your web site. Keep in mind that many visitors still use slow dial-up connections (Such people are becoming less and less but still, we can’t rule out the chances. Who knows, maybe they would be your possible customers) to access web pages. They don’t like to wait 1-2 minutes only to see your company logo fancy animated. Your Flash movies must carry invaluable information to the visitors, otherwise they will be disappointed.

Consider this case. You have a company providing broadband services. One advantage you can put the flash website to is to make the viewer feel the PAIN for having to wait for long, for the website to load on the person’s pathetic dial up connection. Yes, “IF” they come over to your main page they would surely be interested in your service. Don’t neglect the stress on the point “IF” they make it your website home page at all. Why? Well, ask yourself whether you will wait 3-5 minutes just to enter a website you didn’t even know existed? Personally I wouldn’t. So aside from the business part, let us focus on more important aspects. Entry pages that only show your company logo are becoming more and more annoying to users. Using web pages like company brochures only show that your company didn’t get the whole Internet idea.

Keep in mind that not everyone has installed the Flash player. Always add a link to a web page that contains the same important information as found in the Flash movie in plain text. Try to get your coder to wrap up a code which automatically detects the flash player version installed and if it is not installed or is an outdated version which wont probably run your website properly , direct the user to install one. It is not always a wise idea to embed the text like “Flash player needed to view the website properly. Download here.” People would end up downloading it even if it is already installed in their system. Some people skip the website just because they feel lazy to download the software and install it.

For these reasons, not using Flash or building a duplicate site without Flash are the easiest ways to make sure that your web site visitors and the search engines can access your web site.

Giving a visual introduction of a site is loved a lot by a majority of users. But even an interested visitor if not given a proper option of moving out would feel irritated (Remember to include the skip introduction button in case you have a long video or something which will help re visiting users not get bored by being forced to view your videos again and again each time they visit). Same is the case for the web crawlers. Web crawlers or spiders in more familiar words, somewhat behave like living users and expertise in static websites or being clear, for HTML sites. Google advises on its webmaster guidelines page: "If fancy features such as [...] Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.”

Indexing a flash site that is creating a rank for the sites with flash movies was a big question quite some time before, thanks to the advancement in technologies which has now made it well within the capabilities of the web spiders to index the flash websites. Search engines can now see the flash websites by way of replacement contents. In more clear words or for better understanding the flash sites are not ranked but their static contents are ranked which are more readable by the crawlers. The design trick has become quite famous and accepted by the web developers which is even accepted by the Google and recommended.

The designers can now leverage the opportunity to optimize the flash site for better rankings on the engine by using the replacement method in which, messages containing highly searched and tagged key words get an edge. Anyone planning to use flash in the website for greater attraction should make it a point to construct it in a manner which is readable to the web spider and going one step further, not just readable to web spider but should have content relativity with the searched subjects. The replacement content for the flash site should have links which have been provided in the flash content for the better readability and credibility in the search .To explain better ,if the flash content of the site has links to some parts of the site then that should also be featured in the replacement text of the site also.

It’s a brilliant approach to impure the Flash content with keyword rich messages that can be replaced in the text form by the smart crawlers.

Industry wise recommendations are for SWFObject 2 for flash programming, as it detects whether or not the browser supports flash objects and then serves accordingly with the appropriate version of the site (Flash or HTML).The major advantage of SWFObject 2 is that it quenches the thirst of the crawlers as the users. SWFObject 2 bolsters a site’s keyword density and crawler’s value by introducing keyword-targeted messages into the site’s flash content which can be replaced, crawled and indexed in text form. Keyword-based messages which drive the traffic are a must for the seo optimization of a site. To supplement the site with targeted keywords, which the consumer market is searching for is a primary way to obtain a better rank in the search page.

Language emphasis should get a priority over images and videos. It should be borne in mind that an image cannot be transformed into a text message which is the primary foundation for the crawlers to initiate the search for the query placed. Minimize the use of images in the flash content and main focus should be kept on contents in text form which can be replaced as well as recognized by crawlers. Flash videos with textual content which can be replaced as text gets an added edge when judged by the crawlers. Videos with dialogue must also have a readable means to qualify for a better ranking on a search site.

Spamming should be avoided in the text replacement as the former reduces the credibility of the flash website .As far as Google’s technology is concerned it can easily break .swf files and extract its contents to find whether it’s a spam linking.

The text in the anchored link is also among the key factors which decides the placement of one’s site on the search page, so utmost care should be taken to optimize the links with better explanation about the destination page and it’s materials .The keyword within the <a>are important and targeted keywords, so if a link is applied to the flash content or a flash file, care should be taken so that the targeted keywords are read by the crawlers. For images alt attributes are used and is a good practice to provide explanation there too. The use of sIFR for designer text is also a good idea for attractive look and at the same time it being easily crawl able by the spider gains extra point for ranking on the site. The advantage of using sIFR is that it is easily searched by the spider as it’s a text and on the other hand also give beautiful look to the text .sIFR happens to be light weight and acceptance is also wider in the search engines like Google and same types.

The flash content of the site should be optimized by matching the name and description in the accessibility panel with that of the HTML title and Meta description in the HTML page. Avoiding vector graphics and bit maps in the flash contents help making the deal better; replacing the same with text is the best option for superior optimization. Applying accessibility panel to the clips or buttons after converting all the photo images and videos into movie clips or buttons is another appreciated way of generating a better ranking for the search pages. Each of which should have a unique description and descriptive name. The search engine robots or the crawlers do not select from pull down menus or fill forms, so reaching that corner is tough for the agent. To answer this concern a standard <a href > type link can be provided to the entire flash movie page.

Another helpful option is to add all these standard links to the site map which defines the total layout and placing of the site. If a developer faces constraints in creating or providing static HTML links to all the pages of the sites then a better and efficient way is to provide an XML site map which tells the crawlers about the location of all the pages of the site. One can give the users a link to the flash intro from the HTML site .The primary content for any flash site should be links, headings, styled text, images–anything which can be provided in an HTML page .The SEO copy editing and indexing skills are applied to the primary content, flash is a non issue. The best way to optimize a flash site is to create an ad hoc HTML site which will have a presence along with the flash site and would work as a feeder for the search engine crawlers to help optimization for the master site.

With almost everything said, even if SEO optimization is done from top to bottom of the page there stands no guarantee of staying number one in the search results. But if the requirement of the audience are met, then one can go full flash site with PPC and still have extraordinary results. The ground reality behind the success of a site is the content it offers to its users.

Some Other Tips

So how can you achieve high search engine rankings in spite of Flash contents?
If you use Flash on your web site, the following tips can help you getting your Flash contents indexed by the search engines:

• Provide links to alternate pages that contain a lot of text and some keywords that the search engines can index.
• Place some text above and below your Flash movie that contain your keywords. Along with your title and maybe your Meta tags, this gives the search engines some contents to index.
• If you embed the Flash movie in your HTML code, use your most important keywords in the movie file name using the HTML tags <param name="movie" value="movie-filename.swf"> and <param name="src" value="movie-filename.swf>.
• You can use the <object standby="your message to show while loading"> attribute to include some text that is displayed while the Flash movie is being loaded. In addition, you can use the <object title="your movie title"> attribute to include a keyword-rich movie title.
• Use the <no embed> tag to provide text for web browsers which don’t support the Flash plug-in. Use it to describe the contents of the Flash movie as search engines can index that description.
• You may want make your Flash movie transparent and place it "over" your web page using CSS layers. However, some search engines might consider this spamming.
• Some search engines offer pay for inclusion programs that guarantee the inclusion of your web page regardless of the contents. Note that these search engines still need text to index your site.
• You could provide an alternative, "pure text" web page solely to search engine crawler programs. However, this technique is called "cloaking" and search engines don’t like it (click here for details).
• Link from other pages of your web site to your Flash page with a keyword-rich link text.
• Use the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK to convert a Flash file’s text and links into HTML for search engine indexing.
• Read another articles by by Jonathan Hochman which will give you more knowledge

Adarsh is an expert in SEO and internet marketing. He is currently the webmaster and SEO in charge of The Health and wellness blog, HealthRuns.com.

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Last week a reader (thanks Vlatko) emailed me letting me know that I had two URL structures working on the blog. They were:

dailyblogtips.com/

and

dailyblogtips.com/index.php

The same problem was happening on all posts and pages. For example, a post could be accessed via:

dailyblogtips.com/post-title/

as well as:

dailyblogtips.com/post-title/index.php

This is not a good thing for SEO, because Google might get confused when deciding which is the canonical version. In fact when I went to run the diagnosis tool on Google Webmaster Central I found a bunch of duplicate title tags being reported (caused by the second URL version).

Some time later Vlatko emailed me again saying that he had found the problem: the WP Super Cache plugin. WordPress is supposed to handle the canonical URL issue automatically, but somehow once I activated the WP Super Cache plugin the index.php redirect stopped working. Vatko was having the same problem on his blog, so it might be a bug on WP Super Cache itself.

I also believe that not everyone will be affected by it. It probably has something to do with your server settings.

Either way, if you are currently using WP Super Cache I recommend that you test to see if the index.php redirect is working. Make sure to log out first, and then try to access yourblog.com/index.php. If you are not redirected to the homepage you are having the same problem.

I will email the author of the plugin about it, and if you have any insights please share them with a comment.

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Original Post: Possible Bug on WP Super Cache

Last week I shared a set of slides from a presentation I recently gave which outlines a variety of lessons that I’ve learned as a blogger over the last 7 years. Over the coming months I intend to expand upon many of the points in that presentation - starting today with ‘Listening’.

When I began blogging in 2002 I made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of false assumptions about blogging. One of the things I quickly found out didn’t work when trying to grow a blog was to use it purely as a broadcast tool.

In the first few weeks of blogging it was almost as though I was using the blog as a platform or a stage where I stood with a megaphone in hand blasting out my message for anyone who might happen to be passing by to hear. It’s no wonder that only my wife read my blog that first week (and even she never really came back).

Nobody likes a loud mouth. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of someone talking AT them.

The people we tend to be drawn to in real life are people who pause in conversation to let you have a say, people who ask questions about you, people who have a genuine interest in what you’ve got to say.

The same is true (in most cases) when it comes to blogging.

Of course there are cases where blogs are successfully used as broadcast tools with little interaction between blogger and reader - however in most cases there is at least some element of ‘listening’ going on by the blogger. Let me explore a few ways that a blogger should consider ‘listening’:

Listen to the culture of the blogosphere

This is one for those yet to start blogging (and it should also be applied to those getting into new social media tools like Twitter, Facebook etc).

I was chatting with a new blogger recently who described her first week of blogging as being similar to travelling to a new country and having to adjust to a new language, climate, etiquette and customs as an outsider.

When travelling overseas for an extended stay (perhaps for a new job) most travellers know that one of their first tasks as a new resident is to make some cultural adjustments.

• learning some basic words in the local language
• finding a local who can talk them through the etiquette
• getting a map so that they can find their way around
• learning to use systems like public transport…. etc

In a similar way - when you’re new to the blogosphere (or any new part of the social media-sphere) it’s important to pause, take stock, learn about the culture, learn to use the tools, discover what is acceptable (and not acceptable), learn the rhythms etc

The danger in not learning the culture of the blogosphere is doing something that not only doesn’t work but that offends ‘the locals’ and hurts your reputation.

Listen for where your potential readers are gathering

One of the key tasks that any new blogger who wants to grow their readership should do is identify where their potential readers are already gathering online.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back - it’s not enough just to build a good blog with great content in order to find readers for your blog. If you want people to know about your blog you need to ‘get out there’ and interact with them and develop a presence in the places that your potential readers are already gathering.

Of course before you can find these places you need to have an understanding of who you’re trying to attract - so do a little work on defining who you want to read your blog and then begin to look for where that type of person is already gathering (I talk more about how I did this in this recent video on how I use promote my blog).

Listen to what others in your niche are saying

One of the most powerful things that I did which helped take my early blogs to the next level was to begin to monitor what others in my niche/industry were talking about.

I discovered the power of this accidentally one day when I just happened to be surfing on another small blog that broke news of a big story. I picked up the story on my own blog (linking to the first) and then my post got picked up by a massive blog which drew in a lot of new readers. Knowing what was happening in the niche helped to break stories but also build relationships with other bloggers in the niche.

Back then the tools for monitoring other blogs and topics were primitive and meant some manual hunting around (I remember in the very early days having to manually bookmark the blogs I wanted to track and visit them each every day to see if they’d posted anything new) but these days it is a lot easier to set up and automate.

My own monitoring of my niches generally happens in two ways:

1. Subscribing to Feeds of Key Sources of Information - these days most sites have some way of subscribing to them, usually via an RSS feed. I have a folder in my feed reader for each of my main topics which contains a number of key blogs and news sites in that niche. I used to follow close to a thousand blogs to do this - but these days have refined the list to much less for each topic.
2. 2. Keyword Alerts - using Google’s news and blog alerts I have a number of alerts set up so that if any news site or blog uses a keyword that I’m interested in I know about it. Choosing keywords that are specific enough can take a little time (some words just generate too many alerts) but on almost a daily basis these alerts identify important posts in my niches.
3. Recommendation Sites - the other listening tool that I use to help me know what’s going on in my niches is to subscribe to sites that are in the business of looking for popular content in my niches. These sites can be a little hard to find depending upon your niche but because I’m largely working in the Tech space there are a few including TechMeme and Delicious. TechMeme looks at what content key blogs are linking to in the tech space and Delicious is a bookmarking site that produces a list of popular content being bookmarked at any point in time (it’s not purely tech related but does consistently produce good results for me). Both of these sites have RSS feeds you can subscribe to to monitor what’s hot.
4. Twitter - I also find that being active on Twitter and developing a Twitter account that has a niche focus can also help you listen to what people are saying about your niche. This partly happens naturally (those you follow in your niche will share links) but there are also great tools including Tweetmeme (which shows you what is being retweeted in different categories) and other monitoring/search tools such as Twitter search (you can set up an RSS feed for different search terms) and tools built into Twitter clients (like TweetDeck which allows you to set up a column specifically for alerts). More and more useful tools are being set up for Twitter to help monitor what people are saying about your industry.

Listen to what is being said about you

The other use for some of the tools mentioned above (keyword alerts and the Twitter keyword monitoring) is that you can use them to alert you when someone is talking about you, your business, your blog or your brand specifically.

I’ve talked previously about setting up a vanity folder in your feed reader to help you do this so won’t go into great detail about it here - however it’s something that I’ve found particularly useful for a couple of reasons:

1. Building Relationships - when another blogger links to you it is useful to know about it so you can go and build a relationship with that blogger and their readers.
2. Reputation Management - from time to time you might also be mentioned on another site/blog/press in a more negative way. Knowing quickly about this is also important as it enables you to respond (if necessarily) or at least monitor developments.

Create Listening Spaces on Your Blog

Have you ever had a ‘conversation’ with someone where you simply could not get a word in edgeways? The person talked so fast and without taking a breath - to the point where there simply wasn’t space for you to be listened to.

Sometimes I get that same feeling while on blogs. It’s not that the blogger isn’t interested in their reader - it’s just that they get so excited about what they’re blogging about that they just don’t stop long enough to let others have a say.

One of the simplest ways to create these ‘listening spaces’ on a blog is to ask questions. Ask them at the end of your posts, ask them half way through the and even write posts that are nothing but questions.

Listen to the Questions Your Readers are Asking

One of the most important things to be on the listen out for is questions.

I remember one of my first teachers drumming into the class I was in that there was no such thing as a dumb question and that if one person asked a question it usually meant that others also had the same question going around in their minds.

As a result - when a reader asks you a question, you can bet that they’re not the only one thinking it.

Questions reveal potential topics to write about, problems with your site and opportunities to expand what you’re doing on your blog. Pay careful attention to them in the following areas:

1. comments section - this is the most obvious place for your readers to ask questions
2. your inbox - what questions are you getting from readers via your blog’s contact form?
3. search engine referral terms - often people arrive on your site having plugged a specific question into Google. Most stats packages will reveal these terms and phrases - keep on the look out specifically for questions - also check out 103bees - a tool that specifically monitors and collates questions being asked in your search stats.
4. questions typed into onsite search boxes - this is a goldmine of information, monitoring what people are searching for when they’re actually on your site will show you all kinds of needs, problems and challenges that your readers want to learn more about. Lijit is one tool that helps you track these questions.
5. ask readers for questions - from time to time it can be worth writing a post on your blog that specifically invites readers to ask a question.

Listen to what is working (and what isn’t)

The last thing I’ll add on the topic of listening before I open this topic up to others to share their thoughts is to listen by tracking what is and isn’t working on your blog.

This means setting up your blog with a good metrics tool (I use Google Analytics but there are other great ones out there) and regularly using it to work out what is readers are responding to on your blog.

Some places to start include:

• What posts are being read most?
• What posts are generating good conversation/comments?
• What posts are being linked to by others most?
• How are readers using your design? (use a tool like CrazyEgg to create a heatmap)
• What days of the week are people reading your site most on? What times of the day?
• What pages are people ‘bouncing’ from your site on (bounce rate shows how many people arrive on your blog and immediately leave)
• What posts are people spending most (and least) time on?
• What posts are you getting most negative feedback on?

It is easy to obsess on some of these stats - but it’s also easy to ignore the useful stuff in them that could help you improve your blog.

How else do you Listen in your blogging?

I’ve talked for way too long on a post about listening - so now it’s over to you.

What would you add? Do you use some of the above techniques? What has worked well for you? I’m all ears!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Listening - Principles of Successful Blogging #1

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