A Guest post by Josh Hanagarne – World’s Strongest Librarian

Two quotes:

From Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a blogger in possession of a good domain must be in want of some worthwhile comments.”

The second is the undisputed, best comment I ever received. It didn’t even matter that it was spam: “So so good. Your grd information blog is so wondrous and impotent. So so good.”

Of course, my first thought was, I’m not wondrous!

But seriously, it’s great to get comments. Don’t forget, though…someone out there has to do the commenting. So why do they do it?

Is it worthwhile to leave comments on other blogs?

I was a reader, but not a commenter

I’d never tried commenting as a traffic-building strategy, mainly because I’m not smart or patient enough to strategize. My brother once checkmated me in four moves during an unfortunate chess game I should have turned down.

Read article…

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mark Hayward. You can follow him on Twitter @mark_hayward.

Do you ever feel like you want to pull your hair out over the lack of return (you feel like) you’re getting from your small business blogging and social media efforts?

Man, sometimes using social media for small business promotion can be frustrating!

In my two most recent ProBlogger guest posts I discussed, How to Go Beyond Your Small Business Blog and Create a Social Media Footprint and 10 Tips for Blogging Your Way to Small Business Success.

But you should know, I was not always a proponent of blogging or social media.

Read article…

Have you ever considered producing an ebook for your blog readers? In this comprehensive post Ali Hale breaks down the process of how to do it.

There’s never enough time. In an ideal world, you’d be posting to your blog frequently, writing great guest posts, building relationships with other bloggers, and responding to every single comment … and all that’s more than you can manage. You might have considered writing an ebook as a companion to your blog, but you just can’t find the time or the energy for it.

You already know all the reasons to do it: you’ve downloaded your share of free ebooks from other blogs, and you’ve seen that:

• Free ebooks can be used as what Sonia Simone calls “cookie content”, to entice newsletter sign-ups
• Free ebooks can be a great traffic draw: they get twittered about and linked to
• Just having a free ebook available on your site will subtly shift readers’ perceptions: they’ll see you as one of the “big guys” of the blogging world

But, of course, an ebook is harder to create than a blog post. A 25-page ebook is 4,000 words or more; you have to edit and proof-read carefully (once people are emailing that ebook to one another, you can’t fix that embarrassing typo or broken link); you’ll need PDF and ebook cover software if you want it to look professional; you have to launch it with a bang…

Writing an ebook isn’t an easy undertaking, and it’s something a lot of bloggers never do. That’s why, if you do write a high-quality free ebook, you’re going to stand out.

Here’s how I wrote, published and launched my free ebook in just thirteen hours and how you could do the same. My time broke down like this:

• Writing an outline: 30 minutes
• First draft of content: 4 hours
• Adding some graphics: 1 hour 30 mins (mostly my boyfriend’s work!)
• Redrafting and editing, inserting all links: 3 hours
• Appendix of resources: 1 hour
• Creating a cover: 1 hour 30 mins
• Converting to pdf: almost instant!
• Final proof-read and link-checking: 15 minutes
• Launching and spreading the word: 1 hour 15 minutes

I spread the tasks above across four days: I’m a freelancer so my schedule’s quite flexible, but I do have to do a bit of paying work once in a while!

And here’s your 13-step guide to doing the same:

Step 1: Get an Idea

You need a clear concept for your ebook. An ebook isn’t a blog post – but it’s not a blog either: don’t make it a general overview of your niche (especially if it’s quite broad). Pick one category from your blog, or a topic which would make a series of blog posts.

I’d wanted to create a free ebook for a while, but it was one of those things I thought I’d get around to “when I have a bit more time”. Then I came up with an idea for a mini-series of two linked posts (Reframing Work #1: Ditching Drudgery and the Conventional View of “Work” and Reframing Work #2: Min Hours, Max Cash – or Do What You Love?) which would lead very naturally to the ebook (Quit Your Day Job). I decided I was going to go ahead and launch it, a week after the first post in the series. This led to…

Step 2: Tell Your Readers

Tell your readers that you’ll be bringing out a free ebook in a week or two weeks’ time. It’s amazing how a deadline – and public accountability – can motivate you!

You might want to make the announcement in a post, on Twitter, or to your newsletter list. Communicate a sense of excitement: tell readers you have a “treat” or “goodies” coming up. This is part of the pre-launch process of getting a buzz going. I personally find the word “freebie” can have a bit of a connotation of something cheap and rubbishy – but you might think differently!

Step 3: Write the Outline

If you write long blog posts, you might already be in the habit of outlining before you begin. With an ebook, this is crucial: you don’t want to write for hours only to find you’ve wandered far off-topic. Neither do you want to sit staring at a blank screen, wondering what you’re going to say next.

Open up a blank document or sit down with a piece of paper and write an outline before you go any further with your ebook. Everyone has different ways of doing this, but one which works well for me is:

• Spend five minutes mind-mapping: write down your ebook’s title or theme in the centre of a piece of paper, then jot down all the points that come to mind
• Eliminate any points which are too broad for the ebook’s scope. Order the rest in a logical sequence (I just jot a number next to each)
• Type or write out the list in order. These are your subsections or chapters in the ebook.
• Jot down at least two bullet points for each section, or a couple of sentences: these are the main points you’re going to make. Sometimes, you’ll want subheadings within each section.
• If you think of a great idea for a graphic, or a resource (book, blog, etc) to recommend, write that down here too.

It might sound complicated, but if you sit down for an uninterrupted half-hour, you can easily get a complete outline written.

Once you’ve got a list of sections and subsections, think about roughly how long each will need to be. Aim for a total of around 4,000 words: this is about right for a 25-page ebook set in a large font: I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

Step 4: Draft the Content

This step is the one which many bloggers find daunting – writing enough words to fill an ebook. If it seems overwhelming, try thinking about your ebook as a series of linked blog posts (with each subheading starting off a new post). Your outline really helps here, because it breaks writing your ebook into manageable chunks.

And these four tips should help too:

First: Get Rid of Distractions

It’s crucial that you avoid distractions while you’re writing. That means keeping away from emails, Twitter and Facebook till you’re done. You don’t need to write the whole ebook in one go – but try to give yourself a block of at least two hours to work on it, or set yourself the goal of drafting a certain number of sections.

If your family or housemates are likely to interrupt you, try heading off to a coffee shop or library for a few hours.

If you find it hard to concentrate, try using a full screen text program (I like Dark Room), or switch off your internet connection!

Second: Don’t Edit As You Write

This is your first draft, so forget any worries about the quality of your writing. Don’t keep editing sentences to try to make them perfect – just move on. You can come back and rewrite later: your current task is simply to get a complete draft down.

Third: Don’t Stop to Look Things Up

Don’t stop to look up links, quotes or statistics that you want to include. Just make a note to yourself in the body of the text. I tend to enclose these in square brackets [like this]. Stopping part-way through a paragraph or sentence breaks your flow … and it’s very easy to start looking up one quote and get distracted!

Fourth: Don’t Format While Drafting

Your finished ebook is going to be a visual masterpiece, with a cover page, section headings, subsection headings, bold text, italic text, lists, maybe tables and specially-formatted blockquotes…

Your first draft, however, should have few or none of these. It’s easy to get distracted with formatting, and it’s also inefficient to format before all the text’s written – you’ll find yourself changing a lot of things around.

Keep your formatting to a bare minimum while you’re drafting. You might find it useful to format headers and subheaders (make sure you know how to use styles in Word – don’t edit each header separately) – but the rest can wait.

Step 5: Add Any Graphics

Once the draft is complete, add any graphics that you want to include in your ebook. The type of graphics you use will depend on the topic of your ebook, but you might want to consider:

• Charts to show statistics in a visual, instant way
• Diagrams to explain complex concepts
• Illustrations or photographs to complement the text
• Small graphics to highlight tips, warnings or quotes

Don’t make the mistake of just using pictures to break up the text. If you use a large font size and use design elements well (just as you would in a blog post), then you don’t need to stuff your ebook with pictures. Graphics used for the sake of it don’t add much to the reading experience, and finding or creating suitable images can use up a lot of your time.

When you’re looking for graphics, be mindful of copyright laws. If you’re using images from Flickr licensed under Creative Commons, make sure you credit and link to the owner in the ebook. If you have a small budget for the ebook, you might consider buying stock photos from istockphoto or fotolia.

You should get your graphics in place at this stage because you may want to change around some of the text to explain or to tie in with the images you’ve chosen.

Step 6: Redraft and Edit Your Text

You’ve got your first draft done – the hardest part’s over. Now it’s time to revise, edit and polish your ebook until it shines!

As with the first draft, you need to find some uninterrupted time and space for this: it’s all too easy to make mistakes or forget to remove those “[notes to self]” when you’re getting interrupted.

It also helps if you follow a step-by-step method, working on one aspect of the redrafting and editing throughout the whole document, rather than trying to perfect each page as you go along.

My process for redrafting and editing is as follows:

• Edit for Structure
• Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links
• Edit for Flow and Tone

First: Edit for Structure

Your first round of edits deal with the “big picture”: making sure that your chapters or sections are in the right order and cover all the points you wanted to make. Start at page one and read, fairly quickly, through the whole ebook. Look out for:

• Sections which would work better in a different order
• Places where you’ve repeated yourself in two different sections
• Sections which are too short (you may need to expand and give more detail)
• Sections which are too long (cut any waffle!)

Second: Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links

Once you’ve got the broad structure right, you can decide where best to enter quotes and examples. This will depend on the format of your ebook, but some things you may want to consider are:

• Using an example, quote, tips box or case study to break up a long section of text
• Creating a pattern: eg. opening or ending each section with a quote or case study
• Putting all the links at the end of each sections for easy reference (even if you also link in the body of the text)

You may find that you need to move around a few sentences or paragraphs in order to make the quote, example or case study work well.

Third: Edit for Flow and Tone

Rewrite any sentences which sound clumsy or which are ambiguous. You might like to try reading your ebook aloud: this often highlights any over-long or complicated sentences!

This is also a good point to check that you’ve used a consistent tone of voice throughout your ebook. Did you start off chatty but then drop into a more formal style? If you’re not a naturally humorous writer, make sure that any jokes or puns you’ve included really are funny.

Step 7: Format Your Ebook

Now that the text is complete, go through and get everything into the right format. Set all your headers and subheaders, making sure that you use the “Styles and Formatting” feature of Word (or your chosen word processing program). Don’t set the font size and style each heading manually. It’s not only inefficient, it stops you making an automatic table of contents – more on that in a moment!

(You might want to read up on Styles and Formatting, if you’re not sure how to use this feature.)

Choose a modern, easy-to-read font for your text and for your headings. Make both text and headings quite large – bigger than you’d use in a document for work or school. As I mentioned in Step 3, I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

As well as formatting your section headings, you’ll also want to use some of the formatting options that you’re familiar with from blogging. This might include:

• Using bold to emphasise key points, and italics for emphasised words
• Setting out quotes in a different style (eg. indented, or in a box) from the main text
• Using a magazine-style “pull box” for quick tips
• Breaking some paragraphs into lists, to help keep the reader’s attention

You’ll also want to put a header or footer on each page with, at the very least, the page number. Consider including the title of the ebook in the header/footer on each page (in case readers print it out). You could also put your name, your copyright notice, or the URL of your blog.

Note that if you’re including a cover (and I recommend that you do), you can tell Word to use a different header and footer on the first page.

Step 8: Add a Table of Contents and Appendix

An easy way to make your ebook instantly stand out from the crowd is to add a table of contents and/or an appendix. Professional ebooks (and paper books!) have these – so why shouldn’t yours?

Table of Contents

If you’ve used Word’s Styles and Formatting feature to set up your headers, it’s really easy to add a table of contents. Just insert a new page at the start of your ebook, and (in Word 2007), go to the “References” tab, then click “Table of Contents” on the far left.

Word will automatically lay out the table with the headings, subheadings and page numbers. If you change the ebook after creating the table of contents, simply right-click on it and “update”. This is the table of contents from my ebook:

Appendix

In my ebook, I wanted to supply some ideas for further reading at the end. These didn’t fit with the body of the text, so I created an appendix.

Depending on your ebook’s subject, your appendix could be:

• A quick tutorial on something which some of your readers will understand but others won’t (you don’t want to put this in the middle of your ebook as those who “get it” will start skipping)
• A list of recommended resources, like websites, blogs, books, products, services…
• A “cheat sheet” for readers to print out – popular in technical fields
• A list of notes and references for each section – often in more scientific books

Creating an appendix is simply a matter of starting a new page and putting the header “Appendix” (or, if you want multiple appendices, “Appendix 1”, “Appendix 2” etc.)

Step 9: Create Your Front Cover – And a Graphic

All the hard work of writing and formatting the text is done: here’s the fun part – creating your ebook cover!

I’d recommend spending a couple of dollars when creating your cover. Look through istockphoto or fotolia for a great, eye-catching image. Ideally, you want something without too much detail (as you’ll be using a thumbnail of the cover pic on your blog, to advertise the ebook).

I’m no designer, and it took me some time to make a cover that didn’t look hopelessly amateur! You might want to enlist a friend with a good eye for design, though some quick tips are:

• Use a big, clear font for the title of your ebook
• Consider having a subtitle or strapline in a smaller font
• Stick to just two or three colours
• Come up with a few designs or layouts and pick the one you like best

Once you’ve put your cover in as the first page as your ebook, take a screenshot and save it as a .jpg. If you can afford to spend a bit more (currently $27), I highly recommend a piece of software called eCover Software Pro, which I’ve reviewed here. It allows you to “drop” that image onto a book-shaped template, so that it looks something like this:

It’s very straightforward and intuitive to use, and it’s a powerful way to send readers the signal that you’re a serious problogger.

Step 10: Convert Your Ebook to a PDF

When I first started creating ebooks, I tried out a lot of different free options for turning Word documents into PDF files. The problem was, they didn’t keep links unless the links were written out as a full URL – so www.aliventures.com would remain as a link, but Aliventures wouldn’t! This also meant that they didn’t keep in the links that “jump” the reader from the contents page to the entry that they’ve clicked on.

A few months ago, I bought version 8 of Adobe’s Acrobat software – which cost over $100. I realised that spending hours trying to put the links back in manually each time would cost me a lot more, in the long term. It is a big outlay when you’re starting out as a ProBlogger, so I’d recommend doing what I did – look on ebay for a slightly older version of Adobe (as I write this, 9 is the current version, so look for 8 or 7). This will be just as good for your purposes, and will cost a bit less than the latest.

You could also see if your workplace or college has Adobe Acrobat. Or ask on Twitter to see if a willing friend can convert it for you! (You’re welcome to send me a Tweet if I can lend a hand.)

The best free option I’ve used was pdf995, so if all else fails, give that a try!

Note: If you have Word 2007, you can use the “Publish as PDF” feature. I’ve not used this myself (since I have Adobe Acrobat) so I can’t vouch for how good it is or whether it will include all links. If anyone knows, do tell us in the comments!

Step 11: Final Proof-Read and Link Check

Once you’ve got your PDF file, go through and do one last check for typos. Try not to get tempted to do much editing at this stage … you could carry on tweaking for ever. Just check for anything that’s obviously wrong.

This is a good point to double-check that all the links are working – just in case anything hasn’t converted properly, or in case you put a link in wrong.

Step 12: Publish and Publicise

Publishing the ebook on your blog is easy, compared with all the work of creating it! You can either upload it using your blog software’s “upload” function (go to Media->Add New in Wordpress), or you can use an FTP program to do so.

Create a new post telling people about your ebook, using the cover image that you created (either with eCover Software Pro or as a “flat” looking image).

Then get the word out! Tweet about it, ask for retweets, send emails to blogger friends – though do make sure your ebook will be on-topic for their blog. You might even consider writing a press release to send to your local paper.

I decided to run a competition in connection with the free ebook launch, which helped to gather retweets and a bit of a “buzz”.

Step 13: Relax!

Finally, give yourself a well-earned break! Your ebook’s out there, and your blog’s getting a lot of new visitors. Get yourself a glass of wine, a beer or a mug of great coffee … and start thinking about your next ebook.

As well as writing ebooks, Ali Hale writes a blog on “getting more from life” at www.aliventures.com: you can get her twice-weekly posts straight to your feed reader.

In this post Dan Kaufman from Bar Zine shares some tips on writing Sharp Snappy Blog Posts.

When you write a story you’re lucky if you can get a reader beyond the first paragraph. This is true in print and it’s even worse online (a recent study by Jacob Neilson at http://tinyurl.com/mubtmr makes for interesting reading). After all, your post is just one out of millions online – and the difference can lie in how well written your copy is.

Writing is a craft that involves a continual learning process.

Having been a journalist and editor for the past 15 years (and I’m now a blogger as well) I still find myself learning – but there are some hard and fast techniques to make your copy snappier and more engaging. Here are some of the basics:

1) Write Short Sentences

Next time you pick up a book and can’t put it down, stop and have a look at the sentence length – you’ll often find the sentences are short and punchy. 32 words is the maximum for an article’s first sentence and while there are exceptions they ought to be rare. Aim to only have one point per sentence.

2) Use the Active Voice

Have a look at the following two sentences:

The cat chases the mouse

and

The mouse is being chased by the cat

Which one is punchier?

It’s the former because the subject (the cat) is doing something to the object (the mouse). As such, it makes sense to have the subject appear in the sentence before the object. In other words, the sentence is written using the active voice (whereas “The mouse is being chased by the cat” is passive).

Using the active voice is more direct and requires less words – and the less words, the snappier the sentence becomes.

3) Write in the Present Tense

Which of the following headlines seems punchier?

PM halts peace talks

Or

PM halted peace talks

Unless your blog post takes the form of a hard news story you should use the present tense. Even hard news headlines are written in the present tense to make them seem more immediate.

4) Use Positive Language

This means avoiding negative words such as no, not and didn’t when appropriate. You’ll see why when you look at the following example:

Troops have not pulled out of war zone

Vs

Troops stay in war zone

The bottom example reads better since, as with using active voice, making sentences positive often makes them snappier. We also changed the tense from past to present.

5) Write in a conversational tone

A lot of people don’t realise that good writing means using a conversational tone – albeit with better grammar than you would use when talking to a friend in a bar.

Avoid hype, pretentious words, jargon and acronyms – instead of impressing readers it’s a turn off. You should never talk down to your reader by using language they may not understand and you should never assume they know something they may not. Unless you’re trying to spin something or confuse, use simple, clear and direct language. As the old saying goes, if you confuse your readers you lose your readers.

George Orwell put it another way in The Politics of the English Language.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity,” he wrote. “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”

Dan Kaufman publishes Bar Zine (barzine.com.au), where he reviews Sydney bars. He also writes for The Sydney Morning Herald and teaches online journalism at UTS.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

As I look back on the posts that have connected most with my readers it is often posts in which I’ve shared something of my own personal story and experience that seem to draw readers into a deeper engagement.

Sometimes it’s not what you write but who you are and the stories that you tell that seem to make content compelling.

Many readers don’t just want information - they want an emotional connection and they want to know that someone real is on the other end of what they’re writing.

To put it another way - Compelling content often is produced by compelling people.

Unfortunately many blogs can be faceless and anonymous ‘pages of content’ that fail to go beyond the conveying of information to creating connections.

Be Yourself

This doesn’t mean you necessarily have to be the most interesting person in the world - just be real - just be authentic. Tell your readers about your experiences, share your successes and failures, give them a glimpse into who you are when you’re not doing what they normally see you do, consider using photos and video of you that help you tell your stories.

Be Relevant

Of course you don’t want to throw in personal stories just for the sake of it - work at finding ways to share yourself in your content in ways that are relevant to the topic you’re writing about. Tell about your experiences and opinions on your topic rather than just reporting on the topic in a detached kind of way.

2 Examples

1. The Master Himself - If you’re looking for a good example of someone who does this - check out Chris Brogan. He’s compelling because he writes smart stuff and useful content - but it’s taken to another level because he shares so transparently about who he is and how he’s growing and developing in the things he’s writing about. He’s constantly sharing his stories, feelings and experiences but also writing (and creating video and pictorial) content in a very personable way.

2. A Personal Example - Let me share a quick video (3.39 min) now that is both an example of how I’ve previously (a year ago) injected something of myself (and my family) into my blog but also examines some basic principles of getting personal on a blog:

Essential Reading

Here’s a link to the series of posts on getting personal on your blogs that I mentioned in the video. It contains 11 ways to get more personal that I think would make great reading if you’re interested in exploring this topic further.

A Note for Anonymous Bloggers

Keep in mind that this series of posts on creating compelling content contains a series of ‘principles’ that won’t all apply to every blog.

I’m very aware that each blogger has their own style and that some choose to blog anonymously or don’t want to strongly tie their own personal brand to their blog. However even an anonymous blogger can develop a ‘personal’ voice and share experiences/stories from their lives that don’t reveal who they are or present them as an egomaniac.

Your Homework for Today

Today’s task is simple - post something on your blog with a personal flavor. Do keep it on topic for your blog but share a story, shoot a video, post a picture, recount an experience that you’ve had, link to where people can connect with you in a more personal setting (perhaps it’s about sharing your Twitter account), share a failure or success you’ve had, share something humorous. It doesn’t really matter what it is - the key is to find a way to do it so that it remains on topic but creates a ‘connection’ with readers. Please do share what you do in comments below - I’d love to hear how it goes and check it out!

What You Said on the Topic

When I asked readers to share what makes compelling content to them one of the strongest themes that came out of the 114 comments was that compelling content is personal. Many people talked about how it’s about touching emotions and telling stories. Here’s just a handful of the many comments that picked up this theme:

• “When the content tells a story I feel compelled to read it. The story could be about a mistake or a benefit the writer has experienced. For me, it makes it more compelling if I can relate to the story as well. Perhaps I have experienced something similar.” - Andrew
• “I like to see contents that are written in the casual-style. I also like to see some humor and personal experiences in the content.” - Bash Bosh
• “I like it when it’s personal and it’s directed at me. It makes me pay attention to it more. It also makes me feel that the author isn’t just some kind of robot.” - The Man Revolution
• “The bloggers that reveal more about themselves, and get intimate with their readers is what I appreciate the most.” - Beth
• “Content that is personable, true from the blogger’s heart, sincere, genuine, unadulterated and unfiltered will really draw me in. - Celes
• “an honest and authentic style always grabs the readers attention. Whether an exciting adventure, a funny retelling of a story, some new angle or intro to new topic, tutorial or just plain informational, it’s most important if the author writes w/o an agenda, is open minded, honest and here’s that word again, authentic.” - XO
• “Apart from content that has utility (i.e., something i can use related to the blog subject matter), I think I’m looking for a connection. It boils down to creating an organic appeal via stories, humor, self-disclosure, oops!, self-reflection, etc.” - Jed
• “I look for a personal voice in a web site. One of the things I like about problogger, and Darren’s writing in particular, is the “I” we are all warned so heavily to stay away from. “I’ve identified 7 principles”; what do YOU have to say? Now we’re in a conversation instead of me just dumbly nodding my head and shelling out dough for a magic bullet that only does my business collateral damage and never helps.” - Laurie

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Today we’re examining principle #6 of creating compelling content for your blog but to be honest I feel really strange writing it - because it’s too easy and really should go without saying….

However it’s something I know most bloggers struggle with, despite knowing it - so here goes….

Creating compelling content for a blog doesn’t just happen.

Unless you’re something of a freak (or have a great gift) creating compelling content takes a lot of time and effort. Really it is the same as any creative process - it takes time.

Tangent - over the weekend just gone I had the honor to attend the world premier of an amazing (and controversial) documentary by the name of the 10 Conditions of Love (you can see a trailer for it here on YouTube). The film has been in the headlines here in Melbourne as a result of the Chinese trying to stop it being shown.

The director (Jeff Daniels) is a friend and we know he’s put a great deal of work into creating the documentary. In fact by day he works as a secondary school teacher and so his documentary work has largely been an after hours passion. This particularly film took 7 years to make!

I reflected on the way home from seeing the film to my wife that apart from it being an inspiring story that one of the things that made the biggest impact for me was Jeff’s dedication to the task. 7 years of dreaming, researching, filming, editing…. to create a 55 minute end result.

Having seen the film I feel the 7 years of crafting this film was well worth it - it’s a thought provoking and inspiring tale (can you tell I’m a fan?) - but in addition to the challenging story I was challenged by Jeff’s own incredible effort in putting the film together. I came away asking myself whether I put a similar kind of time and effort into the creation of my own content?

Great blog posts don’t just happen. However when I talk to bloggers about their blogging workflow I get the distinct impression that many of us don’t actually put a lot of time aside to develop our posts. While there are times when whipping out a quick post on a basic idea can connect with your readership I’ve found that it is when I set aside extended periods of time to work on a post that it raises in quality to the next level.

I know the pressure of feeling you have to get out a post to keep your posting schedule moving but why not commit to working on one post each week that you work on each day over the week.

Your Homework for Today:

It’s the start of another week - so today choose a larger topic that will take some thought and effort and set aside time each day over the coming week to really put some effort into the writing of the post. Set aside at least 10-15 minutes each day of this week to think about that post

• to research what others are saying on the topic
• to look at it from new angles and form a unique opinion on the topic
• to find examples and quotes to add new depth to the post
• to check it for errors
• to make it ‘look’ good (by finding pictures and taking extra time to format it well)

To help you through this process I’ve outlined 10 points in the process of writing a blog post that taking a little extra time can help you to improve your post.

You don’t need to spend 7 years on the post but see what happens when instead of whipping together a post on the run you take time to ‘craft’ it into something more.

Note: Not every blog needs to have long in depth posts to be successful. Many successful blogs take the approach of creating lots of short, sharp and ‘link’ based content - however even many of these throw in longer more thoughtful posts from time to time. If this isn’t the ’style’ of your blog then I understand your hesitation in mixing things up - but there’s no harm in trying something new on your blog from time to time. It’s all a part of experimenting with new voices and styles - you never know, you might just be surprised by the result!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

A guest post from Olivia from Frugal Bon Vivant (a blog about enjoying the good life on a budget).

We’ve already established that doing a giveaway can be an excellent way to promote your blog. So now that you’ve decided to do a giveaway – and it’s been live for three hours with zero entries – what do you do? If your goal is to reach new readers you’ll need to promote the giveaway – especially if you don’t have an established reader base yet. Here are 6 tips for promoting your blog giveaway:

1. Give away something of value

This sounds like a given, but there are so many small hodgepodge giveaways out there already (personally, I love Etsy giveaways, but hardcore promotion of a $5 item isn’t going to earn you points with most people). A good rule of thumb is a $50 minimum value - if you’re planning to promote to a new audience. Plus, many blog giveaway promotion sites require the prize value to be $50 or greater.

2. Keep it simple!

Make sure the entry requirements scale with the giveaway’s value. For example, if you’re giving away a $50 gift card make the entry requirements quick & easy, like “leave a comment with the words ‘i heart cupcakes!’” Requiring six steps to enter is a quick way to see your incoming visitors bounce. Requiring just a comment and then allowing people to get “bonus points” by following you on Twitter, re-tweeting, friending on Facebook, and subscribing via RSS will create much more goodwill. In my experience, only 17% of the entrants did a bonus option.

3. Keep it short

I found that one week is a good time limit. If you let it drag on too long, your readers will stray, but if it’s too short you won’t get as much promotion and traffic out of your giveaway.

4. Leverage your network

Promote to your existing blog network (via Twitter, Facebook Pages, reminders at the bottom of new posts etc). When appropriate, share the giveaway with your personal network too. Don’t be pushy or repetitive, but posting a link on your personal Facebook page with a “Hey guys, I’m giving away xxx on my blog tomorrow!” can generate quite a bit of traffic from friends and acquaintances that are interested in you, but might not have checked out your blog before.

5. Submit your giveaway to blogs

There are many blogs devoted to listing giveaways, but most of them are a waste of time. I submitted my giveaway to about 30 sweepstakes and giveaway websites, and only saw multiple entries from four sites, but overall those 4 sites generated 85% of my contest entries! (see chart) Another idea is to look for other bloggers in your niche who are doing giveaways and swap links — by mentioning each others’ giveaways. Remember, this needs to beneficial for both of you, so think about what would make you want to swap, if another blogger requested the same from you
.

6. Expect attrition

Anytime you’re doing a giveaway, you’re going to get more traffic, followers, subscribers etc, but when the giveaway is over some of them are inevitably going to drop you like third period French. Fortunately, there will still be some entrants who saw enough value in your blog to stick around. The day my giveaway ended, I had 6x the RSS subscribers and followers on Twitter than what I had started with. Within a few days though, 10% of them unsubscribed/unfollowed – which to me was an acceptable attrition rate and I was stoked to see that I was creating enough value after the giveaway for the 90% of my new “friends” who stayed.

If you’re still in the planning stages of your giveaway, try to think of creative ways to do a cheap giveaway… Have you won anything recently? Or received a gift that you can’t return? I gave away a Sansa slotRadio mp3 player (valued at $99) that I won from another blog giveaway that had only 21 entries – fairly good odds – so shipping was my only cost.

How have you successfully promoted your blog giveaway?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

In this guest post Celestine Chua shares tips on how to get your blog some press coverage.

Getting featured in press and media is probably like a dream come true for many bloggers. If you are thinking that you need to be an accomplished name online like Darren Rowse or John Chow who gets a six-figure annual paycheck before you are in any position to get media coverage, think again.

In 2008 last year, I left my day job at the age of 24 to pursue my fierce passion to help others be their best self and live their best life. I started my personal development blog CelestineChua.com, intending it to be the cornerstone of my business. I had no experience in Web 2.0 web development/internet marketing (The last time I had a proper site was 6-years ago and the landscape had totally changed then) .

In less than 4 months, I got my first media coverage in a popular local newspaper, with circulation of 300,000. My second media coverage came the next month. Then came the third. And the fourth. And more.

To date, I’ve been featured in press and media at least 6 times, which have resulted in a new flock of loyal readers, huge flood of life coaching sign ups, increased awareness levels of my business/blog, heightened credibility, multiple collaboration proposals by interested parties, numerous speaking engagements, just to name a few. So many people who have registered for my services that I have to put up a waiting list, which is stretching till Nov ‘09 at the moment (that’s 4 months away). At the rate it is going, the waiting list isn’t showing any signs of shortening. And this is definitely not the last of it.

If I were to look at the trigger point for my results today, it was the first media coverage which helped put me on the map. The amazing thing is, none of these came about due to any personal relationships or media contacts. Media coverage is something that you can get, whether you are a newbie blogger or a seasoned veteran. In this article, I’ll openly share the strategies I used to secure my media coverage.

Benefits of Being Featured in Press

So why should you seek media coverage? Here’s four key benefits:

1. Distinctiveness.

Let’s face it - Online marketing channels are exhausted to death by right about every blogger out there. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, forums, commenting, article directories, guest posting, writing list posts, writing pillar articles - You name it, everyone’s doing it.

While these were probably the key success strategies of the past right at the time when Yaro Starak first wrote the Blogging Profits Blueprint, they have since dwindled to become steps to putting yourself at parity level with the rest. I’m not saying that these steps aren’t important - They certainly are, and you should continue putting efforts into them. The question is what, then, sets you apart from the others?

Press isn’t going to be the one thing that sets you apart from the rest, but it is one of the best ways to do that today, especially since getting a press/media feature is totally underutilized by bloggers. Just because you are operating a blog doesn’t mean you should stay clear from traditional marketing vehicles. In fact, you should leverage on as many mediums as you can to gain the maximum exposure. If you get a press coverage, it’s certainly going to put you in a totally different position in your readers’ minds.

When I first started CelestineChua.com in Dec ‘08, I realized that there were about thousands of personal development blogs out there, and I had to do something big to set myself apart from all other blogs. Press instantly stood out as one of the ways I could use to do that, and it proved itself to be an immense tool to my results.

2. Exposure to new audience.

The people who check out the press regularly are quite distinct from blog readers, so being featured in press gives you access to a new audience group. The media I’ve been featured in so far have a circulation of about 200k~300k on average. A good number of them have turned into loyal readers on my site; and many have gone on to share my site with their own networks. Within this large base of audience you can reach, there will be a good handful who are interested in what you have to offer and become loyal readers/users of your service. This is going to be especially critical when you are first starting out.

3. New opportunities.

With each media coverage I get, what’s hot on the trails are new readers, new people interested in my coaching services, new collaboration proposals by people in the industry and new speaking engagements. In fact, it was my first media coverage which put me officially on the map - everything just took off by itself afterward.

4. Credibility.

Features in traditional media automatically instill “credibility” in the subject that is featured (I’m not talking about paid advertising, of course). This is unless the article is writing you in a bad light, which isn’t likely to happen if you follow the steps in the 2nd half of the article. Most reporters are really nice people - if you work hand-in-hand with them and help them to your best ability, they will reciprocate this kindness too.

My media features have been incredibly helpful in establishing credibility in what I do. I’m in the personal development/life coaching industry, where age of the person is often used as a measure of his/her skill as a coach even though it isn’t an accurate measure. Prior to starting my blog, I had already spent many years intensely growing and helping others and had amassed a huge array of personal winning strategies and learnings. Not only that, growth is a continuous journey and I’m constantly developing myself to self-improve and better help others. With the multiple media coverages, I was able to get strong endorsement on my credibility and expertise. It has since brought me a whole list of coachees who in their 20s, 30s, 40s and even late 50s, who go on to provide great testimonials. Age is clearly no longer the issue.

So, How Do I Get Featured in Press?

Now the magic question comes - “So how exactly do I get featured in media?” I’ve lined this out into a simple, easy to follow 3 step formula. Let’s explore each step.

1. Create an absolutely enticing news story.

This is the most important step out of the 3 steps. The newsworthiness of your news angle is going to pretty much determine if your story gets featured or not. Newsworthiness means how intriguing your story is to others. Reporters are always on the lookout on what’s the latest and most exciting in the world now. If you can offer them a news story that’s absolutely irresistible and “breakthrough”, they will want to cover it.

To do that, it doesn’t mean that you have to be elected into the White House, win the Oscar or invent the vaccine for H1N1. Coming up with a good news angle just takes some element of creativity. Think about what the readers of the particular press are interested in. Your message should be one that appeals to the readers. Check out the previous editions to get a sense of the kind of stories they like to run. Coming up with an excellent news angle may mean creating a story or a movement out of nothing. (i.e., launching a new book which the world has never been seen before, doing something really viral and unique). Checkout 25 Brainstorming Techniques for 25 different ways to brainstorm for out-of-the-box ideas.

Think about these questions - What is so unique about you and what you are doing? What sets you apart from everyone else in your industry? Why should everyone know about you/your business? These should be related to your Unique Selling Proposition, which is a fundamental strategy for anyone who wants to succeed in their business/blog. (If you don’t have a USP defined yet, spend some time to craft it out first!)

I’ve learned from my media coverage that one of the best ways to create a newsworthy story is to use your personal story. Everyone has their story to tell. What’s unique about yours? My personal story was that I ditched my USD $50K/year Fortune 100 career to pursue my passionto help others live their best life, all at the age of 24. There were 3 big reasons how this was newsworthy:

1) I completely went against all types of social norms in my country (I live in Singapore which has an Asian culture and largely conformist tendencies). The most common values among Asians are financial stability and job security. Many people typically put money first and see the pursuit of passion as a luxury. Yet, I did the compete opposite - I put my passion before money. To many around me, what I did was deemed as bold, courageous, vivacious, somewhat defiant, possibly crazy, or inspiring even. Whatever it was, it was definitely not ordinary.

2) What made the story even more unconventional was I had a highly coveted career in a Fortune 100 company. Companies on the Fortune 100 list are highly prestigious and sought after by employees. I tossed away what society considered to be a conventional, golden path - right when the recession was kicking into full gear, no less! - for my passion.

3) My previous salary of USD $50K/year was considered to be high in my country, especially at my age. The average paycheck of my peers would be around half of that. People typically look upon one’s salary as an indication of one’s worth and have a habit of comparing earnings with others, especially in Asia. By very transparently and openly putting my salary right smack in my press release title, it was a great way to catch the eye of editors.

How about you? What’s your story and what makes it newsworthy? Here are some helpful articles on how to create a newsworthy story:

Get Your Message Out: Pitch Your Story

What Makes Something Newsworthy

How to Find a Newsworthy Story Angle

Spend some time to get your news angle right, and don’t even proceed to the next step unless you are absolutely sure that you have a totally irresistible news angle to pitch.It was after some brainstorming that I finally arrived at my final idea. Before that, I just refused to move to the next step because I didn’t think the ideas were strong enough. If you don’t have a highly newsworthy story to begin with, you will just be wasting your time with the next 2 steps.

Note: As you create a newsworthy story, remember to stay true to the core message and theme of your blog. While the thought of getting coverage is definitely very enticing, don’t become so eager that you lose sight of the original intent of your blog. You can certainly get featured on the press if you do something totally out of the world like running around naked in the middle of the expressway during peak hours, but that isn’t going to get you the kind of coverage you want.

2) Write Your Press Release.

After you have come up with an absolutely enticing news story, the next step is to write the actual press release. If you don’t have the luxury of a PR team (which would include me and probably most bloggers), you need to get down and dirty and write the release yourself. It’s not such a bad thing since you have complete control of how it’s written. Here are some links to check out on how to write a press release, complete with template samples:

How to Write a Press Release (PR Web Direct)

How to Write a Press Release (Publicity Insider)

Be sure that the press release you write is your absolute best and vet it repeatedly for mistakes before you move to the next step.

3) Send it to everyone u can reach

After writing the press release, it’s now time to send it to all the editors. Some people probably prefer to select a few key channels and send to those. My personal motto is to just use the shotgun approach of Ready - Fire - Aim. Since you have already taken some time out to write the release, might as well just send it to as many (relevant) channels as possible and let them decide if they want to run the story. This includes newspapers, magazines, online portals, or even radios and TV if you are interested. You can easily get the contacts from their websites or just by looking through the papers and magazines for the email addresses.

After Sending the Press Release

At this point, there’s nothing you can do but wait. You might want to get the phone number and give a call to just check if they received your press release. Depending on how popular the media channel is, the editors can receive anywhere from tens to even thousands of press releases every day, so a follow-up call might be good just to bring their attention to your release. Personally, I never did any follow-up since I got their repsonses quite promptly.

Usually, if your story has been picked for publishing, you will be notified anywhere from within the day to maximum 1 week. It depends on the type of stories they have planned for their papers and when they are running those stories. Beyond 1 week, it’s safe to assume that your press release has not been picked.

If You Are Called For An Interview

If you are contacted for an interview, congratulations! The reporter will either interview you over the phone or schedule a time/date for a face-to-face interview. If you are getting a decent feature, they will probably arrange for a photo shoot. I had done a series of phone interviews, face-to-face interviews and photo shoots where the photographers come down to my house, since my room is pretty much my ‘office’ where I write my blog.

Throughout the interview, be clear on your message you want to drive home (whether it’s on publicizing your blog/business, establishing your expertise, etc), and articulate it clearly and concisely. You can’t control how the story is being written, but you can increase chances of your message being featured by being singly-focused in your delivery during the interview. Be professional, open and personable as you share your thoughts.

At the end of the interview, check with the reporter on when the feature is coming out and whether they will be featuring the URL. The caveat is most press don’t feature web addresses as it is seen as a form of advertising. Try to rope their help in publishing the URL. Even if it can’t be published, the world doesn’t end there. People are smart - Many people went online to search for my name in Google or Facebook after reading about my coverage and eventually found me and my personal development blog. Bottomline is, if the coverage resonates with the reader, the reader will find ways to find you.

Getting the Coverage!

Of course, things don’t end after the interview is out. Here are some things to do after that:

• 1 day before the coverage is out, do an mass announcement on your blog and to all your friends. Let them know that your feature is coming out and prep them up. This helps create hype and excitement!
• Enjoy the new stream of traffic and opportunities you will get on the day of the feature. I remember I was getting new emails by the minute when my first feature was out.
• With the article out, leverage on it. Create a media section and use it as an archive for your media features. Share it with your readers through an announcement. Include it as part of your elevator pitch if you want. I put a reference to my press/media features in a corner of my header, so new visitors can immediately see that.
• Maintain good connections with the reporters and media houses for future collaborations
• Continue to create new stories for coverage in the future. Be on the lookout for newsworthy things you can do to get ongoing coverage. The good thing is, once the first coverage is in, subsequent ones will typically get easier. Out of all my coverages, some of them were solicited, and some were initiated by the reporters who read about me either through the existing coverage or other channels.

What to do if you didn’t get any coverage?

If you didn’t get any responses in your first attempt, don’t feel dismayed. Go back and review the 3 steps above. Was your news story enticing? Was your press release well-written? Did you send the release to as many different media as you can find? Check against the stories that have been running in the particular news channel for the past 1-2 weeks and try to spot the differences between those stories and your stories. Why were those stories being run and not yours? How can you create a story that’s more newsworthy than any of those? From there, refine your story. There’s some possible reasons. Sometimes, it might be the theme of your story wasn’t aligned with the type of topics the press wanted to run at the time.

Whatever it is, work on improving your news angle and your press release. You might want to improvise on what you have now, or totally work on a new angle (which might be needed if your original news angle was time-sensitive, which meant it would be outdated in due course). Then, wait for about 2-months before you send your new press release to send to the editors. The reason for 2-months is because you don’t want to overwhelm the editors with your submissions. You don’t want to get to end up having your email blacklisted in their address books.

Don’t give up - as long as you keep trying and doing, you are bound to get better and better. Here’s a favorite quote on mine on success: ìSuccess is not built on success. Itís built on failure. Itís built on frustration. Sometimes itís built on catastrophe.î - Sumner Redstone Chairman. As long as you keep working on it, you will reap the fruits of your labor in time to come.

Hope this article has been helpful to you in getting your press release . I’ll love to connect with you, so please let me know what you think!

Celestine Chua chose her passion over money when she left her high paying Fortune 100 career in 2008. she dedicates herself to helping others others achieve their goals and dreams through her popular personal development blog CelestineChua.com and 1-1 life coaching.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Have you ever been in a blogging rut?

You start out blogging with loads of fresh ideas and inspiration but after months of creating unique content you hit a wall!

You feel like you’re saying the same stuff over and over and instead of sitting down to blog each day with excitement you stare at that blinking cursor on a blank page and slip into a zombie like trance.

Of course your readers might be in a similar trance-like state - because while the things you say are all valid and make good points your posts have begun to merge into one and have lost some of their freshness…..

If I’m describing your experience of blogging I’ve got two things to say to you:

1. You’re not alone - most bloggers go through this.
2. IT’S TIME TO SHAKE THINGS UP!

In our last post in our series on Creating Compelling Content on a blog I talked about experimenting with different voices in your blogging because it helped you to find your ‘blogging mojo’ or voice as a blogger. The other benefit of trying new voices on a blog is that I find it ‘wakes up’ readers and provides them with something fresh and different. It can also ‘wake up’ you as a blogger as it presents you with a new challenge and way of approaching your topic.

In a sense when you experiment with a new ‘voice’ or style of writing you are doing something a little ’surprising’ with your readers that can grab their attention - particularly those who’ve been reading your blog for a while and who become a little zombie like in their reading.

Surprise Your Readers

Track with most successful blogs for a few weeks and you’ll find that from time to time many of them throw curve balls or surprises at their readers in one way or another. They often have a habit of presenting content that is a little left of center that is attention grabbing and/or refreshing.

Blogging is a medium that has always been a playful medium where creativity is valued so why not go with this and do something a little different in the next day or two with your blogging.

How to Be Surprising?

This might be a bit of a hard question to answer because being surprising is by nature doing something unexpected - but there are many ways to do something that can snap your readers out of a trance. Here’s a few that come to mind:

1. Write something controversial - if your blog is usually fairly middle of the rode and doesn’t express too many opinions throwing in a strongly worded opinion piece can definitely stir things up a little.
2. Argue Against Your Normal Opinion - sometimes throwing a post into the mix of your blog that plays devils advocate or that explores a very different point of view can be refreshing. Example: in my post What’s Wrong with Blogging? I asked readers to tell me what they don’t like about blogging. While it’s kind of an odd post to have on a blog that argues the case FOR blogging it was well received by readers.
3. Use an Eye Catching Image - just adding a striking image to a post can really lift it from ‘blah blah blah’ to ‘compelling’
4. Using Humor/Satire - I still get readers telling me how my post ‘ProBlogger launches PayPerTweet‘ grabbed their attention back on April fools day in 2008.
5. Use a Metaphor - Use an unexpected illustration from life to explore a topic on your blog - Examples: Lessons from an Umbrella Salesman - Blogging in Formation (Lessons from a Goose) - What McDonalds Taught me about Blogging - Lessons from Tower Defense on How to Reinvent Your Blog.
6. Use a Different Medium - throw in a video, a screen cast, a podcast, some pictures - mixing up your mediums can grab attention, connect with readers in a new way and show a different side of you as a blogger
7. Design - changing your design or even just adding a new logo can give your blog a new ‘look’.
8. Expanding Topics to Related Areas - most blogs have a fairly well defined niche that they stick to but in most cases there are topics that surround that niche that can be good to dip into at times. For example here at ProBlogger I tend to focus mostly upon techniques to improve a blog - but occasionally dip into the topic of health issues for bloggers like in this week’s post on ‘Nimble Fingers‘. While still on topic it’s a little ‘different’ to normal (as observed by quite a few comments and emails I had in response to the post).

Extra Tip - Coming up with fresh and surprising content on a blog takes work but also is about listening to the crazy little ideas that pop into your head from time to time. For me they usually start as bizarre ideas that come while I’m halfway through doing something else - the key for me is to capture the ideas as they come and then put aside time to make them a reality.

While it takes intentionality and work the benefit of such surprises is that sometimes loyal and long term readers fall into a bit of a trance with a blog - throw something a little out of the blue and surprising once in a while and you can reignite the reader relationship and give them a bit of renewed energy for your blog.

An added bonus of these kinds of ’surprising moments’ on a blog is that it’s also often these blue things that generate the most buzz on other sites and create incoming links as other bloggers or Twitter users link up to show you what you’re experimenting with on your blog.

Your Homework for Today

Your homework today is to set aside 15 minutes to ‘play’. Grab a pen and paper or a market and a whiteboard and spend some time mind mapping. I’ve outlined how to create a mind map previously - but write a word that has something to do with your blog in the middle of your page and then begin to brainstorm other words, topics, ideas that relate to that word.

Nothing is too crazy or left field while you’re doing this exercise. Just let your mind wonder and be creative as you ‘play’ with your topic. You might not come up with any concrete ideas but even in doing this exercise you’re giving your brain a chance to explore your topic in a different way and you might just unlock something that sparks into an idea you can use down the track.

I try to set aside short periods of time for this type of activity each week - sometimes I get lots of ideas, sometimes I get none - but over time it’s injected a lot of creativity and surprises into what I do.

What You Said on the Topic

Before I began this series of posts on compelling content I asked readers to submit their own ideas on what makes content compelling. Here’s what some of them said on related topics to this post:

• “Content is compelling when it is new. New information, a new perspective, a new way of dealing with something.” - Cathy
• “Unusual perspectives. I like to read about things that are weird and interesting.” - Elizabeth
• “Something that takes a new, fresh look at an issue.” - Alisa
• “A different perspective on a popular topic is compelling.” - hollywoodlvwork
• “Sometimes compelling content for me is the kind of article that leaves me reeling a little - it leaves me shaking my head and realizing how little I knew about the topic because the author has explored it in a way that I hadn’t considered before. In this way it is ’shocking’ - not because it’s controversial or bad - but because it’s given me a completely new perspective on a topic I thought I had little more to learn about.” - Grant
• “To me, “Compelling content” doesn’t need to be new information. Rather, I’d like to gain new perspective on existing ideas and be reminded that I’ve always known those principles.” - Takuya

What do you have to add on the topic? I’d love to hear the ideas that come out of your mind mapping homework above. I’m also keen to hear of your previous experiences with ’surprising’ things you’ve done on your blog?

This post continues my series of posts on Creating Compelling Content on your Blog. So far we’ve covered being in tune with your readers, creating reader interaction and experimenting with different voices.

A special thanks to Kate from Soy Sauce Carnival for the cartoon at the top of this post!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Today Ali Hale from Aliventures shares some thoughts that build upon a recent post I wrote on finding your blogging voice.

Darren’s recent poll on How Long Have You Been Blogging suggests that over half ProBlogger’s readers have been blogging for under a year (and of those, a sizeable proportion have yet to launch their blog).

It’s a difficult stage to be at – and I know, because I’m there with a new blog at the moment. Checking stats daily (or hourly), getting over-excited about every comment, wondering how on earth to figure out what your readers want when you don’t have many of them … and that’s if you even manage to overcome your desire for perfectionism, or your nerves, long enough to get your blog off the ground!

So what can new bloggers do to make the early stages a bit easier? Three things that can help are:

• 1. Looking at the experiences and early posts of current big names in the blogosphere
• 2. Making a checklist of what really needs to be done before your launch, your revamp or your big promotional push
• 3. Slowly turning the focus of your blog from “me the blogger” to “you the reader”

Even Big Names Started Out Small

In blogging, very few people start off with a ready-made audience or with the financial backing to make an instant splash (socialites like Arianna Huffington excepted). The majority of bloggers on the “A list” today started off with zero readers, and grew gradually.

Perhaps one of the best-known examples is Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. Leo’s first post was in February 2007; he now has 125,000 subscribers, and has just released an ebook about Zen Habits’ success. In the ebook, he admits that in the early days, “I asked a few friends to leave some comments, just so that the blog wouldn’t look so empty.”

However amazing the bloggers you look up to are now, there was a point in time when none of them had ever written a blog post – or even heard of a blog. So if you had some blogging mis-steps to begin with, take heart: Yaro Starak, of Entrepreneur’s Journey writes in part five of his business timeline about how “although I had installed a blog on BetterEdit.com as early as November 2004 I had rarely made new posts.”

Your Voice Develops With Time

I often feel that I lack a strong “blogging voice” – partly because I write for several different blogs as a freelancer, so tend to adapt my style a lot to the needs of various audiences. There are many bloggers whose voice I admire, and even feel a bit intimidated by; it seems to come so easily to them.

It was only when I started digging right back into some great blog-writers’ archives that I realised everyone starts out sounding a bit stilted. Here’s a quote from a very early post by James Chartland, of Men with Pens fame:

• Tell potential clients what you will do. Be exact and concise. Cover everything and provide all the details.
• Ask a question about the project. Show interest and that you have paid attention to what the client needs.

(from How to Be a Professional Freelancer)

There’s nothing wrong with the language used there (James is a copywriter, after all), but it’s … a bit bland and ordinary. Frankly, if you’re a current Men with Pens reader, you probably wouldn’t recognise it as James – just compare it with this:

The train trip there was great. I love trains. The city was great, too. (Though I was heard to often mumble, “There’s a lot of people,” throughout the week.) The hotel was okay (I’ve seen better), the sights were amazing and the attractions were fun. Oh, and I went shoe shopping with Naomi. (For sneakers. Please.)

(from What James Did This Summer and Where He Got the Money)

This shows several hallmarks of James’ style: use of dialogue, chatty but zingy language, and a certain willingness to bend the rules of grammar (“For sneakers. Please.” probably aren’t sentences that your crusty English teacher would approve of.) Even the title of the post is much more engaging and personable.

So don’t spend hours writing posts and deleting them – just start getting content out there. The more you write, and the more you share your writing with an audience, the closer you’ll come to finding your true blogging voice.

What Actions Do You REALLY Need to Take?

If you’re currently planning a blog, or waiting to relaunch or restart an existing one, don’t keep waiting for the perfect moment. You’ll always wish you had more time, more knowledge, and more support, and frankly the only way you’re likely to get them is by getting started! In his ebook on the Zen Habits story, Leo talks about his situation when he started out:

Maybe you think you haven’t got what it takes? That’s what I thought when I first started Zen Habits. In fact, I started off without goals, without money, and with no time. Now Zen Habits (http://zenhabits.net) has more than 100,000 subscribers—and a thousand more are joining each week.

(from The Zen Habits Story)

And even those who have made it know there’ll never be a perfect moment: here are Darren’s words about the launch of TwiTip:

“Late last week I realized that if I was waiting to ‘have time’ to start it that I never would - so I bit the bullet and got it going.”

Try making a check list of the absolute essentials that you need to get done before the next step. Can those design tweaks wait? Is anyone really going to notice if the font isn’t perfect? Focus on:

• Creating compelling content
• Any major usability issues (eg. your RSS feed not working!)
• Getting the word out about your blog – using social media sites and contacts

You could also take a goal-focused approach, and concentrate on trying to meet some small, immediate goals, rather than day-dreaming of your future fame and fortune (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s what keeps me going too…)

Don’t worry if you have the feeling that you’re writing into a vacuum. It can seem like a chicken-and-egg situation to begin with: you want to create content that readers will love, but until you actually have enough readers to give you some feedback, you won’t know what they want. Just keep going – once you start getting traffic, you’ll start learning what people want to read. It worked pretty darn well for Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz fame:

“I managed to get my hands on a boatload of traffic and asked them what they wanted in a small business and marketing blog. Because they were nice, they told me.”

(from Saving You From Bankruptcy and Public Humiliation Since October 2007)

Turning the Focus from “Me” to “You”

Once you begin to build up your readership, you might need to start changing your focus. Many bloggers start out by writing about their own struggles or goals. For example, Leo started Zen Habits as a way to keep himself accountable and to write about his own self improvement (as well as to share his experiences).

Another good example is Trent Hamm, who started The Simple Dollar to work through his own financial difficulties, and again to share what he learnt. You can see this in his early posts, where his focus is primarily on lessons drawn from his own personal story:

“It was very intimidating to look at my finances in this way, and it made it clear to me that I needed to make some major changes in my spending and saving habits.”

(from I’m In Big Financial Trouble – Where Do I Start?)

As Trent’s readership grew, he began focusing much more on readers’ questions and problems, and this is reflected in the voice of more recent posts – notice how he uses “you” and “your” here:

As long as you’re subscribing to the overall principle of spending less than you earn - and either way you choose, you’re not spending much money here - either choice is healthy because it expands on your existing non-financial values. Frugality or career-building both trump idleness.

(from Does Earning More Trump Frugality?)

If you’re trying to develop a blog from the early stages, consider shifting the focus onto “you” the audience: see what people are asking about in comments, or read other blogs in your area for ideas. Keep your personal touch, but make sure the content is relevant, valuable and useful to the reader.

You don’t have to rule out a personal blog altogether, though: it might not shoot you into the Technorati Top 100, but it could be a valuable outlet. There can be a bit of a gulf in the blogging world between would-be ProBloggers and diarist bloggers, but Darren has a personal blog, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t too.

The Take-Home Message

Don’t worry about writing the “perfect” next post: just start writing. Don’t fret about your blog’s design being perfect. Don’t feel depressed because your subscribers haven’t even reached three figures. You’ll develop your voice and style, and your audience, as you go along.

With its focus on stats and instant feedback, blogging can bring out the perfectionist in all of us. Remember that everyone started somewhere – and the success stories of 2009 and 2010 are still waiting to be written.

About the Author: Ali Hale has recently launched Aliventures, a blog that explores how to get more from life. She’s also a professional writer and blogger, and has written a guide to making money from freelance blogging.