I’ve mentioned guest blogging in a few previous posts, but I admit I haven’t done much of it myself. For years I have focused on article marketing and it is only in the last year or so that the idea of guest blogging has really dawned on me as a really powerful marketing tool.

It is the interactivity of blogs that gives guest blogging so much potential to build followers and subscribers. This is completely different from article marketing (AM). AM is primarily for link building. And as social networking gradually replaces search engine marketing as the most important way to drive traffic to websites and blogs, many of the old techniques such as link building using article marketing are beginning to look flat and uni-dimensional. Getting links is great, but wouldn’t it be so much better if you also got readers, commenters, followers and subscribers?

This comparison between article marketing and guest blogging is what Ann Smarty looks at in the article “Guest Blogging Versus Article Marketing: What Really Works?” (see link below). As she says,

Do blogs have more people who are likely to follow and promote your brand in the future?

Yes, absolutely. Let’s face it: blogs and article directories do have different types of audience. People follow blogs while they only randomly check article directories (if they do that at all). Blog readers are much more likely to “stick” to you and help to grow your brand by spreading the word, linking, coming back regularly, etc.

This disctinction (between AM and guest blogging) is actually true of blogging itself, not just guest blogging. But the fact is, if you have a poorly trafficked blog you can reach so many more people by publishing in a major blog within your niche than by simply posting on your own blog. In other words, guest blogging is a way of reaching out and promoting your own blogs by building and enhancing your own online profile.

To read more about the comparison between guest blogging and article marketing see Ann Smarty’s article here:Guest Blogging Versus Article Marketing: What Really Works?

In a guest post on ProBlogger.net online blogger and marketer the Blog Tyrant tells how he turned an article rejected as a guest post into a successful list-building ebook. The rejected article became the basis for a free ebook that he gives away on his own site to build his subscriber list.

It turns out that this ebook was considerably more successful than any of the others he had tried – for a while getting between 100 and 200 subscribers a day.

Why did this happen? That’s the important part for bloggers, and the Blog Tyrant tells us why he thinks it worked so well. It was because of an unintended strategy that he had previously put into place without knowing it. The ebook that drew so many subscribers is called Capture 120% More Email Subscribers Overnight, and he realized that he had inadvertently pre-sold many readers through a series of guest blog posts he had done over the previous month or so. As he says,

I went back and looked at all the guest posts I’d written in the past few weeks which were still bringing in traffic. In every single one, I had talked about growing a mailing list, the importance of community, or something to do with that rejected-post-turned-ebook.

In essence, I had built a whole lot of hype around the ebook without even realizing that I was doing it. If I was a marketing firm I would have charged a lot of money for that strategy!

As a result he developed a strategy for replicating this success:

1. Research your ebook topic very thoroughly
2. Create guest posts that target and promote the topic of the ebook
3. Interact with people who comment on guest posts
4. Have a strong call to action in your blog where you give away the ebook

To read the complete post go to How a 30 Minute Reject Post Brings Me Hundreds of Subscribers a Week

So you’ve written a great new post in your blog and now you want to let the world know about it. Is there a “check list” of things to do to get traffic to your new blog post. In the article Traffic Generation Step by Step: So You Published a New Post, Now What? blogger Ana Hoffman offers a list of suggestions such as:

• Share it on Twitter and Facebook
• Send an email to your list
• Turn it into an article and post it on EzineArticles.com
• Engage in social communities such as BlogEngage, BizSugar, BetterNetworker, Bloggersbase and SERPd.com
• Build links specifically to your post through blog commenting

To read Ana’s post go to Traffic Generation Step by Step: So You Published a New Post, Now What?

In this guest post on JohnChow.com the author called Lior offers some advice on finding guest bloggers to add content to your blog. As Lior says,

The advantages of additional, long-term bloggers on your site are many, including additional personalities to attract new readers, more content for your site and less pressure on you to produce constantly.

His top suggestions:

• Search your friends
• Look at LinkedIn
• Look at related blogs
• Check your comments

Read more – How to Find Additional Bloggers for Your Blog

This is a great list of tips to help beginning bloggers get off on the right foot. This article by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project. Just a couple of her tips:

1. Start simple. Add bells and whistles over time. Many people get paralyzed at the outset, because they’re overwhelmed by the desire to figure everything out before launching. Don’t get it perfect, get it going.

2. Post every day. It’s counter-intuitive, yes, but strangely it’s easier to post every day than to post three or four times a week. You don’t procrastinate, you loosen up, you stay engaged with your subject, and you’ll be taken more seriously by readers. But if you stop writing for a while…

For the rest, read the original here:

13 Tips for Beginning Bloggers (Which I Learned the Hard Way)

The Happiness Project

Here’s an interesting idea for promoting your blog. In a guest post on ProBlogger.net, Clare Lancaster suggests creating a “manifesto” for your blog. What is she talking about? Here’s how she describes it:

A manifesto traditionally communicates the values and beliefs of a group of people or organization. The most common form of blog manifestos are ebooks.

A manifesto that offers special value for your readers can act as a viral marketing tool for your blog. It gives the reader an idea of the bigger picture and purpose of your blog, and empowers them.

A manifesto is a method of structuring your message in a way that your audience finds relatable, desirable and, most importantly, attainable. It communicates a set of ideals and invites a reader to join you on your journey.

In other words, a manifesto is usually a giveaway that reflects your point of view, promotes your blog, and gives your readers something they think is worth downloading or sharing. Clare used a one-page poster readers could print out and stick to the wall.

For more info see:
How to Use a Manifesto to Spread your Blog’s Message

If you’re an active blogger you probably already know there are a few different ways to automatically send new blog posts to your Twitter account. I’ve used a few different ways to do this, but the best I’ve found so far is TwitterFeed.com – This is an online service that uses your blog’s RSS feed to post to your Twitter account. Configuration is easy.

1. Create a feed by entering your blog’s RSS address.
2. Specify and authenticate your Twitter account.
3. Change a few settings if you don’t like the defaults.

That’s it.

You can also have TwitterFeed post to other services such as Statusnet, Ping.fm, Hellotxt, and Facebook. The only one of these I’ve tried is Facebook and it didn’t work for me.

I’ve also used a couple different WordPress plugins. The easiest is called Post to Twitter. Configuration is very simple, but it’s main drawback (as far as I can tell) is that there is no URL shortening using a service such as bit.ly.

Another WordPress plugin I’ve used is called WP to Twitter. This is a more sophisticated plugin that does use a URL shortening service (Cli.gs, Bit.ly, Yourts, or WordPress) and will provide clickthru stats. Configuring this plugin can be a bit more challenging. You can use your own URL shortening account, or by default it will use a “public” Cli.gs. When it works it is great, but I’ve had trouble with the URL shortening service.

From my experience the main advantages of TwitterFeed are:

1. It is easy to configure.
2. It works.
3. It lets you put all your feeds in one place.

This last point is important if you have multiple blogs and multiple Twitter accounts. You don’t have to configure a new plugin for each WordPress installation.

I’ve been thinking a bit about blogging and the different ways blogs can be used. We can get really hung up on one specific model – and it might be useful to enumerate the different “models” available to bloggers – and forget that a blog can be used for other purposes you may not have thought of.

In this video Darren Rouse of ProBlogger.net talks of a couple of instances he is aware of where people have created “temporary” blogs. In one case the blogger wanted to use the blog for publishing stuff to impress potential employers.

The idea of the “temporary” blog is pretty interesting, and potentially very useful. However, I suspect that it would not achieve its objective if it wasn’t approached in the same way a person should approach any business blog:

- Plan objectives
- Create good content to achieve those objectives
- Promote, promote, promote

If you are an online entrepreneur or any kind of entrepreneur for that matter (offline, bricks and mortar, professional, whatever) you may have wondered if you should start a blog.

I’m not going to enumerate the pros and cons of blogging. Instead I want to suggest what an effective business-oriented blog is, and the attitude you should have when you consider creating one. This may help you decide if you should put in the effort to create a business blog.

Business Blogging is Marketing

For our purposes here I am using the term “business” in a fairly broad sense. As I see it when you start engaging in activities for some organized or focused ulterior motive you are engaging in a “business”.

If you have a shoe store, for example, you generally are not selling shoes because you enjoy it. Selling shoes is not like going to the gym, reading a good book, or watching a baseball game on TV. Selling shoes has a point – to make money, earn a living, or whatever else you want to call it.

So first, not to sound too dogmatic about this, people in business have blogs for some marketing objective – they have a “focused ulterior motive” – to “sell” a message.

That doesn’t mean your business blog has to continually hawk products or talk about special deals for your services. But it does mean that it should reflect your business objectives and offer relevant information to your primary target market – your customers and prospective customers.

Sometimes the “marketing” objective of a blog is not very obvious. To take a fairly extreme example, let’s say you are a writer or a “commentator” type – you know, the kind of person who likes to express opinions, “rant”, or just hear him or herself talk.

In that case having a blog gives you a platform for getting out your message and enhancing your professional persona. It doesn’t have to be your only soapbox – you may also want to post videos on Youtube or start a radio program on BlogTalkRadio. But a blog can be the focal point of your empire – the thing that ties it all together and helps you establish a consistent presence.

In other words, business blogging is about marketing. Which means you should figure out your business objectives before starting a business blog. And then fit your blog into those objectives.

Business Blogging is about Publishing

Second, business bloggers should view themselves as publishers. The distinctive thing about “publishing” as opposed to just writing stuff, is that it is done in an organized and focused way with the intention of appealing to specific readers.

Unlike a diary, or even a traditional blog (which is sort of like a diary) you are not primarily writing for yourself in a business blog. A diary is specifically meant not to be read by others. A business blog is the opposite. A primary objective is to give as many readers as possible something interesting to read, watch or listen to.

There is a parallel here with book publishing. Traditional publishers will only publish a book if they think it has a chance of recouping costs and (hopefully) making a profit. When you submit a written work to a traditional publisher you are subjecting your work to the evaluation of a somewhat detached third party. Their primary concern is not to spread your message, but rather to sell your book in order to stay in business.

On the other hand, when you self-publish you pay the costs up front and are not willing to accept some third party’s opinion of the marketability of your writing. This is often called the vanity press because people who self-publish are prepared to pay to have works printed that have no hope of making a traditional publisher any money.

Blogs have been compared to the vanity press because they are self-published, have virtually no cost of entry, and often have no chance of getting a lot of readers.

But business blogs – at least as I have described them here – are more akin to traditional publishing. You should not waste your time and effort on a business blog if it has no chance of giving you some kind of return.

In other words, as a publisher you should be prepared to do what it takes to make your business blog a worthwhile investment. First, that means evaluating your target market and coming up with a game plan. Second, it means creating content that has a chance of getting readers. And third it means promoting your blog because you recognize that without readers you are basically wasting your time and the resources of your business.

In a recent blog post successful internet marketer and blogger John Chow revealed one of the most important money making secrets about blogging in the “make money online” niche. His advice:

Don’t blog about making money online if you’ve never made money online.

He admits he and other successful bloggers like Shoemoney and ProBlogger may be part of the problem, since they focus on “how to make money by blogging”.

But what most get-rich-quick types don’t understand is that successful bloggers already have a serious leg up on newbies who start from scratch. They already know how to make money online, and they probably already know how to run a business. As he says:

If you look at all the big make money online bloggers, you’ll discovered that they were all making money online before they started their make money online blogs. Shoemoney was a search engine marketer making over $100K a month off Google. Darren Rowse makes far more from his Digital Photography School blog than he does from his blog.

Judging from the number of “make money online blogs” out there, this is not as obvious as it should be. Consider this golf instruction analogy: What are the chances of a “learn to play golf” website being successful if the person starting it doesn’t know how to play golf? Not very good.

Of course, it might be possible to teach golf fundamentals from a book, at least to complete golf newbies. But nobody who is serious about golf is going to pay someone to teach them about the game if the would-be teacher has not demonstrated that they actually know how to play it.

Why would we think making money online is any different?