Avoid Blog Destruction

In general, blogs live and breath on constant activity, once this element is removed – it’s pretty much game over.

Blogs are very dynamic by nature and are constantly evolving – a reason why search engines love them a LOT!

Let’s look at some typical blog activities;

• New Content (Frequent Posting)
• Tweets from Twitter
• Reader’s comments (General discussions and reactions)

As a result, your blog instantly becomes a breeding ground for discussions and interactions. However, the moment you cut-off food supply is the moment you hit the destruct button – A bit like flicking on the lights at a party – Party Over!

Blog-Destruct buttons

Let’s identify some key buttons:
• Irregular post frequency
• Lack of quality content (Blog that no longer offer value to readers)
• No call to action (Not instigating a conversation or readers opinion)

I am sure there are many more blog-destruct buttons – some bigger than others.
Try to avoid them.

Do you know any others? Share your thoughts to benefit others.

Start Building Your List from Day One

We all know how important mailing lists are, but for the benefit of new bloggers it is very essential to start building mailing lists from day one.

Picture this, somehow, someway, a first time visitor has landed on your page in order to gain some information – all well and good,
but there is no guarantee of that visitor returning.
So, the action plan here is to encourage them to subscribe to your future posts and updates.

Your Loyal Readers

As a result, you are building up a bank of visitors that are guaranteed to know whenever there are new updates on your blog. (more…)

What Sound Advice Have You Introduced to Your Blog?

There are a number of great bloggers out there, on a daily basis pumping out great advice and recommendations – from blogging practices to marketing techniques.

Which has led me to think, how much of this advice are we actually applying to our own blogs?

At times, a blogger can be bombarded with a wealth of useful information.
In fact, I personally have them springing up from all angles – Google Reader, TweetDeck, Email Notifications and so on.

This has led me to list  a few advice I have picked up and implemented.

Blog: Mike’s Life!
Post Title: Eight ways to get more page views
Author: Mike CJ

In Mike’s post “Eight ways to get more page views”,
A segment of his posts highlights the effectiveness of having Mini-bio on a sidebar.
Giving visitors a quick snap-shot of who you are and a link to your about page.

Blog: Lisa Morosky
Post Title: How to Write Scannable Blog Posts
Author: Lisa Morosky

Lisa’s post points out the importance of making your content ‘scannable’ for readers.
In this post, she encourages

• Highlighting major points.
• Use of bullet points or numbered lists
• Break up of paragraphs

Blog: CopyBlogger
Post Title: How to Stand Out in a Crowded Niche
Author: Jonathan Morrow

Now, this is a very encouraging post, especially for new bloggers.
There are simply too much information out there.
At times,  it seems everyone is talking about the same topic, but there are ways you can be creative about your own message.
A crowded niche is not necessary a bad thing – there’s sometimes good reason for that.

Blog: GideonShalwick.com
Post Title: 37 “Must Have” Tools For An Online Video Marketer
Author: Gideon Shalwick

I love this post, and how Gideon carefully explains 37 must have tools.
I also like the screen-casting tool being used here SCREENR. I shall be using this tool in the near future.

Have you been encouraged by a blog post recently?

5 Smart AutoPilot Tools For Your Blog

The perfect webmaster’s dream is to have a blog running on AutoPilot – with smart tools making things ticking away nicely in the background. Leaving a blogger with just the job of churning out posts – Perfect world.

Let’s face it, the WordPress back-end is an interesting place to be.
There is so much to fiddle with, Comments to moderate, Stats to check, Plugins to update, Source code to tweak and so on. But these things eat into your time.

Don’t get me wrong these tasks are essential, but wouldn’t it be better if most of it were automated? That is why I love Askimet spam blocker – one less admin task to do and more time to provide value to my readers.

Blog Tools

Saving valuable time as led me to list 5 of my favorite AutoPilot tools.

WordPress Database Backup

This backup plugin automatically backs up data on a regular basis.

Available options

• Ability to specify back-up frequency

• Option to choose where to save back up file

• Select and choose tables to backup.

• Get it here

Posts

Yes, the actual WordPress post functionality.
Generally, I tend to write a number of posts in one go, so I have them sitting in a queue waiting to be published at my specified time.

Available options

• Schedule a publish date and time.

Update services

Update services is a feature within WordPress that automatically notifies submission directories of my new blog post. – It saves me a lot of time.

To locate,  go to Settings – Writing – Updates Services

Aweber

Aweber automatically handles all my email distributions, campaigns and subscriptions on YourBlogTools.com

XML Sitemaps

This cool plugin automatically notifies Google wherever there’s a new post on YourBlogTools.com Get it here

Which auto-pilot tools are you using?

Do you have any questions about these tools?

How To Effectively Connect With Your Readers

How do you effectively stay in touch with your subscribed readers?
Which tools do you use to achieve this?
Aweber handles all my email distribution and campaigns.
If you are really serious about building your mailing list with your blog, then this tool would help achieve this.
It also happens to be the industry leader in Email Management System.
It’s a very simple yet powerful system to use – And more importantly it works.

With very little effort, Aweber email system allows you to send bulk emails to your entire mailing list. You can also schedule these emails to be sent at specific times you want.

Especially for a newly formed blog, it is very essential to start building your mailing list from day one and to maintain a relationship with them.

See it in action

One of the key components of AWeber is its Auto-Responder facility.

Subscribers to YourBlogTools.com would have had a taste of this already.

It essentially handles the following:

• Captures user details from your blog
• Verifies and welcomes new subscribers
• Email Campaigns
• And much more

How I use Aweber

On a weekly basis, I interact with my readers by doing the following:

• To broadcast emails to my readers on the fly with new tips and updates
• To schedule blog post email notification.

Why I chose Aweber

With regards to list building, which is quite important to me, I wanted to hit the ground running. Aweber was able to meet my requirements.

What I wanted

• I was a after a proven system that works

• A reliable system

• A complete Email Management System

What I didn’t want

• An unreliable system

• Emails filtered to spam folders.

Try Aweber here

Do you have any questions regarding this tool?

Are you already using Aweber? Share your experiences here.

Does Your Blog Pass the Stop-By Test?

Imagine you’ve just checked-in to a hotel, reception have handed you your room key, You open the door, only to find your room in a complete state – bed unmade, towels on the floor e.t.c.
I guarantee you would turn back and find somewhere else.

The same principle applies to a blog. When visitors stop by and find your blog a complete eye sore or of no value, they would simply turn back and go elsewhere.

Let’s ponder on a few things

(1) Is your blog clutter-free and presentable?

Do you have a good theme installed?
How many side bar widgets do you have installed? – Must you really have all that?
Do you really need all those social bookmarking icons? Are your text font / size readable by all?
All these factors constitute to the overall appearance of a blog.

Let’s go back to our hotel analogy – although a blog/hotel may have something of value to offer, if first impressions are negative, chances are, the visitor will not return.

Remember first impressions counts, so take time to plan your blog’s structure.

(2) Is your blog offering something of value?

Once that first impression bridge has been crossed, content is your No.1 product of value.
Either you have a news or an entertainment blog visitors are reading your stuff because you have something of value to offer.

Bare in mind, in most cases, visitors on your blog are there simply for their own interests.

What are your thoughts on this?
Have you recently done a stop-by test?
What would you suggest?