Perez Hilton’s Top 3 Tips for Bloggers
September 18, 2008
This is a clip direct from Martha Stewart. On September 17th, she dedicated the entire show to the topic of all things blogging.
If Perez Hilton is not on your list of successful blogs to study, it should be.
With 9 million hits a day, the site is a phenomenal case study in the use of traffic, ads, photos, personality, video and pop culture to say the least.
Here are Perez Hilton’s Top 3 Tips for Bloggers:
1. Find a niche and make yourself stand out
PerezHilton.com started out as a hobby, one of Perez’ unique characteristics is the doodle on pictures.
2. Be prepared to work hard
Perez awakes at 3:57am and puts in 15-16 hour days.
3. Don’t be afraid to Network
Perez says meet people and ask for things (Perez asked to appear on Martha)
P-nasty’s influence has led to joint ventures offline as well including music, clothing lines and public appearances making him a very wealthy man.
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Finally, Bloggers Learn How to Create a Video Sales Letter all through the Magic of a WordPress Theme!
June 4, 2008
Bloggers can now use WordPress to create an endless amount of Video Sales Letters, thanks to DotComPreneur expert contributor and Internet Genius, Ben Cope.
Ben is the creator of numerous WordPress themes and can help you get your Video Sales Letter set-up, installed and ready to go. Whether you are a blogger, small business owner or internet marketer, you already understand the power of video. However, if you are not putting video on your websites, blogs and sales letters, you are missing the most important component that can make your message and web content much more effective.
You Don’t Even Have to Be a Master at Copywriting
You can create a video sales letter that is just as effective, if not more effective than any written sales letter on the Internet and you don’t have to be a master copywriter to do it. You can use the same proven steps that wildly successful internet marketers use to create money-making, written sales letters to make your video sales letter just as wildly successful. The fact is - video sells!
Video allows you to do so many things that the written word or audio just won’t accomplish.
Video gives you the ability to make a connection with your viewer. By putting yourself on the video, you are able to build a relationship with the viewer. It lets them get a better feeling of the ‘face’ behind the website. You are able to demonstrate your enthusiasm, knowledge and credibility all in one single video. If you are putting video testimonials into your video sales letter - it lets your prospects see first hand that you have already helped people just like them. It lets them watch and hear the excitement and enthusiasm in your current customers that in turn will pass on the excitement to them a well. People by nature get easily sucked in and persuaded by TV shows, commercials and infomercials… and you have the power of that same medium right in the pages of your own blog … using VIDEO.
All You Need to Do is Answer
The majority of people on the Internet are looking for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. If you can show your site visitors that you are the answer - you will make money! A video sales letter will help you accomplish just that. You could utilize video in so many ways. You can teach people how to do something by making a video tutorial, you can do a weekly video newsletter, you can answer your subscriber’s questions, and so much more. Your Video Sales Letter gives you the medium to include your attention getting message, your personality, credibility, social proof, customer testimonials, offer, call to action and guarantee all in the same powerful video.
The fact that you are reading this article, tells me that you are an entrepreneur that is dedicated to your own success on the Internet. You know the importance of video and the benefits of building relationships with your customers and website visitors. Every new customer adds to your bottom line and makes you even more successful. It all starts with taking action - so begin using video as a sales tool more - starting today!
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For more information about the Video Sales Letter … or to enter the “Big Web Video Giveaway” contest and get a chance to win a copy of Sony Vegas Movie Studio software, a Flip Video Camera with tripod, and a one-year subscription to EZS3.com for hosting your videos … go to the Video Sales Letter
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WordPress: How to Make Your Blog Work for You
May 12, 2008
If your blog is business oriented, you must always consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Yes - the ugly three word phrase. But these tips are easy - no coding needed. No scratching your head over php or html. It’s simply about choosing the theme layout that will help your SEO efforts. It’s easy but almost no one knows about it or thinks about it.
Do you know that Search Engines don’t always read every word on your page? That’s right - they don’t. The header tags and the upper left hand corner of the page might be all that is checked. What if your sidebar is in the upper left hand corner? The content in your sidebar doesn’t change frequently so the Search Engines will think there is nothing new and move on. One of the main advantages of a blog is that it is frequently updated so it is Search Engine friendly.
What’s a blogger to do? Simple - choose a two-column theme with the sidebar on the right!
What are ‘header tags’? Header tags are simply the title of the post. Behind the scenes, your theme encloses your title in header tags. That’s what makes the font bigger and makes it look like a title. Why is the title important? Search engines also look at what’s inside your header tags. Since each post creates a new page it’s easy for the search engines to locate the header tags. So - think about the title of every post. Make it keyword rich for the search engines but make it grab your reader too.
With a little thought and planning you can make your blog really work for you.
For more tips and tricks on WordPress and blogging please visit http://www.wpguru.com Here is where you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about WordPress.
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Hyper Quick Article Marketing
April 30, 2008
If you are interested in writing articles really quickly, then this article is written just for you! Writing articles quickly is a challenge for many, but for those who master it, writing articles becomes almost like second nature.
Here are 5 advanced secrets to supercharge your article writing:
1. Break Your Article Into 3 Parts
Create a structure for every article before you begin. Typically, this will consist of an introduction, the main body and the conclusion. When you think of your article this way, it suddenly becomes a lot more doable!
2. Write Out The Key Points For Your Body Copy
Your body copy forms the ‘meat’ of your article! Include 3 to 5 main points in your body copy. For each main point, write out a few sentences. Just by doing this, you will have more than a hundred words or even a few hundred words and in a snap your article is almost done.
3. Use Dragon Naturally Speaking
Dragon Naturally Speaking is a piece of software that recognizes speech and turns your speech into text, almost instantly. It’s a super quick way to create content just by speaking! We all speak faster than we type or write so this is a really easy to crank out articles at warp speed.
4. Leverage On Your Old Articles
If you’ve written any old articles before, you can take some ideas from them and use them to create brand new articles from scratch!
5. Leverage On Your Other Content Materials
Written some long posts on forums or sent out some long content emails to your mailing list? You can use these existing content to create new articles. Just reword them but keep the same information intact, and you’ll have a brand new original article ready to publish.
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Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of the popular 51-page Report: “Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!” Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before it’s gone! |
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Copywriting: The Importance of Headlines
April 29, 2008
Internet users are notorious scanners. I suspect they developed this habit as a defense mechanism, as a way to counteract the enormous volumes of information found on the Internet.
That’s why headlines are so important. Headlines act as stop sign, in a crowded universe filled with scanners, on this medium known as the “information superhighway.”
The best way to get a scanners attention is to write a targeted headline that makes the reader think to himself, “Hey, that’s me they’re talking about!”
Many novice copywriters make the fatal mistake of writing headlines that attempt to sell to everyone, and as a result, end up selling to no one.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure your headlines are targeted.
For example, I’m a copywriter. My target market is anyone who is dissatisfied with the performance of their sales copy.
On my website, the headline of my sales letter simply reads:
“Website Not Making Any Sales? Get A Free Sales Copy Evaluation Today!”
Just 12 simple words that are targeted and super-effective!
But even though the words may appear simple, it’s very important to invest some time into creating your headlines.
To end up with the best, targeted headlines possible, you need to write dozens of variations of potential headlines.
I generally write 20 to 30 headlines, and then narrow my list down to the best 10, and from there, the best 5, and finally, the best one.
Having said that, I have to be honest and tell you this. Usually, my very best headlines just pop into my head, without me having to compile a list first.
But I’ve been writing copy for 25 years. So I have a feel for what works and what doesn’t. I don’t recommend you use the first headline that pops into your head. ALWAYS compile a list.
Some copywriters write as many as 50 headlines, and narrow their list down to the top 2 headlines, and then split-test them.
Split-testing is a procedure that ascertains effectiveness, and proper function.
When I first started copywriting, I used to always split-test my headlines.
However, over the years, as I developed more and more experience, I rarely split-test headlines anymore. Why?
Because after 25 years of writing copy, I’ve developed such an excellent feel for writing headlines, once I decide on the best headline to use, 99% of the time, the headlines I select work exceedingly well.
So how can you determine your best headlines?
Showcase your headlines to other people. Get their opinions.
Michel Fortin’s CopywritersBoard.com is an excellent place to get your headlines critiqued by competent professionals.
Just remember, no matter what opinions others may have about your headlines, it’s ultimately going to come down to your own gut instinct, as to which headlines you decide to use.
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Dale King is the owner of http://www.GuruKnowledge.org - The Ultimate Internet Marketing Resource! |
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Blogging Keyword Research
April 23, 2008
So what is keyword research? It is finding out what are the keywords that web users are typing into the search boxes of the various search engine to get to your website. Some of the top search engines people are using are Google, Yahoo and MSN. After doing keyword research, you will have a list of keywords that web users are using and use them to optimise your blog. One way of finding out is through using web tracker like sitemeter.
There are 2 important tools you can use and they are free to use. One of the tool is by wordtracker called keyword suggestion tool. This tool allows you to find out the number of daily searches of each keyword use by people up to the first 100 keywords. If you want to have more, you will have to sign up for the paid version to get more longtail keywords. Longtail keywords are important in Niche Marketing Research.
Another tool will be Google Keyword Tool External. The advantage of using this tool is that it allows you to see what are the competitive keywords that online advertisers are using. It does not give you the exact number of searches though. This tool also provide you with a list of other keywords that you may not otherwise have thought of.
Besides writing good quality content, you must also make sure that there are people reading it. There is no point in writing content that nobody wants to read. So the concept of demand and supply comes into play. With the right keywords found on your blog, people are able to find your blog as a result.
Wilson Tan is the owner of http://www.BloggingDotProfits.com Join me in my person journey of making online profits using a blog
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The WordPress Dream Theme
December 21, 2007
Magazine-style blogs are quite popular lately, and more WordPress theme designers are beginning to promote professionally designed, premium WordPress themes, including myself, with the release of the WordPress Dream Theme.
Not all WordPress themes are created equal! If what you’re looking for is a cookie-cutter, me-too site, the WordPress Dream Theme is not for you. But if you’re tired of losing sleep trying to make your blog look and act the way you want, read on!
The WordPress Dream Theme is amazingly different from any other premium WordPress theme you have seen before! It can literally save you hours of frustration and hundreds of dollars in custom design work, because it includes FREE installation, setup, and customization …
Just watch the short video below for an introduction to the WordPress Dream Theme, and then click the link under the video to view a live demo of the Dream Theme in action!
Click Here to Find Out More About the WordPress Dream Theme!
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The 5 Best Ways to Have Success with Making Money from Blogs
December 5, 2007
So you want to make money with blogs? Well, you may be here right now because you have been struggling to have some success with blogging or you could be here because you are new to this field. No matter what the reason is, blogging for profit is an easy thing that anyone can really do.
When I first started out, I thought that I would never see the day when I can even make one dollar off of my blogs. I thought it was the hardest thing in the world to get people to even notice my blog but then everything changed when I became devtoted to actually learn to make money with them. Devotion is a key factor to success and I hope that youre here because you are devoted right now.
So, lets get started shall we? Here are the 5 Best ways to have success and make money with blogs:
1. Article Marketing
In order to get your blog noticed, you can write articles in order to promote it. You can write about what your blog is about and then leave a link at the bottom of your article for the people who are interested in what you have to offer. Then submit to as many article directories as you can for more exposure.
2. Social Bookmarking
When you create a new post in your blog, go to many different social bookmarking sites and bookmark the title of your post. This will leave many high page rank links back to your site and also more traffic to your blog as well.
3. Update Content
Update your blog daily with a new post of new youtube video. This will allow people to know that your blog will continually have useful information about the niche you are promoting.
4. Pinging
Ping your blog every time you add new content. This will bring you more traffic and will also allow the search engines to know that your blog was updated. This will help your rankings in the searh engine for whatever keyword you are trying to rank well for.
5. Forums
Participate in relevant forums that compliment your niche. You can ask or answer questions about your niche and then leave a link back to your blog in the signature line.
Now, make sure that you have your blog set up and ready with all of your affiliate links in order to make money before you start sending traffic over to your blog. To gain more money try adding some google adsense to your blogs as well.
Hopefully you can profit now after I have told you some important tips to make money with.
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Sarah McAllister is a writer, online entrepeneur, and a success addict! She has experienced many curves in the road which led her into the success she has today with her online business. Here is one of her reviews which she runs and recommends here: Blogging to the Bank |
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Practical Podcasting
November 27, 2007
For many years, I’ve been making the point that if you’re an information expert - a speaker, trainer, coach, consultant, author or the like - your message matters as much as your method of presenting it. Your competitors aren’t the other people doing it the same way as you; they are the millions of others delivering the same message in different ways.
One of the newest ways of delivering a message is with podcasting. Podcasting has been around for a couple of years, but has recently come of age - and is now a viable mainstream business tool.
— What is a podcast? —
In brief, it’s an audio program. It’s a bit like a radio program, except you don’t have to tune in at a certain time to listen to it. Instead, whenever you’re ready, you connect to the Internet and download whatever “shows” you’ve missed since the last time you connected.
For you, it’s like having your own radio show - except that it doesn’t have to be “live”. You record a “program” (an audio clip), publish it on the Internet, and anybody can freely download it to their computer, MP3 player, iPod or CD.
— What will you publish? —
Once you get started, you’ll have no shortage of ideas. Here are a few:
* Publish extracts from your existing audio products.
* Interview clients and publish their case studies.
* Interview colleagues and other experts about their area of expertise.
* Read out articles from past newsletters.
* Record a presentation and publish an extract from it.
* Just record new material!
— What’s the big deal? —
But isn’t this the same as just putting audio clips on your Web site (I hear you cry)?
Yes and no.
Technically, yes, the audio clips in your podcast are just MP3 files. And yes, you can get the same effect by just putting them on your Web site for people to download.
But a podcast “wraps itself” around those files, which means:
* Your listeners automatically get the latest programs, without having to spend time looking around for what’s new.
* The programs can be automatically transferred to iPods or similar devices. The user just connects their iPod to their computer, and it all happens by itself.
* You can promote your podcast in various places dedicated to podcasts (think of them as “podcast search engines”).
— Here’s an example … —
My friend Chris Pudney and I publish the Focal Point podcast, a regular 20-minute discussion of Internet-related topics and how they apply to businesses and consumers.
Sign up to the podcast at gihanperera.com/podcast - if only to get a feel for how a podcast works.
A podcast is an important tool for information experts, so please take the time to figure out how you can use it in your business.
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Find out more at http://www.gihanperera.com/speak-your-mind.html Gihan Perera is the author of “The Seven Fatal Mistakes That Most Web Site Owners Make - And How To Avoid Them” and “Spin: Turn One Idea Into Hundreds of Information Products”. Visit http://GihanPerera.com and get your complimentary copies now. |
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Five Reasons Why You Need a WordPress Blog
November 15, 2007
Back in December, I decided that I wanted to try something new and fresh with my website. I was also getting tired of the standard websites with their uniform look and I didn’t really feel like I was getting any benefit from it. So, I did a bit of research and decided that I wanted to try a blogging platform and after a bit more research, I chose Wordpress.
Before I fully converted to the blog, I was receiving approximately 900 unique visitors each month.
- By January, one month after I converted, I was receiving 1300 unique visitors.
- By February it had grown to 2500 unique visitors
- In March, it had grown to 4000 unique visitors in the month.
That is four times the traffic I started with!
So, let’s look at the top five reasons why you need a WordPress blog:
1. Blogs are User-Friendly and Very Easy to Use
The upside to having blog software as opposed to a website is that it is very user-friendly. The blog uses a GUI, or a graphic-user interface, which means that that everything that you may need to do is laid out in simple to understand graphics. The blogging software also conforms to the standards of most other software programs. For example, the graphic icons you see in Microsoft Office programs are very similar to the graphics you’ll see inside of your blog.
The reason that this is so important is that YOU can update your OWN website and you don’t need to pay high prices in web design fees to do so! There is no messing around with HTML code, you can avoid having a dull, lifeless site that people only visit occasionally and instead, you can update it yourself and give people a reason to return again and again and again.
The other upside to this is that when you want something changed quickly, you can do so. You no longer have to wait on a web designer or a virtual assistant, you can just pop in to the dashboard and update the page you need to make changes to and click save and boom - you’re done!
Making regular posts is also easy to do. In a few, short clicks and then some keystrokes for the body of your post, you can have fresh, new content on your blog immediately. If you’re feeling particularly creative one day, you can write a series of posts and save them all to post on future dates. For me, I will write eight or nine blog entries at a time and save them to post one or two days apart. This is also useful if you are going on vacation. In February, my husband and I went to the Dominican for a vacation and before I left, I wrote blog entries to cover the week I was gone and just posted them in advance. On the days that I specified, my blog entries showed up on the blog!
2. Blogs Are Easy to Navigate
All blogs follow a fairly standard style of formatting and navigation. Although each template may look different, they all contain the same standard elements. When I visit a blog, I always know where to go to see Recent Posts. I also know that on the majority of blogs, I will be able to find a place to subscribe to the blogs feed. A feed is simply a syndication of your blog entries. That syndicated text is then sent out to your blog visitors feed readers and is sent out to the search engines, etc. This is part of the reason that blogging is so powerful in getting people to your site.
Have you ever visited a website where every menu has been different and each sidebar contained different text depending on where you were on the website? Those types of websites are confusing and they don’t lead the website visitor where they should be going. With blogging software, it remains standard and is always updating itself. When you make a change on one sidebar, it automatically updates on every other sidebar which eliminates any sort of confusion for your website visitors.
A great book I want to recommend is Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think.” Even if you don’t design websites, you want to read this book. A lot of the reasons that I love blogs are outlined in his usability section. He references making websites more functional by following his principles but what is so great is that a blog already conforms to many of his standards.
3. People Can Subscribe to Your Blog and Stay Current
Now, I want to explain what RSS is first. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What it is is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts. People who are into blogging will use your RSS feed to do a few things:
- They may subscribe to receive a daily digest of new content. Think of how powerful this is in terms of keeping you in touch with your target market. If someone receives constant, updated messages from you, you are always in their line of sight and they will see what you are up to, new products or services you are launching and how much knowledge you have on your chosen subject.
- They may also add you to their feed reader. I have a program that I use called Feed Demon and this software program tracks all of the blogs I am interested in by capturing and updating the feed that comes from the blog. Each day I can open up this software program and have an instant summary of every blog I have subscribed to and I can review what it is people are talking about. This allows me to stay current without having a thousand bookmarks in my internet browser or trying to remember which blogs I liked to read. The same is true for your visitors. They want a quick, easy way to be reminded that you exist and that you are posting things that they want to know about.
Normal sites don’t do this for you unless you are putting out a monthly ezine that contains all of your business updates. By having the blog, you can nearly cut out the monthly ezine and just let the blog do the work for you!
4. Search Engines Love Them and They Are Content Managers
In fact, it’s so easy to build content on your blog that I have actually created info-products based on content I had blogged about over the past year. Info-products become simple to do because you aren’t creating fresh, new content each and every time. What you blog about could become an article which could turn into an e-book. Blogging gets you into the habit of writing and creating which then allows you to easily and effortlessly create info-products.
Your visitors will also love this because when they show up on your site looking for assistance in your chosen profession, they can find a whole archive of great content. Most of my blogging clients will archive their past newsletters or e-zines on their blogs so that their clients can read past issues without having to download PDFs or visit thirteen or fourteen different web pages.
Search engines love blogs for a number of reasons. Number one, they love the fact that fresh, new content is being posted all of the time. Even if you are only updating it once a week, you will still see the benefits from it. Each and every time you post something to your blog, the search engines are automatically pinged and if you have pinging software installed, which is free and simple to use, it’ll automatically ping the different services that should be pinged.
Number two, search engines love hyperlinks and trackbacks. Hyperlinks are links to other people’s websites, blog entries, audio files, etc. and track backs are special links from someone else’s blog entry that let the other person know you’ve blogged about him or her. It also posts YOUR entry on their site for other people to read. This is how blogging also becomes so viral.
5. They Become an Active Networking Source for Your Business
For me, I have met a number of brand new people through my blog. Some of these people became clients, others were just frequent readers that became friends and others asked me to collaborate with them on special projects. By having a blog, you can become a place where people visit to learn about what it is you are writing about but also so that they can meet you, get to know you and someday work with you. You can build a community and allow other people to meet through you which then allows people to talk about you and get your name out there.
If you think of standard networking, you think of people showing up to an event for about an hour, rushing through the crowds trying to get business cards and then leaving the event and never really having a true feeling of connection. I’m sure we’ve all experienced this. Blogging gives your interested parties a place to come to learn about you. They can start to see how you both would benefit from knowing each other and they will be more apt to approach you over time. This is a much more effective way to network and you don’t need to worry about your business card being thrown in the trash.
Another way that it becomes a networking tool is when you reach out to other people’s blogs. Once you start blogging, you will quickly realize that the whole world is blogging and there are many great things to be read. By visiting other people’s blogs and leaving comments on their posts, you will do two things: one, you will introduce yourself in a non-threatening or non-imposing way to someone you may not have wanted to just e-mail in the past and two, by showing that you have interest in that subject on their blog, you’ll gain interested visitors who share similar interests.
– About the Author –
Erin Blaskie is the owner of Business Services, ETC (http://www.bsetc.ca). BSETC is a virtual assistance company that gives freedom to small business owners, coaches and speakers by managing the BS, etc.
– For More Information –
Erin has a blog located on the main page of her website in which she provides advice on small businesses and running a virtual assistance company. She has recently started a free bi-weekly telecall for virtual assistants where they can come together with other VAs and get support. You can find out more on the website at http://www.bsetc.ca
If you want to know more about our services, please contact Erin at erin.blaskie@bsetc.ca
– Copyright Information –
All rights reserved. This publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.
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