The Disney Experience

I’m writing this on Sunday, July 17, 2010. Exactly 55 years after Disneyland opened its doors to the general public. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. What they promise and deliver go beyond almost every other business out there, not just in the amusement park business. It’s a learning experience every business owner should experience.

Earlier this year I heard marketing legend Dan Kennedy speak. At that event he said Disneyland makes more money per visitor per day than the entire city of Las Vegas. I haven’t been able to verify the facts of that statement but, comparing our last trip to Disneyland vs our last trip to Las Vegas, Dan’s correct from my personal experience.

My family had the fortune of visiting Disneyland twice in the past year. Last month, instead of getting too caught up in the wonder and amazement, I wanted to watch how employees moved and what was going on from a business and marketing perspective. What makes their business so special? And, what allows them to bring in more money per person than Las Vegas? I’m sure I didn’t catch half of what goes on behind the scenes however here are couple points I noted.

Take Your Customer For A Ride

Only Disney makes every ride a full sensory experience. In Star Tours as your “space ship” goes into an icy meteor the room gets cold. On Indiana Jones as you’re truck is traveling by you hear the notice of the darts being shot out of the wall and feel the puffs of air from the guns simulating they just missed you. It’s similar with Captain EO and when the little elephant type creature blows his nose air blows in your face (this is a movie type theater you’re sitting in too). Last is Mr. Toads Wild Ride which tells the story of Mr. Toad and at the end he ends up in hell the temperature of the room gets very hot.

While these may not seem like a big deal, and they’re probably never consciously noticed, it injects another sensory experience and brings the rides to life. When a visitor gets off they feel different. Yes, you know you’re on a short ride, in a tiny part of a small amusement park but, your physical body has experienced some very physical changes that are, well, out of this world.

If you’re selling a product or service, take your customer on a ride. You may not be able to alter the physical surroundings but you can use stories and emotionally charged language that engage your buyer’s senses. Use sensory based words (see, hear, feel, taste, smell) interchangeably to add flavor and unconsciously make your presentation or sales copy dance.

You’re Selling an Experience

Disneyland itself is an experience.

When all is said and done, all we have are some photos and fuzzy memories of the trip. Our home is cluttered with a few more toys. My daughter has some sparkly shoes from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and my son has a new Buzz Lightyear laser gun. But, the money was really spent on the smiles and laughter that brought us joy as a family.

Every movement in the park makes you forget the world outside. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Tomorrow Land, Adventure Land, Fantasy Land or walking down Main Street. The only place you are aware of is your immediate surroundings. Every detail is in proper place.

Of course, I can’t leave out the rides. The rides are like mini product launches.

As I said above, Disney creates an incredible sensory experience on each of their rides. Many of the popular rides exit into a small theme store. So, when you exit Star Tours or Pirates of the Caribbean you have this charged feeling from the ride still bouncing around inside you. Then, it’s only a natural and logical step to build your own Light Saber or get a pirate hat as you’re leaving the ride. There’s no pressure to buy. It’s just the next logical step on your way through the park. Just like a good product launch.

Now, think about what you’re selling and how you’re selling it. Are you building that experience so the customer takes that next natural step? Have you thought about what the experience is the buyer wants? Are you selling a product or the experience you can provide your buyer?

Use Systems

At Disney, the employees are called “cast members.” They have a “Role” and “script” to adhere to. They don’t have lines to read but they have a specific understanding of their role and authority to act within that role. They’re job is to make sure the “Guests” (customers) have the best experience possible while there.

As Mickey’s Street party comes through the area cast members rope off the area for you to safely watch. As it rolls away there’s Mickey shaped litter is everywhere and, out of nowhere, men and women in white uniforms with blowers and vacuums come out and in a few minutes the place is spotless again as if nothing happened.

Disneyland is simply beautiful. The flags hanging in main street have crisp colors, as if they were just taken out of the box that morning. Sleeping Beauty’s castle looks like it was built yesterday. Every light and doll on the It’s a Small World ride blinks and moves in sequence.

None of this is by accident. They don’t wake up and think about which product they’re going to sell today. Or, maybe they’ll try something different in Toon Town to see if it will increase traffic to that area. Everything is well documented and thought out long before executed. Even the placement of the shops at the end of the rides.

But, That’s Disney…

It’s easy to shrug your shoulders and say, “Yeah, but that’s Disney. I’m just a blogger selling (fill in your product of choice).” That’s okay. You don’t have to aspire for a Disney size empire. However, if you want to run a business, not just a website, and experience the things you want in life, then I would pay attention to what Disney is doing. They’ve figured out the trick to happily part you from your money.

What other Disney business secrets can you share? Are there any online businesses out there that you think of as Disneyesque?

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Headway Themes is now licensed under the GPL

As many of you may have noticed, over the last few days there has been a lot of discussion going on on twitter and elsewhere about premium WordPress themes and frameworks.  Especially centered around the question of licensing and the GPL.

For those of you who don’t know, WordPress is licensed under the GPL.  Headway on the other hand, was not until a few days ago.  Headway Themes was launched on July 31st, 2009.  Not that I want to use ignorance of the GPL as an excuse.  But, I was really not aware of any questions on the GPL until Clay and I went to WordCamp New York.  I was aware of the GPL, just not how passionate Matt and his crew are about it.  That was when I was asked to be on a panel where we discussed the GPL license, WordPress and premium themes.

After the panel discussion, Matt Mullenweg and I had a chance to visit some more about the GPL and Headway and where we all fit together.  I also had a chance to meet and discuss this with Brian Gardner in more depth too.  To be very frank, I came away from both of those discussions not convinced putting Headway under the GPL was a smart business move.

I am not going to get into the “its the right thing to do argument” nor that premium themes do or don’t fall under the GPL.  My position on the GPL was my own and it was coming more from a business model and scaling question.

First, I was not convinced that as a premium theme or framework, we fell under the GPL. No, I am not going to back this up with any thought out legal or ethically argument.  Simply put, no one had shown me nor convinced me we were in violation, nor that there was controlling case law showing we were in violation of the WordPress license.

Second, I was worried from a strictly business stand point that if we were GPL, we would go broke.  Headway would be stolen and downloaded by thousands and we would be building a kick butt WordPress framework for nothing.

But you are selling support…

To that I continued to say bull crap.  Like a lot of the premium themes and frameworks out there, I was and continue to be of the position that we build a quality product which comes with support.  I was not convinced making people pay for support alone was the answer to my business concerns of going GPL.  While we do offer support with each and every license purchased from us by our members.  I was not of the position that selling support was a valid business model. And I still don’t believe this.

Let me explain a bit further. Take for example products like iThemes, Press75, StudioPress and Thesis.  It is my firm position none of them are selling products based on the fact they provide great support only.  They all are offering great products first and foremost.  And that is why people are buying their products.  Great support comes with the purchase of a great product.  Not the other way around.

Further discussion and research on my part

Over the last number of months, one person I have confided in a lot on this subject has been Cory Miller of iThemes.  In fact, Cory and I have become great friends. However, Cory has been very open with me as we discussed my own concerns as to the GPL and Headway Themes.  iThemes did the same thing as we did in the beginning, moving from non GPL to GPL.  With Cory’s help and guidance, I have become convinced that my fears of going GPL were not based on any solid evidence.  And actually my concerns were based on my own self-imposed fears and pride.

I also spent some time talking to Jason Schuller over at Press75, Brian Gardner of StudioPress and Carl Hancock of Gravity Forms.  Michael Torbert from All in One SEO Pack has also been a great source of information too.

I talked to all of these guys at the Boston Wordcamp. And I spent some time in Miami talking to Michael Torbert.  Clay and I even drove down to Oklahoma City to personally visit with Cory about this subject.  My point, this was a process we spent a lot of time and energy on and we wanted to make sure our decision was the best for us, Headway Themes and our own community.

In addition, part of my own problem with going GPL was the fact I am one stubborn SOB and very prideful.  Mainly very proud of what Clay, my son has built with Headway and I did not want anyone telling us what we could or could not do.  And all of that was misguided to say the least.

The solution to the Headway GPL question

Needless to say, I and Clay have been discussing and cussing this issue and question for almost a year now.  While it may seem we made the decision solely on the events of the last week or so, this is not entirely true. And it would be wrong of me to not admit, yes the last week or so certainly caught my attention and perhaps spurred me to give this my utmost attention.

And let me clear up any question as to whether I was personally or if Headway Themes was as a business entity threatened in any way by Matt Mullenweg or by anyone at WordPress or Automattic.  The answer to that question is no.  No, we were not threatened this last week or so with a possible law suit.

That being said, witnessing what transpired between Thesis and WordPress was a bit troubling and certainly got my attention.  While our timing on making the switch may seem suspect, this was a business decision we have been in the process of deciding and now seemed like a good time

Now was a good time as we are in the process of releasing a huge update to Headway which we feel is light years ahead of where Headway was just one year ago.  Not only are we releasing a huge update to Headway, we are completely redoing the Headway website and brand.  And if we were doing all of that, now was a good time to move on putting Headway under the GPL license.

Split License

While I know Matt would rather we would have gone 100% GPL, we felt more comfortable with a split GPL license.  We actually modeled our license which we have included in a revised TOS after what Jason has at Press75.  Below, you will see the exact language we now have which according to Matt Mullenweg is “100% legal.”

HEADWAY THEMES LICENSING

All WordPress themes produced by Headway Themes are released under the GPL version 2.0 license (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GNU/GPLv2). Specifically, the PHP code portions are distributed under the GPL version 2.0 license. If not otherwise stated, all images, cascading style sheets, and included JavaScript are NOT GPL, and are released under the Headway Themes Proprietary Use License v1.0 (See below) unless specifically authorized by Headway Themes. Elements of the themes released under this proprietary license may not be redistributed or repackaged for use other than those allowed by the Terms of Service. Please review the Terms of Service for further information on these usages.

THE HEADWAY THEMES PROPRIETARY USE LICENSE (v1.0)

The Headway Themes Proprietary Use License is a GPL compatible license that applies only to the theme images, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript files in WordPress themes produced and distributed by HeadwayThemes.com. As stated by the GPL version 2.0 license, the elements of product that are not compiled together but are sent independently of GPL code, and combined in a client’s browser, do not have to be GPL themselves. These images and cascading style sheets, and JavaScript files are copyright HeadwayThemes.com (Headway Themes, LLC) and can be used and manipulated for your own or your clients purposes. You cannot redistribute these files as your own, or include them in a package of your own without prior consent from HeadwayThemes.com (Headway Themes, LLC).

The split GPL license still allows us to retain enough teeth that we can bite someone in the butt if they violate our own license for Headway.

The future for Headway is bright

Now that we have put to rest the question of Headway, WordPress and the GPL we can get back to what we really want to focus on.  What Clay and I and the rest of the Headway team want to focus on is building the best and most innovative Premium WordPress Framework out there.  And we firmly believe the next version of Headway is going to back up that focus 100%

If you would like to learn more about Headway Themes, you can visit our website.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Blue is the New Red and Sucky Sales is the New Yellow Highlighter?

Hey there…don't remove the yellow highlighter from your sales page just yet!

In an effort to be less “pushy”, we’ve seen some changes in sales pages lately that I don’t understand. Maybe you can help me.

• We’re seeing a lot less yellow highlighted text. This has been cited as a high pressure, “salesy” tactic.
• Marketers are using blue, grey or black headlines instead of red.
• The long time favorite Tahoma typeface is being used a lot less often.
• Sales pages have been getting shorter and using alternate formats. The “long sales page” format is falling out of favor.

All these changes are aimed at being perceived as more “legitimate”, and less “pushy”, correct? But we still use headlines, right? We just don’t want them to be red. Blue is the new red. Here’s my question…why? We still want people to buy our stuff, right? We just don’t want to do the things that have been effective in the past at getting sales. We want to abandon those “old” tactics, because we don’t want to be seen as “pushy”. How do you feel about these changes?

I think these changes are well-intentioned but ultimately flawed.

Change is Good

I’m not writing this post as an argument against change. But here’s the thing, how many marketers are now sacrificing conversion for the perception of not being “high pressure”? Is low conversion the new yellow highlighter? To me, this is a bad trade. Am I in favor of being a sleazy salesman? Certainly not, but it seems to me many marketers are making significant mistakes as to where the problem really lies.

The sales process, when conducted well, is transparent…and unwarranted pressure never enters into the equation. I think it’s important to realize it’s not the color or typeface of your sales copy that is the problem.

Good Products vs Good Marketing

You cannot turn a bad product into a good product by changing your headline from red to blue, or by removing the yellow highlighter from your copy. Conversely, a good product is good. Period. If you’re out there hustling the good stuff, then people will buy it. They will love it, and they will refer their friends and colleagues (provided you have a good referral system in place). Can we agree on this?

Whether or not you used red headlines and highlighted text in your sales page is the furthest thing from a happy customer’s mind.

I wonder if the changes we’ve seen in sales pages recently are actually focused on offering our customers value, or are they more bent toward simply making ourselves feel better about “selling”…when selling is really a good thing after all?

Why would you be ashamed to solicit sales of a product or service you TRULY believe in? And likewise, if you DON’T truly believe in your offer…why are you trying to sell it at all?

Top Marketers vs Top Results

If you look around, you’ll see my argument here pretty much flies in the face of what a lot of top marketers are doing right now. Many A-listers are all apparent advocates of the “new” sales techniques I’m criticizing here. I can’t argue with the success these bloggers and marketers have had, and I don’t have a single bad thing to say about them. Importantly, I don’t feel like I could write this post and ignore the fact that a lot of top marketers have been teaching the opposite of what I’m saying. So what gives?

Here’s the thing…try convincing me that both approaches don’t work. In fact…the whole “red headline, yellow highlighter, long page sales letter” thing DOES work. So why has it fallen out of favor?

The REAL Reason a Lot of Marketers are Changing their Sales Pages

As a sales trainer I’ve seen it a million times…people are just scared to death to sell. Scared to the core. So scared in fact that when faced with the prospect of asking people to buy stuff, they become physically ill. I’ve literally seen newbies vomit before a sales call. That’s how scared we are to sell stuff. A huge part of the draw internet marketing offers is that it removes the necessity for human contact, so as a result internet marketing draws a lot of people who want to “sell without selling”.

But while internet marketing does allow you to sell at a distance…selling must still occur. People must still be genuinely engaged. Offers must be made, and conversion must take place.

I want to point something out. What we see the top marketers doing right now works. It does. But it doesn’t necessarily work better than the “old school” stuff. I’m not writing this post to challenge the wisdom of the A-listers out there who have been supporting these recent trends in selling strategy; I’m writing to challenge YOU.

Are you changing your sales pages because testing has proven that the conversions are better for you? Or are you changing because you’re afraid to sell?

Don’t be Afraid to Sell

The color, typeface, etc of your sales pages are all crucial marketing elements. Can it be true that some typefaces, colors and such are actually evil? I can’t imagine how. If a tactless, sleazy used car salesman removes the gel from his hair and takes off his pinky ring, is he all of a sudden more “legitimate”? His is pinky ring…evil? Or are his selfish motivations and lack of regard for the customer’s best interest actually at fault?

Every element on your page will either serve to increase conversion or lower it, and if your offer is solid, why would your goal be anything other than maximum conversion?

Don’t sacrifice conversion. Test red. It might work! After all, it’s worked for years, so go for it. This isn’t me saying that red WILL work for you. I don’t know. Every product, niche and audience is different. But this mentality that red headlines and yellow highlighter are somehow evil is beyond me.

The “Hush-Hush” Secret to Making a Lot of Sales

I want to share a fact about marketing that a lot of people aren’t willing to put out there. And I’m totally willing to hear arguments to the contrary, but after selling professionally for over 10 years now…both online and offline, I’ve found this to be true. In order to get quality stuff out there, people usually need a little nudge in order to push them over the edge to where they actually make a purchase. Where the heck do you think that nudge is going to come from, if not you? Having the kahunas to ask for the order is a characteristic all top marketers share. Are you asking for the order? Does it make you feel like a sleaze? Does it make you feel “pushy”?

Consider this: making sales is only sleazy when YOU are sleazy. If you’re not an ass, and you’re selling good stuff for the right reasons, then it’s a GOOD thing to make sales.

• Selling junk is sleazy.
• Going for the sale without regard for the buyer’s best interest is sleazy.
• Offering a guarantee and not honoring it is sleazy.

But you don’t do these things, do you? That’s because you’re a legitimate marketer with real value to give people. As such, you have no reason to hold back or do anything to impede your own success. Yellow highlighter is not sleazy or pushy. In fact, it might even get you more sales.

And with regards to whether or not we should abandon “old school” marketing tactics in favor of “new, improved” marketing tactics…this is my favorite myth of all. There are no new tactics. It’s ALL old school. Is blue new? No. It’s just as old as red.

Sell good stuff, and sell lots of it

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Just released, Headway Themes 1.7 Beta

We have been teasing everyone now for weeks about all of the cool new features coming in the next version of Headway.  And we even gave a few a sneak peek to get some feedback.  The overall reaction was WOW!  And that has been my reaction every time Clay showed me each of the new features he was adding. Below is a short list.  We will be putting out a complete change log soon.

In the meantime, those of you holding a developer’s license to Headway can go to the forums and download your very own copy. Enjoy!

Here are a few of the major changes that 1.7 brings:

Quick Start Wizard

Starting from a fresh install, the quick start wizard will show immediately after loading the visual editor. Otherwise, you can run the wizard through the Tools menu in the visual editor.

The wizard will guide you step-by-step through choosing your layout, uploading your header image, building your site’s color scheme (it’ll even detect colors from your header image!), and selecting fonts. At the end, you’ll click a button to build your site and it’ll all be done in a snap!

Column System For Leafs

Those who have a more column-based layout will find the new columns system to be incredibly beneficial. Instead of jogging all of your leafs around, you can put them into columns and move and resize the entire columns with ease. Don’t fret, the previous layout system is still present. You can specify whether or not you want columns for the particular page in the visual editor.

Styles Manager

Before Headway 1.7, Headway came with 1 layout and you had to work from there. Headway 1.7 comes with 4 pre-loaded styles in the new Styles Manager, which allows you to save and load styles. You can also import and export styles just like before, but in a much more organized way!

Leaf Templates

Instead of linking pages and being locked into the layout of the page you are linking to, you can now save your leafs (and columns) into Leaf Templates. Leaf Templates can be loaded onto any page. Once a template is loaded, you can modify it just like any regular page.

Automatic Upgrades

Even though we think all of the other features in 1.7 are incredibly cool, we REALLY think this one is cool . No longer do you have to go to the Headway site, download the latest version, upload it, and activate it. Oh, and if you ever did any custom.css or used the custom folder in Headway, you won’t have to worry about transferring that to the new installation either. The automatic upgrader does it all with only a few clicks!

HUGE Speed Improvements and Optimizations

In 1.7, we rethunk (hey, we’re from Kansas!) how many things were coded in Headway. We’ve made major improvements to the visual editor to drastically reduce the amount of conflicts from third-party plugins and also make loading the visual editor MUCH faster. Also, we completely rewrote the content leaf to be more efficient and more stable than before.

Feature Removal: Photo Gallery Leaf

This was a difficult consensus to reach amongst the team here, but we decided it would be best to remove the Photo Gallery leaf from the Headway core. We felt that the leaf was too complex to be in core. Also, the photo gallery was the only leaf that used the advanced leafs panel, making that a waste of space in the admin panel. If you’re screaming at us now, don’t worry! If you use the Photo Gallery leaf on your website (or wish to use it anyway), you will be able to download the leaf from the Headway Marketplace for free.

Download your copy of Headway 1.7 Beta here.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Writing for your Right People

I post daily, and this post is always the hardest one I write every month. Here’s the comparative process:

Writing for my blog

Get up, load up the New post window, stare at it for 1-2 minutes while I come up with an idea, mentally write the structure while choosing an image, easily write 600 or so words, publish and done. Total time taken: 35 minutes or so.

Writing for someone else’s blog

Review recent posts to make sure I’m not duplicating, stare at the screen for ten minutes with no inspiration, wander around the house pulling weeds and ruminating for three-quarters of an hour, finally come up with an idea, spend another fifteen minutes thinking about how to structure the post, come inside, stare at the screen for another couple of minutes, slowly and hesitantly start writing. (Progress is slow due to a lot more second-guessing and reviewing and deleting.) Schedule and done. Total time: 3 hours or so.

Why is it so different?

When I write for my blog, I’m writing for my Right People. I know what they want to know about, the right tone to choose, how to pull ideas together, what problems they’re wrestling with. To come up with the germinating idea for a post, all I need to do is think about the emails and comments of the last few days, a consulting session, an exasperated tweet, or a new pattern I’ve noticed.

When writing, I know how to phrase ideas so they will be effective. I know what cultural references will engage them, and which will make them say, “Wha?”. I know what tone to use, what specific language triggers are useful, and when not to push.

In short, I am plugged into my Right People. My instincts have been honed until they’re spot-on.

When I’m NOT writing for my Right People…

When writing for someone else’s blog, I have to figure out all this stuff the hard way. Have you ever tried a physical skill that’s not in your muscle memory yet, like riding a motorbike for the first time? It’s so awkward and intensive. There’s no flow, just a buttload of hard hard work as you laboriously go through the steps.

It’s still doable (as proven by the fact that I’m still here) but it never gets easy. And generally speaking, the hard posts are less effective for the readers, too, the same way that a new skiier is less fun to watch than a more experienced one. There are awkward jerks. There are lapses. And many people fall over on their butts.

Can I mention your Right People again?

Seriously, this is where it’s at. I haven’t even begun to talk about the benefits in terms of creating and promoting your products, building communities, simpler branding, or satisfaction! Once you find your Right People everything just starts to flow: posts, comments, and cash.

Who are your Right People? Tell me in the comments!

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

10 Ways To Get More Comments On Your Blog Posts

I know exactly what you are going through.  Anyone that is blogging and has been blogging for any length of time understands too.  You write what you think is a kiss butt post.  You do all the right things.  The new post brings in traffic so you have the feeling people are reading the post.  But, you received only a few comments if you received any at all.

Don’t dispair and don’t give up.  For the most part, you haven’t done anything wrong. After all, you are well ahead of most who are blogging.  You are at least posting good stuff. And your problem is not uncommon at all either.  I first wrote about this very topic here and here.  And yes, I am going to repeat some of what I already wrote before. This is a topic which is brought up daily and I want you to get comments.

How to get comments on your blog post

1.  Ask for them

Seriously, this is one way to get comments too many of us forget to use. Not rocket science by any means.  But, it is the first step in getting comments.  Simply invite your readers to leave comments by just asking.

When I end most of my post, I use some key words I try to live by, “lets keep the conversation going.”  This conversation is one of the huge advantages a blog has for both the business owner and your readers.  The cornerstone to blogging is the fact it is a web site where you have the ability as a business owner to carry on a conversation with your readers.  The conversation you can have provides you an openness and transparency that can create trust and respect with your readers.  This is the same trust and respect which we hope will turn those readers into customers.

Want your readers to comment, ask!

2.  Ask questions and seek opinions

How many people are going to ignore the opportunity to give their opinion?  Very few as we all think ours is the best.  In addition, asking questions in a post can be construed as an indication you might need some help.  And people just have a natural urge to help by answering questions.

For example, at the end of this post I am going to ask you a question, “how do you get comments on your blog post?”  Ask questions, you just might get some answers.  And best of all, those answers you are getting can become fodder for future post too.

You can also ask questions in the post title and in sub-headings in the post.  The key is to just ask.

3.  Comment on the comments you are getting on your blog

In other words, participate in the conversation you started and reply to the comments.  Your responsibility as the blogger does not stop when you hit the post/publish button and send your post to your blog.  If you expect to get comments, you have to participate in the conversation too.  How can you expect your readers to engage in the conversation if you don’t.  Yes, you started the conversation with the post.  But, don’t let it die there.  Engage your audience.

I try to make it a point to respond to as many of the comments we get here on Blog For Profit.  If you have taken the time to stop what you are doing to read one of our post and leave a comment, I feel we have an obligation to do the same back.  If you are not getting comments, stop and ask yourself if you are responding to the comments you do get.  If you are not, then why should your readers leave any in the first place?

4.  Allow your readers to subscribe to comments

Giving your readers a way to subscribe to comments gets them involved in the conversation and engaged in it too.  Hopefully they will come back and continue to take part in the conversation as others comment on your post.

On this blog, we use the Disqus commenting system and I love it.  Disqus gives our readers two ways to subscribe to comments, RSS or email.  Another popular tool is Subscribe to Comments which is a WordPress plugin.  I know both of these tools work as I subscribe to comments myself to see if anyone might respond to a post I have left a comment on.  Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to engage in the conversation.

5.  Give your commenters something in return for leaving a comment

Keep in mind, people leave comments on your blog for at least two reasons.  One, they want to leave a comment because they do want to get involved in the conversation.  Two, they leave comments to get noticed.  There are tools you can use which allow you to give both of these commenters something in return for engaging in the conversation.

As I mentioned above, we use the Disqus system.  And with Disqus comes a pretty cool widget you can put in your sidebar which gives your commenter some credit with a link to their own site.

I know first hand these type of tools work for your commenters.  I personally get traffic from sites who use one which I have commented on.  Once you have them setup, it is really a no brainer way of giving credit where credit is due.

6.  Don’t require your readers to register to comment

If you want to see me blow a gasket, require me to register to comment.  Actually, a better way to show you my dislike for registering to leave a comment is the simple fact, I won’t.  And most busy bloggers won’t take the time to register either.  All you are doing by requiring commenters to register is driving away comments and killing the conversation before it even gets started.

And don’t use those stupid CAPTCHA spam filters either.  For one thing, spammers are finding ways around them.  And two, they are a pain in the butt for the commenters too.  There have been a number of times I have tried to enter the required letters and it does not work.

If you make it difficult for your readers to comment, they won’t. It is your responsibility as the blogger to moderate your comments anyway. See number 7 coming up.

7. Moderate your comments and take care of spam

Instead of using the two methods we discussed in #6, you should be moderating your comments as they come in.  Once again, my favorite comment tool comes into play here.  Disqus has a great way to moderate comments. You can even do this using your email.  And I can also say that my spam comments have decreased since I started to use Disqus.

Another great tool for spam is Akismet.  I also have this activated on this blog.  Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.  You can also moderate those comments it sends to spam or not.

Oh, and moderate your comments.  Don’t allow them to publish until you have checked them all to make sure they are proper for your blog. Yes, this is going to take some time and effort on your part.

I and a lot of other bloggers I know moderate our comments. And we do so because we want to protect our readers.  We also don’t want some of the crap some put in comments to be on our blogs.  Your readers will appreciate the fact you are moderating comments and they will feel you are paying attention too.

8.  Stir the pot and be controversial from time to time

Everyone of your readers have a topic they are passionate about.  As you do.  Don’t be afraid to get the “juices” flowing by bringing up such topics and giving your take on it.

I have found when I do a post that might be a bit controversial or where I am calling someone or something out, I get a lot of comments.  Just be careful.  While some of your readers may appreciate this.  Others may be turned off and not come back.

One such post I did a few weeks ago was called, Don’t be a blogging whore — Stop asking for links! That post generated some great comments and some great conversations on twitter too.

Also, be very very careful talking about politics or religion.  Two topics that most likely should not be discussed on a business blog.

9.  Don’t give them all the answers in the blog post

Leave it open and don’t say everything that needs to be said on the topic you are writing about.  But, don’t be too eager to leave too much out.  Your post may not make any sense if you leave too much out.  But if you leave room for your readers to add to the conversation, they will do so.

10.  Make sure commenting is easy

And just as important, make sure you allow comments.  I do moderate comments as we discussed above.  I do this to control spam. I never not post a comment just because someone may disagree with me.  I don’t post comments that do nothing but flame a commenter or a guest poster.  I know it sounds like a no brainer that you have to allow comments to get comments. I added this one as number 10 because there is and will continue to be an ongoing conversation in the blog world about comments being on or off.

Comments are not road kill.  And for a business blog, comments are a gold mine of interaction between you and your intended audience.  Allow them, moderate them and engage in the conversation they bring to your blog too.

Now it is your turn. How do you get comments on your own post?

What are some of the ways you use to get comments on your blog post?  And don’t be shy.  Especially if there are ways you have found which are not listed in the list above.  Let’s keep the conversation going!

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Running for Your Blog… (Or is that Running Away From It?)

I recently started running in the evenings as a way to get some exercise after sitting in front of the computer for hours at a time.  Now, I should tell you right from the beginning that I hate running.  I have always found it difficult and tedious, and I would much rather do just about anything else to get exercise; but my schedule doesn’t allow for team sports, I’ve never been able to motivate myself to get to the gym, and there aren’t any good bike trails near my house… so running it has to be.

You might think that blogging and running aren’t really related, but a couple weeks after I started running I noticed something interesting happen: I started getting ideas. While my body was doggedly keeping the pace and my conscious mind was focused on breathing evenly (as opposed to gasping for breath and falling to the ground in exhaustion)—my subconscious mind was running amok!

I was suddenly remembering things I hadn’t thought of in years, making connections that seemed completely random and exploring ideas I would normally dismiss out of hand.  By keeping occupied my body and my conscious mind (the Spock-like part of it that usually says “that idea is completely illogical.”) I was giving my subconscious mind permission to follow those crazy and illogical threads and see where they ended up.

Half the time those crazy threads don’t go anywhere—they are illogical, and they drift off into the ether never to be seen again. But sometimes, sometimes… they lead to great ideas, powerful breakthroughs or keen insights.  Sometimes illogical is just what I need to give my creative process a kick in the butt.  And regardless of whether I’ve had insights or breakthroughs or a foray into the completely ridiculous, I always come back from a run feeling mentally refreshed; the exercise jump-starts my brain.

Obviously I can’t say that running is going to improve your blogging—it might not be your cup of tea.  But I can assure you that by taking regular breaks from your business and your blogging to allow yourself to zone out—and by this I mean occupying your body and conscious mind, I don’t mean sitting in front of the T.V. or surfing the internet—you will see an improvement in your work.  You will have better focus, more creativity, and clarity of mind.

So I hereby give you permission (if you ever needed it) to put down your work, step away from the computer, loosen your tie and go play.  Go run, jump, spin, stretch, daydream, brainstorm, whatever.  Utilize your body and free your mind.

(And once you’ve done that, dear reader, and you return refreshed and eager again, please come back and leave a comment letting me know which activity works for you.  For me it’s obviously running, but I’d love to hear what works for others: hiking, driving, knitting, gardening—the possibilities for the therapeutic mental zone-out must be endless.)

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Because, It Just Makes Sense

As humans, we go about our day constructing our reality. We think we’re logical in our choices but not really. Consider these common behaviors.

We have coffee because it wakes us up. We react a certain way to our kids because they make us react that way. We drive the speed limit because we don’t want to get a speeding ticket. We eat our lunch because of the trees.

Wait…Did that last sentence jolt you a bit?

Why? (Or, why not?)

Well, before we go into that, did you notice the common factor of all the sentences? They all have the word “because” in them.

The Structure of Beliefs

The word “because” is one of the ways we, as humans, speak our beliefs. It’s how we speak our justification of why we do something. You do X because of Y. It’s that simple.

As you go about your day today, listen to how many times people say the word “because” and what they say after it. What you’ll hear is their reason (aka belief) about why they do it. You can also ask people “Why?” and they’ll give you their “because.”.

Then, after you hear their “because” step back and think about what they said. Does it make sense? How are these ideas they’re linking together really related? Is it any more real than, “because of the trees?” If so, then I ask you, what makes it better than because of the trees?

Am I Crazy?

Probably not. However, I’m asking you to go about questioning your world because I want you to understand the persuasive power this little word “because” offers.

Have you read the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini? If you have you probably remember the six weapons of influence he’s so well known for: Reciprocity, Scarcity, Liking, Authority, Social Proof and, Commitment and Consistency. But, do you remember the story about the copy machine and the word “because?”

Someone at Harvard did a study where people asked to cut in line to use a copy machine. One group asked, “Can I use the copier?” with 63% letting them go first. Group two said, “Can I use the copier because I’m in a hurry?” with 94% letting them go first. Group three asked, “Can I use the copier because I need to make copies?” with 93% letting them go first.

If you’re standing in line and waiting to make copies, would you let someone go in front of you who asked, “Can I use the copier because I need to make copies?” Reading it here it may look silly. However, in reality it makes complete sense.

Using This In Writing

If you’re writing a sales letter or other persuasive message, how can you use this without being too obvious? Here are some examples:

• Use it today because it’s fast and easy to do.
• This is everything you want because you understand how powerful it is to use.
• After you use it you’ll find it something you use everyday because it’s so simple.
• You can feel safe using it because you’ll never get caught.

Write some examples yourself. Practice.

Take a benefit you want the person to accept and link it with something that’s related (or not) with the word “because.” They don’t have to make complete sense to you. However, when you use the word “because” people will read it and think it must be true.

Start using it and you’ll find it funny how people rarely question what you say and write. You can link things with the word “because” and people just nod in agreement.

Now, because you’ve read this far you’ll want to leave a comment. So, leave take a second and let me know how you’ll use this…because it just makes sense.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

How to use your business blog as a business building apparatus

If you are blogging and if you have a online or offline business, generating business and building your business should certainly be one of the goals you have for your blog.  And remember, blogging is and should be proactive marketing for you.  You should not be sitting around waiting on customers to arrive at your site and either buy from you or hire you.  Blogging and social media are proactive in the sense you can do something to bring in business.

While it is important to always keep the search engines in mind.  You can not simply sit around and wait on the traffic to stop by.  You have to do something.  And using a blog and social media is a great apparatus to be proactive.

What can you do now to turn your business blog into a business building apparatus?

1.  Give some thought to your blog post headlines.  Blogging is powerful if for one reason.  Each post you write is a new web page.  And each one of these new web pages has all of your information on it. It has the name of your business, a link to your About Page and anything else you might put in a “single post” sidebar. That is why it is so important to consider the design of your “single post” pages when you are building your site.  Which is where a tool like Headway Themes is so powerful.

Your post headlines or titles should be well thought out and contain keywords specific to your niche and/or business.  While I usually write the headline to a post before I start to write the post itself.  Nine times out of ten, I will make changes to the headline after I write the post.  Your post headline is the one place you should stop and seriously consider Google and the other search engines.  Keep in mind, the headline is the first thing people are going to see in a search results page and the first thing they will see in their RSS reader.  You want the headline to catch and maintain their attention.  Also, make sure your best niche or business keywords appear in the first few words in the headline for maximum exposure.

2.  Make it easy to share your post. While you must consider keywords in your post headlines as we just discussed.  You also want your post to be easy to share.  Of all of the social media tools, twitter has become the first choice for most people to use for sharing content.  What you have to keep in mind is the one limitation of twitter.  There are only 140 characters to work with.  And you have to keep that in mind when crafting your post headlines.  You don’t want people to have to edit your headline to share it on twitter.  So, try to keep your post headlines at no more than 120 characters if you can. This leaves room for retweets too.

3.  Blog for and to your audience, who are your prospects and customers. You want your prospects and your customers to get to know you.  You want them to feel comfortable with you.  And you want to connect with your audience too.  The style of your writing is extremely important when you are considering your audience.

I firmly believe it is fair to say that every business has their own audience.  They come to you for what you have to offer.  And they will come to your blog and come back to your blog for what you are offering there too.  Know your audience and write to and for them.  Too many businesses and professional service firms try to impress their audiences with the style of their writing.  Don’t!!!  Give your audience what they want.  Your audience wants information, solutions to their problems and issues and answers to their questions.  They don’t want a techie journal article or a professional journal article.  They want information they can use and understand.  A blog is perfect for this.

4.  Post to your blog on a regular and consistent basis. People go to the internet for information.  And like the search engines, people like new, up-to-date and relevant information.  You can be light years ahead of your competition if you are the one blogger in your niche who provides this information on a regular and consistent basis.

No, you don’t have to post daily, unless you want to.  What you need to do is pick a schedule and stick to it.  Your readers are going to come to know when you post and they will come to expect it.

Yes, you do have the time to post.  Because you better be finding the time to market and that is what blogging is.  Blogging should be one of the activities as a business you are doing inside your overall marketing program.  Make the time to do it.

5.  Spread out and guest post on other blogs. If there is one sure fire way to reach new readers it is guest posting on other blogs.  But, don’t sit around waiting on an invitation.  This is also where you should be proactive.  Ask for the opportunity to guest post on other blogs.  Effective guest blogging comes with key things you should do.  Here is a list of steps you can take for effective guest posting.

6.  Promote your blog. Great content, great headlines and having a few readers is not enough.  You have to be proactive once again.  You have to promote your blog.

We have given you 6 ways you can turn your business blog into a business building apparatus.  What are some of the ways you have done the same?  Share your ideas in the comments below and let’s keep the conversation going.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: unranked [?]

MarketMeTweet – A twitter tool you need to check out

If you use twitter at all, especially as a marketing tool, you need to check out an application I have been testing for a while now.  MarketMeTweet puts all of the features and tools you need to run a successful marketing campaign on twitter into one application.  Plus, you can use this great app for all of your twitter use needs.  I started out using version 1.3 a couple of months ago.  And the new version coming truly puts everything in one place for you.

Here is what some of the users said recently about the new version 2.0 which will be coming out very soon.

This version may actually make me leave TweetDeck behind…who knows??. At a glance, V2 looks way better and easier to use. Way to go guys! Can’t wait to try it out.

and

Are you kidding? NOW you will dominate Hootsuite because you’ll have it ALL one needs to manage sm!!!

I will have a full review sometime next week about the new MarketMeTweet version 2.  Until then, you can watch the video below for more information.

See More About MarketMeTweet

And just to make the FTC happy, those are affiliate links.  If you don’t want to click on an affiliate link, here is a direct link to MarketMeTweet.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: unranked [?]

The Small Business “It” Factor: The Critical Differences Between Winning And Losing Bloggers.

Guest Post By Genuine Chris Johnson

I’ve had the good fortune to help just over 100 people get started blogging in the time I’ve owned my business. I’ve helped almost exclusively “rotary clubbers,” the small town, mainstreet folks that prepare our wills, list our homes, make our loans and do our taxes. I love the spark of entrepreneurship that my clients have.

I’ll tell you a secret you never hear from any social media consultant: most of my clients fail. They don’t get a good ROI on their blog, and they leave a Google trail of half assery all over the Internet. They don’t Blog For Profit, they waste their time and energy, and for most of them, they should never have started. Secret number two: I can often tell very early if someone is going to succeed or fail.

I recently went through all of my clients. I looked at their blogs, from our “never posted blogs” to the “obscenely profitable” blogs. I wanted to figure out if there were some instantly observable, obvious threads so I could guide my clients.

Fear. That was the number one thing that was the same. Clients were afraid of making public mistakes. Like everyone was frantically clicking refresh on their feed reader, salivating over what some anonymous tax attorney had to say. Consider this: It’s OK to make mistakes. When you first start blogging your blog might be the most completely private place on the Internet.

Second: my failures wanted to see an ROI before they achieve critical mass. Cart before horse. People make blogging all about them, but what makes blogging work is service to others. 10 self-serving posts does not a blog make. Instead post information people need—and use process stories to tell just why you’re different. After one blog post a check is most certainly not in the mail. When you just make half a blog, you will almost convince people to become leads.

Third: our failed bloggers don’t any take action till they feel like they know everything. I do a lot of training and I have daily lessons available. There are some “lessons junkies” that spend more time on the webinars with me than writing their blog. These folks I love, but these folks fail. The point of blogging is unfiltered, authentic information. Have an opinion, make a wave, and stir the pot. Be yourself, and share what makes your service the best in the world.

The failure path has “fear” at its heart. If you’re a blogger and you’re afraid, it’s much less likely that you’ll succeed. If you presume failure, it will follow you. What are the common threads of my “success stories?” The folks that made 60x or more what they invested?

Action: They churned out loads of content, constantly improving. You get better at blogging the more you blog. Churn lots of posts. Each post makes you better, and rings the bell of Mr. Google. If you want to make your blogsite work, write, write, write. Here’s a fact: everyone that worked with me and posted 70 or more original articles or pages reported a return on their investment.

Winners realized that there is a way to win and they set out to learn it. Look around: some people are winning bloggers. The presumption that success is possible and predictable drives a different set of actions and spirit of commitment than if you’re just “trying out blogging.” There’s a map to success in everything from SEO to conversions. Hunting your model is a different mindset than dabbling. In the Rock, Sean Connery says something to the effect of, “Losers try their best. Winners come home with the prom queen.”

Third: the people that won looked at numbers. Hits, links, clicks, analytics, inbound calls & even word count. Drucker said what’s measured can be improved. Knowing your numbers (without being overly concerned) makes you hard to beat.

Do you want to win? Here are some easy questions and action Items:

• If your blog isn’t making money, look at a few things: do you have 40+ posts and 10 pages with evergreen content?
• Do you know how to get into your analytics?
• Do you look at other industry blogs and see what they are doing, and do it better?
• Is it dead simple to contact you?
• Is it real clear what information is on the blog and how it benefits customers?

Those are questions that we all have to answer.

Genuine Chris Johnson helps rotarians get business from blogs at Flat Rate Web Jobs, and he helps third party candidates get websites and donations at Patriot Connect.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Writer’s Block – Its all about the cows

For some reason over the last week I have been completely blank on what to write about. Speaking as someone who has written often about this very subject. Talked to a number of our clients about it. And even tweeted about it. Experiencing my own self imposed writer’s block has not been a favorable experience.

As I was shaving this morning and getting ready for my normal Monday routine, I decided to kick myself in the butt and stop feeling sorry for myself. “Writer’s block, you are an idiot.” “Get off your sorry butt and go write.”

That is exactly where this post is coming from too. And what better subject to write about than, writer’s block.

I know a lot of you have this issue. And I know it is a struggle too. The key to avoiding writer’s block is to just go back to what you know. And going back to what you know is exactly what we should be doing.

This post is a prime example of what you can do when you feel this way. Just so you know, I am going to revisit a couple of my previous post and repurpose some of the content here. Why, because that is one of the things you can do when you are experiencing writer’s block. The other reason I am going to revisit those other post is because as we approach Spring and our minds are wondering to our desire to be outside, we need some reminders of the blogging practices we should be doing too.

Our Tools

I have certain tools I use in my office daily. Each of them allow me a way to save post ideas in a place I can go when I need reminded of something to write about.

The tool I probably use the most is Evernote. This app is golden and I would encourage you to give it a try. With Evernote, I can grab an idea right off of another web page. Or I can store a PDF. The great thing about Evernote is the fact you can set up folders and organize ’til the cows come home*. In fact, I have folders for most of the categories on this blog. Storing and finding things could not be easier.

*’Till the cows come home – Cows are notoriously languid creatures and make their way home at their own unhurried pace. That’s certainly the imagery behind ‘until the cows come home’, but the precise time and place of the coining of this colloquial phrase isn’t known. It was certainly before 1829 though, and may well have been in Scotland. The phrase appeared in print in The Times in January that year, when the paper reported a suggestion of what the Duke of Wellington should do if he wanted to maintain a place as a minister in Peel’s cabinet:

“If the Duke will but do what he unquestionably can do, and propose a Catholic Bill with securities, he may be Minister, as they say in Scotland “until the cows come home.”

Sorry, now you see what writer’s block does to me.

Next is my Moleskine notebook. I keep one of these on my desk and in my messenger bag. Sometimes it is just nice to take pen and paper and jot down ideas. And don’t forget, Grandma would be happy too.

The key is to pick 2 or maybe even 3 tools you can use to store and find ideas you come up with for blog post. And believe me, I hit both of them the last couple of days and apparently it helped.

Our Previous Post

Remember your post are the conversation you are having with your niche, audience, target market, potential clients, present clients and even “competitors”. Scan over the last 10 or 12 post you have and pay special attention to the comments on those post. Read over them and really look at what the conversations are all about. I often find the comments I get on my post are better than the post itself. Good comments are a gold mine for more blog post. Write some of the ideas down you are seeing in the comments.

Next, take a look at the post you wrote over these same 10 or 12 post.

• is there some way you could expand on an idea you wrote about.
• could one or two of those post become a series of new post
• if one of those post was just a current event update for your readers, could you take that and write more from your opinion of the current event
• could you take one of the post and repurpose it and make it even better.

The list is only limited by your own imagination. All you are doing is taking advantage of the comments you are getting and your own blog post and expanding on the ideas in both.

Our Clients or Customers

This is a gold mine of good blogging material. Questions you get from potential clients and/or customers. Or just causal questions you get asked on the street. If you are a service provider ask yourself one very important questions, “what is keeping my clients up at night?”

You should be making a list of these common questions. All of these types of questions make some of the best blog post. Not only because you are answering their questions and providing information on your blog. But if you think about the fact, if they are asking you these questions, they are most likely looking for answers to them online. And if you are the one answering them, they are going to find you.

Let yourself go…

…at least a little from time to time. We should allow ourselves to step outside the box. Post about something your readers may not expect you to post about. Give them a refreshing view of you. In other words, be human for god’s sake. Seriously, this is something I have been trying to do and actually wrote it down as one of my plans for 2010.

This is especially true for the business blogger. I think we all get so caught up in trying to always put on that professional dress code we forget who we are. Of course there is a word or two of caution to go along with this. Be careful. You need to know your audience and how they might react just a little before you step too far out of the box.

Blogging should be fun. And it should be fun for both you and your readers. So, go out and have fun damn-it.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Is Your Blog a Big Whiny Baby?

I was talking with a fellow blogger recently about what it takes to make a small business grow and be successful. I’ve learned quickly that growing a business and growing a blog are really not all that different. Actually, the exact same principles apply. I got a great insight from this conversation. It was this: when you first start, your blog is a baby. No way around it. And if you feed it, it will grow. No way around it. But it will be hard work, and it will probably take longer than you want. If you stick with it though, you will get the result. Problem is, most people just don’t stick with it. Could it be that success in blogging is really this simple? Yes. Simple should not be confused with easy though.

Success is not this nebulous process that only happens to the lucky. Your blog WILL succeed if you do the work.

Who takes a baby and shoves it to the side…saying “I don’t have time for this. You’re too much work”? No one does. It IS a lot of work to take care of a baby. And it’s more than worth it. But we don’t spend all our time looking for a way to feed a baby faster. You feed the baby. It takes as much time as it takes.

I think the reason so many of us spend so much time on searching for shortcuts is because we simply don’t realize how valuable the end result of building a successful business is to begin with. If we realized how awesome and liberating it can be to have a successful business of our own, we would gladly buckle down and do the work with a smile. A successful business can set you free. Not just financially but in much more important ways as well. We tend to overlook the upside of hard work. It’s just ironic how hard we work to avoid work, you know?

Building your blog is not a magical process. It doesn’t take special tricks or luck. That’s the beauty of it.

What it Takes to Build a Successful Blog

This is what it takes to build your blog (no more, no less):

• Regular, high quality content
• Incessant networking
• Being attentive to your readers
• Making offers (asking for the order)
• Being open to admitting mistakes, and learning from them
• Time

I suppose I could complicate it for you if you want. I could sell you a system for a thousand bucks that promises to make your blog grow on autopilot. But if I made you such an offer, would you buy it? I might make a few bucks, but we all know this isn’t how it really works

Don’t Starve Your Baby

We want to skip and short cut the hard stuff. It’s natural. But think of the baby. Your baby. It needs what it needs. Who’s fault is it? No one’s. You can’t skip things just because it’s hard. It’s gonna grow up to make you proud, and it’s going to take care of YOU one day. Sooner than you might think. But for now, it needs you.

This is why I say it’s so important to love what you’re writing about. It can be tough writing consistently for a small blog that’s just starting out. But that’s where you start. It’s where we ALL start. All blogs start out as helpless little babies. I remember watching David Risley start his latest blog. This was a guy who already had significant success building a successful tech blog. But when he started davidrisley dot com, he had plenty of posts with no comments. But then when people started trickling in, they saw he was the real deal and was providing a lot of value, and word got out fast. What if he had quit just because no one was paying attention at first? It pays to stick with it. Don’t starve your baby. It needs you.

The Upside to Sticking with It

The upside to creating a successful blog is huge. After you have the audience and the trust of your readers, the amount of leverage you have at your disposal is really powerful. It’s so easy to get things done when you have thousands of people listening to you.

So many people want to know how to get results faster. That makes sense. We all want results faster; it’s a human inclination. Would you ever ask how to get your baby to grow up faster? It’s a stupid question really. It will grow up at it’s own pace, as long as you take care of it.

I thank Sean D’Souza for comparing his once young business to a baby in his recent interview with me. The analogy really made an impression on me. I’ve seen Sean’s business grow massively, and he has retained a masterful level of control over his operation, which is something I admire.

Running a successful business is a life changing process to be sure. I can’t imagine doing anything else. If you’re blogging to build your business (I hope you are), resist the urge to rush it or expect too much too soon. All you can do is work hard, use good marketing tactics and enjoy the ride. You’ll get there. I promise. And it will be more than worth it.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 11% [?]

PayPal: 5 Things You Maybe Didn’t Know

If you’re going to blog for profit, you’ll need a way to accept shopper’s money for whatever you are selling, whether that’s a service, products, advertising, or memberships.

With the shopping cart comparison I’m doing, I know a dozen decent ways to do just that. Some are easier than others, some are cheaper, and some have better features…but few are easy, cheap, AND featurific.

Also, retrieving your money is just as important as accepting it. This may seem obvious, but in the bustle to get money into your account, it’s easy to overlook the options (and limitations) for getting your well-earned money out.

Which is why I really like PayPal. You won’t find many affordable online payment services with instant, easy access to your money that include a flexible, free shopping cart. Actually, you might not find any.

That said, here are 5 things I tell clients who believe PayPal’s fees are too high, their options too few, and other popular misconceptions—

PayPal’s cart can manage inventory

Product inventory is not something every shopping cart can handle, but PayPal’s does a darned good job with it— for free.

Whether you’re selling tangibles or intangibles, you may need to set a limit on how many items you sell. What if you’ve made only 17 widgets? What if your teleseminar can have only 25 participants? Tallying the orders as they come in would be a major hassle, and you have to sleep sometime.

With PayPal, all you need to do is check the “Track inventory” box when creating a button, and then add the quantity you have in stock. Be sure to set a low-quantity number to receive an email when your stock gets low. You can also prevent sales when you’re sold out or just add a warning to the shopping cart. You can even add your cost to track the item’s profit and loss. True story.

PayPal’s cart can manage recurring payments

The recurring payments required for membership sites and other subscription-based models is another feature you won’t find in every cart—rarely for free, and not always fully operational. This feature was broken for months with a popular free cart that starts with a G and ends in an oogle Checkout.

As both a vendor and a customer, I’ve found PayPal’s recurring billing works exactly as described and expected. No missed payments, no double billing, no monthly drama, and it’s completely hands-free (except for unsubscribing).

And there are options: You can set the billing cycle in days, months, weeks, or years, and also select how many cycles until the billing stops—and yes, “Never” is a selection. You can even set a trial period’s price and duration, and add a second trial period with different selections. Pretty nifty…

PayPal has low fees with special discounts

Yeah, it stings a little to see PayPal take 2.9% + 30¢ from every transaction. But you know what? The more you earn, the lower the rate. And if you think PayPal’s rates are high, check out merchant account rates for online purchases. They require monthly fees (and more) that PayPal does not.

Here are two things I found in my research that were news to me, and I’ve had a PayPal account for almost ten years:

1. PayPal offers discounted rates to non-profits
   Instead of paying 2.9% of each transaction, non-profits pay only 2.2%.
2. PayPal has tinier fees for tinier transactions
   If your transactions are usually under $10, you may opt for the “Micropayments” fee structure and pay 5% + 5¢. The percentage is a little higher, but the fee is lot lower. The example on PayPal’s site shows you’ll pay 36¢ with their Standard rate on a $2 transaction, but only 15¢ with their Micropayment rate…less than half as much!

PayPal gives you instant access to all your money

It may be hard to appreciate how awesome this is until you look at merchant accounts and other payment processors, like ClickBank. Read their policies and you may find your earnings will be held up to a month before they’re paid out. Also, a percentage of your income may be held back for product returns.

PayPal, on the other hand, offers instant access to all your money. If a customer purchases an ebook at 2:45pm, you can spend those earnings at 2:46pm. PayPal may hold back some of it, but only if you develop a history of heavy returns. Unlike others in their industry, PayPal assumes things will go well instead of penalizing you from the start, and ever after.

One thing to note: A purchase paid with an eCheck can be delayed 3 to 5 days while it clears, so you may choose not to accept them.

PayPal allows you to spend your money in lots of ways

Instantly accessible money is great, and it helps to have multiple ways to spend it. Some services only disburse funds through the mail, charging a notable fee and taking almost two weeks. Most will do a bank transfer, but again, watch out for how much it costs and how long it takes.

With PayPal and a few clicks, funds can be transferred to your bank account within 3 to 4 business days for free. Or for a nominal fee they will mail a check that arrives in about a week. But my favorite options are much faster: I pay directly from my PayPal account as I shop online. When I’m away from my computer, I withdraw cash from ATMs with my PayPal debit card or swipe it at the register like any other bank card. Very nifty, that!

So.

There are plenty of things I like about PayPal and I recommend it to everyone, whether they’re just starting out or a few rungs up the blogging-for-profit ladder.

I accept PayPal. BestBuy.com accepts PayPal. Heck, even behemoth Walmart.com accepts PayPal. You’re never too small or too big to accept PayPal.

So what do you like, or not like, about PayPal? Lemme know down below…

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

The SoMe sheep have a lot to answer for…

Is there a full moon constantly setting over the SoMe industry communities these days? Seriously! Is it me or are we all starting to notice some interesting (others would say disturbing) behaviours falling out of these trade communities?

We can all appreciate the dynamics at work when we’re in various situations: eg. we act differently walking solo down the street vs. brainstorming with a peer in a café vs. bouncing around an online community stuffed full of various personality types. We let the world see different behaviours and characteristics depending on our evironment. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But what is it about a group environment that transforms us from independent thinkers to sheep?

If we take a step back and objectively look at these communities, we’re likely to see several distinct groups of people. Here’s what I see:

• SoMe strut – the people, who in all fairness, have very good reason to strut. They have taken a chance, embraced the unknown and found success doing something they love. These people tend to be at risk of getting too big for their britches. Hopefully they’ve all had amazing moms who told them to focus on being a leader that other leaders want to follow

• SoMe sheep– those in the community who choose not to think for themselves. Not because they can’t, au contraire, this lot can not only think for themselves but they have value to offer, even genius to extend. But they are lazy. These are the ones who disregard due diligence and probably have a ‘get rich quick’ mentality. These people flock around the feet of a select few higher profile types, desperate to touch the hem. They want a leader to worship – someone to think for them.

• SoMe cats – it takes time and effort to get this lot’s attention. Even more time to get their respect, but when you do, the respect is mutual and balanced. Their mantra is typically: a win win offer is the only type of offer to extend. Their opinions are less popular but that’s probably because they challenge you to think.

• SoMe oblivious – they’re here but they really don’t get it! They use old skool thinking and apply it to new world order and the result? Well, it’s awkward. I recently reached out to a US group that I was referred to by a SoMe cat… the US firm will be in the UK later this year. I respect the source who referred them and the US firm’s website looked the part.  I wanted to open a door for them so extended an offer to introduce them to the right people here that would result in a speaking gig for them. Why? Out of respect for the SoMe cat who introduced me, because I knew I could (quite easily) help contribute to this firm’s visibility and because that’s the SoMe world I live in. Anyhow, their response? “thx”  – HAH!

I have a feeling that if this were some sort of personality profile test, we would find degrees of each of these profiles in all of us although I’d like to hope that Paereto’s 80/20 law would ring true for me in this instance as well.

We’ve embraced the whole “we is better than me” philosophy… although I’d challenge on what level. It appears it is a superficial embrace that most of us don’t really hold true. If we did, the SoMe sheep would evolve into their own. They wouldn’t be afraid to question, challenge or disagree with the more higher profiled among us. They wouldn’t be scared that their voice of disagreement would have a negative affect on their career – true story! As a matter of fact, they would be directly responsible for contributing to the success, evolution and innovation of this great space. Their questions to the SoMe Struts – the experts – would make the experts re-think, re-evaluate, adapt and evolve resulting in even better ideas and projects. The SoMe sheep would then recognise their own abilities, get some self respect and feel less inclined to inflate the heads of those who have enjoyed public success. Inflated heads really isn’t good for anyone… I think even the guilty would agree with this.

We really is better than me! The power of collaboration is why we’re here. It’s what we sell. So why is it that we are choosing not to live it? And why the hell are we starting to call those that think for themselves, that voice their disagreement or alternative ideas– haters? Collaboration means there should always be difference of opinions… if there isn’t… you’re not collaborating! You’re a bleating sheep!

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Creating Captivating Blog Posts (or how to write for goldfish)

You’re smart enough to decide within a few seconds if you’re getting what you need from this post. And it’s my job to keep you here so that you can at least get to the first subheading.

But there’s a good chance that you won’t finish this blog post. In fact, I’ll bet that you don’t finish it. (If you actually do finish reading it, let me know by clicking here).

Elephant Goldfish

If my stopwatch is correct, it took you approximately 21 seconds to get to this point. That’s three times longer than the attention span of a Petco goldfish.

Now goldfish don’t take Ritalin and it’s better to assume that your readers don’t either. There are many reasons visitors bounce off your site within the first seven seconds:

• If they don’t find what they want on your site, they can easily search for it on Google.
• The web is an interactive medium. Visitors feel that if they’re not clicking content, they’re not getting its full value.
• More people are reading with mobile devices which severely limit the amount of content they can view at any moment.
• The bells and dings of real-time web notifications (think Buzz and Tweetdeck) are a constant distraction.

You with me? Good. So how can you get readers to read your entire post?

Simple: By getting them to stick around for seven more seconds. And then seven more seconds after that – and so on.

Seven ways to re-captivate attention

1. Use subheadings - Every two paragraphs break up the text with a subheading. This way, readers can scan the post for the section they find most relevant.
2. Use bullet points – Like what I’m doing here. People like lists. It puts your content in a nice container.
3. Use white space – Line height is important in posts. Most premium WordPress themes allow you to multiple ways of creating more white space.
4. Use images – If you read CopyBlogger, you might notice that authors always put an image at the top of every post. Sonia Simone calls these images “steroids for your headline”. Where applicable, use images through your post, like I do in “Essential Social Media Connections For Your Blog “.



5. Ask a question that begs and answer – It’s one thing to provide information based on your expertise, but what about asking the reader questions that get them thinking about their experience? Like I just did in the preceding sentence.
6. Keep the focus on them – Try writing your posts as if it’s an email to a specific person you have in mind. Maybe it’s a client who asked you a thoughtful question. For me, this way of writing flows more naturally, and comes across more personal.
7. Keep word count under 500 words – Most of my posts are less than 500 words. And my screen casts are less than 4 minutes.

You still here?

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Blogging and Social Media – Benefits of Social Media Marketing

A business who uses social media as one of its marketing tools will have available to it many benefits. One key benefit we discuss often here on Blog For Profit is the fact blogging and the other social media tools are a great way to develop channels of communications between you and your customers or clients.

Whether you are a brick and mortar business, online business, home based business, or a small business, you can see benefits of using blogging and social media.

Blogging and Social Media Opens Up the Channels of Communication

One of the key benefits of using these tools is the chance of opening up the channels of communication with your target market. By opening up these channels, we are able to start the process of building a relationship with these same individuals. We are able to build rapport with them and in turn, build a trust between us too.

The premise that social media marketing actually opens up communications between you and your market is supported by the chart below. The key points of the chart are the top four benefits they mention.

All of the top four benefits involve some form of customer/client communication

• Customer engagement
• Direct customer communications
• Speed of feedback/results
• Learning customer preferences

If we take this premise as true as there is no reason not to, we should be looking for ways to take advantage of how we can accomplish this. And if you are blogging and using social media, we need to make sure we are encouraging this engagement and interaction between our business and our target market.

Finally, if you are not using a blog or social media to market your business or professional service firm, you should be. By utilizing a blog, you give your target audience the ability to engage with you and give you feedback via comments and other ways for them to contact you. And if you take advantage of social media, you can use such services as twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn as a tool to grow and promote your blog and in turn you business. All of these tools working together give you a great opportunity to communicate with and start a relationship with your target audience.

The Problem and Solution

As we have been discussing, for most small businesses and professional service firms just getting started using these tools can be a daunting experience. Where to start and knowing what to do once you get started. And it doesn’t matter what type of business or professional service firm you have, the problem is there and the solution is too. Best of all, there is no reason at all you can’t take advantage of blogging and social media to build this connection with your target market.

As we mentioned the other day, over the next couple of weeks we will be providing updates, highlights and some private tips and hints on this subject. And we will be giving you updates on the new course we are working on to solve the problems you might face getting started using a blog and social media. The course we are working on will also help you take your current blog or your social media use to the next level. So rather you are brand new to blogging and social media or old and used up, it will offer you the help and solutions you need.

I am excited about what we are working on. We will be giving you the tools and the knowledge to get started. And we will give you what you need to make sure this part of your marketing is successful too.

To get the updates and private tips and hints, all you need to do is provide your email address below. I won’t spam you with a bunch of useless crap and we won’t share your email address either. And, just in case you are wondering, this is a new “list”. So even if you are subscribed to Blog For Profit or our newsletter, you need to sign up below to get updates.

Since I told you I wasn’t going to feed you a bunch of crap or blow smoke out of my butt either. Those who do sign up will get a special offer. Can you say, you will get a freaking discount. Or if it makes you feel better, you will get it cheaper, less expensive, dollars off or a special code.

(Required fields are bold) Email Address *

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Headway Premium WordPress Framework Overview Video of What is Coming in 1.6

Michael Martine of Remarkablogger fame has been working with us at Headway on more than just SEO and other marketing efforts. Michael has been producing some great tutorial videos we will be using in the documentation and tutorials. What is great, the videos will be accessible right from the Visual Editor and in the members only area too.

One of the videos Michael just did and I just watched the other night is the overview video below. If you ever wanted to get a taste of what is inside the Headway panel and the Visual Editor, this video will give you a taste.

Most, if not all of what Michael shows in the video will be expanded upon in individual videos too.

If you want to see the video in full screen, there is a button in the bottom right hand corner to expand to full.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]

Structure your posts for better impact

Have you ever given any thought to how you structure your posts? It makes a big difference in how much and how thoroughly they’re read. Here’s some clever tricks you can try to improve your post’s structure.

Don’t bury the lead

(Or bury the lede, if you want to be an anachronistic word snob. Which I do.)

Journalists are taught the inverted pyramid structure of writing, where you put the single most important statement at the top of the page, then flesh out in more detail further down. This works very well on the internet: most website visitors skim rather than read. If you put the most important points at the bottom, especially under the fold, you run a big risk of them being ignored.

To write like a journalist, note briefly the points you want to make in your post (There should never be too many. Just one is totally fine!) and rank them in priority. Take the first point and make it in the first paragraph. Make the second point in the second paragraph. Keep going until you run out of points to make.

Ask a question

A great way to keep attention in your post is to ask a question at the beginning of the article and answer it much later. Our brains hate unanswered questions. Have you ever kept watching a bad movie, just because you needed to find out how it ended? (I’m not suggesting your posts are like a bad movie, just that it’s a powerful motivator.) Your readers will keep reading to find out what the answer is.

Tell a story

Another thing our brain is wired to respond to is stories. If you can tell a story that ties all your points together, it will engage your visitors and keep them reading.

The common narrative arc goes like this:

Situation: Start with a bang! Describe the situation in brief and evocative detail.
Problem: What’s wrong? Drama and conflict are interesting!
Climax: The showdown: how was the problem solved?
Resolution: …and they all lived happily ever after. Wind the story down and make your points.

Headlines

You can use your headlines in three useful ways:

1. To provide a brief summary of the article (again, journalists do this). By skimming the headlines a reader should be able to get a good idea of the content.
2. To arouse interest in the next point by asking a question or making a bold declaration.
3. To be funny.

Do you use one of these formats, or a different structure for your posts? Tell me in the comments!

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Popularity: 1% [?]