Posted: 06 Nov 2009 05:15 AM PST

By Johnny B. Truant

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money online. You don’t have to create a product or develop a service, you don’t need huge amounts of focused traffic the way you do with AdSense, (I started using AdSense a year ago and just recently passed the $100 minimum payout), and you don’t need to do a ton of advertising or SEO to make it work.

All you really need is an audience to whom you can refer products and services.

Of course, the above statement is true in the same way it’s true that you only need food, water, and shelter to live. It’s technically accurate — but personally, I’d like to have Netflix and a few Twix bars, too.

I made around $20,000 in my first six months from affiliate marketing, and the following are a six tips I’ve found that will take you from bare bones to a legit affiliate income.

1. Establish trust

Technically, you can make a few bucks here and there even by tossing out links to people who don’t know and/or like you. I think of these as “cookie toss” sales, because most affiliate setups dictate that each time a person clicks on an affiliate link, that affiliate’s cookie (which identifies the customer as “belonging” to that affiliate) overwrites any previous cookies on the customer’s computer. If you’re on Twitter during a launch and toss out a bunch of affiliate links for the product that everyone is promoting, there’s a chance that your link will be the last link someone uses before buying. You didn’t really refer the sale; you lucked into it.

A far better way to go is to actually have some credibility with your readers, audience, and peers. If you have a blog, work on building bulletproof trust with your readers. If you’re on Twitter, tweet with some integrity, and be a real person rather than a selling drone. If your people like and respect you, they will believe you when you say a product or service is worth buying.

2. Promote only products you honestly believe in

Don’t be a shill. Once you start promoting as an affiliate, you’ll quickly discover how many things are out there to promote. If you hop on every one, your people will turn away because they’re always being sold to. Worse, they won’t believe that your recommendations have any merit because you’ll recommend anything. There are plenty of good things out there, so be a true “raving fan” of a product you like rather than a hawker.

3. Don’t promise the moon (i.e. tell the truth)

No product or service is perfect, so don’t pretend it is. There is a strong tendency (especially in online marketing) to oversell. Everybody’s course will triple your income in two days; every program is guaranteed to whiten your teeth and wax your new Ferrari while filling your hot tub with supermodels. People are smarter than to believe the BS, so don’t feed it to them. (And as a bonus, if you tell the truth, you’ll sleep better at night.)

If you want to go really nuts with this principle, you can take the contrarian’s approach like I did when I promoted a course by pointing out its foibles and the fact that you may well totally fail online. (By the way, I ended up being the top-selling affiliate for that course.)

5. Disclose your affiliate relationships

This really isn’t a bonus item anymore, actually. The Federal Trade Commission is now saying that bloggers must disclose that they will make money if people buy through their affiliate links.

The good news is that disclosure can be a good thing if you’ve established trust already. Loyal readers won’t care that you’ll benefit if they believe that your praise of the product is honest, or if they were planning to buy anyway.

6. Offer bonuses

This is a great one. Recently, I offered to give my $297 Zero to Business program to anyone who used my affiliate links to buy Copyblogger’s Teaching Sells course, which I honestly think is spectacular. Because my course added almost $300 in value to their purchase, customers loved it. And because the commission for Teaching Sells exceeded the price of Z2B, I loved it.

I think the biggest, simplest key to affiliate marketing is honesty and integrity. If you lie, yes, you may make sales — but those people who were lied to will never buy through you again. If on the other hand you build relationships and tell the truth, affiliate marketing results in a natural synergy. You refer people to good products that they will enjoy and benefit from. When they buy, you benefit, too. And when they benefit, they come back to thank you from the referral. In all likelihood, they’ll trust your future recommendations in the future — and then everyone benefits again.

Hey, it beats a plain old “food, shelter, and water” existence, right?

——–

Johnny B. Truant writes about online business, turkeys, and occasionally SpongeBob SquarePants’ pet snail at JohnnyBTruant.com. He invites cool folks to join his laid-back Jam Sessions call series and to connect with him on Twitter @johnnybtruant.

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 06:02 AM PDT

Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything changed?

You might not have known it at the time - but the moment was defining, it changed the course of some area of your life in a way that turned things upside down.

I had one of those course changing moments early in my blogging. It was a moment that resulted in my blogging moving from being a hobby that generated a nice bit of secondary income into a full time business.

It was a moment that at the time didn’t feel life changing - but it was.

The funny thing about this moment is that it wasn’t a discovery of some secret way to make money blogging, it wasn’t the day I stated one of my blogs… in fact it was a moment that didn’t immediately lead to any particular change on my blogs - because it was largely something that happened in my mind - a paradigm shifting moment.

It all started with 9 words from my wife (V)

‘You’ve got 6 months to make blogging full time.’

She then told me that if I didn’t get it to this kind of level I’d have to get a ‘real job’.

Up until this point I’d been talking about how blogging could one day provide us with a full time income. I’d been showing her the growth of the earnings from the blogs so far and projecting forward to what they might be in the future if things kept going.

I’d been on about it for months and things were going OK - the earnings graphs I kept showing her were trending up - I could see the possibility of one day being a full time blogger.

But I’d been talking a lot…. dreaming a lot…. creating a lot of pretty graphs…. and not really DOING a lot.

I didn’t really see it (I was too close and too caught up in my dreams) but V knew it and so she set me an ultimatum - a deadline that changed my thinking and more importantly led to me changing the way I went about my blogging.

In the moments after V’s ultimatum I had a realization that while I dreamed that one day my blogging would become a business that I’d been treating my blogging like a hobby.

I knew that if I were to succeed in going full time in the next six months that that had to change. I needed to start looking at my blogging as a business now - even though it was only earning a day or two a week’s income.

That moment changed everything.

That was the day I….

• started putting serious time aside for blogging
• became more focused upon my core tasks of creating content
• wasted less time on distractions
• became more strategic in my thinking and set myself goals to work towards
• began to look for new income streams - beyond AdSense
• started hustling for advertisers - ringing up businesses in my niche and pitching my blog to them
• began to seek out guest writing opportunities on other blogs and even in main stream media
• started setting myself deadlines for posting a certain number of posts a day and developed an editorial calendar
• I started networking more with other bloggers
• began to invest more time and even money into my learning of different aspects of blogging
• started to look for a business coach who could teach me how to look at what I do as a business instead of a hobby

That day began the process for me of looking at what I do as a business.

While not a lot changed on my blogs that day - the impact over the last 4-5 years has been significant. I’ve not looked back and many of the things I changed back then have become patterns and a natural part of my blogging work flow.

The #1 reason my blogging grew into a business was that I began to treat it as one.

Tomorrow I want to share a free opportunity with you that I think will help many of us as bloggers to make this mind shift. You see many of us are stuck in the mindset of looking at what we do as a ‘hobby’ and need to make a shift into looking at things more as a business person.

Update: due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve pulled tomorrow’s post. I was going to promote something that I thought fit the bill but on further investigation - it doesn’t. My sincere apologies but I don’t want to promote something that doesn’t fit with my ethos.

However I do recommend people take this idea of learning how to build a successful business seriously. I did this through finding a business coach, reading books and networking with business owners (offline and online).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 08:26 AM PDT

A Guest post by Jade Craven.

Have you heard of Johnny B Truant? He started writing at ‘The Economy Isn’t Happening’ but recently, he revealed he’s made $10?000 in 3 months. In his Ittybiz column, he told how he made nearly $3?000 in one month. He’s also written a couple of guest posts here on ProBlogger here and here.

What really attracted me to him was that he didn’t earn this money by taking advantage of people or using questionable tactics. He did it by finding out what people wanted and providing them with a solution that benefited them both.

In this post, I’ll talk about how Johnny did it. I’ll provide strategies and case studies so you can apply these tips to your on blog. I’ll even talk about the tactics he used to promote his killer new ecourse, for those who are looking at selling information products from their blog.

Finally, I’ll give you an exclusive discount for that e-course Zero to Business - just skip to the bottom if you want 10% off.

4 Ways To Earn Money By Helping People

Give Free Stuff strategically

Image by Anil Jadhav

How Johnny did this:

• He released a free instructional ebook about setting up a blog.
• He did free website setups in return for testimonials

How You Can Do this

• Barter your services with other skilled bloggers
• Release an introductory report
• Do free work in return for references or exposure
• Do case studies highlighting your skills.

Case studies.

• Leo Babauta, Skellie and Chris Garret got a lot of exposure because of their guest posting.
• Neil Creek takes headshots of attendees at twitter meetups for use on their social media sites. He has received a lot of praise over this, both from the local twitter community and international photographers. He has gone on to get many more clients and enquiries.
• Darren used to do case studies on his blog as an advertisement for his consulting. He no longer offers this service.

Provide calls to action regularly

Image by kozumel

How Johnny did this:

• He would frequently have P.S at the end of his post - including a few humorous ones
• He would simply state “Call to Action”

How you can provide calls to action:

• In the conclusion of the post, tell the reader what you want them to do
• Give them an incentive to click through

Case Studies:

• Ali Hales guest post on Problogger. She talked about the topic of staff blogging before encouraging people to check out her ecourse. As an extra incentive, she gave the readers a discount code.
• Dave Navarros post on Freelance Folder, where he encouraged the readers to give an example in the comments.

Find your people.

Image by Elvire.R.

How Johnny did this:

• He got a guest posting slot of Ittybiz, offering himself as a case study
• He is on the faculty of Project Mojave
• He has guest posted on the places where his target readership hangs out

How to do this:

• Find blogs that attract the kind of people you want to target. See if you can guest post on that blog.
• Seek  work and joint venture opportunities
• Look for regular writing opportunities

Case studies.

I don’t need to offer any case studies. Look around at your favourite blogs. Do you see the same people being featured? Are the same people interacting? They are the loyal fans.

Are you a loyal fan of anyone? You’ll usually find you tend to hang out in that persons group. You may buy from more than one person. These are the people you want to connect with.

Selling something? Focus on selling solutions.

Image by Doug88888

How Johnny did this

• He offered wordpress installs at a discounted price. To compensate, he asked that people buy through his affiliate link
• He sold group coaching to those that couldn’t afford the price of individual coaching..
• When realizing that people were still needing information, he created a course that was cheaper than getting Johnny to help them through the process.

How you can do this:

• See if you can offer a service at a discounted rate in exchange for purchasing something through their affiliate link
• Find creative ways of making your products more affordable without underpricing yourself.
• Listen to your audiences needs and create products to help them.

Case Studies:

• Sarah Prout does this in her Twitter Success Blueprint. She realized that businesses needed an affordable way to learn about twitter, so she created an ebook with information catered to professionals, as well as other twitter users.
• Men with Pens do this with their blog critiques. They offer a discount for ones offered on the blog.

I know many people hate being sold too. Rather than promote his course Zero to Business, I’ll talk about what you can learn from it.

What you can learn from the course

There are three main things I loved about the promotion strategy:

• He created humorous videos with viral potential.
• He purposely  avoided hype in his sales page
• He provided real and useful bonuses

Lets discuss how you can learn from each strategy.

The Humorous videos.

• He mocked a number of the key sales tactics in the internet marketing niche
• In his letter to his affiliates, he recommended that people promote the videos rather than the product

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

• Offering a quality resource that your affiliates can promote
• Mock some of the common techniques used in product launches in your niche

Avoiding Hype

• Johnny repeated several times that this product would provide technical solutions. It not make them rich.
• He then explained the costs of learning this if you paid his normal consulting fees.

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

• Talk about the practical reasons about how your product can help someone
• Explain to them how your solution is better value than the alternative

Cool Bonuses

• He provided individual coaching to the first five people that signed up
• He offered group coaching to those who signed up by a certain date.

So - how can you adopt this to your launch?

• Offer bonuses that are exclusive and are not freely available to other marketers
• Offer bonuses that will provide real value to the majority of your buyers

My call to action:

• If you want 10% off Johnnys e-course, Zero to Business, just use the word ‘problogger‘ as the discount code. Its that easy.
• If you want to check out Johnnys blog, go on over to his fancy new site.
• If you want rants about zombies, check out his twitter feed.

How to Use Blogger to Upload your Javascript (.js) files ? - Unlimited Bandwidth!!

Posted: 16 Sep 2009 05:36 AM PDT

This post explains how to host javascript(.js) files in blogger itself, so you don’t need to worry about bandwidth limitations,etc:-

“How to host Javascript files for Free with unlimited bandwidth ?” is one of the most frequently asked questions in the blogger community. There are tons of hosts out there who can help you host your .js files for Free, but all have some bandwidth limitations and also they are not very reliable.

My friend Switcher previously explained how to use google sites to host your javascipt files for free in his blog (you can read that post here)… I used that method to host javascript files of my previously released magazine style blogger template ‘ Falkner Press ‘… but, the problem is even google sites have bandwidth limitations. So, if the bandwidth exceeds at a particular moment, the javascript files don’t load which results in complete template mess up.

So, if you have those kind of problems, here is a simple trick.

I’ll take Falkner Press template javascript files as an example.
If you look at the top of the template code, you see something like this:

So, as you can see, there are three javascript files (highlighted with colors) in the template. The files are hosted at google sites.

2. Copy each of those three links and paste them in your browser and download all those three files.

3. Now, open each file with Wordpad (not notepad) and copy that code.

4. Now, here is the trick…
Paste the code you copied (copied from first file) in your blogger template like this.


<script type='text/javascript'>

//<![CDATA[

PASTE THE JAVASCRIPT CODE HERE

//]]>

</script>

What about if you have 2 javascript files or three (like falkner press template) ? Simple! Just repeat the process again… like this..

5. And the Final and Most Important step… SAVE THE CHANGES

Benefits of this trick:
» No file size limitations
» No bandwith limitations
» Super fast page loading (coz files are stored in blogger itself)

Like the trick ? comment..

Posted: 20 Sep 2009 07:11 AM PDT

This is a guest-post from AdesBlog.com. Follow Ades on twitter @ades.

We all know that content is king and that if you keep blogging… if you keep doing what you love… the traffic and the money will follow suit. While that’s partially true, there is also things that you can do to:

• Index your newly launched blog fast by major Search Engines
• Increase traffic to your blog
• Improve your SERPs (Search Engine Result Positions)

Why wait right? Content can be king but waiting around for traffic to come by itself is not a good way to start blogging. So let’s start…

Getting Indexed

Let’s say you launched a blog today and want it on Google’s results tomorrow. Can this be done? Yes.

Easiest way to get indexed by major Search Engines is to get mentioned by established blogs. This usually will get your blog indexed within 24 hours. But since we are new (i.e the newly launched blog of ours) I don’t think any blogger want to mention it. So instead of begging other bloggers to notice your newly launched blog, you just have to figure out other ways of getting indexed by Google fast. Can it be done? Absolutely! (All it takes a little effort on your side).

1. Blog Communities

There are few blog related community portals that have a very good rankings in Google and other Major Search Engines Results, they are: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Blogged and NetworkedBlogs, particularly MyBlogLog. This means that if you get your blog on these blog communities, Google will have no other choice but to index your blog. So, go ahead and register for an account on these communities and list your blog on it. Once you are done you will have a page like this, this and this.

What to pay attention: Your blog’s description (have a proper write-up), keywords & tags (add related keywords and tags to your listing, this will be used by other members to find your blog), branding (put your logo, avatars, screenshots etc. have a consistent branding everywhere), and list your blog in the correct category.

2. Site Valuation & Stats Sites

Some of those How Much Your Site Worth? sites have a good ranking in Search Engines. All you need to do is to go there and check how much your site worth. This would create a special page for your blog (like this) and consecutively it would be indexed by Google. Here is a list of worthy sites: WebsiteOutlook, StatBrain, CubeStat, WebTrafficAgents, BuiltWith, WhoIs, QuarkBase, URLfan and AboutTheDomain.

3. Feed Aggregators

List your blog’s feed in these feed aggregators Feed-Squirrel, OctoFinder, FeedAdage. Once you have submitted your feed to these sites, they will keep track of your newly published posts and index them in their site. Whenever someone clicks on the blog post title, he/she will be redirected to your original blog post sending you free traffic and getting your latest posts indexed by Google.

4. Social Sites

Registering account on Social Sites with the same username as your blog’s URL is very effective in getting your blog indexed by Search Engines. Especially for those targeted keywords.

For example, if your blog’s name is WhiteElephant, it’s a good practice to register the same username at twitter as @WhiteElephant, and to create a page in Facebook at www.facebook.com/WhiteElephant. Having a consistent keyword-username on all major Social Sites will help get your blog indexed faster, and at a later stage it will also help build a “brand” for your blog.

So, get account on major Social Sites for your newly launched blog, namely: Twitter, Facebook (create a page for your blog), Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious etc. By the way, it’s a good pratice to create a separate Social Sites account for each of your projects. This way you can stay focused and post messages that are related to your project. In the long run, this will help build a community that are like-minded around your project.

Note from Darren: it’s worth nothing that many social media sites (like Twitter) use no follow tags on links which means the links don’t really help with SEO. Having said this - it’s still worth getting pages for your keywords/brand as these pages can rank in and of themselves in Google and can help you to have control over numerous search results for the same keyword.

5. Misc Sites

Squidoo is a community website that allows people to create pages (called “lenses”) on various topics. Creating a topic that is related to your blog and then including your feed in that page would help your blog get indexed by Search Engines. Squidoo used to have a really good ranking in Google results, but not so much today. But it’s still ranks well and it shouldn’t be neglected.

ChangeDetection is a website that monitors sites for changes. When you monitor a particular site using ChangeDetection, it will ask you whether you want the notices to be public or private. If you say public, it will be published in their news section. For example; AdesBlog.com got an update today, type of update: text additions etc. This of course will get picked up by Search Engines and Search Engines in return will index your blog.

Technorati is a search engine for searching blogs. According to Wikipedia, as of June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. It’s a dying breed, but not just dead yet. You have to definitely register for an account and get your blog listed on Technorati.

That’s it. Once you are done with creating accounts and submitting your newly launched blog in the above mentioned sites, you should see your blog in Google’s Search Results within 24 hours. Most of the time it will appear within the next few hours only.

Lastly, getting indexed is one thing but sustaining that traffic is another. And this is where the Content is King phrase should truly be emphasized. Because, without a good and valuable content, all your effort will be just wasted.

I hope you have found this post useful.

Abdylas Tynyshov (Ades) is a full-time blogger based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He blogs at http://www.adesblog.com and is the creator of a great freeware color picker tool. You can follow him on twitter at @ades.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Posted: 29 Jan 2010 06:02 AM PST

A Guest Post by Christie Burnett. Image Source.

Feeling sluggish about blogging in the new year? Being innovative on your blog can be a great way to re-energise yourself. The process of being creative and trying something different can definitely up your blogging fun quota when you are feeling stale and uninspired. Trying something new also has the advantage of showing readers a new side to your blogging persona and this could have the added benefit of engaging a whole new set of followers. And you never know, you might just start a new blogging craze. Let me give you an example.

In November 2009, I published my first “From My Notebook” post. I basically replicated what I had written that day in my own personal journal, presenting it on a graphic notepaper page, and the response from my readers to the format was extremely positive. I had lots of Twitter questions about how I had created it and positive comments left in response to the post. And I enjoyed the process of doing something different. It was fun, challenged my creative processes a little and was a much quicker post to put together than many of my others – no photos to edit, no laboring over what I was writing, no research to include. It was simple, yet effective.

Every now and then throwing in a new style of post keeps every one on their toes. So, here are 20 words to get you thinking about fun ways to step away from your usual style and give readers something fresh.

1. Draw

Put pencil to paper or pen to tablet and say something with illustrations, instead of words.

Check out Miao & Wafupafu for inspiration.

2. Photograph

Set yourself the challenge of telling a story without words, just photographs.

Telling Your Story with Words and Images offers great tips for choosing the right photographs.

3. Share

If your blog is usually full of product reviews or technical information, turn things upside down by sharing a personal story instead. Or tell readers something about you that they never would have guessed.

In Why Stories are an Effective Communication Tool for Your Blog, Darren shares his reasons for why stories engage readers on an emotional level.

4. Measure

Insert a graph, pie chart, table or diagram to make your point.

5. Debate

Invite another blogger, preferably one who usually takes an alternative stance to you, to enter into a debate with you via online chat or Skype and then publish it on your blog.

6. Laugh

Make your readers chuckle – self deprecation, jokes, comic strips – whatever works with your target audience.

7. Watch

Give vlogging a twirl or insert a relevant video from YouTube to get readers talking.

8. Give

Give something back to readers by hosting a giveaway. Or donate $$ to your favourite charity for every comment left on a post.

9. Teach

Make something from scratch, and then create a tutorial to teach others how to do it too.

10. Introduce

Invite a guest blogger to be featured on your blog and introduce readers to someone new.

Try You’ll Never Know Unless You Ask for more information about inviting others to guest post on your blog.

11. List

When was the last time you write a list post? If it has been a while, compile a list which will be useful to readers today.

Check out Ali Hale’s guest post at Problogger, 10 Steps to the Perfect List Post.

12. Resource

Develop a free downloadable resource for your readers.

13. Colour

In colour psychology, blue equates to serenity and calmness whilst red is strong and gutsy, dramatic even. Think about creatively using colour to add intensity to your post or to set the mood for readers.

14. Solve

Do readers email you with questions, problems or dilemmas? Take the opportunity to channel ‘Dear Abbey’ and help them out with some useful advice. I did this recently with, “The Case For Not Packing Away.”

15. Inspire

Source relevant inspirational quotes to share with readers. Or include statistics or new research findings.

16. Ask

Find out more about your readership by asking them to participate in a survey or poll.

Read more about surveys – Survey Your Readers and Discover Who They Are and How You Can Be More Useful to Them.

17. Headline

Use the powers of the internet to source news stories relevant to your niche and readership. Include your personal reaction and thoughts.

18. Re-package

Re-package your post differently – standard content wrapped up in a new look. Present it as a postcard, a journal page, a post-it note, a shopping list, a recipe, or a collage.

Try Super Stickies for a bit of fun.

19. Link

Create a list of great posts, linking to other blogs in your niche. Keep them relevant and your links will be popular with readers. You might even find that you get linked back to in return.

20. Challenge

Develop a challenge for your readers and offer to publish the best submissions you receive. It could be a group writing challenge, an online photography exhibition or any challenge that best suits your niche and target audience.

Keep this list handy and come back to it for inspiration whenever you are feeling stale or depressed about blogging.  You are limited only by your imagination and willingness to try something new.

Christie Burnett is a trained early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and, most importantly, Mum. She blogs at Childhood 101 about all the things that contribute to growing a memorable, healthy childhood, with lots of ideas, tips and information for families.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 06:07 AM PST

This post continues my series exploring

Have you ever seen a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering speed and momentum and growing in size as it rolls until it gets to a size that will destroy anything and anyone in its path???  

Me neither…. not outside of cartoons anyway….

While the image may not be one too many of us have seen in reality – it is a great metaphor for what seems to happen to many successful blogs.

They start small (like any other blog) but gradually (at first) grow (a reader at a time) into blogs with more and more loyal readers. Along the way events (some lucky and some strategic) happen that make the blog grow and roll faster down the slope.

In time momentum grows and it seems that the blog can’t help but grow as it rolls on and gathers new readers, builds its brand, expands with new features…. in time people start referring to it as an A-List blog and what was once a simple blog with no readers has ‘made it’.

How do successful blogs grow?

There are many reasons that successful blogs grow bigger and bigger over time but one principle that I observe in many such blogs is that they use the power of leverage to grow what they have to the next level.

The principle is simple yet it can be applied in many different ways and levels to blogging. It revolves around this question:

“what do you have now that you can use to help you get a step closer to where you want to be?”

Leverage: “the mechanical advantage gained by being in a position to use a lever” (source).

Another way to ask the question – what ‘lever’ do you have at your disposal that might help you to lift your blog to its next level.

Illustrating Leverage – an Example

Most readers of ProBlogger will pretty familiar with my photography site. I call it a site and not a blog because today it has a forum, 3 blog areas, strong Twitter and Facebook presence, 2 E-Books (portraits and Photo Nuts and Bolts) and continues to expand. It is read by 3 million or so visitors a month and generates some decent income.

However it wasn’t always what you see today. In fact when I started it in April 2006 it was a simple blog with a free template design that had 3-4 new posts a week and that made less than a few cents a day.

The last 4 years of building dPS have seen many many points of leverage. Let me highlight a few:

1. My previous photography blog – before dPS I had a small photography blog (now inactive) that aggregated camera reviews from around the web. The traffic wasn’t massive but it was enough that I had a nice little community of readers (mainly Australians as it was on a .au domain). When I launched dPS I was able to kick start it by letting my current readers of my original photography blog know about it. It didn’t generate a rush of traffic, but it meant that in week 1 it had some readers. Similarly i promoted dPS here on ProBlogger in that first week. I don’t think it drove too many new readers directly but know quite a few ProBlogger readers recommended dPS to family and friends. Point of Leverage: traffic/brand from a previous blog to launch a new one.
2. Profile/Network – because I had been blogging in the niche for a while I knew a number of other photography bloggers. I was able to pull in a few favours and get some promotion from these blogs to help drive a little more traffic (the links would have helped with SEO also).  Point of Leverage: relationships from credible people in the industry to help launch the blog.
3. Flickr – I had a very basic presence on Flickr when I started dPS. I used it purely to share photos with my family and friends and to host the occasional image for my blog. As a result I had a network of 40-50 people on Flickr that I was able to promote dPS to. I also started a Flickr ‘group’ on at that time and promoted it to my network of 40-50 people.  Point of Leverage: using a presence on a social media site to drive traffic to a new blog.
4. Flickr Group – the Flickr group grew quite organically. I did promote it to a few people but they invited their friends who invited theirs… it had a life of its own (today it has over 10,000 members). After 6 months I took the energy of that Flickr group and started a forum on the dPS domain. I exclusively invited members of the Flickr group to join the forum.  Point of Leverage: using a presence on a social media site to launch a new feature on a site.
5. Social Media – traffic to the blog and forum continued to grow. I had never really done anything on Twitter or Facebook with dPS until about 18 months ago but decided to test what would happen if we started to promote our Twitter and Facebook pages from the dPS site. Doing so helped us to grow solid followings on those networks. Point of Leverage: using established traffic on a site to recruit followers on social media.
6. Expansion of Topics – when I first started dPS I dreamed of a site that not only did tips on how to use cameras but one that was wider in terms of topics and covered cameras and post production (and more). However I decided not to launch with this wide focus but rather just to focus upon beginner tips. Last year we rolled out two new areas (cameras/gear and post production). I’m glad I waited – having an established audience on related topics enabled us to kick start these new areas. Point of Leverage: using established traffic to launch new areas of the site.
7. E-Books – having built an audience, brand and community I was able to launch E-Books that were guaranteed of at least some level of success. We had traffic (and more importantly credibility, goodwill and trust with our readers), community, multiple ways of connecting with our audience and relationships with other sites – all of this was leveraged to help launch our E-Books. After we had launched the first we also had a database of buyers which helped launch the 2nd E-Book.

Of course there are many other small points of leverage along the way but hopefully you get the point. Each time I’ve launched or grown the site I’ve looked at the arsenal of what I already have and pooled those resources to help build what comes next.

Points of leverage can come in all shapes and sizes. Some might not seem that big but they can lead to things that are. For example my initial Flickr network of 40-50 people led to a Flickr group of over 10,000 which led to a forum of over 80,000!

What do You Have that You Can Leverage?

I’ve raised this topic in a number of presentations over the years and the reaction of many is ‘I don’t have anything to leverage’.

I can relate to that feeling – in 2002 when I started my very first blog I didn’t really have much either. I’d not done much online beyond using hotmail, IRC chat and an occasional search on Netscape. I didn’t have an online network, knew virtually nobody who did and had no idea where to start. I’d not had any experience in building a website or writing copy for the web – I’d only seen my first blog hours before I started my own.

So I started with what I did have – my friends and family. They were my first readers.

Interestingly one of my friends had another friend who was a blogger on a similar topic to me. That generated my first link which generated my first comment from someone I wasn’t related to (a momentous moment in the life of any blogger)!

Homework – Make an Inventory of What You Have

Here’s an exercise that could be helpful. Grab something to write/type with and start making a list of what you have at your disposal. Thing broadly – it could include almost anything:

• Current blogs/sites that you own or are involved in
• Newsletter lists
• Social Media Accounts/Presence
• Real life Relationships and Networks
• Skills
• Experiences
• Memberships in clubs/communities
• Profile
• Customer databases
• Financial resources

This list only scratches the surface – what you have will be unique to you.

Another thing you might like to add to your list is things that you don’t have but that you have the ability to have. Next step goals if you like.

• For example many bloggers have the ability to write content and could potentially guest post on other blogs. Guest posting on another blog might not be your ultimate goal as a blogger – but it could take you a step closer.
• Another example might be that you might want to get to know someone that you don’t yet know. I know one blogger who told me that they felt that they didn’t know anyone in the blogosphere so they made a list of 10 bloggers that they wanted to get to know and meet in person over 2009. They achieved their goal and now have a decent relationship with 10 pretty influential people when they need it down the track.

One Last Tip – Build It Before You Need It

As I wrote my 7 point list of points of leverage that I’ve had at dPS above it struck me that what I was writing sounded pretty strategic and as though I knew what I was doing.

The reality is that I’d say that about 20% of that was strategic and 80% of it was not. When I started out I knew I wanted to build a site that helped people grow in their photography and that would hopefully make me a decent income – but I didn’t have much idea of where it was headed. I didn’t see a forum, I had no idea about E-Books and certainly had not considered Twitter or Facebook (I’m not even sure if they existed back then).

My approach instead was to grow the site organically – to try new things and see where there was energy and to keep building upon what worked. I wanted to build a presence in any way that I could and that was relevant to my potential audience and then to see what opportunities opened up to grow things further both in terms of size and financially.

I didn’t really need to have a way to email readers in the early days because I wasn’t selling anything – but I built a newsletter list from day 1. I didn’t really have much to say on Twitter or Facebook when I started with that but decided to build that network early because I knew one day I would.

In a sense a lot of what I did in the early days was to build a network/community knowing that one day I’d need it to do more than make a few dollars from ad revenue. This of course came to be true when I launched our E-books in the last 6 months. I’m glad I didn’t wait until I needed the network to build it but instead built it well in advance.

Further Reading:

• 10 Ways to Find Readers for Your Blog by Leveraging Other Online Presence
• Blogs as Launching Pads
• How to Leverage Your Blog for Bigger Things – Springboard blogging Part II

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Posted: 28 Jan 2010 06:41 AM PST

Recently, Blogger launched the much awaited Blogger Pages Feature.
So, lets see how to Create Static Pages in Blogger.

1. Sign into Blogger Draft (draft.blogger.com)

2. Click on New Post as usual.

3. Select the Edit Pages from the top menu

4. Click on ‘New Page‘ button.

5. Now, give your page a title and write the content and publish the page.

6. If you want to display the Pages list in your Blog sidebar, select the ‘Blog Sidebar’ option,or you can keep it as nav menu below header by selecting ‘Blog Tabs’ option.

Note: If You’ve Selected either ‘Blog Sidebar’ or ‘ Blog Tabs ‘ option and if you see any bx-error,.. then, come back to last page and select ‘No Gadget’ option.
This means,you have to add the links manually to your template.

Click on Edit Pages again and Right Click on View -> Copy link location (in firefox) and Add the link manually in your sidebar via Link widget or you can add the link in your navigation bar via template > edit html.

Thanks to Blogger for the Awesome feature..

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Posted: 10 Aug 2009 07:38 AM PDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Homework for Today:

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

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

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

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

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

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Power of Taking Extra Time to Create Content

Posted: 22 Nov 2009 05:40 AM PST

A Guest Post by David Cleland from TotalApps.

In 2006 I proudly started my first blog, DigMo! It was technology, it was creativity, it was music and it was education. Despite it being a bit of blog soup I was pleased at how quick the site grew but within a few years it reached a critical point beyond which I really couldn’t get the traffic to grow. The site was frankly far too general to appeal to a specific community.

The site had a massive 80% bounce rate and taking advice from reading the great advice on this site I decided to take stock and critically re-evaluate the future of DigMo!

As a result I decided to split the site and create two separate niche blogs, DigMo! To focus on educational technology and I launched a new site, TotalApps, to focus on Mac and iPhone App reviews. The thought of starting from zero scared me and I looked at ways to get the site up and running quickly.

I decided the best way to draw attention to the blog was to offer regular site competitions. Finding companies willing to sponsor prizes was actually much easier than I initially expected. I tend to target companies whose product I have reviewed and especially if the review has been popular with readers.

With blog authors being urged to declare any products they are able to keep once a review is published what better way to retain your creditability but by passing the review samples on to your readers as a competition prize ? It seems to me like a logical benefit that will add value to your site and grow the community.

The Mistakes

I think it is best to share my mistakes with the Problogger readers and the initial competitions I ran simply required visitors to leave a comment on a post. This didn’t grow the site and managed to result in a massive 70% bounce rate i.e. the users came, entered, and left knowing we would email them if they had won.

The Successes

I decided if I was going to make competitions really work they needed to be of benefit not only to the visitor but also the site and thus I needed to limit entry to RSS subscribers (both email and reader)

The solution was simple and surprisingly successful and will basically work for anyone running a Wordpress blog even with a custom theme.

Setting the competition up takes a tiny bit of code adjusting but nothing too difficult.

The Concept

The competition works by placing a code at the bottom of blog posts that will only appear when the entry is read in an RSS reader, i.e. it does not appear on site.

To do this I used a known solution that was pointed out to me by fellow blogger Thaya Kareeson.

There are a few versions of this idea around but this solution works brilliantly on TotalApps. As I haven’t come across any plug-ins that can run competitions this bit of code fiddling is the ideal solution for now.

Getting Started

Open the functions.php file in your current theme folder (I would back this up before adding the code just to be on the safe side).

Paste the following code into the text :

function contest_post_filter($content) {
if ( is_feed() )
return $content.'TotalApps Competition Code (Please note it is case sensitive) : a12221s';
else
return $content;
}
add_filter('the_content','contest_post_filter');
function contest_comment_filter($comment_text) {
return str_replace('a12221s', '[code hidden]', $comment_text);
}
add_filter('get_comment_text','contest_comment_filter');

There are two lines you need to change - 1. the line that says TotalApps Competition Code and 5 lines down the code is repeated (a1221s).

I recently ran a competition where visitors could win a copy of Screenflow 2.0. The following screenshot shows the bottom of the post as it appeared in the browser.

……. and this is how it looked in the RSS reader. You should note your RSS Feed must be the full article view (i.e. not just the abstract) for the code to appear.

When the competition closes as I generally ask the sponsor to select a number between 1 and the number of comments and then contact the lucky winners using the email address in the comment.

When a competition closes you can either comment out the code in functions.php by adding /* before the code and */ after or alternatively is simply change the text to “No competition at present”

Offering a reason to sign up to the RSS feed resulted in the number of TotalApps RSS subscribers growing in one month to double the number of readers DigMo! had after 3 years.

Tips :

• Know what your readers want and try and target prizes appropriately.
• Make sure you link to your RSS and RSS by Email Feeds in the post to make it as easy for visitors to subscribe as possible.
• Make sure you make the rules clear and post the winner’s name publicly on site.
• Where possible have the competition sponsors look after the postage. This not only saves you time and hassle but it is also assures the sponsor the competition is above board.
• Don’t run competitions for more than a week as most of the comments tend to happen in the first week after that it dries up quickly.

I have to say I am certainly no expert in coding or blogging but am really excited to find a solution that really works for managing the competitions and I am equally as excited to see the number of subscribers grow.

There may even be better solutions out there and if you know of any I would be keen to hear them.

David Cleland is a teacher based in Ireland who runs three successful blogs (TotalApps, FlixelPix and Digmo.co.uk)

Posted: 08 Nov 2009 06:04 AM PST

Do you plan your posts or do you just write them free flow as they come?

This is a question that one of our members at ProBlogger.com (Mark Dykeman) started off a conversation with in the last week.

Mark talked in the thread about how he does both (sometimes he uses bullet points for his main points and then writes on each point while other times it just comes) – but I thought it’d be an interesting question to open up to everyone.

What’s your approach?

My own approach is mixed and sometimes starts with one approach and ends up as the other but in general the way I work depends upon the type of post:

Pillar Content – in most cases if I’m setting out to write what I refer to as ‘pillar content’ (or a big post that is on a central theme of my blog) I generally like to have some kind of plan before I start. Like Mark I’ll usually start out with a list of points that I want to cover that I’ve brainstormed (and perhaps a quick note or two on each). Then I work systematically through the points one by one and write a paragraph or two on each.

Other Posts – other posts that are not quite as structure in their form tend to be written in a more freely written way. For example if news breaks on something relevant to my niche I will generally bounce off a press release or another blogger with a few of my own thoughts. If the post is like this one and is more of a ‘reader question’ type posts I again will usually write it without a formal outline.

I should say that often my posts are a bit of both. Sometimes I’ll be halfway through writing a free flow/non outline post and I’ll suddenly be hit with inspiration for about 5 other things that I’ll want to say in the post. I generally stop writing at this point and capture the points that I want to cover and in doing so write a bit of an outline for the rest of the post before coming back to where I was.

Other times I might be writing a post that I’ve got an outline for and the post will evolve in a direction that makes a lot of the points I’ve outlined irrelevant and I’ll scrap them (or at least put them aside for a future post).

What about you?

Are you someone who plans posts in detail? Or do you write best when you’re writing in a more freely flowing style?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

“What’s the most common mistake made by new bloggers? How can we avoid it?“ - asked on Twitter by @alisonkerr.

Here are a few quick mistakes that I see new bloggers making (some of which mistakes I made myself). They’re listed in no particular order and I’d love for you to continue the list in comments below:

1. Giving up too early - blogs take time to take off
2. Putting off starting a blog - waiting until everything is just right before launching can mean you never do it
3. Echoing what everyone else is talking about - say something unique and share your opinion
4. Not blogging on your own domain - I know some swear by using hosted blogs but if you want ultimate control of your blog it is best to do it on your own domain and hosting.
5. Irregular Posting - you don’t have to post every day but try to establish a regular rhythm of posting
6. Being too apologetic - ’sorry I haven’t written for a while’ can end up being the most common type of post on a blog - yes apologize if you’ve messed up but don’t be too hard on yourself - keep investing your time into building your blog up rather than highlighting it’s problems.
7. Focusing more upon Quick Traffic than Loyal Readers - there’s nothing wrong with a big rush of traffic from social media or another blog - but just as important as that is building reader loyalty. Sometimes growing one reader at a time is more fruitful than getting spikes of traffic that never returns.
8. Clutter - too many buttons, widgets, navigation elements
9. Great Posts but Terrible Titles - don’t short change yourself by investing hours into writing great content only to slap a mediocre headline/title onto it.
10. Not Defining a Topic - the most successful blogs have a well defined topic/niche (or they target a certain demographic)
11. Choosing a Topic you have no Interest in - for your blog to be successful you’ll need to blog regularly on your topic for years - if you want to sustain it choose something you have an interest in or love for or you’ll run out of steam.
12. Too many Ads - I don’t have a problem with ads on a blog from Day #1 but when they overpower the content and push it down the page too far they hurt your chances of building a loyal readership.
13. Being too Insular/Expecting Readers to come to You - many bloggers starting out fail to realize that the more you put yourself out there and interact with other bloggers the more chance you have of being read.
14. Blogging about Making Money Blogging (as a first blog) - I’ve lost count of how many bloggers I’ve seen start blogs on the topic of blogging for money when they’ve never made money blogging. Start with something you know.
15. Not Being Useful - blogs that meet needs and solve problems are blogs that people will keep coming back to and which they’ll spread news of to their network.
16. Writing for Search Engines Before Humans - you can always tell when a blogger discovers Search Engine Optimization for the first time. Suddenly titles don’t make sense, keywords appear in posts for no real reason, links to other pages on the blog that are irrelevant to the post keep being used. Learn SEO - but keep your readers as your #1 priority.
17. Becoming a Stats-a-holic - the lure of checking your stats is understandable and common to new (and older) bloggers - but it can become an unhealthy obsession that leads to distraction and depression.
18. Link Baiting with Personal Attack - taking pot shots at other bloggers might get you some quick traffic - but hate breeds hate and the type of readers you attract and the culture it’ll breed on your blog could come back to bite you. Plus you’ll get a reputation that you might not want to live with.
19. Not Knowing Why You’re Blogging - while most of us don’t really know what we’re doing at the start - the faster you can work out what the purpose of your blog is the sooner you’ll start moving toward achieving that purpose.
20. Not Selling Yourself - one thing I don’t think many bloggers get is the power of blogs to sell yourself as a blogger. There’s nothing wrong with monetizing a blog with ads - but maybe a better long term strategy is to use a blog to advertise who you are and what you can offer readers.
21. Thinking You Have to Know it All - one of the best things about blogs is that they’re a great medium for involving your readers in the process of learning. Leave space for others to interact, share what they know and contribute.

There’s ALOT more to be said on this topic - what mistakes do you see new (and older) bloggers making?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Today, Amir Helzer from WPML (WordPress Multilingual) shares his experience building a custom WordPress theme.

When you’re designing your blog all sorts of options are open to you - starting with a free theme (that you can later edit), through a premium customizable theme (like Thesis or Revolution2) and ending with a custom theme, created just for your site.

In January, Web Designer Matt Brett talked here about how to redesign a blog (and part 2). These posts covered the design goals, functionality and implementation. I’d like to talk about the process of working with the designer - the person who’s going to create your theme.

If you’re thinking about getting a custom theme, following these steps can make the process shorter, more productive and more enjoyable for both you and the designer.

1) State what you need and define the scope of the work

We’ll start with a list of everything that we need from this design:

A WordPress theme - sounds obvious, but you don’t want the designer to supply you just the PSD files, or a HTML file that you can turn into a theme yourself, right? Specify which version of WordPress you’re going to use it with.

Logo - a professionally designed logo can be expensive by itself, so make sure it’s included. When you ask for a logo, remember that you’ll also want to use it in printed material (like business cards or in magazines). This means asking for a high resolution version of your logo with transparent background.

Copyright - make sure it’s crystal clear that you have full copyright and exclusivity. This implies that the designer cannot use anything that violates the rights of others.

The discussion about copyright should clearly mention back-links. Web designers often give away free themes in exchange for credit links. If you want to link back to your designer’s site, that’s great, but you should decide that. You can instruct the designer to get your approval for any outgoing link placed in the theme.

Testing - ask the designers to supply a preview of your theme on their server. Normally, you can’t test their work on your live site. You might need to supply contents for this, or just do with the standard Lorem Ipsum.

2) WordPress theme basics - which elements to ask for

WordPress is evolving and theme design is more than just putting HTML in pages. You need to specify what kind of functionality you expect to get from your website.

List everything that you know you need. Here is what I told my designer when we started:

My design should include:

• Front page
• ‘Regular’ internal pages - for general purpose texts.
• ‘Features’ internal pages - these pages should have a unique template that lets me highlight special features.
• Posts (with threaded comments)
• Category pages
• Search

The design should have site-wide navigation including top tabs with drop-down menus, breadcrumbs trail navigation and context-dependent sidebar navigation. There should also be room reserved for the language switcher (inside the header).

The sidebar should be widget ready. Comments in posts and pages must support threading. Every page in the website must be HTML clean (pass HTML validation).

This list doesn’t tell the designer how I want the site to look, it just lists which things I need. Since she was doing a redesign for an existing site, I didn’t need to explain much about the contents for each page. If you’re getting a theme for a new site, there’s more explaining to do.

3) Prototypes come before the design

Even though you’ve chosen great designers, they’re not mind-readers. Ask the designer to provide prototypes before building any HTML or coding the theme. This way, you can approve the design concept before too much work has been put into it.

A prototype is normally delivered as an image (JPEG or PNG). During your work on the prototype, you need to take care of all the design issues. This includes the color scheme, look and feel, layout and content arrangement.

When you’ve accepted the prototype, know that this is how your site will appear. There’s not much room for design changes later on in the process. The designer’s job changes from design to implementation.

4) Payment and delivery terms

Last, but not least, before the project kicks off, you should agree on both payment and delivery terms.

Design work is not like building a railroad. You can’t pay per mile. However, there are some checkpoint on the way:

• Prototype / wireframe design
• Working draft
• Completed and polished design

Both you and the designer would feel better if payment is split per delivery. You can make an initial payment, release payment when each milestone is met and the final payment is left for when the work completes and is fully reviewed.

Ready to begin your custom theme design? Here’s a quick checklist of what we talked about:

1. Project overview
2. Detailed scope of work
3. Payment and delivery terms

In the next part of this post (tomorrow), we’ll talk about how to help the design go smoothly and make sure you’re getting everything you asked for.

This post was written by Amir Helzer, founder of WPML, a mega-plugin that aims to turn WordPress into a fully featured multilingual content management system.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Designing a Custom WordPress Theme - Working with a Designer

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Posted: 08 Sep 2009 07:55 AM PDT

In this post I’d like to share a simple exercise that helped me to grow ProBlogger beyond being just a simple blog {image by deserttrumpet}.

How are you planning on expanding your blog?

Yesterday as I was going through some files on an old computer I stumbled upon a brainstorming document that I’d written 4 years ago about this very site - ProBlogger. I wrote it almost exactly 1 year after I started this blog.

In the document I’d set myself the task of brainstorming a variety of ways that I could expand ProBlogger beyond being just a blog. While I knew the idea of a blog helping bloggers to make money from and improve their blogs had potential - I also knew that there was potential to build something more successful and profitable by going beyond just having a blog.

For this task I gave myself permission to dream big and to come up with things that I may never implement.

Here’s some of the possibilities that I’d jotted down:

• ProBlogger Forum/Community - where readers can interact with each other - possibly a forum
• Job Boards - a place where bloggers looking for work can find jobs and where advertisers can find bloggers
• ProBlogger Training/Speaking - develop training modules to do with groups of bloggers
• ProBlogger TV - a video section of the site
• ProBlogger Shop - selling merchandise but also tools for bloggers
• ProBlogger Services - a consulting service for bloggers
• ProBlogger Ad Network - an ad network for bloggers to join to make money from their blogs
• ProBlogger Books - self publish a book about how to blog for profit - perhaps a downloadable book.
• Start Related Blogs - starting blogs on topics related to blogging (SEO, different platforms etc)

There was a lot more in the list (in fact there were about 40 ideas) but these were the first on it. I wrote a paragraph or two on each idea - fleshing it out with extra details.

Of course there’s a variety of things that I’ve done and not done with these ideas:

• Some became a reality (Job Boards, Writing the ProBlogger book and starting TwiTIp for example)
• Some I’m still planning on doing (our Community Section will hopefully launch next week)
• Some I tried and abandoned (for example I tried a shop where I sold T-shirts for a while but it never really worked)
• Some I evolved into other things (the TV idea evolved into semi regular video posts)
• Some I plan to do in future (those ones are in my secret file)
• Some I’ve never done and probably never will try.

Whether I’ve done all of the things that I dreamt of back then doesn’t really matter….

What’s important (to me at least) is that I put some time aside in the very early days of my blog to dream, brainstorm and come up with ideas of how to take my site further than it was.

Your Homework

Today I’d like to invite you to do this type of exercise for yourself.

How might your blog look in 4-5 years time? Create a list of 10 ways that you might one day expand your blog.

OK - I know this seems like a pretty crazy task for some of you because I know for a fact that many ProBlogger readers are just starting out and are still in their launch (or even pre-launch) phase - however I do think that this type of exercise can be helpful even if you don’t do much with the ideas you come up with.

For me this type of brainstorming has not only led to concrete ideas and plans but even just the process of dreaming has inspired me to keep growing my blogs. I also think that having some bigger possibilities in mind can sometimes help you to shape your blog in the here and now.

So open up a document or grab a pen and paper or a whiteboard and start to dream and brainstorm about how you might one day expand your blog.

While I don’t want to limit your brainstorming by giving you too many ideas - you might like to think about some of these:

• different mediums you might like to add (video, forums etc)
• other related blogs you could start
• services that you could offer
• new categories that you could write about
• new sections of your site that you could add
• new features that you could offer readers

If you’d like to share some of what you come up with please feel free to share some of your thoughts in comments below.

In the coming weeks I’m going to share a variety of ways that I see blogs expanding that I hope might give you a little further inspiration on this topic - but in the mean time do the exercise for yourself and see where it might lead you!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.