The following is a Guest post by Tom Walker.

Tom Walker is a blogger and designer who works for an ecommerce store (offering HP supplies) as the lead editor and writer on their blog about vintage advertising and print media design.

Successful blog authors have learned that reaching their goals comes through following proven strategies that are known to be effective in delivering new, consistent and productive visitors to any site. If you are new to the blogosphere, here are six rules every successful blogger has learned to implement. Put them into practice with your own unique flair, and you will see steady growth that may well lead to big things.

1. Be Uniquely You: Let’s start there, because to stand out in an increasingly crowded field, you’ll want to create a one-of-a-kind look that is compelling – as opposed to just weird! This will tell your visitors you’ve got a unique perspective and provide something they won’t read in the mainstream of your niche. An approach to the design of the blog that's uniquely individual will enhance the fresh perspective they are getting in your content. Don’t be afraid to do things differently. Add occasional video or audio or turn over the pen to an expert in the niche from time to time. Read plenty of other blogs in other niches and grab some good ideas, putting your own spin on them. Do some research on the idea of branding yourself, and apply what you learn to your blogging style. 

2. Deliver Consistent Value: Being unique is great, but if it is not backed up by consistent value, your visitors won’t stick. Post consistently, if not daily, and make every contribution count with new, usable information that your readers can use TODAY! Guess what – this takes work! Those willing to put in the work to be consistently helpful to their readers will be those who reach their blogging goals. That’s why there is always room in a niche for you if you are willing to do what it takes to make your blog a “can’t miss” event for your readers.

3. Work Harder & Smarter Than the Next Guy or Gal: We say “don’t work harder, work smarter!” Success comes from working both harder and smarter. Both characteristics are absolutely essential. When you work really hard to be relevant, helpful and unique, you are creating your own competitive edge. That kind of self-reliance is a hallmark of those who succeed in every kind of endeavour.

4. Be Honest: Ever hear the talk radio guy start casually discussing a product and ¾’s of the way through you realize he’s trying to weave sponsored content seamlessly into his show? Blog readers hate that! Don’t you? If you’re posting sponsored content, let your readers know. In addition, provide an “About” page that gives readers a chance to get to know you, including the intention behind your blog.  Most readers would expect that you blog in order to make some money. They will appreciate you being up front about any partners or affiliates you may have. This is called integrity, and it is foundational to building trust.

5. Care About Your Subject: If you are passionate about your subject matter it will bleed through your content. If you are not passionate, you simply will not be able to keep up the consistency, quality, and hard work it takes to succeed. There are a million topics you build your blog around. Choose one that deeply matters to you, work it really hard, be unique, and success – along with profits – will follow. Any seasoned veteran will tell you that.

6. Engage your Readers in a Conversation: Great blogs are two-way streets. Feature responses to your posts. Highlight great comments, not only in your response section, though that is important, but consider devoting a post now and then to the great feedback you are getting from your readers. This will build readership, and using reader content will mean you don’t always have to have something fresh to say! Harder, smarter blogging will absolutely produce more, and more dedicated, readers.

While blogging may be relatively new, the rules for achieving the success you desire are as old as humanity. These will put you well on your way to producing a blog that many readers consider their most reliable and valuable source of information on topics you cover.

Photo Credit: Mexicanwave's photostream

On March 17, I will quit blogging!

Relax folks, I am not talking about myself. I am talking about veteran problogger Joel. For the last 10 years Joel has been blogging at JoelOnsoftware.com. Joel’s blog is regarded as one of the best blogs in the software industry. The main audience of the blog comprised of Software Developers. Joel was very successful in using his blog to launch his own software company Fog Creek Software.

But after 10 years of blogging, Joel is ready to go offline! Joel claims that his blog has provided a very narrow channel to promote his company and its products. Joel feels that the time and energy spent on blogging is better spent on other activities to broaden the channel to market his company. Joel says his company Fog Creek has become a big fish in a very small pond!

I am sad to see Joel leaving blogging for good. He is an expert in his field of software development.

This whole story has prompted me to think about who are the target audience for our blog.

I think Joel’s company became the big fish is a small pond because Joel’s readers were mainly Software Developers. JoelOnSoftware became popular because it was a well focused niche blog catering to a specific group of people. But the narrow niche nature of this blog may have been the reason why Joel could not broaden the channel for promoting his company.  Software Developers are not managers and they are not in a position to make any buying decisions. This could be the reason why Joel couldn't lead the big fish out of the small pond using his blog. Joel’s blog comprised of passionate readers but they were not decision makers.

Let’s take a simple example to illustrate this point. Let’s say that you are in the business of making candy. If you sell your products directly to kids, your business will not get the exposure it deserves. Your marketing plan should include ways to promote your products to other channels such as Super Markets, Corner Stores, Restaurants etc.

Even though Joel had a large group of followers, all of them came from the same category. This could explain why Joel couldn’t promote his business using his blog after a certain point was reached.

Another way to look at this issue is that Joel’s company has really out grown the need for a blog. Because the brand has become strong there is no need to attract clients using a blog. 

What do you think? Is blogging applicable only to small companies? Is blogging a dying medium to promote your business? Love to hear what you think about this story.

What puzzles me is that why Joel decided to say goodbye to blogging for good. For example, he could have still continued blogging and saved time by cutting down the number of posts. I take this opportunity to wish Joel good luck in his future efforts to expand his business.

The 80 20 rule states that 80% of results come from only 20% of work or effort. This rule has been observed by many researchers in various situations. Here are some examples to illustrate this rule:

• 80 percent of revenue of a company is made by only 20 percent of workers
• 80 percent of software bugs come from only 20 percent of the code
• only 20 percent of the population in a country enjoys 80 percent of its wealth

While not everyone would agree on the percentages, the important thing to learn from this rule is that most things in life are not distributed evenly. That is to say, the ratio is never 1 to 1. For 1 unit of input you will not get 1 unit of output.

Keeping the 80 20 rule in mind is important for your success. You have to identify the most important things that are key to your success and then set your focus on them. Let’s apply this rule to blogging. To maintain a successful blog you have to do a number of activities. These activities include creating content, designing your blog’s layout, socializing, replying to user comments and emails, creating informational products such as ebooks, search engine optimization (SEO) etc. Successful bloggers are those who have mastered the 80 20 rule (either consciously or unconsciously). These bloggers do know what are the key things they need to do in order to get the best out of their blogs. For example, take the blog The Infopreneur by James Richmond. The blog only started 3 months back. Within this short time frame James has achieved very impressive results. I can see two reasons why The Infopreneur has been so successful. The blog is super focused on two important things, Content Creation and Discussion. James has an objective of publishing two posts every day. He also spends a lot of time in socializing with his readers by replying to their comments.

The 80 20 rule is a valuable tool for bloggers who have a day job and can only commit an hour or two each day for their blogging activities. So the next time you do something with your blog, ask the question is this really important for the success of my blog? Can I spend the time and resources that I am about to spend in something that will be more effective and one that produces more results.

If you are going to spend your time on the key things, who is going to do the rest of the tasks to complete the remaining work? Outsourcing is the answer! For example, if you are not good at graphics design, don’t spend your time designing a logo for your blog. Outsource that work to someone else who can do a much better job than you. If you are not in a position to spend money on outsourcing you could exchange expertise. For example, you can get your logo designed by a designer and you can return the favour by helping the logo designer with something that you are good at.

Do these all make sense? Love to see your responses.

1. Blogs that disguise affiliate products as posts all the time.

2. Blogs that always talk about what to do, but provide very little information on how to do it.

3. Blogs that churn out very basic content again and again.

4. Blogs that talk all sorts of topics without any focus.

5. Blogs where the blogger does not engage with you in discussion.

6. Blogs that primarily publishes guest posts.

7. Blogs that attack other bloggers, just to gain attention.

8. Blogs where the blogger pretends to be the “expert” on the field.

9. Blogs that just rehash what others say without giving a unique perspective.

10. Blogs that are not updated consistently.

In order to create a successful blog you should blog on a topic that your are passionate about. This is the most common advice that many of us learned when we started blogging. But, the people who give this advice often fail to define what passion really means.

If you thought that passion is the same as what you enjoy doing then you are sure to fail with your blog. Passion is more than what you enjoy doing. Let’s take an example to illustrate this point. Let’s assume that you have a great love for travel and you like to go often on vacations. Does this mean that you are passionate about travelling? Not always! If you enjoy travelling, you will go on a vacation, have a great time and come back home. Your enjoyment and excitement stops once you are back home. This means you are not really passionate about travelling but rather enjoy travelling.

Passion on the other hand is more than self enjoyment. If you are passionate about travelling then you will be keeping a journal about the places you go. You will write reviews of the famous places that you have visited. You will create a blog about travel. You will make friends from all parts of the world. You will share your experiences with friends. You will learn about other cultures. You will read travel magazines and books. In essence, you are not only interested in self enjoyment, but you also like to share what you experienced. That is passion!

Enjoyment stops with self consumption. Passion goes beyond self consumption by sharing your knowledge with others. By sharing your knowledge you create value for others. When you create value, people are willing to follow and listen to you. That is the recipe for a successful blog!

Photo Credit: rAmmoRRison's photostream

If you answered “Yes”. Good for you!

As a blogger or Internet entrepreneur you need to be results driven from day one. Because seeing results will keep you motivated to continue working on your projects until you achieve your goals. Imagine being on a fitness program or a weight loss diet and not loosing any weight! How would that feel? Will you continue that program or diet? No. Even if someone promises you that you’ll see results by end of the year, you will probably not follow the program or diet. This is because you did not see any immediate results or outcome.

Being results oriented is good because it motivates you to continue working on your projects. Although small, the initial results will give you validation that you are heading in the right direction. So as a online entrepreneur you have to start taking action from day one. Build your email list from day one. Start monetizing your site from day one. Start socializing on social networks from day one. Build affiliate products from day one. Build quality content from day one.

Do not put off things for a later time. Do not have the mindset of taking action once you have a mature blog or product to offer. Start taking action right now, although your initial results will be minimal it will give you the motivation to continue your work. Loosing a few pounds early in the diet can be a great motivating factor to loose 50 pounds later on. If you do not have any results or outcome, you will most probably give up soon.

So set your goals and take action today!

Photo Credit: gmayster01 .... On .... Off ....Busy's photostream

Under “30 minutes”? Yes! That was not a typo and you can really write a blog post in under 30 minutes! If you are like me with a 9-to-5 day job it is really hard to find time to write a blog post, especially with all the family commitments. So in this post I give you 6 bullet proof ways to create a blog post in under 30 minutes without compromising on the quality of your blog. Ofcourse these posts will be not very lengthy. These posts will have an average word count of around 250 words.

Please note that you have to write more detailed posts on a regular basis. There is no excuse for not writing detailed posts. But these mini posts can keep your blog running when you are busy with other activities. So, let us look into how we can create these posts without compromising the quality of your content. The idea is to spend less time on researching a topic and write about things that you already know or experienced.

1. Turn a reader question into a post

If you receive a question from a reader and you know the answer for her question, it is always a good idea to create a blog post to answer her question. If you only emailed the reader, you might spend 15 minutes of your time writing an email for a single person. But when you write it as a blog post, all readers of your blog will also benefit from that post. Since you already know the answer to the reader’s question you are not spending time on researching the topic.

2. Write about your success

If you had success with any initiatives share them with your readers. Everyone is eager to know how you broke the barriers and succeeded in a project. When you share your secrets your readers will love you!

3. Write about what you learned from failures

If you terribly failed in something, share the lessons that you learned from that experience. Your readers would not want to make the same mistakes. They would love to know how to avoid those pitfalls.

4. Revisit a old post and write up a follow up post

Dig up a old post that you have written in the past and write a follow-up post. Add more content to what you wrote before.

5. Write about your opinion or observation

Write about your observations and thoughts relating to your niche. Blogs are about being personal. Write how you feel about an issue. What is your position on that issue and what are your justifications.

6. Write a series

Writing a series is  a great way to write a lengthy article in smaller chunks. By writing an article as a series you can make people to visit your site more often because they are eager to know what is coming next.

I hope you’ll find these tips useful. Have your say in the comments section.

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds' photostream

In this quick post, I give you some tips on reducing Bounce Rate. For those who do not know the term Bounce Rate, here is the definition from Google.

Google defines Bounce Rate as follows:

“Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page”.

By reducing the Bounce Rate of your website you can increase the number of people who will spend more time browsing your website or blog. The following are some simple tips to reduce Bounce Rate:

1. Good Titles
   A catchy title can increase reader curiosity.
2. Good Readability
   Shorter Paragraphs, Use of Bullets, Sub Headings and Line Spacing all make an article more readable.
3. Short Header
   Having a short website header allows you to display more content in your browser window without the need to scroll down.
4. Use Diagrams and Images
   A picture is worth 1000 words. Images and diagrams add value to an article.
5. Less Ads
   If your webpage has too many ads it can easily annoy or distract the user. Having fewer ads will increase the readability of your webpage.
6. Remove Clutter
   Too many widgets and plug-ins can cramp your webpage. Make sure to keep your webpage clutter free. This gives the reader a more pleasant browsing experience.
7. Optimize for Performance
   Make sure your pages load fast as possible. You do not want to lose a reader just because your page loads very slowly.

Photo Credit: sean dreilinger's photostream

A Link Bait refers to any content that is published on the web with the primary objective of attracting back links to the publisher’s website. Content Hooks are techniques that you can employ to create a Link Bait. The following are some popular Content Hooks that you can use to attract traffic.

For each of the content hook, I have given a real world example. I am not suggesting that the authors created this content with the intention of Link Baiting. These examples are so great, they have the qualities of a good Link Bait. That is the reason I am providing them as examples.

1.    Be the first to break a News

There is always a great demand for news that is fresh. One way to attract more visitors to your website is to publish latest information that is not widely available. Mashable.com published “Google Wave: A Complete Guide” on the day Google Wave was announced.

2.    Subject Matter Expertise

If you have expertise on a particular field, you can use your knowledge and skills to create content that will be highly sought after. Joel Spolsky uses his expertise on software development to write his blog joeonsoftware.com

3.    Eye Candy

Any content that is visually appealing can be considered as an Eye Candy. Examples include optical illusions, amazing pictures of nature, beautiful women etc. The blog post titled 10 beautiful iMac setups worth a look (pics) is a classic example of an Eye Candy hook.

4.    Problem Solving Article

Articles that solve real world problems are always in great demand. This is because the reader has a real need to get an answer for her question and is likely to pay more attention to the content. How Web 2.0 Logos are drawn (Photoshop)  is a good example of a problem solving article where the author teaches how you can create a professional looking web2.0 logo.

5.    Lists

Pages that provide valuable content in the form of a list are popular among readers. This post titled “10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know” is a very good example of a List Post.

6.    Resource Pages

Pages that bring together a list of resources for a given topic are high in demand. Resource pages save a lot of time for the reader who otherwise would have to spend hours searching for the content. Looking for tutorials that teach you how to design a logo? This resource page has got it all: 70 Excellent Logo Design Tutorials and Resources

Note: Do not confuse a list page with a resource page. A list page primarily is made up of original content. While a resource page links to other content on the web.

7.    Humor

Writing content with a sense of humor can attract more readers and links. “How to make the worst website” is written in a very humorous manner.

8.    Number and Statistics

Numbers and statistics never fail to impress anyone. I am finding it hard to get a good link bait example that uses numbers and statistics. If you know one please share it in the comments section. Thank you.

9.    Controversial Content

Any content that stirs controversy will attract more visitors. This includes both the folks who agree with you and the folks who disagree with you! Controversial content should be handled with care. If you go off the limits it might in turn affect your reputation.

The use of Auto Follow in Twitter is a highly debated topic. There are people for and against Auto Follow. The following post on Auto Follow sure did attract a lot of reader attention. Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users

I hope you find these content hooks useful. If you know other content hooks please feel free to share in the comments section.

Photo Credit:  bogdog Dan's photostream

Diagram Source : PostRank.com

PostRank is a ranking service for RSS feeds. PostRank ranks an RSS Feed item (example Blog Post) based on the level of user engagement. PostRank measures user engagement using the following attributes: Creating, Critiquing, Chatting, Collecting and Clicking. PostRank calls these attributes as the 5 Cs. Let us look what the 5 Cs really mean.

When someone writes an article in response to your blog post it is called Creating. When a person leaves a comment in your blog post it is know as Critiquing. When a person spreads the message about your blog post via social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook it is called Chatting. When a person bookmarks your site in social media sites it is known as Collecting. When someone simply views your blog post it is called Clicking.

Using the above attributes PostRank will determine a score for your RSS Feed item. Each of these attributes carry different weights. The Creating attribute carries more weight followed by Critiquing all the way down to Clicking which carries the lowest weight.

Does this sound too confusing? Don’t worry. Let’s take the following example to understand PostRank:

Mary writes a blog post about Flowers and publishes it online. Since Mary’s post is a great one many people have commented on the post. Some folks have written their own post building up on Mary’s content and have provided a link to Mary’s post (i.e. trackbacks). Many of Mary’s followers on Twitter have tweeted the post.

Tom writes a post on the same topic of Flowers. Tom’s post is not that great. It has few comments and few tweets on Twitter.

Since Mary’s Post has a high level of user engagement, it is given a higher score compared to Tom’s post. PostRank consults a number of services on the Internet to determine the level of user engagement. Google Trackbacks, Twitter and FaceBook to name a few of those services.

David reads both Mary’s and Tom’s post from RSS using PostRank. When David views his subscriptions, Mary’s post will be displayed with a higher score compared to Tom’s post. This way David is able to filter out higher quality content from his list of subscriptions. If David is subscribed to 100’s of RSS feeds on the topic of Flowers he can filter out the quality feed items for his reading based on the PostRank score. Therefore, PostRank is a great tool to prevent you from drowning from information overload.

To use  PostRank you have to create an account at PostRank.com and import all your RSS subscriptions into PostRank. If you do not want to signup for an account at PostRank you can use the PostRank FireFox plug-in to show scores for the RSS Feed items in your Google reader.

Another cool feature with PostRank is the ability to make friends and connections with  fellow PostRank users who read the same RSS feeds that you are subscribed to. This way you find folks who share your common interests and passion.