I figure this is the result of close networks of people who are unwilling to branch out and include more of the community. These people are self-centered and want to keep all the profits within a close group of people. Nearly all new sales are generated from this group of people marketing to the same (generally large) group of people. While those inside of this group are able to constantly pump out new products based on their most successful products, there really isn’t much innovation going on within the circle.

Rather than spending so much time on increasing referrals, focus on these tasks and you’ll see a much higher return. Plus, it may come much sooner than you could have ever dreamed!

1. Learn about your visitors and connect with your greatest fans. You’ll be able to develop a closer relationship with your most valued readers.
2. Write as often as possible, as your content will sell itself. As you write more often, you’ll gain more natural links back to your content, especially through the social networking sites.
3. Spend more time developing a brand behind your content. Some people focus solely on creating the content, but you should also spend the time distributing the content, getting your brand name out as often as possible.
4. Be more generous. Sure, this might mean that you’ll initially lose some revenue, but if you get your good product into more people’s hands, then you’ll be able to sell more product down the road.
5. Change what you do. If your site is just a simple landing page, add a blog. Generally, you won’t have to spend much more than an hour or two each day writing on this blog portion, but you’ll see much more return.

Writing should be your top priority on your blog. If you instead focus on increasing sales, you’re likely to lose out on many sales in the future. These sales are likely to come as a result of visitors from search engines and through recommendations you normally wouldn’t have received if you had stuck to simply promoting links and the same old sales message.

Some people dismiss the idea of brainstorming, viewing it as a useless part of writing. However, I encourage you to try brainstorming, just once, and you’ll see that you can save time every day simply by spending a few minutes – ranging from fifteen to thirty – to improve your blog down the road.

Tag Cloud Created Using Wordle

Creating an outline or list of topics can help you save time as soon as the next day. For example, if you spend fifteen minutes creating a list of twenty topics, you won’t be struggling to think of new ideas in the future, and you’ll be able to focus on writing the content, rather than the activities the readers really don’t benefit from.

Here are some tips you can use to get the most out of the 15-30 minutes you spend creating a list of post ideas:

1. Limit the time you spend on these lists, or they become less effective to a set time each day. For the most part, you should spend anywhere from one to two hours per week on these posts, spreading the time out evenly throughout the week.
2. The next point to remember is that these lists can be created in various formats, whether in a tag cloud, list of post ideas, or an outline with subsets of topics arranged by main category.
3. Don’t erase any ideas on the list, or you’ll possibly destroy some great ideas that can be adapted in the future.
4. Jot down some great ideas you think of throughout the day. Doing this will allow you to integrate this brainstorming session into you day. Although not as effective as spending a set amount of time per day, it can still work for you.
5. Plan up to a month ahead. Some blogs that publish content that takes more than a few minutes to write and can still be relevant in the future have a queue of posts waiting to be published (and may be scheduled). This technique eliminates the need to rush to get new content published.

What matters most when it comes to researching new posts and keeping your blog up-to-date is that you remain consistent and never fail to deliver what your readers are looking forward to. Have a plan that won’t sacrifice quality for quantity and spend the required time researching and drafting each new post.

The social media explosion that began taking place two to three years ago continues to grow, with more tools to integrate them into your blog than ever before.

For bloggers, these tools make it possible to share your thoughts, links to blog posts, as well as continue the conversation through Facebook and Twitter. The times ahead will include even more of the services, although there will likely be a newcomer or two whose features are simply integrated into the leading services.

Pingdom also included a number of other interesting stats about the popular networking service, as outlined below.

• Growth through January 2011 will increase by 494%, with an average increase in the range of 15-17% per month if the momentum continues.
• Less than six months after Twitter announced that they passed one billion tweets, the two billionth tweet will have been made.
• By December, Twitter will process nearly six times as many tweets as the previous year.
• It took more than three years to get to a billion tweets, but the billion mark will be reached every single month if the rend continues by the year 2011.

Conclusion

What do you think of these stats? How will Twitter integrate “premium” services to better monetize the service – after all, the traffic to their website and through third-party applications will certainly increase during this period, too. How will you integrate Twitter into your site to better capitalize on the new traffic?

Benefits of Having Multiple Authors

Having multiple authors (or editors) at your site can benefit you in the long-term, as you’ll be able to continue producing more content. You won’t be forced to rely on a single person – yourself – to research and write each new post. Your readers will expect and demand more quality content as a result, and advertisers will also see the benefit of more writers.

Downsides of Having Multiple Authors

There are certainly positives to having multiple authors, but there are also some negatives. For example, there will be times when the authors don’t agree with the way the site (or company) is expanding, and some will want to leave, starting their own ventures/blogs.

These struggles are true for all companies, however, so they shouldn’t stop you from starting a blog with multiple authors. You simply need to know where to set your standards and write some sort of a contract between the writers.

An Even More Powerful Team

While having a set of writers can help you expand your own site, having a more powerful team (spread across several sites) will help you grow even faster. There are a number of “top” bloggers who started this way, and this technique has certainly paid off for them.

Other Key Benefits:

• Your readers will see the team behind you and everyone will benefit.
• You can share ideas without feeling (as much) competition. Everyone in the group will still be working towards their own personal goals.
• The cross-promotion will only increase in the long-term as each member of the group becomes more successful or popular.

Final Thoughts to Keep in Mind

We all know that teams can help you grow your blog, but you need to have the right approach to setting up your team. In the past, many have failed, but there are also a large number of them who have set out with a clear goal and have become successful. When you blog, keep the team idea in your mind, should you ever want to grow a business around your blog.

What are your thoughts on “team blogging”?

During the first few months of starting out a new blog, you will be focusing more on the stats than anything else. There isn’t anything wrong with this, but it won’t be the right approach in the long-term. For example, there are sties that can draw in millions of visitors each month (as well as decent advertising revenue), but they won’t be nearly as successful as the sites that take the long-term approach to drawing in high-quality advertisers who are looking to associate with your brand.

Your visitors (and the advertisers you are seeking) could honestly care less about the stats, but they want some return on their visit (or purchase). If you are dedicated to simply drawing in more “page views,” then you will have a hard time at properly building your brand.

Here are a few tips to avoid that problem:

1. Focus on Marketing – No matter how small or large you want to grow your site, focus on branding and marketing. The further your reach across the web, the more likely an honest advertiser will look beyond your pageviews and see the site that you have created.

2. Be Honest with Your Readers – This technique can really work in the long-term for both you, your readers, and your advertisers. You won’t be associated with false statistics or shady techniques of drawing in traffic if you remain honest and continually produce valuable content.

3. Have a Proven Approach – The key to success on the web is to find something that works, then continually repeat doing it. This is why spammers are so successful (and annoying). Even though they have low conversion rates, they are still successful in capturing a small segment of their “audience.” If a certain type of post is able to draw in new commenters and readers, then why shouldn’t you repeat it?

While some will argue with me over the value in presenting pageview stats with their advertisers, there really isn’t any better method (at this time) in providing a valuable metric to use to gauge how much to charge advertisers. A site that receives 100K pageviews/day may result in less returns than one that receives 10K pageviews/day but costs more.

Until we have a method in place for measuring the true cost of advertising, there will be many, many bloggers and advertisers addicted to pageviews, rather than the overall package that you can offer (which includes the brand/recognition, subscriber base, and “mainstream” importance).

Like increasing subscribers, you’ll want to use a natural approach to increasing the number of followers you have. For example, you won’t want to simply follow everyone and hope they follow back, as you’ll have a low “engagement rank.” In other words, relatively few people will actually read your tweets and connect to you.

While there have been hundreds of posts written about increasing subscribers, we’ll instead look at how you can use the followers you have today to grow your network into a force the “probloggers” of the web would be quite envious of.

Use Shorter, More Optimized URLs

The first step to increase your exposure on the web is to use shortened URLs that also say something about your brand. For example, Google uses goo.gl, which is a few characters shorter than their main URL, and also says something about the link. Bit.ly, the leading shortener indicates the URL is shortened, but lacks the ability to brand (at this time). It might be ideal if you can pick up a shorter URL of your domain or one that can be associated with your site. It’ll make the next steps in your social networking strategy easier.

Keep Your Message Consistent

Many bloggers have a separate Facebook or Twitter account for their personal use. For the most part, your readers shouldn’t be reading about the party you went to over the weekend. Updates like these should be kept off your “public” profiles. Additionally, your message should be as consistent as possible. If you have a stance on an issue, it shouldn’t be changed to suit the opinion of your readers – you have the opinion, and these readers look for it!

…But Be Personal

Although you can effectively manage a personal and “business” account for Twitter, it isn’t uncommon for bloggers to combine some of their personal thoughts on their business account. Doing this gives your account a more personal feel, and if your readers see this, there is a better chance they’ll feel connected to you. As a result, you’ll see a higher engagement ratio, with more retweets, comments, and responses of other formats.

Respond, Respond, and Respond Again

When your readers see the connection you are trying to achieve with your readers, there is a higher chance they’ll join in the conversation. If you are a member of Twitter or Facebook, and a reader is already interested in your blog (deciding whether they need to follow your tweets/status updates), and they see you are sharing links from other bloggers, there is also a greater chance they’ll follow you.

Another good point to keep in mind is that if there is any problems with your site (server downtime, error messages, etc.), there is a good chance your visitors will catch it faster than you. Having the ability to reach out to your readers via Twitter will ensure your downtimes are quite brief.

Develop a Niche

Many niches have already been carved out, but there are niches that still don’t have a clear leader. Having a good branding strategy will help others associate your brand with the niche. Connect all your social profiles together, and try to get the same name for each. I wouldn’t want to get a Facebook url of facebook.com/blog.tipz, as it breaks the uniformity between accounts. Make it simple for readers to find your profiles on these sites, not more difficult. It can be even more effective if you include a word related to your niche in your website name.

Persuade Your Readers to Share

Sharing is key on the social networking sites. If you are able to garner a hundred retweets of an article, there is a good chance you’ll see more than a thousand clicks through this link directly from Twitter and the other sites aggregating content from the site. With each new retweet (depending on the user), you’ll see more clicks through to your site. Persuade your readers to retweet by making the process simple, and even use a “please retweet” text with posts that you feel should do well on the site. Keep in mind that this should rarely be done, only when you feel you are adding value to your readers.

Follow the Trends

Keeping on top of news stories will help you become better informed, and your readers will realize this. There is a much greater chance that they’ll follow you if you can be one of the first to break developing stories than if you are writing discussing an even that happened last week. The Internet moves at a fast rate – a story that generated a huge response three hours ago may be overshadowed by another one just a short time later. If you’re aiming to generate more of a response on your own site, use a category and append a hashtag to your tweets for breaking stories.

The reasons behind selling a domain or entire website/blog vary between owners, but generally it is either due to a time constraint or simply because you have moved onto other projects and need the cash. In some ways, it is much like having a business acquired by someone else, although you are in full control of who you are selling your “company” to.

Several mistakes are made when it comes to selling websites that you should be aware of and try to avoid. These mistakes will rob you of additional revenue and may also cause some people to turn down the offer.

1. A Website Without Fresh Content – If you decide to sell your website, make sure you continue to produce new content on the website, up until the day the website is transferred to the new owner (or even longer). This ensures that the new owner doesn’t have to fill the gaping void created by the sale.
2. Unreasonable Prices – Websites with a thousand visitors monthly shouldn’t be priced absurdly high. Price them what they are worth and what the new owner can possibly make from the purchase.
3. Hiding any Information – If you were spending a thousand dollars monthly in advertising, you must disclose this to the new owner, as this information is important in the long-term success of the website. If the advertising campaign(s) are stopped, the traffic levels may also drop.
4. Additional Insight – Time and time again, website owners don’t disclose all the little details that really matter. For example, if you rank well for specific term that send thousands of visitors to your site daily, this is valuable information for the new (or prospective) website owners.
5. Platform Your Website Has Been Built Upon – If you use WordPress or Drupal, it is important to disclose this information. A new buyer may not be as interested in the purchase if you are using an unknown platform.

Conclusion

Have you ever sold a website? What do you think of these tips? Please share your response below.

I’ll assume you have never accepted guest posts before on your blog, as that is the reason you are reading this post. Guest posts can be a great source of traffic for both parties, as new readers will come to your blog looking for an alternative source. However, they can also lead to more stress on your part, as you aren’t in complete control.

Step 1 – The first step is to create a post that explains the requirements of a guest post and what they will receive in return. Generally, guest posters want at the very least, a link back to their website in return for the time they spent writing the content. Don’t say you will do this and then fail to provide a little background on the author.

Step 2 – Spreading word about the opportunity can be were some miss the opportunity to gain a lot of extra guest posts. Write a post on your blog so everyone can see it, post a link (temporary) in the footer area of each post above the comments, and include links wherever possible. Having more guest posts will bring positive energy to your blog.

Step 3 – Be sure your contact form works properly. It can be difficult to contact bloggers at times, so you need a contact form or email address listed on your Contact page. Having this will allow easy submissions. If there are any requirements for posting photos to the posts, please list them on this page, or include a method of sending attachments.

Step 4 – Wait for the guest posts to arrive. When they have arrived, read through them, and determine whether they are worthy of being published to your blog. If they are, insert the “about” message, and publish them when appropriate.

Step 5 – Keep in contact with the author. Doing this will allow the line between you to be open, in the event you need more guest posts. It is also somewhat courteous of the guest poster to respond to comments on his or her post, as they were the ones who wrote them, so they have the main ideas.

Conclusion

If you feel I am missing any steps, or if you want to give your own tips on how to properly prepare your site for guest posts (as the main blog), please let me know in this post’s comments area.

If you continually worry about all the minor details, you’ll find it extremely hard to move on, especially from the more troubling events in our lives. In the world of blogging, there are a lot of things that you really shouldn’t be thinking about, with some of them listed below.

1. The number of visitors your blog receives each hour. Sure, you can check these stats once per day, but don’t obsess over them, unless you want to waste lots of time.
2. Don’t be concerned with how many Twitter followers you have. Follow an approach, not a graph of your progress. With the approach, you’ll see your Twitter followers increase over time.
3. Those emails that stay in “draft” status. Pausing for hours or days before sending out important emails can drain your time, and causes you to worry when you really shouldn’t be. If you wait to send an email, you might not make the necessary risks, and you’ll lose out on important opportunities. So what if you make a few mistakes. We all do, and we can grow over them.
4. Social networking fiascos. We’ve all made them, wether sending out tweets to your business/blog account instead of your personal account, or sending out updates that shouldn’t be public. We can only move on, and generally these cause less problems than you might think.
5. Stop worrying about everything your competition is doing. When you worry about your competition, you step out of the ring. You essentially give your competition the advantage, and let them win the “battle.” If you do want to bring yourself to a competing level, let your efforts do the talking.

Conclusion

The only way to work through these “problems” is by trying to put more important things on your mind. In the end, we all have twenty-four hours, and we can only try to make the most of our day.

What are some of the challenges you face when it comes to wasting time thinking about problems you can’t solve? Please share them within the comments area on the blog.

It is often difficult to set a standard rate for all your services. As a freelancer, you have to consider that you have to make a living with your work, but you also can’t overcharge to the rate people don’t even consider you. Set a rate that is reasonable, and be flexible – they are the keys.

Depending on how much experience you have in your particular niche – whether that is web design or writing – you have to consider these into your rates. I will pay more to someone who has written on larger blogs than someone who is new and has only written a few posts on his or her own blog.

Additional Elements of the Equation

There are several other methods used to determine how much you should be charged or are charging.

1. What your budget is.
2. How many other projects the freelancer/company is currently working on – it is all about how much demand they have and how well they are able to meet this demand.
3. The “popularity” of the person. If it is a well-known designer or writer, I’d expect to pay several times that of someone who isn’t as well-known.
4. How much time the project will take. If you are ordering ten posts, don’t expect them all to arrive in a day, it will generally take several hours to have professionally-written content.

The Negotiating Factor

While you shouldn’t expect to get work for free, you have to realize that people are generally flexible, especially if they haven’t had much work recently or want to expand upon their client base.

If their contact form doesn’t provide any rates, they are very likely to base their rates off of how much work you have fro them, and then the process will go from there.

Let’s say that you want to advertise on a blog, and they also have this “open” format. There is a good chance you will be able to get a $100/month ad for an extended period for $250, as an example.

Conclusion

What do you think about this negotiation factor involved in each project? Do you use it to save some money or do you think that all rates are final?