Need Unique Content? Check the Social Bookmarking Sites
by Kevin on May 12, 2010
You’ve run out of ideas for new posts. You have to meet deadlines and even on your personal blogs, you are unable to get your posts started, due to the lack of ideas. This situation can happen to anyone, even the most creative bloggers/writers.
The challenge of coming up with great posts has challenged bloggers for years, although there is a great way that you can nearly eliminate this problem with just a few visits to other websites.
The most popular content is ranked by users on sites like Digg, TweetMeme (for Twitter), and Like Button (for Facebook), giving you a glimpse into the most popular content on the Web. So much content is being shared at any time that even these sites can be difficult to use when you need new topics to write about.
For the most part, shared content revolves around two main types: original content, such as news stories, blog posts, and photographs, while the second group revolves around collections and remixes, ranging from list posts to edited photographs and remixed songs.
I’ll take a quick look at the front page of Digg and then we’ll look at how you can apply these trends to come up with interesting blog posts.
- There are two posts in the list format, “6 Bizarre Mysteries (That Are Still Totally Unanswered)” and “The 6 TV Badasses We’d Love to Have a Drink With”. These posts are popular across all types of sites, so it is no surprise to see them on Digg.
- Seven of the posts are news-specific. While news generally doesn’t revolve around the main television stations, it might depend on the time of the day, as many of the news posts currently on Digg are from sites like Telegraph, The NY TImes, CNN, Kiplinger, USA Today, and MSNBC.
- Four articles deal specifically or link directly to an image, while one links to a video. The other articles also include some type of images, but their main focus is on text.
How to Integrate Current Trends into Your Blog
Even if you don’t have a news blog, it can be a good idea to base your new posts on the current trends. Contrary to popular belief, some of the most trafficked posts deal with current events, rather than timeless content. Sure, the timeless content will still have rewards down the road, but that is only if it becomes popular today, is linked to frequently, and then is ranked well in search engines for a wide array of terms.
A popular post format working its way across the social networking sites right now is the “in-depth” post, with analysis of current trends, such as the Facebook debacle. Readers want to know how certain events will impact their life, rather then just the news, which can be found on the original site.
While there has certainly been debate about the format of list posts, these posts are popular and will remain so. They have always been popular, even in the days of newspapers and print. They grab a visitor’s attention and can become popular in a matter of minutes. Putting the time into researching the posts is ideal, and it’ll result in a post that will be linked to across social networking sites and relevant blogs.
The key is creating unique content. Until you have become as large as some of the most popular blogs, you’ll need to set yourself apart in some way or another. The key to doing this is to create content that few other sites have, and this may include breaking news. Scour the web for hot trends and then see if any new developments have taken place. Starting a really local blog can draw in the traffic levels that will let you earn an income – al inspired by sites like Topix.
Other Ideas to Keep in Mind:
- Breaking a news story may not result in a lot of traffic unless it is an a popular niche, like technology.
- If you simply re-post news topics found on other blogs, you’ll likely exhaust yourself, as you’ll generally need to post more than ten new posts per day.
- Generating ideas based on the top news stories can be just as difficult as creating a post about something you have never researched before.
No matter what type of site you run, keeping tabs on the popular social networking sites and the directories connected to them will allow you to constantly see where markets are heading. Even if you have a blog about an extremely specific topic, you can still perform searches on these sites and see how well other posts have done.
Remember, the only thing that matters in all this si that your site stands out. Focus solely on what your visitors are looking for even before they tell you. Stay involved in your niche and create a community around your site to maximize the time you spend writing posts.
Great Collection of SEO Infographics
by Kevin on May 11, 2010
DIYSEO is a company offering budget SEO software for smal business websites. Recently, the company has been releasing a number of high-quality infographics about SEO and social networking on the Web.
While some dispute the value of infogrpahics, they hav ea use as you can quickly visualize statistics and the direction of growth, as shown in the infographics released here. I encourage you to check them out – they are free and you can use them to quickly learn about the various aspects of building your site through SEO techniques.
Relevant Infographics:
- The Case of Disappearing Ink – A look at the demographics of local search and how it is helping to change the market of advertising.
- Ice Cream Social – SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses) have been using social media more actively, and you can clearly see that in this infographic.
- Where Will Marketing Be in 3 Years? – A quick look at the decline of “old” marketing and the increase in “new” marketing, and where the money is going.
- How Search Engine Robots Work – The little robots can quickly scour your site, but what are they looking at?
- SEO ROI is King – A comparison between typical online marketing tactics for both product and service offerings.
- Value of SEO vs PPC – Can you really get more value from purchasing PPC ads or does spending time building your SEO help more?
- Dark Side of the Moon: ROI of SEO – What advantages can you gain from investing in SEO, compared to PPC ads?
Massive Twitter Growth Predicted through 2011
by Kevin on May 10, 2010
Twitter is expected to continue growing at a massive rate. Over the past few months, the service has been processing between 15-17% more tweets compared to the previous months, and this trend doesn’t appear to be slowing down. By some estimates, the service is gaining nearly 300,000 new members each day, while the leading social networking site (with more than 400 million active members), Facebook, is increasing new membership by more than half a million per day.
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?
…But Your Blog Can’t Be Monetized
by Kevin on May 9, 2010
You have likely experienced the awkward situations others have placed you in when asked about your blog. Your friends and family want to know what you are doing for a living (or as a hobby), and although blogging is more mainstream than ever before, millions still don’t have a blog. They want to know how it is possible to earn a living “simply” by sharing your thoughts with others, and why someone is paying you to write.
On the other side of the aisle are the “top bloggers” who dictate what type of blog you can make money from, persuading you to fit your new blog into a particular niche. For example, you are told that extremely specific topics generally don’t see as much traffic as a blog that covers a wider range of topics. With less traffic, you won’t be able to make as much income from your blog.
What if I told you that you can break through these “limitations”?
Everyone’s Blog Wasn’t Profitable at One Time
All bloggers began with just a domain (and possibly a hosting account if choosing to host their own site). The content didn’t magically appear, and traffic didn’t automatically flow in. Yes, it can be hard to believe, especially for the huge sites out there, but these sites were at one time just ideas. The business plans and uniqueness of each helped make them what they are today, and millions of other bloggers are hoping to one day compete with them.
There’s a good chance that many of the bloggers writing daily for some of the most popular blogs were laughed at much like millions of others hoping to prosper online. They got over these problems and developed the business plans that ensure their blogs remain possible today and in the future.
Over time, the traffic of these blogs increased, advertisers found value in partnering with the sites, and the rest is essentially history.
Your Blog CAN Be Monetized
No matter what type of site you run, and no matter how specific your blog is, you can generate a readership level that will provide a decent income. You could run a blog about all types of animals or a blog about a specific type of spider and be able to generate an income.
First of all, you have to remember that while some blog niches are extremely saturated, there are others that are relatively untouched by large-scale blog networks. Bloggers begin with a topic they either enjoy or one that will make them the most income, the latter results in a blogger who gives up after just a post or two.
The next idea you need to keep in mind is that procrastination and mediocrity won’t get you anywhere. As soon as a new post idea pops into your head, jot it down and implement new changes to your blog. What are you planning to do to separate your site from others? Why should I subscribe to your site versus all the other sites that may be covering your site’s topics?
Some bloggers give a specific timeline as to when you should beging monetizing your blog, but in all honesty, it depends on when you can reach traffic levels that can be sustained. Sure, the Digg Effect does wonders for a day or two, but can you sustain traffic levels at 1/10 of those highs the rest of the month? If not, then it is time that you focus more time on promoting and “selling” your blog than anything else. You really need to get word out about your site’s content before drawing in advertisers, who aren’t interested in reading your content.
How long does it take to sign up for AdSense and copy/paste some code onto your blog? Perhaps as long as five minutes. You’ll make about five cents per month using this method, unless you have an extremely popular blog (receiving more than ten thousand visitors per day). This approach doesn’t work for most blogs, so don’t take this route unless you want to maintain a blog that focuses on serving advertisements, rather than quality content.
Even the most eccentric blogs can be monetized by focusing not on your content, but on retaining visitors and converting them into readers. There are hundreds of thousands of dedicated communities online created to help draw people together who share particular interestes. Employ a similar technique on your own blog and you’ll be able to grow your site like the blogs covering multiple topics.
Quick Thoughts to Keep in Mind
- Blogging has been around for years, but there are still innovations being made within individual niches.
- Create your own trend and develop your own niche.
- Follow trends in the news and create blogs for specific products or topics. These blogs can become valuable, especially years down the road when millions of users are “on the bandwagon.”
- If someone tells you something isn’t possible, they are lying to you.
- Taking the time to create a blog the right way will save you time in the long-term.
Conclusion
If you want to monetize your blog, there is no reason why you won’t be able to. The only thing that is preventing you from creating a popular site is how you market and plan your blog. If you only add a new post once a year, then you should only expect a few visitors. On the other hand, if you really put the time into your site, you’ll be able to monetize your site within a matter of weeks from the time you purchase your domain and you have fresh content on your site.
The Single Best Key to Writing
by Kevin on May 8, 2010
I’ve certainly covered dozens of tips in the past on how to improve your writing, but today I want to provide you with a single tip that will improve your writing from this point forward, and few people put this into practice.
What makes you unique? There are certainly characteristics that you alone possess, ideas as well as personal ideals. There is a good chance that you share them with those around you, even though you might not necessarily pay close attention.
These characteristics should come out in your writing. The key to running a great blog is to only write as yourself. You should never try to imitate the writing styles of others. While you should always try to maintain proper English standards, you should incorporate your experiences into your writing to better get your points across.
Using figurative language like metaphors, personification, and other methods can be included at certain points to better illustrate what you are trying to purvey.
How to Truly Be Yourself
- Never doubt yourself. If you aren’t confident in what you are trying to say, take a break from writing and come back to it after you have had time to think about how you want to word the article.
- Don’t sound smarter than you really are. Sure, we all want to be exerts in our particular niches, but it’s not possible, so you simply have to appear as knowledgeable. Read and understand your niche and what you are writing about.
- Include personal thoughts and ideas into your blog. I don’t traditionally include too many references to my personal life through my posts, but this technique can be really useful for product review-type posts and to better make a point.
- Don’t sell yourself to a company. Having partners and sponsors on your blog can help you pay the bills and generate some profit from your efforts, but your readers may distance themselves from your blog should you constantly try to promote their products.
Conclusion
Being yourself is key to growing a successful blog. If you are afraid to reveal personal thoughts on your blog, putting yourself in the spotlight could go on hold: simply write as a guest author on another blog or as a ghostwriter. You may have limited rights to your work, but you’ll get a good introduction into blogging without some of the risks that come with publishing your thoughts.