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One of the biggest challenges for a new bloggers starting out in an established niche is to find a way to stand out from the crowd and find their first readers. Without existing profile and/or credibility – getting those first readers can be very tough.

To combat this a few years back a number of bloggers started to use ‘Guest Blogging’ as a technique to launch their blogs and grow their brands to new audiences. This technique launched many bloggers to prominence – including Leo Babauta, Brian Clark, Chris Garrett, Skellie, Jon Morrow (all of whom have guest posted on ProBlogger) and many many more.

Much has been written on the topic of how to use guest posting but one of the best resources that I’ve seen lately has been produced by Jon Morrow. He’s just released the first in a series of videos (#aff) on the topic and they are well worth watching.

I’ve seen the complete set of videos for myself and they are easy to watch, actionable and inspiring.

Jon himself has used guest blogging with great success – including this fantastic post on speech recognition for bloggers here on ProBlogger which helped many.

Jon’s first video is completely free (no opt in required) and is well worth watching. His future videos require an opt in but you’ll get a feel for whether they’re right for you from the first one. I watched them all and they’re excellent.

Do yourself a favour and set aside some time today to watch these videos.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Guest Blogging to Grow Your Blog Exponentially

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One of the biggest challenges for a new bloggers starting out in an established niche is to find a way to stand out from the crowd and find their first readers. Without existing profile and/or credibility – getting those first readers can be very tough.

To combat this a few years back a number of bloggers started to use ‘Guest Blogging’ as a technique to launch their blogs and grow their brands to new audiences. This technique launched many bloggers to prominence – including Leo Babauta, Brian Clark, Chris Garrett, Skellie, Jon Morrow (all of whom have guest posted on ProBlogger) and many many more.

Much has been written on the topic of how to use guest posting but one of the best resources that I’ve seen lately has been produced by Jon Morrow. He’s just released the first in a series of videos (#aff) on the topic and they are well worth watching.

I’ve seen the complete set of videos for myself and they are easy to watch, actionable and inspiring.

Jon himself has used guest blogging with great success – including this fantastic post on speech recognition for bloggers here on ProBlogger which helped many.

Jon’s first video is completely free (no opt in required) and is well worth watching. His future videos require an opt in but you’ll get a feel for whether they’re right for you from the first one. I watched them all and they’re excellent.

Do yourself a favour and set aside some time today to watch these videos.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Guest Blogging to Grow Your Blog Exponentially

Share This

In just a few short hours, the new ShoeMoney System 2.0 has sold out.  If you want to be put on the waiting list for any open spots, just head over here.

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

ShoeMoney System 2.0 SOLD OUT

A couple of weeks ago Pawan from MaxBlogPress.com contacted me, saying he had developed a new plugin that would significantly boost the number of sign-ups I was getting to my email newsletter.

I have known Pawan for a while, and I use many of his plugins, so I said “Sure.” He sent me the files, and I installed it on Daily Blog Tips. The plugin is called Subscribers Magnet, and the idea is to create multiple “hit” points (i.e., methods and places your visitors can use to sign-up) to increase the number of new email subscribers you get per day.

The idea sounded cool, but only when I started playing with the plugin I realized it was a really neat piece of software, and here is why.

First of all it integrates with most email marketing applications (e.g., Aweber, iContact, ConstantContact), so getting the plugin to work is straight forward. Second, some of the features the plugin has are really innovative.

The first feature is called “Form Auto Filler.” It will automatically grab the name and email from your visitors and fill your subscription forms for them. This means that when see the subscription form their details will be there already, so they will just need to click on “Subscribe.” How cool is that?

The second feature is the “Optin Form Adder.” This will basically allow you to insert a subscription form in the sidebar or/and below your posts. The form is completely customizable, and you once you activate it through the plugin interface it will start appearing on your site. Here is how it looks like:

The third feature is called “Subscribers from Comment.” This one allows you to capture subscribers from people who will leave a comment on your blog. You have several options regarding how you’ll do it. You can put a checkbox that commenters must tick, you can include a subscription form that will appear right below their comment, and you can also subscribe them automatically (they’ll still need to confirm it on the email they will receive, so this is compliant with the terms of Aweber and other email solutions).

The fourth feature is the “Popin” one. As the name suggests, it allows you to create a subscription form that will be displayed as a pop-up. You can customize the style, as well as the frequency of the pop-up and what visitors should see it. For instance, you could show it only after the second visit, only once every five visits, once every couple of days and so on.

The fifth feature is called “Footer Bar.” It allows you to create a dynamic footer bar on your website containing a subscription form. Just like with the pop-up, you can customize how often the bar will appear.

If you combine all these features and options you can add up to 17 hit points to your blog, and this is likely to boost the number of sign-ups significantly.

But facts speak louder than words right? Here is what the plugin did for me. I already had a decent structure to capture email subscribers, so I decided to use only three features: the “form auto filler”, the “checkbox in comment section” and the “footer bar.” Before installing the plugin I was getting around 67 new email subscribers per day. After installing it the number jumped to around 90, which is a 35% increase as you can see in the screenshot below:

These days I am actually getting closer to 100 sign-ups per day, so it is working even better.

Pawan told me he beta-tested the plugin with other friends too, and some of them got boosts of 100% in the number of sign-ups.

As I said before, it is a really neat piece of software. Most of the time when people give me free plugins or software to test I usually try them for a couple of weeks and then stop using them. This one I’ll probably stick with.

The plugin was officially launched this week. It is going to cost $147, but until tomorrow Pawan is offering a discount of 30%, so you can buy it for $97. I am not an affiliate, so I won’t earn anything whether you buy it or not. I just decided to review it because it worked really well for me, and because I think other bloggers will find it useful, too.

A couple of weeks ago Pawan from MaxBlogPress.com contacted me, saying he had developed a new plugin that would significantly boost the number of sign-ups I was getting to my email newsletter.

I have known Pawan for a while, and I use many of his plugins, so I said “Sure.” He sent me the files, and I installed it on Daily Blog Tips. The plugin is called Subscribers Magnet, and the idea is to create multiple “hit” points (i.e., methods and places your visitors can use to sign-up) to increase the number of new email subscribers you get per day.

The idea sounded cool, but only when I started playing with the plugin I realized it was a really neat piece of software, and here is why.

First of all it integrates with most email marketing applications (e.g., Aweber, iContact, ConstantContact), so getting the plugin to work is straight forward. Second, some of the features the plugin has are really innovative.

The first feature is called “Form Auto Filler.” It will automatically grab the name and email from your visitors and fill your subscription forms for them. This means that when see the subscription form their details will be there already, so they will just need to click on “Subscribe.” How cool is that?

The second feature is the “Optin Form Adder.” This will basically allow you to insert a subscription form in the sidebar or/and below your posts. The form is completely customizable, and you once you activate it through the plugin interface it will start appearing on your site. Here is how it looks like:

The third feature is called “Subscribers from Comment.” This one allows you to capture subscribers from people who will leave a comment on your blog. You have several options regarding how you’ll do it. You can put a checkbox that commenters must tick, you can include a subscription form that will appear right below their comment, and you can also subscribe them automatically (they’ll still need to confirm it on the email they will receive, so this is compliant with the terms of Aweber and other email solutions).

The fourth feature is the “Popin” one. As the name suggests, it allows you to create a subscription form that will be displayed as a pop-up. You can customize the style, as well as the frequency of the pop-up and what visitors should see it. For instance, you could show it only after the second visit, only once every five visits, once every couple of days and so on.

The fifth feature is called “Footer Bar.” It allows you to create a dynamic footer bar on your website containing a subscription form. Just like with the pop-up, you can customize how often the bar will appear.

If you combine all these features and options you can add up to 17 hit points to your blog, and this is likely to boost the number of sign-ups significantly.

But facts speak louder than words right? Here is what the plugin did for me. I already had a decent structure to capture email subscribers, so I decided to use only three features: the “form auto filler”, the “checkbox in comment section” and the “footer bar.” Before installing the plugin I was getting around 67 new email subscribers per day. After installing it the number jumped to around 90, which is a 35% increase as you can see in the screenshot below:

These days I am actually getting closer to 100 sign-ups per day, so it is working even better.

Pawan told me he beta-tested the plugin with other friends too, and some of them got boosts of 100% in the number of sign-ups.

As I said before, it is a really neat piece of software. Most of the time when people give me free plugins or software to test I usually try them for a couple of weeks and then stop using them. This one I’ll probably stick with.

The plugin was officially launched this week. It is going to cost $147, but until tomorrow Pawan is offering a discount of 30%, so you can buy it for $97. I am not an affiliate, so I won’t earn anything whether you buy it or not. I just decided to review it because it worked really well for me, and because I think other bloggers will find it useful, too.

A couple of weeks ago Pawan from MaxBlogPress.com contacted me, saying he had developed a new plugin that would significantly boost the number of sign-ups I was getting to my email newsletter.

I have known Pawan for a while, and I use many of his plugins, so I said “Sure.” He sent me the files, and I installed it on Daily Blog Tips. The plugin is called Subscribers Magnet, and the idea is to create multiple “hit” points (i.e., methods and places your visitors can use to sign-up) to increase the number of new email subscribers you get per day.

The idea sounded cool, but only when I started playing with the plugin I realized it was a really neat piece of software, and here is why.

First of all it integrates with most email marketing applications (e.g., Aweber, iContact, ConstantContact), so getting the plugin to work is straight forward. Second, some of the features the plugin has are really innovative.

The first feature is called “Form Auto Filler.” It will automatically grab the name and email from your visitors and fill your subscription forms for them. This means that when see the subscription form their details will be there already, so they will just need to click on “Subscribe.” How cool is that?

The second feature is the “Optin Form Adder.” This will basically allow you to insert a subscription form in the sidebar or/and below your posts. The form is completely customizable, and you once you activate it through the plugin interface it will start appearing on your site. Here is how it looks like:

The third feature is called “Subscribers from Comment.” This one allows you to capture subscribers from people who will leave a comment on your blog. You have several options regarding how you’ll do it. You can put a checkbox that commenters must tick, you can include a subscription form that will appear right below their comment, and you can also subscribe them automatically (they’ll still need to confirm it on the email they will receive, so this is compliant with the terms of Aweber and other email solutions).

The fourth feature is the “Popin” one. As the name suggests, it allows you to create a subscription form that will be displayed as a pop-up. You can customize the style, as well as the frequency of the pop-up and what visitors should see it. For instance, you could show it only after the second visit, only once every five visits, once every couple of days and so on.

The fifth feature is called “Footer Bar.” It allows you to create a dynamic footer bar on your website containing a subscription form. Just like with the pop-up, you can customize how often the bar will appear.

If you combine all these features and options you can add up to 17 hit points to your blog, and this is likely to boost the number of sign-ups significantly.

But facts speak louder than words right? Here is what the plugin did for me. I already had a decent structure to capture email subscribers, so I decided to use only three features: the “form auto filler”, the “checkbox in comment section” and the “footer bar.” Before installing the plugin I was getting around 67 new email subscribers per day. After installing it the number jumped to around 90, which is a 35% increase as you can see in the screenshot below:

These days I am actually getting closer to 100 sign-ups per day, so it is working even better.

Pawan told me he beta-tested the plugin with other friends too, and some of them got boosts of 100% in the number of sign-ups.

As I said before, it is a really neat piece of software. Most of the time when people give me free plugins or software to test I usually try them for a couple of weeks and then stop using them. This one I’ll probably stick with.

The plugin was officially launched this week. It is going to cost $147, but until tomorrow Pawan is offering a discount of 30%, so you can buy it for $97. I am not an affiliate, so I won’t earn anything whether you buy it or not. I just decided to review it because it worked really well for me, and because I think other bloggers will find it useful, too.

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This offer is open to the first 50 customers who order through my link. If you’ve already bought Shoemoney System before I made this offer, don’t worry about it, you’ll be getting the $500 review. You can claim your review after the 60 day refund period has expired. I expect to sell out these 50 spots really quick so order now if you don’t want to miss out!

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This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

ShoeMoney System 2.0 Just Released

What does every blogger need more of? Quality content!

This is the first of a series of six posts that tackle key content questions. Today, we’re looking specifically at content sources: places where you can get ideas and information that, with a little work, you can turn into quality blog posts.

Your posts may be text, images or video; they could deal with any topic. But every blogger needs post ideas, and all of us hit uninspired patches through which we still need to produce compelling content to a regular schedule.

Thinking strategically about the content sources you use can deliver several benefits:

• It provides its own inspiration: can’t think of a personal story to share today? No problem — use one of the many other content sources at your disposal.
• It can make your life easier: instead of scrounging around one or two sources of ideas, you can find and track great sources through which you’ll gain access to a constant flow of post ideas.
• It helps ensure you don’t omit important information: if your blog covers a growing market space, there are probably news items and events that you’ll want to make sure you cover. Monitoring key content sources will help you deliver the essential stories to your readers at the right time.
• It can help you to think intelligently about how you pitch each post: a greater choice of content sources offers you more opportunities to creatively reach specific reader segments in ways that resonate specifically with them.
• It can give you a wider range of tools with which to achieve your blogging objectives: try different content sources, and over time you may well find that different types of information produce posts that serve particular objectives. We all know, for example, that a review post can provide affiliate opportunities that can translate directly into revenue. Work out which post types help achieve specific audience, promotion or revenue goals, and identify content sources for those posts, and you’ll be able to focus on making the content resonate with your audience, rather than spending your time searching for basic post ideas.

I usually see content sources as falling into two categories: internal and external sources.

Internal Content Sources

Internal content sources are those that exist within my operation, myself, and my audience. They include:

1. feedback and audience discussion around past posts
2. the audience itself
3. my experiences, perspective, and opinion
4. my network of colleagues and contacts

It’s essential that you stay abreast of what’s happening on your site. Existing discussions can help you identify topics that unite your audience in sharing, learning, or debate — all of which helps build community.

It’ll also provide one means for engaging with your audience (along with social media and other sources of direct audience contact). Sure, your site stats are helpful as a frame of reference, but nothing beats actual user engagement for getting ideas about what your blog’s readers want to know, what makes them laugh, and what motivates them.

Thinking objectively about your own experiences in the field, as well as those of your contacts, can unearth some intriguing ideas and information that can immediately help you to develop posts. But beyond that, your passion for your field should see you investigating ideas with colleagues, and forming your own opinions about industry developments. Those unique perspectives can provide a wealth of post ideas — from interviews and news-style reports to the kinds of opinion and analysis posts that stick in  readers’ minds, and keep them coming back to check the comments long after they’ve read your post.

External Content Sources

External content sources lie beyond my immediate sphere of operation. They include:

• other media focused on the same topic, including offline media, such as interest magazines and industry publications, forums, user groups, social network trends and discussions, and more.
• other people focused on the same topic, including thought leaders, commentators, reviewers, passionate hobbyists, and organisational heads.

I like to subscribe to media that focus on the same topic as my blog, so I’m constantly fed content ideas through story alerts, media releases, and news updates. The same goes for tracking people who lead opinion or have expertise in my area — by subscribing to their blogs, regularly visiting their sites, and following them on social networks, I can keep a grip not just on the news, but on the discussions and thinking that occur in the broader arena in which I operate.

The posts that arise from these sources might be as pragmatic as a product or service review, daily reports from an industry conference, or ongoing commentary on a major development in your area of interest. Or they can be as theoretical as an essay taking in various industry-leading opinions, advice, and responses on a particular topic. The posts may be yours, or those of a guest blogger you’ve sourced through your offsite research. In any case, your blog won’t be short of content.

Continuous Content

Sourcing regular, quality content is every blogger’s challenge. But with that challenge comes the hurdles of variety, insight, exclusivity and personality. At the heart of it all, you’ll need a continuous content sourcing approach.

To source content continually, you’ll need to build content sourcing into your schedule, and into your brain. Yes, you’ll need to dedicate time to content-sourcing tasks, like flicking through RSS feeds, reading, researching, interviewing, networking, and so on. But all that becomes easy if you treat everything you do around your blog topic as a potential content sourcing opportunity.

Soon, you’ll no longer sit down to write a blog post and start by wracking your brains for ideas. Instead, you’ll find content ideas pop up everywhere. You’ll stop asking yourself, “What will I write about?” and find yourself picking and choosing from a plethora of ideas that “just come to you”.

What’s your favourite source of quality content ideas?

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Source Quality Content … Continuously

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What does every blogger need more of? Quality content!

This is the first of a series of six posts that tackle key content questions. Today, we’re looking specifically at content sources: places where you can get ideas and information that, with a little work, you can turn into quality blog posts.

Your posts may be text, images or video; they could deal with any topic. But every blogger needs post ideas, and all of us hit uninspired patches through which we still need to produce compelling content to a regular schedule.

Thinking strategically about the content sources you use can deliver several benefits:

• It provides its own inspiration: can’t think of a personal story to share today? No problem — use one of the many other content sources at your disposal.
• It can make your life easier: instead of scrounging around one or two sources of ideas, you can find and track great sources through which you’ll gain access to a constant flow of post ideas.
• It helps ensure you don’t omit important information: if your blog covers a growing market space, there are probably news items and events that you’ll want to make sure you cover. Monitoring key content sources will help you deliver the essential stories to your readers at the right time.
• It can help you to think intelligently about how you pitch each post: a greater choice of content sources offers you more opportunities to creatively reach specific reader segments in ways that resonate specifically with them.
• It can give you a wider range of tools with which to achieve your blogging objectives: try different content sources, and over time you may well find that different types of information produce posts that serve particular objectives. We all know, for example, that a review post can provide affiliate opportunities that can translate directly into revenue. Work out which post types help achieve specific audience, promotion or revenue goals, and identify content sources for those posts, and you’ll be able to focus on making the content resonate with your audience, rather than spending your time searching for basic post ideas.

I usually see content sources as falling into two categories: internal and external sources.

Internal Content Sources

Internal content sources are those that exist within my operation, myself, and my audience. They include:

1. feedback and audience discussion around past posts
2. the audience itself
3. my experiences, perspective, and opinion
4. my network of colleagues and contacts

It’s essential that you stay abreast of what’s happening on your site. Existing discussions can help you identify topics that unite your audience in sharing, learning, or debate — all of which helps build community.

It’ll also provide one means for engaging with your audience (along with social media and other sources of direct audience contact). Sure, your site stats are helpful as a frame of reference, but nothing beats actual user engagement for getting ideas about what your blog’s readers want to know, what makes them laugh, and what motivates them.

Thinking objectively about your own experiences in the field, as well as those of your contacts, can unearth some intriguing ideas and information that can immediately help you to develop posts. But beyond that, your passion for your field should see you investigating ideas with colleagues, and forming your own opinions about industry developments. Those unique perspectives can provide a wealth of post ideas — from interviews and news-style reports to the kinds of opinion and analysis posts that stick in  readers’ minds, and keep them coming back to check the comments long after they’ve read your post.

External Content Sources

External content sources lie beyond my immediate sphere of operation. They include:

• other media focused on the same topic, including offline media, such as interest magazines and industry publications, forums, user groups, social network trends and discussions, and more.
• other people focused on the same topic, including thought leaders, commentators, reviewers, passionate hobbyists, and organisational heads.

I like to subscribe to media that focus on the same topic as my blog, so I’m constantly fed content ideas through story alerts, media releases, and news updates. The same goes for tracking people who lead opinion or have expertise in my area — by subscribing to their blogs, regularly visiting their sites, and following them on social networks, I can keep a grip not just on the news, but on the discussions and thinking that occur in the broader arena in which I operate.

The posts that arise from these sources might be as pragmatic as a product or service review, daily reports from an industry conference, or ongoing commentary on a major development in your area of interest. Or they can be as theoretical as an essay taking in various industry-leading opinions, advice, and responses on a particular topic. The posts may be yours, or those of a guest blogger you’ve sourced through your offsite research. In any case, your blog won’t be short of content.

Continuous Content

Sourcing regular, quality content is every blogger’s challenge. But with that challenge comes the hurdles of variety, insight, exclusivity and personality. At the heart of it all, you’ll need a continuous content sourcing approach.

To source content continually, you’ll need to build content sourcing into your schedule, and into your brain. Yes, you’ll need to dedicate time to content-sourcing tasks, like flicking through RSS feeds, reading, researching, interviewing, networking, and so on. But all that becomes easy if you treat everything you do around your blog topic as a potential content sourcing opportunity.

Soon, you’ll no longer sit down to write a blog post and start by wracking your brains for ideas. Instead, you’ll find content ideas pop up everywhere. You’ll stop asking yourself, “What will I write about?” and find yourself picking and choosing from a plethora of ideas that “just come to you”.

What’s your favourite source of quality content ideas?

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Source Quality Content … Continuously

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