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How Should I Spend Money on My Blog?

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how should i spend money on my blog

Over the last few years, blogging has gone from “that kinda weird thing that Internet people do” to mainstream. My mother still uses a pre-paid cell phone, has never been on Facebook, and had dial-up Internet up until about a year ago. And she has a blog.

One of the biggest reasons that blogging is so attractive is that it is a way to enjoy your passion that requires little start-up cash. Heck, it costs more to go to a baseball game with your family than it does to start a blog. You can even get started with absolutely no money.

As your traffic starts to grow, however, you might want to spend a little money on your blog. Recently, we posted an infographic featuring bloggers who made millions online. You can bet your britches that these people have invested money into their blogs! Now, yesterday, I wrote a bit about the advantages of paid targeted traffic, but if you’re a beginner, there are other things you should start paying for first.

Without further ado, here are the top five ways you should spend money on your blog:

Hosting

The number one thing you should purchase if you want to continue growing as a blogger is hosting. While millions of bloggers have gotten their start on Blogger, WordPress.com, Tumblr, or another freely hosted blogging platform, very, very few free services allow you enough freedom to really grow your blog. Sponsors/advertisers and customers will take you more seriously if you own your own site. Think about it. When’s the last time you saw a successful blog on a wordpress.com or blogspot.com site?

First, you need to purchase your domain name, which costs around $10 per year depending on where you register the name, and whether you want a .com name or a different extension, like .net, .org, or .me.

Then, you need hosting, which costs as little as $3 per month, depending on the size of your site, the company providing the hosting, and whether you purchase by the month or pay several months in advance. As a blogger, you really shouldn’t have to pay more than $10 per month.

So, in total, you’re looking at $75 – $150 per year (or $6 to $13 per month) to own your own site. You can spend even less money if you look for a sale. If you spend no other money on your blog, spend money on this.

Premium Themes and Plugins

Next, for many bloggers, it makes sense to invest in a premium theme and some premium plugins. Yes, there are a ton of free options out there, but the features you get with premium themes and plugins can help you grow.

As far as themes go, you can choose options such as Thesis, Headway, or Genesis, or you can choose to subscribe to a membership site where you pay one fee to have access to lots of themes. Woo Themes is an example of this kind of membership site and while you will be paying month instead of a flat fee, these membership options are typically a good choice if you have several blogs or change your theme often.

Premium themes can cost as little as $5 and as much as several hundreds of dollars. Most of the time, you get what you pay for.

Now let’s talk about premium plugins. There are thousands of choices out there. Pay for the plugins that make the most sense for your blog and your goals. You can also find “freemium” plugins, which means you have access to the plugin for free, but you have to pay if you want additional features and support.

Some Premium plugins that I really like are:

  • CommentLuv: Freemium – I purchased the upgrade and LOVE it! Not only does it give you Look for a sale and you can upgrade for a very reasonable price. When I purchased, I think I paid $30-40 for unlimited use, which is normally $97.
  • Gravity Forms: $39 for one site and support for a year
  • Visual Composer: $25 for one site, and well worth the money if you build complex pages
  • A/B Theme Testing: $10 for one site, and great if you want to test different themes to see what performs better
  • Backup Buddy: $80 for two sites or $100 for ten sites (with options for more at higher price points)

Of course, this doesn’t scratch the surface of the premium plugins available for bloggers, so I recommend doing your research to find those that are going to really enhance your blog, based on your goals. (And if you have a favorite premium plugin, leave a comment below to tell us about it!)

Education

I might be biased, but I believe that one of the best investments you can make as a blogger is in education. I work for NMX not just for the paycheck, but because I really believe in what this company is doing to help teach content creators to be better at what they do. I always walk away having learned something! If you’re not already signed up for our next show, I highly recommend it (you can learn more here).

Conferences aren’t your only option. If you want more education, here are some other options:

  • Online conferences, courses and programs, such as our virtual ticket
  • Single webinars/videos (often these are free, but sometimes there are premium options)
  • Ebooks (again, often these are free, but sometimes there are awesome premium ebooks you should consider)
  • Print books from experts in the topics that interest you

Of course, you should also be reading other blogs, which is completely free. It always boggles my mind when bloggers say they “don’t have time to read other blogs,” which really means they don’t make time to read other blogs. Education blogs (like this one and others like it) are invaluable for learning more about blogging.

Virtual Assistants and Contractors

How much is your time worth?

Let’s say that you have a few hours every day to work on your blog. In those hours you can be doing any number of tasks; as most bloggers know, you could fill a hundred hours a week with blogging work!

A virtual assistant or a contractor can help you with low-level tasks so you can work on other tasks that are going to help you make more money. For example, you can have a virtual assistant help with emails so you have time to write more blog posts. Or you could have a contractor write some posts for you so you have time to work with sponsors.

With virtual assistants and contractors, you don’t always get a more trusted, skilled person if you spend more money. I’ve worked with VAs who charged $5 per hour and were excellent. I’ve also worked with VAs who charged $20 per hour and did a horrible job. You really have to do your research to find the person who is a right fit for you.

As a sidebar, one of our speakers, Chris Ducker, runs a company that specializes in helping people find VAs. We love Chris, and if you’re looking for virtual help, definitely check out his services at Virtual Staff Finder.

Mailing List Services

Lastly, I highly recommend that you invest in your mailing list. There are free services to get started, like MailChimp, but I like the premium services offered by other companies a little better. My personal favorite is Aweber (for bloggers), and if you need a more robust CRM and marketing tool, not just a way to send emails, there are more expensive services out there, such as HubSpot, Marketo, and Infusionsoft. With mailing list services, you’ll pay by the size of your list.

Feedblitz is also an option. This service combines RSS and email so you can reach readers with the content they really want.

When someone visits your site, you have no way of reaching them again if you don’t have a mailing list. Even if they follow you on Twitter of Facebook, there’s no guarantee that they’ll see your updates, since the Twitter stream moves so quickly and Facebook status updates aren’t seen by everyone.

With a mailing list, you can reach the reader where they live the most…in their inbox.  You can send them newsletters to help build trust, links to your blog to help boost your traffic, and product recommendations to help you make more money. You can also survey your readers using your mailing list, allowing you to find out what kind of content they most want.

So there you have it: my top five recommendations for spending money on your blog. Do you invest in your blog? If so, how do you spend your money? Leave a comment letting us know!

Full disclosure: some of the companies mentioned are past or current NMX/BlogWorld exhibitors and sponsors or are owned by past or current NMX/BlogWorld speakers. It’s hard to keep track since we’ve had so many people working with us over the years! I never recommend a product I don’t believe in, though. If you have any questions about NMX’s relationship with a specific company, let me know!

The #1 Way to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Blog

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targeted web traffic When I first started blogging, the idea that people I didn’t know were reading my posts freaked me out. It was hard to believe that anyone other than my mom could care about what I had to say!

But today, like most bloggers, I care a great deal about traffic numbers and what I can do to increase them.

All traffic is good traffic, but some traffic is better traffic. I will never turn readers away, but the the techniques I use to get new readers need to fall in line with my specific niche and blog goals, simply because there are only so many hours in each day. One of the most common mistakes I see new bloggers making is going for the easy traffic instead of going for targeted traffic.

In other words, getting 100 new readers from Facebook who actually subscribe to your mailing list is better than getting 1000 new readers from StumbleUpon who hit the back button after 5 seconds on your blog.

The best way to get targeted traffic? You may not like it, but here’s the answer: pay for it.

Paid Targeted Traffic: Wait…You Need to Read This Before You Say “No Way!”

When I tell people that paying for traffic is the best way to get more targeted readers to your blog, most people don’t want to hear anything else I have to say. But let me break it down for you and tell you why you should embrace paid traffic!

For our example, let’s measure by number of subscribers to your mailing list. And, for the sake of the example, let’s also say that you’ve figured out that each of your subscribers is worth $3 over the course of six months.

If you go for organic traffic, most of the people who land on your site aren’t going to be interested enough to sign up for your mailing list. That’s just the nature of traffic from search, social, bookmarking sites, etc. In our example, let’s assume that you get 10,000 visitors to your blog over the course of a week and hat 10% of them are engaged enough to sign up for your mailing list. That means your week was worth $3,000. Not bad.

But instead, let’s say you spend $1,000 on getting the same amount of targeted traffic with Adwords, Facebook, and other means of getting traffic from people who are extremely interested in your blog, based on researched demographics and search behavior. Instead of 10% of the traffic signing up for your list, you double that rate and 20% sign up. That means your week was worth $6,000 instead. Once you subtract the $1,000 you spend on traffic, you’re still operating at a gain, having made a profit of $5,000 instead of just $3,000.

Paid targeted traffic isn’t looking so bad anymore, right?

Paid Targeted Traffic is About Testing and the Long Game

Of course, in my examples, my numbers of arbitrary. You might spend $1,000 and see only a 1% difference in sign-up traffic, which means that your overall profit would be $2,300–not nearly as good as your results with organic traffic.

It’s all about testing. What ads should you buy? How can you optimize them not only to get the top number of clicks, but the top number of highly targeted clicks? Who exactly is your target audience, not just for your free blog content, but for whatever you’re selling?

Testing never truly ends. There’s always something you could be doing better, and an ad that performs well today might not perform well a month from now. Until you get some base testing done, however, you might not see much profit…or any profit. What’s important is this:

Before you start paying for traffic, come up with a plan and budget for testing and optimizing your campaigns.

Paid traffic rarely works if you simply run a burst of ads for a week. You need to be able to afford to test ads over the course of time, knowing that you won’t see a return on investment at first. If you can’t afford to do that, paid traffic isn’t your best option right now.

Yes, Free Targeted Traffic is an Option

If you don’t have the budget to pay for ads at the moment, you can still get targeted traffic to your blog. Like with paid traffic, it’s all about testing. You want to spend your time on the promotion activities that give you the best returns.

Bounce rate alone doesn’t tell the whole story, but this is a start. Look for traffic sources that have a low bounce rate. This will change based on your niche and your specific content. For some bloggers, Pinterest performs well, well other bloggers have more luck with SEO and still others see the best results with Twitter. Test, test, test!

Look beyond bounce rate. Use Google Analytics to set up a goal and track conversions. This allows you to see which traffic sources get you the most new subscribers. Sometimes, your bounce rate might be extremely low (which is a good thing), but the subscriber rate is also very low (which is a bad thing).

Want more ad clicks? You need more traffic. Want to sell sponsored posts for more money? You need more traffic. Want to sell more affiliate products? You need more traffic. Do you see a trend here? Better traffic is your first step to making more money, whether you do that with a mailing list or another form of monetization. Adding paid traffic to your strategy is ideal, but at the very least, start thinking more about how to spend your time promoting your blog to your target market, not just to anyone who will click your link.

Do you pay for targeted traffic? What have your experiences been with this kind of traffic versus non-paid (organic) traffic?

Young Entrepreneurs Who Made Millions Online [Infographic]

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Online, you can be successful no matter what your age – and we have the proof! Check out this infographic showing some of the top young entrepreneurs who’ve become millionaires through their work online:

Entrepreneurs_CP4

Editor’s note: These online entrepreneurs make me motivated to work harder. I love a good success story! But your role models don’t have to be millionaires. Whose online success story motivates you? Leave a comment with the name of the online entrepreneur who inspires you!

Blog Writing Tips: 5 Ways To Write Posts that Google (and Your Readers) Love

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3d person holding a megaphone forming the word blog. According to Jamie Stilgoe’s Guardian article, Google is on a mission to eradicate content farms and poor quality link building. Google is out with a machete to axe any web page with content that doesn’t measure up to the quality that was hitherto expected only from principal brands.

The content marketing scene has changed drastically through the years of the existence of the Internet. There was a time when nothing more than a cluster of words did well, but fortunately, it’s a new ball game altogether now. It isn’t just businesses and brands that are buckling under the mounting pressure; bloggers, individuals, and almost everyone else with written content on the web is feeling the heat.

While blogging – as an art, as a source of revenue for bloggers, and as a great medium for marketing and brand building for businesses – faces the brunt of Google’s policing, content marketing in all forms is set to change. It’s time to prepare for the future.

Here are five ways to make sure that your blog posts are left standing long after the bloodbath is over…

1. Choose Your Topic…Before You Start Writing

On the Internet, you do have space for rants, ravings, and ramblings. You can randomize your communication as much as you want. But this can’t be done when you are blogging professionally. As a blogger writing for yourself or for a business, random is out; focused is in.

Strong posts are not random, covering several scattered ideas. Create separate posts for each thought, instead. Stay focused as you are writing and even consider coming up with an outline first so you stay on topic.

2. Back Up Your Statements

When Paul Graham writes about startups, businesses, and anything to do with entrepreneurship, it tends to be a post that’s worth reading. When Warren Buffett talks on investing, you’ve absolutely got to bookmark the post. But that’s about Paul Graham and Warren Buffett, not everyone else, right?

For the rest of us, we have weapons called research and pointed justification. Present an opinion, but back it up with the words of an authority. Bring out a clear message, but tag it with observations others have made. State facts and then line up your thoughts based on them.

Write what you want to but pour credibility into your posts by using research, facts, expert opinions, and other references. Strong writing is adorned with specifics and evidence.

3. Be Passionate

Either you are passionate about your niche or you are not.

If you are writing with passion, it’ll show in your blog posts. Unfortunately, it’ll also show if you aren’t. One of the secrets of great commercial writing lies in the throws of passion and character. When you begin to write about something you feel strongly for, there’s no way your posts will begin to read like content-mill chaff.

Passion produces energy. Passion leads the way to clear, concise, opinionated, and strong articles – just the kind of fuel blogs need. Do yourself a favor and don’t blog if you aren’t passionate about your business, the niche you blog on, or the topics you write on.

We are talking about years of effort wasted. The Internet is not a dumping ground for useless bytes of information.

4. Write Confident Posts

Meek writing is weak writing. Blog posts with unsure and indirect “umms,” “perhaps,” “So, I’d like to conclude with,” are all signposts to your readers that they are on patchy roads without tarmac. They are reading looking at weak efforts that have no value to offer.

Strong writing is also often opinionated writing. It’s writing with facts and truth backing up every post, but it is also experience, knowledge, oddity, disposition, personality, and the uniqueness that’s “you” which shows through your writing.

5. Don’t Write if you have Nothing New to Offer

Mike McGrail pointed out in points out in Social Media Today that a blog is flexible, that it’s yours, and that it’s a perfect hub. I say it’s more than that—it’s a platform which enables you to provide value.

Every post you write should have a “takeaway” lesson. The value you offer to your readers is in the takeaways from a blog post: Was it pure information? Was it opinion? Was it insight into an in-depth topic? Was it entertainment?

Every piece of content must offer something. Your blog posts should inform, inspire, trigger a train of thoughts, engage with your readers, and point out a new angle to look at that old mousetrap.

Editor’s Note: The biggest lesson in this post, perhaps, is that if you write posts your readers love, Google will love them as well. If you want to survive every single Google update, win over your readers. You’ll always have the edge with SEO if you write posts that your readers want to share!

Want to learn more about writing posts that readers (and Google) love? Join us at NMX 2014 in Las Vegas to learn from some of the world’s leading content creators! Learn more here >

Julien Smith: “Your Environment is Everything”

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julien smith When I was in college, I was very interested in learning about nature versus nurture (i.e. the debate about what is more important: your innate abilities/genetics or your environment/experiences). It was the first time I had stepped outside of my secure, rural community to meet people from all over the world. It was uncomfortable and exciting at the same time.

Nature versus nurture was a topic brought up in my Psychology 101 class, and I began looking at my own life through more refined glasses. What I realized is that certain beliefs and personality traits that I thought were just “who I am” (nature), were more likely a result of the environment in which I was raised (nurture).

Writes Julien Smith, in a blog post on In Over Your Head,

Where you live is not trivial– at all. Your environment is everything for you. It shapes you. It’s made you who you are, from the people you spend time with to the very streets you are driving in and walking on every day.

This can be both good and bad. For example, I consider myself to have an extremely strong work ethic, and I attribute that to the fact that I grew up in a rural farming community where everyone had to work hard just to make ends meet. There, you won’t find a tolerance for laziness. But I also am extremely hard on myself when I  face any kind of failure, large or small, because where I grew up, failure in your career meant no food on the table.

So what does this have to do with content creation or your online business?

I believe, that the same way your physical environment can effect how you interact with the world and what level of success you achieve, so do our virtual environments. As Julien writes, where you live is not trivial, and because we “live” online these days, we need to broaden our horizons a bit to include your online presence in this idea.

Think about the people in your closest circle. Think about the websites you visit the most. Think about the online communities where you choose to interact, and the online communities where you consider yourself a member. Think about how your own content reflects the online environment where you live. Think about how you can step out of this cycle and build new relationships or simply just find refreshing places to hang out online, at least occasionally.

It’s about growth, and about ensuring that you surround yourself with an environment, both online and off, that is aligned with your personal and professional goals.

See Julien Live on the NMX Stage (And Download a Free Session Featuring Him!)

We’re happy to be welcoming Julien to the keynote stage at NMX 2014. If you missed our recent keynoter announcement, you can check it out in full here.

To go along with this announcement, we’re giving away past sessions featuring our keynoters, including Julien. Download these sessions now while they’re still available!

How Bloggers Can Run Successful Facebook Contests

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facebook like button Running a contest on Facebook just got easier! They’ve been making a ton of changes recently, and this is one I really like. Facebook recently decided to allow business pages to run contests without using an app, so now you can ask users to like a status, comment, send messages, and more in order to enter your contest. You can also use likes as a voting mechanism for a contest.

The biggest rules still in place for running Facebook contests are:

  • You can’t ask people to tag themselves in a photo as an entry to win. (Makes sense, since Facebook doesn’t want people tagging themselves in pictures where they aren’t actually found.)
  • You can’t ask people to share on their personal profile as a contest entry. (Contests are still not allowed on personal pages, only business pages.)

Facebook contest rules were so strict in the past that many bloggers just didn’t bother, other than perhaps running the occasional Rafflecopter-based contest. Now that the rules are a lot less strict, are Facebook contests something you should consider?

  • Think about what has the most benefit to you. Asking someone to like your page as an entry means that you’ll gain more followers. However, those followers might never see your updates again. Asking someone to like or comment on a status means they are engaging with your page, so they’ll be more likely to see your updates in the future.
  • Determine if an app still makes more sense. The benefit to an app like Rafflecopter, Shortstack, Heyo, etc. is that administering the promotion and choosing a winner is easier. You can also often more easily customize the look and feel of a tab for running your contest by using a third party app.
  • Check out other contest options. Facebook just might not be the best place for your specific contest. It really depends on your goals and where your community hangs out. It might make more sense to run your contest on your blog itself instead and just use Facebook to promote it.

If Facebook is a good contest option for you, here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Facebook isn’t completely pay to play…but…you’re going to get a LOT more entries if you pay to promote the contest on Facebook. If you have a small fan page (less than 1000 people), it’s going to be pretty hard to gain traction for your contest unless you pay for promotion. The good news is that you can see pretty good results, even for just $50, especially if you’re giving away a good prize.
  • A compelling image will entice people to enter. Check out your own timeline. It is FILLED with updates from your friends. If you want to stand out, create a compelling image that includes text like “Win It!” to grab people’s attention. Of course, if you plan to promote, make sure that the image you use don’t have so much text that Facebook refuses the ad.
  • Bigger prizes don’t always mean more engagement. You’d think that the bigger the prize, the more people you’ll have excited about your contest, right? Wrong. What people want and need means more than the value of the product. For example, you might give away an hour of consulting with yourself, which you’d normally charge $300 to do. But if your Facebook fans aren’t super interested in having consulting with you, they might be more inclined to take action on a $50 Amazon gift card.

So now that Facebook has made it easier to run a contest on Facebook, will you take advantage of these changes and use this platform for a giveaway in conjunction with your blog?

Your Blog: An Asset Worth Protecting? (Sponsored Post)

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BloggerShield_Logo_RGB While many journalists and other types of media professionals have had the opportunity to secure insurance protection for their profession, bloggers have been ignored…until now. BloggerShield™, a brand new liability insurance product created exclusively for bloggers, is now available.

Unlike journalists, whose content often includes more reporting and less personal opinion, bloggers are typically valued for their point of view or their own personal brand. Often times, bloggers have a dedicated following, become social influencers, and are relied upon for information, insights, or even product promotions and reviews. With this power to influence, bloggers become vulnerable to an array of liability exposures as well as the potential backlash of critics.

Any reader may go so far as to use legal recourse to pause, halt, or counter one’s blogging activities. A blogger may experience this in the form of having a claim or lawsuit brought against them for defamation, slander, copyright infringement, or privacy violation. Regardless of the circumstances and the validity of a claim or lawsuit, bloggers are still faced with managing any legal action taken against them and keeping their blog and personal assets protected in the process. In addition, many bloggers are still unclear as to what their liability exposures are until it’s too late.

Let’s take a look at a few recent cases in which bloggers have found themselves facing litigation:

Woman Awarded $338,000 in Damages for Defamation as a Result of Anonymous Submissions

On July 11, 2013, jurors awarded Sarah Jones $338,000 in damages for defamation against gossip website thedirty.com. This high profile case arose out of two anonymous submissions posted in 2009 that claimed that Jones, a former cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals, had sex with every Bengals player and was afflicted with sexually transmitted diseases.

Nik Richie, the operator for the website, argued that he was protected under the Federal Communications Decency Act which provides immunity to website operators for content that comes from third parties. However, Jones argued that the protections did not apply as thedirty.com admitted to screening and adding comments before posting third party submissions. The jury agreed with Jones, finding that Richie acted with malice or reckless disregard in posting the submissions.

The posts were unrelated to Jones’ previous guilty plea to charges that she had sex with an underage former student. For more on the case, prior history can be found at Jones v. Dirty World Entm’t Recordings, LLC, 766 F. Supp. 2d 828 (E.D. Ky. 2011).

Blog Article Results in Libel Suit

On July 19, the District of Columbia Superior Court denied a motion to dismiss brought under DC’s 2010 Anti-SLAPP statute.  Separate but similar motions were filed by defendants National Review and the conservative think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute after climate scientist Michael Mann brought a libel suit over an article published last summer on the organization’s blog, Openmarket.org.

Mann accused the publication of defaming him by accusing him of fraud in his research and by drawing comparisons between Penn State’s investigations into his research and the school’s previous investigations of assistant football coach and convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

In denying the motions, Judge Natalia Combs Greene found that the statements in the blog had crossed the line from protected opinion to factual assertions. Accordingly, Judge Greene wrote, “there is a strong probability that the NR Defendants disregarded the falsity of their statements and did so with reckless disregard.”

For more on this story, the case has been filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court under the docket number 2012 CA 0008263 B.

Anonymous Blogger Compelled to Identify Himself for Making Defamatory Statements

A New York trial court recently directed Google Inc. to identify an anonymous blogger who had been criticizing New York attorney Frederick Shulman on blogspot.com, a Google owned company.  In his affirmation before New York Supreme Court, Shulman argued that Google should be compelled pursuant to the New York rules governing pre-action discovery to disclose the identity of the blogger posting defamatory statements to stopfrederickschulman.blogspot.com and frederickschulmancrookedattorney.com. Shulman further argued that “in the era of internet savvy individuals . . . the damage continues to mount with each day these web blogs continue to remain visible to the public.”

Justice Debra A. James found that Shulman had sufficiently shown a meritorious cause of action for defamation and the necessity of the information. Accordingly, the Court ordered Google, barring objections, to disclose reasonably available creation IP addresses as well as the name(s) and email addresses(es) used to register the blogs.

Counsel for Schulman has since disclosed that Google has cooperated with the order and that ongoing litigation is expected.

For more on this story, see In re The Matter of Schulman, Frederick Esq. v. The Go Daddy Group, Inc., et. al. at New York County, Index Number 155629/13.

So what can bloggers do to stay protected from lawsuit?

Most bloggers have some idea as to standard blogging best practices, i.e., using proper disclosures, correctly citing sources, etc. However, in many cases, this is simply not enough to stay protected from the consequences of legal action.

With the formation of BloggerShield™, a new insurance coverage created specifically for bloggers, protection is now available to bloggers. BloggerShield™ is a form of liability insurance designed to help mitigate loss and cover legal fees associated with issues arising out of a claim or lawsuit for one’s blogging activities. To learn more about blog liability exposures and BloggerShield™ Insurance, please visit www.bloggershield.com or call 888-228-7988.

7 Phrases That Make Me Ignore Your Guest Post Query

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Doesn’t it just make you cringe when you see a subject line about a guest post?

No, don’t get me wrong. I love guest posts. The world of guest posting might be changing, but here on the NMX blog, we’re guest-post-friendly! But the problem is that 9 out of 10 people who send me queries about guests posts are unoriginal and off target. What can I expect from a guest post if you can’t even write a 100-word email properly?

I do try to reply to everyone, even these poorly-written emails, but there are only so many hours in a day. So, if I don’t reply to your guest post query, it probably included one of the following phrases and made me wrinkle my nose.

“Our writers will create…”

If you’re not the person who will be creating the guest post, I probably don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to your writer. Now, occasionally, I do work with agencies and others who relay information to a writer…but most of the time, people who email me regarding what their writers will do submit horrible posts from a team of “writers” (I hesitate to even call them that) who clearly do not have a grasp on the English language.

For a guest post to be beneficial to me, it has to be your BEST work. Your best work. If you’ve hired a team of writers to create 100 guests posts a week, I’m not going to get something high-quality from you.

“We are offering this to you free of charge…”

I didn’t come to you asking you to post on this blog. You came to me. Noting that what you’re offering is free sounds extremely arrogant, almost like you expect me to say, “No, no. Let me pay for it.” If you approach me, you aren’t doing me a favor by guest posting. I’m doing you a favor by giving you access to my audience.

Some blogs paid for guest posts, but it’s our philosophy that guest posts are freely traded in exchange for promotion. If you think you deserve to get paid, apply for a freelancing job or find a blog that pays guest posts. No hard feelings. We all gotta eat.

“All we ask is…”

If you’re asking me for a guest post spot, please don’t make demands. That’s like asking a neighbor to feed your fish while you’re out of town and then saying, “In return for getting to feed my fish for a week, all I ask is that you also clean his tank.” Yes, I know that there are benefits to having guest posts on my blog. But you are approaching me. You don’t get to make demands.

Furthermore, we have rules. If you cared enough to read my guidelines, you’d know that. Most of the time, what the person is asking for breaks the rules. No es bueno.

“Please reply in…”

I receive this “threat” all the time. If I don’t reply in x number of days, then they’re taking their ball and going home.

Listen. I’m a busy gal. I try my best to respond to all guest post queries in a week. If I don’t respond to you, by all means, follow up with me, and note that if you don’t hear from me you’ll be pursuing other opportunities with the proposed guest post. But giving me a deadline in your initial email when you have no idea what my schedule about is just rude. I almost certainly won’t reply if you make a demand like that. It just tells me that working with you will be too stressful, and I hate stress.

“Let me know what you’d like me to write about…”

I have no idea what you’re an expert on. The biggest advantage of having you guest post is that you’ll provide insight into a topic that I haven’t covered (or perhaps don’t have the skills to cover). If you don’t know what you want to write for your guest post, it tells me know of two things:

  1. You aren’t really an expert on anything in this niche.
  2. You haven’t reviewed the blog at all to see what kind of content we publish.

Usually both. If you’re pitching me on a guest post, PITCH ME on a guest post. Don’t half-hearted ask if you can write something for me and then expect me to tell you what you are capable of writing.

“…high-quality, well-researched article…”

First of all, they are blog posts, not articles. Second of all, if you have to say something is high-quality and well-researched, it usually isn’t. The vast majority of the emails I get regarding guest posts include this phrase (or something very similar) and it is always a red flag for me.

“Dear sir/madam…”

This is ridiculous, but I get it all the time. If you can’t be bothered to find my name, am I really going to believe that you read through the blog to see what kind of content I publish? Half the guest post queries I get don’t even know if I’m male or female. Come on, people.

Beyond telling me that you didn’t care enough to read my past posts, it also tells me that you’re taking the “spray and pray” technique to this whole guest blogging thing. Which means you are probably writing crappy, quick posts for everyone and maybe even “spinning” low-quality copy to take one piece of content and create dozens of versions, each worse and more generic than the last.

So those are my seven most hated guest post email phrases. What would you add to the list?

On Agony and Blogging: How to Start Writing and Stop Panicking

Author:

bigstock-Crying-Girl-In-The-Office--9619043 I was in second grade when I wrote my first blog post.

Okay, back in 1992, blogging wasn’t exactly a “thing” yet. But I had just received a shiny Lisa Frank diary for Christmas, and the blank pages were killing me. I had to fill those pages, and I had to do it now, before the white sheets drove me crazy.

So that night, I wrote my first entry. Or, at least, I tried. But as I sat there with purple gel pen in hand, I didn’t know what to write. I had so much to say that I didn’t know how to start writing. I began to panic. How would I ever grow up to be a famous novelist if I couldn’t even write a diary entry? I can remember my cheeks streaked with tears that first night as I cried myself to sleep, my new diary still completely empty.

Eventually, I filled that diary and several others like it with my joys, frustrations, and deepest, darkest, childhood secrets. Reading them now is hilarious. I was an intense child. And they are clearly “blog post” style – I wrote to a reader, not to myself, with apologies when I didn’t have time to write for a few days.

To this day, though, what sticks out to me most about writing in my diary is that terribly agonizing feeling of having a world of word jumbled in my head and not knowing how to start. It is one of the most frustrating part of being a blogger.

The Power of a Good Opener

Online, you a reader’s attention for only a moment. They’re gone in the blink of an eye. The best blog posts, the ones that thousands of people stop to read, have one thing in common: their opening paragraphs are awesome. I mean truly awesome.

And they’re engineered to be that way. The Internet’s top bloggers don’t get lucky. They know that a strong opening that really grips the reader is going to keep the reader reading and, eventually, sharing. Without a great opener, it’s nearly impossible for a post to go viral.

But writing a good opening and writing your first sentence aren’t the same things. There’s no rule that says the first sentence you write has to be the first sentence of your post (and if that were a rule, I would recommend breaking it). That said, there’s power to the first thing you write, too.

The Power of a Good First Sentence

You know that moment you write something good. You just know it. The sentence sings.

And then, suddenly, the floodgates open. The words begin to flow, I get into a groove, and the rest of the post makes it out of my head. The first sentence I write isn’t always the first sentence of the post, and sometime I end up cutting that sentence in editing or moving it to a different post. Having a first, finished, good sentence, though, is powerful. It unlocks the block in your mind and gives you the confidence it takes to write the post.

That’s something lost of people never talk about: blogging takes confidence. Your words are going out there for hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of strangers to read. They matter. Writing words that matter is scary. When you don’t know how to start, panic sets in, because people are counting on you (even if they don’t know it) to improve their lives in some way.

How to Start Writing

So how do I do it? I’ve written thousands of blog posts (no, I’m not exaggerating), and many of them have started with me wanting to throw my computer out of the window. So what’s my secret?

I’m sorry to say that it’s nothing magical. The way I write so many posts, always jumping that hurdle of not knowing how to get started is this: I force myself to just start.

I do a little outline of all the topics I want to cover in the post, and then I start writing. If I don’t know what to write, I just write something. Even if it isn’t good. I don’t let myself delete that sentence and go back to a black screen. I write another sentence. And another. I write until I have at least one good paragraph, then I delete all the crap and re-read what is left. And then, I don’t feel so bad. Because I have something that doesn’t completely suck.

I have a start.

Even on my worst days, when the agony of not being able to put my words on paper feels like it is strangling me, I don’t let myself quit. Sometimes I get mad and slam my laptop closed a little harder than I probably should. I go for a walk, I get in the kitchen and cook something (that’s my zen place), I read a few chapters.

And then I make myself write again.

Don’t give up. Don’t let the panic drive you to tears like it did to me when I was a kid. Blogging is not easy. Let me say that again: Blogging is NOT easy. Sometimes you have to force yourself to keep going, even when you want to stubbornly quit. But once you get that first good sentence ready, it will get better. It always does. You just have the first hurdle to jump, then you’ll be running downhill from there.

Image Credit: Bigstock

Blog Post Schedule: When and How Often to Publish New Blog Posts

Author:

calendar blog post schedule Editor’s Note: Guest Poster Bill Belew wrote briefly about this topic back in March. Check out his advice, as well as reading this different perspective from guest contributor Shanna Mallon.

Whether you’re a new blogger or an old veteran, one thing’s for sure: You’ve heard you should be blogging regularly. If you’re going to blog at all, everyone says, you have to blog on a schedule. But how often is often? What blogging pattern translates to regular? Likewise, do certain days of the week or certain times of the day bring in better results? How can you tell? When should you post?

To help answer these questions, here’s a look at blogging’s big “When?” question and what you need to know.

Basic Blogging Post Time Principles

Before we look at the possibilities for blogging frequency, we need to look at a few key principles that guide scheduling decisions. Understanding these facts makes it easier to decide how often to post.

  • Quality Trumps Quantity

No matter how often a blogger posts, one thing is certain: Quality trumps quantity. Readers care more about what you’re posting than when. If your content is empty filler content, readers won’t care if you post every day or multiple times a day: Your content doesn’t matter. If, on the other hand, your posts are legitimately valuable, readers are more likely to keep coming back, even if posts are infrequent.

  • New Content Invites New Views

The logic is the same as the logic behind daily newspapers—People like to read content that is new. So just like you wouldn’t buy the same issue of a magazine every week, your readers are less likely to come back to a blog that shows the same old content every day. When you post new content, you give new readers a reason to check it out.

  • Readers Like Consistency

Posting consistently—whether that’s every Tuesday morning, every day, or every hour—communicates an unspoken promise to your readers. They learn your schedule and come to expect new content will appear as usual. When you always post at the same time, you build trust with your audience.

Posting Every Week vs. Posting Every Day vs. Posting Many Times a Day

OK, assuming you’re creating quality content that actually benefits your readers and you want to do it regularly, what does that look like? Should you post every day? Every hour? Let’s take a look at the options.

  • Posting Every Week

Most experts agree that if you blog regularly, that means blogging at least once a week. There are exceptions, especially for celebrity bloggers or other bloggers with established reputations, but in general, once a week is the minimum. If you choose this routine, consider making your once-a-week post always on the same day—Mondays, for example. Over time, your readers will remember your posts always appear on Mondays and want to come back to your site accordingly.

  • Posting Every Day

Say you want to increase your content frequency to something more regular than weekly posts. Maybe you post every Monday and every Friday; maybe every other day; or, perhaps, you decide to post every day. Daily posting is pretty standard for large blogs, whether they’re run by individuals or groups. Keeping this schedule can be time-consuming, so if you decide to post daily, you may want to enlist other writers to help.

  • Posting Many Times a Day

The largest, most trend-focused blogs post many times a day. Like news outlets or television stations, they are constantly providing new content for readers to view. Running this sort of blog requires a significant investment of time and energy, so you surely want a team of writers, but it also offers many rewards. Constant content often attracts a larger following, higher traffic numbers, and more potential for advertising or lead generation.

Your Thoughts on Blog Post Schedules

How often do you post on your blog? Do you post on a specific schedule, or do you post when you feel like it? If you haven’t tried a schedule before, maybe it’s time to give it a shot—to build trust with readers, keep yourself accountable, and prime your site for growth.

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