Blogtrepreneur Is Hiring!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking more of an administrative role here at Blogtrepreneur. I’m sure most of you will have noticed that my posting frequency has dropped over recent months due to a combination of offline factors.

I’ve been really fortunate to have Steven Snell from Vandelay Design on board so far, and he has consistently been posting every Tuesday. So far, I havn’t really had a chance to welcome him to the community, but I want to thank him for all his hard work so far!

As a single post every week isn’t enough to sustain a successful blog, I’ve decided to search for some new writing talent to improve the posting frequency here, and to really take things to the next level. So if you are interested, please use my contact form to get in touch.

All you need to send me when applying are links to some of your writings (knowledge of blogs and Wordpress in particular is preferable although not compulsory) and reasons as to why you would make a great addition to the Blogtrepreneur team.

Please note that this is a paid position and I will state prices once I’ve taken a look at some of your publishings. Other benefits will include a dedicated author’s page and the availability to link-back to your posts, sites in your articles and having the chance to improve your brand and image to over 1000 RSS readers!

Where Are You Going, Adnan?

I thought that some of you might ask that question, but I’m still going to be here, as usual keeping an eye on Blogtrepreneur. In terms of posting, I’ll still be posting whenever and wherever possible, but the added content will mean that I will feel less bad if I don’t manage to post anything in a week!

For those who have always been opposed to guest posting, the statistics would say otherwise, as I havn’t posted for a couple of weeks, and Steven has still managed to boost traffic and subscribership levels. I will always make sure that posts will be of the highest quality, but as mentioned, I will still be here keeping alive the Blogtrepreneur spirit!

A Redesign Is On The Way

I just wanted to end this brief post with news that Blogtrepreneur will be undergoing a major shift in design. I’ve managed to rope in the skills of Connor Wilson yet again to come up with a formidable template, and one which will definitely blow your socks off.

You can expect to see a shiny new mascot, some Javascript beauty and an amazing colour scheme. As usual, it’s onwards and upwards for us entrepreneurs.

What Have You Been Doing Recently?

It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to catch up with both long-time and new readers, so what have you guys been doing recently online and offline. Have you managed to break any New Year goals yet? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

How to Have an Influence on Your Niche

As a blogger, knowing your niche thoroughly is important. In order to become relevant in your niche you must be able to get involved with others and find a way to separate yourself from the many other bloggers who cover the same topics as you. Networking with other bloggers is a crucial part of gaining an influence on those in your niche. Without being part of the blogging community of those around you, your blog will likely be overlooked by many potential readers.

Here are 10 ways that you can increase your impact on your niche:

1. Focus on quality of content

This is important for any aspect of blogging and it’s a topic that gets repeated over and over if you do any type of reading about blogging. Despite the fact that it’s not a new idea, it is first on this list for a reason. Nothing else you can do as a blogger will have as big of an impact on your long-term success (networking is a close second, in my opinion).

While there may be hundreds or thousands of other bloggers in your niche, it’s likely that only a few of them actually publish high-quality, original content. Always appreciate the value of quality content, and put as much time as you can afford into content creation. It will pay off. With top-notch content, others in your niche will take notice.

2. Read and comment on other blogs

Reading other blogs in your niche is critical to your development and continued learning, not to mention for networking purposes. Commenting on other blogs is always mentioned as a way to get noticed by others and to draw traffic to your blog. While comments will rarely draw a significant number of visitors to your blog, they add up if you actively leave a number of interesting and relevant comments. Just as importantly, you can get other bloggers to notice you by consistently providing quality feedback on their posts.

Most subscribers of other blogs in your niche will subscribe to a number of blogs, and they’ll likely be interested in adding more if you can prove that you have something valuable to say. As a result, commenting on other blogs in your niche is one of the best ways to get your name and your thoughts in front of targeted visitors.

For more information on commenting, read Caroline Middlebrook’s post Do You Have A Blog Commenting Strategy?

3. Write guest posts for other blogs

One of the most effective methods of gaining exposure for my blog has been writing for others. When I first started promoting my blog I contacted a few bloggers each week about the possibility of writing a guest post for them. Almost every one wound up posting at least one of my articles. This helped for getting my name out there to others in my niche, it helped to build links, and most importantly it helped me to make some valuable connections with other bloggers in my niche. Many of those bloggers that I initially contacted out of the blue have now become my friends and trusted members of my network. As a result, I still write for some of them (including here at Blogtrepreneur).

In my opinion, there is really no better way for a new blogger to make a big splash in their niche than by doing some guest posts on other blogs. As readers start to see your name a few times you’ll quickly become recognized. New bloggers shouldn’t be intimidated at the thought of contacting other bloggers about writing guest posts. Darren Rowse has published posts to his thousands and thousands of readers that have been written by new bloggers with less than 100 subscribers, and other have done the same (of course you’ll need to provide the best article that you are capable of).

What other way can you display your name and your knowledge to lots of targeted readers for free? Still, very few people really take advantage of the opportunity to write guest posts. If you are interested in more information, I wrote an article based on my experience that should help you to get started as a guest blogger.
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Improving the Value of Old Blog Posts

As bloggers, most of us typically focus on creating new and interesting content that will appeal to subscribers and new visitors. While this is extremely important, we frequently overlook the value of our archives of existing posts. The archives can be an incredibly valuable source of content that can continually be used to help visitors and attract new subscribers. Especially for blogs that have been around for a while, taking a good hard look at the archives can be time well spent. Here are some tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your posts from the past.

1. Add Internal Links

Internal links on a blog are important for helping readers find relevant and related content, and they can also help for SEO purposes. As you continue to add new posts, you are most likely also creating more opportunities for internal links to other blog posts.

When you write a new post, do you look for opportunities to link to older posts from your archives? Most bloggers are pretty good at this, but what most of us overlook is the potential for adding internal links within the content of older posts to other posts that hadn’t yet been created at the time of publication. For example, if you go back to a post that was published 6 months ago, there are most likely opportunities within that post to link to other posts that have been published since that time.

While going back through the archives can be time consuming, there are a few ways to speed it up. First, as you create new posts, always take a moment to look for any opportunity to link back to your archives. If you take the time for this purpose, it won’t require so much effort down the road. Second, the search function on your blog can be a big help. For example, if I were looking for opportunities within older posts to link to this article, I could do a search for “internal links” or “blog archives” and then include a link on the posts that the search produces. Third, for WordPress users the aLinks plugin will automatically link certain words or phrases to a specific page. This is used by many bloggers for affiliate marketing, but it can also be used for internal linking purposes.

2. Include a “Popular Posts” section

Many blogs have a section in the sidebar that includes links to the most popular, successful, or useful articles from the blog’s archives. There are a number of different plugins that you can use for this purpose, or you can create the list manually, which I prefer. I like to have control over which posts are displayed and I can change them from time-to-time if I want.

However you decide to do it, featuring your best content is almost essential for bloggers. New visitors that arrive on your blog may want to know more about what type of content you provide, and if they are going to subscribe, you are going to have to earn there trust. What better way to do this than be highlighting several of your best posts.

The popular posts don’t necessarily have to be held in the sidebar. Some blogs use the header to display their best content more prominently. Whatever method you choose, be sure that it is somewhere that readers will be able to easily find.
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Instantly Growing a Blog

Growing a blog takes time. Maybe even several years. Or can it be done almost instantly? Recently there have been a few examples of bloggers building a significant audience almost immediately. Skellie launched AnyWired and racked up 1,100 subscribers in just 5 days. David Airey started Logo Design Love with a successful first week that included over 450 subscribers.

Of course these two blogs are the exceptions, but there are some lessons to be learned. Skellie and David certainly aren’t the only bloggers to accomplish this feat, but they are two current examples. In this post we’ll look at some proven methods for accelerating the growth process for a new blog, as well as some of my own opinions on the matter.

Here are 5 methods for instant blog growth:

1. Start a 2nd Blog on a Related Topic

Both Skellie and David had successful blogs before their most recent blog launches. Each had a few thousand readers and a loyal following that was immediately interested in anything new that they created. By starting a new blog in a related field, a higher percentage of current readers will subscribe to the new blog as well. This not only makes it easier to increase the subscriber count, but it also dramatically helps to start with an audience that already has a great deal of trust and respect for the blogger, something that will otherwise take much more time to develop.

Of course, this is only an option if you already have an established blog in the first place. While it doesn’t help everyone, it does clearly show the learning curve that exists with blogging and it is a demonstration that building a blog becomes easier with time.

2. Tell All of Your Contacts

If you are an existing blogger, you probably have a number of contacts and friends that you have developed that share similar interests with you. All of these people are potential readers of your new blog, so be sure to send them an email to let them know about your new project and many of them will subscribe.

New bloggers may also have plenty of friends and contacts that would be interested. Have you been working in the field for a while and developed a network? Do you have friends and family that might be interested in the topics you cover? Do you visit community-related websites or forums where you have gotten to know others online that might be interested?
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10 Lessons I’ve Already Learnt From PPC Affiliate Marketing

As some of you may have noticed in previous posts, I’ve started to delve into the world of affiliate marketing. Whilst I have not started many massive, full-blown campaigns that you may have been reading about on blogs such as Zac Johnson or Super Affiliate Mindset, I’ve started off slow with affiliate mini-sites and a small budget to direct traffic to them.

In the relatively short time that I’ve been doing this Pay-Per-Click > Affiliate Marketing, I have learnt a number of lessons which I wished to share with you in this post. These are lessons which I think could help you on any future campaigns you wish to start, but also to warn you as to what you are getting yourself in for.

My 10 PPC Affiliate Marketing Lessons

1. Affiliate Marketing Takes Patience

Bucket-loads of patience might be a better phrase. Whilst there are people on the net who say that it’s easy to slap together a campaign on Google Adwords and to instantaneously get targeted, cheap clicks on your ads and good commissions on top, in reality, PPC is much harder than I expected.

It’s very easy to get irritated when you see that you’re losing money, or when you see that you’re getting absolutely no leads but the key is not to give up. Perseverance is the aim of the game here, and it will separate the winners from the losers.

2. Affiliate Marketing Requires Time

Prepare to spend hours thinking up new keywords for your campaign, optimising your ads, re-positioning elements of your landing pages and continually split-testing. Whilst many people have automated systems for doing this (for example using Wordze or Keyword Discovery), I’ve found that using my brain is a pretty good tool in itself. I suppose I could benefit from more automation and a better tracking system - but I’m still learning the ropes.

3. You Need Some Startup Capital

Whilst it is possible to find targeted visitors for only 1 cent a pop, chances are that the field that you’re competing in is very saturated, which pushes up keyword prices and makes your campaign that bit more expensive. At the same time, it is possible that you may get a tonne of visitors, but no conversions.

So a rule of thumb therefore, is to make sure that you have money that you’re not afraid to lose. Whether this is $100 or $1000, it is important that you won’t need this money to pay the rent, otherwise you could find yourself in an even greater hole. Assess your risks sensibly and act accordingly.

4. Reading Is Very Important

Affiliate Marketing like most industries, is constantly changing - whether it be because of changes in Google’s algorithm or simply a change in your payment structure from an affiliate network, you must always be on the lookout for new knowledge that will give you the upper hand over your competitors. Spending an hour or so at first reading up on various blogs and forums and familiarising yourself with affiliate marketing resources will really help you in the longrun.
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