Tomorrow i will get back to my usual routine and continue following Dr Mani’s 2 Weeks To launch Your Blog.
Wanted to take a few minutes today to announce my latest project – WordPress Lessons.
This will be a series of webinars and training over a four week period to show people how to get a blog up, running properly, ways to monetize it ina step by step fashion.
It will be extremely limited in the number of participants (20) and at this writing there are only 4 spots left. After that there will be a subscribe form to be notified of the next session. Friday at 5 pm it will be closed filled or not.
Another part of my commentary on Dr. Mani’s series “2 Weeks To Launch Your Blog”. Remember he is doing this to build awareness and raise funds for his Children Heart Defect Foundation and upcoming blogathon. You can find more information at his site.
My definition of blog process – the things you do regularly and one time to develop your blog. Dr, Mani has quite a list at his post atYour Blogging Process. Check it out.
Here is one thing I think should be added. Using services like MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog etc. These social sites are woth a few minutes regularly to develop relationships.
First I add the widgets to my blogs. This allows me to see the people that belong there that have visited. I can click the picture and find out what they blog about.
Take the time to visit sites that show up in your communities. These are other sites that people that have visited you have also visited. You can find similar topics on some which will allow you to start a conversation with your comments.
A few minutes each day will broaden your perspective on what else is being written about in your area. Places to comment (always as part of the conversation – no spam please) and start building back links.
The more interactive you can be in your niche the better for finding people that are interested in your topic.
That is my addition to what although not comprehensive is a very extensive list that Dr Mani has posted.
Let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Have a question about WordPress or blogging in general? Ask at the survey button up top.
Once again I have fallen behind. So today will be a catch up day.
This is a series with my comments on Dr Mani’s “2 Weeks to Launch Your Blog”. This is being done as a promotion to his Heart Blogathon which will take place in Septemeber. Get more information at Congenital Heart Defects Information. Yes it is a money maker but the funds go to help children with heart defects and to fund operations for the same.
Now there are two posts on Dr M’s blog about blog profits. There really is only one area that I would like to expand on. The Blog Profits post is great.
One of the big problems I have seen in helping people with their blogs is mixing and matching various revenue streams.
All of the revenue streams are good but mixing some can be very detrimental to your bottom line. Adsense and other contextual ads are usually where I see a problem.
If you are doing a review site on various products that you will be selling as an affiliate Adsense oand the other contextual services that pay you by the click are a killer.
Here is an example I have seen on actual blogs.
Yesterday I saw a person who had an excellent review on the 7 Figure Code. He had an affiliate link that would generate more than $200 for a sale. There was also an Adsense block with 3 ads for the 7 Figure Code in it.
Now I have no idea what those advertisers are paying but if this review was the tipping point and someone clicks over to buy the product through one of those ads he might make $1 or $2. If they had used his affiliate link it would be more than $200.
Mixing and matching revenue sources can be very detrimental to your bottom line. Google especially is very good at matching your content with relevant ads. Great if they are your primary monetization but give it some thought if you are planning to sell affiliate products.
Just an Old Bald Guy’s opinion.
Now to the usual stuff. As always your comments and questions are welcomed and solicited. Leave your question in the comments or use the survey form above and I will be answering all the questions in the future.
Just a reminder this is another in a series of posts commenting on Dr Mani’s “2 Weeks to Launch Your Blog”. This is being done as a promotion to his Heart Blogathon which will take place in Septemeber. Get more information at Congenital Heart Defects Information. Yes it is a money maker but the funds go to help children with heart defects and to fund operations for the same.
I am commenting on his posts here but do recommend that you follow the trackbacks and read his whole series in conjunction with this.
Content ideas are one of the things that I see people have problems with. Putting some time into this before you launch can pay huge dividends.
The first is magazines. As online type people we often forget and ignore these types of areas. I know I do but…
There are lots of ideas on specific topics available in these resources. One I would like to add to the list is your television and radio. Pay attention all the time and get in the habit of always having some way to remember these. A small spiral notebook carried around can be invaluable.
The second is your older content. You are constantly adding readers and bringing some of your better older posts forward can work well.
The next comments will be on part 2 and is an area that I am very weak on and will look to improve on. Using variations of spacing, bolding, italics to get your point across and pull in the skimmers. That is one of the reasons I have added an audio version here for all the posts.
I will discuss more of that when he gets into traffic generation as podcasting can and is an excellent traffic resource and relatively simple to do.
Please leave your comments and questions here or ask your questions in the survey form above.
This is the second post in the series following Dr Mani’s Launch your blog in 2 weeks series. These comments are supplemental and you should read what Dr Mani has and add my thoughts to it. This post refers to his post on Your blog structure.
Here are the additional resources I fell are necessary when setting up your WordPress blog.
First for widgets. I love MyBlogLog. They give you stats and have a real community and quite a few widgets you can add to see who has visited. The other widget that I have been a bit disappointed in is blog catalog. They just don’t seem to be as active there and they don’t have the stats capability that MyBlogLog does.
When it comes to plugins I like the main ones he uses but I prefer sociable for my bookmarking and subscribe me for my rss feeds. Probably a matter of taste. I also like Post Schedule Ping Optimizer to keep from having the blog ping too often. This will also allow you to prepost content and if you set up a cron it will ping your posts once they go live in the future.
This is very handy for the times when you are away and allows you to save time.
If you are a marketer I like the plugim plugin and that is a bookmarking service similar to digg but specifically for marketers. I never use that on my non im blogs.
Remember that Dr Mani has an ulterior although great motive for running this 2 weeks to launch your blog. he is buldong awareness for his Childrens Heart Disease Firesale to raise funds for heart surgeries for needy children. All the funds from that go to that purpose.
Please leave your comments and ask questions you would like to have answered through our survey form. As I am running a day behind tomorrow I will discuss blog content.
This should be a fun exercise. As with most things that Dr. Mani does this is to raise awareness of his CHD Info Promotions. This should be of interest to all of my readers.
He has asked the blogging community to comment and build this exercise into a step by step plan for launching a blog. One of the neat things with a blog is the fact that you can have a conversation across multiple blogs along with using the comments.
I will be commenting and adding my information here and linking to his specific posts from here.
The first post is about Your Blog Strategy and makes a few good points. Understanding what you want to have happen with your blog and who you are looking to get as readers is important.
Anyone that has had me install a blog for them understands this as the first thing we discuss is what they expect from the blog. What your end results will be is important to consider before yu even get started.
The second post in his series is Part 2 of the discussion. There are some extremely good points made here. I love the idea of a statement of values and having a real business plan.
Somehow, those that get lucky with their blogs and get large traffic usually had a plan and a goal when they started.
It reminds me of when I worked in sales. It seems the lucky salesman always was the hardest working. The harder he worked the luckier he got.
Should be an interesting two weeks. More tomorrow.
One last note – remember what the purpose is behind this 2 week program – raising funds to allow heart surgery for those children that could not afford it. Take the time to get involved and spread the word as this continues.
As always your comments are welcomed and encouraged or feel free to ask your questions through the survey form above.
We currently have an opt in on a page on our site but it does not see much traffic. Would you advise a pop up or sidebar? Do you prefer exit or entrance pop ups?
Okay this question is tough and the first thing I will say is to always test different options. What works for one will not always be best for the next one.
Lets first discuss a question that I would ask were we discussing your blog. Is the optin the most important function of your blog in your process?
See some of the things that might give you the best signup ratio may actually hurt your blog reading. I have found nothing more effective than the lightbox pop up. This is the one used in a lot of exit scripts. It grays the page and you only see the optin form. You need to take an action to continue reading.
While it will get you the most signups it may cause a decrease in readership because it is very intrusive. That being said if building your list is the prime use of your blog it will probably be the most effective.
The other types to consider are the sidebar optin and the slide in or hover pop in optin.
On this blog I use the hover pop. It is set to only show once so if people keep coming back they won’t be interrupted each time (unless they clear their cookies regularly). It is also set to not come in until people have been on the page a bit. Hopefully, they have enough time to be intersted in what I have to say so they will continue even if they have been disrupted.
The exit software has become quite popular and is something I plan to test on a few blogs. Thing like Exit Prophet Pro look like they may solve the problem. They create a light box pop but only when they are triggered by the mouse moving like it will leave the page.
Making your opt in offer at the time and using the lightbox pop would seem to be the most effective but as I have not tested it yet I would be guessing.
Probably the most important thing though for getting people to opt in is your content and offer. Now if you are offering something for opt in that is of value to me I will probably grab it. If your content is great, then I want to know about new posts again I will opt in because there is something in it for me.
At the end of the day that is probably the biggest key – make an offer I can’t resist and I will sign up.
As always if you would like clarification or have a different question please leave a comment or click the survey link above.
This is a good question. There are a few ways to address it.
There are plugins available that will create a list. I don’t recommend any of them for one reason. Email deliverability. No matter what type of hosting you have if you try and run an opt in list off yourt own server you will have a deliverability problem.
Now there is an exception to this. If you have a dedicated server AND you are well versed and willing to take the time to keep the list super clean and have a rolodex -of contacts for the various isps then you can do use them.
Not sure that many people would fit that description so go use a quality autoresponder service like AWeber.
They have two options and you can use one or both. I like the hover pops for adding subscribers. Once you have created one that you like you can add it to your blog easily. Get the one line of javascript from AWeber.
Open your dashboard, click presentation, theme editor, header and add the one line right after the opening body tag. Save the file and you are done. (Now you won’t be able to save it unless you have set the theme pages to 666 when you created your blog.) If that is the case pull the header.php make the edit and reupload it.
If you want to add it to your side bar it can be a bit more complicated. It will depend on the width of your sidebar and you will need to be comfortable editing HTML.
Create your form at AWeber and this time get the full HTML instead of the javascript option. Place it in your favorite editor and you may need to change the table sizes to make it the right size for your side bar.
If you are using widgets (and you should be) add the code into a text box and drag it to where you want it. If you don’t use widgets you will then need to edit the sidebar to add your code using the same techniques described above.
IMPORTANT
Always make a copy of any of the blog pieces before you edit them. This way if the subscription form throws it out of whack you can replace it and start again.
Thats all today. Ask your questions and come back for the answers either through the survey link at the top or leave a comment. If any of this is unclear leave a comment and I’ll try and clarify it.
Received a question in my email asking about using the Viper Video Plugin with FLV videos. Seems to be a problem with the player.
Well, I don’t have FLV but have seen their videos but never used them. For me I use Camtasia and have had no problem using Viper to embed them in my posts.
Without being able to duplicate the problem I can’t answer this directly.
I can give you a work around for the problem though.
If you can create a FLV video on a web page you can always use an iframe to pull it into your blog. This used to be one of the main uses I had for iframes at Squidoo before they banned them because the spammers were abusing them.
If anyone uses FLV and Viper Video plugin that pops by maybe you have a solution? If you do blog about and link to it through a comment that would help both of our readers.
I for one would certainly appreciate it.
As always should you or any of your team… Ooops not MI here.
If you have a question on WordPress or blogging in general please leave it in a comment or in our survey form at the top.
Well the new version came out two days ago. It was primarily security updates. I said I would comment on it later after installing it.
I installed it the day it came out and to date have had no problems at all with any plugins or theme changes I have made. Did not get a chance to write this earlier as
yesterday I did my blog q and a.
Overall seems to be very stable. Now I have not tried the 2.0.11 version as I don’t have any blogs that are still running on the 2.0 series. I do have a couple on the 2.1 series but as I get time have been moving them up to 2.2 versions.
As for yesterday there were a lot of good questions and hopefully good answers *wink*. You can catch the replay at
