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Are Blogrolls Defunct?

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blogrollThe blogroll was once an essential part of every blog.  Today, that’s no longer the case.  More and more bloggers have removed the traditional blogroll from their blog sidebars and replaced it — believing that a blogroll is not an effective use of the valuable real estate on a blog’s sidebar.

In simplest terms, the shift in thinking from “blogroll cricital” to “blogroll not very important” has evolved as bloggers determined their blogrolls did not deliver an adequate return on their investments (in this case, the investment is the blogger’s time and the space allocated to the blogroll in the sidebar).

So is the blogroll truly defunct or is there still value in having a traditional blogroll in your blog’s sidebar?

Naturally, different bloggers have different views on this topic, and only you can decide what’s best for your blogging goals and your audience.  If your goals for your blog include making money and building a larger audience, then every little bit of space on your blog should be filled with something that adds value either to the user experience or to your overall business plan for your blog.

Still not sure what to do with that blogroll?  Think of it this way – if an ad on your blog wasn’t bringing in revenue, you’d replace it.  The same line of thinking should apply to your blogroll.  If your blogroll isn’t helping you reach your blogging goals, you should replace it.

If you’re still not sure what to do with your blogroll, take a look at your blog analytics using a tool like Google Analytics to learn if visitors to your blog are actually clicking on the links in your blogroll.  On the flip side, look at where incoming traffic is coming from to your blog in an effort to determine how many people are finding your blog through other blogrolls versus links within blog posts, comments, etc.  Blogrolls work both ways in terms of driving traffic — outgoing to other blogs you recommend and incoming from other blogs where you’re blog is included in other blogrolls to your blog.  Analyze both effects to determine if your blogroll truly adds direct or indirect value to your blog.

If you decide to keep a traditional blogroll in your blog’s sidebar, make an effort to keep it up-to-date.  A blogroll that’s cluttered with blogs that are no longer updated or irrelevant to your blog’s topic and audience (for example, you linked to a blog out of reciprocal linking courtesy), is not useful and can actually damage the user experience on your blog.

So you have three choices when it comes to blogrolls: keep a traditional blogroll in your blog’s sidebar, delete your blogroll from your blog completely, or replace your blogroll with a single, separate page of recommended reading and links.   This final option is becoming more and more popular as a way to keep some form of a blogroll without sacrificing space on a blog’s sidebar.

It’s up to you to evaluate your goals and analyze how you’re using the space on your blog in order to meet those goals.  Just remember, you have choices, and just because another blogger is doing something, that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for your blog, too.

What do you think?  Do you still have a traditional blogroll on your blog?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Powerful Strategies To Sink Your Blog’s Bounce Rate

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Improve Blog Bounce RateTo effectively maintain and grow our blogs we need to pay very close attention to the facts that lie within our site’s statistics. The sole purpose of statistics is not just to show off our rising numbers in visitor traffic but can be an extremely useful tool for making those well needed adjustments to our performance that can make the difference between an OK blog and one that truly rocks.

Your blog’s bounce rate, in particular, represents the number of visitors who came to your blog and left without clicking to another page which generally indicates that there was nothing else that really interested them. The ultimate goal is to get visitors to stay, read our content, subscribe, purchase our products and all the other good stuff.

So, here are some effective techniques to capture the interest of your readers and get them flipping through the pages of your blog. [Read more…] about Powerful Strategies To Sink Your Blog’s Bounce Rate

How Gravity Forms Can Rock Your WordPress Blog

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love musicI’m in love with a WordPress plugin. Let me stop right now and tell you that I’m not a WordPress plugin floozy. I don’t dive in and try every WordPress plugin I hear about, and I definitely don’t jump on the bandwagon and pay for WordPress plugins. Nope. I’m usually late to the WordPress plugin party and try plugins after other people test them out and share their thoughts about them.

So why am I telling you this?

It’s simple. I wanted to make the point that it takes a lot for me to get really excited about a WordPress plugin. However, Gravity Forms (*) has achieved what few other WordPress plugins can in my mind. It got me really psyched and I want to create more forms with it!

A single-user license of Gravity Forms is just $39, but you definitely get $40-worth out of this WordPress plugin. You can create highly customizable forms using a super easy click-and-drag tools. You can also set up custom notifications, easily add forms to any page on your blog, and more. It’s so cool! There is even a support forum at GravityHelp.com.

With all that said, I have yet to tell you about the coolest part of this plugin. If accept guest posts or other types of content on your blog, then you know it can be a hassle to reformat submissions, upload them, and publish them on your blog. It sounds like it would only take a few seconds to publish a guest post, but depending on the format the guest blogger sends it to you in, it could be a big time investment. Gravity Forms takes that headache away by allowing people to submit posts quickly an easily.

As an example, check out two pages on my blog for women in business. The first link takes you to a page where I used Gravity Forms to set up a guest post submission form and the second takes you to a page where I set up a press release submission form. Both took me just a few minutes to set up, and now the process of receiving content submissions is so easy! I get an email when new content is submitted, so I simply have to log into my WordPress account to approve it. If you want, you can set up submissions to publish automatically, so you don’t have to approve them before they publish. It’s up to you.

If you’re still not convinced that this is one cool WordPress plugin, watch the video tour and try the demo on the Gravity Forms website to see how it works.

So that’s why I’m in love with the Gravity Forms WordPress plugins. It makes my life easier, saves me time, and it’s easy to use.

Have you tried Gravity Forms? Is there a WordPress plugin that rocks your blog? Leave a comment and share your can’t live without WordPress plugins!

Image: stock.xchng

(*) Big mean affiliate link!

The Most Powerful Characteristic of Successful Bloggers

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Blogging CharacterUndeniably, we can’t help but admire the legends who came before us; who set the trends and standards that many aim to achieve and maintain. Financial success and fulfillment of life are very attractive goals but require the dedicated, passionate and sometimes lucky soul who will dare to venture and claim the prize.

In the world of blogging, this is no different and still there is only a small percentage of bloggers, in comparison to the entire blogosphere,  who actually achieve huge success through blogging. After taking note, you will find that there are a few key characteristics that most probloggers possess like persistence, focus and passion but there is one more requirement to the mix. That ingredient is the ability to change and adapt. [Read more…] about The Most Powerful Characteristic of Successful Bloggers

How to Help Your Guest Authors in Their SEO Efforts

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Help Guest Authors in their SEO Efforts

The blog SEO is nothing to go mad about: essentially there are just a few tweaks needed to make sure the blog post is search-friendly enough to go live. A couple of weeks ago I shared a blog post SEO checklist – it only has 5 points in it – but if you frequently feature guest posts on your blog, it is a smart idea to engage your authors into the optimization process.

You don’t have to spend time teaching each of your new authors SEO specifics of your blog. What you need to do is to fine-tune the process once and you will notice your guest bloggers get enrolled eagerly.

1. Create a Well-Outlined SEO Basics Cheat Sheet

You blog SEO basics list shouldn’t be anything too theoretic. Just outline what you have to deal with each time you are writing or publishing a post.

What I would recommend creating is a one-page well-organized outline in PDF listing your blog SEO specifics:

  • Your recommendations as to (sub)heading usage. Note, that h2 and h3 tags make your posts easier to scan; they also make your keywords more prominent.
  • Your advice on using the keywords in the article copy: which tools do you use to research keywords? How do you make your copy richer (by using synonyms, keyword suggestions, etc);
  • Your image optimization tactics: what I usually mention here is that:
    • The images should be no larger than 100K
    • The images should always have the ALT attribute – not just the TITLE tag like the standard WordPress editor would prompt you to.
    • You can also mention your hotlinking preferences (Would you like the images to be hosted on your blog? – which is usually preferable. Which free image hosting services would you recommend – I usually tend to stick to Flickr).
  • Your internal linking requirements: make it a rule that your guest authors always link (from within the article body) to a few related posts that were previously published at your blog. Let them know the best ways to find those related posts (I for one use SITE:yourdomain.com search for that).
  • Any of the SEO plugins you are using and how to apply them at the post editor level.

2. Install Some SEO WordPress Plugins

These are not actually plenty. Just a few WordPress plugins will help your authors optimize their posts:

1. Either Headspace2 or All in One SEO Pack: the choice is up to you. What’s good about both of them is that they allow to provide custom title tag, meta description and keywords – right at the post editor page:

Guest SEO: All-in-One SEO Pack

2. Insights: This plugin makes it easy to search for the related posts right from the blog editor page and also instantly link the words right from the editor:

Insights: Guest author

3. SEO Smart Links: automatic interlinking. This plugin interlinks your blog content automatically. It is rich in settings and options – so you can configure it in plenty of ways:

  • Set what to interlink (posts, pages, categories and/or tags);
  • Ignore words in links (like “about”, “contact”);
  • Set the maximum number of links;

SEO smart links

3. Equip Your Guest Bloggers with Essential Tools

Many huge multi-author blog owners prefer to buy a corporate licence of some useful SEO tools and give access to all their (guest) authors. This section looks at some free tools instead. Include the links to those tools in your SEO tutorial (see #1) and make sure your authors are using those:

1. SEO Blogger: This tool is the FireFox addon that lets the user research the related phrases in the browser sidebar. You can thus research the keywords without having to leave the blog post editor: write and format your post while researching your keywords.

SEO blogger

2. Copyright Checker. There are actually quite a few plagiarism checkers out there (Copyscape is the most famous but paid one). This one is free and easy to use. Your authors can copy-paste their post text and run it to make sure their content is totally unique.

3. SEO Analysis Tool: Suggest your authors run the tool immediately after the post is published. The tool is great at reporting prominent keywords in:

  • Link text;
  • Image alt attributes;
  • Heading and phrase elements.

This way the bloggers may quickly estimate if they are on the right path:

Keywords Found in the Anchor Tags

Relying on guest blogging and user-generated content to let your resource grow is a great tactic. The only thing is that at least some effort is required to put your readers on the right path. Do you help your guest bloggers to optimize their content?

The Secret to Creating Shareworthy Content

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shareworthy-contentI often refer to the term I use to describe amazing content that people want to share online as shareworthy, and today, I’d like to dive a bit deeper into the concept of creating shareworthy content, so your blog and online reputation can benefit from the compounding effect of blogging, attract more visitors, and grow organically over the long term. In other words, shareworthy content leads to sustainable growth, and I’m going to tell you how to do it.

What is shareworthy content?

It’s simple. Shareworthy content is amazing content that people like enough to want to tell their friends about it and share it with their social media connections. They can share that content by blogging about it on their own blogs, tweeting it on Twitter, linking to it on Facebook or LinkedIn, and so on. Therefore, shareworthy content is not necessarily viral content that explodes across the Internet. Instead, it’s a tangible form of the world-of-mouth marketing of the social web that businesses covet.

How do you create shareworthy content? [Read more…] about The Secret to Creating Shareworthy Content

5 Solid Reasons You Should Never Quit Blogging

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Blogging has become the most popular and Never Give Up Blogging
easiest form of expression online which has also helped many to achieve financial success for themselves and their families. Although we all have various reasons for blogging, a vast majority is driven solely by the idea of making millions online and living the internet lifestyle in the shortest time possible.

Unfortunately, the get rich quick mindset is like a house built on sand and easily gets washed away in disappointment when the reality hits that its going to take some really hard work. At this point, one may experience blogger burnout or just feel like giving up but I say, don’t give up, reassess your strategies, redefine your goals and look at all that can be gained through this fulfilling endeavor.

Whatever your reasons may be for quitting, here are 5 solid reasons for sticking to it and never give up on your blog. [Read more…] about 5 Solid Reasons You Should Never Quit Blogging

Stake Your Claim on Your Blog Niche

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blog-nicheIt seems like everyone is trying to find their niche on the social web, particularly when it comes to blogging.  In simplest terms, a niche is a very specific area of focus, and a niche blog is one that is tightly focused on one specific subject.

The web has become a very cluttered place, and it’s hard to compete for traffic for broad keywords (such as parenting or business) against larger, well-established sites with deep pockets.  However, you can stand out from the noise by choosing a niche and offering authoritative, reliable, and shareworthy content and conversations related to that niche on your blog.

The first step is to define your niche by asking yourself the following questions:

1. What subject can write about frequently?

Define your area of expertise that you want to use as the core of your online reputation.  Your niche should be a subject that you can write about a lot and that you actually have something worthwhile to discuss.  Once you identify the subjects that you can write about extensively, then break that topic up into smaller, more focused subjects.  In other words, define the niches within that broader topic.

2. Is my niche viable today?

Take some time to learn who else is publishing content related to your possible niches, and make sure there is an active and engaged audience already seeking information about and talking about your potential niches.  Also, use a tool like the free Google AdWords Traffic Estimator to get an idea of the traffic a niche blog might attract.

3. What keywords should I target?

Do some keyword research to further research the potential audiences niche topics could generate to your blog, and ensure your content is optimized for search engine referrals and effectively attracts your target audience using tools like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, or the free Google AdWords Keywords Tool.

4. How can I differentiate my content and make it valuable?

Niche blogs are highly focused, therefore, it’s important that you learn who else is publishing content related to your niche to ensure you add value to the online conversation.  You don’t want to simply republish the same kind of information that other bloggers are already publishing.  Take the time to create amazing, shareworthy content related to your niche to fully leverage the compounding effect of blogging.

5. Can I make this niche work for the long term?

While it’s important that your niche is viable today, you also need to make sure that you set your business blog up for long term success.  Make sure you can create enough content for your niche blog for years to come while remaining passionate about your subject matter.  Also, don’t choose a trend niche that is hot today but is likely to fade into oblivion in the not too distant future.  For example, writing a blog about a popular television show might sound like a great idea today, but if you want your blog to be successful indefinitely, then a television show that could be canceled in a year or two might not be the best niche topic for your blog.  Make sure your niche topic matches your short and long-term blogging goals.

Image: stock.xchng