Archive | September, 2024

You’ve either got a blog already, or you’re just about to start one. Congratulations! You are one of only 500 million. Now then, knowing that your blog is (statistically speaking) less than a needle in a haystack, how are you going to get it NOTICED and read?

In one word, the answer is BRANDING. You can either throw together a blog and hope it somehow gets found, or you can carefully craft a brand that captures readers’ attention and keeps them coming back for more.

To throw one together, just do what 99.9% of other bloggers do – wing it. Fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. In six months (or sooner) you’ll likely be so discouraged you’ll give up.

Building a brand is obviously the way to go. Think Google, Coke, Apple and Nike to understand the huge potential branding holds for your blog. Brands stand for something, mean something and create loyalty in their customers. They stand apart and often far, far above the competition. And best of all, really good brands get remembered and are sought out by consumers.

Here then are 10 tips for building your blogging brand:

Who are you writing to? Exactly who is your blog meant for? Create a clear picture of your ideal reader, including age, profession, family, worries, problems, hobbies, etc. You’ll be writing to this one person rather than trying to talk to everyone. Remember, when you target everyone, you interest no one. But when a certain segment of the population believes you’re writing just for them, you’ll build a loyal following.

Why are you writing to your specific readers? What is your goal? It might be to educate, to persuade, to motivate, etc. Keep your goal in mind at all times.

What are you writing about? This is your topic. It might be physical fitness, marketing, dating, etc. Decide in advance what your message is going to be.

Choose a brandable name. If you’re creating a fitness blog, for example, then you might choose a one or two word brand name that people are likely to remember, rather than a keyword laden name.

HowToGetHealthyAndLoseWeight.com isn’t really brandable – it’s too generic and too keyword rich. Think in terms of “Google” – now that’s a brand. You might try things like FitMonkey.com or SkinnyCakes.com – those are brandable and memorable.

Create a snappy tagline. A name generally isn’t enough – you also want a tagline to help brand yourself, to clarify what you do and to make your blog more memorable. If your blog is on bacon recipes, your url might be DeadPiggy.com and your tagline might be “Bacon lover’s recipes for the non-chef.” See how the tagline not only defines that the site is about bacon recipes, but also narrows the niche to those who don’t consider themselves to be good cooks? This is a prime example of using a tagline to define what you do and WHO you do it for.

Get a logo. Can you picture the Apple logo? Nike? Coke? A logo is an integral part of your brand. Make it clean, simple, eye-catching and unique. It’s worth the extra money to get your logo just right.

Adapt your logo into a favicon. Again, this is an important part of branding your blog.

Use a website design that matches your topic. A header full of balloons and clowns on a website about grieving generally isn’t going to work. Dull colors on a children’s website or a lack of photos of gardens on a gardening website won’t work. Make sure all of the visual elements of your site correspond with your topic.

Choose a writing style and stick with it. Take a lesson from McDonald’s here and give your readers what they’ve come to expect from you. Maybe you’re writing to a technical crowd – then you might write like an engineer. Or perhaps you’re taking on a persona, like the Rich Jerk. Odds are you’re going to write like yourself, which is perhaps best of all because you won’t have any trouble maintaining that style. Consistency is key because if one day you’re writing like the guy next door and the next day you’re writing like an English professor, your readers are going to get confused and likely won’t return.

Promote your blog’s name through social media. Consistently use your blog’s name everywhere. Don’t use “Law Enforcement Weight Loss” on Twitter and “Muscle Cops” on Facebook – no one will realize it’s the same blog you’re referring to. Again, this is another reason to choose a unique, short, brandable name that no one else is using anywhere.

If your blog is going to stand apart from the crowd, then you’ve got to do a little extra work, but that work will likely pay off handsomely in the end.

Not only will you stand apart from the crowd, you’ll also discover that if you ever decide to sell your blog, you’ll be able to charge a great deal more because you took the time to brand it.

Anthony Burgess was just 40 when he was told by his doctor that because of a brain tumor, he only had less than a year to live. It was 1960 and he was broke and worried because he didn’t have anything to leave his wife Lynne.

But for as long as he could remember, there was a nagging little voice in his head that said he could be a great writer.

Unfortunately, Anthony had never listened to that voice before. But now that was dying, he hoped he could write a book that would create royalties for his wife.

So for the next 9 months Anthony wrote day and night, finishing a whopping five and a half novels. That’s more than many professional writers create in 10 years, or for some in a lifetime. And that isn’t even the exciting part.

While he was busy doing what he had known he was meant to do for his whole life – while he was busy being creative and productive, his cancer quietly disappeared.

In his long and prolific life as a novelist, Anthony Burgess wrote more than 70 books, including the famous “A Clock-work Orange.”

But without his death sentence, he may never have written at all.

Just imagine for a moment that you have less than a year to live. What will you do with it? Whether it’s one year, or a lot more, if you are not doing what you were born to do, isn’t it time for a shift in that direction?

You’ve got a DYNAMITE idea for a new product and you can’t wait to get started on it – or maybe you already have. Then it happens: You see that someone else has beaten you to the punch and released a very similar product just last week. What should you do??

At this point many people will simply fold. They’ll scrap their product idea and begin a search for a new idea.

Then there’s the successful marketers who wouldn’t bat an eyelash just because someone else released a product like theirs. They would go ahead and finish their product and release it as soon as possible.

Do you know why? Two reasons: First, a successfully selling product on a particular topic means there’s room for another product on the same topic. And the reason there’s room is because of reason number 2: People who are deeply interested in a topic don’t buy just one book or just one course – they buy everything they can get their hands on.

In fact, the person who released their product ahead of yours did you a favor, because you can now see how well their product is selling. You can look for the information holes they forgot to fill and you can be the one to create a better product. You can also see what their price point is and act accordingly. If they’re priced at $17, you might want to shoot for a higher price and provide a much higher value. On the other hand, if they are selling their product at several hundred dollars, you can choose to become the affordable alternative.

So the next time you’ve got a great product idea and someone else beats you to the punch, you might want to thank them, and get excited!

One more thing – don’t be afraid to approach the other product developer and suggest doing a deal together. They might also be open to becoming your affiliate and sharing your offer with their list and customers. Yesterday’s competitors can become tomorrow’s partners.

Remember – competition can be a GREAT thing when you’re marketing online.

It’s a mantra you’ve heard time and time again – write great, interesting, exciting, sharable content. But what if you’re in a boring niche? Or working for a boring client in a boring niche? How do you get readers excited about mundane topics like locksmiths or plumbing, or even icky topics like personal injury lawyers or rash creams?

Here are 10 tips to help you create interesting content ideas for even the most boring of niches.

1. First, change your perspective before you write anything. If you think it’s boring, your readers will, too. Everything is interesting if presented in an interesting manner. It’s simply a matter of finding the right angles to present your content. And the first step is to get fascinated in your topic so your enthusiasm will show in your writing.

2. Find the golden number nuggets. Dig out the industry statistics and find the fascinating bits that pull people into your story. Do you sell nails? How many nails go into building the typical house? Is your niche floor coverings? If you took all the carpet made in one month, how big of a city/state would it cover? Numbers fascinate when used in a way people can easily grasp and share with others.

3. Use stories and anecdotes. Let’s say you sell instructions on how to refinish furniture. “14 year old Annie was always the shy type, afraid to speak up and withdrawn, lacking confidence to do even the simplest of things. Then she got our beginner’s instructions for refinishing simple antique chairs. Within a month she’d finished her first project, and now a year later she’s refinished over a dozen pieces, resold 9 of them for substantial profit that she’s put away for college, and kept or given away the rest of the pieces. Most important of all, she’s gained a new sense of accomplishment and confidence which has spilled over into other areas of her life.” Wow, that’s pretty exciting!

4. Do a daily question and answer. Each day create an “ask an expert” blog post or video in which you answer one question. Create interaction, likes and shares by getting real people to ask questions through social media such as Facebook.

5. Talk about what’s wrong in your niche. Maybe legislation is pending that could hurt your industry, or someone in your niche is ripping people off. Be the leader and speak up about it. You’ll not only capture the attention of your readers – you’ll likely get links from other sites as people join the conversation.

6. Promote a cause. Sometimes when you run out of things to say about your business and your niche, it’s time to look outside of your business and find a cause to make your own. For example, a personal injury lawyer who’s helping homeless puppies and kittens to find new homes – that’s not only unexpected, it’s even warm and fuzzy – literally. And if your business is strictly virtual, you can still choose a cause and make it your own. Put real faces on it – furry or human – and tell why you and your business strongly support this cause. If you can choose a cause aligned with your business, so much the better. For example, a food niche might choose a program to feed the hungry, while a remodeling/building/decorating business might choose something like Habitat for Humanity.

7. Hold content contests. Get your readers to create content for you, based around the keywords you choose. The better the prize, the more entries you’re likely to get. Pick the top entries and then get them to get their friends to vote for the best one with retweets and Facebook shares. Publicize the contest to get more entries, more press and more backlinks.

8. Become a hub for industry content. Who says you need to write all of your website’s content yourself? Ask other industry leaders to contribute if they like.

9. Use images. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – people stay on your blog or website longer when you use interesting, compelling and relevant images.

10. Stretch. Okay, so your niche is car accessories – why not do an article on the top coolest cars in movies? Or maybe your niche is math tutoring – again, find the movies that use math and talk about those. It’s a great way to get your audience to relate to your products.

Even the most mundane of topics can become interesting – you’ve just got to find the right angle to write about.