Use Facebook and Twitter to Drive Crowds to Your Blog

A guest post by Donny Gamble

You have a nicely crafted blog or webpage, in which you put a lot of effort adding that nicely written content, but now you need people to read those posts. Traffic is of major importance, because depending on the number of visitors:

  • You’ll get a better general ranking
  • Your profits will increase – more visitors -> more potential customers
  • You will have higher revenue from the ads

There are several online web marketing tools, but not all of them are ideal for advertising and attracting traffic like a magnet. Facebbok and Twitter are the trendiest and most effective tools, which will definitely help you increase the traffic to your page.

Facebook Marketing – let the whole world learn about you

There are actually 3 ways you can increase your website traffic using Facebook:

Social Ads.

This is an amazing application Facebook has come up with; you can actually connect with the audience that you want (by sending the ads to targeted regions or groups of people). In no time, you will be able to attract the people that you want to your blog/website.

Profile + links

– build yourself a nice profile, and keep in mind to add both pictures and a shot and relevant bio (because people like to see the man behind the ads!), and add some links. One or two should be enough, do not drown your profile page with tens of links.

Continuous updates

- If you simply build a profile and add a link, and then you think crowds will pour into your portal, you are mistaken. You need to add fresh content at least three times a week – updates, company news, links to crispy fresh content.

Tease people with one or two highlights from your article, and call to action: if they want to read more, they will go to your webpage. Be a versatile Facebook user, and once you have a well established presence there, do not let people get bored: be innovative.

Twitter Marketing – short messages, long queues to your webpage

Just keep in mind the 2 top Twitter strategies, and people will visit your page:

Direct (Aggressive) Advertising – a big No- No! - you can send short, timely messages to an entire world using Twitter, but these little messages should not sound like “Buy now..” or “Huge discounts…”. The truth is people get annoyed by this type of blunt advertising, which may have worked back in the 60’s when the “mad men” were fashionable.

Today, elegant advertising is when you post on twitter a link back to a piece of nicely written and highly informative article. Once people are there, reading your content, let them decide if they want to buy or not.

Post helpful tips each day. This way you can have people getting used to your little tips & tricks, and they will wait for them. For instance, if you are selling cosmetics, make sure you add one helpful tip each day about skin care.

Women love that, and you will attract more traffic to your webpage.

In Closing

If you have not realized it yet, social media is here to stay. Everyone is on Twitter and Facebook, why aren’t you?  Become apart of this prestigious community, so that you can start sharing your story and interest to the world.

Donny Gamble is a blogger, marketer, and entrepreneur who shares his blogging tips on his personal blog.  He has just released his new eBook “The Bloggers Roadmap”, which you can get here.

Categories: Business - Tags: , , ,

How to Slash your Writing Time in Half

By Mary Jaksch

As a blogger, I need to write a lot of articles. Fast. Not only do I need a flow of good ideas, I also need time to turn the initial ideas into useful blog posts. It’s sometimes a struggle.

Do you want to write faster – without losing quality?

Here are 10 tips that can help you to slash your writing time in half:

Step 1: Maintain a swipe file of good posts

Whenever you see an attractive post, add it to a swipe file. You can create a swipe file in Word, or in any other writing program.

The post you save may be about something that’s completely outside of your blog topic, but it may contain elements that you can use for a blog post – and it will trigger new post ideas.

Step 2: Create an ‘ideas file’

I carry a notebook around with me at all times in order to capture ideas. Good ideas are fleeting and don’t hang around. Once you’ve got them down on paper, or have made a digital note, the brain will start to chew on the idea. It’s best if you add a few key thoughts to your initial idea straight away. I’ve found cryptic notes long after I had the initial idea, such as “Write Like Spaghetti”. Er – what?? If I had just added one sentence, it might have made sense.

Step 3:  Don’t sit down and start writing

Don’t write now! If you do that, writing will feel like a grind. Worst case, you’ll sit there, nibble at your nails, feel blocked and frustrated – and absolutely nada, nichts,  nothing will happen. Or you’ll start to write something that hares off in the wrong direction. So, don’t write now. What you need to do now, is to put your subconscious to work.

Step 4: Put your subconscious to work

In order to prime the pump of your creativity, get out your ‘ideas file’, as well as your ‘swipe file’ of posts. Look through your ‘ideas file’ and see what leaps out at you. Then idly browse through your swipe file. You’ll find that ideas start to appear. Write down a couple of sentences, or a headline of what you want to write about. This step should not take more than 15 minutes. When you have written a few sentence or a headline, stop and do something else. Put your task away.

Step 5: Let your mind ferment

Once you’ve completed step 4, you need to let your mind ferment.The mind has a natural desire to solve problems and come up with idea. There are some things you can do in order to get your brain to become creative. The mind responds well to a brisk walk or a run. Sleep is also helpful. Just don’t sit around and try to think about your article!

Step 6: Start writing

When you pick up your piece again, you’ll be ready to write. But don’t start at the beginning. Start anywhere else! Because the introduction to a piece needs special attention and has to be well crafted. It’s much easier to put together an introduction, once you’ve written the heart of the article.

Step 7: What to do if your writing is lousy

At this stage in your creative process, ‘bad’ writing is good! Just put anything that occurs to you on to the page -  the badder, the better :-) What’s helpful now is to write to a certain word count. Let’s say that you’ve determined ahead of time that your article is going to be 500, or 700, or 1200 words long. Your task in step 7 is to fill the quota you’ve set yourself.

It doesn’t matter whether your writing is lousy or luminous.

Just write the requisite words, without going back and correcting anything. This ensures that you activate  the right hemisphere of your brain . It’s the one that supports creativity. If you start analyzing and correcting, you’ll activate the left side and your creativity and spontaneity will dry up in a flash.

Once you’ve arrived at the requisite  word count,  stop doing anything more to the piece. Do something else instead.

Step 8: Switch on the Editor

Give yourself a good night’s sleep before tackling your post again. Or, if you need to crank the piece out in one day, make sure you take a break before you start Step 8. In this step you’re going to forget about being a writer;  you’re going to look at what you wrote with  the eyes of an editor.

  • Check out the structure: do you have an introduction, a main development, and a closure?
  • Check the flow of the piece. Do you lead from one piece of information to the next, or do you jump around – and leave your readers behind?
  • Check out each sentence. Is grammar and spelling correct? Are some words redundant? Could you express yourself more succinctly? Could you simplify?

Step 9: Read the piece aloud.

When we read out aloud, we can discover the bumpy bits, and the places where the piece refuses to flow. If you have someone you trust, read the piece aloud to them. It will sharpen your own perception of what you’ve written. But don’t worry – you can also read to yourself.

Step 10: The final check

In order to fine-tune your piece, you’ll need to do a final check. There are two ways that work really well. If you’ve written a blog post, publish a draft and then read it as if you were someone who had just arrived at your blog. Another way to get a clear impression of your work, is to paste the piece into the body of an email and send it to yourself.  Spelling mistakes will jump out at you when you see your article in an  unfamiliar format.

These ten steps will insure that you can write easily and fluidly. Breaking up the writing process into three distinct parts is a great way to create top-quality articles.

What are YOUR tips for slashing writing time?

Mary Jaksch is the Chief Editor of Write to Done. You can enjoy more articles by Mary on Goodife ZEN. Together with Leo Babauta, Mary trains bloggers in the amazing A-List Blogger Club.

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft

Nominate Your Favorite Writing Blog: 5th Annual Top 10 Blogs for Writers Contest

The ANNUAL TOP 10 BLOGS FOR WRITERS has now moved to Write to Done. In the past four years Michael Stelzner, author of “Writing White Papers” and Founder of Social Media Examiner hosted this important competition. Now he has handed on the baton to Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch here at Write to Done.

This year’s panel of  judges:

[Note: blogs owned by the judges are excluded from the contest.]

It’s time to open up nominations for our 5th annual Top 10 Blogs for Writers Contest—the blogosphere’s biggest contest for writing blogs.

How to Nominate Your Favorite Writing Blog:

  1. Reply to this message with your nomination.
  2. You have only one vote (only your first will be counted).
  3. Please include the web address of the blog.
  4. Explain why you think the blog is worthy of winning this year’s award.

To make the cut, a blog must be nominated more than once.

Nominations must be received by 1 December, 2010.

Update: Click here to see the winners

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft

How to Write Like an A-List Blogger

By Leo Babauta

I’m often asked, “What’s the most important thing I should be spending my time on as a blogger?”

And my answer is always: Create amazing content.

While there are lots of things that can contribute to building a successful blog — social media, good design, effective monetizing, marketing, etc. — none of them are nearly as important as content. In fact, content is the best way to do all of the above and more.

Why? The reason goes to the heart of what we’re doing as bloggers, and is very simple: we’re trying to connect with readers, to attract readers, to share with readers, to help readers. Remember the common word there: “readers”.

So the reader comes for content — what makes the reader stick around and subscribe? More great content, and the reasonable expectation (based on the content you already have) that there will be more to come on a regular basis in the future.

Consider a few other elements:

  • Design: The most attractive design in the world is useless without great content. Readers don’t come because of a pretty design. A design is best when it features the content and little else, when it helps the reader find the content he’s looking for. A design that gets in the way of content is bad design.
  • Links from other blogs: Why would another blogger link to you? Because you have a great post that her readers might find useful or interesting. Not because you have nice design or optimized keywords or cool social widgets. Great content builds links.If we remember that the reader is the most important person, the answer to what’s most important to a blogger is easy — create something that the reader wants. And that’s amazing content. The reader comes to your blog because you have content that’s useful, interesting, entertaining. Because you’re solving some problem of hers. Not because you have a great design, or you’re great at SEO, or have optimized your keywords. Sometimes optimizing keywords will bring in more search traffic, but it won’t stick if you don’t have great content.
  • SEO: Search engines might care a little about optimized keywords and other SEO junk, but what they care most about is incoming links (links to your posts from other blogs). That’s the plain truth. And you won’t get a bunch of links unless you have great content.
  • Social media – Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Twitter … these kinds of sites can help your traffic tremendously. And sure, it helps to have friends and be active on these sites. But all of that doesn’t matter a lick if you don’t write a knock-out post.
  • Monetizing – All the ads in the world won’t get you a dime unless you get traffic, and that traffic won’t come until you start creating a destination site, with amazing content that attracts the readers and keeps them reading. Actually, the best way in the world to monetize your blog, from my experience, is by selling more of your great content — if readers like your free content, they’ll trust you and be willing to pay for more of what you write.

Which leaves us with the question: how do you write great content?

It’s actually very simple in concept, but takes a lot of practice to perfect. I explore the question in depth in my new A-List Blogging Bootcamp (starting the week of Nov. 8), How to Write Like an A-List Blogger. The first week is absolutely free - click here to register for the free module.

Leo Babauta is the creator of Zen Habits and mnmlist, and the author of focus.

Categories: Blogwriting

Why (and How) I Decided to Self-Publish ‘Focus’

By Leo Babauta

When I got a book deal with mainstream publisher at the end of 2007, it was a dream come true for me as a writer. But this year, writing my second book (called “focus“), I decided to forgo the traditional publisher and publish it myself.

Why self-publish? Aren’t I shooting myself in the foot?

There are lots of advantages to getting a big publishing deal, but there are trade-offs as well. I’ll walk you through what I considered the main trade-offs and advantages.

Advantages of a Publisher

One of the biggest advantages, of course, is credibility. When you sign with a real publisher, you are now a published author, while self-publishing still carries a slight air of amateurishness. But that’s changing, and soon there will be very little difference. What matters most is quality, not the name behind you.

The other main advantages of getting a traditional publisher:

  • The advance. When you sign the book deal, your publisher pays you an up-front advance for signing (and also when you submit the manuscript). This is really just the first chunk of your royalties in advance, but if your royalties never meet this advance, you don’t have to pay it back. It’s really nice to get this money up front.
  • Built-in services like editing and printing. There’s an editor on staff, and he or she is usually good, at least at proofreading. They also have things like design and printing and all the other tasks that go with publishing all figured out. You just worry about writing, and then marketing.
  • Distribution. The publisher has a national distribution chain. This, actually, is probably the most important advantage other than credibility. You get your book in bookstores across the nation. That’s incredibly hard to do as a self-publisher.

Disadvantages of Having a Publisher

I’m not trying to knock the publishing industry here — I think publishers are doing the best they can. But it’s good to know the trade-offs, and there are a few:

  • Loss of control. You don’t control everything when you turn your book over to someone else. The type of printing and print quality, how many books are printed, how the electronic and audio versions are done, and much more are out of your control. The part I didn’t like was that I couldn’t distribute a free version of my book, or release copyright. That was a deal-breaker for me, at least for this second book.
  • No real marketing help. This isn’t just something to do with my publisher — I’ve heard the same from lots of authors. My publisher helped me line up radio show interviews, which was helpful, but did little else. I did tons of work in marketing the book — in fact it was like a full-time job.
  • Loss of profits. The author really only gets a small percentage of sales in a traditional deal. Part of it goes to costs like printing, part goes to distributors, part to the bookstore, part to the publisher, part to your agent. When you self-publish, you get just about everything after your costs, with the exception of whatever you have to give to Amazon or other online distributors.
  • Loss of flexibility. I love self-publishing because it means I can do it however I want, and not only control everything but change things at a whim. If I decide to lower prices to increase sales, I can. If I want to throw in bonus files, I can. There’s nothing set in stone — I make up everything and can change it as I please.

Why I Decided to Self-Publish

There are lots of reasons, but basically I wanted the control over my book that I didn’t have before. I wanted to be able to release copyright, and that’s very hard to do with a traditional publisher.

I also wanted to be able to publish in as many formats as I wanted, when and how I wanted. I wanted to remove the bureaucratic layers needed to do anything — as a self-publisher, the only person I need to get permission from is myself.

Things move much faster when I’m a one-man team: I can fix files and re-upload them, I can change the price if I think it was too high, I can issue refunds immediately, I can listen to people and improve the product, I can say whatever I want, do things my way.

Sure, I lose out on the advantages of a traditional publisher, but they’re not a big deal to me. I don’t need the advance as I wrote the book in between my regular work. I don’t need the editor as I had readers help me edit. I don’t need the printer as I found ways to publish myself (see next section).And while I lose out on the nation-wide distribution in bookstores that I’d have with a traditional publisher, I can still sell my book around the world, through my website, and not have to pay the premium to the publisher so that I can get into the bookstore.

As a nice side-benefit, I get all profits. Which makes sense, as I’m doing all the work. I was doing most of the work under a traditional publisher before as well, but only making a fraction of the profits.

How I’m Doing It

First, I decided to write the book publicly, online. So as each chapter has been written, I posted the drafts online and asked for feedback. That turned out to be brilliant — people gave me feedback instantly, instead of only after the book was published, so the final product was much better. Also, writing the book in public helped me stay motivated throughout the writing process, which can be a lonely and dreadful thing if we’re honest with ourselves.

Second, I published the book online and as a freely downloadable ebook — it’s free and uncopyrighted. You don’t have to give me your email address to get it. Why did I do this? I want people to read it and get something from it. If they don’t have to pay or give me their email address, they’re more likely to read it. And if they like it, they can email it to someone else or post a link on Facebook or Twitter. That’s a great thing, for me as a writer.

So how am I making money? I have a premium digital version, which has extra chapters from me plus bonus chapters written by other authors, along with videos, audio interviews with experts, and bonus PDF guides. Enough people have bought it after reading the free version that it’s already a great success.

I’ve also published the book in Amazon’s Kindle store, for $8.99, but it doesn’t include the bonus files. If you buy the premium version, by the way, you’ll get the Kindle file as well, along with an epub formatted file so you can read the book on the iPad or other ebook reader. I plan to put the book in Apple’s iBook store soon.

Finally, the print version will come out in a matter of weeks. It’s the final stage in my self-publishing of the book. I’ve been wrestling with printing the traditional way (off-set printing) vs. Print on Demand (POD), but I’m going with POD because it’s less expensive, more flexible, and way easier for me. The print version will be available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and my website, among other places.

Next Week: Details

For those who want the nitty gritty details on all of the stages of self-publishing that I’ve gone through, I’ll post more details next week. That’ll include a quick rundown of things like: dealing with different formats, setting up a publishing company, buying ISBNs, setting up Print on Demand, selling via the Kindle and iBook stores, uploading files to e-junkie for download, and so on.

Leo Babauta is the creator of Zen Habits and mnmlist, and the author of focus.

Categories: Business