posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 12

Blog need food!

That might sound like the climactic speech from a caveman movie, but it’s actually a hard truth of blogging. Business and marketing blogs need quality content on a regular basis in order to attract readers and search engines. In other words, you must feed your blog regularly if you expect it to grow. The challenge is coming up with quality content on a daily or weekly basis.

Here’s one solution:

Robotic Research Assistant
Imagine having your own Web-crawling robot, surfing the Internet 24/7 to find relevant information you can use in your blog. Think of the time you would save, having this content delivered to your inbox every day. How much would a robot like that be worth?

Would free work for you?

Feed Your Blog with Google? Alerts
With Google Alerts, you can enter a key phrase related to your blog and then be notified whenever Google “sees” a new Web document that includes your phrase. In other words, when Google indexes a new page related to your topic, Google Alerts will email you. You can set up the notifications daily, weekly or “as it happens.”

As of this writing, Google Alerts is still in beta stage. But take it from me — it works wonderfully.

A lot of the alerts you get will come from press releases and other developments within your chosen area. That makes them the perfect supplement to your blog. All you have do is summarize the information in your own words.

There you have it, your very own research robot to help with your blogging efforts. Give it a try. Just visit Google’s website and click on the “more” link. Then click on “Alerts” and fill in the blanks. Now you’ve got your own, customized Web crawler!

* Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett. You may republish this article in its entirety, provided you leave the byline, author’s note and website hyperlink intact.

About the Author

Brandon is a writer, marketer and founder of ArmingYourFarming.com, a website offering information products to real estate agents. Learn more at: http://www.armingyourfarming.com. Visit Brandon’s article marketing blog at: http://www.articlemarketing101.blogspot.com

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 11

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated. Word Count: 382

Blogging for Newbies Copyright 2005 Brenda Lilly

Bogging, everyone’s heard of it. The Internet pro’s tell us it is important, but why? Well first let’s start with what Blogging is. Blogging is considered a personal online journal. You select a subject that interests you and is relevant to your online business. You make daily entries on your Blog that will be of interest to web users searching for information on your particular subject.

For example, my URL is www.robertallenonline.net Obviously by the title my website has to do with best selling author Robert G. Allen i.e.: Multiple Streams of Income. Therefore I have created a webblog http://teamrobertallen.blogspot.com/ Daily I post points of interest about Robert Allen.

What this accomplishes is the search engines visit my blog to crawl the new content. They also follow the links from my Blog pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites and some point to sites of partners. This helps the search engine rankings of these sites immensely.

How do you start your own Blog? There are many places you can start your blog. You can do a search on Blogs and get many listings. I personally use www.Blogger.com. The first reason it’s free. The second and biggest reason is Google owns it. That means Google will index web pages hosted on their servers often and fast.

My experience has been Blogger.com is very user friendly. The Blog is easy to create and easy to update. Both things newbies really appreciate. You can also set up to run Google Ad Sense ads on your blog. Which will create an additional stream of income to you.

Armed with this information - take the leap and start Blogging today. There is always going to be ways to optimize and produce more from your Blog. You’ll get there, just take your first step. To quote Dennis Waitley, “By the inch it’s a cinch, by the yard it’s hard”. Happy Blogging.

About the Author

Brenda Lilly is a mother of four children who chose to stay home after having her twins. Her previous experience entails Sales Manager, General Manager, and Account Executive in the Personnel and Telecommunications industries. Current experience, Entrepreneur in Network Marketing. You may contact her at brendalilly41@msn.com or visit her websites at http://www.brendalilly.usana.com and http://www.robertallenonline.net

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 10

Picture these three scenarios:

You are at a costume party in a room full of strangers. You are dressed as an 18th Century dandy; you’ve studied the mannerisms, have affected the perfect accent and you charm every partygoer you meet. Beneath the facade, outside the realm of this party you may be a banker, a steel worker or an unemployed poet but here and now you are Monsieur Baudelaire, the fop who speaks of temperament and style as the be-all and end-all of a meaningful existence.

You are at work where you are always the no-nonsense professional, respected by peers and underlings and depended upon by your manager to perform your tasks with skill, technical proficiency and a pleasant demeanor — an expectation that is hardly ever unmet.

You are at an informal get together with family, close friends and neighbors; you talk about sports, literature and fashion with people who know you and who understand your opinions, your quirks and your few flaws — there is no facade, no pretense, you are unabashedly you!

These scenarios that represent three versions of you in the real world are also three (of many) approaches you can take to presenting yourself to your readers in the virtual world, through your blog: as a character of your creation, as the professional at whatever you do, or as the real, unadulterated you, complete with flaws. Your blog and your blogger persona are your creations and are limited only by your choices. Consider also that whatever it is you write, in whatever form, even if it is spoof or satire, it will be considered by your readers as an expression of your true feelings.

People express themselves in many ways and for a growing number of people the need for some sort of public expression of thoughts, feelings, style or creative expression is filled by blogging. Expressing your thoughts in written words, however, is not as simple a task as it may seem to be; many people, in fact, find that it can take hours to accurately transfer the most seemingly simple thoughts to the written word. Thoughts and feelings do not require the organization or structure that is required by the expression of those thoughts and feelings.

Some things that make the task of expressing yourself through your writing much easier are improving your grammar, improving your vocabulary and practice, practice, practice.

Grammar! As a rule you should always write to your audience — they are the ones who need to understand you. Perfection may be necessary when you are writing for an audience of scholars and grammarians who require it but, regardless of your audience, the better your grammar the better you will be understood and the easier it will be for you to transfer those thoughts to paper. There are literally hundreds of English grammar guides available online and very reasonable English grammar guides available in bookstores; good grammar is a tool you will never regret learning to use.

Vocabulary! Finding the right words to express your thoughts is much easier when you have more words in your armory to choose from. You may be tempted to learn some suitably obscure words to impress your readership but too much of that will only confuse them and turn them away from your writing. Research has shown that the average adult in the U.S. reads at an eighth-grade level so arming yourself with a recondite vocabulary will not be helpful (nor was our reference to a ‘recondite vocabulary’ unless you knew that recondite means “difficult to understand”). Arm yourself, instead, with a good dictionary/thesaurus.

Write Often! Practice makes perfect or, to be honest, it at least helps you approach perfection. Try to make a meaningful entry in your blog every day, that may not always be possible but do try! Two of the wonderful things about blogging are its flexibility and availability — your blog will always be there (baring computer problems) when you need it and you’ll find that the more you write, the easier it will be to write. Keep in mind, however, that even a professional writer who writes for hours every day is seldom completely satisfied that the words that came out adequately express the thought that went in so don’t allow yourself to get too frustrated, take a short break and then try again.

About the Author

Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida. See more articles on blogging and internet marketing at http://www.theinternetmarketingsecrets.com

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 10

In our first part of this article, we raised the question of whether blogging and its distribution tool, RSS feeds, are really useful for Internet and Search Engine Promotion. Are RSS feeds and blogs really the next big thing in web marketing, distribution, and content creation–or are they just hype? There is a lot of hype around RSS, blogs, and derivative technologies like podcasting. But are they really useful to the serious Internet marketer or are they just the subjects used by marketers looking to create new products to grab our hard-earned marketing dollars. We also covered the objections and reservations from some Internet marketers about the usefulness of RSS feeds and blogs to the bottom-line of their ebusinesses. This can be contrasted to our discovery of people like Willie Crawford and companies like Weblogs, which generate 6- and 7-figure incomes from blogs, RSS, and related technologies with Google Adsense. To illustrate if the typical Internet marketers–not just web gurus–can benefit from blogs and RSS feeds, I promised to share my experiences with my new sites not yet optimized for the search engines. With virgin websites, I could observe the traffic pulling power of blogging, pinging, and RSS. If you would like to read or familiarize yourself with Part 1 of this article, you can read it at… http://www.searchengineplan.com/articles/feb06-rss-prt1.htm To test the effectiveness of the ability of RSS feeds and blogs to attract and drive traffic to my web properties, I did some quick and insightful research on the topic. Brandon Hong’s Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS was the resource best enabled me to understand the techno-jargon associated with blogs and RSS feeds. Believe me, I have a 10-year background in information technology, and I can’t make heads or tails out of the alphabet soup served up by tech geeks on blog and RSS media. Plus, I run a very busy SEO consultancy and virtual real estate (VRE Adsense? and Affiliate Sites) side business, so I don’t have the time to muck around in nebulous articles on these topics. If you even remotely feel like me about the complexity of blogs or RSS, do yourself a favor and obtain Brandon Hong’s multimedia ebook of screen-capture videos. You can read a full review of the book at… http://www.searchengineplan.com/articles/hongrss.htm I have been blogging for almost 3 years, but RSS feeds have been harder to grasp in terms of development and marketing. The easiest way to start blogging is to setup an account with www.Blogger.com or www.Bloglines.com. Blogger will actually walk you through the process. Experienced web designers should not have a problem setting up a www.Blogger.com account. Blogger.com is actually a good initial choice because it provides an easy setup for RSS feeds. The setup can be done by going to the Settings Tab in Blogger, clicking the site feed link, and filling out the forms. The next issue to consider is the complex RSS compatibility issue. You can sidestep the decision about whether to go with RSS version 2.0 or Google’s Atom standard by “burning your RSS feed” or making them more compatible with all popular RSS formats with a third party service like Feedburner.com. After creating your RSS feed in Blogger, you should have it burned in the Feedburner.com service; it will guide you through the process. The optimized Feedburner.com RSS feed is then ready to be submitted to the major RSS directories. I would suggest creating a few descriptions of your blog and then submitting both your blog and RSS URLs to the appropriate RSS and blog directories. My firm fast-tracks blog and RSS feed promotion by submitting them to about 90 directories that specialize in this type of media–including Yahoo! and MSN RSS content services. Both the Blogger.com service and, more extensively, Feedburner.com can be configured to ping the major RSS and blog directories. This means they signal or alert these directories whenever you update posts on your blog in real time. Perhaps most importantly, you get traffic statistics about your RSS subscribers and readers. The results of my RSS and blog traffic research over the last 3 months are amazing! I have been totally blown away by the research. I am excited about RSS and blog usage, despite the good and bad news: The bad news: According to a White paper on blogging, sponsored in part by Yahoo!, 88% of Internet users don’t know what RSS technology is and 96% of Internet users stated they do not use it! The good news: 27% of Internet users experience RSS feed content on their My Yahoo and MSN web accounts, although they don’t realize it! Moreover, 4% of Internet users actively use RSS feeds. This means 31%, or almost one-third (1/3), of Internet users in the U.S. read RSS feeds. With almost 150 million U.S. Internet users and 600 million net users worldwide, you do the math on the large numbers of people reading RSS feeds (even if unwittingly). More positive stats on RSS and blog usage, according to the Pew Internet & American life project: - (1) Fully 19% of online Americans ages 18-29 have created blogs - (2) 11 million American adults say they have created blogs - (3) 27% of Internet users reported in November that they read blogs This translates into 32 million American adults who read blogs This information shows that RSS and blogs are growing technologies for serious Internet business people to adapt into their marketing mix. My personal research over three months showed that when I regularly updated my blog sites, burned RSS feeds pinging the major directories increased my traffic a whopping 25%! Blogs, RSS feeds, and articles distributed regularly to major host sites and distribution services actually rivaled the traffic of my highly optimized top-ranking SEO and VRE sites. More importantly, traffic from blog, RSS, and article-driven traffic actually made twice as much income in sales and Adsense? revenue than my traditional SEO sites. Needless to say, once a skeptic, I am now a big believer in the power of RSS feeds and blogs to boost my bottom-line. I will leave you with a controversial statement for a SEO and Searchpreneur?. Dr. Jakob Nielsen recently referred to search engines as “the leeches on the Internet.” He feels “Search engines extract too much of the Web’s value, leaving too little for the websites that actually create the content. Liberation from search dependency is a strategic imperative for both websites and software vendors.” With Yahoo! and MSN soon to enforce email postage, according to a recent article by the New York Times, RSS and blogging may become the best and latest arsenal for small business to continue to survive and thrive in the Internet economy. To stay informed on the latest blogging, RSS, and SEO developments, visit www.searchengineplan.com/blogs/seoblog.htm. Kamau Austin is publisher of www.eInfoNEWS.com and runs www.SearchEnginePlan.com. He is author of Always On Top — How to Get the Highest Search Engine Ranking for your Website. See more about his strategies at www.AlwaysOnToptheBook.com.

About the Author

Kamau Austin is Owner of AMS Publishing and is a business and fitness wellness advocate. See more of his health and fitness tips at www.HealthandFitnessVitality.com or get Internet marketing solutions at www.SearchEnginePlan.com

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 9

As more people begin to realize that blogging for ad dollars and other free content strategies might not be the best way to make money online, I’m getting more and more questions related to creating information products.

Producing information products is almost entirely an exercise in marketing. Everything from the topic you choose, to how you position it, to the copywriting strategy you use to sell it boils down to figuring out what people are willing, and even driven, to pay for.

As far as ebooks go, the first question you have to ask is whether or not the ebook is the format you should be using at all. The humble PDF seems to be the first thing that comes to mind when people consider developing a product, but it’s often the least useful and has the lowest perceived value—at least when you want to charge for it.

Is the Ebook Dead?

While the format is still alive and kicking, the basic ebook is a pretty weak substitute for a real book. It has none of the tangible attributes that make books the portable and convenient information vessels they are, and the only real advantage the ebook has is that it is instantly deliverable.

Plus, for any topic where there is already a “real” book available, you’re most likely going to lose the sale, instantly downloadable or not. People trust Amazon, and whether fair or not, they consider “real” authors to be those who are delivered in ink on dead tree material.

So if your goal is to write a 200-page book, you might just go ahead and try to get a publisher, or even have your work self-published. People who read books tend to love books themselves, so it makes sense to give book lovers what they want… a real book.

Ebooks That Sell Solve Problems

The good news for people interested in making money from ebooks is that the ones that sell best are nowhere near 200 pages. In fact, you can often turn a sweet profit from a document that is only 10, 20 and up to 50 pages long, as long as those pages solve a problem that people will pay to have the solution to.

Contrary to what you might think, it doesn’t matter if the solution to a problem can be found by even simple online research. “Normal” people don’t like to do in-depth research online and are often skeptical of free information sources. Do the work for them and demonstrate that you are a credible person (or partner on the ebook with someone who has the necessary credentials), and as long as the problem is real, you’ll make sales.

There are so many ebooks out there that try to tell you that the key to successful ebook creation is “write what you love” and the money will come. They use that angle because that’s what people want to hear, and it sells a lot of ebooks about ebooks. But that doesn’t make it true.

Desperate Buyers Only

There’s only one ebook that provides clear guidance on how to research, develop and sell these short problem-solving documents, and it’s called Desperate Buyers Only by Alexis Dawes. This no-fluff guide quickly dispenses with the biggest myths about ebooks, and then takes you step-by-step through:

• identifying a potential profitable topic
• researching the viability of developing the document
• discovering buyer hot button issues, and
• understanding how the problem is framed in the mind of the prospect

Alexis then walks you through her five-step variation of the problem-agitation-solution copywriting technique for creating empathy, demonstrating credibility and closing the sale. But it all goes back to the fact that you started with a highly motivated person with a problem, and therefore the “instantly downloadable” aspect of the short ebook becomes a strong selling point.

I once commented on a review of Desperate Buyers Only that this is the ebook about creating ebooks that I would have written had I been inclined, so I have no problem recommending it to you (and using my affiliate link). It not only tells the truth about what it really takes to make money, it reveals several concrete strategies that I’ve used for years to make a great deal of money.

Some of these strategies I still use; I just no longer use them to create ebooks.

Moving Beyond the Ebook

If developing brief information products that solve problems for people in dire situations isn’t for you, but you still want to explore creating content that sells, you’re in luck. There are huge opportunities, both now and into the future, for creative people who can effectively communicate ideas to others who are more than happy to pay for it.

But you’ll need to move beyond the idea of the ebook.

When you consider that 42% of college graduates never read a book again and that most people who actually purchase a book never make it past the first chapter, books just don’t seem to be the answer these days. That’s especially true online, where we have all this wonderful interactive ability combined with multimedia to create better learning environments for buyers, and more lucrative publishing arrangements for you.

It will take more than a blog post to cover that topic, though. But since I haven’t released a longer white paper or report since Viral Copy back in the spring of 2006, I suppose I can’t let 2007 get away without doing another one.

Now, if I can only get it finished… but I think it’s almost there. So, look for a free report with much, much more information on developing paid content in the very near future.

Sponsored By: Blog World Conference and Tradeshow November 8-9, 2007, in Las Vegas!

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 9

Or is it still really all about you?

If there’s one thing that gets repeated at Copyblogger over and over, it’s that the key to effective blogging and online marketing is a relentless focus on the needs of the people you are trying to reach. I often wonder if the next time I mention it, I’ll get an angry slew of comments saying:

OK, OK, we get it already!

Unfortunately, I can think of two prime examples of ways in which many are not getting it. The funny thing about these two things is that they are both aspects of what makes the Internet truly unique as a marketing platform, and yet we often fail to take advantage of them.

Take a look to see if you’re guilty of either of them.

1. Producing Content in the Format You Personally Prefer

One thing that many who publish online share in common is that we prefer to read. It’s faster to scan, pull out selected pieces of information, and decide whether to invest in a more careful examination.

The problem is, statistically the majority of people don’t like to read, and don’t comprehend and retain well when they do. The result is, those of us who publish only in text are fighting over a limited audience, while a larger group of people go under served.

I hear bloggers all the time claiming that they don’t do audio, video or visually enhanced online presentations because they personally don’t prefer to consume information that way. But the question you should be asking yourself is:

What format does my prospective audience prefer?

With Copyblogger, I know the vast majority of my readers are, well… readers. But learning psychology tells us that even those who learn primarily from text can benefit from a multiple media format approach. And anytime I’m developing content to sell, it’s definitely a complete audio / visual / interactive collection. The choice of media is that which is best for that particular information.

Multimedia content (combinations of text, audio and visual elements) is perceived as more valuable, because for a large segment of the population, it is more valuable. Thanks to differing learning styles, multiple formats allow most people to extract the benefits of consuming the information.

Start thinking about how you can gain a competitive advantage in your niche by presenting content in other formats. And remember, good copywriting is just as vital to audio, video and live presentations as it is to written text.

2. Ignoring the Marketing Genius

There’s only one true marketing genius in the world. Just one single person who knows exactly what it will take to make a particular person buy.

The genius is that particular paying customer who decides to take the desired action. What you want to achieve with your sales copy is to coordinate your approach with what results in more of those paying customers.

To find out what this collective of marketing geniuses can tell you, you have to test different aspects of your copy against alternative approaches to see what results in the largest number of buyers. After all, are you really focusing on what more of your prospects really want and need if you refuse to find out which headline, offer and call to action they actually prefer within the specific context of your business?

I’d say you’re not. What’s worse, you’re likely leaving money on the table.

Again, many people fall into the trap of marketing in a style that they personally respond to, instead of testing what works with the people who matter—the prospects. Or worse, they blindly follow expert advice without evaluating for themselves what actually works in their particular context.

The Internet is the most easily testable media environment so far. Everything online is trackable, and there are plenty of low cost and even free tools to do it with, so there’s really no excuse for not testing your copy.

Don’t be Afraid to be Wrong – It’s a Contest!

A short time ago I shared the results of a Marketing Sherpa study that concluded that telling people to “click” is still effective in certain contexts. I blogged about it because I have also received higher click through ratios by including the word “click” within the anchor text, based on my own testing.

OK, I admit it’s not always actually “click here”—I focused on that phrase in the headline because it drives some people crazy (and it did). But I have found click combined with other text to boost conversions, often significantly.

But what if something else works better? Would I be upset to be wrong?

Not at all—being attached to being right means you’re not truly focused on your audience. I’d be happy to have something to work with that people respond better to.

With that in mind, the conversion geniuses at FutureNow’s GrokDotCom blog have just announced a landing page contest that could bring you some very valuable data about your specific copy that will help you make more money. And I’m one of the judges of that My Hyperlink Can Beat Your Hyperlink Contest.

Here’s how it works:

• Just comment on this post or the ones like it at GrokDotCom and SEOmoz, linking us to the landing page you want tested and telling us why you should win.
• Judges Brian Clark, Rand Fishkin & Bryan Eisenberg will choose 5 winners.
• To be eligible, contestants must have clear metrics and analytics in place, the ability to test (Google Website Optimizer is free, so no excuses), and the willingness to implement our suggestions.
• Contestants must have enough traffic to yield valid test results.
• For each of our winners, the judges will select a single link to be tested, then agree on three variations of that call to action (a.k.a., anchor link).
• Winners will be announced Thursday, October 11th. Results and analysis of the winners’ hyperlink tests will be posted a few weeks later.

Click here Instruct your web browsing software application to engage this hyperlink in order to retrieve more information from GrokDotCom. Ouch, that much usability hurts!

Sponsored By: Publishers, Get Paid With TLA! Offer Text Link Ads on your site and start making more money today.

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 9

If so, you’ll see my first ever conference speaking appearance (for better or worse).

You know, the funny thing is, I got into online publishing and copywriting so I could live anywhere I wanted and make a nice living without ever needing to get a haircut, put on decent clothes, get on a plane and speak in front of a room full of strangers.

Something has apparently gone awry.

So, BlogWorld may well end up being my first and last conference speaking appearance. Depends on if things go badly or not.

If you’re not already signed up, there’s still a bit more than a month until the conference, which is happening November 8-9 in Las Vegas. There’s currently a special on pricing though October 19, but you can get an additional 15% off if you sign up before October 10 by using the promotional code COPYBLOGGER.

Note: While BlogWorld has been a sponsor here for a couple of months, they are not paying me for this post, nor have they asked me to write it. I just would like to see as many of your smiling faces there as possible, so I asked them if my readers could get an additional discount, which they were happy to provide. So there.

If the prospect of seeing me crash and burn on stage is not enticing enough, check out all these other fine folks who will be there:

Om Malik, Jory Des Jardins, Aaron Wall, Charlene Li, Des Walsh, Paul Dunay, Jim Kukral, Leo Laporte, Leesa Barnes, Brett Trout, Shel Israel, Hugh Hewitt, Jeremy Wright, Dave Taylor, Glenn Reynolds, Colonel Austin Bay, Bill Roggio, Matt and Uncle Jimbo from Blackfive, Greyhawk from Mudville Gazette, La Shawn Barber, David Corn, Will Leitch, Tyler Blesinski, Matt Cerrone, Scott Bourne, Alex Lindsay, Larry Webber, Howard Kaushansky, Andy Wibbels, John Furrier, Ari Newman, Steve Boyett, Larry Schwartz, Maggie Fox, Brett Trout, Craig Howe, Professor David Perlmutter, Brian Solis, Brad Feld….

and the proverbial many, many more.

Of course, the real benefit of these conferences is the partying networking. So what are you waiting for?

Remember, use the promo code COPYBLOGGER to get an additional 15% off the already discounted price, but only through October 10, 2007.

Sponsored By: Hubspot Internet Marketing Turn your website into a marketing machine and generate more leads.

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 9

Does social media make us dumb?

You may have read the study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the general reaction to it (the consensus was that social media sites make you stupid and uninformed). While the conclusions are incorrect, the study is incredibly telling about the social media audience and how to write for it.

For example, according to the study, social media users care less about mainstream news and hard-hitting journalism (even though both are present) and prefer content from disparate, sometimes unverified, and sometimes extreme (even conspiracy-theorist) sources that generally appeal to their baser instincts or guilty pleasures (i.e. Paris Hilton).

What does this mean for my writing?

This doesn’t mean that you start writing about Paris Hilton, but this does help you understand what your audience is looking to get from an information outlet and model your content for the social media everyman. The social media everyman is looking for an entertaining diversion, while being receptive to learning something new if presented in an “edutainment” format that ties the lesson into popular culture.

What do I mean by this? Have a look at the following CopyBlogger articles:

• Did Alanis Morissette Get Irony Right?
• The David Lee Roth Guide to Legendary Marketing
• What Owen Wilson’s Pursed Lips Mean to Your Blog
• Don’t Be Cameron Diaz
• What Prince Can Teach You About Effective Blogging

I know many of you thought that Brian was just watching too much E! (and he probably does) but there’s much more to it than that. The hooks used in these articles are celebrities that your average person (however educated or uneducated) knows of or has heard something about and can on some level relate to.

So how do I appeal to the social media everyman?

1. Start with the familiar: Introduce your article by drawing from a source that you think the social media audience will relate to and is interested in. Pop culture will often provide the perfect hook.
2. Introduce the unfamiliar: Once you’ve established a relationship with the reader by finding common ground, you can introduce your topic (i.e. the analysis or educational aspect of your article).
3. Connect the two: Once you have established common ground and introduced your insight, you need to connect the two. This makes your content easy to understand and digest for the readers, but also easy to remember, comment on and apply to their own lives.

While I don’t suggest you dumb down your content for social media, I do recommend that if you’re writing specifically with the social media audience in mind, understand the mentality and what they’re looking to get from Digg, Netscape, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc, and appeal to that desire.

Note: Copyblogger has also featured equally successful posts (as a credit to both Brian and the readers) referencing Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Aristotle, Plato and Ernest Hemingway. The success of these posts may explain why the History Channel is so popular.

Get more social media analysis from Mu over at his blog.

Sponsored By: Publishers, Get Paid With TLA! Offer Text Link Ads on your site and start making more money today.

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 9

Yes, it’s sad but true… today is my 40th birthday.

The good news is I don’t feel old. And I surely haven’t started acting my age… just ask anyone who has been around me this weekend.

So, I’m at an undisclosed location doing undisclosed things to celebrate this momentous occasion. But I wouldn’t think of leaving you without some links (after all, it’s better to give link love than receive… mostly).

Sketchcast — How to blog like John Madden.

Ten Tips for Lead Generation Landing Pages.

29 reasons you need to stop blogging right now.

100 Blog Topics I Hope YOU Write.

If you think the average web user is sophisticated, read this…

Are you using the Mullet strategy when you go fishing for links?

Is blogging passive income? Yeah, right.

The Secret to Massive Digg/StumbleUpon Traffic Without Spamming.

How Darren produces video blog posts.

SEO is like music.

How to tell a story.

Why “dumb” people are making more money than you.

Don’t click here.

Sponsored By: Add Copyblogger to your Technorati Favorites today!

posted by W A Blog Tools on Oct 9

Want to convince your readers to do something or agree with your point of view?

OK, that was a silly question. Of course you do.

Persuasion is generally an exercise in creating a win-win situation. You present a case that others find beneficial to agree with. You make them an offer they can’t refuse, but not in the manipulative Godfather sense.

It’s simply a good deal or a position that makes sense to that particular person.

But there are techniques that can make your job easier and your case more compelling. While this list is in no way comprehensive, these 10 strategies are used quite a bit because they work.

Repetition

Talk to anyone well versed in learning psychology, and they’ll tell you repetition is crucial. It’s also critical in persuasive writing, since a person can’t agree with you if they don’t truly get what you’re saying.

Of course, there’s good repetition and bad. To stay on the good side, make your point in several different ways, such as directly, using an example, in a story, via a quote from a famous person, and once more in your summary.

Reasons Why

Remember the power of the word because. Psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to comply with a request if you simply give them a reason why… even if that reason makes no sense.

The strategy itself does make sense if you think about it. We don’t like to be told things or asked to take action without a reasonable explanation. When you need people to be receptive to your line of thinking, always give reasons why.

Consistency

It’s been called the “hobgoblin of little minds,” but consistency in our thoughts and actions is a valued social trait. We don’t want to appear inconsistent, since, whether fair or not, that characteristic is associated with instability and flightiness, while consistency is associated with integrity and rational behavior.

Use this in your writing by getting the reader to agree with something up front that most people would have a hard time disagreeing with. Then rigorously make your case, with plenty of supporting evidence, all while relating your ultimate point back to the opening scenario that’s already been accepted.

Social Proof

Looking for guidance from others as to what to do and what to accept is one of the most powerful psychological forces in our lives. It can determine whether we deliver aid to a person in need, and it can determine whether we muster the courage to kill ourselves.

Obvious examples of social proof can be found in testimonials and outside referrals, and it’s the driving force behind social media. But you can also casually integrate elements of social proof in your writing, ranging from skillful alignment with outside authorities to blatant name dropping.

Comparisons

Metaphors, similes and analogies are the persuasive writer’s best friends. When you can relate your scenario to something that the reader already accepts as true, you’re well on your way to convincing someone to see things your way.

But comparisons work in other ways too. Sometimes you can be more persuasive by comparing apples to oranges (to use a tired but effective metaphor). Don’t compare the price of your home study course to the price of a similar course—compare it to the price of a live seminar or your hourly consulting rate.

Agitate and Solve

This is a persuasion theme that works as an overall approach to making your case. First, you identify the problem and qualify your audience. Then you agitate the reader’s pain before offering your solution as the answer that will make it all better.

The agitation phase is not about being sadistic; it’s about empathy. You want the reader to know unequivocally that you understand his problem because you’ve dealt with it and/or are experienced at eliminating it. The credibility of your solution goes way up if you demonstrate that you truly feel the prospect’s pain.

Prognosticate

Another persuasion theme involves providing your readers with a glimpse into the future. If you can convincingly present an extrapolation of current events into likely future outcomes, you may as well have a license to print money.

This entire strategy is built on credibility. If you have no idea what you’re talking about, you’ll end up looking foolish. But if you can back up your claims with your credentials or your obvious grasp of the subject matter, this is an extremely persuasive technique.

Go Tribal

Despite our attempts to be sophisticated, evolved beings, we humans are exclusionary by nature. Give someone a chance to be a part of a group that they want to be in—whether that be wealthy, or hip, or green, or even contrarian—and they’ll hop on board whatever train you’re driving.

This is the technique used in the greatest sales letter ever written. Find out what group people want to be in, and offer them an invitation to join while seemingly excluding others.

Address Objections

If you present your case and someone is left thinking “yeah, but…”, well, you’ve lost. This is why direct marketers use long copy—it’s not that they want you to read it all, it’s that they want you to read enough until you buy.

Addressing all the potential objections of at least the majority of your readers can be tough, but if you really know your subject the arguments against you should be fairly obvious. If you think there are no reasonable objections to your position, you’re in for a shock if you have comments enabled.

Storytelling

Storytelling is really a catch-all technique—you can and should use it in combination with any and all of the previous nine strategies. But the reason why storytelling works so well lies at the heart of what persuasion really is.

Stories allow people to persuade themselves, and that’s what it’s really all about. You might say that we never convince anyone of anything—we simply help others independently decide that we’re right. Do everything you can to tell better stories, and you’ll find that you are a terribly persuasive person.

As I mentioned, this is in no way a complete list. What other persuasive writing strategies work for you?

Enjoy this post? Vote for it at Digg. Thanks!

Sponsored By: Blog World Conference and Tradeshow November 8-9, 2007, in Las Vegas!