Tag Archives | Blogging Tactics

Blogging Strategy: How to Blog Strategically

Written by | Posted in Blogging, Conversion, Mindset

I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience…

You’ve been chatting with friends about playing the lottery with the hope and dare I say it, desperation to win the National Lottery.

In the UK, we have a National Lottery and a European Lottery (called the Euro Millions) which millions of people buy into every week with the expression “you’ve got to be in it to win it” running through their minds as they pay to play.

The challenge with this thinking is that it keeps people trapped in hope and a state of disempowerment to change their lives. They have a belief that something needs to happen to them to make a change in their lives. In fact, most people playing the lottery have no better wealth strategy and would rather leave their future to sheer “destiny”, and what long odds they are in coming in as winners and being able to retire from the job they so desperately want to ditch.

Lottery Futility

Lottery Hope

To win the UK National Lottery, the odds are a mere 1 chance in 13,983,816; and to win the Euro Millions, the odds are 1 chance in 116,531,800. So if you were to play every lottery game that comes out (twice a week for each), you’d need to play for 134,459 years to win the National Lottery and play for 1,120,498 years to win the Euro Millions.

Now, don’t get me wrong… it could happen, but is this really a good strategy to build your wealth and make the most of the one lifetime you have?

Playing the lottery is definitely not a strategy that I want to engage in. I avoid it like the plague and resent it for the way it programmes people to hope for the best as opposed to taking responsibility for their own lives.

The old adage that springs to mind is that there are three types of people in the world:

  1. Those that make things happen [The few]
  2. Those that watch things happen [The many]
  3. Those that wonder “what the hell happened” [The far too many]

Which type of person are you going to be?

Blogging is the same! Are you creating enough web properties and developing them into traffic assets that you can use again and again to build your main blog?

Are you using a tool like Market Samurai to conduct thorough market research into your blog topic, so you can be sure that your blog post will actually receive traffic from the search engines?

Are you monitoring how responsive your list is by measuring open and clickthrough rates?

Are you relying on hope by simply not collecting any numbers before you post to your blog? Are you not tracking your page’s performance through split testing? Are you tracking user engagement through comments, tweets, likes and the new Google +1 ‘s?

If you’re not monitoring these numbers and actively considering how you can improve upon these numbers, then you’re up against bottlenecks that you’ll never likely crack. This is akin to playing the lottery in sheer hope and desperation of a result. You don’t expect to win the lottery, you simply hope that some day it will change! Don’t let this be your blogging strategy.

Let’s move from a mere hope that something might happen to an overwhelming expectation that something is about to happen.

This shift in mindset comes when you commit to running a data driven business.

The question then becomes:

How do I develop and build an Internet business that is data driven?

This is one of the most overlooked aspects in Internet Marketing. To most people, it just ain’t sexy! Setting up tests, monitoring them and making tweaks just seems tedious and doesn’t return an obvious and immediate dividend for the efforts and energy you expend. Who wants a minor increase of just a couple of percentage points?

Although it doesn’t sound that appetising, you definitely should do!

Ways to become a data driven business include:

  • Split testing with Google Website Optimizer/Flip Tracker
  • Using the Aweber split testing tool to measure headline performance
  • Using Aweber form tracking to track opt ins
  • Measuring traffic and identifying/implementing new traffic strategies/tactics
  • Using Rank Tracker tools like in Market Samurai to monitor rank changes for your target keywords
  • Use a tool such as Crazy Egg to monitor clicks and interaction on your site

Developing a data driven business is one of the best decisions that you’ll ever make in your Internet Marketing business. I only hope that you’ll commit and make that decision right now!

What commitments can you make to become a data driven business?

Perhaps you know tools and resources that can help you to become a data driven business? Let us know about them.

To Your Online Success,
Wayne Lambert Signature
The Profit Share

The mutt's nuts or the dog's drivel? I double dare you to leave a comment! :-)

Autoblogging… Should You?

Written by | Posted in Blogging, Traffic

One common question that arises in the Internet Marketing community is around the subject of autoblogging.

People just don’t seem sure what it is. In this article, I’ll explain why you shouldn’t be using autoblogging.

What is Autoblogging?

Autoblogging is the process of content being posted onto your blog automatically using special software. This solves the problem of having to find content for your blog, but please beware!

Why Autoblogging?

Autoblogging is often used on blogs that are not the main branded blog for a blogger. This enables content to be posted automatically on other blogs with links pointing back to the main blog.

It isn’t as simple as linking all the other auto-blog blogs back to your main content and business branded blog either. Google is smarter than this and will recognise the pattern and hold that against your main site. Google doesn’t usually hold inbound links against you since you don’t have any control over the links other people choose to use on their sites. However, if Google sees that you have a bunch of sites that you do control and you’re using them to increase the backlinks count to your main site, then Google will penalise you within its search algorithm.

The good news is that there is a way around this. The method used is known as a link wheel which is a pretty complex arrangement of blogs which all indirectly point back to your main blog to increase the number of backlinks that your blog has. This means that you can set the blogs up with this specific arrangement so they have a lot of content continuously streaming into them. The backlinks from these sites then count as backlinks from blogs that are active which are higher quality backlinks than dormant blogs. Active blogs are likely to accumulate pagerank as time passes.

Link Wheel

Why Can’t I Use Autoblogging on My Main Blog?

If you try using autoblogging on your main blog, you won’t be able to control the content that is posted and your customers will soon be alienated as they’ll know that it’s not content that is written by you. You need total control over the content that is written on your main blog as this a customer touch point where you’re interacting with your customer and where your customer gets an impression of you and what your business stands for.

Autoblogging Can Be Risky

You must understand that there is a degree of risk with autoblogging. Allow me to explain…

If you fly an airplane today, is there a risk that you might crash that plane? If you answered “yes”, then I’d say the reason you said “yes” is because you don’t know how to fly the plane. It’s the same with autoblogging, you need to set up a link wheel that is very complicated in its nature. This is massively time consuming for any one person to do, let alone to give all of them some sort of visual appeal and useful content being streamed into them.

On top of that, you must arrange the backlinks in such a way as to be inconspicuous to Google who will penalise you if they can see a predictable pattern in your backlinking which will of course result in less Google traffic. Oh, and Google’s intelligence around weeding out link wheels is getting much more sophisticated as they refine their algorithm on their quest to provide relevant content to their users. The people who search Google are Google’s asset which enables them to sell advertising to businesses that want to put their message in front of people using search. Google will do everything within its power to protect its business asset.

My Recommendation

Although I have alluded to the fact that many bloggers have used link wheels to generate sustainable traffic, I personally do not advocate the use of link wheels and autoblogging. A useful phrase that you may wish to consider is:

Always follow the natural pattern of the web.

Since these practises are not the natural pattern of the web, my advice is to steer clear and build a business of real value not a business with its foundations built on sand.

To Your Online Success,
Wayne Lambert Signature
The Profit Share

The mutt's nuts or the dog's drivel? I double dare you to leave a comment! :-)